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h ,
THE COLLECTED POEMS
OF

RODEN NOEL
om a Fliula^raphby H SMetuI"!'.
 THE
COLLECTED POEMS
OF

RODEN NOEL
WITH A NOTICE BY THE LATE

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. L^°
PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD
1902
The rights of translatiojt and of reproduction are reserved

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson b* Co.

At the Ballantyne Press
 PR
pm
/\in

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

RoDEN Berkeley TVriothesley Noel was bom on the iph

of August 1834, and was the son of the first Earl of Gainsborough
{^second creation) by his marriage with Lady Frances Jocelyn^ daughter

of the Earl of Roden. Much of his childhood was spent at Barham

Court, Kent, and at Exton Park^ Rutlandshire, diversified by many
excursions abroad with his parents.

At the age of twelve he was sent to Harrow, leaving there

after two years to become the pupil of the Rev. Charles Harbin, at

Hindon in IViltshire. He aftertuards went to Trinity College,

Cambridge, graduating M.A. in 1858. Subsequently he travelled

for two years in the East, visiting Egypt, Nubia, the Holy Land,
Palmyra, then Lebanon, Greece, and Turkey. At Beirout he met
with a serious illness, through which he was nursed by Madame
de Broe, the wife of a banker in that city, whose daughter, Alice,

he married in 1863.
By this marriage there were three children, Frances, Conrad,
and Eric, the last of whom died at the age of five, and was the

subject of " A Little Child's Monument."

He lived for the most part in England, latterly at Brighton,

and passed away suddenly, while travelling, at Mainz, on May 26,

1894.
In addition to his poetical works he published " Essays on Poetry
and Poets,'' ''Life of Lord Byron" {Great Writers' Series), " y/
Philosophy of Immortality," and the following Editions : " Poems
of Edmund Spenser, with 'Introduction " [Canterbury Poets), and
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE

" Thomas Otway, with Introduction and Notes" {Vizetelly ^ Co.) :

also many essays^ philosophical^ literary, and social.

In the welfare of the poor, the sorrowful, and the oppressed,

he showed throughout his whole life a practical as well as a keen

and loving interest^ and the last thing he published was an essay

in " Fox Clamantium " on " Christianity and Social Advance."

His friend^ the late Dr. Henry Sidgwick^ thus writes of him

and of his powers as a thinker : "/ never came from a talk with
him without feeling afresh the rarity and richness of his nature^ his

deep poetic heart and his sensitiveness to all things beautiful in

Nature and all things noble and pathetic in human life. I never
knew any one who seemed more at home in that higher region of
thought and feelings into which most of us rise occasionally with
some efforty when the great realities of human life and destiny are

not only intellectually grasped^ but felt with full intensity."

I have long cherished the wish that my brother's poems should

he collected and made easily accessible^ and the present book is the

fulfilment of that wish.

One volume, the first that he published, is omitted from the

present collection^ in deference to his wish that it should be suppressed.

It is referred to in the notes. A few poemSy hitherto unpublished,

have been added.

The notice by the late John Addington Symonds appeared in the
''•Academy" for January 19, 1889, as a review of ^'-
A Modern
Faust and Other Poems."
To the author's own noteSy at the end of the booky have been
appended a few extracts from his private letters. Though never
intended for publicationy they throw light on certain passages of
the poems.

VICTORIA BUXTON.
 CONTENTS
BEATRICE AND OTHER POEMS— BEATRICE AND OTHER POEMS-
Beatrice — Continued
Book I

Haven Ganymede
In
Home
The Destroyer
.... .
5
5
6
On the Rhine
A Long Mourning .
74
75

Evening Prayer To my Mother on her Re-:

7
Book H 8 covery FROM A Dangerous
Book HI. 21 Illness .
77
Book IV. A New Light
Lost ....
Upon her Stone at Dead of
30
33
An Angel's Gift
Heavenly Guest
.
77
80

Night ....
Song " Like Her, but not
:
34
Consolation
Dear Head, Lie Calm
81
81
83
the Same" "Leave God's own Ranks
Kathleen
June Roses
.... 34
34
Drawn up to Fight"
To A Waterlily
83
83
35
"And She was a Widow" Before Raffaelle .
84
35
A Walk in Spring .
36
What the Old Church said 84
Blind and Deaf — "As A Tale that is Told'' 86
Part I "To WHOM shall we Go.?" 87
37
Part II Pan 94
38
Summer Clouds and a Swan In Memoriam Thackeray
40 91
Autumn in Ireland 42
On the Mountain ,
98
Garibaldi: Ax Ode
The Grandmother's Story
Another Version
Cradle Song for Summer
.
44
47
Palmyra .... 99
lOI

48
Leonardo's Christ '.
49
A Confession .
52 THE RED FLAG AND OTHER
A Child's Funeral 56 POEMS—
Song "I went, Dear, by th
....
:

Brook Tu-day "

Minnie
The Two Friends
.... .
56
57
The Red Flag
April Gleams
Song of Summer
.... 105
"5
Mencheres A
.
57 "5
: Vision of Old In Early Spring to my Sister
: 116
Egypt .
61 Harvest 117
 —— —— .

CONTENTS

THE RED FLAG AND OTHER LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA—

POEMS Continued PAGE
Preface 167
PAGE
A Christian's Funeral .
Canto I. . 171

A Cataract Canto II. 174

....
.
.

At Court 122
Canto III. 178
Canto IV. 186
A Vision of the Desert 123
The Water-Nymph and th MOSI-OA-TUNYA 192
Canto V. .
195
Boy 126
Allerheiligen. I2S
Canto VI. 196

Come not very Soon, Love Canto VII. 198

130
Death and Life The Caravan 199
The Old Piano
On Richmond Hill 134
Was it Well? . 136
Palingenesis . 136
THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG:
The Dweller in Two Worlds 141
A drama-
•'The Pity of it" . 146
A Song at a Waterfall 146 Prefatory Note . . . 205
Eric A Dirge
:
Dramatis Persons . . . 206
A Lady to her Lover .
147
A Sick Mother to her Blind
War
Child .... 147
Part I. Sigismund

Christ
: 1

....
870-1

.... 148
Act
Act
I.

II.
.

.
207
210
Siege
Rulers
Franc-Tireurs
.... 148
148
149
Act III. .
219

The Village. Part Ralph

Sedan
The Wounded
.... 150
150
Act
II.

IV. . 225

A Vision of War 152

The Roses of Bazeilles 153 Part^III. — Bertha
Ode to England .
154
The Children's Grass .
Act V. . 232
The Children by the Sea Act VI. .
247
157
Azkael: A Dream of Plea
sure
San Rocco
.... 160
To the Queen . 161
A LITTLE .CHILD'S MONUMENT—
A Sea Symphony —
L Tempest
n. Calm
... 161
At his Grave
Lament
.
253
25s
162 Dark Spring .
255
\\\. Twilight 163 Night and Morningj 256
IV. Breeze .
163 A Tomb at Palmyra 257
 CONTENTS

A LITTLE CHILD'S MONU- A LITTLE CHILD'S MONU

MENT— C^«<'/;;«e'^f MENT—Conivmed
PACE
PAGE
"The Desert shall Blossom
Dead 257
AS the Rose" . 292
The Ktng and the Peasant. 257
Flower to Flower
"A Milk-white Bloomed
Acacia Tree "... 25s
Vale! .... 292
293

Mountain Lyric 258

SONGS OF THE HEIGHTS
Early Primrose 259
Sleep 259
AND DEEPS—
A Lay
In the Alps ....
In the Corsican Highlands

Only a Little Child

259
261 London
Early Love
....
of Civilisation; or
299

God's Child ....

Music and the Child
.

.
263
264
264
Love Hiding
Rose and Butterfly
. •

•
310
311
3"
Nature and the Dead . 266 Swing-Song 3"
The Toy Cross 26S Magic-Lantern 312
Azrael 268 The Temple of Sorrow . 312
A Southern' Spring Carol The Gemonian
All Saints, and All Souls
Vision of the Night
.

.
269
271 Thalatta
By the Sea
.... Stairs . 317
317

In London ....
"The Sea shall give up her
272
272 Tintadgel
Suspiria ....
321
321
J22
Dead " 273 Autumn —
Among the Mountains — Alone
Morning
Noon
.... 275 II.
I. .

Lovers on the River

III. In the Glens
325
326

Evening
Death
.... 275
276
276
Monte Rosa
To Eric from the Alps .
327
327
329
Guardian Angels of Chil-
dren
Last Victims from the Wreck
277 Melcha
The Agnostic
....
In the Dolomites

.
. 329
329
348
of the "Princess Alice" . 278 The Death of Livingstone 349
Children and the Woods . 279 Byron's Grave . 351
Old Scenes Revisited
Lead Me where the Lily
Blows
. 280

284
Snowdrops
Nocturne
Beethoven
.... 352
352
353
"That they All may be One " 2S4 Northern Spring .
354
Christmas Eve The Two Magualenls
"The Peace of God, which
Passeth all Understand-
285
Winter
In Italy
....
....
.
355
356
357
285 PoLnicAL Sonnets .
357
"The Cloud may "
Sail there 286 The Cathedral 358
De Profundis — Very Death 3S8
I. Nay 287 Madness 358
IL Yea 289 The Sanctuary 359
 ——— —
— ——— .

CONTENTS

A MODERN FAUST AND OTHER A MODERN FAUST AND OTHER

POEMS— VOY^yiS— Continued

A Modern Faust — Canto

Preface
Summary
....
.... 36s
366
III.
Deterioration.
Book VI.— Order
Satan
—
.
I. .

Prologue . . . . 367 Canto I. Heaven

Book I. Innocence Fountain Song.
Religion
Book II. Doubt
.... 368 Canto II. Heaven's Mini
stry.
Canto Faith
Lost Lamb
Book III. Disorder
....
Adventure, Love, Loss .
369
370 Canto
III.
IV.
— Songs
Human Service
of Golden
Canto I. Earth's Tor- Deeds
ture Chamber — The Charity
Holy Innocents 371 Gordon
My Little Ones .
375 The Lifeboat
Canto II. The Flesh — Sea Kings .

Triumph of Bacchus 376 The Isle of Lepers

Siren Song . 376 "Weak Things of the
Pan 379 World " .

Canto III.— The Ascetic World-Progress

Life — Devotion — Mother's Love .

Speculation . 382 Jubilee, and the Good

Lyric of Thought 383 Emperor.
Book IV. Disorder Canto V. —
Wisdom and
Prose Interlude— The Work
World or, the New
; Deterioration. — II.

Walpurgis Night — Caged Lark

ThkWorld in the Church To My Mother .

The Palace of Art FOWEY

Good Society . The Merry-Go-Round
— "Ah! Love Ye One Another
Respectability
ting On "
"Get-

Babel, and Will-o'-the

Wkll!"
" Lost Angel"
.... .

Wisp 391 "I Love You, Dear!"

Ragnarok . 402 "Hands that Wander" ,

Stump Oratory 403 The Little Imbecile

Bewilderment . 406 Arise A Song of Labour
!

Book V. Disorder A Casual Song .

Canto I. Nature — The The Child's Journey

Sea, and 'iiie Living The True King .

Creatures . 406 The Month of the NightiN'

Canto II. Misfortune — gale
Advocatus Diaboli — Returning Thanks .

Mad Mother 408 The Polish Mother : A Dra

Mad Mother . 410 matic Monologue .
 CONTENTS

PAGE MY SEA AND OTHER POEMS-

POOR PEOPLE'S CHRISTMAS 445 Coniiinied
PAGE
Eros in May . 474
POEMS FIRST PUBLISHED Isandula. . 474
IN THE "CANTERBURY Midnight . 475
POETS" SERIES— Light Love by the Sea
Glory 477
To A Child, who Asked Me To . 478
FOR A Poem .
455 To Translation from
:

Early April .
455 the German . 478
The Secret of the Nightin

A
GALE ....
Song of Nereids
456
456
To a Com rade
To
Grey Eyes
.
. 478
478
478

O Years!
Dying
....
Sea Slumber-Song

....
.
457
457
458
Mystic Music
Natura Naturans
.

.
479
479

A
Love to
Passion
:

....
The Coast of Cornwall
458
459
459 POEMS =—
Ballad of the Dead Monk
OR, Brother Benedict 459 Bridal Song 487
Severn, Friend of Keats H
The Call of the Caves
The Spirit of Storm
462
462
464
To
Wreck
J.

Merely Friends
.... 487

Seabird of the Broken Wing

"Ye, Lovers Twain"
MY SEA AND OTHER POEMS i— Only a Lock of Hair . 489
The Babes in the Snow 490
My Sea, My Sea 471 Flowers at Easter 490
Inconsistent .
471 The Death of Tennyson 490
Wild Love on the Sea 472 The Song of Tennyson . 491
Nocturne . . . .
472 The Signalman 492
At Porthcurno 473 The Second Coming 494

NOTES 497
EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 503

1 A posthumous volume.
•2
Some hitherto unpublished, some published in periodicals.
 RODEN NOEL
By JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

The Hon. Roden Noel, as a poet, has never yet received the attention he
deserves. This is not altogether the fault of the English public. Mr. Noel's
poems are not exactly such as he who runs may read. To be appreciated they
require patient study, not only because their thought is often abstruse, but also
because their expression is not unfrequently perplexing. Indeed, no other poet
of our age, with the exception of Mr. Robert Browning, has added so much of
verbal and rhythmical difficulty to the difficulties of pregnant meaning and bold
speculation. Mr. Noel is what Goethe would have called an incommensurable
man and his work cannot be measured by any common standard or sounded
;

by any average plummet. It is probable that his poems will not receive due
recognition until a Noel Society has been founded. By this I mean again to
place him in the same rank as Mr. Browning, who waited for his popularity until
a band of students were enrolled to dedicate their time and talents to the explora-
tion of his labyrinths of thought. If this happens in the case of Mr. Noel, people
will discover that an impassioned singer, a philosopher of marked originality,
a tender-hearted Christian, and a democrat in the noblest sense of the term, has
been appealing to them in words of wayward beauty and varied melody during
more than a quarter of a century, almost unheeded.
"A Modern Faust" justifies this somewhat audacious prophecy. It is at once
the most intelligible and the deepest of Mr. Roden Noel's poems, the purest in
style, the widest in scope, the ripest in artistic execution, and the maturest in

expression of its author's views. Those who, like the present writer, have
watched Mr. Noel's career with interest and admiration, qualified by grave doubt
as to his ultimate attainment of the poet's crown, may stake their critical reputa-
tion uponremarkable performance, and invite an indifferent public to its
this
perusal with confidence that the study it demands will be repaid. This is not
saying that the peculiarities of manner which have repelled fastidious lovers of
and remoteness
verse are absent from Mr. Noel's latest work, or that the subtlety
of thought which render his poems inaccessible to careless readers have been
exchanged for facile treatment of momentous themes. At first sight "A Modern
Faust" is even more amorphous than its predecessors. It combines lyrical
measures with the thorniest moral problems, and attempts a provisional solution
of what most men regard as insoluble. Its philosophy — strongly tinged with
mysticism, and assuming the fundamental doctrine of spiritualism — is such as only
 RODEN NOEL

a minority of thinkers can at present accept. Yet so far as form is concerned,

the lyrics are so musical in their peculiar kind, the blank verse is so characteristic,
the prose is so vigorous and packed with sense, the unrhymed metre is so well
adapted to its purpose, that unprejudiced students will be forced to recognise
a master's hand and in a master it is assuredly a merit, not a defect, to have
;

created a manner of his own. As regards the thought, difficult as that may be
to seize, it has the same virtue of originality and decision. We need not agree
with Mr. Noel's theory of man's relation to the universe ; but we are compelled
to admit that no poet of this century in England has more resolutely faced the
riddle of the world, prepared himself for his gigantic task with more anxiety of
study, and presented an ambitious metaphysical system with more manful effort
after coherence.
The philosophy which distinguishes Mr. Noel among his brother poets is
better adapted, I think, to the medium of verse than to prose exposition ; and
in " A Modern Faust" it reaches final expression. To
by any characterise it

single term is difficult. One might perhaps venture to call it uncompromising

idealism. The universe appears to Mr. Noel, as to Giordano Bruno, a God-
penetrated unity. Nothing is real except spirit, and all is spirit. This does not
make him a shallow or complacent optimist. No one has felt the world-pain,
the agony of sin, the cruel more acutely. No pessimist, not
curse of evil,
Leopardi nor James Thomson, has depicted what men and women suffer, with
such poignant realism and such tender sympathy. Unlike metaphysicians he
deals with no mere abstractions. His grasp upon the concrete is even more
remarkable than his habit of looking beyond and through the concrete to its
thought-substratum. In like manner his familiarity with speculative problems
does not make him a mere visionary. The poet's eye for colour, shape, all things
of sense, remains undimmed. To some tastes, indeed, his descriptions of natural
joy, his appreciation of the voluptuous and gorgeous, will appear even extrava-
gant. In this book the "Triumph of Bacchus" and the ode on " Pan" must be
reckoned among the most sensuous and passionate productions of our literature.
With the same keen sense of reality he feels the pure, the tender, the pathetic,
the holy things of life the heroism of brave men and martyrs, the sublime
;

beauty of the loving, suffering Christ, the saintliness of noble women, the saving
innocence of children. What constitutes this poet "incommensurable" is the
extraordinary range of his sympathies, the justice of his touch upon so many
diverse aspects of the outer and inner world, his combination of idealistic
philosophy with artistic realism.

"A Modern Eaust" is the history of a man's life-experience, cast mainly in

autobiographical form. It begins with the picture of innocent childhood in a
religious country home. The boy, growing into youth and early manhood, travels,
loves, marries, loses a fondly-cherished child. Doubts about the goodness of
God him when he considers the sufferings of human beings, especially of
assail
children and at this point of his experience he is inclined to charge the fault
;

on man's perverse will and evil customs. He seeks relief in carnal pleasure,
and intoxicates his imagination with the spectacle of triumphant nature. In this
stage its due value is assigned to what we call pantheism. Lyrics, marked by
 RODEN NOEL

exuberance of colour and highly idealised materialism, remind us here of Mr.

Noel's earlier manner. But sensual opiates cannot numb the spiritual ache
within the Modern Faust. He takes refuge in seclusion from the world and
woos asceticism. Yet he cannot submit to authority or stifle his reason. Next
he tries study and resolves to explore the riddle of his destiny upon the paths of
thought and erudition. Finding the isolation of a library barren and unbearable
he once more wanders out among his brethren, surveys the existing contradiction
between religious ideals and practical worldliness in the Church, learns the flimsi-
ness of art and restheticism, explores the empty wilderness of good society, listens
to the conflicting theories of literary men —to scientific speculators, philanthropic
—
panacea-mongers, socialists, preachers, politicians all the babel of our highly
cultivated age. This part of the work is executed in prose ; but a poem called
" Ragnarok " (or Twilight of the Gods) is interpolated, the sonorous rhythms
and far-sounding reverberations of which set all that biting satire of the prose
to music of a deeply agitated brain. The ground-swell of intellectual Atlantics,
stirred to their abysses by the storm and stress of conflicting theories, booms
throughout the surging periods of the verse. Stunned and bewildered by social
and mental chaos, the man takes flight to Nature. He has loved Nature from
boyhood ; and he flatters himself that, rocked upon her breast, he may yet find
relief from thfe sin, and the cruelty of his own kind.
the misery, the madness,
This is a vain hope. Nature proves no less honeycombed with evil, pain, and
strife, no less tyrannical, no less insane, than was the world of man. Wanton
waste of life, disease, hereditary madness, deterioration working spiritual ruin
by corruption of nerve-cells, wreckage through elemental wilfulness, the whole
horrible array of sentient creatures dwarfed and doomed by inexplicable but
inexorable law drives him back in rebellion. He
" Learns at length that not alone
Fault of ours hath wrought our moan.
Whence cometh evil, who shall say.
In man the creature of a day?
The dumb Sphinx-Nature dooms no less
Than men, though ne'er so pitiless ;

Turns her thumbs down, votes for death.

The whole creation travaileth
With conflict, suffering, and care " !

Must, tlien, the fault be laid on God ?

whole scheme of things awry, or
Is the
deliberately intended to be torturing ? Man,
any rate, is not responsible for
at
Nature's cruelties. Human anguish, in the claws and jaws of Nature, assumes
the shape of martyrdom rather than of sin. Just at this point, when the man's
power of resistance is reduced to a minimum, the supreme trial awaits him.
Satan, the Tempter, the Seducer, the Spirit of Despair, the living symbol of the
Everlasting No, appears.
I break off my analysis here to say that this part of the poem displays
Mr. Noel's genius in its plenitude of energy. On those who have once sub-
"
mitted to his influence, and accepted his manner, Book V. of "A Modern Faust
 RODEN NOEL

will produce an ineffaceable impression. The specific faculty of this poet his —
power of fusing the concrete and the abstract, of penetrating thought with
sensuous reality, of incarnating ideas by the magic of a modern mythopoeic
intuition — is displayed with incisive, yet psychologically convincing sense of truth
in the apparition of the Lord of Evil. The utter annihilation of all hope — the
exclusion of all consolatory loop-holes — the absolute asphyxiation of a human
spirit by mephitic vapours, rising, not from the imagination, but from hard, dull,
grinding facts forced in upon the understanding and the senses, has, in my
opinion, been never more cogently presented than in these pages.
What is the deliverance which Mr. Noel's philosophy offers to the human
heart and soul in prison, stretched upon the rack of
tough world, the cords this

of which are tightened by apparent powers of evil ? I leave the discover)' of this
to those who read his poem. It is enough to say that the concluding forty-two

pages of "A Modern Faust" —those which a solution of the painful riddle
in is

at least provisionally attempted — are quite as powerfully written as the hundred

and sixty-four which have preceded them. Owing to the fact that death is ever
present on our earth, and that sin and suffering and incompleteness are conditions
of our existence here, the case for the Devil can always be more convincingly and
lucidly stated than the case for an all-sustaining and all-constituting Deity, in
whom "evil and good are complemental." It is easier to describe disorder than
order in the world, when we are dealing, not with its physical laws, but with its

moral aspects. Yet the ethical value of Mr. Noel's work consists in the fact that
he holds firmly by the belief that the Everlasting No is illusion, the Everlasting
Yea reality ; and he contrives by the force of his utterance to bring this belief
home to our intelligence. So far as poetry goes, he displays no less vigour in
the presentation of the faith that is in him than he previously displayed in the
presentation of despair. In particular, I may mention that the style of these
concluding sections assumes a gentle radiance, an ethereal suavity, for which we
are hardly prepared by the yeasty turbulence, the sultry splendour, and the
fuliginous gloom which mark his descriptions of mortal conflict. The most
exquisitely wrought and delicately tinted of his lyrics, called "Fountain Song,"
occurs in this Book of Order. The vision of imparadised child-spirits, soothingly
contrasted with the dreadful picture of tortured children in the first Book of
Disorder, touched throughout with a Blakelike purity of imagination.
is Indeed,
Mr. Noel's conception of the universe might be compared with that of William
Blake, both in its essential spirituality and quality of faith, and also in its un-
compromising recognition of evil as a misunderstood factor in the scheme of
things. But, after all is said and done, faith, like wisdom, is justified ofher
children ; and how far the consolation offered in this poem will be found accept-
able to thosewho have been saddened by its panorama of anguish and of sin,
must depend upon the natural aptitude for faith in those who study it. With
these words I quit what seems to me one of the most remarkable products of
poetico-philosophic genius in the literature of our prolific century.
 BEATRICE
AND OTHER POEMSi
1868

^ See Notes A and B.

 ; —

BEATRICE
BOOK I Of Southern suns and moons, daughter of fire.
Drew to a mutual embrace, but shrank
After a childhood weakly, timid, shy, Baffled at finding that which seemed free air

Whereon the common boy-experience, Was crystal fate duty forbade to break.
That braces vigorous coastitution, fell Later there foiled him human treachery :

Like rustling of some paper, or the grate A fascinating woman beautiful

On stones of carriage-wheel upon the sick, Out on the hunt for fresh experience
Clement lost mother and a sister dear Of diverse men, and gifted to assume
In early boyhood ; to his clinging heart At will the semblance of their sentiments.
And nature passionate, susceptible, As does the mocking bird the notes of others,
Deep was the wound, loss irremediable. Toyed with the boy, half serious half in sport,
Yet from a shipwreck was he saved
spirit's But when she won him to a fond caress.
By a wise and kindly, having wit
friend Wearied, and spying a new creature pass,
To touch the secret spring that laid to view Out of the sleek and velvet paw there stole
High capabilities all undivined A cruel claw into his bosom soft.
Of plodding fools ; his cramped soul uncoiled Long he lay bleeding, yet with dauntless heart
Woke from her lethargy with slakeless thirst Rallying, he resumed the sacred quest,
For questioning the how and why of all, Blaspheming not the holy thing he sought.
deep thirst
For beauty, all the beauty in the world. In lowly guise and in a lowly spot,
With many a tremor nerving her to dare And yet not lowlier than where Christ was
The steep imperial Conscience motioned from. born,
Proud, wilful, passionate, and self-involved. He came upon it after seeking long.
He grew a dreamer tender and devout For in a mountain district in a fray
Yet, with sore travail of a soul sincere. Between some mountaineers with whom he
Soon drifted from his anchorage of creed dwelt
Ever away, albeit to the last He, chosen for mediator by a chance.
His mother's words, example, and her love Was wounded sore and carried to a cottage
He owned his spirit's richest sustenance. Of porch festooned with purple columbine ;

But as youth wore the longing came upon him
For venturesome experience afar
Of men diverse and stranger lands remote
Yet opening keen senses upon all,
Maturing healthful vigour of the frame.
So winning richer relish of mere life,
Still yearned his restless spirit, hungering
For sustenance of sympathy and love.
—
Twice was he foiled early by circumstance:
He the blond Northern youth, and she the
child
And entering, with feverish dim sight
Beneath roof-wattles blackened of the smoke
;
He saw a maiden by the ingle fire
Stooping above a cauldron grimed and huge
Slung in the ingle from an iron hook,
Who tended what was boiling, fondling soft
The while a cat of drowsy eye that purred
Upon a chair— a maiden in blue serge
Wearing red-printed kerchief for her neck
Who turning showed the face that on his soul
Would beam in warmth and light for evermore.
 ; — — — ; ;

BEATRICE

'Twas hard to fix the colour of her eyes : Modestly knitting, with a look demure
They seemed to liquefy and melt beneath Low-drooped upon the wool, surprising her
Your own, and lure you into labyrinths More than once leaning forward looking full
Of sweet infinitude, rich shrines of love, Upon him with sweet marvel in her eyes
Dissolved in love as summer skies in light And little open mouth and listless hands,
He only saw the child-face all suffused Blushing to meet his gaze at unaware.
From those seraphic eyes — he saw no more Catching confusedly the falling wool ;

Unless indeed sleek shining rings of hair, And then to bed, to magical fair dreams
Fair h.iir on warm white neck and o'er her Of brilliant lords and ladies, of rare scenes

shoulders Romantic, and the teller <>f the tales.

For as the door was opened, flowed the sun For him, he went to ponder if the look
Full on her as if waiting eagerly, Held only marvel, that and nothing more !

Impatient admittance to the child

for But it was after hesitating long.
Flowed over delicate ankle and slim feet Vowing to leave her in the sheltered nest
And over the frail figure, kissing face And, going, hide his bleeding heart from her.

And neck fire-rosy too abruptly when Giddy and sick, foreboding a farewell.
She startling turned as men came bearing him. Jealous of moments shutting them apart.
He made resolve to ask her for her love,
Glimpses he caught of her performing well To pray that she would bless his lonely life.

Meekly her lowly services of home ;

With tremulous hope he sued a moment —
And while he lay luxuriously weak. more
With casement open, gloating in the light And she coy yielding lay upon his heart.
Of summer evening sumptuous and large,
Inhaling balmy blossom-breathing air. Vain jangled clapper - tongues of friends
Music of sunny leaves, horizons fair, inane
Not seldom shyly would she falter nigh : That he was noble, lowly born the girl
" For mother being very busy craves Was she not born for him and he for her ?
You will excuse her sending, sir, by me In salient life-crises like to this.

Your lemonade, and here are some fi-esh With heart and mind at one, their impetus
flowers Bore him to action strong, unwavering.
From our wee garden I have culled for you." In Italy they spent the primal days ;

But slow retrieving forfeit health

after he brought her to a cottage home
After,
At evening he would join the family, Where in calm lapse the sweet months
Partaking of the homely meal with them, glided by.
Listing the sire's not unmelodious flute Now the word Happiness broke on 'nis soul
After his labour of the day afield Like a new revelation empty wind
;

Relating travellers' experience The mouthed phrase had been to him before ;

To them entrancing, novel, wonderful,
Mayhap in passing lightly naming names
The common wind of rumour blows abroad,
At which the mother in amaze
sire or
Would question if himself had even seen
Or spoken to the mighty folk he named.
Welcoming an afiirmative with awe.
But aye at culmination of the tale,
Whate'er the story, would the teller's eye
Yet though his spirit fondled her young joy
She fondled it loo like some timorous hare
Who fondly licks her furred young in the
grass,
Yet with one ear pricked ever and anon,
Lest yon faint rustle in the neighbour copse
Be stealthy weasel treading last year's leaves.
With staff" in hand and girded loins he feeds
Restlessly in a posture of defence ;

Stealthily visit one who sat apart And yet those years were heaven for all the
On yonder wooden settle in the nook. note
 — : —

BEATRICE
Of wanton, half-luxurious, boding mazed
With their calm joy, only enhancing it HOME
By discord gentle, tinging every thought,
Concentrating the soul upon her love Oft riding o'er a gentle rise,
I pause the landscape to survey,
As transient and fleeting like the flush
While frosty dews to half-shut eyes
Of sunrise. Ah ! 'twas sweet in those bright
Weave webs of light in jewel play :
days
A floating gleam
For them to sit, the lovers, hand in hand,
Of elfin beam
He like the breath of spring to her gum-bud In hoar grasstufts where the gossamers
Of sprouting mind, teaching her many things, dream.
And opening her sweet being at his will,
To blow a flower of rarest scent for all !
Tall trees with bronzybudded sprays
These are a few songs fragrant with his bliss Embroider fine the liquid blue ;

That floated from him on the summer air. Whose shadows stream to softer maze
As brimming o'er and sinking through
The sunned champaign,
IN HAVEN K ne-gleaming plain.
Fields, hamlets, woods, in vaporous wane.
No more shrill whistling "mid the spars ;

No black masts reeling 'inong thrt >tars Yon hollow lies of all most fair :

Point to them as they g and Lonie, <

A
languid wreath of lawny smoke
We labouring o'er tiie waste of foam. Luxuriates in lucid air
O'er clustered elm, the haunt of rook,
I waken to a glorious dawn, From nestled farm
Calm floating through unruffled morn Homelike and warm
In a sweet breathing wooded bay
Aloof from men and all their harm.
Upon a rosy sea of day.
'Tis no ideal vision we raise For there at hoasehold tasks my life
In Fancy's faery coloured blaze ;
Moves singing blithe as any bird
Nor faint flame kindled as we breathe With whose brown ntsts our eaves are rife

On ashes of the Past in death. That in the fresh May-dawn is stirred

Dawns which illume
Though men aver but spirit gleam Those folds of spume
Of Hope and Memory ma> redeem That curtain frail our beamy room.
Life's pain and life's m motoiiy,
We taste joy's essence ere we die I
We hear yon thresher's measured beat.

Your mind's high vision may be rare,

We see the glancing of the flail,

Farm voices cheery rousing greet,

Your soul's dreamed mistress passing fair ;
Each milkmaid bears her bubbling pail.
Yet, brothers, are they something pale :
Soon where we sleep
Perchance those simple girl-flowers that veil
Your rose will creep.
Their fragrant loveliness in shade And early will your flowers peep.

Oi taller growths from careles-> iread

And skyward gazers might unfold Joy's essence, all my spirit prays,

A life of God's ideal mould hold though I belitved it not

I

So life's long dark bewildeiing ways

Fresh from his hand in bounty sown Sloped down towards thi-> primrose spot !

On this our earth life sacred own

:
;
Spill, leaves unrolled !

Its mysteries and most its love

; : Our petals fold
We witness, darling, as we prove ! Pressed close upon their heart of gold I
 —— — ! ! ! ; : !

BEATRICE
Js this thewhole ? to seek our joy, Die not, O voice, into the blue
And mere content
finding sink to You well from : scent of blossomed spring
No social aims our powers employ, On delicate airs, I faint with you
In a boundless human firmament? Slide not from their too wanton wing!
Nay in a well, Kind spirits, alight
Both deep and still. With hands flushed white
Hoard love that all may drink their fill Shade my one flame from breath of night.

All bliss, howpure soe'er, must die ;

For this untasted must I throw

My life in dust ? for shadows sigh ?
THE DESTROYER
Nay, drain its brief yet generous flow !

Love makes us more

Our clasp too firm for aught to sever,
I swore to hold thee, love, for ever.
With all the store
Last height of all my life's endeavour !
Of other lives, sole conqueror !

If aught survive it should be love. A child may laughing homeward run,

That blends us with the heart of things ;
With snow-wreath frail hands closed upon,
But if in death no spirit move, But opening them he finds it gone I

Alone life's subtle aroma springs

I press thee close, I feel thine hand
From delicate cells ;

Where love indwells :

My spirit can, nor will, command
Ah ! guard it from the winter spells !
A thought that in this lovelit land.

For calmly sleep our azure seas :

Within the heart of ferns and flowers,
And yet from far there seems to breathe That mantle round these feet of ours,
Anon, as warning, some chill breeze A subtle exhalation cowers,
From wandering iceberg, white with death-
'I'he dull world's ill.
To breathe unseen a fatal breath.
Chance which kill.
frosts
And sure, though slowly, to unwreathe
And worst, my own dark spirit's Locked hands that would not loose till death.
chill

Fold close, more close, the present bliss :

Yet lurks miasma in the air.
You gaze abroad —behold, 'tis gone ;
However seeming pure and fair,
Nay, thoughts ne'er wander even to this For tainted spirits everywhere.
Bask in the glory, every one !

Nor wonder pale And we, foam-globes the sunlight strews

How soon the trail With iridescent moment hues,
Of yon vast shade shall make it fail While to the flood new strength accrues

As when upon a summer day My child, must our sweet love go by?
We wandering down some woodland vale We foambeads fleeting, you and I ?
Hear a sweet voice from far away Ah ! turn we now with tearful eye
So clear, so sweet, our spirits fail
To tell its birth. To that Divine Man who
alone
Of heaven or earth, Stream taintless from the spring hath flown,
Dropt by some angel in his mirth. Who feels the Father's will his own ;

Who dips these crystal days anear And so his name as Saviour gave.
Such seems our love : O
thrilling voice, In teaching faith and love shall save
I ntent 1 lean I stand all ear
; ; And bloom their full beyond the grave !

Hand raised to banish alien noise ;

My soul drinks in For long our holiday extends.

Bliss-shimmering keen It seems when first we visit friends
Each quavering line of your music rain ! Beloved, but all too soon it ends !
 — ! ! — !

Bi:ATRICE

So brief the life of holiest mirth,

For what to us this teeming earth,
If love's cold ashes choke the hearth ? Down below the shadow resteth,
O'er blush-alabaster feet,
And since 'tis gloaming infinite Simple robe of white investeth
All round our solitary light, Up to where bows, childlike sweet,
What end would thy desire invite ? Gentle head in hands half hidden.
Whence the shadow falls forbidden.
— That when the shadows nearer press
From forth the outer loneliness—
If they could make love's watchfire less,
From our dusk her hands are lifting,

Till we numb cowering, even we

And the light, in answer bland,
!

Half- vacant note the encroaching grey

Down her sleek brown tresses drifting.
Seems to smooth them with a hand
On those red brands — it ne'er can be !

Solemn hand from forth the splendour,

Where this child hath tho.se that tend her
Or as we two love's vigil keep,
Ifunaware night's fingers creep
About one heart to still its leap
These love-tears may cloud my vision ;

We leaning close might nestle so Yet about this humble room

O'er both the numbing night must flow : Do not faces dim, Elysian,
And so the last each soul shall know Yearn down o'er her through the gloom ?

Even the shades are glory colder,

Will be the sister spirit nigh, Warming softer as they fold her
What swims near each filming eye
last
The one dear face and so to die — !

Then below the ghostly rim

if
So bathe her feet our earth's chill sorrow,
There a day that grows not dim,
lives Never cling more dark than this ;

We trample on the boast of Time !

If one had stayed, that friendly
Accurst might soothe and heal and part-
From her gentle spirit borrow
Even the hues and warmth of bliss,
While her soul inhales the heaven.
art
Praying thus at morn and even
— !

But now we go locked heart to heart

Ah, rave not, poor blind human pride !

Her, life's darling pilgrim haileth ;

For is not Love Divine the guide ? Mountain forest, haunted nook,
Come, let us kneel then side by side !
As on high serene she saileth,
Smile beneath her sainted look !

Only worldlings, foul irk feeling,

EVENING PRAYER Curse the childlike light reveaUng.

Now the soft warm gleam uncertain Spirit m.usic, souls of flowers,
In the httle chamber stays, Here luxuriate to shape.
On the spotless falling curiain, Charming far the baleful powers :

By the bedside where she prays ; Blessed moment, wherefore 'scape r

From the shadow round her kneeling Hold her young, so gricftess praying,
Slender hands are raised appealing. Hold these trancW eyes from straying !
 — "

BEATRICE
And hoary leaves, varied with ilexes,

BOOK II CarCib of glossy leaf, and iris flower

That seems to fleck with colour from the sea
Clement and Beatrice had often planned, —
These mountain-groves how often cUmbing
If circumstance should ever set them free, high
That they would seek a dwelling in the south Up yon grey rock beneath an olive's shade
Where childish years of each had danced By some clear rivulet those lovers lay.
away, And peered for hours into the flickering blue
Two drops that sparkle waxing side by side, That starlike winked among the leaves ; or
Unwitting they shall tremble into one. leaning
And now the very nook that they had found. Upon vague athwart the sea
their elbows,
Seeking sweet solitude wherein to nurse immersed in hazy light)
(Soft salvia-blue
Their new-born joy in crescent honeymoon. Dream-gazing, lay upon the mountain-thyme
They seek again, a vain experiment And rosemary and mint that scent soft airs
Too oft —
for either we ourselves have Around them, soothed with humming of the
changed. bee,
Ourselves most mutable of mortal things, Sipping cool oranges luxurious.
Or memory's cherished home looks alien. With all their past spread indistinct behind,
But Beatrice and Clement loved as then, The sad and happy in the lives of each.
And that fair nook seemed waiting their return. The rough ways and the smooth ways in
their lives.
Whitely it gleamed as in a verdure-nest, Like some far landscape from a pleasant
Their villa, with its vases aloe-crowned height.
And shutters green to keep it cool within, All lovely in thesummer light of love !

'Mid oranges and lemon-trees that crowd Or else he read to her the glowing strain
Here by the margin of the dark blue sea, Of Petrarch they were rapt into the heavens,
:

A gem within a bloomy fold of hills Whirled panting in the awful seraph flight
Where they with silver fringe the azure wave. Of Dante to the feet of Beatrice,
So Clement saw it from the castled rock Or solemn thrilled at his lament for her
Where homeward faring reined he in the steed But oft some kindred feeling in the tale
For eyes athirst in peace to drink the view ;
Disturbed the eyes of each, fusing their beams
For here the little villa first appears In one another's fervid labyrinths,
To one who journeys westward by the coast. Then like to those whose love that poet sings
Even as did Clement, called into the north How tenderly 1 "that day they read no more.
To England now three moons and more ago,
While circumstance forbade that Beatrice On this runs Clement's thought in riding
Should follow him but forced her to remain. slow
He having suffered in the interval Through those old olives winding low anon
Much pain and much perplexity in mind Where cornflag flushes all the vivid grass
Full wearily returned, desiring her With purple-pink, and oranges like lamps
Whose presence on his troubled heart should Light all the groves, while through slim
fall almond leaves
As fanning air upon a burning brow. And figs and planes the ripple of the sea

Soft lightens momently at every plash

No path, I think, in all fair Italy Of dozing undulations as they wake.
Is lovelier than the path that led him iiere, Then down upon a little open bight
Meandering through olives old and huge Of shining shingle fringing a ravine,
Oaklike in girth, of gnarlM cavern-bole Lit by a mountain streamlet mantled o'er
 :

BEATRICE

Of maidenhair and limber leaves and flowers, That many days ago I should be here :

Wends devious the and circles now

path, Maybe she fears mishap and pines for me,
An open headland whence the rock appears, My own soul's life— a minute only, love.
Beyond the bay, of castled Monaco. And you lie folded to my beating heart !

A peasant here the happy rider met And then what bliss our parched eyes shall
Driving his donkey with a cask of wine draw
Slung either side, a dull red stain about And draw and draw from one another's
Its mouth and cork the sunburnt stalwart
: wells,
man Until we leave them for the dewy mouth
With raven hair, dark eyes, and olive skin, And suck it thence and never speak the
One of the ancient race Ligurian, while,
Was wont to greet him very cheerily ; Unless with utterance broken rare and low !"
For he was one of those the lovers twain
In evenings cool before their frugal meal But as he nears the house, he notices
Would visit often in the humble homes, With wonder tnat the shutters green are
Finding true Iriends among these peasant- closed
folk, Both in the upper and the lower rooms,
While ministering to them in their need. Though 'tis near sunset, and in afternoons
But Clement fancied, after pleased surprise This eastern-facing side is shadowy cool
The man had manifested as they met, And Beatrice neglects not homely care
His face had strangely clouded, and a ruth For ordering details of daily life
Made soft his eyes and saddened in his voice. Which smooth and make it pleasant unaware.
He wondered for a while, yet liitle heeding But coming to the garden-wall he thinks
Skirted the bay and, singing to himself She may have heard his horse and meet him
When none were nigh, he pictured the there ;

beloved Yet is there no one — riding through the gate

So near him now, the dress that she may i lis eye explores dim spaces 'mid the trees.
wear, And peering to the spot between the planes.
—
Most like of muslin blue and white this hour As he had visioned her, it seems that she
She may be in the garden with her book Is sitting there indeed with look intent
Or at her evening meal on rustic table Upon the sunset flush in sea and sky.
Beneath cool umbrage of two limber planes, His heart leaps up, he calls her name aloud ;

As far from the blue sea as in a wood Then rising slow she turns to him, her face
A startled bird may fiit from twig to twig. Looks wan when he discerns it nearing her,
" Here may she gaze athwart the infinite For all the evening flush, and wistful eyes
To where blue sky and ocean marrying Suffused and sorrowful are hers, with arms
blend, Stretched eager open to him, while her lips
As I have seen, with eyes more infinite Move while and tremulous with ne'er a
Mysterious than they, while shadowy hands sound.
Glide from the foliage over her to stroke Until a fig-tree baulks him of the sight.
Her grace of soft brown hair how daintily, He with a sudden faintness at his heart
And her soft shoulders gleaming through Bounds past the trees and flings him to the
the gauze, ground,
Or envious invade the basking glow But finds her not, and leaving loose the horse
On gentle undulation of a breast liunges among thick fig-leaves seeking her.;
Tender as petals of an opening rose. In vain — he finds no traces of her nigh ;

But yet I think she listens anxiously So he emerges calling anxiously

For a far tramp of horse my letter told
; And peering everywhere ; no Beatrice !
 "" " ——

BEATRICE

Then stands bewildered ; she was here but Beholds a dame he knows alas too well. !

now ;
It could be no illusion of the sense
Some ghastly dread has whispered in his
And pale mechanical he draws the steed
(So quiet cropping dim delicious grass)
Toward the house, till with alacrity
A groom appears, and bowing to
That selfsame look of pity on his
The peasant wore, arrests the eager words
On Clement's questioning lips and keeps
him mute.
With mute interrogation in his eyes
A moment, straight he hurries to the house,
And fumbles at the door as he were blind,
Enters the room where she is wont to sit
To find it empty, rapid mounts the stair
To their own chamber — yet
Strolling this evening not expecting
The little things that ever speak of her
Some sorrow looks from her fair countenance,
! And some affection, tenderness for him.
ear, Yet Clement at the sight of her and touch
Felt as might feel a wild-bird darting glad
Unto his home, and peering through the dusk
Of brushwood for the downy streaked head
his lord, Of his soft mate upon the lichened edge
face, Of their hidden nest and watching on their
eggs,
As such a bird might feel beholding there
A smooth gorged serpent coiling in her stead.
" Do }'ou know, madam, anything of this?"
He questioned ; she " Believe my sympathy
How deep for you ; be only calm, and I
Will tell you all I know of what has chanced."
She motioned him into a chamber near,
she may be nigh, He following like some automaton.
him ! " You wonder I am here not long ago —
I came alone, and she invited me

Unto his heart are there; the needlework, As friend of yours to spend much pleasant
The thimble and the workbox are below, time
A tiny stocking knitted by her hand Here in her company, and often I
For some poor neighbour's babe, the needle Returned her courtesy and asked her home.
in it. It chanced a traveller whom I had known
Half-finished on the table, and her book In former days, was passing in a yacht.
Open at yon window flutters in the air. And came ashore ; we met him in our
While yet he strove to reason foreboding down walks
Too vainly stole her favourite maiden nigh, Ah ! had I known the man's true char-
And she was weeping, weeping bitterly. acter
Then Clement sickened, faltering " Where is A fascinating man the women think,
"
she ? Noble and wealthy often afterward ;

ISut she wept on, till hoarsely " Tell me He went to her I never thought of fear — :

quick !
She often said she longed for your return.
He whispered ; so she glanced at him and And wondered at your silence every day.
sobbed, How full she relished her converse with him
As she beheld his ghastly waning face, I well could see, yet never till by chance
" She is not dead oh no, she is alive
: (Now you must nerve yourself to hear the
!

At this the blood congesting at his heart whole)

—
Flowed free again " he carried her away." I came one day she did not look for me
"Who? what? who carried her away? ex- Did I suspect the terrible fatal truth ;

plain !
But then I saw them sitting siile by side.
But choked with tears and he so vehement And in his toying hand hers passive lying."
She could not utter more. With this the lady's radiant lissome hand
Slid into his and pressed it as for ruh.
And now a touch. And her wild hungry eye stole seeking his;
Such a soft touch, upon his shoulder grows. But he, as if the contact blistered him
He turns and with displeased a.stonishment Like vitriol, snatched violent his hand,
 — "

BEATRICE
And rising suddenly confronted her And spakewith choking accentslowan '
''.iv,K:
Black as a storm with loathing and with scorn. "A most sublime tirade, I thank you for it
!"
And hissed the syllables "You know you lie And for your good opinion ; as for her,
She cowering, collapsing in dismay, I only know this model saint of yours.
Died all the languid longing in her eyes This poet's ideal of love and constancy,
That filled with italeful greenish livid light This faithful though insipid peasant-girl.
As cats' in darkness, and the pleasant lines Has left you left you for a vicious duke. — —
Of her faint-smiling mouth set rigidly I saw them saw them row away myself. — —
About the close thin lips, while fingers And your sweet paragon was in his arms !

clutched With that she broke into hysteric cries.

Clawlike her seat, until she seemed a lynx Half choking sobs and half hyena laugh,
That draws itself together for a spring. For bitter jealousy, and vanity
" Maybe you'll ask your servants if I lie," And lacerated love turned into gall ;

After a pause half-audibly she breathed. But at the last word when she mentioned Aim,
" My servants ask my servants if the sun
! The man who stole his Beatrice away,
Did tumble in my absence from the sky ! The pitiless sneer that Clement wore for her
Lady, I know you and I know my wife. — In her unlovely disappointed mood
You may have loved me as 'tis given to such Passed into a concentrate look of hate
As you to love I knew you not of yore.
: Slow-fed with blackness like a thundercloud.
You loved yet not like young romantic girls,
; And though he glowered into her very eyes.
Yourself confessed, but with sobriety No more his vision pictured facing him
You poised your love against i' the other scale The woman fair with passion hideous.
A higher title, ampler wealth and power, Anon he muttered talking with himself,
Carriage and footmen, richer jewellery, " When in the life-blood of his quivering heart
As 'tis the wont of women in the world, These hands have revelled, I shall die
And even though weighted with my rank content."
and blood, Whether the lady fainted on the floor.
Your ])Oi>r light love flew upward with a Or at her leisure smoothed her ruffled plumes,
jerk !
He never knew, for turning on his heel,
Inevitably such a flimsy thing Abrupt he left her, striding through the hall
Must waver here and there with every gust Into the garden, up the rock, away.
And every letid vapour of the sense.
But she - 1 pray you mark the difference ! Onward he strode and chose the steepest
She was, you know, 'a young romantic parts
girl,' Of the abrupt grey rock, as driven aloft
Her love was love,
no flimsy counterfeit, By the fierce tumult of his boiling l^lood.
Base spawn of wanton fancy, vanity. He ever chose the giddiest mountain-tracks,
—
But love the power you creatures of the Haunt of shy marmot and ol ibex wild,
world That he with soul unquailing might surprise
Are doomed to mock and never comprehend. The secret of soliloquies sublime.
With her, the wealth of continents and seas, Nature, the ancient mother, murmurs far
The social pinnacle, a monarch's throne. From human presences in craggy haunt
Were but an airy cobweb in the scale Of cormoiant and eagle, by lone springs
To wrench the almighty magnet-hold of (Jfmighty rivers bubbling into light.
love ! Now the tumultuous anguish of his soul
It cannot be : I know my Beatrice." Urged him instinctively to drown its roar
So then the lady, livid wiih her rage. Hy conjuring a counter-tempest forth,
Sidled from near him rising to her feet, Born of unwonted effort physical.
 ; — ——
BEATRICE

In part his purpose was to find a friend At length exhausted prone he flung himself
Who dwelt upon the rock, a peasant he. Upon a ledge above a precipice,
Intelligent and cultured ; not a man Sinking among sweet thyme and rosemary,
Born in the country, but a mountaineer And ling half russet girt with myrtle bushes
From Corsica, who left his native hills And lentisk, while the overhung grey rock
Craving adventurous to see the world. That seemed to swoon and fall through azure
Embarked a sailor lad from Genoa, air

And after many years the crew discharged, Was festooned with a succulent-leaved plant
Wandered along the coast to Monaco ; That bore bright crimson cactus-like wee
And here, for all proud sniffing of the air flowers.
Of independence, he was brought to bay This and the spurgewort, and the velvet bees
By large dark eyes, and clearest olive skin, Backing from out the bulging foxglove bells
By a neat cotton print tied round the chin. And shaggy goat that clung with sharp-cleft
Blue woollen stocking covering ankles trim. hoof
The father of the girl, an only child, Of close-set nervous legs to naked crag.
Owned a small cottage and a strip of rock All this he saw and noted in his mind.
Which his forefathers with their strong right When his breath came and when the tide of
arms blood
Had scooped and terraced, digging spacious Less violently thumped within his head
tanks Saw too the wine-empurpled promontories
For irrigation through the summer drought, Dim set in ocean hued like flower petals
Then planted with the delicate lemon-tree. Where azure melts to purple unaware,
Aloft they lived, but he would do at times And grape-bloomed gorges of the folding
Some sardine fishing in the breezy dawn hills
With his own boat, for oft he wistful eyed While nor near cricket nor the croaking frog
His old well-loved free perilous salt sea. From distant tank could vex the stilly eve.
Now a full year his darling child lay ill, Yet though he saw, yea, noted in his mind,
The stay of his old age, a maiden sweet, The formless ghastly trouble writhed within,
Whose mother he had buried many years, And rustled in dusk corners of his heart ;
And when nor Beatrice nor Clement came Anon awakened, and emerging slow
Their way, the father would himself descend With hideous lineaments confronted him.
To carry wine and strengthening food for Stunned, sickened for a moment, wildered
her thoughts
The maiden sick till he and Clement
; Came trooping to their banner at his call
grew To find her — rescue — that immediately.
Fast friends, and roamed the hills in company This very night, without a thought of rest.
Searching for plants and holding high con- And to inflict a righteous punishment
verse. On him who dared insult the sacred shrine
To this old man (whose name was Paoli) Where his soul worships and his life keeps
Instinctive Clement turned, for since he went guard
(As Beatrice related when she wrote) Light deepens round that purpose prominent.
Down daily to the villa, he would know
Something of this dark horror that had Now as he nears the cottage of his friend,
chanced. The old man sitting on a low stuccoed wall,
And then he craved some sterling sympathy ; Whence rise white pillars trellised at the top
And yet the track he chose led far away And roofed with vine-leaf, at his cottage
From the old man's home into the solitudes, door
For solitude he needed most of all. Espies him coming ; to the vine-walk's end
 — ;

BEATRICE

Straight walks to meet him, and approach- Sitting without than in my darksome hut.
ing nigh Are you fresh come, or know you all that
"
Puts out two hands, and Clement's hand in his passed ?

Clasps tight with such a look upon his face. But Clement, about whose heart the casing ice
Clement beholding need not ask "'Youknow?" Was thawing in the rays of sympathy,
With wan lips nervous twitching, for he sees —
Could scarcely utter covering his face
The kind old man knows
mechanical
all ; He strove to choke down not unmanly tears.
He speaks the words to set emotion free The old man's eyes were swimming too with
"Whose flood in silence overwhelmingly mist,
Boils up and strains the flood-gates of the But the youth faltered how but now arrived
heart. He knew the bare fact only, seeking here
"Yes, I know all," deep tremulous tones reply, For detail deeming that his friend might
As if the old sailor were the father himself know.
Clement had alienated by his love. This foreign duke cast anchor, Paoli told,
Firm-lined and clean-cut are the features With a large yacht about a month ago
grand Early one placid morning near the shore :

Of that old man, with venerable grey hair The lady fine new-settled in a villa
Beneath the pouch red woollen that he wears And he appeared inseparable friends.
Like other peasants but he looks a rock
;
" He was a scoundrel with a narrow brain
Of granite lofty and majestic reared, Who held himself quite irresistible ;

That fronts through all the years with coun- Among the women whom he herded with
tenance Mayhap had proved it so in higher types ;

Calm equable irradiation deep Of woman disbelieved, but he had spoken

Of zenith-blue intense full-saturate (Her maid, a faithful creature, told me this)
With undulated sunlight smiles of God Had looked and spoken as ill became a man
;

Anon the smother of his thundercloud, With a pure child who scarce believed in
Scathe of his lightning, lashing of his rain, wrong.
Hounded of that wild huntsman the shrill From then her mistress vaguely dreaded
wind, him ;
and rasping of keen ice
Blister of frost : Yet when he asked both ladies to the yacht,
A countenance calm, equable, yet scarred She, nothing doubting since her feigning
And weather-stained with rough experience. friend
But kindliness, a mellow charity, Would go with her, consented freely, glad
Beamed from the window of his clear grey To see a ship all praised as beautiful.
eye : But when next morning the duke came
Life had not petrified or curdled sour ashore,
The sweet and gracious juices of his breast. The woman came not —
never meant to
Unturned the fine edge of his inner sense, come
Widening experience of human spirits. To meet her as was settled on the strand.
And of his own, responsive to the play The traitor urged her waiting 'neath the
Of varied circumstance, his views of men shade
Rendered and pitiful.
elastic, large, Of the boat's awning, for the sun was fierce ;

The ennobling humanising influences And in a moment at a sign from him

Of that sublime creed he wa^ nurtured in (So a mate told me) they had shoved the
His soul assimilated, little harmed boat
Of elements that puff" rank bigotry. Off from the shingle, and he heard her call
"Mayhap," he spake, "'twill be more Loud but in vain for them to wait her friend
pleasant here None answering, the villain took his seat
 —! —— — ——
14 BEATRICE
Close at her side and strove to seize her hand, But she inspired, I deem, her precious friend
She edging off and crying to return. With her own erring estimate of me
The yacht weighed anchor, and a stiff nor'- The worse for his facile credulity !

wester She could not fancy I could ever love

Scarce felt in here, but fresh away from land, —
Any but her once looking in her face—
Sped her that evening far toward Corsica." 'Twas pique that drove me to another's arms I

Let her appear and beckon me away,

" In Corsica ? is that where I must go ? "
Let her but hint the other unworthy me,
Clement broke in with husky tone abrupt, And I should drop at her least finger-brush.
Clutching the word as lying in ambush for it. Drop eager in her lap, how cheaply won !

— " In Corsica," old Paoli resumed, What punishment could I devise for her,
— —
"This man a Frenchman owns a castle A woman ? I could never hurt a woman
vast. Weak in her flesh —not even if my love
There from the gossip of his crew I gather Were false to me — she must be left alone
—
He must have taken her this only chanced With her own meaner choice and with her
—
Four days ago I deem the woman far shame.
More guilty than the man in this affair. This one I leave to her own scorpion tail
—
The friend professed I know not if I err. Of vanity turned inward on herself.
But for her motive, that I cannot guess." Cramped in her own small soul for ever-
" Him I can deal with," Clement answered more
slow, That's punishment enough, methinks, for
" How with a woman ? she preferred the gold her
To me, but deemed that she could have me But not for him, a man can deal with man."
too-
On her own terms and when the fancy came. " What can you do ? what would you do ? "
She thought me weak and plastic in her replied
'
hands, Paoli gravely, think of saving her ;
'

Docile to take the shape her lust might And you may save her, win her back to you
crave. Ere thrice again yon sinking sun had set
No more rebellious to her fingers lithe To lieupon your heart, and I can help " !

Than would be ductile clay that she might " Yes, tell me, now at once I start to snatch

mould. My all from him and stretch him 'neath her

So she had found men, so appraised me feet,

From ambiguous,
superficial signs His place —his own — whence he has dared
Nor guessed the human clay she paddled in to stir
Yielded because itself found yielding sweet ;
With heart profane, for I was out of sight,
But let her twist the tame lump otherwise. The coward ; since he would not stoop for
As if a blade lurked hidden in the mass, awe
'Twould cut her wanton fingers to the bone. Justice cries out that he must grovel dead "
!

I deemed sweet daily suns "Nay, calm yourself, beloved friend of mine,"
and tender
showers Answered the old man, " leave him lo our God
And many dewy moons of intercourse The sole avenger for what gain were yours —
Had mellowed juiciest friendship-fruits in In this man's death ? What more should
her, you desire
But lo on peering through the lavish leaves Than her salvation ? She awaits you now
!

The fruit showed green and acrid as at first And longs for her deliverer what gain :

She told me her deliberate thought of me. To her or you the slaying of the man ?
And it was shallow and ungenerous. So you would only with infatuate hand
 :; " — —

BEATRICE »5

Stretch dead for ever your reviving joy Unfearing now you may insult a man,
Even wondrous moment it emerged
at the Unfearing too you may insult his friend
Scarce hoped-for from the shadow of the The barbarous dark age of honour dead.
tomb. How should men start and shudder now to
Blood would be on your consciences if law hear
Hunted you not nor ran you down at last Such names as liar, knave, applied to them.
If you must punish there are courts of law When they have nigh forgotten that knavery
Cite there the man as public enemy." And lies are base and very loathsome
things,
" Prate not of law, my friend," replied the How prudent and respectable soe'er
youth, And orthodox in creeds a man may be
• To me on fire with my most righteous hate, To keep well with society and God ?
Who nothing am if not one parching thirst Ah ! dare we babbling foul the holy name
—
For one heart's blood not injury to vie. Of Christ, the wise, the world - embracing
But her whom God committed unto me, heart,
His dearest, tenderest, loveliest child among And his forgiveness of his enemies ?
The children likest, nearest to Himself, Dare we invest our native squalor with
Her wrong in thunder-tones God bids The fair word-raiment which of old He wore.
avenge ; And mimicking his accents and his gait
And if I shrink, how clear myself to Him ? Turn that divinest faith beneath the sun
It is her cause, not mine, it is the cause Into the byword of all honest men !

Of God her Father in your holy books

:

Where do you read 'tis sinful to avenge And then he argued, as concerning fact,
A lamb that Heaven has laid upon your That since the wrong was done in Italy
breast, And Corsica was French, the traitor there
Lent you awhile and trusted to your care ? Was sheltered from the clutches of the law.
Nay, doth not Christ affirm who toucheth For his own safety, what was that to him ?
these Yet must he leave her in the world alone,
Toucheth the very apple of God's eye ? Nor taste again some hallowed life with her?
Avengers are the ministers of God Two years were theirs, two years of paradise.
!

Let them but merge their puny selves and Envied of angels in the fadeless bowers.
wrongs And they are thankful for them and rejoice
In that vocation awful and sublime. Yet who may sip the nectar-cup of gods,
Strong will their stroke be, calm and terrible. Nor passionately long to sip again ?
Prate not of law to me —
it is an age ''Therefore my safety if I rescue her
I know of reason and expediency. Is something to me otherwise 'tis nought. —
When dearest friends respectable and smooth Less, less than nought " !

Mine, countermine, beneath each other's feet.

And sell their souls for shameful homage men "Vengeance belongs to God,
Paid once to virtue, now to liveries ; He will repay, the other solemnly "
;

Age when a man is fool to trust his brother " But I will freely tell you what I know
Yet dares not swindled clutch him by the About your hope of safety where you go.
throat. Among my countrymen there yet prevails
When if one should behold before his eyes Alas a sentiment much like to yours,
!

A mother strangled or a wife abused, The which has borne a monstrous crimson
With judgment cool far-seeing he would fruit,

stroll Blood-feud (as such a seed must ever bear)

Inquiring where to find a magistrate Through ages, curse of my fair island home.
!
 — — : — — !

i6 BEATRICE
That is a fire which smoulders even yet Of a king's ante-room between the legs
Our rulers could not stamp the embers out. Of courtiers, a live footstool for the king,
Your mission known the natives would assist To wheedle from him, a mere fellowman
And you
to the utmost of their skill,
shield The blood of monarchs and of nobles mine
Yet you need to know the sp' it
for success Who led the advancing vanguard of their
And people of the place, and who can help. time,
You take the steamer with the other folk A noble myself, nor without hope to grave
In travelling thither ; but my brother owns My old ancestral name upon the age
A tight felucca, and will lend it me With thought of rarer temper than the wont.
If weather smile for our secret return. But since my peers are fallen with other folk
His home is in the town upon the coast Upon their face before the golden god
Nearest the castle on the rock above. Set with acclaim of nations and with clash
A year ago moreover in the house, Of all fair music in the world's high place
Full trusted by the owner of it, lived Set up for worship by the prince of it

My distant kinsman but my nearest friend. And I alas have scant rich offerings
!

His incorruptible true-ringing heart To offer like my equals to the god,

Will in such enterprise be all our own Not even a daughter's heart, most dainty gift

If yet he dwell there he can help within."

; A parent can lay quivering at his feet,

"Then I may count on you," Clement ex- I walk apart in deep obscurity
claimed. Confronting not the jeer of jingling fools.
Seizing the old man's hand impulsively. —
And me for I am poor nor much frequent
" On
one condition," was the grave reply, Their fashionable fuolings, gatherings
" Forego your wild scheme of revenge and This duke from them invades for who —
think am I?
Only of saving her " Not less by birth, yet weighed and wanting
found
" Impossible ! r the loaded scales of his society !

I cannot do it —anything but this What if he swoop upon a pauper's wife

Remember you are old and I am young. This gaudy jay — the woman should rejoice.
The traitor moved no hand against your love Nor could the man complain or doth the ;

—
But against mine if you were in my place ! mate
A boor with human nature if his king Of yon meek finch the ravenous kite hath
Have fouled it wanton, spat i' the face of it, mauled
His loyalty engrained like hair aflame Complain, or will the gorging tyrant hear?
Shrivels to thin air suddenly, and he And so he pounced upon my one ewe-lamb !

Yields his left cheek most meekly, his mere She was my all. and I have nothing now ;
life, Nothing \iut my revenge and yet you bid, ;

Up unto him who smote him on the right. Yet you bid me fling my revenge away !

The cheek of honour, trod on her he loves, Is that your meaning ? I would touch it
—
Meek yields his all if only— mark the if! firm ;

The chance be granted him to plunge and Can "

that indeed be what you ask of me ?

twist
To agitate the blade in that false heart Then the old man : " Now hear my final
And lap its warm blood oozing to the haft. word.
And I am not a boor — my blood more rich Promise at least, that if you find she lives
And ancient than yon duke's for all his gold, You will not seek to kill the enemy.
Got foully as I think, and puff-ball title If he have left her life, you may not take
His sire crawled all his life about the dust His life away —or go you must alone."
 " —

BEATRICE 17

Clement reluctant promised, and his friend Once wanned with goad of some insulting
Spake a few soothing solemn words to him word,
About the Sufferer of sufferers Or any opposition from the man.
That night He fell among the shadowy trees His proud strong will shall guide the aspen
Upon His face in bitter agony hand
Breathing " Not My will, but Thine own be To deal as strong a blow as any clod.
done !
But then the temperament too sensitive
Seeks, finds, ally in contemplative doubt.
Then they embraced, and under a pale So drift in sight again the arguments
moon Of the old peasant and his own replies.
The youth bent leaden steps towards his Till over-strained into a fevered doze
home. He falls, the spirit racked and battling still,
And when he enters the familiar rooms A chamber full of loud discordant cries.
Almost he deems it but a hideous dream,
And that she quiet waits him in the house They go as planned, and landing at the
Somewhere ; he knows not where, but to port
and fro Of Bastia, they take a mountain path
Strays through each empty room, as looking Known well to Paoli along the coast,
for her That leads them to a village near the shore
And listening for the gentle call he loves Below the castle eyrie which they seek.
From somewhere nigh, yet feeling it is vain. Blue as the bluest lapis-lazuli
Through dim moon-spaces like to one half- The sea they skirt, plashing as musical
stunned As yesterday along the Italian shore.
Groping his way, the servants hearing steps Listless alternating soft silence*
Unbidden bring him light and needed food, With softer sound, as yonder bee anon
And he shakes loose the stupor to arrange Muffles low humsome campanula
in
The morrow's journey, and to order all Of nectared amethyst, and hums again.
For his dependents as befits the case. The hawk swims high in supple shining air.
Last worn and weary flings him on a couch, And swallows twittering dart about the cliffs.
Yet cannot cease to picture his shy bird From the Marina with its little pier
Tiny and timorous, cowering in the glare Where loll the swarthy fishers gossiping
Of that foul serpent's hungry glittering eyes, About the windlasses, or in the shade
Wistfully craving him, but in despair Of stranded boats upon the furrowed beach
Sinking and waning deeming him afar. Mending their nets and munching chestnut
And fearing he can never find her prison. cakes
Then schemes of vengeance boil within his Opens a valley fair, and high therein
heart. Perches the village on a shelf of rock.
Fierce, incoherent, seething like a scum. Nested in olives but the glen below
;

Yet chilled anon with some vague conscious- (A deep rich silt, plunder of flooding streams
ness From wealth of mountains in the winter,
That he, weak-healthed, a man of inner life dammed
(Not this alone, yet student in the main). Their channel mouths unscoured of ebbing
Shrank secretly through all his ravaged frame tides
From striking that strong outward blow his By storm-waves piling sea-weed, shingle,
soul sand)
Roared to him as from myriad throats to Glows now with beaded mace-heads of the
strike. maize,
Yet well he knows that he shall triumph hero. And simmers with a paler bearded wheat.
 — "

i8 BEATRICE

It is the summer calm when yesterday, So many sluggish and cold-blooded years
To-day, or any days we pair together, Of foreign rule have crawled not over us.

Are fair twin-sisters men distinguish not. Thank God Almighty, chilling our hot blood.
But yesterday the bosom of the youth But our faint pulse as at a clarion call
Mirrored serenely the serenity, Leaps yet remembering Fior di Spina she. —
To-day it seems a hollow mask to him. Our splendid maiden with the eyes of fire,
Who in the public market-place of Corte
Paoli inquiring finds his sailor brother, With hand unfaltering flashed the fatal shot
From whom he learns the foreigner indeed That brought her faithless lover to her feet,

Brought his sweet prize four suns and moons Tumbled him humbled to a lump of clay !

ago. O'er whom our poets trolled voceros brave,

He promises a cheerful aid to them Whom mightiest most illustrious warriors.
Whate'er betide, relating that the friend crowned
Staunch and leal-hearted Paoli had hoped Their queen in chestnut-forests of our isle !

To find within the castle there in sooth

Yet dwells ; the fisherman expects him here
Anon from Bastia, but yesterday
Thither despatched upon affairs the duke
Would trust to none beside reluctantly,
Since if the gossips be but well informed
The duke to him commits the special charge
Of sweet captive, closest prisoner.
his
A charge assumed by Giudice that so
He might secure her safety in the den
Of the fell robber, choking down for her
The indignation of his faithful heart.
The master, who has squandered far in France
His graceless youth, trusts the integrity
Of that stern man his father trusted well,
Yet with the son integrity but means
A dog's devotion to the master's whim.
Till now his few behests indifferent
Giudice strictly taciturn fulfils.
So voluble and vehement outspoke
The Corsican with fiery face and eye.
And Clement knew that he could trust the
man.
Scarce had he ended ere stern Giudice
Was in their midst and they the brothers
twain
Apart conferring with him. He abrupt
A minute after turned to Clement saying
" I will assist you now immediately.
The lady ails, do you but follow me."
Well had he known remonstrating appeal
The libertine would but exasperate
To violence and maiming of the hand
That could alone assist the victim there,
And he was of the few, the very few,
Who if a breath would loosen an avalanche
On his own head, yet save another life,

" But he and I and all of us around Would palter not but breathe that breath
Are Corsican, pure Corsican, and we and die.
Abhor such deeds : we love your country-
men, No words are spoken winding through the
For they are freemen and have reached a grain
hand Or by the bleached stones of the torrent bed.
To help us in our need moreover he
; Then through the tuaquis, brushwood of
That dukeling yonder —
(here he sunk his arbute,
tone) Lentisk and myrtle, cytisus, rock-roses
Giudice was away then as I think Cropped of rough goats or silken horned
Seduced a girl, sister to one of us, sheep.
To go with him to France and ruined her. Through olives and umbrageous chestnut-
So if you punish not your wrong, my lord. groves
There are those here who wait to punish Up the rock path, till near the castle loomed,
theirs. Portentous pile, squat like a monster toad
 BEATRICE 19

Irregular and huge upon its crest, Jutting above the pathway where it curved.
With rugged stones all blackened from the Whence he beheld three men with rifles
smoke equipped
Of siege-fires in the turbulent past years, For shooting — they were Frenchmen by their
And chipped of bullets with abortive aim dress
To silence shots from loopholes narrowing. And by their talk then Clement very pale.
;

And Clement dare not ask the meaning full Even quivering but with a dangerous
Of that brief phrase "she ails"; he only Gleam in his large dark eye, stepped forth
knows and blocked
She or he would not be guided here.
lives, The way, and hoarsely spake, " I want the
But the guide pausing sharp addresses him, duke."
" This morning with a party of his friends They started, but the midmost man replied
The duke goes shooting, has already gone. "I am the duke; your business, sir, with
Now I will go before you to prepare me?"
The execution of our project, brief "A word in private if these gentlemen
The time I need, and yet it will be best Will give me leave." The Frenchman lifting
You should not burst too suddenly upon her. cap
Therefore I take this track that leads direct. Requests his friends to saunter on before ;

While leisurely you follow me by that They passing turn the angle of the rock ;

Which makes a circuit ; but observe the So lost to sight the Frenchman visibly
;

tower Sallows through all his bloated sallow face,

You must approach ; she lies imprisoned A man with hard coarse mouth but half
there. revealed
A private staircase and a private door Through black mustachios tapering either
Lead from it facing seaward I dismiss ; end,
The Frenchman guarding it and I resume A parvenu whose fashionable hauteur
The key entrusted to my special care : Is next of kin to vulgar insolence.
A rock-hewn staircase drops abruptly down. "Well, sir, I would be going, will you
No window from the castle overlooks." speak ?
"
Clement replied by wringing the strong hand " I think," said Clement, " there is little need.
And by a look, then took the devious path You know me and you know why I am here."
'Mong chestnut-trees and by a water-runnel. The Frenchman sneered, " I fear the man is
Making a circuit, facing the stronghold mad.
Anew when mounted on its proper ridge How should I know you?" "Then, sir, I
A half-mile to the rear of it ; and here am he
A precipice fell sheer one side the path Whose humble abode you lately stooped to
With tumbled boulders at the base of it visit
O'ergrown of bramble and snapdragon To rob me like a common skulking thief
flowers, As it appears, for when my hack was turned
While a thin burn meandered under these. You stole my jewel skulking off with it —
Sparkling among the twinkling birch, anon To this remote wild-beast lair. Where is she ?
Quenched in the solemn shadow of the pines. What have you done with her? no paltering."
"Be calm," the man with livid lips replied,
And now he heard a sound as of men's swagger of indifference.
Ill-feigning
voices " Remember whom you speak to as for you. —
Approaching, often breaking to a laugh. Who may you be ? " " Fellow, my ancestors
Instinctively he drew into a hollow Were kings and earls when yours were
Behind a lentisk thicket 'neath a rock keeping swine,
 —" " —

BEATRICE
Swinish like their own swine, and base like So the man failed to note or comprehend
you !
The hate full filling that face of his foe
At those words of Clement's with a cry
fierce Confronting him while he insulted her.
Of wrath duke raised suddenly the rifle
the Until outleapt like lightning forked the words
!"
Level with his shoulder Clement folding "You lie defend yourself: prepare for hell
; :

arms And rapid as the thunder on the heels

Confronted him " Night-thieves and mur- Of a flash near us crashes afi:er it,
:

derers Followed the scathing syllables a blow

Are terms convertible, I am unarmed." Clement dealt suddenly with all his force
Whereon the other lowering the rifle On the man's chest, who reeled ; but stagger-
Thrust it upon the bank. " Well, name your ing
time A pine-trunk saved himthen upon the brink
:

And place. I'll give you satisfaction full." Of two men grappled for life,
that abyss the
'
You call it satisfaction ? I have heard. Swinging there to and fro both maniac
So stands it — me, a thinker, man of peace. And blind with fury, their eyes lit from hell.

Albeit noble, a bully like to you Jamming and knotting tense and burning
All unprovoked invades, insults my wife, limbs
Tramples my honour underneath his boot, Into one monstrous body like wild beasts
Draggles it for the dregs of men to hoot, Whose demon maw torn free from one raw
And when him to account invites
I call spot
Me to stand facing him for him to shoot. But snaps again upon the nearest flesh
Large satisfaction to me for the wrong ! To burrow there with slakeless lust of death.
Sir, you add insult to your injury !

" If you're afraid," the Frenchman sneered, Both men were young and nearly matched
" I've done for strength,
All in my power making you the offer." Though Clement was the slenderer : the duke
And then he added with malignant look, (Clement had forced him next the precipice)
More insolent since Clement had refused —
Presently backward slipt a treacherous tuft
The duel with him, " Now I think of it, That he had dinted with convulsive heel
The woman there whom you have come to Suddenly loosened from the very edge
seek And both were toppling over, for the duke
Surely my lady friend of Monaco Clutched Clement's arm and gripped it like
Must have informed you that you do me a vice ;

wrong ;
But Clement, throwing one arm about the
I never forced her to come here with me ;
trunk
She freely came, needed no pressing, sir, Hard by, with one fierce effort flung the man
Nay rather pressed herself upon me so ; (Dangling, his forehead clammy with despair)
I think that even if you found her out Free from him sliddering, who dug his nails
(But this you shall not) at the castle there Into the rubble, a moment holding there :

She would request you travel back again." Yet Clement demon-hearted wrenched a stone
So, foolish and unskilled in reading men, Huge from its bedding, heaving it upon him ;
Babbled the upstart brutal arrogant, Then shrilled a curse, alive with agony
Misreading Clement like a traveller Death's horror and the hatred of the damned
Who though he see yet little heeds the cloud Writhing and sinking fangs in Clement's
Of massy indigo slow bellying heart,
Half swallow-blue and half ash-wan until As the poor wretch let go and tumbled back
A big drop startles and sharp lightning blinds Over the crag inshelving with the stone,
Him, leaping from its muflie unaware ; Bounding from point to point until he thumped
 — —— ;

BEATRICE
A hideous quivering pulp upon the rock
In the ravine, crushing the meek wild flowers, BOOK III
Clement watched, listened, breathing short
and loud, Reachinc; the castle he finds the tower door
Kneeling with his two hands upon the brink, That Giudice had bidden seek with ease,
With a fiend's relish sucking sight and sound, Opens it springing up a winding stair
Following in spirit, ruthless thrusting him With stones well worn and old, nor any one
From shelf to shelf, and dancing on him —
He meets not Giudice for Giudice —
dead !
Encountering unforeboded obstacles
But now the Frenchman had decoyed afar,
Sparkles yon burn set in the dusk ravine Perforce accompanying; him awhile ;
With drowsy hum, the frail birch twinkle So Beatrice knew nothing of the past.
there, A room-door stood ajar some smothered —
The near pine sighs in gentle-washing air, sound
Oozing with odorous gum in wrinkled bark ;
As of faint weeping fell upon his ear.
Butterflies flutter out on holiday, — —
He paused it was it must be she yet she —
Animate blue sky through the sunny blue ;
—
Surely expects him how he longed to rush
Pink-pinks the chafiinch from soft-flickering And fold the form he thought that nevermore
leaves, He might enfold, and suck the poison out
Green lizards glance among the sunbaked Of her dear life with one long look of love
stones, And one long kiss yet hesitated he
I

Or gaze with shoulder on the stone

rest at Remembering the caution of his guide.
And half their shadow, whirrs the cock- What he do ? no sign of Giudice
shall
chafer. " He may be hindered I have but to reach
:

Leaps the red cricket, flits the fiirry mouse My hand to take her, she may slip from it
To his smooth-patted hole in yon lush bank ;
Some servitor may find his master dead."
The jetty beetle sprawls upon his back This risk the greater, so with beating heart
Beading the lit speargrass with drops like He shoves the massive iron-ciamped door,
blood : And stands upon the threshold it is she — !

Nature serenely takes the death-struggle At the embrasure of the narrow light
Of two mere men, serenely as she lakes She standing leans upon the cold harsh stone.
Impaling of a sparrow by a shrike Sun streaming on her neck and head, beyond
On yon bronze thorn, gulp of gay dragon-fly Gleaming upon the untasted sumptuous meal
By darting swallow nothing witnesses
: Behind her served in milk-white porcelain.
In her suave aspect to the agony And gloating on the crimson velvet pile
Of her two human sons ; except a blade From when he burst upon her in the spring
Here and there mangled on the very spot. Of her young life (ah not so long ago,
I

Club-moss elastic from their dinting freed The same sun kindling the same wealth of
Upjerking now wee spore-capt stalks again, curls)
Cyclamen soiled, half jammed into the ground How changed alas ! grey cheeks in her thin
By the fierce feet that stamped and shuffled hands,
here Her eyes peer wistful on the sea, but dim
This, and the corse that stains the snap- With unshed tears and hollows dark beneath.
dragon Her face looks wan like latter primroses
Far yonder in the gloom of the ravine. That linger draggled with much dust and rain,
And he who silent glares upon it nigh And all her listless form breathes hopelessness.
Kneeling, and leans upon two murdering Ah when we hear the faint pulsations fail
!

hands. Of Hope the angel's wings upon the night,

 —
BEATRICE

Who parting from us turns his face to heaven, In vain, for aye it settles on him again,
Life stricken at heart soon falters after him. From seeing the fell ravage this brief time
Careless the ordering of her gracious hair, Has wrought in her so tender, sensitive.
Sleek-brown, and of her modest summer dress Her eyes are shut from feebleness, at peace
Of muslin blue and white, the dress he loves, Her fevered spirit now to feel him there,
Of old though simply faultlessly disposed. Opening anon and resting on his face,
Those large mild eyes, mazy as forest leaves.
She turns not at the creaking of the door, Suffused with love-light mellower than day.
Deeming 'tis but the servant, caring not Anon she opens them to make it sure
That snake-like maid should deem her spirit It is no blissful fleeting dream she dreams,

weak. But him indeed, and then the eyelids veined

Until he makes a step — something in that Droop low again to prison the vision close
Turns her sharp round —a sudden light For lovesick soul to finger gloatingly.
leaps up Lest by exciting he may injure her
Into her eyes, suffusing all her face. He speaks not only once when they have
;

" Clement !
" she cries, a cry of ecstasy paused
Incredulous half with dazed fear, mistrust ; To rest, and make some change in carrying
She spreads her arms to fly to him, but pain her.
Shoots sharply through her swims the scene
; He bends above her whispering " My own,
around The sea-air will revive you, and to-morrow
Dizzy and dark she tottering, he runs
; They say we shall be home our little —
To strain a lifeless body to his breast. home
Then, sickat heart, he gently lays her down And then you will grow strong, and never I
Upon the bed, chafing the icy hands Will leave you any more, my only one."
And limbs, and breathes his breath between She smiles a placid though a languid smile,
her lips. A smile dimpling of a water still
like
In vain, until a step resounds below ; when a drop
In tiny sunlight ripples
Giudice rushes in, but seeing them Drips from an oar suspended on its face.
Stops short, and snatches from a dark recess "To-morrow, yes, to-morrow I shall be
A phial, which applied by him revives At home," she murmurs vaguely, dreamily.
Her from the deadly swoon, but after long. Then looks to Clement, whispering earnestly,
And then he whispers that there wait beneath " It isenough we have each other now.
:

Some trusty Corsicans who bear a litter How have I prayed for this " but then the ;

Disposed with cushions easy for the sick. tears

Since he had well foreseen that Beatrice From weakness and emotion well again.
Was now too weak to travel otherwise. The men resume their burden all too light.
''Only delay not or we may be lost." And as they travel, through the blinking leaves
They carry her between them down the steps. Gleam summer lightnings from the tiny wave
Tenderly laying her upon the couch With intervals of blue unruffled rest.
And sheltering with coverings freely lent. Which blends in Clement's musing spirit now
With that soft gleam of her faint opening eyes
Four men to bear her with a cautious tread Grown vague and vaguer like a weary child's
Among dense cork-trees, Clement close at And their soft closing as in tranquil sleep.
hand
With soul divided, half in rapture glowing —
Waits the felucca she is borne asleep
To know her there, and half in anguish dipt. On board of it: "Name your reward, my
Chill with foreboding which he shakes from friend,"
him Clement in taking leave of Giudice
 ; ; — —— —
BEATRICE
Has said ; but he "Reward would only come Unduly, and he branded as a coward
To steal the crown King Conscience crowns Among his own hidden thoughts live ever-
my
deed more,
Withal. I thank you, and I glad accept This had inclined the balance to revenge :

Your feeling to me, but you know not, sir, And yet he travelled up the castle path
How sore for poor men of integrity With purpose indistinct, remembering
Their impotence of doing such as you, And half mistaking what his promise was
The rich they honour, some kind turn un- To Paoli before the cottage door
bought." Chance the midwife of men's imposing deeds.
Warmly those gallant fishers every one Then he enacted o'er the tragedy,
Bade them God-speed, and Paoli liberal And shuddered, picturing the agony
For Clement dealt a largess to the men. Of the man's look in digging bloodless nails
Each brings his little offering for their voyage Into the rubble, till the crash of stone
And presses upon them, coverings,
it Upon his fingers, and the curse in death.
A coat of oil-skin, bread and chestnut cakes, Tingled all through him with the writhing
A wine-jar of pure grape-juice with leaf tumble
bunches And ghastly thud of what had been a man.
Stopping the mouth ; they set the sail lateen "You would have reached a hand to him
The owner and his brother Paoli for all
And soon careening to a fair brisk breeze He may have done to you my gentle child !

Dances away the tight felucca-boat What will you feel when you shall come to
Swelling her sail, with pitchy cutwater learn.
Cuffed in its prancing of the merry waves, When you shall know, that sweating cold
Shivered their baffled sapphire into foam he hung
That frills the blue with evanescent lace, 'Twixt life and death, and I with hatred
Simmers in flying melting in the wake ; blind
While Clement, whose delight is in the sea In a brute's soulless frenzy hurled him forth
To dwell by, sail on, swim and revel in. For ever out of God's blest light of life,
The briny blow exhilarates he feels ; Where we all dwell by sufferance of Him !

He can breathe free again, that she is safe, Goaded —not solely by my love
thereto
Triumphs in his success and fills with hope. But by my own poor pride trailed scornfiilly
Near her he sits, but gazes over sea And fouled of that man's — insolent feet feet
Toward their home, their sweet home over With sickening beslavering of fools
sea : Who take the gewgaw puppet they them-
^'
Now is my outraged honour full avenged, selves
And all her wrong " his thought reverts to
: Have fashioned from the slime to be a god,
this. Adoring their own drivelling handiwork !

No monstrous duty suflbcating now ! And should I suffer — I no doll but man,
Monstrous, for one high friend and half him- A man with power of brain to fashion men
self To their appointed end and point the way,
Named it a crime, while all his righteous A noble banned of that society
wrath, Which honours such as he ; nay, voluntary
His pride of caste, his individual pride, Exile from those plebeian-natured men
These stunned, confused him with their Say, should I suffer this automaton
counter-cries For all its human shape to grind me dead.
Rut deep mistrust of his own temperament Or should I seize it in the nick of time,
Shrinking from violence through every nerve, Shatter and shiver all its cunning springs.
Lest that should weight the scale conventional So save a man, so vindicate the riehl
 ! — ; —
24 BEATRICE

Here where the anarch red Injustice reigns, But now she moved and made a muffled cry
Bruising inhim the world which does me As from some ghastly vision in her sleep.
wrong ? He turning to her kissed and softly called :

Wrong to myself ah 'tis myself, myself,

! ! She crying again and starting from his touch
Only myself, disguise it as I will. Woke quivering, moaning, fixing a scared
Forgiveness of a Christ who would have look
reached Upon his face, then softened as she looked
A hand of mercy even to such a foe, And knew him, melting underneath his eyes
This might have saved a human soul for To love and joy and trust inviolable,
God! Like some frailsnow-flake melting in the sun.
Perchance at least I might have saved mine Then all stole back upon her, where she was,
own, And how ; she whispered "For a moment,
Holding this maniac hand from slaying him, love,
A mere weak man, a puny enemy, I thought he held me, and behold 'tis you !' !

But wounding slaying a far deadlier foe. She smiled so sweet a smile ; he prayed her
The monster parasite, my selfishness, tell

Waxen upon the vitals of my spirit

fat If she were able something of the past.
With one grand bound upswung myself to She told him the same story Paoli
Christ Had learned of how the duke decoyed her
And yet — —
and yet if I had lifted him thence.
And he had slain me, what had chanced So partly from her shy and broken words.
with her ? In part from notes which she had written
I dared not save for Beatrice's sake. yonder
Did duty bid me leave my tender child And Clement later read in solitude,
In clutches of a were-wolf human-guised He framed a story featured like to this.
Even when my barrel covered the foul beast ?
Fantastic virtue of a casuist ! The traitor in the cabin of the yacht
In this cold-blooded analytic age Addressed her with unbridled words of shame.
We peer on deeds with such a mental lens, Urging his reckless flame to justify
Some subtle tissue grows upon the sense. The violence that he had dared to use.
But we can name no more what thing we see. "A spark of boldness women admire, he knew.
for the instinct fine, the eagle gaze. Kindled in men by their consuming eyes."
Of stalwart men who march to mighty deed She wept insulted, but the fool obtuse
Straightforward, halting fumbling not as we Extolled the brilliant life that she should lead
Who blindly drift to action wondering In his French Castle or Corsican
she would —
Ifwhat we limply hold be good or ill. Not hate him when she knew him something
We grope in fogs of a too curious thought, more.
We breathe oppressed for thinking how we But when he neared her offering to touch
breathe. She shrank aside as from a leper's brush,
1only know yon corse lies heavily Drew herself up — for dignity and strength
Upon my heart, as on yon dragon-flowers Were hers in dire extremity — " Hold off! "
Whose crushed and gaping mouths are red She cried ; "you prate of boldness, a base
with gore." coward ;

Then his eye fell upon the primrose face If Clement had been near, would you have
Of her who slept so faded sunk it was
: dared "
lie shivered, venturing not to look and see But then at naming Clement's name she broke
What pale vague fear kuked ghostly in his To tears again with sobbing "Clement,
heart. Clement I
 —
BEATRICE 25

Why were you far from me, my own, my own, Of him or from him she should hear himself ;

Where are you ? — Do you really think," she Had been abrupt and blundered she was not ;

spoke Easy to win, but needed skill to play,

Again to her tormentor, " that a woman Glory the more in landing her ; he'd say
Who has loved him and been beloved by That he had heard since from the marchioness
him, How Clement had returned and seemed con-
Even were he dead, nay buried a hundred soled
years. By a renewal of his commerce old
Could stoop to love so poor a thing as With her own self— and so but yesterday.
" The duke had plucked up heart to go again
you ?
He paled, she said, with anger at the words, To Beatrice, despatching Giudice
Quivered with hideous disappointed rage Craving for leave to visit her anon
—
And answered "Are you saintlier than the When it should seem most fitting to herself

rest? She giving forced consent he came to her

Coyness they all affect, and yet I find With deferential courtesy and minced
All ductile to my fingers like warm wax :
" He only wished to see that all her wants
—
But time will show remember only this, Were full supplied — she had but to com-
You're in my power and likely to remain." mand."
Then forth he went and slammed the door She answered " Only give me liberty
behind. To seek my husband." "Madam, even in
She saw no more of him the voyage through ;
this
He surly chewed in silence his rebuff", I will obey you," cunning he replied,
Bewildering to him the ill-success. "Though I should sign my own death-
A little of her undiluted scorn warrant so.

And loathing in this interview with her If you still ask it after what I tell."

Had eaten through the tough rhinoceros And then he chuckling told the cruel lie.
hide. With confidence he spoke and half believed
He never met a woman like to her. Himself the falsehood, for the marchioness
Scorned faith in such ; this woman dazed Had said that Clement hankered after her.
him sore. The bold abrupt words with a deadly chill
Struck on the poor child, for she knew of old
He came not in the castle for awhile, He and the lady had been closest friends ;

Irresoluteon what were best to do. But then the glorious incredulity
His lacerated vanity drew horns Of love in face of all most damning facts,
Within the shell shrinking from some fresh A moment pale, emerged triumphantly ;
wound. The gross but specious lie that frighted her
If he surrounded her with all respect, Changed to a hideous yet transparent mask
All care and luxury, and left her free Masking the traitorous leering of a liar.

Unimpoituned awhile and undisturbed, "Add not base slander, sir, and calumny
She in her loneliness might even crave To your foul injury— you and your friend
His presence, brooding on his passion strong. Can compass not the deathless fealty
Over his grandeur and the princely state Of two leal hearts that love, and you blas-
That he would gird his paramour withal. pheme
And if she loved her mate (scarce credible The sacred name whene'er you utter it.
To him from that report the marchioness Clement and I can never cease to love
Had made him of the man) she would forget Let come what may if one were in the grave,
;

They all forgot —

when days elapsed and The other would love on, and there in heaven,
nought O there we'll love each other undisturbed,
 " : : !

26
And only love each other evermore
Yet can a man be wicked as you seem ?
I love him, sir, and he Clement loves me
BEATRICE
! Encouraged her to this forlorn appeal.
He soothed her like a father, settling her
Tender upon the couch and promising,
:

I think you did not know it, do not know. Though with a few brief words, to be her
You've been deceived the lady made you
; friend.
think And she confided in him like a child.
We cared not for each other, that he cared He cheering her and bidding her be brave
For her and not for me, but that was false. For Clement's sake, and holding out a hope
He was all true, though I was often cross, That he might soon contrive release for her,
Nor clever like to him, and could not talk Concluding " I am near you only ring ;

Of learned things to him, and he was noble This little bell if you have need of me."
And I was poor but then he knew how large
;

My heart was, and he ruled there all alone. She thanked her God for him upon her
Let me go back to him, kind lord, I pray. knees
He breaks his heart there, mine is breaking That night, yet felt as if her slender strength,
here ! Which needed kindly breath to foster it
You do not seem unkind, but I am dying, And strong warm hands to chafe it, ebbed
I feel I am, and O if I should die
! apace
With not one look from his all-precious face " I shall not see him no, he will not come, :

To carry to the lonesome grave with me Or he will come too late, when I am gone.
!

She faltered here and brake to bitter tears. My God for him to look upon this face
!

Feelings alternating had chased each other And I not know it Ah, for him to press !

—
In the man's mind astonishment and rage, His mouth to mine, and I not feel him there
Bewilderment, compunction, jealousy, One kiss more. Father, only one I go ;

A maudlin admiration fuelling Willingly, happy, holding thy dear hand,

—
His jealous lust she looked so lovely now Into the darkness
! never looking back, ;

And last the sense that she was safely trapped Not once, to where he stands in thy warm
Within his grasp, no witness to the wrong light.
He had been gloating o'er the vision of If only, Father, thou wilt grant this prayer ;

"
But watch thou over him when I am gone !

In speaking she had risen from her seat. Soon from her sleepless bed the child arose,
Advancing near him v/ringing her frail hands Stole to the window in her linen white.
A step he made and seized her by the wrist And looked toward the only spot she loved
;

She glancing quickly caught his wicked look, Along the moonpath flecking tremulous
—
Snatched herself free " How foil me? " he And thin the sea, like her own quavering
exclaimed ; hope,
"Escape me now " she clutching wild a knife
!

Lost in the far immeasurable gloom ;

That lay nigh from the scarcely-tasted meal Looked athwart groves in elf-light huddling
Waved it with flashing eyes and answered grey.
"So !" Ruffled theirdream to whisper murmurous
Giudice entering, the baffled duke As from strayed elf- wing skimming daintily—
Retired with baleful gaze and ne'er a word. But while the moonlight trickled through the
Then when he went she turned to Giudice, leaves.
Telling her story and imploring him Anon their dusk heart kindling would secrete
I'iteously to befriend her Giudice ; From it a voice, so rendered it again
Was only charged that morning with her care, To-night in guise of song etherial pure
And scarce had spoken, but something in his As its own self, now plaintive soft and low,
look Now radiating, flashing all abroad.
 — —
: ;

BEATRICE 27

Articulate moonlight, named a nightingale. The low-groined roof of stone, mouldings

That was her post all day, she would not stir and cusps.
From thence ; though books had been pro- Spilling a random gleam on Persian rugs.
vided for her, And oaken carven chests and Gothic chairs.
Listless she turned their leaves but could not Giudice pulled her flowers the eve he came,
read. Purple corncockle, amaryllis white.
Paper was there, and pens, and she had Crimson pomegranate-blossom, cyclamen.
written .She plunged her gaze in these they grew : at
Something for Clement about every day, home ;

What happened, what she felt, at evening He loved them, she might be disposing them
written. In their wee room to-night, or weaving them
Save for this only crept the weary time Into her gracious hair then languidly ;

In gazing through the loophole over sea, She moving to a mirror 'gan to braid
Hailing each sail and watching eagerly Her tresses with them, plucking them away
Its fleeting tranquil in the offing by Sudden and strewing them upon the floor,
Hazy through silver labyrinths in the blue Breaking to crying " He will never see them,
Why knew not, only it might come
the child ! nevermore. I only long to die."
Perchance and land him here at least it came, ; At night she started from a shallow sleep
Blest thing, from yonder, yonder where he With but the gnawing of a wainscot mouse.
was ;
Or crackling of some dry wood with the heat
—
The steamers how she peered for a faint stain Then she lay sick at heart, hearing the tick
Of smoke to dusk the delicate white down Of death-watch weevil in the panel nigh.
That feathered yon horizon to the north, Watching the first faint grey of dawn suft'use
Hingeing those azure valves of sky and sea The loophole, and the earliest twittering bird
I

And the days at every step or sound

first In the near carob as he stirred and spun
Without she fluttered it might be the duke.
: In a fine drizzle from his down the dew ;

It might be Clement landed unaware. Yet this but ushered in the loathsome day.
She listless watched the coral lady-birds Which still might turn to lovely, bringing
Creep up the stone and splitting speckled him !

shards
Of tiny fans unrufiling for a flight. Then he related what had chanced with him
Ah how she envied yon brown melon-girl
! In brief outline, but passing one thing over,
Emerging from the cork-grove up the steps His meeting with the duke she seemed so :

Of rock, her apron full of luscious fruit. weak.

Chiding the dark-eyed roguish peasant-boy. Nor dared he mar the present with a tale
Yet laughingly, for winding his strong arm Painful to her and damping to their bliss.
."Vbout her waist, endangering the melons.
Ah how she envied yon imperial bird,
! Now when in silence eyes were drinking
Sublime possessor of immensity. eyes.
Breasting ilhmitable light, elate She feeling faint, the tactful Paoli,
Inhaling rich exhaustless draughts of life ;
Who kept aloof till now, at sign from Clement
Or tiny siskins chattering as they flit, Filled from the wine-jar some restoring wine,
Picking brown pine-cones for the kernels lithe. Presenting it to her : she smiled upon him
"Good Paoli," she murmured, "ah! how
A little silver lamp, with branches three good
Budding soft light, and chain-swung candle Have many been to me, how happy now
1 am who late repined and doubted God
! "'
gear.
They brought at evening, dim developing " He does but turn a moment his full face
 "":; ——— ;

28 BEATRICE
Away, yet holds us if we see or no ; Shall we receive the good and not the evil
about us Everlasting Arms,"
Still folds From the same hand ? 'tis the same Father,

The old man answered, bending low his head love,

With silver hair, and kissing her frail hand. Offers both cups. I do not fear to die.

In sunset now flush tiny clouds like down All has been well, and all must yet be well.
Torn from the bosom of some gentle bird, I know that wheresoever I may go,
Strewn fluttering crimson with her meek life- If my soul live, my soul must be with you ;

blood Ere I can leave you I must cease to be ;

By some fierce vulture's talons and bald beak, Only you will not see me for awhile.
Assailing her in heaven innocent, Until you join me where I go before.
Tranquil in airs hued like the iris-bloom. I told Him I would take His hand and go

And as the sun sank in the western water When He should call, and not look back to
She shivering the two threw over her you.
A mouflon skin one sailor lent to them. If could see you, kiss you once again ;
I

And then she whispered Clement to bend You'll help me not to break my word to Him.
near.
" Clement," she said, " I may not look again Where will you put me? in the little garden?
On Italy with you, on our sweet home ; That would be sweet, that warm spot in the
You'll see it, dear, but not with me how well
; sun.
I would have loved once more to see it with Where the wild thyme breathes fragance fit-
you ! fully.
It may not be —
ah Clement, do not weep
! The free blithe bee hums near one, then afar.
;

For he was sobbing, crushing the little hand, Among the planes, hushed o'er with lullabies
And the hot tears fell blindly on her face, Eternal from the sea our favourite spot, —
—
So she wept too "Why think of this, my own? Where you will come and lie as we were wont
You feel so weak, but you will soon be well To lie, and think about your little child.
I'll take you back to England 'tis the heat. She will he near you, very near you still,
;

And all you've suffered." "Nay," she soft Under your feet, ah not upon your breast ! I

replied, 'Twas there I lay longing for you to come

" It may not be, my precious, it is time And do you know, dear, it is very strange,
You knew it, for I feel the end is near But yonder in the castle while I stood
:

You must bear up at first it will be hard,

; One evening gazing homeward I believed
But you will learn to live without me, love." That I was there awhile again, I saw
" I cannot where you go there I must go,
: The spot so plain, I smelt the smell of thyme,
I cannot live without you anywhere. I even thought I saw you coming to me
You would not leave me O my Beatrice — But then I started, knew it was a vision."
!

He sobbing kneeling by her clasped her round And Clement marvelled musing on his vision
With his face close to hers and if her foe — Of her, but had no heart to speak of it.
Drew nigh in any quarter from without, " Next year the grass and daisies will be fresh
He must have rent the man to hurt the child. And fair upon the spot as they are now.
Yet now alas it was no human foe
! Then when He calls you, you will come and lie
;

But He that gave demanding her again.
Yet soon with strenuous effort he controlled
I limself, remembering what pain to her
1 Us anguish wild must yield she spake anon
Still nearer me, down under the warm grass
You'll come there, won't you ? you will keep
the spot?"
He only pressed her closer for reply.
And but a rare sob broke the silence now.
;

" 'Tis terrible to leave you, love, but He She seemed to want to speak again, and
Who made us ah how happy wills it so.
! .signed
 ; —" ; —
" — ;

BEATRICE 29

With a weak gesture for the cordial, Threw round that face with fingers in the hair,
Which Clement took and tilted 'tween her lips. And pressed his mouth to hers convulsively,
"We wished," she said, " to have one little As though he deemed that if his living heat
babe ; Could not pass into her, at least her cold
Would for your sake it had been ordered so ! Might pass to him ; and he might be for ever
You could not have been lonely then but if, — Henceforth dead cold with her for life was :

Ifyou are very lonely you must try dear

And love again you need not quite forget
; Because she lived ; now life was nought, and
Keep one warm corner for your little one. death
One only in your large heart only one. — —
Death was all-dear to him for she was death.
She will not mind, I think, and yonder, there Vain were the kind rich words of Paoli
!

In God's full facelight, there is room for all In his deaf ear, and vain his gentle force
Her glazing eyes looked heavenward and she To draw him from her now that she was gone.
smiled. It needed all the strength of all the men

To draw him, as was needful, from the corse

" Forgive me, love," in
She gasped, " that I could not be all I wished
To you, I was not clever enough for you.
—
You know and I was peevish very often
broken accents now And, when they drew him, the wild vacant eye
And wildered gesture told the mind had given.
; Freshened the breeze as night grew old ;

But I have loved you you'll forgive me, ; the moon

"
sweet ? Sailed high and clear in heaven ; but he sat
" 'Tis you, 'tis you," he faltered "nothing I Staring toward the silent muffled shape.
;

Have to forgive, but you have much, my own Since he was quiet grown, old Paoli
I tried you sore — but you have borne with me Suffered him near the stretcher sit again
Like my own guardian angel that you were, On an old box of fishing-gear ; and still,
And that you will be, till I turn to dust. Wrapt in a cloak, he sat there all the night.
My God my God may that
! ! be very soon." Only at intervals he lifted up
A corner of the veil upon her face ;
The breeze now scarcely flapped the idle sail Looked at her, kissed her forehead, and if any
Against the mast, each little ripple kissed Walked loudly near in managing the boat,
With sucking plash and tilted the dusk boat. He turned and placed his finger on his mouth
Some oar knocked, and the loose-held tiller With, "Hush, she sleeps! as quiet as you
creaked ;
can !

And while he watched her face he heard the Almost indeed, if he had been himself.
sound. He might have deemed that she was but
And knew the tender mellowing apple-green asleep
And primrose-yellow faded in the west. Now in the moonlight, quiet and serene.
But the change came into it, nameless change When the same moonlight shone into their
And fearful and he called her by her name
; : room.
The lips moved shaping "Clement," as he In the dear villa yonder, many a night,
thought And fell upon her face with him awake,
One laboured inspiration, and 'twas peace, Did it look very otherwise ? — the long,
Peace in the gentle breast for evermore. Long lashes of each upper eyelid closed.
" She's gone," a tender voice beside him said Mazed with sweet sister lashes from beneath,
;

It was the old man bending over them. Laying fine shadow on the delicate cheek ;

If Clement heard he only buried his face The pale brow misted round with tender mist
In hers whence all the warmth ebbed, and Of hair that deepens o'er the placid head
his arm Only there is no waking any more.
 ; ——

3° BEATRICE

So wore the night ; and the day following,

In afternoon, they made the little port BOOK IV
A gemlike harbour all in miniature ;

Its shining feudal palace on the rock, By kindly tending was the mourner won.
With and cannon, cypress-cone
sentinel How loth soever, back to common life ;

Relieved against the light, palmetto, palm ;

Who after reckless roaming in far lands
The tiny steamer, with few fishing-boats. Bent last his course towards his native shore
In sapphire alternate with emerald ;
Imperatively summoned thitherward.
Fringed fair with houses white 'mid orange- And still he loved to minister to want,
groves, Warm friend to grief, and still a mellow smile

Embastioned of mountain-crests abrupt. He wore for innocent joy and loving bliss ;
He who had taken, it seemed unconsciously, But his bright curls were thin upon his brow ;
Some little food they offered followed quiet Wan, pale, and aged untimely he appeared.
Paoli and those who bore that burden meek While fixed sadness like a yewtree cast
Upon the shore, and only bade them heed Perpetual gloom on his deserted heart
—
To take her gently " 'Tis a healthful sleep As o'er some ruined cloister which the living
;

She needs it she was very tired, you know." Tread no more but avoid 'tis consecrate
; ;

Paoli had overheard her when she asked Unto the dead who rest beneath its flags.
Clement to bury her in that green spot Alas for him restless philosophy !

—
Within their garden now arranged it so. Had peered and fingered till the walls of
He did for Clement, with the maiden's help. creeds,
All Clement would have wished and done, So venerable and solid as they seemed
he knew In the twilight, crumbling here and there.
fell

Wrote to the consul of his nation nigh, Or tore to shreds and gaping made a way
Who came, but after the sad funeral. For dismal wind and rain that are no dream.
Once only, when the bearers shuffled round But he was of a soul amphibious,
The deep grave, and the ropes were griding Two elements essential unto it.
round One for imagination and for thought,
The cofifin, Clement, who had sunk, it seemed, The other, sustenance of life and love.
Into a stupor vacant while they did He lived and loved, he lost himself in her,
Their ghastly office for the heedless dead. A second self far dearer lovelier
Sudden awoke and spread his arms and rushed Than his own self; she from his vitals torn.
Toward the hole and shouted wild her name Earthward he sank all mangled to the core.
;

But they by force restrained him, leading him Forget he could not, would not if he could ;

Into the house, where till the following day And things which could not love pronounced
When the kind consul moved him to the town, him weak.
He wandered up and down, as he had done And things without a mind pronounced hint
That evening ere he sailed to seek for her fool,

Peering as then about their little room, Sneered at his dark and vain philosophy ;

Above, below, as seeking her, and pausing While ruddy animals of vigorous frame
As if he listened, fancying she called. Strutted and gabbled of strong character ;

And he would finger all her little things— While pious folk averred he made an idol
Her shawls and dresses, bracelets, and her Of her he lost, and God was jealous of her.
work Jealous of Clement's mighty love for her,
With needle left in it, the little stocking Counting it so much pilfered from himself.
—
For some poor child wearing an air intent. Was God then but a greater Marchioness ?
As waiting half bewildered for her step Clement should lavish not his love on her.
Upon the stair, and listening for her voice. But while she shivered in the outer cold,
 — — —
;

BEATRICE 3'

He with mouth rigid, lifting He

would have shivered gazing down the
treacherous eyes,
Should say " 'Tis corban !
chasm
" spilling it in the
snow. Where she seemed lost, but would have heard
We may be impotent in love, but ah anon I

Shall we blaspheme the All-Father for our Her call from yon sunslope, and shading eyes.
fault ? Dazzled a moment, have beheld her climb
The Love Eternal feeding our weak love. Godward for aye buoyant and luminous !

Yearning to flush it through a myriadfold But Reason banned the quest forlorn of Hope,
Until it leaps and broadens to embrace And coldly sternly whispered " She is dead.""
In its divine blaze all the universe For so alas! ran Clement's way ward thought-
The Love Eternal jealous of our love " Though nought may perish in the universe,
!

Yet Nature is the Proteus in a flux !

Yet he became no hermit, only he. For us we live in children, or in friends,

Though unforeseen he had inherited In every moment's subtle influence.
The title of his forefathers and estates. But is not influence expended power
Could herd not with the brainless moneyed Feeding the world upon the garnered store
tribe We name a person ? for the tissues wear,
Who swarmed about him crawling at his feet 1 The organs fail, slow dwindles out the store.
Old stately dames, portly or vulture-necked, Not the most selfish man can live for self,
Grew unaware obsequious and bland ; But lovers take the life-law to their hearts.
He upon them as they seemed to crave, They give themselves God takes them at
trode —
But straightway drove them forth without their word :

their dole. Who shall complain ? His universe will grow

While they with meekness very Christian
Endured his "little eccentricities."
Could he have taken, as he was wont of
yore,
A little by their grand self-sacrifice,
And they fulfil their own ideal so."
So Clement deemed she lived indeed, bui
lived
In him, in all the noble and good in him ;

What we name heaven for grand reality, Her life, as boastless of its nectar rare
Not for mere painted splendours in the dome. And yet as lavish of it as the flowers.
He might have held communion with her still, Living in him transmuted, flowed again.
Scarce interrupted by the change of death Like nectar grown to honey in the bee,
;

Failing but as the recognition fails Rich stored in of individual art

cells
A moment we left in pain
of a friend To feed mankindyea and her very death
;

And sorrow, whom we find again elate Wailed in the weird magic of his strain.
And radiant with health and happiness : Tinged all his song with its own plaining
" Indeed I did not know you " we exclaim, minor,
But straight we know him and rejoice together. .Sinking to human spirits' very root
Communion with her would only fail Circuiting wider, meshing souls who dwell
Through death as recognition fails when we In dark seas of experience and deep
Are travelling and come to some fair spot " Yet can the individual person cease?
In twilight, vague aware of dusky scenes, Would that she lived yet, howsoever far
Water and mountain in the sunrise fails
; From me!" wept Clement often "'tis — a
When we awake and fling the window wide dream.
Beholding mountains crowned and girt with Beautiful, natural, noble, yet a dream I

light, For why may not the individual cease ?

Torrents and lakes their trains of flashing The newborn babe was none a year ago
gold. Itself but person now in embryo."
 —
; ! —

32 BEATRICE

Yet it had been Clement loved,

herself that And strange lone tortuous spirit than within
The lovely childlike maiden and no other ;
That gallery of his ancestral castle,
No principle ; a simple country girl ;
Ancient and vast and tombed in snowclad
And he yearned for love to fill his heart.
still pines,
But should he banish his once chosen child This was but vague suspicion to the last.
Because she nestled in his bosom no more ? Yet he was not the man that he had been.
They were to love for ever was a year ; Though stern he seemed and silent commonly,
Or two so long to keep her memory green, When mortal anguish and despondency
To keep her memory green with secret tears, Sombred him more than wont —he shut him-
Then would come death, dear death, with self
breath grown sweet For days alone, nor any ventured nigh.
And warm from kissing on so dear a mouth. But from his incoherent muttering,
Must he wipe out the Eden of his life Some deed or deeds of darkness men affirmed
So clean from reverence and memory ? Must weigh upon him visions haunted him.
;

For him he could not. Hallucinations often troubled him ;

And every night the menials avowed

A mysterious He talked with some one in the lonely room,
Chamber there was in gallery remote Though never any made him a reply.
Of the ancestral castle where he dwelt. Yet once a servant bolder than the rest
None entered there but, in the dead of night, Lingering nigh the chamber caught some
Himself
— 'twas whispered that her picture words
hung Like these " If thou hadst lived, life of my
There and before it ever burnt a lamp. Hfe,
There were the precious little remains of her. Blown drifted as I am by passion fierce.
Dresses and trinkets, books and some dried By veering speculation, all my days,
flowers The evil bitter taint within my blood
They pulled and pressed together in the South. Of gloom and madness might have reached
And some affirmed that he who worshipped to thee,
not And these hands, even these, have torn thy
In any temple worshipped nightly there. breast
For was not she the noblest symbol God Ah ! if the chill damp of the outer world
Vouchsafed to Clement's own especial life. With its dull soulless death of every day
Next unto Christ, supreme and given to all ? Had eaten corroding with its rust away
At times he felt she must be living still The mirror-sheen, the substance of our hearts I

Did not her spirit flash upon his own Have I not seen old people dumb and cold
At intervals ? she seemed so very nigh Who once were lovers — with but breath
Yet that might be a vision of the brain ! enough
Left now to drivelling jeer at what they were,
While others spilling malice from their Beautiful living men and women ; now
fangs. Dead-alive bodies ghastlier than the dead !

Because to herd with them amused him not. With all the immortal young world
life in the
And he was proud to all pretentious folk, Pulsing and throbbing, surging them about,
Hinted him not abstemious from delights Nigh deaf and blind, yet lifting palsied hands
Of sense, as men might deem for all his love Quavering "O great tide, come no farther in !"
Buried in that one little grave with her. Yet could I ever make thee happy, love?
Yet since his intimates (but one or two). I was too weird, too grave and self-absorbed,

For all his genial sympathy, no more —

My sunny child, for thee 'twas well to go
Set foot in certain precincts of his life For might I not have dazed thy very soul
 —

BEATRICE 33

With my bewildering counsels, a blind guide, Her singing never took by storm
'1 he listless
Leading ihee blindly, leaning on me, child ? ear, the stranger's ear,

I brought a dark chill on thy sunny life, Yet hymns of seraph could not warm
Who would have shed my heart's blood out My heart like her frail accents near.
for thee !

I would to all fair sights that stir

Fed on thy life I live, but thine went out
and sky be blind for aye
In earth
From feeding mine — this all-accursed life
For one more far-off glimpse of her.
Ah ! let me quench it and lie down to rest ! . . .
Scarce lovely to the loveless eye.
Beatrice ! your lips move ! O speak to me ! ''

And when among I move

the crowds
And as with horror paralysed he stood Some air or dress, some tone or tress.
He fancied that a softer voice replied ;
That savours of my own lost love
Will draw me doting through the
Then all was silence — but the listener press,

Shivering stole again to whence he came.

To find a stranger and dispel.
And make to fleet, the glamour sweet.
But Clement made a yearly pilgrimage
Fond glamour known for dream too well,
To yon dear shrine, his Compostella fair. More dear than all the friends I meet.
That lowly villa, musing on her grave
In sunshine and by moonlight wandering With whisper of her mellowing grain,
About the orange-groves and mountain-paths, With treble of brook and bird and tree.

Or sitting in the old room as of yore. Earth joys for ever to sustain

'Twas there he made the song concerning her The bass eternal of the sea.
That had for title " Lost," and thus it ran.
And years flushed o'er with flowers of bliss
Dance every one from shade to sun,
Fresh youths and maidens yearn to kiss,
LOST As we have done, O little one !

With evening hued like autumn leaves I lipped the joy, now yield my place.
The porch is fair, still sleeps the air, For me no more kind years may pour.
She comes through yonder light and weaves Who only want one meeklit face,
Flowers as I loved them in her hair.
One face gone out for evermore !

This is her hour, from yonder groves

But why, ah why when day burns low
!

She comes to me, upon my knee ;

Doth that sweet hum still faintly come.
You'll know her, for whene'er she moves, As of sweet talk that used to flow
For joy she sings like bird or bee.
Through lier closed door to my lone room ?

The butterfly in glory lit Poor fool ! 'tis nmmbling wind

but the
With pulsing wings on flower that swings That talks like her, nor means to jeer ;

Caught in her shadow will not flit, For subtler wind are love and mind,
So sweet the trouble that she brings. .And she but wind who nestled here !

The redbreast sidling shy to peck

Wee crumbs that fill the window sill,
But when for si.x ) ears he had dragged the
Who timorous veers a tiny neck.
chain
From her pink palm sips tame and still.
Of life without her, revolution flashed
Ionly watclied in church with her Among a noble people who uprose
Through ivy stream the flickerinc beam. To free themselves from tyranny or die.
Upon her sweet slim feet to stir He joining with enthusiasm fought
And dally in a fond day-dream. As one who set scant value upon life.

C
 — " —

34
KATHLEEN
After the battle on the gory clay
They found him through the heart shot lying
SONG
dead "LHvE HER, BUT NOT THE
A portrait on him of a lovely woman
tress of
SAME"
Wet from his heart's blood, with a
hair
I SEEK her by the stream that laves
Let into crystal on the side reverse ;
Yon crumbling convent wall.
A shred of writing naming him by name And in the silent place of graves
They found beside, with earnest-breathing
That loved her soft footfall.
prayer Then in a dream through evening calm
That if 'twere possible he might be borne Again we wander by the palm.
To Monaco and buried where he named.
But lo this glooming crust unstirred
!

Twin crosses in white marble mark the Gives o'er the sombre glow
spot, —
Of caverned fire my dream is blurred,
Small, graven, side by side, and two low I wake — the fire is low. . . .

mounds ; I hear alone the wind and rain

While lullabies eternal from the sea To-night chill beat my window-pane.
Float dreamy o'er the eternal slumberers.
Oft an old man brings wreaths of im- Yet sheis nigh— behold, they say.

mortels Yon gracious queenly dame !

For the two and weak.

crosses tottering More cold this cold heart turns away
Some spiral grasses whisper, marking soft Like her — but not the same !

Their shadows on the marble and in flower Iknew I left her lying where
Nestling into the graving of the names. Yon graves in sunlight sleep so fair !

But those two hearts, the turbulent and the

meek.
Worn out and weary slumber full of peace,
And in their deaths they are divided not. KATHLEEN
Two children in the olden time,
Who in a summer evening gleam
Up to the front coach-window climb
her stone at dead of night
To watch the team ;
Upon
Flashed the wild rain in lightnings white. Four grey blood-horses in a steam
She unaware of sound or sight.
That draw the children home from town
Through orchards rosy with the beam
The shadowing minster clanged on high.
Of day gone down.
Chariots of loud life hurried by,
Disturbing ne'er the sleeper nigh. Dear is the fair familiar way.
The merry children point elate
Her little girl had grief to smother To spots endeared of old in play
E'er since the father took another Wood, stile, or gate.
In place of her own tender mother.
"Tom, you remember? there's the pool

By moonlight to the grave she crept, You threw the poor old spaniel in."

Tears on her mother's name she wept, . . "There, Kate, we found the red toadstool
. Who the same .sleep unheeding slept.
. .
By yon gold whin !
 — " ;

AND SHE WAS A WIDOW" 35

In far vein-purple tracts of sky Do you mind how you bade me cull you a
A star thrills ; blackbird, nightingale, rose?
Pulse ecstasies from maybloom nigh But the spray swam over my head
And sweetly fail. With a stress of air, " One would say that it

knows,
And then the sleek-haired maiden sings, As you breathed the word it fled
Both children kneeling toward the glow With the sister blooms it would fain repose
While the fond boy about her clings. Till the gentle leaves be shed !

Soft sings and low

"Little skilled in reading the heart of a
A ditty that he loves to hear,
flower,"

Of gentle girl who died, " Kathleen " Your answering tones I heard ;
;
" See close to your hand the pale rose cower
Vet gathers in his eyes the tear
i%r name "Kathleen." .
Lest you take her at her word " !
. .

But there fell the first drop of a thunder

shower.
The years flow by some mourners move
;

And the rose it was left and blurred.

Through drifting leaves of autumn slow ;

A youth the sister of his love Isit easier now to remember the spot
Follows in woe.
Where we paused in the sweet green lane
Than to find the warm feeling we soon forgot,
And as they leave her in the rain,
Left there like the flower to wane ?
A milkwhite doe she often fed
She said " There are hearts that blossom not
Through the dim forest limps in pain
Like the roses of June again !"
To lean its head

Upon the harsh grave-wall and die.

More sweet to it than dells of green,
"AND SHE WAS A WIDOW"
Where mate and fawn sun-dappled lie,
Thy grave, Kathleen !
Yea, thou hast left us, love, left us alone,
Coldly the rain, love, sobs on thy stone.
Still throng the world's pulse full life and
sound.
JUNE ROSES Thine only solitude, stillness profound !

No lower, no lower, along the lane !

In a fathomless want the world labouring
For the place it was here I know, rolls,
Where over the far meadow's bloomy wane Importunate hands ever reach to their goals.
Yon rose waves to and fro, The fruits we long wild for, the fruits we
I remember the curve of the flexile spray attain
And the way these roses grow. Feed our longing with ashes, and still we
are fain.
How they float on the maze of the verdure lush,
And ruffle to feel the breeze, River of life ever ample unfolding !

Where they lie full-blown with a delicate flush I Ships we beheld from their anchorage slide
Do you love them most, or these All the burning midwater yet royally holding,
Opening coy with a crimson blush, Dost thou lose, love, thy joy in their pomp
Hiding golden hearts for the bees ? and their pride ?
 — ; ;

36 A WALK IN SPRING

Yea, in sooth, for the warm nook is vacant

anigh me,
We passed by the wicket-gate you know
Warm nook in the sweet grass from whence
To the tender-budding wood,
we beheld Dew lingering in the blooms below.
Stately movements of nations, yet while they
Where intermittent flowed
pass by me Warm sprinkled sunlight to and fro
From wont oft I turn to thy corner of eld.
With the leaflets' frolic mood.
Yet ne'er by the veiled lamp in day's long
declining
As I read from the day-leaf thy silver-v.'hite
By the broken gate that idly swung
Near umber tilth ajar
hair
Will bend low to hear me more, lowly in-
Our eyes to faint horizons clung,
clining,
Bloomed as young wheat-sheaths are.
Slumber surprising thee hearkening there !
You deemed it must be sea that hung
Blent with yon skies afar.
To how many a chance, like a blossom or bent
Along the life-lapse idle eddying by.
Stole a sweet fleeting beam from our loving Lo ! red thorns on the briar fair.

look lent And buds uncurling green.

But now in one gloom let them fleet, let Bird notes flash lavish everywhere.
them die ! Spill water brimmed, or lean
Long plainings on the summer air
Yet the world never more with its malice That seem to sleek the sheen.
may sunder,
Nor ever more sever chill mists from within.
Not a mortal my heart's mellow memory A foal lithe frisking round his dam
plunder In cowslipped meadow plays ;

One has folded our love from the tarnish Pushing, a weak-limbed nestling lamb
of sin ! Beneath his parent sways ;

With cool slant shade each blade's green

But the earliest cuckoo calls from the bough,
flame
There are liltings of young love, nests in the
A sister blade allays.
tree,
We too have dreamed a sweet dream, I and
thou When we had chosen a primrosed nook.
And we wait for a sweeter awaking to be !
Some rustle made you start,
You feared a snake and you bade me look.
But I stilled your little heart
Last year's sere fern a blackbird shook,
A WALK IN SPRING Or a weasel stole athwart.

Do you remember our walk that day We gazed beyond the meadows low
To
the church upon the steep And apple-blossomed farm,
With grass about the wall so grey To nebulous woodlands where the glow.
Where the weary slumber deep ? Leaning so close and warm,
Like a heavenly liand the sunshine lay Woos their shy secrets' yielding flow
To bless them in their sleep. With zephyr's whispered charm.
 — : — —— ; :

BLIND AND DEAF 37

But poorly seems that cottage room adorned

Rude pictures such as wealthier folks had
Shy secret of the bud and leaf,
scorned
Shy secret of the bloom,
And such as now in Springiime flood
And little figures rude of earthenware
Sweet nests in emerald gloom
Of boys and girls, beasts blue and white, are
there
Of boscage where some tinch may brood,
And a stray beam only come.
Upon the chimney-shelf: the bed is mean
With a patched coverlid of varied sheen.
A mother works and watches by her side,

But summer, I deem, had sunk that day 'Tis now the crisis of the turning tide :

Not into flowers alone ; Say, shall it whelm the silent sufierer
Or at her very lips ebb down from her?
She woo'd shy secrets as they lay
Profound that slumber, but she wakes at
In two young hearts unblown ;
last;
Love breathed upon them in their May,
She does not move, the lurid visions past
Till each in each had grown.
For now she tastes the bliss of painlessness,
Too weak to stir or think, yet feels no less
" Sweet life is mine, not death ; now I shall
And I watch your pulses' gentle heaves
live."
Flutter your skin of silk,
Till the shadow of some fluttering leaves
And soon creep thoughts like creatures that
revive
Plays on your wrist of milk,
From winter's frost —
" I thank my Father,
And even to your white bosom cleaves
God,
Soft amorous lights to bilk.
For I was young to lie beneath the sod ;
I would not leave dear Mother and the

weans
About you stealing sweetly coy
To
Do not sweet scents come through my leafy
yield you all to me
screens ?
Birds flowers weaving as they toy,
Is not the young year glad with budding
Vague heaven round me and thee-
greens?"
Until alone with our young joy
In the world we seem to be
Now would she turn and look if one be near
!

Her heart yearns after, but she scarce may

stir

Yet the quick ear that listens by the child

Has caught the rustle, and with bounding wild
BLIND AND DEAF
The mother's heart leaps up she leans above,
:

Love in her eyes to light her weary dove

Part I
Home from the waste whose bound no wan-
A GIRL lies quiet in a humble room derer knows.
The fresh spring dawn doth tranquilly illume. Finger on mouth, with motion to repose
Pale but for flush of fever on her face, Yet the maid pays no heed as if distraught,
Vet calm she sleeps now in that quiet place ; But thus meanders her untrammelled thought
Nor though the little casement stand ajar " I do not hear the children on the stairs
Can the sunlight her first sweet slumber mar, With softened voices as they play at bears ;

So well her and honeysuckle try

rose Yet little Tom
and .May disturbed me not.
To soften the day for her with greenery : —
They knew that I was ill mayl:)e remote
Her dear rose-linnet in his osiercage P'rom now the time when I was taken first.
With blushing breast the season doth presage: — —
And yet 'tis strange I do not hear as erst
 :; ; — "; —" ";

38 BLIND AND DEAF

The measured clicking of the old Dutch clock To a child's heart, that inner sanctuary
Upon whose face the ship was wont to rock ;
"And would I face even death, how
"
'Tis very dark ; hardlyfathom it I willingly !

Am I alone ? sit She whispered, " Father, so to be with Thee

or would poor Mother !

Without a fire or candle ? " Then she grows And shall I not be with Thee even now ?
Bewildered rather, till the fond face glows Then quietly with pale unruffled brow
Near and more near, until it feels her brow She turns upon the pillow, and she speaks;

This makes her gentle spirit overflow With a sweet patience, only with the breaks
With limpid joy returning kisses faint
; Of now and then a sob " My mother press
"You have been ever by me. Mother, saint " Me to your side if truly I shall guess
! :

She murmurs. " Once more in the dear sun- Am I not deaf.? " Into her breast she draws.
shine Then the child falters, after but a pause,
"And, Mother, press me if I should be blind
!
With you Igo wandering, mother mine
shall !

But light a candle, darling, it is dark ! As of love's agony she feels the bind
On moonless nights there always came some —
Of those fond arms anew and while she drifts
spark Far from the old blest earth, whose glory
Of starlight through the honeysuckle's trail shifts
You had a fire when I began to fail. From eye to ear, from raptured ear to eye,
When I remember last." "Hush! dearest That she has loved with what intensity !

child She knows that two new fibres strong as death

You must not talk now," prays the mother From now her spirit to her mother's wreathe,
mild And while in vain her eyeball seeks the ray
" But O my God !
" she utters in her heart, Deep in her heart dawns the Eternal Day !

"Now the spring sun she longs for doth

impart
His glory to us all does she awake — Part II
Ne'er to behold him more ? Thou wilt for-
sake Slow mantled Spring till Summer overflowed
Not her, O Father, whom Thou dost awake Life's goblet, ebbed to W^inter when ; it

To life within my arms " "A light, I pray ! !

glowed
The child cries anxious, now athirst for day. Afresh, at casement meek behold her sit
Then falls a large hot tear upon the cheek Where butterfly-like breezes wanton flit
Of her forlorn, a tear the mother weak Her all-unspotted careful-ordered dress
May not restrain but all remaining still,
: Denotes of tending eyes the watchfulness ;

No no answer, dire forebodings fill

light, A book of raised type is on her knee.
Her fainting heart with sudden hands and But one arm on the window leaneth she.
chill Her head upon her hand with face full-turned
" Speak, my own Mother, answer me," she Upon the Spring, as if her spirit yearned
pressed ;
—
To that for grand about her all the tide
So now the mother knows that she had Of light that lives in Heaven deep and wide
guessed Rolls in, and bears a myriad glorious things.
The bitter truth, the whole ; she stoops and And all its wealth upon the maiden flings.
winds
Her arms about the child, who troubled finds For lo ! the Spring hath burst her chrysalis,
The cheek she best loves wet against her own. Life in her wings and rapture in her kiss :

She weeps too, but the little heart has flown And she hath flushed through all the dreary
Where it was always wont distressed to fly. woods
Far as it seems unto the world, yet nigh To touch and light them to a flame of buds ;.
 ; ;
: ;

BLIND AND DEAF 39

Her gleamy hand so brimmed with violets, They're quenched with mutual shadows and
Through her strained fingers here and there relumed
she lets Over and over note how gently gloomed ;

Them fall to grass, where amethyst they lie And chequer-lit their pale smooth-rinded
And watch her, each a sylvan spirit's eye : bole,
Intense reflections of her rainbow fans Even as the lichened bark where ivy stole.

Start living bluebells when the light engrains,

And primroses, and stars of golden glow Fresh scented fern at tips brown-scaled and
Called celandine — the year hath ripened now ! twirled,
Fronds folded as an infant's toes are curled.
Her little cottage on the border stands Grows free amid the campion crimson-lake
Of a great wood and high —
with pasture And where stellaria graceful-leaved doth
lands shake,
Unrolled beneath, whereto a lawny slope While fleshy mushrooms rayed beneath with
Inclines with many a softly rounded group fawn.
Of brake gorse-goldened or foam-sprayed Growth of a night, dot thick the dewy lawn.
with may : Dreamy the down of sallow-catkin swims
Both through the fronting wood, and far away, In the mild sunlight ; shall we note the whims
Her window looks ; to lustrous fields of Of yon wee hued like jade
caterpillar
grass On his silk subtle jewel-glimmered thread ?
Hedge-girt, elm-dotted that the kine may But now deep hides in many a hawthorn bush
pass A nest of pale eggs tiny with a blush
The midday heats there'chewing mild the cud. And mottle of wine ; from lichens woven and
With limp ear flapping tickling flies that stud moss,
To blossomed orchards, fallows loamy brown, Horsehair and bents and feathers, sheltering
Wheatfields and clover lessening to the town, close
The town smoke-nested with its abbey grey, A mother chaffinch whose gay mate sits nigh
On to horizons azure fused with day. —
And chirps to her yon linnet dipping by
Sings as he flies, and perching on the ash
Bronze chestnut-buds, wrapped gummy as A runnel long of melody doth flash
they grow, From him and wander through the woodland
Swelled fluffy, spilling with an overflow far,

All unaware of flimsy tissue green, Whose notes impetuous ecstatic war
Little leaves crumpled, dress for fairy queen ; Which shall be first they hustle and they
;

So all the trees a rarest mist o'ercrept throng

Of verdure, and condensing daily swept As all the teeming Spring were in the song;
Throughout the woodland tints impleaching
; That little elf will utter forth the whole
wed, Well may he quiver, and beyond control
Young oak-leaves chrysoberyl tinct with red. The rapture whirl him from the leafy shade
Glossy with oils that wait upon their birth With shimmering wings adown the sunlit
While yon fresh beech-leaves moving as in glade !

mirth alone— hark trickling notes

But he is not !

Seem lithe to lie upon the delicate air From the hid blackcap, tenderly there floats
As though too gross to let them sink it were. Sweet cooing of the cuckoo and the dove,
Fringed with a down as silky as may mist, Clear pipes the blackbird, and a thrush's
When edgeways-lit, a lip that you have kissed love
Green flakes of clustered vivid light they fell Flutes softer— hark ! the lark is in the blue

I deem upon the boughs, and oh ! how well Whose music-sea the sunlight eddies through ;
 —! ; ;; ; "

40 SUMMER CLOUDS AND A SWAN

With these the whitethroat, many a bird, So as she sits and leans out to the Spring,
combines, She may not rush with bird-like wantoning
As if to shoot and cross a myriad Hnes Into the woods as erst the child would do ;

Of melody entangHng all the soul, Yet still remain of channels one or two
And in a web of breathless bliss to roll. Through which the living glory may invade :

Does there not wander in from garden and

warm haze the brakes are rounded soft
In a glade
A grey-green exhalation here aloft A wash of fragrance, honeysuckle scent,
They seem, with thinner edges luminous Acacia or seringa myriad-blent,
Even as a cloud's : from their dusk hearts of Now this now that, and can she not feel cool

rose The downy breeze upon her forehead full ?

And blackberry the cinnamon nightingales Then these with magic wand shall summon all
Skim into sunlight gurgling amorous tales. Yea all the summer in her spirit's hall
Or pensive call to her who darkling glows Exquisite vision something shadowy
Over their own live secret where — —
he Such as to Eden dreaming bards supply,
knows Such as to I\Iilton blind dwelt ever nigh.
Imagination that forbids the sense
All this and more —by so much as beside Explore some sweet lane's winding, tangle
The year teems with of flowers elfin-eyed, dense,
And mosses fairy-branched of amber stems Because she holds her fantasy more fair
All capped with fairy urns concealing gems Or dear than earth, Imagination rare
Of seed, a world to insects metal-sheened, Is opening this blind girl's inner eye

Lambs by their mothers frisking newly- To that near world whose fadeless beauties lie

yeaned Substance of ours that only bloom to die !

All this and more, commingled in the tide

Ever calm undulating far and wide And once her fingers touched the raised type

Of air and light in bounteousness sublime Upon her knee, when lo her ! mother's lip
And all exhaustless, as in former time, Pressed to her forehead — then a radiant smile
Floatsnow about this humble cottage maid. Dawned on that wan blank face, as otherwhile
Rich should she be, though in mean weeds Isaw a grey blank rock illumine dim
arrayed :
Through watery skies —
though vain the
Rich hath she been in flinging wide lier clamorous chime
soul Of surges and the flash of sea-birds, mark !

To every humblest claimant of the whole :

Heaven streams with pearl, deep smiles the
And rich she is, although that sea in sooth mountain dark !

Of glory vainly sweeps and summons both She speaks, "O mother, wonderful to read
The closed and silent portal of her eye That He who calls Himself my friend indeed
And of her ear, as where deserted lie Calls me His friend. —
Can then the Master
Sea-lapped palace-walls blithe once with life need
But as in vain the ripple-lisp or strife Me as His friend ? on this my spirit feed !

Of clamorous white surge would waken now

The sullen rock, so vainly woos the sun
And all Spring-voices calling to the stone SUMMER CLOUDS AND A SWAN
Of her dead sense whom God makes deaf
and blind ! Now in late Summer massy foliage
Yet is He still the Father —and refined Shows dark and heavy, and the beechmast
Intensely grow the senses that are left, browns
Nor is the girl of touch and smell bereft Yon lofty beeches of the smooth grey bole.
 — — —

SUMMER CLOUDS AND A SWAN 41

That stand upon a mossy turf which seems Lo '

there hath grown a fibrous length of
To undulate as if with languid airs rnist,

Breathing beneath the glowing tapestrj' A delicate stalk fainl-fuming into wealth
Of moss now vivid now a sombre green. Of leafage, blossoming indefinite;
The bank insensibly to water slopes, A spine aerial radiating fine ;

A narrow water with the banks

tract of Lucent plant-animal that loves the sea.
In easy hail of one another I stand : Expatiating still luxuriously
Facing the grove beyond the narrow water In the blue bath v\ iih feelers all abroad.
Nestled in lime-leaves murmurous with bees : Glad unsuspicious free unreticent
The water from my vantage-ground appears Long-reaching veinings in the gauzelike haze
A gleaming mirror for the banks and sky. Tenderly marbling the cerulean,
Ah ! what a sky ! in yonder hazy blue Now dense now rare like lawn we steep in
Floats a white cloudlet shading into grey, water.
A drift of white soft-outlined bright and pure,
Letting the eye sink in luxuriously, How prodigal of lovely wayward change
Dusking to fringe of delicate slate-grey Is cloudland subtle, silent, unaware,
Most like a wing of blue-backed herring-gull Ravelling, unravelling tissues gossamer,
Dishevelled ruffled all the downy rim, Not to be prisoned in colour or in word,
Silverly saturate and soaked with light, Pageant regarding not if any see !

Tranquilly floating in a blue profound.

Shored yon skiey wash of paly blue
is Light of a stilly summer afternoon
With snow of vapours hazed from heat, Drowsy, voluptuous and sumptuous,
fainter
Subsiding dim with graduation fine Rich, honey-heavy, sheeny, breathing balm !

In that sky-water, as a mellow stroke

From some great bell to silence ebbs away, Yon beech-grove rises dark against the
Faints off, dissolves, and fails insensibly light,
Their billowy bulky mass of mountain soiled And o'er the beech-grove higher up the light
As with a tinge of copper and of brass Climbs a tall hoary lanthorn-tower and spire;
;

Their mounded subsidences here and there The light all tender with a pearly haze
Worn smooth with long abrasion of rich light Ilued like thin fins and flanking of a fish
In streaming over, beams dissolved imbibed Fresh-netted live and shining with the wet
In part while flowing, but in part flung free. While all the scene repeated lies below,
Swimming in shafts of pearl incumbent long The tract of blue, the cloud wing floating there,
Upon the opalescent shadowy air. The faint snow shores, the finlike opal light,
Haunt of still angels floating restfully And in it the beech-groves and loftier tower,
Bound earthward upon ministries of love. With through its belfry windows mullioned
The warm light glowing as in human eyes.
See yonder, mottled all the space with fleece
Or curdling milk or feather balls most fair. Now in the lower reflected gulf of blue
Between them gulfs and channels of dim blue A swan sails tranquil with a stately neck
Like sunny Alpine ice thin-oversnowed. Arched long, with orange beak, and lifted
Some lawny mists move flimsy, letting filter wing
Blue heaven through them, even as shredding Sail-like on either side, how soft and pure !

foam Have they not fallen these wings from yonder

Wears airy grey bewraying a blue billow : blue,
These radiate to nigh impalpable Out of the soft white cloud there, so akin
Fan-rays long film-blown, fingered luminous They seem to it And O ihe tenderness
!

Of amorous air soft frolicsome and warm. Of the blue shadow, scarcely shadow or blue,
 ; ;

AUTUMN IN IRELAND
Haunting yon dells of down behind the Below the lawn a billowy sweep of wood
wing ! Pours to a glen and fills it fair and far
Surely the white cloud when it fell from With undulating topaz, chrj-solite,
heaven \Miose fervour quickens into ember-fire
Fell with the heavenly motion lingering in it, Anon or silent burn of tarnished gold.
For do but note how tranquil and how still Into the hue wherewith the robin's breast
The cloud sails yonder and the swan sails Glows now in autumn perched in yonder ash
here ! And ruffling his full throat with melody.
Yet lo ! a sudden impulse of the bosom
Thrills all the placid water feeling it Yon billowy leafage-river seems to pour
To dimpling smiles that waft luxurious light And gather from afar insensibly.
Into the pendulous faces of sweet flowers, Where those vast mountains shadowy upheave
Lush grasses, harebell, eyebright, sorrel leaves ^Fisted, uncertain, bathed in molten pearl,
That fringe the flood whose heart enshrines Robed in mild light of sweep magnificent
them all. With luminous folds of blue gloom inter-
While his dim double the swan floats upon changed.
Flickers beneath him with the twin-born Yet through the heavenly vesture half-
ripple betrayed
From his breast sloping either side away. Their native tones of sombre olive-green,
Melts like snow dropped in water, yet Rust-brown, or tint of the yew's inner rind.
remains. Behold yon kingly form with storm-beaten
He wavering images
ruffles yielding Yet dauntless everlasting rugged face
Of church and and of the sky above.
tree, Over huge shoulder of his brother there !

But all the fragments gather as he goes.
Thus if a dream, a passing fancy, glide
And mar thine image for a moment. Love,
Within my heart, it glides and passes by
But thou art, Love, mine own abiding sky,
More undisturbed not faithfuller than
AUTUMN IN
The far-off mountain purples now with eve,
Yields, melts his proud and stern solidity
To vaporous amethyst that seems to poise.
And brood on mingling with unbodied light.
Anon he looks a vast anemone
I. Translucent steeped in a clear sea of air,
An air how supple soft and fathomless
Enshrining all, here molten chrysolite.
The inner hue of bursting chestnut sheaths
IRELAND ^Vhat time the chestnut drops from leaf to leaf,
There heaven for souls of vanished violets ;

Calm falls yon delicate ash,

the evening : lo ! Wherein a crescent moon swims tilted high
Whose smooth grey bole dark mossy tufts On end shell-frail, a shallop half submerged.
emboss,
Gloats with full foliage in the mellow light. Calm falls the evening, tender every tone
Each slim leaf dainty dabbling in the glow The mild air pillows only now and then
;

And shadow subtly fine

dallying with Some flitting bird with irrepressible
While underneath, thin shadow of a tree And innocent bliss brims over in the leaves,
Branches upon a slope of lawn greengold Song fragile fitful as the fitful gleam
Soft vague as veins meander, and allows Of silken rainbow gossamer at hand
A flow of gleam with gracious whim to stray A freckled spider swings from leaf to leaf.
About it gentle, yielding light- bubble. Such voices, and the hushed-with-distance
The foliage is paling yellowing call
And sheds to-day an amber scattering Of yonder torrent in the wooded glen.
Upon the grass as if reflected there. These only haunt the tranquil-hearted air,
 —; ! — ;

AUTUMN IN IRELAND 43

Spirits benign congenial unto it. All these like fevered dreamswe fling from us,
While upon the moss extended lie,
I Sipping the sparkle of your liberal air !

A fairy fir-forest of mazy moss, And now though, v/ounded climbing in your
Noting some metal-sharded insect thrid crags,
Their labyrinths, and over the frail growth Awhile I may not move, my spirit roves
Of shamrock tiny, or fungus coral-red. Rejoicing still, while I serene as you
Lie lapped like you in tranquil-waning light I

I know ye mountains ! tell what hollow

lone And thou fierce torrent in the wooded
Or stern rocksteep of yours defies me long ! glen
I love ye all, love communing with all, How often have I watched thee from a rock
Courting fair deadly face of danger, queen Hard by yon thunder-vs'aterfall of thine.
Among ye — timorous tepid-souled men Thy crush of waters tawny as the mane
Know not the fierce delight of meeting her Of some huge lion crashing like a fate
With blanching cheek and loudly thumping With raucous roar on a dissolving doe,
heart, And foam resurgent vanishing like cloud
Yet with teeth set, and will unconquerable 'Mid swirl of bright delirious air-bubbles
Beautiful spirit, playmate of the storm ! In splintering agate of the gulf profound,
Hard by the eagle's eyrie, when the eagle While fragile froth v/hite, lacelike, delicate,
Sweeps brooding o'er it dauntless and un- tremulous the waterworn grey stone,
Frills
moved Ever blown out, and ever anon relit
For all the rush of hurricane and scud Till in the spume some shadow seems to flit

Of torn grey cloudrack, poised on wing Nay ! solid thing of life, that unaware
sublime ; Leaps to my startled vision, leaps in air,
What time blind rain leaves slippery the stalks Along the flashing cataract, a fish,
Of heather and bilberry in crevices A salmon opal-flanked and mottled fine
Of giddy granite precipice, and scarce His back with shifting purple, to subside
For drifting mist I see the rowan beads la the seethe baftled yet abide his time.
Or holly berries, clutching at their stems.
Ah ! splendid torrent, hast thou ne'er a
And ah what glories, secret treasuries
! soul,
Of beauty and delight we come upon, Art thou no god as men were wont believe ?

Fresh, unfamiliar, where the gaze profane If not a god, yet verily and full

Of vulgar and unsympathising eyes Pulses in thee the universal God I

Hath never fallen, blighting, tarnishing ;

Doth not thy full triumphant rush of life

Unbreathed upon, unfingered as a flower Inevitably leap up into me.

Fresh budded from its sheath, impearled with Aching and thrilling inarticulate
morn ! Till it can break in me to consciousness,
How light, how buoyant, all your breezes blow. To its worship, love, and sympathy?
own
Ye mountains ; how we bound upon your In solitude I blend my voice with thine.
heath ! Shouting for brotherhood and fellowship !
For illness, with the fretting cares of life, Insanely lust headlong to flash with thee,
Unhealthful toil with books, and weary Or long to plunge, O lover in thy pools !

thought Shadowy, fathomless, contemplative,

Heaving through waste and wandering seas Dyed of the peat deep coftee ; fury-spume
of doubt. Indolent starring, clinging at the rock,
Hungering with unfathomable want ; Grey crag empurpled, hollowed-undcr, cloven
Yea even the burden of some deadlier grief With such long violent importunity.
 ; — — — ; : '
;!:

44 THE GRANDMOTHER'S STORY

Lo where the
! listless foam-fleck on the (The summer you may mind was hot and dry)
main Should cool assuaged from evening drawing
'Mid-current dallies, seeming motionless ; nigh.
Visibly now astir smooth slides along And John he drove our grey nag in the cart
Yon oily waterlapse glides giddily ; Ah how they teased, the little ones, to start
!

Anon to where, volumed like solid glass, You know the beautiful tall beechen trees
The flood slips eager into the abyss, Nigh to the old toll-gate that was —a breeze
Fired with a parting sunkiss, passionate Blew cool among them, and the lights and
To wander far, now strenuous now calm, shades
Dreamy and listless under all the dense Seemed merry as the children in the glades.
Impleached greenery of mossy wood, Some cows were standing paunch-deep in the
Twirling sere leaves, umbrageous and cool, pool,
Now smoke-cairngorm, now shallower jasper A rough dull-coated clumsy cart-horse, cool
clear, Bathing his thick fore-fetlocks only, let.
Smiling when Day puts by the leaves to look After a draught, the water from his wet
And variegate with limpid tortoiseshell. Lips either side pour streaming sleepily.
The children watched him, and the goslings
nigh,

THE GRANDMOTHER'S STORY A second brood downed yellow, with some

geese,

This afternoon promised I would hear

I
And nibbling sheep shorn of their woolly
That story from the poor old lady near fleece.
;

So, coming to the cottage there aloft John never seemed, 1 thought, more cheerful-

That creepered stands within its little like

croft
A stone's throw from the road, roofed in with
And kindly — it was then we saw the shrike
thatch, (We call it butcher-bird), and then he followed
Ineared the garden-wicket, clicked the latch. With Ned the eldest, where an elm is
Passed through sweet-william flowers and hollowed,
"
hollyhocks. The mill-like tapping of a woodpecker
Straw-plaited hives with bees in humming At this I questioned, interrupting her,

flocks Doubting how far the dear old dame would

Knocked and within found wailing me to err

greet
A slight grey woman finely-featured, sweet, "So it was then Mary began to ail?"

Yet clear and firm of aspect, simple, neat "Nay," she replied, "mayhap a little pale

About her shoulders over the serge gown, Silent and weary she had seemed at first.

Though it was warm, a worsted cape was But into spirits rapturous she burst
thrown When playing witli the children in the wood
To see their romps ! I felt it did me good.
"You must forgive me if I weary you. I recollect the little sister saying
For I am getting very old, you know ;
(At hide-and-seek the younger two were
I shall be seventy come Martinmas playing)
Swift flies the current of our years that pass !
'
Now, Tom, I'm going to hide l)y yonder
Well I remember, 'twas a happy day ;
tree
We had persuaded him the holiday Among the fern, and you must look for me
At home to spend, and take the weans to play When you shall hear me calling out cuckoo !

With Mary and myself among the fern And then away the little toddler flew
In Epping P'orest, when the blazing burn To bury her wee face where covert grew
 ; :

THE GRANDMOTHER'S STORY 45

Of niarestail and of fern, a forest small Kind he appeared and cheery— happiness
Within the forest, taller than them all Of dim-remembered years came nigh to bless,
But bless you she was three year old and she
! When they twain and the child beneath the
Never surmised that any one could see sod,
If but her eyes were shut, and so she stole Their pretty first-born, seemed alone with
Ere calling but halfway within a hole God,
Between some fronds that bordered open grass, Happy as those in heaven. Sudden fell —
And all might see the blue frock of the lass, On herfresh-budding hope the blast from hell.
Each bare leg tiny and her little shoon." Loathsome, abhorred, familiar too well.
The hated gleam she saw among the fern
This I foresaw would not be ended soon, Of her red drapery ; which made her turn
So gently coaxing her toward the goal White cold, atremble, as the children told,
I spoke again
—
" Well, I had gone to stroll Rising from playing with them in the gold
Not far," the grandmother resuming spoke, Of silverweed and birdsfoot, fixing look
*' WTien I saw Mary coming near the oak Intently staring on the path he took
Where I was resting, holding baby fast, Among thick hazels and low - blooming
Hushing and singing to it as she passed. bramble :

Yet strangely breaking off into a prayer But Tom, poor innocent, moved on a ramble
Wild incoherent, as of strong despair. That very way, spying a foxglove yonder,
Between the snatches of her lullaby : (Such a tall spire of spotted bells, a wonder I)
Conceive the shock it gave me ; plainly I When swift and shrill she screamed that he
Heard what she muttered, '
John is gone should stay
with HER ! 'Stay here you dare not will you ne'er obey?
! !

Little he cares about the woodpecker.' Not nigh that woman '—then she caught the
child,
" I knew the husband all too often failed The little baby, with a gesture wild.
In duty to my
Mary, since she ailed Straining itto her, hurrying to me.
Now many a day from harshness of the man ;
Muttering singing incoherently."'
Albeit in sooth the malady foreran
In buriedmembers of our family She paused as weary, shedding even tears.
(My foreboded her not wholly free.
fear Though all was over many many years ;

Even from a girl) she wept unceasingly

; So I besought her not to tell me more
These later days indeed ; nor most I think Nor idly stir the drowsy griefs of yore.
From his brutality to her in drink.
But for his wanton doings with the other : " I like to tell you, sad indeed yet sweet.
Gentle and true, poor thing, she could not Going all over, but 'tis hardly meet
smother Much longer to detain you, and indeed
Hatred of that lewd woman handsome base, For what remains there is l)ut little need.
Who daily more encroached upon her place Terrible journey home ! sad interval
In her own house as in his fickle heart. Till I all faint, fearing for what might fall

And yet what smote her witii the deadly smart On those wee children with the mother dazed
Was this one day that made so fair a start (Frightful to see her fondling baby crazed !)

Playing her false, betraying her to pain. On thorns both day and night, in anguish went
She wellnigh foolish counted on the wane, With my poor Mary where she must be sent.
Because he had been kinder for awhile ; The Doctor said where ; skilful dealing would
The woman for a month gone many a mile : Be he thought, to work for good,
likeliest,
And he was gentler to the children small If aught could cure, by severing her ways
As to herself— that evening most of all From ail that mixed slow poison with her days.
 —— : —— ;

46 THE GRANDMOTHER'S STORY

" Well very soon, as I expected, he Maltreat, or even neglect, a little child.
Brought home the woman, telling me that she Enslaving us with sheerest weakness mild.
Would cherish well the babes unmothered all, Conquering with designless impotence.
Since me myself my proper cares recall Pleading with all resistless eloquence
Home to the farm^those days you know I kept Of humble sweet uplooking eyes and sense
House for my son unwed, yet often stept Of utter helplessness, implicit trust
Over to Mary's ; it was very near In you for all could any woman thrust
; —
And to my heart her babes were very dear. An innocent away, who made appeal
With pleading shiftless geste, if she could feel?
" But need there was for me in Chelmsford Had she a heart deep in it must he steal,
town She not unmindful that herself once throve
Soon after far from them to bide ; and flown Frail pensioner upon a mother's love !

Were nigh four months before I could again Seeing the little girl alas I thought, !

Behold my children, howsoever fain. How but two years ago I saved and bought
And then indeed it made my heart to ache Some wooden animals and other toys
—
Seeing my babes you know I could not take For her, and how quite weary with her joys
Them home, 'twas all impossible, but oh One day I found her at my Mary's there
! —
They had not got their mother, don't you Was little Nelly in the cushion-chair
know. In Mary's arms, who dared not breathe nor
A mother's love for her own little child, stir,

There's nought so strong, so holy, undefiled 1 Though cramped and numb for fear of waking

Rosy and happy they would always look ;

her :

They were her first thought, and I seldom Unaware dozing off to quiet sleep,
took Her dimpled, waxen little fingers keep
A walk their way, but I was sure to find A small white wooden cock, her favourite toy,
Her at wee shirt or frock, or romping kind Rosily loosely locked upon the joy
when she plied
Tireless with one or all; save Open moist coral mouth, and flushing cheek !

—
Her other household tasks (for she but lied. Where were they now ? timid and wan and
The other woman, when she spread abroad weak
Her duties to her husband were ignored I found her but to make my story short. —
By Mary, though she made him think the Trustworthy news one day to me was brought
same) — That John was gone, had left both house and
But as to them, the children, when I came home,
I found them all uncared-for, pining, pale ;
And none knew where; but over the sea-foam
I was quite sure their very food must fail. Somewhere abroad, mayhap Australia,
Unwashed, unkempt, ragged and slatternly. The folk surmised His little children
: '
are
Poor darlings cherished late so tenderly ! Left to thatwoman,' thus the neighbour said.
And with her always bitter, sharp and cross. '
She will not keep them now the father's fled,
They lost their childish spirits what a loss ; But they must go into the workhouse nigh ;

For little children Oft I found them crying

! You cannot take them how in sooth '
—
One cowed, sly, joyless peevish or defying
; could I !

Another grew, and far more quarrelsome (It seems that John and she had quarrelled
Starved of fair equal dealing, all that home sore.
With loving watchful service can provide, Yet from his winnings she secured a store)
Starved in their poor hearts, and as ill- So by the help of our good clergyman
supplied I carried out reluctantly the plan
Small growing bodies with the needful food I think it was a hard and cheerless life :

I used to think that no one ever could One soon gave over the unequal strife
 ; • ——— ; ; ; ; — ; ;

ANOTHER VERSION 47

Harshness, neglect, poor food, too strong for It turns me giddy looking — well, the young
her, I know ! and there's the terrier barking
Poor Httle Nelly died — so happier ! strong ;

The baby, that, you know, had died before. When Neddy runs to push, he always will
But for the others, Tom and Ned, they bore Poor dog, some day he's sure to come to ill I

Up against all ; and when I found the I think that you can see them if you look

leisure — The casement is ajar 'tis nigh the brook

;

Hoping to give my poor lost child a pleasure, —

And gillyflowers my apples will be rare
And because Doctor Thomson said it might I fear this year, they do not promise fair.

Possibly set her wildered reason right "Tis nearly time the children came to tea.
To see the children — on a holiday And must make it where's the gooseberry
I :

I took them to their mother, far away. I promised little Mary ?

Must you go ?
"Ah ! what a change —her scanty hair was You will be always welcome, Sir, you know !"
grey,
Late raven-black ; her face was gaunt and
drawn.
Once blithe and fresh and rosy as the dawn. ANOTHER VERSION
She knew us, yes she knew us, them and me
Yet not as figures from the past, you see. " Yet in his prime, of promise very full,
Blent with old scenes, at most but vaguely Truly a grievous fate !

linked Many sweet years along life's way to cull

Rather with that fire-atmosphere all tinct Young wedded folk may wait
She breathed, blent with her tortured wildered They lived in one another 'tis averred "
being- Pity yet I know more than they have heard.
!

Hell, with but Death to slide the bolt for

fleeing !
He and the lady strolled into the wood
She scared the little ones, holding them close
Where rose and bramble marrj'.
Embraced for long : and once indeed there
Nigh buried in the full fern as they stood.
rose
While nightingales yet tarry,
Some of the Past faint blurred in front of her
A film of glinting silver on the deep
'
Nelly and baby, you must bring them here :

Oreen fronds that under in mild fire steep.

Well are they? John would have come —
earlier
Wliat silent sunlight-gushes in the grass,
To see me in my misery, but he
Rich-breathing oily fern.
Must be long dead— I mind their telling me !'

And sapful herbage flowering as they pass.

. . . "Well, have I more to tell? The boys How the long-purples burn !

Languid the air with foamy elder-bloom,

are here.
If Ned could get some situation near Blue flies in shining summer wheel and boom.
He's old enough —
you hear them shouting
now. Exuberant young lavish life of all
They and my sons three slung from bough Their senses overflowed
to bough Noting some leafage-softened sunlight fall

There apple orchard late a swing

in the Where skins of satin glowed,
They let me have the boys out for a fling Thitherward thrilling hands of each instole,

Of pleasure now and then they're very well — And eye sought eye, and lip sougiit lip, for

They like the dipping ; why, I cannot tell goal.

 — " • ; ; ; —
;

48 CRADLE SONG FOR SUMMER

Oh ! they had lightl}- dared the perilous slope Fierce unaware by him assailed they flee,
Smooth turf impending over, Nor maiden die
will the ;

Dallying playful ; now with ne'er a hope But in the strife was dealt to him the blow
Their guardian angels hover ;
That stained him crimson and that laid him
His heart love-loyal yet to one at home, low.
Drugged with sense-fumes he palters there
with doom !
Yet he confided to me that he chose
Even in the moment's rush,
For search him through, no thought nor love If this were Death, the friend, to clasp him
you find ;
close,

In such a heat they sleep ; And so avert the crush

One luscious hot dissolving sense doth blind Inevitable of a soul's undoing,
Fuse all their powers and steep Whelming two loved ones in its own fell ruin.
So bees men stupefy within the hive
Are reft of honey while they cease to live. So leaning on the faithful breast he waned,
Safe now from rending it,

What angel may avert the triple loss Nor either gentle nature had sustained
Of three poor human souls? Death from his fury-fit
But while they lie, in wood-sorrel across The selfish man die victim to his love !

From one of nearest boles Warm tears of bliss or sorrow shall it move?
Flits flustering a brown bird from her nest,
By them shy startled in her innocent rest

And troubling both nigh brings the woman to, CRADLE SONG FOR SUMMER
So half awakening him
By her coy shrinking but they startle through
;

Now, for the silence dim Sleep, my childie, sleep

Ruffles with rustling very near their nook : r the hush of evening deep,
A girl with her wood-bundle while they look Gone the last long-lingering beam
P'rom where the tender violets dream
Passes unseeing them, but as she goes With closed eyes by the woodland stream
Lightly she hums an air Sleep, my childie, sleep.
That stabs him as the dearest one of those
His bride in days that were
Was wont to sing she fades among the ;
Sleep, my childie, sleep
leaves Fresh dews of twilight creep
When lo! a shriek the wood's green quiet Through folded blooms of eglantine,
cleaves. Speedwell and harebell and woodbine ;

Yet open the large white bugles shine :

Breathless they listen till it shrills once more
Anguished, imploring, wild
Sleep, my childie, sleep.

He hurries eager from the woodland floor.

And now behold a child —
The girl three brutal men are dragging nigh ;
Sleep, my childie, sleep.

One kneels upon her frail form murderously. Now dewy planets creep
Through skies of fading purple-rose.
" Quick ! help her !
" cries the lady ;
" they Yon elm full-foliaged overflows
are three ; With those love-songs the blackbird knows
Nay rather let us fly !
Sleep, my childie, sleep.
 ;
; ;; : : ; — ;;

LEONARDO'S CHRIST 49

Sleep, my childie, sleep ;

Sleep, my childie, sleep ;

Now drowsy birdies keep Rare doth the swallow sweep

More silence rare the cuckoo's note,
;
Now lilied pools for dragon-flies,

The dove's low plaint hath ceased to float, Nor orange mouths that gape supplies

Sweet breezes flutter in and out While the dam greets with twittering cries :

Sleep, my childie, sleep. Sleep, my childie, sleep.

\i
Sleep, my childie, sleep;
Sleep, my childie, sleep
Still soft the martin-cheep
The skimming moth may sip Below yon eaves from rustic nest
Our bower's honeysuckle bloom With moss and bents and feathers prest
That lavish breathes a rare perfume, Lined warm for many a downy breast
I hear the velvet hornet boom :
Sleep, my childie, sleep.
Sleep, my childie, sleep.
XII
Sleep, my childie, sleep
Sleep, my childie, sleep; Four callow fledglings peep
The shepherd counts his sheep, No more, but nestle to the wing,
I hear the cattle browse and chew, Whose darkness ne'er to them can bring
Afield the click of ball that flew Doubt of the parent's sheltering :

Bat-smitten and the boy's halloo : Sleep, my childie, sleep.

Sleep, my childie, sleep.
XIII
Sleep, my childie, sleep

my childie, sleep
Our earthly clouds must weep
Sleep,
Their rain upon thy stainless brow
Where meadow grass is deep. ;

I only pray my child may know

Nor yet lies heaped the fragrant hay,
Her Father's wing those shadows throw :
The crake is calling, or away
Then ever rest and sleep I

Where the corn mellows every day :

Sleep, my childie, sleep.

LEONARDO'S CHRIST
Sleep, my childie, sleep
Yon primrose skies must keep One came from forth the unquiet city glare ;

Some chime of faint and faery bells Brought heart unhallowed, hard and hitler
Whose ebb and flow of tidal swells thought,
Or close or open aerial cells :
Dark pride, this passing world's vain restless
Sleep, my childie, sleep. care ;

Which all his soul to unquiet fever wrought

With inarticulate moan for rest, for love :

Sleep, my childie, sleep Trod unaware the venerable hall

The summer breath can steep Where day kneels veiled — hushed gazers dare
All sightsand sounds in hallowed rest not move
Beneath, far setting toward the West, Where that grand spirit traced upon the wall
Rich seas of pasture swoon to mist A scene all deathless, though the flaking
Sleep, my childie, sleep. colour fall.

D
 " :

so LEONARDO'S CHRIST

Came and was smitten and bowed, like him They ranged or grouped along the dusky stone
who rode Of pictured chamber wall, the Lord doth sit
Of old so hot and proud till unaware His head relieved against the tender tone
The vision of a lowly Jesus glowed Of landscape, far and deep light softening it.
More strong than midday might on him to As ripening afternoon is wont to do
bear In yonder clime with kindly mellowing haze.
Both soul and frame to earth, there silent To steep rude earth in his own glory-glow
laid Grows gently sad the sun's triumphant blaze;
To list those clear sad loving accents say To near our world's chill mists he dims in
"Why persecute Me, Saul?" —Yon figure coming low.
said
The like, he deemed, this weary one to-day,
Yon midmost Form apart i' the pictured Life An emblem of His love, whose spirit shines
array. Like yonder sun, calm pure and infinite.
But through sweet law of its own life declines
Ill
Toward our blind heart-broken world, His
For there mid faces sharp new pain dis- light
tressed, While glorifying shrouded low and sad
Each with his own life-look and features' Mid vapours dank of uncongenial sin
play, From false faint hearts, souls fevered hot
At that last meal sat One from whom the and mad
rest, For pelf, power, fame about them pale
;

It seemed, withdrew, though but for grieved and thin

dismay. Spurned shivering poor, the weepers round
Even now withdrew to leave him all alone. their darling dead.
Yet not alone the Father being nigh :

For He the spell of gloom about them thrown

From shadowing trouble near broke omi- Day wore to eve from glad upspringing morn
nously, His day wore on from that all-glorious prime
And spake with low distinct yet quivering When, holding Mary's hand, His steps were
tone drawn
"Of you shall one betray Me, chosen for A little Child, at daybreak, evening time.
my own." To that near hollow where the cool well lies
And women with their pitchers congregate;
Wore on from when the expanding youth for
And through yon faded scaling colours gazed. rise
As through the veil of ages passed away, Of sun mid Nazarean hills would wait
And through heart-mist the wanderer's sight With God - communing soul in dark un-
which hazed, fathomed eyes.
Those drooping eyes of melancholy ray.
That worn sad face with selfless calm Divine, VIII

Pathetic air and gesture ; all again Or lying where some homeless mountain air
Spake those sad words to hii)i "<) friend — — Strays sighing through sweet thyme and
of mine russet growth
Wilt thou betray ? my love did never wane ;
Faint purpled, watched sun's blood-red orb
I told heart secrets to thee, led thee, soothed from there
thy pain I Sink in the ensanguined sea, suffusing botli
 : ; : — —
LEONARDO'S CHRIST 51

Wide sky and earth with his own dying glow

Dark Carmel's promontory warmed to red,
Dark, darker yet that anguish 'neath the
Where long ago God's prophet did desire
tree
From Heaven the flame, which fell while :

shrieked and bled

By torchlight lo ! the ghastly traitor's
kiss
False priests of Baal : all burned as with
On to that inmost depth of agony
When God — 'tis still the Father doing this
heart of fire.

IX His own hand draws before those filming eyes

His Spirit grew into the mighty thought —
To hide Himself there in man's lowest
Of countrymen, of all the world, at strife, deep
The slaves of Evil, to be wisdom taught Back thrusting sin's untasted cup He dies :

Less by wise precept than a selfless life : The blank dead face of that Eternal Sleep
His heart throbbed yearning to embrace the His coming wakes to flush with solemn grand
whole surprise !

He longed to be among them one by one ;

The features of his giant fabric stole

Forth from the gloom upon Him like — And ever since that awful joy hath dwelt
yon sun
Upon the dark long-dreaded face of Death
He saw His dying Love the world in glory ;

And ever since those dreary regions melt

roll.
In His self-sacrificing sunset breath :

X But now it is the shadowing doom that

All Carmel haunts of prophet, priest or sage. weighs
The light of His self-sacrifice illumes ; His spirit down He gives the bread and
:

That ancient Love which breathes from age wine,

to age That they and multitudes His soul surveys
Life into all ; yet newborn youth assumes Of men unborn in ever lengthening line
From now a Man concentrates rays Divine May feed upon His love through all the
In His own soul and life ; so floods the circling days
world !

He, focus of our light, shall ever shine

Till we, too wise for Love, His flag have
furled
Ah ! passive hand, in life but raised to save,
;

Or mightier Sun They use thee cold to strike the wanderers

arise to shame Love's pale
decline !
low !

Ah ! silent voice, all silent in the grave,

Thou tenderest breath of love in ear of
But shadow deepens now toward the close : Woe!
His spirit darkens with the coming doom. Thou guardian wing must speed their shafts
While they in whom his heart had found of scorn.
repose Of hard Iiarsh pride —O long-enduring
Of sympathy in good fold close the gloom ;
Lord,
For He who pours His very being forth Death holds not Thee ! Thou " from the dead
Divinely rich and pure for these must hear firstborn,"
These even now, so nigh the end, in wrath Arise, and wield once more the flaming
Dispute pre-eminence : while deadly near sword.
Looms Peter's base denial, — each one's That ne'er smote but the proud ; lift once
broken troth ! more them that mourn !
 —— —— ;

52 A CONFESSION
She might be sporting with me struck me faint.
A CONFESSION I said it, but she kissed away my doubt ;

And yet I felt a secret want, a chill.

Scene. —A Prison Cell. Prisoner {to Through all her kindness— nay, it must be so,

Chrgyinan log.) Ever I whispered to my yearning heart

She loves, even she, loves me, and only me.
" I SHOULD have known she never could be I cannot fathom what she wanted now

mine : Oh could it be the paltry manor-house ?

What was in me to hold a woman's love ? Was she not sure I would have laid the whole,
She, in the bloom of her transcendent youth, All toil-worn earnings of my father's life
And I not even young and never fair. And mine, if she had hinted what she craved,
Nor like some brave or brilliant in wit. All at her feet ? Ah could it e'er behove.
1

—
Yet I adored her ah she trod upon ! Reaching bubble vanities like these,
for
So many gay silk cloaks obeisant laid To tread upon a fond man's living heart ?
'Neath her queen feet, 'twas condescension But they who warped her gentle sinless soul.
deep Trailed earthward young shoot assiduous
its

For her to walk upon my garment worn. Lest it should Godward grow as it desired,
How should she stay to ponder the gallants Respectable, smooth, pious, and accurst.
Had much such raiment stored in cedar- —
They are to blame not thou, my murdered
presses love !

And lavish strewed for other feet than hers. Well I was heavy, taciturn, I know,
While this poor cloak I laid for her, this love No meet companion for a sylph like her.
Of mine, it was my all, and all for her? I went about my work from morn till night
;

Yet, had I felt her shudder as she gave I toiled for her and for the little ones.
Herself to me ! but sweet she seemed and Two babes were ours, a little girl and boy.
bland I thought of little but my work and them.

As ever — well I knew she could not love And in the evenings jaded with my toil

As I loved her, I never looked for that From the black town preoccupied I came.
So very had contented me.
little How sweet the faces of my darlings then !

Attar of roses, —
only a drop of it
Outperfumes floods of common essences.
—
But she averred I see her sitting now
Broidering silk and gold in delicate kid
With dainty fingers, lifting, ah those eyes
Yet cares were on me, care for my beloved..
Such sordid topics could not be for her
To share the weary burden of with me.
Who lived for music and embroidery.
Deft tracing tasteful ornamental work
!

Soft as horizons in the summer time, For some bazaar or cyphers intricate,
Answering in that low sweet tone of hers Chatting with friends or dancing at a ball.
That long her heart had been my own she I dull and weary sitting in the room.
;

feared Only a few feet far from her in flesh,

I cared not for her since I did not speak. In spirit felt her myriad leagues away
And I, who hardly dared to lift mine eyes, She had so little heed for what absorbed
But stammered shuffling awkwardly before her Me more and more, and weighed me down
Praying her leave me but a little hope. in dust.
Thus caught up unaware to paradise And I, alas in my armchair I slept
! !

First I was stunned incredulous with joy, While she was playing brilliant passages
And broke to foolish tears like some big child, Or quavering through the last new opera
Shy touching her and then because she By Verdi. Hard she seemed to me and cold
;

smiled Contemptuous familiarity,

So placid, half amused I fancied, fear That rust of love marriage may generate,
 —
' ! ' ; ;"

A CONFESSION 53

Enhanced with her by lowly estimate "Well, Sir, among her gay acquaintances
(Too well deserved) of my so homely wit, Who played and sang and chatted often with
I felt in her demeanour shivering ; her
Sluggish and dull to her aerial games, Was that — the person whom I need not name.
A mayfly with a crawling snail for mate. Handsome and gay and brilliant I believe :

I used to think, I owned it to myself,

" But once I, forcing my slow brain to think Nature had moulded them for one another,
Of something she would like that I could bring Not her for me — and if not her, not any !

Home from the town, had sacrificed

for her Who should be mine in yonder world or this
Ascheme long cherished, and so bought for her If not my darling? but I trusted her.
A necklace I had heard her longing for : Utterly blindly then I trusted her.

—
And then I think yes, Sir, I do believe Yes, I was blind, old dotard, a fond fool
She loved me when I took it from the case (But love is blind), until a '
friend sincere
'

Not the bright bauble, but the man who gave Hinted a warning I indignant flushed,:

She looked and flung herself upon me, Sir, Plucked forth the barb and flung it in his face.
Tears in her sun-laugh I was very good : '
; But I suppose it rankled unaware :

She wished she were a better wife to me.' I caught myself at hovering nigh the pair
With choking voice I only made reply, With wistful eyes, till once I somewhat saw
'
You do then love me is it true indeed ? : Which startled me to faintness with the shock
'
Oh, John she faltered hiding her in me
!
' : Of half-incredulous wonder and dismay.
And then I blessed my desolate barren life But then a horrid fascination drew
For holding in its weary waste of sand Me to peer closer— many a trifle now
This blessed moment here at home you know
: Fraught with keen anguish to my sickened
Lightly we value our abundant wells ;
heart.
But once I heard a traveller from the East
Describe a desert march interminable " One afternoon, I well remember it.
Through scorching sand the rapture of the — Our little girl was playing with my beard,
drone Climbed frolicsome on father's mountain
Of distant waterwheels upon his ear, knee,
The cool and liquid flash upon his eye In a sweet arbour of our shaven lawn,
Of spilling water from revolving jars A summer evening and her mother came ;

Sleeked with acacia shadows as they stirred ! Round on us unaware, and sitting nigh
How beautiful she looked, the sun upon her.
"Yet even in such a trifle I was slow Through green festooning of the lush wood-
Shrewdly to guess what thing she fancied bine
most. Sleeking her curls and dainty waist and foot !

My mind was smothered in the moil accurst, The child cried, ' Let me go, I want
And if she asked me, that was not the same. mamma ;

Butnow I forced myself to cross her whim I murmured my agony of spirit,

in
Many a time for fear of what might chance yearning to her, bleeding for her sin
Still
In ruin of my fortune waning fast. And treachery, nor holding it full-proven,
Once hinting somewhat of my fear to iier. Half to myself and half for her to hear,
She but replied I looked the gloomy side, '
Your darling lovely naughtiest mamma !

The Bible said despondency was sin ; She wincing looked with such a scared white
Business she hated, could not comjneiicnd. look
Therefore I plodded on, hiding with care I it now, and shudder seeing it
see
The twin-woes feeding ever insatiable For ah there was no ruth, no lingering scent
!

Upon the vitals of my tortured breast. Of what might once have been a love for me;
 — ; ; ' : —— — :

54 A CONFESSION
It was mere scare; it took away my hope, Abrupt she blurted her confession out
I think — not all —hope heaved and fluttered Not tremulous sobbing, weepingtears of blood,
yet. Ah ! —
no in hesitating tones she spoke.
The child with poor dazed face betwixt us Yet slow and measured, in deliberate choice
two It seemed of phrase appropriate, as though

Said piteous, ' Mamma, you are not naughty

;
A task oppressive weary burdensome
Yet at her terrible white abstracted look Herself or some third person imposed on her.
Returned and hid her face in me and cried. 'Something had lain upon her conscience
But soon the mother rose, and sitting by me long
Took my cold hand and feigning to be gay She saw I knew it, had been near the telling
Questioned me what I meant ? what could
'
She was about to pray me to forgive ;

I mean ? And it was very wicked to deceive

She thought I must be dreaming, not myself, Me who had been so very good to her
At least she craved to know my secret thought. Yet when I knew the whole she trusted I,
What had she done ? She would explain it all Tender and generous-hearted, would forgive.'
If I would tell her; but I looked her through, Ah
' Sir, to cling convulsive to a I tuft
And shut my lips I could not say it out
; Over a precipice and feel it give !

Yet tried to smile (I doubt a withered smile), To lean secure with all your soul upon
And passed my hand athwart my throbbing One bosom, and for it to let you down
brow. Crumbling to dust, a bosom of the dead !

And stammered I believed that I was ill. When she began to speak I now recall
And she had seemed so cold of late to me. Ishook as with an ague turning cold.
Of course she probed me little satisfied God did she fancy that my heart was wood.
!

But I was silent no proof positive

: So leisurely she fixed and screwed within it
Was mine : how bring myself to charge The cruel bradawl of her measured words ?
disgrace, Mere phrases of remorse conventional,
Dishonour upon the idol of my life ? No love ! scant pity — weak and stupid I
Preoccupied that evening she appeared, Docile and generous and submissive to her
Yet strove to seem affectionate and kind. Did her indifference to me and contempt
Attentive and considerate for me. Go length of holding me an idiot mild
There was a certain pleading in her eyes With not a man's heart or intelligence ?

And movement bringing me my cup of tea Because I could not trill duets with her,
That touched me in my stunned bewilderment, Or spin her sentimental versicles,
Recalling soft the blessed year of trust Illuminate her prayer-book, almanac,
When I lay childlike pillowed on her breast, Because I was not smooth and rose-coloured
Marvelling God should lend His seraph to me. Like any woman, nor Adonis-limbed,
You've seen a huge trunk lying prone and bare Was that a proof I had no power to feel,
With sappy layers concentric where 'twas That I, just God was not a living man,
!

hewn Whate'er the fashion's popinjay might be ?

Grown dry and soiled, yet through the A human life spiltshivered at her feet
wrinkled bark And tingling with blest sense of scope ful-

Will creep some budding twigs at breath of filled

spring; Exhaling there its costly fragrancy !

So my heart budded Such a devotion even God in Heaven

at her look and touch.
Accounts no refuse, claiming for His own.
" But then there lowers the nightmare It was not she to spurn me— it was God !

horrible Nay, but lie uses for our punishment

Well, in the dark, Sir, when we lay in bed Those very idols we have dared enthrone !
 ——— : " : —
A CONFESSION 55

" There I lay suffering, all her cruel words (Only last year we played in yonder hay
Cutting me keen like flying spikes of ice, She and I with the little ones together).
Until when she avowed (more self-composed The cattle couched upon the dewy lawn,
And calm with talk) abysms of treachery Our near church-spire in quiet chrysolite
My ghastliest suspicion never plumbed, Among the waning stars where she is gone
I think, I verily believe, that reason My darling slept then with her pretty face
Fell swooning from her seat, and then the devil In her child-hand,and long I watched her lie
Took full possession of my tortured soul And now, my God ! my love has brought to
I rose up a mere maniac with blind this
Lust to crush out the thing that tortured me The only thing my love was set upon.
My fingers clutched her delicate soft throat, But touched I ruined when I touched,
all I

And tightened, tightened, like a vice in it. And one long foredoomed failure is my life.
The paroxysm past I sank again Why was I born ? And yet there is a God
Exhausted on the pillow all confused. An awkward child my favourite toys I broke.
How long I lay I know not, but the truth And boyish games I spoiled wherein I played,
Of what had chanced shaped horrible itself In business ruined others and myself!
Slowly before me in the lurid gloom. I covered up the marred but precious face ;

That moment how I hated her—yet soon And when they stirredabout the house, I called
I fell to wondering why she lay so still. And told them I had done it, and again
I only knew I had been violent Sat by the darling body, feeling glad
With her, yet not too brutal, even now That she and I were now at peace for ever.
I hoped relenting —
then I listened intent The problem so insoluble to me,
A sickening fear pressed suddenly upon me ! The weary problem of this tangled life,
Why does she lie so quiet that her breath I fingered but to tangle more hopelessly.

I cannot hear I have not killed her

! no — Is nigh the solving I have let it rest
:

Impossible she means to frighten me

! Nothing can come between us any more.
For my unmanly violence but now. Tell me, Sir, as a clerg>'man, your thought.
After awhile I shyly touched her brow- Sometimes it seems the more I ponder it
Great Heaven it is clammy, it is cold
! : That, now the brutal frenzy-fit has passed
I shudder, daring not to feel again. From me for ever, and the moment dire
I cannot, will not credit that can be. Of her death-anguish passed away from her.
I kill her ! I ! Cruel to frighten me, Her spirit, sloughing off the film obscure
Cruel again — I call her under breath. Of earth upon her eyes, beholds at last
Then louder, tenderly, and soft again The man I am, the bottomless abyss
I breathed her blessed name — without reply. Of all my love for her — from agony
E!mergent saw, and seeing loved at last,
" I will not add another sin to this, The man so loving that he murdered her
I thought : my death is sure remaining here. At the first shock of feeling that his love.
I expiate my crime before the world. The priceless treasure of his boundless love,
Then follow her —
we meet before the Just. Lay dropt unseen, unheeded underfoot.
But I went cowering to the window nigh — She did not know me, did not understand :

Wherefore I know not it was early dawn — ;

That will be changed there now her eyes —
Our casement was ajar some birds awoke ; are open,
In our near trees one lark broke up the ; I think she waits to fall upon my breast
grey— Radiant now with all the love I craved.
The dawning of our honeymoon's lirst night Announcing God the loving hath forgiven
When had crept thus to enjoy the dawn
I Both His poor wildcrcd children who have
And soft air fragrant with the scent of hay 1 sinned !
 — :

56 A CHILD'S FUNERAL
But once methinks the mother, raising eyes
A CHILD'S FUNERAL As those grand words she hears
Read from the Holy Book to murky skies,
No passer in the strait and dreary road Light breaks behind the tears,
By hedgerows dank with rain :

From dusk low clouds the rain unceasing And feeds for her some shy emerging bow :

flowed The father's face I see

And the wind blew amain. Is dark and hopeless, though his spirit know
Divine the mystery.
Only a little coffin borne of four
With two to mourn none other — But he will wind a man's strong arm about
Follow as mourners through the windy pour,
The woman faltering
The father and the mother. has dwindled
They, since their life's wee fire

out,
A little pall is floating black and white,
For warmth more close will cling.
The mourners' faces set
Upon the ground as though they envied quite
Their lifeless baby pet.

They do not feel the chill and soaking crape ;

SONG
But the tilting to and fro
They feel of that cold helpless baby shape
I WENT, DEAR, BY THE BROOK
As the careless bearers go.
TO-DAY "

Ah where the gambols of his bounding limbs

!

Buoyant with springing life ? I WENT, dear, by the brook to-day,

Sweet light-and-shadow chase of baby whims, The little brook was dry.
Laughter and tears at strife ? No shoals flash fair in a sunny ray
Shooting the shallow nigh,
No more again will patter tiny feet Nor silverly clinks the crystal free
In his bright nursery, As the startled minnows fly.
No innocent prattle of his will hinder sweet
The day's dull drudgerj'.

Our one wild apple above the pool

Ah pouting of his roselips for a
! kiss,
Hath yielded blossoms long
And dimpled arms that clung To gleamy water lingering cool,
Trifles, for him a marvel and a bliss
Birds weary now of song,
To name with lisping tongue !
No winged blue halcyon flits with glee
Green bulrushes among.
I follow to the little grave at hand,
I hear the griding rope,
And shuffling feet of them that lowering stand,
And those grand words of hope. Only a teasel moves a flower
And a languid meadowsweet,
The parents look as though the rope did gride Dull leaves are thirsting for a shower,
Their sinking hearts about, Blue airs are pale with heat.
As if on them the earth were thrown to hide Ah never again by the brook with me
!

And from the light shut out. Thy fairy foot may fleet I
 " ; — ' — ; —
THE TWO FRIENDS 57

You know who called him ! . . well, that

very night
There is no water in the brook
Our little one lay in her little cot
Nor any
rosy bloom,
Dead, scathed with lightning, like an angel
Music and rain the leaves forsook
white,
And thou hast left in gloom
A heart that yearns, O love, to thee
Her face unspoiled . . . He would have
called her not
Over the far sea-foam.
Away from me.
Unless that He
Some lovelier thing for his wee lamb had got !

:>riNNiE

Minnie ! our Minnie ! did I ever tell

About the morning of the day she went ?

THE TWO FRIENDS
Knee-deep in marigolds, the sunlight fell
On lilac frock and gold enravelment Fast friends at school two maidens grew,
Of mistlike hair, And wintry age found them true,
still
And cherub-fair ICllen of gentle clinging mould,
Face, with blue eyes of merry wonderment. And Maud who seemed reserved and cold.
Maud loved to question why and how.
She stood as gaily listening intent.
What men are taught all-keen to know.
Clapping babe-dimpled hands with tender
Yet learned with graceful modesty
stroke
While forward arch her little head she bent,
And blushed to make some wise reply.
But Ellen, she was formed for love,
"That was Papa's voice; it was he that
spoke,
More soft than softest airs that move
Instinct with cooings from the grove.
Called '
Minnie, dear !

Once only, yet a girl, she loved

I heard him clear"
No voice but hers the summer stillness woke.
A midshipman, who sailed and roved
O'er half the world, but kept as leal

"Nay, you mistook; Papa's away,

darling, A heart as when he used to kneel

I answered, " far from here across the sea." An infant by his mother's side.

Dreamy she looked; "Mayhap he came Yet he was poor a guardian's pride
:

to-day. And shallow fondness often urge

And he has brought some pretty thing Of him who sweeps the alien surge
for me. And in his lonely nightwatch sees
He called, I know ;
Her face in phosphor-foam that flees,
O let me go. But loves yon stars best, for they keep
Mamma, I'm sure he wants me on his knee I
" Blest eyes upon her innocent sleep —
That boys are fickle roaming far,
" He may have called, peichance, from very That greater, wealthier suitors are
far; Here at her feet —but sensitive
Come, dearest, come away, and look for To love as little flowers that give
him !
Their closest secrets to the morn
No sound I heard, and he was in the war At his first kiss, and shut forlorn
wondered at the little maiden's whim.
I Their crimson tips when skies are grey,
My musing fell Where conscience sheds no doubtful ray
On Samuel, This tender woman from her way
The child who thought Eli was calling him. Not prayers nor fires may tempt to stray.
 — ; ; ; : ;

58 THE TWO FRIENDS

And so she waits for weary years Then would she through the open door
And since she cannot bend with tears That opened on the lawn outpour
Hearts warped by worldliness, they hold A mystic organ harmony
A solemn council as they fold, So dreamlike over earth and sky
These lovers with their sacred love, That in dusk woods wee birds that doze
Who bids them, would they worthy prove, Sank deeper into sweet repose
Forsake the world to follow Him ; While Maud hung over her, or drank
So Maud with vision suffused and dim That music as the twilight sank
In part from joy, in part maybe Upon the terrace walk, until
From some dim hungering jealousy. The fluttering white robe would fill

Receives the fugitives, whose home Her grateful sight, till Ellen came
Their home with her shall hence become. And her pale spirit-brow the flame
He grows a leader in the state, Of a young moon kissed sisterly ;

While all her life is consecrate Maud asked no heaven, with Ellen by.
To cheer him wearied oft, and tend
Fair infants God to them may lend. Men called her somewhat cold and stern
The sick and poor around her bless On blatant folly she could turn
Her grace of human tenderness, Severely — not for her the looks
While men, half-hearted foes of wrong, Of amorous men ; in learned books
With her wax chivalrous and strong. Immersed she seemed, and yet she kept
Though worldlings shun with coward sense A nook of heart where Ellen crept
Her dauntless front of innocence. So warm the love of common wives
At noble deeds her heart would bound Were pale, methinks, to that which lives
As a war-horse at the trumpet's sound ;
In this stern woman for her friend.
And glories of the earth and air If Ellen absent do not send
Her limpid spirit mirrors fair By every mail some word that bears
Nor only shrines them, since they don On her own self, tells how she fares.
Fresh forms and lovelier every one Even the very dress she wears,
From sprouting seedlike in her soul That Maud may image her distinct,
Till carols of the Spring-bird roll The daily drudgeries have linked
From her white throat in human strain With them no joy for Maud ; she droops.
More rare to nature given again ;
And only for to-morrow hopes.
She feels the blossomed landscape wane
Hued like young wheat-bloom through the The little ones had asked a boon
boughs One balmy summer afternoon
Of foliaged oaks, and placid cows When they and Ellen and her lord
In lustrous cowslip-meadows lie, To spend what days he might afford
One lapse of light the river nigh From public duties here with Maud
And lo such landscapes of our land
! Had come the children eager prayed
:

Glow new-born 'neath her fairy hantl
—
Creating even as bees who dive
In flower-sweets their own to hive.
But when the West grew all suffused
With sunset, and the farms were fused
With their own orchards on the hill,
The murmurous water-wheel stood still
Beside the bridge in yonder vale,
Nor yet the cushat plainings fail,
That where by Maud's command was
made
Up among the chestnut boughs,
high
Where the breeze freshly stirs and soughs.
What Maud had called a children's nest
(Not stern to them the weans confessed)
With nailed sawn branch and stairs that
wound
About the grey trunk from the ground.
 ! —; ; —— ;

THE TWO FRIENDS 59

That here at tea-time should be spread The happy day she dares not read
;

—
Their evening meal and here new bread,
Fresh pats of butter, milk that foamed,
Huge strawberries ripe crimson-domed,
In porcelain translucent slight
As eggs the shy wildbird by flight
In her moss nest reveals to
And other dainties, on the rude
Plank of a table tempting stood.
The children feasted, Ellen by
Aglow with their felicity.
While light and shade
She knows all day for her is dead.
And yet the record is of peace.
Of life still lapsing till it cease.
And our few fretful bubbles die
In fathomless tranquillity !
light, Herself had told of orange-groves
Beneath the window that she loves.
Whence she can look upon the main
Rich velvet-blue with ne'er a stain,
O'erarched with sapphire crystalline
from flickering Pale blending in horizons fine :

leaves The adds that there she lay,

letter

Soft chequerwork about them weaves ;

And with each rising of the day
Then gamesome through the woods they Fresh-crowned with youth's immortal ray
run, A little more she fades away.
Their shadows in the westering sun Albeit the strong man sobbing pray :

Slow-lengthening, and laugh and pull Close to her window, damp the brow.
The bluebells, what a basketful Faint to the dim eye waneth now
And Maud and Ellen wander too, Yon far seablue, and soft warm aiv
While notes of rapture filter through To failing sense doth fragrance bear
The leafage as from Heaven's blue Of her dear garden till so calm
;

So arm in arm they wander home. She passed it seemed that air of balm
But in the after sunset gloom Lured sisterlike her gentle sprite
Out on the dusky dewy lawn To flutter with it into light.
Those dulcet organ-tones are borne. The end came serene
to Ellen
Death was on Jesus' breast to lean
So time wears on ; Maud's late brown After life's supper by Him spread
hair Maud only felt that she was dead.
Is streaked with grey, though not the
fair They said her friend was gone before ;

Of Ellen's in its gleamy fold ;

She felt she would not see her more.
And she is absent, as of old. She did her duties as of old.
But now so far her dwelling-place But all her face looked grey and cold.
Long linger letters o'er the space. Some glow with their own spirit's heat,
Her health has ailed, and friends advise Their joy full-pulsed will ever beat
For her the warmth of southern skies ; And kindle dullest clouds that stain
But thrice the welcome echoing horn Tillsorrow burns in glory's train ;

Has thrilled Maud in the sunny morn ;

But some for joy do much depend
She knows yon bluff mail-guard may bear On what these favoured spirits lend.
The writing that she holds so dear And like a snow-alp Maud grew wan
—
Each morn a blank her heart feels faint. When Ellen sank who was her sun.
Yet never makes she open plaint. Nor had she left a friend to stir

At length, 'mongst others, rimmed with The healing fount of tears for her
black For then with broken whispers they.
A letter comes —not hers — and back Naming the one beloved who lay
The blood ebbs sudden from her face ;
In darkness yonder, surely could
Some dizzy darkness doth efface Ease each her solitary load.
 : —— ; — — :

6o THE TWO FRIENDS

To one only friend is loss
lose With old familiar arms of love
Is loss of all —
and ne'er would cross As if such grief found power to move
Maud's lips from now that sacred name: At last the daisy- sprinkled dead
But Ellen's sunny room the same To turn and yearn to it and spread
As when she left it stays, all fair Wide arms of love to fold us round
And only waiting Ellen there For all the deep sleep underground !

As Maud has decked ; she keeps the To Maud that organ-voice had grown
key ; As Ellen's voice, her very own,
None ever enter there but she Rare breathings from her secret soul
At night when all sleeps tranquilly, Who now but Ellen's self should roll
If weeping there are none to see. To-night the old weird harmonies
Each little trifle lying out So faintly breathed as from the skies
'Gainst Ellen's coming spread about To call the sweet mist in the eyes ?
She has been wont how oft to use ! ;
" And is she come herself again ?
Maud even her favourite flowers renews. Even in God's very smile my pain
And as to name the lost none dare, Like a vague shadow flitted o'er
So from the dark day Maud can bear Her basking spirit, and it bore
No stranger hand to touch the keys Her down a moment, ah not more I

"
Whose organ-tones upon the breeze An angel than she was of yore I

Were wont at evening time to float, She weeps but quiet tears and sweet
Nor have the hushed woods heard a note While silent steals she down and fleet.
Since Ellen went ; but in herroom So noiseless entering the player
Maud lives in ever lonely gloom, Plays on, nor dreams that she is there.
Her heart in Ellen's foreign tomb. She stands in deepening twilight, now
Scarce would she see a human face The old low melancholy flow
Unless for duty. Of wind is in the elms through ; tears
But the place Afar through twilight vague appears
In later years one visited The figure playing, she could deem
Nor knew that sacred to the dead the Ellen of her dream
It is !

Maud kept the organ — waiting there, She knows she dreams, yet loves too well
And finding music many a year To let the dear illusion dwell
Laid by disused as it was left Until at last so mighty throbs
By Ellen, took it up and cleft Her pent emotion that she sobs
The long years' silence with a strain Aloud, and startling causes turn
That Maud of yore had been more fain The player, who views amazed the stern
To listen for than any one. Pale woman shaken thus with grief
When happy day's bright current on Ah healthful tears, ye bring relief.
!

With had flown.

lapse insensible
And it was such a summer-eve, " Go on " she murmurs and she prays
Fair as those were, and Maud to leave P'or all the music Ellen plays.
Her solitary chamber thought, So from that day God eased her load,
P"or evening's peace within her wrought And more submissively she trod
Some peace of spirit, and she felt Her lonely way, and comfort souglit
As Ellen's spirit with her dwelt In those sweet works that Ellen wrought.
When lo once more the organ breathes,
! Through intercourse with many poor.
And as she trembling stands enwreathes Who bless her nowno more.
she is

Her numb and wounded heart once more She fell on sleep with hope the while
As in dear faded eves of yore One face would on her waking smile.
 ; —
MENCHERES: A VISION OF OLD EGYPT 6i

And lo I saw each giant pillar bulged

!

MENCHERES With form stupendous as of man, divulged

A VISION OF OLD EGYPT
Methought I floated on the ancient Nile
^ Standing each speechless vast along the stone.
Each to the full height of his pillar grown
A colonnade of these on either hand
My twilit nave afar they vague expand,
;

'Neath an abrupt and weird craggy pile, To my rapt vision dwindling infinite.
Its flame-hued cliffs caverned with many a Phantoms assembling in the halls of Night I

tomb, And then I noted nigh a crevice small

Haunt of lone winds and birds of dusky plume. Through this I deemed that Day into the
A boat with monks that chaunted floated nigh; Hall
But when they paused, some awful far reply in awe to melt the shroud of
Passed half
Came ever from the mountain's heart one gloom :

said, That broods o'er these in their eternal tomb.

" A voice from old-world priests of ages dead, These then in pauses of the living prayer

Who slumbering in their stupendous fane Wailed that antistrophe of Death's despair !

Deep in yon mountain's heart are roused And still night jealous claims them for her
again own.
With a faint consciousness that stirs and dies Nor may her shadow free from them be
To breathe a note of hoary litanies, thrown,
Eiewhile they chaunted while impassive But silent like black water it abides
Death For ever resting down their mighty sides.
Quenched ever some poor heart's weak flame Their mummied forms are like their faces
of faith." pale.
A tone it seemed bereft of life, unblest, Each in vast crossing hands the crook and
Emptied of thought and joy, vaguely opprest flail

A moment with the living voice of prayer
They have proved wasted on the lifeless air.
Embers of old hope wake to feel the doom
Of smothered souls in everlasting gloom.
Then changed the scene — for
around :
Methought I lay in silence drear profound
On some hot sand ; the close incumbent air
Reeked faint as from some dismal creature's
lair,
Some presence nigh of bird or beast obscene,
Hyena, bat, that loves to lurk unseen.
Of an Osirian on his bosom broad
Holds folded close, each mitred like the god.
Their presence weighs upon the mortal
sense,
it was dark Informs with fear the solitude intense,
Voiceless and moveless pale forever there.
In some unguessed unhuman-wise aware.
But calm serene is every countenance,
Unvexed more of any human chance,
Sublime unearthly in its restfulness,
Quiet in Destiny the passionless.
Fond fool to dream that hopes or joys or
!

And yet a dubious glimmer near me lay woes

Upon the sand, and slow the space to grey Of ours may rufliie this immense repose !

Opened about me till I dim defined Can ever these have been of mortal race.
Columnar masses pale gigantic-lined fame with eager
Crushing for pelf or face.
Rude huge and lofty, with no capital flushed elate with
Throbbing for pleasure,
Or fretted moulding wrought fantastical.
gain,
Titanic blocks each horizontal laid
Sullen or blank with loss and lit again ?
From pier to pier bridging abysmal shade.
Yea, these were mortal, even as thyself.
1 See Herodotus, Euterpe ii. lag. And thou shall be as they, O wildered elf
 — — ; ;

62 MENCHERES: A VISION OF OLD EGYPT

Blown tossed like sere leaves, little comforted, Itwears aspect of one in manhood's prime
Thou shalt be tranquil calm as are the dead ! Complexioned in no tender northern clime

Even thy vain bubble-turmoil in the flood From all breathes moral intellectual power,
Viewed from the still height very grand and From the grand head's expansive lofty dower,
good ! Howe'er curtailed of close-curled raven hair
Ranging to neck and cheek as natives wear
Kindred with twilight now my vision grows, Breathes from his dark and musing eyes that
And straight between each pillared phantom live
shows Once more and from the full mouth sensitive.
Sunk in the darkness a sarcophagus,
Of finest linen are his raiments woven,
Heart of the darkness, solid, ponderous ;
With long straight folds thesubtle fabric cloven,
The massy lid of each prodigious shoved Both long loose robe and apron girdled close
Awry as though the dread inmate had moved. Of girdle, whose fronting flap is wrought in
Then I knew these were Pharaohs of the Sun, rows
Ramses-Sesostris, Amunoph-Memnon,
Of golden asps and lions' heads ; the neck
Sesortasen, and many a power beside.
Bare shapely many a jewel doth bedeck
Priest-kings imperial, who strode in pride
Each slim wrist braceleted, his slender feet
Over dwarfed continents astonished pale Have gold-laced palm-leafed sandals for them
Making the hearts of all the nations fail
meet.
Then every breath bore rumours of their fame: Can then the searching of my thought intent
What are they now ? the shadow of a name In that sad mound of human ashes blent,
!

Longing to pierce the incrustation dense Mere chaos and oblivion, restore
Of forty centuries that hides from sense This Mycerinus as he lived of yore ?
All rich humanity of these past lives, But hark a murmur low and musical,
!

Vague embryonic there in me revives A voice upon my sense appears to fall.

A story from the blithe Ionian
Of one whose time the teller's time foreran Eternal river ! soul of all the land,
Blue from the blue of heaven where I stand,
By generations more innumerous
I wander through the palms that fringe thy
Than lie 'tween Story's hoary sire and us.
shore
So while thereon I muse and peer intent
And thee lifegiving bountiful adore !

Distincter gathers every lineament

Thy waters plash
Out of the twilight, till I seem to hear And through the gardens wash
Some eerie movement nigh yon shapes of fear
Making a laugh of flowers as they flash.
By one of shadowy sarcophagi.
Portentous ranged on either hand that die 'Tween intersecting runnels in rich spots

From sight afar, dim dwindling infinite : Rise tender riceblades, vividest green plots,
And then some shadowy form of stately height Or purple lupins or the tendrilled pea,
And gait emerges to my questioning eyes Or misty flax-beds thrilling airily,
With strained shadoof
From where the night impenetrable lies
Yon stooping hind aloof
Slow moving as with contemplation fraught.
Fills from the Nile his conduit constantly.
The kingly head bowed lowly as in thought,
Until it nears me in rapt wonder laid
O sweetest shade of yon mimosa groves
Upon the sand astonished, not afraid. Where soft-hued turtles ever coo their loves !

Softly it comes companioned of a shade With mild flame-crest the gentle-toned hoopoe
Thin traced upon the wan sandslope afar, Flits tlirough shy sunlights into open blue,
Pausing so nigh that all its features are unweaves
If air

Evident to me, every shapely limb Loose clouds of dainty leaves,

And all its vesture with the gloaming dim. Mantles mild sunniness the foliage through.
 ; ; ! —
MENCHERES: A VISION OF OLD EGYPT 63

And all is fair, for thou art with me, child, For dreamy listlessness akin
Sole budding of my house, dear undefiled, To hazy light the lulled world swooneth in.
My love, my hope, blithe like the merry bird, I know the hind in midst of that intoning
Shrinking with shadowing of a chilly word !
Sits in the centre of the wheel
The meanest thing While hemp-slung jars tilt ever and refill,
The old, the sorrowing.
A yoke of patient circling oxen guiding,
In thy fresh facelight with rejoicing stirred.
Roofed from the scorching glare
Pjy large leaves of the melons trellised there.
And I grow young again breathing the air

Of early morning all the prince's care,

;
On yon low sandflat motionless abiding,
All anxious quest for ever-eluding truth, Behold a crocodile, and nigh
For woes of this great people all my ruth, Upon the neighbour bank one may espy
Melts all from me, Some ibis white with pink flamingoes resting ;

A child I gambol free But when day vvaneth we shall hear

By the fresh bubbling springs of life with thee !
Clangour of wild geese in the crystal clear.
Their living chain wedgewise the glory
Dance on, my maiden, trip it on before, breasting.
Babbling strange tales to ne'er an auditor ;

Singing by snatches, for a flower bending, Westers the great god, now I move
Blessing lone nooks of woodland in thy wending Brooding alone to yon palm-grove.
Through shade and sun 'Tis evening hour when the palm
Cease, little one, to run, Looks loveliest in skiey calm.
Now to the carven barge we will be tending. It seems to mount unwavering

Awhile for all delights that cling.

And there upon the river's broad expanse
Till last yields all the high resolve
We'll watch the myriad-curling ripple glance,
In graceful languor to dissolve,
On yon sandbank grey dotterel soft sip
The bright-brown fringe, or crested plover dip
Wanton with crimsoned plume in air,

With curtsey quick

Dally with moonlight soft and fair.

At every calling click

Plumed black and white he utters in his trip.
The Sun sinks —many a soul with him
Now must explore the regions dim.
The flood like molten metal glows,
'Tis noon, relentless rules the blaze Taking the tarnish soon that grows
Of our Sun-god that ne'er a breeze allays. On metal from the furnace poured,
Far far away the windless river burning With richest greens and purples floored
Through wan sand-levels dimly banked Beside, a brief but gorgeous hour
Of distant yellow hills, but nearer flanked Now wakes a breeze with welcome power
With palm-girt loam-built. thorps at every To speed the ship ; they set the sail,

turning, While I from far well-pleased hail

And oft a huge stone temple spread Tiie terabok and measured chaunt
With obelisk and sphinx and banner red Of oarsmen sweetly wont to haunt
towing
Silent from heat our swarthy sailors Old Nile at evening, while the crew
The boat becalmed with rope on land Indolent near their fire strew
Anon some baked wave-mined mass at hand The deck one stirs the lentil meal :

From yon loam-ridge is loosened in their Over the flame our ship doth steal ;

going, Still as a spirit up the glow

Falling with sudden splash and thud, Of dusking gold, her form below
Nor mars mj' soul's luxurious mood And moonlight sail i' the water's husk
Enhanced of distant water-wheels' long Fainter repeated, and the flush
droning. Of her deck-fire with a blush.
 — —

64 MENCHERES: A VISION OF OLD EGYPT

They anchor now for night upon the strand. These sweating human beasts of burden bore
Beneath a palm upon the visions grand Along the causeway from the river shore.
That occupy my soul I sit and brood, Scarce one is left to sow the fallow field,
Scheming to compass all my people's good. Strong dykes neglected to the waters yield.
From yon lone waste some dismal jackal bays, From frugal serfs the hoarded store is reft.
Far dogs bark in the village as there strays And starved men's corpses to the vultures left j
A wight belated now while starbeams fleck
; While to defraud the poor our priests combine
The tender grey of water, on my deck To load God's scales of justice, the Divine,
Slumber my sailors light of heart are they,
: And sway them as the golden bribes incline !

Laughing and singing blithely all the day, Yet 'tis a noble pile that doth arise
In their scant raiment sleeping free from care Soon like my sire's to climb and flout the
—
But these are happy yea, this people are skies,
Light-hearted all —great Heaven ! that is well: Scale with its flashing mount of lucid grey
Not agelong tyranny may quell
bitterest Of Syenite fair radiant as Day
These buoyant natures incompressible. Von very sanctuary of the Sun,
Who must wax pale when Pharaoh's work is

done !

Yet, O! my people toiling more than beasts

Foodful gold fields of Memphis withering
While your proud lords loll scornful at their
prone
feasts,
In leaguelong menace of their shadowy frown.
'Neath your tanned hide there beats a human
heart.
Alas ! my people, on crushed human breasts
Your bleeding feet with writhing lashes smart,
Von haughty mount of stone triumphant
Your backs are mangled, but your spirits bleed
rests,
More sorely yet, for at your bitter need
It was set up in hearts of your firstborn.
A jeer, a curse, a contumelious lip
Of wives and daughters outraged and forlorn.
Excoriates more cruel than the whip !

Kneaded with blood of men the lime adheres,

The iron that wrought was tempered in your
roamed amid the clangs
I in disguise late tears !

From and mallet of the slaving gangs And will the Avenger slumber evermore
chisel
Among some toilers tottering 'neath the For all the bitter crying of the poor?
weight How long may savour of men's evil deeds
Of rubble borne from where they excavate. Stink in the nostrils till Ra-Amun heeds ?
Whose dusk maimed limbs the rubble doth Be patient, mortal for He bides his time !
;

encrust. The world's deep curse and memory of their

Their overseer as they bear the dust crime
Clapping his hands to regulate the time Huge stones about the necks of these shall lie

Of their monotonous mechanic chime. Dragging them low to agelong infamy !

I heard a youth approaching timid say, ! —

" Let yon frail girl fall out, my lord, I pray
Put upon me her share of work to-day,
"
She is so faint, sun beats upon her head
(His love she was for whom he dared to plead)
But the man spurned him with a brutal wit.
And soon the girl fell foaming in a fit.
Harnessed by thousands to the wooden sledge.
Those huge blocks quarried with the swollen
wedge
Ah were I king not for the weary state
1 But I would snatch my people from such a
fate,
! Pour balm intotheir wounds and save my land
P'rom the nigh blaze of Heaven's avenging
brand.
Ere plague and famine decimate them quite
And in limp hands lingers no more the might
To ward from glazing eyes the loathly foreign
kite!
 ! !!

MENCHERES: A VISION OF OLD EGYPT 65

By day and night the burning longing grows And wonder ! for it springs to juiceful food,
In me that God will to my soul disclose Leaguelong gold seas of life for mortal good.
No momentary easing of the pain, Yea, the old symbol of Osiris I
Some drug with virtue to consume the bane ! Took to fecundate and revivify ;

Image of man's ideal life I wrought

For worship as with Deity full-fraught,
Breaking no other gods, yet setting mine
Then my dream changed — on Mencheres Supreme in every heart and every shrine.
the asp But lo we near sweet places cool and dim
!

In gold a king doth on his forehead clasp Among the acacias ; chaunt, fair youth, the
Bespoke him monarch now slowly he walked:
hymn
And with some graceful noble stripling talked; You know of yours, rest here upon the mint
Bymellowing grain lithe waved and simmering In flower, while I the marjoram will dint."
In the blue morn lay their sweet communing.
Earnest intent the stripling's mobile face Holy yon living Stream
With hearkening, save when a sudden race Ever twinborn all-luminous with beam
Some jerboa commenced with nimble leap Of orient Day arising flusli
Nigh to their startling feet, or at the sweep With everlasting youth, lotus and rush
Of shadowing pinions from a falcon nigh ;
Waking from womb of parent Nile
Then wandered the chace-lover's eager eye Crimson beneath the Sun's engendering smile.

—
And thought awhile then oft King Men- Hither let mortal bring
The votive offering
cheres
Would pause and upon these,
shift allusion
Engendering the land
Instinct with heedful sympathy and keen By quickening the river's loamy sand,
For all men doting christen great and mean. Whose eldest-born Leviathan
All reptiles follow and the lizard clan ;

Measures accomplished or projected still Emblemed in hawk of fervid eyes

For weal of craftsmen, weal of men who till. And fire suppressed that in the plumage lies,

For stimulating niggardly dull soil Lordly dominion, stately wings that sweep
.'\s native to it all the sunny steep.
To liberal crown a less laborious toil,
Hither let mortal bring
Arrest a partial handling of the laws
The votive offering
And pluck their prey from ravenous red claws,
Such themes their converse visits as they Offspring himself of Light
wend, That puts all chaos of the soul to flight.
Higher illuminating in the end, Life culminates in human flower,
Startling the silent heart of mysteries Her fair world-stem maturing into power
Where vulgar footfall ne'er profanely pries. Of man's all-glassing consciousness.
"Too subtle abstruse unhuman such a creed Yielding to each a form and comeliness.
To serve the people in their hourly need Hither let mortal bring
;

To thee I open, dearest neophyte, The votive offering !

That thou and other few may bear the light

Yea, with one flame Divine
Enkindled here to many a darkling spirit.
High and mean things evolved in order shine,
How from the sacred lore we all inherit Pain, wrong, but embryos of good.
I culled a germ, that lay as grain may lie
Even our dwarf Virtue sapling of a wood
Shut from all use in sepulchres flung by. To crown with fruits of unforehoded grace
Save it and plant and water it alone Worlds of intelligence of kinglier race.
Till sprout soft green wings from the jasper Hither let mortal bring
stone The votive offering
 ; : : —

66 MENCHERES: A VISION OF OLD EGYPT

Then spake the priestly noble old
Shammar
" Vain, vain, my liege, with Deity you war
Some interval of years appeared to pass, !

And then my vision showed as in a glass Do men know good from evil ? only youth
Mencheres little aged, but sad and changed. May dream possession of sufficing truth.
As slowly now and moodily he ranged The mushroom dreaded as a baneful food

With echoing foot the shadowed peristyle Proves oft a wholesome nutriment and good ;

Of that vast inner court within the pile We snatch by night some healing medicine,
Of his great palace, every massy column And lo 'tis poison that we pour so keen
!

Carved to a giant god of aspect solemn. For yon beloved sleeper ailing there.
An aged priest stern grave and dignified Or 'tis a potion fraught with virtues rare
World wise of aspect pacing him beside. Mayhap for one, yet worse than impotent
In such disease for such a temperament.
And shall the Maker not be sovereign?
" My hope is out — it is decreed in Heaven, Though men be crippled in their souls and
I said, that I shall train this child to leaven slain.
The people with my doctrine when I go, Few daring to affirm the bitter woe
For she had felt the godlike thirst to know, Wrought for their welfare whom it ground so
And knowing with her woman's heart and low.
tact Whose weal soe'er may sprout and germinate
She might have vivified my dream to fact From the hot blood and tears of such a fate
In all men's soul the worship would have So is it —would thy plummet dangle still,

stirred Or wilt thou chain the inexorable Will?

And germinated now ; herd yuur evil Sooth spake the oracle, the gods decree
Of priesthood scenting it out peril roots These groans of Egypt and her infamy !
With snout obscene, or in the arid drought
Of dead parched superstition-ridden mind " Nay what are good and evil ? With a man

No soil congenial the seed can find. Did God take counsel when He framed His
Now she is gone, my darling stricken down. plan
!

And since that hour I loathe my barren crown. That we pronounce it frustrate overthrown
For what am I to struggle on with God When in her march calm Nature spurns our
Since He withstands me in the way I trod ? own ?
I thought to serve Him who will not be Even as an elder things at random piled
served ;
By hindering helping of a little child.

All my bleeding travail but deserved

life's Who frustrates His design ? Some living
An early death —
so spake the oracle. men
Though Egypt from my ."Vre miserable slaves
father's cruel rule what spirit then —
Yet halts and bleeds, upon her face, Lived in the tyrant dancing on the slave ?
lies faint

Who am I with my yearning to embrace Nay, some are born to sorrow or to rave,
My stricken brethren and to make them strong Some to be wise or happy till the grave,
With strength that doth to sons of God And what beyond ? The secret cold He
belong? locks
Have not the gods themselves decreed the And all our turbulent guessing quiet mock.s.
dole, Ours but to bow and to accept the lore
Yea, degradation of the flesh and soul In holy roll and in traditions hoar.
Yea, wantonness of great men in their wrong Thothmes beguiled thee, whose were glosses
And slaves to writhe as writhes the viper vain
thong?" On simple phrase and insolent disdain
 —" — : '

MENCHERES: A VISION OF OLD EGYPT 67

Of other reverend teachers, in the guise Our weary caravan yet toiling through
Of holy truth insinuating lies, Intolerable sand and blinding blue.
Inventions of his own presumptuous wit While ever and anon beside the track
Now in Amenti hath he answered it !
Some vulture shadows with a blot of black
The pallid wilderness, revealing why
"Bootless on such a theme discourse hath So fleshless yon bleached human members lie.

grown," My sun will soon be low, and every time

Replied the King, " it profits full to own . . . He issues fresh firom gates of night sublime,

. Me hath God used, now leaves me in

. . He notes one more hath fallen to the rear,
the hollow ;
A still white shape forgetting hope and fear I

Vain where He goes mine eyes may strain to But I, with eyes for ever steadfastly
follow ! Set on the far goal counting it so nigh,
Chafed at the baitings of our caravan

"The truth that I proclaimed was too By springs that bubble, under palms that fan ;

sublime, For such there are, oases in the waste ;

Too pure, refined for dwellers in the slime. Chided my fellows who would lingering taste :

I deemed that they would clutch the saving '

These are impure, ye should be pressing on!
rope But lo we are not near and sinks the sun
! !

Ilowered within the chasm where they grope. My night is near, I cannot even see
Too feeble alas dazed and distraught they
! That lake which in the morning shone for me ;

play Weary and disappointed I have missed

With this their only hope of life and day ! Soft bubbling water and soft airs that kissed ;

Not worshipping my Truth, but with her dress Under cool shade of palm and tamarind
Investing their old idols' nakedness. They found their blessing mine I cannot —
Not than erst their misery I feel.
less find !

But more a myriadfold than when to heal

I fondly hoped ah vainly shall you fling
; !
'•
Yet subtle in mewere inlets of all pleasure,
To glut the bottomless pit of suffering Subtler than wont, but never mine the leisure
Treasures untold of life and heart and mind, For toying in my youth yet latterly, ;

A myriad sage lovers of their kind !

Grow-n doubtful more and more if ever I
Traitors administering make voidmy dream May share that triumph of posterity.
Even to mere earthly uses of my scheme And more and more oppressed with smother-
ing sense
" Yet 'twas no Wizard's water that of eld Of my fool's prudence, baffling impotence.
These eyes farseeing with rapt gaze beheld Often I muse if wisdom bid me scout
Over the weary sand, far far away The gods' rich gifts till they be wearied
Where earth's hot waste dies into Heaven's out !

grey- Who dowered me with all capacity.

No mocking mirage as I dare to trust. And with firee hand rained largesse from on
But a true lake where mortal pilgrims must high,
—
One day repose but ever 'tis removed While I trod sullen upon all their wealth.
As we approach, the longed-for haven proved Deaf to my strong-beseeching youth and
How distant still ; no nearer now we seem health,
Than when we started in the morning beam Torturing brain with unavailing thought,
Brimful of faith that we must needs attain Wringing my heart with alien pangs for
The goal ere yet life's day be on the wane nought. !

But now 'tis waning, still there looms around Aloof from sympathy, that spirit's gold,
."
The old parched waste, the solitude prof(jund. BatHed, alone, and prematurely old. . .
 : " — — ;

68 MENCHERES: A VISION OF OLD EGYPT

Cold Shammar slern rejoinder made nor A king, a priest —
nay, frown not, I will speak
spared Even if thou swift vengeance on me wreak
"Therefore the gods (the oracle declared) A king and priest, from thee the sacrilege !

Even because thou hast, a mortal, dared Thou to destroy thine order's privilege !

To cherish lawless visions for thy kind, Ambition tempts thy proper caste to lower .-

To flout the pleasant toys wherewith they blind When didst thou brook a rivalr)' in power?—
Creatures to heaven-appointed miserj'. Even for high-flown schemes benevolent,
Challenging their inscrutable decree. How to the land may happiness be lent
Lifting a rash rebellious look on high When thou hast dealt us priests thine impious
To their inviolable serenity ;
blow,
For this their lightning smites thee from Sole Heaven-elected channels of its flow?
above ! Yet I and all our order cordial
Or shall a man lay claim to more of love. In with your aims beneficent will fall
Justice more equal than the fateful gods? If but from now you promise to redress
""
For this they visit with avenging rods !
Wrongs of the foithful and their dire distress.
Come make your peace
1 with Heaven's
Then broke indignant answer like a flood :
incensed powers !

" What irks to them man's evil or his good So when they see your rebel spirit cowers,
If but their altars want no savoury food Who knows ? the oracle may even reverse
Of innocent human or dumb victims' breath? The doom decreed and your untimely curse.""

For all these are insatiate of death.

Insatiate of suffering like their priests "Enough," the King replied; "you have
Quaffing men's tears for wine at all their not hid
feasts !
Your counsel from me and I have not chid.
Therefore of gods I cr}' that there be none, But, friend, there is almighty Destiny
We startle at our proper shadows thrown
Over thine oracle, the gods, and me ;
!

For we are in the hand of sightless Fate Strong are thy gods no more I will molest —
That moulds with nought of consciousness Mine now be pleasure, silken ease and rest I"
our state !

"Yea better," spake the priest, "supine

SHAMMAR to lie

"Rash king I my pupil whom I trained in Than your late haughty front's hostility.

youth. I count the slave of sense but as a beast,

Striving to leaven with venerable truth, Yet venial his error if at least

Truth no invention of my feeble wit, With he guards our mysteries Divine

zeal

But such as Heaven througli us delivers it !

From prying question, kneeling at the shrine
Rejoicing once I saw thee fired with zeal Of his forefathers, vassal of the gods.

Cruel confusions of the realm to heal Even though he rule his proper slave with

By strenuous vindication of the true rods."

Faith sorely hurt by Chefren and Chufu.

Ah ! still the temples moulder and the shrine Bitterly smiled the younger man, but here
Lies desolate, and still the people pine Some chamberlain obsequious drew near :

For all the treasure thou, king-priest profane, Who bowing low announced a peasant sought
Hast dared from consecrated use distrain. His cause before the monarch might be
While thou dost own thy fond presumptuous brought
creed This very day —" ' How else may justice come
Like a weak staff" hath broken in thy need ! Between the tax-collector of our nome
 : ; ; ;

MENCHERES: A VISION OF OLD EGYPT 69

And my poor self ?' Your majesty's command (A coil fire-eyed of seagreen emerald).
That never any barrier should stand Nor splendid arms that winding soft en-
"
To bar a prayer like this from your august thralled.
' Nay, you are right," he answered "yet ; I Prevailed upon him to relinquish base
must The kingly task which called him to his place
To-day refuse it tell him that we hunt
; That day at least —a place how nobly filled
Lady Nitocre with me in the punt Before alas ! the nobler man was killed
Among the flags upon our royal pool In him the dreamer, little apt for strife
Hunts the wildfowl." In slow undazzling processes of life,
Impatient with a march circuitous
" But is the man a fool," Oft turning face from where the ideal glows.
Shammar broke forth, "appealing to the
ICing?
Vex royal leisure for so mean a thing !
He banquets in the alabaster hall
seemly usage now at court ?
Is this the
Echoing slaves' obsequious footfall,
Bid him to our conclave anon resort." On ivory throne contorted limbs support.
From Syria pale, from Ethiopia swart
But little Mencheres the tone
relished
He quafis from jewelled beaker fair of shape
Nor look and was gone.
that flitted faintly
Sweet purple foam of Mareotic grape,
" Stay," quietly he spoke with ire repressed?
Feasting on viands rare, viol and lyre.
" We do recall decision we expressed :
Pipe dance and song, feeding the sense with
Tell him to wait us at the outer gale
fire.
Toward the sundown there in royal state:

We shall attend as erst if any need :

Yet soon he wearies of the rich repast
"
Justice among our people, let him plead I
(Fools' vapid laughter pallsupon the taste),
Where crowned with lotus many a courtier
Then even Shammar quailed before his look, sits,
Yet with a grieved wise air the head he Who lives by letting out some flyblown wits,
shook :
Buftbon they pay for sport with dainty bits ;
"You make yourself too common: men Who for some shining baubles they may dole
despise To feline malice prostitutes a soul,
A king who dangles ever in their eyes." To and beslavering,
spiteful drivel
" Lord Shammar," stern rejoined the sove- Incense men deem most grateful to a king
reign, Whose grovelling they suffer, yet disdain
'
' do you remember that we reign
Enough : !
More than pet monkeys with a ribbon cliain.
I leave your gods and all your craft to you,

But by Ra-Amun sorely shall ye rue Therefore he leaves the empty revel now.
Setting at nought my sovereign decree about the brow
Fillet of violet :

Shielding the poor from your rapacity
Later Nitocre, wife to Amasis
The minister, with many a wile and kiss
Strove to dissuade from his resolve her lover,
With her ripe gorgeous beauty
Him fired with her abundant mellow breast
"
!
More dainty and effeminate his mien,
Still fair with lingering youth behold him lean
Upon some comrade of repulsive brow,
Of visage lewd, coarse-built and rude and low.
hanging over " Yet lingers one sweet drop within the cup
Of life : shall senseless deserts drink it up

And supple shapely shoulder bare of vest Even as the rest ? some youth remains to
Yet nor large eyes that languished, nor superb bless.
Head of night-locks with lissome snaky curb Some relish of the sense, and comeliness.
 ; —
"— ;

70 MENCHERES: A VISION OF OLD EGYPT

Long- prisoned joy may hesitate to fly, Which lovely gods who cherishes at home
Yet craves brief wanton in the summer-sky Doth never wrong how far soe'er he roam,
—
Ere night be fallen therefore softly pushes And though he learn by sharp experience
My papyrus boat among the rushes,
light The All is more than our circumference."
I flinging true the whirring wooden arm
Mid wheeling wildfowl rising in alarm. " For subtleties I lack the competence :

"
Some blessed sense of living glows diffused I blush not bluntly praising life of sense !
Through muscles, nerves and organs long Rejoined the other, *' what inspiring wine !

disused. —
Fervid the Sun thy languid steps incline
Now first I learn, a fullgrown man at school Toward yon labyrinth of trellised vine !

Among young boys who well may count me There many a green nook tenderly he woo'd
fool, And won to wait upon the softer mood.
Now first I learn exulting to inhale Shaping themselves to bowers of delight.
Deep draughts of healthful airs that never fail Entwined with odorous roses pink and white.
Lavish to flood the sunny infinite, There as they lie with all their being sweet
Now first my dulled sense revels in the light, Unstrung, aware how in the lucid heat
Riding and curbing the incarnate wind Silken -winged elves with aimless fleeting'
My fleetfoot steed, with quivering spear to float,

find Aware that from the oar of the light boat

And beard and charge the tusked bristling Some drops have laden with a gemmy freight
boar Yon oily lily leaves that scintillate
Roused from his moist lair by the reedy shore. Level on the water, on them listless lying
Buffeting breasting royal-rolling Nile, Steals music, blooming to fruition, dying
Jubilant, scornful of the crocodile ! And lo ! yon spaces, where the vine-leaves
fringed
" Relish is ever keener from restraint Caught mild green fire and tenderly impinged
And since the glow of passion smoulders faint Upon the blue laving in azure light,
No more within my heart, but finds free vent. Fill silently with forms of suavest white
The illuminating blaze will ne'er be pent Although no kid may wander there to bite.
In one poor spot like any common fire ;

Since mirrors of a vast and fierce desire Lo they emerge but coyly from the screen,
1

Prove cold clear marbles of the intellect, One by one gleaming on the sylvan scene.
While thought's chaste halls how cool — till Beautiful maids and youths the vines enclose
now ! — reflect Ilued like some petal of the faint blush-rose
Fuel and fan one terrible red flame. While amber lights luxuriously lie
And yet shall Reason bearded fail to tame O'er undulations of warm ivory,
Or govern rebel Passion's lawlessness ? Stealing at leisure into every charm ;

Inured to reigning shall she fail no less And now they dance full many a rounded arm,
Than one long shut from all her right Divine ? With slender flexile hand aurora-tipped,
But if she govern, then I do but twine On lovesick air waves like long flowers dipped
Festoons of blossom round some massive piers In a Spring zephyr's gentle fantasy ;

Of one grand palace all the spirit rears. Their rich white flesh dimpling deliciously.
Still, dove-eyed queen, sweet Sympathy may Or smoothing to a stainless milk-expanse,
here As bend voluptuous motions of the dance.
Drop the gem priceless of her sacred tear. Some toss the timbrel or the castanet,
Still Love retain her own most holy fear Wooing young limbs to lovelier flowing yet.
Of hurting any whatsoe'er the greed. Waxing and waning of each tender limb.
Still upon alien benefit sweet feed ;
Shoulder and bosom, waist and ankle slim.
 — —
! ; ; ; !

MENCHERES: A VISION OF OLD EGYPT 71

Rarest of shading noteth unto sense, How often fi-om this window watched the stars.
Noteth faint heave and tender subsidence ;
Seeking what sinister conjunction mars
About necks cascades of golden flow,
their My destiny ; with cabalistic sign,
Their dewy eyes melt languid as they go : Pentacle, muttered charm, and vapours fine
And some are clothed with linen fabric fine, From mystic tripod, nightly summoned nigh
Leaving the fancy little to divine, Spirits toopen out the mystery !

Yet so enhancing all the charms that shine
Through as it clings into the silken skin,
Or falling free with mistlike lingering
From some bowed body, faint and saturate
But I possessed a wondrous healing gift
This, and half-earnest wonders wrought, uplift.
With veritable knowledge me to heights
Of awe and worship from the proud delights
;

With warmth and sweetness of its happier Of such thou knowest howoft I loathing turned
state. To where my youth's pure aspiration burned
Lo ! when dusk evening falls these fair green Mourning above that altar overturned !

alleys
Hung with soft lamps ring through with " Now am I free to seek thee, love, at last
mirthful sallies. Expand yon burnt gums into the vast,
like

And furious hot nameless orgies haste To seek thee, and thy mother whom I loved.
That he impressing days with nights may taste, From whom my soul's affection never roved.
Despite the gods, in overflowing measure When by this life and others I shall learn
(Doubling their poor six years) long stinted Wisdom, a kinglier man I may return
pleasure ;
To earth — I know not — but 'tis something,
For after this the mummy at the feast friend,
Reminds, man ceaseth even as the beast. To look life in the face before the end,
Praying our silent, our mysterious guide
To tell his name, though never he replied
Then all was silent in a chamber next
: To one ;
yet so at least we are not led
I saw the monarch, and no longer vexed Mere soulless things, clothed and amused
Angrj' and miserable seemed his mien ;
and fed.

Upon that youth now grown to man did lean And though some scheme we fondly fostered
The king, pale, near the dying, yet serene. fail,

Though ramparts of the evil we assail

" Now help me to the embrasure —
leave Be deaf to summons of our trumpet blast.
me so Yea, though we stift" and mangled at the last
Nay, lights I need not, let the afterglow Lie by the scarce-breached wall, 'tis not in
Glimmer upon the sacred bull of gold vain
That doth the body of my darling hold. No bold, no high intentions but sustain
So lies she as a blest Osirian. The sacred cause, the spirit of the host
In Him divine ideal only can Whose cause is God's, and never can be lost !

Live here or yonder a poor child of man. Shall we, mere infants, petulant conclude
How often through the long nights have I That our wise Father leads not home to good
stayed If He desert the path we count direct.

Beside her mourning, pondering, and prayed We with true heart but fumbling intellect ?

With censers breathing odorous incense.

Cinnamon, cassia, myrrh, frankincense, " All creatures serve, for all must serve,
Winged talisman of Thummim on my breast the Lord
Alive with jewels' firehearted unrest, Rocks, winds, all living things fulfil'his word.
Sardonyx, emerald and chrysoprase. Shall we, who may with free and full consen
And carbuncle that feeds the night with rays Of all our being follow Him, content
 ; ; ;; ; —
72 MENCHERES: A VISION OF OLD EGYPT
Ourselves with yielding passive like the clod, And men wept on, but duller grew mine ears ;

Or frantic darting with the hook of God I shut me from the importunate sound of

Sunk in our jaws, hither and thither, fools ! tears.

Spent with erratic effort, from our pools Muffled in roses, drowning with guitar
Doth not draw us forth,
the mighty Angler Sobs that would ruffle sweet indolence and
Despite weak and mad rebellious
plaints jar.

froth ? I failed and may my failure prove your —

The high gods offer their alternative, warning !

To march erect before them as they drive Ne'er now may dawn for me another
Bland and serene their high triumphal car morning :

Or ignominious as captives are. Yet in my failure I am comforted

Chained to their chariot-wheels, be dragged To know that not myself the legions led.
in dust The legions of God's children, but while I

A hissing and a scorn ; for all we must Defeated with my poor division lie.

Enhance the royal progress of their state. He waves the army on to victory.
Or moody slaves, or conquerors elate.
"Yea, setting steadfastly my waning face
" For me I knew it, acted as I knew Toward the mysterious future of the race,
Yet have I failed and fallen as others do ! Ere mine eyes fail for ever they descry
My nature was a swiftly- running troop Far-off arisen a kinglier Man than I,

Where if the leader but a moment droop One with a stronger purpose and more pure.
Or stumble, all the blindly-rushing throng Who, though the world assail him, shall
Trample and crush him hurrying along. endure;
If with me gracious Reason bore the sway One with a clearer vision, wider scope,
Pertaining to her from an early day. A faith more dauntless, a diviner hope ! . . .

Passions and fancies of and hue.

all face
Portentous multitude, were growing too, " Yet ah, my child, my wife, had lived
if ye

A glory to the spirit's court, and sent Mayhap my loftier purpose might have
On many a mission wise beneficent thrived.
Yet these but waited their occasion sly. Could one from his ideal grovelling fall
Waited their sovereign's averted eye, If near him, ever beckoning recall
Her wavering amid their fierce turmoil By their sweet faith untroubled simple pure,
To pluck her from the throne and to despoil. Stood heavenly souls himself had helped
Alas ye know the rest. I fondly thought,
! mature
Though traitor passions overbold and haught Through former years, with anxious nurturing
Waxed in my very presence, I could tame On all of high and holy love may bring ?
Them by a word when my occasion came Nay, but I thank the Gods for taking them.
But when my righteous ardours in my face What adamantine barrier may stem
Fate flung, and mocking blew me to my place, Passion's o'erswollen infernal torrent-rush
At length my joints were loosened, I grew Whelming and desolating in the crush
weak, Reason, love, duty, all remorselessly ?

And let the clamorous tongues unchided speak, Such was the fate predestinate for me,
Till when at length I frowned they over- Doomed from a child with strange and pre-
bore me, mature
And swarming round me stunned, the rebels Flame of the sense nought may avail to cure
tore me. Or quench, though smothered many a ;

Of doing good to man my heart despaired, chance-like wind

While lulled of sense less day by day I cared Unaware fanning smouldering embers blind
 — ! —
MENCHERES: A VISION OF OLD EGYPT 73

Yea, this curst hand, thy fondling tears More consummate— the infinite content
bedewed, Flows aye with tentative experiment.
In thy true heart's dear life-lilood were Behold the large moon, a sun's ghost, displayed
imbued ! O'er the new palm-girt huts and dykes I
And thou, blest child, whom envious Heavens made
claim, Over far flats, dim hills, and cereals,
Might blush to-day naming thy father's name Temples and tombs, the Nile and his canals ;

In the elf-gleam commingling strangely lie

" Scarce in the dusk I see the pyramid Great and mean, living, dead, as in the eye
"
That you will place my senseless shape amid Of all-transcending still Eternity !

Less than the twain, you well observe it less

For till of late I yielded unto stress These the last words King Mencheres out-
Of mere barbaric custom never, till spoke :

My heart grew sick and weary, and my fill Soon after I believe that I awoke.
Of ease and pleasure I began to take. . . .

Only, sweet youth, I charge thee for my sake, NOTE

See that to lower me they only take There seems to be very good evidence that
The hale and strong, and many, ne'er a boy. the worship of Osiris assumed the prominent
Even in their very deaths our kings destroy position justly attributed to it by Herodotus in
Many a life more worthy than their own. the reign of King Mycerinus (a Greek form of
Men-che-ra). I have accordingly combined this
Crushed under some huge carcase-coffer of assumption with the story about Mycerinus in
stone. Herodotus. It must strike the reflecting reader
Do you who love me and have understood as strange why the oracle at Buto should be so
stern and uncompromising w ith a king who is
Strive as you may to fan the spark of good
described as not only just and benevolent, but
I may have kindled my successor waits
;
also religious. If, however, we regard him as
Impatient, and alas I fear me hates
! independent thinker and religious reformer, the
The righteous cause. I leave it to the mystery becomes much lighter. To the re-
markable analogy between this myth and the
fates. . . .
Christian History I need only here allude, lest
any should cavil at that faint anticipation of
"Yea. verily, the truth I uttered shall Christianity which I have ascribed to the king.
From their long lethargy the nations call, This, in fact, only amounts to his Osiris creed
and his Egyptian half-belief in transmigration.
At first, like voices one who dreams may hear, The great Hebrew lawgiver was learned in all
Strange alien sense from sleep the words may the wisdom of the Egyptians but of course 1 ;

wear. have not ventured to ascribe here any prevision

Yet in Heaven's hour, not mine, they shall
put on
No vague fool's meaning, but their very own
Yea, and a fuller than myself have known
Working insensibly through ages' course
With alien agencies' calm patient force.
Until at last dull slumbers give and break,
And to clear vision all the peoples wake
By wrong and suffering and failure
The dread World-Soul in darkness doth
mature
Immeasurable ends, and calm contrives,
Tracing eftacing myriad single lives
The child devours absorbs the sire
of the future approaching in clearness to that
of the inspired Hebrew prophets. I will only
add that I believe the mind and character here
;
portrayed to be on the whole distinctively
;
Oriental. But in various ages and countries
men essentially like one another have appeared,
with similar aspirations, doubts, ideas, feelings,
and inward conflicts, bearing also much tlie
same relation to the world around them. And
!
how widely separated soever in time and space,
these men have liorne a more striking family
resemblance to one another than they have
borne to those around them, to their own
brothers and their own cousins. Take, t'.^^.,
such men as the writer of Ecclesiastes, Buddh,
Enipedocles, Giordano Bruno, Abelard, or
; Schelling. I doubt not there is a growth, a
and thrives modification in ideas and feelings about philo-
 — ; !

74 GANYMEDE
sophy and ethics nevertheless between leading
;
'

While yonder, browsing in the rosemaiy

minds of different times there is that remark- i

And cytisus, you hear a bearded goat,

able family likeness : the same problems, the
same conflicts do wonderfully recur; and Hear a fly humming with a droning bee
common human may
easily be sacri-
vitality In yon wild thyme and in the myrtles low
ficed to an over erudite anxiety after literal That breathe in every feebly-blowing air ;
correctness of outline and drapery. I do
Whose foamy bloom fair Ganymede anon
not think, however, that I have been guilty
of any glaring anachronism here. The local Plucks with a royal motion and an aim
colour is distinctively Egyptian, and old Egypt Toward his comrade's tolerant fond face.
lives as vividly on the monuments as modern Far off cicada shrills among the pine,
Egypt does around them. Between the two
the difference is but slight. But the spirit in
And one may hear low tinkling w'here a stream
which I have worked has certainly been one in Yonder in planes and willows, from the beam
accordance with the view here maintained Of day coy hiding, runs with many a pool
that mind and character of a certain type vary Where the twain bathe how often in the cool
far less in widely separated times and places
than it is common to assume.

I need only add, that had I seen Mr. Matthew And so they know not of the gradual cloud
Arnold's tine poem Mycerinus before writing That stains the zenith with a little stain.
this, I might have hesitated to compete with so
Then grows expansive, nearing one would say
formidable a rival.
—
The happy earth until at last a noise
As of a rushing wind invades the ear,
Gathering volume, and the shepherd sees,
GANYMEDE Amazed forth- peering, dusking closing all

Azure Startled and tremulous rock-roses nigh,

the heaven with rare a feathery cloud
Azure the sea, far-scintillating light,
Portentous shadow and before he may
;

Soft rich like velvet yielding to the eye Rise to explore the open, like a bolt
;

Horizons haunted with some dream-like sails

From heaven a prodigy descends at hand,
;

A temple hypa;thral open to sweet air Absorbing daylight ; some tremendous bird.
Nigh on the height, columned with solid An eagle, yet in plumage as in form
flame, And stature far transcending any bird
Of and acanthus- work instinct
flutings
Imperial inhabiting lone clefts

With lithe green lizards and the shadows sharp

And piny crags of this Idsean range.
Slant barring golden floor and inner wall.
But lo the ^pernatural dread thing, I

A locust-tree condensing all the light Creating wind from cavernous vast vans.
On glossy leaves, and flaky spilling some Now slanting swoops toward them, hovering
Sparkling among cool umbrage underneath Over the fair boy smitten dumb with awe.
;

There magically sobered mellow soft A moment more, and how no mortal knows,
At unaware beholding gently laid The bird hath seized him, if it be a bird,
A youth barelimbed the loveliest in the world, And he though wildered hardly seems afraid,
Gloatingly falling on his lily side, So lightly lovingly those eagle talons
Smoothing one rounded arm and dainty hand Lock the soft yielding flesh of either flank,
Whereon his head conscious and conquering His back so tender, thigh and shoulder
All chestnut-curled rests listless and superb pillowed ;

Near him and leaning on the chequered bole How warmly whitely in the tawny down
Sits his companion gazing on him fond, Of that imperial eagle amorous !

A goat-herd whose rough hand on bulky knee Whose beaked head with eyes of burning flame
Holds a rude hollow reeden pipe of Pan, Nestles along the tremulous sweet heave
Tanned clad with goatskin rudely-moulded Of his fair bosom budding with a blush.
huge ; So that one arm droops pensile all aglow
 — ! ;

ON THE RHINE 75

Over the neck immense, and hangs a hand With the wash of the mighty water
Frail like a shell, pink like an apple bloom ;
As it forks at the pier piles,
While shadowy wings expansive waving wind And the peasants' careless laughter,
Jealously hide some beauty from the sun. And the myriad river-smiles.

Now you see the deck of the steamer.

Poor hind ! he fancied as the pinions
The
froth of her rushing wheel ;
clanged
She sidling smoother and tamer
In their ascent, he looking open-mouthed
Fling the uncoiling reel
Distraught yet passive, that the boy's blue eye
Sought him in soaring ; his own gaze be sure
A maiden has waved him greeting
Wearied not famished feeding upon all
As he hurries across the plank,
The youth's dear charms for ever vanishing While thirsty eyes in the meeting
From his poor longing, hungered for in Draughts for a century drank.
heaven
Took his last fill of delicate flushed face, To the vineyards turn their glances
And swelling leg and rose-depending foot. And storied castle shells.
Slim ankle, dimpling body rich and full. To the creaming foam as it dances
Behold he fades receding evermore
!
In the crush of the paddle swells.
From straining vision misting dim with tears,
Gleaming aloft swanwhite into the blue But their faces touch more nearly
Relieved upon the dusky ravisher, Than anything compels
Deeper and deeper glutting amorous light. If two young travellers merely
That cruel swallows him for evermore. Study the Drachenfels.

At the last I saw them standing

With wringing hands locked long :

ON THE RHINE But the careless crowd at the landing

To separate was strong.
On the little plank-pier of the village,
The village on banks of Rhine, To bear through the years asunder
With peasants brown from the tillage With a change of cares and strife,
See a travelling youth recline. Till they only dreamily wonder
Where each has roved in life.

The rock with its castle facing,

And if either came to the river
Vine-hills in a sunny air,
In a far-off" after year.
The silver current chasing
And watched the sunlight quiver
With image reversed and rare.
On water about the pier ;

But the youth loses eyes of dreaming would seem as though two strangers
It
In the heat-haze luminous
Had met as lovers here,
Afar where the flood looks streaming
\Vhile they, mere careless rangers,
From skies mysterious.
Travelled with him and her.

Till smoke faint staining,

a cloud or a For the hour has been crowned and banished
A phantom emerges dim : When the youth stood there intent
Though his eye grow tired with strainint And the globes of the stream have vanished
His heart rings a happy chime. Whereon his gaze was bent.
 : ; : ; ;

76 A LONG MOURNING

So lost are thought and feeling

That glimmered in boy and maid :
And Echo breathes What gain, what :
gain
To the old spot wistful stealing To call the silent dead—
We find the past is dead !
To call athwart the wind and rain
That sweep their lonely bed ?

Our friends may be laughing or weepins

Much as they used of old,
Nor yet our little ones leaping Had Shylock taken that living flesh
Over our loveless mould. Close on the heart decreed.
How vain that breast all quivering fresh
And one may indeed resemble To ask : What gain to bleed ?

The man who was yours before,

And your yearning spirit a-tremble
May feel for the friend of yore. We bid her idly, meaning well,
Be glad again as we
Learn such a longing to smother : Her sun is down as theirs who dwell
Yesterday's friends are gone Far, far, beyond the sea !

Your friend were not more another

Slept he under the stone.
Erect she walked in all her ways
Still stands the pier of the village ; Ere nightfall stayed her foot
But never from there again Scarce may she thrid the dance's maze
That youth with men from the tillage Whose music all is mute.
Eyes to the haze shall strain.
VIII

Or must she wear that lying smile

Which chafes the wounded heart ?
A LONG MOURNING O ! let the stricken deer awhile
Dwell, as she craves, apart !

They tell her she has wept him long,

A woman she — I well believe
They bid her weep no more ;
You wealthy ones and high
They point her to the shouting throng deem a wife most weak to grieve
May
\Vho welcomed her of yore. If a mere husband die.

Two years — 'Tis long to weep the good, If lives the greed you loved in him,
The heart which loved her best Though that brave heart be cold.
The great deep heart which ever glowed Weak sterile tears may only dim
In her full answering breast. Charms hourly growing old.

What gain to grieve ? what gain in sooth The young, the generous, the wise,

That face to face is pressed Sleeps dark for evermore

One warm, and one dead-cold, wliere both Pale shivering trees where he low lies

With life brimful caressed ? Wild wind and rain sweep o'er.
 ; ; :; ; — ; ;

A NEW LIGHT 77

Yet Love took pity : slowly sank

The mantling tide of death
Sweep you more callous o'er the mute,
From thy dear lips His love: I thank
And ogling drawl " pro%'e We Which ever broadeneth
Our faith resigned
" —
Your breaths pollute
Before mine eyes, though they be dim !

A genuine woman's love !

Thy gentle from now

life

Filled slow once more toward the brim

To bless where'er its flow
She weeps with them, mean company !
Now own sweet natal day
this thine
Who own a human heart. Once more in peace we spend :

No more — their Father bring them nigh Be calm as this their long array
Their sleepers, ne'er to part !
With birth to Heaven the end I

TO MY MOTHER A NEW LIGHT

ON HER RECOVERY FROM A DANGEROUS
ILLNESS
In a half-darkened room
One autumn afternoon
The dying day in desolate mood
Wept on with weary moan.
I looked toward a shadowed bed
Where thou in fevered sleep
Didst labouring breathe a nameless dread
: With wing's-rim spirting sunshine oft" in spray.
Made me in silence weep.
I saw the cheerless day's decline
And then I looked on thee
There is a low rude lichened wall that folds
I stood A humble graveyard on a lowly hill
Within there grows a solitary ash,
Amid whose delicate foliage myriad throats
Flood stainless blue with thronging notes of
joy;
Whence elfin forms dip swift and shimmering
Air-skimmed their tremulous music from the
mouth.
: What cheeping twittering in the tree
trilling !

Thy life, the very source of mine, How fresh from over-sea.
do they gossip
Seemed ebbing slow from me 1 With childlike breaks exuberant of glee.
Ah !childhood's pure and happy hours ! Their strange experience in alien lands
The tales you used to tell And of the long long journey o'er the brine !

r the deep pine-wood, my hand in yours While underneath, the speargrass lush and tall

And hers who died as well Upon each vivid blade lets flaky light
The kneeling at your knee to pray. Slide glinting, kindling beryl atmosphere
The playing in your smile In bowers below, where gamesome shadows
Sweet guidance of a later day play
It seems a little while With mingling daisy kingcup and sweet
Ago we three, close linked in love, clover.
From all the world withdrawn,
r the cottage near a chestnut grove Here drones the bee with pollen-golden
Watched Alpine eve and morn. limb,
O memories, I cannot bear Haze-blue the landscape vague expands afar.
Your go
wistful faces, ! Where silver river shines from bosoming
Baffled my flagging wings of prayer wood.
In such a storm of woe. Here, dappled o'er of tender floating shadow,
Under the tree a boy was wont to lie
 " — ! — " ;

78 A NEW LIGHT

Three summers gone and commune with the Of hand and foot, and lying proudly there
soul, Too much in sooth it were that I should hope

The gentle soft-eyed spirit of the spot. Help from you, patient conquerors, whom few
When last he came he wept into her lap Helped in your progress calm indomitable !

"Serene you'll smile, my playmate, when Sweet isthe flavour of the fruit of toil.
I go ! When we have won it may we not enjoy ?

He, frail and spiritual, communed oft So hearkening to the still small inner voice
With echoes hollow from these vanished lives Thou art a poet,' full of confidence'

Among their grassy mounds and tottering I bend my gaze upon the Heaven-kissed
stones. height,
Mounting alone — until the body faint
"Ah ! yet," he cried, this frail wan poet-
I shall be higher, life will not be lost. . . .

boy,
" I'd live my own full proper life and die, " Ah yet how soon life falters to the close,
!

I'd press deep in some flower-bells of the

And none may hear the feeble note I sing
world. Mellowing hourly to entrance the world.
In to their dim soft-folded mystic heart Spare me awhile, sweet death, and come
Where lurk some clear rich honeydrops for
again.
man !
For now no token of me may remain.
I would add somewhat to the hived store.
No undulation where the water gulfed,
O'er human hearts all silent cold to me About my day's mild flash and faint report
I would float free my thistledowns of thought
No lingering wraithlike mist among the wood.
To germinate chance-wafted where they fall, And no unquiet murmur in the rock !

And quicken those barren tracts my soul No muttered thunder from far realms of death
o'eryeams Daring the shadowy mountains to forget
To joy with purple-blossomed sympathy. The march of storm that smote and blinded
Yea, I would press into the heart of things,
them !

Thence into human hearts, to be a power

Therein to quicken, to soothe, to elevate. '
' Nay, why not be forgotten like the rest,
To thrill with joy of what I see and feel. As these are round me ? unto God I yield
Alone some little love and sympathy Myself, my being — mother, so is best,
I crave from them, some warmth from fire I
And home I turn to fade upon thy breast
feed. Where blindly first I felt my way to life !

Some smiling back in rainbow hues to me.

Some tender breath ofthanks from seeds I sow! Now he is dead — go seek him where he lay
For if I find it not, ah woe is me !
Four springs ago — there is not any change
;
;

Must I not deem the wing-germs of my soul Birds yet are shaking mazy song abroad ;

A mere dead dust, mine embers all aglow As then the cherry and the applebloom
With heat and light mere simulated fire !
Heave silent rosed white foam athwart the
blue,
"Clasp but my hand, great brotherhood,
And sleek leaves flutter over violet pools
in yours.
And hail me one, though weak, yet one of you
—
In woods as then ah not those very birds. !

Nor bloom those very blossoms, leaves and

Assure my steps with calm supernal eyes
flowers !

You who have won the goal

Some change I ween the very place may show
" None answer me ! Yon turf freshmounded where he loved to
For ye have scaled the height with yearlong lie—
toil Nay, but he lies there — only will not move
 ! ; —— ;

A NEW LIGHT 79

With dayfall homeward as he used of yore, Your fashionably tardy patronage I

But lie through moonrise and unhasting stars Lo the World -Soul with birdsong, breath
!

No more she waits him near the cottage door of flower,

As in that summer gone, but near the wheel And summer light, may waken not his child
She sits, a wintrier snow upon her head, Will shawms and resin and your fetid breath
And a light faded from her reverend face. (Though these be larger loss a myriadfold)
And while he lies, all vainly mellow lights Think you be more persuasive to arouse ?
With shadows move " eye-music " o'er his Yet in his life I never heard him crave
breast, Applause from you, nor kith nor kin of yours,
A flowersoft breast of yore how sensitive ! Learned censors of the way wild roses blow !

Vain do the birds with tireless melody Who when we deem you nodding in assent
Visit an ear more apt to thrill of yore Mayhap are only nodding in your sleep
Than any sporecell tipping elfin moss Ye chance to want some new light I ' '

Upon some breezy hill-top all in vain — ! suppose.

He sleeps and may not waken any more. May one be found not vulgarly alive.
Coarsely in need of you, and even as ye,
—
Mere grimy feeding man no footing yield
Yet look ! behold ! What splendid caval- To such the dead are crowned with haloes
!

cade vague.
Draws nigh this lowly garden of the dead ? And draw the graceful the luxurious tear.
Grave men and reverend, liveried at least 'Tis generous — —
and cheap to praise the dead,
In garbs imposing, with official air. Who press —
no claim so living seer die !

With pomp of gold-knobbed staff, trombone We pride us on the sepulchres we build

and drum, For merit, torturing long-suffering stone.
Bland carrying lavish laurel coronets The seer, fool would rather men should hear !

And incense shut in silver thuribles. Fven if his clothes be coarse or grosser faults
Of erring men be his, than wait the chance
It seems that one, some friend who haunts Of flattering lies above his callous dust !

the grave. Tell, world-worn Dante ! wert not thou con-

Hath asked " What seek you ? " " 'Tis the soled
poet -boy In far Ravenna, in thy foreign grave,
We seek," they answer ; "to fulfil we come When Florence piled thee yonder incubus
His aspiration, clasp his hand in ours, In Santa Croce for a cenotaph ?
Hail him as one of us, with grand calm eyes
Look courage into his, to chaunt his praise "Yourselves have failed, shall other folk
And "
fill his nostrils with our incense. Fame ! succeed ?
The friend replies :
" It is a little late, At least with thorns shall bristle all their road.
Methinics, for this, wise mentors of young And they shall climb, if climb they must, in
thought. blood !

Whose Solomon awards leave ne'er appeal Well, friends, we challenge your alternative ;

A carcase, O illustrious brotherhood, For climb in face of all of you we will !

Claim for this clammy hand.

your fellow, clasp
Look courage blank lacklustre eyes,
in these " But ye intend to keep our letters pure
And titillate yon stiff dead cartila^je Yea, as the worm benevolent intends
With fumes of fame Death's ear is some-
! When fretting in deep seiis an oyster-shell
what dull. To fill the wound with slow-secreted pearl !

And look you this — this body might I fear Nay, pearls are of the oyster, not the worm.
Repay with scarce polite indifference What in the grand economy of God
 :

8o AN ANGEL'S GIFT
Exceeds the generation of a child ? "Tearful left thee with us here,
Yet shall we praise the lecher for his lust ? Lingered long the heavenward wings,
Nay everything hath function of his own. Poised upon the shining air,
Expect a gnat to settle, not to sting ! Warmth of angel- folding clings
Still O sister babe to thee
Clutch bold your nettle, scotch your venomed
snake, Lapt in such serenity !

But only fools adjure them not to hurt."

'•
Feeling yet those living thrills
Of the stainless angel breast.
They only smiled a hard superior scorn,
When thine infant spirit fills
Puffed at their hautboys, clattered on their
With the rapture, unrepressed
drums,
Lo ! thy face it overflows
While some began to swing the smoke abroad.
In a smile mysterious."
If yet he lived, he lived, methought, with
God,
Came the father while the boy
And well methought the quiet green spot he Thoughts like these was whispering,
loved
Gazed upon the common joy.
Shrined his young body so I held my ears
:

Felt " From far my babe must bring

—
And turned away these gentlemen I knew Calm that seems profound as death,
Had private business of their own to do.
Yet is of life that openeth.

Poor boy may one indeed akin to thee.

! " I cannot deem such peace akin
Seasoned more stern for battle and for toil. To any after peace of ours
Raise where thou liest a cross for memory !
Yet is it only that within
And there enshrined in Death's ice-atmos- The spirit sleeps with folded powers ?
phere A pilgrim sleeping in the vale
May thy fair head enwreathed with deathless No dreams of dizzy climbs assail.

flowers
Never decay, but grace the special peak " But each new height the spirit gains
Thy delicate subtle genius hath scaled !
A fiercer storm of trouble daunts.
Beyond the region of the rains
And virgin snows the condor haunts.
Far o'er the currents of our air
AN ANGEL'S GIFT Is there a sphere serene and rare?

A LITTLE boy with clustered curl "We dream, we hope, we trust that those
And soft wide eyes of ocean blue Who with perplexed yet sunward face,
Was kneeling where the misty swirl With wavering steps and tortuous,
Of one sunbeam came silent through Still brave the mist shall find the place.
The shadow of a curtain'd room Then Love's rich spices shall embalm
On cradled sister newly come. This fair void shell of baby calm.

Was kneeling by the tiny bed,

" We know not what and whence we are.

And gazing on the tiny child Nor how this human spirit grows;
Asleep with hand above her head. But should thy steps in years afar
And whispered, " Down the beam so mild, E'er turn where she and I repose,

Baby, did tlie angel move The grass of our twin graves will move
"
And whisper, '
They were led by Love 1

Folding thee with arms of love ? '

 ; ; :

CONSOLATION 8i

Then came the mother " Look, my boy, :

Your angel comes who brought the child,"

The father said she brimmed with joy
;
Bestride the rocket as it flares

Spake, "Jesus too was baby mild Through solitudes of startled night !
;

My yearnings dying accents are Yet know yon bird of humble flight
That fall from His undying care." In yonder cage who modest bears

His suit of brown and trills alone

HEAVENLY GUEST His low sweet song through dreary day;
Is kin to him who breasts the rays,
Bursts all in music, melts in song.
Swathed for awhile in weeds of earth
Near you she sits with folded wings
Will you not know her till she flings Oft folds his head beneath the wing.
Them starrj' wide to leave your hearth ?-
Unvoiced his joy, yet sweet the rest.
His blithe bird-heart in peace possesi
So love secure may cease to sing
To leave lonely dark and cold ?—
it

Too imploring hands are spread

late ;

Could you not see before she fled

Awhile, then if brief twilights grow.
Light trembling out through every fold.
Let fall life's shadows, fools may cry
" How dwindles love's felicity " !

Love smiles who feels his heart aglow.

Exhaling subtle when she smiled
Or stirred or spake? O, gross and blind,
Through common things a common mind
They shiver, muffled up in furs.
Can see no glory breathing mild.
Their blood but crawls, for ever cold ;

If, as they croak, love turns to mould,

Life now at least our being stirs.

That shy primrose so dear to God
A worldling's warped and jaded sense
Calls dull insipid innocence ;
These have not lived but woodland
; fern
Wilt thou too be the callous clod ?
That nods in dropping diamonds
By some cascade — those tender fronds
Form trees where long blue summers burn.
Ah had you recognised her birth
!

While yonder sat your meek -eyed dove.

Or moved on humble tasks of love,
Or touched to life your slumljering worth I
CONSOLATION
VI

Ourselves to conquer and to merge Men prate of iron will in vain.

In this the school of love we learn When the flesh gives with spirit strain
And helping her these bonds to spurn The colder nature, stronger frame,
She lifts us up to heaven's verge. Strong character but idly claim.
F
 — ! —
"

82 CONSOLATION

Now Reason reels upon her throne, Not on the mount withdrawn He stood
Dense dread about his spirit grown, To sing that storm and calm are good,
Who dares not breathe for fear to stir But walked Himself the whelming wave,
Yon Horror slumbering close to her ! By love to smooth, by love to save I

Madness, more awful-faced than all " I am the Son of God," He saith :

What may he do but shuddering fall Then grows the deep amen of Faith,
Upon the cold floor, praying Death Who solemn chaunts, " Yea, God is love.
To save him and to take his breath ? In whom we shall victorious prove !

He feels that he has failed, has failed ! He cannot hear — the storm is loud
He hears it in the snow-storm wailed And blinds him with a snowy shroud
Through this dim loveless chamber now On those lone heights with catching breath
List those numb finger-taps of snow !
He flounders o'er the steep of death !

Death, pale dread friend, already here ? Yet till the last frail fibre of strength
Ah me for youth 'tis very drear.
! —
Hath snapped, hold on help speeds at lengthl
With nestlings eager for the sky, Yea, even in falling, arms outspread
To be torn earthward ruthlessly !
To take chill darkness of the dead,

Not one warm heart to pillow on A hand may grasp, a bosom receive.
P'old wings that would have sought the sun And warm thine own faint heart to live ;

It only rests for thee to weep Embracing Death may change to one
Thyself, a tired child, to sleep. Who pours life's own elixir down !

Is there no Father, one Divine ? Then ere the dying, if thou bind
Ah ! vainly doth his ear incline True mate to thee, thy heart shall find
To shape thought's answering muffled roll A simple girl excels thy dream,
Through dim vast labyrinths of soul. As fruit its like in troubled stream.

There may be the essential Love, Then when some dark mood passes by,
In whom !)oth he and all must move. How sweet upon that breast to lie,

Or but a blind relentless arm, And feel the tremulous twilight swim
That moulds and breaks with equal calm. Of limpid eye sad love may brim !

A still small voice, than thought more clear. Some guileless maid may wait for thee,
Thought's echo he yet may hear
lost, : My brother, though thou canst not see !

" In faith of Love Supreme there can Yet even if thy life must droop
Alone be formed a perfect man." Ere ripening of thy fondest hope,
 : !

TO A WATERLILY

XVIII
'Tis in thearms of Love thy fall Yet hark ! Hell's gathering legion-tramp !

Faith shakes her head serene at all And no crush of iron hoof
if

Her subtle sophist-questioners, Through heart and brain you feel, 'tis proof
And childlike " So it is " avers. Death's numbne.ss doth your spirit cramp !

DEAR HEAD, LIE CALM P'orego the battle, and forego

The kingly strength of spirit won,
Dear head, lie calm upon my arm, The smile Divine when all is done
Dear eyes, from mine drink mildest splen- From heights of being man may know !

dour !

So rills may leap aerial steep,

Blue flowers they fall on mantling tender. Vet warrior camped at close of day

Eyelash so frail, inlay with trail

May list the lapse of some pure stream
That lingers in the soft moonbeam,
Of shade her eyes, a maze of sweetness !

Gliding unheeded in the fray.

My soul sinks through their dimlit blue,
To find in them her own completeness.

Eyelash, O
on petal white
light
Of lid shed your delicate shading
soft !
TO A WATERLILY
Lid silken -fringed and only tinged
With vein's rathe violet faint pervading. O WATERLILY,
Rendering stilly
Lo ! now she lies with folded eyes.
Basking at rest in mine adoring
A meek confession.
;
Sweet indiscretion,
To prison the sense, so more intense,
In star-petals of heavenly white
She veils my glance's ardent pouring.
Rayed forth from hidden gold of thy delight
In watering flowers we stay the showers Candours revealing virgin gold of heart
Awhile, till these to roots be diving ;
That mellows linked snow of wings, apart
Behold ! she drinks my gaze that sinks Where lowly lips
Till each soul-fibre thrills new-living. Dim glory lips
While vestal-reverent they half inurn
Dear head, lie calm upon my arm.
The shrine where holily thy flame doth burn :

Dear guileless face all childlike beaming,

Charming .soft air,
Ah ! soft hair's fold kindling to gold,
Enthralling waters fair
Is not this more than all the dreaming ?
From wonted flowing strenuous intense.
Lingering soothed for thy dear confidence !

Silverly gleaming tenderly they wind ;

LEAVE GOD'S OWN RANKS Tremulous all thy lily tale we find,

DRAWN UP TO FIGHT" Pure tender tale thy soft white petals tell.
Glassed in their kindling bosom where it fell.
Faint airs inhume
Leave God's own ranks drawn up to fight, Thy frail perfume !

And strike a hand in proffered palm Over thy green leaves, each a filmy boat,

Of some fair foe to seek the calm, Rimmed with mild light of water where they
To lie with her in fields of light. float,
 ; ;!

84 WHAT THE OLD CHURCH SAID

Petals ray forth unruffled, pure from shame, Through -shining from the facing windows,
Inviolable thy virgin fame, looked
The soul of thee a heavenly flame, Like the old church's melancholy eyes.
Breathing stilly, But as I mused, with slow deep-booming tone
O waterlily I The clock tolled one, and the sound died away.
It seemed as though the old church gave

utterance
In that slow melancholy dying toll

BEFORE RAFFAELLE To some oppression smothering the soul.

I weary of the years (it seemed to say),
O PURIST landscape, faint with mellow day ! The long slow years ; I would that they
O tranquil faces, shrined in tranquil light, might cease,
That Perugin, Angelico, beheld, Or that I might withdraw me from their eyes
With air as listing far unearthly strains, Am I not wearied with so many suns
With eyes of yearning to the infinite, That rise to set, and with their lavish light.
And features lighted from serener skies ! Crimson and orange with so many moons.
;

We poring on you seem to gather wings. Crescent and full and waning, haunting pale
Even as with stress of slowly mantling tide My lichened mullions where the ivy stirs
A boat sways buoyant bedded yet in sand. And rustles in the night-breeze, and the owl
Your presence music-like doth round me With feather}' face and large white open eyes
flow. Sits hooting — with the clear-obscure of nights
Ye seem most like a silent blow Wherein the stars mount over me and go ?
Of angel- flowers that enwreathe; Beautiful ! but the beauty palls upon me,
Surely I feel your feathers breathe Ever the same, and I am very old :

Thrilling about me in their sweep, I care not though the swallows dart and wheel
Yea, lift me as clear waters deep About my steeple, feeding on the wing
When girdling round soft limbs their heave Their young exultant youth-wise in the air,
Lifts grazing feet from sandy weave, Which age, and fly thwart seas and rear their
Unaware while our chins we lave brood
Coolly upon some azure wave. Next summer, and forget their nurturing sires
So tender ravished may we float away I care not though the flowers about my feet,

Where zephyr-like with gentle lover's breath Over my graves, bud, open unaware,
Ye from brows hot with earth's anxiety Then loosening yield their petals to the grass,
May blow the hair and lure the burning out. And other youngling blossoms blush and blow
May soar inhaling deep nepenthe-draughts In the rich mould of parent-flowers' decay
From embroilments of a world of woe,
all Summer on summer while the silent clouds
;

May lose ourselves unbodied saturate Grow in the blue, change fleetly and are gone:
In palpitating mazes of the day ! I care not for their change and vanishing

For these, all these fulfil themselves and die :

But for the glorious human things I care.

For all the faces through the centuries
WHAT THE OLD CHURCH SAID I have seen lighted with a light beyond

The light of youth and health, a spirit-light

I MOVED a little where the church-tower rose Of aspiration for eternity !

Above a close-grown belt of beech and firs, For all such faces waning one by one ;

And the tall pointed windows of the tower, Many for disappointment and for doubt
With slant flat bars of wood that broke the Before the last, but all extinguished now,

light First one and then another through the years

 ; ; ;; — ;

WHAT THE OLD CHURCH SAID 85

Darkened, befouled, effaced in damps of There in the darkness, never hand seeks
death ;
hand.
Of this I wear)-, and for this make moan. There are no smiles — nor any weeping
For all they came as little infants here there.
Opening dazed eyes upon the wonder-world, Yet where, ah where, the sweet vows they
Brought of their parents to the christening have vowed ?
font Unheeding in the coffin lies the corpse.
And dedicated to the Father in Christ Where that ebullient love that brooked no
Came as blithe children chafing at long bounds,
prayers Mighty unconquerable like the dawn.
Came as paired lovers, with unutterable Chariot of fire that lifts a man toheaven !

Love in their eyes, and vowing faithfulness Where is it now ? Alas I only hear !

Till death before the crowd, but in their The ghostwind rushing moaning round my
hearts tower.
Vowing strong love for ever and for ever !
Strewing my worn stone winding-stairs with
And I was glad and pealed a merry peal sticks
Of laughter from my bells triumphantly And straws from jackdaw nests high up my
Up the blue sky, and the blue answered me spire.
With sunshine and with bird-song, and young There the great clock, my heart, beats awfully
maids With throb monotonous anon it seems :

Strewed flowers before the bride who wept The solemn heart of Fate or measured tread ;

for joy. Of Time, the cold relentless skeleton,

Some came again cold, alienated, dull. Awfully blind, informed with ne'er a soul,
With all the glory-flush died out of them Nay, with no dawning hope of any soul
And a fool's jeering at their nobler selves Soul that, how stony pitiless soe'er.
A few were faithful to their solemn vow Knowing the deeds would falter and repent,
Before the crowd, and till death parted them Nor might endure for ever to behold
Loved on —and then they came again to me, Unmoved his own monotonous dull stamp
One carried on the shoulders of six men, Moment by moment crushing out some bloom
Dull, cold as clay, not to be looked upon Of life fresh wistful nestling to his feet ! . . .

The other with despair in poor vague eyes,

Swathed in black crape, to leave her in the I only know the solemn chaunted prayer,
vault .A.nd psalm of praise men come to sing below,
With generations of illustrious dead, Wanders in snatches faintly up my tower,
Under my feet here. I was sorrowful There to be pounced upon of maniac winds.
And tolled my melancholy toll for grief. Caught and devoured, and scattered all
After a few sad years he swore the same abroad !

To another bride all buoyant like the first Unheeding in the coffin lies the corpse.
With hope and trust and 'Tis all I know
joy, until he sank, and yet the children play. ;

He dimming eyes The merry human children o'er the graves,

of the scant grey hairs and
—
And failing spirit and she buried him.
So they lie side by side, his wives and he
About their parents' headstones mouldering,
Like fairy boats upon green-mounded waves
; :

With all the generations I have seen I hear their laughter on the sunny air.
Born, married, buried, over whom fair tombs For they know not, and woe is me, I know !

Are carven in marble down my solemn And so I weary of the slow sad years
aisles. Would they might cease, or I withdraw from
So they lie side by side, his wives and he, them.
With no heart-burnings : never lip seeks lip Sink to a ruinous heap and be no more !
 ; : ; "

86 "AS A TALE THAT IS TOLD"

"AS A TALE THAT IS TOLD" Note such a new-made fondest pair.

And list how deep they both can swear
That nought shall part them foul or fair !

In flowers at morn a girl and boy,

While o'er them Spring's young leaflets toy,
Sleep locked in arms of mutual joy.
But look, upon the shadowed mound
One sinks and sinks in deadly swound ;

He chafes her, kneeling on the ground.

They babbled near the babbling brook,
While ringdoves coo'd from greenest nook
shadows o'er them shook.
Till sleep soft
With anguish in his widened eye,
" She shall not — he'll not let her —die !

At hand shy rabbits nibbling sit,

She cannot hear his frenzied cry.

And close the speckled thrush hath lit,

While o'er their limbs gemmed insects flit.

Again the boy is laid in sleep.

Where vivid-raptured foliage gloats Nigh where his chosen slumbers deep
In swim of soaring day that floats —
For evermore and near him creep
How tender ! yon forget-me-nots

Those mist-like trailing garments chill

Are dimmed, seems, with mist-like trail
it Can Lethe dews from them distil.
Some chilling Presence makes to pale To cool the forehead where they feel ?
The woodland growth where'er it sail !

He wakes with half the trouble flown ;

Where each on each the children lean Soon one who views him thus alone
Some fingers pitiless unseen Consoling arms hath round him thrown.
Their twining hands apart would wean.

Hail ! Time's mysterious healing art,

It creeps the loving sleepers o'er
Who soothes the deadly-rankling smart
They stir, they wake ; nor as of yore
And pieces many a broken heart !

In eyes of each to dote and pore.

They look abroad to earth and sky, Each counts to find one curve of all
human forms are nigh
Till other Full answering his proper call.
;

Then each to one of these will fly. Yet echoing with sublimer fall.

So close they fold in alien arms, But in long years' close intercourse.
The farewell scarce their accent warms. Ignoble chance will blow perforce
They pass so rapt in alien charms ! Trim coverings from hidden sores.
 ; ! '

"TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?" 87

XXIX
And lo ! disgust — they meet so cold, So, when beneath some belfry-bell.s
Scarce their bewildered memories hold One musing hears the organ swells,
Remembrance of the straining fold ! A people's prayer the pauses fills.

While hark Time's ghostly laughter rings-

! But oft the wind's harsh-clamouring gust
" To what I snatch man frantic clings, Drowns all, as if the dead men's dust
Yet o'er his new toy laughs and sings, Down those appealing mouths were thrust !

XXXI
And boasts, '
'Tis wise and well to bow, Nay, if with doled power yet weak.
The past inevitable now ; Even lower things will heavenward break.
True beats my heart, though smooth my Shallwe whose conscious spirits seek
brow.'
XXII XXXII
Poor fool, it flatters thee to prate ;
With mightier stress a myriad-fold

In May the bird will find new mate : To burst the fretting dykes that hold
Disdain not thou thy kindred's fate." In parent ocean to be rolled,

XXIII XXXIII
And yet to me 'tis like disgrace Shall we alone all vainly strive
That one we think our soul's embrace Ourselves may more supremely live,
Should vanish thence and leave no trace. That nobler love in us may thrive ?

XXIV XXXIV
What then is human love ? Our best, Nay then, aver yon feeble rills

Our strong abiding power confest May wear their slow course down the hills.
Yet that seems mortal like the rest But when with these the torrent fills,

XXXV
Nay ! Time, we are not wholly thine ;
The torrent shall not surge away.
The blind-born man will not repine, Leap, whelming all the rocks with spray,
But he who once knew Summer-shine. To still its longing in the sea !

The brute more meek thy shackle wears "TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?"'
j\Ian chafes against the prison bars,
His pale face yearning to the stars ! . . . Prelude

XXVII To note while lingering nigh some ivied

porch
Then sudden through the woodland rose
A wail of wind uproarious
A fond old couple tottering to church
;

The huddling foliage pales and bows.

Among the grassy graves, with snowy hair.
Holding soft hands of children fresh and fair.

XXVIII And muse we once were confident as they.

For choked with surging wrath, disdain, Who sad forebode the statil" new chosen may
That Phantom strove to fashion plain Break when we lean full in way
the perilous !

The crushing sound, " In vain, in vain ! 1 See note C.

 —— ! :

88 "TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?"

To list float faintly through the open door Howe'er from distance dulled, for here the
On summer airs the music that of yore poor
They loved and sung, father and mother dear, Herd, litter, agonise and
still endure.

On wings of humble hymns from care and Then unaware stalked awful facing me
fear The hoar World-Sorrow and blank mystery !

Rapt far into God's home of crystal clear

To muse we pure and trustful children then I hid my face and, turning to the door.

Soared by their side afar from mortal ken, Pushed strong the ponderous quilting hung
Such homely strains to chariots of fire before,
Changed by the breath of faith and strong And gained the sanctuary how the light :

desire Breathed bland and warm unconscious of the

(Alas the glow has faded from them quite
! night :

They than yon bee's drone in his flowery A suave, a fragrant luminous blue air
flight Pervades and dims the solemn regions there
Have now scarce more of meaning unto thee, From calm aspiring of majestic pier
Save for a savour of sweet memory That turns and mingles with its neighbour
And reverence for human hearts that cry!) near
To gaze by some worn father's shadowy bed In flexile spandril lost in holy gloom
On boyhood's darling friend an hour dead. Of high clerestory and triforium,
To stand there with a mother blind for tears. To yon bowed sea of suppliants that flow
Nor breathe the hope that she when vision Expansive down long nave and aisle below
clears About grey arches fluent refluent,
Shall see so clear, yearning to tell her now Even to the jewelled high altar eminent
And help to melt from her some sorrow-snow, With golden chalice, triptych, crucifix.
Yetonly clasp her, for thou dost not know. . . . With spangled image and flamy candlesticks.
. . . May this be nought ... or very hope- Below stiff gold of vestment and brocade
less woe ? On clustered priest, fair acolytes arrayed
In lace and linen thuribles are swinging,
Whence curl soft indolent blue odours
Dark was the night : the great cathedral winging.
square And all their subtle breath doth permeate,

Lay desert, wind and rain swept everywhere, Fusing to one mild splendour all the state ;
Vacant of men the ancient terrace trees A constellation rich unto the core,
Gloomed sullen o'er where swollen the river Yet unobtruding all the radiant store,
flees Somnolent as of homage full secure.
Far down : between some phantom piers at Only when priests in murmuring bend low
hand The slumbrous glory wakes to flash and flow :

That bound the portico wherein I stand List from yon white throats of the boyish
Rain ever drips and beats with bounding flash choir
In stony pools hollowed of myriad plash, Sails music, seraph plumed with hallowed
Gleams in sick gleam from huddling dwellings fire,

mean Saileth and soareth, flooding all the soul,

That on the night in ghastly squalor lean Heralding the tempestuous organ-roll
With gabled roofs that dusk projecting grow, Of sound insurgent whirling men aloft.
O'er each a lowering frowning beetlebrow. Hither and thither rapt, or cradled soft
While from the lanes and filthy courts there In tender curling side-eddies like leaves
ring Some headlong torrent - flood ^ no longer
Cries, yells anon that leave me shivering grieves I
 ; — — ;

'TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?" 89

Until behold the priest on marble stairs Filling all heaven now precipitate ;

Of the high altar in two hands upbears Flinging them crashing like some stroke of
The sacred elements, and prostrate all Fate
As by one breath from God we bow and fall, Full on the hoary venerable church ;

One multitude adoring since 'tis here

; Until methought the marble seemed to lurch
Yon outer Mystery of guilt and fear And swim beneath my feet the arches heaved ;

And suffering, who treadeth year by year Even as limber trees by tempest grieved :

The same slow wheel whose rungs are living Blindingly flashed a pallid-purple light.
fire, And smote each countenance to ghastly white,
Worm of a never-dying dumb desire, Bleaching all gold and silver, while the flame
From everlasting inextinguishable, Of lamp and altar-candle dwindle tame.
To everlasting a devouring hell, As though by Day surprised they paled for
"Tis here, 'tis here alone one may resolve shame !

Here only we the dark enigma solve,

That agelong secret of our destiny Then swift a pang of insecurity
Princes and wise men sought with bitter cry Shot through my frame sharp, uncontrollably,
From the beginning, unavailing quest, Ilowbeit all grew firm again and still,
To innocent babes bequeathing their unrest. Nor any soul but mine foreboded ill.
But now at length behold from eyes Divine Did they not feel the very basement quake
Response triumphant on the ages shine !
Under their feet, nor all the minster shake
I kneeled and worshipped, feeding on the And shudder as with ague, that so calm
Wonder They list the music and inhale the balm ?
That ordinates the wild turmoil from under. I may not pause for all the ominous terror

Of outer night's inclemency, and error

Yet as the stormful organ over us That may be doom of mine unwitting whither
Pealed surging through the fabric tremulous,
One seeking shelter may repair from hither :

Betwixt unrolling banners of sound

full
Once more the ponderous portal-quilt I push,
At intervals I seemed with awe profound And forth into the night-embroilment rush.
To know some mightier Tempest travelling
round
Blown by the whirlwind, lashed of driving
It grides with rush of wheeling pinion
rain.
Caught struggling in the tower's fretted stone,
Groping through solid darkness I sustain
That quakes to front such visitant alone ;
Hardly my troubled and desponding heart
Sniffs like some famished thing that prowls
That feels her youth's full-trusted cable part,
anigh
With wildered swerving foot that hopes no
Wandering round and round with hungry eye
goal . . .

Anon with such a maniac fury-shock

Yet from her swound anon awakes my soul.
Charging, the minster seems to reel and
Craving some shelter.
rock
For all its amplitude of stately calm
Yet is it more than momentary qualm ?
For lo ! the wind aloft with desolate wail Soon from forth the dark
Dies, as for aye the poured-out heart must Emerges to my vision gaunt and stark
fail! A pale bleared structure with a cyclops eye
Nay but the frenzy only smoulders, burns. Pent dull-lit in its narrowing forehead nigh.
Flares forth anew ; for hark the foe returns,
! Then something urged that I should enter
Shrieking to some who follow, a mad guide here :

To thunder-legions trampling far and wide Mean was the aspect of the place and drear;
 —— — !

90 'TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?"

Large glazed square windows, yawning List now some dead sound of a massy blow,
chasms of black, And dull thud of a body fallen below
Slit either dismal wall, guarding the track Two stone steps on the street ! Oppression
Of either rigid passage through the pews, cold.
Tall varnished pens that swallow men and Some choking sense, of many a breath takes
bruise. hold;
At intervals lank poles of iron prop A feeble scream ; much smelling salts ; the
Green painted shelved broad galleries that door
drop, Has slammed and closed securely as before.
Teeming with sober-vestured folk and trim, Swallowing wrath, the preacher quietly
Smug, iron-grey, respectable and grim. Resumes: "Beloved, we might have been
Flat whitewashed is the ceiling, and depend as he ;

Burners that flare with flame from end to end: Is not grace special, sovereign, and free?"
While from a pulpit roomy prominent,
Thereto the chapel's place of honour lent. Problem of life how theologic wit
!

One in black raiment to a docile crowd Can feel all round, beneath, the roots of it,
With accents blandly confident and loud Dig up the mystery so cleanly laid
Expounds the riddle of the universe. In a glib formula as in a spade !

Complacent doth the seamless robe traverse And while I listened erst with night shut out.
Woven in logic-looms, unwrinkling dress Rain, wind and storm, and all the rabble rout
Warrant to fit a Titan's nakedness ; Of human things to-night familiar,
Shameless unwieldy Nature dons a vest, I could believe life's gordian tangles are
Smirks primly decent in a Sunday-best. A mere child's puzzle to the fingers deft
No venerable superstition here. Of faith, and needing nowise to be cleft.
But all inferred coherently and clear ;
But what if that unmentionable look
And we admired our teacher dexterous, Of vague grey horror which the Darkness
Shuffling his words, expert, ingenious. took
By yon cathedral in a lull of storm.
Yet unaware some door wide open flew. Confronting me, a ghastly-visaged form,
And a wet wind unmannerly rushed through, Should follow even when one turns to fly.
Sorely the staid folk discomposing, ruflling— Blighting the soul with search of deadly eye,
And lo within the yawning chasm a scuffling,
! Not skulking baffled there beyond the porch.
An uproar more unseemly, smote the ear. But staring livid into very church !

As if one pushed and fought to enter here. What if the monster coiled immense and far,
A grimed and ragged man with eyes to fear. Enwinding all yet spied by ne'er a star.
And wolfish lean lank famine-pinched face, Torpid, piled o'er with gloom, voluminous.
Obtrude his squalor on the holy place, All unaware slide noiselessup to us
And holy washed respectable smug folk ! Out of the slumbrous folds a hideous head,
Such monstrous portent may in sooth pro- Hooded, flat, slimy, eyed with baleful red !

voke Sand-forts inviolate hoar babes we pile

Yon pompous beadle, visaged like an ox. While the tide lingers — for a little while !

Clad in gold lace, full-feeding, orthodox Even before the shock of ghastly fight
Since the low creature insolently braved 'Twixt famished sin and sleek full-feeding
His ban official, snatched the thing it craved right.
Such wrath, in sooth, well-founded may we Here on the threshold of the pauper's Brother,
think, On His the self-exiled from heaven, no other
If the mean wretch were choleric with Even before, while eloquent he spake.
drink ! Making all plain, the teacher, would awake
 — ! — :

"TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?" 91

Peeping a moment in my soul the doubt Immerses their faint feet, filmy and dull.
If such sure axioms court the laying-out Remote and sad, like Death impenetrable !

Beside yon truths of gold by Reason won Wide leagues of stern brown barren region
P'rom their dark stubborn matrix one by one ? nigher
Now Conscience outraged round to Reason Mere cinders of an old world's dwindled
wheeled, fire;

Struck palm in hers, and her full triumph Cinereous ragged crags, ravines that wind
sealed : Amid their umber shadow silent, blind,
Once more I shuddering felt the pavement Nor thereout ever to the open find
lurch, Their way again but nearer than the brown
:

Once more abrupt I hurried from the Tract with wan sulphur tinct around is grown
church . . . Thin rusty wheat in patches, a hot breeze
O'erwhispers fitfully some olive-trees
;

Out into rain, and wind, and gloom again Stunted and cavernous shiver, wax pale
Behold ! a gaunt fierce woman did sustain To feel it passing, breathing a low wail.
Upon her lap the head of him who fell On either side the stony arid path.
There on the lower step, in staunching well Which on the left of one descending hath
The blood upon his forehead with her dress, A glen that one may descry
widens till

^Muttering thick curses on the righteousness Fruit trees fuU-foliaged, fig and mulberry,
Her graceless drunken paramour that smote. All in the twilight massed ambiguous
And lo ! their spurned, skeleton child remote Skirting the hill-side steep and devious.
Stood in its rags to jeer the parents old.
Scalding the hag more blasphemous to scold. While twilight deepens behold beneath I
Look by yon bleared gaslamp nigh at hand
! Far in the glen, nested as wreath in a
Night shameless disemboguing where I stand Of foliage, some village of rough stone
Her reeking ducts of human misery. With level roofs one special house upgrown
;

Despair, and sin —beholding which I flee !

On culminating ground into a tower.
And lo anear it now at gloaming hour
!

Forth gleams one light of mildly-bodied flame,

Unwitting whither, even as erewhile : Alone, as lit to beacon one who came
But the dream bore me over many a mile Along the path habitually at close
—
This bout I trow foundations must remain, Of day to seek in that sweet home repose.
Though every superstructure ill sustain Intense the solitary stillness here.
Assaults of Time stable, sublime, arranged
; Hot and oppressive weighs the atmosphere,
Of eld by seers, but in change unchanged, And all my spirit prostrate sinks oppresl
And therefore perishable, doomed to fall. With futile lifelong effort after rest.

Though many a weakling cling to each for all

Then I cried, Jesus, dost not Thou re-

Unto what goal arrived ? 'Tis evening now. main,

—
Not night no storm — and surely I should Even if all men's worship of Thee wane?
know Thee, Thee, we need— O Jesus, come again !

The place ! Yon hills that rear themselves And then the spot, the region where 1
afar, stood,
Only more solid ashen sky they are A very reflex of my desolate mood.
In circumfused grey vapours that involve, Seemed half-familiar— surely I should know
Yet cannot whole-absorbing them dissolve ; Did I not stand here not so long ago?
Their lifted crests, dim heads of skeleton, Itdawns, it breaks, familiar verily !

Over yon leaden lake, more pale that wan For this should be the path to Bethany I
 — ! ; — :
!
!

92 "TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?"

Why then, ah why ! tell, spirit of my Look all along dim regions overpast
dream, Since that dear morn when Thou wert with
Here lead me ? not in mockery I deem- us last,

Here may I list what He the Master saith, Name them by name, assure us where we are,
Here by the source primeval of our faith, Where lies our journey, to what goal afar.
Sweet desert spring bubbling among the Yea, tell us also, whisper in our ear
stones, Of Him whom deep in silence we revere !

Purer than after girdling human thrones ! Ever He lives we know from age to age,
Mover and moved in mortal pilgrimage
Nay but, I cried, we need thy presence now, Yet our wings fail us that would fain aspire
Thy kingly gaze, and thine imperial brow. 'Neath that blank face of our eternal Sire,
How many a long league onward have we Ever more baffling wistful human eyes
travelled. With each new lore man's mortal life supplies
In what a labyrinth of thorns enravelled Ever we learn He is not what He seemed ;

With halting foot —

we wander O that yet Need now one teach us what He may be
Thou wert beside us !do we not forget, deemed.
Through yon hazy distance of the years,
all Thou didst reveal Him to the world of old ;

A world new-found of alien hopes and fears, Are we not also hungering to be told
Wellnigh forget the features of thy face, What Name would haunt thy burning lips if
Thy gait, thine accent, yearning to retrace Thou
Vainly thine image fading in our soul, Could come again to dwell among us now ?
That flickers, wavers, and evades control ?
We halt with knowledge all unboded then, Gentle and strong and faithful, just and
Fevered explorers, much-adventuring men, wise ;

Now on some hill foreseeing through a glass Such an one set among conhising cries
Far flowering futures where we hope to pass. And aims of ours — who with our own flesh
Now floundering in deadliest morass, fight.

Haunted with lurking flames of tiger-eyes, Each taking each for foeman in the night !

Probing dusk hearts of loneliest mysteries. Return, O Saviour, garbed as men use to-day
All guileless hearts must worship and obey ;

Full oft we hesitate opprest with doubt, Though worldly men yet harden into stone
Longing to fling our burdens, wearied out. Reviling souls more human than their own !

For ever from us, for the way is long, Keep us the while, O keep us sensitive
About our feet confounding shadows throng, To those who most reflect Thee while we live
Neither discern we plainly any more Who cower as one might in a prison flung
To what far goal we tend, nor off what shore Stunned of harsh wrangling in a stranger
Erewhile we drifted, or at whose command, tongue.
Or if before us lieth any land. Yet roused to rapture if some casement swing
Lost, wildered, orphaned in this new-found Opening a way to airs of odorous wing.
world. Airs, happy elfins wandering at will
What relish in its glories morn-impearled O'er sunny meadows taking all their fill
Of fruit and blade and flower about us tost. Of flowery pleasance ; from far fields they
To us who had a Father, and have lost come
We had a leader once, and he is gone. Dewing dim eyes with memories of home
Do we not stand in bitter need of one ? —Though worldlings turn a dull impassive
Arise, be gracious unto this our day face
Once more desert Thy heavens and point the O'er such sweet glimpses of a heavenlier
way ! place.
 — ! —
"TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?^' 93

. Might He come back, come only

. . for To every organ, member, of her frame
an hour, Due nourishment each one from food may
What were the wealth of all the worlds for claim ?

dower Yea, we are rich, and yet the people die

Weighed with it ? for the secret of some Of all their human nature's atrophy !

power Starved hearts and brains and limbs but toil

Over our baser nature should He give, and moil
That slowly coffins men while yet they live, One pampered organ of the frame to spoil.
Reason, affections, aspirations high Might He not solve this problem of the poor
Tranced rigid, reft of strength to move or cry Who litter, agonise, and still endure ?
To Him the ghastliest boding one might bare,
Nor fear repression of some witless stare. Vain ah, what multitudes through all the !

Or any harsh frown of intolerance years ;

Yea one might court the lightning of His Have strewn and burdened with such hopes
glance and fears
In deep hidden chambers where no counte- Meek little-heeding earth, with human tears
nance Made humid these dumb stones as I have
Of human foe nor human friend hath pried ;
done,
Though He would know us, know us far Since Thou, O Master, camest here alone
and wide, Weeping divinest woes were ever known !

Scorning nor rose nor livid poison flowers Mary and Martha long their village sweet
Nature prolific on her children showers ! Forgets, and where, ah ! where. Thy sacred
And ah ! how oft when none are bywe groan, feet ?

O for one person mingling with our own Would they come
back, come only for an
!

Ye named us friends are soul and body one ?

! hour,
Or did ye name in cynical sarcasm ? WTiat were the wealth of all the worlds for
For have we bridged the ever -sundering dower
chasm Weighed with it ? . . .

'Twixt man and man. who leaning e'er so

much Then I slowly was aware . . .

Never, howe'er they strain, with hearts may Of one approaching as I halted there.
touch ? Near and more near some calm firm foot-

Yet He were not unkind or alien-souled, steps came ;

From shy warm wistful touches shrinking cold And while I listened strangely all my frame
Like common friends when heart yearns forth Grew tense with expectation, tingling through
to heart. With some blest awe of wonder, while in view
Longing to tear all sundering swathes apart That pilgrim rose upon the winding path.
One warm hour wanton to men's longing And paused five paces from me where it hath
lends An olive leaning over ; yet the night
Semblance of pale life and as wanton ends Would suffer none to read the features
;
right.

But He, methinks. He were the Friend of

friends I
His raiment grave, so far as I might see.

The garb of common men appeared to be.

Might He not bless this ailing age with As natives of the land are wont to use
health I only fell my spirit could not choose
Languishing faint with surfeit of her wealth, ]5ut know, and spring to meet Him, as the
Toiling to hoard and of repletion dying, lark,

Her vital juice unfunctioned for supplying Of Dawn soft wakened, from the dewy dark
 " — —— :

94 PAN
Inevitably springs into her breast ! As I fell forward, plucking empty air . . .

I could but falter to His knees for rest, . . . Howbeit some kind accents found me
Bury my face and lose all hold of thought, there
With such absorbing of wonder fraught
bliss " Christ is arisen ; seek not the living here !

His presence ! feeling flooded all my soul, I will not leave you, I will come to you.
And from mine eyes sweet warm weeping He "
in that will do the will of God shall know !

stole.

In kneeling I could only feel, not see,

The calm of some eternal eyes on me,
Yea and I think some hands upon my head PAN
Peace passing understanding o'er me shed
Yet I remember as I knelt I heard
Ah ! Nature, would that I before I pass

When far and faint upon the hill there stirred Might thrill with joy of thy communion
A night air melancholy washing through One childlife only knowing thee from far !

Love we may well, for surely one were nought

Tree after tree in travelling till it blew
Without the other, intermarrying breath ;
Hot on my neck, and wrung the olive nigh
Nature the systole, thought the diastole
With shuddering, and wandered with a sigh
Of inarticulate want along the glen Of one Divine forever-beating Heart.
Feeding from her maternal breast we grow
And as my glance fell on the raiment then,
Full to our height of stately dominance.
A ghostly gleam of light lay on the brown
Stuff woven of goat's hair, upon tuft and
And yet create, yea dower as we grow
stone
Her with all colour, form and comeliness.
Nature the heaving of a tender breast
Of bank and path.
Revealing inspiration from within,
Then sudden to the face Sweet rending of a calyx, telling clear
I —some shades
looked in ecstasy efiace, Expansion of the spirit's folded flower,
In part from olive-foliage — yet why Nature the lake where looking long we fall
So pallid, rigid, dim, that longing I With our own likeness tremulous in love.
Can shape no image of the countenance ?
But while with some vague terror now my Surely the blind bliss buoying up a lark
glance Floating in sunlight over nests in May,
I rivet, ever to more fading change Bliss of mere living, amorous ecstasy,
The face I hungered for appears to range : Undulates echo from a lover's heart
Until once more I fancy I can feel That palpitates above a maiden won !

The ghastly shiver and the drunken reel Simple the bird-bliss, but the human flushed
Of earth alas! I well must recognise ! With solemn lights from two immensities
At which to frenzy stung my spirit cries Of Past and Future, from the battle-field
And though He seems to melt from out my Where joy was wrested a rich spoil from pain,
grasp, From vistas of the eagle-visioned soul

My death-dewed hands with fierce despairing That widen aye to far infinity,
clasp Whence comes the sisters Joy and Sorrow
And clutch his skirt
— "Ah ! perish all save meet
Thee," Oft by the same mysterious fount of tears.
Broke forth my soul, " but Jesus ! stay with
me : Ah ! must the bird-bliss, full irradiate
Thee, Thee to hold though all the worlds be As any dewdrop morn,
thrilling in the
gone ! Waver, exhale like dew, or like a seed
And yet my forehead smote the senseless stone Orbed fair before it moulders in the dark
 — ; — —
PAN 95

Moist earth to formless mystery of growth, While generations fleeted slowly by ?

Falter at filming of a far-off cloud, Behold how wan and withered the fresh !

Feel unaware a trouble in the spring page

Of young serene unhazed limpidity Of Life he read in when he sank to rest
Changefully fed through channels of long Now he resumes above his shoulder look ! !

years. In sooth I know how many pages on

Emerge profound experience of Man, O world we are Yet something it may !

Fruition dusk of sorrow and of sin? chance

Wait only till the dew returns in rain. We have let slip of what may profit still !

Wait only till the formless germ shall flower, Come then lift high the choral hymn of
. . .

Wait only till the stream becomes the sea, praise

Wait only till humanity fulfils
The cycle of a destiny sublime,
Entering bliss more mellow and more large,
Yet like the bird's fall flawless and serene
That ever grows from rolling world and sea.
From angel, fiend, and hesitating man,
Who only with bewildered air sustains
That ever-pealing anthem unto One
I

All mortal happiness a reflex faint Whose Form is the all-glorious Universe,
From hidden rainbow far transcending ours. . . In ever-shifting accent, symbol, word,
Reverent, loving, wondering, with awe,
Last culminating unaware decline Humbly elate that in us for awhile
Must we toward the drear aphelion, He deigns to lighten into consciousness.
Once more expansive? hath the Universe That in the Son of Man Love full-beheld
Infinite systems, each one with his own His face, and lo it was the face of God.
!

Orbit of growth, his fringe of dulse and shells.

High-water and low- water line for each? You blessed innocent living animals,
What our spirits and our bodies here
if Through whom yon mountains self-involved
But re-emerge ever transmigrated in gloom,
Through everlasting from the Ineffable ? And yon far fathomless unresting sea.
May they not be with us after all,
still Sounding the whole harmonic scale of things.

Heroes and seers unto whom we yearn Pass ever in slow travail up to man,
O'er yon far sundering ocean of wan years ? Have I not loved you, conscious brotherhood,
Renewing ever an immortal youth Ah ! how much more than cold unlovely men
Straitened, amazed, and weary in the rush Dead callous all to man's prerogative.
Unresting of the Universal Life, Shut in some frigid blank fool's privilege
Sloughing old personality, anon Of state or wealth and trampling fellow fools !

Among the living with a more or less. These have I loved not rather mellow birds ;

But ever foster-children of the time ? Upon the bough and sheeny creeping things
Among green grass, red stjuirrels in the
Yet unaware we light upon a stray beech,
So lonely, weird, unfellowed among men. Such have I loved, some faithful-hearted

So startling with resemblance to the world hound

Of tribes uncouth, outlandish and remote, Shaggy, brown-eyed, that pants with lolling
Or those we marvelling hold commune with tongue,
All indistinct through fading portraiture Fair antlered deer of my ancestral glades,

Of art or creeds outworn, faint chronicles ;

Grim pleasantry of nature
To keep old-world denizen till
this
Alone bewildered in an alien age
All these companions chosen have I loved.
it appears All these with what men foolish libellous
now (For all is life) have named inanimate
! Cohesion, chemical affinities,

Or hath he slept some strange enchanted sleep These but the earliest grey gleam of Love
 — ; — — —
96 PAN
Dawning in light, air, water, rock or stone, Into your trough of earlier lowlihead,
And in faint fringes of organic life Pass to some innocent elfin of sleek fur,
Already blossoming through rainbow -rise His nest the ripe wheat and his wine the dew 1

Of sweet desire to spiritual love !

And shall we climb, ascension infinite,

O
wondrous interchange of services, From star to star? explore from world to
Honours and functions in the universe !
world
Disdainful isolation in a world Gods reigning yonder in the tranquil stars ?
Where nought may be sufficing to itself, Death what is Death ? a turning-point of
!

And where the noblest may the least suffice :

Life
Wherefore wise lovers count not anything Winding so sharp the way dips out of sight,
In all the worlds for common or unclean. Seeming to end, yet winding on for ever
The meanest reptile, if it only be. Through teeming glories of the Infiinite.
By only being proves a right to be, Look with bold eyes unquailing in the face
A use that failing the machinery Of that foul haunting phantom, it will fade,
Of all the worlds had fallen out of gear. Melt to the face of some familiar friend. . . .

Thou fated slayer, slay not like a beast,

In a blind panic, but remembering. One selfsame Spirit breathing evermore
Look steadily till through the loathly crust Rouses in each the momentary wave,
A soul puts forth a feeler seeking thine !
One water and one motion and one wind.
Creatures uncouth, yet these are on their way. Now feeble undulation myriadfold,
Blind and still distant from the goal
you touch, Now headlong mountain thunder-clothed and
Yet fellow pilgrims verily with you crowned
Dare you affirm there live not anywhere. With foamy lightning ; such we name Zer-
Nor in the teeming infinite dark womb duscht,
Of awful Nature ever shall be born, Dante, Spinoza, or Napoleon
Beings of glory so transcending yours The motion travels, and the wave subsides. . .

As ye transcend some annulated worm ?

Nay day by day the lower forms are lost, May cold ascetic hard, ill-favoured, crude
Yield all their own and re-emerge in man : Ever persuade me vision and fond play
And so the coral of our myriad lives Of sense about fair fleshly loveliness
Accumulates the sunny reef to be Of youth in man or woman is accurst
While yet in part, a soothing dream to me, Since God hath made the spirit, but a fiend
We may remingle with the lowlier life. . . . Hath mocked it with a syren phantoin-
flesh ?—
O blood that boils restless rebellious ! Nay, to mine ear 'tis rankest blasphemy !

O passionate desiring and despair ! For is not flesh the shadow of the soul,
Say shall ye lapse anon to whence ye came, Her younger sister, both alike Divine ?
Subside once more into the lovelier life Yea verily ! for when I love a friend
Of aimless airs unfettered and serene, How may I sunder body from the soul ?
Of buoyant seas that sparkle under them, Few win my love, but they who win it

Of unrepining cool meek-blooded flowers seem

Fair quiet fragrant, into laughing grass Ever well-favoured to me, and I greet
Dishevelled and deflowered of warm wind ? All comeliness of colour and of form,
Life faint of heart, pale, haunting, insincere Mere side reverse of spiritual grace.
Divine aspiring like an ermine robe Yea, limbs well turned and bodies almond-
Fretted to dust with moths of every day ! smooth
Sink, sink, O swell of vain-aspiring wave Full fair and white in maiden or in youth,
 ; ;

IN MEMORIAM THACKERAY 97

With what sense-thrillings may attend on

these IN MEMORIAM THACKERAY
All lusty might of supple athletic men ;

Are surely worthy reverence like flowers, This morn while roving o'er the wonted
Or culminating heart and soul.
like the page
Only to each one yield his very own : How many an eye arrested on it grew
Yield to young sense his toy of fantasy, Terribly fascinate, and breaths were held
And never frown until he glides to steal A moment for dismay to read the words
The royal sceptre from Intelligence, Messengers of calamity to all !

Or crown of light from spiritual Love.
Nor dare to maim lives infinite Divine
Seeking to graft one pale monotonous flower ;
For is not Being thirsting to exhaust
How little looked for scaring us there stands
This morning early haunting every hearth
The pale and mournful phantom of thy
loss !

His all exhaustless capability ? Never again the noble rugged head
Evil mere vantage-ground for an advance, And silver locks my privilege to see . , .

If not for thee, yet for the universe,

And so for thee as member of the whole. Great human artist, lover of the true,
Deep skilled to feel the solemn pulse of man
But well may Nature's innocent wantoning Now beating grandly full, now fluttering
Be loved of men : she whispers of the nest faint !

Whence we have flown, she lisps our language Great satirist who with unquailing front
low, Dealt stern tremendous blows on laurelled
A sweet child-mimic, she is very fair. lies

Hiding coy secrets from her lovers all And baseness panoplied in golden mail
Who will abide and listen at her heart Imperial-purpled, swarmed about with slaves!
Yea she will sorrow with your sorrow, sing, These named him "cynic " that with ruthless
Dance, leap for gladness if your mood be hand
gay, From them, stage-kings who thought to pass
Flout ne'er nor lightly fling away your love, for true.

Or lure to whelm in labyrinths of woe. He tore false trapping, stripped each puny
Her gentle breath, her breath is very sweet, thing,

Breath of lush vegetation in the dew And mocked mere blatant mouthing of a
Of a warm summer evening heavy faint mime !

With slumbrous prodigal unbosoming
Of secret odours, delicate and shy
If quiet lying heart to heart with her
Lost in the tranquil limpid of her eyes,
But manhood brave and kindly and sincere,
!
And tender womanhood a meek sweet flower,
He drew from 'neath the trampling feet of
these,

Will she not lull us with a lullaby

Proclaiming very ministers of Heaven
Soft marvellous, with spell beyond belief
In a corrupted world Kind humorist . . .

To soothe one worn with conflict and with Opening oft a healthful mellow laugh
pain, Of laughter for the innocent and young !

Sweet as a revelation from a star,

Sweet as a melody from elfin land Now at this time, the wintry Christmas
Woven from breath of grasses and frail flowers time,

And airs low tinkling tiny twinkling bells, Must he leave void his wonted place with us ?

Will she not whisper of a lovelier life, Weep ! —not unmindful of the birth of Love !

Beautiful, true, spontaneous and calm.

Guileless and gentle, bountiful and free ? Christmas 1863.
 —: ; ! —;

ON THE MOUNTAIN
Yea if I knew yon music in the glooming
ON THE MOUNTAIN Of future years
Were surely welcome of sweet souls illuming
Linger a moment, for a moment only, With light of tears
Here on the height My feet confused, with grateful tears my
Ere our sad feet must feel yon shadows feet;
lonely Yea if I knew,
Sinking to night. Still would I trammel all thy steps too fleet,

In sooih I know it was but yesterday Feeling they flew.

You heard me chide For even if yonder may be human glory.
Your calm unhasting progress in the way, Acclaims that roll.
O life, my guide ! Here, even here, there beams upon my story
An hour agone how fondly I aspired An aureole.
To crown the crest A heavenly purple, auroral light of youth
Of manly years where beautiful untired Reblooming never
Our elders rest But there at most a sombre fire in sooth
Nay seem to rest, for slowly they decline Fading for ever !

And leave the brow : What though for me may mellow sustenance
Region of glamour at the last made mine ! Of fruits hang low,
Where are they now ? Crimson or golden in the way's advance.
I view them, I behold them, winding low : Amber may flow,
Here it is day. Autumn may smoulder ripe and gorgeous
And along the mountain from below
all ; In clouds and leaves ;

But there away Fresh morning never as the pilgrim goes

Falls their dim going ever in the shade : From now relieves
Only awhile But all in shadowland he wavereth
Linger, behold with morning in the glade Out of the sun,
My home sweet smile Till in yon gloom of lowland stilly Death,
Warm in the vines fair home, a hopeful child
! Dull-eyed and dun.
I sped from you, Feels at his feet for feeding with his breath
And how many a tearful
since, barren wild Oblivion !

Too well I know ! Nay I repine not since upon the air.

Yet smooth and rugged, beautiful and foul. Even while I go.
Look fair from here. Clear floats a treble of young children fair

Softened in mellowing memories of the soul Who climb below.

Made pure from fear. Nay, I repine not, for I lift mine eyes
I never dreamed of passing from the splen- To heights afar
dour, Tranquil abiding lovely in the skies.
Crowned once withal. Homes of the star.
Who chid thy slowness when my years were Yea, in a vision I can see them moving,
tender. Children of God,
Yet now I fall Dear human creatures clear from our re-

Prone at thy feet, O friend mysterious ! proving,

Praying to rest Nigh His abode.
Even if I knew them yonder waiting us. Though fleeting our frail syllable of story,
Fair faces pressed God will rehearse
Of human lovers whom I longed to rouse, Fresh like the sea, grown never old and hoary.
Fold to my breast liis universe !
 ; ! "

GARIBALDI: AN ODE 99

Beyond the blue, like those we trust

GARIBALDI: AN ODE Men shall own kings when we are dust.

In some far golden age of time,
When the old gods lie trailed in slime;
We labouring up the darkened stream
Behold in yonder orient gleam
Shout ! a king of men is here !

One sail, a guide to morning's beam !

Hurrah !

A long descended naonarch proud,

With right divine to hold men bowed ?

Methinks we've seen such gods before, Shout ! a king of men is here !

And heard imbruted myriads roar Hurrah !

Acclaim to one with murdering sword Behold ! and sand

this nature's flint
A lust of power hath foully gored, Were fused in by Love's command
fire
Or marked some thin official cheer All to one diamond, for so
JNIid passers lowering through their fear- He and Mazzini seem to glow :

Not such a king of men is here !

Such loving men, monarchs alone
Of alien spirits and their own :

Behold him from the tyrant rive

Shout ! a king of men is here !
A crown, yet only take to give
Hurrah !
'Tis royal Love's prerogative.
No military pageant flares.
Nor cannon booms, nor trumpet blares.
But only mighty London pours
Her fire of life that chafes and roars, Shout ! a king of men is here !

Licks up the roofs with giant glee Hurrah !

And bursts at every window free ! Our baubles, crowns and titles, gold.
Kerchiefs of women, banners wave, Seem to the man of such a mould
As this king's mission were to save As the wild Indian's glory does.
Not kill so run their mottoes brave
; ! The war-paint and the scalp, to us :

His glory lies in doing good,

His crown men's hearts, each one imbued
Shout ! a king of men is here !
With that same sense of one for all,
Hurrah ! He compasseth them grand withal,
The people crowd his chariot way, So would he have men feel his thrall I

To grasp his hand they surge and sway ;

From each full heart the welcome cries,

Each soul leaps forth from beaming eyes
What hero so can stir us all ? Shout ! a king of men is here 1

Thisman at least hath saved from thrall Hurrah !

Our England ! Nay, behold the man. Not you who, if the incarnate God
Yon lionlike Italian, Came now, would fix with sapient nod
Whose calm pure smile our welcomes fan Your microscopic intellect,
And mince, " A pimple we detect ;

Since if you rushed to clasp his feet

Shout ! a king of men is here I Like the rude mob so indiscreet.
Hurrah ! Rich fumes your nostrils full inhale
A king indeed of spirits this, From your sweet selves might chance to fail.

More like the kings in yonder bliss The rush would make them hindward trail I
 ; — : —— ——
GARIBALDI: AN ODE

Another flaming diadem

On him thy countrymen esteem
Shout ! a king of men is here !
Had not his soldiers shot thee down
Hurrah !
In act from hold thine own-
strife to
Where nobles vie to honour him Gap gemless in that monarch's crown.
Whom God made noblest man of them,
So honouring our lordly class,
I hear two loungers as they pass,
Shout ! a king of men is here !

Some dandy man and woman, sneer Hurrah !

" Turn not your back, the king is here " !

King even at Aspromonte, hail !

If he had kept the crown he took.

We see thee wounded, worn and pale.
How meek that toy would make them look !
With saddened soul yet tranquil eye
Mere naked worth they cannot brook. Gaze where rich-vestured mountains lie
Clear-glassed in Spezzia's lakelike sea,
Thy bonds deep shame to Italy :

Shout ! a king of men is here ! On prophet vision thy spirit throve

Hurrah ! A world calm as yon seas through love
Hoar institutions mouldering stand Drowned Shelley's spirit here must move !

Of yore for service wisely planned.

Persian nor Greek nor Arab spilt
Stupendous fanes by Pharaoh built We see thee in thine island home,
Only when earthquake shook the crust Caprera ringed with whispering foam.
Bowed those "eternal" piles in dust Set in Mediterranean blue ;

Through desert courts the jackal bays. Thy goats i' the wild thyme browsing chew ;

The moon o'er unknown symbol strays Thy thoughts go wandering dreamily
So now the people new power essays. Round all the strange sad past and nigh
Yon lowland cursed where faint from day
Thy noble Anita sank for aye :

Shout a king of men Yet there unborn great souls shall pray !
! is here !

Hurrah !

Old thrones and creeds begin to sway

As the young giant feels for day. Shout ! a king of men is here !

King Philistines have bound his wrist, Plurrah !

Delilah Superstition kissed Now down the traffic-teeming river

His mouth as in her lap he slept, A course of molted gold doth quiver

But crave for light and air hath crept 'Neath Westminster's vast-moulded arch,
About his smothered lethargy While o'er it moves thy triumph march.
;

He stirs, he stretches, fetters fly :

In far nooks formless shadows cower,
Free stalks he, pigmies cowering by !
In evening chrj'solite yon tower
Mounts o'er the stately palace-pile
Where a free people calm laws compile
We lack thy selflessness sublime.
Shout ! a king of men is here !
Yet tremble, tyrants crowned with crime !

Hurrah !
Our hearts with those who strain to climb ;

Rome bleeding, panting, moment-free Hail ! herald of the dawning time !

Turned not in vain wild eyes to thee Hail ! the new world's exuberant prime !

Lo ! she with Venice turns them yet !

Even now perchance thou mightst have set 1864.

 ! ; !

PALMYRA
With all oppression on the fevered frame,
PALMYRA All thirst and hunger : I could deem me
borne
Listless and weary silently we crouch Out of myself, and mingled with the world !

Under the sun's intolerable face, Why do I weep? we wander in and out
For ever forward heaving dreamily, Fair lucent springing arches cored with fire,
Each on his camel with a noiseless foot, By many a votive column, over fret
Swift, sure, and silent like the feet of Time, Fantastic fine of broken tracery.
And nose protruding level on the air : Loves, fruit, and flowers glowing underfoot.
Our and flowing-vested guards
brilliant-hued A silvery serpent-coil is in the eyes
Drowsily bowing to the camel -stride. Of yon stone fragment of a hero's head !

Our shadows blotted sharp upon the sand. Sealike about me sets the wilderness
And ne'er a sound but in the barrel slung, To realms untravelled ; saving where we
A gurgling as of wells among the palms ! came
For there the mountains purple rich with eve,
Anon the imperial tyrant unaware
While many a pillar sunders them with gold,
Declines from empire of the blinding skies. A mouldering castle of the Saracens
Some tall mysterious tomb-towers that seemed Crowning them, dark athwart the heavenly
To mock us with the promise of their shade fire.
Through the long day now stand upon their
heights Anon among the ruins calls the wind
Ghostlike and near, until as in a dream Whirling the desert in wild revelry,
We pass the portals of them, and we solve Crumbled beneath fierce suns of centuries
That ashen-grey enigma of the hills. To sand, and sifted of the searching blast.
Then bursts upon our breathless souls a sight Mounding it pale about the ways and walls
Such as they say shall opening overwhelm Where once Zenobia, queen of all the East,
The waking vision of the sons of God, Flushed and elate with empire and with youth
Emergent from the pilgrimage of life. Drove in her chariot, girt with flaming swords
And dark adoring faces of her lovers.
Behold amid the illimitable waste
! Flashing another morning from her eyes,
Abides a city glorious with gold Borne as on wings of music royally I

Of arch triumphal, leaguelong colonnade, How long before she looked from yonder
Palace and fane with pediment and frieze, height
While dominating, mighty like a mountain, Her mournful last upon the shattered glory
Mounts from their midst the Temple of the Of her sweet kingdom with a clouded eye,
Sun, Or proudly turned, a captive yet a queen,
Eternal based upon stupendous blocks Away for ever with Aurelian ?

Poised there by genii, slaves of Solomon. Now the fair city is a skeleton
See yonder, palms —ah ! grateful gush of Whose shell but serves to tcssellate blue air.
green, Now fair ways once resonant with life,
the
And cool mild flash of water soothing eyes Vibrant with pulses of world-history,
Cowering from such severity of light Feel only stealthy feet of the lean wolf
(Jr prowling fox save where our Bedawy
;

Ere full the vision enraptured we behold, Rush galloping with wild barbaric yell
Lo ! we are sweeping swiftly to the plain Poising the ijuivered lance in mimic charge,
Nigh the enchanted city. Do I wake, Wheeling and spurning dust, mayhap of men
Or weave some glowing fabric in a dream ? To cloud about them— spirits of the blast
I only know the weariness hatii passed, Incarnate winds as lawless and as wild !
 !

PALMYRA
Dim limbless Chaos here with Anarchy For us, dear friend with whom I wandered
And Desolation holds high carnival, there.
Welters carousing, laughing loud and long For us the lovely ruin had a voice,
In maniac triumph of reconquering A human message after then we ranged
:

His ancient lair where once the God of life Apart, afar our feeling and our thought
;

Brooded to quicken formless elements Have known a change still you may call to
;

Into a throbbing heart of all mankind ! mind

That argent moon upfloating large and pure
Dread exultation of primeval Powers In dark blue night above the solemn temple
In all-exhaustless fountain of your youth, And hush of palm and water how we lay
;

Dread celebration of your victory ! Under the open wakeful very long,
And your eternal birthday, in the place So strange and so entrancing all the night I

Where ye abode before King Solomon, Ah soon, how soon, we surely shall decline,
I

And darkling played about the feet of God ! Fade to the indistinguishable whole.
Where ye abide now after the brief hour But when the moon shall silver soft our sleep.
That shone with human empire, now the worm Still fair Palmyra beautiful in death
Hath fouled sweet tresses of the queen of men. Shall thrill with her weird silence like a
And loathly things have littered in her breast spirit

In your grand triumph, awful yet sublime, Souls yet unborn to wistful questioning ;
I bear a part, exulting deep with you. They too like fearful children shall implore
Albeit I weep, remembering what we are ! And call, nor ever they, nor any one.
And yet I know these lives of ours not lost, Shall hear an answer floating firom the void I

Exhaling to enhance the life of God,

Life of all ages freshening evermore ! . . .
 THE RED FLAG
AND OTHER POEMS
1872
 THE RED FLAG
There is peace in London ! Alas ! alas ! it was a baleful hour
Not here, as yonder, men blaspheming loud, When the great goddess Order hounded slaves
Begrimed with slaughter, cruelly aflame, Fair France's patriot daughters to deflower,
Drag some dishevelled woman through the And spurn them into ignominious graves,
crowd Festering under smooth Parisian flags,
To shoot her with a blundering blind aim : That there in peace her delicate Agags
She with her hopeless hunted face of fear Might mince once more with high-born
Grovelling falls, and to her dying ear courtesans
Pierce her foul fellows with inhuman jeer. O'er the dead people, weaving pleasant plans,
There, all along the fair arcaded street And praising her, their cannibal god, the
Where they are murdering, in sacks lie thrown Mother,
Dead men and women where the dainty ; Who loves one human child to fatten upon
feet another.
Were wont to loiter ; there the brilliants Alas ! alas ! it was a baleful hour
shown When Frenchmen to the shrines of this grey
Lured eyes that vied in lustre with their own. Power
But these are ghastly, whence the warm life- Dragged hero-souled sisters by the hair,
flood Slaking grim Order's thirst for vengeance
Oozing hath stained the flags with human there.
blood ! Revenging horribly that old despair
Alas among these women whom with spasm
! Wherewith the long-cowed, lashed, mad
Of righteous indignation men have slain, people flew
Each fired with spirituous enthusiasm, At Tyranny's withered throat to bite it

Order's disorderly Praetorian, through.

Among these Frenchwomen whom French- Some of these women, when imperial France
men slew Collapsed confused before the foe's advance,
I may be more than few
well believe there With famine-feeble hand sustained her glor}-,
Mothers and wives, who have sublimely stood Passing it flawless on to History ;

Waiting benumbed in snow for scanty food Bowed with the awful burden, meekly giving
Through that long winter siege unmurmuring, Their own, their very little children's living
Wearj'ing away with want one little thing ; For France's honour, for the Country's Cause.
'Neath Mont-Parnasse from hunger, and None but these nobler victims the red jaws
another Of Order, that great goddess whom the world
Cold clinging to the worn skirt of a mother, And this great city Paris worshippeth,
Shrinking so close from Death, who tears Greedily yawn to swallow these are hurled ;

it off. With blind fiend-fury to a dishonoured death :

And laughs " One vermin more " !

with Men who were fain to shrink before the
brutal scoff. foeman
Is there a mob-contemning silk aristocrat, Can hustle at least and mangle their own
Who spits on man like Death ihe Democrat ? women !
 — ; : ; ; :

io6 THE RED FLAG

Thus in the world's gay capital to-day A Pariah, whose human rights ignored.
Alva looks from the face of Galifet. We hold created for the hangman's cord ;

Arm in arm with the World, her old ally,
See how the Church creeps forth to see them
die!
Emaciated here may she renew
Her sleek youth in a fresh Bartholomew.
She, while she sips warm blood from her
chalice,
Points with a supernatural smile of malice
Where feudal Bismarck and his master
To thrust yon fugitives upon their fate
Back to the flames that hurtle all abroad,
Back on the point of an insatiate sword
A social outcast none have sought to tame.
Who hath an old inheritance his shame. —
Then at the base of narrow stairs arriving,
I raisedmy voice to ask if one were living
Here, a poor ailing woman whom I sought
full Whereupon some sharp man's voice made retort
Through a bleared twilight: "Well, she's
dying here."
wait Oppressive weighed the reeking atmosphere,
; And though the summer sun shone out above,
I for a time peered vainly while I strove
Aught to distinguish in the squalid gloom
:

She lifts to heaven her cruel falsetto voice Yet pushing some black door I found the
;

But 'tis the damned who hear it and rejoice, room.

Shrieking responsive to her jubilee, It was a bare room, void of garniture.
" Amen so perish Man who will be free " Where first the window did mine eyes allure.
! !

Priests, women, soldiers, children, all afire Whose broken panes the grime of years defiles
;

Paris around them roars a foneral pyre, Never it feels pure air, nor how God smiles
Screaming, blaspheming are the corpses In heaven the haggard eye of this dim den,
; ;

dumb? Of this foul prison for low-born Englishmen,

Verily here is Pandemonium Looks on a court of miry walls well filled
!

With sherds and loathly refuse reckless spilled.

So fills itself another crimson page Yet by the window sits a ragged dwarf,
Of human story so from age to age
; With wolfish, pinched pale features, and a
Men reap the fruit of hate and wrath and cough
Death His nimble, skeleton, sallow fingers ply
From the red seed they sowed, and with mad At their incessant toil ; a vessel nigh
breath Smokes with some viscous glue, belike shellac,
Cherished for harvest: still they strew the same. Gear of his craft labour-hunched back
; his
Mutual rancour, fear, and scorn, and shame Stoops over as he straightens it he looks
;

And breaks to fury and to flame.

still it With eyes half fierce, half dull amid the shocks
Liberty watereth with many a tear Of matted hair grown prematurely grey :

The growth maturing still she hopes to rear

; —
A man yet young but slaving day by day,
Her own frail flower, but ever hides her eyes With sorrow and scanty nourishment, can slay
When she beholds the infernal blade arise —
Can age man early lo a wizened elf, !

Ever a gory growth, a venomous thing, A weird small shadow of the man himself,
Now named Mob-rule, now Slavery to a King. Creeps to the father's side, and takes the toy
He has been fingering ah favoured boy,
: !

There is peace in London. A stone's throw distant, on thy birthday joy

And in this peace I lately stood before Shall fly from here to thee no wistful eye
!

A mean brick housefront at a dingy door —

Cast thou, poor starveling lay it down to dry!
In a foul street : the place was very near " Where is she?" I demanded he was dumb, :

Where wealthy folk inhabit half the year. And rose as though he heard me not ; for
One at an ale-house lounging reeled low- numb
browed, He was with long monotonous sorrow,
surely
Whose face no fine humanities avowed, That knows no hope of any fair to-morrow.
 — : : "

THE RED FLAG 107

A tame mechanical, abortive toil Fragile geranium leans forth to Ijrealhe

Can all the rainbow from a life despoil There at the window ; half the mould beneath
And leave it grey, like pining flowers that lose, Droops from the broken potsherd, and the
Shut from sweet sunlight, all their native hues. fine
So sullenly the man resumed his labour Fibres denuded like the blossoms pine.
But now one pointed some poor female — The wife's dim dying face is toward the
neighbour flower.
To something cowering in withered weeds : And toward her husband ceasing ne'er to
Is it a Woman's withered face that feeds cower
On what degraded light may wander through Over his toil each fairer sight to her,
;

Her Sudra vault from our palatial Blue? Whose was the wand of trust that may not err,
She lies upon some rags upheaped and coarse Was heaven's window : yea, the "home" so
(Her very bed they lately pawned perforce) : drear,
She lies as though unbreathing, still as stone, With these crushed lives, looked only not so
Save when at intervals she makes low moan. clear
"What ails her?" to the neighbour soft I said : CrystallineGod Himself hath troubled so,
" She will not ail long she will soon be dead,"
; For ends adorable she may not know.
The other whispered " she is very ill ; But ah the pain, her weakness, the confusion
!

Tis marvel what the man can earn may still Born of her weakness, wrought in fell collu-
Keep her alive ; her ailing state required sion
She should be nourished well, nor overtired, With woe of these her kindred to conceal
The doctor told her why, she used to stitch
: Often those gleams unearthly that reveal
From dawn to night you see it is the rich
: God dwells with her in very visible glory.
Who can take rest with ample food, not we. Her soul a holier shrine than all cathedrals
If ever one were staf-ved, sir, it is she. hoary !

I often shared my little with them yet —

Can ill afford my children to forget. Nay, but this woman cowering in the gloom,
Parish allows them somewhat surely yes. :
;
Dark, speechless, ghastly, starving, haunts
But see the children, and his feebleness !
the room
Four growing children with the parents here —
With horror lowest sunken in the fate
Dwell, sleep, in one close room from year to That slowly whelms her kindred desolate !

year. She lurks a silent corpse, and yet alive :

Three elder ones are helping the pale sire About her all her fainting family strive
—
At his life-drudgery the fourth admire ! With bony fingers tightening their hold ;

It clings, an infant, to the neighbour's dress. While near them lords and ladies drain the
Blooming and hale : the Harpy of Distress gold
Hesitates to pollute so pure a child. That sparkles with exhilarating pleasure,
Once, when the mother looked that way, she Fair, in fine raiment, wantoning at leisure.
smiled To starve in London on tlie stones where !

Almost, I fancied, yet her infant shrank wealth

Now from herself: how should it know she sank Indifferent saunters, dull with food and
More swiftly in drear unremembered death, health !

Because she gave it what sustained her breath ? Surely this infant healthful for an hour,'
Surely the pining, pale geranium flower.
This, and the craftsman's tiny glow of fire, The puny glow that will anon expire,
And one poor flower, help one to respire. Are but as little children's hands that tire
Sustain the heart's-breath in this woful air In piteous attempt to move some rock
Of hopeless human suffering a fair : That hath erased a household in the shock,
 — : :; : ;

io8 THE RED FLAG

Wherewith the haughty Mountain - spirit That there is ne'er a Lord of life and death,
scorning Who giving, reassumeth every breath ?

Hurled it from icy palaces of Morning What God hath bidden you shout to them
!

So these can move not the dull Fate that rests that weep,
Like tons of stone upon crushed human " God is a fable, death an endless sleep ;

breasts. Good news for thee who writhest in the curse !

Thine earthly cage is all the universe."
And yet from her, the woman dying there, Ye spurn our worn solutions but may ye :

Who lately seemed to radiate despair
And darkness in the melancholy room,
Breaks forth a glory softening the doom,
Tinging this horrible embroilment even
With iridescent loveliness from heaven.
Solve, by denying, all the mystery ?
Yourselves will help yourselves: alas! we fall.
Where is our help if human help be all ?
And these were happy they loved one :

The light of Faith ! a marvellous holy light another

Breaking from simple souls that sink in Now
by the living corse of her the mother.
night Of her
the wife yet young, he sits and works,
Power bursting barriers of woe and wrong, And looks askance where in the shadow lurks
Prisons wherein the mighty, cruel and strong, A ghastly Horror creeping, though he toil
In proud prosperity have pent the weak, To ban it from the children, innocent spoil.
Revealing the Deliverer they seek. So sweet to our Destroyer, whose low laugh
To blind faint lives that writhe beneath the Mocks man, as wind mocks the lightheaded
curse chaff!
Opening fair vistas of the universe ! Are not this London's million ordured courts
While helpless under men's hard feet they Verily curst ineffable resorts
groan, Of ghouls more horrible than Easterns feign ?

A ray reveals the Father on His throne Do ye not note them yonder at the pane
The oppressor trampling on His poor may Mopping and mowing, spectres foul yet dim
still In subtle blue miasma mists that swim.
Shout, "Who shall stay me when I work There at the dingy pane, with dull dead eyes,
my will?" Faces wormfretted, lank, with livid dyes,
A voice peals through the echoing worlds And loathly trunk slow revelling in slime
"I will!" Under the window^brood of folly and crime !

And them hearken, or let them forbear,

let Ye fearful Hydras, Cholera and Fever,
The poor have heard Him, and the Lord is Batten on starving huddled slaves for ever !

there !

Yet Love Divine who yearns to them that

But woe for him who toils without a hope ! weep.
He in base mire of loathed life will grope. Finding man's Torturers off guard, sent sleep
With midnight's cold unconstellated cope Stole to the wornout soul in guise of dream.
Weighing him graveward heed how ye And soothed her with a sweet celestial gleam.
:

despoil One night he dreamed of his lost childhood's

A life, no earthly welfare's kindly soil mirth :

Nourishes, of a spiritual air. Love culled a leaf from off a happier earth.
Given to sustain a spirit leafing there. A boy and girl beside a cool-toned brook
Hold ere ye quench a wavering hope that can Bathe their feet laughing, bending oft to look,
Save from despair a miserable man ! Through delicate glumes of grasses and some
Foes of old superstition Do ye know
! sedge
That God will never right the wrongs of woe That grows with willowherb upon the edge,
 : : " ! —— ;

THE RED FLAG log

\Miere ruffled cresses with the sHding stream "This glorious old edifice of State,
Flow along fresh below the watery gleam. Though finding-fault, black, croaking birds
Near stoops a hollow trunk wherein they may
prate
played Around it "
—
(did the parson mean the rooks.
At being men and women — unafraid ! Rebels, or heretics, or naughty books ?)
Singing birds in the leaves are not more glad " Is founded on the broad backs of the people;
Than these two rustic children poorly clad, Our middle-class the buttressed wall ; the
Glowing with health, from some fair cottage steeple,
nigh. Or dome, our king and old nobility ;

The russet girl is beautiful, her eye The Church, yon golden cross that meets the
More blue than any fleeting butterfly. sky !

Can it be he, the merry little boy? He should have travelled lower than the
And that his sister in her innocent joy ? stones.
Even to the charnel-vault of dead men's
She grew a maiden, very fair, but frail bones
—
Some rich man wronged her now what Your grand colossal edifice to-day
sounds assail Rests on a yawning darkness and decay
—
A waking ear ? a woman trolls a hoarse Beware for it is ready to vanish away !
!

Loose ditty her young lineaments are coarse Yea, is it founded on the people's backs ?
:

With harlot hues she reels from yonder door Behold how as ye walk the sanguine tracks
; !

Flaring with harsh light out into the pour Ye leave are slipper}^ with human gore,
On slimy pavements : how the gaudy dress The life, the health, the souls of men your
Clings to her slender, fevered feebleness !
floor.
She and her brother have been severed long ; Glance not below; yield to the organ's pealing;
And so she passes with her ghastly song Explore the lonely grandeurs of the ceiling !

Unknowing, while he sees her undefiled :

Ah! but your tyrannous structure is atremble
Love shows her to him as a little child. I who behold it dare no more dissemble :

God breathes upon it with the breath of doom:

Yet very nigh there often pace the street Phantoms of empire summon from the tomb !

Casual farers with indifferent feet Dominant o'er us glares the cross of gold,
And when the craftsman goes to breathe And haughty hierarchies manifold
awhile Brandish the symbol for a flaming sword,
Upon the stair, he sees the cheery smile, Kneel to the cross, and crucify the Lord !

Hears happy snatches of a careless talk Friend of the lowly, fainting on the wood.
From comfortable strangers in their walk. . . . Behold thy poor upon a golden rood !

. . . Now 'tis Dean, who he . . . Thelonely

toiler, gasping for some air,

ambles by Listens in shadowy poison of the stair.

Raises a question of church-millinery ;
Listens, a wounded beast within his lair. . . .

Or in allusion to the squalid street . . And there is Peace in London

. !

Observes that, howsoever God may mete

The lot of each, all should be docile, which Now trips a dame who lifts her skirt for fear
One may name "Gospel according to the Of many a foul contamination here,
rich." Revealing delicate ankles to the friend.
If therewere no starvation for the mean, Who (to assist) his manly arm may lend.
Supplies might fail us for a portly Dean. "Think what a desperate misery may slink
Then this fine burst of pulpit eloquence In these low neighbourhoods from whence
"
A threadbare Curate heard in rapt suspense : we shrink ?
 "" " ;"— — — ; ;;

THE RED FLAG

In silver tones she whispers :
" Look ! there One was an oldish man ; the other, he
prowl Spake as one claiming great authority.
Two terrible ragged ruffians with a scowl." His dust-hued head was growing grey in
"Near our town-houses! who could fancy it ? part
Drawls out the dandy with more birth than wit. From tardy fellow-feeling with his heart.
She, with a slight quick shiver, half a sigh " Not to admire" the only art he knew
:

" One's heart aches even to dream such To keep him comfortable as he grew.
poverty !
What might have moved the vulgar to dis-
(It jarred her nervous sensibility.) traction
" And yet, as Mister Glozeman said in church, Moved him to limp distaste or satisfaction.
To make the vessel of the State tc lurch, He viewed with very philosophic calm
To shake our ancient Order is the worst All human ills that did himself no harm. —
Crime : it deserves the torture, 'tis accurst But he had taken honours at his college,
Of God and man —he meant the Communist And deemed himself a microcosm of know-
Canaille in Paris." Then the dandy hissed ledge.
With panic fury, " Shoot the draff by millions! Outside he looked a thicket of stiff bristles ;
So may our scum here learn to make re- Inside he looked a jungle of prickly thistles.
bellions !
Which, though from them no figs for men be
To clear some stray defilement from her dress, reared.
Bending she slightly on his arm may press Seem dainties to the stubborn race long-eared-
Then, as if breeding were a little at fault A sort of sour old maid the man was born
In that last ardour of her friend's assault He could secrete but weak incontinent scorn
Even on hereditary foes, the mob. Sterile to foster, organise, produce
On swarms unclean, who sweat and starve Aught but sophistic pleas for some abuse.
and rob, Moreover, one might notice with surprise
She waved aside the subject she had lent The sort of things that made his gorge to rise
Her glance in passing, drawling as she went, Always the wrong thing — for his heart would
"They say the poor are so improvident !
bleed
Half absently she spoke, to weightier themes If generous enterprise or kindly deed
—
Turning anon to cunning, lordly schemes Not failed, but seemed in danger of succeeding.
For stifling noxious popular low measures This turned him yellow, set his heart ableed-
:

Then of refined aristocratic pleasures ing !

—
They babbled Hurlingham the ducal ball — So may base cruelty arouse the rage
Of a monstrous nobleman turned Radical, In vulgar bosoms yet methinks a sage
:

Of latest fashions out, a novel tie, Should be more tolerant in middle-age.

Or the last sweet thing in adultery. Restless he itches till he settle in blight
On springing hopes with envious little spite ;

The lonely toiler, gasping for some

Yet nipping buds of generous resolve,
air,

Listens in shadowy poison of the stair, Should one survive his yearning to dissolve.
Listens, a hunted beast within his lair. Become respectable, accomplished thing,
. . .

. . And there is Peace in London

. He fulsome fawns on that beslavering.
!

Every frail human hope that pleads for air,

It happened once two gentlemen were Wistfully peering generous and fair.
stayed He burns to foul to squat in mockery there. —
Here, waiting some companion delayed. He, a boy prig, once laughed at by a woman,
Sauntering to and fro they smoking walked, Became the sex's indiscriminate foeman :

Or leant against the house-wall while they He must have had a sister or a mother.
talked. And yet insults, asperses every other.
 ; ; ; ;: ;

THE RED FLAG

Politely-cultured loungers at the club They with a crooked tongue in hollow cheek
Take for Sir Oracle the fluent cub Commend His]Gospel to the poor and weak.
Anonymous in his periodical These, who have measured God with half an
Large, vague he looms ; who, dullard eye,
thoughts of all Damn with faint praise the blessed Trinity.
Dishing up deftly, flatters each fool so, Faith relegated to the lower orders,
It it may strut as though
fondly fancies A panacea for popular disorders,
were some potential Rochefoucauld.
Itself A pap for babes and women, once upheaved
He could be lively only when he hated : Mountains and .hurled them headlong, once
Pungent aromas all evaporated, achieved
When he with heavy hand, with heavier face, The impossible, taught saviours on the cross
Apotheosised English commonplace ; And triumph in their loss
in the fire to ;

A Rubens' cherub cumbersomely squat. A flame by night, an awful cloud by day.

Labouring to upheave some royal fat Guided Mankind on their eternal way.
—
Skyward the whole falls marvellously flat ! Now it fulfils a somewhat humbler function :

With ponderous platitude his smart review From it sleek priests distil the pulpit unction :

Lumbers along when it proclaims the true While clever Barnums, cleverer and stronger
Plethoric gospel of the well-to-do. Than all old heroes, needing faith no longer,
Man oi 2l petite adtui-e, whose college culture Reduce our gods to dolls wherewith a show-
Is but a whited sepulchre sepulture man
Of living manhood — his in sooth was small Hoodwinks the rabble, and the babes and
Only a castrate creature's after all. women.
the old creed is a propriety.
Still
His elder comrade, green as a vegetable,
An heirloom, a respectability ;
Livesmuch as did the dogs in sacred fable
One can conceive it true be civil to ; it
He picks up crumbs from off a rich man's
Were you you might come to rue it.
uncivil
table.
So at a possible future judgment you
With he courts the upper ten for dinners,
tact
May tell the Lord, you said it might be true
No and bourgeois sinners.
friend of publicans
:

While footmen hand you many a dainty meat, —

Yea, should it menace you have thought of
that—
And butlers pour you out some choice Lafitte,
And left yourself with ample room to rat.
He undertakes the dinner- wit to furnish
Which is a trifle flyblown, wants a burnish.
Oh what an irony of secret fate
! !

The saltcellar with warranted Attic grains

Oh what declension from a royal state
! !

That Faith, who once God's favourite angel

Serves for so many boards, the flavour wanes.
flew.
Less delicately now he spins the slander,
For wears even a fashionable pander.
toil
Now drudges for a Saturnine review.
Yet though they give two fingers to the Saviour
Still when he speaks unwholesome simpers fly
Best clothes on Sunday and demure behaviour,
Around the high
Distinguished circle of mahogany.
Men of the world on every working day
Put the old creed with childish things away.
Egyptians played with monkeys when they
Measure the infinite God on pain of hell ;
dined
But do not heed Him when you buy or sell.
Our kings kept jesters of a motley kind;
Call Jesus Lord decorously on Sunday,
IVe fit our cap and bells on " men of mind."
But treat Him as a genial fool on Monday.
From condescension to humanity Lift up your pious eyes at Darwin's creed ;

(A piece of luck for Christianity), Yet try to prove him right about your breed,
These men their Kgis of sublime protection Dear fellow-Christians who live as though
!

Spread over Jesus and the Resurrection. Not even now you'd struggled from below.
 ' ; ' —— ——
THE RED FLAG
For beasts of prey with all their savage strife He would remove the squalor and distress.
Are still the cherished models of your life. Nay, makes a virtue of his feebleness
Ye war with all your fellows for existence, Removing makes it more instead of less.
And when you've thrown them, still with Let us with one vain luxury dispense,
fierce insistence, The luxury of our benevolence.
Grind them beneath you, crush them all to We feel a fatuous longing to relieve
death, The culpable incapables who grieve :

That you may breathe a more luxurious breath. (They're either drunk or stupid, all the cant
Hail weaponed man of grand expanding Can't alter facts, else why are they in want?)
!

brain. Track home the fatuous longing at your

Most formidable beast of all that stain leisure.

Our mother earth with fratricidal blood You'll find (see Mill) 'tis only selfish pleasure
!

Tigers but raven hungry for their food This lachrymose desire to benefit
;

But thou, to fling one shining bauble more Other men aims at, selfish every bit
In coffers bursting with thy gold before, We virtuous men must learn to bridle it."
Starvest the babes and women at thy door " It must have cost you many a prayerful !

tear"
How
these two friends congenial conversed (His waggish friend interpolated here)
Here, as the listener heard it, is rehearsed. "Arriving at this holy consummation.
As from his slightly varied point of view Last economic test of one's salvation :

It might have sounded to the speakers too. You from a child have striven early and late
"Shopkeeping England trades without ob- With this sad sign of the unregenerate.
struction ;
This corrupt passion more in you than others
Early and late we're toiling at production. Blighted sweet innocence for when your ;

If many starve to swell our opulence. brothers.

That's an arrangement due to providence. Or any other baby, sought your toy.
Who prates of wealth's more equal distri- You always gave it up with tears of joy. —
bution, And then one's mother, she was much to
Or generous masters, means the revolution. blame :

Gravity's one law ; this another ; profit Did she brand generosity with shame ?
Can never bear a farthing taken off it. She punished what she termed our selfish- '

Perish the human race to verify ness !

Our pet Political Economy ! With her old-world ideas she could not guess.
Men start not fairone weighted from the first
; Poor thing our last discovery in mind.
!

Must live and die, as he was born, accurst. That it is very selfish to be kind.
Yet who in social questions may go deeper We patronise, she lived, her Christianity
Than he that asked, ' Am I my brother's Such saintship is a pestilent insanity ;

keeper ? But what if some unshamed iconoclast,

Though the well-taught indulges every whim, Crumbling old fetish-raiments of the past.
A boor should know 'tis criminal in him. Rouse from dead cerements the Christ at last ?
Sharp lucky grandsires earned our life of play What if men take to following where He
The poor must pare their children's crumbs leads.
away, Weary of mumbling Athanasian creeds ? "
For storing up against an evil day.
" Self-interest enlightened
is our rule :

" How frail is human nature ! how will Peri.sh thepauper, and the general fool !

pity Well for the luckier or shrewder man !

Confuse a fool's heart in a crowded city ! For he, by Heaven's especial favour, can
 — ; : —— ! ! ; " ; " ; "
; :

THE RED FLAG "3

Lodge duller rivals in foul dens like these, " A man must grab whatever he can get
And feed them with rank garbage if he please. We human creatures are not angels yet.
Mercy is an exploded superstition Vou must not stab, nor strangle, a poor
Men are but brutes in bloodier competition. neighbour
why you would lose his labour. For, if you did,
" The State what call has that to interfere ? No take advantage of his cramped position
! ;

Are we not free-born Britons living here ? To mangle him with your cruellest condition.
If these like not their scrofulous dens, you Rob soul and body by superior wit
know. And fortune ; ignorant hunger will submit.
They're free to change their quarters ; let Ifhe should gash you, that were ugly murder :

them go. Dribble his life-blood slowly you're in order. —

Why one of these may struggle uppermost Nay, surely 'tis a very venial vice
Himself may trample on the writhing host. To buy one's workman at the market price.
They cursing him, he cursing from above He may impose his terms contract is free." ;

Hatred and Hell are finer things than Love ! " True," says the other, "yet it seems to me
The State forbids that paupers should be slain Manacled blacks, thrust huddled in the hold
With knives and guns ; but as for stench and Of a rotten slaveship, might as well be told
drain, To bargain with the master of the slaver
And putrefying styes they build so small, They're slaves for all your plausible palaver
!

'Tis suicide to breathe in them at all, " Nay, in free England every man may rise
—
Breath turns to poison that's another thing To be Prime Minister before he dies !

See Malthus on prolific littering ! Quoth the bon-vivant with a playful nudge,
—
Children are luxuries let these dispense " Blifil, for next week's copy keep that
—
With offspring we ourselves to save expense fudge !

Lop and the benevolence.

off the babes,
Mother with murderous unflinching eye
!
. . . The
lonely toiler, gasping for some air.

Gaze on your moaning babe about to die. Listens in shadowy poison of the stair,
Listens, a wounded beast within his lair, . . .

Ring in the rich man's child with jubilation,

And ring the poor man's out, O happy nation And there is Peace in London I

Woman, your babe is surplus population '

'
A Man grew God upon the shadowy cross.
Why take such constant thought about the And taught the world to triumph in love's loss.
body? Following Him they took for great and holy.
Man shall not live by bread" — " but l^y his
Men helped the weak, forbore to insult the
toddy, lowly
Margeaux, and Bisque-soup rather," quoth The mighty made them ministers of woe,
the wag. Because the Lord had served us high and low :

" Don't chaff, nor let your rapt attention flag,"

Now Love and Chivalry lie done to death ;

Resumed the Gigadibs, who seemed offended, Stony-eyed monsters feed on human breath :

" My argvnnents will be the sooner ended.

In Christ's forgotten grave we have buried
What was I saying ? well these Radicals weakness.
Pamper the carnal part of pauper pals Justice, and Mercy, and Righteousness, and
Unduly why not teach them to endure
;
Meekness !

With fortitude these ills they cannot cure ?

Throw them a sop of wholesome moral saws . . . Then fell the night : there rose a
(Ah ! pestilent ' education '
thafs the cause, mighty roar.
Which fiiakes them carp at our existing laws) As though I neared a thunderous ocean-shore
The dogs are always yelping for a bone Hoary old Ocean feels his bounds no more,
Fling them to bite a weighty moral stone ! Rioting over earth a conqueror !
 ! ; ! ; — ; ; " ! ! : — : ;
!

114 THE RED FLAG

Nay, these are human cries ! In sooth they " A man must grab whatever he can get
sound We human creatures are not angels yet "
More wrathful, turbulent, than sea's rebound ! So chuckle, cynic Mephistopheles!
Fire ruddies all towered Thames
the city ! Relish you violent replies like these ?
Rolls like the Seine, a tide of eddying flames Bring forth your mitrailleuse but, hypocrite, !

Vessel, and wharf, and every striding arch It was yourself who nursed the need for it.
Glows in the fire- fiend's victorious march. Yea, you may shoot them you may drown ;

Hark! to thewhose portentous boom

huge bell, the people
Ponderous falling fills the soul with doom. In their own life-blood ; every Christian steeple
Lo surging human seas arise and fall
! May echo to the clang of jubilant bells
Around the lurid grandeur of St. Paul. Reeling, aflame with flags of joy for hells
Torches illume their wild convulsive toils, Of cruel vengeance underneath the cross !

Windily flaring all around there boils

; Peal with Te Deums for a people's loss.
Vile human refuse, for the dainty spoils Cathedral organs golden in the gloom !

They have wrung from others wrangling fierce Yet know that these from every vengeful doom
and hoarse. Arise more terrible their ghosts assume !

Ah turn away
! with what a hideous force
! More formidable forms, and multiply
They soil our beautiful, both body and soul Ah the red sea returns to whelm you horribly !

Famished beasts bursting loose from our Merciless mow them form the Holy Alliance, !

control. To ravening hungry brethren breathe defiance

They pour the life of venerable age For weapons brandish, oh ye monarchs holy,
Infiints and women perish in their rage Dead hands of Him who living helped the
! . . .

. Then must avenging butchery begin

. . lowly : I

Their sin we strangle with our stronger sin. i Yea, in the name of Christ, the poor man's God,
England must join the anarchic devil's dance. Stamp down his carcass in the bloody
That wilders and exhausts delirious France ! I
sod ! . . .

. . . There is War in London

Who declared war? for ye shall bear the ;

blame ! i
. . . Then I cried, "Lord, how long?
tlistory seeks your insignificant name i
what hope is ours ?

To pillory with everlasting shame Then dawned a twilit winter morn of showers.
Who declared war ? The man who dared to I heard not the artillery's loud roar.
teach Nor plunge of shrieking shells, nor any more
That men are natural enemies each to each ; Horrible human screams of civil war.
Set in uncompromising battle array My soul had but foreboded the fell riot
Labour and wealth the fruit you eat to-day : In the foul alley reigned unbroken quiet.
Glares very crimson, scribbling Galifet Even three figures made their way
as erst :

What ! shall Wealth kneel upon the fainting To where unhappy starving woman lay
the :

forms Three mutual strangers from a diff'erent home,

Of millions whom scarce a raiment warms. Each wondering why the other one has come.
Draining their very heart's blood leisurely. The first, an old and venerable man,
And shall we wonder when with frenzied cry. From whose grand countenance there falls a
Beyond endurance urged, at last they leap ban
To murder gorged wealth as it lies asleep On our vain follies, on our wallowing sin.
The legal armed oppressor of his neighbour. When we are blessed enough a glance to win ;

He who hath goaded overdriven labour, He seeks admittance, he will enter in.
A peaceful tyrant, the Red Flag unfurled : The other is a woman past her prime,
He stands accurst of God, and of the world ! Still beautiful, although the wintry rime
 !
: ; : ; ! !

SONG OF SUMMER "5

Silvers her forehead ; she is pure and cahn, Moving soft impearled with rays
And from her loving visage heavenly balm From a winglike fringe of blaze.
Falls for the sorrowful ; she has lived her Yonder pool
sorrow. Shrines a skiey fleece of wool.
Both of these angels facelight seem to borrow Unravelling mist, azure and gleams,
From the same Jesus with the younger one April gleams.
Who smiles, a sweet yet homely-featured nun.
I know not with what form the old man's Faint and grey.
thought Far below me, far away,
Invested his divine lore when he taught Fades the landscape like a sea
That elder highborn lady, as you list, Tenderly :

You may call Puritan, or Calvinist. Cuckoo answering cuckoo-call,

The younger woman held the ancient creed Long low notes arise and fall,
Of Christendom in soul, and life and deed, Soft grey voices all in tune
:

They differ little in explaining much ;

With the hushed and bloomy swoon :

One feels the Christ arisen when they touch. Of the lea,
Do they not bear a living love to her. Fading far, a harmony
And him who darkens by the sufferer ? Of leaf and flower, of innocent glee,
I turned for in mine ears one spake with
;
Of turtle-coloured cloud and stream,
pity,
And tender tones and loving dream,
"If there be ten there, I will spare the And April gleam
city." . . .

. . . There is Peace in London

Cuckoo-flowers,
Wet with slant of shiny showers
Rainbow-braided Very fair.!

APRIL GLEAMS With a frail and fleeting air.

All the scene
April gleams ! We remember what hath been :

Emerald upland pasture seems Ithath promise for the young ;

A silent undulating sea
Quietly
Twinkling, red as planet Mars,
A short shower's fallen stars
Gem the multitudinous blade
Daisy sprinkles every glade
: They who have lived over long
In the evanescent glory
Feel bewildering human story.
Love, with Friendship tender and true,
Hope and Life will vanish too.
Youth with Innocence all but seems ; ;

On a tree, Glimmer a moment elfin dreams,

Rising silvern slenderly, April gleams !

Young leaves, delicate as dreams,

Inhale the gleams, 1872.
April gleams !

Thin and rare,

Every leaf, a flake so fair. SONG OF SUMMER
Single inlays a pale blue air.
Where the tree Sweeter seems to you the mornint
Rises highest o'er the lea ;
Than the day !

Lower all his leafy form Dearer to your soul the delicate
Stirs upon a mild grey sto/m, Blush of May,
 ;; "
!! ! — ; : ; :!
;!

ri6 IN EARLY SPRING

Than a glow of summer roses Soft,shadow-bosomed, with a dainty shiver
On the heart of June : Kissing the leaf, ere swooning it subsides !

Yea, the dewy star of morning Yet hearken now !

Conquers noon In tones renewed the dear unboded call

Ah but Phosphor only fadeth
! Of nearing Spring enchants my willing ear ;

Into light For as I pass, now furtive-breathed, now

Spring will yield his breath to summer clear,
Day will wane to night Coos the woodpigeon with a plaintive fall !

Summer, with his face to winter, Behold a flow

Leaves delight Of yellow daffodil salutes my sight
Hear the passionate Summer say, First smile of Nature waking from the night
" Love me a little while you may. Of deadly winter; fluent among boughs
Ere I pass away !
Winds in and out bird-music, to arouse
Each budding bough ;

For still the bronzy tracery so fine

Reveals amid their rich perplexity
IN EARLY SPRING Many a brown bird in the swift sunshine
TO MY SISTER Startling and fading when he
; dips to fly

You well may know.

Darling, the wine-dark masses of our wood, Noting on intervals of emerald floors
Under a travelling cloud surcharged with In tender subtle mysteries of grass
rain. His shadow, while he buoyant sinks and soars.
Have dim-green columned vistas, all imbued Now faint exhaling, now imbibing mass.
With faint blue smoke from smouldering Still faint and low
leaves that wane. Spring's witching voice, still hesitating, strewn
Or kindling glow : On desert distances : she moves in sleep
But as I rove along the yielding grass With eyes half open wake her not so soon :

Fringing the river, lo my musing eyes. ! While Winter lowers.may she laugh and leap.
With mild swift force made captive as they Whose breath of snow
pass, She shrinking feels? to me it seems the Spring,
Gladden, as when with sense of sweet O darling sister on thy bed of pain !

surprise Pauses for thee, her very queen, to bring

A voice we know Thine own eternal joyance to sustain
Of one we love returning unaware, Her, timid doe.
Longed for, not looked for, summons like With calm assurance from thy spirit's home
a dream Even as young maids on either hand deploy.
So seems yon willow touched with verdure Lining a bride's path, waiting till she come,
rare. Then follow in the wake of her full joy.
Slanting slim lines of green rain, in a gleam Swelling its flow :

Of fleeting glow, So, darling, come ! the year but waits for thee
Athwart her stem ; another willow nigh Dislustred else the sunniest Spring for me
Springs foliaged fountainlike and falls on high, Our Springs were wont to gather confidence,
Evanishing in drifts of spray, Sounding thine eyes for sweet serenity
Green exhalation thinned away, Skies, leavesand flowers, still wait to draw
While faint airs blow. it hence

Some pensile leaves play wanton with the Linger not now !

river,
And graze each mantling ripple as it slides Kew, 1870.
 : ; ;; !

A CHRISTIAN'S FUNERAL 117

HARVEST A CHRISTIAN'S FUNERAL

Garner in the golden grain
He that fares immersed in
Sees a russet mellow main,
Falling from the upland, meet
Lavender horizons warm,
Blent with opaline warm
Verdure-isles of cloudy form
In descending meet his eyes
Round them, like a sea at rest
Glassy sliding up the sand.
Simmers harvest, many
Hither and thither drooping bland,
Weighted every leaning ear
With the treasure of the year.
Garner in the golden grain
Yonder shining sickle cleaves
!
Sum boles of trees divide the purple haze
wheat Of far-off" mountain, andthe range subsides
Into an ocean-azure of sweet Vjays,
While over all, mingling with all, abides
A brooding influence of blessed spring
skies ; Newly returned, a blue light of warm air
And Earth lies, like a child awakening
; In some sweet home familiar and fair,
Whereunto it has travelled unaware
In slumber, with a dimly happy smile,
a crest That shall be rapture in a little while.
Against a wall of rustic church I lean
In a small graveyard, where the grass revives
Now from the restful unaspiring green
!
Wherewithal under winter snow it lives,
And stirs about the marble of two graves.
;

Bronzy harvestmen sustain One large, one small white stone, two grassy
Thwart one another golden sheaves, waves.
Whose luxuriant honours all, One longer for a woman grey, and one
Marrying, seem tawny toil Small for a child who used to love the sun.
Of a foaming water- wall.
When wave meets baffled wave's recoil. Nigh unto these a silent multitude
Nigh to one of these a child In sombre mourning garb hath gathered now,
In a little cart is laid. One human cloud on earth's rejoicing mood.
Sleeping in the air so mild, About an open grave with shadowed brow ;

Where a linden with sweet shade Many a cottager to see the end
Softens all the radiance. Of one who was a master and a friend
Within the reaping father's glance.
Through a long life a just and righteous
man,
Garner in the golden grain ! A tender, human-hearted Puritan ;

All, aglow upon the hill, With his own hands assuaging every need,
Unforeboding will remain, On his own faith inviting each to feed.
Till the sickle gleams, until All we around him wore a seemly woe ;

All shall placidly resign But one upon her heart received the blow
Pleasant homely life afield, And as she bent above her mother's tomb,
Where the youngling flowers twine. The while her sire we gathered to the gloom.
Only now we saw them yield. Now winter laid a hand upon her hair.
Lithe and blithe, and green when wind Full many a weeping peasant standing there
Ruffled them to silky waves, Averred that he, beholding her to-day.
Playing merrily : so we find Seemed to behold her mother passed away.
Aged pilgrims near the graves,
Mellow and wise, and loving, wait All this fair scene men called his property
Swift inevitable fate Say will it veil its loveliness awhile
We weep who them they are still.
lose ; From all the world because the Master's eye
While One bears them where He will. No more may answer any sunny smile ?
 —
!! ! ; ; ;

Ii8 A CHRISTIAN'S FUNERAL

Though through long years his Spirit brooded He unaware, as in confusing dreams,
here, Paled, looking awful ; left us bewilderingly,
Presiding, guarding, moulding all the place To re-emerge himself among the ghosts
Any man now may ruin it with no fear Up yonder, who with silent following eyes
Of any frown on his imperial face. Brood ever in mysterious dim posts ;

When we returned within the house we knew, And since he joined their solemn, leaguering
How strange to find all things familiar hosts,
Unmoved without him, which the while we We lie down wakeful, waiting a surprise
grew Life sounds all hollow, mined with mysteries,
In earlier years, like rays around a star, Ready to crumble baseless into smoke,
Had ne'er a being sundered from his own To vanish in the moment of a look.
Now grim-ranged armour, portraits glower-
ing down, Is all then over ? is he only dust ?

Mellow ancestral figures from the past. Can it be, in the face of such a trust ?

Assumed their proper awfulness at last No shadow of misgiving ever swept

Pathetic shells of withered human life. The wondrous light of faith wherein he slept.

Dumb presences, with blurred humanities He knew, yea, toiled that all around should
too rife, know,
Lavished in laughter and in tears, The life of saints hath birth but when they go.
With hopes and fears, And in this faith dark, long-delaying death
On bitter, restless rolling of the years But now he away his breath.
greeted, giving
Ah did he waken even when he died
!

Here every great and every trivial thing Upon the bosom of the Crucified ?
Bore impress of his anxious ordering : When hymns one sang him waned uponhisear,
Now we may change it all, nor ever dread Did angel hallelujahs peal more clear ?
Remonstrance from the venerable dead. Ah did he pass from trust that seemeth dull,
!

Even if the ancestral place he loved so well Beside the consummation beautiful ?
Into cold alien hands the heir should sell, Or did the vision fade for ever away
He would not turn unrestful where he lies, When his poor pale lips might no longer pray ?
Rapt from our world and our fatuities When sick at heart I kneeling with the crowd
Yea, if the chapel where for many a year Heard him pour forth his fervent soul aloud
His heart was lavished from this hour should Nightly to God, as though he saw the Lord,
hear Yea, touched and held his very written word.
Proclaimed the very creed he most abhorred. Ah was he sane, who saw the glory gleam.
No moan of sorrow from his grave were Or I, foreboding all was but a dream ?
poured. Foreboding there is none to hear us call,
Or lift us from the inevitable fall
Ruins deserted of long-lingering light, That all this ardent longing he will lose
Faces unsouled set in eternal night, Then when the mortal weakness shall con-
These bannered halls and corridors we knew, fuse.
Where innocent, winged the feet of childhood Dissolving all the human? we shall perish, —
flew! Though, kneeling in our dust, our children
For gone is he who welcomed us of old. cherish
It seems as though, while musingly he told Our old illusion 'tis a bleak denial, !
—
Concerning some ancestral painted face, Ruthlessly rolling in their hour of trial
Pausing before it, sorrowing for the race The very solid earth from underneath
Of men because they are transitory gleams Weak feet that waver; from a labouring breath
Along the ocean of eternity. Stealing the air that hardly saves from death !
 — ! : ; :

A CHRISTIAN'S FUNERAL 119

And can ye doubt, believers, we would Jubilant they for one brief hour may shine.
share Warmly irradiate from the face Divine !

Ennobling hopes that save you from despair ? Nay, but a clash of dissonant loud strife,

Alas alas for he had seemed estranged.

! ! Where each his glimpse of the universal life

Since old horizons of my spirit changed Shrieks forth, infuriate with a presumptuous
—
In later years no marvel this should be ! brother.
Only a sorrow it was to him and me. Who dares proclaim to the world his own or
Now I remembered little save the days any other.
Of his dear coming to my school with rays
Of never-failing, kindly happiness. The while we laid him under earth I heard,
Beaming from countenance to bless
all his Warbling within a laurel near, a bird
Me in the breezy, hill-built school, so dear Who never ceased to warble clear and sweet.
To many a boyhood, yet to mine a fear, For all the ghastly noise of shufiling feet
A very loathing— I may scarce recall And griding rope, with tumult ill-suppressed.
One face endeared to me among them all Or silent tears relieving hearts oppressed ;

Saving for Byron's grave, one boy beloved, Pealing methought with confirmation rife,

And some sweet lanes where arm in arm we When "

I am the resurrection and the life !"

roved, A solemn human voice proclaimed aloud :

Iwould those years might fade from memory, While vernal airs, with all relenting fountains
With but one space among them shining Among the eternal brotherhood of mountains.
high! And youngling flowers, and the everlasting
Cheery repasts in that small garden trim sea
Of the old tavern, whose adornment grim Made sweet accord in deep tranquillity.
Was many a wooden dragon blue and red,
Where we sat feasting, trellised overhead. His faith endures upon foundations wide
Nor these, nor golden gift at parting slid And firm as the universe, howe'er have
Into my palm, in anywise lay hid ailed
From me when I stood by the grave to-day, The superstructure : evermore abide
With all the variance vanished far away. Those w-ell-beloved lives who may have
failed
Poor human differences at the grave
! Our earthly vision in the Life of life
Our universal schemes that looked so brave In some abysmal Peace profoundly veiled.
Hang the head silent, neV^ulous, and pale. Where they await us, where we shall be
Beside the solemn truth, whose visions fail, one;
His, or my own? Beyond —
the impalpable As may be in the ineffable alone.
Doth it for him lie curled within the bond And never in the glory of the mortal
Of his imagining any longer? nay ! strife.
Nor less my blind denial faints away However hearts may yearn for union.
Here by him, grown more awful than bef :)re. I foolish, while he prayed, have felt the
Surely he doth abide for evermore ! fear
There may be none in all the worlds to
Poor human differences ! lapped in light hear
Some calm-lived angel may behold the flight, Surely the Life of life, whene'er we cry,

The momentary flight of human things Fills ourlow springs with personality
Athwart their gleam with multitudinous Surely, however lurid lower the gloom.
wings Surely, howe'er bewildering the doom,
To wise, grave eyes a melancholy scene ! All stands established from eternity.
No buoyant wings serene, Adorable, however it may be !
 ! ! ; ; ! ;

A CATARACT
Immortal plunge ! terrifically daring,

Illumining the gloom with glory ;

A CATARACT 1

Pines are holding wrung with frenzy, while

UNDER TWO ASPECTS impetuous winds are bearing
All abroad the rumour and tumult of thy
In a cavern of a solitary mountain story !

Are thy waters born, Lo ! the scare of mists that hurry from hell's
Wherein, before the flashing of thy silver
cauldron recoiling
fountain foam
Fall of a lucid ocean, all a flashing
From the twilight like another mom, Lo! maidenhair and mosses midway above
We may hear an inward murmur from the the boiling,
glooming. Wooing watery sunshine, love turmoil for
We may a breathing chill
feel a home.
Impelled of a blind longing for a sunny air

illuming, In what primeval cataclysm

With a bubbling and a sliding still,
Thy glory erst was hurled into the abysm
Glide thine infant river-waters ever flowing, Who may disclose ? but in a former time
While the willow leaves and flowers So marvelled men before thy might sublime
Fill thy heart of innocent crystal with a glory So ghostly breathed thy shadowy cavern-
glowing fountain
From their undulating airy bowers !
From far within the solitary mountain.
There the children love to play about thy So fresh all thy wave,
and healing
brightness A minister of wherever it may lave
life
With a joy like thine. That on the height above the cave
With a guileless aimless unforeboding light-
A temple ruin fading into rock
ness. We still may trace, though many a mouldered
And many a limpid laugh like thine. block
With a beautiful bewilderment thy childhood, The gradual growth of gnarled oak divorce
Roaming in the forest, Far from its fellow with unheeded force;
Blends with another water of the wildwood ;
While i\7 and vine, lush eglantine and
Till strong inyouth mature thou pourest, bramble.
Where all the granite gorge resounding In fair confusion o'er the ruin ramble.
Thunders and lightens evermore, Yet in a far-off long-forgotten day
Reels with the terrible splendour of thy Men with hushed voices hither came to pray.
bounding. To thee, O sacred stream they raised the
!

And the plunge of wild white waters, and shrine.

the roar. Deeming thee animate with life Divine.
How have their memories vanished now in
1 Somewhere in Germany
have read that I air !

there is a cataract, which has a marble tablet We vainly ask what manner of men they were.
on the rock by the side of it, recording in Our human generations fleeting wonder,
gilded letters that his Majesty, the King of
Passing along thine everlasting thunder
the country, was " graciously pleased" to visit
Shadows of earth, with shadows of the sky,
the cataract on such or such a day, and " con-
descended in own person to admire the
his
We fleet athwart thy sheeny foam and fly,
beauties of Nature." I know nothing about
We are born, and thou remainest, and we die.
this individual king as man ; but the point of Children have played around thy playful
the inscription is tliat it was condescending of spring,
him as a king ! And many lovers have loved wandering
 ! ! ! —! ! ;

In thy romantic gorge ; while lonely poets
come,
Passionate for the voice of thy tumultuous
home,
Laying to heart thy rush of
Voluminous, to sing in turn
found.
Prophets of old in meditative mood,
Solitary dwellers with a salvage brood.
A CATARACT
Yet ithese have ne'er a record carven in
marble,
Or by the fall, or by the sylvan warble
What shadow more illustrious than all
light and sound Claimsfor itself such homage by the fall ?
if they be worthy Demands among the seons his day alone
From the awful hunger of pale Oblivion ?
I read — am I deceived? — a common king!

Nursed here a smouldering fire of indigna- Among the waifs indifferent Time may fling.
tion. Stranding them here —of kings there moulder
In vision received unearthly revelation : many.
Ever thy hanging sound stupendous wrought No people without hereditary zany !

Within their souls unfathomable thought, But one of these, living his little hour,
Until aroused, inspired with thy tempestuous Vouchsafed, it seems, to leave a royal dower,
gladness. With a decoration deigning to invest,
They blew a people to flame with their own O cataract ! thine adamantine breast
heroic madness Glancing in sooth to what he stood before.
He deemed he saw thee, deafened with thy
All these have passed ! Hardly a human roar
thing He deemed he heard thee ; but his mind
Hath left a trace by thine eternal spring. divided
And yet in sooth what gleams upon the rock Now wandered to the game the hills provided,
Hard by the shattering of the water shock ? Now to one surly, ill-conditioned hind
A marble tablet with some gilded letters ! Who had not doffed his bonnet, nor inclined.
Whereon the country folk inscribe them Howbeit the monarch, turning to the mayor,
debtors Was pleased his satisfaction to declare.
Of one who deigned to visit and to praise Was gracious to the local waterfall ;

Their parish waterfall in former days And mayor took it as a personal

the
Who then among the shades that came and Compliment, bowing almost with an air
went Of deprecating such distinction rare
Amid the centuries' evanishment. As if the king had patted his little boy,
Who then have names regilded year by year, And he could only wish that less alloy
Lest the remembrance of them disappear Were mingled with the humble offering
With other mortal memories from here ? He dared to set before so great a king.
Lest the tradition of the wondrous fact For this in sooth was but the parish sight
That these have seen, yea, praised the cataract They held it cheap who heard it day and night.
'Mong children's children be at length for- To every bumpkin from his earliest age
gotten, Familiar ; but yonder in its cage
And even such magnanimity lie rotten They kept the curious thing that brought
them patronage.
A few have seen thine awful face, O youth Half proud of it, they felt it did them credit,
Ever renewed a few with love and inno-
! As if themselves, not God Almighty, fed
cence and truth, it . . .

Or splendid power of personality . . . Did a Prince really condescend to nod

May seem to claim a fellowship with thee, Familiarly to this great work of God !

To claim some solemn kindred with the sound Surely the cataract made a modest hush,
Imperial inhabiting the gulf profound 1 Became suffused with a retiring blush,
 ! ! ! ! ; ; ; !

122 AT COURT
Yea, and the tittering fluttered cavern foun- Some light reflected for a moment shone
tain From holy men and mighty they are gone :

Convulsed with boastful bliss the tremulous And still we hear the water's mighty mono-
old mountain ! tone :

God reigns over the universe alone

Slave to courtly etiquette !

Military martinet!
Master of the ceremonies !

If God with lightning touched your eyes, AT COURT

Then might your dazed vision see
Inviolable Liberty Beholding with a listless eye
A gaily-apparelled train
Hereditary puppet spangled gay, Of many ladies passing by,
Whom fullgrown babies being amused obey, With a delightful pain
When some sardonic hidden ventriloquist My heart was taken unaware.
Speaks through you whatsoever he may list. In very sweet suspense
One must be more than common king to see Amid the crowd unfair and fair
The glory of this immortal majesty A hallowed influence
Stole on me, like some fountain sweet
Tyrant with a narrow brain. That mantles in the brine
Taking holiest names in vain. Of unrefreshing seas to greet
Suffered to sport with living joys A mariner's lips that pine
And living woes, in place of toys ; Stole on me from a girlish face
Ye of the wooden complacent royal faces. That passed among the rest
Fumbling among live nerves of human races, Like hers whom I may ne'er embrace,
Clutching worm-eaten hereditary places Hers who hath never blest
Before your realm of human government These many pallid latter years,
Ye stand imbecile, idle, impotent. Nor may for evermore
Not more unhearing this immortal chime Shine on my soul for all my tears,
Than dark to your allotted sphere sublime ! As in the days of yore. . . .

Deaf to the long, low wail funereal Was it ever heard that a hallowed face
In yonder gloom, from ruined lives that call Of one whom hearts enwound
Some one to help Leave ye your vantage
! Faded slowly, and left no trace
ground. In death's chill mist profound,
And toil among them till the light be found ! Yet later unto living eyes.
That yearned with mute despair.
Poor worms the fulsome sense of your Dawned faint again with sweet
! surprise,
pale marble And the old loving air?
Contemptuous rains will insolently garble Because so warm a human love :

And he flung the royal skeleton

if With tremulous living breath
(Forbid it loyalty !) with all your own Had power to charm, and melt and move
Carcasses in the welter, do ye think Inviolable Death
Yon hurricane of waters wild would slink Nay, that hath never, never been ;

Mild like a courtier from the sacred corse. She may not come again,
Or shatter all alike without remorse ? My sister, my long-lost Kathleen,
Into our world of pain !

Glory to God on his eternal throne ! For well I know the girlish face I

Give glory to the lowly Man, his Son. Her child, her very own,

Left here, lest we whom
Might wither all alone ! Under
And so in sooth she blooms anew
To bless our later time,
Beautiful now as when she blew
About my boyish prime.
Fair child ! thou risest from a grave
To me thy silken hair
Seems radiant with flowers that wave
Above thy mother there.
Thy face is toward the dawning bright
And One will lead thee on.
Tranquil for ever in the
Until the day be done ! It whispered " Father " but I never heard
A VISION OF THE DESERT
Methought I saw the morning bloom
A solemn wilderness illume,
Desert sand and empty air
Yet in a moment I was aware
Of One who grew from forth the East,
Mounted upon a vasty Beast.
It swung with silent, equal stride.
With a mighty shadow by the side
The tawny, tufted hair was frayed
The long, protruding snout was laid
Level before it looking calm away
;
From that imperial rising of the Day.
Methought a very awful One
Towered speechless thereupon
All the figure like a cloud
An ample mantle did enshroud,
Folding heavily dark and white,
Concealing all the face from sight.
Save where through storm -like rifts there came
A terrible gleam of eyes like flame.
Then I oeheld how on his arm
A child was lying without alarm.
With innocent rest it lay asleep
Awakening soon to laugh and leap
Yet well I knew, whatever passed,
The arm that held would hold it fast.
Nor ever then it sought to
Whose tender strength encircled so,
^ See note D,
: ;: ; ; : ; : : ;
A VISION OF THE DESERT 123
she forsook Living incuriously wise
the terrible flame of eyes.
In those sweet early morning hours
Itplayed with dewy, wreathing flowers.
Drinking oft from a little flask
Under the mantle I heard it ask
: :
; Yea, and at other times the cooling cup
Gentle and merciful He tilted up.
But when the sun began to burn,
I saw the child more restless turn,
Seeking to view the silent One
light, Then, growing graver thereupon.
!
If any lips in answer stirred.
Yet if no answer reached the child,
I know not why he lay and smiled,
^
Raising his little arms on high
In a solemn rapture quietly !
:
The shadow moved, and growing less,
A blue blaze ruled the wilderness.
The child, alert with life and fire,
Gazed all around with infinite desire.
Erect he sat, contented now no more
To nestle, and feed upon the homely store :
He searched the lessening distance whence
they came
He peered into the clear cserulean flame
His hand would mingle with the shaggy hair
Of that enormous Living Thing which bare,
Whose feet were planted in the powdery
ground
With ne'er a pause, with ne'er a sound.
Yon fascinating, wondrous Infinite
His clear young eyes explored with keen
delight
He gazed into the muffled Countenance,
Undazzled with the rifted radiance
Then, giving names to all that he espied.
He murmured with a bright triumphant
;
pride,
" I hold their secret lo! I am satisfied." :
Oh! it was rare to see the lovely child,
As with a gaze ecstatical he smiled,
know Following with eager, splendour-beaming
eyes
A bird magnificent, who sailed the skies
 ; !: ; ! ;

126 THE WATER-NYMPH AND THE BOY

Peacefully lay the boy's pale, silent head : Daffodil, hyacinth, spring flowers.
And, looking long, I knew that he was dead. Who slumber veiled from sunny showers,
Then my wildered anguish forced a way
all That only trickle feebly through
Through my wild lips " Reveal, O Lord, : Forest foliage from the blue.
I pray. My streamlet sparkles in the pines,
Whither thou carriest him " ! I cried aloud : And here in lambent flame declines
No sound responded from the shadowy For the sun has burst his leafy thrall,
shroud Kissing it passionate in the fall.

Only methought that something like a

hand I love to feel the water plash
Was raised to point athwart the shadowy Merrily into my pool.
land ; With a swift reverberating flash
And while afar the dwindling twain were Of soft foam beautiflil.
borne, One brilliant surface shrines the sky.
I, gazing all around with eyes forlorn, Another young lit leaves on high.
Divined the bloom of some unearthly morn ! While yet another shadowed o'er.
Below deep emerald, my floor
Where was he carried ? to an isle of calm, Reveals, all wavering below
Lulled with sweet water and the pensile palm? My water's everlasting flow.
Vanishing havens on the pilgrimage O the beautiful butterflies
Surely some more abiding home presage ! That flutter where the runnel flies

Or must the Sire attain always alone Silverly glistening over stones
The happy land, with never a living son ? Where yonder nightingale intones.
O awful, silent, everlasting One
! ! Where he flutes the livelong day.
Ifthou must roam those islands of the West, Learning the water's liquid lay ;
Ever with some dead child upon thy breast, A lovelier rendering is heard
Who would have hailed the glory, being blest. Fresh from the genius of a bird ;
Eternity were one long moan for rest While emulous water vainly tries
For do we not behold thee morn by morn, To glisten like the glistening eyes
Issuing from the East with one newborn. Of nightingales in vernal leaves,
Carrying him silently, none knoweth whither, Where yon rosebower softly heaves :

Knowing only all we travel swiftly thither ? Soon will their mellifluent strain
Woo the rose to life again !

But surely there are lovelier things

Than these are with their cinnamon wings
THE WATER-NYMPH AND Whose grace hath more compelling spells
I

THE BOY Than all mine azure damozels !

For as I lay in my pool one day,

I LI\'E in the heart of a limpid pool,
A cloud released a gleam.
In the living limpid heart of a pool
And the jewel heart of my home grew gay
I lie in a flow of crystalline.
With a glorifjdng beam.
Where silvery fish with jewelled eyne
There came a rustle in the trees :

Float and the ripple-gleam

silent,
I deemed a silver doe
With many a delicate water-dream
Would sip the ripple of the breeze.
Moves the face of flowers to quaver.
Wandering to and fro
Hanging where the wavelets waver ;
Listless Iwatched until he should
1 A legend tells of a lake in the Black Forest Arrive here from the shadowy wood.
that bathers have been drawn down by water- It was no deer ; it was a boy

spirits there. Assailed and took my heart with joy !

 ! ; !

THE WATER-NYMPH AND THE BOY 127

Stealthily, daintily, he came, Lo ! many a clear aerial bubble

Flooding all my sense with flame. Tells the water-heart's sweet trouble !

He was clad in a ruby dress, He lips the ripple, pants and flushes,
That clung to his breathing loveliness. Thrusts out white buoyant limbs, and pushes
While hose of opalescent silk With turning palm, a snowy swan
Revealed his delicate limbs of milk. Lavishing his bosom upon
Shyly, timid as a doe, My mantling water in the sun
He glanced aught were near or no,
if Now hath he climbed beside the stone.
Then sought him out a pleasant spot With filmy lichen overgrown.
With clustering forget-me-not. Where small swift globes of water twinkle :

And leisurely upon the brink. There among the periwinkle

His jewelled raiment to unhnk Creeping, sidles with a shoulder
Began that yielding made a way
; Pressed upon the verdured boulder.
For hungering eyes of mine to stray Along a narrow ledge, to wet
In his fair bosom, velvet fine His shining head within the jet
Flushing it warmly as with wine, Of foam that skirts my clear cascade.
Velvet and cambric lingering loth Leaning under, half-afraid.
To leave him, yet to faintness both
With warm white satiate, from whence All my close-clinging vision grew
Stole overpowering my sense Over him leaping forth anew :

Smooth boy-bosom, whose are twin Pie dives ; he rises ; I refrain :

Rosebuds in a silky skin. He floats upon the shine again.

Luxuriant he lies afloat.
By slender fingers, where the pale Half his form, and half his throat.
Moon rises in a rosy nail, Clear from crystalline that sways
Cleared from all the lordly dress. Him gently, with alluring haze
He shone with native loveliness ! Veiling some of him from sight,
Then pressed the grass with shrinking foot. Filming less or more of white
Strawberry blooms that promise fruit. Wrist or shoulder, as he moves
Windflower, violet and moss. Fair on wavering water-groves,
And taller flowers that love the loss Hearing a sweet long croon of doves.
Of all their living gold upon Flying pansies, butterflies.
Those limbs unheeding any one : Moths aflame with crimson dyes.
And yet anon, Haunt his vague and violet eyes :

As he long blades of grassy gloss Odorous shadow of the trees.

Perplexed daintily disjoins, Drowsy with a drone of bees.
A locust leaps upon his loins ! Amorous nightingales enkindling
Now finding near a shelving rock, At intervals the air and dwindling.
Behold he cowers before the shock
! Slim grey waterfall in plashing.
Yet heated how he longs to lave On my stone the wave in washing,
His beauty in my cooling wave Sweetest music never ending.
His rounded ivory arms have met Blending, never-ending,
Over locks of glossy jet : Lulls him in his water-wending.
Gracefully curls the form so fair
Now upon my yielding air ; Why, boy-lover, tell me wh)
Cleaves my laughter-flashing wave. I was doomed to see thee lie.
Delighted one so soft and suave I was doomed to see thee die,
To gulf within her glassy grave. Tell me why
 ; !:
; ; ;

126 THE WATER-NYMPH AND THE BOY

Peacefully lay the boy's pale, silent head : Daffodil, hyacinth, spring flowers,
And, looking long, I knew that he was dead. Who slumber veiled from sunny showers,
Then my wildered anguish forced a way
all That only trickle feebly through
Through my wild lips " Reveal, O Lord, : Forest foliage from the blue.
I pray, My streamlet sparkles in the pines,
Whither thou carries! him " ! I cried aloud : And here in lambent flame declines
No sound responded from the shadowy For the sun has burst his leafy thrall,
shroud Kissing it passionate in the fall.

Only methought that something like a

hand I love to feel the water plash
Was raised to point athwart the shadowy Merrily into my pool,
land ; With a swift reverberating flash
And while afar the dwindling twain were Of soft foam beautiful.
borne, One brilliant surface shrines the sky.
I, gazing all around with eyes forlorn, Another young lit leaves on high.
Divined the bloom of some unearthly morn ! While yet another shadowed o'er.
Below deep emerald, my floor
Where was he carried ? to an isle of calm, Reveals, all wavering below
Lulled with sweet water and the pensile palm? My water's everlasting flow.
Vanishing havens on the pilgrimage O the beautiful butterflies
Surely some more abiding home presage ! That flutter where the runnel flies !

Or must the Sire attain always alone Silverly glistening over stones
The happy land, with never a living son ? Where yonder nightingale intones.
O awful, silent, everlasting One
! ! Where he flutes the livelong day.
Ifthou must roam those islands of the West, Learning the water's liquid lay
Ever with some dead child upon thy breast, A lovelier rendering is heard
Who would have hailed the glory, being blest, Fresh from the genius of a bird ;
Eternity were one long moan for rest While emulous water vainly tries
For do we not behold thee morn by morn, To glisten like the glistening eyes
Issuing from the East with one newborn. Of nightingales in vernal leaves.
Carrying him silently, none knoweth whither, Where yon rosebower softly heaves :

Knowing only all we travel swiftly thither ? Soon will their mellifluent strain
Woo the rose to life again !

But surely there are lovelier things

Than these are with their cinnamon wings
THE WATER-NYMPH AND Whose grace hath more compelling spells
!

THE BOY '

Than all mine azure damozels !

For as I lay in my pool one day,

I LIVE in the heart of a limpid pool,
A cloud released a gleam.
In the living limpid heart of a pool
And the jewel heart of my home grew gay
I lie in a flow of crystalline,
With a glorifying beam.
Where silvery fish with jewelled eyne
There came a rustle in the trees :

Float silent, and the ripple-gleam

I deemed a silver doe
With many a delicate water-dream
Would sip the ripple of the breeze,
Moves the face of flowers to quaver,
Wandering to and fro ;

Hanging where the wavelets waver

Listless Iwatched until he should
1 A legend tells of a lake in the Black Forest Arrive here from the shadowy wood.
that bathers have been drawn down by water- It was no deer it was a boy
;

spirits there. Assailed and took my heart with joy !

 ! ; ! !

THE WATER-NYMPH AND THE BOY 127

Stealthily, daintily, he came. Lo ! many a clear aerial bubble

Flooding all my sense with flame. Tells the water-heart's sweet trouble
He was clad in a ruby dress, He lips the ripple, pants and flushes.
That clung to his breathing loveliness, Thrusts out white buoyant limbs, and pushes
While hose of opalescent silk With turning palm, a snowy swan
Revealed his delicate limbs of milk. Lavishing his bosom upon
Shyly, timid as a doe, My mantling water in the sun
He glanced if aught were near or no, Now hath he climbed beside the stone.
Then sought him out a pleasant spot With filmy lichen overgrown.
With clustering forget-me-not. Where small swift globes of water twinkle :

And leisurely upon the brink, There among the periwinkle

His jewelled raiment to unlink Creeping, sidles with a shoulder
Began that yielding made a way
; Pressed upon the verdured boulder,
For hungering eyes of mine to stray Along a narrow ledge, to wet
In his fair bosom, velvet fine His shining head within the jet
Flushing it warmly as with wine, Of foam that skirts my clear cascade,
Velvet and cambric lingering loth Leaning under, half-afraid.
To leave him, yet to faintness both
With warm white satiate, from whence All my close-clinging vision grew
Stole overpowering my sense Over him leaping forth anew :

Smooth boy-bosom, whose are twin He dives ; he rises ; I refrain :

Rosebuds in a silky skin. He floats upon the shine again.

Luxuriant he lies afloat.
By slender fingers, where the pale Half his form, and half his throat.
Moon rises in a rosy nail, Clear from crystalline that sways
Cleared from all the lordly dress. Him gently, with alluring haze
He shone with native loveliness ! Veiling some of him from sight,
Then pressed the grass with shrinking foot, Filming less or more of white
Strawberry blooms that promise fruit. Wrist or shoulder, as he moves
Windflower, violet and moss, Fair on wavering water-groves,
And taller flowers that love the loss Hearing a sweet long croon of doves.
Of all their living gold upon Flying pansies, butterflies,
Those limbs unheeding any one : Moths aflame with crimson dyes.
And yet anon. Haunt his vague and violet eyes :

As he long blades of grassy gloss Odorous shadow of the trees.

Perplexed daintily disjoins. Drowsy with a drone of bees,
A locust leaps upon his loins ! Amorous nightingales enkindling
Now finding near a shelving rock, At intervals the air and dwindling.
Behold he cowers before the shock
! Slim grey waterfall in plashing,
Yet heated how he longs to lave On my stone the wave in washing,
His beauty in my cooling wave Sweetest music never ending,
His rounded ivory arms have met Blending, never-ending.
Over locks of glossy jet : Lulls him in his water-wending.
Gracefully curls the form so fair

Now upon my yielding air ; Why, boy-lover, tell me why

Cleaves my laughter-flashing
wave, I was doomed to see thee lie,
Delighted one so soft and suave I was doomed to see thee die,
To gulf within her glassy grave. Tell me why
 ! : ; ; ; !

128 ALLERHEILIGEN
Even I Under the water.
Am singing now thy lullaby! Cold and so pale !

Hear my water sing thee now Could it be love made

A lullaby Beauty to fail ?
In thy jasmine throat meander
Tender lines of dimple, Ah me for mortals
! :

And haunted where they wander,

'tis In a few moons,
^Vhile the waters wimple, If I had left him.
With a shy blue as from veins, After some Junes
Where soft throat subsiding wanes He would have faded.
Into billowy bosom dreaming Faded away.
Faintly of the roses ; He, the young monarch, whom
Whose dim dream a bud discloses All would obey.
In the gleaming Fairer than day
Undulating almond skin, Alien to springtime,
Roses nascent soft therein. Joyless and grey,
Ah! the quiet music of thy beauties undulating He would have faded.
Ah ! to feel, to feel, thy gentle warmth of Faded away.
bosom palpitating Moving a mockery,
What from heaven was breathing
breath Scorned of the day !

behind the fairy flower, Now I have taken him

Whose ample one white petal thy body had All in his prime.
for dower, Saved from slow poisoning
Blowing so unerringly to mould thee as thou Pitiless Time,
art, Filled with his happiness,
Even so waving waist and limb, and the One with the prime.
snow about thy heart ? Saved from the cruel
And if my hands were ne'er to thrill, my Dishonour of Time.
beautiful, my boy, Laid him, my beautiful,
As they them with thy bosom, the
filled Laid him to rest,
treasureand the joy. Loving, adorable.
Why along the ideal limit heaved thy delicate Softly to rest.
form, Here in my crystalline,
So, nor any otherwise, languid, white and Here in my breast
warm ? . . .

I flung me round him,

I drew him under
ALLERHEILIGEN ^

I clung, I drowned him,

My own white wonder I . . . An abbey in a forest old,

Father and mother,
A forest old of pine,
Slowly arose where hills enfold'
Weeping and wild.
Not very far from Rhine
Came to the forest,
:

Calling the child,

And lower a stream that swept the walls
Fell into silver waterfalls
Came from the palace, ;

Seven slender falls in a gorge of grey,

Down to the pool,
Where the willowherb was wet with spray
Calling my darling,
My beautiful !;
1 A ruin in the Black Forest.
 ; ! ; ;! ! ! — !

ALLERHEILIGEN 129

The rock wore glossy grass like hair, Yet in the sylvan raiment rare
And a birch-tree shimmered in soft air ;
That soothed a desolate despair.
Nor yet stole sweetly over the cool The fading ruin seems to know
Wave, as it glided into a pool, Memories that come and go ;

A vesper hymn Memories that float and fly,

From the forest dim, Like a flower's breath bewilderingly ;

Nor bells from Allerheiligen Of when at eve stole o'er the cool
Wave, as it glided into a pool,
A vesper hymn
Flew twenty summers ; the monks were there
From the forest dim,
In a cloistral solitude :
And bells from Allerheiligen
How few that heard the chaunted prayer
Divined the worldly feud
Closes around an odorous shade
'Mong lives monotonous and pale, Of solemn pillared pines.
Whom weariness would oft assail Breathing sea-murmurs, being swayed.
Yet holy-hearted, gentle men
When musing one reclines.
Paced the echoing cloister then,
Ivy and vine and roses vie
Learned, and kindly to the poor
With old flamboyant tracery :

Some sorely worn who sought to lure

Lo the
! carven corbel where
Rest to a weary wounded heart
Hangs a tiny garden fair ;
And where the mountain cleaves apart,
Birds have sown it as they pass
Such an one, ere the day's decline
With mosses and with grass
fairy :

Like an illumined vellum fine,

A wild bee in a dim chapelle.
Mused oft upon the sombre green.
Hovering near a flowerbell.
Beyond the fluttering watersheen.
With a drowsy murmur droning.
Of piny hills, toward the sky
Imitates a priest intoning.
Receding with a softer dye.
With his lowly eyes intent
And ever with an airier bloom. Upon the Holy Sacrament
Till they are fading to a fume :
Wild geranium and fir
Now at eve stole o'er the cool
Perfume the air, in place of myrrh,
Wave, as it glided into a pool,
Breathing from a thurifer :

A vesper hymn
Winds are jubilant, wail, complain,
From the forest dim,
Where many a blaze of jewel-pane
And bells from Allerheiligen
Heard the tempestuous anthem heave and
wane !

Seven hundred summers the monks are

; Winds intone a wondrous hymn
gone In yonder aisles of forest dim ;

Their abbey in the wood But a frail harebell

Resigns in every mouldered stone Is the only bell,
A human brotherhood Hangs now in Allerheiligen !

Meekly disclaims, a ruin wild.

Being any more than Nature's child : There is a human savour still

Taken from yore of mother Earth, Faintly lingering here.

Loves dreaming o'er the time of birth : Like a melody about a hill

In its old age the interval In a shining summer air ;

Remembering little, hears a call A savour only, a flower scent

From ministers of earth and sky, Of wildmg thyme concealed and blent
Wooing ever alluringly. With mingling marjoram or mint
I
 ! ! ; — ! ! ! ;

I30 COME NOT VERY SOON, LOVE

So many human lives intense Look between the trees, love,
Dwindled long to an influence, Into airy bloom,
Pervading flower and tower and tree When t'ae summer breeze
With a hallowed melancholy ! Wafts the fume

All honour would the abbot claim ;

Of many a summer flower ;

To-day you scarce may read his name, Songs from near the nest
Once gleamed over with altar-flame, My memory shall have power
Though you may note a crosier To invest

On worn grey marble in a blur !

This lovely place is a very shrine. Earth with subtler grace, love,
Where reverent spirits all incline And a rarer joy ;

Defore the mystery Divine . . .

Who knew me face to face,
From a boy.

. . . But, lo upon the apsidal

! wall,
I would not have thee weep
Unseen till now, a monster scrawl
Hopeless in thy woe ;
Some graceless living creature's name
Only from my sleep
Sprawling portentous, and the same.
Let there flow
When you look nearer, far and nigh
Defiling all the sanctuary Through the summer light
Ah! many a life's all-hallowed spot. Shadow of a loss,
Deep with dewy forget-me-not Mellowing delight
Many a heart's elysian bower. In my mound of moss
Dearly alive with passion-flower.
Knows the intrusion of a stare, For the land revealed
Keels foul feet of a common care :
All her heart to me.
" Mene, mene," scrawled with fire. Nor will keep concealed
Insults our saintliest desire ; Aught from thee. . . .

Our holiest hopes are desecrate

With the world till they lie desolate Now my fault may stain not
Yea, many a shrine Cheek of thine with tears ;

Where souls incline Bloom of love may wane not,

Lies waste like Allerheiligen ! Envied of the years.

Gaze into the distance ;

Mellow lies the earth ;

God with sweet insistence

COME NOT VERY SOON, LOVE Held our hand from birth ;

Come not very soon, love,

1 -ed us from the far light,
To the quiet place ;
Where He only knows.
Let be in June, love,
it
From the silent starlight,
In the grace
Where the souls repose.

Of a summer day, He from everlasting

Very calm and fair, Led us docile here,
Let our Mabel play Joined our hands unhasting ;

Merry there Now recalls me, dear

 ; ! ! ! ! !;

DEATH AND LIFE 131

Darling, He isyonder Impotent arms toward me : long she held

Wheresoe'er I go Me to her side heroical, compelled
Life nor death may sunder Now in the end to feel me torn from her
From his heart I know. By some dull strength of One who is mightier.

Therefore, do not weep, love ;

And I must leave her in the world alone,
He is calling home ;
Albeit I know there is not any one
Still the day is deep, love :
To love her as I love her, so to gaze
In the evening come Into her sweet eyes as I used to gaze,
So with a touch love-light to hold the child,
Yielding and leaning, mother, yet a child
I leave her with our little ones, I leave

DEATH AND LIFE Her in the bosom of One who will not leave.
Who led us to one another, and will cleave
So musing tearfully I faintly smiled,

Death who is our awful master.

Falling asleep, foreboding all was over.
All over with the singer and the lover.
Death, secure of our disaster,
Awhile allows our wandering.

Life is a disdainful playing Lo ! I awaken into lovelier life.

With a victim ere the slaying. Into a lovelier celestial life.
Though he murmur merrily. For I am lying on what seems a sea,
Some opal undulation of sweet sea.
Merry children laugh a-maying ; Gentle and buoyant, full of all delight,
But the men and women playing Nebulous heaving, all a pearly light,
Feel dead eyes environing. Freshly alive with air of keen delight
Full of a spiritual divine release.
Dare we turn our backs upon him ?
Resolving all the strain of life to peace,
Death, for that dishonour done him,
Soothing and satisfying souls with peace ;
Aims a blow to mangle us.
Relaxing all the weary stress and strain
Of human hearts disquieted in vain.
Very babes, who cannot cower
Stealing into an overwrought wrung brain.
Before annihilating Power,
Sweeter than any anodyne for pain.
Writhe beneath his malison.
Or deep nepenthe of oblivion
Fallen from shadowy wings on any one
Yet the hero-souls defiant
Baffle, yea, conquer, the pale giant.
So the dear .Saviour stilled the waves when He
Rose in the storm by night on Galilee.
Smiling while he slayeth them

And when I opened wondering faint eyes,

above me wonderful wide eyes
I felt

I seem to be dissolving slowly away, Of one from whom exhaled the heavenly calm.
Senses and spirit, fading from the day. All light and harmony, and joy and balm !

Drawn slowly into darkness and decay. But they were wide with wondering surprise
As in dull stupefying fumes, amid For this sweet angel knew mine earthly life,
Some dim chill waters where I shall lie hid My longing, wavering, turbulent blind life ;

For evermore, my failing sight discerns Had seen a helpless, haggard face that pored
The face of my beloved, how she yearns Beyond the gravestone ; she who knew the
Over me with her tearful eyes, and turns Lord,
 ;; : ! ! ! ! : :!

132 DEATH AND LIFE

From her own Huvviess love, familiarly, A strain of ravishment arise and fall,

Felt half impelled to smile, and half to cry, A heavenly symphony, the Pastoral ! . . .

Moved with incredulous bewildered wonder I am awake, and still the music flows;
How any poor thing like this lying under I am alive, and ever clearer grows
Should so the Father of our life mistrust, The form of a sweet woman whom I love ;

Foreboding He may leave it in the dust
No sound she breathed only in her clear eye
Compassion dimmed the sweet serenity.
No anger moved her, only deep compassion
And she looked on me in very tender fashion,
Even as a tender-hearted woman may
Look on a wounded bird in sore dismay,
Whom hunting beast or hunting
follow.
And whom she cherishes in her bosom hollow,
Till from the gloom a foamy flicker fleet
Nestling, how tremulous, in her bosom hollow
Nay, rather was like a little child
I With ghostly whisper laid me at her feet.
Found numb by night where mountain snows
are piled,
Long lying in fever with delirium wild.
Who now, reviving
Wakes very feeble he the tender stealth
;
Over some ivory keys her fingers move
; Hers was the sound ! she plays the Pastoral
;
Dear death relenting leaves me by her side,
Dragged erst like moaning shingle with the
tide,
Drawn out adrift upon the lethal tide
men may For while by night she roamed the paly sand,
Searching with mournful eyes afar from land.
homeless ocean beat.
Listless she heard the
Soon was I carried into sunny air,
to a tranquil health.
And she was by me, very near me there.

Athwart the little bridge of stone we went,

Of softened footfall in the silence hears,
While
Where darkened houses with wood balconie
in a twiliglit over him appears
leant
A lovely, loving face that smiles and weeps :

lie dimly knows his mother

Over a stream of purest chrysolite.
; then he sleeps.
And women kneeling laved their linen white
There from far piny mountains drifted down
This angel is exceeding fair and tall Innumerable logs of gleamy brown ;

Soft as a dew, with tender heave and fall, And while the tinted walls are fraught with
Harmony undulates aerial ; vine.
We were wont to name this air the Pastoral. Figs of full foliage with planes incline
I know not if she sings the air at all Shadowy bovvers from the sister side ;

Flowing it floats aerial wings for all

Along their ever-softening narrowing line
I see she swings rare fumes ethereal. Mine eyes are wooed, how tenderly, to glide
As from a censer nebulously golden. Till they are lost in yonder mountain bloom,
Wherein it seems light, odour, and sounds Immeasurable majesty of gloom !

are holden ; Where lonely pine-forests primeval loom

Nay, all the peaceful influences flow. Among scarred crags and gorge and precipice.
From her pure bosom heaving to and fro, Labouring toward untravelled realms of ice.
From her deep bosom more pure than any
snow !

Ye, gleaming plains, ye, silver spires, abide

Flow from her trancjuil eyes that do with
Ever in your own glory with no pride.
glory glow !

Albeit ye dwell so far above the world

For when your opaline rare mists are curled
. . . How ! doth it wane, the V'ision? will Athwart you wandering, your forms appear
it wane ? Fair fleeting phantoms from a heavenlier
It wanes and
! yet I hear as erst a strain. sphere.
 ! ! ! ! ; !

THE OLD PIANO 133

Once more my soul saluting you may rise,

With awful rapture filming her meek eyes,
Death is but a shadowy master,
To worship you, ye throned Divinities
And you, ye autumnal fairy woodland flowers, Breathing shadowy disaster,
Who smile irradiate with sunny showers, Whom to front is Victory

And you, ye leaves who flutter in the breeze

On all your faintly mellowing full trees One there is that ruleth over
Thou, dimpling stream, ye, twinkling blades Man the hater, man the lover.
of grass. Universal Deity
Tenderly suave, salute me as I pass !

Thou, little robin, russet in apparel, Life and Death to all divideth :

Sprinkling my faint heart with thy dewy Though one hopeth, one derideth.
carol, Yet I know that each abideth
Mazily singing in thy fair apparel, In his own eternity !

A labyrinth of fantasy thy carol

Is it a fond delusion, fond and sweet, Man and woman, mountain, sea,
That so ye welcome long-delaying feet ? Living creature, flower and tree.
Founded in Eternity I

Ah, mother Nature surely well she knew !

That of her children there are very few

To love her as I love her : she forbore,
While in the act to lay me dumb and frore THE OLD ITANO
In her dark bosom ;
gave me a little more
Time to throb with her glory, and dispense In the twilight, in the twilight.
To all some feeling of her influence, Sounding softly, sounding low.
Peeling of her immaculate excellence. Float some cadences enchanted.
Eerie songs of long ago.
Howe'er it be, there is enchanted light.
There is a magic of supreme delight In the gloaming, in the gloaming,
Upon the blessed face of Her to-day. Sits our child with lips apart
A light I scarce remember since I lay Near her mother who is singing,
A listless boy in a sweet wood alone : Near tlie woman of my heart.
Sunlight was in the happy leaflets blown :

Tender pulsation of a turtle flown O how thinly, and how feebly

P'rom twilight green into blue open summer ; Rings the ancient instrument!
A purple thyme-tuft, haunt of many a hummer. When it opened, slowly yielding.
Revealed Her there unveiling fair She burst
:
What a weird unwonted scent I

On me unworthy, dazed and breathless first,

Lowly adoring now, nay, passionate as erst Plaining wildered all forlornly,

As it were surprised from death ;

So from the mortal weakness I awoke, On a plate of faded ivory

And on me, fresh like Heaven, Nature broke. Some lost name faint wavcreth.
Yet, ah when Death indeed shall seal mine
!

eyes, Wildered sorely, wildered sorely.

Surely were a very sweet surprise
it In oblivion mouldering,
If I might open them in such a wise. To be challenged now for music
Under those eyes I That the dead were wont to sing !
 ; !^ ; ! ! ! !

134 ON RICHMOND HILL

Are they rising, are they rising, These in one region yonder shine with rays
As I gaze through mist of tears, Of some uncertain lustre warm, that may
In the savour, in the music. Be the sweet river's ; opalescent beams
Vanished visions of the years ? Faintly athwart the tender turtle-grey
Of heaven slant ; the violet shy gleams
Stilly stealing, stilly stealing, Forth from sere fern ; earth lies this April day
Glide the dead in companies Waking from winter sleep to fair day dreams
Thinly flow their words and laughter, Of summer happiness and early love.
Faintly radiant their eyes. Such as were hers in Eden when a bride.
With cuckoo-call and tender crooning dove
And they mingle, lo ! they mingle, She murmurs joy until in her soft side
;

With my living wifeand child, The wound where man a keen, cold anguish
Seem to thrust them from their places drove,
And confuse their presence mild. Reopens — man her offspring and her pride
Ah ! morning when the youthful Sun
for that
See a maiden, a fair maiden, Firstsaw the face of his beloved one.
Vestured in a garb of yore, Arose from sleep to find her by his side.
Singing yonder while her lover To woo her and to win her for a bride
Pleads with longing eyes for more
For lo a knell all unexpectedly
!

Then a mother, a young mother. Breaks from the leafy lowland slow and deep.
With her child, in guise of eld. Wailing to heaven a long heart-broken sigh.
She appears full blown to woman
; One moment Earth forgot that she must weep.
Now the maid whom I beheld. And gazed abroad with visionary eye.
Was young once more — yet pitilessly creep
Then a widow, a grey widow. Into their wonted lair within her heart
See her now before he died
! The loathsome, venomous old memories :

Love lay withered —

worn and faded, Now unavailing long-drawn wails impart
Lo she plays where played the bride.
! Her grief to careless unresponding skies :

They knell like drops of blood from forth

... In a moan of wind they vanish, the heart,
Dead and living I alone ; Slow falling to suffuse with taint of blood
Hear old Time insanely mumble All opening summer's fair felicities
In the sea's low monotone ! Of sunny air, of song-resounding wood.

and loads with umbrage of fell blight

It fills

Lynmouth, 1869. All burdened space ; a cancer merciless.

It heaves and throbs through all the summer

light
And on my soul the heavy tollings press.
I may not see the mournful human sight
ON RICHMOND HILL— 1870
Beneath the hill, concealed among the trees.
Among fresh, innocent, leafy bowers we gaze, Where rests a homely village in the plain ;

With moveless fountains of white bloom But the knell says a balmy summer breeze
embossed, Blows idly there upon a human pain
Infinite bowers blending in blue haze One leaves there some loved life beneath the
Afar, to slumbrous woodland waves untossed. sod,
Half longing with the lifeless to remain,
1 See note E. And meekly bleeds, or idly curses God
 — ; —— —
! ! !! ! : — ! !

ON RICHMOND HILL 135

O Earth, our mother ! was it well or ill. Weighed upon with a languor of recoil
To chafe so restless in thy natal home Toward that abysmal Peace wherein the dead
Of sweet imconscious innocence, until Dissolve to purify them from the moil.
There dawned in thee the gloryand the gloom Then would we be the children chosen of
Of human vision and of human will ? Earth,
Then was revealed to thee that thou art fair ; Unto the holy Silence whence she came
Afloat in some sublime immensity : To bear her tribute — she in solemn mirth
Then in thy heart immeasurable despair Moves ever with immortal eyes aflame
Awful arose : to love, and yet to die To freshen life with morning dews of birth,
Thirsting for God to faint upon void air 1 Lose it ii. deep oblivion of death I

To fall with throes of infinite desire Here might I quiet pass to whence I came,
On phantom bosoms with a baffled cry Here to the songflil summer yield my breath !

Feed with illusions ever-ravening fire

Here on the pleasant growing grass to lie ;
But Earth made answer. Surely it is well Here on the innocent heart of spring to fail !

Divine Desire creative moves in all Over a life's confusion draw the veil
And in man's soul heaves with an ocean-swell, Of turf and daisies and the summer sky!
Restless, impetuous, imperial, Repenting of the clamorous hot fever.
That forms a glory and gloom wherein to And blindly inharmonious endeavour,
dwell. Wherewith my clashing life presumes assail
A man grows god who may be loved and love; Our mother Nature's pure serenity.
Yet fades and faints, thronged round with With shamefast eyes, behold I meekly bring !

shadowy ghosts, My life's confusion, a slain offering,

Menacing from the night, who till he move Saying to Nature Lo thine own again — ! ;

—
Wait for their life to bloom among their Take for remoulding in a happier vein !

hosts, Woe for the lambs who trusted them to me.

Luxuriant from broken hearts of Love. Lambs whom I love, yet doom to misery
Yet will their dust inflate a meaner crew Woe for the lovely lands were mine to bless,
Therefore, ye fair and wise, forbear your For they are left a desolate wilderness.
boasts Behold I cower at thy sacred feet,
!

Misgrowth and pain inevitable as you. There let my turbulent being dissolving fleet,
A tremulous foam blown inward from the
My weary heart responded, It may be wave
Some ardent spirits in the stars may deem All lives receive thy blessing on their
Our weal and woe harmonious pageantry grave ! . . .

Of light and shadow on a stately stream

When I rejoice, it seemeth so to me. . . . Nay, let me rest here all alone awhile,
But some crushed lives can only feel the pain Feeling the balmy summer softly blow.
Absorbing all, or fellow-worm's unrest. As on a cloud, upon my mood of woe.
And there arrives an hour when we are fain Until it vanish in the clear sun-smile.
To leave the alluring visionary quest Von singing bird avails to reconcile
For a friend toour need, endure the strain
fill Me with sweet life take me not at my word, :

Of our so wayward leaning feebleness Offended Love for thou hast many a bird ! !

(Truth, cruel feigning she may be possest. Such song the dark self-slayer might beguile.
Cajoles but amorous boys with her caress !) With ecstasy of life made eloquent
To neck from under yokes of toil,
slip the In the green twilight ; only an open ear
Where like dumb beasts unwondering we And a brown bird have made this ravishment
tread ; Still may I love, and still one holds me dear ;
 ; : : ; : : ;; ! :

136 WAS IT WELL?

Still may I joy to march with hosts of light, Was it well, was it well ?

Conquering kingdoms from the formless Now the holy glamour fell

night Upon every living thing

may I pour some wine of sympathy From the spirit of the spring :

Still
For brothers lying in a sorer strait than L Birds in yielding sweetly sing :

There is work to do— arise let the bed- !

Flowers have innocent confest
ridden die !
Soft allurements of the West
Leaves and herbs benumbed in death
Feel and bless the living breath,
Gladden hill and dale and dell
WAS IT WELL? Was it well, was it well ?

Was it well, was it well ? Was it well, was it well ?

When at evening shadow fell Only we defied the spell

In the great cathedral square, We were timid, we were wise,
With a gable-roofing fair, Maimed the wings of Love that flies,

And the only glimmer there Putting out his dovelike eyes ;

Was a flutter of a dress, Tamed with prudence hearts that yearned.

Ever waning less and less, Cooled with caution breasts that burned ;

As my gaze enamoured clung, Bosoms dreams of love made tingle,

Till the moving masses rung Limbs afever till they mingle,
It earthward and it fell ; Only they defied the spell
Was it well, was it well ? Was it well, was it well ?

Was it well, was it well? Was it well, was it well ?

Where a fragrant azure fume Ask no more ! I cannot tell.

Pervades a Gothic gloom, Spring confused her lovers all ;

And jewelled gleams illume, Each obeyed the sacred call

With a melody of lights, Only we refused to fall,
Marble slumber of the knights, Sanely, calmly self-incurled
Till their stony bosoms bloom 'Mid such sweet madness of the world!
Warm to flowers on the tomb : O'er twain that trembled into one
There the morrow at a shrine Love's own sweet mouth hath vainly blown.
On thy kneeling form Divine Futile his golden tide hath flown,
Mine eyes to worship fell Henceforth for ever passing on,
Was it well, was it well? And we are still apart, alone
Might our clashing kindle Hell ?

Was it well, was it well ? Ask no more, I cannot tell ;

Where a bubbling water fell Was it well, was it well ?

From the snakes in carven stone,
( irasses fine about them blown
In the greenwood lying prone
At thy feet, a boy in love PALINGENESIS
Murmured idle rhymes he wove :

While we mingled flame of eyes, In solemn precincts of the forest aisles

In leaf-lattices the skies There is a wondrous gathering of life ;

With soft suffusion fell And all the vacant dull monotony
Was it well, was it well ? Of netted wood softens mysteriously
 ; :

PALINGENESIS 137

To tender inarticulate prophecy, Yielding a gentle unimperious will

A boundless budding, fluttering anon To every mood of zephyr fantasy ;

As with green wings unfolding for a flight. Obtrudes not her soft presence on the sky,
Now all my soul rejoices reverently Inlaying it with tender tracery ;

"Mid cool diffusion of a greening dim, Seems there to dwell by loving sufferance,
Kneels hearkening the still small voice of Or primal right of native harmony
God; With mild dominion of warm summer air.
Nature from mouths of myriads new born
Anew revealing her eternal youth. And no V I walk in fields of sheathed corn,
Sprent with the chamomile and scarlet poppy.
Lo all the champaign saturate with light, Through meads profound with grasses all
!

Softly alive with magical green flames, aflower.

Grass blades commingling multitudinous And sorrel hanging like a sanguine mist
With daisies clustered, scattered, like to stars, Thwart lender grey horizons leagues away.
And kingcups floating buoyant everywhere Broken by cumbrous cumulus of trees
;

Now loose-limbed lambs push nestling to In coppices where roses float like moons.
their mothers ; Breathing warm air we breathe a breath of
Haunts of primrose and frail windflower flowers.
rejoice Instinct with sunny songs of summer bird,
Till later, wandering by the brimming river, Dartling innumerous intertangling lines
I view horse-chestnut massy -foliaged From vernal glooms, or sparkling in a spray.
Lift, as with eager hands innumerous.

Up the blue morn an offering of flowers. A rugged stile, with upper bar made smooth
While hawthorns near, sunsmitten to the core. And polished from how many horny hands
Froth over in dumb ecstasy of bloom. Of passing peasant, leads me to a slope
Silverly winds the river from afar. That lapses quietly, all pasture land
Dim-frosted from its currents here and there. And wood and grain, save where upon my left
With hazy tree-clusters impalpable On level space abides a little church.
Rolled as a border nigh me vivid turf
; With golden vane aglister in the sun.
Gleams to the edge, but fringing fair the path Ancient, grey-walled, a pent-roof in dusk tile
Wave pliant sword-like rushes o'er the flood. Rich red and weatherworn upon the tower,
Feasting the eye with gliding opal light A brow that shadows over slumbrous eyes
Of water 'mong green pennons at their play Of narrow window droused with eld and heat.
;

And there full soon the water-hen will brood Thither I passed, and came where sleep the
On rushes pulled and woven to a nest dcai." ;

In a rich twilight of mila emerald, Stonecrop and moss were on the buttresses,
Feeling sweet motions under the warm breast, And hart's-tongue sprouted in the creviced
Lulled with soft flicker of the wave below, wall ;

And gentle whispering of airs above. Over the rude old woodwork of the porch
A dial 'mid the crumbling masonry
Yet later, lo ! the frail acacia, Shadowed the hour.
Steeping in light her soft, luxuriant hair. Upon a sunk headstone
Sensitive flushes like a lovely woman. Lichened, awry and low, with graven words
All consciouswhen a cloud moves off the sun ;
Worn wavering indefinite with time,
Her leafy clusters delicate as down A very aged man, mute, motionless.
Seem self-sustaining, buoyant in blue air. Reclined he leaned against another grave
;

Move, as informed with some sweet sister That seemed less ancient in some withered
;

spirit leaves
 ; ; : ; "; ; ;

138 PALINGENESIS

His withered limbs were drooping heavily When she was landed then with faces near.
;

His eyes were toward the heavenly distances, He leaning with his arm about her waist,
Where ever and anon a paler wave She yielding fondly, blushing o'er with bliss.
Passed over silky grasses of the These lovers went all bright and beautiful.
field,

While tracts of land imbibed soft shadowing Threading their way among the grassy graves,
From clouds that travelled in a gentle wind, Here and there heedless treading over them.
Effacing from the sight in yonder valley Conversing, nor observing him who leaned
His sober-vestured cot among the elms, Upon the headstone facing them the while,
Restored awhile at unawares and still That very aged man, nor seeing me.
With shining of warm sunlight in the place ;

So dawn to fade faint memories of his mind But once again these human lovers twain
!

Became unconscious sunbeams of the Lord

Then I approaching spake, addressing him To rouse remembrance in a slumbering soul.
" A lovely spot often you linger in it ? "
! He gazed and murmured, " She and I like
Vacant he looked as hearing not the words, these
Or vaguely conscious of the sense they bore. —
Passed here in other years the very gate
Then at the moment broke upon the air We came by from the village this the church
!

A laughter of some children from the wood. Where twelve months after she and I were
They came, their tiny hands full filled with wed
flowers And some few happy years we spent together
The boy flung down his nosegay on a grave —
For she was very good she lies below
In eager chase of some blue butterfly ; Here where I sit ; 'tis warm and pleasant
!
The little girl for life and ecstasy here
Twirled, leapt, and gushed with pleasure like
a bird. After, I heard his uneventful tale
From
others in the village where he dwelt.
Then and at the sound. He tilled these fields, or drove these laden
at the sight of these
Intelligence lit all the countenance wains,
Of the old man he gazed and murmured low, Brown-chested in the sweltering hot summer:
;

" Mine were like these, about the age of Mounted on stacks he forced a long bright
these." blade
These little children straying here to play Through dense hot hay, then trussed it for
Seemed like unconscious sunbeams of the the mart
Lord She came from Orchard, but a mile from
To rouse dim memories in a human soul hence,
Where all grew shadow, even as yonder beams Noted for flavour of its teeming apples.
Revealed the nested village in the vale ;
Vet speedily the darkness closed again. Small store of learning cottagers may boast,
Yet well they love their gardens and their
But now that wicket where I lately passed homes
Clicked and swung open, rendering access And in their scanty intervals of toil
To a young man and maiden in their prime; Not all unheard, unheeded doth our mother,
But he first coming closed and held it shut Nature, the holy mother of us all.
In sport against her, fastening the latch, Speak to her children in their heart of hearts.
Insisting she must mount the neighbour stile What though ye, F'ortune's favourites, may
And he receive her into stalwart arms ; deem
So, coyly pleading, very soon she did, Them as the maimed and deaf and dumb and
Both laughing, crooning, and embracing close blind
 — ! —

PALINGENESIS 139

Of Nature's family, will ye profane And when

the children of himself and her
Presume to map and measure all them alone, how oft on Sabbath eves.
the love, Left
Trickling through secret channels infinite, When hymns were silent in the rustic church.
Wherein a mother may impart herself, He and she came to trim the little graves.
Yearning out most to her unfortunates ? To pick germander and forget-me-not,
They feel her fold, though they can ill explain That bloomed about the children laid to slec]) 1

Aloud with finished phrasing what she means. So when she left him verily alone,
Ah not from callous heart or shallow soul, And he to prayers came wearily without her.
!

Only from organ helpless with disuse, When all were gone he knelt upon her sod,
Their filial love is inarticulate Or dreamed with misted eyes in distances
;

While you, with your light pity and dull scorn. Their guileless gaze had visited together.
Flout in them faults your very selves impose. Now sole survivor of his family.
Listless disdaining to alleviate Surviving all who loved him, all he loved,
By one least finger-touch the w eary load Surviving even Love, yea, very Sorrow,
Of doom the Father lays upon the sons. Love, survivor of himself.
Sister to
That we may win free range of one another, He sits summer hours upon the tomb.
long
Nor live unloved in loveless solitude. Her lovely form long faded in the dust,
Her name faint wavering from the mossy
Behold these children sporting in the wood, stone.
Stooping for flowers, inhaling all the summer Her memory nearly faded from his heart
Doth nature never call the little ones. —
His heart that loved her and he httle feels
Lay ne'er a tender hand upon their hearts ? Save a mere sense of comfort from the sun
Behold these lovers when they sit and dream About those piteous impotent shrunk limbs.
In yonder hollow, with the gambols light Only when these new shadows of an hour,
Of woodland elves, men name sunshine and These children and these lovers, fleeting fly,
shadow, They rouse a momentary memory,
Sliding about them in the fanning l;reeze, As one designless may awake some sound.
All his clear future roseate with her, Brushing a lyre long disused in dust.
And all her future melted into him !

Hath nature ne'er a message unto these ? StillNature speaks as when he was a child,
Only the world's inhuman votaries. Stillspeaks as when he was a youthful lover ;

The dead-alive, tiie arrogant, the cold. But these are vanished, yea, the man that was
Are reprobate exiles and pariahs. Moulders away now little but the name
;

Shut out for aye from her maternal heart I —

Remains of him these remnants of a man,
Since even the very dead she takes and How shall they heed, all Ijloodless dull and
hides cold.
Though these may never look upon her face Her awful rapture of immortal youth?
!

Deep in her bosom, changing them to flowers So all about the stricken wife of Lot,
And foodful corn, and dear remembrances. A living woman stiffening to stone,
Refreshing hallowed life in many a soul, Amid the glare of cities rolled in fire
Ceding as meadows feed from secret springs. And shocks of thunder subterranean.
In loud confusion swept the cavalcade
And yet 'tis human to lament awhile Of urgent richly vestured fugitives.
Over the lapse of man's bewildering life ! Husband and brother, camel-mounted slave.
Nature the mother to this ancient man Dwindling in her to murmur meaningless.
little ones to-day
Called as she calls the ;

Nature the mother to this ancient man The banquet, and the lovely guests of youih
Spake as she speaks to yonder lovers now ! With dewy coronal on smooth white brows.
 ; ;! ! ; ; !! !

140 PALINGENESIS

And mirth and song, and goblets of rich wine, Brothers, arise ! leave wails effeminate
Have vanished from his soul, and all the Confront and praise the inevitable law ;
lights, To-morrow travails with a doom Divine ;

Save only one abortive, piteous Glory and triumph in Humanity :

Fitful illuming dimly storied wall, Stand by your guns, make sharp your cut-
Still struggling with an incubus of Gloom, lasses ;

That feeds secure, encroaching evermore. Do battle for the brotherhood of man
Devouring slow the pale remains of life.
Full soon shall Life with gliding lips Divine
Ah God hath
! lent to us the loveliest thing Blow through a fresher, greener reed than
Of all rare splendours in his treasury, ours,
And we poor senseless children of a day And fling us to the earth well worn with use.
Take it how lightly, toss and trample it, So be it. Lord ;
yea, teach us to rejoice ;

Until He whispers, Give it me again ! Some human music never shall be mute
iXoiv will I lend it to another life. Yon spheres can roll thee vaster harmonies
Then first we look upon the thing we hold, Yea, if Thou breathe but on a point of dust,
And lo ! it is the jewel of our youth. The same shall thrill and falter into Man ;

Ah ! then we clutch it with a miser's clutch. Yea, from the clash of systems and of worlds
We peer within it, lift it up to light, Shall flame a superhuman light of souls.
Search out some golden casket for the gem ; Innumerable motes from gloom to gloom
Turning all cold to hear his awful voice beam from Thee
Passing alive in one white
Quiet repeating, Give it me again.
Nature, refreshed, unwearied, every spring
Behold we dally in a dreamful doze. Awakes to bodings inarticulate.
Afloat in listless splendour of a water, As from a myriad mouths of budding boughs,
That loves inhaling glory from fair isles Tuning her instrument, and preluding
Sunnily laving ; when we closed our eyes. Her full triumphant symphony of summer,
Our boat still floated in its own mild gleam, And autumn's deep tempestuous ocean hymn;
Among white swans and balmy breathing airs Her paean hymeneal of blent lives
Yet now we pale reluctantly to note Of sea, and mountain-storm, and swinging
That we have drifted in our summer dream pine;
All unforeboding among scenes of change : Forest that rings with acclamation rare
Some chilling shadow rufHes the sweet river, From beast, and bird, and myriad living
And troubles clear serenity of heaven. things,
We rouse aff"righted — lo ! the current flies ;
Tumultuous leaves and ecstasies of bloom ;
Yonder the shores lie dubious in haze With man, a reed through whom the Hidden
Yonder a cold mist smothers all the stream ;
One
Pale while we peer, there ominously booms Breathes forth this anthem of the Universe
From forth the gloom some roaring of a fall
Lead then, O year, thy bright procession
Arise, my soul ! adore the inevitable ;
forth,
For Death is that inevitable shadow, Light clouds along cserulean clear skies,
That ever follows in the ways of life. And revels of fair flowers along the earth.
Yea, we who live are needed as we are, Dancing to softest music of mild airs,
Nor in aught vary from our destiny ;
Simmer of rills in sunny summer showers.
And they who die are needed as they are. Mingled with flutes and flageolets of birds
Fulfilling uses more mysterious, Roll tides of glory round about our dead.
Yet alike necessary and Divine. Dead in the deep recurrence of thy smile,
 — !! ! ; ; ; ! — — ———— ;

THE DWELLER IN TWO WORLDS 141

Dead in the rhythmic breathing of thy breast Deep down a gorge tremendous fronting him.
O season ! as with the blare of trumpet-call Winding immeasurable, seemed to climb
Shock all the blood of every youthful thing Slow into heaven, all its gloom below
To bound for battle and sublime emprise Filled with wan clouds, like leagues of
Prick to endeavour, gird us to endure ; mounded snow
Inform with winged seeds all aml)ient airs, On rolling upland, densely thronged, and
Inform all creatures with a hallowed heat, crowned,
Dissolve them languorous in sweet desire, Where it met heaven beyond the latest mound,
Yea, flush them full with dear delicious fire ! With a v.^st solemn, dusky-crimson sun,
Inform the spiritual air of souls Robed round in mist voluminous and wan
With serviceable knowledge and device, Which yet relaxed anon above his head
With germs of generous impulse and resolve, Into a melancholy bloom of red
With deed the fruit, and fantasy the flower ;
Grim ramparts pinnacled of ragged stone,
Speed the career of human destiny Reared either side the vapours lying prone.
Abase, O Lord vain individual wills
!

Our puny aims, our lives ephemeral, Methought I knew no living Sun was there;
Replunge them in thy calm Eternity Only his phantom in astonished air
We kneel abashed in thine immensity, Rises again, though he hath set and died
Who revelled erst within thy light Divine. As in some rare concurrence may betide.
Still for a few more years insatiate The youth stood dreamily beholding all

Of living, loving, learning, suffering; Bathed in the weird glow funereal.

Hungry for all thy wondrous loveliness Darkly ensanguined wall of crumbling fane.
In earth and air, in woman and in man And tottering pilasters that remain ;

When we are old, or weary and well spent, A snowy mountain in north-eastern skies
Letting thy rush of racers thunder by. Cedar and pine in their obscurities.
And cower in thy smile perennial. Is it the wind, or any ghostly thing,
Draw troubled breath regarding in thy face That talks with these dim boughs low
Of never to be moved serenity murmuring?
Resume our being. Thou who art alone, Passing above from darkling tree to tree,
And live for ever in the lives of all That each in turn may whisper secretly
His tale of half-articulate despair,
Yet find no hope nor absolution there
Fragrant from pine tears and from cedar
wood.
THE DWELLER IN TWO WORLDS Yet seems the sultry atmosphere imbued
Beside with odour indefinable.
A MAN stood pondering at twilight hour. Whether of musk or blood I cannot tell

Still in bloom of life's unfaded flower

the ;
With age-long sheddings from the firs em-
Upon a narrow mossy ledge he stood, browned,
Starred with some blossoms like to sprinkled And dank with dripping of their boughs, the
blood. ground
Upon a mountain slope precipitous. Murmur sonorous from a torrent far,

Gloomy with pines and olive cavernous. With plaintive hooting of some owls that are
Yonder, a stone's throw from him, was a Hid in the forest, more oppressive only
grove Weighs down deep silence on the pilgrim
Where once the ruined temple proudly throve, lonely;
Ile.K or vine-festooning terebinth While ever and anon there rustles by
Veiling it now from cornice unto plinth. Some indistinct thing swift and stealthily ;
 ! —— ; —— ; ;

142 THE DWELLER IN TWO WORLDS

But whether wolf or jackal by me ran, I marvelled much if this indeed were he.
Or somewhat with affinity to man, The lover of a sweet tranquillity !

A nameless loathsome presence, my desire Yet I remembering noting with surprise

Led me not then more nearly to inquire
No vestige of blest human neighbourhood
To cheer the solitary where he stood
And yet I knew a mighty pilgrim host
Athwart this drear deserted realm had crossed,
His sudden gleam of visionary eyes,
As of a soul transported otherwhere,
! Even from the heart of common wonted care,
Or from the haven of a home most fair.
Alas alas he was no demon foul
I !

Men, women, children, in full light of day. But a poor mortal sprighted with a soul
Replete with life, rejoicing in the way I Bisexual, conflicting nay, with two ;

But they have gone to other lands from here One childlike and affectionate that grew
Nay, not the very travellers that were Rooted a creeper clinging round a home ;

Hath the red dust, that mingles here so well And one a restless spirit prone to roam
With withered pine-leaves, ne'er a tale to tell ? In far forbidden lands mysterious,
Yea, as in this wise pines and cedars shed Dear unto haughty moods adventurous
Their quiet lives, in this wise do the dead Thin airs where eagle-reason loves to breathe,
Of human forests lose their joys and tears. Which to the feeble and timorous were death
Their longings and their fervours and their Ideal realms more glorious than day,
fears ! Where lovely visions falter from decay
With waving wand of wizard fantasy :

Later, considering the youth, methought Awful forbidden regions of the dead,
He seemed not unfamiliar : I sought Where wild lost souls of living men have fled
1 low this mysterious land's dim denizen To cast them on the violated floors
I should have known ; it dawned upon me Of gods reviled and disinherited,
then Where life o'er dusky stains new crimson
That in the waking world of every day pours,
The very same in different array While each lost soul delirious implores
I had beholden, surely in a mood For violent sinful joys the gods can give,
Mating but strangely with such solitude In these to agonise, then cease to live.

Now in some every-day pursuit immersed : These are the haunts of that perturbed sprite.
Now among dallying idlers gay dispersed Who will not bend him to a tame delight.
On some park-sward yet oftener by the gate,
;
Yea, for the ghost of some of ancient time
Where starving men with scowling looks of Lingered until it entered into him.
hate While with tears the tender soul implores,
oft
Toil out their lives, he ministers in pain. A troubled spirit wafts him from the doors
Till he devise the riving of their chain. Into yon fascinating solitudes
Often when summer air was warm and mild. Though often here a formless fear intrudes.
I .saw him resting with his wife and child Lest, if he slide upon the slope too rash,
Hard by the shadow of a village spire. He whelm his well-beloved in the crash.
With veering vane that glistered like a fire,
Where quiet sleep the meek and mossy dead, Ah ye who sit in winter by the fire !

Some simple words of hope above their head. About your old hearthstone, nor feel desire
They 'mid ripe orchards of their numblc croft To wander from it, do not curse your child
Reposing on the grass beheld aloft Gone with unquiet spirits of the wild.
How round the leaves and mellowing apples Who sits no longer with you —pray for him,
ran And weep ! for when the window-pane grew
A luscious glory, warm, caeruieaii. dim
 — ; —— ; ! ;

THE DWELLER IN TWO WORLDS 143

With rain flung flying from a maniac blast, From bulbul amorous among myrtle blooms
Did ye behold a scared white face that passed, There over grove and emerald sward there
Vet peered a moment out of the wild weather looms.
Into the warm glow where ye rest together? As from the temple, enkindling mist of myrrh.
That was your one wistfully beholding
lost Mingling with liquid lute and dulcimer.
The quiet faith of your serene enfolding !

If God hath gifted you with hallowed ease, Yet lo a scene unnoted earlier!

Think ye He hath no care for such as these ?For look, beneath yon inner ruin wall,
He leads unseen lone feelers after truth Shadowed till now, the moon a spectacle
;

On all blind blown wayfarers hath He ruth Most hideous reveals an altar square
! —
Of massy stone, and over it a bare
Yea, God inhabiteth both hell and heaven, Obscene grey idol, phallic, horrible,
Love in the maybeam. Fury in the levin ; Collared and braceleted with carbuncle.
From steadfast suns He squandereth life and Beneath, upon the horizontal stone
light, A human body beautiful lay prone,
In death's pale mask He scattereth them by A body of ideal-moulded youth
night ; Weep, holier lovers, o'er her in your ruth
Peals in the hallelujah of a saint. Her lower limbs, yet warm, hung helplessly
Raves in a rebel's blasphemous complaint, Over the verge along the ivory
;

Yet art Thou holy before whom we fall, I saw a slender rill of crimson glide

Profound Unnamed who reconcilest all !

From a small gash within her tender side.

Behold ! the temple seemed as though on Stands, crimson-robed, the sacrificial priest,
fire. And gloats upon her form, as on a feast
While heaven glowed as from a burning For eyes that seem to smoulder and to smoke
pyre. With lust unglutted in the slaughter-stroke.
Suddenly shadow muffled noiselessly A gleaming gory knife is in his hand
All feet of rocks and pines and cedars He wears on features, noble once, the brand,
nigh: Like a fallen angel, of the wrath of God,
Then o'er that mouldered cornice which im- All lightning-scarred ; his vitals are the food
pends Of an undying worm ; once golden hair
Over the huge stones of the wall ascends Hangs disarrayed ; his colouronce most fair
A fringe of very flame, that grows more Shows deadly livid ; one may note the drip
large, Of sanguine horror slowly down his lip ;

Silently soft expandingon the marge, Hatred and scorn writhe ever there awake.
Till imaged like a huge new-risen moon, Like some foul life of convoluted snake.
Ruddy it rests upon the temple soon.
In these dread natures dwells no rivalrj-
Then in the mystic luminous new night, Of two strong souls that grapple unto death:
One of those prowling things, I with affright One only reiijned since these have drawn a
Had noted nigh, now paused in its career, breath
Rising upon two legs, a shape of fear Or else one soul hath proved so powerful,
;

Shaggy and clumsy, with half human face, There lives none now to challenge the dark
And filthy gesture pointing to a place rule
Behind the temple, where I now beheld Of that usurper ; never anxious care
Laurel and cypress, while among them welled Possesses them for other men's despair,
Waters delightful, bubbling, musical, Lest weaker lives be trampled in the crush
And a more soul-dissolving madrigal Where eagerly for ends of ours we push ;
 — ! ; " ; !: ! ! —
144 THE DWELLER IN TWO WORLDS
Their sweetest music is a victim's moan ;
Winged with miraculous anguish of her
With breaths of dying men they feed their own. love,
Never they sweep the infinite of time, Even through shadows of this alien grove
Wistfully peering for a hope sublime ;
An image of herself appears to move
They scorn the innocence of kindly ties, With streaming eyes and long dishevelled hair
And common cares, and pure felicities i
Imploring, and she brings their infant fair.
For them no heaven of love, nor sacrifice I
O then he paused, reaching a hand to
Of heroes for a cause ; their halls of ice I
grasp
Sunder from human sympathy ; they dwell The hand that, woe is me ! it cannot clasp,
Palaced alone in flame unquenchable, : Vision adored and holy, yet a vision
A prison gorgeous, whose walls of fire
Are fed and fuelled with insane desire ! ; But shouts of laughter pealed as in derision
Clear from the revel ; clash of dulcimer,
Alas my pilgrim's gaze appeared to range
! I
Mingled with ravishment of musk and myrrh,
O'er all the scene with fascination strange. I
And lute and marrying music from below,
Yet hearken what new message floats from far,
! I
Swam cloudlike o'er him in the glimmering ;

Melodious from where the living are ? grove.

'Tis like a peal of mellow village bells, Rained on with roses, youths and maidens
With muffled interval, that sweetly wells, move,
While early memories of childish times All blooming with a rare voluptuous bloom ;

Answer the faint pulsation of the chimes. Now languidly they glow athwart the gloom.
Mother and sister tender tones have twined Dissolved with breathing some narcotic fume.
With that old hallowed music in the wind, In pliant somnolence of yielding grace
Even as one may send a loving word Faintly repelling many a lewd embrace
Nestled within the plumage of a bird. Of things half-brute, half-man, that wind
He dimly hears them pleading by the cross, among
" O Jesus, save him from an utter loss !
The bare-limbed mazes of their foam-white
He dimly sees them kneeling, earnest, mild, throng.
There where he worshipped with them when Now, like a smouldering fire that springs to
a child. flame
With a libation of poured oil, the tame
He upon the slope of fear
vacillates Assemblage, unaware to frenzy stung.
With misted eyes but louder and more near
; Bacchanals bounded, reeled, and kissed, and
Strains of the revel captivate the ear, clung
And still he moves ;
—yet speedily methought Slowly, more swiftly, see the pilgrim move,
Yon melody were fraught
bells with lovelier Until his feet seem flying to the grove
For now they ring a hymeneal peal. Lust, loathly monster, fiercely folds him
And ringing to his bleeding heart reveal round
A vision of a childlike woman crowned And on the scene there falls a night pro-
With orange-blossom, beaming o'er a ground found. . . .

Children have strewn with lilies and with roses,

While she, serenely confident, reposes . . Silence anon a mighty storm arose
. :

On a man's arm, who leads her from the Oceanlike in the pines uproarious.
porch Their haughty heads all agonizing swayed ;
He knows himself, ho knows the village They wailed, and rent, and wrestled, sore
church I afraid.
Innocent hymnals of the children call Till in a lull methought I was aware
Vengeance upon him if he let her fall Of wings that clanged innumerous in air
 : : ! : ; !

THE DWELLER IN TWO WORLDS 145

Assembling, of a trample and a crash : Little by little, grates and lingers, holds,
Then, in an awful livid lightning flash, Falls ; bounding clutches at some awful
A myriad bounding bristling backs I viewed folds
Horribly hustling, crashing through the Of God's precipitous drear robe, and falls.
wood ; And crashing to perdition all around appals !

And peals of mocking diabolic laughter The spectral brotherhood of mountains round
Clutched at my heart in closely following From one to another toss the terrible
after. sound
All the black forest, cliff and cleft and peak, And after murmurous pause the wrack be-
Reiterated that infernal shriek. guiles
Rebounding and rebellowing for ever : Some hoar mount, far a desolate hundred
Hearing such hell's glee hardest hearts may miles,
shiver Out of his wintry swound to answer slow.
Flash followed flash ; among those hoofs Moaning a baffled human soul laid low. . . .

obscene Then, save for solemn sound of waterfalls,

Lay the white form of him who once had been And sobbing wind subsiding, nothing calls :

Pure, happy, generous, of kingly mind Over the marred white youth snow softh'
May they be hoofs of fiend, or human kind ? silent falls.
For cruel moral jubilations fall
From men when off its lonely pedestal Yea, silence shed a healing chrism around :

Genius tumbles with a loud undoing : Then lifting heavy eyes that sought the
Maniacal they leap in his warm ruin ground,
I saw cloud-phantoms pale confusedly.

Lo ! pines colossal cumbered with the snow, Bewraying presence of a light on high.
Heavily falling from rent members now, Till unaware they stilly rend asunder.
Or skeleton trees of humid shrouded head, Revealing a fair Empyrean wonder.
With lank grey parasitic growth long dead. A snowy peak illumes a violet air.
Above, the forest mounteth stern and steep, And a clear star serene reposes there,
Where boulder-chaos cataracts leap,
in a Darting all colours : surely all is well
Resounding in the abyss a muffled thunder. Doth not the crimson sparkle shoot from
Behold where livid icy seas up yonder
! Hell?
Stare from a sterile snow but higher yet ;

Huge solid flamelike crag with many a jet Last, while the clouds from all the mount
Springs in the vaporous void : it glares a vast were torn,
Condor abnormal in the storm aghast, In desolate lower roots of it a horn
With many a ragged neck and baldest pate. Resounded harsh and loud : but higher
Scarred from remorseless torturing of Fate. rocks
O grand Promethean visage marred with Multiplied into more ethereal shocks
fire. Of melody the sound, which as it passed
Hail, flood and frost, and blasts that never To loftier shining regions ever amassed
tire. A more ideal spiritual tone ;

Power's agelong insult ! dost thou still Till, like a delicate subtle flame, it won
aspire ? Its way to yonder battlements of ice,

Lo now the dazzling violet serpents

! dart Exhaling there in silver paradise.
To maim your grandeur and you ! cleave As from some luminous aerial places,
apart And sweet serenely-modulated faces ;
Hark ! how stone tears do ponderously roll Dissolving now, an overblown faint flower,
Down the torn flank — so slides a human soul Into a perfumed stillness evermore.
K
 ! !: — ;

146 "THE PITY OF IT"

'THE PITY OF IT" A SONG AT A WATERFALL

If our love may fail, Lily, Athwart the voice of a wild water,
If our love may fail, Falling for ever,
What will mere life avail, Lily. Do I hear some song of the foam's daughter
Mere life avail? Fairily quiver ?

Issong of a naiad, or bee.

it
Seed that promised blossom, Or a breeze from the tree,
Withered in the mould !
Haunting the cave of the wild water ?
Pale petals overblowing,
Failing from the gold ! For evermore leapeth the fall plashing
Into a pool.
When the fervent fingers
And nigh me. away from the foam flashing.
Listlessly enclose.
Quiet and cool
May the life that lingers
Lies a hyaline gulf olive-green.
Find repose, Lily,
Where ferns overlean.
Find repose And boughs embower the wave washing.

Who may dream of all the music

In a clear hyaline, lo ! the leaves waver,
Only a lover hears,
While, as a cloud,
Hearkening to hearts triumphant
Stones below melt in the pool-quaver :

Bearing down the years ?

And with the loud
Ah ! may eternal anthems dwindle
Shout of the waters blithe
To a low sound of tears ?
Mingles, airy and lithe,
Room ages
in all the A tune, like a lingering flavour-savour,

For our love to grow,

Fearless fronteth the sound-ocean.
Prayers of both demanded
Even as a bird
A little while ago
Breasting the resonant storm-motion :

And now a few poor moments, Low is it heard.

Between life and death, Sundering soft the cold
May be proven all too ample Roar, like a gleam of gold,
For love's breath Wandering warm with a mild motion :

Seed that promised blossom, Visiting every flower blossom,

Withered in the mould !

A humming-bird
Pale petals overblowing, Floats and falls on the wind's bosom

Failing from the gold !

Many a word.
'Tis ne'er a naiad who sings.
I well believe the fault lay Nor aught with wings,
More with me than you, But a maiden fair as the foam blossom !

But I feel the shadow closing

Cold about us two. For now, disentangling the tree-cover,
Resteth she fair

An hour may yet be yielded us. On a stone, a mere child ; and her own lover,
Or a very little more All unaware
Then a few tears, and silence Of a heaven in her, laughs free ;

For evermore, Lily, While blithe as a bee

For evermore ! Singing she roameth the world over.
 ! ! !! !!! ; !

A SICK MOTHER TO HER BLIND CHILD 147

Ah ! sweeter far than the fall roaring, Eric, my beautiful, lie thou asleep.
Or any wild sound, Vanishing blossom !

Is the carol of thy young life pouring Our mystic Mother will inviolate keep
Joyance around ! Thee with her buried seeds, until ye leap
Yet a vanishing voice of the spring, Blithe from her bosom !

With a fleeting wing,

Is thine in the realm of the long roaring

For the bee will go from the wild water,

A LADY TO A LOVER
With blossom and breeze
And thou, more fair than the foam's daughter, If the sun low down in the West, my friend,
Even as these. Filled earth with fiery wine.
Wilt fade with the hours away If a hand were on my breast, my friend,
From the weary play. And lips were laid on mine.
And the wilderinij roar of the wild water !
And we together
Insummer weather
Lay in a leafy dell.
ERIC A DIRGE :
Could the weariness,
Or the long distress.
Eric, the beautiful, is gone to sleep: Or any fiends from hell,
Soft, lest he wake Wipe out that hour of rest, my fi-iend.

Eric, thy slumber is so very deep, And the rapture all divine ?

We may not ruffle it, howe'er we weep, Then if thy blade were buried deep
Never awake thee Within this heart of mine,
From the warm whiteness fierce would leap
Morning, the beautiful, will soon arise
My blood like wine;
fiery
Out of her sleep.
Earth about the West,
all my firiend,
Feel for the dawn of thine auroral eyes
After orgies of rich wine,
Answering hers nay, thou wilt not arise,
;
Wan lying in the sun's decline.
Wboever weep thee And arms of thine, my friend.
I in

Thy mother tearless kneels beside her boy :

In dying arms of thine !

Eric, awake
Thy sisters fading, thou wert all her joy :

Eric, thou vanishest, her last, her boy :

Let her awake thee A SICK MOTHER TO HER

We yield thee to the tender earth to-morrow, BLIND CHILD
Eric, my love :

MY love-laden
Lo ! how the wind wails ! ours are wrong
Own little maiden,
and sorrow :

Though it is night to thee,

No fear, nor sin, nor storm, to-day, to-
Yet is it light to me.
morrow,
Sweetly appealing,
Nor ever move thee
Movest thou feeling
I would be with thee by the warm South Sea, All the way nigh to me,
Lulled into rest Me who can see.
Yet the world-soul abideth even with me. 1 may not fly to thee,
Here in the life-storm, whose dim anarchy Only reply to thee.
May ne'er molest thee ! Asking of me.
 : : ! 1 "

I4S WAR
" Pray, mother, teach me Yet in the end, '
It is finished !
' was my cry.

How I may reach thee ! Yielding my spirit how confidingly

Only come merrily : Into his hands, because I knew that He

Feel the way cheerily ! Would yield my holy, happy kingdom birth.
A little more prayerful For which my heart was broken upon earth."
Faltering careful
Surely will bring to me,
Siege
Lead thee to rest
Then shalt thou cling to me, Maternal veins unnourished may yield
And I will sing to thee, them now no more
Laid on my breast Their needful food, and they are carried
from the door,
Cold in little coffins, fresh flowers in their
breast.
WAR: 1870- With pale, starved mothers giving thanks
that they are gone to rest.
Christ Last Christmas eve a father talked with such
Of all portrayals of the Son of Man a mother
I love the dim portrayal at Milan, Of how next year their youngest born, the
Where among those few friends He sits apart, tiny baby brother,
With the burden of a world upon his heart. Would be ready, like his sister now, to have
The Man of Sorrows doth He year by year I the tiny shoes
Fade from the world's heart, as He fades Put out before the nursery door, as little
from here ? children use ;

Ah ! but the sorrow, the sorrow will not fade, To be filled with dainty trifles, tokens of
Though the Consoler in the grave be laid parental love, !

Doth He not seem rather to make long pause Which are innocently feigned to be mys-
In this dim place, waiting until his cause terious treasure-trove,
Triumph at last, yet evermore to fade Brought while they sleep for babes by Jesus,
Under this agelong disappointment laid holy child above.
On Him, because the victory is delayed? Alas ! before this Christmas came, the merry
Hence the mute woe his countenance yel and boy
girl
wears Both vanished from the humble hearth ; and
" Is it not more than eighteen hundred years? all the mother's joy
And still I see my children bathed in tears ; Dwindled into a laying wreaths on each
Still with their greed for gain, their lust for fresh-mounded grave.
power. Hoping that she may join them soon, and
Men in high places do my little ones devour. her slaughtered soldier brave.
Was it for nought the life of loneliness,
Lacerate with alien distress
all ;

This tenderest heart of me, thehuman lover, Rulers

Wrung for men's cruel selfishness all over? Ye who prefer loud claim to lead mankind,
Was it for nought the unutterable agony Those armies labouring ever weary and blind !

Among those olives of Gethseniane ? When they have seemed to win some miles
F(jr nought that hour supreme upon the cross, of way
When all the desolation of their loss For all their errors and circuitous delay.
Rose a wan cloud before me, dying alone, For alllong anguish of their multitude.
Hiding the Father even from the Son ? And piteous bones of impotent heroes strewed
 — ! ! ! : :! ! : !:

WAR 149

Along the ages, is it a light thing ye . . . An Empire floats a banner.

Would thrust them backward many a century? Sable and white and red,
Is it a small thing ye have nursed the fire Dyed with ravine and famine and plague,
Malign of blind inherited desire, And blood of the innocent dead :

If so ye may reinstate Fraud with Force Black with pestilence, white with famine, red
On their old thrones, and miserable man with the innocent dead I

divorce
From life, from light, from Liberty the bride,

A holy love, and a celestial guide ?

Franc-Tireurs
Ye trouble our slowly clearing airs of Peace, I see three boys of very tender years,
Lest in the strengthening sunlight may Shoeless and ragged, trembling, shedding
increase tears,
Shy human happiness, and men mature release Hurried along by a ferocious guard
From shameful fume-fed slumbers ye impose, Of foreign soldiers to their meet reward.
That human souls may grovel for you, your Are they not criminals of deepest dye ?
pillows of repose I These have arisen for hearth and family !

'Tis wan cold morning hark the musket : !

Behold the vessel of Human Destiny, rattle

A hull dismasted, flounders pitifully These murdered innocents are not slain in
Though on a foaming sea by night she drift, battle
A few pale stars fly hurrying in the rift, I do not love to hear a gentle hare

And she floats onward lo some sheltering

: ! Scream when, arising from her flowery lair,
port The sportsman wounds her with his cruel gun,
Hath lit the beacon : here may she resort And the wood crimsons wheresoe'er she run
Awhile ; she hails the light — she grates the Yet less endure to view the barrels gleam
rock Yonder, to hear the sickening human scream
And shuddering staggers shattered with the Of those three patriot children biting dust,
shock While agonising forest boughs are thrust
Ye, ye, the wreckers, lit your specious lie Athwart the glare of a red rising sun,
To lure lost men to this extremity As they would hide from him the dastard
Now, like infernal fiends, ye scour the shore, infamy done
To plunder and slay the drowning 'mid the
roar: Under some trees not very far from there
Some shall escape your treacherous royal Lies an old man with soiled silver hair
hands. Here for France
all alone the patriot fired
And sail anew, and find the far-off lands : Upon
two strive to wrench the lance,
the foe ;

Shall not their fierce free children yet embrue Wherewith they have bored him, from the
Their hands, crowned pirates ! in the blood frame that quivers :

of you ? Yet see in very labour of death he shivers

With his good gun the German skull of one
A moment only front the fearful sight Four more fierce bullets, ere the work be
Do not all angels, shrinking with affright, done,
Turn from our world their wounded heavenly In blundering fury must the hordes dis-
faces, charge,
To find in stars remote more hopeful dwelling- Ere they may set this rampant soul at large,
places, The formidable tortured ghost within,
Where never sound may reach them more Which all in darkening smiles up<jn the sin,
from our lost, ruined races ? . . . That shall be wrought for vengeance in Berlin
 ; : ; : ; —
:: !
;!

ISO WAR
Yet hearken there are cries upon the air
!

The Village Pause, lover of our race, pause, and despair

Rests on the meek head of a pastoral hill Where lately bloomed a garden full of flowers,
A village whence, when summer skies are still, On the wet, trampled ground awoman cowers;
You see a lapse of wandering silver glance A woman with a baby at her breast
Near and afar among fair meads of France, Weeps with low wailing chin upon his chest,
:

Along her poplar-lines and pasture-lands :

With folded arms the man against a wall
Here in the hamlet many a cottage stands, In moody silence leans from forth a pall ;

The little all of simple country folk. Of snow three rudely-carven wooden crosses
Who sow the seasonable seed, who yoke Mark in yon field where moulder many
Slow oxen to the ploughs or laden wains, corses
Who bind in sheaves the mellow, foodful There waved a harvest yet befouled in mire
!

grains. Sweet human food lies, where the hosts of

Here in their native soil their lives are rooted, fire

Like their own trees all rosy and purple Went devastating with remorseless tramp
fruited Yonder thin snows are thawing ; all the
To them their humble church is heaven on damp
earth Earth has been torn to many a ragged pit,
The hoary priest received them at their birth Where each fire-entrailed, moaning, mangling
Into the world, God's minister, and he, bolt aht.
Their friend through life, at the end of life Two children in the neighbouring orchard go
will be Yet young full meaning of their loss to know.
Their angel, smoothing all the perilous way But solemnised with all their elders' woe
Into the realms of everlasting Day. And all the melancholy scene, they try
Under a bowered porch on summer eves Among charred fruits and branches to descry
Knits a blithe housewife, while among the Where hung so lately their own favourite
leaves swing.
Of pleasant orchards near two children laugh, Finding, poor babes ! a pleasure in wondering.
Pierrot and Marie ; in the swing they quaff Not now one views the river glancing far
Delightful breezes, and the father hears, Among fair meadows, like a scimitar
Returning 'mid the simmering barley ears. But nearer, over sodden, sullen soil,
Somewhat, like one interminable toil
Alas ! their village feels the winter snow Of worm uncoiling, dusk, appears to wind
Soiled, thawing, whitening her roadway now Slow through the mist, impalpably defined,
And round her walls chill winds of winter Along a hedgerow line, obscure and dank
blow. It is the serried foeman's cruel crawling rank
Around her walls! ah! gazer, what of these?
They are more piteous than leafless trees!
Ruins unroofed, begrimed with flame and Sedan
smoke, The looms are broken, the looms are hushed.
On either side the one wide way invoke And a broken, weary man
With dumb, unconscious eloquence of woe Sits near a child, with fever flushed.
His pity, who knew them three brief moons In a cottage of Sedan.
ago:
Dreary from forth a dreary mist they loom, The mother starved with him, the weaver.
I'lach, as he nears them, silent with one doom, To feed their little child.
A cheery home, now wrecked and tenantless. Who lies now low with famine fever,
Like a marred face grown vacant with distress. That slew the mother mild.
 ! :

WAR 151

The room is desolate the ; store Feebly in sinking cling their hearts to some
Has dwindled very low ; Afar, who wait beloved home,
them in a
All a poor housewife's pride of yore Who with pale cheek, with blanched, quiver-
Was plundered of the foe. ing lips
Will tear the letter dim with life's eclipse.

And a father cowers over grey Mournful the sufferers that eve foresee,
Wood-ashes barely warm ; Not far from now, when dear ones with a tree,
He feels the child is going away There in the fatherland, in Germany,
In the pitiless, pale storm. Glistering *oys and trinkets will entwine ;
With twigs of fir, where coloured tapers fine
He knows an emperor lost a crown Glisten less lovely than the children's eyes,
Here in his own Sedan ; Who with sweet exclamations of surprise
And he knows an emperor gained a crown, Find out new blisses widows worn the while
;

The solitary man. Melting a rising sob into a smile ;

For well they know that, lying yonder, he,

He hears the voice of a world that sings On whom the nightly snow falls quietly,
The spectacle sublime ; Would mutual treasure
love to feel their little

Yet only heeds one life that clings Passed even this Christmas with an all un-
To his own a little time clouded pleasure !

I wonder, if the Christ beholds Ah ! but the church — it is a ghastly scene

With eyes divinely deep, Consoling ministers of mercy lean
Whom to his heart He nearest holds. Over confused shapes by candle gleam :

The kings, or these that weep ? These have rent clothing soiled, with dull
red stream
Who seem more royal and more tall Of ebbing life discoloured while some die ;

In calm, pure light from God, In silence, others with a tortured cry
These crowned colossal things that crawl, Rend the foul air yet others near the door,
:

Or lowly souls they trod ? A variegated medley, strew the floor

(Teuton with Frank, turban with helmet blent,
These purple, laurelled kings we hail In diverse garb and war-accoutrement).
With banner and battle-blare, Conversing, grimed with battle smoke, and
Or him who writhes beneath their trail. dust
A pauper in despair ; Of toilsome march; they munch the wheaten
Conquered and conquerors of Sedan, crust,
Or a dying child and a starving man ? Or moodily exhale a soothing mist.
Or drink from glimmering metal as they list.

But yonder, over the faint sufterers.

The Wounded Half in dim shining, half in shadow, stirs
In one dim church, after a bloody fray, With wandering wind some painted canvas,
Lie wounded men with swathed limbs, and torn
grey, In that blind havoc of mad battle born:
Wan, fainting faces, down the solemn nave : Surely it is the Sufferer Divine
Women are ministering all they crave, Upon the cross ! while under Him recline
Sisters of Mercy, daughters of the Lord I These last inheritors of agony.
Many will die, for all they may afford Behold, the piteous portraiture on high
Of refuge though the healers with sharp pain Hath in that very heart of Christ a rent,
;

Have striven to heal them, all will be in vain! That tells of where one erring bullet went !
 — ! : ;; : ; ! ;

152 WAR
With giant folds imperially red
A Vision of War His huge, mailed body on his grizzly head
;

A brazen helm he dark surveys the dead

;

I stood by night upon a reeking plain

Dilate with cruel, unwholesome arrogance
Among stark, stiffened hecatombs of slain,
The countenance
dictatorial form, the
Who blankly stare into the sullen skies
Swollen with glutted vengeance things un- ;

With glassy, sightless, widely-open eyes.

sweet
The night was moonless, dense with storm-
As fumes that bloat yon corses at his feet.
ful cloud,
Whence hath the robe drunk purple ? there
And muffled all, nor aught to sight allowed,
is hung
Save in large livid lightning's ghastly glare
A collar of torn hearts that he hath wrung
Over the dead men with their awful stare.
About his neck, for royal collar slung
Upon a rising ground some ruins riven Chains of wrought gold that blaze with many
Of a burnt village, whence the dwellers driven
a gem
Fled from a ravening fire with ne'er a home.
In snaky twine contorted over them
Stand in the cold flame desolate and dumb.
His martial plume, a swath of foodless grain,
Some curl in attitudes of mortal anguish ;
Trodden, or scorched, or sodden with late
Some with a burning thirst low moaning
rain.
languish
Tear-blotled letters from far homes are
In their own life-blood, helpless underneath
strown
A heavy horror that hath ceased to breathe.
Under his horse-hoofs, or inanimate blown
This form that feels hath hair and beard of
Of gusty winds, the words upon them traced
grey;
Weil nigh, like lives of those who wrote,
The overlying corse fair curls, but they
effaced.
Are marred with crimson this was a fair boy,
:

mother and
He looks the incarnation of old War,
Stay of a widowed her joy ;
Resembling an imperial Conqueror,
A tender girl awaits the comely youth,
To whom plighted a pure maiden troth
is Low thunder with rare intermission growled,
These two, late locked in a death-grapple wild, Wherein were mingled cries of wolves that
Might they not be a father and his child, howled.
Lying together very still and mild ? I saw one straining, gaunt and fiery-eyed,
While many a fearful, formless, mangled Held by the King in leash whose awful side
;

thing. It sprang anon away from, fiercely hounded;

That once was human, blends with littering And woe is me who witnessed where it
!

Of tumbril-wheel, of cannon-carriage wrack. bounded.

Rifle with sword, and soldier's haversack. A little child in sad astonishment
Ihad beheld, who with a woman went
But what arc these portentous Phantoms tall,
She sought distracted on the fearful plain
That rise before my spirit to appal ?
One special soldier among all the slain :

(Jne rides upon a pale colossal horse

That famished wolf was hounded on the pair
Wliich, with its head low, sniffs before a corse,
And with fire-fangs it healed a lorn despair
And shakes with terror : but the Rider swart.
Of supernatural height, of regal port. An Empire floats a banner,
Inhales the tainted air with nostrils wide, Sable and white and red,
.\nd face hard .set in a right royal pride. Dyed with ravine and famine and plague
One strong, red hand a blade that he has And blood of the innocent dead
bathed Black with ravine,
In a warm, living heart, holds reeking; White with famine,
swathed Red with the innocent dead
 : ! ; ; ! —
!! ! -

WAR 153

Yet a more hideous Phantom than the other In a welter of falling ruin fought,
Leaned on the War-shape, like its own twin While women sought
brother. With wavering feet.
A wan blue mist it seemed to emanate Scared children clutching close their dress,
From where the dead most thickly congre- Babes in their arms,
gate; Wildly to fly from hell's alarms
A crawling exhalation, yet anon Who if they 'scaped the seething press
A lank, tall body with the graveclothes on. Of murdering swarms,
It trailed and sloped o'er many miles of dead, Felt fiercer harms
Until it reached with a most fearful head A horrible doom of scorching breath
The bosom of the Warrior on the horse From flame that clung,
There leaned, fraternal, like a month-old corse To mother and child devouring hung,
Nay, somewhat otherwise rather methought
: Till all fell smouldering, heaped in death,
It wore aspect like one most loathsome, Charred heaps of death
fraught Encumbering flung
With such disease as by beleaguered Metz
Some saw who passed among the lazarettes. May roses bloom, roses bloom
Surely this was incarnate Pestilence In lost Bazeilles ?

Yet, as I shrank with shuddering from hence, Where flame, to stifle the human wail.
Itwore a face pale History shall remember Leapt, fuming, roaring over the doom
For his who slew his country one December. Of a living tomb,
He holds in skeleton semblance of a hand And the sun turned pale
A distaff broken, for symbol of command. Over lost Bazeilles

Not the eagle, but the vulture
Wheels above him, screaming now,
" I will yield my foul sepulture
To the murdered men below
Hoarsely croaks a carrion crow,
" Thou wert as a Pestilence
Rot abhorred in impotence!"
The Roses of Bazeilles^
Do the roses bloom, roses
In lost Bazeilles,
Where shrilled a terrible human
In the blasting blaze of a living tomb
Yea, roses blow, roses blow,
White rose with red,
From yon charred fragments of the dead,
"
! Crumbling chaos of friend and foe,
In a burnt-out woe.
With ruin fed
A rose shall blow, roses blow
In the heart of France,
Though demons in their orgies dance,
bloom And a hectoring, insolent, rude foe
Insult with a blow
wail Vanquished France
?

There they bloom Red rose of valour, rose of truth

In lost Bazeilles I
And of purity,
Deep-bosomed rose of integrity,
Where men, like fiends, with frenzy fraught,
Sweet white rose of innocent youth,
In a fiery street, A celestial growth.
In a whirl of bullets and flaming sleet, Bloom holily I

According to a letter from Mr. Bullock, in

1

the Daily News, when he visited Bazeilles a Rose shall be rife, roses blow rife

month or two after the burning, roses were From a fallen throne,
blooming there. Under whose shadowy shame lay prone
 ! : : : ! ! : " :

154
WAR
Nerveless a nation's nobler life ;
A German wears imperial
Purple Barbarossa lives
From manful spiritual strife, :

From healthful use of stalwart limbs, The ghost of a dark age revives.
Wherewith a soul or body climbs, And the heart of every freeman dies,
Seeing him rise
Debarred her stronger sons in chains,
1
:

A slow-souled vampire drained her veins

Pampered with shows and shames she lay. Yet roses flower, roses flower I

Poured out until this earth-convulsing day And liberty,

Glorious, ardent, springs to the sky,
Then with the shock.
With breath as of morning, to overpower
That made her throne to rock,
Slaves that cower
She rose dishevelled from her gory clay !

In apathy

France lies in ashes the nations pale :

Yea, roses bloom a rose shall bloom :

Behold dismayed
Over the earth an awful shade
stalks in feudal mail
Tyranny
O'er hearts that
And faiths that fade
In the grave of France,
Whose breath, as of morning, may re-entrance
The spectre, till he slink to the tomb.
fail,
His eternal doom
1

Breathed from France I

She in her lingering agony

Deep in a mountain's caverned hall,^
Dooms her tyrant with an eye
It is whispered low.
Charged with the light of liberty '.

Waits in a weird, sepulchral glow

An armed phantom, crowned and tall.
Whose hoary beard of centuries Ode to England
Grows on the grey stone where it lies ;
men
Arm! England, arm! for all point
While jewelled knights with glittering eyes
the finger
Glower round
Toward thee with scorn they little care to veil
In trance profound.
"Doth not the mouldering hull of England
linger
Anon, agelong intervals.
at
Upon her sea of gold, with idle sail?
The ghostly king Once she was other once we shrank dismayed
!

Sends a raven of sable wing Before the lightning of her baring blade ;
From his stupendous prison-walls. Once through the storm her ocean glory
To learn how near the fated hour. burst.
When he may reassume the power . . .

She, stormy petrel, she the ocean-nurst.

Behold ! no raven comes again. . . .

Upon her foes, who pale beheld the stream

Of herbright ensign, like Aurora, gleam
. . . Behold ! the raven devours the slain I
Over foam-billows bounding wild hurrah : !

Vaults asunder England is drowsier than at Trafalgar

!

Burst in thunder
Lo in the hall of mirrors yonder,
!
ArmEngland, arm
! the halcyon hour !

In a palace consecrate to all must wait

Agelong glories of the Gaul, When Love and Righteousness shall vanquish
1 The legend affirms that the Emperor Hate.
Barbarossa waits in a cavern of the Untersberg, Jesus of old was royal hailed in scorn
near Salzburg, for the reconstitution of the Now the world crowns Him — still it is with
German Empire. thorn I
 "! ! : : : — : :

THE CHILDREN'S GRASS 1 55

Nobles and kings go armed to the teeth Arm all thy children ! not a caste of drones
Lo where thy loving sister bleeds beneath
! Then shalt thou see those anarchs on their
Their haughty feet she calls thee to her side
: thrones
They clank their swords at thee with insolent Abase their domineering front — behold
pride. Helvetia, splendid, blithe, and bold I

" Old England, mumbling, paralysed, and The sons who breathe her liberal mountain
cold, air,

Shrinks closer clutching at her hoards of The men who scale her precipice and dare
!
gold All dangers of her bleak eternal snows,
Why should the mailed sons of tyranny taunt A race of hardy hunters, who repose
Thee, champion of the free, with windy Fearless beneath her sparkling stars, nor
vaunt ? blanch
Arm England, arm they mouth at Liberty,
! ! To dream their bed may prove a thunderous
Who with a mother's impulse turns to thee 1 avalanche,
Fairis our dream of universal peace ; Whose spirits with their native eagle soar.
But there be wolves, and lambs of tender Whose kindred souls dilating love the roar
fleece. Of icy cataracts, the Aar, the Rhine,
Tyranny summons all her swarms of slaves, The Rhone that foams among the murmuring
Horrent with weapons daughter of the : pine
waves Are these not armed ? Yea, every man will

Is it a time for thee to loll and bask. bleed

And murmur at the burden of thy casque ? For the fair land of Arnold Winkelried !

Yea, thou art sedulous to nurse thy health, France waved the banner of the free.
Resentful of a menace to thy wealth When it fell from the hands of Italy
But in the hour of thine extremity, ! —
Alas she fails but England, thou
Look for tear to cloud one eye
no pitying Hast a Daughter of starry brow.
Among the sister nations loitering by I Whose arms receive thy setting sun ;

Now that thy faithful friend is in the dust. She, in a forest vast and lone.
Whose features fair may next inflame the lust With awful gladness hears intone
Of her inexorable conqueror. Niagara, and the Amazon !

Or of his mailed kinsman emperor ? Freedom before her mountain citadel

If thou, the hope of Freedom, lie supine. Placed you, two giants, each her wakeful
Indifferent beyond thy belt of brine. sentinel I

Where Freedom wrestles with a libertine,

Beware for thine
Shall not God judge the race that cannot feel

Itself a member of one living commonweal ?

That nation dies elects to be alone ;

;
THE CHILDREN'S GRASS
Severed in sooth, dead lumber, shall be thrown
Among bare buried piles of bone !

Canst thou, then, fear to arm thy children free, Wherk the twinkling river pushes
Who cradled lay upon the bosom of Liberty? 'Thwart the dipping swan.
Whom from herself she nourished, whom All his ruffling down
with motion Very softly blown.
And lullabies of the everlasting ocean Lustrous blue reflects the rushes
She soothed from earliest infancy, Where the cool is gone ;
While, in loud winds and waves careering, she Thames, an innocent heart of childhood,
Sings to her mariners who rule the sea ! Buoying lovers from the wild wood.
 : : ; : :

156 THE CHILDREN'S GRASS

Hearing boyish laui^hter chime Two young children carry bright
Where the flashing oars keep time, Grasses in the room :

Where they quiver An elder sister with her mother

In the river Decks the blades with glass,
Sprinkles one and then another.
As with dews of grass.
In a sunshine sown with song How the vivid verdure gleams
Of many a merry bird, In the child's old face !

Three sunny children bound along, Starved and very pale she seems.
With many a merry word. With a hollow place
Their eyes blue fountains of delight, Dark beneath her eyes, how wearied,
And every cheek a rose, Lashless looking on the bleared
Their dimpled hands with grasses light Mimic grass,
So full, they hardly close. Dewed with glass!
One fawn-like little maiden falls
Hark she gives a feeble cough,
!

Breathless upon her mother. And the withered mother

Telling how yonder elf who calls.
Glances where some paces off
Her tiny wavering brother,
A cofiin holds another
Chose to pull the tender stems
Maiden very cold and white.
Where the dew-drop lingers,
Not yet hidden out of sight.
And marvelled when the limpid gems "Mother, I am very weary!"
Fell upon his fingers.
So she moans with accents dreary
She tells a soft-eyed rabbit brown " Mother, make my bed !"
Near a wimpling runnel "Child," the woman answers, "finish !

Eyed them askance, then hurried down Dare not from your task diminish
Through a plantain tunnel. Aught, for fear a watchful neighbour,
In the woodland sweetly smell
Bidding lower for the labour,
Fairy grass and clover,
Seize our bitter bread !'"
Sensitive in the woodland dell.
Ladies in a lustred hall
Where the bees hum over ;
Wear them gaily for a ball
"Oil love the summer well
In their fair
"
Mother, will it soon be over ?
Wavy hair.

" Mother, I can toil no longer ;

!
After sleep I shall be stronger " . . .

Where the unholy river gleameth, . . . After sleep, the child was dead.
Deep, and cold, and dun,
Hiding secrets from the sun,
There the unholy river gleameth.
As an awful dream one dreameth, Deep, and cold, and dun.
As Oblivion Hiding secrets from the sun,
As an awful dream one dreameth,
Three little children in the reek As Oblivion
Of the monster town.
With a woman worn and weak, Are not these thy children, Father ?
Ere the sun goes down, —
These or only those ?
Toil by flare of ghastly light Are all lost orphans rather?
In a dingy fume :
—
Of whom none icnows.
 ! ; ; : ! ! ; : ; ! ! : ; ; ; ;

THE CHILDREN BY THE SEA 157

Day and nightit clings to me,

THE CHILDREN BY THE SEA A child's low wail of misery

I see the faded purple dress.
Ah ! merry children on the smooth sea sand, The little steps of weariness
Floating toy-navies, with your spades of Wavering home in their distress.
wood The blow falls I may not arrest
Delving until the salt sea-water stand The child hangs on my helpless breast.
In moat-like hollows, with a mimic flood Death take all of us to rest
Girdling a mimic fort or gathering shells ; Sea ard sky glow around that form !

And briny delicate sea- weed; how the air Cease, idle breeze his tears are warm
! :

Blows inglad faces, and the wave compels Fall on us, giddy cliffs we are born ;

Your flight with laughter, leaving a crystal For a fiend's ghastly mockery and scorn !

rare
Upon the ripple-pencilled sand how fair
1 Man, forbear
Life seems, the very weary life we know, Before this arid waste of human life.

In your exuberant play, that loves to Before the illusive glory, and the strife,

feign With Fate that baffles, with a stifling coil

Age has arrived Ah life will never glow Of Sin that conquers ere the weary toil
1 I ;

For you as now when you are old remain For food which turns to ashes in the mouth ;

Children for ever common things ye deem ! Before our darlings vanish, and the drouth
Miraculous joy battle and storm and death Of souls athirst for Truth and Righteous-
;

With swift bright gesture, eager eyes, ye ness,

dream Beauty and Love, who only feign to bless
Breeze blows bright hair of curled blue Ere feeling no expense of passionate breath
billows too Stays the stern Hand that never faltereth,
But sparkling waves less merrily dance than Pushing us nearer to the abyss of death—
you! For little children shines one happy hour
In youth's fair morning land, a land in flower,
Apart from these one little boy, Tended of angels, folded from the world,
Listless fingering a toy, A haven where the stainless sail is furled:
With dim dull eyes and darkened face, A realm of faery, a delicious place,
Seemed a cloud upon the place. Fresh with young dews of love and human
Sittingon a stone, there lowered grace
Some man who showered
black-vestured Here, like soft lambs, in the ever- living sun
Shameful words upon the child, Innocent children leap, and laugh, and
And later, when he feebly smiled. run
Struck him with a cruel oath Here a perennial fountain springs to light,
Him and my heart he wounded both. : .\nd with a misty silver-rainbow dight
That was his father; tears fell slow ;
W"oos an eternal verdure from the earth
I heard his bitter crying low. Where in a gleam of ever-murmuring mirth
Dwindled all the shouts of joy Bathe pure white children, they who seem to
To the sobbing of a boy borrow
Death fell over sky and ocean, Bliss from sweet lower lives, that fear no
Paralysing happy motion. morrow
A helpless child, behold it cower Whom if a momentary pain annoy,
Yet, ah ! the desolating power 'Tis but a breezy ruffling of the joy.
Withering green earth I trod, All holy generous human spirits bend
A small hand shook the throne of God. Lowlily here, with looks of light that lend
 ; ! ! ! ; : : :
! ! : :

158 AZRAEL

Warmth and fresh lustre to the home of

Youth, AZRAEL
Wonder and Faith, and Ecstasy and Truth
A DREAM OF PLEASURE
Jesus, the child, the Lord of Love and
Ruth, " Asrael, the angel of death."
Reigns over Love's lacerated Lord
all,

And till the demon with a flaming sword Mourn for Annabel
Drives one and then another to the wild. The village bellis tolling, and she will

We bless the Saviour for a little child. Never arise from where she lieth still,
Cold and so lovely, flowers white and red.
Man, forbear Old dames and tender damozels have shed
Nay ! not for every little child we praise Tearful, all over her, in shadowy air
For what yonder cloud upon the blaze?
is Alive with perfume curling blue and rare,
Among the happy lies one little thing Jewels and gold and jasper glowing deep
Weeping, and over him a torturing As in a dreamland of a solemn sleep,
Fiend men call Father all are happy here. : With solemn music plaining while the
Saving this one who feels the mortal fear, mourners weep.
And agonises; all before the gloom
Of life have respite, but one suffers doom Fair Azrael, with Annabel the child
From dawn to sunset even this holy gnMuid Of Southern
; suns, a panther supple and wild,
Is not forinnocence inviolate found ! Mellow and beautiful, the while one tarried
Even the charmed Eden Love hath fenced Far hence, a man she never loved but married,
from evil. Wandered in sweet communion day and night
Insolently desecrated by the Devil Within her garden, shielded from the light
Even his small birthright of dissolving bliss Of suns too violent, under pensile palm,
Torn from a tiny helpless child like this, And aromatic, glossy-leaved calm
Ghastly reflecting in a babe's despair Orange, with lemon wedding boughs above ;
Cain's brand of wrinkled infamy and care ! In whose green twilight bridal blooms of
Child thou arraignest on his throne sub-
! love
lime Bud, and expand their petals, till they shed
Him whom our fathers trusted, for the crime Lavish white coronals on either head,
That smote thee flaunts triumphant in his On lustrous ebony and golden head.
face They wandered where a soft .Eolian sea
And Love may only tearful eyes abase. Fills far oft" with profound tranquillity
While Fate o'erwhelms his glory with dis- Half of the interval, which lies between
grace ! Shadowy cypresses and pines that lean
. . . Man, forbear Over the sunlight half is filled with air
;

Who withers hearts around him with his frown Azure as ocean ; near, a fountain fair
Creates a parching desert for his own. vSinging springs ever 'thwart blue air and main,
Yea, all good angels, when thou art athirst A shifting snowcloud, twinkling into rain,
In flame, shall fly from thee, O man accurst Drifting to fume that feeds earth's emerald
Lo ! the avenging little children run Anon their dreamy vision is enthralled
Out of their sea and land graves, wicked one With scintillating of a ruftied ocean
Moan thou beneath the body of thy son ! Among thin olive-foliage in motion
Ah let us hope that Jesus yet may fold
! Seaward from flowers around their feet a lawn
Within his bosom the lamb lost and cold, Slopes ; all the greenery's a haunt of faun.
Lead him to rest where sunny pastures lie, Or nymph marmoreal : from shade to shade
And where still waters flow eternally ! On the sea-lustre glows and glides to fade,

many a wing-like sail
Swiftly and silent,
Of bark aerial never seems to fail
; But very gently will she feign to smite.
Some new surprise of freshly-flowing joy,
Wafting young lives afar from all annoy.
Eros and Psyche in white marljle embrace,
Whom lustrous-leaved camellias enlace
In light and shadow of a terebinth,
Elsewhere, upon a myrtle-inwoven plinth,
Heavenly Hebe her perennial charm
Unfolds ;
young Dionysos a lithe
Curls over lovelocks, and a rounded form,
In fair profusion of lit vine-leaves warm.
When either Phidian image glows
Lavish around them, or at eve reposes
Flushed with a glory, breatheth every one
Alive, a new bride of Pygmalion.
Sweet Mitylene, isle of love and song.
Two fair young lovers for an hour prolong
Reverberate modulations from the lyre.
Whose soul still haunts thee with voluptuous
fire!
Sappho, Arion, and Terpander breathe
O'er hill and valley lawny mists enwreathe
;
Faintly before all lovers oversea
A mountain, hued like flowers of memory
Where Aphrodite, born of Paphian foam,
Found the fair shepherd in his piny home.
And where, on Ida, an imperial Bird
Ravished a fairer from his pipes and herd.
They read or sang sweet songs,
star
Thrilled in a roseate eve to her guitar.
She wore pomegranate crimson in her hair,
Around her waist and shoulders only rare
Silk from Olympian looms, like gossamer
While languid pearls lay heavingly on her
Virginal bosom ambergris and myrrh
;
Enkindling breathe from ocean-blue enamel,
Whose misty fervours golden lids entrammel
And while they taste a bright Methymnian
wine,
Amber-inhaled ambrosial fumes entwine
Delicious dream around them fingers fine :
Fill often his half-laughing, amorous lips
With pleasant, garnet-hued pomegranate pips,
Or luscious, lucent dainties that her skill
Can from sweet, crimson-hearted fruits distil. That seemed to flow at intervals and fail.
: :
AZRAEL 159
If with his wanton mouth he gently bite,
Three interlaced half-moons of diamond
Thrill for rich ecstasy to link, with frond
Of fern-wrought rubies, on her balmy breast
Her silk translucency of filmy vest.
He wore a slumbrous oriental gold
Dusky with silk inwoven, half unrolled
From a white bosom of ideal mould.
arm
Once when a silver-clanging chime
Told the stealthy flight of time,
in roses They left a cedar-raftered chamber.
Where oil in opaline and amber
Gleamed, as mildest lamps are able,
Over furs of lynx and sable ;
Crimson wools, Iranian fur
Of panther, pard, or miniver.
And while they went, some drowsy doves
In holm and laurel flew like loves
Over them; the mild fireflies
Gleamed before their happy eyes.
Fair was the night when youth and lady
;
stept
From where their lemon-tinted villa slept.
With balustrade and roofing palely grey.
Laved of the moon, beneath a grove that lay
Under enchantment, to a hushful bower
Of bay and asphodel, with passion flower
and oft a Inwoven it was warm and dusk therein,
:
And delicate foliage made a shadowy thin
Lacework suspended in aerial blue
over where they two,
Silver}' twilight,
Muffled in mossful secrecy, reclined
;
Nigh one another, Azrael behind.
" In the tree
A murmur, as of indolent shed sea
On sands at midnight ceasing slumbrously !
Through dim, uncoloured leaves
An elfin glimmer cleaves
A varying way from realms of mystery."
So sang she softly to her soft guitar,
And ceased and both were silent, hearing
;
far
The bubbling fountain, and a nightingale,
 : : : : " ;

i6o SAN ROCCO

Her face for him was pencilled pure and fine He whispered, after pausing: "all's a
Athwart the gloaming and, " O lady mine,"
!

; dream
He whispered, "how adorable are you She murmured, "Ah! how heavenly a
To-night forgive me " till there softly grew
I
!
dream " ! . . .

A tender arm around her form, and she . .Out of the shadow flashed a steely
.

Yielded and leaned on him responsively. gleam

Until his blood ran fire when she pressed Her own death-shriek awoke her, and she fell
Her dewy, ripe young lips upon his breast, At the feet of her angel Azrael.
Moonwhite moonlight for a ray had come
in ;

To nestle in the fair, congenial home. Mourn for Annabel I

Then mouth burned mouth, her undulating
charms
Yielding to his luxurious young arms.
Later, in sweet confusion's disarray.
Hand in hand stole they
Where a pale foam stole
And kissed the pale rock ever murmurously.
Cypress leaned mournful over, and a throng
Of hushful moonwhite houses lay along
Yon circling shoreside, minarets,
Arising and slender into air
tall
The village bell is tolling, and she will
Never arise from where she lieth still,
Cold and so lovely, flowers white and red.
Old dames and tender damozels have shed
to a little bay, Tearful, all over her, in shadowy air
out of a grey sea. Alive with perfume curling blue and rare.
Jewels and gold and jasper glowing deep
As in a dreamland of a solemn sleep,
With solemn music plaining while the
how fair ! mourners weep.

A chaunt was wafted from a fisher's boat,

Dozing upon the pearl with nets afloat.
Shadowy, folding mountains from the sea
SAN ROCCO
Rise to enclose the bay's chalcedony
There is a little chapel rude
Ida beyond, dim silvered of the moon,
On a terraced hill,
Soars with her snow in some enchanted
With cypress round the solitude
swoon
Of a platform still;
Delicate shells with whorl, and valve, and
spire
Cypress flames of darkling green.
Gleam in a rhythmic phosphorescent fire.
Rich athwart the blue ;
Silently dreams near yonder myrtle brake Fair among them ocean-sheen
An egret, plumed as with a soft snowflake,
Softly twinkles through.
Like a pure soul by some celestial lake.
Lo ! now the lovers' dainty limbs will lave Within one open end, in line,
In the delicious coolness of the wave. Vessels rudely made
Hang, with perils of the brine
" with thee,
I
On either wall, displayed.
By fringes of the pale, enamoured sea.
On the shore's bosom dying dreamfully, Each unskilful picture shows.
.Singing in the leaves, On the marge, a form
Love it is who weaves Of Her who, when the whirlwind blows,
Around our hearts a heavenly mystery!" Saveth men from storm.
Then as they neared their villa, in a tunnel
Of oranges where purls a crystal runnel, There a lamp of silver gleams,
A rustle in the trees she thought she heard, Like an evening star
And deemed she saw a shadow; " 'Tis a O'er a spangled altar beams.
bird," In twilight cool afar.
 : : : ! " ! ! :: !! ! !!

A SEA SYMPHONY l6i

Home-bound sailors from the deep, A SEA SYMPHONY

When the belfry small
Of San Rocco on the steep I

First appeareth, fall Tempest

Ocean, eternal mother of the free
At our Lady's feet of grace Thine uproar is the sound of Liberty.
When a woman old, Shout forth a clarion-call tempestuously
Gaunt and homeliest of her race, " England, though comfortable sleep be sweet.
Falteringly told Whispering emperors ominously meet
What if they murder Freedom, murder man ?
The story of her son to me, Shall not thy rent red flag inflame the van
A bold young mariner. Of battle as erst? Arouse thee unto war!
How once he sailed, and from the sea Hearken how thunderpeals from Trafalgar,
Came ne'er again to her ; Nile, and the Baltic, thine heroic past.
Fill loud my clarions of surge and blast
And how he vowed before he sailed, Awake ! for fear thy lethargy may prove the
If ever he returned, last
!

His votive vessel should be nailed,

And in the lamp be burned Grand lion-leap of billows ! how they fall,

Plunging with hunger to devour the shore

His votive amber oil above, Hurled mountain of blown billow 'thwart the
wall
At yonder mountain shrine.
Where perilled sailors prove their love
Of cliff precipitous bursting with stupendous
roar
To Mary the Divine ;
Cavernous halls of hoary mountains under
Where every pious mariner
Shake with a shock of subterranean thunder,
Leaves a lowly gift for Her Rumble with roll of long reverberate thunder
;
Crushed all the turbid water-mountain toils,
Fair the mother was with tears.
For all her homeliness and years. Whose slain, immense, pale, shadowy ghost
is thrown
Nervi.
High among hurrying storm-cloud, and recoils
Seethingly, limply plashing on the stone.
While underneath a baffled field of foam,
Poured out disorderly, retreats to rise
One fulvous mass of spume upon a dome
TO THE QUEEN Of wave colossal threatening the skies

Dear Lo as it sweeps
! imperial, the curl
loyal lady, tender and brave and
In toppling hangs arrested by a swirl
true,
Refluent baflled rears aloft to hurl
Dear lady of our loyal hearts are you !
;

All, one grim rampart perpendicular.

Who will dethrone a kindly human grace.
Bodily heavenward, whose wrestling froth,
To crown the bloodless huckster in your
In terrible welter of tumultuous wrath.
place ?

There
Flickers to momentary crags of spar ;
is a canker in the social core
And some would Headlong to ruin charges with an ocean jar,
fain persuade us that no
more A headlong ruin of water, heard inland afar
We need than civil change of name and Terrific hurricane of howling wind and sea
form Cower from the whirlwind, lest in scorn it
Ah ! specious pleading of the cankerworm I scatter thee
 ! — ! —— ! !! ! ! ! !

l62 A SEA SYMPHONY

Or fling thee in the ravening cauldron there To-day, among the "innumerable smile"
Cling to the rock — let tawny salt seafoam Of one who hides no wrath, nor harbours
flakes tear guile ;

Hissingly o'er thee from a turbulent despair
Shout forth thy drowned and feeble human
shout of joy,
In fellow-feeling with the elements, a toy
Ofthe blind Titans, yet a toy that knows.
. But what is this at hand that reels,
. .
and drifts, and bows?
Not helpless chaos of a huge oarweed,
Zephyr with his soft seaplume fans the while.
Quietly wander by the quiet shore.
To find enrapturing wonders more and more
Here, ankle-deep in valved shelly shingle.
. . . Merry young children, with white limbs
atingle.
Leap laughing, while a playful ripple blue
Merrily laves them ah how fair the hue
; !

Torn up and strewn far, senseless rage to feed Of azure sea set by a dovelike tone
A ship ! a ship ! a horrible vision here ! Of boulders, where I wander all alone!
One snapt mast with its tangling cordage-gear Now and then their prevailing hue will bring

Overboard flounders on the flooded deck ;

Aerial colour, soft as seamew wing,
Three scared men desperate clinging strain On water, modulating mirrored sky
the neck To filmy pureness of chalcedony.
To look for any help toward the rocky roar ;
In still sea- waters of a cove will grow

Whom Death alone confronts upon the awful Slim growths of plashing crystal, when there
shore flow,
A small black dog i' the hatchway yelping Oceanward tinkling, rillets from above,
piteously Born among hazels, while with ocean love
I see it still —a crash — anon victoriously Glisten low-lying rocks in many a cove.
Climb maniac cataracts upon rent planks and Weird block of waveworn labyrinthine grey,
corses clamorously Hollowed out, with small opening for day
Somewhere concealed as one explores, a fairy
II Or mermaiden may haunt thee, little wary
Of man's intrusion on her lonely spot,
Calm
Or sleepy seal may use thee, twilit grot
After two days I lay reclined in peace But many a wondrous cavern richly hued
Near the sea margin ; delicate soft fleece Quavers in delicate waterlight, imbued
Of cloud lay poised above me, and the sea Their dim recesses with a dusk maroon,
.Slumbered about her shores, how tranquilly Mossgreen or lilac, all a quiet tune
opened her blue eyes
Cicnlle as a child, she Of heaving water hearing, while sea-flowers
In murmurous foamsmile of a faint surprise. Crimson or wavegreen bud in all the bowers.
Touching the strand yon vaporous head- : This lofty cave's a gorgeous palace-gate,
lands are Where some Sea-Genius holds royal state:
Suffused with mellow sunlight, while afar Surely the stillness may invite to float
A nebulous isle half fades into the sky, Pensively hither in a slender boat,
Like some dear hoped-for possibility. And pore upon the faint seagroves remote
Hushful sea-murmur lulls all pain to sleep, Where now thy terrible moods, O sea? . . •

Breathing enchantment from the Holy Deep . . . But this ?

One feels so happy here, one fain would weep In yon dark fissure where an ocean-kiss
Among fair silver labyrinths a stain Tenderly falls in music, a dim mass
Of solemn purple on the lonely main Sways with a nigh impalpably-heaved glass:
Long from one cloud lies; in still mother o' Creep near ... it wears a horrible human
pearl shape
Yonder no white sail will a vessel furl An eyeless head is nodding from the nape.
 ! ; : ! :
;
!

A SEA SYMPHONY 163

Poor ghastly mockery of a human form, Ah were it she who came to seek the child
!

Jammed here in fierce delirium of storm ! His mother with a piteous gesture wild
!

And look a shadowy monster in the deep

! He turns and calls alas she will not come
: !

Looms huge and hungry near the awful sleep ! Dead mother knows not he is lost from home
Yonder a board swims rusty-nailed and rent, Dusk flaps a heavy-flighted cormorant,
Four painted letters with the tangle blent. Whereat the timorous breast begins to pant
There is a mellow, dark-eyed maid in Spain, What dwarfed old man distorted threatens
Who waits a token from a foreign main. him?
'Tis but a dry tree with blast-wrilhen limb

Ill
Now, chill at heart, wanderer weeps.
the little

And stumbles pale among the rugged steeps.

Twilight
But God hath pity on a babe's despair
A littlewandering child has lost his way For now he gains a summit unaware ;

On a hushed mountain at the close of day, There breaks upon his poor, tear-misted sight
On a brine-bitten waste that slopes to grey A blissful vision of supreme delight I

Abrupt where a melancholy sea

cliffs, Cheery near lights of houses in the town ;

Expands a far, slow-wrinkling mercury: And cheery murmuring human tones are
One cold, dim gleam, with three dark shadows blown
vast. Upon the wind towards him then the child !

From clouds immense in faded blues amassed, Thanked God who led him hither from the
Shadows that in a drear}' twilight brood wild ;

Portentous phantom Presences, imbued, Brushed with his hand the tears, and ran so
Silently awful, with a life not ours fast;
While on the seashore formidably lowers Clasped in his father's happy arms at last I

A corrugated monster bulk of stone ;

Some huge, unwieldy monster left alone. IV

Slumbrous aware, with face toward old Ocean,
Since some pre-human age when such as he
had motion.
Rude, samphired, pinnacled, great crags
arise
Sheer from dull seas into low, dusky skies
And one, a ghostly giant, leans athwart
Twilight, to watch him wandering, huge and
swart
Breeze
Climb upon yonder ivied neck of rock,
Flanked with twin chasms, and hear unrestful
shock
Of tidal water in the caves rebuffed.
; With fierce, impatient contumely cuffed,
Along the front of stern embattled coast.
Spat forth in spray firom sombre innermost
Hollows and ever heaving blindly under,
;

Through one wild arch in yonder cape wave- Blundering in with subterranean thunder !

worn Stumbling and fximbling, water in the caves,

Expands a dreary infinite forlorn. I.ikeastrange, sullen beast, assaults and braves
Infinite, pale, and dim and desolate. The rocky scorn for ever; chafed to froth,
Monotonous Ocean, with the Voice of Fate Bellowing snorts in impotent dull wrath ;

Breathes homeless, helpless, and disconsolate. So famished beast prowls ever, thrusting snout
Some sere, sparse mountain-bents moan Under his bars, in pain till he break out.
shivering. Yea, this immortal, subtle, importunate Sea,
As the gust wearies them, and withered ling. Conquers our stolid Earth implacably.
Near a path, pale with night that deepens Though round our ruined shores He laugh
round, and dally.
A ruinous gate stirs with an eerie sound. Chafing for war his proud battalions rally.
 ! ! ; ! ;
! ;; ! ! ! ;

164 A SEA SYMPHONY

See how the simmering wash of swelling wave Flirted with them, sung them !

Feels all alive along rich ooze of cave In the salt seatrough
Yon grand expansive green hath belts to-day He may win them, onward
Of blue and tawny, flecked with sparkling On a buoyant crest,
spray Far to seaward, sunward.
By the brisk breeze that blows with cheerful Oceanborne to rest
play, Wild wind will sing over him,
Wafting a merry crest in snowy smoke. And the free foam cover him.
Glassed in the billow while it tossed and Swimming seaward, sunward,
broke On a blithe sea-breast
And there evermore a restless wreath
is On a blithe sea-bosom
Around the innumerable sharp shark's teeth, Swims another too.
Black flames rough crusted, threatening fangs Swims a live sea-blossom,
of death. A grey-winged seamew
Grapegreen all the waves are.
Yonder, lo the tide is flowing;
! By whose hurrying line
Clamber, while the breeze is blowing, Half of ships and caves are
Down to where a soft foam flusters Buried under brine
Dulse and fairy feathery clusters Supple, shifting ranges
While it fills the shelly hollows, Lucent at the crest.
A swift sister billow follows, With pearly surface-changes
Leaps in hurrying with the tide, Never laid to rest:
Seems the lingering wave to chide Now a dripping gunwale
Both push on with eager life. Momently he sees,
And a gurgling show of strife. Now a fuming funnel.
the salt, refreshing air Or red flag in the breeze.
Shrilly blowing in the hair !
Arms flung open wide.
A keen, healthful savour haunts Lip the laughing sea
Sea-shell, sea-flower, and sea-plants. For playfellow, for bride.
Innocent billows on the strand Claim her impetuously
Leave a crystal over sand, Triumphantly exult with all the free
Whose thin ebbing soon is crossed Buoyant bounding splendour of the sea I

Of a crystal foam-enmossed, And if, while on the billow

Variegating silvergrey Wearily he lay,
Shell-empetalled sand in play: His awful wild playfellow
When from sand dries off the brine. Filled hi^ mouth with spray.
Vanishes swift shadow fine; Reft him of his breath,
But a wet sand is a glass To some far realms away
Where the plumy cloudlets pass. He would float with Death
Floating islands of the blue. Wild wind would sing over him,
Tender, shining, fair, and true. And the free foam cover him,
Waft him sleeping onward,
Who would linger idle, Floating seaward, sunward,
Dallying would lie, All alone with Death
When wind and wave, a bridal In a realm of wondrous dreams,
Celebrating, fly? And shadow-haunted ocean-gleams I

Let him plunge among them,

Who hath wooed enough, North Devon.
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA
1874
 —" ;

PREFACE
—
There is a disposition among some con- remoteness in the Past few imaginations
temporary critics to debar the Poet from being indeed adequate satisfactorily to realise
contemporary subjects. One critic alleges very different conditions of life and thought.
these to be essentially unpoetical. Another The name of little flutterers, whose inani-
— more skilled in delicate distinctions, and mate remains are strewn along the avenue
priding himself on the adroitness with which, that leads to the Temple of Fame, is Legion ;

as it were, by a dexterous turn of the wrist, but pseudo-classical and pseudo-mediseval

he can cause the fine edge of them to wound, versifiers are surely not inadequately repre-
without vulgarly and directly thrusting sented among them. Some indeed have
might prefer to say, apropos of each writer failed in poetically representing what passed
in turn who chooses such themes, that "at under their eyes, because the eyes of the
—
any rate this writer has not shown how con- soul were wanting the Poet's second sight.
temporary subjects may be made poetical Moreover, the genius of some true poets has
— which remark, however, the poet, if he be proved more at home in those rarer, yet still
a poet, can afford to treat simply as a piece to them living, regions of the Past. I do

of impertinence. He will have adapted his not think the age of Chaucer was much
workmanship, arrangement, and mode of more poetical than the age of Victor Hugo
expression to the nature of his subject- and Tennyson but Chaucer contrived to
:

matter. Perchance the problem of conciliat- see and represent his age poetically :and
ing superfine collegians, or light skirmishers though, perhaps, Tennyson's greatest works
detached from their main body in the shape have dealt with ideal, romantic, or classical
of certain "irresponsible reviewers," and at themes, he has shown himself master also
the same time satisfying intelligent readers in setting contemporary life to music. If
of poetry in general — unephemeral critics, Shakespeare wrote Julius Coesar, he also
who are beyond the passing fashion of a wrote Plenry VIII. and Hamlet is essentially
;

clique— may be a problem well-nigh as in- modern. Dante does not appear to have
soluble as that of perpetual motion. But if thought his own age unpoetic, though him-
so, a poet should be prepared with contempt self the master of ideal or spiritual creations.
and defiance only for the former. To me I Dante, and Milton, set the dominant theolo-
confess that it appears that Past and Present gies of their own day to music ; while Dante
are equally poetical, when regarded and is full of allusions to passing events. Homer
treated by a poet — equally unpoetical when did not endeavour to reproduce classically
regarded and treated by a mere versifier correct imitations of the poems he may have
though I am far from saying that every read in Egyptian papyri. Gama, the hero
particular time is fully as poetical as any of Camoens' epic, was still alive when the
other. But the present time seems by no poet was a boy and Camoens himself took
;

means deficient in that respect. No age is part in adventures similar to those which he
heroic to its valet-de-chambre ; —
and every relates indeed he contrives to relate what
age has many valets-de-chanibre. If there was actually happening in the Lusiad itself.
is danger from vulgar and debasing associa- Dryden wrote of Contemporary Politics
tions, and from fragmentary nearness, in the Pope sang the Rape of the Lock ; Byron
Present, which has not yet "orbed into the sang contemporary life in Childe Harold
perfect star," there is equal danger from and Don Juan ;Wordsworth also in some of
67

his greatest poems. So did Campbell,
Gray, and Goldsmith at their best while
Scott, if he sang of chivalry, sang at least
of Scotland. The greatest work of Goethe
is distinctly modern; so are the works of
Hugo and De Musset. Spenser, Chatterton,
Lander, and Keats, on the other hand
may one not add Mr. Browning? breathe
more freely in alien, or ideal, atmospheres
but then they do themselves breathe there
they do not merely simulate the accents of
those who once did so.
That events of our own time may be treated
poetically has been proved by our greatest
poetess, Mrs. Browning although, partly
; I
from the fact that England as a nation has
withdrawn herself more and more from active
participation in events of cosmopolitan in-
terest, our writers of verse have not recently
invited attention to contemporary themes
while studious readers have seemed disposed
to discourage such attempts. But two or
three genuine poets have quite lately made
successful efforts to break through a somewhat
vulgar, prosaic, and discreditable apathy
though it is one no doubt on which our
fashionable petite culture very much plumes
itself. In America we have, for instance,
Longfellow and Walt Whitman while in ;
England we have not only Arthur Clough,
and R. Buchanan, but also Mr. Swinburne,
who wrote recently the "Songs before Sun-
rise." These poets at all events have proved
that they do not, from feeling their own
impotence, desire to insult their Mother- Age,
and charge her with all the responsibility of
a defect, which after all may not be of quite
cosmical urgency. More recently still, Mr.
Alfred Austin seems to have comically dis-
proved his own somewhat juvenile criticism
on the futility of the age, and the consequent
inevitable futility of its poets, by himself
writing a really fine poem on contemporary
events, " Rome or Death."
However, in the following work I have
the so much desiderated advantage of remote-
ness — remoteness, if not in time, at least in
place. Africa is a long way off; Cook's
tourists do not go to Ujiji ; and both men
and nature in Africa are very different from
what they are immediately around us if
that be an advantage. My object has been
to sing the modern Explorer suggesting, —
dimly it may be, the Explorer, or Seeker, in
a wider sense. In an oasis of the Sahara,
— ; ! ;
PREFACE
and other remote regions, a poem on this
— subject dawned on me. It is a subject
peculiarly modern, peculiarly English, and
as I believe peculiarly poetical one destined,
;
moreover, to be always interesting. Even
the most jaded student, to whom life and
nature as he sees them are "flat, stale and
— unprofitable," must (one would fancy) be
interested in the records of exploration that
are published from time to time by great
travellers. At any rate young persons, and
persons young-hearted, though no longer
young in years, are appealed to in my poem.
I have done my best for its shortcomings,
:
must appeal to the indulgence of such
sympathetic readers as these. If I shall
have been enabled to impart to them any
measure of elevated enjoyment, I shall be
satisfied. The Explorer tji Africa, a most
;
ancient, till yesterday almost unknown land
North of which lies Egypt ; South of which
lies Ethiopia, and all her still half-hidden
marvels the very regions of earthly mystery ;
!
yet how profoundly and pathetically human
after all in their strange disclosures
Poets used to sing of heroes, and great
actions. I do not know why they should
now only spin subtle cobwebs out of their
own insides. Nor, however, do I know how
long a period must elapse, according to the
dogmas of "culture," before a mere dead
man may (by virtue of mischievous wor-
shipping and myth-making propensities un-
fortunately inherent in our race) be considered
as fairly canonised —
elevated to the dignity
of "a hero." But for my part, I used to
think Livingstone a true hero while he was
alive ; and my opinion of him is only not
changed now that he is dead. Our two
Florences, Florence Nightingale, and Florence
Lady Baker, moreover, appear to me to be
—
heroines though both of them (one is glad
to know) are still alive. Nor should those
brave exploring ladies, the Dutch Miss
Tinnes, be forgotten here. At any rate,
the figure of David Livingstone admirably
fills the shadowy, but colossal outlines of
the Explorer.
I have endeavoured to represent his life,
adventures, character and aims, with the
— accuracy of fact though in one instance I
:
have imagined a scene characteristic of a
phase of African experience, which would
otherwise have remained unillustrated ; but
this is a kind of experience which Livingstone
 :

PREFACE 169

might easily have passed through personally ; tion, enlightenment, and civilisation of the
and of course I have exercised a privilege of
races. Not Wilberforce, Clarkson, Buxton,
selection. The scene Cantos is Lincoln, or " Uncle Tom's Cabin," have
of the first
laid at Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika where done more for the slave than David Living-
;

Livingstone has been driven back by the stone. He seems to have possessed also an
malice or cowardice of some who followed extraordinary power of sympathising with
him, when on the eve, as he believed, of and personally influencing the natives, with
solving for ever those grand problems of whom he came in contact.
geography, which have engaged the world's This is a man of the old heroic type : a
attention from earliest ages. grand personality, like those of Xavier,
He has arrived ill, worn-out, aged, desti- Mazzini, Garibaldi, Bellot, Ross, Parry,
tute ; goods on which he depended
to find the Franklin, Stephenson, Watt, Mungo Park ;

dissipated by the rascal to whom they had who exhibits, in a peculiarly fascinating
unfortunately been entrusted and he could ; phase of modern life, heroic energy, and
(suffering as he was from his old disease, skilful perseverance in combating gigantic
dysentery) hardly have held out much;longer, difficulties
; partly from ideal and humane
had not Mr. Stanley so gallantly and un- ends — to
serve God and Man —
partly for
expectedly relieved him {1871). I imagine the mere sake of combating those difficulties
him sitting on the open verandah of his themselves. God is not tired of choosing
tembe, looking eastward, as Stanley describes and providing such natures, when He has a
him while evening deepens, and then night
; great work for them to do indeed He
:

— the night preceding Stanley's arrival. I provides also many obscurer workers, with
—
suppose that like those constellations, with natures as noble, whom He in His own
—
which he is so familiar the salient features way rewards. Are not men like Henr}'
of his whole pass successively before him
life Martyn, and Bishop Patteson ; with other
in his solitude ; while he meditates at leisure men and women, whose names remain hidden
upon the people and scenes he has witnessed from the world ; members of this heroic
wonders what people and scenes are yet to army ? Do we indeed lack heroes ?
be divulged for him speculating, moreover,
; In Canto VI. I relate the relief of Living-
on those long-vexed, fascinating problems, stone by Stanley; in Canto VII. Livingstone's
suggested by history, geography, and science, death ; and the wonderful transport of his
in connection with his beloved continent. remains by faithful followers, to the ever-
—
But his chief concern though he takes a lasting honour of a despised race finally,
;

very humane and broad interest in all is — his honoured funeral in the grand cathedral
the future of the people, among whom he of his own land. It remains that I express
has so long lived he is a profoundly sincere
: my obligations to the works of great African
—
Christian missionary a philanthropist in the travellers —
Speke and Grant, Baker, Burton,
best and widest sense —
with heart bleeding .Schweinfurth, Du Chaillu, Winwood Reade,
for all the ignorance, darkness, and misery, Moffat, Stanley, Bowdich, Petherick and —
which he sees around him ; thirsting to to the correspondents of daily papers, who
devise the best possible means for the salva- described the funeral.
 ! ! !

Our tuneful students, with dull downward eyes,

Measuring one another in a dream,

Lisp, " How the pigmy time degenerates!
" Where are your heroes ? we distinguish none
'
' ;

'
Your ' heroes have no literary style
' ' I

" Lo we discern some dust upon their feet."

!

They, poring on impalpable pale shades

Of vanish'd years, fantastically warble,
Singing sweet songs of phantoms in a cloud
Delicate warblers, fleeting as a cloud

I lay my wreath upon a hero's grave.

There let it bloom ; or let it wither there
 ; ! ; ! ! !

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA
CANTO I Seem the great guardian Lion of Africa,
Who, from primaeval ages all alone,
The sun is sinking over Africa ; Silently stern, confronts a crimson dawn
And under shadowy native eaves reclines Over fair Indian seas, with face that towers
A traveller upon a fur-strewn floor ; Sunward, supreme feeling a warm moist
;

One whom no years' ignoble rust, but high breath.

And holy toil have wasted ; bearded grey, Faint with perfume, turn crystals of soft snow
In wayworn English garb he seems array 'd Among the terrors of his icy mane ;
His shoulders bow'd as from a life's long Or, where the stature of his giant frame
burden Declines to westward, feeling the breath
His rude wan countenance profoundly scarr'd change
With noble ruin wrought by Love and Sorrow. To rain within the hollows of his heart.
Reclined against the dwelling's claybuilt wall, All, thundering down abrupt convulsed
His falcon eyes explore the mooned East. ravines,
Athwart a wondrous land that lies before Scarr'd in precipitous rugged flanks of stone,
Slow shadow steals o'er all the fervid palms,
;
Feed wide Nyanzas; whether there be twain,
Broadleaved banana, leaf-seas infinite, Or many waters, these engender thee,
Hoar unfamiliar stupendous forms Wonderful Nile
Of that primeval forest African : And yet I deem that I
Slowly the shadow with declining day Shall find thy parent springs remoter still.
Fades rainbow splendour of the forest far. Lualaba, with his tributary rivers,
And drowns imperial purple of the hills And lilied lakes his loving bounty fills
In one phantasmal all-confounding gloom. Yea, some have told me, and I well believe,
There are four fountains clear and deep as
Ye mountains,^ hiding undiscover'd worlds, day.
So mused in spirit the lone wanderer, Welling unfathomable, perennial
I hunger till I pass your mighty doors. Among low hills as yet unseen, the last
And lay my hand upon the Mystery Subsiding roll, it may be, of one range
African Andes, vast, inviolate, Named of old Rumour, Mountains of the
Crown'd with the cloud, robed round with Moon.
sombre forest. Behold the shrine of living waters Here !

Whose virgin snow no human feet profane From one immense rock-temple stream the
Have swept, but only the wild eagle's wing. Souls
Of old your ghost on Rumour's shadowy Of many lands and nations, whispering
breath In dim enchanted caverns East and North,
;

Wander'd abroad, O Mountains of the Moon I And West emerging, sunny wings unfold :

And still ye are no more than a dim name : Shouting they plunge in joyous waterfalls.
Of old the Egyptian from your loins, that loom To roll a priceless silver all abroad.
Large in far realms of Rumour, drew the Nile. Each to his Ocean, whose illustrious names
Ye, couchant o'er the sultry continent. Are Congo, Nile, and long Leeambayee
 ! ; ; ; ! ; !;

172 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA

Whom Mother Ocean, in her awful arms Upon a porphyry or a brazen floor,
Absorbing, ever engendereth anew, Among blithe forms of Pharaonic time ;

Gendering a holy Cycle evermore. Now young corn and red anemone
o'er 1

There came Pythagoras to learn the lore

When royal Sun his Oriental bride, Of stars, and suns, and gods, and human
India's Ocean, fiercely fervent woos, souls
While She dissolves in his delightful love, There Moses mused, well-nourish'd on rich
What time He fronts earth's equatorial zone stores
On his way North to Cancer, then the waters Of priests and sages; communing with truth,
Rise in a tide of life upon the lands, And in his spirit sifting dust from gold.
Lying athirst and barren in his blaze. Only this one most ancient monument
Stands of thy glory, Heliopolis !

. . . My soul, unbow'd in face of failing Earliest seat of learning, where the seer,
years, Illustrious Plato, came from Academe,
Though Hope may from unwearying falter And sweet Ilissus ; fairest star of all
Hindrance of blind baseborn vicissitude. The fair young band who follow'd one wise
Swears to resolve the alluring Mystery, master.
At whose cold feet our mightiest have fallen, Here a stone astrolabe explored the night,
Yearning to find the sacred Source, and die Measuring solemn wanderings of stars.
Nor have prevail'd but if the Lord allow,
; Here laboratory furnaces were glowing
I and my fellow-labourers will prevail I While some astrologer with mystic rites
Drew horoscopes, or cast nativities:
I seek the birth of that immortal River, But then our Earth, who in her equable
Who bears great Egypt in her watery womb, And proud obeisant motion round the sun
Who nursed the world's prime empire on her Hath in twice ten millennial periods
bosom ; Her inclined axle measurably perturb'd,
And Moses, more illustrious than all Lean'd otherwise her pole among the skies
Pharaohs, her earth-enthralling conquerors. Another Polestar ruled the mariner
Throned in their golden hundred -gated Another Ocean shrined thy radiance,
Thebes, O Christian constellation of the Cross
Tomb'd in hoar wonder of the pyramids. While otherwhere in every tranquil night,
At thy most holy source, primaeval Nile ! Among cool calm abysses of pure space,
The Greek drank wisdom yea, in solemn ;
Shone Sirius, Arcturus, and Orion.
halls
Of Memphis, in columnar stone forests Here too the holiest Child of mortal race
Rested in humble guise with a pure Mother.
Of mighty Karnac, rich with hieroglyph,
And pictured symbol and weird shapes of
At thy most holy source, primaeval Nile
Gods.
The Greek drank wisdom learn'd a Daedal art,
;
Only the beam, the Obelisk,
solar
That in his purewhite light of genius,
Now from green palms and verdure and pure
In that pellucid cether of his clime,
rills,
Among pure breezes of Castaiian hills,
As then from sacred fountains of the Sun,
And delicate unrobed consummate forms
In olden time, in Heliopolis,
Of radiant heroes, bloom'd in glorious
Still points with mystic granite flame to Marble immortal gods for all the world.
Heaven
This mighty gnomon of a sun-dial Here he beheld the blazon'd Zodiac
Moved then a shadow, lengthening among On loftiest firmaments of broad hewn stone
signs Within dim fanes, or solemn tombs of kings ;
 ; ; : — ; ;! !! ;;!

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA 173

Stupendous vaulted chambers in the heart Boats glide by night, aslant on broider'd sail,
Of flame-hued mountain, silently aware Freighted with youth, and love and loveliness:
With populous imagery of men and gods, Balmy night breezes, all alive with song.
Hawk or ram-headed; on wide wall and Laughter, and rhythmic plashing of light oars
ceiling (While coloured lamp-lights lambent on the
Beheld a constellate celestial river ripple
Meandering around a crystal sphere, Stream from fair vessel, or embower'd shore)
And navigated in twelve lives of Moons Rustle tall among the stars
fountain'd palms
By that resplendent Father of the Kings ;
As strange slim forms of a most ancient age
Kings lying here in glory, all embalm'd, Land on pale quays of that so stately temple.
And jewell'd o'er with slumbering talismans, Sonorous with a gorgeous ritual.
Asleep in their immense sarcophagi. Now on a roofless column builds the stork
Here, they believe, slumbers a mighty god,
Yonder, on burning sands of Libya, Osiris, Love incarnate, and the Judge ;

Unmoved the tranquil-featured Sphinx beheld Also the Solar orb, and sacred Nile
Abraham, Homer, Solon, all the wise Who, with moon'd Isis and her little child,
Of every clime, who came, and saw, and Shadoweth forth a triune Deity.
wonder'd His awful name none dare to breathe aloud :
Who pass'd, leaving a heritage to man An oath avails to bind for evermore
Beheld dissolving dynasties of Ivings,
One who hath sworn "by Him that sleeps
And all their people, pageant-like unroll'd in Philce."
Before his face; they, with o'erwhelming
pillars Most ancient realm of all this ancient earth,"
Of desert sand before the whirlwind's breath, Thought faints to sound thine hoar antiquity
Pass'd in loudpomp, and were not any more ;
Europe and Asia were not when thy form
The silent Sphinx regarding, as to-day, Brooded in solemn grandeur, as to-day.
Beyond them all, serene Eternity 1 Over dark ocean when Dicynodon, !

Ancestor of thy huge Leviathan,

There that colossal Memnon, while the Nile Ruled over mightier seas and estuaries
Pour'd like another morning all around When melancholy vapours veil'd strange stars.
Sweet life-engendering waters musical, Ere man's wan yearning unavailing eyes
Murmur'd melodious salutation,
Awoke to wonder ! ere the cataclysm
When Aurora, his celestial mother,
first
Rent all thy rocks, and summon'd forth the
Smiled sweet upon him from the Orient. rivers . . .

Fresh from fierce thunder of the cataracts.

. . . When came the Negro ? — and the
dwindling Dwarf?
Tortured among dark demon-blocks of stone
I have found bones of immemorial age :

Fireborn, divine Nile smoothes his ruffled

Their living families surround me now
flow;
Lingers a tranquil, a celestial lake Wilds more unknown than yonder ghostly
To embrace fair Philje, Philas, fairest isle
Moon,
Of all earth's islands ! fringed with mirror'd Beyond the bounds of Earth ! whose ruin huge
palm. Of awful mountain, Albategnius,
And lotos blossom on the crystalline Or Dberfel, whose abysses of dead gloom
Laving her bosom she hath lotos blossom
; Herschel in his enchanter's glass reveal'd
For capitals of her hyptethral fane,
Quiet in heaven, tremulous in the river Africa ! vast immeasurable Void,

Where, sundering flowing phantoms of the Where no imperial march of History

stars. Solemn resounds from echoing age to age 1
 ! — ———
; ; ;!! : ! !
!

174 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA

Haunt of light-headed fable and dim dream For lack of service but allows to each ;

To whose fierce strand the Heaven-shadowing The measure He in wisdom hath ordain'd.
bird,
Enormous Roc, long deemed a wild romance, For all the land is foul with monstrous
Was wont to fly of old from Madagascar wrong, !

In whose blue seas floats fragrant ambergris And desolation of the sons of Hell.
Whose shores are blushing corallines most Surely the long long wail of human woe
rare, Ever ascends from all our earth to heaven
Where ocean fairies wander mailed
gems, in But here the mist of blind unending tears
Silently gliding through the branching bowers Hangs undissolving, and abolishes
While far inland strange palaces are piled Yon very Life-Light from His shining halls,
Profusely with pure ivory and gold^ And hides the Father from his orphan'd sons.
No lynx-eyed peril-affronting pioneer, Hell is let loose and jubilant cruelty
;

Since the beginning, until yesterday, Tortures a feeble lowly-witted race.

Dared violate thy sultry somnolence, Poor fallen outcast of humanity ;

Couch'd, a grim lion in thine ancient lair; Inflames the lurking salvage brute that haunts
Sullenly self-involved, impenetrable! A wilding blood to fratricidal war.
Or if one ever bearded and aroused. To thrall its very kindred, for the sport
Thy winds have spurned his unrevealing dust Of paler large-brain'd fiends, the common foe,
Yea, in thy fiery deserts, in the pomp And glut their markets with the flesh of men.
Of lurid evenings, crimson, warm, like blood. Shoot them and drown them ! from convul-
Thou dost devour thine own dark children, sive arms
crouch'd Tear small sweet clinging babes, and fainting
About thy cruel knees, dark Africa brides
From lovers, who with unavailing life

Stainthem in falling, or themselves enslaved,

CANTO II Yoked, goaded, pinioned, tramp the burning
wilds,
Yet mine are higher, holier purposes To bleach with beast-gnawn bones the
For I will cleave this darkling continent, wilderness ;

As with a sword of intellectual light Or huddled in a slaver's pestilent hold,

Lead these lost children to a living Father, Writhing and raving, rotting while alive,
And tell them of a Brother who has died. Are flung to gorge sleek monsters of the sea
Yea, if my nature's weakness have rebell'd Lo in dusk offings of ensanguined seas,
!

Against what seems the world's indifference ;

At sunset doth the torpid slaver droop
Men treading their unarduous wonted round Her guilty sail while evil strangers brand
;

Of common care, oblivious of mine. Dark women on a golden strand with fire ;

Who battle alone, afar from all ; who waste, Who are mute with endless woes unutterable
Ignobly sinking here in sight of goal,
For bitter need of help I hoped from men. Nay the long wail of wounded innocence
!

At leisure in their calm abounding homes ; Hath ne'er been squandered on a voiceless
Bales for exchange or tribute; healing herbs; Void!
Wherewith to calm this fire within my veins, But every tear of every helpless child
And tame the ravening hungry heathendom Sinks in a warm unfathomable Love :

Thou knowest, O Lord, my prime solicitude And armed Righteousness awaits her hour,
Was for the work Thou hast to me unworthy Albeit Her lightning slumber in the cl ud.
Confided in Thy Providence unachieved, These human shambles shall be purged from
And yet I know the Holiest never fails blood
 —;! ; ; —" — ! ; ; : —
!!

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA 175

This charnel of the world shall reek no more, Yea, have they ruin'd me at Kolobeng ?
Plague-spot of all the starry universe! Behold I wrest from them all Africa!
For I will flash the light of Europe's eyes
Full on the tyrant, till he quail and cower. For I will never cease from journeying,
And mere snowflake in the sun.
vanish, a Until the length and breadth of all the
England, inviolate Ark of Freedom, launch land
Thy thunder as of old and hurl them low Shine forth illuminate from shore to shore!
; I

Fulfil thy mission fallen heroes want ! My life is one long journey and I love ;

Yonder in heaven their crown of blessedness, Peril, and toil, and strange vicissitude
Till the last bondsman clasp imfetter'd hands Exploring all the wonder of the world
O'er the last slaver, whelmed beneath the On sea and land wonder for evermore ; ;

wave And all the marvellous miracle of man.

I am urged ever by a restless ghost,

But I abide until my task be done. And may not fold my hands in tranquil sleep.
And if they slay their mortal enemy, Vet when we have grown old, we want the
It is the Lord who calls, and it is well glow
When they had thought to murder ; reft Of our own generous children in their prime.
from me Warming our twilight they love thought ;

All most cherished on a former day

I ;
for us,
Killing my converts, even the little ones, As we of old for them their little ones
;

Or sweeping them into captivity ;

Play, like a dear last dawn, around our age;
I said, " I am not less resolved than they : And I too long to be at home again
They do but save me wills and codicils !
By the sweet firelight of my northern land
I turn my face indeed, as they intend, At Christmas-time, the room is bright with
From this my labour of long years o'erthrown green,
And yet not homeward, baffled as they deem athwart the snow And far bells faintly peal :

For lo my face is toward the world unknown,

! wavering with soft sound. Then quiet firelight,
Pleasantly ruddies gold and silver hair
That seem'd almost the very world in sooth,
"From whose dark bourne no traveller re- But in the summer, little children sing
turns." Anear a shimmer of slim aspen leaves,
I take the plunge, and I am lost in night Fluttering with sound of summer rain.
Lost to the life and tumult of mankind Ah shall I never cease from journeying ? : !

No voice may reach me from the homes of Urged ever onward by a restless ghost,
men I may not fold my hands in pleasant sleep

No voice of mine may penetrate to them.

Five times twelve moons have filled their When surmount some unfamiliar height.
I
horns and waned ;
Behold an alien realm mysterious
!

My memory is failing from the world ;

Unroll'd in twilight ghostly, drear, and wan
!
;

Only a ghostly rumour murmurs low Stain'd with what seem huge bombs of
How one has seen a strange white wanderer, shatter'd iron,
Somewhere inland ; none certainly knows Hurl'd from a weird infernal enginery.
where And then I muse what eerie living things
And one more rumour whispers, he is dead. Dwell beyond among the mists of night
far
Empires may rise and fall ;
great wars may Whether may wander on
the wanderer
thunder For ever in the waste, hearing no sound,
And "peace may follow war : and I not know, Save of his own footfall or yonder dwell ;

More than the drown'd who slumber in the Dark unimaginable human lives ;

sea Wearing what uncouth forms, allied to some

 —— ; ! ! ;

176 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA

Misshapen horrors of the forest wild Climb beasts obscene, scenting a horrid feast t

Weird startling mockery of immortal man ; At night a thunder of great lions rolls,
Shocking the soul with chill mistrustful fear, Rebellowing from basalt precipices :

And doubt of her pre-eminent destiny At night a fervour of infernal flame,

Brutebrow'd, brutemaw'd, huge hirsute pro- With cruel yells of hellish revelry,
digies, Aff"ronts pale stars
; what time the unearthly-
Challenging with a vast appalling roar fiends
Whoso disturbs their monstrous monarchy ! Grimy, and gash'd with knives, and foul with

Dark unimaginable human lives, earth,

Ever alone most ancient realm,
in this Squat mumbling bodies of lost travellers.
Immured stupendous sepulchre,
in a Whom they decoying fell'd with monstrous
Afar from man's tumultuous chariot-race clubs.
Of sounding splendour somnolent aware
; But underneath the floor of their black vault
How the dull tide of dim inglorious years Deepens a hollow murmur, far withdrawn
Moves ever foul and lurid with the scurf Within the haunted heart of the dread
Of ruin'd blood, and gold, and scalding tears mountain.
It may be mutter'd wrath of slumbering fires;

Some veer small restless, rambling, ape- It may be secret waters wandering ;

like eyes; But they believe it of another world ;

Their clicking gibber mimics flittermice ;
A skeleton people plucking roots and berries
For starved subsistence, grubbing shallow
holes.
Or sheltering in borrow'd dens disused.
And shuddering pour libation to the god.
Sometimes by night a mightier thunder even
Than thunder of
roaring lions, like an ocean,
Bursts all the boundaries of ruinous heaven
. . .

What people lies before me ? some affirm In one wild flood of universal flame.
That there be men sepulchred verily With sound as of upheaval of adamant
In subterranean chambers like the dead Towering wrath of Powers immeasurable,
Burrowing human moles, fleeing from light, And roU'd war-chariots of tremendous cloud:
By their free choice, and immemorial Sound the great mountains in their chasms
Usage though Rumour murmurs her wild
; and craters.
tale Bastions, and inviolable towers.
Ever with a light head confusedly. Rebellow hurl abroad ; mutter in gloom
; ;

Brood over in their dim and sullen souls.

Shall I behold some dark terrific cave, Perpetual seas of broad purpureal flame,
Reeking with Imts, and owls, and doleful With intervals of momentary night.
things, Dark as the darkness of a man born blind.
High among crags of a precipitous mountain. Possess the sky's unfathomable concave ;
Strewn with fresh bones of men, that hideous Wherein appalling growths of more intense
ghouls Fire with seven branches, like gigantic trees,
In human form, foul anthropophagi, Spring up and vanish ! . . .

Have gnawn for food a loathsome den Behold yon perpendicular crags, like flame.
;

defiled Whose melaphyre and porphyry condor crests

With dripping human members, torn for Threaten the valleys whose profound ravines !

meat? Of deadly twilight ne'er a sun may see,

A desolate wind howls ever dolefully Unsoften'd of a tiniest herb or flower I

Around the dismal open mouth of hell, Now furious torrents toss white manes of foam
Howls like a murdered man's avenging-;soul Down their long solitudes ; the firmament
While among boulder-ruins of the mountain Sunders, and pours dense watery deluges,
 ! ! ! — : ; !

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA 177

Illuminate with deluges of light ;

The drossy coarseness of humanity
Howls the tornado ; 'tis the reign of chaos ! Only their mighty Mother in more scorn
Great lions lashing tails in grim despair, Spurns in an hour the poor fantastic toil
Mingling their roar with elemental thunder, A millstone, lost in verdure or black ooze ;

Climb from the floods, or struggling drown Cairns upon hillsides ; fragments of rude jars ;

therein ! Obsidian implements with fossil bones.

Ah ! would the blinding falchion of swift Buried in bowels of unquarried rock ;

lightning, These are the memories Earth retains of man.

That crimson wounds the mountain flank, And yet the dead are in the forest mould,
but hurl In branching wildernesses of rich gloom.
One of those loosen'd bounding blocks of In beast, and bird, and every living thing ;
rock, Yea, noble thoughts and deeds and souls for
So as to stop for ever the black mouth ever
Of that infernal cavern of the fiends. Live in the deep eternal heart of God ;

Where still a madden'd laughter peals among They are reverberate in the lives of all
Commotions of Divine wrath flying abroad. Nor fail of full fruition and reward. •''

Reiterate from all their haunted halls

Lo the tornado, and
! the levinbolt Or shall I light on some barbarian
Have fallen upon yon tree's enormous bulk. Court, where high lords, like reptiles in the
Hard by the cave ; blasting, and wrenching it dust,
Loose from a cleft it grappled for centuries Orovel before a swarthy emperor.
With serpentine huge roots ! it creaks and Throned all in gold? who from the burn- —
crashes ing day
Headlong it topples to the gulf that boils ! Shielded beneath a slave-supported silk
Pavilion crown'd with some griffonian beast,
Some even tell a marvellous dim tale That courts the sunlight — clothed in musky fur
Of a tribe buried somewhere in the wild ; Of tawny spotted pard, cruel as he.
A satyr-race of cloven-footed men. And fig-bark beaten wrists with ivory bound.
;

Hairy and tail'd, with cloven feet like swine ! And slung with genets' tails a scimitar ;

Where are the Pigmies ? Homer sang of old In his right hand ; red plumes of touraco''
Their yearly war with southward - flying Among his oil'd elaborated curls
cranes Glowers where the panther-supple guards
They wear enormous heads upon their advance,
shoulders. Gory, dusk, jewell'd stalwart Amazons,
They build their pigmy booths in dim recesses At his feet rolling four distorted heads.
Of some impenetrable forest world! Three skulls of kings, late mighty mortal foes.
Two travellers * lately came upon their traces. The monarch tramples a white ivory trump ;

Of elephant tusk one blows, while others clang

Here are no mouldering monuments of Dissonant gongs but ah delicious groves — !

glory, Of fanlike palm, with waxen clusters fair,

Confiised dim ruin of long centuries ; Cassia, myrrh, aloe, or ananas !

As though ashamed of human purposes, Sweet amber-weeping mists of sensitive leaf,

Suff^ering slow conversion to the ways Wooing young sunlight to a delicate
Of soft-outlined harmonious natural things, Dream in your soft warm zephyr-haunted
Flower and herb, and weatherhued worn hearts,
stone. Empetall'd all with rosy peach blossom I

Yet here Napoleons and Tamerlanes Alas your mellow meeklived innocence
!

Have temper'd to a life-devouring sword —

Blazes A fierce intolerable gold
M
 ! ! ; ; ; ;;

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA

Breaks from breastplates of yelling murderers, While others flirt long gold-bound elephant-
Dragging men, women, children, cowering tails.

slaves, Nigh to the monarch squats a hideous dwarf;

From hence, and shelter of dank cane jungles. And a white negro with two small pink eyes.
Or wounding chaos of floral parasite There is a trampling of arm'd cavalry
; ;

Convolved wing'd serpents hung in gorgeous Barbs in rich mail, brightly caparison'd,
gloom Mounted by swarthy horsemen, champ the bit,
Of tower-pillar'd forest high and hoar. Their riders quivering bronze assegais.
Rather they brave grim Terrors of the wild, Hearken lewd revelry of dancing slaves,
!

Stealthily prowling in moonlighted glades, Clashing with cymbal, tabor, castanet. . . .

Where bubble sweet live waters musical

Huge grisly rivals crushing the stunn'd prey
Than surerfooted more unerring doom
Of hate fraternal, or implacable CANTO III
Unholy violence of holy men,
Who, glutting a false god's bloodthirstiness, Now in my far enchanted solitude,
Hale them, poor innocents, to sacrifice My long life moves before me like a dream . . ,

A king hath died and all dead emperors

;

They worship with lewd rites of cruelty. A child in Ulva, by the Northern sea,
By "watering" malignant evil dust I hear my father at our evening prayer.
With what in its malignant vampire life And wild Gael singing of my grandmother.
A vain, unstable, sanguinary soul A factory boy upon the banks of Clyde
Relish'd to quaft" from a foe's hollow skull, For all the dissonant whirl of enginery,
More than all nectar —crimson human blood. I seize the food of learning, swiftly glancing
Yea, all the forest is one Golgotha ;
On some dear volume, laid upon a marge
Skeletons, skulls, and cumbering carcasses, Of the great spinning-jenny, as I pass,
Confused in one delirious dread dream ! Repassing ever in monotonous toil.

Behold under yon ancient fetish tree,

! Fired with the splendour of the Lord of Love,
Defiled with slaughter of five centuries, I long to unfurl His standard in the world :

Near an uncouth hewn stone (a phallic idol. For this I conquer arts laborious
Begrimed, and hung with ghastly offerings) Of serviceable healing and I grow ;

A human victim horribly tormented ! Adept in many a helpful handicraft

One blade thrust like a bit between his jaws So full equipp'd, with arduous efibrt arm'd,

Is strain'd and fasten'd there; while many Living a temperate, reasonable life,
knives I bear a stout heart in a season'd frame

Lacerate all his gory frame ; he writhes And emulous of illustrious pioneers.
In agony ; for every living wound Nor all unmindful of my sires austere,
Men have inflamed with diabolic art I find my.self i' the heart of Africa,
Helping the father of my bride to be.
Ajjomp barbarian reigneth everywhere.
Nobles are slung in hammocks of rich silk, My long life moves before me like a dream.
Turban'd, and motley'd with quaint orna- Behold our mission-house at Kolobeng
! :

ment; These labour-roughen'd hands havebuilded it.

Or rest their gold-encumber'd arms on heads Nor for myself alone, but for the dark
Of young lithe favourites, wearing cloth of Children of whom I am the father here,
gold; I labour with strong hand, and heart, and soul.

Velvety smtjoth boys, eyed with slumbrous I smelt rude ores ; and, fervid as large eyes
fire ; Of wrathful tigers, ringing iron yields
 ! " ! ;

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA 179

Upon mine anvil, hammer'd heartily ;

Lies in pale elf-light, with embowering palm
While a bow'd native plies the goatskin And silvern plantain ; lonely forest shades
bellows. Of over-frowning mountain-presences
Lusty and manhood's vigorous prime,
hale, in With stealthily mysterious forms aware.
I startle the lone woods with
stalwart blows ; A bitter, long, monotonous human wail
While cream-white splinters fly from stubborn More poignant than the cries of animal lives
trunks. In unreverberate torture ; 'tis a wail
Whose leafy pride falls headlong shattering ;
Of one that's cloven to the
depths of being,
My wife with finger nimble, dexterous, Maim'd in the vitals of an immortal soul.
Moulding the while a hundred things at home. To me it seems alive with the wild prayer,
This poor blind people hath so oft preferr'd.
There is a power enthralling human souls Crying with dumb yet infinite eloquence,
In equal dealings, in a lofty life, "O wise white man! we pray thee give us
!
And lowly Love's unwearying ministry. sleep
One who inherits wisdom's treasure-house. So moans a hollow voice reverberate
And lives endowed with more than wonted In long-drawn aisles of some sepulchral vault;
grace So moans the mystic growth Mandragora,
Of human faculty, may forge the gold Feeding on human ravage in a ruin
Thereof to ignominious chains for men ; Under a gibbet, when one pulls the root.
Or twine the spiritual wealth, for their How long have these then cower'd here in
Deliverance, to cords of fair persuasion, night.
Wooing their own endeavours after God. Mouthpieces of creation's misery,
I wielding for the common use, not mine, Wailing the world's wail in closed ears of God?
A wider knowledge and a riper skill, Whom now lament they ? some beloved
Bestow'd free counsel or sincere reproof; friend,
Tended my children when their bodies ail'd ; Chief, mother, bride, or child, who turn'd so
Lent a large heart to small perplexities, cold
And simple tales of hourly human woe. And strange and silent who may not abide
. . . ;

. .Have these a lowlier place allotted them? Any more here in sweet sunlight with them.
.

Yet they full surely have their post prepared Or pleasant interchange of word and smile;
In God's world-army I will help them there. Gone forth for ever from them to the chill
:

And I Man of men,

believe Jesus, the And cheerless realm of dreams impalpable.
Who is God's personal Love and Righteous- Nevermore! wails the burden of the strain,
ness, Burdening, as it seems, the very sleep
To be the one and only living Lord, Of a serene, fair incense-breathing earth I

Ruler alike of loftiest and least, Ever it wails, low, dreary, and desolate,
Who, being reveal'd, will draw men unto Him, Oppress'd and muffled in a solemn sorrow;
Each in his order and foreknown degree. A dirge world-weary, an old-world requiem,
Trailing a slow wan length along the dust,
Sun of the living ! Hesper of the gloom ! Plaint from the fount of immemorial tears
Thy dusky children call for Thee,
Surely A shadow, whose maim'd wings are plumed
Unknowing whom they call — the wail re- with awe ;

sounds Sunken so deep from ghostly woes and fears,

Yet in mine ears of some funereal dirge And broken hearts of all ancestral lives ;

For one beloved and vanish'd when the moon ; Phantoms aroused by a fresh living pain.
Wavers, as if in water, among leaves To haunt the labyrinths of a living soul,
Of air-moved umbrage; and a bark-buili And all the dark slow movement of the
village dirge
 ! : ; ; !! ; ! ; " .

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA

One cabin stands a little way apart Food, bowls, or ivory, arms, and hunting gear.
From all the rest upon a higher ground. Now beat loud tamtams rattle hollow drums ; !

Hence flows the wail A man laments I his So scare away the dim unhomely ghost
son. With yells, and shouts, and drunken revelry. . .

It isan aged warrior of the tribe, "Ah! shadow-muffled panther, with fierce

Who cowers, and sways himself upon the floor, eyes,

Before an ember glow, that he beholds Prowling and mumbling yonder, art thou he ?
Only in dreaming while a warm, red gleam
: Ah whispering leaves of darkling forest trees I
!

Falls on the brown of rude encircling wall, Ye are ill whispers of infernal fiends
Leaving a smoke-beclouded roof in gloom ; But we will drown the bitterness of woe,
!"
Falls on barb'd javelins, and bows and arrows, Frowning, foreboding, and bewildering fear
And many hunting spoils of him who lies
Near to his father, silent, stark, and cold ; Behold ! one stalks emergent from a cave ^
Ruddies the dark bare limbs of life and death. In yon far-off enfoldings of the hills,
Rich furs are under and over the young form Where he has lain in some enchanted swoon.
Furs golden, furs of lynx, and ocelot From when the moon her slender silver bow
A small uncomely dog, with pointed ears. Lifted in blue night, till she rose an orb,
Presses his faithful body to the corpse. Fully resplendent argent, even now.
He was a comely boy, a mighty hunter, And he is haggard, worn, emaciate
A bold young warrior, hope of all the tribe. With vigil and with fast a tawny hide ;

And his infirm old father's only stay. Of some wild beast about his grimy frame.
When humid morning, chill, and pale, and Charms of linked leopard's teeth upon his
wan, breast,
Peers at those intervals between the boughs And leopard's liver for an amulet.
Of wattled wall, yon ashes willbe grey, With stained, hideous face, and jingling bells.
And still the old man be cowering by the And for a head-gear feathers of a bird.
dead He sits among the mourners by the fire.

Then the fond faltering sire must wander forth Then all gesticulating chaunt a prayer
Alone ; away from this unpitying herd Till he, the prophet, fearfully convulsed.
Of yet unwounded men into the wild ;
Falls li'r:e a corpse ; but all the people cry :

There to fade slowly ; with a feeble hand " Oh moon ! Ilogo ! spirit of the moon !

Plucking the berries, pulling up the roots Thine are the rivers.
A living skeleton, grim woe and want Thine, Ilogo
In dim, scared eyes until the wolf and raven
; And the wilds and mountains.
Find him luw laid, their unresisting prey I Thine, Ilogo
Revealwho hath enchanted our beloved!
The father's wail, like mournful waves un- Oh moon! Ilogo! spirit of the moon!
"
seen. Hear us, Ilogo I

Dies on the ear, and moans alternately ;

But later, figures gather in the open, And then the prophet from his death-like
Lamenting by a fire new-made the dead. . . . swoon
What wizard, with his incantation curst. Arouses from communion with the Moon.
;

Blasted the living ; changing to a foe. His dusky tribe are gathering around ;
And chilling fear, what was so amiable?" Silence falls ominous on all intent
Over the shoulder timorously glance Till with harsh, croaking tones the devil
They, at the very rustling of a leaf. proclaims :

To where the dead lie yonder in the forest, " Lamoli ! was she bewitch'd the dead
it I

Strewn with some hvmible offerings they need : Then all the naked savages roll eyes
 : ! " ; ! —
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA
Of fanatic fuiy, and, yelling horribly, Proud English from " damn'd nigger" points
Rush toward a leaf-thatched cabin, shouting of view,
hoarse All would be damn'd indeed without reprieve.
" Let the Muave draught convict the witch !

They drag from thence a shrieking, innocent A lion once, a mightiest male lion,"
maid, Whom my good rifle's bullet had but maim'd.
Who shivers with the pang of mortal fear : Sprang in his wrath ; one huge and ponderous
Hustled she drains among the cursing crew paw,
Ordeal poison from a gourden bowl, Striking my shoulder, hurl'd me under him.
And, struggling piteous to reverse the doom Over me stood the vast dilated beast
Of her young murder, reels, and sinks, and Growling his paw weigh'd on my shatter'd
;

falls ;
shoulder
A hundred daggers mangling her fair life. . . . His great eyes glower'd ; his fangs gieam'd
Do these not need the Gospel of the Lord ? terrible ;

Like a simoom, his breathing scorch'd my

Therefore I press right onward to my goal : face;
Nor only for an hour, a month, a year ;
With tawny wilderness of mane aroused.
But while life lasts, a warrior to the end, Frowning, aloft he swung his tufted tail.
I wrest from Fortune all she would withhold. But God removed all terrors and all pain :

Even as a lion in his sultry lair When the brute shook me, numb indifference
Shakes off a myriad dew-drops from his mane. Stole over all my being, while I watch'd ;

So have I spurn'd all hampering obstacle. ^'ea, look'd into the formidable eyes
Regarding danger with a quiet smile. (So Love tempers inevitable blows
civiliser, shrink from Violence Of Fate for all the sons of suffering :)

Use Righteousness, and broad Humanity, A comrade fires ; the lion springs on him ;

With temperate firmness govern your own ;

Then fainting staggers, — ponderous falls

selves. and dies.

And so the people : yet never seem to fear ;

Nor be ye loth to call auxiliar might My long life moves before me like a dream.
Of muscular right arm, or deadly rifle,

If these prove helpful in extremity. We fell'd our way through groves im-
pervious
Whose guiltless blood weighs on my soul To healthful daylight ; realms of ravenous
to-day ? beast.
1have not injured, mock'd, insulted any : And venom'd snake secreted in the gloom ;

Ihave been wanting in an English pride ;

Dismal dead trees enshrouded with the pale
Nor feel the grand immeasurable gulf, Dense life of lichen that hath stifled them ;
Which every drunken subaltern may feel Where lurks foul carrion, and agarics
Between the veriest scum of England's isle, Fouler than carrion infect the air,

And of all infusorial "foreigners" 'Mid noisome immemorial forest mould.

The least unworthy nay for even him. — ; We crush'd through deadlier thickets of rank
Whom, with all coloured races of the world, growth,
We from superior panoramic heights, Whose blades colossal, noich'd with tearing
With one judicial and exhaustive wave teeth.
Of hand, may name and sweep from sympathy, Rise in dense walls above the ox-rider :

Even the '^ damnd nigger" I have not con- These wound, entangle while his lower limbs
:

temn'd ;
Are chill'd by shadowy dews that ne'er exhale
Knowing that if the Lord regarded us From labyrinths of marshlight-haunted fen,
 ; — ! ! ! : ! —
; ;

1 82 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA

Dismal in dull death -gendering decay, Shadows are sharply blotted on the ground ;
His head and shoulders burn with torrid fire, Blue blazing daylight glares intolerable :

Unshelter'd from a humid sultry sky. In a half-dreaming doze we journey on,

My body and my raiment rent with thorns, Still for our sole horizon the wan waste.

These lacerated feet refuse to bear
Me any further ; and I linger long,
A prisoner, waiting for my wounds
I have waded waist-deep in stagnating water
Of inundated equatorial plains,
But when some watermelon loll'd before us.
How all rush'd eager on the priceless prize,
to heal. A large green ball upon an arid soil
Slashing the cool pink pulp, that wells with
life.

And, swathed in saturated raiment, march'd And burying mouths in fair fresh nectar-
On, till hot air hath drain'd their moisture dry springs.
Then, for how many torturing nights and days
Have I lain in the gripe of dire disease. How terrible is thirst I

Clinging inveterate to devour my life ; Days without water ! ne'er a watermelon

Evil inharmonious monsters ravening Even, to slake a moment hell's own
Around these hells of my delirium ! drought ! . . .

When poor dark savage brothers tended me Hark ! shouts of joy break in upon the drear
With a white wife's untiring tenderness. Faint slumbrous silence of our fiery way
Some hearts, in sooth, of those my followers, All startled raise dim half-closed aching eyes
Quailing before long toil herculean, Behold the lake ! our goal in sight ! Hurrah 1

Weary of peril in the very air Lofty palmyras, palm, acacia.

We breathe, a Protean never-sleeping peril. O'er hazy waters purple in the sun,
Often immeasurable, unforeknown. Who sets below in solitary glory
Shrank from my side yea, even some of And surely on a pale horizon line
;

whom Tall sable horsemen galloping furiously

Ihad hoped better things but some, alas— ! See the slow oxen gaze aroused, and lowing
Were weak and worthless instruments, that —
Hasten behold black bulks of elephant,
break And slim giraffes, show water to be near
In hands of whoso trusts in a fair show : Shall we pursue ?

And some were agents of the slave-trader,

Sworn to oppose, and drive me to despair. . . . They dwindle, waver, and change ;
All blows like slanting flame ; drifting divides..
Anon we travel It was the Satan's simulated water
Over immense brown regions, no sweet rain And only mist roU'd over a salt plain.
Rendereth mild with gracious influence : Yet the same region hath its wither'd herb ;
A harsh rude waste, hated by man and beast; Wells that fill slowly when one deftly digs
Where the foot sinks in scorching loose brown Stunted green bushes, pools of rainwater,
sand Where skeleton women drink from ostrich
At every toilsome footfall while the sun
; eggs;
Strikes upward from a powdery parch'd earth, And even springs where tall lush grasses
Tanning and blistering fiercely from on high
: grow.
He smites upon bow'd heads of travellers, Here the light zebra, and the swift wild ass.
Under arch'd awning of a labouring wain, Bound by elastic, and the shaggy gnu
Or swaying slowly on a lean worn ox. Glares with red eye ; here bristle porcupines
Poor oxen ! how they pant, and loll the Fussy ichneumon scuttles ; ratels tumble ;

tongue. Ash-hued coarse-haired anteaters with long

Beaten of urgent teamsters with loud whips, snout
Pulling at wheels, that settle clogg'd with sand. Lurk, like distortions of a curious dream.
 ; !: ;
! : —— ; :;

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA 183

My long life moves before me like a dream ! One tells a tale of perilous hunts with spear,
Envenom'd arrows, shields of rugged hide
The cheerful bustle of the morning march ! Relates the infuriate, unwieldy charge
Shouts of the driver ; scuffling of loud beasts Of rough, one-horn'd, uncouth rhinoceros;
Delicious swims and baths in some lone pool, Or elephant snapping crush'ddishevell'd trees,
With chestnut-colour'd leaves in the blue With horrible, ear-bursting trumpet-bray.
glass, They tell of graceful, lithe, long - neck'd
And gorgeous birds reflected as they fly giraffes.
Beating the plain with undulating flight
Strong striding ostrich, spurning the burnt
Appears the dear wild nightly bivouac
sand
—
In some dim forest, I upon a couch
Of crawling dumb
;

to leeward of a herd
Of woven rushes, under a furr'd hide,
Kudu, or eland wearing wreathen horns.
Shelter'd, it may be, by a roof of boughs.
A grimy cauldron slung athwart the blaze Or they relate some wonderful weird tale
Held our repast of savoury buffalo-meat
Of sorcery and superstition strange ;
(Ere sunset had my rifle slain the beast)
For one affirms he knew in such a village
But now my dusky troop surround the fire,
A man who turn'd at intervals to leopard,
That ruddies their swart forms and visages,
Lurking in dens to feed upon mankind ;
Leaping to flame, with crackling faggot piled
Anon the beast's heart gather'd strong within
Subsiding soon to embers deeply glowing.
him ;
Illumined smoke drifts fragrant, wavering
Burn'd to devour, to lap the blood of men ;

Among mazes of long involved llianas,

Until the lust of death beyond control
That seem in the red, hesitating light,
Drove him from home into the awful wild
To move pythons watching prey.
alive, like
Where, horror transformation swiftly grew
!

There breathes a strange, delicious woodland

From the inhuman heart to the man's mind.
smell
Resinous amber glimmers to the stars ;
And human limbs —behold ! he crouches low.

Richly-dim blossoms, many-hued, immense,

Fire-eyed, in act to spring — sleek, supple
beast,
Droop fragrant heaven, a milky way of
His body of flame starr'd over with black
flowers.
night
Wherein by day the nimble monkey hurries.
And gorgeous parrot screams — now all is
Large-brain 'd, blood-thirstiest of the infernal
crew.
hush'd.
Six human victims hath the wizard slain.
Ere, man once more, the avengers torture him,
Yet there are weird, wild songs about the Avowing with bitter tears the sorcery. • . .

fire. Then many a negro, shivering, glances round,

Peals of a reckless, frolic merriment. Timidly peering into forest gloom ;

Immoderate jests of nature's shameless child They pile more wood sitting in silence, ; till

Dazed with the wassail-bowl, and fumes that Another adds his marvel to the store.
rise
From gurgling gourds, to steal bewilder'd Is it all fable? is it all illusion?
sense. Nay, doth not our most awful Universe
Sense light as thistle - down ; gay young Lead poor, mad mortals to the wilds alone,
buffoons, Into a barren wilderness of souls ;

And elder fools allowing allusions free, Mask'd in stern iron, prison'd in adamant,
With frantic, half-lewd gestures, bounden only A fiery gulf between them and the world
By salutary fear of me, the Master. . . . Forbidden dear embracings of their kind,
 ! : : ! ! — ! ;; : ' ! ; ! ; —
! ! '

i84 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA

And mutually yielding thoughts of all ? Releasing misty momentary rays

girt with kindly, once familiar faces, While in this shifting gulf of utter light,
Though
Lonelier they than are the lonely dead ;
A snowy sail shows black as ebony.

Or haunted only by fell fiends that scowl

" Spell-bound we pause we had follow'd
the very eyes of sleepless love
:
Out of
God whirls them forth, and sets them in a our Father,
this

cleft Him of the honest heart, our wise white friend.

Of some ice-armour'd, cloud-robed precipice Through weal and woe, a weary, weary way.
It snows, it howls ; the everlasting mountains From our own homes ; in face of all the
Reel, crashing downward in the lightning's people
eye Spake, while we journey'd through their

God murmurs Mystery

in their ears a several lands,

In tongues unknown, of import terrible. That never white man brought an African
That none may hear or comprehend but they; Here to the coast, save only to enslave
Nor even they, but in maim'd cadences But we would trust our Father; we had proved
Wind-wilder'd murmurs of a music wild. Him well, and he had promised yea, we ;

Ah ! we all wander blindly in a dream know

Save for a revelation from the Lord. The English have good hearts for Africa
And yet we pause at the sublime surprise.
For we had faith in what our Ancients told,
They tell of our adventures by the road, That the great World continueth evermore ;

Wonderful, fearful, laughable or grave ;

And now the World Himself saith unto us,
Gesticulating passionately gay. '
Lo I am ended there is no more of me
! !
!

Grimacing with a monkey-mimicry. Moreover, marching on with our sick Leader,

One says that white men rise from the salt sea; Whom we support, astounded we discern
Verily live below the green water ; Dwellings of white men, mountains of white
Whence comes our long, lank compromise for stone
hair With caves therein ! and, yet more wonderfiil,
The water we inhabit straightens it Upon the water, rolling near inshore,
They mention my rough dog, poor old Chitani,^" A painted floating town, with fronting idol
Whom they affirm I cherish for his tail, A giant bird with great white flapping wings,
A tail that curls to right and not to left Who thunderous rebellion men that
Ai swarm
A tail by learned men discredited !
In windy, reeling heights are conquering
By strong enveloping of resolute arms
My trusty followers, my Makololo, Then, trusting to the word of our good Father,
Astound the rest, relating how they toil'd Half timidly we climb the floating town.
Athwart the continent ^^ arriving last ; Whose common soldiers, mariners, and chiefs
On a subsiding ridge of table-land ; Pay joyful homage to our own dear lord ;

Whence without warning burst upon their And all of them have kindly hearts for us.
view, But round the wooden walls dark, iron mouths
Ocean Of demons gape whence, being touch'd with
;

Vision never dreanrd before fire.

On Him in His sublime infinitude, Leap thunderous lightnings, Genii clothed in

Soliloquising awful in the gloom ;
smoke
With one intolerable rift of light Pointing to them, our Father said to us,
Vibrating in the immeasurable waste '
With these grim mouths we stop the sale of
Of massy, torn, wan water that ascends, men !

To meet confusion of the hurrying cloud, And then our Father, very near to death,
 ; ; ! !! ; ; ;

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA 185

Though his white friends would fain have Moving and murmuring, while star-worlds
borne him home, pass over.
Would suffer not his children to pursue When awake, dark forms are lying round
I :

Alone their arduous perilous return : Firelightwarms faintly mighty sylvan pillars,
'
My Makololo boys have served me well,' Rising from gloom to gloom they seem to my
:

"
Said he, 'and I will not desert them now !
' Drowsed senses ancient phantoms of the night.
Thousands of years, some say, the huge
Well I remember, O my splendid Sea, Mowana
How thy salt breath blew o'er me, as alive Flourishing lives, men around
while mortal
After interminable deserts drear. Fall with his leaves, and wither at his feet.
And dank hot jungles of the savage race, How could he tell of fleeting hopes and fears.
To come upon thee, Ocean, unaware, Of myriad passing loves, and woes, and wars !

Dear native element of all the free! Emmets and men, teeming and vanishing.
With British tars, and British hearts of oak. In halls of stone, or tunnell'd, chamber'd hills.
And the old fiery flag upon the wind ! Or wattled huts, as here men's thrilling lives
!

—
Tears blind my vision yonder England lies ! Gleam, firefly-like, a moment wonderful
A grey gull, in his strong deliberate flight Frail, nor so blithe as yon fair living lights.
Hover'd and slanted, dipp'd his breast in brine, That are and are not in the fragrant shade.
Exulting in the wind and turbulent foam ;
While half the mortal languor left my limbs,
And since she died,^^ rapture of my young
And I rejoiced with him. From sea to sea
years.
I traversed all the dark, blank continent
Love, and abiding pole-star of my life !

And proved it not, as timid idle dream

A marble cross, that gleams amid the gloom.
Surmised, an evil waste unprofitable,
Shines ever in dim vistas of my soul
Huge blot on God's most bountiful, fair
And I desire to lay my toil-worn limbs
world ;
Under still leaves of some primaeval grove,
Rather a promised land of living waters !

As she, my well-beloved, resteth hers.

Like that king's daughter in the fairy tale.
She sail'd from England, to divide my care.
Asleep, awaiting her Deliverer.
With brave Mackenzie's and another's wife :

Alas Mackenzie and his friend had fallen

!

How clearly do mine inner eyes behold

In the stern path of duty when they came !

The dear, wild nightly bivouac of yore,

And these two white-faced women wept akme
When I was in my manhood's vigorous prime
Over two very silent forest graves.
If it were in the prairie, or the desert,
Alas how soon I wept beside another
!

Sinbad, my riding ox, with other oxen,

For very soon my Mary went to rest.
Would lie beside the looming bullock-wain.
(Her venerable father, Moffat, only
Audibly ruminating, couch'd at ease
Is known among the tribes of Africa
Upon his shadow, in a luminous moon.
As my own Mary's father, as Ra-Mary.)
If it were in a forest, such as last
The fever seized her, and she pass'd away :

Appear'd before my musing memory ;

She pass'd at sunset on a Sabbath eve,
When I have heard awhile my followers' tales.
And left my feet to wander in the shade.
Wearily close mine ears in first faint sleep.
Half hearing only broken words, and names
Of tribes or places, weird, and all germane Upon a gentle, green acclivity,
To the mysterious realm of forest wild. Under a venerable Mowana tree,

But later still, silence inviolate reigns Garlanded with odorous flowers.
Save for a low communing of weird wind Tranquil in the sunny hours.
Among high crowns of leafy ebonies. She sleeps in glory !
 ! ! : — ! ! ! —" —! ! ;
:

1 86 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA

Orchards of mango basking in the south ;

The deadly javelin aim'd against my life ;

Northward fair palm, and many a noble Who, pressing princely favours on my need.
growth With more than counsel, with material aid,
Of oriental forest tree, Further'd my humanising pilgrimage ^^ ;

Where silvern Leeambayee When Christian Levites would have passed

Wanders in glory ;
me by.
!"
Jingled their gold, and sneer'd " Utopia
On his fair bosom many a sunny isle. My well-tried Makololo, they desert me
Calm as herself within the heavenly smile : Shrinking at last from more long sacrifice,

Upon the marble of her grave Bitter and boundless, it may be unavailing
Mowana shadows gently wave, I shall not reach those Lusian settlements
Waver in glory. Upon the long'd-for coast all urge return.
!

. Return I will not

. .

Pearly light clouds about his purple form, " Return _j'5 then, my people! I will go
High in the azure, deep, and wide, and warm, Alone, if so indeed it needs must be !

Mount Morambala soareth high, With heavy tread, with heavier heart, I enter.
Serene in mountain majesty, Weary and fever-stricken, my small tent
Dreaming in glory Under a tamarind and 1 lean my head;

Upon my hand to offer up a prayer.

Gleam forth, O marble, from the wilding Silence is all around me in the noon
gloom Yet only for a little —then I hear
Shine, O white cross, upon the martyr's tomb Footsteps approaching ; timidly one peers,
Faithful toil, long-suffering care. And sees me by the tent-pole ; first the one,
Radiate over dark and fair. Then more, have push'd the canvas fold aside
Burst into glory Falling upon me like repentant children,
Sobbing, with tears they pray to be forgiven
"We never meant it! We will never leave
thee!
CANTO IV Our own kind Father ! be of better cheer!
Where'er thou leadest, we will follow thee !"
I cannot loathe nor scorn the colour'd man;
Nor deem him far below my Master's love. And that poor African, who when I sail'd

I know about the sutures of his skull ;

For England supplicated to be taken
But I have proved him verily my brother. It was with bleeding heart I said him nay.

And I have heard of Toussaint L'Ouverture ! I told him he would perish of the cold

(Perchance I am not so fastidious In my bleak country, but he sobb'd with tears:

As those who have great genius for words ; " O let me come, and perish at your feet " !

Yet we dumb doers crave some standing room, Sebweku had a stronger claim than he.
O ye, so deft and dazzling with the tongue !) Alas Sebweku
!

The sea was rolling mountains high, when all

Well I remember, after all my toil, Embark'd at Kilimane in a boat.
When within grasp of a momentous prize, iVscending gliding turbid mountain-slopes.
Earth seem'd to glide from under was Their toppling hissing foamy summits broke
; all
failing. Drenching upon us, and submerged our bark
Even as now my very faithful friends
! Giddily slid we deep into the trough,
Who had plunged in drowning floods to Whose seething waterfalls hid all the masts
rescue me ; Of that great vessel which awaited us :

Who had interposed their bodies to avert We struck the massy bottom with a shock,
 ; ; ! ; — ; ;! ! ;;

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA 187

That made our stout planks quiver slant- ; made him welcome, and they liked
All
ing up him well
Another beetling journeying watercliff, But the new wonderworld inflamed his brain
Second of three great billows lightning- Kept his mind whirling ever night and day ;

crow n'd. Until, when we approach'd Mauritius,

Poor Sebweku, so valiant on land, A steamer steam'd from forth the harbour
So wise and skill'd in dealing with the many mouth
Tribes of his continent, strove strenuously Wonder of wonders to poor Sebweku
To be as brave in my fierce water world, Fiery smoke outbursting from her funnel.
Ghostly, unknown, terrific unto him : She churns the water with a rushing wheel
Yet as that awful play of leaping foam Slanting and swiftly swims upon the wave :

Struck us, and nearly swept us all from life. He cries " It is some fiend of the wild sea !"
:

He clutch'd my knees, crying with face of fear, Alas ! my fidend. . . .

Faintly illumed by a poor phantom smile, . . . When we are calmly moor'd.

Like a wet timid gleam among wan clouds, In a mad frenzy plunges — and is drown'd
" Is this the way you go ? is this the way?"
But when we had made a perilous ascent And yet my negroes at a later day ^*

Into the British war-brig anchor'd near. Proved boldest, skilfullest of mariners.
His fresh fantastic marvelling child-soul. Perilously braving mountainous ocean-waves,
So little tutor'd, ponder'd evermore And howling winds, our tight but tiny craft.
On all he saw within the war vessel Lad}/ Ayassa, from Mozambique flew,
Cannon, great coils of cable, ponderous chain, Resolved to harbour in far Asia.
Hammocks, and kitchen of the floating town, Mine own hands ruled the helm, my sleepless
Her sailors, and well-order'd soldiery ;
eyes
On the interminable water world, Watching the needle often would we clutch :

Strewn with dark swimming snakes, and Fast, lest some phantom billow whirl us forth ;

plants where roll

; Hurrying, swirling, billows playing with us.

Dolphins and whales ; where azure fishes fly, Whose foam-fangs gleam'd in night's chaotic
And birds gleam in a momentary ray war
Out of dull storm that raves among the But my blithe monkey-nimble negro boys,
shrouds. While our spars heaving dipp'd in hissing sea,
Reeling to starboard and to larboard, he, Climb'd undismay'd, and clinging, deftly
By swaying lamplight, in the midnight hour. reeved
Lies wakeful, hearing labouring timbers groan. A rope, at my bawl'd orders, through a
Or shouted orders, piercing all the roar ;
block
And clear struck bells, dividing hour from hour. With ebony heads and frames immersed in
He, creeping up lone glimmering hatchway brine,
stairs. Held their brave breaths ; then with the rope
Beholds a gleam from that mysterious shrine between
Where, under lighted crystal, a slim needle White, shining teeth, return'd triumphantly.
Trembles for ever toward the hidden pole ; When by a miracle we made the port
Notes a bronzed mariner's strong vigilance Nor founder'd, leaving ne'er a living soul
Revolving with both arms the straining wheel, To tell the tale ; among tall mast-forests
Beyond wet decks, wash'd over by fierce seas In that great hazy harbour of Bombay,
Beholds tall masts, more tall than forest kings, None could discover, though they sought for
Robed in broad shadowy windy sails and long.
booms, Where our wee "Lady" had bestowed her-
Circling among wan stars in rifts of cloud. self!
 ! ; ! ! ; ; ! !

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA
How and amiable some scenes
glorious Bird-song has waned, and even the stridulent
Of gorgeous and human joy,
loveliness, Cicala sleeps ; a rare bee drowsily
That pass before mine inner eyes to-night Explores a twilit labyrinth of flowers ;

For there is unsophisticated joy, Delicate blossoms dallying in warm airs,

Yea, hardy virtue in rude nature's child Bowing and yielding to the velvet lover ;

And there are sins, with poignant miseries, While heaven-blue elves with pulsing fans
Our subtler, jaded brains impart to him. alight
^^
Witness, the desolation and despair Over a ruin of red leaves, or sail
Of and kind,
guileless peoples, beautiful From light toshadow, like a jubilant
Basking in smiles of bounteous mother Earth, Song, failing in a tenderer low minor.
Wrought by pale Spaniards whom they held
; Gorgeous insects of metallic gleam
divine, Waver, and glance, and glimmer on the fronds.
Descended from the crystal firmament. Low, murmurous sound pervades all emerald
In silks and flashing armour, on white wings aisles.
Of golden galleons offering on their knees As though the floral earth and leaves were
;

Flowers and fruits and spices of their isle breathing.

And you, ye murderers of Patteson Life teems a myriad hidden mandibles,
! !

Not poor blind islanders, but English fiends Amid lush herbage, under moss and loam,
!

Beware, O ye who follow after me, Clear away life superfluous, and death.
Of how ye deal with this, mine Africa Gorgeous fungi here and there reveal.
Where sun can pierce, traversing shadows
Methinks I hear some solemn state palaver. thrown
Held in the grand unwall'd assembling-place, Athwart them from some silken spider's line,
Thatch'd with bamboos and branches, when To and fro glancing when a zephyr breathes ;

blue morn Bending long grasses wheresoe'er it hangs.

Glows golden, while cool shadows at the doors And hark the honey-bird invites to steal !

Of a leaf-bower'd village minish fast. Delicious honey-combs from hollow boles.

Morn lies a lake of light amid the bloom
And billowy wealth of forest foliage Hearken again
;

Young Sun, ascending, shines on thatch like A sound, how plaintive and melodious,
snow, Swells in the green gloom it is like one note !

Revealing veins of herbs, and draining them
Glancing among high senatorial boughs
Of feathery tamarind, or mahogany
From a sweet vibrant lyre a hidden bird
; —
Women have gone, with infants slung
;

While dews of slumber rustle rainbow rain behind them.

In sylvan, solitary silences Toward a spring, light pitchers gracefully
Of Nature's own cathedral sanctuary. Poised on their heads by steadying of dark
A spear is in the dusky orator's hand, arms
And spears are planted black athwart the day Curl'd over ; or they bruise with iron hoes
Dark bearded elders hearV:en solemnly, The hopeful soil plant yams and manioc
; ;

Resting on logs, all polish'd from long use. Pound in wood mortars these, or maize and
1 'erennial founts of eloquent, warm words millet
Are these untutor'd children (jf the sun ! Hem with some thorn, or fish-bone for a
needle,
Now reigns the blazing furnace of full noon : And fibres of a leaf; weave grassy cloths
And save for lillle rills that want no sleep. In looms, or spin with immemorial spindle.
Silence, before the intolerable glory. Some men have gone with quiver, targe, and
Kails on a cowering world of beast and man. spear,
 ! ! ; — ;

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA 189

To hunt the beast for food some loll at ease,

; Rude sires of more harmonious instruments,
Like their own gourds, luxuriously idle ; String'd with a root, a snake-skin strain'd
Listless and vacant dumb black animals, athwart
Who spurn the accursed yoke of thought and One sang me a small song about the dance.
toil—
They never roll the stone of Sisyphus The dance the dance! I

No fool's ambition ever goads their lives Maidens advance

To rouse a restless rumour, while they roll Your undulating charm !

Into fate's mortal darkness, and to leave A line deploys

A hollow murmur for a little time Of gentle boys,
In some poor space of insignificant earth ! Waving the light arm,
Bronze alive and warm ;

Now Sun steals westward ; and his fading Reedflute and drum
light Sound as they come,
Glows golden, while cool shadows at the Under your eyelight warm !

doors
Of leaf-embower'd villages are long. Many a boy,
Burning he falls into the forest sea. A dancing joy,
Inflames leaf-billows with purpureal fire ;
Many a mellow maid,
Drawing down souls to caves of the under- With fireflies in the shade.
world ;
Mingle and glide,
Whence in twelve hours he royal will arise Appear and hide,
From holy nenuphars upon the river I Here in a fairy glade :

Fragrance and song, released from royalty Ebb and flow

Of his fierce presence, timid lift their heads To a music low,
Grey parrots crying flutter home to roost. Viol, and flute and lyre,
Hunters return, with many a gay halloo. As melody mounts higher :

And whoop light-hearted, bearing various With a merry will,

game, They touch and thrill,
About whose way hilarious women throng, Beautiful limbs of fire!
Calling them by pet names, and fondling
them, Red berries, shells,
Prattling, intent to hear of all the sport. Over bosom -del Is,
Boys in gourd bowls bring frothy plantain And girdles of light grass.
wine May never hide
From cool leaf-cellars in low boughs of trees, The youthful pride
Presenting it with clapping of their hands : Of beauty, ere it pass :

Anon there smokes a savoury repast, Yet, ah ! sweet boy and lass,
Viands of venison, nuts, and season'd yams. Refrain, retire !

Love is a fire !

Dancing and singing under tender stars. Night will pass !

In serene purple air! a rising moon

Charming all harshness from the fuming flame I came to pleasant places on my way '.

Of resinous torch, and lowlier village fires, Lawns of deep verdure by a silvern water
Mild as evanishing fireflies in the shade Wind-waved savannahs flush'd with floral
A night of love for lovely youths and girls, bloom,
Of revelry, and wine and flute playing, Clouded with saff'ron or cerulean flowers,
Psaltery, reed, marimba, or cithern ; And little silken blossoms of pure snow,
 — — — ; ;
! : ! ! ;

I90 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA

Dying in dews of every dying eve, Among dark faces of adoring crowds,
Living in all revivals of the morn. Moonsilver'd, lit from lamps of gourd or
Here women singing reap the golden grain, melon,
Or bind in sheaves ; here flourish cotton- Amid glad music and loud clapping hands ;

fleece, Even as in Sais, at the Feast of Lamps,

Rice, tendrill'd peas, and pulse, and sugar- Far away in dim hollows of the past
cane ;
While mottled kine, knee-deep in flowering Among rare visions of celestial glory.
grasses, And all responsive splendours upon Earth,
At milking time low to their prison'd heifers, In such a scene as these, in such a river.
And merry kidlings frisk at bower'd doors. Behold ! a maiden in her earliest prime
The men under some fig's rich canopy Bound to a stake, bare-limb'd upon a bank,
Sit weaving limber baskets, or a weir. The ripple washing over her slim ankles,
And fishing-creel. And lovely swaying lilies kissing them.
Slight palisades preserve She horror-frozen waits the horrid doom . . .

Dark jasper-jewell'd women, as they fill . A hideous head protrudes from forth
. .

Their pitchers in the river, from the foul the shoal

Scaled alligators that abound below. There is a whirl of monstrous dragon-tail . . .

Watchfully lurking underneath wan water ; . Andromeda's red blood afflicts the river
. .

Dim treacherous shadows, motionless like Whom no fair winged Perseus may save
stone,
Monsters who linger from primaeval time, I travell'd over many lakes and rivers.
Ere man appear'd to rule In floating trees men hollow'd with an adze
For a canoe, my rowers with wild song
Nay, some pay them tribute of a prayer
still Paddling or poling, in accordant time
Offer their very little ones to soothe Of oar and voice, chanting some ancient stave
And sate bestial malign divinities! Of river-song in tones Gregorian,
These have their priest, temple, and sacrifice. Solemn and strange, ancient as Pharaoh
Or priestess, with observances impure :

So have green serpents, tongued with flicker- How wonderful it was to float along the
ing fire, river!
WTiose stealthy glide flames out in torturing Dreamily hearing water plash and gurgle
hells. . . . From my canoe's advancing sides and oars.
. . . Are these dark aberrations of the soul Washing among green rushes of the shore !

Terrible legacies bequeathed to men Wherein wing'd warblers, plumed in spousal

By some forefather of Egyptian race. hues
Who bore the ritual of his ancient realm Of green, gold, scarlet, sable, white and azure,
To these far wilds of Ethiopia? Flash'd, thrill'd, and warbled ; here in the
Bringing his cast of feature, and the modes Summerland,
Of intricatehairbraids involved with bark ; Now in the latest of two summers.
fairy
Manners of tilling earth and harvesting, When there is snow in England ah —
and !

Spindles, and ways of weaving warp with bells ;

weft. With lovelier light and warmth of home and

Or was it some primreval ancestor, heart
Common to all, whom so the Lord made wise, Hark how ! they sing to soft mates in nests
And whom in turn the Enemy beguiled ? woven
But still, upon broad shoulders of strong men, Of green flags, nimble bills have sewn with
A sacred ark is borne at the full moon webs
 ; ; ;

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA 191

While, sunning them, they preen their little From shadowy bosoms offering fruits of
wings, Eden ;

Showering drops that trickle clown the stems ! Breathing a perfume as of Paradise
Earlier rains have fallen a fresh air ; From their soft islands; islands of the blest,
Fans clear and lucid now in morning hours ;
Bower'd to the marge, re-echo'd in the water ;

Vivid green pennons of tall rushes wave With many a fleecy cloudlet sailing slow.
Athwart blue light, with dense papyrus reed, Small richly armour'd quaint iguanas bask
Wherein soft brown gazelles rustle and play On every sunniest bough while startled eyes ;

'Neath hollyhock, brown bulrush, and flag- Of glorious lithe beasts flash for a moment
flowers. Out of the solemn sylvan opaline
A mighty river horse Of hoary forest boles, and swiftly vanish :

Protrudes a shining snout ; orange heads

trumpets aloud. Little agamas nod their ;

Blowing out spurts of water like a whale. A lovely praying mantis, green as leaves,
'^ Pnla, pula."
calls the "Son-in-law of Rests on green leaves; and green chameleons.
God " ;
i«

While ever and anon an ebony bird We wind along the waters rise from rain ; ;

Rouses from his dim dreaming on the sand, Blue hazy hills arise, saluting us.
And screaming harshly, wakes a long wild cry Often, when we have doubled some fair cape,
From some fish-eagle, widening vast brown With thud and plash fall fragments of rich
wings. loam
In shoals grave marabouts, with red flamin- And as we round low river promontories,
Crocodiles basking upon yellow sand,
goes,
Wade and behold yon bird on floating lotus
With dull green eyes, and huge obscene fang'd
; !

Leaves walks among the holy white lilies. jaws,

Dipping a glossy fold below the ripple. Wake startled ;

gliding plunge into the flood ;

A snowy a slim demoiselle,

ibis,
Where many a deHcate-tinted pelican

A tall grey heron, an egret of white plume;

Stores silver fishes in his hanging pouch.

These, and the like, stand fairy sentinels,

Wandering devious, many-mooded rivers
With wavering bright image down below, Mazily saunter, with a floating flower,
Silent before a twilit emerald
Or leaf, or bubble on their bosom borne
Of river margin, radiant in bloom. ;

With labyrinthine silver in the blue ;

Yellow milola, blue convolvulus.
Indolent dimpling playful light and shadow
Whose vases seem to overflow with heaven, ;

Now washing swiftly round about the roots

These all are haunts of lustrous dragon-fly
Of guava, mango, fountainous cocoa-palm.
Gorgeous velvet moth, sipping the sweet
Or palm that, veil'd in climbing green llianas,
Of dappled bees, gold-dusted; butterflies,
High over all the verdure lifts a spire.
Wing'd like the train of Juno's heavenly bird.
Among blithe rapids my dark boatmen wade,
Merrily pushing ; while at waterfalls,
Onward we glide, and twine meandering Pendent in green woods among roseate rocks,
On a moss-colour'd water, till the gale Pendent, like plumes of birds of paradise,
Relieves my merry rowers ; we e.xpand They carry our frail l)ark upon their shoulders.
A little sail, filling with sweet air.
soft
Like some soft bird's white bosom heaved Sunset arrives : a stilly-flowing flood
with song, Glows, like blent molten metals brilliant.
White foam of waterfalls we glide
as a ; Dark and light green, crimson, purple and
Merrily among wave-enchanted flowers, gold.
Glossily heaving while we gently pass Repeating heaven : as though yon gleaming
;

Or splendid twinkling trees, immersed in light. beetles,

 ; !!! !! : ;

192 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA

Swaying among the verdure, were afloat,

One solid army of them, mail'd in glory. MOSI-OA-TUNYA.^*

Smooth river water holdeth softly furl'd

I enter equatorial lakes, unknown
Thee, hoarded wonder of the wondrous worldjl
To any European eyes before :

Ere thy tempestuous cataracts are hurl'd,

Ngami, Bemta, Moero, Nyassa
Mosi-oa-tunya
Slumbering in grand enfolding arms
Of oldvolcanic mountain, tempest-crown'd !
Twenty miles away thy sound
Profound and lonely children of the waters, Travels from the gulf profound
Whom gorgeous vestured giant forms o'er- Of thine earth-convulsing bound,
frown. Mosi-oa-tunya
Bastion, tower, inviolate precipice,
Five great cloudy columns rise,
Burying them from all-beholding Sun
In sullen shadow, many hours a year.
To uphold the rolling skies :

Ngami earliest lake mine eyes beheld

! ;
Morning clothes with rainbow dyes
Mosi-oa-tunya
On whose fair shores of old exultantly
I stood, with my dear little ones and her! Awful phantoms in the moon
This inland sea, this noble Tanganyika, Rise to thy tremendous tune :

Where Burton came with Speke, whom Eng- When the fiery evening falls.
land mourns. Hell sulphureous appals,
Hath all his guardian mountains foliaged While thy blazing thunder calls,
From wave to heaven magnificently robed !
Mosi-oa-tunya !

In rich luxuriant foliage of Mvule,

The huge Mowana, and the Mohonono,
And other alien blossoming tall trees,
Bauhinia, tamarind, teak, and sycamore, Like silvery cedar-trees on Lebanon,
Wave, with light palms, upon the pleasant
Enfolding purple torrent-cloven ravines.
isles
While otherwhere long sheeny rapier blades
And shores, ere Leeambayee vanishes,
Of green matete cane adorn the marge,
As though annihilate in his proud career :
With mangroves whose bare roots affect the
fen.
Motsouri-cypress, yielding scarlet fruit

rounding promon- All noblest equatorial trees adorn

One who rows softly,

tories.
His mile-wide water, clear as a clear day,
When these high hills are overarch'd with Gliding like lightning into the abyss.
azure, Clear a moment, ere thou blanch
Dipping his paddle in a light blue water, Into a mile-wide avalanche.
Beholds embower'd in sweet shingly coves Snowfall lapsing twice the height
Palm-nestled, hive-like huts and villages, Of Niagara in his might I

Whose dwellers ply their busy crafts on shore, Born of thy resounding day,
While fishing gear and boats adorn the Myriad meteors o'er thee play
strand . . .
There is an evergreen dark grove,
, . . And what if thisgreat water gender Nile?''' Guarded by thine own awful love :

For I have seen a Northward drift of boughs,

may move,
Her inner melancholy no sun
With other while Arabs tell
floating waifs ;
Mosi-oa-tunya
How from Northern limits of the lake
far

A river flowclh North —

perchance to where Tall ghostly forms of sounding cloud
Clothe her in a rainbow shroud
Baker, with his heroic consort, came ? . . . ;

. . . Where issueth else the mighty water No bird of hers carols aloud,
forth ? Mosi-oa-tunya
 !! ! ! !

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA 193

Down the rock's tremendous face, Love abideth still, sublime

Foam-rills, tremulous like lace, O'er the roar and whirl of Time,
Flow from roots that grasp the place, Foam-bow of a sunnier clime,
To where thy vaporous cauldrons hiss ;
Mosi-oa-tunya
But ere they may attain to this.
Smoke roaring, whirl'd from the abyss. But I behold there, on high poles exposed.
Licks them off precipitous stone, White skulls of strangers, whom the savage
High into a cloudy zone, hordes
Mosi-oa-tunya Of river-pirates most inhumanly
Slew : these barbarians the Makololo,
Sebituane, routed and destroy'd
Water and wind jamm'd in a chasm pro- ;

found.
Planting his own Bechuana speech abroad
Tortured, pent-up, and madden'd, with strong Among the nations opening thereby;

sound A way wherein our Sacred Oracles

War in world-ruining chaos, fierce rebound- May march triumphant blessing all the land ;

ing Since Moffat arduously render'd them

'.

A wild tumultuous rumour, earth and heaven Into a heretofore unletter'd tongue.

confounding.
By moonlight, or by starlight, when we
pause
After, the river rushes, a long green
Upon the river's bosom, ah ! how fair !

Serpent, convolved about dark promontories

Shadowy fruits and flowers in elf-light hang-
Of sternest basalt, in the unfathomable
ing ;
Chasm to and fro, a swift fork'd lightning-
Plaintive low voices floating tenderly.
flash ;
One waking here, in slumber borne from far,
But all the promontories are crown'd with
Would deem he had died in sleep, and was
trees,
in heaven.
Gorgeous blooming herbage and tall flowers.

Alas ! all fair dreams fade, and this would

On a green island, hanging o'er the fade!
flood.
Joy only masketh the wan face of woe.
Even where it falleth, lovely flowers are For not alone here fever's mortal breath
wooed, Chills all exultant ardours of the brave ;

And with eternal youth imbued. Slackens bent bows of young impetuous lives.
By a lapse of gentle rain Baffling the swift-wing'd arrows of their aim ;

From the cataract's hurricane :

Veils youthful eyes in languorous impotence,
Love celestial in showers So that they love no more fair life than death.
Falls from devastating powers !
But there is worse than treacherous-sou I'd
Under the foam-bow and the cloud. Miasma,
Here where thunders peal aloud. Lurking for prey, close-mask'd in orient
Human souls with trembling bow'd, glory.
Mosi-oa-tunya Enveloping a man with subtle folds
Of dull impalpable mortality.
Cruel lords of all the isles, Sin is a deadlier malady than all
Though a heavenly rainbow smiles,
'

These flowers are only strewn upon a corpse.

Only feel bewildering annihilating terror ;
Man has made Earth a hissing and a scorn
Offer human lives to thee in blind, bewilder'd
j
Among the constellated worlds of light
error. And here the plague-spot is the loathliest.
N
 ; ! : ; ; : ! ! !:
!

194 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA

I have come to pleasant places on my way : Chaffer'd, and bought and sold, as was their
Angels beholding might be lured from heaven 1 wont,
And in the course of my long wandering In a populous fair by the worn river-marge.
I have return'd once more to visit them. And there was melody of mandolin,
Alas how changed ! ! And dulcet flute with dancing, and warm love
;

. .Bowery villages roll volumed clouds

. Of gay young lovers, under broad brown eaves,
Of fiery smoke, staining the limpid light ;
Sheltering from a hot ascending day
Rich harvests, charr'd, or trampled, or un- Where clear young laughter blent deliciously
garner'd, With falling notes of bowery turtle-doves,
Idly luxuriant, meet the mournful eye. Mantled hues of tender summer cloud.
in
While, even beside a fair golden array Hearken !
— a rush
a trample of arm'd men
!

Of bounteous corn, a few starved boys and A sudden deafening crash of musketry !

women. Hundreds of blithe love-dreaming youths

Gaunt as yon skeletons around them strewn, and maidens.
Crawl ; listless, hopeless famine in their eyes Bathed in their own life-blood, and one
All that were dear, slain, tortured, or expell'd another's,
By arm'd assaults of the fierce slave-driver. Fall, with one last death-quivering embrace:
And ah ! these skeletons ! the tales they While women arms
in rude violating
tell! Of strangers and the flower of men
struggle ;

Beside fair river-banks, beside wreck'd huts, Strain their necks impotent in yokes of iron,
Under green trees, under red rocks, in caves, Grappled around them by their insolent foes.
Ghastly anatomies, in attitudes Hundreds in panic blind man, woman, —
Of mortal anguish, writhed, and curl'd, and child-
twisted, Plunge among waters of deep Lualaba ;

Mutually clasp'd in transports of despair Whose drowning bodies the swift current
hurries ;

In one closed cabin, when mine eyes con- These, maim'd swollen corpses, drifting far
form away,
To on a rude raised bed
its faint twilight, Hideously-croaking famish'd alligators
Appear two skeletons in mouldering weeds Fight for portentous lashing furious trains.;

The head of one fallen from its wooden Pulling asunder human trunks and limbs
pillow;
And piteous between them a small form But follow ye the stolen journeying slave
Of a starved child, nestled by sire and mother. Behold her toiling shackled, starved, and
The dead, and living wounded, and the babes, goaded
Are flung by those contemptuous conquerors Upon her weary way through wild and wood.
To feed loathsome hyenas, that assemble Under the sunblaze till her bleeding feet ;

Through lurid smoke of sunset, gaunt and Refuse their ofiice ; till she faints and falls
grey Whom the tormentors, with a curse and jeer.
With obscene screaming vultures, heavily Torture to sense of cruel life once more :

Wheeling, or swooping rending the live prey. ; Two burdens doth she carry one, her babe ;

One infant darling, weeping, wilder'd, still She cannot bear them both they snatch the ;

Solicits the cold breast of a dead mother! babe

From her, for all the wailing and wrung
have seen Lualaba's mighty rolling water
I hands
Red with the blood of a blithe innocent Tossing it crush'd upon a mossy stone.
people, They goad her on full blinding tears have
;

Who, unforeboding slant-eyed treachery. darken'd

 " ! ; ! " ) ! :! !

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA 195

All the parch'd earth ; she cannot stumble Glorious worlds, unknown to mortal men.
far— My spirit yearns to you from hollow orbs
Now shouts arise to kill her — it is done ! Soon shall I slake my longing all divine
Christ saith to Satan: "Hold! the child Even in you, with higher powers than these
shall sleep
!
Of this poor worn-out body !

Now my soul
Seeks those immortals, who have passed away
From earth to yonder infinite star-worlds
CANTO V World within world, sun, planet, comet,
moon,
Solemnly purple night reigns over me, All in their order and their own degree.
With all the solemn glory of her stars. One crimson, and one golden, and one green.
Sublime star-worlds, who never have dis- Harmonious hearing a low voice of Love !

dain'd Star of the Nile ! resplendent Sirius

To be my friends, consolers, counsellors, Whom here men name " Drawer of all the
Guiding faint footfalls of a mortal man Night !

How often, when the moon among your Planet of Love ! Ntanda,'^ fair firstborn
lights Of evening, tremulous dew in a sweet rose
Glided, with her wan face beholding day (She is so large, and clear, she sheds a
A slim canoe, carven from tender pearl, shadow :

Confused to many crescents as I gaze ; Aldebaran, Orion, Fomalhaut,

Noting the very punctual moment, I Altair, Canopus, and the Southern Cross !

Besought my faithful sextant to reveal

What interval of cavernous clear gloom Now fades yon pyramid of nebulous light
Lay now between her orb and one of you ! Zodiacal, that, paling as it soars.
I found how high above your brilliant Tinges mild splendour of the Milky Way
Image in my small pool of mercury A delicate orange but Magellan's clouds ;

Ye rose in heaven on my meridian. Revolve around our starless Southern Pole.

So, in the least conjectured realm of all And all is silence— only a night air
These pilgrim feet have found, my where- Rustles a palm, dreaming among the stars,
about From whose dim languorous long fronds
On our Earth discovering I record.
this they rise,
But the barbarians, when they saw me place Slow disentangling their celestial gleam.
And note the readings of mine instrument. No human sound disturbs the solitude.
Deemed me magician ; some beneath their Only a cry of some far florican ;

breath, A chirping cricket in the herb afar.

Viewing my quadrant's ivory curvature, Or doleful forest-mufHed living thing.
Whisper'd: "The Son of God hath come Also I hear a distant ghostly voice
to us; Of plangent surf, alternately resounding
And lo ! the moon was underneath his arm ! And ceasing, on wild Tanganyika's shore.
He holdeth strange communion with stars." But some low thunder booms at intervals.
Some say it is a surge, wandering in caves
Yours are fair faces of familiar friends Unfathomable of a mighty mountain range,
To the lone traveller in a lonely land, Far ofi" to westward, nearer Liemba.
Ye constellations, slowly journeying west And some affirm a river under earth
And some of you, my best beloved at home Rushes in yonder mountains of Kabongo,
May not behold but some of you, with me, Ikeathing a strange low thunder on the
;

Their eyes and mine may gaze upon together. wind . . .

 ; !! ; — !; ! :;
!!

196 LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA

England my children
! ! shall I see you once For whom he moulds huge organs all inform 'd
Again before I perish ? — nay the end With a blind emanation from the soul
Is very near here I shall die alone
: : Wheel within wheel of giant enginery,
I am weary, worn, deserted, destitute Thunderously storming, wailing, murmuring,
Cow'd slaves of his creative human will
It may be that my work is nearly done. Eager mangle the slight taskmaster.
to
And though some say Christ cannot conquer If God plunge him among their whirling
here, limbs. . . .

A noble army of dark men to-day,

Following His banner, proudly spurn the lie. But with a gauntlet of stern iron crush out,
The native chief Sechele,"" whom I taught, England the foul snake coil'd voluminous
!

Now teaches all his subject countrymen ;

About this desolate land, feeding on blood !

And Africaner, the black conqueror. Forbid, stamp out, the accursed trade in men :

Whose very name was terror to the world Nor dare neglect the mission of the strong,
Of his resistless ruining career, To bind the oppressor, and to help the poor!
Moffat alone, no weapon in his hand.
Subdued with silent spiritual power. Then shall these glorious immemorial rivers,
The haughty devastating spirit bow'd. And inland seas, mine eyes have first be-
Like Saul of old, a willing thrall to Christ; holden.
So that all marvell'd to behold the man, The Lord's highways of holiness and peace,
Saying, "Can this indeed be Africaner?" Alive with white-winged ministers of heaven,
I have unveil'd before the feeble eyes. Waft sunnier glory to the jubilant shores
Inured to twilight of a prison cell, Of Ethiopia, and the Maurian's land
Little by little, His fair radiance, Lift up her dark deliver'd hands to God
Reflecting Him, though faintly, in my life. I may not see it ! Like Israel's leader, I
Also I made myself as one of them, Am but a pioneer to bring the people
Seeking the bent and habit of their souls, Out of bondage as on Pisgah's height,
their :

That I might govern, order, set to use. I may beholdthe promised land from far. . . .

I have flung wide the portals of the night

And I would have wise lovers of mankind, Children of hope and morning, enter ye
Dwelling through all the land in colonies ;

Gendering new necessities of life,

Desires entwined with all the nobler growth
Of reason, mutual reverence, and love ; CANTO VI
Arousing men with sturdier enterprise
To stir the virtues of a virgin soil Now daylight rules : but Livingstone still
Fostering civil arts of mutual peace, sleeps
That ask for interchange of services. Within the clay-built shadowy chamber walls.
So shall they cherish honourable trade Fragments of torn soil'd paper, strewn around.
In all the wealth of Ethiopia ; Show notes of travel jotted on the way
Ebony, amber, gold, and ivory ; With his own red blood, used in place of ink.
A care to barter these for what is wrought A notebook, and a Bible, lie beside
By of the brain
fiery familiars With sextant, and chronometer, and hides
Yonder Europe, in our world sublime
in Ivory, tusks, a rifle, a javelin.
Of godlike labour, triumph, and despair ;

In realms more wonderful than Africa Hark ! the tranquillity of burning noon
For in our Europe and America, A distant shot disturbs !
— and now another
Sun, ocean, earth, are vassals unto man ; Men rouse them — what is it ? another shot
 "
! — ! ! !

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA 197

Itmust be some approaching caravan. His living need, and sent strong hearts to
Shall theyawake the Master? Nay, he hears : help.
He is awake, and, listening, wonders too ;
Young, namesake of a faithful friend at home,^'
Hoping, and fearing communing with God. ;
Finds all the falsehood of a traitor's tale :

He sends his trusted servant to discover But Stanley finds the murder'd man alive !

Who is the leader of the caravan. Ilis ardent spirit bounds with generous joy,

He has heard rumours of a white man near. Proudly exultant for himself hath found
;

Who ? can he be commissioned to relieve ? The man whom Europe and America
!"
"'Tis only some pale trader after all Delight to honour, and desire to save.
The messenger in breathless haste returns :

He has seen the leader of the coming band : Who should this be with venerable mien,
''
a white man and he seeks for thee.
It is ! And ashen hair, and worn wan countenance,
My Master he hath large supplies with him
!
!
Travel-marr'd, in dun raiment, with bowed
But Livingstone can scarce believe for joy. form,
And yet what grateful accents from afar Wearing a mariner's goldbanded cap ;

Come faintly wafted on this Afric air ? Of aspect firm, beneficent, and calm ;

A hearty ringing Anglo-Saxon cheer He who advances with a kindly smile

Renew'd by nuiltitudinous followers,
1

Before the Arabs ?

—
'tis a stranger's face

Advancing down the forested hill-sides Yet Stanley knows it must be Livingstone
Of Ukaranga swiftly they arrive
! : Longing to clasp him in a friend's embrace,
Eager Ujiji pours excitedly And yet restraining transports honourable.
To give the strangers greeting — a black crowd. He only bares the deeply reverent head,
Among dim huts and trees, with bearded With questioning accent naming the great
grave, name.
Flowing-robed, turban'd Arabs, in the rear Livingstone warmly grasps the proffer'd hand.
Of England's great explorer, waiting now And after salutation courteous
To welcome his unknown deliverer. To some around, these recent yet fast friends

How? 'tis the banner of America! Turn toward the claybuilt tembe ; whose
America saves England —mighty Child broad eaves
Of mighty Mother, it is nobly done I This afternoon shall shelter two glad men.
Join your two strong right hands for ever- In place of one alone and desolate.
more. The traveller, slowly dying yesterday,
And swear that none shall sever them anew Now shares with relish in a plenteous meal,
Then tremble, crown'd oppressors of man- Reiterating " You have brought me life "
: !

kind !

England, America, on your free soil Letters from loved ones, how long silent
The slave may kneel ; but only kneel to God ! soon
Thou, gallant Stanley, scorning toil, alert, The pilgrim reads ; and while soft evening
Stern battling with thy formidable foes, wears.
Hast won the Ijrilliant prize ; and Europe They sit communing of how many things
turns They speak of friends of some whom fame
;

Her enviously grateful eyes on thee ! well knows ;

And one whom Livingstone may chance to

The outer world supposed the traveller name
dead. Yet lives — —
another he has pass'd away !

But Murchison, and some true friends beside, Then the explorer tells a wondrous tale
In England, as beyond the sundering sea, Of his exploits, adventures, and desires.
Firm in sagacious confidence, divined But on himself, emerged but yesterday
 ; ! —
! ; ; " ! ; ; ;
.

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA

From forests of the dark barbarian, His dark and awful Mistress, Africa.
His comrade pours a flood of radiance But that inveterate foe, the dire disease,"
From royal Europe trembling to her base, Watching lynx-eyed for opportunity,
And deluged in the lifeblood of her sons Found it, alas when, with a dwindling life,!

France, the Colossus, shatter'd at Sedan ; The old, but still young-hearted traveller
Her emperor, with all her chivalry, Would flounder, as in manhood's vigorous
Slain, or enthrall'd while Germany the
;
prime.
proud Through foul morasses, many hours a day.
Draws stern inveterate coils of battle close The foe sprang on him and he felt full well
;

About the fairest city in the world Its gripe this time was mortal then the flesh :

Moltke and Bismarck are dismembering Quail'd and rebell'd— let him but struggle
France home
William assumes old Barbarossa's crown Homeward they hasten life ebbing apace. —
In that great mirror'd chamber of the halls. And first he rides ; but soon they carry him.
Which Louis, Gaul's grand monarch, piled So when they have arrived at Muilala,
in pride He bows the head "A hut where I may —
!

To all the glories of his conquering race die

The wanderer listens, marvelling, to all Now all the mists of death pass over him :

While darkness deepens over Africa. Terrible pain, ill dreams with longings vain
;

He turns to dearer themes tells how he — For one glimpse of a loving face afar.
yearns It is the hour of mortal agony.
For home and his beloved ; but would fain Watchman will the terrible night soon pass?
!

Finish his work, since all the means are here. Then through the darkness mounts a bitter
"
" Nor will my labour now detain me long !
cry ;

They pore upon their notes, and charts As through more darkness upon Calvary
arrange Rose a more bitter crying from the Lord.
The future, lying on a fur-strewn floor.
By oil-light, burning in a shard for lamp ; Gloomy the night and sullen ; whose faint
Sipping black coffee, breathing fragrant breath
fume . . .
Moans among grasses of a lonely hut
With other heart and other hopes to-night While Bemba mourns with dying wave afar . .

Livingstone hearkens to the solemn sound . .Behold a dim procession slowly moves
. !

Of Tanganyika's melancholy wave ; Athwart the gloom phantasmal Hero-forms, !

And his friend hearkens for he may not sleep,;

.Scarr'd as with thunder ; marr'd, yet glorious
Whose heart is buoyant with a wondering joy. Their pale brows aureoled with martyr-flame;
Lovers of men, sublime in suffering ;

Patriots of all races and all time

CANTO VII Christian confessors whom the world admires

And some, whom none regarded, saving
" Build me a hut to die in !
— nevermore Heaven.
May I behold my land, or my beloved." They are come to claim their brother ; and
So spake the Master ; for the end was near ;
the First
Whom his dark silent followers obey. Seems like unto the lowly Son of God.
For Livingstone, resuming his life-load
With a light heart, for all his years, and frame "Strew grass upon the hut for I am cold ;
!"

Outworn with mighty labour and long pain, And those dark silent followers obey.
Help'd even more the Mistress of his .soul, But Majuahra kneels beside the bed ;
 ! ! ; ; ;! " —
! ! ! !

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA 199

Dark Majuahra, a young slave set free, His dark youths bear him in the rude grey

Kneels by a rude bed in a bough-ljuilt hut bark,

And while his tears
That never did a fellow-creature wrong,
But only wrought deliverance for all
After the fourth day of his coming there,
At solemn midnight, noble Livingstone,
Saying, in a low voice, " I am going home
fall on the wasted hand, As though their burden were a holiest ark.
Embalm'd they bear him from the lands of
Nile,
As men bore Israel, Abraham, erewhile.
Weary and weak, and faint and fallen ill.
Through desert, jungle, forest wild and still.
!

Quietly sleeping, enters into rest. By lake, and dismal swamp, and rolling river,
A lamp faint glimmers on the little slave, Slowly their dark procession winds for ever.
As on those grand wan features of the dead . . . How would the Chief exult at every sight
. . . Daylight has dawn'd— the Conqueror Alas those eagle eyes are seal'd in night.
!

is crown'd I
Behold them winding over hill and plain,
In storm, in sunshine, calm and hurricane
Then all were best to do.
consult what it And if they may not hide what thing they
And his true followers, he has loved, whom bear.
And taught, and saved from bondage worse Men banish them with horror and wild fear.
than death, Far from all human dwelling nor will feed ;
;

Who have shared his perils and long wander- Nor furnish aught to fill their bitter need ;

ings ;
Chumah, Hamoyda, Susi, and the rest
Resolve to bear away the dear remains.
Even to the coast a thousand miles away
That so the English may receive their Chief,
them with hindering word and deed.
Assailing
But though their burden may not wake to
cheer.
— The Hero-Spirit hovers very near:
Upon them rests the holy Master's power :

And bring him home where he desired to be. — His soul before them moves, a mighty tower !

But fearing lest the village interpose. They, and the body, rest beneath the stars,
They hide the truth of their commander's Or mooned ghostly-rainbow'd cloudy bars ;
death ;
Until at length they hear the sounding sea,
And, building a high fence around a booth. In all the grandeur of Eternity
Bury the body's inner parts beneath A solemn, strange, a holy Caravan !

A shadowy tree, with solemn funeral rites ;

When was the like thereof beheld by man ?

Carving thereover name and date of death.

All that remains they reverently prepare Now waft him homeward in the gallant

During twelve mournful days beneath the sun, ship.

Embalming it with salt that purifies. Expanding her white wings for a long flight

Last in rude bark of a great tree they bear him It is not far from when we look'd for him.
Toward the isle of clove and cinnamon,^ In Maytime we had hoped to greet the sail,

Bulbul and orange, and pomegranate flower; Wafting our conqueror to rest
stainless

Carrying their dead Leader to the sea, In his own land, irradiate with love,
Who in glad triumph should have brought Wearing our well-earn'd honour on his brow.
them there Then bells would have peal'd over him, and
flowers
Strewn his triumphant path, and shouts of joy
The Caravan Have rent the summer air to welcome him.
A solemn, strange, a holy Caravan So we have welcomed our victorious
When was the like thereof beheld by man ? Warriors yesterday from Africa
Slow journeying from unconjectured lands. .\nd so alas have mourn'd the noble band
!

Behold they bear him in their gentle hands;

! Who, call'd by honour, gloriously died.
 — ! — ! ; !

LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA

A sail is sighted — he is coming home. He might have gather'd violets to-day ;

But all fair colours of the many nations Listening to our earliest nightingale
In harbour, flying low from many a mast, Under the woodland sprays of soft young
And minute guns, and muffled voice of bells, green
With reverent silence of assembling throngs, But we have strewn spring flowers upon the
And mourning emblems in the public ways, bier
Mournfully tell of how the hero comes! And we have wrought in white azaleas
A cross thereover ;
Queen
while our kindly
Now yet a little further carry him. Has twined her delicate wreath for him and ;

Westminster opens wide her ancient doors some

For more illustrious dust to enter in. Lay fadeless amaranth, with roses rare.
Honour the noble Scottish weaver-boy, And his own cherish'd palms of Africa,
The lowly-born illustrious Livingstone Palms of the conqueror, upon his breast.
With solemn music we will leave him here, Now while those ashes slowly sink to rest.

Among the ashes of our mighty fallen. All Europe, and his Country bending over ;

Behold ! world-honour'd Shades that haunt While solemn music soars with seraph plume;
the fane, Pearly soft sun -rays, like sweet wings of
Statesman, or monarch, poet, soldier, sage doves,
The while he moves along their awful line Enter yon high clerestories, and abide
To his own hallow'd English sepulchre ;
Athwart grey marrying fans of the dim ceiling:
From yon far forest of lone Muilala So all we mourners, piers, and monuments,
Moves to more glorious glooms of West- Cilow with a rainbow glory, as from Heaven.
minster
Bend in a grand reverent humility Is it not better as the Lord hath will'd ?

Before our stainless warrior of the cross ; On his own chosen he falls,
battle-field
Uncursed of any humblest human soul ; Still pressing forward, face toward the foe

Blest and for ever to be blest by man ;

Foremost of all explorers Liberator
Of the dark continent, and all her sons
Africa, and America, appear
His mighty mourners for a staunchest friend, ;
Stanley is here and here the slave set free,"^
; And pale decorum's mild monotony ?
Who brought his noble master to the coast
The Negro youth, who
A martyr's death and tomb illume with light
; His plain severe sublimity of life.
! Could he have borne, who drank the liberal
wind
Of deserts, like a lion or a pard,
Our stifling air of dull proprieties,
;
Who, with clear eyes on the Celestial Pole,
breathed our English Loved, like an Arab, wandering wild and free !

words
Of faithful hope, words we are breathing now, While some surmise thedubious dim realm,"^
Over that heart entomb'd in Africa. Where he surrender'd to a sacred cause
For though she hath restored some dust to us, His very life-breath in a life-long war.
In life, in death, she claims to hold his heart Molds verily the furthest founts of Nile !

. . . Hath he not died in her own awful

arms? His death-cold hand unveils a Mystery,
His sons and daughters in deep sable robed Which all the unyielding ages from of old
Bear large white wreaths of blossom for his Have shrouded in impenetrable gloom ;

grave : A darkness formidable from tongues confused

Yea, dark Death lies all buried and conceal'd Of hydra-headed Error, breathing fear.
Under sweet emblems of immortal life! Champion of knowledge, and celestial love !

Alas if he had come to us alive,

! Conqueror of unconquerable Nile !
 ! — ; ! —
LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA
Mortal too bold ! who dared to penetrate But Columbus, voyaging forlorn,
if

That awful phantom guarded - Presence- Wandering ever in wan ways unknown
chamber, Of shoreless ocean toward the dying day,
Where never mortal came !— there blinded Daring, presumptuous mortal to assail !

fell, Barriers Heaven piles against mankind :

All unaware of his own victory ! Columbus, fronting desperate crews

If that
Of mutinous men, with tranquil eyes un-
For here, between these very parallels. moved
Ancient Puranas of the Indian From all their high and visionary aim ;

Place Soma Giri whence a vast long lake

; Landing at last upon another world,
Amara flows, Amara "of the Gods," Conquer'd from chaos in the power of faith,
And from Amara, Nile. A blooming world, that seem'd the Paradise
Of our first parents in their innocence,
he died
Alas ! And proudly named Columbia to-day
~^
Unknowing all the hopeful fruit that Frere If he, the navigator, lives for ever
Ripened from those indignant words of In all men's green and grateful memory ;

truth, With Raleigh, Gama, Bruce, and Magel-

A lone old man, among Hell's legionaries, haens
Unquailing hurl'd against the slave-trader. Then surely shall our English Livingstone,
He learn'd stern Baker's wonderful cam- Honouring this our own tumultuous time ;

paign: Heroic with immortal heroism.

Now, peradventure, he hath learn'd the That burns for ever in humanity
whole Rouse all the race unto a loftier life
THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG^
1877

^ See note F.
 TO dvaae^es yap ^pyov
/lira /JL€V -wXdova riKTei,
<T<j>€Tipa 5' dKhra yivpq..

yEscHYLUS, Again.

filfivei 5^ /ilnvovTOS ev XP^^V ^'o^

iradeiv tov ^p^avra' deff/xiov yap'

t/j d,v 70i'a»' dpaiov ex/SaXot So/jlwv ;

KiK6Wrp-ai yivos irpos arq..

Ibid.
 PREFATORY NOTE
I HAVE taken some liberties with the history lives and opinions of Vanini, Cardan, Bruno,
of that part of Switzerland in which the scene or "Ezzelin the Monk." Sigismund is a
of my tragedy is principally laid ; but I be- philosophical Tannhatiser (such men as Beck-
lieve I am justified in regarding this as ex- ford, Byron, and De Musset are not unlike
cusable in the case of a drama not primarily him, perhaps, in character), who suffers retri-
historical. The have taken, more-
liberties I bution, and the arrogant impiety of whose
over, are not of great importance. I have philosophy suffers rebuke, in accordance
suppressed the historical Bishop of Coire, with the law, known alike to Hebrew, Greek,
and blended the revolt against the Abbot of and recent science, that ^^ the sins of the
St. Gall with the revolt against him. As fathers
are visited upon the children." I
regards the Peasants' War, Rudolph of have thought it in accordance, however,
Werdenberg did indeed play the part I have with modern taste to leave somewhat un-
assigned to Ralph but I must confess that defined the specifc nature of the crimes com-
;

^schylus and rhododendrons were probably mitted by members of the guilty race, such
not known at that particular moment and specific explanation not being essential to
place. The incident of the Sub-Prior's visit the development of my plot.
of remonstrance to Sigismund was suggested, Moreover, what our own experience and
partly by a similar one in the life of Beckford, our own science teach us about life in this
the author of "Vathek," which was related respect may wear an appearance slightly
to me when I was a boy by some of the different from that which the same law wore
people near Beckford's place, Fonthill Abbey, of old. What we now perceive is the fact
and partly by the doings at Medmenham of half evil, half insane tendencies unre- —
Abbey, in the last century. The revellers strained, or unsuccessfully resisted trans- —
of that time were infidel, as well as reckless mitted from generation to generation, and
livers ;but their creed was the materialism bearing their bitter fruit of multiform sin,
of their epoch. The ideas and sentiments sorrow, pain yet not without hope of salva-
;

of my Knight are similarly impious tinged, tion and Divine deliverance.

;

however, rather with that peculiar colour Of the have only sought
three "unities," I
which so often characterised the speculative to observe that of action but although a
;

and practical impiety of the Middle Ages. unity of motive pervades the whole com-
I need only allude to the tenets of certain position, it may in some sense also be re-
Gnostics, Sufis, and Beguins ; as also to the garded as a trilogy.
 DRAMATIS PERSONiE

Count Sigismund.
Ralph (his son).
Adrian (son of Lady Blanche).
Sir Walter Davenant (guardian of Constance, and subsequently of Ralph).
Chialderer (a leader in the popular revolt).

Hans (a hunter).
Rudolph (a young boy, son of one of Sigismund's tenants).
The President of the Court of Justice of the newly-formed Republican League.
An Austrian Commander.
An old Swiss Serf.
Peter (another peasant).

Constance (wife of Sigismund).

Bertha (betrothed to Ralph).

Blanche (wife of Baron Wenceslas).

Servants —A Warder — Soldiers— Assessors of the Cottrt— A Swiss

Multitude, dfc.

Time— Early in the Fifteenth Century.

Flaee — Partly in England; Partly in Switzerland.
 — — : — — ! !

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

A DRAMA

PART I.— SIGISMUND Sig. We will, — but he is young ; the land

is rude

ACT I
You know I said I could not take you yet
Cons. Ah I what a dreadful tale my maiden
Scene I. and a simple Meal in a
Fi-uits, told

Summer-house in a Garden of an old This morning when she robed me : can it be

English Matior-hoHse. That men and women are so evil, love,

As 'tis averred some are? for though I hear,

Constance and Sigismund sittitig there. I scarcely may
conceive such wickedness.
They seem like people of another blood.
Constance. Why have you seemed so My dear old nurse never let any tell

gloomy, love, of late ? Such stories to me

As though some fearful secret weighed upon Sig. I have heard that story : only, Con-
you ! stance mine,
Sigismund. Secret what secret, Con-
! You, from young innocence, imagine men
stance ? xVnd women angels when you mingle with !

Cons. Don't look so strange ! I only said them.

"as if." You will be more tolerant of our foibles, love.
You some profound
are ever brooding over Such failings always were will always be. —
Conundrums, a mere foolishness to me ! Nor are they so terrific as you deem.
And so you go about like a scared ghost. Nay, as I strove to prove to you of yore,
Sig. Darling, beside these riddles, well All the luxuriant growth of human story,
you know. The very sap and substance of our lives,
For I have told you, grave concerns of state Draw nutriment from bitter Wrong and Error,
Imperatively summon so I must ; No less than from sweet Virtue and the Truth.
Soon leave thee welfare of my populous
: These are alternate pillars of our world.
lands Here dusk, blood red, here alabaster pure,
In yonder barony demands me too. Supporting the fair commonweal of man.
Cons. How shall I bear it ? Sigismund, And look you ! all may not be anchorites.
since she, If I revealed to you my proper life,
My
— my
mother, died, you are
You, and the children, 'twas for very long
all life You might abhor me
.Some freedom by your leave,
1 even now I claim
my little saint
You me when we parted
left — and last, I, I have told you something : have I not ?

I had deemed it would be only for awhile. already

When shall I visit your own glorious land Only I love you : is not love enough ?

Of snowy mountain, azure lake, and river? Cons. You frighten me ; I know you never
Soon let us go there with our little Ralph I were
 — ! ; ! ! ! !

208 THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

Evil as you pretend ! I know that now Sig. Our little one our perfect little one
! !

You would not wound me willingly : the folk As I sat in mine oriel to-day,
Margaret prattled of, they never loved ; They wheeled him round and round our
Or parents tied unholy bonds, or they, pleasant garden,
With hearts unwed, forswore themselves to Under slim aspens, whispering jasper-hued
God. Athwart opal horizons, and pearl sky.
Your errors must be venial and you ; Then all my weird wild thought's dim laby-
Were surely tried beyond all others, dear. rinth,
Sig. Nay but, my Constance, you are n With hideous monsters that inhabit there,
mere child ! Even as demons at the holy sign,
You should have wed some angel, not a man I Vanished before the treble of a child,
Cons. Ah! why so bitter? be not harsh. Vanished ; and left a sky serene as his.
or cold Serene as light his singing rippled through.
Yet am I jealous ; strive to guard yourself, Cofts. Prattling so blithely, like a little

Body and spirit, for your little one, bird;

Who would not aught should ever come Of what the Lord and his pure angels know !
:

between us, Surely they listen to him with deep joy!

Nor aught confuse her vision of the Lord Sig. Ah when he breaks upon my reverie, ! !

I do mistrust your fine philosophy. While I am musing, care -oppressed, alone,

Some of the things you say are beautiful He gleams, a burst of sunshine on the gloom ;

But some confound me ; seem most dangerous. Of some dark forest, or athwart grey clouds,
Often I know not what I should believe Running toward me, all one melody.
And this makes me unhappy, when you speak As an unhoped-for rill, in a hot land.
Of how both Catholic, and our reformed Starts up and sings to a thirsty wayfarer
Pastors are foolish, and of how the truth Cons. You say you are evil yet you love !

Hides in some dark unfathomable deep. the child !

That makes me dizzy, gazing from the brink Come up this evening, Sigismund, and see !

Or when you talk of common right or wrong him

Varying like your queer chameleon ;
\^Exit.

Of what is evil, yet allowable *

To some peculiar natures — all my brain
Reels, and I know not where I am you Scene H. — The Child's Sleeping-room.
;

would
Constance singing to the child in his cot,
Not lead me
from the truth, for you are good
who, half asleep, also sings at intervals.
And true, — only
I cannot follow, thus — The door ajar. SiGlSMUND listening
My head turned when I tried to climb the
and looking from outside.
rock,
Where mounted easily
you, a springbok, !
my
Cons, (sings). Pause awhile, lovely child,
Ah right is surely right, and wrong is wrong.
!
Ere thou fly away from me
We must be led by our good hearts, I think. The world is traitorous and wild,
Kept pure by Him who always answers No warm wing to shelter thee.
prayer. Pause awhile I

Sig. Well, fairy, we will speak no more

of it.
Weave white flowers in a chain ;

Breathed ever fairy with a soul to think ? Babble fables of a fairy ;

Cons. But I must go and watch tlie little Infant moments no stain,
feel

one Woven to a garland airy ;

Shadows are lengthening. Weave white Howers

 " ! : !! ! ! ! !!

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG 209

Linger here in a dewy dale ;

Veils her in dewy silver of the pane.
Climb not under a hot noon ; While Ralph's brown dewy orbs are glisten-
Cull pure lilies of the vale ; ing,
Darling, do not leave me soon !
Like yonder nightingale's upon the spray
Linger here Of blossom hearken how sweetly he over-
: !

floweth
She singeth him to sleep; and with
Stg. Is not the young moon pretty, baby boy ?
one foot Ralph. Does Jesus live in pretty moon,
In dreamland, he too followeth her singing, mamma ?
Floating his wavering bright waifs of song. Cons. Darling, I know not ;
yet perchance
To follow in the wake of her full sail He may
So water flames through twilight of stirred [To SiGiSMUND.] Now carry him back, for
leaves. he must really sleep [Exeuttt. !

At intervals ; or mellow melody

Of bees awakens in sweet summer time,
Between their dives in dimlit flower-bells.
Scene HI. — The Library.
So, a child may follow one along a path,
Now in the open, now in corn-poppies, Sig. (sol.). How sweet it were to dwell for
Immersed watery greenness of slim corn.
in ever so.
Lo he hath seen her shadow on the wall,
! With these alone, afar from the false world !

Large-looming in a warm glow of faint fire. And yet I shall and my fate
grow weary ;

Fluctuant o'er the ceiling : in his mind Calls me to yonder regions, where I may
It mingles with some favourite tales of fay, Not take her, and the child yet ah if only : !

And wondrous giant ; until, half afraid, The hallowing of their influence abode
Once more he passes wholly from the realm With me for ever ! but afar from her
Of misty slumber into waking-world. Beneficent orb, straightway, alas ! I fall

Rising on cherub arm, he peers around Under some tyranny of a baleful star.
For mother, with half-timid face, bewildered. How often shall I struggle, and resolve
"Darling, lie down! 'tis only mother's With mortal throes of agony to loose
shadow !
The serpent rings of sin that stifle me !

Dimly he comprehends her ; and obeying, How often shall I feel the tightening,
Smilingly sinketh into rest again. When, like a fool, I half believed me free
Behold ! the pillow sloped about his curls, Ah fascination of malignant eyes.
!

In dark soft dells ; his flower-features turn, And hot rank breath, that with insane delight
Ever as a sunflower towards the sun, Maddens me, though I loathe it Ah the ! !

To Constance — there the ghost is out of sight cold

[SiGlSMUND advcuices. Slime of a cruel coil inexorable.
Shall I not take him, dear, to see the moon Poisoning with obscenest memories.
Through yonder oriel ? 'Tis beautiful, Or deadly dread of dark impending doom,
And will delight the child — he doth not sleep My purest, all my holiest happiness
Cons. Then wrap him very warmly : there Enveloping in a Nessus-robe of flame.
is frost. And blotting, blurring, all the innocent air
Sig. So ! come and see the moon with W^ith smoke, as from the bottomless pit of
father, Ralph. hell!
[They take him to the oriel. Surely that Blanche is mine own evil soul,
Look how the lattice chequers the soft face
! Incarnate in a woman, yet abiding
With tender shadow and where he breathes, ; No less with mine own self how very fair! —
the moon My God ! I cannot bear to dream how fair

O
 ! !! ! ; !
;! ! !

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

I know I may not burst away from her — alchemy and astrology, also a harp.
And yet I love her not The tapestry on the walls represents the
The child I the child Triumph of Bacchus, Ganymede and
God, if there be God, only save the child and lo, S^c.
the Eagle, Jupiter
From this infernal caldron of live death,
That, as in some grim sea-cave, buffeteth Count Sigismund, to who7H enter a
From rock to rock, bellowing like a beast Servant.
Famished ! . . .
Servatit. My lord, there craves immediate
He
be tended here in haven,
shall
audience
Far from all evil by mine angel mild,
The prior, or sub-prior, of St. Gall.
His mother here where never storms arise
;
Sig. A priest ! Grammercy ! Have you
Only sweet suns shine, or some tranquil stars,
not your orders
Mirrored in tranquil myrtle-bosomed water !

To admit no strangers ? Did you tell him so ?

—
And after yea what after ? He is pure !

Ser. I did but he was most importunate,

;

As heaven's beam, he is unsulliable ! . . .

Sig. What means this insolence? Admit

I know in sooth, relentless Ate dogs
the monk.
With sullen hate mine house, which is

accurs'd. . . .
Enter the Sub-Prior of St. Gall.
But may she not be baffled ? If I fall.
Tangled in more than Clytemnestran toils, Sir, I receive no guests. What is your
May not my child be the deliverer. pleasure ?

Who shall arrest the spiritual plague ? Sub-Prior. My lord, I feel the weight upon
Standing between the living and the dead, my soul
Atoner, swinging a fair golden censer, Of duty unfulfilled : I know that you . . .

Rich with his own life's perfume, over all? . . .

[ Hesitates.
Ah must the incense of that life be
! Sig. Nay, sir, fear nothing ! freely speak
burned? . . . your mind.
What if mine evil deeds descend on /iz'm, Sub-Prior. I knew that you lived inac-
A rain of gory curses ? God, avert it cessible
The Universal Heart is not so black To all the world ; and heard what rumour
And bloody as to work that wickedness told,
Nay, never prayer moves hollow-hearted With bated breath, of threats against who
Destiny, more than breathing moves a crag. dared
Future and past, one solid adamant. Intrude upon your savage solitude.
No longing and no litany may sunder But I, grown old and feeble, and afraid
We are the battlefield of heaven and hell ; By nature, am the herald of a Lord
The pawns of light and darkness who ; Mightier than any mighty lord of earth.
knoweth You He arraigns by his ambassador.
Which shall be victor in the end ? But I — Vassal unfaithful
Am summoned, summoned into Venusberg Sig. Nay, reserve your breath
I smile at all preposterous pretension
Of Church and priest. What ! though you
stoop to heed
ACT H
idle foam of common lying rumour, The
Scene I. — The That chafes and spends itself around my walls.
Castle of Ravensburg, in
Rheinthal, among the Alps. SiGis- You have not seized the solitary waif
MUND's private chamber, with parch- Of truth washed shoreward in the noisy tide !

ments, some of the paraphernalia of That I am a sworn enemy of fraud,

 ! ! — ! ! ; ! ! !

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

And superstition, and a priestly caste. Or other fiends, arrayed in chasuble.
Reserve your pious shafts for those who feel In alb, and stole of holy men, with reft
them Vessels from desecrated shrines o'erthrown.
I am panoplied in reason, and your curse, With antics vile, ineffable, obscene,
Baffled, rebounds to wound you. Dare parody our most solemn ritual.
Siib-Pi-ior. Yea, I know Feigning you "Prior" of the "Hellfire"
Of your impiety but do not deem
; crew !

The tower of truth may vanish at a scoff. That so you are seeking to revive the cult
It frowns impregnable Of demons, whom poor damned souls long
If but a tithe of what men tell be true, ago
Your life dishonours an illustrious name ;
Worshipped ! A very witch's sabbath yours.
Ancestral knights, who wrought in ancient My lord, my
humble yourself in dust
lord !

time Renounce your crime Bow low before the !

Valiant deeds for Christ and fatherland ! Pope,

You have alienated all the noble peers, God's own high Vicar, ere it be too late
Who scowl displeasure on your shame they ; Sig. The Pope ! what Pope ? Dost know
pass that there are three ?

With face averted from a loathsome lair. You sound asleep.

cloister-folk are very
Nay, sir, it is my pleasure to refuse
Sig. Idoubt if the last trump would waken you.
Admittance unto any of their crew ;
Thou wasteth breath nay, prove thy precious ;

Dull, pious tyrants of the trodden serf. charges !

Or mindless rangers of the woods for prey. Sub-Prior. Sir Count ; in some dim tor-
I am the people's friend : inquire of them tuous gallery
Who till these lands or trellis-wandering vine That looks on a quadrangle of your castle.
If I am their oppressor ! You and yours Where the stone fountain plays, no less than
Have robbed the widow and the fatherless : two
And that is why your venomous calumny Strange, evil creatures ran against me : one,
Assails my fame You hate me for I pluck
! ;
A fair and wanton youth with bare white
Your victims from among the hoofs of scorn. breast,
Unlock their fetters, shatter their dungeon- Gorgeously garmented the other, a yellow, ;

doors. Outworn, lank, prematurely old, ill-faced

Pour the fair light of freedom on your lies 1 Being in garb of knight both, both, were —
Sub - Prior. The people's flatterer, not drunken
friend ! who rob Sig. {with a grini laugh). Well did they !

Them of more living treasure than mere hurt you, father ? One's my page
gold— The other. Baron Wenceslas, my guest.
Of hope, salvation, heaven, very God. Sub-Prior. 'Tis shrewdly guessed the page
God's enemy ! blasphemer of the Church ! is a fair lady !

Profaner of all holiest mysteries ! Your barony, that should have been a blessing,
This, the most heinous of your crimes, and Stinks — very plague-spot of the common air
least, .^SV^'-. I know not wherefore I have suffered
That you have boldly violated virtue, you
Scoffing at all her seemly decencies To prate thus far ; but if you prize your life,

Yea, strewn her modest members on the wind. Your freedom, grey-beard wanton, prate no
But worse what of these mummeries profane?
! more
I dare not name them : scarcely I believe. Sir Monk, melhinks you have wellnigh for-

Yet 'tis averred, that you and your lewd gotten

lemans, In whose unchallengeable power you stand.
 !! ! ! ! ! ! ! ;

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

Sub-Prior. God challenges your power, Still He restrains them ! hanging by a hair,

my by me.
lord, Behold ! the sword of everlasting doom !

I shall not shrink from harsh and wholesome Sig. Ah ! there's the sum and substance of
speech ! \,A pause. my sin
Sig. So you deem vice the least of my That I presume to question and denounce
offences ? God manifest in —a priest's voracity !

Szib-Prwr. Surely ! to flout the proffered Yea ! I have taught the peasants to resist

terms of God, His usurpation of their ancient rights,

Made known to men by heralds of his grace, His feasting on their crushed humanities
Through whom alone He deigns to treat And I defy you. with your secular
with us, Confederates in tyranny For these !

Worms who rebelled against Him, and yet Impious monstrosities you charge me with,
live Prove them mere babble of a priest proves
!

Scorn the Divine Son ! scorn the Virgin nought.

Mother The holiest, if they vary from worn ways.
Whose holy hearts were wrung to set you Well-trodden of a dominant multitude,
free Must hear malignant accusations hurled
God's altars and their sacrifice renewed Of mufiled orgies, under mask of worship.
Ever for your deliverance from hell Yet frankly I avow my heresy.
Albeit our fair verities outshine Now hear my creed, and curse me, and
The sun itself, and sin alone be blind begone I

By painful penance, by profound remorse, There is no infinite Iniquity,

By some poor compensation made to Christ, Ringed round with multitudinous ministers,
In lowly guise of his ambassadors, Aflame for slaughter of weak innocent
One may have hope of absolution Victims to vain insatiate cruelty.
From heinous evil living but if he ; Crowned Emperor of all the Universe!
Blaspheme the very source of Grace Divine, Men will not be tormented evermore,
Turn from the one sole Water sent to quench Because their father's heart once vibrated
Fires of a wrath eternal what remains ? — With an .Folian music of desire.
It is more sin When airs in unison awoke the chords.
To insult the jealous Majesty on high No fiend hath formed, and dangled a bright
Than wantonly to injure all the world joy I . . .

Yourself, my under interdict.

lord, are Before the eyes He framed to relish joy.
What fate more dreadful can o'erwhelm you? Then mocking banned the bauble ; nor will
Yet sear
Beware of what you deem more terrible. With slakeless hatred eyes He made for love,
Our sovereign is champion of the faith ; Only because they are what He hath made.
And all the peers would hail your overthrow. Whoever dies in very deed is dead.
Sig. What! dare you threaten? Nay, Let us enjoy the moment ere it flies
the people here You churchmen, father, you yourselves enjoy,
Stib-Prior. I only warn you ! venture not Unless men libel most outrageously !

to urge But, with all common court appurtenances,

Yon stiffnecked heretic herdsmen, near your Heaven hath its licensed jester, I suppose
fief, And none may laugh but the official fool.

To rob us of our tithes and pastureland. Heaven can be bribed, moreover, with shed
Bid them restore the spoil do penance and blood.
; ;

Beware lest Heaven unleash the hounds of And agonies, and sensuous offering
hell! (Though men have senses and itself have none)
 ; ! ! ! ! — !

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG 2J3

Of wrought gold, incense fume, and wreathen Insinuates poison in the bowl ; behold !

gem. We yield our nectar, changed to common

Or by the personal flattery of bent knees, wine.
To annul for favourites the dread espousal. With never a murmur I some more potent
Ancient as time, of evil deeds and death ! Will
What man may flithom awful Nemesis ? Compels us to call bitter sweet, sweet bitter ;

And yet she is no bawd for one to buy To swallow our own swelling words ; to crow,
Rather the only Incorruptible ! . . . Or whimper, as it pleases, and yet dream
Nemesis! Nay, who is she? In her name We are free — no puppets ! until, in the end,
Were those poor innocents slaughtered here We cry for warmth and food alone ; then life,

last yule, That seemed fair substance, in our clasp

That met for mirth in yonder upper chamber ? dissolves,
Long cherished day-dream — in wee cots by Like ice in a babe's hand, to nothing ; and
night We follow our own lovely hopes ; we vanish !

Soft slumber's rapture your festival — is Sub-Prior. Too true, my lord ! men's
Of the Divine Child to our little ones! treasure is above,
The flooring trembled —sunken with the Or nowhere in the world. Oh, would that
freight yours
Of innocent human lives yawned, buried all — Were garnered yonder
In hideous heaps of mortal agony ! Sig. You gaze upon my pool mercurial.
Were these our blackest sinners and their Alembic, flask, and symbols of a lore
seed? You love not ; there be creatures hovering
Nay, sir, the blackest of them staid at home. Around, strange intimates, unseen by you ;

All is whatsoever is
confusion : Yea, spirits mild or awful, night and day,
Seems right or wrong, according as we stand. Meet me on mount and mead familiarly.
Eat and drink then to-morrow we shall die.
! Yonder abide the ever-tranquil gods.
Sub- Prior. And yet you blame our Robed in a luminous immortality,
" tyranny," our " fraud " ! Dispensing doom to mortals, weal or woe.
Another's wrong is wrong because another's : .Sun, stars, and moon, WMth you do I consort
But your dear wrong is right, for it is yours WTio in serene heights of philosophy
O " worldly wisdom " Let me be a fool ! Contemplates truth abides above the vain
Sig. Well, all's confusion now you have ;
Human divisions of mere good and ill,
struck home. That common mortals hold for absolute.
" I only know this— that I nothing know." One with essential Nature, in calm scorn
Sub- Prior. Apart from revelation and the He allows all winds of anger and desire
Church. To sway the poor flesh -phantom, as they list
And yet you pile some fabric of a creed Yea, in life's lower sphere he worshippeth
Upon mere void of private fantasy ! Fair foam-born Aphrodite, and her son
Sig. All isillusion for we love a maiden.
: There are two poles of dark Necessity,
Or friend ; we swear no power shall pluck Named Good and Evil. All the prosperous
away times.
The draught Or grievous all heroic and base lives.
of love from our blest lips for ;

ever. Emerge from Fate's unfathomable cave,

But while we swear, exulting, lo Love's Each in his order here a family,
! :

glory Or nation, floweth in full light of day ;

Fades, palls upon us, like mere satiate Here crawleth in a sanguinary gloom.
Ambition One who sneers, the while we
! Is there no curse upon mine ancient house?
sleep. Sir, I could tell you tales of what hath been
 — — —— — ; :

214 THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

Nay, what imports it ? I am as were they, Since there are some here not so mild as I

The sires, whose fell career I might unfold And if they found thee, where no monk
And I arraign them not for who of us ; before
Breathes self-engendered ? Sub-Prior. I have done my master's bid-
Sub-Prior. Nay, unhappy man, ding, and depart.
Pause and consider ! If you had a son. [^Exit abruptly, without salutation.
Supremely loved Sig. {sol.). A murrain on their ignorant
Sig. How, father, I a son ? insolence 1

Who said I had a son —

and what of him ? [After a pause, during which SlGIS-
Sub-Prior. Suppose that it were so then, ; MUND paces the chamber in the
I inquire. titmost agitation.
In your own soul would no remorseful guilt What ho ! my horse ! the horse was to be
Burn as your own guilt —
yours and not saddled.
another's
If his fair life should founder in the storm ?
Enter Servant.
He, rebel offspring of a rebel sire.
Ruined, rejected by the All-Father? Is it ready ?

Sig. Nay, God forbid ! Why torture me, Ser. No, my lord.
Sir Priest, Sig. Yet I gave orders
With a mere feigning ? Before the priest came. Instantly ! dispatch !

Sub-Prior. I but bring it all W^here shall I find a man who will obey me ?
Home to thine heart, to show thee 'tis a Sirrah, you quit my service from this hour !

cobweb, [Exit Servant.

A snare of Satan, thy philosophy !

Yea, blasphemy, thou contumelious lord.

Servant re-enters very speedily.
We may give answer to with sword and fire !

Deem'st thou the Church so old and impotent. Ser. My lord, I crave your pardon ; but
Since Frederick, and the leaven of Mahomet, the steed
Since your new-fangled learning, and ill Has long been waiting your good pleasure.
dreams Sig W^ell
Of cursed Paynims, risen from deep hell Fool not to know My sword ! !

To be God's scourges, to confound the world ? Now fasten it [Exit. I

Not Huss, not Waldo, not Averroes, [He hurries i-apialy to the postern.
Hath ever spoken viler atheism.
Sig. Averroes Hast thou read Averroes ?
!

Sub- Prior. Read him read Satan Holy Scene II. Before the Postern of the Castle:
! !

Mary no ! !
a Horse caparisoned.
Finding some yellow heathen scroll preserved
Among our abbey muniments last year, Sig. W^here went the fat priest ? He shall
I wrote illuminated litanies pay for this,
—
Therein the wicked words are all rubbed Yea, with his life Who saw him ? !

out !— A Man-at-Arms. I see him yet.

But I will send our learned brother Paul So please your lordship, ambling down the
To argue, and confute thee, and convince path
Sig.Nay, by the rood, one holy man's By yonder ilex.
enough ! [SlGlSMUND W£^?<«/j; butin blindfury
I shall know how to guard myself. Adieu ! he reels in his saddle, and wouldfall,
For I must pray thee, father, to begone, but that the soldier supports him.
 ! — — ! ! ; ! !

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG 215

Than those thy queenly hand poured out

Enter Lady Blanche. for me.
Blanche, Where are you going, Count ?
My splendid star, my radiance of night !

[At ike sight of her SiGlSMUND re- Much I repent that counsel ; and yet, Blanche,

strains himself and pauses.

'Twas barely counsel ! nor knew I the knight,

So you have been receiving holy men !

As now I know him !

Would that the priest might win you to You are beautiful !

renounce
On warm white undulations of your heart

Your evil attitude towards the faith !

Warm pearls lie heaving ; while the satin
flushed
Sig. Chafe not sore places rather, woman- :

like,
Yields, a soft calyx to the waxen flower
Apply some healing of a blither speech !
Of your white bosom blossoming, white
flower,
Blanche. W^ell, shall we hawk ? the day is
Tinct with rose-violet of applebloom,
very bright,
And I would prove the palfrey of your choice.
Dark hair, one misty night above your brow,

Or shall we stroll together in the close ?

Royally diademed with stars Ah foot, ! !

Sig. [To Blanche.] So let it be; our Of slenderest symmetry, why hide thee now
orchard shades are fair !
Behind a sheen of gold-inwoven cloud ?
I am your slave again, arrive what may
\_To the Servant.] We shall not ride this
I will lie upon your bosom's ocean
morning : take the horse. \_Dis7n0unts.
Yea, drown, and perish there
Blanche. To some remembrance, how !

Blanche. First hear me, friend,

supremely fair !

Yet cold the charm And calm yourself a moment while I speak.
Of scenes in tame, pale moods revisited,
Sig. Ah ! the rapturous hours

That once were rosy heaven for young love !

Of rushing through sunlight upon wild wings

Sig. Yet are we fast friends, and the trees

Of winds, in likeness of Arabian
Horses, fire-eyed, with you for page most fair
remain.
all your beauty wavering
Blanche. Fast friends ! alas ! but were we Attendant,
never more ? Subtly between the lady and the boy
Lord Wenceslas more hateful every day Or when, in like disguise, you rode with me
Grows to my heart, albeit I tend him well To spear the bristling boar among black pines.

A puny, dwindling mockery of man !

Bold as Adonis, flying from Cythera:a
T have loved the clash and storm of battletide,
My life hath broken her fair promises.
All, all to me ! [Exeunt. Upon those radiant plains of Lombardy
I am a wild steer of the forest free,
And cannot school myself to wear the yoke
Scene HI, — The Orchard of the Castle close Blanche, You cannot, Sigismund ? are you
to the Terrace. still he
I knew of old ? You would revive the past.
Enter SiGiSMUND and Blanche.
Because the present seems so little fair.
Blanche. Well may I curse the hour Sig. Alas, we age all, lady mine, but you
!

When you gave- counsel to me, lying here. Blanche. Know you that I have seen your
That I should wed a miserable sot northern maiden ?
My freedom what avails it ?
! Is not the wild steer captive to the kid ?
You are cold ! Yet you are restless in your silken bonds,
Sig. Nay, say not so ; no fuller draughts It is reported, and yourself confirm.
of life, Sig. How ! you have seen her ?
Ruby-red, sparkling, hath my spirit quaffed, Whom, then, have you seen ?
 ! ! : — ! — — ! !

2l6 THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

Blanche. Surely, the lady of your later love. To stagnate with a mild monotonous girl,

Sig. Such an one have I never even named ! Dull, level, stale, and common as straight
Blanche. 'Tis even so, but hearken, Sigis- roads.
mund. Interminable over weariest wastes,
Do you remember when the delicate flower Were worthy of a plodding hind, not you.
Of pear and apple, wafted from young sprays, So, I, as by mere casual allusion,
Fell, soft as tender day dreams of young love. Conversing with the lady, spake of thee,
Into warm grass; while song-birds in full And of our friendship, telling all the tale
song Of your wild life — what terrible dark deeds,
Dipped shimmering athwart the open blue ? 'Tis well attested, the grey castle sees I

Above your terrace, where red roses twine, But I so fashioned my report that she
Where o'er the balustrade we saw yon river Should know the man she deems her wedded
Gleam through so many subtly varying lord
tones And my so faithless criminal are one.
Of bloomy verdure, tender-moulded clouds, Alas, poor wretch ! she thinks you married
Manifold even as the sunny themes, her!
Our mutual converse winding visited ? Well, that was cruel
And then my foolish hand was on your What a life were his.
heart, sheep returned to fold
If e'er the truant
While you were telling me of one you knew And you— you passed for sheep immaculate,
In other lands —in England ; and you told Being all wolf!
The place where you had known her, yet her She must be innocent
name Indeed, for my revealing seemed a blow
You told not ; but my fancy, swift as light, That smote her deadly white, and made her
Glanced over damsels whom I deemed, per- reel
chance, She shook, all wan and 'wildered, though
You might have known among those English revenge,
clouds. With hatred, kindled in the meek blue eyes,
And, look you, when I spake the name of one, concluded all my torturing tale
Ere I

Under my foolish hand I felt your heart Only no spoken word avowed the stab,
Throb loudly, tho' you said it was not she Nor aught of her relation with the fiend I

Now, lately, I, compelled to cross the So I dissolved a deadly witch's spell.

wave, That held you mouldering in ignoble ease,
Casually lighted on the very maid, Far from your native sphere of governance! . . .

Far-off, retired, reputed a wed wife. The Viper doth invite you to Milan,
.Sig. Reputed How ? ! Where you may reinforce the Ghibelline.
Blattche. Nay, do not interrupt Shorn Samson making sport for Philistines
She did not bear your title, nor your name. Is no fair sight !

But I found also on her chamber wall Now hearken, Sigismund

Rude-drawn memorials of pleasant scenes. Old Wenceslas he is ailing more and more —
Where you two met, and loved. Count The journeying sun will not behold him long
Sigismund And afterward you know, the barony —
Ah poet, thinker, warrior, feudal lord,
! Passes to me, by special ordinance.
Would surely weary soon of such a pen Your rich lands and my own, administered
!

Fold for tame flocks, not free magnanimous Wisely, were verily a kingdom, love !

kings. As Danube from his fairy crystal springs,

Whose roar dissolves the forest-heart with Lowly meandering, till the tributaries.
fear ! Lavishing multitudinous water-wealth.
 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! —; !! ! ! ;

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG 217

Exalt him to a royal rolling river— Winged as with lightning, thunderously

So rose the rule-born House of Austria swoop
From fusion of fair counties to a throne, We are espoused ! To her belongs my name !

Till towering, wore imperialit Only nor she, nor her sole kinsman, knew
Purple of Caesar, and the triple crown : Aught of my stained glory : so I won
Even so, my Sigismund, our own may rise I Her trustful to conceal our nuptial bond
Why, your strong ancestors were sovereign In a remote retirement, for awhile
In Rheinthal, ere this very Hapsburgh To wear a humbler title than her due ;

wheeled. Alleging very urgent and grave cause

Shadowing with vast vans, to swallow all In honour not divulgeable to her ;

Doth no ambition pulse in your blue But fearing verily wanton tongues
lest

blood? . . . (In our conspicuous order were she set)

You know whose child my child is, Sigismund ! Might sully a sweet ignorance with foul
Si^. Ah ! creep not round me with your And bitter truth therefore, I hid her far
;

charms accurst, From all vain clamour — from infatuate toil.

Lamian woman Cease to dazzle thus.
!
Wherewith ourmoonstruck masque of History
Consuming glamour of infernal joy ! Ever from nothing unto nothing reels.
I fling thee back thine evil I will tell ! Hers was a seraph's faithful innocence
The Judge one half of what men call my sin I know not how she strayed away from heaven.

Is all thine own, thou Genius of Death ! I think they must be searching for her
So you have slain my darling, slain my dove ! still

My one oasis fire and sword devour Mournfully yonder, for they would not dream
Once was I partly yours I knew you not. : Of looking in so mean a world as ours
Nor had I then been lulled to holier moods, So I concealed her in a forest shrine.
By heavenlier music, in a lovelier air, Adoring there, at rest, and all alone. . . .

Near yon pure fountain of tranquillity But you have found her, Eleanor, Medea
Now only the hot sense rebellious Blanche. Merciful saints that I have loved !

Yields to your sway : the soul abides un- this man I

moved Imbrued white hands in crime for such an

As Ocean's heart, calm under his loud one
waves Sig. In crime! What crime? You spake
Your dark dominion hath departed ! Yea, ofWenceslas . . .

Degrees there are in human infamy ! Blanche. Sir Count, no crime. I have

Iam no saint yet in those awful spheres

;
committed none.
Of torment, visioned by the Florentine, Lord Wenceslas is failing fast, I said.
Mine were one grade nearer to Light than I hope that's no offence in him, or me . . .

yours Is then adultery no crime, my lord ?

Blanche. What of your sham espousals, But you, sir, you are neither fish nor fowl !

then. SirCount? Eunuch unfunctioned for the fruitful use

Sig. My sham espousals ! Madam, there Of either Vice or Virtue All adrift !

were none Traitor to Ormuzd and to Ahriman !

If a too guileless innocence may fall Trusted by neither, shuffling 'twixt the two
Into abysses of flower-wreathen wrong. No citizen of Satan's realm nor God's
Vet doth your serpent wisdom of the world, Spurned out of heaven, vomited from hell
Down in his dust, from blind denial err. Tossed in blind Limbo, mockery of all

Incredulously scorning yon pure heights. blasts

Whence eagles, whose calm eyes behold the From all four quarters whence a blast may
sun, blow I
 ! ! —
! !! ! ;! ! ;! ! !

2l8 THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

Eddying dried excremental dust for ever For learn, good Constance, none of us are
But go ; your mild-eyed saint awaits you go ;
! chaste
No Devastation strides upon your hearth But only brave, and true to our pledged word.
Nor spits and dances, a fell fury there Cons. To men ! To women falser than
[Exit. the pit
Sig. Do as we all do. Now you know
my story.
Scene IV. — The old English Manor-hotise Henceforth with honour may you grace your
a Chamber therein. An Autumn After- gems,
noon. Midmost the galaxy of nobles this :

I do repent me that my care withheld.

Enter Constance and Sigismund.
You shall have your freedom ; only leave me
Cons. My trust in you is dead ! you slew mine.
it where
! Yea, cease, madam, your damned reitera- . . .

Isnow the perfect lover of my heart ? tion !

You never loved me What a fool was I Now you are wroth, you are not beautiful.
!

Sig. Who doubts it, dear? Yet am I not Cons. Refrain from insult. Much I fear
forsworn. that all
I But you weary me with vain
loved you. She told was truth. Have you not glossed
Reproaches. I have told you lawful love foul crimes
May live a house-mate with fair concubines With those smooth words you are the
In a man's heart you are too short, too : despot of,

blind. Seeking to make me partner in your sin,

To beyond your own small garden, dear
see By a light acquiescence ? I, alas !

I warned you not to harbour the vile lies Am no more child, but woman My sweet !

Of that loose thing who came and babbled dreams

here, Melt, as from one who wakes from sleep to
Till they were purged and disinfected for you. hear
Now they have brought contagion to your Toll through a dungeon hoarse deep tones
soul. of doom
I never loved her : she would ruin us ! Ah when! you lately came to me from
Co?is. You may assure her that you loved yonder.
not me After I knew —
Sigismund how you swore, !

How can I tell ? Ah ! where is my fond Weeping here at my feet, henceforth for ever
faith ? To loose all hold upon your guilt, if only.
Sig.Descend from your proud palaces of If only she, of whom you named you black
snow Betrayer, could but pardon ; were it possible
To my warm human world with me, since I You sobbed — but no ! she could not pardon
Cannot breathe yonder I condole with you ! never
That you have wed a mortal by mistake Now you retract your solemn pledge, your vow !

Being born a goddess but now never dream ; You are going : and you will not promise me
Of hoisting me to godhood Be content, ! Your future shall break wholly with your
Like a true woman, to accept yourself past ! . . .

My lowlier station of humanity. Was it then a mere jest, the solemn oath,
You've got a man mouth The agony of repentant faith forsworn ?
: cease then, with . . .

agape What if I took you at your word, Sir Count ?

And foolish face, to wonder and to rail What if I did become the thing you hint at ?
At him for being like his fellow mortals Do you indeed advise that ? Speak You do ? !
 !! ! —
; ! — !! — ! ! ! !!

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG 219

Si^-. Follow your fancy ! only take Dis- And Ralph ! wilt thou not hearken even for
cretion, him ?
The grave duenna, with you. Vou are a . . . Sometimes I fear thee, and I deem that
woman thou
I am a man ; there lies the difference Art verily beside thyself thy furies, I

Love and lust are not sundered, you believe. For naught or less thy cruel mockery !

I did repent I do repent. I did — Of all that's purest, holiest in our love!
Intend to live for thee alone ; but thou Thy sneers malignant, cutting, like a blast
Art not the May I worshipped harsh, sour, ! Of Polar night, the quick nerves of my
jealous heart ! . . .

If I fulfil not your ideal, you You see me and shrunken, a mere ghost
pale
Fulfil not mine. I may be disappointed. So racked with Why did you marry me ? pain.
You have turned shrew, now were you : a A simple trustful maiden, all unworthy
true goddess, To be the sharer of your thoughts, your
Your white would suffer no defilement from schemes
Our miry ways of daily drudgery. Who must recoil from sin for sin will seem ;

But you must own, alas it is not so. ! Ever sin to her You weary of me now. !

Vou have no force to straighten a bent soul My youth, and beauty, as you named it,
Though half I hoped it when I wedded you. fail! . . .

The task demands a mightier arm than yours WTiy not have wed some lady of the world, !

You were but sent to yield me a brief glimpse Who would not importune you with such love
Of far-off Peace, forbidden to my feet As this of mine that irks you ? Yet, alas
For ever yea, to mock me for you cannot I deemed you true when you did ask for it
! !

Save me but I can I will

; —
draw you I know not how to love as they do Ah — ! !

under \_She weeps, and seems abotct to fall.

Ah, Virtue \'irtue why art thou not fair,
I Sigismund rushing forward sup-
!

As is thy siren evil-minded sister ? ports and embraces her.

Where is thy zest ? thy salt, thy seasoning ? Sig. Darling, I am a monster pardon !

Ah! where the soft allurement and the pardon 1

spell? . Once more forgiveness

. . Once more only, !

Now Rose, whom you detest, and even love !

Blanche For you, and for the precious child, I long

They feel for one ; they comprehend To be less evil ! Woe is me ! I cannot I . . .

Cons. Be still Help me ! nay, who shall help me? for I am

I and the children yet have a protector damned !

From these, your dastard outrages to him. ! \^Exeu)it.

To him will I appeal Beware, Sir Count

!

Si£: I do detest you ! and I scorn your

dotard
ACT in
Guardian Your wild threats are impotent.
! Scene I. Some years have
passed. The
Declare war at your peril Madam, I ! same old Manor-house in Englafid.
Will immolate you to my reputation ! The Library. SiR Walter Davenant
Ralph shall be taken from you I am his ! standing up expectant.
father
Cons, (in a broken voice, after a pause).
Enter CouNT SiGlSMUND.
If I grow harsh and jealous, whose the Sir Walter. You are come she has asked !

fault? . . . all night to see you, Count.

O ! where am I ? Can this be Sigismund? . . . She will not long remain with us below.
 ! ; ; ! ! !

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

You are faint — refresh yourself with yonder With faith you would, arisen from the grave,
wine. Throw off death-cerements dweller in the
;

Si^. {sivallowing some wine). Is it so tombs,

desperate ? I feared the worst. Would yet come clothed, and in your proper
How shall I meet her ? Mayboy ? I mind,
see the
I am weary with long sleeplessness, and toil To the feet of Jesus, home to her and Him.

Of journey. I have sought in vain for death, But you plunged ever deeper in the slough
In that fierce onset of the furious Guelph You broke her loving heart ; you mocked at
!

In more consuming ruin of revelry, God,

And damned debauch, or sterile toil of brain, Who paused, with axe uplifted, ere He felled.
I have affronted him from gashed she-bears,
! Weighed in heaven's balances, you are found
Robbed of their whelps, and from the tusky wanting
boar, All's over only for the sake of Ralph !

I have demanded death He shuns me. Do I not hound you from the face of men
!

May I You we7-e a generous champion of the poor ;

Look on my boy, Sir Walter ? Administering the trust committed you.

Sir W. No, miserable man forget not Your barony, with wisdom
! a stern foe ;

now To ever)' insolence of force and fi'aud.

The covenant between us She and I ! But now your soul is gangrened to the core.
Refrained from trailing before all the world There is no sound spot in it for evil men, ;

Your knightly name and honour in the dust. And fouler women, you have cherished
Because you swore for ever to renounce yonder,
All claim to Constance and your infant son A nest of snakes, infect you with their venom,
Because you swore never to see them more. Till you too hiss more venomous than they!
Unless myself, her guardian, and she Yea, and your own inordinate luxury
Lifted the bar thus did we write to you,
: Of wantonness hath laid waste, like a fire,
With oath yourself assenting. Your manhood, all dissolving and devoured.
You avowed, in sooth, 'twere better for the You have given base, wrong verdicts you :

child allow
That you should tarry beyond sight of him, Your abbot's tyranny and worse, you winked ;

Even beyond his very knowledge yea, At that most dastard outrage, which one
:

You thanked me for my guardianship of both wrought.

Her and the child averring this fulfilled
; Who dwelt at Ravensburg, upon the
Your dearest hope for your beloved son. maiden. . . .

You, who are not ruler of yourself. Hast thou not striven moreover with false lore
Fallen ever further from the heights of God, To poison, to corrupt, the innocent ?
How should you rule, or mould the plastic Only that stainless nature of my ward
soul Revolted from thy falsehoods brooked them ;

Of indeterminate youth, enthroning there not

The ideal form and lineaments of man ? Might not be soiled by smooth, sinister guile :

We have kept your social seat for you ; nor Yet shrank, with wholesonie loathing of the
driven pure,
You from with well-earned infamy,
it From long familiarity with sin.
Cain-branded, scourged, a hissing, and a Masked in the fascination of thy form.
scorn Now dost thou dare to ask to see the child ?
Yea, my sweet ward, your so injured spouse, What wouldst thou with him ? What hath
I well believe, reserved your place for you he to do
r the very sanctuary of her white heart, With such as thou ?
 ! — !I ! ! ! —
THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG
Sz£: ButI tvi// see him, sir ; he is my own ! Curls brown, like that of Constance — so it used.
Sir W. Nay, since you so insist, I must How tall how fair
! !
— methinks I see him now
reveal Asleep, and she is by him, and the moon
^Miat else I hidden from your sight.
had fain Ralph. Now, Edgar, look how high I

The boy, discovering that his mother dies, throw the ball
Beside herself, because you did her wrong, Sig. His voice ! the silvery voice that
Hath come to hate you will not go with you — ! thrilled me through,
Sig. He hates me !
— nay, O spare me the Lovelier than lark's note, or the nightingale's !

blow
last ! In olden time —and now — that other voice !

Say the boy hates me not, most cruel man ! Whose was it ?

So you have done this you shall answer it !

Sir IV. Come, my lord, and you shall see !

\_Half dratvs his sword. [Sir Walter opens two doors, and
Sir W. Stand back be calmer No ! ! — leads into a bedchamber.
did it not. Constance, Count Sigismund is here! (Per-
Nor she. But in her spirit's wanderings, chance
Beyond her power to guide or guard, wild This will arouse her. ) Now approach the bed.
words Co}is. (o7i the couch, white and wan, a wild
Escaped concerning you and so he learned ;
look in her eyes). Who spoke ?

The bitter truth — dare not approach the boy ! {^She looks fixedly at Sigismund.
\^A pause. You are not Sigismund !

Sig. {sinking on a c/iai>-). Forgive me, 'Tis Sigismund I want : you are a fiend
sir for you are good and true.
;
Sig. {throws hi?nself by the couch and takes
And you judge me hardly I am scarce
yet : her hand).
The devil you depict, though I be vile Oh, Constance can you pardon ? I am
! he,
Thank you for all Deep homage of my heart
I Your Sigismund and I repent and all! —
I render on my knees yea, I am lost, — Are gone for ever. Is it now too late ?
A lost soul, sir ; yet I would ask of you Cons. Take the fiend away !

One favour— no, I would not bear the boy He

pretending to be Sigismund
is \

Hence, though I purposed so, for all the Oh, God, preserve me from him Ralph ! !

world. Sir Walter

Iwould not bear him hence with me to yonder
Hell of a castle, though the fiends be gone. The Doctor enters with Sir Walter.
And never will return yet I, the worst, ;

Should still be there so he shall here abide

The Doctor. Withdraw, my lord ! she does
;

not know you. Go I

Only I pray you that I may once more

[Sigismund hides his face itt his hands,
Behold his face, before I go away
and withdraivs slowly, moaning.
—
For ever he himself knowing naught of it.
Sir VV. Come here look out from yonder :

window there
;
Scene II.- - Among the Mountains oj
Upon the lawn he is playing with my son.
Switzerhuid.
Near to our ancient cedar ; do not lean,
Lest he should see you — by the rhododendron. Sigismund, with a little boy, named Rud-
[SiGlSMUND starts, rises, and looks out. olph, the son of one of his tenatits.
Sig. God bless you ! It is he ! it is the child !

Under those yellow locks of the laburnum Sig.{now to himself, 710W to Rudolph). Come
Behold the children playing, with their roses
I Rudolph,let us rest beneath the pine! . . .

All glowing in the rose of radiant eve ! Do you love the music of the wind therein ?
Mine is in purple velvet, and his hair Dark, prophet-like, it broods above the abyss.
 ! ! ! ! ! — ! ! !

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

Murmuring mystic sounds oracular Ah how happy we four might have been.
! . . . !

Mydamnedold castle's hidden in the mist. All's over Death involves us in the mist . . . !

The grapes I know they swung right / have done this my own beloved child
! —
temptingly Abhors me —
surely such a punishment
!

Against your lips, as we were sauntering Is more than I can bear and yet the past !

Among the trellised vines ; but what will Melts, like snowflakes in water : all my life

those Passes before me, impalpable as cloud.

Who own them say ? their bloom is like yon Yea, even he and she seem very vague.
bloom Am I then failing ? long sleep will be sweet.
—
Of dusking hills and vales the torrent roars, Life looms before me, some receding shore.
Thundering to the gorge How lovely See, Viewed from a vessel, wandering, ocean-
! !

A snow-peak flushed as from still fire within ward !

Purple abide the storm-rent rugged crests The elixir I have taken drowses me
Of kingly mountains hearken far-off bells
: Who shall foretell the scope of this revolt ?
!

Of lowing herds descending — there an eagle The Abbot countermined my policy,

Screams, as he wheels, now dark, now lumi- By threatening exposure, degradation.
nous ;
And how could I, myself dishonouring
Glooming by rocky steeps of pine illumed What common folk count virtue, with bold
;

In violet air between them —there is storm face,

Impending ! viewless winds are marshalling
Clouds in battalions, ominous, ash-pale,
Fire-tinct,dusk waves of some inverted sea
From lonely tarns the storm-spirit hath
spoken.
O for this aimless dissonance of pain,
A moment's curdling in benign,
Life universal, to dissolve, to cease
Or heart unshamed, exhort them to embrace
Virtues, that are their welfare, though I sought
In very deed their weal at intervals ?
No less than fear, this paralysed mine arm,
Dissolving nobler councils of the mind
With impotent division and despair,
sublime Until their grave assembling ceased, and foul
Revel invaded the high council-halls !

Its aberration of life personal, Sempach, Noefels, Morgarten, wrested power

Being all the grand world meaneth, and From our proud caste for ever and men ask ;

would tell Wherefore / would surrender all the rights

How very like is he to Ralph, my child Of mine own flesh and blood, without the
The form, turn of the head, the face, the leave
voice Asked of inheritors unborn What end ? !

He always brings me flowers, runs after me, I know not once I loved the herd 'twas ere
: :

Lisping his words in that sweet way of Ralph. I knew them they are insolent, unthankful.
;

My boy will come, so soon as I am gone. And ever varying we are tyrannous : :

Walter will guide and guard him, and well What then ? the sorry jest of human life
rule Is worth nor love, nor hate, nor thought,
The people for awhile : I have no heart nor toil
To them any longer
rule : formidable I cannot feign a young enthusiasm
Trouble impends between the peasants, and For any vermin of them, as they rage !

—
Us nobles mine own evil deeds have bound I see mine innocent youth, as if I saw

These hands, unnerved by misery and crime, Another childhood, half resembling mine ;

And doubt : my part is played a paltry part,

; And scarcely may recall as mine what I
Indifferently played ! my folk will love Knew once well for my longings and my
—
Walter and Ralph alas! that he must be fears.
Without his mother Her I behold, as erst,
! The mother, and the sister, whom I loved,
In virginal violet, flowers in her hair Clinging to, when this child, that I behold,
 —— ;! ! — ; — !;; ; ! ! ! ! ! !

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG 223

So like myself, together with them roamed Floating in waifs of melody from far !

Over these very wilds, are dim and far The world a momentary wrench
is fair !

Phantoms of my remembrance, once so near Will be the parting from it after, rest — ! . . .

A very portion of myself, and all, Farewell, dear poesy, my sweet companion !

Without whose loving faces there was naught And thou with awful face. Philosophy
Imaginable in the world for me the caldron !
— I know not if thy solemn light indeed
In yonder forest then my father lived
! Be light auroral from the sun of souls,
And on his back he bore me, wearied out. Beyond our dark horizon or a fire, ;

To where we made dancing around a fire ; Luring to cruel doom predestinate

A caldron with the crone some named a Weary am I of passion's tyranny I

witch Of sanguinary wars all vain with it

Those bilberries I well recall their flavour
! Frustrate all efforts of my strength mature
While more world - shadowing events lie I cannot lift the rock that crushes me I

hidden. I shake it then it settles down again

:

Ye bubbles, our dread World -Magician Yea, once, a youth, I wrestled in long prayer
blows, With tears of blood, entreating help from
Named by men glory, love, or liberty, heaven
And high ideals, ye are all illusion. Fainting before the flaming gate, fast barred
That idly floating fever human souls With triple adamant, a deaf-dumb void !

With longing, with despair ! to burst, No power in the world may liberate the slave
to
vanish, Wlio is self-enslaved. Surely I know of none !

When we poor children touch them ; and My life and love are ashes only sparks !

before Of hell-fire linger in me : this, the end.

How solitary is a human soul I had a friend, but he hath fallen away ;
Unfathomable abysses island it. I had a child, a wife, youth's rapture — all
With only far-off" voices wandering are gone.
From nearest, dearest, over the dim sea. Shall I wait until contemptuous Nature jogs
Our loneliness is only lonelier, The poisons, she in mockery bestowed
WTien we are dying and around the dead ; ! (And I would neither eat them, nor refrain
Constance herself, tho' I forget it now. From tasting) out of a limp, shrivelled hand,
Being pure, was somewhat merciless to wrong When I, turned dotard, drivel, with numb
Might not descend from her snow -throne sense
to me Grown impotent? — ah then I may "repent" !
!

Herself not tempted, with a narrower range Seem to yield up what she in scorn resumes
Of fantasy and thought the guardian ; No !— dare I slay myself? They say a beast
Warping her young soul to severity Dares not —
or knows not how. Have I
Often herself would roughen with small enough
cares Of man left in me to do even this ?
Could Constance ere have ripened to a harsh Yet I would not my death should seem self-
UnlovelineGs, as wont with mostis the slaughter.
Who pass their primal youth and earlier love ?
Thy faults to mine were ripples to a surge
. . . The child —yes—how shall I dispose
! . . . of him ?

My darling, if there be another life, I heard strange sounds. Rudolph ! what ails
With one light whisper tell me I am forgiven ! the boy?
Alas ! thy sphere and mine are worlds apart Wert thou not sobbing? Rudolph ! why these
Yea, more apart beyond the grave than tears ?
here ! . . . Answer, my child ! you were looking at the
Hearken ! the convent's mellow Angelus, moon.
 — ! — ! — ! !
! ! — — —
! ! ! :! ! ! ! ! ! !

224 THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

She should be full— Heavens what a sight !

Only a quarter of her visible Scene IV. Same spot as in Scene II.

She seems oppressed with nightmare ; stifling,

Enter Sigismund.
drowns
In a lurid shroud of blood 'tis ominous
— Rudolph where the child I left
Sig. ! is ?
Are they loud shouts of multitudes we hear ? him here.
Or baying of far wolves or owls. A clash — A Voice {faintly, from below). Count
Of arms it can be nothing else
! Yon fires !
Sigismund
Are verily not the village lights? Some Sig. Heavens ! he has fallen ! Call again !

castle Where are you ?

Blazes 1 — not mine — I know not which [^Loohs down the abyss.
Rudolph. Ah never !
I can see naught. Help! Hoi one bring a
Shall we reach home, Sir Count — I am afraid torch
There are ill ghosts around us. !Mary save !
Riid. {below). I am clinging to a bush : I
Sig. Nay, Rudolph you are safe with me, !
can no longer
sweet child Sig. There he is! hold on tightly! I am
But did you know this fighting was at hand ? coming
I came but yesterday to Ravensburg. [He cli>nbs down the rock with difficulty.
There is a trampling on the track above. Now am firm courage, Rudolph, my boy
I :

As of armed cavalry I'll go and see. !

Give me one hand so climb now you are : : :

Wait here till I return, a moment, boy. safe!

\_Exit.
[Rudolph, after climbing up, looks dozon
for Sigismund, who has disappeared.
Scene III. Above, on a track wiitding round Rud. Sir Count, where are you ? Answer,
the Mountain ; Trees below. Rocks above. dear Sir Count

Enter the Lady Blanche, with Knights in

rich ariiiour, riding; pennons, batiners,
After a pause, re-enter Lady Blanche on
horseback, ivith a Torchbearer.
men with Jlaming torches, and a large
body of 7nen-at-arms dejiling in the rear.
Blanche. Who called? How now, boy?
Blanche. You here. Sir Count! Do you Where's Count Sigismund ?
not take a side ? Rud, {in tears). I cannot tell : he saved
Are you then as a stranger in our wars ? me Look for him ! !

You wander to and fro upon the earth Just there I scrambled I fell down, you —
—
Like Satan and perchance know naught of know
this. I was falling lower, when he pulled me up

We are going to give a lesson to the swine Blanche. Advance the torch to the edge of
Sig. Madam, I do not take a side; you the abyss
know. I could not look : it gives me vertigo.
Blanche. Ah! I remember you ! are always Soldier {with torch). Sir Count
neuter. [After a pause] Madam, I nothing see nor —
[SiGISMUND turns away among the aught can hear
trees, by the path he has ascended. Only the echo of my call unless ;

Ashe goes, he hears a laugh from It be some demon answering. Ave Mary
Lady Bi.anchk and the Knights. Rud. O call him! lady, do you call him!
Sig. {mutters to himself). If I could slay Count
all these before I die Where are you ? Rudolph wants you ! He's
And her — but let the vermin live — I care not. my father
 ! — ! ! ;! ! !

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

Sol. Madam, he could not climb up other- Whispering in low caves, where Shadow
where dwells,
Than here. He must have fallen. Under With her penumbra, a thin water-froth
this The sand is all unfooted, save by elves,
Sheer giddy precipice the gletscher lies. Or feet of toying wavelets, to loose lines
. . .

I fear he's now with Mary — or the devil! Rippling the paleness in their tidal dance.
Rud. Oh Sigismund ! my father ! Nay, yonder by the cave behold a dint
Blanche {crossing herself). Poor knight Of some small foot; a single line of dints. . . .

—
there is no hope of saving him. . . . Ralph {sol., sivifnming out at sea).
And we must on it is a pretty boy.
: So buoyant are the waves, they shift their
Boy, / will be your mother, if you like ; green
And you shall be my pretty page come with : Edges athwart blue air each crest's curled;

me! hollow
Take up the child, and set him on the horse, Gleams, fronting sunlight while I swim I see ;

With John, our trooper. How he sobs be ! A restless sand gleam under how one's :

still {^Exeunt. breath

Goes with their toppling now for a long dive
!

Here comes a giant he will tumble me; ! . . .

Curtain Falls.
I am drawn down again! nay, let me rise,

Ye playful Nereids! I will escape you yet —

Where shall I wash the shells from off my
feet?
PART II.— RALPH There is a pool in yonder rock, I know,
Where darting launces, many-coloured weeds.
Floating all feathery, anemones.
ACT IV
And tiny crabs inhabit — on the rock
I may dry me in the sun. Where's Bertha
Scene I. A small Bay of the Cornish
Coast.
now ?
[Ralph, after a while, seeks Bertha.
Enter Lady Bertha. Where have you been, love, since I saw you
last?
Bertha {so/.). Oh, what delicious shells! Did you go very, very far away ?
the yellow shore, Here let us lie on seathrift, in the shade.
All little shells, or whole, or mutilate, I have made a song, and now I'll sing it you
White rose-petals, curled cowries, palmer- Though I'm no poet, and would not be one.
shells. I'd rather be a statesman, or a soldier :

Orange and crimson, small patellas, veined That, or the like of that, when we return
With ultramarine how delicate, fairylike
; To Ravensburg I will be and I hear :

Each one a happy, innocent life evanished We shall return before the year is out.
While, with delicious plashing, the clear wave, Ah how I long to see the glorious land
!

Green as live emerald, falls white lace of : Of our foreflithers of the lakes and snow
! !

foam But look how you have made me minnesinger,

Falls with it, blown, like cirrus, from the crest For a little while Now listen to my lay.
!

Of joy's own fluctuant crystal, in the blue!

How do they leap, the billows, heaving, Many a summer isle,

laughing. In a summer sea,

Along dark crimson marljle, and moss-green Feels the morning smile,
Of cliff sea-sculptured, or lone island-pillars As I thee I
 ! !! ! — !! —— !

226 THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

Many a blooming grove, Bertha. Do I not well remember? when
In a sunny bay, we met
Happy will not move After,you told me what it was you said ! . . .

From the double day ;

Dear Ralph you have not spoken of your
!

So lingers Love, sister.

All one
Over thee
May,
!
Ralph. My sister ah you know not
! — !

she is dead.
Well, is it pretty? Bertha. Nay, I knew not and ye were —
Bettha. It is beautiful very fond
Ralph. My fee, then! I am too poor to Ralph. Ah, speak not of her !
—we were
sing unpaid. playfellows
Bertha. What do you want? You know {Bis voice falters, and he is deeply
have nothing.
that I moved; after a pause)
Ralph. Nothing why only you have any-
! When shall you go yourself to Switzerland ?
thing ! Your lady mother said it would be soon
Ah do ! not look so lovely, alma mia ! I hear of grave disturbances at home.
Bertha. When did you learn Italian, fair After my father died (we scarce know how)
Sir Count ? [ They kiss each other. The like were quenched with furious cruelty.
Ralph. I never can forget when first I saw But now the poor, intolerably laden.
you. Murmur again unless the lords concede
:

Weary and warm I came unto a stream, Their clamorous demands. Sir Walter says,
Bubbling among forget-me-nots, and green Terrible deeds of violence will follow.
Lush planes, or willows, where light water- Bertha. Your father 'tis the first time
!

falls you have named him.

Made a cool plashing sound there was a ; rift Ralph. I know but little still I gravely ;

Here in the lattice of interlacing foliage. fear

That bowered the water a like interval ; He did not deal with mother as he ought.
Fronted me on the other side of it. And yet 'tis verily a hopeless task
A mossy lawn, a vivid and soft sward. To image native forms of far events.
Sloped in blithe sunshine here, with flowering With no distortion so Sir Walter said, —
Rhododendrons and azaleas embossed. When reading with me the old chronicle.
The flowers and leaves were mirrored in the Surely my father was no common man
lymph ;
My guardian will not speak, though I would
But a far lovelier form they seemed to shrine fain

This made me gaze above a maiden stooped Learn more I know he was the people's
; :

Gathering water in her pink palms.

frail friend^;

And drinking in them ; though it oozed and A strange and lonely being of high powers,
spilt, Which he abused, 'tis hinted, grievously.
'Twixt her translucent delicate finger-roses. But then, his death in saving a poor child,
!

Warm sunlight trickled to her raven hair. Himself fell o'er a precipice nor ever ;

And face rich-hued she looked a startled ;

fawn
When she beheld me for I could not choose
—
But gaze upon her tell me. Bertha, could I?
Soon you returned my gaze, and we essayed
His body could be found ; I deem myself.
The mighty glacier hides him in its heart
; Bertha. A melancholy story! but my
mother
Was dearest friend of yours, you know she ;

Some insignificant words the waterfall ;

spoke
Would not cease babbling so we only moved. ; Of yours as of some angel.
You know, our lips in sight of one another Ralph. So she was
 ! ! ! —!! ! !; !! ! — ! ! !

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG 227

Ah, well ! I would that we were married, Broadswords, cuirasses, helms, and battle-
love targes.
I'm glad it is to be at Ravensburg ! But oh ! how many ill-favoured people here !

And won't the masquerade be glorious ? Look at the hideous distortion yonder
I scarcely deemed Sir Walter would consent In that vile mask ! —he seems as if he watched
You recollect how strangely grave he looked, Us twain. Who can he be ? 'Tis like the
And how he shook his venerable head, son
When you and I, with Edgar, importuned ? Of that bad witch, the painted and repaired
However, I shall be a knight, mine own Old Lady Blanche, who frowned like ugliest
Master, ere then ; but one would not offend sin,

him, When I so lightly tossed his suit aside

The dear old guardian !
— It is late ! fare- Now he is gone! —yon flame too near the
well !— arras
One more Oh, such a long kiss ere I go
! Flares : 'tis the sconce awry : look to it,

Bertha. Nay, Ralph enough leave me ! ! ! dear

ah ! very soon Ralph (goes and returns). What do you
We each other any more
shall not leave say to our old lion yonder,
Morning or evening how I pray for that — With such a mane } he's made of porphyry.
\Excunt. Not by the dais near the giant hearth : !

Do you know what he is spouting now ? 'tis

wine
Scene II. — The Castle of Ravensburg. / thought of that a most 1 original

About two years after. A Gothic hall Device ! most admirable !

lighted. Masquerade, and dancing. Bertha. I believe

Thou hast partaken freely of the same,
Bertha is dressed as a page, and Ralph as Besides the banquet's fierier beverage !

a damsel: they are laughing and con- Ralph. I know not when the blessed rite
versing in a retired angle of the hall. may be,
one unless to-morrow. That shall declare us —
Ralph. How
becomes you mellow as a To-night they hold a conclave of the people.
it !

peach I ought to go shall I ? There will be war —

O' the sunny side, with your fine lashes long, Ere long ; we may be on the verge thereof!
Dark as our pine-boughs latticing blue water Bertha. Go, if you ought, love let me !

Your slim round form ; slight limbs of a never hinder.

gazelle But help in all that's right. Ah ! civil war
Rare furs, and scarlet, broidered with fine Is terrible : I would it were all over
gold! Who can foretell the issue ? you espouse
It is a garb that you shall always wear ! Indeed the nobler side I shall pray for :

Bertha. Thank you ! But you forget your you ! . . .

role, 'tis I O must you go to-night ? is strife so near ? —

Should make such speeches to you, pretty Well, we are true to one another, love
maid So we can wait awhile, if need be.
Only I will not pay you compliments, Ralph. Wait
Loveliest lady, of thesnowy skin ! —
Nay, I cannot but plague on all forebodings
For all your satins and gemmed necklaces, You come and dance the music shall strike up !

And braided bloom-inwoven golden hair Without delay I know not why they tarry.
:

The hall looks well, I'll go and see. [Music commences.

With gleaniings warm upon the panelling. Now, Bertha, darling, come !
 : ! ! ! —! ! —
! ; !! ;!

228 THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

Bertha. O stupid boy! you never will Ralph. He gave me news I may not now
remember discover
You must not circle me with your white arm : Momentous — I must leave you, love — Fare-
I am the cavalier ! well !

Ralph. No, Bertha! no! I go to find Sir Walter. {Exit.

I don't know how : it is impossible
\^They dance, and while both are re-
turnitig flushed to their place, the Scene III. Sir Walter in his Private
Mask they had observed whispers Room.
in Ralph's ear.
Ralph {to Bertha). Fair sir, the gentleman To him enter Ralph.
would have me dance ;
So I will leave you for a little while. Ralph. Uncle, one tells me that Chialderer

Mask {as he ^chirls round with RALPH, Hath summoned all his followers to assemble

bends over him, and speaks low). This very night within the forest. I

Renounce the hand of Bertha nay, you shall Would fain be there perchance I may
:
:

You must I'll speak a word to prove my

!
remain.
power. They must not move without us you will :

Do you know a tree, that grows within a hold

garden The castle, come what may? I learn their

Of a certain northern land? it hath one plans

root, Grow near maturity we stand prepared. :

But forketh early in two trunks full-leaved ; Uncle, wilt thou dismiss the guests for me ?
These marry leaves above there is a cypher :
Sir W. But you look ill these mummeries !

Of intertwined initials deeply graven are bane

r the growing ashwood need I tell you — To soul and body! yet do I rejoice,

more? Knowing you single-hearted in the cause ;

Ralph {turns pale, and after a pause Yea, prompt and bold —ah 1 give your heart

speaks). to God
And wilt thou use thy power, evil man ? Does Bertha know of this? Depart not
What do you seek ? say ! what do you de- thou
mand? Until to-morrow nay, thou art not able
: !

But never dream I will renounce my love The Duke of Austria hath drawn the sword,
Mask. Before to-morrow wanes you shall It is rumoured, on their side ! But Heaven
decide. will help

That is my sole condition, or I use Ralph. 'Tis nothing, uncle pardon me !

My power against you do you know me ? I fori —

Am son to Lady Blanche I want your Will surely go to-night. Farewell farewell
:
I

Bertha {Exit.
You shall not have her ! —think well over it. Sir W, God bless the boy how beautiful !

Ralph {after a pause). I will nay, : I shall and bold

answer you to-night. He may be made or marred yet we have :

Meet me beside the old yew-avenue, prayed.

By the lowest stone of balustraded stairs I'll go to Bertha Pastor John will grieve
:

In a rank place — at moonrise. That I permit these antics how may I :

Mask. It is well. {Exit. Mix with them ? Well, Count Ralph is now
Bertha. What would the monster? — who the master.
is he ? you're pale {Exit.
 ! ! — ! — —
! — ; ! — — !

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG 229

the Phantom of Sigismund ap-

Scene IV.- - The old Yew-avenue at pears on the upper stone stair, just
Moonrise. within moonlight, by the yews.
Phantom of Sig. {speaks low). I deemed
Enter Ralph, girt with a sword. Baron
there was no other world no hell
Adrian Mask) sits waiting on the
(the
; I

Is not this hell ?

loiver stoneof the baliistraded stairs, also
girt with a sword ; the stairs descend to
There stands my heart's own child.
Stained with the life-blood of another son I

a rank, open space between the yew-

His bloom of innocence, his morning dew
terrace and a wood beyond.
Of joy already vanished soiled by me! !

Ralph. What utter night beneath these By me whirled in the whirlwind of my

!

sable yews ! . . .
crime
— — —
Or he or I no he shall ne'er disgrace me Before this, guilty of a deadlier sin ;

Nor force me to renounce my bride my A monster, born of my monstrosity ; !

love ! . . .
Behold my boy, for whose dear sake I died
!
;

The castle towers in moonlight For whom I would be damned for evermore !

They are far But I am damned and he is damned with —

Enough for this death-struggle : none comes me
here :
With me, and through me ! all the sin is

The place is rank and lone : men deem it mine

haunted. Mine mine
! ! my guilt is deeper than this
By God ! it shall be haunted by some ghost hell!
Before the morning —
Yonder sits the man
! Most despicable weakling in the world.
{He descends to Adrian.) Sir, of us twain Hourly I vowed to advance aloft, erect,
to-night one tarries here Ruler of mine own spirit ; and yet aye
Or both — now draw! defend yourself! Grovelled in dust, mere vermin, a prone
{He draws his sword.) Your sword beast,
Adrian {who rises). I will not fight so With wanton feet turned hourly from my goal, :

you would murder me To dally in that hollow where the fiend !

Ralph. Murder you are the better swords- Flaunts its phantasmal fair flesh-coloured
!

man, sir flowers,

Defend yourself! you have a fairer chance Luring the doomed with momentary sweet.
Of life than I. Coward you are afraid Till all my veins, clear currents and fresh
! !

Adrian. Well, you will have it so : your springs.

blood, rash boy, Curdled to coffin's food and yet
: I breathed
Be on your own head you ! shall tarry here ! Even as in life, in death I feel the curse
[ They fight ; atid at first Ralph is That weighs upon the creature ; and with
grazed; but, after some furious flame
passes, Adrian falls mortally Of doom more terrible, more swift — with
wounded. blows
Adrian. Ah it ! is death !
— Ralph — listen Thundering, thicker, surer smites and blasts —
—nay, I faint The fated roof-tree of one house forlorn.
Ralph. Why did you drive me to it? I Leaving another prosperous awhile.
repent I And yet I feel how in the abysmal Past
Adrian {faintly). We are brothers — the / was in yon dim Future / shall be.
;

Count Sigismund's —my father {dies). While I and my forefathers, and my seed
[Ralph remains looking onhim with Yea, all the panorama of the world
silent horror : while a figure like Are one Man, shadowed by one awful guilt,
 ! ! ! ! —
! ! ! ; !! —— !! !!

230 THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

One suffering, one freedom charged with doom A wind-waved cedar brushed with shadowy
Unfathomable, more righteous than our right, bough
Than wisdom wise?, loving more than love. {The Phantom ^SlGISMUND appears
All we name Nature sundereth evermore afar off by an oriel.
From her All-Father re-absorbed for ever, ; What awful apparition haunts me ? There,
Abideth reconciled yet ours the sin, ;
Again I see the form ! Or am I mad ?

That must be purged and punished ere the end. Behold, it slinks away more into shade 1 . . .

But I rebel. I writhe impaled Yea, curse, ! [It vanishes.

Accuse thee, Heaven Why visit upon hitn ! I shiver and grow cold! For shame, my
The sins of his forefathers, and my own ? heart
I moan I grope in blindness
; Yet I know But there is nothing
!
. . .

— 'tis mere fantasy

The award for justice, and embrace my Surely no more Ah ! ! what an awful face
pain ! , . . Very like portraits of my dreaded father I

Ihoped my son, the son of Innocence Father! art thou mine evil genius,
(Who, while she folded her white wings on As thou wast hers ? I have thy blood in me I

earth Some fascination draws me to ill dreams

A moment, was called Constance), my sweet Of thee and thy career The truth looms !

child. large
Nurtured in shrines of holiness and love, Through dim past time, in superstitious tale
Would soar in spirit from our earth to heaven. For all here talk with bated breath of thee.
Dwelling there in pure light above us all Saying thou hauntest this old pile How chill !

I may not even clasp thee in mine arms Struck thy pale, vacant chambers on my
For consolation ; in me there is none heart,
Ill's instrument, I am unprofitable Visited by the taper's beam last night
For any goodl Ah, could I speak one word Chambers aflame once with fierce human fire
Of what my soul desires to him I yearn ! Yea, and I thought I saw thy figure then ! . . .

Over the child in vain O Saviour, Christ! ! That horrible chapel of the orgies, too
Ralph {mutters to himself). Thou, father An evil influence steals from those fair forms,
—
thou hast done this Thou hast slain ! The blasphemous brotherhood installed there,
My mother! Me thou plungest in the deep! Foul idols in the very sanctuary,
Behold the inheritance thou hast bequeathed And faded roses of the revellers
Shall I curse thee for it ? Am I predestined to a dark career,
Phantom of Sig. {speaks atidibly). Ralph, Like thee ? In sooth I am my father's son
beloved, no Why did they banish thee from home ?
[Ralph, turning with a shudder, sees There were
the Apparition, and stands petrified Mitigations of thy guilt, as of mine own.
for a moment ; then flies over the How could I know this man ?
open space towards the castle. The He drove me to it!
Figure, wringing its hands, dis- I shudder, seeing him upon the sod.
appears. Gasping and bleeding ! I have slain a man
That man, my brother ! And the world will
Scene V. — 77^1? Great Hall of the Castle, as know
before : the same night. Disgrace upon my name ! Deep shame and
sorrow
Ralph enters and paces it, with inoonlight
Upon my venerable friend's grey hairs ! my
streaming in at the oriel ivittdows.
friend
Ralph. What sound was that ? Athwart Who reared me ! Worse than all, upon my
the distant pane love!
 ! —
! ! ! ! ! !! — ! —
! ! !!

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG 231

Death —
death looks frightful Yet to live !

Scene VI. Same night. The Castle of

from hence
Ravensburg. The old Gothic Chapel.
Seems harder ; more insufferable still ! . . .

Scene of the blasphemous orgies (t/'Sigis-

Bertha, our dream is over I, unworthy, !

MUND and his comrades. Moonlight

Dare not approach thee any more And !

from the zuindows over thefloor. Therein

thou
stands the Phantom (/SlGlSMUND. The
Wilt scorn me, and abhor Until the deed !

forms of some voluptuous, and some gross,

Of blood, which leaves me red with fratri-
white marble statues are dimly discern-
cide,
ible ; also of monuments upon ancestral
Scarce I discerned the foulness of my crime.
tombs.
That went before for else this leprous hand ;

Should ne'er have soiled the purity of thine Phantom. I will follow all unseen, not
I knew I had done evil ; but to-night terrify!
My past leaps to one red in the grim glare Alas ! that I am only a terror to thee
Of this fierce slaughter : yea, I am accurst And when I yearn most over thee, thou seest
Bertha, Bertha, never any more. Fain would I follow! what will be the —
My darling, may we meet — sweet mother, end? . , .

thou! Must I not always follow Ralph? My

Yea, and my Annabel —ye are heaven in darling! . . .

Ye are happy — where's my father — what

! ? Ha 1 who swarmed about my best beloved.
ye
a face Harrying him, leave me for I will follow !

Of woe was his — some say my father loved

!
Yea, shield him from you ! do I not loathe
me your damned
May I not die now? die before they know? . . . Embraces ? Peace ! begone !
—sometimes in
And what beyond ?— ah God forgive me ! sooth
Christ Iam onewhite heat of soul-consuming lust . . .

Thou who hast died to save, wilt Thou not Let me fly to the mountain to the ice !

pardon? . . . Caverns, where erst I fell! or anywhere!

1 feel the spirit of my mother nigh. There is no peace, no rest, where'er I wander
[He falls on his knees and prays. Why hope to find it in the grave ?
did I

Rising after a pause. — Still haunt the mountains, and the sea.
do I

But who can prove the deed? —a lonely Feeling some respite there you whisper —
spot !
what?
It is but rarely any mortal passes. That I was always fond of things like you ?
And none may find the body — shall I hide it ? Liars ye were masked then ye are leprosy
! !

They deem me to the people's council gone, Plague — putrefaction — Monsters be gone !

Hours since — I go now — let me fall in battle Ha women cease to twist smooth snake about ! !

The cause is noble some atonement were : ]My limbs to drag to wag that horrible head,
! !

In such a death for evil I have wrought Facing, upon the snake's neck! slowly! so!
I must be doing memories, avaunt : Why I can wag mine! hke a pendulum !

Be banished, or the high cause

I madden ! Dart at my brain ! quick ! finish ! make an
Of human welfare, a pure patriot zeal. end! . . .

Live only in my soul and thou, my bride !

— W^hat blood again there crawling round
I my
That might have been forget me and be ! ! feet?
happy! . . . Will it never cease to trickle from the
Ha ! what a wail, as of a soul's despair, altar? . . .

From the old chapel yonder! — is it the And her white form thereon ! . . . I did it

wind? . . . \Exit. not ! . . .

 — ! — — ! !! ! !

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

Who murdered her? I'll know it! why, "tis — how fair — and deadly pale [E?iter Ralph.] !

Ralph! Stand I —here you pass not What would I

Surely I wearied of you long ago you. Sir Knight ?

Tho' ever ye returned to mouth me now ! Ralph. I am your friend, the Count of
My can only loathe
lusts are ashes, I Ravensburg.
And yet ye cling, one ravening flame ! how 2nd Sentinel {whose ttame is Hans, a
Constance I hunter). The Count of Ravensburg Wel- !

Save me, my own ! you are pitiful ! O save come, Sir Count I joy to see you he is I —
Have found thee, love, at last? I sought
I one with us. And old Sir Walter you are :

thee long a host, my lord!

How is it with thee ? hast forgiven ? speak I Ralph. What? Hans, my boon companion
Nay, let me see thy face Ah foul, ! . . . ! The mother —
how hath she borne our cutting
dead eyes 1 winds of late ?
Thou art not Constance, thou ! the worst Hans. But poorly. Count she's ill of her :

of all old age. The hawk is welt now : 'tis a

These fiends I who art thou ? . . . Blanche splendid bird — I tried him yesterday — no-
Hal ha! I know thee! letme see three days —
Nay, let me follow him ! — where is he Ralph. Nay, Hans, my friend, we'll talk
gone ? of hawks anon. Now bring me to your
leader : times are grave.
Curtain Falls. Hans The boy has suddenly be-
(aside).
come a man! [To Ralph.] Surely, my
lord come, follow me take care
: There : !

is the hole where your poor father's horse

PART III.— BERTHA fell, when he —

ah but I forget myself !

Ralph. Let me not interrupt : I will

ACT V wait here, until the leader finishes —un-
Scene —
I. On the borders of a meadow, at seen.

some distance from Ravensbiirg : far off Chialdertr (to the people). I have not told
a cataract descends from a mountain. you half. I killed the horse that was turned
Mountains around. Persons of Appen- loose into my corn. You know that ; but
zell, Rhetia, the Engadine, (2r-r., are do you know what I went through in prison
mingled together. An assembly of shep- for that ? Thumbscrew, iron cap, famine,
herds in grey vjoollen gartnents, and rats, no daylight, water on muddy dungeon

Jerkins of hide ; with some hunters and floors till I rotted and what for ? Because :

a few small proprietors of higher stand- I drove that 's beasts out of my own
ing than the serf- shepherds. They are grain [Cries of " Shame! "^ Peter, they dug
!

standing and sitting on boidders, or up your old father out of the churchyard
felled trunks, under a forest of inaples yonder, didn't they ? to get at the good coat
and sycamores, armed with scythes, clubs, you buried him in — they hadn't enough gold-
slings, halberds, pikes, (^c. laced coats of their own above-ground ; so,
poor things they had to burrow in the grave,
1

Chialderer, the leader, is addressing the

like famished jackals or hyenas, and take the
people, mounted on a boulder of rock.
only coat the weeping orphans of a poor
Two Sentinels on the outskirts of the
serf had found to wrap their father's corpse
gathering,
decently in — saying, forsooth, it was the
1st Sentinel. Who comes, in gorgeous Lord's by law
armour and rich garb ? A knight ! a youth 1 Peter. So they did 1 St. Gall's curse upon
 ! !! !

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

them ! they shall pay for it. By St. Petronella, and writhed ! but I held his head under, and
but they shall strangled him
Chial. And that field was mine. I am no [5/^(?M/y (?/"" Right, right ! Chialderer! we'll
serf, though you who are are better men serve 'em all so ! "]
before God than the upright, two-legged An Old Man. Alas, alas! it was a savage
thing that called itself Baron of Fardun deed. Vengeance is mine, God says What !

Isn't God your father, and Christ your blood will flow because of this What won't !

brother ? That isn't being of very vile family the cruel lords do to us? We are told to
after all. But my father paid his feudal forgive Hav'n't we suffered enough already ?
!

dues while they were due and then this — Do you want to make them destroy us alto-
baron's father sold his rights to mine. He gether? Us and our women, and our little

was a improvident beggar. But

profligate, ones?
the son, who's worse, has never forgiven us Chial. The good old father dotes. We
for buying our independence. Well, I took mean wring from these people, of whose
to
the law into my own hands for you know ; tyranny we are weary, self-government, under
what their law is. I wanted justice, and our own mayors and magistrates, and by our
couldn't afford to pay for it. Even if I could, own fireely-elected diet. We will have no
why shouldpay blackmail to those robbers
I more of their bailiffs. On the chartered
for yielding me what is my own right before rights of many of you, for which your fathers
God? Justice, I suppose you have all of bled, they have trampled ; and we who have
you found, is rather an expensive commodity not those rights demand them —in the name
here. It's the luxury of the rich, that is of the Christian's God — in the name of
{^Signs of assent.] Well, the justice I have despatched messengers
got was humanity. We
queer — rather adulterated — like towns and free cantons
the coin. with
to the free :

[Applause.'] However, I came out of their them our hamlets and communes must make
trap alive for here I am.
; Jane, my wife, treaties of alliance, and enter into co-burgher-
poor woman, wasn't she glad to see me ship. If the nobles choose to be free burghers
She never thought she would again. Well, of free republics, like us, well and good if ;

she and I, with our three children, were not, they shall be killed, or driven off as
sitting quietly in the old place one night, so much vermin. We will spin and weave,
not long after my release, eating our bouillon, and tend flocks, and till the fields for these
when I hear a noise at the door, and call voracious wolves no longer. There will be
" Come in." To my astonishment in walks no more tolls and taxes when we are free
the devil himself, the Lord of Fardun All {^Soine voices protest, hut the majority ap-
!

but I get up, and salute the brute Jane, plaud.] How about the Abbot's last trick?
—
because she is afraid of him ; and she made I have a neighbour, who makes the best
the children do it. What do you think he Melilot green cheeses in Appenzell or his —
did? Without saying a word, or returning good lady does. Now, not long since he
their salute, he walks scowling up to the went to market with his cart and oxen to
table between her and me, and spits into sell his cheeses as usual. But, to his con-
the soup we are eating. \^Skame! Shame!] sternation, when he got down into the hollow,
What did I do ? Our bowl is large and deep. near the Bailiff's brand-new castle, he sees
Have you seen a vulture swoop and truss a a new turnpike barring the road, and out
kid ? Just like that I clutched his wrinkled pops a man in the Prince-Abbot's ugly livery,
old neck before and behind, and thrust his stops him, and demands toll on the cheeses.
—
head into the scalding bowl and "Drink, Neighbour has no warning of this last black-
old devil," cried I, "the broth thou hast mail, and naturally enough can't pay. So
seasoned " Oh, he bubbled, and spluttered, the exciseman, he just whistles shrilly, and
!
 !

234 THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

a huge dog, with a mane like a lion, leaps Abbot has got Duke Frederick to promise
on the poor and nearly tears him to
fellow, him troops to put us down with. But you
pieces. He had to go back, too, as he will fight for home and fatherland, as they
hadn't money to pay the toll with, and never did at Morgarten and Sempach let this be :

sold his cheeses. He's ill in bed now, and our Griitli with the sons of Stauftacher and
:

on a fair way to ruin. For milk and butter Melchthal you will form a free league. The
it is all the same. This is what we are mountains are our ramparts. What they !

coming tol Why, these fellows hold their call these rocks and peaks theirs? Rather
fiefs under the Duke, on condition of keep- these alps belong to the wild game, whose
ing his high-roads open to travellers and welfare the lords respect more than ours
merchants, and the way they do it is by Their property Do yonder Lauwinen make
!

turning themselves into bandits, or taking
bribes from them, and sharing in their
plunder. Nay, there is not a baron on
Rhine or Danube but stops and robs the
merchants like a common footpad and if
obeisance, and wait till the lords pass before
they move? Nay, let me put one of these
upon any of yonder ice precipices and giddy
pinnacles, where you and I, in spite of them,
; hunt the steinbock and the gems How !

they can't or won't pay, thrusts them into will the heights and deeps salute him ? By
filthy, deadly dungeons, torturing them to swimming in a witch's sabbath-walse around
extract ransom. So they kill commerce and him, and dashing him to atoms on the stones
frighten merchants away. So they keep us below There let our eagles and vultures
!

poor, and prevent us exchanging our produce pay him court, and pay him tribute or let —
with the produce of other lands, or exchang- him pay tribute of his own dead eyes, and
ing ideas with foreigners from distant parts of bloody heart, to them ! Nay, you, and the
the world. So they hinder us from growing bears, and the lynxes are lords of the land!
wise about our own interest. So it is that [ The people shout applause., and many
we remain miserable, ignorant slaves of these rush to shake hands with the orator.
men, who insist on our squandering our best One of the peasants then approaches
blood in their petty squabbles, and give us and speaks in low tones to Ckial-
nothing in return How long shall this
! DERER.
be? And there's far worse behind. Look Chial. My friends, they say there is a
at the noble freedmen of Uri, Schwytz, and great lord in our midst, who wants to join
Unterwalden Who made them free ? They
! us. But I advise you to have nothing to do
groaned under a tyranny heavy as ours ; but with any of these folk. They are all the
only for a little while. How long did they same. The fox wants to ally himself with
endure it? Shame on you that ye have the fowls, and will help them to fight the
endured it so long! What did Tell to other foxes. A
such alliances No
fig for !

Gessler? Baumgartner to Wolfenschiess ? tell this lord to go back Nay, rather detain !
—
and, nearer home, but a year ago, what did him! As for the castles of this vermin,
Adam in Engadine to the Lord of Gardovall? we'll burn them all! We'll make these
Adam brought the lord his fair daughter as wasps' nests rather close for them with a
he desired —
but another present he broughtlittle smoke —
Arrest this knight, and bring
!

too — — him here

one a little less desirable a knife for {Applause.'] !

his entrails, and fire for the illumination of [Ralt'H comes forward surrounded.
his den [ Cr/fj<?/"" Well done
I well done!"]
! Hans the htinter {mounts on a boulder, and
Similarly have I done to Fardun! ^Shouts says aloud).
of applause. ^ You expect your messengers Friends, I know the young Count of Ravens-
back hourly from the free states. You have burg, as I know myself, and will answer for
asked for help, and you will want it ; for the his loyalty to your cause with my life. I
 ! —" — ;!

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG 235

hold my land under him. Though he has it's a fine thing to have a lord on your side
not been in our country long, he has hunted show him how pleased you
so you're right to
with many of us ; he has encouraged us to him for calling you brothers, and
are with
hunt, and granted us all the privileges of for coming to take your part or he might ;

freedmen. His father, too, whatever his sins, go away in a huff, he might, if you didn't.
was our friend Bless you I know them —
I know them ! !

Chial. Nay, he was a monster of iniquity, [Chuckling.

and no friend to us in his later years Peter {laughing). Well, you're a wise man,
Hans. This young lord has been with us father Paul ! Still he's a fine young chap,
in our merrymakings, and social gatherings. I —and us can't do without the like he.
say o'
He has a free hand, a kindly, cheerful tongue, Ralph. What ask for myself
I that you is

and a generous, open heart. He will be will allow me to with you — as your
fight
faithful todeath if he swears it. And think equal, not as the feudal superior of any
of what high value he can be to our cause and, till the day of battle comes, which must
he with his friends, his connections, his name, be soon, let me stay among you, and share
and his stronghold upon the rock ! Let us, your lot in all things \Criesof'''' You shall
!

while we stick up for our own rights, be just You shall " Wliereupon Ralph strips him.'
!

to others, and respect their claims. Let us self of his armour and rich dress, and having
move with the nobles, whispered to Hans, the latter brings him a
if they will be our
friends. So shall we be four times stronger. grey shepherd's tunic, ivhich he puts on.} I
Even the sovereign Abbot's rights should be must ask some of my firiends here to make
respected. No vengeance ; no fury but my get-up rather less like a jester's motley
;

righteousness and temperate dealing. than it is at present. [Laughter.] With most

\_Cries of " Long live the Count of Ravens- of what your leader, Master Chialderer, said,
burg."] I profoundly sympathise in my inmost soul.
Ralph {speaks fro7n the same place). My You of St. Gall and Appenzell, your fair,
deg.r friends and good brothers just demands for redress have been rejected
!

\^Cries of^^ Hear him !

" "Well spoken !
by the Abbot, and the imperial cities, his
" He calls us brothers !
"] allies. And as to you, men of the mountains,
An Old Man. What are they shouting for? who have won no chartered rights hitherto,
Peter [a serf). He called us all brothers! you must win them with your own strong
He's a handsome fellow and good. I know arms, and with the help of those freemen
about him. whose aid you have invoked. I do not
The Old Man. I believe he is good, neigh- wonder, for the rest, at your leader distrust-
bour ; still it doesn't cost a lord much to ing me, after all the injury you and himself
call us serfs "brothers." I've heard some- have suffered at the hands of my order. Yet,
thing like that before, I have, and not very believe me, there are good men and true
much has come of masters are not
it. New among us, who have your interest at heart.
always better than old. Maybe he feels it Many of you know that to be so [applause],
all in a general way like, you know, at the and our interests are identical. The Dukes
time when he's speaking or maybe he ; of Austria have robbed my fathers of their
doesn't. But he don't no how always like principality —
while their underlings have
us serfs to talk to him as if we was his own robbed you. Let us all join in delivering
—
born brothers nor he don't always feel in our common fatherland from the oppressive
his own self as if we was, I'm thinking. sway of foreign bailiffs, and from iniquitous
Besides, I've heard tell as how brothers don't native governments but let us be just our- ;

always love each other very much There's selves, also, and merciful
! so the God of ;

Cain and Abel, for instance. Still, neighbour. Justice and Mercy shall give us victory.
 !! :: ;; : : — ! : !

236 THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

Your freedom dawns, like yonder sun, whose The hunter peers from a stony jag
first beams now illume the high peaks and
Halloo !

the cataracts.
A Lammergeyer unfurls the flag
Of vans, that shadow all the crag !

\^He points to the mountains, with the

He shouts! death hovers hurls him down below !

light of sunrise tipon them. Halloo ! halloo !

And as he in the deep

falls, falls
— The Lower :

Scene H. Wooded Hills. Halloo !

With him the rocks rebounding leap ;

Hans the hunter, and Ralph, descendifig

Rouse all the demons out of their sleep,
rapidly, both in plain hunting costuf?ie,
Who laugh, as he lies cold in snow :

with bows and arrows, and axes ; getns Halloo! halloo!

and other game slung over their shoulders.
Ralph. How bright these Alpine - roses 1

Hans (Jodling —then he sings) bilberries

The hunter he strides along

sings, as :
May quench our thirst! there is no water
Halloo !
here.
The paths are perilous and long ;
Blue gentians what an aromatic air!

But a hunter's heart is light and strong : Was wafted then there opens a fair view
!

He jodles, and the ice crags jodle too :

Of snow peak and blue gorge, between the
Halloo halloo
! 1
pines.
Hans. My lord, that was a rare leap
Hark to the clang of his iron heel 1 which you made and yet it savoured of the
;

Halloo ! desperate! You did not join us in our late

He grapples granite with grip of steel carouse at Father Werner's, on St. Catherine's
The mountains echo to his merry peal day, before the herds went to their summer
He splinters, and he mounts the ice wall blue :
Alp ? though you were there, they said, but
Halloo! halloo! You are grown graver, sadder,
fast asleep !

than of old, and seem more saintly now than

Who spies a gems from the top of a bluff? good Sir Walter I saw that pretty wench
!

Halloo !
make desperate love to you! and you were
A shaft
Though
hath tumbled him sure enough
hunter's fare be scant and rough,
;
Anthony, or Joseph I am not sure if it was —
ever so ! And we have drained heel-taps
He quaffs for wine the air, the stream, the dew
ere now together
Halloo halloo ! !

Ralph. Dear Hans, you know not, and I

may not tell

His seasoned frame ishard as a rock :
What changed me thus : I feel that I am
Halloo
lost
He doth indomitable mock Alas 1 I scarcely may endure to live :

Lauwine, red lightning, rolling block

He springeth over icy chasms blue :
;

Life is all gloom now — though I strive to

Halloo! halloo! clasp

Our common hope of mercy on the Cross.
Our people's cause 'tis Christ's I make — — it
He lies out under a cave by night
mine
Halloo
He communeth with still starlight, For that I breathe ; and I would see the day
And snow-peaks in their shrouds of white :
Of their high triumph ! Tell and Winkelried,
In far ravines hoar torrents roaring go :
Fiirst, Melchthal, these illustrious names have
Halloo ! halloo ! power
 ; —! ! — ! ; ; ;; ; ;

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG 237

To thrill my soul : Chialderer moved me much Fear violence of exasperated men,

That memorable night I came to you. Like your Romansch Chialderer, and his
A strange, strong man ; a dark and dreadful friends.
man Be it ours to moderate the lava-flow
Ferocious, and yet cast in hero-mould. Of their fierce, all-annihilating wrath !

Ah some delicious glow

! Alas ! there must be misery and blood !

Pervades my frame among these crags of ours, God grant we scourge the enemy from our
Leaping or climbing hewing in steep ice ;
homes,
Footholds yea, pleasant seems the perilous
;
Ere he can wreak his hate on what we love.
chase ;
Hans. Amen ! my lord ; we will do it,

For then I cannot think —our mountain air never fear !

Exhilarates more than wine ; but Horror \_A pause.

haunts, Well, we made noise enough that night, I

A grisly spectre, a chill mist, miasma. know.

All of my inmost being when I rest You did not sleep much !

Ah you would loathe me, snatch your honest

! Ralph. At good Father Werner's
hand The porridge and the milk are excellent
Away from mine, it may be, if you knew— But his hay-beds are all alive ; his goats
Yet do not take for gospel all I say By night climb up the pent-roof, and throw
Hans, we must fix our hearts above the down :

world Big stones this rouses every grunting pig : !

Passeth away jwii need to be forgiven

! Past midnight, some of you (not quite dead
All need forgiveness, only not as I — drunk,
Hans. You are not well, sir nay, you are Under the deal, or staggering out of doors)
:

not well I see it

! so you magnify your I heard discuss the bell-cow of the year
:

sin.- We are all mortal but confession's Her brand-new bell, her bunch of frontal
;

power is wonderful. Ah you believe it not. flowers

!

You are a Hussite, or an Albigense. They Then there was martial talk and, lastly, one ;

are good men, for all the priest may say. Told of a heifer, lost on a precipice ;
For me, I am honest, try to do my best Alive, though fallen, yet inaccessible.
we can't do more. Mary is merciful I too He strove, in vain, to fix the very spot
!

shall hail the dawn of better days. The None got it clear, and so he grew enraged.
—
prospect of a brush with Cuno's men his The strange name of some mountain kept
hireling cut -throats — with the foreigner, recurring
refreshes me !gay feathers
we'll ruffle their ! In his thick guttural utterance, until
And yet I wonder if there will be all the Vaguely I heard the name, and only that,
benefit they promise us in change. There While dozing; then ill dreams thronged
must be taxes that was a bit of humbug of
: round the name
Chialderer's, saying there would be none. A weird, wild word What was it ? I !

Only we may hope to get our money's forget

worth. But then we shall have to make Not Todi no —
nor Glarnitch nor Cal- ; ;

our own laws. For my part, I own I shan't anda

know how to make them. I've other things Hans. Well I remember so you know ;

to think of. There wouldn't be much harm the whole Aha our cave above the
! . . . !

in leaving that business to those who have Firn was cold only we made a royal fire
!

more leisure, and more training perhaps ! and I at least slept soundly how the :

Ralph {smiling). Doubt not the benefit of marmots whistled Talking of mar- ! . . .

change yet I I mots, none can dress them, sir, except the
 : ! !

238 THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

late cook of Lord Wenceslas (You know ways are not for mailed men, or horses.
!

I was at Wolfsberg when a boy.) Still I See, I pray you, the hind foot, the off one !

—
remember how he did them Hist a lynx, I will wager he hath a stone. What's that ?
!

sir ! some swift missile went whizzing by —

We !

Ralph. Where? are attacked on, gentlemen prick on ! ! !

Hans. In yonder bough A shot a \_Soldiers of the free states, allied with
! !

splendid shot ! he glares with balls of fire. Appenzell, burst out of the woods,
They never move when once they are sur- shouting, and fall furiously on the
prised. Only don't miss him or he will not ! flanks ofthe cavalry ; while peasants
miss his lightning spring at you. [Ralph of Appenzell and the Grisatis appear
lets fly an arrow.'] You've tumbled him. in front under Chialderer, block-
A beast full grown. See what a splendid ing the track, ar?ned with slings,
fur \^Tkey examine and take up the lynx.]
! pikes, clubs, halberds, afc.
The bear was killed not very far from here- Com. We can't manoeuvre here. We
They tell strange tales of Wolfsberg, whose cannot turn and shall not reach the sum- —
bad lord died strangely. Lady Blanche mit we will fight in that great plain below : :

would never allow any attendant near him ; sound a retreat I

gave him all the drugs prescribed with her \_Tru7npets sound for a retreat. At
—
own hand, they say And what's become of the cries of " Back back !" the !

young Lord Adrian, that limb of Satan, no infantry are seized with panic.
one knows he last was seen the day before
; Many knights and horses, in at-
your grand mask ball Pardon I rattle on— te?npting to turn, roll over one
;

I weary you You are faint ? Some spirit

! another, wounded or slain ; some,
in my flask remains. dismounted, fight hand to hand with
Ralph (drinks). Thanks, my good friend : the enemy, who attack before and in
I would be silent now. \^They descend the flank. All is tu?nult and confusion.
mountain and exeunt. Theflying cavalry rush back through
the flying ranks of their own in-

Scene HL — In a Mountain Pass of the

fantry.
Chial. {zvielding his huge axe, deals death,
same country.
shouting). Die, dogs of nobles! roll and bite

Cavalry, coroneted and plumed Knights in the dust

armour, with banners, escutcheons, and Kill every one !

— why, this will spoil your

petinons, are advancing : some divisions clothes.

of the Austrian, and Prince- Abbot of

And your iron coward's coats, ye peacocks I

St. Gall's infantry follozaing.

die!
So we may eat from swine troughs, may we ?
The Commander of the Austrian Con- that's
tingent [to a Squire riding by him). I Your sentence Pass to hell thank God ! I

would we were well out of this defile Bid for this! !

all the mounted knights spur on as fast as
this rough, rising, Satan's ground allows
—
The summit's near so may the swineherds
be I mean to fight on yonder flats
! for
With glorious glow of battle, and spilt blood
Of foes with satiate revenge I tingle ! —
\Toa Cavalier on the ground, wounded,
who calls for " Mercy! "
;

there the day is ours. [To a Knight.] My Mercy ! what mercy have you shown to us ?
beast, that never trips, has stumbled twice Ah would you turn your beasts into our !

on these accursed rocks, and all this rain corn?

makes most infernal mire. These horrible Imprison, torture, madden, spit upon us !
 — ! — !

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG 239

Then whine for mercy to Chialderer Down yon steep ! forest slides, worn smooth,
Tyrant God blasts thee, cleaves thee, by
! like glass.
mine arm ! \A multitude of men shove these trutiks
I would thou wert all kings and knights in one after finother down the steep
one ! slope.

[He cleaves through visor, head, and No catapult can hurl them swifter See ! !

helm, with one blozv of his huge Not the uproarious new-fangled cannon :

forest axe. Men scuttle off like frightened rabbits

Ha how ! the hot blood spurts into my face ! Twelve
These are the roses that we bathe us in, Are overset —
mere skittles ! Others, mashed
Refreshed, we peasants on pursue no ! ! ! Like gnats, lie flattened underneath yon
quarter down with them ! ! rock !

The ground is slippery with blood and rain ! Now, my brave brothers ! onward ! follow
My poor parched fatherland would quaff it me !

pure. Hampered with ponderous arms and coats of

This blood of tyrants ! undiluted ! yea ! proof,
That is the vintage she was panting for ! Their soles are ice upon the slippery.
Short, slant, wet turf! And, lo their cross- !

bow gut,
Scene IV. Another division of the enemy's Slackened with rain, the iron bolts drop
army (AusTRiANS, Abbot's, Blanche dead!
of Wolfs berg's, aiid other troops). The God fights upon our side !

Kfiights have dismounted and are ascend- Let fly their ! leader falls ! Our naked
itig the steep hill, on short, wet, slippery feet
grass. Ralph is commanding a second Will better bite the ground. We are at
^ody of the feasant forces, who are con- home!
cealed among high rocks and trees, im- Form ranks ! Now charge !

mediately above the hill ; he is 7vithotit {They advance, shouting, "The Grey
armour, dressed like a shepherd, and League " " Appenzell " " Father-
! !

barefoot as the rest —with only an eagle's land !

" "Freedom!" "Death to
feather in his cap, to distinguish him as Austria!" A furious hand-to-
leader. hand combat follows, with sword,
pike, club, and halberds. At last, the
Ralph. Hurl down that rock ! all lend a Austrians and their allies, catching
hand ; 'tis fast sight of another division ofpeasants,
So ! now it moves ! it heaves ! there ! over who appear on a height in their
with it !
rear, and who are really women of
Let's watch ! They hear and see — tliey Appenzell disguised, call out thit
scuttle ! look !
their retreat is cut off, and turn lo
Three fello\/s slidder over to the gulf! fly in co)ifusion.
Ah, how it bounds Our friends have !
{Exeunt Ralph and all in pursuit.
rolled another.
'Tis on them ! Five or six at least are
crushed ! Scene V. Ralph, in his eagerness, gets
Now for the trunks of mighty growth we separated from his friends. He is much
felled ! wounded; btit a body of Wolfsberg troops,
Swift as an avalanche they will descend ! who have surrounded him, seeing the
Swift as the giant poles that rush to Rhine plume in his cap, and knowing him for
 —— ! ! ! ! ! ! — — ! —
!

240 THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

leader of the peasants, siimtnon him to Only do justice on this murdering boy I . .

surrender. After desperate fighting, he WTio is a rebel in arms, moreover, now ! . . •

is taken prisoner. Twice, Sigismund, hast dared to baffle me !

Once in thy proper person ; now again

Enter Lady Blanche of Wolfsberg, on
—
By this thy cub that ugly woman's child.
horseback, livid with rage ana disordered.
Mine should have ruled o'er Rheinthal ; but
Lady Blanche. Ha ! there's young Ravens- this boy

burg ! . . . Relenting saints ! Hath slain my son his brother — his oivn
I praise you, who have flung me sweet re- brother !
venge, Adrian should have married Bertha's wealth;
To roll between the palate and the tongue, Now Ralph leads on these serfs to victory.
A dainty morsel ! Am I then defeated ? Robbing us of our all ! so he may reign
Nay ! for I crush the viper brood beneath Sovereign here. Sigismund's son ! her son
Mine iron heel — under my dungeon stone! . . . That whey-faced woman's, whom I hate
To her soldiers. [ yea, slew
Chain him in that dark dungeon you well By hatred only ; not by knife or poison.
know !
The fool ! Ah, Sigismund, I loathe thee,
The lowest and the deepest ; where she man
stands, But dost thou triumph ? Thee, methinks, I

Mine Iron Maiden, who hath such a smile, slew,

And such soft arms, and most voluptuous Weak palterer, and thou hast gone to hell
breast ! That's sure ! Thou, God's most blasphemous
I had her features copied from mine own enemy ;

So I am sure they must be beautiful Now thy beloved offspring will I slay
Will she do as well as Bertha, fair Sir Knight? He reign o'er Rheinthal Let Chialderer !

[Exeunt troops with Ralph, a prisoner. reign I

Blanche {sol.). He shall to Wolfsberg. Or any reeking peasant Never he ! !

Will it long be mine ? [Exit.

These beasts will burn it ! Austria defeated
Have not I served her? I will fly to
Frederick Scene VL — The Castle of Kavensburg.
Nay, to the Emperor The Duke's in trouble. !

But Emperor Sigismund, he received me Sir Walter iti his private chamber, on a
well high-backed oaken chair, with a letter in
Yea, more than graciously. His wife is his haiid.
dead
And all the priesthood take me for a saint Sir Walter {sol.). I might have known the
At Presburg Well, I am a dutiful
! son of Sigismund
Daughter of Holy Church. I won largesse Would never serve the Lord ! Have I not
Of praise there between Church and lazar- loved
house. The boy for his own, for his dear mother's
I have done many deeds of charity ; sake,
And this shall cover a multitude of sins. Long wrestling on my knees for him in prayer,
The unrighteous mammon makes me many Sure that he would fulfil our soul's desire ? . . .

friends This hateful wicked woman dares appeal

Full absolution shall be mine. I know Unto my rumoured reverence for the cause

My life Yet old Wenceslas

for evil. Of public justice, weighing down less claims
Was a mere devil from the pit ; and I Of private honour, and home ties so Vice —
 — ! !! —
! — ! ! — ! ! ! ; !

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG 241

Stamps her base metal with fair Virtue's

Enter a Servant.
face !

She prays denounce him, and deliver,

I will
Ser. Sir Knight, the Lady Bertha craves
As Lord Adrian.
slayer of her son, a word.
She says she cannot prove the deed while I ;
Sir W. Ha 1 Lady Bertha ! — the poor
Avowed to her I knew the criminal. child I \A pause.
Yea, I know more ! I know the motive I am
now ! . . .
Immersed grave affairs ; I grieve,
in very

I must — I will denounce him though 'tis she

;
Inform her but I cannot see her now
;

Who asks me ! Ah ! Ralph, child whom I [Servant exit, and re-enters.

have loved Ser. Sir Knight, the Lady Bertha followed

As mine own son — since Edgar died no other me

Remains to me and thou art proved a limb She would not be denied — she is at hand.
!

—
Of evil a low lecher, a deceiver,
Enter Bektha, pale and M-eathless.
A murderer, a fratricide what more ? I know !

not! Bertha. I crave your pardon, sir, but I

He may be very foulest of the foul have news

Constance's child in mercy was she taken !
— There have been two great battles, and in

Before this hour both

I feel now that 1 sinned, The people are victorious ! yet, Ralph,
Concealing from the world the father's sin. Who led them on to victory, pursued
I held the proofs. He should have been Too far—he fought most wonderfully, sir

degraded Was everywhere a very lion — alas ;

From his high state, or died a felon's death ! He is prisoner— a prisoner to one
Ralph would have lost his lofty place but ; Who hates us — the old witch, all Lady
warned Blanche
By the sire's fate, might still be innocent. What will she do to him ? he will be killed !

I covered up the plague-spot : unremoved Or linger horribly in some deep den.

It hath infected all the ambient air Till death in pity creeps to his relief
Was it for me to deal more tenderly Since victory favours, do you hasten, sir

With doth the God who hateth it ?

sin than With all the Ravensburg retainers, now
And punished by the chosen race of old At once, to Wolfsberg! you may rescue him !

With what to mortal weakness may appear The castle will be safe no need of men :

Inhuman wrath ? Did holy Abraham To guard it ! for we fear, although the people
Withhold his own dear Isaac from the Lord, Are eager to release him, that Chialderer,
When God demanded bloody offering His second in command, defers their march.
Of his white life, though in him lived the Half-hearted we surmise him a false friend.
:

Christ ? Sir IV. (slowly). I do rejoice that he hath

His innocent Isaac ! — mine's not innocent fought so well
down for sparing Amalek.
Saul was cast Upon the Lord's, the people's side, —they win!
And what did God to Eli, the high priest. Now Heaven be praised for this I All is not
When he abetted filial sacrilege ? night
Then all these worldly mummeries I allowed On this our earthHis kingdom cometh yea,
! I

From dotard fondness! I am punished I and we must learn to live

will rejoice :

now . . . In His grand purposes towards the Church,

Yea, though the wrench may cost my very life, And races whom it pleased Him to elect

I must pluck out this eyesight I so love! Not in our puny private hopes and fears ;

So may his soul, my God, be saved for ever! Our disappointments and desires [A pause. !
 — —
!! ! ! ——
! ! ! I!!

242 THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

For Ralph, Unknown to us God, seeing it, forgives
!

If it be Heaven's will, he shall be wrung Surely he slew that evil man in fair
Out of that woman's cruel grasp but hearken — Fight he was goaded to it stood at bay,
! !

Dear Lady Bertha this may be the hand ! — Driven to a precipice's edge I dimly see !

Of righteous Heaven, not hers nay, nerve —

: —
From all you tell me and he hath repented
yourself, He suffereth healing anguish of remorse.
My daughter ! I, who love you, have to I comprehend now what one told, how
wound ! strangely
Yea, strong and stern must be my utterance He bore himself among the peasants yonder,
Ralph is no mate for you ye may not marry : ! Over far hills— how sad, how grave he
Bertha. How, sir, not marry Ralph, my seemed ;

soul's betrothed ! Referring darkly to some awful sin :

Sir W. Bertha, I dare not speak the naked They feared he would go mad — if we but save,
truth ; he will repent and in our love
I feel !

But Ralph has perpetrated crimes that bar Doth he not luve me ? he will yet be all
Your fates from one another evermore ! A knight should be !

He is not worthy of you ; he hath slain Ponder his noble traits

His very brother, here, at night, behind Do I not know them ? and yourself, you
The castle ! — On that evil night of mask, know them
Dear maiden, Baron Adrian was seen Yea, all the people of our fatherland!
A murdered corpse his murderer stood — o'er Is he not now their saviour? Hath not he
him. Borne himself like a hero in the war?
I saw it I Ralph feared he would disclose
! ! Sir IV. Alas alas I deemed I knew his
! !

A damning and the son of Blanche

secret ; worth.
Was son of Ralph's own father. Sigismund ! Ihave done my feeble best for him he hath :

To a pure virgin more may not be told — Proved himself traitor ingrate— lady, never —
I grieve to wound but you must tear from now ; Can he be mate for you you must renounce !

Your lover from your heart the sacrifice ! him

'Tis God demands and God will strengthen ;
And I must do my duty to the State
you ! . . . And to my God no more — !

For Ralph, I shall denounce him to the Yet hearken —

State !— Will straightway summon all the vassals : still

Not now to Austria — nor Emperor We may already be too late unless —
But to the council of his countrymen, Chialderer hath advanced to Wolfsberg
Free men assembling under their own skies, Bertha. Nay,
Upon their native soil it may be these —
I know he hath not though the soldiers chide, !

Will be more merciful in judging him He leads them to a distant fortress first.
!

Bertha [who at first has seemed about to And let me think ^they said that Ralph was —
swoon, hut tvith a great effort has nerved wounded.
herself, and listened). Oh, he will die Jesus what shall I do ? . I ! . .

No, sir, you would not do it if we save him —

Stay there's a man knows Wolfsberg he ! !

If he still live, you will not crush him you hath often — !

Sir W. Hast thou well weighed full im- Told me, I now remember, of the wolf's
port of my speech? Grim lair, and all its guilty secrets should —
Bertha. Yea, but there must be error he The witch immure him in that loathsome hole, —
himself Where stands the grinning iron fiend! she may
Hath not been heard. I know that he is good ! Farewell, sir, not a moment is to lose
Or if he sinned, there may be a strong cause, \_Half goes, but returns'
 — ! — —
! !! ! ! !!

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG 243

Yet on my knees I pray you to relent Him trial-time for proof ol penitence !

If my poor love be living let him live — Else he may perish unprepared ! . . . God
Sir W. Rise, Bertha kneel not only ! ! deal
kneel to God ! With you, sir, as you deal with our poor boy !

Bertha (weeping). Nay, sir, oh, never till ! \She cotvers sobbing at his feet.
you grant my prayer ! . . . Sir W. {in a broken voice). Girl, you have
If you denounce him, ponder what the world conquered !

Will say ! that you want to rob him of his Lord ! may such a love
own! And power of goodness save him even yet
Sir IV. Lady ! how dare you hint it ? when For thee, and for his people ; for us all ! . . .

have I Only begone I . . . Nay, what can you accom-

Shrunk from God's side, lest shameless plish
calumny For his release? ourselves willarm! What, ho!
Should shoot her lip at me, or point the Myself, howe'er infirm, will forth You rouse !

finger Terrible fear in me concerning him !

You do but temper my right purpose, girl Bertha {almost kissi)ig his mantle, hysteri-
Let reprobates hiss after their own kind ! cally). I thank you, sir the Lord shower !

How never shall you marry such a man

! blessing on you ! . . .

Bertha, you know not what his father was. . . . Do as you say I know what I will do. :

And how his mother loved and how he slew — \Exit.

her
Slewher nay, tortured, maddened, erehe slew.
!

These men will not repent they cannot for — ! Scene VII.— 77^^ Castle of Wolfsberg: a
It is the Lord Himself who hardens them. . . . dim-lit dtingeon, with laf?!p s-cuingittg
I am your mother's friend and she was hers :
from the low vaulting oji one side. The
Who died, his mother's you must tell her all : Iron Virgin, an instrument of torture
Bertha. I will I promise only promise, ! ! — and death, stands in the midst.
you !

Think what he hath endured he suffers now. ! Ralph {sol., wounded, weak, and in fever).
Who knows what awful pangs is it not ! My friends will march to rescue me ! too
enough? late ! . . .

Oh, dear Sir Walter whom he loves, and I Ah life is sweet, for all its bitterness
!
! !

Love as a father, for our sakes, and hers, I would not die yet I am but a boy ! !

Who died, his mother's, hide the shame for he Bertha, my heart no life for us, no love ! ! !

Is young yet and I feel he will repent ! For thee I trust, I deem, there may be
He is not hardened, as his father was joy . . .

Give him not over to destruction, sir !

If I am saved, in heaven we may meet.
The child you cherished ponder all he is — Perchance she loves me still : she loves me
And all he may be he will honour yet — still !

You, and the old name, and the glorious cause Then will she grieve —how if she knows my
You have at heart, the cause of our pure faith, sin ?

And freedom Ah ! what boots it ? he is — I have no friend ! why should I care to live?
dying. If only Christ will pity, let me die !

There, while I linger !

— for your heart is hard Bertha, be happy ! . . .

You are not all we dreamed you ! will rejoice have won the day. We
In Ralph's disgraceful doom ! . . . Oh, piti- Our fatherland and I have fought is free !

less ! . . . For her salvation Did I not resolve !

If he repent not, then denounce him ! give To yield my very life for her ? and now —
 ! ! ! ! !

244 THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

"
Shall I hang back a coward ? Will tumble from the Iron Maid's embrace !
We have fought Croaked the hunched warder: " fVill j/oti
A glorious fight : I tingle with it yet not confess?''''

Fierce ecstasy of shocks and blows ! loud roar All the scene passes, and repasses now,
Of battle clash of arms and trumpet-blare
! ! In horrible procession, through my brain ! . . .

Rich gleam of rainbow armour and bright ! Yet I would put it from me I am weak —
banners From loss of blood, pain, fever, and no
Tossed on wild surges of ensanguined strife, food ! . . .

Now rampant, buoyant now low sinking, ! Have I no sword ? no knife ? to make an end
loosely Before to-morrow ? . . .

Trailed in death's hand ! now desperately Nay, to-morrow's here !

snatched Look how She,

! towering, smiles ! She
By life from death ! brave army of plumed opens now ! !

knights ! I feel the spikes heart eyes and brain ! ! ! !

Grapple of mortal madness all unstaunched ! \The Phanto7n (ySlGlSMUND appears

Red wounds, unfelt fierce curses blood ! ! near him.
that boils My father !

We fight, a handful of us, with a host ! Phantom. I am a rebel still ! I curse

Innumerable veterans, equipped accuse thee.
By Mars, yea, marshalled by the God of Unrighteous Heaven an evil demon rules ! !

War ! . . . And tortures my poor child I see you, ! —

Will not the people love me, whatsoe'er fiends
They hear ? And Bertha I am sure that she I see you bending over him what do ye ?
! ! —
Will love me Even Sir Walter whatsoe'er Your hideous features lit up with his
! !

They know of mine ill deeds and I may be torment ; !

Forgiven — up yonder, too ! —not lost for My hands are bound ! mine arms are
ever ! . . . paralysed !

But ah! the torture ! how to bear it how ? ! . . . I am impotent to rend you ! . . . I want to
Seven iron-clamped doors reverberating close. die ! . . .

Tolling sevenfold low thunder of deep doom Icannot die ah, me I am immortal ! !

Through these dim hollows of a sevenfold Ralph. Oh, father was it kind to ! . . .

tomb ! . . . bring me here ? . . .

*' These are to stifle screams,''' the warder Thou, father thou hast put me into hell ! I

croaked. \_Phantom vanishes.

After those tortuous rock-galleries, Is there no help ? my mother Bertha none ? ! !

The slimy vault, the dungeon where she stands, Save me, O Lord I . . .

This iron Idol, with sinister smile, I hear a voice they are coming it must be : :

Huge image of her mother-mistress, Blanche ! I am Ralph of Ravensburg ; a knight a ;

There hung a blear-eyed flame, which with noble !

foul gloom They shall not see me tremble I am firm : :

Engendered fearful twilight slowly She : I will endure whatever they may do.
Unclosed her hollow bosom ; and displayed God ! Thou wilt strengthen me ! . . . they
Grim spikes, red rusted with men's blood ! come . . .

beneath
Enter Bertha through a secret passage and
Her feet there gleamed some water, where
doorway in one of the walls.
obscene
Live things I heard they scuffled, revelling : How ! Bertha
In human ruin " There^ to-morrow, yoti ! . , . Art thou a blessed saint ? and I with thee
 — ! ! —— ! — ! !! —
THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG 245

In heaven ? is it possible ? I feared I was Require, indeed, a less atonement — well !

Exiled from light ! For since I have thee once again, how rich,
Bertha. Hush I quick, love ! follow me I How sweet, how precious 'tis to live I — but
Thou art alive thou sufferest O Ralph
! ! ! then
\_As she rushes forward to him, he Some innocence may suffer for my fault
swoons in her arms. Bertha {weeping: after a pause). Ah,
[In a loud whisper.^ He is dead ! he has Ralph my husband! in the sight of
been bleeding Ralph 1 ! awake ! Heaven
Mayhap he only swoons — Hans ! water ! My grand and noble lover ! Dare I hinder
Hans! Thee from the sacrifice thou deemest God
I shall attract that woman's must fiends. He Commands ? I glory in thy grandeur, now
Be carried out. Will Hans be strong enough ? Thou hast returned among thy peers, to lead
The hosts of Light, deserted for awhile ! . . .

Enter Hans through the same secret door. —

Yet how to bear it ?
Ralph ! they never would
See, Hans he has ! fainted, if he be not dead !
Slay thee, their saviour, their deliverer.
Say, can you carry him ?
Because thou slewest their worst enemy
[Hans lifts him, and all three exeunt In self-defence I

through the same passage. Ralph. Nay, love, it was mine own
Old sin that hurled me blindly into this

Scene VHI. —A chamber in the Castle of Ah ! you have said you knew
I dare not look
Ravensburg.

Enter Ralph and Bertha. Ralph

Into your face, — you should have spurned
looks me far
pale and worn. I am unworthy of you ! Let me die

Bertha. I cannot ! no ! I will not lose you

'Tis better so, — yea, leave me! I may fall

now !
Even as did my
have found father : I

Have I confronted Death to save you, Ralph, His written words of impotent remorse
Only that you may wantonly leap back But I will pray my countrymen for death,
Into those dreadful Arms, away from me ? The death I have deserved No, I'll not live !

Ralph. Nay, darling, spare me Bertha, I

To drag you down, as Sigismund dragged her,
you have plucked My loving, suffering mother!
Bertha. Love, forbear
Me from far fouler arms than Death's
I

From Sin's
You break my heart! You will not fall like
Embrace you have him
delivered me ! Your love
I

Awoke me You are delivered now I for God hath heard

in the blessed thirst for God !

Now help me higher in

climb to where my My prayer : our mutual love will keep thee
strong.
You dwell with Him, ethereally pure
You will not keep me far from Him My crime !
!

Never ! they will not —dare not —doom to

death
I loathe :I trample I repudiate : !

And still it hangs a millstone round my neck Myself will plead before the court!
I

Ralph. Ah, Bertha!

And still the hideous ghost of it will dog
My path ; nor aught can lay the phantom,
only Scene Y^.— The Court of Justice of the
A full and free confession before men, new Republic.
Whom I have injured who demand by right : The Magistrates — among them General
The blood of whoso sheddeth blood ; should Chialderer — are sitting under an
they old sycamore-tree ; guards, and a great
 — ! ! ! — !

246 THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

assembly ofpeople around. Sir Walter The offence wherewith he charged you ?
Davenant is also seated, a little way Ralph. Sir, I did.
apart, stooping, with his white head bent [Silence,
ift his hands. The President. Where is the witness who
can testify
The President of the Court. The Count of
You are no reckless wronger of your own
Ravensburg, now reigning Prince
Fair reputation ? for until this hour.
Of Rheinthal, sues for judgment at our hands, We trusted our own honour less than you.
As our co-burgher, member of our league. Ralph. Sir ! gentlemen ! I grovel at God's
[There are heard reiterated shouts of
feet,
"Long live Count Ravensburg!"
And
yours, repentant, waiting your award !

" Long live the Prince of Rhein-

Whate'er your doom, I bow to it be just. :

thal !
" there is
waving of kerchiefs,
The unimpeachable, the only voice,
and swaying of the people to and That
can confirm my dismal tale will speak.
fro arowid Rai.PH, for whom a My uncle, old Sir Walter, he alone,
passage is made by the guards with
much difficulty.
Passing, as chance nay, God would have — ! —
it, saw
Me standing with red sword above the corpse.
Enter Ralph.
Rooted he stood with horror and I fled :

Ralph. Gentlemen, I salute you. Here I Before he moved, unwitting he was nigh.
stand [Sir Walter comes forward, leaning
Demanding sentence on a criminal. on a staff and tottering.
The President. Prince, welcome Name ! Sir W. All he hath spoken is the truth —
the man whom you accuse. but, ah
Ralph. Sir, 'tis no other than myself! I You will not be too stern with him re- !

slew member
Lord Adrian of Wolfsberg : [Sensation. What he hath wrought, hath suffered, for

Let me tell you, sirs

The circumstance, and reason of the deed. If you but knew what he hath suffered yonder
It was in duel : but I made him fight In Lady Blanche's terrible torture-pit
All unawares, with no observance of Only profound remorse, deep penitence
The wonted usages of private war. Of one who hath been purified by fire.
I only felt that he or I must die ! Could urge him to your feet, with offering
Such was my fierce resolve. We fought Of his young life before whose wistful eyes.
;

he fell Heretofore seared and dark, now, only now.

In a solitary place we met by night.
There was one only witness of the crime.
He is here now, and he can testify
If I speak truth.
The Preside7tt. What was your motive, sir ?
Ralph (hesitates, and speaks low). He swore
he would divulge a former sin.
Dawn fair unveiling vistas of Love's joy,
With power, and honour, and illustrious name,
The meed of righteous battle for you all.
And martyrdom from rage of your worst foe
Blanche would have mangled him with pains
of hell,
But for his brave young bride, your friend !

Unless I then and there renounced for ever her life.

—
My own affianced bride himself had wooed With his, now trembles in the scales you
Her vainly And it was my brother, sir,
! hold !—
Whom thus I killed [Sensation. And Hans the hunter, God's own nobleman
I

The President {after a pause). Did you Blanche set her bastard on my boy the same —
indeed commit She would have thrust, bar sinister and all,
 :

THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG 247

On Lady Bertha here, my boy's betrothed ! Changing to woof of ghostly gossamer

Blanche, who first wrecked the mother, and Yon cloud-cape, isled within the dark blue sky,
the sire Ere she emergeth from beneath : all hues
Of this my son ! . . . Seem humbled to more shadowy, softer mood
His guilt is clear — but yet Than is their waking habit and the leaves ;

Be merciful to my grey hairs ! and him, Murmur in happy dream our valley sleeps :

My poor beloved child ! and to the bride ! With all her vines the mountain snows afar.
:

If we have done you service, and you look Shrined in pure ether, heaven's own cathedral.
For mercy from the Lord ! Repose winged angels pass, arrive, or rest.
;

Bertha {who had been disguised anion.; the There flows fair Rhine, one silver, where a sail
people, and 'who, comingforivard, throws Moves wafted whence a tender, mellow
;

herself at the feet of the judges). sound

Ah ! mercy, sirs ! Of rebeck, and sweet song the air is warm !

The President [cottsults with his colleagues, And balmy do you feel it pleasant, love?
:

and, after a pause, speaks, turning to Ralph. Most pleasant Can it be we are I

Ralph). together ?

The Sovereign State hath pardoned, and And shall be while we live, my bride, my
remits Bertha ?
The penalty of your committed crime ;
Have I deserved such blessing ? yet I dare
Balancing previous service of your deeds, Not hope that this may last ! There
And grievous suffering endured for her, hovereth
—
Againstyour guilt say, friends, are ye content Of late some evil flutter at my heart —
With this our sentence ? A pain — a weakness —ah ! but still I feel

Only one dissents Your face above me in the dungeon dire !

Among the judges : General Chialderer. Your face above me, when I woke from death
[Acclamation ami shouts of Joy from Long lingering in the twilight vale that parts
the crowd. Bertha and Ralph Death from our life : and now I hear your
fall weeping into one another's arms, voice
and then into SiR Walter's, who "Loz'e, I know all : know all : and still I love ;
blesses their union. Exeunt. More I love, and I am yours.
than before,
Yours only never answer never think
I ! !

"
But sleep and be at peace for I am here
; ; I

ACT VI When I awoke from fever, you beheld

Some horror of the past faint realised
Two years after: the balustraded terrace of Disturb my face : that was your healing,
Kavetisburg, where SiGlSMUNU and sweet,
Blanche strolled. A moonlight night, For my torn spirit ! but I feebly mused.
near dawn. And wondering failed to firmly hold such joy,
Yet marvelling believed my soul fell low !

Enter P^AhVH and Bektha. RAhPHgrave,

Before you, sweet madonna for your love !

wan, and feeble ; Bertha supporting

Revealed the Love Eternal I was in :

him.
heaven !

Bertha. See how the moon illuminates a But now a terrible thought o'ershadowed me :
fleece That this my lost life, you have twice restored,
Of mist with faint ghost-rainbow
fleeting Beautiful, precious, under your sweet smile,
bloom. Was mine no longer nay, not yours be- — —
Carmine, topaz, and violet Behold ! ! longed.
She glideth free from the fair labyrinth, Forfeited by my crime, to neither of us I
 : — ":

248 THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG

I knew that I must yield me to the will Now will I look well yea and speak with :

And justice of our people long I strove him : ! . . .

To stifle the grim duty, but in vain. \A pause. The Ph a^ttoni growsfainter
And then I deemed it might be well for thee, andfainter, though it does not quite
Albeit thou forgavest : sin revives, disappear.
Though still and torpid as a winter snake ! . . . His form is growing faint : he vanishes I

Only some shadow of my sin remains : Bertha, the vision ever showed a fe.ce
And lowly would I walk therein, as one Of anguish, horror, and despair it froze :

Who penitently holds the Saviour's hand ! My blood beholding —did you note it now ?
Bertha. My Ralph ! It seemed not fearful ! wore aspect of one
Well, good Sir Walter has gone home ! Who wins repose and comfort, after pain
And he blessed our nuptials, ere
I rejoice Unutterable, yea, full of love for us !

Departing all our folk seem happy now

: : And when it faded, then methought the look
Dear Hans, and his young bride, too you ! Meant, "I have now some rest: farewell I

are loved fori

Of all and you are ruling wisely, even
; Shall ne'er affright you more, my children !

As you have holpen them to ampler life. Yea,

For Blanche, she is in highest favour now Now I can love my father ! — my poor
At Hungary's imperial capital I father! . . .

Some deem the Emperor may marry her. Bertha. Its look was bent upon the moonlit
His cardinals and bishops and all priests tower,
Call her a saint : her royal largesses Where moonlight stealeth in to kiss soft eyes
(For still she draws revenue from her lands. Of our babe, Sigismund, who lies asleep.
And Austria hath enfeoffed her with yet It cannot mean him harm He is the child I

more), Of love he sleeps secure upon Love's heart.

:

Her never-wavering devotion, stiff Lo the first delicate faint gleams of Dawn
! !

And rigid to all airs of heresy ;

behold your father's figure fading,
Still I I

The ostentatious bend of her high head Like yonder moon, in morning Surely, love. I

Under some lowly lintel of the poor ;

For our Tannhatiser the Pope's rod indeed
The picturesque abasement of her pose, Hath budded let us hope so you are ! !
—
A queen in lazars, laving the rude feet pale , . .

Of mobs ; these virtues canonise the dame, Ralph. I feel some mortal weakness : I

While yet she lives : men may fall prone shall fall 1

before Bertha. You are very worn and weary

The relic of her bones when she is dead. lean on me 1

But you and I, dear, shall not envy her. Much have you suffered : home is very near.
poor thing, save righteousness and
All's hers, [Ralph sinks upon Bertha, who
love suppo7-ts him, but he falls on the
The world applauds death's mimicry of life : terrace : she bends over him.
She hath all royal raiment of a Queen ; Ralph {fainlly). Farewell, love! — for
Only herself lies dying under it 1 awhile ! — our little one ! \_Dies.

Yet in her, too, may live a gleam of grace [The Castle clock strikes ; and while
[77/^ Phantom o/"Sigismund appears the sound of it is dying in air a
on the terrace. Watchman from the Castle battle-
Ha ! Ralph ! what is it? by the balustrade I ments calls, "All's Well!" and a
Yon fearful shape ! rosy ray begins to tinge the tower,
Ralph. Great Heaven ! 'tis my father ! xvhere the child sleeps.
A LITTLE CHILD'S MONUMENT^

* See note G.
 TO

HIS MOTHER
I DEDICATE THIS
 " Ya mati ! ya mati "
!

"
" My dead! my dead !

— Arabic dirge.

And a little child shall lead them."

 ; "

AT HIS GRAVE

If death were an eternal sleep, With all thy life before thee so to die.
I would lay me down by him, Unseasonably !

Never to wound more, nor to weep, " Whom the gods love die young ;

Nor grope aweary, maimed, and dim, To that sweet saying, then, I clung.
Inflict no injury, no pain,
Nor ache with this dull doubt again ! Ghastly Doubt, and chilling Fear,
While the biiken shadows pass The wan Ages' Quest is here,
O'er the marble and the grass, Trembling Hope, and faltering Faith,
I lean upon thy cross and weep Intent on what God whispereth.
Very sweet were sleep, It was thy leaving me that shook

With ne'er a tear. Content in this deluding nook

Nor hope nor fear ! Of rainbow life, that seems upbuoyed
If thou behold me
from thy bowers. A moment in a rayless void ;

Smile on mine offering of flowers. So I sought for firmer ground ;

And help me, dear ! And tell to others what I found.

Thou hast entered into life.

While we rave in mortal strife : I would embalm thee in my verse :

Love, receive the offering To loving souls it shall rehearse

Of unworthy words I bring
Lo I lay them on thy tomb
!
May they a little lighten gloom.
Soothe an aching void, and bless
! Thy loveliness when I am cold.
; And fragrant with it, may enfold
For other hearts in misery
Faint solace words were sweet to me
;

In love's distress ! From hearts, who mourned what seemed

to be
Thou should have laid me in my quiet grave. Dear, like thee :

Sorrowing calm ; These are thy swathings of rare spice,

And I with folded palm. A golden shrine with gems of price,
But now above thine own behold I rave ! A monument of my device.
 A LITTLE CHILD'S MONUMENT

LAMENT I would lie asleep, darling,

With ihee lie asleep,
I AM lying in the tomb, love, Unhearing the world weep, darling,
Lying in the tomb, Little children weep !

Tho' I move within the gloom, love, O my little child !

Breathe within the gloom !

Men deem life not fled, dear,

T>eem my life not fled,
Tho' I with thee am dead, dear,
I with thee am dead, DARK SPRING
O my little child !

Now the mavis and the merle

What is the grey world, darling, Lavish their full hearts in song ;

What is the grey world, Peach and almond boughs unfurl

Where the worm is curled, darling. White and purple bloom along
The deathworm is curled ? A blue burning air.
They tell me of the spring, dear !
All is very fair :

Do I want the spring ? But ah '

the silence and the sorrow !

Will she waft upon her wing, dear, Imay not borrow
The joy-pulse of her wing, Any anodyne for grief
Thy songs, thy blossoming, From the joy of flower or leaf.
O my little child ! No healing to allay my pain
From the cool of air or rain ;

For the hallowing of thy smile, love.

Every sweet sound grew still.
The rainbow of thy smile, Every fair colour pale,
Gleaming for a while, love,
When his life began to wane I

Gleaming to beguile !

They may never live again !

Replunged me in the cold, dear,

A child's voice and visage will
Leaves me in the cold.
Evermore about me fail ;

And I feel so very old, dear,

And my weary feet will go
Very, very old I
Labouring as in deep snow :

Would they put me out of pain, dear.

Though the year with glowing wine
Fill the living veins of vine,
Out of all my pain,
Since I may not live again, dear.
While a faint moon hangs between
Broidery of a leafy screen ;
Never live again !

Though the glossy fig may swell,

I am lying in the grave, love. And Night hear her Philomel,

In thy little grave, While sweet lemon blossom breathes,
Vet I hear the wind rave, love, And fair Sun his falchion wreathes
And the wild wave !
With rich depending golden fruit,
 ! ! ! ! ;

256 NIGHT AND MORNING

Or crimson roses at his foot, Of the world, with ne'er a heart

All is and mute

desolate 1
All in vain I moan imploring ;

Sleep sleep sleep

Dark to-day, and dark to-morrow ! ! !
!

Ah the silence and the sorrow

!
!

In the grey cathedral

Dawn red rays of morning.
NIGHT AND MORNING And a sweet low music
Lifts me from the grave.
SUGGESTED BY CHOPIN'S FUNERAL MARCH My dead pulses flutter.
As in spring the leaflet,
Or young flower awaking,
Wooed by the warm South . . .

In the grey cathedral,

... A calm saint on a pinnacle
In the aisles of twilight,
Smiles in the day-dawn ;

Wails an awful music.

Monumental marble
Whelming my drowned spirit
With warm life-blood glows,
Fathom-deep in woe.
Sweet small singers warble
The hoar stone of ages " Live live live !"
! !

Palpitates disaster.
And lo ! a rush of angels,
Breathes aware with sorrow,
A cloud of spirits bright
Weighs me down to death !

P'rom soft sun-rays of opal.

All the immense wan spaces
Woven to nests of light,
Pregnant with dead faces,
Among celestial branchings
Cold, carven forms arise :
Of the embowered height.
And grey walls bring forth !
Bear me back my darling,
Vasty vans of darkness,
Smiling, rosed, alive.
Swordsweeps of desolation, Alive ! alive ! alive !

Hound me to dim death !

They only meant to scare me.
Born from the deep ocean All was but in play ;

Of sounding mystery. The dismal shades were angels

In the ghostly forest From my Father's day ;

Of colossal pillars Our Father knows why we must weep

Grows a dread procession :
He wipes our tears away.
Tramp tramp tramp
! ! !

Phantoms vast, sepulchral,

With dim downward eyes. But if a hair might perish
Move where yawns a dreary From his sweet tendrilled head,

Fathomless abyss. God would be the devil,

What do they bear ? they bear hiiv Love and Truth were dead,
My All, my Heart, my Heaven ! Man a maniac, mooning
They let him fall therein ! A moment plausibly,

Fall ! fall ! fall ! Joy an idiot fooling.

Fall ever in the abyss ! And life Death's leprosy

And my soul wails over, No no no! !

Yearns to him in vain !

An Eye rules the wild sea
'
Cruel world I O cruel spirit Of human misery
 ! " —
THE KING AND THE PEASANT 257

A TOMB AT PALMYRA DEAD

Full twenty years seem to stand,
! and still I

As tower-tomb
then, aloft in the tall
Where the child's joy-carol
So far within the expanse of Syrian sand, Rang sweeter than the spheres,
Alone, where long long ages in the gloom There, centre of deep silence,
Of yon stone shelves a human dust hath lain, Darkness, and tears.
That once breathed, brooded, dared, hoped, On his bed
hated, loved I
The child lay dead.
Awhile o'erwept, and worshipped with fond
pain.
How stealthily the memory removed
From hearts who dreamed that never it could
There a man sat stolid,
Stupefied and cold.
wane!
Save when the lamp's flicker
Later, the men who built the tomb dispersed.
Their conquerors were heedless of the dead
To poor love told
;

Race following race, remembrance of the

Some mocking lie
first.
Of quivering eye,
Like some fair pageant of the cloud, is fled
Or lip that said,
;
"Zr<f is not dead."
They, and the memory of them all erased.
Faint characters an idle mood hath traced
In sands of yonder ever-wandering waste.
The shelves are void ; an alien spoiler soon Weary Night went weeping,
The dear embalmed remains hath lightly Moaning long and low,
strewn Till dim Dawn, awaking,
Upon these raving winds that roam the wild, Found them so
For ever to be scattered, whirled, or piled The heart that bled,
With dust that loved, scorned, knew not that And his dim dead.
they were.
For ever to be heaped, and hounded there.
In amicable rest, or rivalry '*
Measure him for his coffin,^'
With never-animate dust of the dun sea. . , .
He heard a stranger say ;
. . . Anarchic spirits of the desert blast
And then he broke to laughing,
Celebrate all the ruin of the past *' God ! vteasitre my poor clay.
Shadowy Murder's dismal dialogue, And shut me in my coffin,
Conspiring, ere she leap to disembogue
A soul gone grey!
Annihilating vials on my head, For hope lies dead,
Who among the dead.
dare to stand alive
Life is fled."
Carousals, wails from hollow hearts resound,
Long agony of maniac souls around,
Low moaning, shrieking, fading in a swound.
Thundering exultant through the rifted tomb, THE KING AND THE PEASANT
And bearing down my heart with swoop of
doom ; World-wide possessions, populous lands
" Cease cease from
! trouble ! hope thou, or The monarch doth inherit,
despair ; And lordlier kingdoms he commands,
Wait but a little, thou too shalt be there !
Fair realms within the spirit.
 ; "

258 A MILK-WHITE BLOOMED ACACIA TREE"

The monarch had a little son, Darkling I wander in the wild.

A child of five years old, Looking for my little child ;

The loveliest earth ere looked upon ; I cannot hear his happy voice.
And he is lying cold. Bidding all the world be lovely, and rejoice.
The king is in the olive grove,
A hind sings in the tree ;
Below, the infant of his love
MOUNTAIN LYRIC
Is babbling merrily.
The father beats the boughs, and while A MOUNTAIN spake to a sunny cloud,
Dark oval olives fly, "Whither, my child, away?"
The boy, with many a laugh and smile, " Father, the winds are calling loud
Pursues them far and nigh. To fields of air for play !

Blue sea between the grey-green leaves Away away ! !

Twinkles, and the sun Father, O father, solemn-browed !

"
Through them a playful chequer weaves Fly thou with me for play !

Over the little one. Nestled half in a sunny snow,

The monarch gazes all unseen, And half in azure air,

Tears burning his wan eyes ; The cloudlet, pausing, loth to go

Tenderly his love doth lean And leave the mountain bare.
To bless their Paradise, With hazy hair,
As through black bars that foul the day. And misty feet in a sunny snow.
And shut him out from joy : May not linger there ;

Hear the world-envied monarch say, Lithely curled in a merry breeze,

" Perish, my bauble crown, my toy. With look still turned to earth,
All the science, all the sway, Wafted on viewless presences
Power to mould the world my way. From the mystic mount of birth,
Persuade to beauty the dull clay ! With a merry mirth,
Take all ; but leave, ah leave my boy, ! Summoning fondly as he flees,

Give me back my life, my joy !

" O your earth !"
father, leave
This poor rude peasant I would be. Floating fair into sunny sky.
Yet dare not breathe the wish that he Evanishing away.
Were as I am, a king, of misery " ! Praying the pine-veiled heights to fly.

Dark furrowed heights of grey ;

"
"Away away ! !

"A MILK-WHITE BLOOMED " Our roots are deep, we may not die.
ACACIA TREE" Stern crags responded wearily ;

" Fly thou away,

A MILK-WHITE bloomed acacia tree,
O child of day
A flowery
!

fair lawn.
The hallowing of thy sunny smile.
Lark-song upsoaring from the lea.
Thy fingers of cool mist.
In a rosy dawn ;
Soothed my weary soul erewhile,
A little child who, while he sings, And since thy lips have kissed,
Gives light and joy to all, and song, and
Lightning, blast, nor lashing rain.
sunny wings 1

Snows, nor howling hurricane

The green acacia still blooms, Mar my deep rest.
And all the fairy flowers. Remembering thy heavenly smile ;

Song thrills the chorister's light plumes Fade thou away 1

In blue celestial bowers And leave me grey !

 ! ; ;

IN THE CORSICAN HIGHLANDS 259

Harsher sight or sound be banished,

EARLY PRIMROSE For my child is gone to rest
There was a paly primrose, These are telling of my vanished
Budding very early In the language of the blest,
In the little garden, Wake him not from sleep !

When he lay so ill.

" Do you think I may be

Well enough to go there IN THE CORSICAN HIGHLANDS
When the flower opens,
Papa ? " he asked of me. Ci.oUD-CHAOS surges o'er a crest sublime,
But only a day after That seems forked lightning spell-bound into
Our little Sunshine left us. stone
And the primrose opened Abruptly steep flame-pointed precipices,
The very day he died. Dark as the night, dissolve to opaline
I wonder if he saw it, In phantom foldings of circumfluent sea.
Saw the flower open, Their natures blend confused ; the mists
Went to pay the visit assume
Yonder after all A semblance of impenetrable rock ;

I know we laid the flower Stern rock relents to luminous faint cloud.
On a stilly bosom
Of an ivory image Their banners rent as in uproarious war.
;

But I want to know Behold the vaporous battalions

!

If indeed he wandered Unclose, dispelled and routed of loud winds.

In the little garden, That drive them scared, and scattered ; so
Or noted on the bosom Jehovah
Of his fading form Clove that astounded sea for Israel.
The paly primrose open ;
Yonder beneath me, the enormous crag
How I want to know !
Reveals, between grey ghostly robes of them.
Solid, and rude, and perpendicular,
A mighty front of Titans grandly piled,
SLEEP Umber, and gory red, and pallid green.
Reared in some alien world beyond the
Airily the leaves are playing cloud.
In blue summer light, Stronghold stupendous of immortal gods.
Fugitive soft shadow laying
Lovingly o'er marble white. The rude, immense, straight pillars of grey
Where he lies asleep. pine
Scale heaven, sustaining tempest- writhen
Lilies of the valley bending
roofs
Lowly amid the green
bells
Sweet moss roses meekly lending
;
Of scant, green, level umbrage ; they are
built
Their soft beauty to the scene
Athwart yon vaporous and vasty walls
Of his quiet sleep.
Of far-off mountain over them arise
:

All around him heather glowing Ruinous tower, fantastic pinnacle,

Purple in the sun ; And icy spire in a blue burning air.
Sound of bees and bird o'erflowing They overhang deep, forest-fiUed ravines
Lull my lost, my little one. Wandering seaward whose dim serpentine
;

Lying there asleep. Night ever hears a solemn utterance

 ; :

26o IN THE CORSICAN HIGHLANDS

Of torrents, with deep monotone attuned Her oft unheeded royalty in robes
To these wind-oracles of ancient pine. Of godlike splendour, that our eyes may see ;

Yonder a gaunt trunk-Skeleton upbraids Hath sounded, as with trumpet-blast of doom,

With blasted arms the Bolt that shattered it. That our dull ears may slumber not, but hear !

Tusky black monsters reign within the gloom Brands with fierce fire upon the heedless
Of forest, and dead waters desolate heart :

Dim mists drive blindly through portentous Her names of wonder yea, I know ye now: !

trees, I bow my head in worship yea, I feel !

While a weird Sun blinks dwarfed within Your majesty of godlike Presences ;

the drift : Stand here abashed, with mortal head bowed

Legions of shadowy shaggy ilex climb low
Yon narrow-cloven hollows of the crag. Before you. Angels, Demons of the Lord !

Now evening falls an aromatic breath : Yet with no rapture of strong youth's
Of amber oozing from a dun-red bark, acclaim
And mountain herb, and many a mountain I hailyou, as a lowlier brother may
flower Hail a liege lord, a hero, or a king.
Pervades the air slow clearing from the cloud But I have come into your awful courts,
A vaselike cleft between two snowy peaks A poor blind broken pilgrim from afar.
Glowingly fills with a pale violet ;
Who faltering chances upon some august
Beneath appears fair Ocean's purple line, Assembly of dread princes, and bows low,
Far away from far portals of the pass. Yet only craves to learn if haply he,
Lower, a surge of huge dun purple rock, Who used to lead his poor blind footsteps on
Tumultuously contorted, rolls a rude With such clear-seeing love, a little child,
And shadowy chaos interposed between Who has been lost to him, alas for long. !

Dark peaks and me Night's ever-deepening : And whom he vainly seeks about the world,
gloom About the dreary, barren world, be here?
Engulfs the gorges all is mighty Music,
: But meeting no response to his demand,
Phantasmal symphony of ghostly Form, He can but idly weep a moment, ere
A visionary Chorus with no sound ! He grope his weary way abroad again.

Stern-visaged Isle ! upon thy rocky breast These are but void and ruined courts to me
Two sons were nurtured, heritors of fame. Of faded splendour, unremembered Power !

The one drew pride and ruin from thy veins. Icannot see aright, I cannot feel.
Towering portentous, terrible, alone, And while men prate of knowing all the laws,
A scourge of God Napoleon drew power
; The mortal cold possessing human hearts
To desolate the world ; while Paoli Weighs down their eyes in deep sepulchral
Drank from dark fountains of thy resolute gloom.
blood But if some Angel's sword from forth the
The patriot's unshamed integrity. night.
With vasty voice of Doom, by human tongues
Behold ! I stand within a place of graves : Called thunder, leapt, and smote me out of all
Low wooden crosses o'er the lonely dead. These evil dreams named living, might I find
Within the wondrous amphitheatre My little child, and with him find the Lord ?
Of mountains overshadowing they rest
Watched, warded, in those awful arms they We journey ever higher, through a grove
lie. Of moonlit chestnut, where a babbling stream.
Ah ! Nature here hath roused herself to robe At intervals, in open forest glades,
 ! ; ; ;! ! ! !

IN THE ALPS 261

Flashes with ruffled, wandering, pale flame. A beacon, like thy sunlit spires up yonder,
The air is richly laden with sweet spoil A clarion, like the unfurling of loud thunder
From fragrant flower, and foliage faint-green Among thine echoing ravines and rocks.
Shadowy-folded hills and dells involved And turbulent elemental shocks,
Whisper of verdure lush, luxuriant, ?"ar-rolling banner, blazoned with fierce light.
Known to fair elves, or rills who tinkling Shaken in false faces of the hosts of night
glide,
Telling sweet secrets, haunted of shy beams. I deem it well awhile to linger here.
Whene'er the whims of leafy Ariels, My weary heart was weakened with pale fear,
And cloudy gossamer, aloft allow And loss of him who made the world so dear.
Their gentle wandering tall asphodel, ; Low care, dull disappointment, and vain
And flowery fennel, either side our way. strife
Often we dim discern ; but where the woods With strangling sins, and problems of mad
No longer in their colonnades of gloom life:
Involve our path, beyond the precipice. My conquered soul lay open to despair,
Behold how all the regions of the north,
! Whose cold grey waters moaned unchallenged
Height, depth, and breadth, are held, filled, there.
dominated For not alone my dearest hope lay slain,
By one supreme pale presence, Monte d'Oro And the few loved ones who are left me wane
His spirit-robes far floating, a dim grey, Like fairy gold, but all around lie blent
Sombre with forest, pallid with the moon, In one dishonoured ruin, pale and rent,
His kingly crest snow-gleaming to the stars. Children with women, lately fair as day,
Now overmoaned by men who rave and pray
Pan is not dead ! He lives ! He lives for
For rest beside them And my country 1

ever
hounds
These awful Demiurgic Powers named Nature
The oppressor on she jeers at the death- !

Nourish, involve a half-alive, blind soul,

wounds
A human soul, who fondly deems them dead.
Of human hearts ! England, who freed the
Surely the Lord is making us alive !

slave.
Mine aching wound shall heal ; for I shall find
Now, for her base greed, thrusts him to his
My lost, for whom I long ; from thee, my
grave ^^ !

friend,
Alas in her dear bosom want and crime
!

The weary burden of thy doubt shall pass.

Horribly thrive, and lurk, waiting red harvest-
Sorrow and Wrong are pangs of a new birth :

time !

All we who suffer bleed for one another

Itwas before we knew him that I came
No life may live alone, but all in all ;

And now the glory seems no more the same.

We lie within the tomb of our dead selves, I longed to lead his childish footsteps here,
Waiting till One command us to arise.
And watch the wonder in his eyes appear.
And welcome his glad accents ringing clear.
I only hear low wind in the ravine,
IN THE ALPS A voice of one disconsolate who may lean
Once more, once more, the heavenly heights Among dark pines, lamenting what hath
environ, been
Here in the land remembering Rousseau, Voice of mad Time, who blindly brings to
Thrilling with songs of Shelley and of Byron, birth,
And lovelier songs of lives purer than snow ! And blindly ruins all her children's mirth,
Beautiful mother of the brave and free, And crooning idly,^ sheds their petals upon
Mother of deeds that live eternally, earth
 ! : ! ! ! ! ; !

262 IN THE ALPS

O desolate mother of mortals, who bewailest Seemed the silver-pinioned rover
All thy sweet sons torn from thee, nor From a far celestial fold
availest Rude earth spirits may but love her,
Aught to appease the hunger of dim Death, Nor ever dare to hold
Who feedeth on thy cherished children's From her rest
breath And a smile stole over furrowed
Is it indeed as Sense and Seeming say, Faces of old earthworn mountain ;
Or hath yon faint far Hope firmer foothold To each and all who so had sorrowed
than they ;
The dewy cloud was youth's own foun-
And may we climb from wildering mist to tain
undeluding day ? Of happiness divine.
Lo now the loftier heights all hoary
!

The shepherd calling to his fellows Gleam with white wings of Angel pre-
In sparry hollows of the crags, sence.
Many a mountain demon bellows So fledged with plumes we scarce may
Among wild, caverned peaks and jags. know
Flowers in the pastoral valley Sheeny cloud from downy snow.
Ever with soft breezes dally, Until I marvel if, in the glory
Mellow bells of mild-eyed kine. Of yon serene ethereal pleasance,
While they saunter, and recline. Mine angel, mine
Soothe the sense ; on waters green Nestle softly with the rest
A white-winged shallop sails serene. If a moment he reposes
In a lofty upland bower On the aerial mount of Roses
Of whose verdures dower
foliage, Or where from Jungfrau's radiant breast
Far-offbloom of lake and hill Roll white thunderous avalanches,
With lovelier beauty, musing still, And the dim ravine swift blanches
'Neath young leaves I see fair roses With a ghostly snow
Glowing over violet water. Fair, far below
Whose calm iris-gleam reposes. So white-winged Consolation glides
Faintly clouded, Heaven's daughter, Into a heart where Death abides . . .

Leman's poet-haunted water! ... Is it a loud acclaim of deep im-

A far village in the heat mortal voices,
Resting at the mountain's feet. When all the effulgent host of warriors
Beyond, how solemnly I rejoices.
Among the cliffs of Meillerie, And the ever-burning fire

Opal shafts of misty shining Of holy love leaps higher.

Stream athwart the deep ravine. For wings of seraphs rushing from their
Where I never cease divining light on high,
Tall rude phantom forms that lean Into earth's deadly shadow, to help mor-
In reverie tality? . . .

Over one another's shoulder, ... Or near Eigher's pyramid

Solemn guardians of the gorge, May my lovely child lie hid,
Till a fleecy cloudlet fold her With the pulsing evening star,
Wings awhile upon the verge, In realms of roses fair and far ?
A well-beloved guest
In the gloom of mountain splendour. And tho' I come no more as erst I came,
In dusk oriental gold Fleet - foot as wind, with youthful eyes
Of their rich raiment, oh, how tender aflame,
 ! ! ! ! ; !! ! ! !
! ;

ONLY A LITTLE CHILD 263

Eager to scale thy snows, and gladly dare, Do not all things die ?

Free as a fawn, heart-whole as mountain air. 'Tis but a faded flower

But halting with dull weight of years and pain, Dear lives exhale perpetually

Shame and remorse, and little doubtful gain ;

With every fleeting hour.

Surely 'tis well once more awhile to be Rachel for ever weeps her little ones ;
Here morning land of holiest Liberty!
in the For ever Rizpah mourneth her slain sons.
Here presence-chamber of high Nature,
in the Arise, arise
Here at the feet of her immortal stature, Threaten not the tranquil skies
Gazing within her calm supernal eyes,
My soul, assoiled from earth's insanities, Only a little ciiild !

Casts the low corse of folly, lust, and death,

Long generations pass :

And loosed from suffocation, draws free breath. Behold them flash a moment wild
Inhaling draughts of powers divine, that are
With stormlight, a pale headlong mass
Eternal strength, in spirit, earth and star;
Of foam, into unfathomable gloom !

Learneth endurance from stern, silent moun-

Worlds and leaves have all one doom.
tains,
Arise, arise
And youthful hope from the ever-flowing Threaten not the tranquil skies.
fountains.
Indomitable ardour by strong-sounding floods,
Deep contemplation in dim-dreaming woods, Should Earth's tremendous Shade
Lofty aspiring, with firm faith, Spare only you and yours?
From all yon soaring hierarchy saith. Who regardeth empires fade
And the sublime still host of worlds that Untroubled, who impassive pours
travelleth ;
Human joy, a mere spilt water.

Untiring battle with the foe within. Revels red with human slaughter
Until, through Christ, I conquer all my sin. Arise, arise !

And sleepless war upon His enemies without. Threaten not the tranquil skies.

Till all rebels bow willing thralls to Love,

whom they so flout.
Another Voice.
Only a little child !
Yea, thou, my darling, gleaming out of God . . .

A moment o'er the wintry path I trod, He was the world to me.
Pierced to the heart, insane, defiled,
Tellest, we toil, we climb, we faint, we fall
All holiest hope ! foul mockery,
Yet ever rise, until we rest, Love reigning all
Childhood's innocent mirth and rest
in all
Yea, now and evermore Love reigneth over Man's brief life a brutal jest.

There is no God ;
all.
Earth is Love's sepulchral sod!

Another Voice.
ONLY A LITTLE CHILD
Only a little child !

A Voice. Ah ! then, who brought him here ?

Only a little child! Who made him loving, fair, and mild,
Stone cold upon a bed And to your soul so dear ?

Is it for him you wail so wild, His lowly spirit seemed divine,
As though the very world were dead ? Burning in a heavenly shrine.
Arise, arise Arise, arise
Threaten not the tranquil skies With pardon for the tranquil skies.
 ! ; ; ! ! !

264 GOD'S CHILD

Only a little child !

Earth felt, and, staggered with the blow,
Who sleeps upon God's heart 1 Reeled shuddering under me
Jesus blessed our undefiled, Dead worlds, like shrivelled leaves, fell low
Whom no power avails to part From Life's uprooted tree !

From the life of Him who died

How shall I name Thee, Thou Supreme ?
And liveth, whatsoe'er betide
Hate, Treachery, or Crime? . . .

Whose are eyes

. . . When may we rise from our dark dream
Tranquiller than starlit skies
Beyond the bounds of Time ? . . .

Only a little child ! He is but folded closer still

For whom all things are : Within the Father's bosom,

Spring and summer, winter wild, Lest our earth airs may work him ill,

Sea and earth, and every star. My baby boy, my blossom !

Time, the void, pleasure and pain,

Hell and heaven, loss and gain!
Life and death are his, and he MUSIC AND THE CHILD
Rests in God's eternity.
Arise, arise
Love is holy, true, and wise, An organ-player conies rarely round
Mirrored in the tranquil skies. To our lone moorland place ;
My
darling at the welcome sound
Runs with laughter in his face
To the nursery window, hailing.
GOD'S CHILD With melodious mirth unfailing,
The sunburnt, black-bearded man,
He wanders round the garden wild,
Who greets him in Italian.
I hear him singing sweet
Then he brings and sets a chair,
I know it is my fairy child,
Humming over every air,
I hear his dancing feet.
Feigns to turn a handle deftly,
Feigns to talk Italian swiftly,
Birds low warble in the nest,
Fair in little blouse of blue,
Leaves murmur merrily
Sweet of heart and form and hue.
My boy is leaning on the breast
Of God most tranquilly.

He gazes in deep eyes Divine,

Pale, my love, with dews of anguish
From the night beneath his curls,
With innocent clear eyes ;

Lies asleep and while we languish

He God's baby more than mine
is ;
;

In despair, behold there purls !

The Father is all-wise.

A rill of music from afar :

Carol, my darling ! laugh and leap !

Can the favourite organ jar

For art thou not God's own ? . . .

So upon our hearts? We fear
, . . Ah ! must I weep
wildly, wildly Lest it waken him yet hear ;

. . ,God hath destroyed His son !

Him, waking, pray for it to come
Under the window of his room.
Stabbed with a sudden traitor thrust Asking that his friend, the player,
The heart so unafraid! May have food we grant the prayer.
;

Then flung him down into the dust, Then he lists to every tune,
To perish on the blade ! Growing very weary soon.
 "
: ; !

MUSIC AND THE CHILD 265

That, sweeping liim to nothingness,

Baby lies upon tlie bed,
Plunged our souls in the abyss.
And our hearts with him He dead. Stone-eyed to stare upon the gloom.
Baby lies with fair white blossom Frantic to challenge the deaf tomb,
In his hair and hand and bosom : Beating upon its iron door
Only he is lovelier far
For him who shall return no more !

Than earth's fairest flowers are Death echoing from his awful vault
!

And while we cower, smitten low In ghastly mockery of our assault I

By our baby boy's death-blow, Wanderers ever, wanting only one.

Draws again the organ near Calling upon the name of our lost little son !
. . .

Ah Baby never more may hear.

!

But I dreamt that she and I

IV Were gazing very mournfully
When the little child was going, On the organ, as we deemed
From his lips came softly flowing, Disused and broken. Then it seemed
Flowing dreamily, the tune That his dear nurse, who loved him well,
Of a hymn that asks a boon And cherished more than I can tell,
In childish accents of the Saviour, Came unaware, and on her breast
Who, by the love in his behaviour, She bore him whom we laid to rest,
Showed God cherishes a child Our darling, glorious, health-rosed,
;

And whensoe'er pain made him wild. Whose dark, dewy eyes reposed
His mother sang it ; then, released, On some far-off enrapturing vision

The child himself sang on, nor ceased Of the children's realm elysian !

On earth till he commenced in heaven.

Ah with what transport we kissed him
!
1

For I think that fatal even, Not dead not dead howe'er we missed him
! 1

While upon death's wave he drifted. Heaven, too, vouchsafes another token
While the mist of life was lifted. The little organ was not broken !

On our earth-shore he heard his mother. Lo ! baby turns it round and round.
And pure angels on the other ; Rejoicing in the wonted sound.
We and they hearing the low voice of him Yea, singing in his blouse of blue.
who travelled Lovelier than we ever knew.
Between us, darkling, a wee pilgrim who the
mystery unravelled !

Even so she sang to him. While he lay nightly racked with pain.
While his lovely eyes grew dim, Wept and shrieked the hurricane.
In former eves,
fair while he Yea, on that terrible night he died,
Loosed waifs of singing dreamily, The clamour of fell fiends, beside
Till he floated into sleep. Themselves with hell's blaspheming anger.
Now it is more strange and deep. Exultant in his god-wept languor,
"Jesus," he murmured, hearing the Lord call Seemed to hound him on to death,
" Fear not, My darling, on My heart to fall 1
Hungry for his innocent breath !

But now what raves it for, and howls

V Around with moan of drifted souls ?
Then in the depth of our despair, Are ye not satiate with such
A vision found me lying there. A pure white victim to your clutch,
She and I were cowering Yielded by the Powers above,
Before the swoop of Death's dark wing. Who yet we dare to dream are Love ?
 ;

266 NATURE AND THE DEAD

The loveliest, most heavenly-hearted Or solemn-branched cathedral aisle,
Child ever by themselves imparted From pure boy-bosoms, all the while
To this poor earth of ours ! To me it seems my darling mingles
So moaning With the sound that burns and tingles.
In fierce despair, amid the groaning Floating calm in the calm sea
Of those evil blasts I heard Of all unshadowed harmony.
A still small voice, as of a bird. Holy, Holy, Holy ! mount
Nay, bird had ne'er so sweet a voice, Arrowy song-flight from the fount
Nor ever bird may so rejoice ; Of our earth-music ! that descending
No spring that babbles in the summer, Erst from heaven, will be blending
Nor flower-enamoured fairy hummer ! Now with his full songs of joy,
What is it. Lord? can it be human? Who, lark-like, sings where no alloy
Song of child, or song of woman ? Of earth a gentle soul may trouble
Some loving Ariel doth toy In her perennial sweet bubble,
In self-abandonment of joy! Whose lily petal ever fair
Like, yet unlike our vanished angel ! Reposes, feeding in live air.
Iknow I deem it an evangel
From my darling, hovering
In the very storm, to sing
Near my yearning soul, to tell NATURE AND THE DEAD
What seems the blasphemy of hell " He is ?)iade one -with nature." — Shelley
Is love, to him who loveth well !

. . . In bluest air the melody I MUSED below dark everlasting rocks,

On silver wings appears to fly ;
Hearing the circling happy seamew cry ;

And lo in live germander

! blue I listened to the gentle water-shocks
A threefold flower-cluster flew, Of cool clear emerald, how peacefully
Child-seraphim, arrayed in white. Wandering thro' cavern hall, or labyrinth
Fair with dewy eyes of light Worn in the cliff's heart ! flowering seathrift
As when two swallows on the wing, Sang to blithe bees, and breezes ; the red
Circle each other dallying ;
plinth
In playful love we hear them cleaving Of ocean-palace pillar in a lift

Blue air with dances they are weaving ;

And fall of playful sunny wavelets glowed ;

So on tender pulsing pinion Until I on the hyaline

floated
Audibly the heaven's dominion Into a mystic ocean fay's abode,
Many a threefold flower-band Hung with pale sea-grape, walled with
Of children clove, while in their bland coralline,
Spirit-wreathing, when one passed, Gemmed with live jade and garnet, or
Shadow delicate fell fast adorning
From him upon a sister child, Of gleaming opal-hearted passion-flowers,
Softening to mood more mild Living, blue, crimson, as a radiant morning ;

Her raptured whiteness undefiled. While wavelight all the rocky temple dowers,
Golden, blood -jasper, grey, with woven smiles
Quavering musical, 'mid velvet piles
VII Wine-dark, fern-tufted I am afloat in froth,
;

When hymnals roam,

the jubilant That seethes and sparkles on a heaving clear
Buoyant-winged as sunny foam, Sunned chrysoprase ; hued like a burnet-moth
High-flung, wind-wafted, in the dome, Here the cliff shows, shell-crusted wholly here
 ! : — :

NATURE AND THE DEAD 267

With shells, bathing their lucid filaments Shattered upon your iron rocks,
In lapsing crystal among twilit grots,
; Stifled in wild water-shocks,
FulfiUing strange mysterious intents, Shall I not find within the gloom.
I hear far waters commune in dim spots There darkness of my doom,
in the
With weird rock-comrade, monster fish, or seal, A dewy dawn of one who left
Or slumberous anemones that feel. Me moaning, when my heart was cleft ?

Through yon chaotic arch of vasty height, A sweet auroral rising of my sun.
Of grand proportion, hewn by Titan hand Who went out unaware, before his course
Of turbulent tempest, flying in blue light was run.
Appear white sails, and capes of basking land. And I lay darkling ere my day was well
Rich hazy brown here towering dread forms
; begun ? "
Of silent crag brood awful and alone :

These have absorbed all terror of the storms, III

That wear, combat, caress their writhen stone. But in a tone remonstrant, mild.
Like one who soothes a fevered child,
Methought fair Earth and Sky and Sea
My soul said then to Earth and Air : Responded very quietly
" How can I deem that ye would dare " Do you, then, our poor brother, ask
To smile and dally, if ye did If all we wear the traitor's mask
The deed of darkness ! holding hid On this our festival of gladness ?
My stolen child, my withered blossom. We pity, pardoning, your madness !

Plucked, trampled, dead in your dark bosom He is not dead whom you so cherish !

If at the heart of your mad glee How may a human spirit perish ?
My living child lay lifelessly ! Spirits ! ye dream a lovely dream.
And your horrible vampire life
all And call it what we only seem !

With his precious blood were rife ! Ye call us Nature we are angels.:

If your false innocence but rave Who reveal profound evangels,

Over a murdered infant's grave !
Tho' you may fathom not their glory,
And all his wondrous soul blown out, Beholding, as in sacred story.
Your idiot salt billows flout Men like trees walking so God gives :

My child's pale corpse within your cave ! Maturing sense to all that lives.
And end of him who lent
this the But once ye dwelt in Eden then —
Blue heaven my dull firmament
to ! We were gods who dwelt with men ;
Of him, whose holy opening flower Your antenatal sphere remember ;

Claimed eternity for dower ! Clear the earth-ash from the ember I

Who from our green lowly sod Spirits immortal all we live and move
!

With wee white hands reached up to God, In One, whose name is the Eternal Love.
Yea, talked familiarly with Him, Yea, with flame-clasp of suffering
As with myself, ere earth grew dim Christ's own divine embraces cling !

With his strange silence, and the loss Your little one is only gone up higher,
That stole from beauty all her gloss, Burns now, and glows with more seraphic fire

And charm for ever left the world! For this we bound him to the funeral pyre !

A faded mouldering banner furled, Yea, folded closer, closer to our breast.
Once thundering glorious, impearled, His accents reach you from our radiant rest,
Aflame with morning Mockery ! ! Mingling with ours Ah with sweet surprise
! !

Break me or drown me let me die

! ! ! Awake! and hear! believe! and recognise!"
Curse your fair bodies with no heart
Ah me ! Alas ! When I depart, Sark.
 ! ! —
; ! " ! " ! " !

268 THE TOY CROSS

Flying in the freshly lilied alleys.

THE TOY CROSS Blithely singing ever a sweet rhyme.

Wilt thou strike him dead before me ? wilt
My little boy at Christmas-tide
thou leave me
Made me a toy cross ;
In blind silence for all time ?
Two he did, in boyish pride,
sticks
I shall look for long upon his opening beauty,
With brazen nail emboss. See the sail fill of his gallant youth,
Fair unsheathing of a generous keen spirit
Ah me how soon, on
I either side
Flashing eager for the Truth
His dying bed's true cross, He shall defend us, and delight us old and
She and I were crucified. weary,
Bemoaning our life-loss 1
His poor weeping mother there and me
Will it melt thee pondering how long and
But He, whose arms in death spread wide
dreary
Upon the holy tree. Without him all our way will be ?
Were clasped about him when he died
How we longed and prayed and waited for
Clasped for eternity
him
And when, fairer than fond Hope could claim,
He arrived among us, how our hearts leapt
AZRAEL to him,
!
Blessing, loving, as he came
I WAS bending o'er my treasured infant,
Falling prone, I grovelling entreated,
O'er his infernal bed of pain ; " Dreadful Deity ! for once be kind !

All my spirit cloven to its foundations,

But, implacable, It icily swept o'er me
Echoing his cries again.
A mighty moaning wind
They went crashing through my brain.
;

And I saw my baby in Its drear embraces,

Till there came a hollow, hollow knocking
Rigid, cold, and silent, smitten dead.
At my darling's lowly chamber door,
Yet while I lay and impotently cursed It,
And my tortured heart sank fainting in me,
Methought, before It fled,
For I knew who stood before.
In place of Azrael, the awful angel,
Then beheld a dumb and dreadful Presence,
I
When a fold fell from the countenance,
Shrouded in long rigid folds of grey,
Methought I saw, O miracle the Saviour, !

Never daring to unveil its awful visage

With a world's love in His glance
Before the blessed day.
I beheld divinely human eyes of Jesus,
I, confronting, barred the lowly entrance
Unfathomable seas of sorrowing ;
Yea, I flung my bleeding soul athwart.
I saw, like flame, upon the riven forehead
I swore, "Thy touch shall ne'er pollute my
His martyr-crown of King !

holy one
"Pardon, Lord I" I cried. "Oh, take my
Till thou tread upon my heart
darling I

Swift-souled he is, and pure, and fair, and

Looking in His face, methought He smiled.
happy,
Ere they vanished, in the empty chamber
All his life yet pausing in the bud ;
kneeling,
He mine eyes, the pulse of all my being.
is
I yielded Him my child.
Vital warmth, and dancing blood !

I have looked along the flowery
Of his lovely paradisal spring
I have mused, and seen myself beholding
His innocence upon the wing.
vistas And I felt a little babe may on a stranger
;
For a while a fondling joy confer,
Yet if he hear the low tone of his mother,
He will bound away to her.
 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ; !

A SOUTHERN SPRING CAROL 269

Were we high and pure enough to be the He will ever be a child in his sweet spirit
guardians And I deem the very form will never die ;

Of a heavenly soul so pure and high ? But ah the soul slides where she holds no
!

God, who lent our bird out of His bosom, image

Recalls him to the sky 1 Reels, nor grasps reality !

If He brought him to us, He can keep him If I were only sure of his well-being,
Safer than our foolish feeble care ; Sure as I am sure of anguish here.
It is very blind of us to weep him Could I wish him in our foul, infected prison,
Removed from our sad air. Away from his pure air ?
Moved to where the holy ones are telling
Ah ! Thy merciless, stern mercy hath
In pure white lilies the Lord's love,
chastised us.
Where amaranth and asphodel a dwelling
Goading us along the narrow road
Weave around our dove,
Thy bird, who warmed and dazzled us a
Full of wisdom, full of love
moment.
Was it very, very lonely, O my darling Hath returned to Thine abode.
Very lonely for a little child, Lord, when we are purged within the furnace.
Whom we cherished so, and guarded in his May we have our little child again ?
goings, All Thine anguish by the olives in the Garden,
Carried from us to the wild, All Thy life and death are vain.
When thy dear bewildered eyes looked back If Thou yield us not our own again !

upon us.
And we longed in vain to keep thee, or to
follow,
A SOUTHERN SPRING CAROL
Longed for glimpses of thee disappearing O Spring ! O Spring ! O Southern Spring !

In the gloomy, guilty hollow ? What a triumphal song you sing

Ah if we had seen thee, with companions
!
All the valley sings !

Coming forth to meet thee with a smile ;

Nor only warblers who have wings ;
For there are to whom the beatific vision All the peach and almond blossom
Hath been granted otherwhile, Seems young carol from their bosom
While they weeping stood deserted on the In the form of flowers,
desert, Wandering every way
And love was borne o'er wan waves far away On many a spray,
Yet the Lord of life and death is ever near us, Rills in the blue day.

Ifwe go, or if we stay. Very bird-notes in a spray,

Lo the same mild moon upon
! the wanderer Filling all the valley.
Looks, and on the dweller by the hearth ;
And I deem that, as they dally
So the mild large Eye of the All-Father In the summer light intense,
Wards all worlds, and earth, In the deep Italian blue,
Raining a sweet influence of spirits, A subtle spirit influence
For no malignant ray can harm the pure :
May re-enchant them to a dew
It was Jesus, and the gentle saints departed, Of melody pure-hearted.
Who came his wound to cure ;
Hither and thither parted.
On their gentle bosom how secure From the bosom of the birds,
From the gaily feathered herds.
If I only knew how behold him.
I shall And they would be songs again,
When and where, and what happy guise
in One rich rain !

Will he be a child when I enfold him ? A peach-petal flutters down,

Or will the form change as he giows more wise? A white moth hath softly flown,
 ; !

270 A SOUTHERN SPRING CAROL

And we hardly know sweet note Are a foil to the pale gleaming
From fair vision as they float. Of oval lemon, and the beaming
All the valley sings ! Ampler cherry trees, one snow
An angel kindles when he dips Of blossom in the fading glow !

The fig's candelabra tips In pale blue evening,

To chrysolite, while many a vine Ah the cherry seems to sing.
!

Amorously will incline With a fairy bridal dower !

O'er vistas of a golden trellis, Pure white chalices of flower,

Where a cool and shadowy well is, Pendent in a pale blue sky,
All overgrown with mosses wet Shadowy blossom with soft eye !

And maiden-hair and violet. Dimlit amber mysteries

O'er many a shrine We faint surmise,
Roses twine ! Where bees hover.
Light green fountains of the palm And a soft moth -lover !

Fall in a blue crystal calm ; Oh, I would that I might know

Delicate flushing lady tulips The secret of your bridal snow,
Close their lanceolate dim dew-lips, Soul of the pure ecstasy
Their soft satiny repose Softly haunting a grey sky,
By a light hand flecked with rose With such a grace
Golden jonquils, white narcissus. Of spirit-lace !

Whisper softly,
'
' Come, and kiss us ! For it seems a happy ghost
Part us not from the sweet brood From the seraph host !

"
Of our companions in the wood ! Never bride dissolved in love,
Earth's fair features, every one Never saint in realms above,
Instinct with spirit of the sun, Nor lark on his own music tost.
Radiate well-married hues, Hath more joy than this, embossed,
Blent with air and ocean blues. Shadowy, rare.
Verily I seem to stand On pale blue air ;

In a realm of fairyland. White cloud a-flower,

Or I take my dazzled station A very shower
In some intense illumination Of still rapture unalloyed,
Of a missal mediaeval Too overjoyed
Yonder on the hill's upheaval, For sound of singing
Where we hear the convent chime, All the valley sings !

Wrought by monk of olden time, A clear rivulet is flinging

Whom the cloister heard intone. Warbled song to the pure air.

And many a sun-bleached river stone, Laughing, a young infant fair,

Or the darkling cypress cone. Ruffling softly, swiftly passes

Cool grey clouds of olive fill Green-illumined among grasses,
All the foldings of the hill, Or red anemone to wander.
While fair dawn-empetalled peaches Where are violet, germander :

Gleam athwart bloomy reaches

the
Of quiet harebell-mantled mountain
Gemmed with rivulet or fountain,
Shadowy evening robes, whose hem
Shines with many a water gem
Child pursued in play, to ramble,
After such a sweet preamble.
Among myrtle bowers and bramble.
Green-pennoned canebrakes in the river
: All around grey arches quiver ;

While rich oranges all golden, While westering Apollo dulls

In a darkling foliage liolden, Delved loam, and vivid pulse,
 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! " ! !

ALL SAINTS, AND ALL SOULS

A swart red-vestured toiler waters It is All Saints' Day ; on the morrow.
From rills, who are the river's daughters. With flowers offered,
All the valley sings !
Sons and daughters of dark sorrow
And rings, and rings Some faint ray of peace may borrow
Ah Nature never would have power
! From flowers proffered
To breathe such ecstasy of flower. On green mounds of the departed,
Vernal songs of happy birds, Meekly saying
The young rill's delicious words, To sweet souls of the true-hearted.
No iris hues might bring to birth, " May we not for long be parted,
No heart were hers for any mirth, Here delaying !

If he were turned to common earth ! There a friend, a sister, mother,

If a child so fair, so good, Fondly kneeling,
Were a waif on Lethe's flood. Sobs and tears are fain to smother.
If a soul-source of feeling, seeing, Unto the dear sundered other
Were blotted from the realms of being Self appealing.
She from all delight would start. " Leave me not alone, O lover !

With such a horror at her heart, Child I cherish!"

She would reel dissolved, and faint " May the reign of love be over?
With deep dishonour of the taint Death is only sent to prove her
"
The very girders of her hall May she perish ?
Crushed, her stately floor would fall. In warm-breathing blue ethereal
Ourselves are the foundation stone ;
White tapers kindled
If thought fail, the world is gone; Shyly waver, souls aerial,
All were ruined, wanting one. In all-beholding strength imperial
But all the valley sings ! Of Day dwindled,
Nature rises on immortal wings ! Like our lives in the universal
And soaring, lo ! she sings ! she sings Sun of spirit;
There is no death ! Hark how ocean makes rehearsal
She saith. Of a life without reversal
Spring ! O Spring ! O Southern Spring All inherit
What a triumphal song you sing An eternal child, blue Ocean,
Rhythmic breathing
Valley of Taggia, 1880.
O'er the dead, with grand emotion.
And blue hills with deep devotion
Hearts are wreathing.
ALL SAINTS, AND ALL SOULS We are sure they are not sleeping
Beneath our blossom,
Thy birthday is All Saints' Day, my sweet By white marble we may, weeping.
treasure. Plant for memory, but keeping
Ah ! well it may be Near our bosom
For on us there descended in full measure Life's own vigil o'er us, even
All saints in one celestial pleasure. As in dreaming
With thee, dear baby ! O'er what seems their sleep, bereaven.
For thou wert open, loyal, fearless, We hold our vigil ; they in heaven
Ah me ! forsaken ! Know no seeming
Radiant soul in raiment peerless,
A private joy to thee how cheerless,
Until partaken I San Remo.
 ; ; —
272 VISION OF THE NIGHT
Journeying by the very place
THE NIGHT Where I beheld his little face
VISION OF
Pondering on the mighty beast,
A SOFT young moon among the trees More than all to me, though least,
Nor lights the valley-side, nor these Seeing now through tear-suffusion
Only faint illumes a hill Without him all the loud confusion !

Far over me, where pale and still

A fane 'mid habitations fair, Once again the living creatures.

Gemmed with mild fires, inhabits air With their weary sullen features,

Of clear May midnight nightingales ;

I behold behind the bars.
Lull the lonely-lying vales ;
Where the den's dull limit mars

Living stars above are set, All wild splendour of their pride,

As in adoration met. Abates the grandeur of their stride.

Yon hill appears a holy hope, Bondage tames the fervid eyes.
Far beyond our earthly scope. As night doth the torrid skies,
Ghostly gleaming in the cope To a lurid sultriness.

Of heaven, revealed, anon withdrawn. Clouded o'er with vague distress ;

But I have felt the vision dawn. Emblems of our human race.

Hallowing my lonely lawn. Fallen from their lofty place.

So I may wait, tho' all be gloom, Blind, bewildered, bound within

Till the eternal day illume.
By the manacles of sin !

Ceriana. With a glad and grave surprise

The terror of their gleaming eyes
He considers, mirthful mime
Of them in a little time.
IN LONDON Again I view the elephant.

Slow-pacing in his wonted haunt,

The mighty towers of Westminster On whose tall, broad, howdah'd back

Loom beneath me in murk air, The and I along the track

child
While a vast expanse of street Three years ago swung, full of glee
Echoes to loud-hurrying feet Now the child is not with me !

Of men and horses, and swift wheels,

Where a clanging steeple peals, When our wild praying seemed to stir
Where he, who with deep feeling cons God's awful executioner.
The souls of animals, in bronze Whose blank, set countenance faint quavered,
Wrought majestic lion forms, Whose dull resolve a moment wavered,
Brooding, slumbering, dark storms. And when sweet life seemed to repel
Symbols of our England's power, Death's white horror, it befell
Whose dread lightnings brood and glower. That when he would descend the stair.
Like those fulvous eyes ; their claws Patient he paused for one to bear
Are death, hid sheathed in vasty paws. Him feeble, and I filled the want
On the lion a child gazes ; So he named me his elephant.
Grave brown wondering eyes he raises
To the form : compelled to leave, Passing through the gay arcade.
With all my sight to him I cleave Where toys for children are displayed,
In departing ; often since Anon I pause before a toy,
As from a sickening stroke I wince, Dreaming how a little boy
 ! ! " ! "
; : ! !

"THE SEA SHALL GIVE UP HER DEAD" 273

Will lighten mirth from his dear face More scornfully he said :

If I buy it — for a space " When you have anguished long,

Unremembering my home I will erase remembrance of your dead :

Without him is but blind and dumb You shall arise, singing an idle song,
His sacred toys lie idle now ;
As were you glad again ;
O'er them the pale anguished brow For you were glad of yore !

Of Love's forlorn despair we bend, New circumstance, new care, shall cause to
Hoping life's dull pain may end ;
wane
Tillanon some organ sounds His very image, till your eyes no more
In the street, but no glad bounds Behold him in the deep
Of a child's light feet we note Dark mere of memory ;

Run to hear the music float, Although you peer therein, and wail and weep,
Climb upon a chair to see You shall but find a vacant, smiling sky;
Dancing dolls' bedizened glee, Till with faint listless wonder you espy
Or the monkey's mimicry. Wan, withered Love, who falters there to die
Even from your heart's shrine
What shall I do ? . . . Full many others, Your idol shall be torn ;

Little ones who seem his brothers, As erst your joys, so now your sorrows fine
Take delight in things like these !
I scatter with cold scorn !

Do they ail, or doth the breeze All ye shall jeer at yourown oath
Of pleasure ripple o'er their faces, Of infinite fidelity
I will contemplate their graces ; Ye shall forswear yourselves, and be to both
I will be a minister Heaven and earth, and your own selves a
The fountain of their joy to stir, mockery
In such resorts, and by such measures, Poor fool I will extinguish every ember.
!

As were wont to yield him pleasures ; Love, hope, grief, all remaining of you yet
Or where little hearts may ail, Yea, though thou vow to God thou wilt
Love's yoke-fellow, I will not fail. remember.
Where are tears and visage pale, Thou shalt forget
!

To quell the tyranny of Fate,

Or man, that renders desolate :
And I replied to Time
And I deem he will approve "Thou shalt abolish me.
In the bowers of holy Love, Ere thou dissolve all sanctities sublime
Near and nearer to me move. Of mine own being when I perish utterly,
;

Ours, how weak soe'er, be strife. I moan no more in pain, nor lie foredone,
On the holy side of life !
Self-scorned, a hissing to white orbs that roll,
How loud soe'er the world may roar, Flawless, annealed, obedient to their sun.
We know Love will be conqueror If thou hast plunged in night his precious soul.
How wilt thou hinder me
From taking sanctuary

"THE SEA SHALL GIVE UP In that eternal gloom from woe and shame ?
HER DEAD" A holiest Altar, if the child who was all free
from blame
Time spake to " Behold me : ! Be lying mute before
I slay your dearest one ! The dim grey stone of Silence, cold for ever-
And with him, dead beneath the churchyard more !

mould, Ah there I shall be free

!

Your living heart I bury from the sun !

From pain, from sin, from folly, and from thee !
 ! ! ! ! ! " ;

274 'THE SEA SHALL GIVE UP HER DEAD'

There he and 1 shall rest in peace, And though the soul bewildered err from life

Nor know what may be born, nor what may to life,

cease, She shall possess them all in God, afar from

Nor any God may torture us with false hopes mortal strife

of release !"
" Oft on me in dream
I spake again to Time : My blessed one will gleam.
"Thou liest in thy throat All palpable as when at first
All may change, or fall, or climb, He quenched my spirit's longing thirst
Yet all lives self-retained in change, tho' I fold him close, I feel him kiss,
never so remote. I feel his hands, his hair ; the bliss
Yea, the old form I knew No fuller was of yore,
Abideth out of view. And asking for no more,
Now first fulfilled in other, I thank the Lord for this.
For each is by a brother ; Howbeit I clasp him closer than of old,
In some alien guise As if I knew I only may enfold
The dead are risen lo : ! to longing eyes. For a brief moment, dim divining why,
When Occasion calls aloud Foreboding him compelled anon to fly.
To the Past within the shroud, Troubled I own that somewhat seems
When Destiny, the omnipotent, shall wave amiss.
Her hand, the Past shall start from his deep And nor asleep nor waking may I unravel
grave, this!
And Memory restore Often I am aware that he hath died.
What seemed in wan Oblivion buried ever- And living by my side.
yet I hold him
more. Enough he gleams upon my lonely tomb,
!

Sea that moans for human ravage, ever Among stern crags, from wan night-clouds,
hungering for more he gloweth in my gloom !

All abideth in a sphere

Aloof from mortal eye and ear ;
Nature reveals high lineaments of souls.
Faith discerns in flowing time Confused from sad suffusion of our eyes.
Fair reflex of a holier clime. Veiled with our tears; in these poor earthly
In ruffled mirrors of dark memory shoals
The still face of Eternity. Of low-lapsed life, she may not wear the
Yea, and every tiny sprout guise
Of bloom or leaf is yonder still, She wore when we were innocent and
Though many wind may waft us doubt,
a wise.
And they play hide and seek at will And while I muse, the cold tremendous
In the spirit's fairy fountain, Shade,
From holy halls of night divine so musically Who spake the cruel words, appears to
mounting fade.
I know Time for a shadow of man's mind
" Doth not the aged man recover Thrown on the wide world human souls ;

What seemed long perished of his primal are blind ;

youth ? And lo the Lord is shining from behind ! !

Once more he is the child, the blithe boy- Ah strengthen, purge our eyes we would ! !

lover, behold Thy day !

Who lay concealed below life's lavish later Then error, wrong, and sorrow shall vanish
growth. all away
 ! ! ! ;

AMONG THE MOUNTAINS 275

Psyche lost her wings from death, and !

AMONG THE MOUNTAINS wrong, and pain.

Behold they are born again ;
!

Morning So these are very gain.

I MUSE dawn upon the heights alone.

at
A wakeful awe of silence reigns around Near heights, transfigured in ethereal,
;
Essential glory, burn purpureal.
The pines are hushed, no bird breathes any
sound. Fair ample Morn, in silence o'er the sea,

The mountains symphony, whose tone,

are a Opens her shrine, her sanctuary of bloom,
Piled in the expanse of memory, hath grown To ocean's billowy pure foam,

Slow-reared ; they seem to heave before mine Unfolds unfathomable blossom.

eyes Reveals the subtle secret of her bosom,
From deep, dark glens, to clear auroral skies. Pours from a crystal urn
In billowy gradation, from the bowed Heavenly hues love-born,
Low notes of dusky lowlands to the loud Till Day's archangel, pulsing radiancy.
Psean of gratulation that Swiftly emerging from the deep's grey pall,
blown is

Heavenward from awful summits fraught A flower of fire ascends, and floating free,
with morn, Winged with intolerable splendour, soars
One fiery snow Upon the craggy surge,
!
imperially
Rude rocky village eyries are upborne Then all the vibrant ocean blazeth.

Over bleak umber plains from verge to verge ;

And his grand blinding glory praiseth.
The higher hills that neighbour them have
worn But thou, O Sun ! dost never die,
For ages the pine forest vast and grave :
Nor ascend on high !

Nature arises from Death's cold engulfing Earth, whene'er she turns away,
wave. Deems there is a death of Day.

Fair facing these, in Morn's unearthly Herbs wake to fragrance ; flowers from
smile, soft dream ;

O'er purple Main's horizon, lo ! a snowy- A myriad hearts pour forth their orison
mountained isle At thy sublime epiphany, O solemn-soaring
In soft air's primrose, Sun!
A violet-flushing rose. Yet thou, fair Light Supreme,
Shadowy gleaming island ! art thou solid To these who feel thy beam,
strand. Art but a moon-pale shadow of the Eternal
Or pageant of cloudland ? One!
In memory's far world a visionary pile? Thou mighty living Soul, in whom we live
Some dear dream beyond our scope and move,
In heavenlier realms of faith or hcjpe ? Feedest upon the fire divine of spiritual Love.
When will our wings, or fair El-Sirat come,
And we fly home?
Of musing faith and prayer, of love and lofty
deed,
Noon
A very iris-arch to heaven is wrought. Now at full noon a
silver silence reigns;
from the spirit falls her homely weed.
Till The pines are fragrant, and the mountain
And white wings wave where otherwhile was thyme ;

nought Nor bee nor bird-song the still light contains ;

Of star-yfraught Sunned sober fir forests descend or climb

 ! ! ! ! ! !; ;
! ! ;

276 DEATH
Blue skies arch over blue inclining seas.
Evening
Midway beneath me, girt with leafy gold,
A brown old convent in a nest of trees Now, pearl-grey ocean blent with opal skies,
Tranquil abides yon lowly shadows fold
; We know no more dim airs from aery main ;

Thee, dearest daughter, sweet companion !

In smooth clear mirrors a winged vessel lies,
Far cloven crags, a pale grey brotherhood, While many a slender purple ocean-stain
Dream phantoms tall and wan.
in the azure, Hangs like a cloud ; the shallop in still even
Bounding a billowy waste of solitude. Seems a white sail slow sailing up to heaven
Brown rolling realms of desert shadow-stained A ghostly glow receives it lo it fades. ; !

From slow white cloud yon height of sombre Unbodied, in the heart of ever-deepening
;

form, shades
For all day's rich caresses, hath retained
His lonely gloom, broods o'er the night San Remolo.
enorm
Of his own shadow whelming the wide earth.
DEATH
Now in deep stillness, as of calm white
death, Death is very beautiful,
What wraith of dubious low sound hath birth Solemn, pure, and calm,
As from another world? slow wins more As in a shadowy cloister cool
breath ? A lowly murmured psalm
May itbe mellow sound of some far bell After some fierce battle-cry
From a far hamlet on far height ? But why In the windy glare hard by.
Do the dear airs bear him I love so well. Nay, very terrible is death
The image of my lost, who ever nigh A cold, white shape of fear ;

My heart abides, more close against me, so By it we talk with bated breath,
That I behold him, and he seems to call As if the thing could hear.
In these low melodies that faintly flow, So like, and so unlike the face
And float upon blue waves aerial ? Ah why borrow
! their dear grace ?

His own sweet self thrills memory her ; hall. Nay thou cold mockery of life
!

Dark as a tomb, glows warm ; the cloudy Death, take any other guise
pall If they with living joy be rife.
Exhales ; he wears fair flowers for a dress, Why looks their image on this wise ?

Pure outbirth of a child's meek holiness Why make us deem they turn to this,
His own sweet self haunts memory WTio were the pulse of all our bliss ?

Who but he. Death is Satan's cruel jest,

When I remember, thrilleth me His blaspheming parody
Out of his own eternity ? " Lo I give your darling rest
1

The dead, the distant, all are with us still; Come and see him by-and-by,!
Yea, they may be more with us if we will, Kiss the unanswering icy stone,
For deepening our roots, and branching And know thyself alone, alone!
higher, My repose is long and deep.
Illusions shrivel in God's unconsuming fire,
Not a passing earthly sleep."
And we find one another
Where is no death to hide, no mortal life to Nay this hath some inner sense
! ;

smother. I would resolve the mystery

But spirits lie awake, and one, upon their 'Tis but a symbol of intense

mighty Mother! Unwearying life for these who die.

 ! ! ; ! ! ; —
GUARDIAN ANGELS OF CHILDREN 277

Lord ! may we wake to see Thy face, Than are all the pceans
And our beloved in Thine embrace ? Round about the throne.
We dream a dream of cold white death, Scorning the cold splendour
And all our being shuddereth. Of an idle crown.
Ah when may we interpret, Lord,
! Love rears her radiant palace
The meaning of Thy mystic Word ? In our shadow- world of fears,
She mourns by our dark ocean
Death is very pitiful, Of tempestuous tears
Death for a dear child Angels tend the children
A pure white bud some wanton pull Waking or asleep.
Scatters on the wild ! They rebuke the evil.
And yet one woe may deeper move, Who have made them weep.
The dying and the death of Love Heaven's crystal glory gloweth
He seemed so amiable, so fair. Rainbowed as they fly
All holy, a perennial youth To where earth's night, illumined
Dumb and stark he lieth there ; In their sweet charity,
God Himself may weep for ruth. Dawneth silently !

" Dear Love, perchance, may not be dead.

Only sleeping," some one said.
In the lordly castle,
Ah ! death is very beautiful, In the dungeon deep.
Solemn, pure, and calm, In the lonely hovel,
As in a shadowy cloister cool Love-vigil they keep.
A holy chanted psalm Fair be the children, cherished,
After some fierce battle-cry Sweethearted, rosed with health,
In the windy glare hard by, Or poor and starved, and wanting
Singing, "We are
saved from evil, The soul's holier wealth.
From the wandering waves' upheaval, Inheritors of sorrow,
Folded far from very death. By leaguering ills deformed.
Wherein the spirit withereth." Plague-smitten soul and body.
Poor hearts love never warmed,
With all the angels tarry ;

And though the fire be low,

GUARDIAN ANGELS OF They will fan the ember
CHILDREN To a living glow ;

Inhabiting our sorrow,

Verily their angels Our chilled heart of wrong.
Ever behold the face Until it yield, and mellow
Of our Eternal Father, Bloom to a sweet song.
Sunned in His full grace. They, knowing our mortal fever
Yet in the stormless sunshine Soon will pass away.
They do not love to dwell Through long nights of sorrow
There is no place in heaven Calm await the Day.
They love half so well Asleep they lead the lambkins
As the lowly chamber To meadows of sweet dream
Of a little child ; In gentle arms they bear them
Dearer to them the breathing By many a cooling stream ;

Of his bosom mild Where the sunbeams cherish

 !; !

278 THE WRECK OF THE PRINCESS ALICE

White and yellow flowers,
They may sail on silver
Among fairy bowers, LAST VICTIMS FROM THE WRECK
Losing all the terror OF THE PRINCESS ALICE
Of our waking world.
Sails of their frail shallop
In flowery havens furled. Two little bodies, from the tide
A poor boy rides the pony Last gathered, lie alone
So wistfully admired, No father maddens by the side
While a poor maiden nurses Of Love turned into stone ;

The doll richly attired ;

No mother weeps here for her pride.
They feel no more so tired ! Her joy for ever flown.
Pains and griefs no longer They were all innocence and mirth,
Vex the innocent breast. Warm light of loving eyes ;

Now dear angels lull them They are defiled and ruined earth.
Into such deep rest ! The passing stranger flies.
Cruel faces vanish, The twain who watched them warmly curled,
And all the loveless waste, Asleep with locks of gold.
In a fair home they find them, Felt that for them the whole wide world
Tenderly embraced. Nestled there aureoled.
And now they lie unknown, unnamed,
And when we deem them dying.
In London's awful roar
More life the Lord imparts, ;

Over them piteous, unclaimed

Their faint frail breath subsideth
Oblivion's dust will pour,
On warm angel hearts
Love's eyes look never more !

Like a wavelet failing

There is no silver sound, no speech,
On a sand so fair :

Although they rest so nigh,

Ah I then the angels welcome
No rosy, dimpled hands impleach
Heaven's cloudless crystal air !

In slumber tranquilly.
Because of the frail snowflake
From the close clasp of loving arms.
Their kind bosoms wear.
From heedless holiday.
The snowflake melts in glory,
Hurled upon death's dire alarms,
The little child awakes ;
And to uncared-for clay
Under the smiles of Jesus,
Death-frozen for our sakes.
There are no more snowflakes !

With our snows bejewelled

Are they indeed unknown, unnamed ?
How the angels shine,
Is any life spilt water ?
Earth's frozen flower a sunlet
In the lone universe unclaimed !

Pulsing light divine !

Souls for mad Chance to slaughter
Dear babes, help one another ! Have they no mother, and no father ?
All the saints help you : In all the worlds no friend ?

We are with them in heaven. Are they a dim, grey dust? ... or rather.
Doing as they do. Did our Eternal Parent send
Every cross of sorrow Fair shining cohorts of His grace,
Is a blessed pain ; Strong children of His love.
The Lord Jesus bore it, Who minister before His face.
Proving it pure gain. Swift-thronging from above,
 ! ; ;! ; ! ;

CHILDREN AND THE WOODS 279

To gather them from forth the gloom, God is the God-forsaken Man ;

Long ere men found their forms ? He is the Little Child ;

To shield them in the shock of doom, His eyes with human woes are wan ;

While heavenliest ardour warms And all is reconciled !

With emulation every breast

All will be first to hold,
To lull the frightened babes to rest
CHILDREN AND THE WOODS
In their maternal fold ! I LOVE the beautiful green woodland.
There leaned both sire and mother lost, Where shy singing-fairies flit

Dawning on the dim gaze ; In the twilight of their foodland

And many sealed in death's deep frost, I hear a tapping while I sit.

Fathers of former days, And deem it is the woodpecker,

Thronged all the approaches of God's throne. Yet know not other elfin noises
While Christ arose above. That waking near me softly stir.
Smiling a welcome to His own While a shadowy bough faint poises.
Babe brethren of His love. Dreamily athwart the beryl
. . Yet ah the hideous prospect whirls
. ! ; Of sensitive sun-lighted leaves;
Death-slumber seems profound And breathlessly, as in play-peril.
With ghastly gleams the river swirls The laughing rillet swiftly cleaves
Blindly above the drowned ! A way through trees and flowers who love him,
, . Nay, but the children are awake,
. Waving green arms while he flows.
Although we hear them not With touch light hindering above him.
Our dear ones their sweet prattle make As they would kiss him while he goes.
In some fair, far cot. But he merrily from them flows.
I deem our life is a red flame Blessing the green twilit heart,
Of purgatorial fire ; As erst to mine my little one would songful
And Death, God's calm white angel, came light impart
From the Eternal Sire, Ah! now my fairy brook is dry ;

To lay cool hands before their eyes, Where are the playful gleamings of his eye,
Shadowing from the glare, Or songs of his sweet innocent revelry?
And in profound tranquillities But while I love the gentle woodland,
To hide from our despair. And fragrant pines that stir and sing
One pure white Light is over all, Hushfully in upland valleys.
One Spirit-Pulse serene, Blue lakes, and every living thing,
Who when we rise, and when we fall, I love the little human children
Unmoved approves the scene. Better than all woods and flowers.
For Love Lord from Heaven to Hell,
is The music of their innocent gambols
Walks our red waves of sorrow ; More than springs and summer showers.
Love weeps beside us all is well ;
;
And my heart is never lonely
Day will dawn to-morrow. If in roving I may meet
Love weeps beside us, and within A few little children only
Love moaneth for our lot With their merrily flying feet,
Behold his vassals. Death and Sin,
! In the playfield fresh from school,
Chained to his chariot Or among glades of woodland cool.
Love sleeps not, throned indifferent They are fair meanings of the daylight.
Upon a lordly scorn ;
Clear fulfilment of meek flowers,
He Man, whose brows are
is the rent All a shyly wandering laylight
With sorrow's crown of thorn. Would say among her leafy bowers.
 ! ; ! ! —"
! !

28o OLD SCENES REVISITED

In their sweet, shy, sidelong glances, Amid the heath he journeyed ; here
And every lisping word that wells, His baby form, that was so dear.
In their light aerial dances, The lovely form we loved so well,
As of wind-waved lily-bells . . , Lies under the heather-bell.
I think I hear his very tone,
I feel his very living smile ; I think my ghost will haunt the place.
Yea, one would say he lends his own Even when I behold thy face
To these fair children for a while. Glassed in some celestial lake,
Dear Father, these are very fair I love it so for thy dear sake.
Lovely in all their ways, But ah ! if we were only sure !

Whose every breathing is a prayer, Were only seeing thee secure,

And all their motion praise. Even afar off, now and then,
Then a gleam steals o'er the snow I were the happiest of men !

Of my low-responding breast,
Even as a faint afterglow Aspens whisper in grey air,
Dawns in the ever-faded west. Whisper as they whispered when.
And so God gives all babes to me, Playing among them blithe and fair.
In place of Baby who is gone ; He drew my soul from a dark den
Yet ah the whole fair human family
! Of dismal shadows with his song ;
Weighs lighter than my little one Whisper like a gentle throng
Of spirits murmuring " Rejoice !

To me, who faint for his dear voice.

Wandering ever in the wild
OLD SCENES REVISITED my child,
Till I find little

Ah ! the dear old moorland path, Him to feel and hear and see,

Consecrate by tiny feet Who cannot wholly perished be !

Every nook and corner hath Somewhen, somewhere, the wan stem of
A remembrance bitter-sweet. endeavour
Three long years, all winter, scenes Shall flower in vision, radiant for ever
Afar have held me, many a care, Ah may ! I not thy semblance find
But my heart for ever leans In the low light, or the low wind ?

Here, until from otherwhere Do I not yearn to clasp thy ghost.

My feet are carried to the place My own beloved, O my lost ?
Where dawned on me thy blessed face, Thee, thee, thee only do I want,
The holy moor where Love was born, The very little child was mine ;

The moor where Love left me forlorn. Refuse me him for whom I pant.
There is night upon the moor, God, Virtue, Heaven, I resign
There is night upon my heart And surely in the dim pinewood,
A low moon consoles the moor, Or in the garden where he leapt,
And his memory my heart. In the enchanted solitude
All is redolent of him ;
Under the window where he slept,
Here from heaven he came.
to us If anywhere within the bound
Loosed here many a merry whim. Of worldwide being he hath breath,
Joy sparkling o'er the fountain brim Is it not here he may be found,
Of his white spirit here the flame
; Loosed from the monster fold of Death,
Of Love's own life burned holily Safe from the hunger of dim Death?
On the moorland ; his birth-name Under the window where he slept.
The heather gave him ; home to die Or in the day-time danced and sang
 "
; ! !! !! !! ! !; ! !! !

OLD SCENES REVISITED 281

With his boy brother, where we wept When he flew forth, our fluttered bird.
Hot tears of blood for his death-pang, Carolling toward the sun.
His long, long pain and where he lay,! Within our mournful souls there stirred

White lilies o'er him, the king-lily, The living Child, the Eternal One
Moonpale and cold, who was the day, Welcome, Child Jesus ! Christ is come
Will he not come now, pure and stilly. In glory, not in earthly weed
And touch, and whisper " Father mine, a child, He makes His home
Still

I am not dead, dear ; it is I

!
Within our soiled and lowly need.
Like Jesus, when He saw them pine From His own Life our lives to feed.
So for Him after Calvary ? He is called Eric, and He dwells
In our soul's flower-hallowed dells.
Yea, voices call to me, my love, By Lady Memory's holy wells ;

In twilight, and they name thy name Ah ! not under the heather bells
Alas I am not sure,
! my dove, And while he dwelleth in high heaven,
If they be thine ! they do not seem the same Under some sweet angel's care,
And in my dreams they whisper still, He also sootheth our sad even,
Often they seem to sob and moan, Ever radiantly fair.

That may not, for all my will.

I

Surely know them for thine own : Why seek the living among the dead ?

I deem they may be demon hosts who jeer, They are not here ! alive, arisen.
Maddening mortals with false hope and fear. Only a ray of them hath fled ;

So rather I return within, Angels deliver them from prison

Afar from sense-deluding din ;
Child Eric when He saw thee bleed,
!

By the upheaval of my being Child Jesus came to call thee home ;

Attain to realms of clearer seeing, But while bereft of thee we roam,

Find thy very self by faith, Thou art more near us, love, indeed.
High o'er the welter of dim death. More near than in thine earlier state,
Throned o'er mists of mortal strife Although we seem so desolate
In luminous airs of ampler life. The dead from our wan eyes depart,
Death is a shadow of our fall Only to nestle in our heart.
But ah how many a heavier pall
! Mary, weeping, sought the Lord
Hangs o'er dead souls Oblivion ! ! In the grave, nor found Him there ;

Discord all monster growths that overrun

! Mary with her living Lord
Man's inner vision, veiling from the Sun, Was communing in her despair,
And with His Light of life confounding all Nor knew who communed with her
there
O my own baby boy I my child ! We are surely travelling home
Thou Father of my soul
art the O'er the weary waste of foam,
In thee the Lord, the Undefiled, Drawn by pure and tranquil eyes
Came on earth to make me whole. Of living Orbs within the skies,
"Welcome, Child Jesus!" on the walls Who rising, we in them arise
Our hands had wrought with berries gay, For all are souls within a Soul,
In the season of snowfalls. And hierarchies of one Spirit whole.
For we were nearing Christmas Day. Our own true selves, alive in God,
And thou wert leaving us, my love Call our lost selves to His abode.
Nay, rather, faith beheld thee born Halting along earth's dreary road.
Then was the advent of the Dove, We are wildered in the gloom,
Our Christmas, and our Easter morn Feel blind for one another here,
 ! ; ; ; ! ! !! !

282 OLD SCENES REVISITED

In a phantom world of doom ; Brings for my solace from the wild,
Unfathomable gulfs of fear Telling the deeps have not devoured my child.
Sunder our numb human hearts ;
The child who is my world, my mead, my
Faint feet slide upon the snow, grove.
While a drifting vapour parts, The fruit, the flower, the fountain of my love
Nor others, nor ourselves we know : He lives and blooms anew, fresh, pure, and
Thought, dissolved, reels to and fro, undefiled.
Stunned as from a mortal blow. Our blossom breathes a holier breath
In the calm cool night of Death ;

Ah ! dearest darling, we have loved ! Tho' he so fair in life reposed,

None part who once indeed have met The petals of his soul were closed.
But thou and I have never proved
Love's eternal summer yet A dorhawk whirrs around the plain,
And if the mortal spring be sweet, Philomel hath ceased to sing,
What will the immortal summer be? But a cuckoo still is fain
Only a while we may not meet. To send his voice on languid wing
Maturing for eternity. Through the elflight at intervals,
As in a drowsy vision calls ;

The garden is a wilderness ;

A dream of groves and waterfalls,
His little plot of flowers And pale gold of young corn imbues
Fallen to weed, and tenantless His languid tone that flows and falls
The silent house acacia bowers. ! Among star-worlds, and starry dews.
With many a gold laburnum tress. O balmy nights within the dells
Hang white blossom in warm June So far behind of vanished years
O'er lowlands, tender as a tune O nights within the blessed years
Of turtle-doves, o'er harebell-hued How are ye reft of all your spells,
Fair corn, fair meadow-land, and wood. Returning so ! ye know that one
The trees win ampler foliage, height. Out of your stilly trance hath gone.
But all the soul hath taken flight Lost and do ye calmly breathe ?
! . . .

From the scene of our delight. . What is our life, and what is death
. . ?

'Tis a warm night now of June How often have

paced the path I

And in the twilight of the moon Near yon moon-gleaming window-pane,

That glimmers on the nursery pane, Feeling the little chamber hath
Under the window where we wept, More loan of wealth than ere again
Under the window where he slept, My love may render unto heaven
Behold a wild wee flower is fain
! (Iwas unworthy ; so at even
To unclose soft eyes, though it be night, He resumed what He had given !)
Revealing a meek visage white, Kingcups and daisies, and white rose,
A wild white flower, whose very bane With languid lilies find repose,
Is garish day, who blossoms only And his dear eyes in
slumber close.
In a twilight cool and lonely Who will leap among them,
love them,
Here, where with bitter tears I wept, And will weave a necklace of them,
Bitter tears for him who slept. All free from sorrow,
Tears for him who seemed to wane, If 'tis fair to-morrow !

Lo ! the little flower hath spoken, There, in the days that are no more,
The frail white blossom hath a token Thy mother sang thee soft to sleep ;

For my faint spirit from her love ;

There sang thee into rest more deep,
It is an olive leaf the Dove Hushed to sleep for evermore
 !! ! ; ; "; ! ! ! ! ! ! ; !! ; ! !!

OLD SCENES REVISITED 283

Yea, upon our world of woe Ah, child ! to think that I was here
Shut thy pure eyes, dear baby, so Or ever thou, love, did appear
Better, better, so On our earth-sphere
Earth's fairest promise founders on the deep ; How I wonder from what regions,
Better innocent sleep From what shadowy love-legions.
What heritage I leagued thee, love Thou earnest here
Sleep, sleep, my dove ! I thank thee. Heaven, that I quaffed
Fly me take refuge
! in the blue above Such a deep delicious draught
From our dim grove From his clear life None came to waft
!

Of earthly love Warnings of woe about the boy

How brief the tenure of our joy ;

Thou would mimic the cock crowing. We never, never dreamed of this.
Cheerily in yonder room ;
Lingering in vistas of immortal bliss !

How thy voice thrilled through me glow- Ah ! scornful irony of lordly Fate,
ing. Dallying with mortals in their mean estate!
Gleam waking vaults of age-long gloom
Heard from afar by me, as in a tomb Nay, surely he hath grown my guide.
By bitter memory wrought, Who lately faltered by my side.

And solitary thought,

He is my saint now his clear eyes 1

Passion-fraught
Have deepened, widened into skies,
There at morn thou and thy brother With sweet star influences fraught
Let your frolic fancies bubble, Ah ! let me fare beneath them as I ought
Not for worlds your nurse or mother Thou art the Lord's own minister

Would have lived without their trouble

Here are frankincense and myrrh ;
!

Burn them in thy golden censer.

In yon firwood I roved alone.
Till odorous fumes rise ever denser
Hearing a dove's tender moan ;

There he ever flew to meet me,

From my poor life consumed by fire.

Diffused, sweet circling, ranging ever higher!

A very warbling rill he came,
Baby, in thy wee white cot
I knew where he would run to greet me

Like a gentle gush of flame.

Thou wert embraced ! there thou art not
Angel now, filling the whole
Where red squirrels leapt and twirled,
Earth and heaven, heart and soul
Or song's airy rillet purled
For that thou, my child, endurest,
From birds in sun-illumined leaves,
In some more royal form maturest,
Where young foliage gently heaves,
Is of all sure things the surest
As delicate green tresses do
Sights and sounds dissolve, a dream ;
In clear pulses of sea-blue.
But never what hath made them seem
All may perish save the Soul,
And there he lay upon my breast,
Who breathes and forms the living whole.
For he was very tired with play ;

The sun was sinking in the west But O Thou Spirit at the core
Cold horror held me as he lay Of our numb spirits, more and more
... I thought I heard him called away ! . . . May we hold and feel Thy truth,
Once, when I brought him forth for air, Ever aging into youth !

I set him ailing on the stile. Thou who wert awake in God,
Till I should fetch from over there What time Thy feet storm-beaten trod
His pet toy creature with a smile,
; Grey waves of our bewilderment,
He prayed that I would go " for he ; Oh, save us from the death where we lie pent I

Wants the air like you and me !

To form us in Thee Thy dear Life is lent !
 ! !! ; !! — ! ! "!! !

284 LEAD ME WHERE THE LILY BLOWS

Enthral us with Thine own unfathomable And I win follow where the Lord
eyes, Wills my weary feet to go.
Thy vision we surprise
Till rapt into While ever in my soul I hoard
The grand Foundation-stone that under the The glimpse allowed to me below
World-temple lies Of what belonged to Paradise,
Or with a child's meek wisdom make us wise I Allowed awhile on earth to beam,
Pardon our presumptuous tone, Untilmy weary wandering eyes,
Teach us to feel, Thy Holy will be done! With patient use, more native seem
For that is good alone To shadowy regions of dim death ;
Till I faint behold my blossom,
No more in the outer Court have breath,
Earth's outer Court of life and death,
LEAD ME WHERE THE LILY my Bosom
As erst, but in very
BLOWS In the Holiest of all,
Friend, you tell me of a valley By mine Altar in the gloom,
Where the pure white lily blows, Behold my lily fair and tall.

In a shadowy woodland alley ;

Breathing in immortal bloom
Lead me to their summer snows !

Oh, lead me where the lily blows Every lowly thing that feels,

I would wear it in my life, All we misname inanimate.

Weary of world-soil and strife. From one Eternal Heart appeals
Lead me where the lily blows. To every heart, as to a mate
" Rejoice, or weep, for our estate
!

Angels planted in my garden,

So, we love the Father's will.
if
A vain pleasance of ill weeds,
Embrace the world, and help mankind,
One white Lily, and the Warden
Our lost lily-bell shall fill
With sweet air from heaven feeds.
With dewy morning soul and mind
Ah one night my lily
! died,
For if mine be the true Lily,
And I mourned him night and day
Whence forms have birth.
all lily
" For the bosom of My Bride,"
My holy child will blossom stilly
The Lord saith, "he was borne away." For me morning mirth,
in his
Then I wandered through the world Fairer than he bloomed on earth
To find the flower-de-luce I lost, Lead me where the lily blows,
And my wings will ne'er be furled. I would wear it in my life.
Summer-poised, or tempest-tost,
Weary of world-soil and strife,
Till my lily of the valley
Oh, lead me where the lily blows
Somewhen, somewhere, my spirit find,

In a sweet celestial alley,

Far from our lost human-kind ;

Ah, my lily of the valley

'THAT THEY ALL MAY BE ONE"
Lead me where the lily blows,
I would wear it in my life.
Whene'er there comes a little child.
Weary of world-soil and strife,
My darling comes with him ;
Oh, lead me where the lily blows
Whene'er I hear a birdie wild
I wander till I find my flower Who sings his merry whim.
Breathing a divine perfume ;
Mine sings with him :

His white petals are a power If a low strain of music sails

My lone spirit to illume : Among melodious hills and dales,
 ! ! ; ; ; ; ; ! ! ! !

THE PEACE OF GOD 285

When a white lamb or kitten leaps, Weep we less wildly

Or star, or vernal flower peeps, Sleeping is well ;

When rainbow dews are pulsing joy, The Lord hath laid on him
Or sunny waves, or leaflets toy. A wonderful spell.
Then he who sleeps Flower-band childly.
Softly wakes within my heart Callaway fear I

With a kiss from him I start Our hand mildly

He lays his head upon my breast, Tender you cheer
Tho' I may not see my guest,
Dear bosom-guest How I muse of him
In all that's pure and fair and good, Gambolling so.
I feel the spring-time of thy blood. With all these who love him
Hear thy whispered accents flow A brief while ago.
To lighten woe, Heaven's joy above him.
Feel them blend. Our joy below
Although I fail to comprehend.
And if one woundeth with harsh word, Ah may! you be merry
Or deed, a child, or beast, or bird, While one is lost.
It seems to strike weak Innocence In his dear bosom the
Through him, who hath for his defence Terrible frost ?

Thunder of the All-loving Sire, Smile we who bury

And mine, to whom He gave the fire. All we love most ?

Or is he hiding
Here in the hall.
And he come gliding
will
CHRISTMAS EVE Swift when we call ?
Yea I have found him,
!

Shimmer of laughter, Nor ever we part,

Glimmer of play, Love hath unwound him
Flown in a wafture, Deep down in my heart
Blown in a spray,
From blithe floor and rafter
Over the way
"THE PEACE OF GOD, WHICH
PASSETH ALL UNDER-
I know it is feast-day, a STANDING "
Mirth-day for all
Oh, to the least may a I WONDER why God hurts little ones in
Birthday befall hospital yonder,
And the high priest play Lying so pale and quiet, each in his narrow
There in the hall 1 bed,
Play with his treasures Who should be filling the radiant air with
He is a child. ringing laughter 1

Swaying their pleasures, Here fiendish fingers torture every restless

Being so mild ; head.
The Holy One measures The merry hearts are delivered over to cruel
Mirth for a child. Anguish 1
 ! — ; ! ! ;; ; !:

286 ^THE CLOUD MAY SAIL THERE"

Why doth God not scare the loathsome Pest The Ideal involved within impels to re-
away, concile,
The harpy at her feast on His own Httle ones Blessing vile, and mean, and woeworn with
who play ? a faint, far smile.
Ah ! was it well to blast their one poor hour
for pleasure,
Who will weep in dull November, nor ever
have known a May ?
Nay ! the little ones are Thy children, Thou "THE CLOUD MAY SAIL THERE"
hast given them gladness !

May I not trust Thee with them, who art the The cloud may sail there,

me ?
pity in Day flow and fail there,
For how my heart leaps up when I see their And the eagle fly,

dear eyes dawning, Haze overshadow

Beholding a toy lamb I bring them tenderly A smooth snow meadow.
Shall my poor rill of love be more than the And gleams of silver
infinite fountain ? Fleeting fly

Then the womb of all were chaos, one wild From yon cloud-delver
disharmony Of gleaming eye
Nay, the river of reason sweeps imperially The moon may tarry with
rolling Her pale bow,
To a goal of reconcilement afar from mortal And moonrise marry with
eye! Virgin snow,
Refuse foul is food for a fair supernal flower ;
Blue heavens abide.
Blaspheme not the rank soil where a pure Or solemn-eyed
blossom springs Stars by night, who gaze and go
For blossom soars away in a singing-bird's Ah ! ne'er pollute
blithe pinion, With a mortal foot
And bird yields a meek life for a spiritual Yon realms of spirits aerial
king's. All but the lute
Discord feeds, and fades in a universal Of air be mute
chorus, From rosy morn to evening fall.

And the world-psalm were silent, wanting While flowerets blue.

moods of bale Fair with dew,
So only Love may work her full miracle of Laugh to the azure over all
blessing ;
Let a music mazy,
Annihilate the base metal, all her art would Born of the hazy
fail. Play of a tender light and shade.
Cease, baffled heart ! thy longing to unravel On hallowed ground
the confusion : Dance with the sound
Nay ! for I hear a Voice beyond the seonian Fairy horns have faintly made
wail! A cloud of snow
The immeasurable ideal holds us, laps the Softly blow
world in splendour ;
On the blue verge of the form so white,
Every dark point dissolves, and radiates Delicate curl
glory infinite, In a windy whirl ;

Heaves in waves of mystic music among the But man, be far from the holy height,
heavenlies out of sight. Soil no fair fields of frosty light
 ; ! !! ! ! !

DE PROFUNDIS 287

Ah dear young children, cankered in the bud.

!

Surely the harvest battening on your blood

DE PROFUNDIS Must be transcendent, ere we may embrace
Meekly the holocaust of all your grace!
I.— Nay
Nay for no triumph splendid as the sun
!

How may we trust Thee, Majesty Supreme ! Were an atonement for the loss of one.
We whose dim life fleets by, an idle dream, Poor hearts expiring rend with wail sublime
Amid the ruining welter, and the wash God's vast world-palace, founded upon crime,
Of shattered Faiths, and holiest Hopes that Whose ponderous, hell-poised blocks for
flash their cement
To moment, or slow wane,
annihilation in a Have meek red blood of all the innocent
Till what lay desert desert lies again. Nay, some faint protest of a humblest heart
Fooled for an hour with visions of ripe grain, Should shame and shatter such infernal art
Withered ere harvest Oh, the weary round
! If He be lord who builds it, we will not
Of life and death halting within a bound Worship, in how fierce fires soe'er our lot
Of adamant, and fluctuating, ever He appoint for our rebellion but I deem !

Goaded to dissonant, impotent endeavour 'Tis only fever that so makes it seem !

Warring, we swarm to scale a phantom height.

We whose feet fail in some drear infinite Interminable armies ever wend
Piteous human bones upon the waste maimed and martyred comrades to O'er
we wander, our infatuate haste.
Jeer, as their end
WTiere now the goal and beacon of strong Of blind, unused extinction, tho' the hope
youth ? Of infinite Love and Justice while they grope
Where those far havens of Eternal Truth ? Be kindled in their bosoms for a lure,
Fabled Atlantis, islands of the blest, Fooling their hearts the torture to endure
In shadowy sunset kingdoms of the West, Of false lifelonger, ere immersed in night
If we may reach you, we may find you naught. They feed some monstrous Blossom on the
Mere human visions, hollow and glamour- height
fraught ! Of this infernal column of a world :

Where now the morning-land of Love we saw ? For it their souls one refiise-heap were hurled,
Vanished, a pure white snow-wreath in a Bleeding and writhing, to annihilation,
thaw! For some sleek mortal god to inhale oblation
Where youth's high hope to order the wild Of wastebreaths, wrung from sentient agony,
world ? A vampire draining life of these who die !

A once-bright banner, mouldering and furled So that fierce carnage, cast in foemen's
The stern resolve to mould a world within ? bronze.
Dead in deep jungles of inveterate sin ! Mounts serpentine to swell Napoleon's
Inhuman triumph, whose proud solitude
Or may the race prove conqueror, tho' we Stands pillared, purpled with the people's
28
fall? blood !

Through long-vexed infancy the tribes grow

tall, The hecatomb of myriadfold dumb lives
Then slow declining, falter to the grave Invokes a clinging curse on Him who thrives
Nor wiser, happier, they who bloom and wave From their long torture inarticulate ; calls
In their rank ruin : whatsoe'er the gain. Man's beast progenitor ! lo ! from hopeless
Some earlier glory of the flower will wane falls
No sweet sound food, the fruit of wrong and Under the precipice of grand endeavour.
pain. Beautiful youths and maidens, mute for ever,
 ! ! ! ! ! ! !; ! ! !

288 DE PROFUNDIS
Piteously silent, utter loud reproof Say, whence this thirst for truth and righteous-
On Him who holds Himself unseen, aloof, ness.
And makes Him sport, engendering their vain If there be no eternal Spring to bless,
Faith, effort, prayer, the longer to sustain No Arm to quell the tyrant, or redress
This miserable mockery of life Mad earth's injustice? MyriadfoKl we grovel,
Wherewith He endows them, grim and cold, A human swine on palace floor, and hovel.
and rife Bound by a Circe, albeit half aware
With cruel humour, with insane, fierce relish We are fallen gods in some sublime despair
For wine of anguish wrung from tortures
hellish O monstrous Nature! human-headed Beast,
Of souls and bodies lo we all pass by,
! ! Thou cannibal at some unnatural feast
Saluting Csesar, men who are to die On thine own offspring who hast whelped
! !

the fiend,
Or is it but inevitable, blind. And man, whose offal-feeding frenzy gleaned
Dull monster Force, that doth terrific grind The hell-field of foul horrors, left unreaped
Forth idle aspiration, and fond fears. By devils; his black coward heart full-steeped
and terror, and wild tears
Illusive bliss, In outrage, lies, and murderous lust for pain.
From one dim, boundless chaos of a womb, Whom all the unbounded tortures bigots feign
Till, white with horror of the waking doom, May purge not from the abominable stain
All cower for refuge in their natal tomb?
O monstrous world, where innocent chil-
Hath God, like mortals, a divided will, dren jostle
Drunkenly reeling from weak good to ill ? Fiends from the pit I where snakes constrict
Yea, there be throned gods, fallen dignities ! the throstle,
But high beyond we lift our longing eyes ! Singing of Paradise ! infuse the fire.

Ye may not fold your thoughts at such a And gloat upon her pangs till she expire,
goal, Her music foundering in confusion dire
Impelled to seek the spiritual Pole,
Ideal lodestar of the pilgrim soul Surely there be twin fountains of the world.
And Love brought forth what Hate to ruin
What meaneth, then, this horrible array ? hurled !

Abortions seizing hard breath for a day Love and they sing
looses lucid waters,
When they have mangled, mad with famine- But ever one squats to pollute the spring
rages, Ah, Lord who wiliest well Thy lame hands
! !

Foul mates through dark interminable ages, falter,

Loathsome with low lust, anguish, desolation ! While Death and Sin defile Thy Bride before
Until awakes Man's mournful generation the altar
From the colossal ruin of lost life ;
Poor Love! and couldst not Thou preserve
And lo his infinite, opening eyes
! are rife Thy daughter
With hunger for eternal days, and good, From infamy and ravishment and slaughter?
Piteously craved as necessary food I know not only know that we are blind.
I . . .

Reveal from whence the holy hunger comes Thou wilt divide this kingdom of the mind,
For all the mute onlookers turn their thumbs Thou threatenest if I dare l^ehold Thy face,
Doomward around the immense arena spaces. Nor cower obsequious in my native place ?
As Man, the victim, peers in their dread I see Thy doom-engraving fiery finger!

faces, I hear Thy loud anathema— and linger

Implacable, though all the beauty-flower Tho' jealous. Thou arraignest for high treason
Of the young gladiator plead with power Our Babylonian banquets of the reason.
 ; ! ! ! ! !

DE PROFUNDIS 289

We, scowling outcasts, branded sons of Calvary's midnight, with the cross of shame,
Cain, The very heart of Love's immortal flame
Hear with a vast, ineffable disdain While agony weighs common mortals down,
Sleek minions of prosperity prate peace Our heroes lift, and wear it for a crown :

While wrung upon the rack we claim release, A bi)W that none save hallowed hearts may
Or with gnawn entrails clench firm teeth, bend,
nor cry ;
A sword that will the weakling wielder rend,
Let one call to us from the abyss of agony ! Spell for a mightyMage to conjure with,
—
Speak, Jesus! lo! we listen ere we die. Confounding fools who are not of their kith !

But woe for him who is contented here

Tho' lordly gold adorn his lonely bier.
II.— Vea Dead, self-involved, and stark, a thing of
And what if all the death, and all the dolor fear
Do but imbue with life of lustrous colour
Alien natures? if the blood we bled One justifies the sweet nest-building birds,
Grow substance of another heart full-fed? And V)Iind prevision of the honied herds :

Thrice aureoled the sacrificial Lamb, Shall Nature only disappoint, and flout

Rolled in a fair victorious oriflamme Her fairest Son, who floundering in doubt,
Of His own slaughter! fiery pangs of glory, Yet lifts child-eyes in dim pathetic trust,

Wherein a life dissolves to blend one story With, "Mother, wilt thou leave me in the
With God's world-triumph, so alone fulfilling dust?"
True personal being, through the ordeal killing Ye, scarred with moral ulcers from the womb,
Mere individual semblance of an hour Who can but fester for a moral tomb.
While end all martyrs find a power
in the Whom penal strokes, and groping cures
To joy redeeming martyrdom,
in each immerse
When Love's own royal reign hath wholly More deeply in the virus of your curse I

come. Mine own dear children, of hope unfulfilled !

Ye myriad maimed souls, who seem but

Thrice happy he who keeps the mournful spilled
tryst Vainly in void abysses ! you, ye germs,
By some wan wave of weeping with the Who perish in dark cherishing earth ! poor
Christ, worms
W^earing all sombre emblems of the Passion, A careless delver wounds ; all lowly creatures
In deep dim valleys of humiliation. Or man or nature rends your very features
!

Whose weeds glow with Divine Humanity, We may discern not only through a veil
:

Discovering what we are, were, and shall be We feel some form and our wan cheeks are
:

For he is driven from all earthly shows pale,

To find the Spirit's own divine repose ; Deeming the selves inviolable may fail.
The Spirit, whom no wons brought to birth. With their own shows of being! On a
Nor ever-rolling ages doom to dearth! moment
He lightly fondles every lovely thing, Of your eternal lives we pass vain comment.
As well aware he may not closely cling. Judging by sense, in place of Love's deep
For joy alit here hath a wandering wing, reason.
Fair evanescent gleaming of the true, Whence our wild insult and reproach; high
Abiding ever tranquil out of view. treason
Yea, these shall feel Love's own rare vintage Against thai Mother-heart of all the world.
prest Who hath all souls beneath her warm wings
From sin, and sorrow, and the world's unrest; curled
 ! :

290 DE PROFUNDIS
Invulnerable however they may tremble,
! But some are so enamoured of dark Death,
And though her love one bitter hour dis- They only long to be relieved of breath.
semble Yet, saving folk whom the fell Fury's goad.
For their maturing with a pitying smile
; Or stern Despair drives from our hard abode,
She views our wilful wandering awhile. Who but a coward self-involved may crave
All are in all they were, and yet shall be, Unending sluggard sleep in the dull grave?
Dawning to conscious self-identity. His own poor comfort so repleteth him,
For all is spirit, and the world is wrought One drop of earth's pale vintage can so brim
In one live loom of myriad-minded thought. A human want we counted infinite,
But what if all sink in the abyss of wrong. Or one defeat so daunt the whim to fight,
And so by dark experience grow strong? That how God's armies fare concerns him not,
Embryo souls, who tortuously mount. If he may lie at ease, and idly rot!
Like fallen water, to their natal fount
Fair glories of a future flower feed Shall one, whose mind co-operates to found
On degradation of her l)uried seed. The vision of a world with ne'er a bound.
Tho' spheral music in dull hearts may sleep, Merge into some mere image, or a feeling
Sound but their own note, they will laugh From forth an alien spirit swiftly stealing?
and leap, Material appearance can be naught.
Even as dumb chords, or flames quiver and Save in a human, or a foreign thought.
sing, All this imperial fabric of the sense
If their peculiar tone be vibrating. Is but our own dull rendering of intense
The sun-god lies not dead within the shroud, Supernal realms of righteousness and love.
Tho' shorn of beams he dwindle in a cloud. Fair shadow of a fairer realm above.

Yea, all the vaster souls in whom we fell The spirit grows the form for self-expres-
By right divine will rouse them from their sion,
hell. And for a hall where she may hold high
To claim the royal heritage of sons. session
And whatsoever beast, or elfin runs With sister souls, who, allied with her,
Through alien regions of the realms of being, create
\Vhere every pilgrim haply halts in fleeing Her fair companion, her espoused mate.
From God to God, accomplishing the round Ever the hidden Person will remould
Allotted, when he hath won the vantage- For all our lives fresh organs manifold.
ground Gross for the earthly, for the heavenly
And heights of destiny, unrolled sublime fine,

Beneath he will behold the vales of time, Ethereal woof, wherein their graces shine.
And every station where he made sad pause, And there be secret avenues, with doors
'Mid ranks unseen, breathing unheard ap- Yielding access to inmost chamber floors
plause. Of the soul's privacy all varying frames,
;

Who helped, with touch impalpable of soul Responsive to the several spirit-flames.
On soul, the spirit journeying to her goal The vital form our lost now animate
Nor in sad sooth unhindered by the host Is one with what in their low mortal state

Of royal rebels, whom we count for lost, They made their own ; the corse mere ashes,
Yet who, like men, are only gold and clay ;
waste,
Nor by some loathly haunters of the grey For all grand uses of the world replaced.
Breath from low-lying pestilential mud, A larva needs no more the unliving husk,
Earth's hideous lusts leave in their filthy When soaring winged he rends the dwelling
flood. dusk.
 ! :
;
!
!

DE PROKUNDIS 291

Arabble rout of Sense light-headed pours But how conceive that there may ever be
Into the holy Spirit-temple doors, Change in the nerve of change, our known
Where many a grave and stately minister identity ?

His place and function doth on each confer.

These Forms inhabiting the sacred gloom, If we, poor worms, involved in our own
Whose name is legion, Present, Past, To cloud.
Come, Deem the wide world lies darkling in a shroud.
One, Many, Same, or Different, evolve Raving the earth holds no felicity.
Sweet concord from confusion they resolve;
One child's clear laughter may rebuke the lie,
The Babel dissonance to a choral song, A lark's light rapture soaring in the blue.
Till in divine societies a throng Or rainbow radiant from a drop of dew 1

Sets with one will toward the inmost shrine,

To feed there upon mystic Bread and Wine. Nor let a low-born Sense usurp the rule.
The Bacchanals are sobered, and grow grave, Who is but handmaid in a loftier school,
In solemn silence treading the dim nave :
Where Love and Conscience a lore not of
On their light hearts bloom-pinioned angels
earth
lay
Impart to Wisdom, child of heavenly birth.
Calm, hushful hands of married night and day. Thou unknown, inscrutable Divine
1 deem that I am Thine, and Thou art mine
a changing scene within the pile
It is :
And though I may not gaze into Thy face,
New shows arrive, and tarry for a while :
I feel that all are clasped in Thine embrace.
But if one living Spirit-fane could fall. The is with us, and He points to Thee
Christ
His ruin were the knell of doom for all. When we have grown into Him we shall see
Their being blended each with every one, Behold the Father in the perfect Son,
If any failed, the universe were gone.
And feel, with Him, Thy holy will be done
These conscious forms inhabit every mind ;

All selves in one organic self they bind ;

The bloomy beams, and all the shadowy Love may not compass her full harmony.
blooms
Wanting the deep dread note of those who die.
And as with master-hand He sweeps the
Are pure white Light eternal that illumes
grand awakening chords,
A universal conscious Spirit-whole,
Fair modulated in each several soul
Our wailing sighs leap winged, live talismanic
words,
To many-functioned organs of one Will,
Dull woes and errors tempered to seraphic
Whose sovran Being who prevails to kill ?
swords.
We may expand our being to embrace,
Love's colour-chorus flames with glorious
And mirror all therein of every race ;

morning-red,
Each is himself by universal grace.
His alchemy transmuting the poured heart's
Dying is self-fulfilment and we cherish
;

blood of our dead.

His life, who, wanting ours, would wholly
perish.
And lurid bale from murderous eyes of souls
not be without the Son ;
who inly bled
The Father may I

No love, will, knowledge, were for Him alone.

And change is naught Whose mortal mind may sail around the
Save at the bar of a sole personal thought, ocean of Thy might,
Enthroned for judgment, summoning past time Billowing away in awful gloom to issues
With present, hearing now concordant rhyme. infinite?
Now variance among voices vanishing, Bind Thee with his poor giidle ? Surveying
That so win semblance of substantial thing. all Thy shore I
 ! — !; !; ; ! !

"THE DESERT SHALL BLOSSOM AS THE ROSE"

His daring sinks confounded, foundering ever- Of a lifelong famine,
more, Of cruelty and pain :

In his dazed ear reverberating a tempestuous And now, while I examine

roar! The piteous face again,
. . . Whosoundstheabyssof Thine immense Meseems there dawns a kindred
design? We rest, To a long- lost face ;

Aware that Thou art better than our best. While wakening unhindered
Wings of filmy grace
From the poor frayed swathings
Of his soiled garments break.
THE DESERT SHALL BLOSSOM And delicate soft bathings
AS THE ROSE" In the moon-sphere make.
Behold they turn to flowers,
I

The desert way is dreary, And settle in his hair.

All empty is the wild, All over him in showers ;

My feet are very weary, He hath grown so fair !

I cannot find my child. Christ in him overpowers

The infinite blank spaces Dull strength of my despair :

Are weighing on my soul. While some sweet kindred gathers

Gloom reigns in their dumb faces. To one fair face I love :

And no goal
there is Ye divine it, fathers.
My hand is on the hollow, Who have a child above !

Where I dreamed a heart . . Lo an eyelid fluttered

. !
;

The world is dead I follow. ; I know the bosom heaved !

Darling, where thou art . . Now his own arms have uttered
.

But while my Hope was swooning, All I disbelieved

And Earth and Heaven reeled, Dear eyes, long held in durance,
I heard an infant moaning. For ever open wide,
Who to mylove appealed : To yield my soul assurance
So then prayed for power.
I Of all she hath denied !

And laid him on my breast

The little human flower
Sank trustfully to rest
But in the self-same hour
FLOWER TO FLOWER
My form the cold earth pressed. . . . EucHARis lilies,

Roses red,
. . An orbed luminous haze-lily,
. Lie on the form of the
Eor pistil the Moon-pearl Early dead ;

Ringed round with daffadowndilly, Eucharis lilies,

A halo of blown curl, Roses white.

As of young angels kneeling, Lie on the shrine of a
A reverent band aloof! Jewel of Light
Earth smiles in the revealing Tho' the jewel be flown, O, the
Of Heaven's aery woof. Shrine is fair ;

The stranger child I lifted Flowers are breathing

Wan lieth where he fell Everywhere,
His scanty raiment rifted. Within his bosom and
And woeworn features tell Wavy hair ;
 ! ! ; ; ! ! ! ! ! !

VALE 293

Flowers for emblem,

Flowers for faith,
Sweet mortal words VALE
The Immortal saith I

Beautiful souls O TENDER dove, sweet circling in the

Akin to his, blue,
Who seem to be born Whom now a delicate cloud receives from
Out of all he is, view,
Who love to be born. A cool, soft, delicate cloud, we name dim
And to die for this. Death
Flowers for remembrance, O pure white lamb-lily, inhaling breath
Flowers for truth ; From spiritual ether among bowers
Thoughts of the angel of Of evergreen in the ever-living flowers
Innocent youth Yonder aloft upon the airy height.
Dews of the morning Mine eyes may scarce arrive at thy still

Over their mirth, light!

Softl}' awaking Wandering ever higher, oh, farewell
From sleep in earth ; Wilt thou the dear God tell
Sweet resurrection, We loved thee well.
A holy birth While He would lend thee? Why may we
Red for renouncement, not follow ?

Green is for hope. Do thou reinember us in our dim hollow

White for humility, Farewell, love! oh, farewell, farewell, fare-
Flowers who droop ; well!
Pale for his purity ;
We wave
to thee, as when of old
Fair they link, Thou waved, and we waved, heart of gold!
Leaning a hand to us. Parting for a little while?
Ere we sink. And is all parting only for a while ?

Azure for infinite O faint perfume from realms beyond the

Heaven's embrace. sky!
Tender and true Waft of a low celestial melody!
Celestial grace O pure live water from our earthly well,
Red for the heart's blood Whom Love changed to a heavenly cenomel.
Of Christ our Lord ; The while he kissed the bowl with longing
Blue for His Love, who will lip,

Keep His Word, And drew the soul therein to fellowship!

Pansy and violet, Shinnner of white wings, ere ye vanish!
Primrose pale, Glimmer of white robes, ere ye banish,
Lily of the valley, With your full glory, mortal eyes
Folded frail. From paradise!
And water-lily So far, so far,
P'ulfil the tale. Little star!
Pansy and violet, Unless thine own dear happiness it mar.
Lilies white, Remember us in our low dell,
All for the form of a Who love thee well!
Lily of Light Farewell
SONGS OF THE HEIGHTS
AND DEEPS-'
1885
 DEDICATED

MY SISTER
 ! ! !

SONGS OF THE HEIGHTS

AND DEEPS
A LAY OF CIVILISATION: Undkr awakening woods I heard the birds
OR, LONDON With no reserve unbosom all their joy :

Even as a beam reveals the limpid deep

Prologue Of a pure pool, sweet song revealed their heart,
City of light and shadow, height and deep. A shadowless illimitable bliss
Yawning abysm sundering rich and poor Of innocent love; the joy of wakening woods
One upon velvet pile or marble floor Welled over in soft frills of fairy leaves.
Feasts, while another starves, whom even sleep Glossy and tender flakelets of green light.
Flieth as God-abandoned children weep ;
Infolded mutually ; fair forest aisles
Around their mother; at the rich man's door Dawn to leaf-laughter silentand serene ;

She cursing God and man dies: ye who keep One would surmise the new-born delicate
High festival with morning, temple, tower, leaves
Broad palace, rather in congenial night Thronged to the ends of all the twigs to hear
Avoid ashamed the level eyes of light Innumerable bird-song, called from sleep
Cower hidden royal river in your pride,
!
By many a plumed Orpheus their blithe notes ;

With world-wealth mantling on your stately Weave webs of music multitudinous,

tide, ,
Even ^
as a leafing . of stems
^ tracery
Steal muffled in deep gloom ! slow bells be ^^'i'^'i ^^'"ly^^ard bronze embroiders the blue air
i

tolled j
It seems afar one smoke above the silver
Thou on the proud dome, glistering cross of Of birchen boles beneath, the English flower,
;

gold, The flower so dear to English hearts, nor least

Thy life is changed to hard death bought and When we abide among the sunnier blooms
sold. Of alien lands, the pure and pale primrose,
Art thou the hilt of a death-drinking sword (fathers in sisterhoods upon the breast •

Plunged in Earth's heart by some infernal Of greening earth, her still abiding smiles
Lord? Fair with assurance of humility.
Brethren of Him who fainted on the wood, And when their pale cool flame is far efiused.
\Vhat help is found in yon devouring rood ? Earth in her lowlihood Heaven, may vie with
With Heaven, what time the dawning East
What help? what hope? a sceptred Woman conceives
bows A half-awakened light hued like the flower.
Under a lowly lintel, and none knows ;

Humbly she helpeth bitter loathly need, Down a green dale I heard some children
Beareth the burden, dons the lowly weed. roam.
Babes the high honour of their trust confer Merrily laughing by a rivulet ;

Upon this royal lady, and by her Then a hawk hovered, and sweet songs were
Perchance the city may be saved from fire, hushed
That lurid lurks, and threats to make it one In the grove under.
red funeral pyre I
All the scene grew dim,
i Appeared to melt before mine eyes, and change.
299
 ! ; ! —
300 A LAY OF CIVILISATION
I heard, and heard not, for the land dis- How changed, O Thames ! from in thine
solved, earlierhour
And clouding slowly, lo ! another sound, Of child-like dallying among reeds and lilies.

Akin to the sea-sound, was in mine ears, White swans, and flowers, and boats of
Resembling some huge roar of a far furnace, lingering lovers.
Whose sullen flare through wallowing mists By Marlow, Maidenhead, or Cliveden Grove I

impure
Burned like the fire-flush from those realms But darkness deepens : by the parapet
of Dis Of that great platform which embanks the
In that deep-mouthed verse of the Mantuan. tide.
Huge murmur from the throat of Babylon ! While sudden lights leap to assuage the gloom,
Illimitable leagues of piles confused, Wavering on the water, and loud trains
Dome, tower, and steeple, stately palaces. Turn cloudy fiery serpents on the bridge,
Islanded in a welter of dim street I note the faded features of a girl.

Mean habitations, warrens of dun life, Who clasps a pining infant to her breast,
Tortuous, swarming ; sullied, pale, cramped And my heart, gazing into that wan face,
life, Named her Despair no other name she bore
;

With, in the midst, a large imperial River, Surely among the angels, or the fiends,
and troubled, the town's artery.
Turl)id Whose hate environs earth she mounts the :

Spanned by tumultuous l)ridges o'er them ; wall ;

clang Springs, and two lives have vanished in the

Steam-dragon, chariot, horse, and laden wain. void !

With hurrying people of the human hive ;

Whose shores are thronged with warehouse, Happy birds fluting in the leafy woods,
opulent wharf, And children playing by the rivulet I

Whose turbulent tide u[)buoyeth bark and

barge, Hard by, the glare and Babel -roar, where
Throbbing, foam-trailing steamer, russet sail. men
And stately ships from far sea-sundered lands. With women drink fire of forgetfulness.
But over all a brown Plutonian gloom Flying from ash-pale spectres of dim life
Of murk air dismal and defiled, the breath Into the burning bosom of mad fiends
—
Of our so monstrous town her visible sin. Hard by, within the gloom of the low lane,
And weight of wan woe, l)lotting out sweet Else empty, slouches a dun-vestured form
heaven ! Of one who peers, like some gaunt beast of
Behold the River a guilt-laden ghost,
I prey,
How he hurries all unlingering below, Yonder upon the pavement ; for he deems
Away, away, through horror of deep night. He sees within the tract of lamplit stone
Pale with the guilty secret of the city A morsel of soiled food, fallen casually
Like that sin-burdened victim, driven forth From Plenty satiated ;
pouncing on it,

In Israel to the wilds, ashamed Thames He ravenously feeds ; but one who passed
Rolls headlong, tarries nor to look, nor listen, Bestows a coin within the skeleton claw
Hastens lo hide himself in the great Deep, Of him, who murmurs some faint sound of
There to confide, unbosom, bury there.
The tomb, the womb, the unfathomed other- And then, himself unseen, the benefactor
world. Saw the man kneel bare-headed on the flags,
Absolving and absorbing Mother (Jcean, And lift clasped hands of gratitude to G(jd.
The ineffaljle oppression at iiis heart, It is not far to where the lordly street
The horror of unutterable wrong Hath wares luxuriant myriad-fold displayed
 — ! ;

A LAY OF CIVILISATION

Behind illumined panes the hurrying throngs ; Then was I taken through some noisome
Tramp with their broken talk ; they whirl lanes,
on wheels, Among ill faces bleared, unhumanised.

Soft-raimented, gems flashing from white Like hideous apparitions from the tomb.
shoulders, That hoarsely chafiered by lit market-stalls,
Or swarm from forth the stately spectacle, Into a dwelling, meanest of the mean,
Embathed in yellow lustre of the lamps. Where a young child lay weeping crippled ;

frame,
It is a gala-night ; they laugh, they dance, .\nd hopeless face told plainly of one refused
In perflimed chamber youth low whispers Bodily sustenance, untended, maimed,
love; Scarred with habitual blowswhile cruel cold ;

At high doors lounge the sumptuous serving- Looks, and harsh words have laid waste her
men ;
young life.

While glowing globes of emerald or ruby A man weak-visaged cowered before a woman
Adorn, disposed with manifold design. Inflamed with drink, and choler — father,
Each ample thoroughfare the crimson hangs ; mother.
From all high windows; launched from every Men named the pair — and save for reeking
steeple rags
Roll blazoned banners; floods of light beneath Upon the floor, a broken chair, some shards
Hail floods of sound aloft delirious, Of littered food, the filthy room was bare
Pealed from wild reeling bells in dome and But pale Death looked with pity on the
tower ; child. . . .

For some imperial pageantry hath passed, . . . In a vault hard by of some deserted
With blare of scarlet, festival and pomp house
Of martial music, horse-tramp, and clanked There lies the body of a murdered girl.
sabre : None knowing, save night-hearted murderers
Our arms perchance have triumphed on far Unowned, unwept by any man, or woman
fields ; In this confused, loud-battling multitude.
Or it may be the birthday of a king.
And yet my sombre heart reverts to him Is thereindeed no more than doth appear?
Who snatched that offal from the pavement, An outraged and extinguished human soul.
sees Four blank dead walls, a silent senseless
White retrograded faces of the crowd, night
The outraged, foundered womanhood of Senseless and silent, save for our loud ears —
towns : Around the what seemed a child ?
ruin of
Cold women huddling on the stately stairs, Foul insult hath been proffered here to Man !

Who cower in shadow with their babes, till one In all yon vain expanse of impotent worlds,
Bids them begone ; there is no room for them. May none be found to avenge, or make
amends ?

And who is here? a hunger-withered girl. Nay if there are no Presences unseen
!

In grip of some black myrmidon of law. By mortals, unbelievable by sense,

Her crime, I pray you ? She hath stolen a Who have the child in charge, who bore her
flower home.
From a rich lord's iui measurable land. Then from this dead-alive mad charnel-dance
Her mother, poor and bedridden, so longed Of earth let us depart, where all most wise,
To see and smell a flower " I took it for her :
;
Kind and heroic souls may not avail
She has no friend, sir, very little food." To make our life endurable, though they.

Tht girl low weeps; the mother waits her child. With their poor lowly cups of cool clear water,
 " ! !

302 A LAY OF CIVILISATION

In this despair, and dearth, and dissonance, More than ill-breathing nightmares, and dull
Rendering fair Love palpable by loving, coils

Be the sole salt of our dark world's corruption. Of gorged contentment, or the infinite Void,
Thronged with fair semblance? Yea, by
Happy birds fluting in the leafy woods, right divine.
And children playing by the rivulet These are but slaves, and those commanding
kings ;

Next into neighbouring tenements I came, They travail till the God be formed in man ;

Where hideous Lust with venal Force con- Yea, realms of rapine, limbos, are in labour,
spired Till very God be born within their womb.
To outrage fair and feeble innocence, The Soul compels rude rebels of the night,
By parents sold to ruin for base coin, . . . Passions, Ambitions, Evil aim, Denial,
. .Then a voice spake "Consider where
. : To hew wood and draw water for Her need ;
"
you are I All kingdoms crowned Her in the Heavens
And sore amazed, I found me in a church ; of old;
But the voice said " Lo here they do as : ! Hers are the glory, and predominant power !

O'er you lemures, vampires, and grim ghouls.

!
there
Here well-attired smooth dames and cavaliers The tranquil Queen moves, ruling turbulent
Assisted, while bland mother and smug sire tides
Delivered their young maiden to a lord Of human tempest, and the outer deep
Of broad rich acres, and deep-dyed ill-fame, Of your wild, heaving, dark dominion.
Plague-dabbled ermine, and smirched coronet; Infernal empires, billowing in gloom,
Her a demure priest, silver syllabled. Altho' you rise athwart the calm pale orb,
Profaning holiest word and ordinance, Foamingly threatening her soft sweet face,
Offered before the altar to low gods Ye feel the mild monitions of her eye
Of Pelf, Position, Power. The sires of old, And Faith hath power to compass her own
Jephthah and Agamemnon, immolated. Vision,
Weeping, fair daughters for the common weal, Herself the fair fruit come to birth in us.
And those pure virgins bowed the patient head, Earliest green point of the flower to be.
Young victims aureoled with martyr fire ;

But these, degenerate, degrade their child. Idlers indifferent, prosperous, full-fed,
Starved on base offal-maxims of the world, On well-worn usage easefully reclined
Yea, prostitute her heart to infamy, In vasty mansion ;
jostlers for more gold.
Hunting their hollow bubbles of ill greed ! Or place, or power, in senate, change, and
Yonder, for guerdon of a lifelong toil. church.
That heeds no hunger of the infinite soul, Immersed in worship, sport, or spectacle,
Faint parents watch their little ones devoured Methought I visited poor homeless folk
;

By famine ; for the scanty wage, Cowering unclothed by temple- porch and
That serves for summer shelter, fails to shield palace.
From searching winter blasts of accident. With pining babes half-hidden in their rags,
Old age, or illness then the poor must beg.; While painted harlots flaunt their own pollu-
Or steal, or starve, and watch their children die. tion,
And forms more formidable prowl ; they skulk,
But are not indignation, and deep ruth, Desperate, plotting cruel desperate deeds
Baffled recoil, loud passionate appeal For private greed, or violent overthrow
From earth's confusion to a starry sphere Of that immense, hoar, consecrated Pile,
Of holier Order, mirrored in the soul. Where the jammed People standing scarce
Faint and aloof, are they not very God ? may breathe,
 — ; ;;

A LAY OF CIVILISATION 303

Wide-mouthed aware of pomp and priest and And rarely, deep indrawn from the mad
king. whirl
Then I looked up to the earth-pall
stifling ; Of dissonant motion round me, face to face,
A death-shroud,one contamination, wrapped 'Mid comelier architecture than our own,
Round human plague, thick-woven of sin I find me with the venerable shades,
and sorrow ! Mankind consents to honour — legislator.
Iconoclast, bard, warrior, king, queen :

Yet there be wafts of heavenlier effluence Richard the Lion, Alfred, the Black Prince,
From the ten righteous Abraham desired. That armoured conqueror of Agincourt,
For Human Love moves in the lazar-house And She who gained a nobler victorj'.
Of our poor planet, gentle minister. By Calais, over a revengeful heart.
The cloudy pall moves, lifting from the city True queen, true woman, Mercy's minister
Sun gleams through rents in it on her thronged Mailed knight, with baron proud from
life, Runnymede,
On tower and temple, and the lordly river. Dan Chaucer, Wyclif, Cromwell, Hampden,
Charles.
Lo little children playing on the green,
! There speeds boy Chatterton, elate with hope,
Or noisome alley, changed to paradise There droops, pale, sullen, near the agony I

By young enchantments of fresh fantasy ; Shakespeare, the human ; Milton, ocean-

In airy school they learn, with happy faces: toned ;

There note the humanising spectacle. Ariel Shelley ; Byron, the volcano ;

Grave for life-lore, and for amusement gay : Our voice of hills and lakes ; the luminous-
While kindly Opulence with aching Need eyed
Shares verier wealth than gold, the gentle Young Greek, astray in our dim century!
lady.
Whom we on earth name Mercy, bends to Beyond the Saxon, Norman, Roman town
heal (For each whelms, founds itself on what fore-
A mortal Pain, who turns to kiss Her shadow. ran ;

And hear sweet Music hovering like a dove So all lie deep-entombed beneath the stones).
Over the weary! Yet are all but gleams Where London roars, there slept the lonely
In lurid fume that suffocates the sun? wild.
This huge black whirlpool of the city sucks, Where London roars, the lonely wild will
And swallows, and encroaches evermore sleep.
On vernal field, pure air, and wholesome Ourselves are founded on the lives before.
heaven Founding the future will the world grow wise ;

A vast dim province, ever under cloud, With all the long-accumulating years?
O'er whose immeasurable unloveliness
His own foul breath broods sinister, like Fate. A train sped on a road banked o'er the
And yet what wealth of wisdom, and rich lore, lanes.
Swift lightnings of keen-edged enccjuntering And courts ignoble of our monstrous Fast
wit, Wlierefrom glad children, laden with spring
Fair tribute of all periods, all lands. flowers.
Wide walls alive with hues of genius! Fluttered white kerchiefs cheering ; at a
Our pale West here meets mellow Orient, window
Flowing with warm-hucd raiment, redolent Of (jne of those poor dwellings a pale cliild

Of perfume, eyed witii slow luxurious fire. Waved his lean arm responsive; his hurrah
All realms send sons, elect ambassadors. Was dr<nvned in theirs they saw ; not the
For interchange of many-moulded mind. wan smile
 ;; — ; " ";

304 A LAY OF CIVILISATION

Of that seven-year-old cripple ; in a cot. Nor where, with agelong rapture, holy men
That seemed an orange-case disused, he lay, Dream swooning visions in Himalayan
Propped high for him to see the bright live snows
trains Not there, but here I find me at Heaven's
Rush past with human freight ; an ancient gate,
dame Open to let the eternal Sun shine through
Tended the child, his grandmother they two ; On our sad Earth ; fair angels coitie and go
Lived ever here ; the boy knew no green In this poor hovel, for Queen Love lives here.
fields With dear handmaidens. Patience, Tender-
Through the long days, and late into the ness,
nights And her fair warrior-knight, young Fortitude.
(When her frail charge lay peacefully in sleep. Behold how many graceless roofs and walls
!

And when to wakeful voyagers by rail Are glowing with a rarer, heavenlier grace
The shadow of the love-invented cot From martyr-deaths, and lowly hero lives !

On the illumined blind appeared to be

That of a little coffin ah great Love!
; 1 A boy lay suffering in hospital,
Wilt thou soon lay the lad in such a cot ?) His members crushed and mangled by a wain,
The old woman plied her scissors and her Whose wheels passed o'er him playing in the
needle street.

For a poor pittance one rich offering

; Scarce can he bear the thought that he must
Of sweet burned incense, all her selfless soul die.

Is offered up to Heaven for the child. His mother's darling she is kneeling near.
;

The dame hath taught her helpless one to —

Later the father came the man well loved
read, His little son, but he was harsh to her,
Buying him Noah's ark and picture-book, Paying her patient drudgery with blows.
And she hath helped him order on the floor " My lad, I cannot, will not part with thee !

A mimic park with turfs from a lark's cage. By the white bed he sobbed, to whom the
Wherein are planted perpendicular child :

Thin sticks of deal, their foliage svoolly " Father, they tell me I must leave you both

shreds I feel itvery hard, but I shall die

From old frayed borders of the grandame's Content, I think, if thou wilt promise me
gown; —
One thing before I go " to whom the sire :
A baking-dish contains the mimic lake, " Yes, if it lie within my power, lad!"
And, swimming there, a dinted bird, once '•
Promise thou never wilt ill-use, or strike.
white.^" Or be unkind to mother when I'm gone !

The man did promise, faltering, and then

These are unbeautiful ; the neighbouring Peace passing understanding, like still light.
scene Illumined the pale face of him who died.
Affronts our every sense Plague, Famine lurk
;

With heads obscene, with sly lack-lustre eyes, A widow woman nursed her ingrate son
Couching at every threshold motionless. In his long illness to the final hour,
Vet, here, yea, here, not where the larlc With inextinguishable tenderness,
pours joy. He little heeding, snatching as a due

Evermore pouring ecstasies in air Love's gracious offices, a graceless churl

Of rapturous blue, nor where a throstle wafts She had bestowed on him from birth till now
His incense of clear notes upon the breeze, Through all the helpless years of his great
O'erquavered by soft shadows of young need.
leaves Freely her innermost, her sacred self,
 ; ! !

A LAV OF CIVILISATION 305

And later fair solicitudes of love Of all Sun-gods, and their obedient worlds,
Still proffered ; but, a pauper of the heart, Or offices for man, without the dark
A boor in spirit, he had thrown from him Stupendous Brother-orb invisible.
The pure celestial jewel of high heaven, From age to age sublime companion?
Which is the suljstance of the throne of God.
Rarely he brought his earnings home to her. And blest are ye, dark heralds of new dawn.
Squandering them on transitory sense ; Rebels, who beard the tyrant, for all souls
But her clear love welled on perennial, Claiming free-i;rowth to their own height,
Until the man died ; then the pillow soft, with form
Whereof she had despoiled herself for him. Predestinated from eternity.
Was placed by her beneath the wasted corse So Pride, thrust back within the boundary,
Within the coffin, for she said to one, May learn at length to recognise the Body,
" I know well that he will not want it now Whereof we are but functioned cells, for fear
Under his thin back, yet, sir, I shall feel it ;
He perish isolated in the cold.
I could not bear to rest on
it to-night, So thunders Revolution Hail unnamed,'*^ ! !

Knowing him upon the cold hard wood. Unconsecrate Melchizedek, thou priest
laid
And he so tired, worn to skin and bone " Of the Most High God, though thou know
I

She did not long survive the man, but when Him not,
She went, her heart still turned to serving Vea, and blasphemest idols we adore,
John. Who have usurped in Temples His great
And surely Love will work deliverance Name ;

In Love's own time, for time belongs to Love. Without or sire, or mother, or descent.
Never enrolled among the ranks of men,
Down-trodden woman, mother, mistress, Among the living of thy land unknown.
wife, So best to serve the people of thy love,
Monotonously toiling for his weal. Voung martyr, self-immured in a rank prison.
Who slays you. swift or slowly, ye would That saps the vitals, withers the rose-bloom !

shield There also fade thy fellows, delicate girls,

Him whose vile blows deform you ; now I see Who fondle Death with desperate white hand,
In you my God, who died upon the Cross, And with gay smile salute Annihilation,
I hear the seraphs choiring in your heart Enamoured of one flame-eyed lover. Him
Barren the bowers of Elysium They serve with indefatigable joy.
Our very God is born from human woe 1 Whose lofty name is Martyrdom for Man I

Vea, golden fruit of the Hesperides. Howe'er insane or violent your aim,
A hundred-headed, tumult-breathing Beast, Deniers of our Lord, I worship Him
A dragon-chaos guards the Hero dares ; ! Alive in you, Knights-errant of the Poor,
Fearlessly storms he the fell forest-hold. Whom His decrepit Church adores, but dead.
Crags lapped in fire, or never might he find
And kiss Brunhild in her enchanted sleep, And yet reserve some reverence for ranks
Awakening the maid to nuptial love. Of men, who guard with dedicated lives
Nor was the Volsung found invulnerable Our holy, our inalienable Past,
Until he bathed him in the monster's blood, Their heads bowed low before that ancient
WTiom erst he braved with his good brand, throne
and slew. Of long-descended hoar Authority
Vea, Sirius, excelling our great Sun These have mine honour also, for I know
Twofold in splendour, Sirius the fair. That not one cause, but rival camps in arms
How were his mighty drift imaginable. Hold Sons of Belial, and true friends of
Or 1 :>rdly functions in the hierarchy God;
U
 " : ! ; !; ";

3o6 A LAY OF CIVILISATION

While from loud shocks of terrible crossed The vision taketh small account of Time,
steel For Time is creature of the mind that knows,
Leaps the live flame that ministers to Varying with it what was shown me now ?
;

man. , •. . In a confined low garret droops a maid.

Wearily sewing with red eyes, and pale,
... A stately palace, whose immense A withering flower, reft of air and light
demesne But she is very beautiful ; her face
Of vivid verdure is ablaze with bloom, And form are moulded for young joy of love,
Whose halls are animate with radiant forms Tho' the rare undulation and rich lines
Of picturing genius, luxuriant Be thwarted by a niggard nourishment,
With wealth of loom, and mine, art-elevate, And the worn faded raiment be no mate
And sacred from the hopeless hands of toil. For her moon-fair imperial loveliness.
The windows of the lordly pile behold Deftly her needle plies ; the long night wears
A silver water ; o'er wide miles of park Orion solemn passeth, and hath rest
Fair antlered deer browse in the fragrant fern, The weary girl may sleep not : lol she holds
Under huge whose agelong reverie,
oaks, A delicate sheeny fabric as of foam,
And summer sound
leaiy secrecies of A virginal rich raiment surely this ;

Hold more than meeteth mortal ear and eye. Should be the very garment I beheld
But all is hushed now, save for weird, far calls Enhance the beauty of the soft betrothed
Of owls, and plashing fountain the lithe That summer evening in the calm domain,
;

forms And easeful pleasaunce of prosperity.

Of statues on the terrace in the moon Whose feet are on the stair ? she starts ; she
Are not so beautiful as living maid quivers,
And youth, who linger under whispering leaves Rose-colouring the dewy, lustrous eyes
;

And by the flowery frondage her light garb ; Flash luminous, the while she mutters low,
Seems airy foam, a woof of silken sheen, '
He comes I can no more I wrestled long
' : : I

And delicate lace about her warm white Why doom my prisoned youth to wither here,
throat. Shut from all sweet fruition of my years ?
Each leans to each with deep and dewy eyes How have I earned this ? Honourable toil

The wedding-day is near ; I hear low words : Is ever paid here with a long dull death ;

" Was ever happiness like ours? the clock, And I will live ! I will be rich like her
Silverly chiming from the ivied tower, And wear fine jewelled clothing, ay, be
Tells how the bells will peal full soon ; come loved.
death, Adored, enjoy my life before I die
We shall have lived, my darling, we have Ah mother, pardon! ! if thou wert but here
!

lived
!
A knock : one enters : he displays rare gems.
Whose lustre blinds the miserable den :

Then all was blurred ; the happy vision He wraps her round with passionate fierce
faded, fire;

As if the potion of slow-poisoning Time Delicious flame consumes her eagerly. ;

Were concentrated in one murderous draught, Headlong she plunges down the abyss of ruin.
Of power to wither suddenly I hear ;

Again the troubled surge of London town. Sisters, and brothers, ye who name the
Christ,
I pass the teeming dens where herds of men. How may ye suffer such foul shame to be?
Shamefully heaped promiscuous, unshamed. We would be leisured, good, accomplished,
Are thrust by their stern gaoler. Poverty, wise,
With scorn refused the luxury of Virtue. Charming, and charitalile ; the rank soil
 ;; ;

A LAV OF CIVILISATION 307

That breeds the exotic is a brother's blood ! Brief moaning silence under other lords ?
Inevitable ills arraign the Heavens : And yetwhat ask ye? Sick men from a
Some wrongs accuse mankind ; we challenge feast
them. Rise loathing ; health can relish his poor
crust.
From where our patriot sailor on his column The pure soul hath her panoply of light,
Stands, with the lion of England at his feet, In direst dungeon radiating heaven ;

Among the fountains, looking toward the Ensphered in her own atmosphere of joy
towers, Sees no deformity; while tyrants tread
The banded towers of Westminster, beyond Their marble halls, to find them torture-
Green trees, by Thames, to Lambeth, London chambers ;

roars A graceless prison all his fair demesne

Eastward, loud leagues of palaces for men To some illiberal, illustrious fool.
Who toil to accumulate, around the dome, Perchance ye. ground to powder in God's mill.
Where warrior Wellington by Nelson sleeps. May serve more than who sleep in delicate
Flows to four towers, phantoms of the past, death.
In whose dread dungeons linger shadowy sighs With rarest incense in the mummy-fold.
From ruined lives of all the slow sad years
On, where the navies largesse of world-wealth O whirling wheels ! O throngs of murmur-
Lavish on quays vociferous (yet we ing men !

Pine ever ailing, surfeited, unfed), Where is the goal of infinite endeavour ?

By that great arsenal of war-weapons, And where your haven, O ye fleeting faces ?
Forged with tremendous clangour, to God's High Westminster, like some tall ghostly
sea. father
Of olden time, stands wildered, while for
And westward, London roars round con- crowds
gregated Of modern men, swift eddying at his feet.
Palaces, where men squander. Of the crowds His reverend grandeur void of consolation
Our eyes encounter, some are sorrowful. Broods for no warriors, consecrated kings.
;

Long uncompanioned of sweet Hope, the Kings who were crowned here through the
bride. centuries.
Withering mournful some are jubilant.
; Nor emblazoned on the pane.
bard, nor saint,
Sunny and strong with youth, or strenuous. Canopied under marble in the aisle.
Of glad demeanour ; listless, languid these ;
Whose shadowy memories haunt his heart,
But most are weary Babylon,
in this may help.
Whether men idle, or contend for bubbles These are unsceptred time trends other-
;

The happiest are they who minister. where ;

Beyond these regions, reaches of dim street, Their slumber is by channels long deserted !

A sullen labyrinth of ill-omened hovels : His hoary towers, with melancholy eyes,
Ah ! dull, grey, grovelling populations,
ye Dream in their own world, impotent for ours
That are rank human wherein we force
soil, Or if he speak, who may interpret now?
Our poor pale virtues, and our venomous sins He wakes in vain, who slept for centuries,
Of gorgeous growth, our proxy-piety, For he awakens in some alien world.
Official food, that yields no sustenance.
But chokes with outworn fantasy free life. Doth Hope inhabit, then, the sister-pile.
What hooe, O people ? Red convulsive strife Whose stately height hath grown to over-
With lho..e whom circumstance made masters, shadow
then That hoarv minster ? This in sooth avails.
 — ; !

3o8 A LAY OF CIVILISATION

And yet methinks more health is in the old, Then swirls a form dishonoured among gleams,
Renewing youth from fountains of the new, Which eddy as light-headed what was man, ;

Than in rash overthrow of all men built, With other offal flotsam, flounders, rolls.
With salt of insolence sown in holy places.
But now for one who mused upon the bridge.
Therefore, O secular, and sacred towers, Of pier and arch tremendous, the huge reek.
Confound your glories by the river-shore. And sin-breathed exhalations of the city.
And marry mighty tones in ordering time ! Transfigured by an alchemy of power.
Cathedral organ, roll insurgent sound, Burned with all colour the broad river rose
;

As though the archangel would arouse the Aslant horizonward, and heavenward,
dead ! One calm aerial glory of still dream ;

Our firm foundations on the invisible, Thronged habitations on the shadowy shore
Build we the ever ampler, loftier state, Blend solemn, disembodied to a bloom
Till unaware we walk the City of God ! Ethereal, bathed in evening fair enchased. ;

Yea, for I deem the fathers we revere. Or diapered upon the delicate air,

Shrined in cathedral glooms, embolden us Hull, mast, sail, tiny bark, or barge, or
With eyes of silent counsel, and dumb power, steamer,
Approving backs turned on their empty tomb. Poised darkly in mid primrose of the tide,
But who may slay the irrevocable Past ? Like carven fretwork on a golden shrine.
The Past, our venerable Sire, that girds All monstrous hostels, with interminable
Bright armour round us, like some grand old Glazed bulks that over- roof the clanging train.
knight. And all our builded chaos doth repent.
With benediction sending forth fair youth Converting into beauty while I muse,;

To battle, crowning what himself began ! The mild, and modulated cadences
Of lemon fruit, shy violet, dove-down,
When England bathes in shadow, the tall Deepen to very pomp and festival
tower Of dyes magnificent one diapason
;

Of that great palace of the people shines, Of hues resplendent, crimson, gold, and green,
Shines to the midnight like a midnight sun. And purple gorgeous, like robes of kings.
While crowned inherited incompetence, Or caves of sun-illumined sea-treasure,
And while law-making men laborious Or glories blazoned in Cathedral aisle,
Through long night-watches, in their golden Heart d white lily, fruit of passion-flower,
chamber, Or fervid eagle-eyes a parable.
;

Wage wordy wars of faction, help the One nuptial-feast of marrying glow andgloom.
State, A wondrous parable of life through death
The dreadful river rolls in darkness under.
Whirling our human lights to wild witch- While yonder haughty heights of West-
gleam ! minster,
See yellow lamps in formidable gloom Where once fierce feuds of our illustrious dead
Of both the shores, night-hearted haunts of Sleep reconciled in monumental calm,
men ; Mary reposing by Elizabeth,
TerriVjle water heaped al)0ut great piers And where with throes of living loud debate
Of arches, ominous
gliding, gurgling, ! Are brought to birth the still behests of
But on the vasty parapet above Heaven
Those Titan tunnels, ghastlier for the glare With ancient consecrated privilege
Of our electric mockeiy of moons. Of lordly Lambeth on his stately sward ;

Appears a moment a fate-hunted face These, and the grand dome, and the four
Wan Desolation, plunging to the Void. grim towers.
 —! ! ! ! ;

A LAY OP^ CIVILISATION 309

Haunted by phantoms of long-wandering Would he not give his body to be burned,

crime, And all his soul to Satan for the child ?
And harbours thronged with navies of tlie Death shall devour it, even in his arms.
world, Or Ruin rend, he lying impotent
Glow fair a moment with supernal fire.

But Thou, O Father, if these are Thy Sons,

I am on the country-side again ; but ah ! Canst Thou behold them prostrate in such
Nor here may I escape the treacherous plight
Flat viper-head that lurks behind all joy. Unmoved? nor rend the heavens and come
The World god-fronted hath a dragon-train, down ?
Long loathsome coil, gold-cinctured, with a Or art Thou sleeping, on a journey, or
heart, Mast Thou deserted these Thine orphans.
Now hot with love or hate, and now dead- Lord?
cold. Nay, who but Heaven commissioneth dim
Yea, under budding pear and cherry tree, Plague,
Preluding silent anthems of white bloom, Death, Sorrow, Madness, dire ancestral Sin,
Under a nest of mellow-throated thrush, Cancer, long torments unimaginable.
Who warbles out his soul to a soft mate, And all the brood of ever-ravening ills,

Her own warmth luring hfe from the frail That devastate mankind ? No bribe can tame
egg; them,
Here one deemed woman drowns a trustful Unguessed, innumerous, invincible.
child, So clings some awful beast to a faint fawn,
Pleading in vain, for she one stone
is all Galloping maddened o'er the indifferent wild.
To his close clinging, wild, appealing woe. By wells, and pleasant pasturage the Doom
Where did she drown him? Whence the Cowers in hisambush, springs from the blue
bubbling cry ? air.

In a pure lingering stream, that mirrors well Falls like a thunderbolt ; O men, can ye
Fresh grass and flowers, whose home is on Rival your Mother in accomplished crime?
his bank ;
Who perpetrates what freezes the warm blood.
He takes them to his heart, he shrines them Masked in light laughter, kissing while she
there ! stabs
Nor ever bolt leaps shattering from the blue ;
And yet, because the still small voice within
A plumy pomp of cloud in azure air Reveals God more than storm, or earthquake,
Sails undismayed Earth shudders not for
;
we,
shame ;
Bettering Her rude ways, give sense the lie,
Nor yawns to engulph her —
gulphs the Nor will believe Her what she only seems.
innocent. O Thou dread Silence, dumbly do we bow
Only a zephyr dimples with young joy In silence we commend Thy world to Thee.
Yon vivid verdure overstarred with gold
Most awful Spirit of the Universe!
Poor paralytic human Pity what !
Kneeling before Thy throne we grovel low,
Canst thou in this confusion ? Wring thy Yea, wrestle with Thee through the long
hands. night hours.
And weep, like Rachael, fi)r thy liule ones, Unknowing Thy dread Name we will not let ;

Or fumble thy conjectural remedies. Thee go until Thou loose the cloudy fold
That may be poisons, and experiment From that veiled countenance Hath Love, !

A human sire, on whom a child relies, or Hate,

Asleep in perfect trust upon his heart Or dead Indifterence his temple there ?
 " ; !! ! ! ; !

EARLY LOVE
Now sweet, now bitter waters, night and day. There two spirits in the calm
Anguish and joy, strong radiant righteousness, Of moonlight memory may go,
With sin malformed, and folly, motley crew, Finding pure refreshing balm,
Stream from Thy bosom all impartially ! When life traileth wounded, slow.
We know not but of old a Man who bore
; Along dim ways of common dust.
Upon His shoulder the world's weight of woe, As dull lives of mortals must.
Whom men name wisest. He announced
Thee Father, Early love, fair fount of waters.
Praying, "Not My will, but Thine own be Ever by enchantment flowing.
done !
Where two snakes, her innocent daughters,
Yea, and through mystic change, or swift or Were wont to swim among the blowing,
slow. Wilding flowers thou knowest well.
Within the general bosom, and in ours, In the wood of our sweet spell
Faith's inarticulate reason may grow clear
Fair utterable vision : the wild dance, Never Fear found out the place,
The strange phantasmagory of ill-dream, Never eyes nor feet profane
Named sin and sorrow, may appear birth- Of our innocent youth and grace
pangs Love was born if born to wane,
;

Of life consummate, else impossible !

We will keep remembrance holy
From the soil of care and folly.
Therefore, dear birds, in leafy woods ye
warble, No weariness of life made wise,
And you, my children, by the rivulet No canker in the youngling bud,
Play, laughing merrily, because the world
No lustre failing from our eyes,
Is sound at heart, howe'er it seems to ail.
Nor ardour paling in the blood !

Neither ever seemed less fair

God-fronted, dragon-trained, 'tis but a marred
Image in souls, who travail yet ungrown. To the other playing there.

Who, ruffled, slowly waver into rest.

Still asleep, we drift asunder,
And why we arise or fall, no mortal knows,
Who met and loved but
in a dream
Save that by change alone the unchanged
Nor woke to wonder
kissing closely,
abides
Love breathes amid the ruin of red wrong.
Why we are not what we seem !

Fairy bloom dies when we press

For a moment only of our infinite life
Wings young zephyr may caress.
With one wild wing-pulse cleaving earth's
rent air, Fare you well more might have been
!

Oh I lift we one another from this hell

Nay, we know more might not be
Of blindly-battling ignorance to God !
A moment only I may lean
On your bosom, ere you flee,
Ere the weary sultry day
Hide my morning and my May
EARLY LOVE
Yet a fairy fountain glistens
Our early love was only dream ! Under soft moon-lighted leaves,
dream too
Still a fair for earth, And my wistful spirit listens
Hallowed in a faint far gleam, For a voice that glows and grieves,
Where the fairest flowers have birth, Breathing, when my heart would fail,
Let it rest no stain e'er trouble
! Youth from yonder fairy vale,
Magic murmur, limpid bubble ! Where sings a nightingale.
 ! ;
!! !! ;

SWING-SONG 3"

Chill wind breathes, with a mist and a

LOVE HIDING rain,
Shedding the sweet petals, every one ;

Love was playing hide and seek. Now where is the heart of the flower so
And we deemed that he was gone, fain.

Tears were on my withered cheek And the winged blue summer elf, where is

For the setting of our sun ;

he gone ?

Dark it was around, above,

But he came again, my love !

Rose-lover, remember, though delicate wings,

Deep-dyed in a wonderful azure of heaven.
Chill and drear in wan November, Be turned into dust of inanimate things,
We recall the happy spring, Very soon from your own life you will be
While bewildered we remember forgiven I

When the woods began to sing.

All alive with leaf and wing.
Leafless lay the silent grove
But he came again, my love I

SWING-SONG
And our melancholy frost
Woke to radiance in his rays.
Swing ! swing!
Birds in the budding wood, birds on the wing
Who wore the look of one we lost
Fill sweet soft air with carolling ;
In the faraway dim days :
The woods no more contain their glee,
No prayer, we sighed, the dead may move,
Yet he came again, my love Joy brims over on every tree
In a flutter of leaves hilariously.
Swing ! swing
Love went to sleep, but not for ever.
And we deemed that he was dead ;

Nay, aught avail to sever

shall
Early primroses awake from sleep,

Hearts who once indeed were wed ?

In many a dewy dale they peep
Garlands for his grave we wove, Lo ! populous land, far field and grove,
But he came again, my love Aerial as clouds that move
In labyrinthine drifts above !

Swing ! swing

ROSE AND BUTTERFLY Anemone- flakes of a veined snow

Lie over the sunny herbs below.
A BUTTERFLY flew to the heart of a rose. Lie over brown bents, woven and wet.
Ah more
I than he longed for the flower Where yellow-eyed white violet
will yield With moth and strawberry hath met.
Soft fans of Ariel close, unclose, Swing! swing!
Unknowing how long he may dwell in our
field.
Spring waves her youngling leaves for token
Dark winter's deadlier spells are broken ;

He is here ! hi is yonder ! the rose will weep, The firry roofs, with low sea-sound.
" If you may not abide with us, child of air, Welcome to their calm profound
For ever enfolded in memorj' sleep, The dove's long call in a love-swound,
Here in the heart of me, oh my fair " ! Swing! swing!
 !:

312 MAGIC-LANTERN
Baby-boy lies on a sisterly arm On tomb recumbent, kneeling panoplied,
Of little maid Mary, from harm.safe Blend far-away mysterious presences
Little boy Willy will push the pair, With a wide-seething multitude, alive
Hark! how they laugh as they rush through Through all the pillared grandeur of the
the air! nave,
All the young world laughs, oh, how fair ! A human sea the gorgeous full pomp
;

Swing! swing! Of civil, militant, imperial pride.

And sacerdotal splendour, cloth of gold.
Chalice bejewelled, silks imbued with morn,
Flows in blue twilight of a perfumed air,
MAGIC-LANTERN Flows, flashing into momentary gleam

I WAS within a darkened chamber,

By and shrine, for lustre of the lamps.
altar

Full of children small

Silver and gold suspended, or mild shine
;

Upon my knees I felt him clamber,

Of tall white wax around a central Night
In the mid-transept there the Catafalque,
One of the least of all,
;

Answering my call.
The Shadow dominates, reigns paramount
O'er all the templethe hollow heart.
; 'tis

He was a baby of the people,
Nor aught of him I knew
Only the shadow of one steeple
Abode upon us two ;
His arms around me grew.
Quaint figure, battle, bark,
The lantern- wizardry,
Arouse joy's hidden silver fountain
To pretty wondering glee.
Plashing full merrily.
Albeit nor now, before, nor after,
Mine eyes beheld the boy.
When he so pealed with innocent laughter,
Methought my own, my joy,
Awhile with me did toy.
Athwart the drear unwarmed abysses
Of all the later years,
Dispensing Darkness through the frame supine
;
Of that colossal Cross, which is the Fane.
The huge vault under yawneth, a deep wound,
Filled full with Horror; Death abideth there
Ay, with our lost Ideals, our lost Loves,
Baffled Aim, palsied Faith, Hope atrophied
snow-mountain. All the circumfluent glory-glow of Life
Mere tributary to the awflil throne
Of this dread Power ; all cast their crowns
before It.
Yea, as blithe waters from the abysmal womb
Of caverned Earth dance buoyant into Day,
So here from fountains of primeval Night
In very deed Life seemeth effluent.
And some there be most honoured in the
crowd,
From whom illustrious prince, with emperor
And noble, stand obeisantly aside.

He leaned awhile from angel blisses. Who are they ? for they wear no bravery,
To calm my foolish fears. Nor badge of high estate within the realm.
To kiss away my tears. Whose garb uncourtly sombre shows and
mean.
No confident bearing, claiming deference,
As of right full-conceded, suns itself
THE TEMPLE OF SORROW^a Proudly on these ; we judge them of the herd
Of rugged toilers, whom the stroke of Fate
The Minster glory lies engulphed in gloom, Despoils of floral honours and green leaves,
With mournful music throbbing deep and low, Fells for rough use, not leaves for leisured
And all the jewelled joy within Her eyes grace.
Slumbers suffused ; the saint, the warrior, Or putting forth the loveliest that is theirs.
 ! ;; : !

THE TEMPLE OF SORROW 313

Lowly their port, whose dull and earthward They are one with these they cherished and
eyes, adored.
Heavy with weeping, droop beneath rude Not separate, individual any more :

brows, Lieges are they of Sorrow, pale crowned

Whose light is with their heart, quenched in Queen
the abyss Over man's miserable mad universe.
That holds their best beloved, torn from them
In fierce embraces of devouring fire ;
What might have been fair Body grows to
Whose souls were so inextricably involved Soul
With these that perished, in the ghastly From false-appearing palace halls of sense
fall They are delivered, into mournful worlds
They too were wrenched low from the living Of Peradventures all unfathomable.
light Forebodings infinite, wild hope, surmise,
Of placid, self-possessed familiar day Faith, love, sweet longing ;
yea, they are
Down to a desolate disconsolate wild, disturbed
Haunt of grim Madness, hollow Doubt, From dull content with earth's inanities
Despair : By revelation of what hollow hearts.
Only the dead, more happy, seem to glide And loathly shapes they hide afire with thirst,
;

Lower to nether caverns of cool sleep. Now sound the eternal deeps within
will they
For living water, clouded and disused.
Grief is their patent of nobility ; Cumbered with ruin their dull eyes are
;

Sorrow the charter of their right to honour. roused

Smitten to earth, behold them cowering. From low rank plains to interrogate the height
Of perilous attainment or endeavour.
Mocked, buffeted, spurned, spat upon, effaced
Under the blood-red executioner, Where snows hold high communion with stars.
Whom some name Nature, and some God, Where from aerial eyrie sails the eagle.
the Lord. Calm in clear air, familiar with Heaven.
These do but threaten feebly with a mouth They are made free of God's eternal spirit.
Or hand, more feeble than a delicate beast. Ever abounding, inexhaustible ;

Lashed for hell-torment by a learned man, Consumed, that they themselves may truly be.
Lashed for hell-torment in the torture-trough
The unregarded Sudras of the world, Behold ! the Minster cruciform and grand,
Bleeding to slow death from an inward wound, Grows human, more than human, as I muse,
Deep and immedicable evermore. The Holy House of Life, the Crucified
What seems the World, the Body of the Lord !

To these the proud and prosperous of earth Expanded arms, and frame pulsate with blood.
Pay reverent homage it is marvellous
! Close-thronging individual lives ; His Heart,
And yet no marvel such fate-stricken men
! Death, haloed with pale anguish and desire.
Are armed, and robed imperially with awe! Even Sun eclipsed, a sable sphere,
so the
Who flame sublime to momentary wrath, Is ringed around with his corona flame,
Peal with mad mirth, then grovel impotent Wherein appear weird members of red fire.
Who affirm not their own selves, who falter But as the Sun behind this ominous orb.
lost. That is the spectral shadow of our moon,

Like foam blown inland on the whirlwind's Smiles evermore beneficent, so Love
wing VeilsHim in gloom sepulchral for awhile,
From ocean, there dissolving tremulous That we who sound the abysses of Despair
Where kindred foam evanislied only now. May weave pure pearls. Her awful bosom
So they in the lapsed being of their dead. hides.
 ! ! —

314 THE TEMPLE OF SORROW

Into a coronal for our pale brows, Vast arteries of the dilating pile
And He Himself, descending to the deep, Pulsate with ever denser atom-lives
Bearing our burden, may win lovelier grace Unhappy do mine eyes indeed behold
;

Of Love's own tears, which are the gems of Those holy innocents, whom she of yore,
God. The Voice in Ramah, wept so bitterly,
Rachael, sweet spirit-mother of their race?
Ever the plangent ocean of low sound They are holy innocents of many a clime,
Fills all with midnight, overwhelms my heart. And many a time, some murdered yesterday,
Lit tapers faint around the Catafalque, And some still languishing in present pain :

And fair-wrought lamp in sanctuary and Dumb women, with marred faces eloquent,
shrine. Hold their wan hands while all around, ;

The wan expanse seems labouring confused beneath

With what feels like some glutinous chill mist, Among their feet, what seems a harried crowd
Close cobweb-woof; the great Cathedral Of gentle beings, who are man's meek friends.
quakes, They in the reeking shadow yonder fawn
As from sick earthquake throes; the pillars tall Upon dyed knees of things in human shape,
Heave, like huge forest-peers, that agonise All hell's heat smouldering in lurid eyes,
In tides of roaring tempest will the pile :
And Cain's ensanguined brand upon their
Vanish anon to assume an alien form ? brow,
For all the pillars hurtle aloft to flame Who on Christ-altars, prostitute to sin,
Flamboyant, cloven, pallid, while the roof Offer these innocents to fiends whose names.
Reels riven yet there is not any sound.
; Obsequious to the inconstant moods of man.
Lo every Christ on every crucifix
! Vary elusive, and deluding now ;

Glares with the swordblade glare of Anti- They are called Moloch, Baal, Ashtaroth,
christ ! Hatred, Revenge, War, Lust, Greed, Might-
Whileon the immense-hewn flanking masonry, is-Right,
Scrawled, as by finger supernatural. Now Church, the Truth, the Virgin, or the
As in Belshazzar's banquet-hall of old, Christ,
Behold the " Mene ! tnene " but the realm But in a later time Expediency,
Divided is the royal realm, the soul Weal of Man, Nature, Lust of Curious Lore.
The guilty soul, ingorged by the dim fiend The accurst oblation of fair alien lives,
Of loathsome, limbless bulk, Insanity ! None of their own, they pour to satiate
In dusk recesses how the shadows wax The hydra-headed, demon brood obscene.
Palpable, till they palpitate obscene, These are devoured with ever subtler pangs
Clinging, half-severed ; our sick souls are ware Cunningly heightened, fuelled, nursed, pro-
Of some live Leprosy, that heaves and longed
breathes By cold, harsh hearts, one adamant to woe.
Audibly in the impenetrable gloom. Or cruel, infamous appetite for pain.
Ay, and of horrors loathlier than these
Hear ye the moans of muffled agony The verse dares name not, thrust on beautiful
By yonder altars of the infernal aisle ? Maidens and babes defenceless, of such feasts
Marmoreal pavements slippery with blood ! The God-deserted souls are gluttonous
While all the ghastly-lit ensanguined space All Nature pales at Satan's carnival !

Quickening teems with foul abnormal births ;

Corse faces scowling, wound alxnil with Who are the lost souls ? Legion is their

shrouds, name.
Sniffing thick orgy fumes of cruelly, Noble, pope, cardinal, king, refuse vile
Steal out, or slink behind in the shamed air. Of crime-infested cities. I behold
 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
:

THE TEMPLE OF SORROW 315

Borgia, Caligula, Napoleon, Your own eternal selves consenting not

Marat, De Retz, and he that did to death (W^hich are by lapse, and by recovery).
The royal child, who heard the angels call Touching the lowest deep ye shall recoil
Him home, soft singing, dying, ere he died. When in the furnace heated sevenfold
And some are here who cumber earth to-day More than the wont, fierce furnace of God's
Flesh-girt ; their name shall not profane the wrath,
page. Blasted, ye shrivel, your inhuman pride
There go seducers, they who lightly break Stern, stubborn metal swooning to weak air
Warm simple hearts who trust them : there In the white heat of Love's intolerable,
are some Ah then will not the innocence ye wronged.
!

Who wither women slowly with harsh looks, Leaving her own bliss for you, fly from
111 words, or blows, inflamed, obsessed by heaven
fiends, To heal you by forgiveness ? May it be !

Wearing the semblance of a flask of fire.

Yonder fair dames white-bodied, and dark- Yea, there are fleeting gleams from the
souled All-fair,
Mothers we find, who can withhold unshamed Playing of children, larks, and lovers gay.
The high and holy dues, that all beside Beautiful image, grand heroic deed.
Of animated nature punctually. Cheery content ; but ah ! the grim World-
With rapturous devotion, consecrates, woe
The dear debt to the fruit of our own womb, Absorbs all vision, overwhelms the heart
What strength owes to dependent feebleness, A few, with seraph pity in clear eyes.
Reason full-orbed to shyly-opening sense. And flashing swords retributive unsheathed,
Confided and confiding even now : Sore-pressed and wounded, wrestle with the
Their mothers gave themselves for these, foe,

and God Defeated, slain, delivering ; while aloft

Bestows Himself on every living thing We anon some glimpses of august,
seize
For ever these will starve, or drown
: their Benignant countenances, with white wings,
babes, As of Heaven's host invisible drawn up
Enthral them to a ghastlier than death, For battle but I know not who prevail.
;

That he may work on them his loathly will. A few pale stars in chasms of wild storm !

Corrupting soul and body. Drop the veil Aliens, alas no potentates of ours.
!

All here, foul traitors ! all betrayed the trust W^e are in the power of Darkness and Dismay,
Nature imposed, while only dyed less deep. Anguishing God-forsaken on the cross
Who, passing, drawled, "Ami my brother's Yea, sons of Belial with jaunty jeer
keeper?" Ask where Thou hidest, Lord ! the .Avenger
God!
White victims, immolated for the world I Devils a priestly scare to them, who know not
Ye tyrants, ye alone are miserable Devils allure them blind into the pit.

For whom Hate hath left loving, though a Could they but hear low ghastly mirth con-
beast vulse
Is nearer God than you, removed from Him Shadowy flanks of these live Plagues in air
By all the hierarchies of all worlds !

But these have fallen to abysms of pain. Mine eyeballs seared with horror, and my
And you to sloughs of inmost infamy. heart
That all the spheres may learn for evermore One writhing flame, I prayed that I might die.
The treachery of sweet ways that are not Love. And lay me down to sleep with hi/n for ever !

Yet if some God be lingering in you. A sevenfold darkness weighs upon my soul
 ! ; ! ;: ;

3i6 THE TEMPLE OF SORROW

I hear no groans, no music all is still, Joy-pulses of young hearts unsulliable
;

Even as the grave one whispers of the Dawn Weave warbling music, a low lullaby.
:

Once I surmised the morning grey, not I fancy they have syllabled a song :

now:
Nor in the chancel, whose wide wakeful orb, We are fain, are fain,
Solemnly waiting, ever fronts the East, Of mortal pain,
Nor in the cold clerestories of the nave. We are fain of heavenly sorrow,
One whispers of the lark I hear no bird. ;
As a gentle rain.
And yet I know the seraph eyes of Dawn She will sustain,
Find in her last, lone hollow the veiled Night. Wait only till to-morrow !

Hearken a long,low toll appals the gloom

! ! Among death-pearls
Like a slow welling blood from a death- wound Of dewy curls,

In the world's heart, that never will be O ones in anguish

little !

staunched. The Lord hath kissed,

Crimsoning the void with waste, expense of I would ye wist
pain For all the world ye languish I

Another, and another, vibrating

A phantom bell tolls in the abysmal dark The loveless world
The funeral of all living things that be. Lies love-impearled
I,turning toward the Catafalque, desire. From innocency weeping
Plunging within the gulf, to be no more. . . .
Wan wings be furled,
Andyou lie curled
When, lo ! some touch as of a healing hand. In Love's warm haven sleeping.
For while I knew the mour.iers only saw
Flowers on fair corses and closed coffin-lid, For when ye know
I grew aware of souls regenerate What glories flow
Afar, sweet spirits raimented in white, For all from childly sorrow,
Who leaned above the Terror with calm eyes A flower will blow
And for a moment their purged vision cleared From your wan woe
Earth-humours from mine own, till I beheld Within the wounded furrow.
No deadly Dark — a lake of living Light,
A mystic sphere, the Apocalyptic main !
We are fain, are fain
Heaving with happiness that breathes, a home Of mortal pain.
For all dear spirits of the faded flowers We are fain of heavenly sorrow ;

Outrageous men have pulled and thrown As a gentle rain

away She will sustain,
Clouds in blue air reflected in a mere. Wait only till to-morrow !

Or roseflush in rose-opal, a shy dawn

In lakes at morning, so the souls appeared. So calm
pure, pellucid fays enjoy the
Of summer and woven waterlights
seas,
My little children, do I find you here? In faery cavern, where the emerald heart
All here ! Among you smiles our very own. Lies heaving, or blue sheen on a warm
Each little one hath, nestled in his bosom, wave.
A delicate bird, or elfin animal. And ye are fair-surrounded with lost Love,
White-clustered lilies, beautiful as morn. Celestial Vision, vanished Hope, Desire,
In wayward luxury of love's own light Lovelier recovered, gloriously fulfilled
Eddying, abandoned to love-liberty ! With a Divine fulfilment, more than ours.
 : ;! : ; ! ! ! !

THALATTA 317

There, in the midst, the likeness of a Lamb, In turbid Tiber's flood he follows.
That had been slain, whose passion heals our Borne headlong by the river.
hurt. To lift it from the strong, loud gulf that
Wearing a thorn crown, breathing into bloom swallows.
.Lo ! if ye listen intently by the light, Struggling, till both have sunk for ever.
Ye hear a winnowing of angel wings,
Nearing, or waning while from far away,
:
A gleam is for a moment cast
I' the Heart of what revelation falls?
all, . . .
Over oblivion
A sound, oh marvel like a sound of tears
! !
The dead slave, whose dog holds him fast.

Pain ever deepens with the deepening life,

Drifts, passes, — all are gone. . . .

. . . Behold ! yon broken-hearted hare,

Though fair Love modulate the whole to joy.
With hounds and hunters after her
A myriad darkling points of dolorous gloom And sweet, shy poet-birds of air.
Startle to live light subtle infinite veins
;
Startling from man the murderer
Of world-wide Anguish glow, a noonlit leaf.
And seals we flay for their sleek fur

All vanish : there is dawn within the fane

Born slowly from the wan reluctant gloom Ah ! what a wail of agony is torn

Conquering emerges a grand Cross of Gold,

From all these innocent martyr-races,
Writhing beneath man's cruel scorn.
And all the nations range around serene.
Whose tyrannous hell distorts their faces
A cloud of shame clothes earth forlorn,
Shrouds her among the starry spaces.

THE GEMONL-\N STAIRS-

Only a slave in Rome of old,
A slave for whom none cares ! THALATTA
Slaughtered in dungeon deeps, and rolled
Down the Gemonian stairs; When Love is fading from thy path, a faint
Insulted, marred, exposed to view, remembered gleam.
With other human lumber, Whose wondrous glory crowned thy crest in
There in the Forum, where the Roman con- youth's triumphal morn ;

course grew When Friendship yields a willow - wand —

Around his mortal slumber. once, in Love's generous dream.
There in the Forum, by the mighty walls, Leaned on with all thy weight of soul, defy-
And columns hero-crowned. ing doubt and scorn.
Whose mourning voice upon the slumberer Once deemed inviolable, divine, an oaken
calls? staff, a slay.
The whine of a poor hound I Never to fail thee at thy need in all the
He will not leave the swarthy clay. perilous way
He licks the rigid face ;
When thou art tossed from surge to surge, a
Harsh-laughing, stern men in long-roljed helpless waif of ocean,
array While hell-born lusts and base-born gusts
Gather about the place : befool thee with vain motion ;

One pitying hath offered bread When foolish wants and angers in ignoble

The dog but lays it down eddies whirl

Before the dumb mouth of the master dead; A human spirit, formed to front God's glory
Whose body later tluown unashamed :
 !! !; ! ! ; ! ! ; !! ! !

3i8 THALATTA
Nor any Cause colossal, like a catapult, may hurl In the grand Atlantic chaos, in his elemental
To splendid goals all powerful souls, chafing, war,
unloved, unnamed : She converses I have heard Her I would ; ;

Then, poet, seek alone resounding hollows hearken evermore

of the sea, Ye, my brothers, loved and worshipped ; all
And plunge thy sullen soul in ocean's grand your music rolls with Hers I

immensity Human sounds inform the wind that like a

trumpet stirs !

Dare to scale the water-mountains let ! . . . Verily I deem I hear above the tumult
them topple in loud ruin of the blast.
O'er thee, lusty swimming from cliff-harboured That takes my breath, and dashes all the
sandy coves salt spray over me.
Though stress of tides impetuous threaten Not the sea-mew's cry, nor wind's wail,
thine undoing, . . . eerie tones of some
Or violent swirl of undertow, where seething who passed.
emerald moves Wailing in the wind's wail, shadows drifting
Around rude reefs and promontories, menace desolately
with swift death, For they say the drowned must wander on
Confront the glorious wild Power, who plays the cliffs or on the wave.
with human breath Where the fatal moment plunged them in
Yea, let thy reckless shallop dare seas rushing their "wandering grave."
round the caves.
Smite with straining oar the kindling heavy Travelling mountain range, following moun-
night of waves I tain range
Climb the sea-crag, hand and foot, little Now the foremost wavering green crest begins
careful of a fall to smoke
Storm shall be thy requiem, fairy foam thy pall. Breaks at one place, and suffers dark pre-
Ah mighty boisterous blown breath, your
! cipitous change,
siren song for me ! Arching slowly, solemnly under w^here it ;

I quaff exhilarating draughts of wine from broke

forth the sea, A heavy shadow haunteth the grim wall till ;

Soft seething masses of fair froth luring emerald.

deliciously All the cliff falls over, tumbles a dead weight
Vaporous blast ! voice of vast long sibilant Of crushed and crashing water
sea-thunder yonder unenthralled, . . .

Bellowing explosions in abysmal cavern-halls A monstrous buffalo in headlong strong

Storm my sense with sound imperial, with a tumultuous hate.
joy sublime and wonder ! Plunging wild hatred upon the rock immense !

Throned aloft in perilous places unto me the white tongues of fire

Mother calls. Are hurled around, enshroud, envelop with
Hear Her tremble not
! ! but echo to the a cloud ;
glowing spirit's core Lo ! where springs to Heaven a fairy fretted
It is Her voice Her sons
; rejoice ; they shout spire
to Her again : Or is it a wan warrior's arms thrown up in
By sacred river-fountains, in the desert blast, death's despair?
and roar Death-white, baffled in grey air! . . .

Of bounding cataracts, in forest, by foam- Shattered upon his iron Doom in armoured
mountains of the main, onset there
 : ; ! ! ; ; ; ; — ;

THALATTA 319

Niagaras upthundering, foamy avalanches, Lo ! where a porphyry portal of the mountain

Beetling, flickering huge crags of seething heart expands.
snowy spume, Portentous shadowy buttress, weather-gol-
Wherein are caverns of green tint among dened spire
pale coral branches, There multitudinous waters wander greyly in
And white comets 'thwart more shadowy the gloom
froth-precipice's gloom Within the high sea-sanctuary a god dispenses
Dark founded isles evanish in the flying doom ;

mountain tomb In and out they wander, sombre courtiers by

Albeit their wave-sculptured forms defiantly the gate,
abide Where a dim Sea - Presence broodeth in
Under grey vapours hurrying o'er the sombre solemn sullen state
tide Where no mortal breath dare whisper, only
Torn from parent shores, around their pillowed hollow sounding surges,
isolation A welter of wild waters with their melancholy
Ocean revelling roars with terrible elation dirges.

Afar, in the dull offing of a furrowed sullen sea,

O'er yon rock-rooted Pharos rises awfully, Behold they rave in echoing cave their
Like a Phantom, rises slowly a white cloud. wrath rent long ago,
Scales the lofty lanthorn where three human
Rent for a lair, where grim Despair rolls
hearts are bowed.
shouldering to and fro
Bowed awhile, involved within the Sea- Plume To and fro they furious roll prodigious
that ascends,
boulders,
Swallowing a hundred feet of granite ere it
Rounding them like pebbles with huge
bends.
Atlantean shoulders.
Behold ! the sweep of mighty crags, whose
league-long fortress front,
Whose frowning granite arc defies with stature Beyond one vast rock-sentinel guarding
the awful court,
tall and steep
Ocean's embattled billows : these have borne Surrounded and o'ershadowed by walls per-
pendicular,
the brunt
Of terrible assaults 1 the cannon thunders, Before those palace-portals foamy serpents

and a leap huge resort,

Of smoke ascends the ramparts of a breached Wallowing upon the wilderness, grey and
and broken keep. cold afar

At each discharge :
While among the tumbled boulders, before
The Titan targe hath the giant cave.

pinnacle and tower :

Robed in royal purple, royal raiment of the

Or is the whole an organ for the surge to wave,

smite with power, Lie crunched and shattered timbers, ribs of
That hath the turbulent storm -music for mighty ships
everlasting dower ? Yea, and limbs of some who, craving one
more kiss of loving lips.
Cathedral Heights of Titans, hewn by Were stifled in the violent froth, jammed
colossal Hands, beneath black stones,
Millennial ministers of flood and frost, wild Whose glossy weed may dally with their
earthquake and fierce fire ! coral-crusted bones.
 : ! ! ! : ! : —

320 THALATTA
Tall, [gaunt Phantom yonder, warding Not from where the giants hewed them vasty
portals of the night, seats of solid rock.
With silent, sweeping stature growing from Or Druid with poured human blood adored
the eastern wall, the Logan block :

Lank long arms upraised, and curving with Not from where the Cromlech ponderous,
the vasty cavern's height, and hoary cirque remain,
A beaked monster face between them, look- Though we know no more who reared them,
ing downward to appal Celt or Dane, or Athelstane ;

Art thou stone, or art thou spirit, fearful Nor whose the mouldered dust in yonder
Shadow weird and grey. urns of perished prime.
Daring mortals to advance beyond their Bard's, or warrior's, who flared a moment in
precincts of the day? the hollow Night of Time !

— There
on dreary moorland haunteth owl
and raven ;
All the cliffs are shrouded to the waist, or
There at moonrise hoots the rocky earn, to
only loom
confound the craven.
Head and shoulders through a death-mist,
While fiends are hunting dark lost souls who
but where the rollers boom
are shut out from Heaven
Their feet are bare and stern pale sand I :

The knell is knolled by wild white arms ot

discern
surges ramping round
Near their ruined grandeur ; a chrysoprase
The fatal reef, where mariners are drifted to
pale green
be drowned
Narrow water isles it, with a restless flow ;
It is the Rundlestone ! He knolls for pass-
The tidal heave advances cormorants of ;
ing human souls
swarthy mien
It is the voice of Doom from forth profound
Squat on rocks about the cave, or dive in
Eternity
deeps below.

Weird dragon forms, roughened in storms,

While sweet samphire, with tufted thrift, a foamy beryl rolls
glows in clefts above. Ever around you, dumb and blind stones,
Ever and anon a sound, with ominous power who confront the sky !

to move. I feel that in your soul there slumbers a dim

Wanders from the wilderness, a very mournful Deity.
spell . . . Were it not better to dissolve this
Through the wind and wave embroilment chaos of the mind.
ever tolls a passing bell. And in the twilight of your world long con-
Whence the warning ? what imports it ? solation find.
When I clamber, when I rest, Restoring the proud Spirit to your elemental
It seems to breathe foreboding in a fading Powers,
air. Dying into clifl", and cloud, and snowdrift of
Is it from the sombre church in lonely glen sea flowers ?

deprest ? . . . Vanishes the storm-rack in the gleam-

There, by old cross and coffin-stone, on ing West
immemorial chair A long wide chasm, glowing like a World of
Of rude grey granite, hoary ghosts in dark Rest,
conclave may brood : O'er the dusk horizon opens, whereinto
Nay ! but the tolling tolleth from the turbu- Visionary domes arise, and towers of tender
lent flood, hue
 ! ! — : : ! ! ;

TINTADGEL
A holy realm of Silence, a city of deep Peace, Inevitably sure, forebode thy fall

Where Death leads all poor prisoners who For she compels the individual
have won release To merge in the full manifold of Her
Long ranks of high surges, heaving dark His cherished privacy of character:
against the bright And therefore Arthur's ancient ramparts
Heaven, fall illumed 'thwart iron crags, range
whose frown relents to Light. From human fellowship to nature, change
To semblance of the fretted weathered stone,
Land's End, 1875. Upreared by mystic elements alone.

That old grey church upon the sheer black

crag,

BY THE SEA Where generations under theworn flag,

Or in God's acre sleep ! There one dark
Ah ! wherefore do I haunt the shadowy morn
tomb, I worshipped — heights of heaven all forlorn

My joyless days and nights among the dead ? With drift confused, wild wind, and the
Know you not He, my radiant Sun, who fled, blown rain
With hope uncertain soothes yon awful gloom I mused of those who in the lonely fane

Afar, upon the weltering sea's wan lead ? Halted world-weary through the centuries ;

Behold faint, tremulous, ghostly gleam illume

! Kelt, Saxon, Norman, English on their eyes
;

The unrevealing mystery of Doom, The dust of Death Oblivion holds the
;

Ash-pale dumb wastes, impenetrable, dread, psalms,

O'erwhelming purple incumbent o'er the Where now in turn we celebrate the calms,
coast. The Sabbath calms, with hymns and chanted
Into the Presence-Chamber of dim Death prayer.
He hath been summoned ! and I hold my But what indignant wail of wild despair
post Storms at the doors and windows, shakes the
Here on the threshold, thirsty for one breath walls ?
Released from yonder ! Leave me ! I love Before the void unsouled sound that appals.
my night. Our human hymns in that dim sheltered place
More than abounding pulses of your light Seem to fall low, to cower, and hide the
face.
Awhile faint praise wins victory uproars ;

On overshadowing vans without the doors

TLXTADGEL
TiNTADGEL, from thy precipice of rock
Thou frownest back the vast Atlantic shock
Vet purple twilight in cathedral caves,
Moulded to the similitude of
Tempestuous by awful hands of storm.
Along whose height the formidable form
Of some tall phantom stands on guard huge
boulders
From iron crags reft, toys of ocean shoulders,
And thine own venerable keep that yields
Whirlwind insurgent, as in awful scorn,
To be controlled no longer, nor forborne
Of poor brief fluttering human hopes and
I
breath.
Played with a moment by the winds of death.
waves Ere dissolution and dismemberment
In the undivine, dim void where all lie sheni
A shivering foam-flake, or a timid light
; Spat upon by the rains, extinguished quite
We laugh in fair pavilions of light Love,
Or worship in the solemn, sacred Grove,
We rest in warm Aff"eclion built to last

To slow persuasion ancient Nature wields, And all will leave us naked to the blast
 — ; ! ;
! ! !

322 SUSPIRIA

What means the wind ? Yon ruin's proud Nature Herself is the high utterance
decay Of holy gods we, half awake in trance,
;

We know not who in far-off years did lay Hear it confused through some half-open
;

The strong foundations : Arthur, Guinevere, door

And Lancelot, were they indeed once here ? We hear an awful murmur, and no more :

Are all fair shadows of a poet's dream, We are under some enchantment lift the ;

Or did they ride in the early morning beam, spell,

Armed, and resplendent, radiant within. What mortal then the wondrous tale may
Champion redressors, quelling tyrant Sin, tell?
Slaying grim dragon Wrongs, who held in
ward Tintadgel, 1884.
The maiden Innocence from Joyous-Guard,
;

Camelot, or Tintadgel, brave and glad.

Did they indeed ride, Lancelot, Galahad?
SUSPIRIA 2"
Have lawless love, and Modred swept to Lines Addressed to H. F. B.
ground
That glorious order of the Table Round ? Do you remember the billowy roar of tumul-
Who tuous ocean,
knows ? they are but creatures of the
Darkling, emerald, eager under vaults of
brain ;
the cave.
Or if they were, behold our mightiest wane.
Shattered to simmer of foam on a boulder of
With all their sounding praise, like dream-
delicate lilac,
shadows,
Disenchantless youth of the clear, immortal
Storm-rack that drifts, or billowy foam ! none
knows wave ?

Whether they were, or were not sombre keep, ;

Labyrinths begemmed with fairy lives of the
water.
And chapel crown twin crags, one ruin-heap,
While the sea thunders under, and between. Sea-sounding palace halls far statelier than
And cliffs no hand hewed mimic what hath a King's,
Seethe of illumined floor with a never-
been
wearying motion.
In weathered buttress, pinnacle, and tower
Where now the prancing steed, the lady's
Oozy enchased live- walls, where a sea-
bower ? music rings ?
No clang of arms, no battle bugle blown. Do
you remember the battle our
Only in sounding cave the wild sea clarion brown-winged arrowy vessel
Waged with wind and tide, a foaming
But then my heart responded to the blast billowy night,
I deem that in those clouds of the dim past To a sound as of minute guns, when gloomy
Tall godlike forms loom verily ; with us hearts of the hollows
Dwell souls who are not less magnanimous. With sullen pride rebuffed invading Ocean's
They pass, yet only to be self-fulfilled might ?
They pass, yet only as the All hath willed, Do you remember the Altarlet towers that
To enter on their full-earned heritage, front the cathedral.
More righteous, and momentous wars to Dark and scarred sheer crag, flashed o'er
wage ; by the wild sea-mews?
And if those heroes were not, then the mind How they wheel aloft lamenting, souls of the
That holds high visions of our human kind ululant tempest
Is mightier than mighty winds and waves, And the lightning billows clash in the
And lovelier than emerald floors of caves. welter Odin brews
 ;! ! !: ! : ! ; ; ! ! ! ! !

SUSPIRIA 323

A sinister livid glare from under When I behold the random doom that en-
brows of the Storm-Sun ! gulphs the creature,
Browsof piled-up cloud, threatening grim I wonder, is the irony of God perchance in it?

Brechou, 'Tis a hideous spectacle to shake the sides of

Bleaching to ghastly pale the turbulent trouble fiends with laughter,
of water, Where in the amphitheatre of our red
While the ineffable burden of grey world world they sit

o'er me grew Yea, and the rosiest Love in a songful heart

Yea, all the weary waste of cloud confused of a lover,
with the ocean Child of Affinity, Joy, Occasion, beautiful
Fell full-charged with Doom on a founder- May,
ing human heart May sour to a wrinkled Hate, may wear and
Our souls were moved asunder, away to an wane to Indifference :

infinite distance. Ah Love, an' thou be mortal, all will

!

While all the love that warmed me waned, soon go grey !

and will depart. O when our all on earth is wrecked on reefs

Fiends of the whirlwind howl for a wild of disaster,
carousal of slaughter May the loud Night that whelms be found
Of all that is holy and fair, so shrills the indeed God's Day
demon wail
Ruin of love and youth, with all we have Our aims but half our own, we are
deemed immortal drifted hither and thither ;

My child lies dead in the dark, and I The quarry so fiercely hunted rests un-
begin to fail heeded now
Wonderful visions wane, tall towers of And if we seized our bauble, it is fallen to
phantasy tumble ; ashes.
I shrink from the frown without me, there But a fresh illusion haunts the ever-aching
no smile within
is ;
brow.
I cower by the fireless hearth of an unin- Is the world a welter of dream, with ne'er
habited chamber. an end, nor an issue.
Alone with Desolation, and the dumb Or doth One weave Dark Night, with
ghost of my sin. Morning's golden strand,
To a Harmony with sure hand ?
Ah for a vision of God for a mighty grasp
! !

I have conversed with the aged once ; of the real,

their souls were a furnace Feet firm based on granite in place of
Now they are gleams in mouldered vaults crumbling sand
of the memory O to be face to face, and heart to heart with
All the long sound of the Human wanes to our dearest.
wails of a shipwreck. Lost in mortal mists of the unrevealing land !

Drowned in the terrible roar of violent Oh !were we disenthralled from casual moods
sons of the sea of the outward,
In the immense storm-chaunt of winds and Slaves to the smile or frown of tyrant,
waves of the sea mutable Time
And if we have won some way in our weary Might we abide unmoved in central deeps
toil to the summit. of the Spirit,
Do we not slidder ever back to the mouth Where the mystic jewel Calm glows ever-
of the pit? more sublime
 : : ; ! ! ! ! — ;

324 SUSPIRIA

The dizzying shows of the world, that fall We will be patient, friend, through all the
and tumble to chaos, moods of the terror,
Dwell irradiate there in everlasting prime. Waiting in solemn hope resurrection of
But the innermost spirit of man, who is one our suns
with the Universal,
Yearns to exhaust, to prove, the Immense Cherish loves that are left, pathetic
of Experience, gloaming
stars in the
Explores, recedes, makes way, distils a food Howe'er they may wax and wane, they
from a poison, are with us to the end ;

From strife with Death wrings power, and The Past is all secure, the happy hours and
seasoned confidence. the mournful
O'er the awakening infant, drowsing eld, and Involved i' the very truth of God Him-
the mindless, self, my friend
Their individual Spirit glows enthroned in It is well to wait in the darkness for the
Heaven, Deliverer's moment,
Albeit at dawn, or even, or from confusion With a hand in the hand of God, strong
of cloudland. Sire of the universe ;

Earth of their full radiance may remain It is well to work our work, with cheering
bereaven tones for a brother,
Yea, under God's grand eyes all souls lie Whose poor bowed soul, like ours, the
pure and shriven. horrible gulfs immerse ;

Then dare all gods to the battle ! Who of

Nay ! friend beloved ! remember
them all may shame us ?
purple robes of the cavern,
The
very shows of the world have fleeting
And all the wonderful dyes in dusky halls
form from thee :

of the sea,
Discover but thy task, embrace it firm with
When a lucid lapse of the water lent thrills
a purpose ;
of exquisite pleasure,
Find, and hold by Love, for Love is
A tangle of living lights all over us tenderly. Eternity.
\\Tien our stilly bark lay floating, or we were
lipping the water. Sark, i88i.
Breast to breast with the glowing, ardent
heart of the deep
That was a lovelier hour, whispering hope O to be sure for ever ! weary of hopes
to the spirit. and guesses,
Breathing a halcyon calm, that lulled I would the film might fall that veils our
despair to sleep ;
orbs in night
Fairy flowers of the ocean, opening inner- At eve grey phantom armies guard the
most wonder, mighty mountain.
Kindle a rosy morn im pearled in the Denying free approach to wistful wonder-
waterways, ing sight,
A myriad tiny diamond founts arise in the A Presence dim divined through blind im-
coralline. palpable motion,
Anemones love to be laved in the life of An awful formless Form, i' the core of
the chrysoprase change unmoved
The happy heart of the water in many un- No more was ours, until the grand invincible
known recesses Angel,
Childly babbled, and freely to glad The clear-eyed North, blew bare Heaven's
companions azure heights, and proved
 ;; ; ; ;

AUTUMN 325

Hope's heavenliest flight weak-winged ; his 'Tis only a little we know ; but ah !

breath with clangorous challenge the Saviour knoweth

Dissolved the cloud-battalions, withering I will lay thehead of a passionate child
shamed away : on His gentle breast,
Behold, in sunrise dyed, a wondrous vision I poured out with the wave, He founded
of high crag, firm with the mountain ;

Spires of leaping flame arrested in mid- In the calm of His infinite eyes I have
play sought and found my rest.
Peak, rock-tower, and dome ; huge peals of O to be still on the heart of the God we

an ocean of thunder know in the Saviour,

Assumed a bodily form in yonder wild Feeling Him more than all the noblest
array !
gifts He gave !

And the long continuous roll of cloudy storm To be is more than to know we near the ;

subsiding Holy of Holies

Was tranced to awful slopes of smooth In coming home to Love we shall know ;

grey precipice, beyond the grave.

While over all up-soared, retiring into the
heavens,
Ah ! the peace of the beautiful realm,
Ever higher and higher, snows and gleam-
dew, sinks into my spirit
like
ing ice !

True and tender friend, I love to be here

Plain beyond plain, the strophes of a glorious
with thee.
poem,
The pines, tall fragrant columns of a magni-
Voyaging stately and calm to heights of
ficent temple.
the argument . . .

Are ranged before the ethereal mountain

How to be sure for ever? deepening all our
majesty :

being,
While a dove-coloured lapse of the water
And emptying self of self, with Truth we
merrily murmurs a confidence
shall be blent.
Into a quiet ear of twilit beautiful
bowers
Yon hierarchy sublime of calm ethereal
Sweet breath of the pyrola woos us, white
mountain
waxen elf of the woodland.
Was born of earth's fierce passion, world-
confounding throes.
And two tired hearts may play awhile with
the innocent flowers.
Fire, and battle, and gloom the livid demon ;

of lightning
Flashed his zigzag blaze to be a norm for San Martino, 1882.

those
Birth and death, monotonous toil in deeps of
the ocean,
Co-operant blind to fashion a
Whose brief earth-hour may
far-off repose.
taste ripe future
AUTUMN
fruit of the ages ? I. — Al.ONK
Gauge with a life's one pace the march of
the armies of God ? Leaves from lofty elms on high
Forestall results of time, flash all the sun from In pale air swim shadowy ;

a dew-drop? Fall,
But where the Sire hath willed, there every Till, level with a weathered wall,
footstep trod. Glow their autumn colours all ;
 ! ; ! ; ! :

326 AUTUMN
Faintly rustle, touching earth ; A spirit's wings in violet air,
Where, in mimicry of mirth, Free from human woes and fears,
With a crisper rustle dance, In our dreams
When the viewless winds advance, It seems !

Driven decayed and brown.

leaves, While yon kine upon the marge.
Eddying as they are blown. On the meadowy marge,
Dear illusions perish so, Greenly-glowing pasture large,
Summer nurslings, ere the snow ;
Send their gleam of coloured shadow
Loosen from a fading youth. Beyond a green bank from the meadow.
Leave us barren to the truth. Where rushes are.
Nay, they blossom forth again Afar !

Spring from winter, joy from pain. Perished all sweet summer posies ;

Again Yet a radiant air

Lavishes more fair
How yon leaflet floats, returning Roseflush from windwoven roses
To the tree where leaves are burning ! Rich and rare.

Or is it a small dark bird Now we float in orchard closes,

Nestling in the boughs unheard ? Darkly, magically green,
Lo ! a latticed height of planes, Ne'er an apple seen :

Green athwart blue skyey lanes, Till the water winds between
Blue laving continents of cloud. Beechen hills,

Violet vapour thunder-browed : And leaf-fed rills.

Yellowing foliage is fair. Whose rich furnace chestnut-gold
Gold-green as an evening air. Dowers the wave with wealth un-
Thronged upon a deep dove-grey ;
told
Higher up the halls of day. Flakes of burning gold
Light darkens, yet doth not consume Lying on the vivid grass
Boughs waving in a fiery tomb, Gorgeous, while we softly pass.
In a gash of brazen fire. Lo slim aspens yellow-pale.
!

Early sunset's ruddy p3Te. Inlaying far mist while we sail

Whisper, bird,

IL — LOVKRS ON THE RiVER

A word
Whisper, murmur, never move
Floating on a slender river, From thy pillow, love !

A pale violet flame, From my bosom, tender dove !

Windless air, a violet flame. Lying quiet, hand in hand.

Clear reflections only quiver. We will dream we need not land
Flickering with margin blurred ! Upon the shore.
Whisper, bird, Where evermore
A word ! Love, a rainbow, dear illusion.
Through a mossy arch impearled, Melts into the world's confusion !

Rounded in the water-world, We will dream no chance may sever

Love behfjld a little boat
! Two fond hearts upon the river
With a white sail, stilly float Of their own felicity !

Far off, even We will dream Love need not die ;

In Heaven ;
Only fly,

For the river-reach appears In the even,

To mount a violet air To Heaven!
 :; ;

MONTE ROSA 327

A solemn queen, like Tragedy ;

gold- wrought,
III.— Ln the Glens Her train fills all the glens ; she is Death's
bride ;

Upon the huge rock-rooted elm we stood, For soon she shall be robed in a white shroud.
That hangs and murmurs o'er a shadowy But we, fond friends, we dared to breathe
deep, aloud
Where a dim glen lies silently in sleep.
V'ows of a love undying ; though a cloud
There one tall ash, crowned queen of all the Gathered, passed over, melted in the blue ;

wood, Though withering worlds, like leaves, around

Rises above a labyrinthine brood, us flew ;

Verdurous underglooms, adown the steep And all the abysses yawned upon us two.
Riverward falling nightdews well and weep
:

In their rich bowers of odorous solitude. awful Forces of the Universe,

Boulders block leafy cataracts, that brave
With rebel surge the crag's commanding wall
Beeches burn brilliant against a grave
Mist-sombred russet foliage, that all
Seems, like a surf, to mount the steep, nor
All
Within, beneath, around us and above.
Dark armoured Phantoms, frowned upon our
love,
Breathing cold scorn thereover, for a curse.
Behold how blind wild hurricanes disperse
!

fall;
A foam-flake, inland blown from a sea-cove
Climbs the high cliffs, a never-refluent wave.
So man's fair hopes inviolable prove.
Cling, hearts, a moment ere the gulfs im-
We swung beneath the rugged antlered form ; merse !

Clambering, plunged into a green profound, For and Sin, with all that sundereth.
Self,
Ash-pale rent vapours gathering around Mad Chance, and Change, faint Absence, and
Those vast elm-arms upwrithen to the storm dim Death,
Till we beheld a cliff's grey bulk enorm. A ghostly army, leagued against Love's breath.
Crimson beyond the woodland where we Have sworn to annihilate ; life's shadows
wound. close :

Whose boughs half veiled the grandeur But Love, whose blossom fleeteth as it blows,
sunset-warm ; Rests in the heart of a Divine repose.
High cliff that doth thetidal Avon bound.

Here, where steep rocks are riven abrupt and

gory,
Where leans, weird thyrsus, a thin branchless MONTE ROSA
tree,
Ivied, discrowned, athwart their promontory, Rosa thy battlement of beaming ice
!

Midmost rank and fleshy growths that be,

all Burns, like the battlement of Paradise :

Nightshade, worn tumbled stones, and trunks One block of long white light unsulliable
mist-hoary. Glows in deep azure. Heaven's cathedral wall,
Satyrs and fauns may hold strange revelry 1
Gleams, a pure loveliness of angel thought,
With Heaven's inviolable ardour fraught.
Then we emerged upon a slumbering tide, A myriad flowers play fearless at thy feet,
Where sounding fire-ships to the populous And many a flying fairy sips their sweet,
port with the Sun of souls, the Paraclete,
VSTiile

Draw vessels laden ; there white birds resort. Thou communest up yonder, rapt from earth,
Whom light discovers, or hill-shadows hide, Robed in the evening-gold, or morning-mirth.
WTiile slowly in aerial maze they glide. One cloudy surge from thy tremendous steep
Gorgeous Autumn holds her stately court, Recoils, and hangs a warder o'er thy sleep,
 ! ! ! !

328 MONTE ROSA

Whose awful spirit in deep reverie Dark vassal crags, who guard thine awful
Above the world abides eternally : throne,
While seraphs roam around thy silver slope, Wearing dim forests for a sounding zone.
Nestle in thy hollows, and with fair-flying Divide to let thy torrent coursers flee
hope With thunderous embassage to the great Sea.
Temper the intolerable severity
Of holiest Purpose many a floweret blows
;
Behold on grand long summits bowed
!

In the unearthly Honour of thy snows, A huge ghost-cataract of cloud !

Like innocent loves in souls erect, sublime, Niagara motionless, unvoiced,

Who breathe above the tainted air of time : In dim rapt air portentous poised
While many a falling water kisses But ruftled plumes of Tempest lower
Tinkling emerald abysses Where cliffs uptower,
the giant
Of shadowy cavern with cool rain, While impregnable fort frowns
their
Clear gliding rills in polished porcelain Defiant, and their haughty crowns.
Channels descending o'er a crystal plain Their vapoury veils,
From the Frost-Spirit's palace bowers Livid ice-ribs, and wolf-fanged teeth
Of sea-green pinnacles and toppling towers, Threaten implacable with death
And grim white bastion defiled Rash mortal who assails !

With rocky ruin of the wild : Beneath them the heart fails.
While over all thy luminous pure ice One rayless wilderness of stone
Rears the stupendous radiant precipice. Upreared, they warn from their bleak throne;
High terraces the seraphim have trod, Ruined halls of lonely storms.
Stairsdwindling fainter, as they near the Whose are weird dishevelled forms.
abode, Dark as eerie crags that loom.
Where in light unimaginable dwells God. Brooding haggard in the gloom,
Assuming semblance of rent thunder,
But now around thee sullen, murmuring
While they wait expectant under.
Storm
Flings his dark mantle ; such around the form
Lo one wide ocean of tumultuous sound
!

Of awful Samuel, summoned from the tomb,

Terrific burstsflooding Heaven's profound,
I

At Endor rose then all is rayless gloom

:

Shatters the concave hark how, one by

! !

About thy Presence for a little while ;

one.
Until God draws in His cathedral aisle
Each monarch mountain on his far white
The folding shroud from thy dread counte-
throne.
nance.
Shocked, buffeted by that infernal word,
Behold ! above the storm, as in a trance,
His own portentous utterance hath roared,
Thy grand, pale Face abides, regarding us,
Tearing night, startled with flame-sweep of
As from Death's realm afar, like risen Lazarus!
sword,
Isled in dusk blue, one star thrills faintly And bellowing fierce frantic wrath
shining Into the steam of that hell-broth
Over thy crest in mournful day's declining : Around white fires flash swift unfurled
:

Far away glens deep solitary blanch Over dim ruin of a watery world
With snow fresh fallen of the avalanche ; Hark! huge war -standards ponderous un-
Forested prowls the haggard wolf, the craven, rolling
While o'er me croaking weirdly wheels the Over wild surges of tempestuous blast
raven ;
While storm-stifled bells are tolling
Yonder in twilight, fretted with fierce fire. For souls of pilgrims who have passed
Lower vast vans of hungering lammergeyer ! Home at last
 ! ; ; ! ;

MELCHA 329

But here amid earthquaking shocks, A woman, I deem, once loved now all un- !

Whirlwinds rave around the rocks : crowned and degraded,

Great pines, agonising horrent She lies a white heap dishevelled, not too
O'er the white terror of the torrent, far from his face.

In wild lightning-fits leap out Later I looked, and lo! at his iron feet she
From death's womb, a ghastly rout, hath grovelled,
And all wild demon-chariots roll, The cloud-bride cannot believe she is

Hurtling, chaotic, blind, reft from control thrown for ever away !

Until the elemental rage subsides ;

Hath she not lain in his bosom ? all for the
Ebbs the fell fury of ethereal tides ; fault of a moment
Atlantic billows of slow sullen sound The stern crag heeds her not, relentless
Subsiding wander o'er the immeasurable facing the day.
Profound.

. . . Rosa! the Moon soothes thine un-

earthly rest, MELCHA :«
*

And Peace pervades the snows upon thy

breast I

Val Anzasca. Many have longed for a maiden fair,

Who still is free as summer air :

Longing youths are strong and bright ;

TO ERIC FROM THE ALPS She is free as summer light.

"Melcha, Melcha," parents say,
The fragrant pines are green, love, " Time flies, my child no more delay ! !

The pines are fair and tall, Young Geraldine would lead thee home ;

Dear is the Alpine scene, love, Worthier wooer will not come."
Peak, flower, and waterfall Half her young heart may playful lean
But my heart's tendrils favour To the love of the love of Geraldine ;

Humbler pines at home,
For there the weak feet waver.
That never learned to roam.
One day about the wood, dear,
Thy steps began to go,
And all my stony mood, dear.
Was moved to happy flow
But when they ceased from pleasure
Upon the woodland floor,
Silence in deeper measure
Than e'er was known before
Returned for evermore, dear,
Returned for evermore.
But little she cares for rout or ball,
With flushing face and soft footfall
She plies her needle, churns her cream,
Milks a heifer of snowy gleam,
And more than all the pensive child
Loves to wander alone and wild.
;
With her own kindred bee or bird.
Far from all the human herd.
Over heather, over hill,
By the torrent, by the still
Lake-margin, in a noonday trance,
Brooding over old romance.
Melcha favours with her love
Every flowery nook and cove ;

IN THE DOLOMITES Floats upon the placid stream.

Silvern as a silver bream,
One haughty, precipitous peak, enveloped,
Flying from a common life
embraced in a white cloud.
All too full of soil and strife ;
Hath freed himself from the clasp, and
flung the cloud into space ;
* See note H.
 ! : ; !! ; ; ; — !

330 MELCHA
Till once her shallop drifted to a cave With white flower and crimson fruit.
That looks upon Lough Lean's cool whisper- Glossy-leaved lave their root.
ing wave, Darkening all the glass ;

Where silent water-light for loving eyes Saw the languid lake-lives waver
Weaves mazy melodies Below in a luminous water-quaver,
Over pellucid filmy fern, Where shadowy fishes pass
Whose is many a fairy urn, Heard the lapping wavelets kiss.
Festooning fair the rocky cavern- wall, While she dreamed of that or this
And glowing in a trickling waterfall, Dreamed of old romance.
Among sweet closely-woven mosses, While light elf-like droppings dance.
Where a rainbow globelet crosses Twinkling play
Ever to supply the losses, In a fairy spray.
Growing from long ferny nerves, " I would fly the vulgar toil
Like a meteor, I would fly the strife and soil
Startling merrily upon a flowery floor I would slumber, and awake
A blue-eyed blossom, till it thrills and In the bosom of the lake
"
!

swerves She is lulled to sweet repose

By a far-off mellow chime.
Ruddied with the fiery globe. By the water's murmured rhyme.
Autumn's gorgeous golden robe By the wild bee in the thyme.
Involves majestic mountain forms, Till her eyelids close.
Crags familiar with storms.
Grandly towering aglow. Hark a long sweet note resounding,
!

Burning tranquil waves below, From the mountain clear rebounding

Purpled here with miles of heather, Hills are all alive with voices.
Shadowed often altogether. With soft spirit noises.
Yonder shines the Eagle's Nest Naiads of the shadowy water.
In a glorious verdure-vest Every gentle woodland daughter,
She hath climbed his rocky crest All ye lovely fays who are
Seen the stately eagle hover, In the valleys of Glenaa
Imperial-poised, a thunder-cloud above her, All who haunt the Purple Mountain,
Whom a pearly sunbeam found Souls of many a far-off fountain,
Luminous-brown, with all around All in air, or underground.
Opal air, and o'er the glens Or in hollow cliff spellbound.
Under, and o'er all the fens. Breathe your delicate spirit-voices I

Eagle's Nest is all alive,

If eagles are monarchs of air, As though he were a fairies' hive ;

Red deer are lords of the glen ! Musically ruffled he rejoices ;

Behold ! a stag over there. Hurrying notes in sweet confusion,

Defiant of hounds and men, Marrying with soft collusion ;

In a lair of tall Osmunda, Awful, solemn-toned, and loud ;

Antlered, large-eyed, a wonder. Low as from beneath a shroud ;
Pausing now for a reply
She looked upon luminous lake,
tlie From and cliffs that lie
far crags
Seeing tufts of bilberry shake Underneath another sky
In a wandering i)reeze Now they fall to slumber, murmuring unquietly.
O'er their images ;
High Carantuohil is the last to hear.
Red-boled luxuriant arbute trees, Murmuring from his cloud.andsolitary sphere.
 ; :; ;; '

MELCHA 33'

What is the mild mystic trouble, " Darling, meet me when May morn-
Where in the lake ing-
Sun floats, a flashing double ? Earth with bridal wreaths adorning.
Maiden, awake! Opens earliest eyes upon her !

One emerges from the flood, Wait me on the tufted rock :

A snowy steed and rider, with pure radiance Well thou knowest I will not mock . . .

imbued ! . . . From your white bosom give me yon

"
He doth not seem of mortal mould, silk scarf like flame !

Whose lineaments, how grave and pale ! He stole it, she allowing, and he vanished
Beam from a raised visor of gold. as he came.
Whose silver dripping mail,
And lofty plume him tall reveal O how! poor is our dull earth,
More than all sons of mortals ; his white Till the happy morn have birth.
steed And Melcha's father's bitter wife
Stately paces the blue mead. Doth not sweeten Melcha's life I

Slowly toward fair Melcha's nook With such unearthly eyes she moved, it roused
His majestic course he took : a dark derision ;
Delighted wonder made her start She stumbled o'er her daily tasks i' the
Fearless flutters her young heart. glamour of her vision.
" So my long-fondled tales are true : She moved as one who is amazed,
Here is Lord O'Donoghue !
"'
With a sudden splendour dazed :

He, swift leaping from his horse, " Dare I with a spirit go
Seized her hand with gentle force :
To the crystal realms below ?
She, gazing in the awful eyes. And will he keep faith with me.
Found them full of loving light Far lowlier than he ?
Lovely seemed to her the knight I deem he was a monarch mild ;

Then she maiden eyes

veiled her ;
And yet a Paynim, I a Christian child !

And her tender heart was taken. May I wed a fairy undefiled ?

Taken ere she was aware, But he is glorious and true I

By the spirit tall and white, I told the priest of our sweet interview,
"
Ere he spake, " O maiden fair !
Under close confession-seal :

Spake with accent soft and rare, He deemed it some hallucination ;

"Wilt thou wed the waters blue? '

Our Lady hover over thee, and heal 1

Wilt thou love O'Donoghue? Flee very verges of damnation !

Wilt thou love me, maiden mild ? I know thou dost prefer thy nook
Fair my dwelling, gentle child ! By yonder lake to holy book.
Under the blue water ! Or holy ordinance be wary ; !

Yet, 'tis weird, and vast, and cold ;

Dally not with Paynim fairy I

I desire a mortal daughter Nay, my love's a holy feast !

To enfold ! He but dotes, our aged priest :

But I know not if the wave And since I know he must be good,
Unto thee would prove a grave : . . . I will tell him of the rood !

. . . All those wonders shall be thine. What a noble conquest this !

"
If thou wilt be mine I He shall taste eternal bliss.

"Thine!" By his love for little me ;

So the Melcha breathed

little And, for reward, what wonders he
And the spirit's arms enwreathed Will reveal to my glad mind,
Her a moment, as he won her By the many undivined I
 ; ; : — ; ! !

332 MELCHA
Yet do I sleep, or do I wake ? There a moment let her falter,
Shall I live beneath the lake ? . . . There before the woodland altar,
He told me 'twas like Heaven there . . . Where a lamp for ever burns
"
With him I will fly anywhere ! In a chapel among the ferns,
Asking of the carven Christ
But Melcha had a younger sister, " Do I well to keep the tryst?"
Whom she cherished and she kissed her
;

With strange tenderness that night She is at the tufted rock,

Of April, ere the eventful light. Hearing gentle water shock
Misting tears are in her eyes, Clear beneath her a careering hawk
;

Looking on her ere she flies ;

Hangs o'er abrupt dark-wooded heights of
Looking in toward the bed, Tore !

Where a fair and dreamless head At whose rich feet tall ash, hawthorn, and
Slumbers on without a sorrow, holly,
Blithe to-day, and blithe to-morrow. Hang shadowy bowers over waters melan-
Little Melcha cannot sleep. choly.
Shall she laugh, or shall she weep ? Dinis isle, and many an isle.

She must leave her virgin chamber. Fair await the morning smile ;

Where she taught a rose to clamber Between the hills a purple light fills heavenly
She must leave her little bird, chalices
Who in a sweet May dawn is stirred. Till lo ! the Sun Himself enthroned in moun-
And the snowy folds of fume, tain palaces !

That curtain frail her beamy room,

Yea, and leave the mother's grave. And when He touched the flashing flood,

Her young grief was wont to lave. Music welled from wave and wood
A celestial harmony
Ere the sun she flies away : Floated over earth and sky. . . .

Is it not the first of May ? While from burning waves of blue

But she hath a favourite fawn Burst the spirit O'Donoghue !

Silver-clear as a May dawn ;

Tho' he must leave her
Till the last he'll not forsake
Still a silver twinkling star
Laughs over woodlands of Glenaa
Yet the merry bird hath warbled.
O'er his five eggs wine-immarbled,
Notes that fall a rich perfume
Over orchards in white bloom
These festoon a violet air,
As she looks among the boughs.
In her bridal gossamer,
Where no costly jewel glows.
Beautiful youths and maidens, lovely water-
at the lake, powers.
! All enwreathed with heavenly flowers.
Like airy fancies from a poet's bowers.
;
Undulating o'er the gay
Crystal glory, many a fay,
Follow the war-horse as he prances,
Foam dancing all around him as he dances
;
She beholds her crimson scarf
In the beams of morning laugh.
Bound about her stately charmer,
Bound about his radiant armour
Now they are near the trysting-place ;

Save some dews that fall on her Melcha's heart is like a leaf;
From young foliage and fir. But when her lover looks into her face,
Now a rosy gleam hath tinged Those glorious amorous eyes are her relief.

Waters fair, and forest-fringed ;

He opens wide his arms to take her
Far away tall Carantuohil She will dare the fatal leap I

Glows in Heaven, a lonely jewel ! From his alluring nought shall shake her. . . .
 ! ;! ; ; ! ; -
;

MELCHA 333

She hath plunged into the deep ! . . They ever move with music from beneath.
And the fairy fawn must weep. Flower souls to bloom in many a fragrant
Held to his heart she dares the dive wreath
Explores a waterworld alive ! Up yonder, in yon visible world of light
Only a vapour seems to glide, But here in mine they are married ere the
Where O'Donoghue won his bride ! flight.

Ever the Life from caverned gloom swift

flushes,

How shall a mortal dare to tell Mantling, as though through stalks of water
What there the little maid befell ? rushes.

Nought she knows within the grasp, Here through these columns in your world
Save that it is her lover's clasp. . . .
to blossom.

she herself in wondrous Innumerably fair from Night's own bosom.

Released, finds
columned halls, Now these have changed to a wave of
Whose grand infinitude her slender soul breezy ocean,
appals. Now to a river of full mazy motion ;

Many a water-green, self-luminous column Here clouds arise, their hearts relieved in rain
Stupendous rises in dim heights and solemn. Here two young forms, ere beauty's blossom
Their labyrinths for evermore extend wane,
In hollow-echoing chambers with no end. Clasp one another in pure loveliness ;

Self-luminous are they, and yet very dim :

Here treachery murders, feigning a caress :

She turns, and hides her timid face in him. All genders a confused, life-labouring sound.
" Is it not splendid, love, my water-dwelling? As Vulcan wrought in stithys underground.
With spheral music all around thee welling ?
Here element to element fond hies.
My rainbow pillars, glowing with soft light, Or with a hatred of repulsion flies.
Soaring till lost in Heaven's infinite ?
" Each following his own affinities.
"Alas !" she said, " I hear low sounds un- The rhythmic molecule, that only moves,
linked
Foreknows blithe genius, who sings and
;

loves
Nor seem your columns with blithe colours
tinct,
Crystal snowflower, albumen ocean-floor.

sombre-hued, though beautiful. Are faint foreshadowing of cells, and more,

For all is

Alas ! my hearing and mine eyes are dull " !

Hold in their womb alcyon, moss, or rose :

Yea, rosier virgins lovelier than those

"Nay, come, for thou art dazzled !" he There yawns no blank unfathomable abysm
replied. Between the man, the sunbeam, and the
In gentle tones of love to his young bride ; prism
Then bore her over the dim-shining floor Heaving impartial. Night engendereth
To where climbed, like a giant conqueror, Genius crowned, and Love with rosy wreath ;

One of the columns, faintly tinged with rose. Madness all haggard bloody Hate pale ; ;

" Melcha! behold how glorious it glows

! Death
Here, with the rose-hue, hues of the young Or Sun, and Moon, and Stars, whose sem-
apple. blance dim
And of young pear leaves, blend, as by the With man, and beast, and bird of shadowy
chapel limb.
N'ear your sweet home, my love ; and violet. Follow in bewildering swift change ;

With many other flower souls, have met. All into one another find free range
Soft interchanging delicate qualities, Vet, save the flower-souls, they all appear
Alliance and imminglement of dyes. As in their embryo, phantasmal here."
 ; ; ;; ; ;; ; ! ! ; !;

334 MELCHA
But Melcha very faintly may discern Here springs the growth supreme of Good
Those ardours, even where they brightly burn, and Evil,
Needing some sweet assistance of his eyes : Twin-birth indissoluble angel, devil, :

So to another column-stalk he flies. Eternal hierarchies infinite,

Here he revealed the bowels of old Earth ;
Animal, human sorrow and delight ;

Fire, and slow water-growths, and many a Issue in morning-gold, or sanguine gloom.
birth From one divine unfathomable Womb ;

Forgotten, long bereft of grief or mirth. Neither, and both, and more than both ; the
There, in a third, intolerably royal, Whole,
A soul of Sunlight bursteth, while the loyal Adored in silence of the fainting soul.
Planets obeisant with their moons are moving Hearken a sound of restless-hearted ocean
!

Systems through solitary spaces roving Or of a city's far-off heard emotion!

In primal order, while young nebulte
Blindly brood over worlds of grief and But little Melcha shrinking hides in him.
glee. " I faint !
" for though mine eyes
" she cries,
While these are clearest glories, yet there be dim,
follow Icannot bear these awful sights and sounds,
All most prevailing in a sister hollow. Where all immingling my poor sense con-
There follow faintly other forms and colours. founds."
Herbs, and live things with many joys and
dolours. " Nay, here," he chaunted, her own demon
For every magic column hath a class lover,
Of powers prevailing in his mystic glass : While in his arms more loosely he enwove
This towering droops with wealth of many a her,
world. " Here in solemn halls of Thought,
Like some vast palm, whose boughs are The marvel of the world is ever wrought
night-impearled, Famine, a vulture, glares on men to ruin
Or richly laden with dates' golden clusters brought
So fountainous in ether float the starry lustres Here loud volcanoes whelm with fiery lava;
Even as a Geyser, or a fountain shoots Sin desolates a groaning earth with blood
In one straight water from perennial roots ;
Here men and women loll by mango and
Falls in blue air with myriad diamonds fair lush guava
hurled. Fair Bacchanals are reeling near a winy wave
or wood
In yet another pillar he discovers Yea ! and the Man Divine dies for alien
Swarming low lives ; the animal world ; with good."
lovers ;

Shadowy presentment of fair youths and "Ah!" she exclaimeth, "where is then
maidens, the Rood ?
Lovingly marrying in fresh flowering aidenns I lose my Lord in your sublime turmoil
With little babes, who laughing reach soft Not so I learned Him on my native soil."
arms
To where above them mother's eyelight "Yet is He here in heavenlier raiment
warms dressed
All roseate dissolving; pale wild-eyed More nobly than in your old forms expressed
Faces of saint, or seeker there harsh Pride,
; But now behold for thou must needs admire
!

Horror, and Shame; there Lust, and Cruelty Monuments wrought as though from living
Deformed arise in mists of lurid dye. fire!
 : ! ! ! ;; : ; ;! ! ; ! ! ! ; !

MELCHA 335

Among these columns rising into real Perishing sea-lives leave the coral-forest
Stand fair enchantments of Thought's own P air from their hearts ; like these on whom
ideal thou porest
And ]o ! among them, wandering palc- And glory of the rainbow-rippled shells
browed, Flows from a lowly life that ever wells.
Mighty bowed,
creators, with raised eyes or Luxuriant labyrinths of sound are floated
Silently brooding, clothed in solemn cloud From choirs of viewless harmonists full-
Here at a Plato's, or a Newton's gaze. throated !

To luminous order from a nebulous haze Rearers of Temples, and Cathedrals grand,
Gleams many a column here Spinoza : Whom earth remembers not, imperial hand,
wanders ; Behold ! with Pheidias, and Praxiteles ;

Schelling, the Stagyrite, or Hegel, ponders And many who no memory with these."
left
Kepler, or Galileo, crowned with stars But when the Knight beheld some members
All Hero-shatterers of prison bars ; of the throng.
Columbus, and our earth-discoverers :
Impetuously he burst forth into song:
Eagle-eyed martyrs of the quest for truth.
Whose effort bloometh in immortal youth :
" Builders of the warning tower,
Men dowered with the world's rank insult Whose flashing eye commands the storm,
and hot hate, When thunderous wild waves fling foaming
Because they dared to smite our swollen state,
arms of power,
Whose idol-wheels a human blood must To hurl below, to shatter, the tall Saviour
lubricate
form
Tyndale, Mazzini, Regulus, or Tell
Fathers of fire-souled mechanic
And they who by the Malian water fell
Demons whirlwind-limbed are ye ;

Cato, and Manlius patriots who died

;
Of wrought-iron tubes Titanic
Harmodius, and all who brave a tyrant's
Thrown 'thwart rivers, and the free
purple pride
Heretofore unfettered sea
Gems in the crown of Freedom set
Washington, or Lafayette
" Armoured monsters on the deep.
Here walks the wisest of Athenian teachers,
And here the mightiest of Hebrew preachers;
Grim whale-like islands, formidably sleep :

Founders of all the commonwealths of earth Your resolute fire-ships throbbing sweep I

the teeth of howling solid blasts.

Founders from whom world-shadowing faiths I'

have birth. And billowy cataracts hoar ocean casts

Moses, Mohammed, with the Indian To overwhelm, ye find the Pole,

Beethoven, Angelo, or Titian . . .
Guard a world-wide empire whole ;

Quell the foes of freedom with indomitable

Whose spirit stalks alone? the world-worn
soul
man,
Florentine Dante ! he the third grand ghost,
Who above the glorious host " Sensitive needle in a crystal shrine,
seems to rise

Of Daedal poets — third — there are two others Who dost, like Conscience, evermore incline

Homer, with Avon's bard ; and yet some Toward one Eternal Pole, although the cloud
brothers From storm -tossed mariner His radiance

Have scarce a lowlier post, from Orient shroud

And Western climes they form of sound, or ;
By thee Gama dares to round
stone. Afric's awful utmost bound !

Or metal, colour, word, a monument. And the Clenoese discovers

Wherein their own essential selves have grown. A morning-land for Liberty's blithe lovers!
 ; ! ! :! ! !;!;; "
! ;; ! ;

336 MELCHA
" Your magic glass reveals a realm Hail ! wild wind of our strong speed.
Too far, too fine, for human eyes Lightning, and a clangorous thunder
While suns, and planets, and fair moons o'er- Farm or village, town or mead.
whelm, Flashing past, earth trembles under
In fairy-like societies, Autumn leaves about us twirling.
Under our feet, in our own frames. Tumultuous clouds around us whirling,
One organising Reason flames Ringing axles eager to burst forth in flame !

Man shrinks abashed within his shell. Who shall tame us ?

Abashed by atom, world, and cell Praise or blame us
Yet magnifies the mighty Mind, Shrieking onward.
Subtler than light, more swift than wind. Hurrying sunward.
That tangles in Her ordered prisms Swift we go,
Rays of unvoyageable abysms, Reeling, jarring, or with crash of horrible
Pulsing a million years through strange overthrow,
illimitable places, Darkly travelling, ever nearing yonder
!

Hurled from hot hearts of stars, far homes of Orient aglow

unimaginable races!
"Iron-souled Inventors, you
Are of earth's illustrious few
Conquerors of reluctant Nature,
Adding to man's pigmy stature
With delver's lamp, and axe, and power-
Some ghosts, in gazing on a crystal tower.
Where man, or animal, or herb, or flower
! More dominates, or sea, or earth, or sun.
Convert the several Powers they gaze upon
;
To gods of aspect glorious and strange,
Bewraying each his nature in the change ;

loom, Benign now now malevolent they range.

;

Your spirit broods upon the gloom

Ye have arisen And Melcha saw some spirits wandering
To irradiate the serfs' dull prison there,
Ye are they who forge the chain, Whose bodies yet abode i' the upper air.

Flashing thought from brain to brain. Pier lover, he who

disappeared from earth
Not to bind, By other portals than Death's mystic birth
But liberate mankind Into an alien land, so silent seeming
Ye have winged the fiery dragon, As stars seem silent, or dim forests teeming
Thundering to feast or drouth. With infinite fairy-like societies,
Ye who pass life's foaming flagon Whose rich life-dramas we may faint surmise
Tumultuously from mouth to mouth. Her lover, he may view the spirits moving.
Rushing North and rushing South And she by him but earthly souls, in roving
;

Who devastate with rumbling tumbril-wheel. Through the stupendous halls that never end,
Rifle, cannon, shell, or steel, Perceive not those who died, although they
Human frames, and human hearts wend
While our wharves, and all our marts Their ways beside them, nor some beings
Glow wealthier from your arts nigh
With hideous scurf, with lurid smoke un- Of another order in the hierarchy.
blest, It may be few perceive them yet all here ;

Ye devastate earth's flowery rest, Assemble, each from his own natal sphere.
Her virginal sweet vest Only a dweller in a foreign star
Life's a journey; Hath his more wonted haunts from these
Life's a tourney afar.

Swift we go I In other realms of Nature's laboratory.

 : ; ! " ;!

MELCHA 137

Nor of the dead may all distinguish well But now he draws the bow none save himself
Their dead companions for souls from hell,
; can bend ;

And souls from heaven mutually repel. And while they cower, divining the dread
But all seems peopled with impalpable pale end.
hosts, Throws off concealment, towers in his own
A common crowd, and even with less than hall,
human ghosts. And turns the twanging death upon them all

No word is breathed between the shapes

who wander :
A kind of mighty pedestal upholds
On one another's work they reverently ponder This living imagery with green folds.
Knowing the Lord all over it and under. As were they heavings of an emerald ocean.
The wisest ask no homage for their names, Ever young, resonant with stormful motion.
To One all-bounteous yielding private claims. Further, as on a mass of diamond.
And where some organising thought, long
Some figures of colossal port arise.
gleaming
With tragic face and form ; fixed by a bond
Upon a column's core, hath left it beaming,
Of art inviolable their mournful guise
For ever after, when a follower gazes.
Of guilt and agony they seem to glow ;
Reason's high hallowing remains, and blazes
Darkly as bronze late molten, or like some
I' the core of these enchanted chrysoprases.
Whelmed in fire-floods of Herculaneum.

The lovers first behold a Dcedal thought, Hangs the god-Titan hurling scorn at Jove, ,

With the world's buoyant youth sublimely Torn by Heaven's ravening bird, implacable
fraught.
in love.
Here, as in purest marble white.
Though with a sunrise faintly flushing, There generous - hearted (Edipus, who
Are nobly-moulded forms who fight. mocks
Chariots and steeds to battle rushing. Sinister breathings of impending doon..
Here glorious Achilles mourns his friend, Staggers beneath accumulating shocks
Embracing a young warrior's corse, Of Destiny Divine then bows in gloom.
;

While, with head bowed to earth, each As a brave man with youthfid strength
generous horse adorned
Of race divine who brought him mourns Yields to a purple smothering Simoom,
Patroclus' end. Or snowy whirlwinds, that he blithely scorned
There Hector flies the avenging Champion, At morning on a mountain ;

Roused from his sullen rest upon the plain ; Here Antigone
Thrice round Troy -ramparts, by Achilles Supports her father blind ; there one with
slain. lavish locks.
Lashed to his car, before proud Ilion, Her brother slain, entombs, defying tyranny
Her hero, with most cruel contumely, Perishing in her youth with splendid piety.
Is dragged, in sight of poor Andromache.
"These works are wonderful," avowed the
Odysseus, deemed long dead, clad in rude bride,
weeds, " I love to explore their glories with my love ;
"
Growling low in his lion soul, yet feeds But I should tremble if I left your side
With little insolent men beneath the dome "Nay, thou shalt be at home here, O my
Pertaining to him, his ancestral home : dove
They dare his queen, and his young heir —
Even as one of us once more behold
offend What marvel yonder chasm may unfold !

Y
 ! ; : ! " "; !

338 MELCHA
A lurid haze upsteams from an Abyss, Of present time laid listening discern.
Immense, profound, down-narrowing gradual: And while the chiefs around all hearkening
There, as in ruby wrought, souls reft of bliss burn
Agonise all around the furnace wall, With inspiration of my words, I rise.
Clean-carven in relief, as on a gem And seem to vanish from their wondering
Blood red ; so one grim thought hath imaged eyes
them. Within the waters of our tranquil lake.
And lo that awful Shade himself stood nigh
! Mightier rulers follow in my wake ;

Gazing abstracted, with dread light upon A Faith Diviner, subtler joys and woes ;

His haggard features then he raised : his Yet ever more my wistful longing grows
face ; For some dear feminine heart to dwell
And those two lovers noted the full grace with me
Of all the seer, with Beatrice by, Here in Thought's own profound tranquillity.
Beheld in Heaven, where spirits who have I want a fresh, a guileless Christian spirit
won To breathe an ampler, a diviner air.

Their crown of glory form a snow-white rose, Than in her lowly cell may inherit
she
Ethereal jewels every petal glows ; So mine imperial burden one may share,
Beamingly loving, or their ardours cluster And faithful Love's unshamed simplicity
To a mighty eagle of empyreal lustre, Direct the challenge of keen Reason's eye.
And to a Cross immense aloft they noted So I make more, and purify my pleasure,
;

those. By halving our unfathomable treasure.

" Now let us pause," the mortal urges " In summer, or in stormier weather,
"all We will explore God's wondrous worlds to-

My brain reels with the marvels that appal. gether.

How fair soever " the Knight folding her,
!
How often have I failed to baffle wrong,
A grateful shade involved them, and they Because thou wast not nigh to make me
sank strong !

In one another's arms, with no demur Wrestling with loathsome coils about me
From either lover : prest,
When they woke from slumber. How oft the mortal Hydra mocked my rest !

When loving eyes of hers the lovelight drank One withering glance of thine had scotched
From his wild orbs, did any sorrow cumber the Pest
Their lakelike splendour? —
but he sighed Shall not a child from our two selves be
and said : born,
"To a strange bridegroom thou in sooth Who shall annihilate Error with blithe
art wed scorn ?

Even in my Pagan monarchy of old. And yet, alas ! I doubt if thou canst breathe
No letter of a priestly creed might hold Freely in these my realms : they leave thee
My soul, who will her ampld* wings unfold. pale with death !

Yet ere Christ's Planet in the Orient rose.

Justly and wisely did I rule my land, "Nay, I will strive to help thee, and to
Yonder on earth ; till my rapt words dis- live
close. I chose thee have dared the dimlit dive
: I

One sunny eve within my castle hall And yet, in sooth,my spirit seems confused
(Lapping its portal silver waters doze). As one who, falling far, lies dazed and bruised.
The phantom Future, whose fiir-off footfall I only fear lest, from my native sphere

Mine ears prophetic on faint-sounding sand Deserting, I may find no haven here !
 ; ! ! : ;! ;
! !

MELCHA 339

Lo living mimes of all the human drama

! Further, wild laughter in stained lips and
Swift shifting scenes of life's weird panorama eyes.
Silent succeeding groups of figures gathered Fat Falstaff, full of merry jests and lies.
From forth dim air, and slowly vanishing Carouses with a prince of generous blood.
In various forms allthese the semblance Where in Old London a quaint tavern stood.
bring
Of very men and women, yet are fathered Cordelia implores her poor mad Lear
Of human Art, not nature all are moulded, To know her for his
; faithful -hearted child.
So that their inner being lies unfolded Nor longer do her wrong ; he cannot clear
In many a moment of concentrate life, In his dark mind, all shattered and defiled
Wherewith their mutual-moving moods are By traitor cruelty, reflect her love.
rife. Once in his own blind arrogance reviled :

And when she dawns within his soul, the

By night, upon the rock-built platform dove
standing, Death sneering snatches from him he may ;

Hamlet hath heard the sire's dread shade moan.

commanding Yearning remorseful for her she is gone.—
Unwilling scattereth his life-love-blossom, All lost to love and light, he may but die . . .

Whose sweet shed petals flutter in his bosom : So, cursing, laughing, weeping, passes Life's
Here in her haunted room adjures the mother grim pageantry.
Here wrestles desolate, alone with fury-fates
that smother : Behold what seems the ruin of the Past,
I

Till smiting down the evil with a tardy random Sport of an earthquake, or a whirlwind-blast
doom. Where golden crosses, jewelled shrines and
He and the innocent sink with them in the chalices
same dull tomb Mingle with wrecks of sumptuous royal
palaces.
There a fiend-woman with red hand up- Rare alabaster, with embossed rich pyx,
braids From dainty lady's chamber sardonyx.
The lingering manhood, that so swiftly fades Enamel, and flushed porcelain immix :

Under Hell's own exorcism, when the twain Silk from far looms, with proud emblazonries.
Their royal reverend guest have foully slain. Banner, and arras, glass of rainbow dyes,
Who slept the just man's sleep beneath their Drums of great column, sculptured architrave.
roof: Red dust of monarch from cathedral nave ;

And there Macbeth's dyed soul is put to Ruby and sapphire, raiment sown with pearl,
proof. Worn by fair scions of emperor and earl
When at the banquet rises a pale ghost. King's ancient crowns, and ermines, and
To upbraid the horror-faced usurping host. tiaras,
'Mid blocks from towers fallen on the wearers.
With Romeo on her heart young Juliet, The Samson-strength of Peoples hath arisen.
In Love's own garden, swears no morning Hurling to dust the palace and the prison :

yet (joaded to madness the blind giant bowed,

Troubles the cool blue air of summer night. Till all the Commonwealth's huge pillars
Or moon, or stars, or Philomel's delight crashed with ruin loud !

That was no lark-note ! bird of envious Such chaos weltered when with furious cries
morn ! . , . Mobs held blood-orgies in the Tuilleries
Death meets them, and all lovers, with his Hut many a wilding bryony and bramble
chilling scorn ! Over the wilderness halh learned to ramble :
 ! ; — ;! ; ! ; ! ——!:

34° MELCHA
So grass, germander, violet, may vie Girdled with forests : how he soars in might,
With malachite, or lapis lazuli, While ocean at his feet makes everlasting
In Rome, in Caesar's palace, or grey baths thunder
Of Caracalla among sweet green paths,
; Most wistfully the man contemplates Nature's
Anemones and lilies fair enshrine glory
Red porphyries, or rich aventurine. And now the undying idyl of a lover's story ;

Now with a bitter smile beholds an altar,

Upon a crowning cornice crumbling grey Betwixt him and the pair Fate will not falter. ;

Stand two young lovers, beautiful as day. Offering youth, sweet sacrifice to Death !

Their lips meet, and their delicate limbs are The very twain, whose delicate arms en-
twining wreathe
Psyche and Eros so were carven inclining. Before him as alive, he sees low laid
There falls a sunset blush upon their white- Here, as on some revolt's red barricade
ness, Young men and maidens, lately bold and
While ever and anon a pulse of over- hot.
passionate brightness With hoary sire and little child, lie shot
Lightning-like thrills the rosy-tlushing forms. So these have ceased from loving, and are not,
Opposite gazed a visage dark with storms. Lying fair-frozen in a mortal shade.
All marred and riven, a crag tempest-worn ;
Their names are manifold yet these may be. ;

Gazed with alternate joy, and grief, and scorn. Who loved in isles Ionian, Juan and Haidee.
Like a fallen angel, it hath terrible beauty ;
While he who stands, a sunset-smitten tower,
While fain to breathe an empyrean of Duty, Leaning aside now, reaching hands of power.
Its frame colossal, and sublimely moulded Is called Childe Harold Manfred Cain ; ; ;

Strains ever and anon from sloughs that the Giaour.

hold it
Among these ruins, waving a wide pinion The limed, morass-entangled, floundering
Of snowy plume, that pants to have dominion angel,
Yet fails to free the angel altogether, A some deem, hath his evangel
devil, as
Who seems an eagle taunted by a tether He he rises, he hath freed one foot
sinks,
A mire, alive with myriad coiling things. Reaching a hand to lift some Manlike Brute
Draining the life-blood, mocking the white Which is it ? maimed and stunted in its

wings growth ;

Those swarthy limbs appear like lava, yet From sheer disuse its eyeballs blinded both
Smouldering sullen they were a fire-jet
: Like some weird reptile's from Carinthian
From some volcano ye, white wings of;
caves,
snow! A human thrall in subterranean graves.
Love formed you of yonder Alp, that from Rags flutter from a shagged and leathern
below frame :

Soars in high Heaven, with pure eve aglow. Its its daily wage was shame
food was blows,
'Tis as though ye were broken of a shaft, Famine 'mid mortal wrongs long kept it tame.
Aimed by some cruel jealous god, who Shut from free light and air 'neath church
laughed, and palace.
Seeing how true it speeded writhe, O : man This human thing lay cramped of human
Presumptuous Titan, thou Promethean ! malice.
Through dull, slow centuries, till it retro-
Not far hence a pure Alp abides in light, graded.
Gemmed with live sapphires, cloven with Toward brute brows and jowls, the manhood
torrents, yonder faded.
 : ! ; ! ;

MELCHA 341

See ! how it crawls from forth a rift amid the Touched many a bulk of pompous purple
ruin, pride.
Gnawing and burrowing ! alas ! this wrought That lay imposing, overswollen beside
the terrible undoing His chariot-course; when lo! an infant's
bubble.
Now from the fingers of his other hand Each bursting freed the burdened air from
The form colossal filters a fine sand, trouble.
Which seems a dust of all in the wide world, His car was winged with plumes of sunny snow,
Immingled with red dust that hath been Edgeless and downy but the front below,
;

human Isled in deep azure, wore a soft dove-grey.

And while in smoke all vanishes, lips curled Heaved and recessed, with many a tender play
Appear to scoff: Behold O man, and woman. ! Of hyacinth or harebell visionary changes,
;

Your hopes, your longings into ruin hurled As subtle-fancy'd amorous wind arranges ;

While white rims of the rear, resolved to spray,

But some illustrious spirits
Where that disaster of the creeds hath been.
Bouddha, Rousseau, bold Luther, with rude
Knox,
lena, with Konisberg unwandering eyes
Bend where huge moveless adamantine blocks
Rest undisturbed, though the fair fabric flies.
That hath been reared thereover, like a
may be seen. Evanish all in oceans of deep day.
One-half sun's rondure the cloud-chariot stole
From vision; half burned wheel-like; aureole,
]\.elievedon opaline, of slant slim ray,
Streamed up aloft behind the angel form,
Whosewild eyes ever yearned to where a storm
Of ominous thunder hath a rainbow arch,
Shining from falling showers before his march :

mist, Surely he held them rain of human tears.

Before a blast from God's old Anarchist. Falling from founts of human woes and fears.
Even as on the Lebanonian plain In this fair Form, like Hopes, or Memories,
A man beholds foundations vast remain. Cythna, Alastor, Laon, meet the lovers' eyes.
Whose every stone Cyclopean hath length
Of sixty feet, being measured ; ruin-fraught During long weary, dreary intervals
Temples were raised upon them ; all the The spirit was compelled in his vast halls

strength To leave his bride alone, while he explored

Of Genii, by Solomon compelled. Realms of a world wherein he was a lord.
Hath poised the ponderous platform that Realms of lone terrors, of bewildering awe,
rebelled, That fascinate adventuring souls, and draw,
Thwarting man's power to found. As with lodestones, or glittering weird eyes
One with very ground ! Of anaconda, one to snatch the prize.
So Tadmor's mighty stones were brought The jewel Truth from clefts of the crag
So Duty, and Love abide, with Postulates Danger,
of Thought. Up sheer and giddy cliffs a solitary ranger :

On steep snow-walls, where a mere whispered

Beside these souls illustrious are more, breath
Kneeling, or standing proud but all adore. ;
May rousethe slumbering avalanche of death
Divine Love, very Christ, they worship all. In dark grim chasms where daylight never
Whether or no upon His Name they call. cheers,
Only the lammergeyer, or corven peers :

Upon a cloud-car, vaporous alabaster. In wintry caverns roofed with frozen tears.
Swift, though the rider longs to travel faster, Where mystic murmuring chill waters flow.
Stood one, ethereal-limbed like Ariel, Rivers that are the souls of realms unrolled
Whose spear, the sunbeam of Ithuriel, below.
 : ; ; ; ! ! ! ; ; !

342 MELCHA
He plucks the glory of the edelweiss, She strove to assimilate when he was gone
Planting his feet in perpendicular ice ; The food that he would have her feed upon
Upward he clambers with stern axe and pole : Pondered his words, or would retrace some
What daunt the indomitable soul ?
shall scene,
Clouds may beleaguer with bewildering error, Where with him her companioned feet have
Torrents may thunder, cataracts of terror, been.
But he will mount, till on the proudest crest Alas ! the more she strove, the more she knew
Sun-crowned he stands, a conqueror con- Abysms impassable betwixt them two
fessed. Not even those shades relieved the loneliness,
Or hurled to atoms in the abyss unbaffled he That did upon her fainting spirit press.
will rest. She could discern no shadowy moving throng
Those vast interminable aisles among.
Behold ! he flounders in a forest foul, Shadowy a cold prison crypt
twilight !

Where balefire eyes from stealthy things that awful glooms that slept
Eternal silence !

prowl Death weighed upon her, as she cowered,

Glare on him, as he girds him unto war and wept.
And though his love must yet abide afar Ah very faintly she beheld the splendours ;
!

From him contending, yet her soul, a star. And hardly her bewildered memory renders
Beams on him holy influence from yonder. Account to her of what dim ways impart
Nerving his own to quell the lion-thunder. Views of the grand creative forms of art.
Yet there too in strange frondage, or lush So, unfamiliar with some ancient pile,

blossom, A wandering guest may lose himself, the

Hide youths and maidens with soft limbs while
and bosom. He seeks his chamber in a twilit tangle
Who with Circean spells would lure among Of and banquet-hall, dim cloister,
corridor,
them and quadrangle.
Pilgrims for revelry ; sweet songs they sung She heard some murmuring of cold blind
them ;
springs
Yet if one rested there, a mad desire Under huge crags, haunted by condor wings,
Possessed him, a fierce marrow -feeding fire. Where pine, or cedar to the sheer steep clings.
Nor ever ray of sunlight falls
Or he must toil upon a salt-scurf plain. Between stupendous granite walls.
Whose barren light beats on the burning
brain Then she recalled what her confessor spake,
A sullen sea sleeps bitter to the taste ;
Warning her of weird lords below the lake.
Gaunt skeletons are strewn upon a bitter For eerie things, whose semblances she saw
herbless waste :
Lately within the columns, thrust a claw,
So forth must fare sweet Melcha's errant Or a dead hand to seize her ; so it seemed,
knight When for a moment column gleamed
a tall ;

Nor free from stain shines out that armour Muffled friar from shadowy cowl
white. Glaring with unearthly scowl.
And she would travel with him to the strife Yea, once she met with one who seemed her
But wars and wanderings would wither her Knight,
young life. Victorious returning from the fight ;

Yet she may pray for him, yea, send her love She throws her in his arms, all happiness

Plovering o'er him like a holy dove. And lo ! she peers in horrible eyes dead-
And he behold faint glimmers from her ark. white ;

The while he welters, lost in waters dark. The caverned bosom crumbles in her caress
 ! — !; —
" ! ! ! ; —— ! ; ! ! ;
! !

MELCHA 343

" Yet ah !
" she sighed, " if he would only Why wage in ghostly realms a shadowy war,
stay .Scorning the warm world for a phantom far ?
Humbly with me in mine own earthly day I fear to lose my footing, my goal
and
Can I not lure him to abide in peace \'ea, thou hast robbed me of my rest, my
In my forefather's land ? win him release soul I

From this eternal proud disquietude ? While thy proud thoughts through all the
Lead him to rest beneath our holy rood ? world would roll ! . . .

I fear, for all the glories that so gleam, Thy gloomy pavements heave beneath my
It is the unholy glamour of a dream ! . . . feet,
Though some profound black possibility And all thy pillars rocking seem to meet ! . . .

Opens before me when my Knight is nigh Why did I leave my native sphere above ?

I dare not sound it ! Madness yawns there- Thou wilt be lost too ! fly with me, my love !

by! .. . And thou shalt be no more a wandering

How may I breathe here underneath the wraith.
"
wave ? But our own stalwart champion of the faith !

!
Or I must fly, or lure him from the cave
" Unworthy of this royal realm of mine
So now she strove with eloquent sobs to win I snatched you from the dust to make you
Her fairy lover from the halls of sin ;
mine.
For so she deemed them, weeping o'er the loss I deemed the sacred fire within your spirit
Of her own homely sanctuary-cross -Smouldered ; mine eager, breathing love may
"I cannot mock my glorious destiny," stir it

He answered, a fierce lightning in his eye ;

No queen mere common clay, for all fair
!

"No, not for love, nor comfort, nor a seeming

bride Of toys, and dress, and dross for ever dreaming
Wilt thou not share with me my throne, my In highest Heaven longing for the sound
"
pride ? Of beasts of burden on the common ground.
Then he spake bitter words of foolish gall At their monotonous unsoulful toil
Anent her faith ; the faith of a mere thrall, Drawing mere water, ploughing stubborn soil
He dared aver, till she herself felt anger, That hinds, or royal, or rich, or clothed in
And there arose a hybrid-born vain clangour rags.
Betwixt their loves; dull mist enveloped all. May gnaw roots, if their plodding never flags
A chilling feud arose from good and evil May only masks and mummeries delight you.
Love's limpid springs were poisoned by the Though to full feasts of Reason I invite you ?

devil. Will you not let me couch your filmed eyes ?

" I deem that what thine incantation vaunts For all your Atys' priests' insensate lies,

May be but water, and long waterplants Trust me God's day, when one
! is used
I fear thee there be stains upon thine armour
! ! thereto,
What realms hast haunted? art thou mine Strikes grander than mere spangles red and
own charmer ? blue
Hast thou not sinned ? art thou the paragon Or ghostly spawn of humours in sick blood
I lately set my faith upon ? . . . Though all your sacred books pronounce
Nay, if vague rumour muttered of some sin, them good,
Vile men malign us, and I hope to win And God's veracious ambient air profane
Thee from thou wilt not be ruled
the peril : Come forth, and all your juggling ghosts will
Courting the wily foe, thou wilt be fooled wane !

Why leave me here in darkness over long. Come from your blinded dungeons 1 — or
In chase of some conundrum, or a song ? remain !"
 ";! ; ! : ! ! ;;

344 MELCHA
" Shall I resign my soul, my life, my hope,
He held her in his arms : he groaned : he
Among mere shadowy fancies here to grope fled.
For ever ? why calumniate my creed ? But on the floors of Night she reeled, she
You wise ones know not all our bitter need !
stumbled, and fell dead.
See yon dim millions of human lives,
Swarming in labour's dun defiled hives, Arousing, Melcha slowly gazed around :

Stunned with base sounds, immersed in dingy Grey forms gigantic stand, with ne'er a sound
crafts Every ghost, relieved against a column,
Dare not disdain the star, the flower that Hath one vast -moulded hand enclasping
wafts solemn
Our unimprisoned souls a moment lifts !
The other arm, whose hand the visage muffled.
From reeking pestilent squalors, through Their heads are bowed, their rocky robes
what rifts unruffled
So-ever, to blue skies, and woodlands fair, Fall, like a mountain flank, with gorge pro-
Fresh flowing water, and sweet liberal air found
Hail ! soiled flower, dim star among the Grey riven columns congregated here :

smoke Have thunderous amplitude aloft they rear :

O'er ruinous roofs! faint heaven-dawn that To heights unknown, roofed over with dim
broke, fear,
Luminous pearl above man's misery, Forming one vasty chamber of sphered gloom,
Mute for a moment now, where lewd huts lie. On whose faint heart there weighs a huge
Surprised to shame of their own shameless- dark Tomb :

ness. Hewn out of solid Night

it seemed, in form
Deep degradation, and Hell's hopelessness, Resembling some sarcophagus enorm
By the young Angel, Morning! Of Bull Osirian, disinterred by Nile
Lo one wonders, ! From dull oblivion of Time's ponderous pile.
Wakes unaware, and sees God, while she As Melcha gazed, she felt One had been there,
ponders To whom the world clings with sublime
Ere yet long, thin, black throats of factories despair.
Soil with brown breath yon virginal pure " If He be there still, all is doubt and doom
skies I deemed that He was risen from the
While, by the pearly river flowing fast. tomb" . . .

She muses on a mole, with many a mast Stay ! did she hear within the sepulchre
Of wealth-gorged hulls from foreign lands A sound? ."Wilt Thou arise. Deliverer?"
. .

around her . . . She hears her own loud heart nought ;

Diseased, debauched, God's youthful Morning else astir.

found her " But I will ask these guardians," she said,
Wilt block these from the ray above their " If He indeed be risen from the dead " !

roof, Then, in a whisper, daring scarce to frame

Or hold them from the Saviour flower aloof, The syllables of that beloved Name,
Till they have fathomed your astronomy. " Tell me " she murmured : " Is the Saviour
!

Or learn to babble jargonous botany ? "

risen ?
Jesus, and Mary, human wants have met . . . From yonder Forms, from hollows of
Why will ye rob poor souls of their one the prison.
amulet ? In weird unearthly tones, the sound "Arisen!"
For me, my lot is low! I will fall prone. Rolled in upon her soul Ah how to . . . !

With those dull worshippers then dost dis- gauge

own !
The dark significance of such reply ?
 : "
! ! : ! ! ! : !

MELCHA 345

Despair's own long-drawn wail of inarticulate In sunny grass

agony Her own dear lake - land ! in a water-
Shall this the soul's deep yearning doubt glass
assuage ? Shadows of green herbage flowing,
Behold ! reverberations infinite Whose leaning blades (]uench one another
All the vast vaults and labyrinths affright glowing
To conscious desolation, fatherless, profound, On snowy petal of a frail windflower
Whom dull Oblivion's anodyne consoled with Golden anthers hint the hour
slumber sound By tremulously shadowing ;

Lulled on its dungeon floor, the world's Blue shadows to air-ruflled verges cling.
Despair Here she buries her pale face,
Wakes with a wail! "Arisen! would He Rendering ecstasy for grace,
!
were Sensible of only this.
That spring woodlands are a bliss.

And then it seemed as though, from all

Now the birch from bronzy stems
Buds alternate emerald gems,
the gloom
Of never-ending hollows round the tomb,
Whose leaflets glossy glistening
Fairy-fanned are listening
A never-ending multitude of souls,
Inwardly weeping, cloaked in mournful stoles, Unto mellow-throated elves.
Merrily sunning their small selves.
Moved from one point toward the silent grave
Of Him who came our ruined race to save. Where a flutter of a rain
Passing, each turned ; all haggard ; some in
Of slim branches moves a stain

tears
On the delicate lady-skin.

Every one, moving silent, disappears,

Pinky silver shadowed thin.

A hopeless mourner, in the Darkness facing

How she hears the turtle coo.

That night, when he emerged with melan- And a soft call of cuckoo,
choly pacing. The lake-ripple lisping,
Bluely, blithely crisping
But one who laughed in that dim hall ;

Ghastlier seemed to her than all Views yon delicate larch -clouds
Heaving like the masted shrouds,
Vivid green in azure sky.
At length she moaned, with voice of one Murmuring how tranquilly
that dies
Cherry, and pink apple blossom
" Innumerable throng
Hanging foam in air's blue bosom ;

Of human generations manifold ! how long ?

How she scents the woodland smell,
For ever shall I see your hopeless eyes ? She remembereth so well ;
Ah ! let me perish ! Ah ! for mine own Lying silent in a trance,
skies !
"
As in hours of old romance
. . .
!

Dreamfully she hears the swells While already crosiered fern

Of water-muffled peals of bells.
In the sun begins to burn.
Though dim morning rime impearl
Wings of mavis and of merle.
. .But at length upon her mind
.

And with this utterance of all her being. The hell she hath left behind
The appearance-world thereunto swift agree- Glareth dimly from afar.

ing. Like eclipse, or baleful star,

Melcha flies While she gradually remembers
. .Lo! now she
. lies How her soul hath been hell's embers!
 ;; ; ! "" ! ! —
: ; !: —

346 MELCHA
" I will humbly seek confession! Yet she feared the fatal spell
So relieve this dire oppression !
Christ and Heaven Love and Hell
!

Thinking thus, she took her way "We may scorn not common ground
To where above the placid bay God hath wisely fenced us round :

Stands her well-beloved chapel, Within I bleed from a deep wound " !
. . .

Near her home among the apple.

The lake lay yonder as before ;
When she hath arrived at home,
Yet she knew the land no more ! A stranger maiden sees her come
What hath come to wood and field ? (How the aged house did lean !

No answer may her musing yield. Other was the garden scene)
There the sanctuary appears : Who on Melcha's face and dress
. . . Doth it totter as with years? Looks wide-eyed while with no less
;

Lo! the crucifix of wood Marvel Melcha looks on hers.

Shrined where it hath ever stood : She with the strange maid confers
She is on her knees before it . . . And, naming her own family.
But what awful change comes o'er it ? Asks if sister, or her sire,
The bleeding head bowed on the breast Be in the house, or near the byre ?
Turns away from her request The maid, with terror in her eye,
Turns from her who would be blest Replies :
" 'Tis near a century,
And she feels she cannot pray Since, as they me, one so named
tell

Cannot find what she shall say Lived here — there

is a portrait framed

In the old mansion, dim with age,

Then she enters grief-amazed That often doth my mind engage.
The rude chapel ruin-crazed ;
Hanging in the parlour old ;

Weathered beams and walls inclined A lady, of whom strange things are told
To and fro, as in a wind. How she eloped with our lake-fairy . . .

All her wild tale she reveals Like you the picture looks ! ah ! Holy
To the priest, nor aught conceals. Mary!"
He, much moved, and sore astonished.
His weird penitent admonished Then Melcha in a mournful dream
She was wound in mortal sin Turned away from where the gleam
And, would she salvation win, Of her old home promised rest
Hardest penance must endure ;
To the weary and distressed ;

Make herself a holy nun ;

While the maiden scared and pale
Banish all which might allure Fled within to tell her tale.

Memory of that evil one,

Who white angel
in guise of a And Melcha went with drooping face
Drew her from the pure evangel To her mother's resting-place.
" For evermore thou shalt forsake But she found not the old stone ;

Those enchantments of the lake 1

In its place a whiter one,
This was not the aged priest. Commemorative of some other,
Wont to serve her holy feast, Not her well-beloved mother !

Before she fled away from earth ;

And confusion o'er her grew.
And Melcha felt a very dearth When the dates thereon she knew.
In her heart, when he so stern While on a headstone sunk among
Bade her love for ever turn Grass and darnel growing long.
From all memory of him. Where weather-stains and lichen gather,
Yonder in the waters dim. She spells the name of her old father . . .
 ; ; ! ! : ! — ; !

MELCHA 347

And now the dear name uf her sister. Now once more a gleam Elysian
Alas ! how often in fond hope she kissed her Dawns upon her, a new vision,
Melcha lies in the warm sun, Other than the sight of old.
Murmuring, " I must be a nun " ! Wondrous, wide, more manifold.
Then she cried, " How bitter, love 1

So she made herself a nun ;

Aching hollows where should be
And a high repute she won Love, and His tranquillity !

Among pale devotees who fast, Alas my soul would climb above
! !

Afflict their souls, and bodies cast Yet if thou sink for need of me ?
Scourged upon the midnight stone, Did I well to fly away,
Supplicating, making moan, Leaving thee alone to stray
Lacerated with remorse Ever further from sweet day ?
For sin's dark tyrannic force. In those awful wilds art lost ?

Yet, alas the demon doubt

! O to clasp thee, tempest-tost
Was not utterly cast out. Ah ! my Lord ! Ah ! not for ever
Still her exorcised devil P^om mine own thou wilt me sever :

Would return to hold his revel Nay my husband, thou shalt prove
!

And where slept Love's own warm grace. A mightier arm, though mine remove ! . . .

Alas ! now was a desolate place ;

Two hearts tangled in Love's girdle golden !

In that lone hollow of her heart Who dreams they shall not be holden ?

Fiery fangs of serpent dart ;

I am faint I seem to feel
:

Nor Heaven's mild and holy balm Some new change, for woe or weal."
Fills her wounded soul with calm. Then she wandered through the brake.
Yet fellow-feeling with the poor. Till she came upon the lake :

Enslaved and sorrowful, half wrought a cure : How wistfully she gazed, and gazed
The world-wide mystery of Fate Where the auroral billow blazed !

Fell upon her with all its weight

But gleams of Love, and Righteousness, Ah 1 what is the wild thrilling trouble
Over the welter of distress In the sun's blithe water-double ? . . .

From unimaginable quarters Behold, from forth the waters blue

Looked here and there upon the waters, Burst the spirit O'Donoghue !

Deep, wan waters of our sorrow,

Murmuring of dark to-morrow. He openeth wide longing arms
Yea, and kindly thought for all Though where are now the earlier charms ?

Lifts from sorrow's lonely pall. How she wavereth on the brink
In mortal faint she seems to sink
But they who reft of consolation live Yet looking on him, whispereth : " He is
"
Feel the sad impotence of penurjs risen !

When, longing some sweet cordial to give. Then, all transfigured, yields her to the
Helpless, and dumb, and void, they hear the prison
cry : Of his embrace! but this her lover now
"A drop to cool our tongues in this flame's Shines radiant, as never he hath shone.
misery !" " Yea, He is risen though I know not —
As one awaking after night, how!"
Blind with blaze of sudden light, Answers the other and the twain are . . .

To chaos was her nature hurled, gone

Paralysed for either world, Under the sun-reverberant tide
Since her wild audacious flight. The fairy Knight hath won his bride
 ;; ! ! :
!
! !

348 THE AGNOSTIC

With infant cradlesong they love to hear,
THE AGNOSTIC I know not, but her mellow-toned appeal
Wanders an orphan through a world of fear,
A -GIRL, who dared not say the Christian Where none regards, nor can regard, nor feel
creed, With mortal man, emitting a faint ray
Of conscious hope within the soulless gloom,
The' rich in kindly heart and valorous deed,
Sang me a simple hymn with reverent tone. That feebly quavers but a little way.
Later, before Beethoven's cloudy throne For a brief while in the eternal tomb.
Symphonic, I stood, rapt and marvelling That is the fathomless and infinite ;

And there a vision loomed on shadowy wing. Mother of all. And still serene she smiles
But how sustains her the eternal Night ?
The Maiden fair in spirit I beheld.
With what poor toys, with what illusive wiles?
Her eyes pure shrines of loftiest intent,
There were some flowers in the ice-crevices,
Indomitable endeavour, never quelled
Some tiny flowers of dear seraphic blue.
By violent misfortune, nor repelled
And rifts in tempest but ; are those, or these,
By dull resistance of indifferent
Sisters tothem in deep cerulean hue,
Vicissitude, but ever buoyant ; her
Evanishing when born, howe'er they please,
On a frail arch of slow dissolving ice,
Sustainers of her very light of life ?
I saw 'mid mountains robed in snowy fur,
Or is she strong for her unequal strife
All inaccessible, a precipice
Through yonder gleams of gold upon the rock?
At either end inexorably steep,
Nay, they are elf-gleams glimmering to mock !

Banning approach around her slender form

;

Unfathomable abysses of the deep, But she adores twin visionary Stars,
O'er her involved embroilment of the storm, That in the abysmal hollows wax and wane.
Thundering cloud ; methought she stooped Strange progeny of elemental wars.
anon Ravening in chasms of the unsouled Inane
With cordial of her glance to yield support Duty, and Love, fair sister, and bold brother,
Unto some faltering or fallen one To spring in very deed from such a Mother
Upon life's painful perilous pass, full fraught Vea, spiritual tides of boundless being
With fear, convoying from nowhere to no- Are billowing in the soul, a moment fleeing
whither ;
From naught naught unfathomably still
to
So teach the later sages, and her mind, Ghost from the gloom the miracle of Will
Swayed by the mastering Magia breathing
thither
A lovely child played on the crystal bridge,
And she played with him, they loved one
From the Time- Spirit, so believes or blind, ;
another
Or eagle-orbed. He rules the answering helm
Alas he faded from the icy ridge.
!

Of man's opinion but the mellow tones

;

Like some soft flower, his delicate fleeting

Of her sweet anthem fill the frozen realm
brother
With human longing ; the unhearing stones
He swooned into the unholy void, he
Prolong the strains within their hollow hearts
perished
Unknowing ; 'tis a hymn of piteous prayer
While she with anguish wept the flower she
For help from Him Who of His Life imparts.
cherished.
Some hold, to mortals ; but the maiden there
So deems not wherefore I ; feel wonderment. And yet methought that in the shrouding
Whether she sang, because the melody storm
Held soothing for her soul, or if she bent I could distinguish some ethereal form.

Her loftier flight, sustaining some who fiy As of a fair child often hovering nigh.
On lowlier pinion faint and falteringly Albeit no vision met the maiden's eye.
 ; ; ; !

THE DEATH OF LIVINGSTONE 349

Yet on the appealing waves of her sweet hymn River still guarding from all mortal eyes
Toward her some breathing cohort seemed The hoary mystery of mysteries."
to swim. So vowed the pilgrim, chief of a strong band.
Till unaware an ominous sharp sound Who toil to wrest from Death the twilight
Foreboded wreck and ruin of the arc land.
Startled she gazed into the dusk profound, A deep resolve, more grand than midnight
Then calmly-grave appeared to mark skies.
Annihilation's face confronting her, Glowed in his countenance but face and form ;

While in a moment with still overthrow Were marred and writhen with the lifelong
Vanished the fair arch, and his eager stir storm.
—
Of life for ever Nay behold the glow ! While life's dark winter snowed upon his
Of some divine celestial surprise heart.
Dawns in the dewy darkness of her eyes, All wrathful elements howled forth, Depart
While unsustained she falls ; for lo the cold ! Heaven with remorseless frown above him
Unfathomable hollow-hearted gloom bowed ;

Grew warm hearts throbbing with a love Earth rose in whelming floods to help the
untold cloud.
The iron crags, built round her like a tomb,
Arms wound to ward with full-assured em-
brace ! Whelmed in the wild and terrible morass.
Confused cloud-chaos, vasty vans that brood He wades, he swims, he flounders ; he is borne
Expansive o'er the darkness, with a grace Upon the shoulders of dark men forlorn.
Of hallowing benediction for the rude To whom the grandeurs of his spirit pass
Sullen death-realm, unfounded and unformed. By glorious contagion ; a foul mass
Rousing a life within the grey womb, warmed Of foes malignant o'er the man outworn
From their abounding O grand countenance Clamour ! ; disease his vitals doth harass,
Of guardian angels once a drear expanse,
! Draining the life-blood ; mortal pain hath
High snows aloof, indifferent ye stars. torn ! :

Luminous eyes, who gaze through pearly bars Until his faithfuls weave him a soft bed
Unslumbering ! . . . A childish form floats Of boughs, and bear him among flowering
hither. reeds
The same who seemed before her eyes to And lotus-paven waters : overhead,
wither ;
Languid from anguish, he in dreamings heeds
She only lost him for a little while ; An eagle at dawn, whose ghostly voice is
They greet again with still celestial smile. hurled.
For righteous Love, tho' visionless she be, As though he called one from another world.
Buoys high the soul o'er death's catastrophe.
Bears her triumphant on the central tide
Of universal Life, the immortal Bride. A world of waters — sounds of solemn sea.
As wind soughs wandering in rushes now :

But they have built with grass and limber

bough
THE DEATH OF LIVINGSTONE A hut for him who fainteth mortally.
" Lord, let not Hell prevail be with me I

Thou!
" No mortal power shall turn me : I arise, May I sustain the load allotted me
And will go forward, with my face for ever And ere in England falls the winter snow.
Toward those fountains of the sacred river, May I be there, at home, with Victory! . . .
 ! ; : ! ;! —— : ! ! :!

350 THE DEATH OF LIVINGSTONE

. . Deep is the desolation of my soul
. The head bowed in the hands enclasped
It may be I am failing ere my task before
Full-ended : in my wake no champion The body. Reverent they pause none hears :

Of light is following ; where waters roll A sound of breathing louder than of yore ;

On fair Nyassa, Death's dark navies bask The low watch-pulse affronts foreboding ears.
Mary lies in her forest grave alone ! At length one, timid, touches the grey head.
Stone-cold, and silent Livingstone is dead ! !

Lifting his arms to God above the crowd

" Aloneiher face, and one more, dear as hers. Of trampling furies, broken, but not bowed,
Avail red haunting horrors to dispel. His mighty soul went out the slave in chains
:

my dark race, plunged in the abyss of Hell Moans : the ghost-eagle calls : Hell laughs :

Sweet babes and women, beneath slow Night reigns

murderers
Tortured I start from slumber weeping blurs —
Mine eyes memories no words may tell.
for The cold hands call upon abysmal Gloom
. , Ere the young linnet in a soft nest stirs, Strange frondage murmurs in a darkling
.

1 would be home, my work accomplished morn

well!" Orphaned men cower round the fires forlorn :

. , Drearily day faints, moaning into night

. Nile shrouds his fountains the dim living :

The dark men sadly lose their fading sight, tomb

Cowering silent by the watchfire light. Of Africa still closed, Death's blank-eyed
Beasts growl in jungles of Ilala land ; doom,
Far nightbirds wail on Lulimala strand ; No face beloved, no land where he was
Trees fire-illumined murmur, a tall band. born,
Guerdons the warrior No prayed - for !

bloom
"
"Is it our people who are shouting so ? Of home-love crowns him ere the year out-
The dark and tender follower replies, worn ;
" A buffalo from far cornfields with cries But while faint eyes look far away with trust,
Men scare." The spirit wanders . . . to Death spurns the soul's quenched altar in
and fro, the dust
Like some dim waters' aimless ebb and flow ;
. . . Is all, then, failure? Lives no Father
" Is this the Luapula?" whose surmise . . . there ?

Gently the man dissolves then in a low : Do living hearts but supplicate dead air ?
Alien tongue, and with faint, filming eyes, Is this the end of the Promethean
The weary wanderer wistfully inquires, Indomitable, all-enduring Man ?
" How far is Luapula?" falling soon
To slumber. . . . Later, after night's chill
noon, Who calls it failure?
His boy-attendant, running toward the fires God fulfils the prayer :

Out of the hut, where both were sleeping, said, He is at home ; he rests ; the work is done.
" Come to the Master! for I am afraid." He hath not failed, who fails like Living-
stone !

Radiant diadems all conquerors wear

They, rising, hasten to the cabin door Pale before his magnificent despair ;

Where, by a feeble taper, which adheres And whatsoever kingdoms men have won,
To a worn wooden travelling-case, appears ] le triumphs dead, defeated, and alone.
The form of one who kneels upon the floor, Who learned sublimely to endure and dare
 ; ; ; ; ! ; ! ! ! ::

BYRON'S GRAVE 351

For holy labour is the very end,

Duty man's crown, and his eternal friend
Reason from Chaos wards the world's grand BYRON'S GRAVELS
whole
All Nature hath Love's martyrdom for goal. Nay Byron, nay
! ! not under where we tread,
Who nobly toils, though none be nigh to see, Dumb weight of stone, lies thine imperial
He only lives, — he lives eternally. head
Into no vault lethargic, dark and dank.
The splendid strength of thy swift spirit sank
Night melts in glory royal-robed Sun; No narrow church in precincts cold and grey
Glowingly deepens, like a martial blare, Confines the plume, that loved to breast the
Awakening mountain, lake, and forest fair ; day :

Assumes all Africa for royal throne. Thy self-consuming, scathing heart of flame
Slaves, to the height of their great master Was quenched to feed no silent coffin's shame !

grown, A fierce, glad fire in buoyant hearts art thou,

With souls unfettered, and free limbs, prepare A radiance in auroral spirits now ;

The wondrous march, whose Europe-shaming A stormy wind, an ever-sounding ocean,

care A life, a power, a never-wearying motion

Made all his faithful fortitude our own, Or deadly gloom, or terrible despair,
Enshrined for men the man magnanimous, An earthquake mockery of strong Creeds
A beacon for all races and for us ! that were
Yet if no rumour had survived the grave. Assured possessions of calm earth and sky,
If all were whelmed in dark Ilala-wave, Where doom-distraught pale souls took
Yon very woods and waters in their dim sanctuary.
Hearts would have lost no memory of him As in strong temples. The same blocks shall
They, in their mystic message to all time. build,
And all the worlds, have thrilled with the Iconoclast ! the edifice you spilled,
sublime More more fair O scourge of God,
durable, :

Story of man God reassumes the life

; It was Himself who urged thee on thy road ;

He crowns unseen the labour and the strife. And thou, Don Juan, Harold, Manfred, Cain,
Labour is full fruition in the bud. Song-crowned within the world's young heart
And faith, possession dimly understood. shalt reign
Whene'er we hear embroiled lashed ocean
Mortal defeat blows oft the clarion roar.
Of resurrectiono'er an indolent world Or thunder echoing among heights all hoar.
Death-dreaming, louder than hath e'er been Brother thy mighty measure heightens
! theirs,

blown While Freedom on her rent red banner bears

From visible triumph ; the freed soul unfurled The deathless names of many a victory won,
A conquering flame, arousing the dull plain Inspired by thy death-shattering clarion !

Of common souls to kindle in his train. In Love's immortal firmament are set
Heroic-moulded, woke the silent dust Twin Romeo and Juliet,
stars of
To songful flowers of helpful love and trust And companions young eyes discover
their
Inspired the world's dead heart to throb In Cycladean Haidee with her lover.
victoriously
So they awake to life, who warring desperate May all the devastating force be spent ?

die! Or all thy godlike energies lie shent ?

Yea, in the smile of some Divine deep Peace, Nay thou art founded in the strength Divine
!

Our faithful find from storms of earth release. The Soul's immense eternity is thine !
 — ! ! ;: ! —

352 SNOWDROPS
Profound Beneficence absorbs thy power, From unimaginable wealth
While Ages tend the long-maturing flower My soul demands but this. :

Our Sun himself, one tempest of wild Nor fame, nor power, nor gold, nor health
flame, A little child's warm kiss !

For source of joy, and very life men claim

In mellowing corn, in bird, and bloom of If I may feel him when I part,
spring, And if me then,
he greets
In leaping lambs, and lovers dallying. Unsorrowing will my weary heart
Byron the whirlwinds rended not in vain
! ;
Forsake the haunts of men.
Aloof behold they nourish and sustain I

In the far end we shall account them gain.

Ah me ! engulphed in the wild storm,
That drifts the lost like leaves.
Mine arms may never clasp thy form.
Where a still water heaves,
-SNOWDROPS
Where God's own sunlight cleaves to thee.
O DARLING spirits of the snow,
Who
hide within your heart the green,
My holy little child
Yet, through a storm-rent might I see
Howe'er the wintry wind may blow.
. The secret of the summer sheen Thy joy, my undefiled,

Ye smile to know !

Ideem that I could bear my fate,

woods and mead, However dark and drear ;

By frozen rills, in
But I behold no Heaven's gate
A mild pure sisterhood ye grow,
From our confusion here
Who !

bend the meek and quiet head.

And are a token from below
From our dear dead, I think the love between us twain
May raise me for awhile ;

Yet if the shadow of my pain

As in their turf ye softly shine, Would only cloud thy smile,
Of innocent white lives they lead
With healing influence Divine
For souls who on their memory feed, Ah move not near me, till my doom
I

World-worn like mine. Of whirlwind, ice, and fire

Be all accomplished in the gloom.
And I be lifted higher I

NOCTURNE Our Love shall save, whate'er delays,

And thou be fain of all thy dole
The shadowy portals of dim death Dear Love hath many secret ways,
Unfold alluringly, Whereby She steals from soul to soul
And all my soul importuneth Are any hells beyond the rays
Unfathomed worlds for thee ! Of Her all-healing miracle ?

ye illimitable realms If theAbysses could devour

Of awful amplitude, Thy and mine, then all were lost
love

From your immensity that whelms But where Love breathes, a fadeless flower
1 crave one only good ;
May bloom from Death's inveterate firost
 ! ! ! ! ! !

BEETHOVEN 353

And though the fiends would whelm me low Than earth can bear within the courts above
;

With mine own sins for ponderous stones, Ye may expatiate majestical,
Child-angels all around me flow ; Native, at home poor mortals hide their tears,
!

I loved them ; they have heard my moans With caught Ijreath, nor may follow moun- :

tain stairs,
Platform on platform, ye aspire to God
His infinite soul who bore you is immortal,

BEETHOVEN -'^ And ours, in whom reverberates your appeal

O music-marvel ! how your royal river
The mage of music, deaf to outward sound Mirrors our life ; there breathes exhaled
Rehearsing mighty harmonies within, from it
Waved his light wand ; the full aerial tides Sorrow and joy, and triumph and despair ;

Ebbed billowing o'erwhelmed

to rear of him, Your eagle flight is through the infinite.
All listening auditors, engulphed, and swept No barriers to prison from the immense.
Upon the indomitable, imperial surge Yours the large language of the heights of
To alien realms, and halls of ancient awe, Heaven
Which are the presence-chambers of dim Now lonely prows, exploring realms unknown,
Death : Unpiloted, beneath wan alien stars.
The grand departed haunt this mountain- Your strain recalleth, keels of lonely thought,
sound ! Wandering in some sublime bewilderment,
Cliffs, and ravines, and torrent-shadowing To pioneer whereall the world will go,

pines, Now merry buoyancy, as of a boat,

A pomp of winds, and waters, and wild cloud That dips in billowy foam at morning tide.
The enchanter raises : then the solemn scene Ye are alive with yearnings of young love,
Evanishing, lo ! delicate soft calm Or sombre with immeasurable woe,
Of vernal airs, young leaflets, and blithe birds, Sombre with all the terror of the world,
The cuckoo and the nightingale, with bloom Wild with the awe and horror of the world,
Of myriad flowers, and rills, and water-falls, Begloomed like seas empurpled under cloud,
Or sunlit rains that twinkle through the leaves. Reeling and dark with horror of the wind,
And odorous ruffled whirlpools of the rose. Or pale, long heaving under a veiled moon.
Anon, some wondrous petal of a flower,
An ample velvet petal, slides along Then, with the fading symphony, the
A luminous air of summer, visibly master
Mantling a vermeil glory in the blue ;
Drooped, earthward fallen through mortal
And now thin ice films clearest water now ; weariness,
Our youngest angel whispers out of heaven, From heights empyreal ; he faced the slaves
And all the choir of his companions Now silent, with stilled instruments, who
Let loose their rapture on swift sudden wings, wrought
Sunshine released unhoped-for from a cloud ! A fabric for his high imagination,
Slant ravs of opal through the clerestory ;
A chambered palace-pile of echoing sound,
Dawn over solemn heights of lonely snow, A shadowy fane within the realms of sense.
Aerial dawn, that deepens into day ;
Drear Silence seems to him to reign when lo ; !

A congregating of white seraph throngs, A touch, at which he turns the audience. !

Who hold the realms of ether with white Vast, thronged, innumerous have risen before
plume. him
And with a sweet compulsion heaven lift to Unhearing the loud storm of their applause,
Ye, Harmonies, expand immeasurably He sees the tumult of their ocean joy
The temple of our soul, and yet are more Thunderously jubilant, in eloquent eyes,
z
 ! !; ! ; — ; ! !

354 NORTHERN SPRING

And flashing gems, waved kerchiefs and A crimson May-foam
moved feet Flushes fair,

So then the solitary master feels Soft yellow falls in a

The heart-clasp of our infinite human world, Blithe blue air.

And bows rejoicing not to be alone. Daisies and kingcups

Children's flowers
Ah ! brothers, let us work our work, for They wander, and pull them,
love Hours on hours ;

Of what the God in us prevails to do A childish laughter

And if, when all is done, the unanswering Delights the day.
void Sweet heavens are happier,
And silence weigh upon our souls, remember While they play
The music of a lonely heart may help Golden boats of the
How many lonely hearts unknown to him ! Kingcups float.
The seeming void and silence are aware The voice of the cuckoo is
With audience august, invisible, Heard remote,
Who yield thank-oftering, encouragement, With voice of the turtle,
And strong co-operationdim deep ; the Sounds so mild.
Is awful with the we move,
God in Whom They breathe of the spring-time,
Who moulds to consummation where we fail. Earth's young child ;

And saith, "Well done!" to every faithful They breathe of the Peace at the
deed. Heart of things,
Who in Himself will full accomplish all. Who hath taken the wide world
Under Her wings.
They tell of my boyhood.
They tell of my boy.
NORTHERN SPRING They tell of him folded
Beyond annoy ;

Meadow and woodland The groves are a cloudland

Dwindle away, Of glowing green.
Delicate azure in With borders embosomed in
Delicate day. Warmer sheen.
An infinite ocean of
Wave-like woods ;

Old elms remember I who longed for the whispering cool of the
Earlier moods, grove
A young leaf- rapture Sto e to the valley of verdurous gloom.
On their gnarled boughs ;
Wh ere a nightingale sings evermore to his
Thorns sing a carol of love.

SoftMay-snows As though man knew no sorrow, nor earth

The young laburnum e'er atomb.
Overvvells, A bird hath a nest in a twilight of leaves,

With peals of bloom from All woven of mosses, and lichen and
Inaudible bells ;
down ;

Sweet peals of laughter of An eye there is glistening, a bosom there

Noiseless gold heaves
His leafy bowers You may see there love's miracle, when she
Delight to hold hath flown
 ; —
! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

THE TWO MAGDALENES 355

Four delicate ovals, flecked faintly with Philomel is a child of the daylight and dark ;
wine Where the willow-leaf bathes in the flame of
She is guarding the mystical marvel of life, the moon.
The wind-flower illumines her bowery shrine, She sings all the night listens not to the lark ; ;

And the pale flame of primrose around her is Will a sorrowful heart of men turn for a tune !

rife. And I think that the world, if it hold such a

But the nightingale sings! how he sings! gladness,
what a song Must be sound to the core, whatsoever befall:
Clear water that falls, or meanders in day ; Our birds, for all wrong, sorrow, wildering
From a smooth stem of sound, that is mellow madness.
and long. Do but echo young hearts in the heaven,
Notes of fountainous blossom are lavished in who know all

play;
And one of his delicate silvery measures
Recalls one who whips a clear watery glass ;

My springs and my summers, aerial pleasures, THE TWO MAGDALENES ^8

A fair haze, while I hearken, how fleetingly

pass Art thou indeed repentant? though thy look
And O what a soft-pleached musical woof Be concentrated on the holy book ?
The innumerous melody weaveth in air Thy glowing wave of bosom makes it warm !

More subtle and rich than the verdurous roof Thine oval face-flower leaneth on an arm
Of foliage marrying over me fair. Luxuriantly moulded, negligent.
Ye enwind with your music, enmeshed, A Mediterranean-blue robe hath lent
flushed with bloom Disclosure to the undulating form.
I am sheathed, like a chrj'salid silken, with Reclining languid in a shadowy place
joy 'Mid murmuring leaves, and there thy mellow
I forget that the world hath a grief or a grace
gloom. The Sun divines, who, passing through the
Ye scatter your songs on the grave of my boy. grove,
Ah where are the conflict, the care and the
!
Illumines throat and bosom with still love.

pain, Art thou indeed repentant? all thy youth

The cruelty, feebleness, folly, or sin ? Mantling within thee doth the perfect mouth
!

O Philomel pour your melodious rain

! ! Weary of kissing ? Here
'tis cool and fresh

Open your Paradise welcome me in ! !

For musing on the frailty of the flesh.
O lark, wild with ecstasy lost in the light. ! For shadowy contemplation, and sweet
We are ever afar from your shadowless land ! sorrow !

Our Philomel, she is more near to our night, But who may prophesy of thy to-morrow?
More nigh to her gloaming of green we The seven devils in thee, did they go?
stand. Or do they only sleep that they may grow ?

For whih her song-pulses may vie with the Smouldering slumberous in thine almond
stars, while.
We have known in the clear, limpid airs of They may awake with renovated might
the South, Thou, blessing the brown earth with bare
She hath one long low burden akin to our light foot

tears, I think they only parted to recruit.

Wherein joy lieth hid for renewal of youth, When the world leaves you, worn with use,
Deliciously low, like a plaining flute. ye turn ;

Or water in moonlight, of silent foot. Nay, rule the world-illusion while ye burn
 : ; ; ! ! ! ;:

356 WINTER
A later painter showed her otherwise. And now at nightfall, from where forest looms,
Under the domination of deep eyes, A dragon train wails 'thwart the solitude
She knows no more these lovers, for the wings Flame-breathing, with a long self-luminous
Of lovelier life new-born in her ; she flings brood.
The jewels from her, for the Pearl He brings. And livid, long low steam among grey glooms.
In presence of her Lord, no fair and sweet
She knoweth, save to lay them His feet.
at
Our splendid world dies, very dull and dim Snow falls, hath fallen, all the land is white.

The woman in her seeth only Him ! Pure snow clings frozen to labyrinths of trees
They, in the narrow lane, aloft unite
Winter hath clothed with a pure foliage these,
Pitying them, bereft of spring's delight.
WINTER How fairylike their veiled pale silences
Feathery phantoms a grey mist informing
With beauty, as frail corallines dim sea.

Blue-green firs waver in a water wan, Some alien planet our earth seems to be
Save where red bole, fir-robe unmoved and Earth lies fair in her shroud and slumbereth ;

dim, So fair dim death

the pure white silence of

Show the keen wizard Frost prevails upon Lo the sun's fleeting phantom faintly warming
!

Even rivers ;a low clink bewrays a slim Mists into heaven-blue, while they flush and
Bird, who hath lighted on the marge to drink. flee:

Aerial webs invisible, that link Budding birch-sprays hang laughing jewelry
Sere, russet fern with glume of yellow grass. Of opal ice athwart the lift that clears ;

And green fir-needle, are palpable star-chains Clinking it falls, or melts in jubilant tears.

Of fairy jewel ; from furze-point they pass ;

IV
Every thin, green lance of broom sustains
Like burden ; all are fledged with crystal Gaily snow flounceth earthward in the sun,

soft.
Or frozen glistereth with icy edge
Mist frozen in plumelets many a taper tuft
;
To windward of the elm-bole ; birds in dun
Adorns the wine-stained bramble, and the Plumage, fair-formed elves, whistle in the

blade,
hedge.
Scatterits ermine mantle as they run,
Or bronzy twigs of trees bereft of shade. ;

Dint earth's bhthe stainless carpet; shake

the foam
Splashed upon all green brambles, and red-
Heath white with frost, and orange reeds are fruited
fair, Hollies, or thorns, or briars, where they roam
Beneath yon sombre masses of cold firs. Our ever sweet-songed robin richly suited.
Wave-mirrored, while a silver birch's hair And birds reserving for a leafier home,
Hangs, like dark smoke, athwart the leaden And lovelier lands the voice wherein love
air. luted,
Winter upon small marish pools confers. Erewhile in yon dead summer shadows blue :

As on our panes, with palms and wreaths of Nestle where beast, or man hath trodden deep
hers, In crisp, starred snow fur mantles fair endue
;

A delicate starflower beauty, rivalling Thatched roof, wain, barn and byre, while
All fragile water-petals of sweet spring they creep
Adorns wine-dark, ferruginous fens and ling, To a fringe of diamond icicle ; the waters
Desolate lowlands where the bittern booms. are asleep.
 ! ! !

POLITICAL SONNETS 357

Now skaters whirr and whirl, as erst, upon (Whose honour once was like the Pole secure),
the imprisoned grey A shameless reign of brazen-faced Untruth,
Plain of the river ; rosy children sliding, Fair with false hues, the mortal foe to ruth,
shout and play : And equal right. What golden salve may
Pile the illumining logs within, and let them cure
crackle gay These inward wounds ? Our fiery standards
Bright holly and green mistletoe cheering wave
our hearths we keep : Over more ravaged lands; ah, Liberty!
Warm glint the polished chairs and glasses, Once, where they dawned auroral, all thy
while yule-fires glow deep. brave
But when dear babes lie dreaming, with a Sons rallied round triumphant ; now, the dye
halo near the moon, Upon them is thy heart's blood— to the grave
And at their nursery doors are left small 'Tis England thrusts thee, with cold mockery !

fairy-appealing shoon,
There will float a voice of mystic bells over
earth's pale swound,
Barren the conquest of rich, populous lands,
And sweet sad fays of memory to haunt us
in their sound !
When the proud conqueror, foredoomed and
blind,
1874. Himself the very ground hath undermined
Beneath his legions. Wheresoe'er he stands,
Earth reels from his unfaith ; brute force com-
IN ITALY mands
By the low light of the moon, love,
Now but fierce fear, even where men's hearts
inclined
By the low light of the moon,
Lately to cherish his right rule, with bands
From her enchanted swoon, love,
The cypress woke and sighed. Of sober use, and feeling intertwined.
Light-bound for mutual service, lord and
Beyond a wooded mountain, the sea that
thrall.
hath no tide
Murmured to the moon. O ye stern rocks of either continent,
Where we do murderous battle I will ye fall,

The wilding passion-flower, love, And hide from the Lamb's vengeance ? We
The wilding passion-flower. were sent
Dishevelled in her bower, love. To bless the Lord's own little ones we went ;

Whispered dewy-eyed. To roll in blood and flame their homes, and

And thou near vine-immantled column by all!

my side
Whisperest, my flower !

England, a tyrant Spirits, who have fought

!

For Progress on the bloodless battle-fields,

POLITICAL SONNETS 2» Where generous Reason's mild persuasion
wields
A mightier arm than ever anvil wrought
Great-hearted statesman, eagle-eyed, and Ye,who with life man's heritage have bought
pure Upon the block, the stake, the deadly plain,
Our folly, weary, as in days of old. Your Human Fabric, built with souls, to
With one monotonously just, grew bold nought
To cast thy virtue from them ! We endure Falls, by the ruining hands of men profane !
 — ;

358 THE CATHEDRAL

England, who led the vanguard of God's host, Young tones swift-soaringmazyflowersunfold,
And heralded His rule to the blind world. Now fall like dew, now float like a sun-smile;
Weak, alien races, robber-like, hath hurled The sweet wind of their music seems to mould
Earthward, and grinds with armed heel ! 'Tis Yon high fan-roof that undulates the while.
lost,
The Holy Cause, through Her black treach- Ely, 1884.
eries
Freedom's great Temple-pillar prostrate lies.

VERY DEATH
Lost for a while Nay, we repent
! We There are worse deaths than Death, for
!

would Love may die,

Cease from inhuman insolence and crime, And Hope, and Joy, and holy Innocency,
And God's high name profaned, the while we With Faith yea, all we have leaned upon ;

climb may fly.

Stairs of grim Power, and Greed, defiled with May fail, may change ; no longer beautiful,
blood, A very spirit fade to dark and dull.
To lay before their shrine foul idol-food Withering toward dissolution firm-knit mind ;

Of human welfare murdered. We dare name Weltering in confusion, we may find

The God who hath abased Himself to shame, The large brain narrow, the warm heart
And want, and death, for Love, upon the unkind
Rood, And there may come an hour when we shall
Sue for Christ's blessing, while we crucify bow
His poor, who are the apple of His eye Our heads for him, whom we have mourned
I

Now, England sober, to herself returned till now,

From orgies of deep, drugged bewilderment. Thanking the Powers that they resumed his
Invokes thee, righteous patriot, whom she breath,
spurned. While he was yet a child, unknowing Death,
Come forth, our Hope, Achilles ! from thy The very death ; ourselves, who are left

tent! alone,
Praying that we may die, and turn to stone.

THE CATHEDRAL
MADNESS
Cathedral heights among the midnight
stars, She spake of madness, telling that the worst.
Ye are as mountains in sublimity ! As found incurable, was when men deemed
Your phantom towers, aerial forms on high, The world all happy, when misfortune seemed
By whispering groves surrounded, for our wars, Supreme good fortune, and the lot accurst
And puny whirl of foolish strife, that mars Appeared true bliss what lowered repulsive
;

Our poor brief lives, arraign humanity ;

erst

The vasty fane through rifts of shadowy tree Was changed to lovely, all-delightful gleamed.
Some departed souls appears.
city of Evil a cloud into blue heaven dispersed :

But in the morning, solemn sounds are rolled Beyond hope these illusions are esteemed.
Through forest gloom of jewelled nave and 'Twas spoken in good faith, unheedingly;
aisle ;
Yet they perchance the inner truth divine,
 ! ;

THE SANCTUARY 359

And if we hope to heal, the madman we ! But in the heart of the eternal hills,
I would such hallowed lunacy were mine, Pure child of ocean and eternal sun,
Here, where some say 'tis better not to be No fleeting wealth from casual-flowing rills.
What fool would cavil o'er this anodyne ? Cool and refreshing when the rest are gone.

In yonder church the same pervading calm.

For troubled souls world-weary very balm !

THE SANCTUARY Here is a sacring of pure lives and prayers,

Of holy aspirations, and kind cares ;

A PASTORAL scene a region of deep peace,

! For here the brethren of the Holy Ghost
Where Nature and the Home dwell hand in Worshipped and pondered, battled with the
hand host
Harmonious one finds a sweet release
; Infernal ; here, in early morning, while
Here from all evil and the world the land ; White wings of cloud, enjoying the sun-
Heaves undulating mildly, and the elms smile,
Lift murmuringboughsumbrageous in blue air. Pass by the mullioned window-lights in blue,
There is a river moving in the realms Soft seven-fold flame of tapers will imbue
Of meadow, fallowland, and harvest fair ; With warm translucency the white wax end
A velvet lawn slopes downward from the Of either seven-fold flame will upward tend
;

home, From candles culminant on either side

Illumed with flowers, to meet with a church- A brazen candelabrum branching wide,
yard Over an altar, in a deep twilight
That seems a sister unaware we roam
; Of cloth of gold, with broidery bedight,
Athwart the rill's division thitherward. Whereon are chalices for holy wine.
Nor feel a difference ; for meek mild flowers And crucifix of gold, the mystic sign.
On velvet turf love either ; the dear graves There stands the priest white-robed, and
Have headstone, or white cross ; the quiet whispers low,
hours While men and women reverent below
Are told, as if in dream, to the green waves Kneel to receive the emblems there is lent ;

That heave above the sleepers, and soft winds Reposeful calm from yonder monument.
Around the church-tower, by the voice Where the recumbent forms absorbed in
therein. prayer
Yon hamlet nested in his orchard finds Ever abide in shadowy cool air ;

The sunny pastor hath large heart akin They take no heed of our deluding time.
To humble joy and sorrow where he dwells Our dewy eve, midnoon, or morning prime
; ;

Abideth a warm halcyon atmosphere They, tranced to marble, ever rest in peace.
Of hallowed calm, as in lone summer dells. So that we long to be with them and cease.
Within the house, and in the landscape here, And here awhile our weary sails are furled.
All is serenely soothing ; the grave words, Here in a haven folded from the world ;

With looks, and deeds, arise from a deep Here we may taste awhile the bread of life.
spring And breathe an atmosphere aloof from strife

Of faith perennial beneath the sense. A ray of comfort steals into our prison
No earthly heats may doom to perishing, From happy souls, who with the Lord are
Because the birth of it is not from hence, risen.
A MODERN FAUST
 TO MY DEAR FRIEND

HORATIO FORBES BROWN


PREFACE TO "A MODERN FAUST"
It has naturally been with no presumptuous
desire to enter into any kind of competition
with the great EUzabethan, or the great
German Master that I have given to my
poem the name of "A Modern Faust."
But, seeking to portray a denizen of our
modern world with nature and aspirations
somewhat similar to those of that semi-
mythical and representative Personage, I who
thought it not unfitting to give him the
same name. For there exists a cycle of
Christian my thus, semi - historical, semi-
legendary, which embodies certain ideas and
ideals especially pertaining to the Christian
era, and which may, as it appears to me,
advantageously furnish such a quarry of
material for the Christian poet as the grand,
familiar stories belonging to the Heroic Age
of Greece —
the Tale of Troy Divine, of
Pelops' Line, the House of Laius, and
—
Prometheus furnished to successive poets
in Greece. These may be handled (within
certain limits) according to the idiosyncrasy
of the writer and the special requirements
of his own day, their subject-matter being
essentially human and permanent. To this
order of Christian mythus belong the cycle
of Arthurian romance, Faust, Tannhauser,
and Don Juan. My own object, however,
has been to write a poem dealing with
conditions and problems which must press,
in one way or another, upon the most
sympathetic, thoughtful, and sensitive among
ourselves ; to portray a sorely tried and
divided nature, keenly alive to human suffer-
ing, as well as to the speculative difficulties
peculiar to our day and generation, arising
from the conflict between science and ac-
cepted creeds ; unable, moreover, to ac-
quiesce in current solutions or panaceas,
confidently propounded for the ills that
afflict humanity —a nature itself disorganised
and enfeebled by internal dissensions, through
the warfare of higher and lower selves. I I
have likewise endeavoured to suggest a
365
'
certain reconciliation and harmony ulti-
mately attained by him. It has, therefore,
been with realities, rather than titles, that
I have been concerned yet to such a de-
;
lineation the familiar name of Faust seemed
not altogether inappropriate. Though con-
sidering its now formidable literary associa-
tions, remembering Marlowe and Goethe,
can repress a certain feeling of trepida-
tion in thus invoking so venerable a name, lest
he should be overtaken by the fate that was
said to have befallen rash and presumptuous
magicians, torn in pieces by the potent spirit
whom they could summon, but not control?
In the generation immediately preceding
ours, it would have been plainly impossible
to introduce that siipernatziral element
essential to the"Faust" legend, and yet
make the hero a modern. Upon this neither
Goethe ventured, nor Byron in his Faust,
which is Manfred. Even Hamlet is assumed
to pertain to a very remote age, though he
actually belongs to Elizabethan England.
But the recent revival of interest among
ourselves in what is termed "occult lore"
has rendered such a representation perhaps
less shocking and incongruous than it would
have seemed formerly. My Satan, however,
is chiefly, though not entirely, the man's
own worse self. And those who are still
certain that there is nothing in heaven or
earth undreamed of in their philosophy may
charitably reflect that, after all, the whole
phantasmagory is intended to pass in a
dream !
1 The incidents embodied in the section
"Earth's Torture-Chamber," I sorry toam
say, really happened, though, to soften' the
horror, I have modified them in detail. They
were cases dealt with by the excellent Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
Some other incidents also, illustrative of mis-
chance and suffering, are founded upon fact.
have used prose where it seemed appropriate
to my subject-matter.
 — —

SUMMARY
PROLOGUE
BOOK I.— INNOCENCE
Religion.

BOOK II.— DOUBT

Adventure, Love, Loss — Lost Lamb.
BOOK III.— DISORDER
Canto I. — — The Holy Innocents— My Little Ones.
Earth's Torture-Chamber
—
Canto II. The Flesh — Triumph of Bacchus — Siren Song— Pan.
Canto III. — The Ascetic Life — Devotion — Speculation — Lyric of Thought.

BOOK IV.— DISORDER

Prose Interlude — —
The World or, The New Walpurgis Night The World in the Church
;

— —
The Palace of Art Good Society Respectability Babel, and Wi!l-o'-the-Wisp —
—
—
Ragnarok— Stump Oratory Bewilderment.

BOOK v.— DISORDER

Canto I. — Nature— The Sea, and the Living Creatures.
Canto II. — Misfortune — Advocatus Diaboli — Mad Mother.
Canto III. — Satan.

BOOK VI.— ORDER

Canto I. — Heaven — Fountain Song.
Canto II. — Heaven's Ministry.
Canto III.— Faith.
Canto IV. — —
Human Service Songs of Golden Deeds: Charity ; Gordon; The Life-
boat; Sea Kings; The Isle of Lepers ; '' Weak Things of the World;'" World-
Progress ; Mother's Love ; Jubilee, and the Good Emperor.
—
Canto V. Wisdom and Work Caged Lark. —

366
 ;;

A MODERN FAUST
PROLOGUE Will follow but, alas
; no goal !

Crowns who yield to their control

The vision of a Pilgrimage Long builded order fades away
Made in this our modern Age From these, who to the desert stray ;

By one who went from faith to doubt, Nor hoped oasis beams upon their way.
Through all the evil rabble rout Then, finding refuge in lone Nature,
Of mad disorder, and new lore, He, wearying of her mystic stature.
That saps foundations firm before. Returns where poor Humanity
Many men, and many lands Doth agonise, do evil, die.
He wandered over ; mind expands ;
On icy heights, amid the scorn
The heart by loving learns to love. Of gods and demons, vulture-torn !

And more by losing ; darkly throve Learns at length that not alone
Foreboding also, when the rod Fault of ours hath wrought our moan.
He saw the oppressor wield, who trod Whence cometh evil, who shall say.
On human hearts, the doubt of God. In man, the creature of a day ?
Yet, charging all on man, he goes, The dumb Sphinx-Nature dooms no less
In part for solace, to the shows Than men, though ne'er so pitiless ;

Of world-illusion, by fair sense Turns her thumbs down, votes for death.
Held captive ; when delivered thence, The whole creation travaileth
Suffereth for that offence With conflict, suffering, and care ! . . .

In cloisterly, devout seclusion. Spirits in the murk of air

Him the importunate confusion Wail and whisper doubt, despair ;

Following, hales from meditation, Whom angels answer, to dispel

Where, far from earthly tribulation. Inner night that o'er him fell.
He lies, with action closely furled. He dared the invisible invoke,
Pondering the riddle of the world. And so the mirthful scorn provoke
Involved in pensive solitude Of latter-day omniscience,
The hermit may no longer brood ;
That doth all knowledge, save through sense,
Wave-washed from his rock-island home, Prohibit ; yet he deemed there spoke
Once more affronts the wandering foam. Voices verily to him,
A pretty boudoir of toy Art And forms unearthly, fair, or grim,
Surveys, but only to depart. Came palpable, now pale and dim ;

World's indifference he tries, Yet often hard to be divined

Behind respectabilities. He found it, if to his own mind
Which are as walls built thick and high Or thought should be assigned,
theirs a
To ward offence from ear and eye. Believing he the problem solved
And yet his heart obeys the lure By holding both alike involved . . .

Of sundry, who propound their cure Last, Devil-driven to end all,

For social sickness ; curious mind Enveloped in Despair's bleak pall.

Blindest leader of the blind Love plucks him from the final fall
367
 ; ; !

368 A MODERN FAUST

Offers hope and mercy mild, Upon a village church among the leaves.
In guise of a dear little child ; Grey-towered, grove-embowered, calm and
With olive-leaf from forth the dark, cool
A dove taps at wildered ark.
life's Thereof a \'ision to my memory cleaves,
And comes home.
so the prodigal How rare and radiant, pure and beautiful
Though not to where he wandered from. Before the rustic ritual began
Scarce may any wanderer find With music, or the priest, white-raimented,
The very place he left behind. And choir entered, glad surprise there ran
But he returns to faithful labour Through me to note, where shadowy arches

In Art reflecting Nature, neighbour, wed,

And a soul whereover lay A cherub form advancing all alone.
Brooding problems of to-day. With golden-curled head, unashamed young
As in a lonely mountain lake face.

Mirrored vapours roll and break, And air that wakes the passive cold grey
Sullenly involved, unravel, stone
Murmur tempest while they travel. To silent benediction on the grace
Of moving innocence, half bold, half shy,
Apollo with the Python wages Advancing like a sunbeam from the porch
Awful warfare of the ages ! With timid reverence and a laughing eye.
It may be the All draweth breath He glides among the monumental marbles,
From good and evil, life and death. Reposing warriors of his ancient line,
Stone feet upon the lion old time garbles ;

A dream of childly happiness, Their graven story play, war, women, wine,
!

A dream of children's dire distress ; Church, statecraft held, who want not, nor
A vision, fain to reconcile repine.
Powerful oppressions of the vile, He looked athwart dim spaces of the church
And what appears a casual slaughter To where his gathered folk awaiting sat.
By elements of fire or water, With linked looks of encouragement. Per-
With Love and Righteousness, which are chance,
More than earth, or moon, or star, In the fair gardened home at hand made late
Grander than the night and day, By some mishappening light circumstance.
World-foundation old and grey. Dubiously laughing, he resolved to dare
If aught more real lie below, The long way uncompanioned. The child
It is not less than these, we know ; Seemed rather born from the pure atmosphere
May only complemental lie Of all the prayers and praises undefiled
To their sublime eternity. Heart-offered here through centuries ; so clear
His eyes and colour, his rich locks a mist
Of fountained gold ; the sun loves nestling
there
BOOK I.— INNOCENCE
;

Rude congregated men and women blest

Their heavenly visitant the chaste cool air
;

Religion Among grey spaces cherished the fair guest.

A SUMMER morn, a church among the Yea, and more watchers than dull eyes behold,
trees, From whom ethereal consecration flows.
A mullioned hall ancestral, and by these Clothed him in armour of enchanted gold,
Low rural homes a river gently flows
; Molten in Love's fire, mined in hearts of
Through green demesnes; wide, antlered those
woods half close Who face the Father. Then low music woke
 — ; !

A MODERN FAUST 369

Within the bosom of the cahn abode; Taste, habit, ethnic custom, ethnic creed,
The hushed wave of rapt adoration broke ;
Whereby, as by the late-born Lore, a seed
A boy's clear tones peal forth pure faith in Was sown of gradually matured misgiving,
God. If circumscribing faiths exhaust the living
God indeed ?
Spirit of universal
From a more affluent lot in life he comes, Their niggard nourishment may hardly feed
The darling but in many humbler homes
;
The hunger of the human whose wide heart ;

Have I not found a mother, like Madonna, Revolts from putting for the whole the part.
The cherished burthen of her child upon her, From an All-Father, who hath favourites,
Or beautiful, or homely, hollow-eyed. Vainglory, pride, and arbitrary spites.
Pale with privation, toil-worn for her pride, Revengeful jealousy how many bands !

Her joy, the little ones for whom she wears Are loosened while the growing soul e.xpands
Out soul and body, shedding but few tears Some wholesome, dear, familiar wars engage ;

—
Where is the leisure for them? o'er the The upheaved, rent spirit, awful wars to wage !

pillow A lone, long conflict, doubt, and grief, and

Of some sick infant, unremoving willow. rage ! . . .

Bent day and night, how eager to fulfil In holy lands, in homes of ancient faith,

The meanest function for one lying ill !

He journeyed,where our sacred story saith
\\Tiile well-loved kindly father loves to carry The dear Lord lived and died for us ; he
His little bare-foot Jane, or crippled Harry ;
mused
And tiny folk will frolic in dim alley Among the fallen pillars of disused
As were it purple hill, or dewy valley ;
Shrines around Hermon or Mount Lebanon,
Will play their blithe life-drama in a mean, Whence all the worshippers and faiths are
Poor, walled-in, soiled apology for green. gone
As were it lovely park, or forest scene. Or in the golden-columned Parthenon,
They to the monkey-crowned street-organ The hills of olive near Jerusalem,
dance Far, fair Palmyra, holy Bethlehem ;

More gay, more fair than all fine folk in Where and serene Egyptian Nile
silent

France, Engirdleth Philae, palm, and peristyle,

At court superb of their grand monarch met. Nourishing Thebes and Memphis floating ;

To languish through the stately minuet. long

Such homes are blessed, even when cruel With moonlit sail, and oft a weird wild song
want From dusky crews, where gorgeous eves illume
Invades, though shelter, food, and clothes Sphinx, flame-y-pointing pyramid or tomb,
be scant. Storied with old-world mystic hieroglyph ;

I joy to know the children's joy as common There kings lie jewelled in the fiery cliff;

As kindness for them amone men and women. Solemn and silent in the chambered echoing
clift".

Then rude and strange adventures him befel

BOOK II.— DOUBT With liihe and swarthy sons of Ishmael,
Full-vestmented in rainbow hues, fierce-eyed,
Adventure, Love, Loss In Arab tents, or where dark men abide,
The boy, a youth now, roved in foreign lands. In marble-fountained courts by .Abanar ;

By palm and temple, over burning sands, Behind lacework of the lattice are
fine

On camels and on horses, noting men Gazelle-limbed beauties realms of myrrh ;

And manners many mountain, forest, glen.

;
and musk.
Populous human hives, and alien Where in the warmth of an enchanted dusk
2 A
 ; !! ! ! ! ! ! ;

370 A MODERN FAUST

The minareted Muezzin calls to prayer, One may divine for him ; our staff and stay,
Thrillingly waking a clear starlit air, When our own buoyant strength of life gives
And one from Europe, wondering to be there. way,
Our son shall prove to us." In one brief year
And now beneath the whispering young Their living sunbeam shone no longer here !

palm, He was no more the wild fate-sunken twain

;

Enjoying dewy evening's hushed calm. Were left to wail, and yearn for him with pain
He whispered with a beautiful lithe maid, Immense, deep, unassuageable, and vain.
Who wore red flowers in her hair's dark braid If ever shadowy difference involved.
The girl had limpid eyes, a mellow tone ;
His young life-shining all the cloud dissolved
Her body girdled with the enchanted zone And now their marriage-bond more binding
Of Venus queen clear orbs came one by one
; grew
Through darkening ether, found them dally- Over a little grave poor grief well knew.
ing on ;

At intervals they may behold them rise ;

Lost Lamb
Only they pore on heavenlier gleams in eyes
Of one another ;
youth, and early love ! He is gone, he is gone.
But Fate, with flaming sword, asunder drove, The beautiful child
And shut them out of Paradise. He is gone, he is gone.
Afar, And the mother went wild.
Beyond the wave, beneath a northern star. Babble all silent,

Once more I found him with a blonder fere, Warm heart is cold ;

His faithful, helpful life-companion, dear All that remains now

And beautiful ; who smoothed his fevered The hair's living gold
pillow. Summer hath faded
Plucked with devoted hand from death's dim Out of his eyes.
billow ;
On his mouth ne'er a ripple
Saved him, moreover, from a direr death, Of melodies!
Wherein sense robs of our Diviner breath. O where will be joy now,
Who saith the heart loves once, and never To-morrow, to-day?
more ? where is our boy now ?
The youth loved twice, and both for evermore Far, far away
His heart holds yea, the clinging tendrils
;
Light is but darkness,
twine Unshining from him ;

Round others fondly, passionately incline Sound is but silence,

To many a comrade, male or feminine. And all the world dim
Unto these later lovers was there born Spring's in the air
A perfect child, fair, breezy like the morn, 1 feel him to-day,
All laughter, light, affection, health, and song, .Spring's in the air,
Who, like a rill, danced near their path along. He's on his way
But unaware fell into some abyss. Warmth in the air,
And left life songless, shadowed, reft of bliss. Cold in my heart,
Inventive leader in the nursery games, Winter is there,
Tender, considerate of alien claims. Never to part
Full wonderful to witness in a child ! Snowdrop asleep in the
Reflection budding in the leafiige wild Loosening mould.
Of his luxuriant joy ; the parents said, Crocus apeep with thy
" A glorious manhood when we both have fled Flame-tip of gold,
 ! ; : ! ! ! ! !

A MODERN FAUST 371

Lark song who leapest

Aloft, young and bold, Canto L — Earth's Torture-Chamber
My heart groweth old, for —The Holy Innocents
Joy lieth cold
He said, " The vision before all will show
So lisped be the sweet alphabet of love ; What branded deep into my heart world-
The lesson will be fully learned above. woe. . . .

A gentle saintly mother, through her blood.

Him with the germ of heavenly birth imbued " A little boy runs hurrying to school,
Later with warm and holy influence When lo ! a toyshop very beautiful
Cherished the pure life her dear veins dis- The broad glass front shows every kind of
pense ; toy,
So learned he love ; fair maidens taught him Just fit to take the fancy of a boy.
now; He pauses ; looks ; he sees some spinning
Many were very kind to him, I trow. tops
Better he learns yet from the eternal tie O drowsy humming when it whirls ! then flops
True marriage, soul and body, may supply, Down after many giddy drunken reels
And from young children chiefly from the love
; How has he longed for one !
— Ah ! now he
That through life-loss well nigh to madness feels
drove : Two pennies in his pocket, — the school fees !

They feared the child extinguished, and the He may not buy, he knows full well, with
doubt. these
With tears rebellious, all light put out. And yet withhold not your commiseration,
And yet I deem them sent to sorrow's school Ye elder folk, who have yielded to temptation
Only for love-lore wide and plentiful. An impulse urged him, scarce controllable ;

But in that youth ancestral spirits fought He is a little child be pitiful !

To wrest for wickedness, and bring to nought Unless ye ne'er yourselves have been to
He was a battle-ground for good and evil, blame.
Like him for whom bright Michael with the His father (irony bestowed the name !)
devil Being himself without a single sin.
Contended. Ah! sweet Heaven, a parlous fate! Resolved to let all hell loose, and so win,
And who, save God, may know the final state? Ifmay be, this most evil child of his
From such ineffable debaucheries.
He flogs this feebleness with furious strength
Of a brute's bulk full-fed, until, at length
BOOK III.— DISORDER Run down, it craves recruitment from a drink
Of fire at some street-corner see him sink, ;

After, the youth, to manhood gy-own, related The boy, stripped bare for beating, on the
The stations of a life-experience. bed.
In gtiise of vision ; fact, or parable ; Moaning in anguish but his childhood led !

Momentoiis hours, firm chisel blows whereby Him, like a fairy, to forgetfulness;
A character assumed decisive mould For in the interval of sharp distress,
For good or evil ; he began to tell Diverted he may note a spider dart
His proper story from the point where I Down the fine web it wove with subtle art
Relinqtiish ttow ; the zvhole in guise ofdreufii, To whirl a fly within the silken toil,

Scenes pregnant with a life-compellingp07uer, Where it may leisurely devour the spoil.
Or symbolising steps in a career ; Yea, any other trifle, that can catch
And these the well-remembered luords he spake. The light attention, he may feebly watch,
 ! ; ; ! ; —
! ''

372 A MODERN FAUST

Albeit half-whimpering, for yet he feels Of moral plague infected, yea, deep dyed
Dull inextinguished aching of the weals. Their lamb- white souls and bodies crucified ;

The outer scene may merciful beguile Their clean flesh, only that they may subserve
From him a tearful, poor, bewildered smile, The orgasm of a flaccid satyr's nerve
Alluring flexile fancy from the rod, While panders whom the hoary goat can pay
Wherewith the '
father '
plays at angry God, Batten upon Christ's little ones for prey
Enacts rehearsals of the '
love ' of Heaven, Ah thought to turn a young man old and
!

Or that Supreme Assize ; till devils seven grey

Return with the tormentor ; at the Frown Their parents sell them — it is done to-day.
That enters the torn victim cowers down,
Praying, with prayers that might have moved " Now, while I stand within the room,
a stone, And wring my hands above the piteous doom
Forgiveness be will do so never more!
; Of this poor murdered child, fallen pale and
Yet with red rope-thongs every bruise and still,

sore A mere inanimate heap, at the curst will

The tyrant lashes. Then such wild wind- Of Tyranny, the vile, plague-spotted place
wails Teems thick with shapes of manifold disgrace
Are heard, that even dull Indifference pales. Ineffable they breathe in the murk air.
;

Shaking the door, though vainly the dread ; Like maggots in a carcase coiling there ;

clamour Over each other, thronging like pale worms,

Is drowned now when, with handle of a That interlacing shake misshapen forms
hammer. In horrible jubilation ; hear them hiss
The ruffian strikes his own child on the head. '
Do yoii believe in God, fool! after this ?
Until he falls in swoon, or haply dead. See yonder spider at his ease devour
And God doth not shake in the shuddering The impotent winged insect in his power !

wall, And yet, I gasp in answer, white and wan,

To bury what must hurl to fatal fall '
Charge all upon the tuicked will of man !
Love, justice, mercy, here and everywhere One chuckling discord from the fearful clan
Swooning in dumb renouncements of despair. Resounded, a thin, evil shadow-laughter;
Or sinking to foundationless aljysses I shuddered, fainted —and the scene changed
Of thought-confounding chaos where one — after.
misses
At least the spectacle my soul beholds. " Ah now I roam
!

The world-wide spectacle, alas ! that holds To a yeoman's home ;

Fiends thronged in earth's red amphitheatre. Meadow-bounded,

Attentive to the sanguinary stir. Flower-surrounded
And sniffing gloatingly the cruel steam From year to year
Of torture and oppression ; with fierce gleam Inhabit here
Infernal of hot glittering eyes they watch Well-thought-of people,
The unending human tragedy to snatch ; Anigh the steeple
Maniacal, malformed joy in some den, Pledged ne'er to drink.
Where deeds, beast-banned in savage moim- They frugal sink
tain-glen. In a bank for savings
Assault, insult, the light by being born. The yield of slavings,
Prisoned in brothels, helpless and forlorn. A hoarded thrift.

Ah God, the very babes, for worse than

! And for soul -shrift
death. Are oft at chapel
Are pinioned by tyrants, with rank breath They pile the apple
 ! ! ; ; :

A MODERN FAUST 573

In yonder loft, Pale skin and bone ;

Manure their croft, His face a fever,

With cart in byre, A famine glare
With hens in mire, In pits for eyes.
A horse in stable, The skeleton
Good food on table, Hath a load to carry,
And soft grey wings A heavy load,
In a mossy roof. Two flat irons.

While robin sings One half his weight

On a fence aloof; Up and down
A paradise, The old wooden stair,

With ne'er a vice, All through daylight.

Verily And half through night.
The place should be ! . . . Up and down
But is that cell The phantom flits,
In the gaol of hell, Tramps with a load,
Where (sight appalling !)
It scarce can carry. . . .

One saw crawling Ah! when to sleep?

Babes span long, For never rests he
Who had done no wrong, From that vain labour,
Save to inherit Save to stumble.
Eve's demerit, Or fainting fall.
And not have been Or when a boy
Washed quite clean (One said a brother)
By Church's chrism Shares crusts with him
From Serpent-schism. In secrecy ;

For as little reason Or when the woman.

(But I talk treason !)
At ease below
Some babes on earth (The father's wife),

Are seared from birth Unlifesustaining

With a brand of doom. Meagre morsels
To which the tomb Doles for food.
Were mercy mild. Nay, nay, 'tis living !

Pure, undefiled ;
And all too true !

Nor old divine. The boy hath taken

Nor the Florentine, A hunch of bread
Ever invented worse than this And now she beats him
For his own, or God's own enemies! With rods of thorn ;

The house is haunted (The Lord wore thorn !)

By an apparition He drops the irons,

Ofa little child! . . .

Outworn at last
Hallucination (The Lord so fainted.
An evil dream ! . . .
When He bore the cross.
And yet 'tis there And now inflaming
The very semblance With an evil salt
Ofa little child The old raw wounds,
Upon the stair. She flogs again.
The bones protruding. Such deeds were done
 ; ; — — !

374 A MODERN FAUST

In days long dead, This is a child, sir,

For the glory of God, A child indeed, sir.

At God's command. Like yours, like mine ! . . .

I know ! I know ! See, now he dies ;

Ineffable orgies One certifies

Of the carnival '

A natural death !
' . . .

Of human crime Listen low convulsive laughters

!

Are oldas time ! Awaken old worm-eaten rafters !

Yea, uncommanded Some mutter, ^

Do you now believe in
By God the Lord, God?'
Who doth them now ?
Ifuncommanded "Once more a mean room in the huge
By God the Lord, dim city !

How do them now ? No no food, no medicine, no water,

fire,

The wife, reclining No no blanket, and no coverlid

sheet, !

In a warm armchair, A sick child on a pallet left to starve

Darns diligently Between bare walls the wind bites keen ;

Anon she feeds with frost.

A sleek furred cat. Alone in London ! Dismal Nights and Days,

The man, the father. Dumb warders, alternate their kindred gloom
Luxuriously Grimly by her death-bed, indifferent.
Inhales, and blows — Days, long lone intervals of demi-darkness.
The curled blue cloud, Whose are hoarse cries, foot-trampings, and
And lets her murder wheels
far
His only child. Ah never any kindly voice for her,
!

He sees and hears Meaningless murmurs, unconcerned for her ;

The living ghost Nights of ear-ringing, terrifying silence.
Of his only son Save for some drunken ditty of sodden harlot,
Tramp up and down, A windy flare of sallow flame without
And sleeps at night, Unsoothed, untended, and, ah God, unloved !

Nor dreams of it. Her scant frock, faded cotton; while the
The demon woman pair.
Benumbs the man, Whom men name '
father,' '
mother,' at their
While God alloweth fire
The vital air Feed, warmly clothed, unheeding, near, be-
For a human soul, neath her ;

Belief in love, Who cannot turn herself upon the bed,

The love of love, Her bones protruding, lying upon her sores.
With the breath of life There comes no comfort, and no care, no kiss.
For a human body. No drop to drink, nor crumb from the full table
To be slowly drawn. Of these, who want their own child buried,
Sucked forth from it, where
And makes no sign ! An elder mouldereth, whose fate was hers.
The child's dead mother
Makes no sign !
" In these well-fended carcases a hollow
Ah that the mother
! Gapes where the tenderest of all hearts should
May be dead indeed, be.
And may not know ! A parent's heart — the devil did this for jest
 ! — ! ! ! ; :

A MODERN FAUST 375

Their child would love them if they would And you may shut them from their light

With your huge bulk of ghostly night

allow her
Wealthy must they be who can toss back love, So soon you withdraw your shadow,
as

And spill, or spurn it as a common thing ! They will re-open on the meadow,
The child had one strange friend, a folded rag. And with a sunny laugh
Of which she made a pet for lack of dolls ;
How cheerily will quaff

She communed with it daily, and at night Your newly shining smile
Her wasted cheek lay over it she named ;
In a very little while !

It Tatto, lavished all her heart on that, Ah they will kiss the very hand
!

Because none other wanted her poor heart. That dooms them to a loveless land,
And when the rude, hard undertaker came, Or scars them with a cruel brand.
He laid the cold, unkempt, dishevelled head What a curse that kiss will be
Upon the small soiled fetish of a rag, To guilty souls, awaking in Eternity

Inside the coffin for he found it clasped

;

In her thin hand what time he took her My Little Ones

measure "Ah ! little ones! my little ones!
For burying ; to his mate he only said When will your sorrows end ?
!'
'Poor little thing ! we'll put this in with her We deemed you daughters, deemed you
His was perchance the only kindness shown sons
her, Of our Eternal Friend !

Less orphaned in her death than in her life. Yet ever tears of blood we bleed
Surelyhe gave his small cup of cold water! . . .
Above your bitter mortal need !

Ah! God! ah! God! art Thou but a fair I deem that it may be your part
dream To break, and melt the world's hard heart
Of our distracted pity ? couldst not find And when ye know, ye will rejoice ;

For solace of this child, to fill the place In Heaven, will you give your voice
Of these most fearful beings, masquerading For earthly pain, your own free choice?
In guise of man, one common human heart? In the life that follows this,
For she was all ungirt with mystic light, Will you, with your forgiving kiss.
That panoplies the martyred patriot, Pile the saving coals of fire
Or saint fair well-sustaining effluence
; On cruel mother, cruel sire ?

Of the soul's inner hidden Holy of holies ; Little ones, my little ones.
The glory that illumines the lone steep Ah ! when will be the end ?
Of causes championed to the uttermost, We deemed you daughters, deemed you
Irradiating subterranean sons
Dark dungeon, paling the full jewel-blaze. Of more than earthly friend!
And cloth of gold in courts and thrones of We want you and strong,
fair, and hale,
kings. Full of laughter, mirth, and song;
This youth is one dependence, wants our help For when we hear you weep and moan,
As emptiness wants filling of the air. Our Lord is shaken on His throne !

Parents to fail their little one As though ! If later years be dull and sad,
The sun should fail the morning, or the rain Leave, O leave the children glad
Fail wells, and rivers, and the dancing spring Little ones, my little ones,
However all may end,
" How clear the auroral atmosphere Earth may fail, with moons and suns.
Of dewy, childly joy! But never. Love, your friend !

But children close their fans for fear Yqx Jesus was a little child.
At shadow of annoy. And God Himself is meek and mild.
 — ! ! ; — ' !! !! ;!

376 A MODERN FAUST

" Nay, but there came here no deHverer,
No glance, no tone of kind alleviation ;
Canto II. The Flesh— Triumph of
The neighbours are aware of the slow murder; Bacchus
And yet none knocks to save ; arrests the man. " Then I came
Encountered in the workshop, in the street. To a lit palace in a lordlier quarter
None shakes from him the torturer's red hand Of this great builded province, till it seemed
But loungers lounge, and merry-makers I, entering the vestibule, heard warbled
hurry ;
A song, as of a siren warbling low,
While and walls, and ceilings keep
floors, Who lulls, inhales, and breathes away the
same the soul.
Abominable immobility.
As when some mother's burning heart of Siren Song
hearts '
Here are bowers
Bleeds, breaks above the interminable pain, In halls of pleasure,
And slow extinction of her youngest-born. Flushed with flowers
The sunlight, soiled with coming to these For love or leisure ;

courts, Breathes no pain here,

Lurid, or livid, day defiled with smoke, Theirs nor yours.
Faint moonlight, timid starlight, went and All are fain here
came ; Of honeyed hours
They saw, or saw not ; went, and came Here in pleasure
unheeding Hide we pain.
All these contemplate with the same dull stare None may measure.
The widow's only son restored to her Nor refrain ;

From Nain's cold bier by Christ, and Beauty blooming.

Clytemnestra, And flowing wine
The baleful woman, with her false feigned Yonder glooming.
smile. Here Love-shine 1

Snaring the hero in her toils for slaughter Breathes no pain here.
Theirs nor thine,
" Then mocking spectral tones assail mine O remain here
ear Low recline
'•
And do you now believe in God, good sir?
^
In Love's illuming
I sobbed, '
Charge all on the free will of man, Woes all wane,
Or on our old ill-builded polity. Of Beauty blooming
Social extremes, our ignorance I ' Mine eyes All are fain
Fell on the father deep in a learned book, O remain here
'On Floating Germs,' by our great physicist; Lo ! Love shining
Fell also on rare coleoptera, After rain
!

Framed, under glass, hung spitted on the

wall. " The air faints with aroma of sweet
. . . So, shuddering at the loathly cachin- flowers,
nation. Marrying many-tendrilled labyrinths
That shook the room, I reeled to outer air, Dew-diamonded, a harmony of hues ;

My brain that teemed with burningcharacters. And some are flushed like delicate fair flesh

Wiped clean now to brute vacancy — per- Of smooth, soft texture ; delicate love-organs
chance Impetalled hide, depend their fairy forms ;

For respite from the horrors. . . . Ruffled corolla, pitcher, salver, cell.
 ; ;

A MODERN FAUST 377

Dim haunts of humming-bird, or velvet moth Recalling Daphne, or Byblos, where the Queen
Doves pulsate with white wings, and make Hath cave and fane anear the falling water.
soft sound. And where she wooed, won, tended her
Such was thefloral roof ; flowers overran Adonis,
In lovely ample, mounting pillars,
riot A masque of Beauty shone ;
young Dionysus
Emergent from full bowers of greenery, Heseemed, the leader of the company,
Water and marble, lily, water-lily. Who lolled in a chryselephantine car
Columns of alabaster, and soft stone, Upon a pillow's damson velvet pile
That hath the moon's name, alternating far An undulating form voluptuous.
Innumerable, feebly luminous. All one warm waved and breathing ivory,
A mellow chime dividing the lulled hours Aglow with male and female lovelihood,
Embroiders them with fairy tone fourfold ; The yellow panther fur worn negligent
And we were soothed with ever-raining sound Fondling one shoulder; stealthy-footed these
Of fountains flying in the warm, low light That hale the chariot, one a lithe, large tiger,
Of pendent lamp, wrought silver, gold, and Blackbarred, and fulvous, eyed with furnace-
gem, flame,
Rich with adventure of immortal gods. A tawny lion one, his mane a jungle.
Fair acolyte waved censer, whence the curled The facewas fair and beardless like a maid's,
Perfume-cloud made the languid air one blue. The soft waved hair vine-filleted he held ;

And linen-robed priest on marble altar Aloft with one white arm's rare symmetry
Made offering of fruit to Queen Astarte. A crystal brimmed with blood of grape that
hath
" Behind half-open broidery of bloom Heart like a lucid carbuncle some fallen ;

The eye won often glimpse of an alcove Over his form envermeiled more the rose
In floral bower, ceiled over with dim gold ;
Of ample bosom, and love-moulded flank ;

There velvet pile lay on the floor inlaid The fir-coned thyrsus lying along the
From looms of India, or Ispahan, shoulder,
With lace from Valenciennes, with silk or satin And listless fingered by a delicate hand.
For coverlid they, with the downy pillow,
;
The languid eyes dim-dewy with desire.
Have tint of purple plums, or apricot.
Of waning woods autumnal, "Some foam-fair, and some amber of deep
Salvia, moth-fan, plume of orient bird. tone
And here the storied walls luxuriant The company to rear of him, yet nigh.
Are mellow-limned for lo Pompeianwise,
; ! Fawn-youths and maidens robed in woven
All the young world feigned of a wanton joy wind
Of Eros, lo, Hebe, Ganymede, Of that fine alien fabric, hiding only
And all the poets tell of Aphrodite, As lucid wave hides, or a vernal haze ;

Or her who lulled Ulysses in her isle, But some were rough and red, and rudely
The idle lake, the garden of Armida, hewn.
And more, what grave historian hath told Goat-shagged, satyric; all high-held the vine,
Of Rosamund, Antinous, Cleopatra. (Or quaffed it reeling), and the fir-cone rod ;

Here forms of youthful loveliness recline, The fairer filleted with violet,
Iknow not whether only tinted marble. Anemone, or rose, Adonis-flower,
Or breathing amorous warm flesh and blood. The rude with wine, or ivy syrinx, ; flute.

Sweetly they breathed into anon they pause,

;

" Now from a grove of laurel and oleander. Till Dionysus, from his car descending,
Plum, fragrant fig, vine, myrtle, fern, pome- Tipsily leaned on one who may have been
granate. That swart and swollen comrade, old Silenus,
 ! : — ; : ! ;!

378 A MODERN FAUST

Fain to enfold the yielding and flushed form, And then, I seemed to see Love lying dead.
Even as when the god wooed Ariadne ; The child, moreover, the dear child we lost
So one may see them on a vase, or gem. Appeared in vision ; but alas ! the eyes,
The more terrible than all, were turned
eyes,
'
' Then
Evoe'
broke from all
lo !
!
' Away from mine, and when they fronted me.
And from the band one whom I deemed a girl They sought the ground or, veiled with his ;

In guise of boyhood, like some Rosalind, dear hands,

Came with ahungered, lustrous eyes my way ;
I feared they wept : I know they met not
The delicate neck, wave-bosom almond-hued mine ! . . .

Emerge from silk and swansdown lucent ;

hose " Suddenly loud, harsh, dissonant peals of

Cling to the ripe light limbs, and half disclose. laughter
Luxuriant lily with a wealth of charms Startled and mocked me 'Thy delirium ! . . .

Exuberant rending raiment of the sheath ;

Conjured the vision, a mere wizard-wrought,
The hair, a mist of gold, went minishing Illusive phantasy but now behold bare
!

Adown thenape; thinshadowlinedthedimple fact!' , . .

By vermeil cheek, and under shell-pink ear. Lo I am in

! the chill bleared street again
One spake
" She, folding a fair arm around me, fain. 'For you, Tannhauser, who have seen the
Lifts to my lips the ruby-mantling bowl. Christ,
And her own mouth more crimson then ; Those earlier pleasure-houses are a ruin,
she draws Nor any of you may build them Nay, ! for
Within a shadowy nest near, an alcove thee,
For dalliance amorous, . . . For thee in glamour of the Venusberg
After enjoyment vanishing. ... A change There hides no refuge from the modern woe!
Was wrought in my surroundings and ; there Wander abroad again begone nor linger ! !

dawned I flash my sword of cherubim before

On me mine earlier love of southern summers. The fair wall of earth's Eden, lest returning
Fate-ravished from me . . . now she is Ye take, and eat, and live content with earth.
another's Ye may not quell your proud dissatisfaction,
A mellow, ripe, a peerless womanhood ! Nor feed the hunger of a highborn soul
'
Art thou then yielded to mine arms at With husk of sweet illusion like to these,
length,' Nor shut your heart from any bitter cry,
I breathed, '
my Helen ? Helen unto me, Lapped in a luxury of degradation.
A purer, lovelier Helen, but another's!' . . . Rendering indifferent to alien loss;
Anon, even fearfully athirst for pain.
" She fadeth, ere I hold-her . . . then the And if ye dally a moment, yet beware
form The unholy hell of ever-enduring fire.
Of one I am bound to shield from all dis- That endeth only, if it end, in death.
honour The spell of Circe, and her transformation.
With spell of beauty dominant inflames, Yea, Beauty is a shadow from high Heaven
And paralyses reasonable will. . . . But emblem only, not substantial hold not ;

O queenly soul, refuse to be a slave.

"Nowlooked the mournful, dim, disordered And drudge for Passion fondle Beauty ;

face lightly
Of wounded Love reproachful on the storm Nor let her hold thee spinning with the
In my
wild-heaving spirit, as the moon, women
Pale, from a cloud, upon a troubled sea : Immured from the free air of stalwart deed,
 ! !; ! ; — !

A MODERN FAUST 379

From bracing airs of strong, heroic deed. Over hoar brows of the heights;
But use her for thine own high ends, O Ware the swiftly flaming lights !

queen, Pan is not dead !

Handmaiden, and not mistress ; for remember

Beauty, who poor outer sense,
flattereth
'
Whence the " innumerable laughter,"
BHnds often the eternal eye within !' All the dancing, all the glees
Of blithely buoyantbillowed seas,
" 'Yet am I fain to reconcile demands If be not a sweet wafture
it

Both of the sense and spirit,' I replied.

From joy of Oceanides ?
Whence the dancing and the glees.
"And then some choir invisible was heard, In the boughs of woodland trees.
Whose ode appeared responsive to the When they clap their hands together,
songs Hold up flowers in the warm weather?
A German, and an English poet made. Gentle elfins of the fur.
Flowers, Venus' stomacher.
Pan-i Grey doves who belong to her.
Singing birds, or peeping bud,
'
Pan is not dead, he lives for ever ! Lucid lives in limpid flood,
Mere and mountain, forest, seas, Fishes, shells, a rainbow brood
Ocean, thunder, rippling river. If Pan be dead ?
All are living Presences;
Yea, though alien language sever, 'Naiads of the willowy water !

We hold communion with these !

Sylvans in the warbling wood !

Hail ever young and fair Apollo

! !
Oreads, many a mountain daughter
Large-hearted, earth-enrapturing Sun !
Of the shadowy solitude !

Navigating night's blue hollow, Whence the silence of green leaves,

Cynthia, Artemis, O Moon, Where young zephyr only heaves
Lady Earth you meekly follow. Sighs in a luxurious mood.
Till your radiant race be run Or a delicate whisper fell
Pan is not dead !
From light lips of Ariel,
If Pan be dead ?

'Earth, Cybele, the crowned with towers.

'
Wave illumined ocean palaces
Lion-haled, with many a breast,
Musically waterpaven.
Mother-Earth, dispensing powers
Whose are walls enchased like chalices
To every creature, doth invest ;

With life and strength, engendering showers

Gemmed with living gems, a haven
For foamy, wandering emerald,
Health, wealth, beauty, or withholds;
Where the waterlights are called
Till at length she gently folds
To mazy play upon the ceiling.
Every child, and lays to rest
Thrills of some delicious feeling
Pan is not dead
Sylph-like wonders here lie hid
In dim dome of Nereid
'
Hearken rhythmic ocean-thunder
! !
Tender-tinted, richly hued,
Wind, wild anthem in the pines
Fair sea-flowers disclose their feelers
When the lightning rends asunder
With a pearly morn imbued,
Heavens, to open gleaming mines,
While to bather's open lid
Vasty tones with mountains under
Water fairies float, revealers
Talk where ashy cloud inclines . , .

Of all the marvels in the flood,

1 See Note I. And Pan not dead !
 ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ! !

38o A MODERN FAUST

'
We are nourished upon science ;
Obedience, administration
Will ye pay yourselves with words ? For individual or nation.
Gladly will we yield affiance Ceres, Pluto, Proserpine
To what grand order she affords Are the years' youth, and decline,
For wonder yet she knows
use, for ;
Seasonable oil or wine,
No whit whence all the vision flows ! Phantasmagory yours or mine ;
Ah ! sister, brother, poets, ye And if sense be fed by Nature,
Thrill to a low minstrelsy With ne'er a show of usurpature
Never any worldling heard ; She may feed our spirit too,
Ye who cherish the password, And with hers our own imbue ;

Allowing you, with babes, to go Ruling influence from her,

Within the Presence-chamber so Tallied with our character
Familiarly to meet your queen ; Dionysus, Fauns may move
For she is of your kith and kin ! To revel, or the lower love.
Ye are like him of old who heard Unrisen Ariel control.
In convent garden the white bird Undine of yet unopened soul,
A hundred years flew over him Fallen ghost invite to fall

Unheeding All the world was dim ;

! Or She, who is the heart of all,

At length, unknown, he homeward came Uranian Aphrodite, whom

To brethren, now no more the same The world laid in a Syrian tomb
Then, at evening of that day, Under the name of Jesus, She
Two white birds heavenward flew away May dominate victoriously.
Pan is not dead ! And Pan be dead !

'
Spirit only talks with spirit '
Whence are plague, fog, famine, fevers,
Converse with the ordered whole, Blighting winds, and "weather harms"?
However alien language blur it. Are sorceries malign the weavers,
May only be of soul with soul. Through inaudible ill charms?
In our image-moulding sense Disease, confusion, haunting sadness,
We order varied influence Lust, delirium, murder, madness.
From the World-Intelligence Cyclone, grim earthquake, accident,
And if Nature feed our frame. In some witch-cauldron brewed and blent ?

She may nourish pride or shame, Now I see the open pit
Holy, or unholy flame ;
Abaddon flameth forth from it
Real forms the maniac sees, Like lurid smoke the fiends are hurled
Whom he cherisheth, or flees ; Abroad now to confound the world
Real souls the sleeper kens Disordered minds
In dreamland's eerie shadowed glens. Howl, shriek, wail in the wailing winds
Pan is not dead ! Pan is not dead !

'
Every star and every planet '
Whence the gentle thought unbidden,
Feed the fire of Destiny ;
Resolve benign, heroic, just.
Or for good, or evil fan it, Lovely image of one hidden.
Here, Hermes, Hecate; Higher cherished, lower chidden,
By ruling bias, and career, Self downtrodden in the dust ?

To hath been assigned a sphere,

all Silent hand of consolation
In realms invisible and here. On the brows of our vexation.
 !! ! ! : ! ;

A MODERN FAUST 381

On the burning brows of sorrow? '

Sun, and Moon, and Earth, and Stars,
Much of all, be sure, we borrow Serene behind our cloudy bars.
For that Profound of ours within. With the Magi from the East,
From our holy kith and kin Yield glad homage to the Least,
Pan is not dead ! Offer myrrh, and gold, and gem
Before the Babe of Bethlehem,
'
Warmth and light from shielding, sheeny Now Pan is dead
Wings of angels, or Athene,
Call the Guardian what you will, '
Yea, before the wondrous story
Impelling, or consoling still Of loving, self-surrendering Man
While if to Christ, or Virgin mother, Paled the world's inferior glory.
Hate, greed, offer prayer, no other Knelt the proud Olympian ;

Than Belial, Mammon, Ashtaroth Then the darkness of the cross

Draw nigh to hear, and answer both Enthroned supreme Love's utter loss ;
When lurid-eyed priest waves the cross Then Ambition, Pride, and Lust
For slaughter, gain that is but loss Into nether hell were thrust.
Demons contemptuously toss And Pan was dead !

What though ye name the evil clan The loveliness of Aphrodite

Typhon, Satan, Ahriman, Waned before a lovelier far.
Pan is not dead !
Fainting in the rays more mighty
Of the bright and Morning Star ;

'
Their bodies are the shows of nature. Lovely will to give and bless
Their spirits far withdrawn from ours ; Maketh form and feature less
We vary in our nomenclature Young-eyed Eros will sustain
For the Demiurgic Powers, His triumph, following in His train ;

To whom high duties are assigned Kings conquered by One more Divine
In our economy of mind, In the courts imperial shine,
As in our mortal order ; they Thralls owing fealty to Him,
Lead souls upon their endless way; Who dying left their glory dim ;

From whom the tender, sweet suggestion Feudatories, ranged in splendour,

Arrives uncalled, unheralded, Sworn high services to render.
Illumination, haunting question, With lions, leopards, fawning mild,
Approval, blame from some one hid, And drawn swords round a Little Child !

Perchance from one we count as dead ; Pan, Pan is dead !

Our eyes are holden they are near. ;

Who oftenwhile may see and hear '

P"or while the dawn expands, and heightens,
By the auroral gate of birth, Greater gods arrive to reign.
In the youthful morning mirth, Jupiter dethrones the Titans,
At the portal of dim death Osiris rules the world again.
Their guardianship continueth ;
But in a more majestic guise ;

Pan is not dead ! . . .

Sinai thunders not, nor lightens,
Eagle, sun-confronting eyes
'
Ah why
! then shrilled in the .-Egsean Veils before mild mysteries !

The choral wail, the loud lament, Balder, Gautama, full -fain
Confusion of the gods Idnean, Pay humble tribute while they wane ;

Dire defeat, and banishment. All the earlier Beauty prone is

When the lowly young Judrean Before a lovelier than Adonis !

Dying head on cross had bent ? Tilleven the Person of our Lord,
"Great Pan is dead !" In yonder daylight of the Spirit,
 — ; ' —

382 A MODERN FAUST

On all the people to be poured nation, or deaden with malign rigidity of
By the dear influence of His merit, spiritual pride !

Will fade in the full summer-shine " But, indeed. Church and World overlap,
Of all grown Human, and Divine, interpenetrate. In the world may you find
And every mode of worship fall, the very breath and spirit, essential aroma
Eternal God be all in all of religion, devotion to God and man, though
Pan lives, though dead !
these may be named Ideal,' and Humanity ,' ' '

or not named at all, only lived for ; while in

the Church you may discover the World
Canto III. The Ascetic Life — stretched out at full length, luxuriating in

Devotion — Speculation vain pomp and empty glory. A well-built

tomb is the Church often, sprinkled de-
" Then my dream, according to the custom cently with devoutness to make it smell
of dreams, shifted utterly. Admiring, and sweet, slabbed imposingly with marbles of
half longing, I saw venerable collegiate
sound doctrine, correctly adjusted to one
buildings, with theological and philosophical another.
libraries for learned seclusion, old-world The Church no I can no
'
longer ' ! !

cloister and decorous close, grey sculptured submit myself to authority. Those venerable
cathedral with antique tower, emblazoned doctrines have become incredible to men and
pane, rolling organ, and impressive ritual women who have tasted modern science and
well indeed for devout and retiring souls modern philosophy. Reason and Conscience
!

Shall I stay here, I thought, and save mine, reject them. We have outgrown the ancient
by mortification, contemplation, repentance, creeds. I can never allow my private judg-
prayer? Much have I to repent of. Heaven ment to be subjugated by priest or book. I
knows And I did cast myself down before must find out for myself what is best adapted
!

an altar on the pavement of that church, to nourish my own soul. The prescribed
bitterly remorseful for past sin hours and milk-diets administered by official ecclesi-
;

hours were spent in prayer, wrestling with astical nurses I find no longer appropriate to
the stifling coils of evil habit, inextricably my adult requirements.
entangled around heart and imagination, like "But here is the more secular college
the serpent around Laocoon, pleading with library I There is here more than divinity,
tears of blood for deliverance. Ah ! how though divinity may help too. Let me stay
often, how often had this been What ! here, and think, and read, till I find out for
mighty levers may be in prayer and praise, myself, if that may be, the riddle of the
and chastened meditation What elevating I world ; or, in any case, what can be more
influences for mankind may linger among delightful and absorbing than the search
these grand monuments of ancestral piety, itself? How exhilarating to climb the heights
art, and religious fervour Shall I fly from ! of speculation alone, and enjoy with rapture
mankind, and turn monk ? But, even here, the ever- widening prospect therefrom dis-
should I cease to burn ? Would Imagination closed ! How
and serene the ether
clear !

release me, wrapped by her

a shirt of fire ? in How calm and still these mountains of con-
Grand, stern warrior-maid. Asceticism, not templation, aloof from the Earth-Babel of
of this world art thou But evil dreams and confiised
! cries, vulgar care, base lust, fevered
restless longings would follow mt', infirm of ambition I Here would I abide, and think
purpose, even here. Ah ! saintly maiden. out for myself, helped, fortified, stimulated
Principalitiesand Powers from yonder may by ancient and contemporary wisdom, a
yet beat down your guard, confound, infect, comprehensive scheme of reason, in accord
and fire you with that worst riot of Imagi- with recent discoveries, and yet satisfying
 ; ;.! ; !!

A MODERN FAUST 383

the higher, permanent wants and intuitions Peers content upon the ground.
of our common nature. Then may I find Notes the soil, the pebbles round,
also that sohition which I so ardently desire Sets rare beetles in a row ;

for those terrible and oppressive moral diffi- '

For these, at any rate, we know !

culties, suggested by innocent and undeserved Hunt eland, or the wild gazelle.
suffering, which, remaining unsolved, may Drink from palmy limpid well !

even drive a sensitive soul to madness. Ah ! Fruitless longing learn to quell !

how far more satisfying and delightful is With a advance

cordial smile
such a life than any which sense can offer '.
To embrace your Ignorance !

Warm, and comfortable here,

Shed no vain, no foolish tear !

Lyric of Thought
Let this fair Capua beguile ;
!'
" I, who drained the bowl of pleasure, Heed neither Rome, nor founts of Nile
Satiate, in learned leisure. So spake Know-nothing : but the
Here, at whatever cost. Church ;

The Ijowl of knowledge would exhaust '

'Ware unaccredited research !

Formidable barriers The Lord commissioned me to dole

Will assault, surmount, disperse ; Wholesome food for human soul
The secret of the universe Thou, shameless Curiosity,
Will track home, in face of Powers, Dare not irreverent to pry
Sworn to guard their ancient Bowers, With dull, unpurged, earth-ailing eye!
Wherefrom they rule this world of ours, Lo the appointed guardian
!

From profane feet of intrusion. Warns thee to retire, rash man !

Overwhelm one with confusion. Heaven's thunderbolt shall cleave

Who presumes to penetrate Who dare approach without my leave
Where they hold their awful state, I will save your soul from sinking

Sworn to hide from human sight. With burdens of unchartered thinking.'

In the hollows of the night, Then some prophetic strain in air
The unimagined Council Hall, Confirmed the counsel of despair.
Whence they rule our earthly ball. '
Pause, kneel, and know your natal bound;
Where Reason would confounded fall. . . Yonder is holy ground !

Good? evil? neither? more than either? Sovran gods will only tell
Night What heavenly wisdom deemeth well
Involves him who demands more near, Weak man should know ;

familiar sight ! . . • Bend low !

With madness they confound the man,

" Standards trailed in desert dust, Who will know more than mortal can
Arms of mighty warrior rust From them no intellect may wrest
Amid their ruin I low lie. What they have locked within their
Stariiig foiled upon a sky breast ;

Serene with azure mockery, To lowly heart they will reveal

While a witless idle air All humble, holy heart may feel ;

Whistles through the carcase there. You shall be patient, loving, mild,
Which was once a warrior fair ! Become once more a little child.
These corses to achieve the quest Let him who fain would learn lie still,
Burned once now baffled here they
; rest Inquire, and do, the Holy Will.
Yet my companion, more wise, The arrogant, hard, reasoning mind
Bows before dumb destinies, Darkling gropeth, bare and blind !
 ! ' ' ; — !

384 A MODERN FAUST

The chariot and horseman lie whelmed
beneath the wave, BOOK IV.— DISORDER
Multitudinous night of Pharaoh, he who
proudly drave,
Prose Interlude —^The World ; or,

With music and with banner, rich robed in

THE New Walpurgis Night
morning's beam,
Exulting in their youth and strength, they
The World in the Church
feed the ocean stream ! "And now I caught a glimpse of one who,
The pomp and glory of their arms wide from his hyper-ecclesiastical deportment, pre-
welter on the sea. ternatural gravity, and gaitered legs, I judged
Spent foam, sere leaf, the tempest-torrent to be a bishop. He, stiff", stately, and de-
!
whirls imperiously mure (with butler still more stiff, stately,
and demure behind his chair), sat dining in
" But I, unwarned, peered wistfully afar, a luxurious room of his episcopal palace,
Over dim realms of mystery that are eating pheasant and sipping claret, while
Never to be explored by mortal feet, reflecting that his wine-merchants had cer-
Nor ceased with passionate crying to tainly not supplied him with the same brand
entreat, as before ; next, that the rector of B
'Unveil, O Isis! had not shown quite the full share of respect
loosen the cloud-fold,
Even though thy visage bring me the due to episcopal dignity, while latterly he
had, from all accounts, shown a lamentable
!
death-cold
Ah ! woe for whom, brain-giddying, leaning towards the Sabellian heresy. ['By
fascinate, the way, how very shabby his coat looked
The Abysmal, and impassive face of But the poor man has a parish of 10,000
Fate, souls, I believe, besides a wife and family
All-gendering Mother of devouring Law, I don't know how many and about ;i^50 a —
Unveileth, who may tell not what he year to keep them on Jones to the !
'
—
saw! butler— just fetch me Crockford this ' ! —
He stammers, dazed, unheeding stupefied claret isn't Lafitte at all, Jones.' {Jones —
Our wonted world, and habit, haggard- 'Isn't it, my lord? Yes, my lord.') 'I'll
eyed. . , . just see what the poor man has.'] After-
Did he behold, flashed forth in lurid wards, his lordship's thoughts reverted to
light, the late imprudent sale of a next presenta-
Thronged lives of all swept o'er the abyss tion in which he was interested then to the ;

of night? dangerous encroachments of modern democ-

No climber dares to face the gulf around racy in general, but of Nonconformity as
;

Regards the rock-wall and the solid regards disestablishment and disendowment
ground in particular lastly, to certain new-fangled, ;

And yet, as one who tastes the drowsy impracticable, and rather indecorous notions
herb, put forward by some latitudinarian brethren,
That doth imagination's flight perturb, concerning equalisation of clerical incomes,
Craves evermore, so fierce desire to and curtailment of episcopal prerogative.
know "The World in the Church! And ah!
Burns fiercer, and contemns the ver- what profitless turning ever in the same
tigo. . . . closed circle of ideas ! What weariness in
Then the cathedral bell began to toll abstract thought ! and mere pretentious
And whelming waters boomed above my emptiness in books! It's but the stone of
soul. Sisyphus ! I own that my high enterprise
 ! ; —

A MODERN FAUST 385

has suffered defeat ! Let me seek contact favoured countenance, composed to becom-
with Hfe again ; touching my native earth, I ing melancholy, reclined at ease, inhaling a
may renew my strength ; disillusioned, may perfumed narghileh, pastured upon sentiment,
become even reconciled to the world. In ruminating airy fancies, and spinning his
any case, among men and women only may little cocoon of versicles, wherein to hide
theory be tested and verified. I may hear, himself from the vulgarity and vexation of
too, at hand, what our latest thinkers
first this everyday world. '
Religion, philosophy,
and social reformershave to teach, learn — social questions, and politics are a troubled
yonder what I could not discover in solitude element for art,' sighed this Goetheling, after
— some solution of modern problems, some Goethe. And, accordingly, the poet had
true panacea for the ills that afflict mankind. hung himself up (metaphorically speaking,
"So from that hushed atmosphere of the of course) in the quiet greenwood of a
Past, from those umbrageous elms and recum- deserted London square, inhabiting his little

bent effigies of departed worth, from yonder Paradise of dainty devices ; but whether a
oriel-windowed librarj' of meditative seclu- seasonable change to winged activity would
sion, haunted silently by ardent thoughts ever happen to him, I knew not ; for look
of innumerable minds, thoughts that radiate where, with sinister smile, on the foot-
from the printed page when one takes a pavement below, prowls a too conscientious
volume, brown-bound, fragrant, fading, from friend, and literary rival, seeking whom he
amongst its fellows on the shelves, I found may devour in his next article, smacking his
myself hurried once more to modern city and lips over the prospect of how completely his
—
crowded street. Over the mighty modern pure critical taste will constrain him to de-
river, along whose banks roars Labour, molish his quondam ally's little cocoon, and
myriad - armed, myriad - tongued ; athwart make a hearty meal of the contents ! But
whose vast bridges, traffic-thronged, thun- the pretty chrysalis, for the nonce, remaining
ders the lit whose cloudy breathing is happily unconscious of this malign vicinity,
train,
fitfully illuminate while under their huge could achieve his delicate verbal effects in
;

arches, and betwixt their Titan piers, divid- comparative peace. These were really felici-
ing the massy flood, swift, turbid, gurgling, tous curiosities in their way. And has not
corrugated, throb steamers laden with mer- an indubitable poet justified the grammarian
chandise of all lands, and eager human faces for his life-long solicitude about on, and the
— to the city of wharf, warehouse, dome, enclitic 5e? At one's leisure these things
steeple, superb palace, and modern school, may help to kill time agreeably, and they
slum, hovel, court, alley, and street, loud show dexterity, for me, I look, wonder,
with hubbub of wheels, glad song of children, and pass.
call of itinerant vendor, drunken oath, filthy " Art,' said Schmetterling, talking to an
'

jest, maddened blow, shriek of pain acquaintance, who had now entered, 'has
but to lisp nothings prettily, with a foreign
accent, if only taking care that
possible,
The Palace of Art they be nothings. Let her, above all, be-
"In a wide and well-built thoroughfare ware the pestilent heresy of supposing
of this colossal city I noted how pompous though, as you say, people like /Eschylus,
Sir Capital stalked majestic, save for occa- Sophocles, Shakespeare, Lucretius, Dante,
sional twinges of the gout, or a tight boot Milton, Shelley, Dryden, Wordsworth, may
but away from him I was transported to a —
have supposed that Art has a " mission " !

chamber in a somewhat secluded square, a mission — to enlighten, fortify, or console.

where I beheld Wordswords Schmetterling, Nay, if she forget to be a trifle, a plaything,
an 'aesthete' of prosperous and not ill- she ceases, t/so facto, to be Art.' ' Per-
2 B
 — — ; —!

386 A MODERN FAUST

haps,' suggested his acquaintance profanely, method, plenty of them ! The slums, and
'
you and your school may have a natural the poor people ! Oh, fie ! those can never
incapacity for, and therefore antipathy to, be nice subjects, I should say! But the
serious thought, and this may explain your nuances of subtle sentiment in refined
attitude.' 'On the contrary!' he replied. persons and artists — the
and delicate tint
'
In fact, when I was a boy, metaphysics tone, shine and shadow of sensuous desire
were my favourite study. But I went only be sure to look at any subject as a
through, and exhausted all the philosophies subject ( '

—
Providentially provided for you
'

long ago, and found they had little to teach to make poems out of,' added the friend)
me that I didn't know already — squeezed '
whether it be the last earthquake, the
them dry — mere empty
pedantry, and plague, the story of a hero, a royal mar-
phrases !
' Here he took a new pose, and riage, or what not.' ('Just as cork-trees
blew a cloud of smoke. Besides,' he '
were made to stop our ginger-beer bottles.')
added, 'the commonplace is alone capable '
Art,' resumed the poet, disdaining to notice
of wearing our precious adornments grace- this, is always more than nature.
'
What
fully. In fact, what we want is a lay figure you have to do is to adorn and polish
to show off the pretty dresses we make for her raw hard-grained rusticity.' 'Dear
it — the less animation the And
better. me said the friend
!
' I always fancied you :
'

then there is nothing new to say! The poets were lifted up by your subject, and
world is very old ; all has been said there ; penetrated by it, carried out of yourselves,
is nothing very remarkable left for us to inevitably, as by a kind of whirlwind, to
talk about now. One is disenchanted lofty regions of artistic creation.' 'Oh,
blase, you know eitmiyi^. Indeed, great that's quite exploded,' replied Schmetterling:
poets never really feel what they affect to 'just the contrary! You must reduce the
feel — though, of course, one must simulate big subject to your level — I mean, of course,
feeling effectively. Now, for instance, I elevate it to your level.' (' Patronise it, in
have written some admired poems about short,' interrupted the other.) 'No, but
the sea. But I simply detest the sea It ours is the imaginative faculty, so much
!

makes me ill even to go from Dover to higher than crude nature.' You must look '

Calais, you know what ? Oh yes —

my at a thing through the reverse end of your
!

enemies say I have nothing but the gift of telescope, I suppose, rather than use that
the musical gab, and am all phrases. But, to interpret it by,' put in the Philistine.
then, they are Philistines. Who is fool 'Well, then, it seems that the great events
enough to take a poet au grand s^rieux? and tragedies of the world exist only in
But to turn a sentence or period cleverly order to provide you fellows with the oppor-
is surely the highest of human functions. tunity for illustrating the momentous distinc-
Style, sir, style !
— the
one thing needful is tion between Tweedledum and Tweedledee,
style. No matter what you say, so long as trilled and quavered in dulcet numbers, as
you say it nicely. It's rather a pity to have it were, by trained ephebi of ecclesiastical

a big subject. That is apt to be unwieldy. Rome. A great tragic event, a great public
Doesn't it show more "genius" to make or private sorrow, is only so far important

one up for yourself, out of nothing at all (in your eyes) as you may be able to tame or
or very little? However, if you can make train it into a sort of circus horse, to show
a good thing out of any subject, whatever off its paces, and by caracoling display your
it may be, in God's or the Devil's name — — skill and grace in equestrian feats of the
take it A good thing, of course, I mean,
! literary inanige before a gaping circle of
artistically speaking. What ? Oh yes not of more or less
intimates. In itself it is

pudding and praise too will come by my moment than a mere passing whim or sensa-
 '

A MODERN P^AUST 387

tion of yourself, or of Jones, which may but produced things less ethereal, or, as some
equally be elaborated into pyrotechnics of horrid Philistines unkindly put it, more solid '

sensational and novel linguistic effect. You and nutritious,windy, salacious, and
less
would "peep and botanise upon a mother's indigestible.' But can anything more utterly
grave," nay, make a dead relation pose for provincial and ridiculous than such an atti-
you in becoming attitudes. You leave out tude be conceived ? A true poet must first
the morally beautiful and ugly, the intel- of all be true man or woman. Imagine a
lectually satisfying, the higher proportion Walter Scott with all this deportment and
and loveliness pertaining to spirit, involving affectation of a literary Turveydrop, petit
contrast between good and evil —
that which maitre, or flunkey— Walter Scott, who re-
is highest in man —
-only admitting the spected and made friends of so - called
£csthetically or sensuously pleasing. With ordinary folk ; of politicians, and those
'
'

you, providing only you "rhyme and rattle, engaged in the various professions ; of work-
all is well." Poetrj', according to your men, tradesmen, dairymaids knowing that —
school, would seem to be the voluble, and if they might learn something from him, he,
more or less melodious gabble of a parrot, in his turn, had many things to learn from
superadded to the posture-making and atti- them, and they their indispensable function,
tudinising of a monkey, or the airs and like himself.
graces of a courtesan. But the art has not
been so understood by its great masters —by '
One bore his head above the rest.

Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe, Hugo,

Schiller, As if the world were dispossessed. . . .

Byron, the Brownings, or Tennyson. Well, With measured step, and sorted smile . . .

good-bye.' 'What a Philistine,' muttered Some trod out stealthily and slow.
Schmetterling, as he left. '
Knows as much As if the sun would fall in snow
of poetry and art as my shoe ! If they walked to instead of fro.
" It was said, I hardly know with how And some with conscious ambling free
much truth, that Schmetterling had deserted Did shake their bells right daintily.
the wife whom (having one eye always pretty On hand and foot for harmony.'
wide open on the main chance) he had
married, because, though she was an ex- So sang a great poet, and true woman, by
and de- the grace of God born in the purple, and
cellent, domestic, affectionate soul,
voted mother, doing a great deal of good in crowned, in scorn of all pretenders.
the world, she wasn't a 'genius,' as he and "Then I, leaving this little Art-palace of
his intimates fondly supposed themselves to the verbal epicure, as finding less satisfaction
be — that is, didn't sufficiently appreciate the here than in Church, librarj', or temple of
' precious ' verbal confections which gave pleasure — no help for the solution of problems
some people the idea of a very highly orna- that oppressed me, or consolation for world-
mented wedding-cake, and didn't care for sorrow passed again into the street, noting —
the fetix (Tariifice, or dodges of contorted on the pavement a work of ingenuity, made
diction. At any rate, he gave himself the by a poor mechanic suffering from severe
airs of a coxcomb with, and made himself illness, that interested me almost more even
offensive to, many good, plain, straight- than the felicitous curiosities within — though
forward people, of far more essential and I did admire these, too, in their kind and
solid consequence to mankind than himself, in their degree. Only the manufacturers set
justifying his ignoble and fretful selfishness such an inordinate value on their cobweb
on the implicit, if not avowed plea, that such fabrics, their toys of musical wordmongery.
persons were not in his own private line of This was a small wooden house, in which
linguistic confectionery and whipped syllabub. pith dolls were made to open windows and
 — —

388 A MODERN FAUST

walk out of the doors when you dropped a foundation of Kosmic order, unquestionably
proper, and eternally secure. Now, if
penny into a sHt made in the structure fit,

really a very ingenious contrivance. lounge should happen to have a seamy

this
upon side turned down toward less favoured
" Well, one mustn't break a butterfly

a wheel, nor put one's stick into a wasps' mortals underneath,

and if these should
However, I wandered along the high- have to make themselves as comfortable
as
nest !

ob-
way again, murmuring to myself with another possible under the circumstances in the
great poet, Divine philosophy is not harsh scurity of the nether
' parts —
nay, should the
of state
and crabbed as dull fools suppose, But human figures supporting the chair
musical as is Apollo's lute.' in which such persons pose prove no carven
effigies in wood and stone, but a sort of living
caryatides, rather— slaves, with the life-long
Good Society contortion of limb and feature, the habitual
"Along an ample-mansioned street there corrugation of brow belonging to want,
approached now a well-appointed carriage anxiety, and pain —
as it were, perpetual

with coachman and livery servant, in which
were seated four persons of the first fashion
— a man and woman of mature years, with
two daughters, all fairly well-born, well-
dressed, well-looking, negative people, not
remarkable even for decorous indolence, that
bearers, sweating and agonised, on struggling
shoulders, of emblazoned coffins containing
so much dead weight of obstruction, royal,
noble, or merely fox-facultied and moneyed,
— why, such great folk do not often con-
descend to look so low and were their
;

being so very common in their class. They attention drawn to the circumstance, they
wore an air of serene satisfaction with them- might show plainly by their head-in-air de-
selves and their belongings, tempered, how- portment that they judged such an allusion
ever, by one of boredom, and relieved now indecorous and underbred in a modern
and again by a look of half-ironical patronage, drawing-room ; yet, should they prove equal
half- assumed unconsciousness, varied by a to making a remark —
which is improbable
more pronounced and vulgarly insolent con- it might be to this effect that Providence
:

tempt in presence of those whom they were having exclusive charge of all the arrange
pleased to regard as their inferiors— persons, ments, to question their propriety must be in
however, who oftenenough might be as singularly bad taste, not to say revolutionary
verily superior to them as they were to the and profane. 'The poor ye have always
excremental dust under the hoofs of their with you,' quoted one of the ladies on some
horses for while their embryos had evidently
; such occasion, listlessly buttoning the fourth
not been arrested at the tadpole stage (through button of her long kid glove.
which, as we are told, all our embryos must "The existing order had the stolid support
inevitably pass) their souls had apparently of these fine folk, partly because their minds
remained iDehind somewhere about there, were too sluggish readily to imagine any
probably finding it too much trouble to go other, partly because the present system was
any further. These repose on the accom- entirely favourable to musty privilege. They
plished fact and established custom as com- were orthodox and conservative in religious
fortably as their bodies on the carriage dogma also, so far as they were capable of

cushions, since in their case the accomplished comprehending it ; indeed, the less they

fact happens to turn uppermost for their

understood, the more acquiescent were they
convenience a general lounge quite as downy (' We mustn't presume to question,' &c.) if —
and luxurious, a soft agreeable surface of you put a dummy in a corner, it won't move j
exceptional good fortune there, indeed, it is a good Conservative, though rather
;

This species
ihey repose, as though that were the very deficient in private initiative.
 —;

A MODERN FAUST 389

of people, to adopt a phrase from the biology night is a little trying to health ; so that
of polyps, has a colonial, rather than an latterly she had preferred the streets. A
individual consciousness — or, like Words- policeman now told her to move on. One
worth's cloud, they '
move all together if of the ladies, however, while proceeding
they move at all.' (That '
colonial ' life is from the carriage door to the shop under the
rather fine in its way, simulating and fore- shelter of the flunkey's big umbrella for it —
shadowing altruism at the opposite, inferior, —
was beginning to rain ordered him to give
and protoplasmic pole of the life cycle.) her a penny, and passed in.
Church and State, however, keep the people
in their place, and it must be well to keep
Respectability — "Getting On"
one's self in good odour with the higher " Next in my dream it came to pass that
Powers by paying them proper deference in all these distinguished persons seemed sud-
the orthodox way —
the only way which, one denly to be assembled together,and to
has always understood, has their special recognise me. They all came up simul-
authorisation and approval must be as
; it taneously — bishop, aesthetic reviewer, elderly
proper for us to touch our hats to them as peer (of juvenile creation) — and, with more
for the lower classes to do it to us. have given them credit
effusion than I should
"The eldest daughter, now competed there and then for the pleasure
seated in this for,
carriage, was about to marry a rich person of entertaining me. This made me regret
—
of dubious reputation with her eyes open the rather cynical point of view from which
the younger was affianced to an old here- I had regarded them, and induced me to
'

ditary legislator of notoriously bad life

' revise my verdict. I began to think I had

with her eyes shut. And I thought to my- done them some injustice, and to reflect that
—
self After all, are these children better off they were probably not bad fellows after all.
than the murdered ones yonder, even than I am not quite sure now whose invitation it
those who are sold by their poor parents to was I accepted but I rather think it was ;

a life of shame, or kidnapped by mercenary the distinguished reviewer's (Mr. Worldly-

wretches for purposes of prostitution ? wiseman's), for I know I was consumedly
"The carriage stopped before a large anxious as to what he might say about my
shop with expensive jewellery displayed be- next book yes, it was, for I remember that —
hind plate-glass, and here the party alighted, after disparaging the various nostrums adver-
being met and accompanied into the place tised for human ills, he proceeded to advocate
by a young gentleman with an eye-glass, of increased and more organised authority for
similarly immaculate exterior and similarly journalism. He was a well-dressed man,
—
inane cast of countenance which, however, with a somewhat supercilious air of serene
was not ill-adapted to assume a set stare of superiority— an air of habitual minimising,
arrogant inquiry when any one out of his own or depreciation and an Oxford drawl. Like —
set obtruded his presence or conversation. another sage, Socrates, he only knew that
But there came to the carriage door a young he knew nothing, but was evidently well
woman of less immaculate exterior, the flush contented with himself for knowing that
of strong drink, rouge, and consumption on much. His agnosticism appeared to agree
her faded and haggard countenance, once with him for he was sleek, gentlemanlike
;

beautiful, with a cough, and torn habiliments
of tawdry finery, murmuring some hoarse
request. She had once been a needlewoman
but making .shirts at a penny a shirt is
scarcely remunerative employment, while
sitting stitching at them al' day and half the
and flourishing. As for his bitterness, that
was his trade, and he had been a little sour
;
from the cradle upwards. But he made it
pay, and thanked the Unknowable that he
was not as other men are nor even as —
yonder poor dogmatist.' '
390 A MODERN FAUST
" I found myself in a pillared hall of fine work must be done
some dirty there ;

proportions, with wide balustraded staircase, some noise and friction of the
must be
then in a sumptuous dining-room, full of machinery. One must live Early ideals, !

tables, about which waiters hurried, carrying like final causes, and vestal virgins, are
many kinds of food. We dined — an ex- apt to be barren. (Here the dissonant
cellent memi — and soon, in the luxurious, aerial chuckles became particularly harsh
soft-carpeted smoking-room, I and loud.)
reclined in
an arm-chair, sipping coffee, feeling that, "These comfortable, though not too
after all, the actual order of things was not moral and original reflections, were mean-
—
so very unsatisfactory at least for me, who while receiving reinforcement from the dis-
belonged to the privileged classes. course of my host, which, though getting
"What I really want (I avowed to my- rather sleepy, I listened to with some
self in my present mood, and sotto voce) is edification and complacency until, at least, —
to dominate, and know that I dominate I he forgot the expediency, to use a slang
;

want power, homage, and a great name. phrase, of drawing it mild.' I can't re- '

Social position is well, but by cultivation of collect all he said, but amongst many wise
natural gifts I will improve upon the ad- things I recall these He argued that :

vantage given by accident. Why not ? The philanthropy did more harm than good,
old name shall be illustrious ; men shall because of its fanatical unwisdom. He
bow down to me, and for this end I will showed incontrovertibly how much more
adapt myself to their humours, study their mischief than benefit in the long-run well-
predilections, gratify them by supplying meant remedies for popular grievances had
what they happen to demand, trim my sails invariably produced, since nature has so
to the breath of popular applause, flattering framed us that we must necessarily love our-
the taste of the hour, powerful advocate selves and hate our neighbour. Philan-
of fashionable beliefs, or the shibboleths of thropists are merely meddling Pharisees,
some influential party. Much is to be said who set up to be better than their neigh-
on every side, and I shall be half per- bours, and want to curtail individual liberty
suaded myself. My own ruling impulse —
an Englishman's house being his castle,
shall be ridden with a curb I will renounce, &c.
; Are you going to pull down firmly-
so far as may be, favourite studies, cherished rooted abuses in a moment ? No, nor in a
ideals, if these are not likely to bring me lifetime They are tough, and take a deal
!

speedy profit, praise, and an honoured name, of chopping. Don't fuss What's the !

being altogether outside the trend, sympathy, use ? Besides, they are but symptoms of an
and comprehension of the common herd, ineradicable disease subdue them, and they ;

cultivated or otherwise. Those wide gaping will break out elsewhere, in some other
mouths of the many heads (which are mostly shape. So my friend Worldlywiseman ob-
mouth) shall be supplied with the suitable served, repressing a yawn, letting fall, at
pabulum. (What they may like or want at the same time, the long ash from his cigar,
a given moment, indeed, may be almost as and ruminating his superfine article for
incalculable as thewhims of a gust, that next Saturday. In this style he now
blows now one straw, and now another proceeded to expound the dismal science,' '

about the street!) Nor will I cherish my which may also, from another aspect of
inmost private conviction, misgiving, or it, be named the comfortable creed,' till
'

foreboding too conscientiously. Indeed, I thought he became rather dull, and

much must be sacrificed to party great ;
only assented lazily, not half hearing,
advances are only made by stern repression or caring to understand. I began to feel,

of idiosyncrasies and crotchets. Besides, indeed, that this kind of conventional

 — —!

A MODERN FAUST 391

acquiescence in the actual, however low and

unrighteous, could hardly satisfy one long
Babel, and Will-o'-the-Wisp
;

then, too, Iwas a Bohemian by nature, and "Alas! I know too well that I shall be
that had a good deal to do with it Plead- ! set down as a '
anent these same
lunatic '

ing the heat of the room, I went forth to '

voices ' ! There is no more certain note of
breathe the air, and when I returned found, '
lunacy '
than hearing them, modern doctors
to my great relief, that mine host had gone tell us.

to sleep. All through this conversation I " A conversation going on in another part
had heard the low aerial voices chuckling. of theroom had reference to kindred topics.
Quite as distinctly I heard them now as Somebody was remarking how completely
ever I had done in East-end slum, murderous exploded for good and all is that old super-
country grange, or episcopal library ; then stitionabout the inspiration of the Bible, or
one whispered very audibly, as though to other sacred writings. He was demonstrat-
parody the really sensible remarks of my ing (by help of the marvellous illumination
entertainer, Am I my brother's keeper ?
'
'
of modern science) how this kind of thing
"Was I a madman, or a 'medium,' a — namely, Bible- writing and miracles is —
sort of magician, like my prototype, Dr. '
done it's partly honest delusion of silly
' :

Faustus, who in the Middle Ages sold his people, and partly pious fraud, clever con-
soul to the devil for the sake of power, en- juring which has managed to impose itself
joyment, and occult, '
God-forbidden ' lore on gaping ignorance, or barbaric simplicity,
knowledge of what the spirit in man so as supernatural. For we now so perfectly
ineradicably, if profanely, aspires to know ? comprehend all the laws of nature, and know
Certainly, I seemed to hold intercourse with so certainly that all must happen through one
spirits,good and bad, who spoke to me and or other of the laws with which we are
influenced me for good and evil. But then already familiar And perhaps wisdom will
!

the majority of scientists have pronounced die with us. For do not there seem (if that
that mediums are frauds and conjurers,
' '
indeed be possible in so enlightened an age!)
when they are not victims of hallucination. to be some ugly symptoms of a recrudescence
And scientists surely must have exhausted of superstition in the shape of table-turning
all the evidence obtainable, both by personal and spiritism ? But ours, alas may be only !

investigation of these phenomena as they a thin slice of sound, substantial scepticism,

appear to occur in our own day, and by nutritive and consoling, sandwiched in be-
careful study of contemporary, as well as tween two huge interminable hunches of
former testimony to their actuality. Yet, windy, unwholesome superstition, euphoni-
after all, is it possible that they have not ously christened Faith.' Ah those long '
!

paid sufficient attention to such things, since dark ages, that have only just ceased for our
not a few very eminent men of science have poor humanity, and may yet recommence !

pronounced the phenomena to be genuine ? why, there was that poor old Pagan fool,
But far indeed be it from me to assert them Socrates almost as bad as a Christian — !

genuine for do not the majority of popular with his

! demon,' and his maundering '

newspapers devote columns now and again chatter about 'the Good,' 'the Beautiful,"
to laughing at them ? And the infallibility the True,' and the immortality of the soul
'

of newspapers, who would be presumptuous The mere mention in his hearing of the
enough to question, even if one disbelieved Demon,' and the 'Voices,' would have been
'

in the Pope's? Why, they would review enough to show our great Dr. what M
you unfavourably, or not at all One would was the matter with kim. how seriously the
! —
not even dare to whisper, E pur se muove !' cortical tracts the grey matter, or the white
'
—
— if it was a question of tables. (these are the only true '
white spirits and
 ' ; —

392 A MODERN FAUST

grey' of the old song!) had gone astray in — whom we are hounding to determine. How-
the upper storey of that ugly, prophetic ever, whether, again, these, or the multitude
skull And then the poor old fellow need
: that bellows after them, thirsting for blood,
only have been clapped into a comfortable be the more insane, some of us may feel dis-
asylum (conducted on the benevolent modern posed to apply here with modification the
—
system) need not have been requested to words, Heu quanto minus reliquis versari
'
!

swallow that poison! But ah! great Dr. quam tui meminisse And it must be ad-
!
'

M was was anything

yet unborn, nor mitted that these insane folk have given the
then known about the hippocampus minor world a few powerful onward shoves, in spite,
such knowledge being reserved for our own if not on account, of their insanity Unless, !

favoured times (that ' they without us should indeed, it was only some strangely inex-
not be made perfect,' I suppose) for this — plicable thought-dominating spell, cast upon
illuminated age of universal and exhaustive mankind everywhere and always by a crafty
—
knowledge (tempered, indeed, it occurred (though rather dull and stupid) priesthood,
to me, by simultaneous professions of general who, in their own interests, got them to
ignorance, and supreme despair !). Seers, believe those obvious fables about God,
prophets, and reformers, forsooth At last ! human personality, and an after-life for re-
we have found out what to do with them! tribution or compensation, equitable conclu-
Send them to some celebrated mad-doctor sion, and explication of the inequalities in
on no account stone, or burn them That's ! earthly lots. Absurd and immoral ideas,
but a crude way of hurting, and getting rid which, left to their own unsophisticated
of them, with their disagreeable ways. It reason and conscience, men would so un-
isn't their 'cussedness,' as the world once hesitatingly have rejected Strange, almost!

supposed ; it's only their hippocampus a little miraculous influence of a by no means excep-
out of order! Put them in a strait-waistcoat, tionally gifted, but very average class of
and take no more notice Let the wind persons all over the world
! But the present
'
!

!
blow where it listeth For we have found life has lately been discovered to be so
'

out that it is only wind therefore let us eminently satisfactory to all concerned
be joyful!
— 'the spirit
;

does but mean the especially to the majority of poor toilers,

breath.' After all, one hodden grey, besmirched with
reflected, this is only clothed in
a learned and more scientific adoption and grime of want and vice, blood and tears,
adaptation of the vulgar herd's normal and whose children call to them day and night
natural attitude in presence of genius, its for food which they cannot provide, till over
—
heaven-accredited ruler and guide a more and over again they resolve to end it all
elaborate and instructed way of kicking for themselves and those dear to them by
against the pricks. Cassandra, what sayest friendly knife or poison that it is manifestly —
thou? Paul, what did a certain Festus think puerile and superfluous to concern one's self
of thee ? And what, at a later date, was the about any other. And if there be still some-
doom of Tasso? But in those days they thing wanting to our earthly paradise, can
supposed that we not secure the millennium to-morrow by
incontinently dividing the accumulated earn-
'
The dog, to gain his private ends. ings of a clever and industrious few among
Went mad and bit the man ; the idle and incompetent many, so that all
may have a very little, if not quite enough ?
and so he got uncommonly short shrift. Is it obvious, indeed, that, natural abilities
Though whether 'Crucify, crucify! or 'Shut and moral virtues not being so easily divi-
'

!
him up as a lunatic be the more agreeable sible, the result and outcome of this forcible
'

cr}' to hear, we may leave to the prophet and eminently righteous distribution will not
 ' ! —

A MODERN FAUST 393

be the same inequality to-morrow morning? tion, branching and burgeoning out of the
But, of course, we must grease our new old primal root of Divine and Human
social machine with a little human fat, so as Veneration, out of the ancient order, until
to make it move more easily, painting it there rise, in the course of ages, as to a
gaily also with a little gore. We shall have hidden music, nobly proportioned, the City
to slit a few gullets. But blood-letting in of God
the civil organism is a healthy process of " Thus spake one
dissenting from the glib
depletion, which you can notoriously arrest and though plausible, panaceas so
sinister,
just at the precise amount and period your airily propounded, and continued
own judicious and humane fancy may happen "Alas! though men inherit the vices, how
to suggest. It's as simple as putting warm seldom do they profit by the experience of
water into a bath you have only to turn
; their forefathers One would think, to hear
!

your private tap, and the red stream ceases some talk, that we were all back early in the
flowing. The temperature of social strife, last centur}', in full Floreal, offering votive
moreover, for all the world like that of a flowers of our fraternity upon the ancient
warm bath, can so easily be regulated by and fervently embracing one another,
altars,
your own little thermometer. Past experi- when Hope was yet young, and the weary
ence proves it, blood feuds and wars of peoples were turning eager eyes toward that
revenge being unheard of in Europe, or daydawn of Liberty, so soon, alas to be !

elsewhere. extinguished, lurid and cloud-mantled, set-

" 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a ting in seas of blood one would suppose ;

tooth' is doubtless an exploded principle, that the frowning Bastilles of hoar Tyranny
only known to the ancient Jews. Those had but now fallen amid the glad triumphant
age-long degradations of insolent contumely, pasans of emancipated Humanity ere Re- —
repression, neglect, and inhuman persecu- volution, agape for more victims, like any
tion that characterised feudal Europe were Tiberius, or Commodus, like any De Sade,
doubtless as little responsible for the frenzied De Retz, or Catherine de Medici of the
—
orgy of cruel and general murder that marked old regime after spawning Marat, Hebert,
the first French Revolution, as were the Fouquier-Tinville, and the Seagreen In- '

massacre of priests and hostages and the corruptible,' born with hands clutching one
burning of their own fair city by the Paris another's throats, mad with mutual hatred,
Commune for those retaliatory excesses of suspicion, and envy -had devoured her own —
the White Terror. Nay, but the ineffable evil brood, and organised civil society, re-
horde of barbarous roughs, tricoteuses, and verting to primal chaos, the ever-unfortunate
petroleuses, which our so-called civilisation
'
People, hoodwinked as usual, betrayed by
considerately nurses in the Pandemonium of knaves and fools, uncrowned and undecorated
her huge cities, and disembogues on festive this time, starved again as heretofore until —
or anti-festive occasions, are precisely what the inevitable Despot arose to stamp with
our ever - enduring criminal and callous mailed heel upon the Plydra, chaos-clamour-
stupidity has carefully contrived and pro- ing, blood-gorged. No bloodshed, revolu" !

vided for world-confusion. And will they tion, and violent overturning are but a poor
—
not destroy us, as those outer barbarians remedy save in countries where no consti-
destroyed Rome? tutional, no public cry can make itself heard
—
"Ah! no slowly and tentatively, found- in the general night, but all is stifled by the
ing themselves on experience, patiently, with moral murderer. Yet blandly or sullenly do
mutual sympathy, justice, kindness, let our sanguinary fanatics, cynical, self-seeking,
fresh-leafing institutionsgrow in the free untaught and unteachable, propose to us, of
illuminated air of wise and virtuous convic- the later Nineteenth Century, the same old
 — '

394 A MODERN FAUST

seesaw of civil fury and mutual slaughter, as fruitful hill, which it can hardly do till the
supreme panacea wrong, supreme
for all latterhas been properly pared down. Man
satisfaction for all want What
1 Have we ! must revert to pure stomach and claw, partly
of later time never gazed, then, into the pit because he is all body, though he affects to

of massacre at Avignon, in that accursed be also spirit and to vegetate in bodily

;

Palace of Popes, with '

citizens ' who made comfort ought to be his chief concern, partly
upon the lingering agonies
their brutal jest that his own flesh and blood, which he is
of men,women, and children, writhing and pleased to stigmatise as lower animals,' may
'

moaning there, a confused dim heap in the no longer feel offended by his superiority.
horrible darkness? never seen the drunken Those aboriginal gorillas, when the first

Septemberers hacking blunderingly at de- simian aristocrat showed signs of incipient

fenceless victims, whetting their newly ac- evolution, ought obviously to have protested,
quired, unnatural appetite for blood and and nipped that bloated man-monkey in the
torture in those paven courts and dungeons bud. The golden age sung by poets will
of Paris Prison ? never heard the sinister roll surely arrive when all shall have been reduced
of tumbrils, laden with their matutinal human to the low standard of our own pet average
food for Death ? beheld refined and gentle inferiority — is our own, must it
for, as it

women, friends of man, insulted and torn to not be best? — when

no discovery and no
pieces by a '
fraternal ' mob of '
sisters,' invention, no original work in art, no heroic
'
brothers 'an amiable child done to
? or exemplar of illustrious life shall any longer
death by them, only because he happened be possible. Neither may there be any more
to be born royal ? Ah sweet and lovable ! spontaneous sacrifice of right, or pleasure for
human nature ! As Byron says alien good forbidden shall be free play of
;

limb, and gracious colour of distinctive in-

'
Religion, virtue, freedom, what you will, dividuality in joyous self-development ; all

A word's enough to rouse mankind to kill

!

shall be one monotony of cast-iron under

the stupid tyranny of a jealous multitude,
"The note of this new panacea for all our incapable of sympathetic admiration for what
woe seems to be — Eliminate the head for is different from themselves, though equally

the benefit of the hands ; let the former natural and needed, incapable of reverence
perish of atrophy, that may be the latter for what is above, exalting into an idol
well nourished. an old-fashioned notion
It is Custom, which is the dense folly, the base
that the head is wanted to cater for the and stunted unloveliness of each one multi-
hands. This was concisely put by a sans- plied into that of all his neighbours. None
culotte Caliban at a public meeting recently, of us have any superiors ; that notion is a
when he howled, After all, Shakespeare ' relic of servility and dependence. The way
was a b y blood-sucker, for he never to succeed in a given undertaking is to

made so much as a pair of shoes Perhaps

!

' quench the adepts and past masters in it,

under the new reghne technical and industrial so as not to risk offending any infusorial or
schools may still be permitted but probably ; Lilliputian susceptibility, that its possessor
there will be little place or leisure for such may be able to hold up the little head, and
mere luxuries as learning or art, for their strut with conceit unruftled, complacently
own sakes. Genius will be formally declared boasting its own measure to
ability in full

(what it virtually is now) a penal offence, '

whip For has not the ostrich
creation.'
because it testifies to inequality, and the taught us to ignore unwelcome facts by hiding
ideal is a dead level of Philistine mediocrity, our heads in the sand? If a grand guide,
in which the barren plain may have the born upon the flank of a mighty mountain,
satisfaction of feeling itself equal to the ottered to show some puny, black-coated
 ' !

A MODERN FAUST 395

citizen from yonder plain the direct and the golden mean, which is a fixed quantity,
easiest way up
to the summit, at all hazards the exact area of which any common measur-
let the free and enlightened cockney insist ing tape is, of course, competent to deter-
that his guide shall go behind, or abreast, mine. You only need add to this virtue
and on no account in front of him Oh I of external prosperity a little blue pill, or
that will be joyful, when all is marsh and a liver pad, in case of internal derange-
croaking frog, when the mountain shall be ment, and then the human subject will be
level with the morass, and there shall be no '
thoroughly furnished unto all good works.'
eagle to soar over it, or invite to aspire '
How hardly shall the rich man,' was a slip
heavenward What a sweet place the world
! of the tongue congratulation, rather, having
;

would be if we could only rid ourselves of been intended. Only that the wrong people
Miranda and Ferdinand by a process of are rich now and fairly may they be de-
;

throat-cutting, and so prevent any further nounced. Let riches change hands, and all
propagation of their insolent superiority, for will be right for ever. Or are there no bad
then should we be left free to populate it and unhappy rich men ? I thought there
ad libitum with Caliban and Sycorax, made were, and that this was what the row was
in our own ugly image. Then what com- all about.
fortable sprawling and wallowing in muck- "Yet when another speaker alluded to
heaps, well beloved with no remonstrance,
! the main social problem at present being a
or reprehension more from any possible right distribution of our great wealth among
censor Then would the world revert to
! the people at large, he spoke wisely. Think
that halcyon epoch, unfortunately left so far of the shame and horror of workhouse, or
behind, when those dear dragons of the '
starvation, as only alternative goals possible
prime, tare one another in their slime. on our present economical system to a long
("The running comment on suchlike career of honest toil : think of the terrific

astounding proposals for ameliorating the chasms that sever classes, the unequal pro-
lot of man, by suppression of all his aspira- portion of wage, or profit paid to manual
tions after a veritable amelioration even — labour. A minimiini of material property
now, I should have imagined, too rare for and well-being is the Poii sto and fulcrum

the much to be desiderated evolution of for spiritual or intellectual progress. What

higher possibilities in him may, indeed, be — of our white slave-girls, slaving night and
mine, but the substance of them is correctly day for a pittance insufficient to keep body
reported, and they certainly appeared to me and soul together, till their very flesh and
infatuated beyond measure.) blood compels them to sell their souls to
"If a source be poisoned, then (said an- the devil, whether they will or no? Think
other interlocutor, differing) all you have to of our national prosperity, our luxury, our
do is to alter the arrangement of the con- comfort, our domestic respectability, and the
duits ; that will make the water drinkable sweet, happy, cleanly virtue of our sisters
and wholesome ;
'
coelum, non animam and daughters,all founded complacently
mutant, qui trans mare currunt.' Ah but I upon quicksand of hideous wrong, that
this
that man was a fool, for he talked Latin, cries to all the worlds and all the abysses
and not English ! At any rate, we know for redress — cries night and day, till One
that the regeneration man's soul is of a —
descend to avenge set in order this world-
secure if only he can remove into a larger confusion —
to avenge the souls of them
and better furnished house over the way. crying under the altar. And shall He not
Taylor's vans, in the light of this discovery, avenge His own elect, although He tarry
acquire a quite sacred, novel, and mystic long? or shall this quaking quicksand un-
significance. Man never wants more than aware engulf all ? Every man, woman, and
 ; !

396 A MODERN FAUST

child has a inalienable Patience and faith are always needed, and
sacred, inviolable,
individuality, that may
claim as a right from by every man, in view of our frailty, and
society respect, sympathy, and free develop- the incalculable dealings with us of human
ment. While the separation and want of destiny. While as for idleness, there is a
familiar intercourse between classes, together fertile and wise idleness. It is a good thing
with the excessive division of labour, are to know how and when to loaf. The stupid
very deeply to be deplored. All honest and tyranny of a Philistine majority is bad
useful work demands appreciation, with enough in its unwritten code of '
public
equitable remuneration. It is not equality opinion,' blown about by tea-table tittle-
of material prosperity that we want — nor tattle what would it be, consolidated into
;

worship and slavish prostration before wealth, parchments, and driven home by vigilance
as an idol —
nor, indeed, before any other committees, or prying inspectors? Individu-
social, racial, or mental distinction though ; ality, within social limits broad and tolerant,
honour be due to it, if a real one. Refine- needs nurture and protection ; yet to do
ment, race, talent, beauty, are worthy of all work of public benefit more effectually,
honour ; but so, also, are goodness, and doubtless the State may profitably and
honest work. Thus said the speaker, and equitably intervene —also to nurture and
one assented with all the heart. Let men protect the weak.
or women (he continued) seek for congenial
occupation, if that can be found ; but,above
all, let them respect themselves, and claim " But, indeed, we are to begin de novo,
respect from others as honourable producers reverse the growth of heredity and evolution,
for the family and the community, whatever make a tabula rasa of the past by act of
their function, not feverishly aspire to change parliament, jump off our own shadows, re-
their sphere for one more conventionally, trospectively quash and cancel the mother's
but not more veritably, estimable, in hope milk that nourished us, post up at the town
to win a false and hollow consideration from hall a bye-law for the abolition of the air
fools, a cordial welcome into the charmed we breathe, and let a vestry quorum vote
circle of inane automata, all varnish and all the elimination of all the blood from our
veneer. bodies, as tainted ancestrally, open to grave
" He talked admirable sense about the suspicion of political obscurantism, as de-
expediency of co-operative production, and riving from a feudal origin. Or no let's — —
the obligation on all, as members of a com- have a plebiscite! That, as a 'cute popular
munity, to contribute their share of labour journal assured us lately, is sure to be in-
for the common good. Socialism, while fallible Obviously! For was it not a —
exaggerated and short-sighted, points out plebiscite which chose Barabbas, and rejected
the direction of our future progress, though Christ in politics, embraced the second ;

not precisely the right road. There is, in- French empire in literature,
; preferred
deed, a minimum of material well-being, Waller and Cowley to Milton Samuel ;

without which no spiritual life, as a rule, is Rogers, and Tom Moore (true, yet inferior
possible. Give me neither poverty nor
'
poets) to Landor, Shelley, Keats, Words-
riches.' But different kinds of work are worth, and Coleridge ? Therefore, sirs, let
needed, and a leisured class seems also us have your voices '
'

needed to secure that fit and right variety "Meanwhile, one would suppose that
while no complete development, or abso- (whatever may be
store for them ofin
lutely equal partition of this world's goods is and above that spirit
earthly prosperity, over
possible for all, here and now nor, were ; of greed, envy, class-hatred, and blood-
it possible, would it be very desirable. thirstiness, inculcated by their prophets as
 — —

A MODERN FAUST 397

promising dispositions for securing happi- '

sacrificed,' or '
absorbed '
! So much for the

ness) the majority hitherto have hardly en- ethical aspect

joyed such a surfeit and superfluity of good "And as for the intellectual; if the
things here that their gorge need rise at the sole conceivable, discriminating, comparing,
very mention of a fuller and more invigorat- remembering organiser and constitutive
ing meal provided elsewhere Are they the ! element of one
any possible experience,
persons, then, whose stomachs have been so self-identifying, conscious individuality, one
crammed that they insist upon a plethoric and self-identical through all change, be
slumber of indigestion, which must not on not the permanent substantial factor of
any account know waking —
having done existence, above birth and death, beyond
work, moreover, of such transcendent value time and space, what is it ?
for the universe that they desire henceforward "Being, Force, the Unknowable, the
to be put on the retired list, and pensioned Unconscious these are mere thin abstrac- —
off in perpetuity, while the world moves on tions from the living real Human, with its
its high and majestic course, with no help intellect and emotion all phenomena are ;

more, or shadow of passing interest from necessarily phenomena of some conscious-

them ? Ought not the universe to be grateful ness, which is the only integrating, differenti-
for what it has got from them already, ating Power we can conceive possible while ;

leaving them henceforward to rest in peace, all consciousness is necessarily individual,

rousing them no more from slumber, early however superior to our actual imperfect
or late, but suffering them to rot indolently consciousness however all-embracing by —
in graves, while the Triumph of Life passes sympathy, transcending by inclusion neces- —
onward, while the wonderful Yggdrasil of sarily involves emotion also otherwise, ;

Ages burgeons ever, and ripens in fruit and where do we obtain it? So I heard an —
flower — in fruit and flower of suns and interlocutor say. Well, at all events (he pro-
satellites, with their teeming infinitude of ceeded), do not let these sulky dyspeptics of
mutually-involved, and included conscious the school of Schopenhauer pose as martyrs
lives? But the eternal almshouse they and heroes, sublime in self-abnegation That !

would retire to, with idleness for everlasting is a little too much. It's all their modesty
dole, is Annihilation. No, we won't play who are they that they should live again?
'

any more !
—
the nature of things in general Wollt ihr immer leben ? as Mr. Carlyle's
' '

has disgusted us too thoroughly.' Surely hero said to his food for powder.' Of what '

this is but a spurious altruism, that overleaps further use can they presume to be? Well,
itself, and falls on the other side So nobly if they feel themselves played out, and sur-
1

oblivious of self are they, so absorbed in feited with success or notoriety, perhaps the
active and contemplative sympathy with the universe may graciously dispense with their
universe, that they become perfectly con- future services, and send them about their
tented such disinterested sympathy should business into that oblivious and oblivioned
cease, relapsing into everlasting indifference, nonentity, which they modestly judge most
after an hour Is not that a lop-sided, suitable to their humble requirements ; and,
!

topsy-turvy altruism, that does not really after all, who should know better than
know what it wants, or why, but proceeds themselves about that ? Possibly wind-bags,
to contradict, devour, and defeat itself? after pricking, are with difficulty blown out
And do they show unselfishness quite up again. Iadmit that if I were freely mentioned
to such high standard in their present lives? by my and quoted in the cheap press,
friends,
Self-sacrifice, self-absorption, if you please ! little would remain to me but to sing the
— but that is possible only on condition that Nunc Diinittis, and shut up for ever after.
there remain, though implicit, a self to be Of this, alas ! I have no experience ; but it
 ' — !

398 A MODERN FAUST

must needs be a soul-satiating one, assuredly. 3'ou all the ingredients only be sure to mix —
Indeed, if I had thus been voted among them well, and put in the right proportions!
'the immortals,' so sure should I be of my At all events, we can furnish you with a neat
'immortality,' that, in order to secure it, algebraical formula, which shall adequately
bedad, wouldn't I (my friend was evidently represent their composition by symbolising
an Irishman, and perhaps the grapes were our exhaustive analysis of the process. Here
sour !) perform the happy despatch forth- ' '
it is —A, B, C, D — very simple and easy to
with, upon myself and upon them, lest one remember. Let A stand for the right hemi-
day
should cease to deserve their favours,
I sphere, or (fc-a/rti-cerebral, ideational nervous
or my immortalisers should change their centres of the brain, B for the word-hearing,
minds, and so deprive me of a little decora- the word- C for the image-seeing, D for
tion, obviously in the power of a few casual hemisphere writing centres. Then this right
passers - by to confer (too evidently the being nothing but a man -trap, a sheer
speaker was envious of those on whom the delusion - mongering department, in that
decoration had been already conferred —
by pulpy thought-manufacturing apparatus so
—
themselves and their disciples and who had obligingly provided for man by the step-
thus become already indisputably immortal !) motherly solicitude of that great Unknow-
' '
'

— posterity notoriously holding itself bound able,' in whose charge he finds himself, it is
to confirm all the transitory whims of its evident that when this interferes, its influ-
forefathers, however self-contradictory ! And
upon words may be permitted) ence (if a play
an immortality in human gabble, so long as must prove quite dexterously sinister and ;

a language lasts, and no Caliph Omar burns the person will find himself most unmercifully
—
a library what an honour Ah, me how hoaxed, and hocussed merely by the malign
! !

many fine things destined for immortality interior arrangements of his own nature and
have long since rotted upon the dust-heap, constitution. For the brain is discovered to
been diverted from their high destiny to glut be a material mill, ingeniously adapted for
the maw of Oblivion. C'est Boulanger qu'il '
grinding grist that has never been brought
nous faut And some one else to-morrow
!
' to it— cornflour out of stones consciousness, —
— Napoleon yesterday. Proud Sesostris, namely, out of the Unconscious reason, —
indeed, before whom the world trembled, love, moral judgment, and sensibility out of
grand and awful even in death, sealed for '
oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon, arranged in
ever in his royal pyramid, to-day is fingered,
' the form of albumen. All the secret lies in
and his identity disputed, by black -coated the arrangement. Shuffle the elements well
professors of alien race —a race then all And then, hocus pocus The conjurer's hat !

undreamed in the womb of a far future isnothing to it. Walk up, walk up, ladies
'

at Boulaq, or British Museum ; next he may and gentlemen See Christmas Day put into
!

furnish an object-lesson for one of our Board- my hat! and Westminster Bridge emerge!'
schools, to illustrate the ancient art of em- That makes all so simple, doesn't it ! Now,
balming mummies And, ah how many ! ! the sinistra department of this
- cerebral
'
immortal bards of ancient Egypt are very
' potent automatic god-and-man manufactory
dead indeed or let somebody now call over
; is capable of turning out a much more
but their names? 'Unknown, and unknow- decent and reliable article in the way of
able !
gods and men than the ^/^jr/r^-cerebral.
" Inspiration of bibles, and revelations, "'Who, then, or what constructed this
forsooth (I heard one of the clever men in patent god-and-man manufactory itself, if it
this group say) We are rather too wide-
! is the origin of ourselves, and of all we
awake for that now. Why, we can give you know?' ventured to put in here. But I
I

an infallible receipt for writing bibles — tell got as little of a satisfactory answer as Alice
 — !

A MODERN FAUST 399

got from the Mad Hatter. suppose that he hears a message of tran-
Indeed, that tea-
party she went to appeared to me very
scendent import from some angel, or, per-
similar, on the whole, to this club-gathering haps, even from god himself (it is better to
of 'men of light and leading.' However, / write this name with a small g, and so dis-
seemed to be a sort of inaudible and invisible courage superstition), which he is commis-
ghost to these good people, who apparently sioned to deliver to the world. Then at
were unaware that any one out of their own once D, the word -writing centre, is, by
circle had spoken. This, indeed, was a means of a diabolically ingenious piece of
dream, and queer things happen in dreams. mechanism (verily, a sort of physiological
But has not many a waking poet experienced infernal machine!), set to work — and writes
the same feeling before? I am informed the message down — becomes, in fact, the
that it is rather like trying to breathe in an property and servant for the time being of
exhausted receiver, or fly easily about in a this concealed conspirator just as if foreigners
;

vacuum. I felt sorry I spoke, though some- in the guise of natives should possess them-
thing, I suppose, will make me speak again. selves of a telegraph office, and send false
People, it is have a way of not hearing news to the national government. So do
true,
disagreeable or puzzling questions. Perhaps bibles, and illusory revelations get themselves
they don't always understand them. scribbled off by the yard, to the profit of
" The de.\-(ro-ceTehra.\ department (he pro- priests, and such-like blood-sucking leeches
ceeded gravely, and with conviction) is, of the community It is too shameful !

indeed, responsible for all this fatuous mis- " But in the present day we are without
chief of bible-making, ecclesiastical authority, excuse if we remain ignorant of these things.
superstition, and so on. Nay, it actually Are we masters in Israel, and know them
has the impudence to set up for a second not ? For all that is needed is some ele-
(though unconscious) individuahty inside our mentary information about physiology, which,
own, simulating some foreign intelligence with our Board-schools and cheap primers,
and character apart from and opposed to is easily attainable. Fancy these messages
ours— while actually part and parcel of our- claiming to be Heaven-descended, while as
selves all the time Thus are we all born a matter of fact descending from no higher
!

with a treacherous imp established in the very or sublimer source than the disordered right
citadel of our own personality. And, worse hemisphere of a fool's skull, setting up for

luck !we cannot turn him out a parasite — itself, ventriloquising and masquerading for
nourished upon our own life-juices! Well, its own amusement ! It may be rather odd
see now how reprehensible is the conduct of that thought should rise so much higher
thismasquerading, secondary self, pretend- than its own level ; but that old law about
ing toV)e some one else —
this ill-conditioned levels applied only to water, and, moreover,
Puck of a right hemisphere, whom we have being so old, it is very probably repealed by
called A ! What does it now do ? Why, it this time ; or if not, why, it ought to be I

proceeds to play upon B, the word-hearing, And this is the kind of thing that was for so
and C, the image-seeing nervous centres long, and so universally, supposed to be
without any provocation whatsoever, or in- given by Divine inspiration, as also to be
junction from outside, from any real object '
profitable for reproof, for correction, and
but just out of sheer native love of mischief, for instruction in righteousness !
' To think
and disposition to practical joking, however that a little ordinary cram on the part of
tremendous the consequences upon its un- any elementary examination-coach of the
fortunate conscious companion, condemned present day would have sufficed to set right
to live with it in the same skull. For this these stupendous mistakes of old wiseacres
of course makes the man to whom it happens imagined to be prophets of the human race,
 — — '

400 A MODERN FAUST

had it been heretofore attainable -would — tinguishable craving for more and more.
have correctly informed the world's apostles, Why, it is the very fuel which feeds hell-
preventing altogether, for instance, the flame, they are bidding us seek, desiderate,
propagation of Christianity, Buddhism, and or steal ! At all costs let us remain unde-
other absurd religions, by us in these latter luded, now that an infallible //^j/jzca/ science
days finally exploded! has, once for all, authoritatively belittled
"These and bemocked for us the spiritual hopes
mistakes, moreover, have been,
singularly enough, committed not only by and heritage of a heretofore bamboozled
savage races, by poor and ignorant people, humanity Conscience and affection de- !
'

but by the highest intellects, the most tran- mand satisfaction as much as sense and
scendently virtuous and heroic natures, understanding,' did you say? 'and are — —
resting, all of them, small and great, weak as much entitled to receive it. That cannot
and powerful, on those same fictitious be true, which flouts and insults them.' Nay,
promises, and hollow consolations, which you rave What are these ? Can you see !

while they proved mighty to the pulling or touch them ? Are they something good
—
down of strongholds endowed men, women, to eat? Do they bring power, comfort,
and children also with patient strength to consideration? Sense, and the pigeon-holing
bear and conquer fate, confront with serene faculty called understanding are the only
resolve extremest rigour of suffering, un- and legitimate organs of knowledge.
possible
intermittent blows of hard misfortune, wel- At any rate, they have our authorised and
come the last enemy with a smile of official imprimatur, while your spiritual

triumphant joy, in and certain hope

'
sure aspirations and intuitions are consigned to

— yet all had for sole origin some diseased our index expiirgatorius.
pulp within the cranium, aided by the cal- "This discussion was going on not far off,

culating machinations of a doting priest! between the illustrious Professor Bathybius,

Verily this same cellular pulp is a potent and some one who seemed to disagree with
magician, responsible for a good deal. him, stemming with difficulty the strong flood-
Hudibras informs us that tide of materialism and negation. These,
then, are specimens, I thought, of the mental
'
Bombastes kept a devil bird, and moral husks, or thistles, which some
Shut in the pommel of his sword.' folk are content to eat, and this is what
we are offered in place of the '
everlasting
!

But what was that familiar spirit to these so gospel That has been overlaid, too well
'

potent and perverse dejciro-cerehial centres I know, with man's perversity, misunder-
we all keep shut in our own skulls? But, standing, and corruption but at least there ;

then, has not the old poet shrewdly noted is a kernel of nourishing food there, a gleam
from what insignificant causes greatest events from thence upon the outer darkness here, ;

are wont to spring? 'This is the victory none at all, only confusion worse confounded,
that overcometh the world, even your faith.' a fatuous, self-complacent rejection
of all

Ah! how much better, then, to be overcome reason and all hope. Were Ezekiel, John
by the world, and trampled under its iron of Patmos, and all the old seers, then, born
feet, or go down in some fierce strife, en- naturals? And Milton? And he who saw
deavouring with unprofitable fury, born of the visions of hell, heaven, and purgatory,
envy and unreason, to wrest from it that singing, '
In la sua voluntade e nostra pace ' ?

uniform success, that external prosperity, And a Greater than these, who imagined that

which eternal laws deny, which would be lie came from God, and went to God, His

so disappointing when obtained, and which, inmost spirit remaining in heaven even while
passionately sought, only fires with inex- Me was upon earth, revealing God to men?
 ! — ;

A MODERN FAUST 401

Oh ! the great assurance of the little blind sensibility, to say nothing of conscience and
guides, glorying in their blindness, who dare affection, when the very notion of a brain
fancy it itself involves a pre -formed, pre-existing

"Yet to none do I yield in admiration for, thought and sensibility, to make this very
and gratitude to Science herself, that latest brain conceivable at all ? Brain and body
and best teller of fairy-tales, when she dis- are notions of some thinker, implying the
covers new uses, wonders, and beauties in conscious unity, and implicit self-identifica-
the outer world of nature, as in our own tion of that thinker in memory, as also his
bodies only let her stick to her own last,
; comparing, distinguishing faculty.' ' I con-
nor intrude into regions too high for her, fess I thought the idealist had the best of
with her pseudo-explanations, and arrogant it here. The Professor, however, in reply,
denials, questioning the competency of her made his little joke. He said, Don't be '

elder sisters, Theology, and Metaphysique, too hard on brains leave that to the clergy ;

in those provinces, which were native to they are interested in depreciating brains,
them of old before she was born. For,' said and so may stand excused
' Besides, what !

the idealist, addressing Professor Bathybius, you say is mysticisin. It means nothing
'
if the cerebral process, even with the inter- at least, it's too deep for me. I don t

vention of an object admittedly external to understand you.' And the popular press
the individual perceiver (whether real or ideal agreed with him. Yet to grin through a
is not now the question), cannot at all explain horse-collar at an argument, or intellectual
the normal perception of colour, form, solidity, position is, perhaps, not quite the same as
and so on, or the veriest elementary sensation to turn, or carry it by storm. But Folly,
—which is the fact —how is it going to explain like Wisdom, is justified of her children.
that more uncommon intuition of a super- So long as an intelligent public demands
sensible sphere, and the sublime relations buffoons, literary, or otherwise, it will get

appertaining thereto, without the intervention them. The majority can laugh loudest, and
of any corresponding super-sensible object ? their hilarity is contagious. If when a certain
If all be subjective hallucination in the last Prophet said those disagreeable things about
case, why not also in the former ? which yet a woman taken in adultery, some professional
common sense pronounces an absurd con- joker among the conventionally pious Jews
clusion. For then there could be no inter- had but thought of making a joke about His
course of man with man, no justification for coat not being brushed, or His hair being
the belief that any person exists other than unkempt, the multitude of hollow - holy
one's own particular self Nor is it any people, indulging in a guffaw, would have
answer to appeal to a common consent gone away better pleased with themselves,
present in one case, but absent in the other, and in a better humour with everybody
because, first, the objectivity of other persons else.
has to be assumed before any argument can "But, stunned and bewildered between
be founded upon their consent and, secondly, ; all these clever, if pretentious jabberings,
the conditions of normal perception are pro- characteristic of this age of confused and
bably alike for ordinary perceivers, whereas contradictory voices, I rushed out into the
they are evidently different for the extra-
ordinary, which would quite sufficiently
' I think he added that, unless you postulate
account for the latter's perception and com- a one and self-identical ego, or spirit, behind
prehension being different also, without experience, no rational, connected experience
supposing illusion in one case, and not in is possible at best you could only have dis-
;

the other. Above all, how can the brain jointed, indistinguishable blurs of feeling, even
be the source, and cause of thought and if so much as that.
2 C
 —
! ! ;; ! .

402 A MODERN FAUST

open, perhaps somewhat unceremoniously, And the gaping earth gulphs all
and in my dream Lo ! the masquers, and the mummers, in con-
fusion.
Ragnarok Hurrying panic-stricken through the high-
"When went from way,
I forth the hall I was
bewildered, In disordered gala dresses from the revel,
Whirled as in a war of primal atoms, With the lions, panthers, horses from the

While a cloud of buzzing theories befogged me, show,

Stunned, and flew in misted eyes of under- Shaking scared, with their man-tamers, while

standing. the flowers

Are strewn about the pavement where they
" Firm foundations of the old world were fell

removing, From the white hands of inebriates who

Shuddering under, involved in their death- threw them.
throes: Mad with orgy, mad with joy !

Magnificent grey temples ever-enduring, Sinuous wine from tumbled goblet dyes the
Eternal 'mid the mazy moil of mortals, palace
Holding far-withdrawn communion with And the men want not the women any
stars, longer
In the refluence of the human generations Flimsy booths of the gay fair are all awry ;

Ebbing, flowing, round their high abiding No resounding more of brazen vaunting
calm, accents
When the worshippers confidingly sought From the humorous showman showing off
sanctuary, the monster ;

Threw themselves with wild appeal before The man of motley runneth swiftly flying. . . .

the gods,
Sudden yawning with grey walls to swallow all, " Lo ! the guillotine is reared ! the tocsin
Bowed, and fell upon them threatens !

Men with rude gnarled arms, and rags, and

"Young-eyed gods, ah ye were beautiful !
gory bosoms,
in May-time Red and rough as dragons, butcher grimly. . .

Now, in burning, lurid gloom of dying day, Earth, a Pandemonium. . . .

Ye are withered, looking old, and wan and All an infinite flood of night, with ne'er a
weary. refi.ige,

While your pale priest mutters palsied by the A roaring, ravening flood, with ne'er an
altar. ark.
Your altar hurled asunder with contumely. Nor a dove with leaf of olive !

And a roll of smothered wrath from under- Sick abortions of the maddened brain
ground ! colliding
Your wild worshippers entreat you at your Grapple one another in the gloom.
shrine ;
Going under, with the drifting wrecks of
But in burning, lurid gloom of dying day, empire,
Lo ye reeling fall upon them
! !
Orders, faiths, and commonv/ealths that
shock together.
"Bells clangjingling-jangling in the steeples, Mutually destroying, as the armed men
Drunken steeples, flickering like fire. Sprung from dragon's teeth of old. . . .

Thunder rumbles in the dungeons of the O Ragnarok, O twilight

earth-god Of the gods, a world confounded !
 '

A MODERN FAUST 403

thought King Demos, however, is

so).
Stump Oratory easily led by the nose with a little cajolery.
"Now it seemed that all was still again, I'he demagogue was inciting to violence,

and that I was making my way to Hyde bloodshed, and plunder, men and women in
Park. As I went, I found some refreshment rags, gaunt and famished, or idle, brutal,
for my soul ; for a ruddy-faced, clear-eyed and malignant another was giving stones
;

little boy in a blouse, who belonged to the (or plaster) for bread in the form of atheistic
upper classes, was acting a 'puff-puff,' materialism, of the same quality as that of
blowing, putting one little fist before him which I had been tasting a sample at the
for buffers,and twisting the other for wheels, club ; only rather more highly spiced with
running on before bis nurse, and stamping blasphemy and obscenity, to suit a rougher
his little feet. Then, again, a poor ragged palate indeed, a policeman standing by
;

urchin, with brown legs and arms, was thought of running him in for it. Of course
turning a Catherine-wheel for a copper or he had not thought of running in Mr. Cultus,
two, while another stood, broom in hand, the highly accomplished president of our
whining, ' Copper, sweep, please, sir
!
literary academy —
first, because neither he

Then there was a Punch and Judy show, nor the magistrate could have understood
before which lot of little children were
a that gentleman's refined irony, even if they
gaping and open-mouthed admira-
in silent had ever heard of him, or of his books and, ;

tion. They would reproduce the drama in secondly, because so rude a procedure might
their games, nose-voiced Punch and all, have seemed inapposite, and scarcely lucid ;

when they got home. for Mr. Cultus didn't brutally slay our gods

"On the pretty Serpentine swans and with a bludgeon before the populace, but,
ducks were floating prattling, delighted
;
with an esoteric smile, before a select circle
toddlers feeding them with crumbs. Boys assembled in an inner chamber, delicately
were sailing toy ships, boats rowing up and opened a vein protesting the while that he
;

down, some with happy lovers in them the ;

had only taken them in there to wash their
fine old trees wore their early green, and faces, cut their hair, and improve their
many flowers were out the usual riders ; general appearance. Nay, he had but given
rode to and fro in the Row, and the usual them a well-bred and demure kiss; if there-
idlers stared at them, while the carriages upon the crude and sour-smelling mob, with
moved in their customary long streams, with ugly names, figures, and faces, seized and
the ordinary fine people inside. hurried to crucifixion, could he be held re-
" But I came now to an open space where sponsible? I trow not.
crowds were gathered here mob-orators;
" The stump orator, however, of the dirty
swayed the surging throngs with contagious bristles, brute jowl, and bloodshot eyes, was
vehemence of words, and violence of gesticu- screaming that next time the people had a
lation, like wind arousing waves to roar and chance they would not be so moderate all ;

destroy. One to whom I listened flattered the accursed brood of kings, priests, and
the new king. Demos, quite as grossly as nobles, should be extirpated, not one be left
any courtier ever flattered a more old- to beget or bring forth young vipers ; loathly
fashioned monarch, and with about as much and obscene ecclesiastical bats should be
sincerity. The many-headed sovereign, more- hunted from comfortable clefts of darkness
over, appeared fully as gullible as the ruler in obsolete old temples. And their works,
with one head only^perhaps more. But too, shall perish with them ! All monu-
the numerous heads of a hydra are less easy ments of ancient historical piles, with
art,

to get rid of by lopping than the single one their archives, all palaces and churches, shall

of a higher animal (the amiable Commodus be burned, or razed to earth, and the site
 !

404 A MODERN FAUST

sown with salt. The vermin shall be de- as much sinister satisfaction in denouncing
stroyed, with all the accursed dens that shelter denouncers. Did not Raoul Rigaud of the
them ! Hell-fire of hatred blazed from eyes Paris Commune revel on the fat of the land
and lips, like flames from charred and marred when he could get it, or was he still as
abysms, that have once been door and virtuously indignant with anything like fat ?
windows in a consuming and dismantled Footpads in excelsis, footpads with a con-
house. But although undoubtedly this man venient theory, lolling drunk on thrones,
pointed to terrible evils, his remedies seemed defacing, mucking, and making firewood of
mostly impracticable and in the air, while them, wrenching consecrated patens from
his spirit was but the ugly counterpart of the off the altars, with bestial gibe, and carry-
tyrant's own he sought to stir up mutual ing them in mock processions of monkey-
;

rancour and bad blood, while making unjust mummers Such is the monarch of many
!

and exaggerated accusations, even commit- heads, with a minimum of brains in them.
ting the sin against the Holy Ghost by His cunning courtiers, his bear-leaders,

calumniating that gentle and ardent spirit of moreover, have invented a moral basin of
charity, which prompts nowadays many an water for him, in the which, like Pilate, he
honest effort to further alien good. Indeed, may wash his dirty hands, and after that
he seemed a sort of man-eating tiger trans- lustration account himself even praise,
migrated into human shape, and the fiends rather than blame, worthy ! For they have
chuckled audibly when he had spoken. But discovered, and assured him that the thrones,
doubtless he was well paid, and looked honours, and better clothing of more for-
comfortable enough in his black coat. tunate men have themselves been filched
"Now an Italian organ -boy with a from the people, wrung out of the bloody
monkey came near to listen. Suddenly the sweat of their enslavement, and ill-requited
monkey upon the shoulders of the
leapt toil !In that plea, moreover, one must
demagogue, and chattered there, mimicking admit some justification. Herein may be
the man's vehement gesticulations. It was revealed to us, indeed, that mysterious, in-
all up ! The mobile crowd burst into guf- corruptible, inevitable Nemesis of the gods,
faws of inextinguishable laughter, and after so sure, however silent and slow-footed
indulging in chaff and horseplay at the But the instruments of Heaven's vengeance
tribune's expense, melted away to witness The Son of
are not necessarily guiltless. '

the nimbler and more exciting acrobatic man was written of Him.'
goeth, as it

antics of a rival mountebank hard by. But Yet woe to that man, by whom the Son
'

the lover of humanity in a fury, descending of man is betrayed.' For because A robbed
from his elevated position, and having with B, it does by no means evidently follow
difficulty got rid of the monkey, cuffed the that G may innocently rob F, and that no
little organ-boy unmercifully, as a practical injustice is done to the latter. Otherwise,
illustration of that justice and mercy, the what human contract soever, what title to
want of which, in a fine frenzy of virtue, he property, or civilising security for tranquil
had even now so eloquently denounced in a possession, and peaceable living could be
selfish priesthood, and a bloated aristocracy. proved or regarded as valid and assured ?
" Make him a bishop
'
said a wag, when Yet this is the very first condition of Liberty,
!
'

one complained of a too zealous ecclesiasti-
cal reformer; and so, perhaps, if you could
have seated this bitter revolutionist in the
high and comfortable places he inveighed
against, his tone might have undergone
modification, and his native bile have found
the safeguard, sentinel, inviolable forecourt,
citadel, and environment of human dignity,
self-respect, and self-development. Or shall
two wrongs, perchance, make a right ? If
common Conservatism be callous content-
ment, common Radicalism is cruel envy.
 — —

A MODERN FAUST 405

Nor am I aware that this man was especi- tempted to linger ; but this surely was an
ally kind at any time to individual organ- insult to Him, who had made it so large
boys, or any other persons who might and rich and beautiful for those who have
happen to need him, in the concrete, though eyes to see. How, upon these terms, can
rabid about the wrongs of Organ-hoy, and we do our needful work effectually, with
People in the abstract. Apparently he pre- consecrating and quickening spirit, resolved
ferred '
the People to any particular person-
'
to adorn and idealise every humblest nook
Indeed, he was violent in his denunciation and corner, reclaiming from evil, and claim-
of 'pauperising,' and 'degrading' charity ing for God ? As the delightful old religious
exercised toward any dirty and disagreeable poet sings
individual Jones or Brown {e.g. helping him
fraternally to tide over a bad time, as we '
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
might expect him to help us, if he were in Makes that and the action fine.'
our place), just like any political economist ;

though fanatical in his devotion to Humanity If we are so dissatisfied with Earth, more-
with a big H. In the grand universal over- over, is it certain that we shall be any
turn, which alone could satisfy his ambitious better contented with Pleaven ? The ipirit
aspirations, this particular organ -boy might of such religion is a wrong one. The bush
happen to tumble uppermost, or he might always burns with fire, though only Moses
not. At all events, somebody would, and may see it, and know the common earth for

not those who are uppermost now, which is holy ground. God is here, as well as there.
the main object. His large and lofty soul Sour, jaundiced, unwholesome, inhuman,
could only expatiate in vast, unwieldy, theo- and selfish is that gospel of seclusion and
retic schemes, that will not fit any actually exclusion, that exhortation to busy ourselves
existing circumstances ; he cannot conde- about saving our own souls
' from a '

scend to potter over, and tinker at mere threatened wrath to come. Election, re-
petty particular cases of misfortune, or minis- probation, the total depravity of human
nature, and everlasting punishment, throw
ter to individual necessities, as they present
themselves —unless,
some distantly- very little light, at all events, over those
indeed,
related third person, or some objectionable terrible problems of victim and tyrant, un-
system may lend himself, or itself, to deserved suffering of the weak and innocent,
eloquent denunciation a rich man, for that haunted, oppressed, and made me doubt
;

instance, who, qua rich, is necessarily a of eternal justice. Rather these doctrines
tyrant. make darkness
visible by exhibiting in the
'
' I, strolling away, stopped to Abyss the monstrous Image of a
listen to Eternal
—
a religious preacher a stern, somewhat un- Supreme God, made in the lurid likeness of
educated Puritan, holding up Jesus Christ. evil, arbitrary men.
and evidently blessed with a strong per- "Sadly moving away, I noted a pale
sonal love to Him. He seemed an earnest youth declaiming and denouncing quite as —
and true man, though one whose outlook evidently sincere too. The burning iron of
was singularly confined. Indeed, the doc- cruel oppression, of dire misfortune not all —
trine he preached was dishonouring to our his own, but also of those dear to him that —
highest idea of God while this life, as
; of the great dumb human suffering people,
he represented it, became a poor and had entered into his very marrow ; those
colourless thing, amere low and squalid terrible words of were charged with no
his
passage to another and better, through insignificant anguish —
ready to lighten a
which we were bound to hurry, as it were, devouring sword in the heart of society
without looking about us, lest we might be with no impotent and immemorable subter-
 ! ; — !

4o6 A MODERN FAUST

ranean thunder of earth-upheaving, righteous, All that hath been solid a mere cloud ;
and destroying anger. A destroying angel I remembered how but yesterday I met them.

he an Enjolras yet
! —
to him few listened : Whom we call dead, while we talked at the
men may however, one day, and that
listen, |
street corners.

not distant, when opportunity has matured ;

j
Even here where we who name ourselves the

and then, woe woe to the heedless, wanton,

! !
j
living

wicked, oppressive city! E\'il voices chuckle Are conversing now : in glory flashing by me,
|

amid the far-off murmur and mutter of im-

'

Lo ! the beautiful, the young with their light

pending civic storm But the holy angels

! ; laughter.
also are invisibly near him, those awfiil The beautiful, the young, fulfilled with life
j

indignant ones, who opened the seals of Ah! how gently flow the years of sunny
Divine judgment in the Apocalypticseer's |
boyhood,
Vision. For if Justice and Mercy will not Wandering they hardly seem to move :

work peaceably and genially for reformation, Now swift runners, lo! they jostle rushing
the necessary work will be done more onward,
clumsily, through earthquake and volcanic Eager hurrying, hurrj-ing headlong to the
violence. After alL the people at large goal, ...
have benefited substantially even by the Massy billowy water lightening to the fall! . . .

horrors of Revolution they are emancipated, ; And I hear a peal of bells from a near steeple.
and growing, with whatever serious short- Very like the peal of bells in my far home ;

comings, and defects the scars, wounds, — A child again I wander in the woodland,
diseases incidental to cataclysmal crisis, Pick the daisies, rove beside the water.
and interrupted, insufficient, inappropriate, And my sister smiles behind her bridal veil,

unassimilated food. But World-education Emerging firom the chamber to be married,

should now progress more quietly, with less She who lieth in her sleep below the hill. . . .

of hideous, exhausting convulsion. All the voices dwindle while I hear them.
The faces fade ; I know not whence, or
whither.
Bewilderment
Why, or how we travel in the world-show.
"Then, returning in a maze, I met my com- Doubt of now, nor understand before, and
rades. after!
All of them have unaware grown grey ;

A little while ago, and they were youthful

It if a year had made them old.

seemed as
Is thehour of former intercourse so far, then?
But I am all bewildered with the change
BOOK v.— DISORDER
And though, indeed, I feel myself yet youthful, Canto I. Nature— The Sea, and
I learn from them that I am growing old.
THE Living Creatures
For they also look bewildered when they
meet me. "Then I thought, in the bosom of Nature,
With an air as if they wondered at my youth ;
whom I love so, who has revealed herself
Then with self- reproving I behold them, to me from a boy, will I forget now the

Feeling ready to sink with them into night. misery caused by human sin, hardness, in-
Young lithe forms, and fresh young faces difference, and mad cruelty —
forget these

move around me ;
confusions also of poor human understand-
I know how the time-torrent hurries all I ing, vainly endeavouring to pierce the dark-
Again the earth appeared to shiver, swooning ness of a night unassuageable by any star,
under, troubled only, not illuminated, with sinister
 ; ; ! ! ! !

A MODERN FAUST 407

fires of wreckers along the shore, where " When the Main is here at home his lucid
human ravage lies tossing in the wild surge, halls are paven
ground to fragments on the iron rocks. And With a foamy-veined, and shifting shadowed
now I found myself by the sea. emerald ;

When he leaves, the ponderous purple

'
' The cliffs resemble a roll of long reverber- boulders are engraven
ate thunder, With fairy tales of the water by the mighty
Dark solid-bodied form of some rock-crashing scald.
peal, I bathe and wade in the pools, rich-wrought
Long reverberate roll of a loud tumultuous with flowers of the ocean.
peal Or over the yellow sand run swift to meet
They are a rampart round the pylon rent the sea.
asunder Dive under the falls of foam, or float on a
From the mainland by the might of yonder weariless motion
waves that steal Of the alive, clear wave, heaving undulant
Slowly and surely in from where they roar under me
in the distance ; The grey gull wails aloft; he floats on the
I hasten over the sand that paves the lonely breast of the billow.
court, And a wet seal flounders flippered on a shelf
Pass through the giant pylon, and with a of the cave ;

swift: insistence He knows well I'll not hurt him, brother of

Climb rocks in front of the cave that is the mine, dear fellow ;
Sea's resort. His mild brown eye beholds confidingly and
Only He for awhile hath left His grand suave.
Sea-palace, Yonder the mouth of the dark long sub-
And I may enter, daring for a moment to terranean hollow,
explore, Where with a light in my hat I drove the
Until anon beneath the Titan arch He dallies, birds one day,
Ere He arrive to play with the Ijoulders on Who seeing the narrowing end, and a
the floor swimmer persistently follow,
Arch He hath hewn for Himself in scorn Dived unexpectedly under, and rose up far
of our rondure of arches, away!
Tall, irregular, huge, in outline lightning-
forked. "
But the cavern hath awful tones, dull
While day and night He moved in four great crimson hues of the henbane,
moon-led marches, Blood-red, as ancient Murder had been
And mouths of the foaming surge with the hiding here,
hollow mountain talked. So old and unremembered, gory tints of the
Was not the Architect Chaos? the storm's den wane :

abraded edges. Nay, for a smell of slaughter haunts the

Gloom-model after which He set Himself antres drear
to mould, I will not remember, I thought 1 forget by
Or the journeying billows' beetling, mountain- the brine that I love so
rupturing ridges ? All the terror of human sin that made me grieve!
Old Chaos hath a genius primeval, vast and Ah ! refreshed for a moment, how may I

bold, remove so
hope to
Who tints the windy walls with dim red From the wrongs of those, my brethren ?

rust, and gold 'tis but a brief reprieve

 ! ! ! ; —
! ! ; —— — !

A MODERN FAUST
I deem some Horror hides in yonder gloom Nay, for I hear in the air that pestilence of
of the hollows, the voices
The surge returns to glut them somewhere And it is not all the gale, nor cry of the
near my lair wild sea-mew I

And while the sullen sound my lone ear '

Say what sinister joy, not man's this time,

gloomily follows, rejoices.

With some foreboding cold to gaze around The loud, shipwrecking, murderous tempest-
I dare. whirl to brew ? ' . . .

Oh! what are these at my feet? Ship-

"Anon was changed the spirit of my dream.
timbers, masts that are shattered,
In the howl of the hurricane, crunched on

And
the iron of rocks
Canto II. Misfortune —Advocatus
lo 'tis a corpse in the corner, swollen,
!

DiABOLi Mad Mother

sodden, and battered.
Nodding, and tossing its arms with the swirl " How the sunlights quiver
against the blocks Upon the river.
For the Sea hath returned already, He enters Flash out, are lost,
the outermost portal On wavelets tost
Let a man begone, or drown, by the crag- Trees in ranks
walled vestibule ;
On verdant banks
Let him begone, or drown, by the echoing Trail their leaves
vestibule Where water heaves ;

Ah ! 'tis the corpse of a boy there — hear the A boat is n earing

wail of a mortal A mossy strand,
Who weeps by a fire in a far land, and waits Young voices cheering
for her beautiful Are heard from land ;

The Sea hath returned already ; He laughs Musical bells

in the outermost portal ; Of a village steeple
He washeth over the boulders, thundering Flood hills and dells;
to and fro And a village people
Who are they that inhabit here aloof from In bright array
the mortal ? Await the young,
What awful Powers, indifferent to human This morning gay.
joy or woe ? Whose happy throng,
Of Demiurgic Powers, afar from the man All pure and white.
and the woman, With smiles of light.
Are these dim echoing chambers the mystical In happy union.
veiled thought, For a first communion
Indifferent, aloof, or enemy to the human? . . . Sail over the river.
How, then, are they a haven for minds and Where sunlights quiver.
hearts o'erwrought ? From vineyard-nested,
Ah many and many
! an hour in your sub- Calm, hill-crested
lime communion Hamlets fair
I pass, O gods unknown, of ocean, wind, In bloomy air.
and cloud ; On the other side
I find profound repose, refreshment flow Of the rippling tide.
firom the union . . . The saintly father,
Yet, O my soul, divorce no sufferers in the While they gather
crowd
 ; ; ! : ! ! !!

A MODERN P'AUST 409

Before the altar, Whether a sudden squall had caught

Well-nigh will falter The bellying full sail,
From fond emotion, Or crowding to one side had wrought
And heart's devotion ;
Collapse, and that wild wail,
Will give the feast I know not, but their joy became

To elder and least, One agony and terror !

The while they falter While we may lay no more the blame
Before the altar, On human crime and error !

Fair heads bent low, A moment since, their beauty dallied,

Young hearts aglow ;
The dew of youth upon them ;

To the gentle Saviour Then gasping, panic-struck, and pallid,

All life's behaviour A cruel Fate fell on them

Commending humbly. The shadow of holy mysteries
And praying dumbly Within the temple nigh,
That lie will guide Mellowing joy within their eyes ;

O'er life's wild tide And yet they were to die !

To the other side. Shrieking for mercy, help, they drown

They are singing glees, they In anguished Love's full sight ;

Merrily dally, So Heaven sends the blessing down,

Songs on the breeze Our pleading prayers invite ! . . .

Float into the valley.

While bells are ringing " And now I hear the chuckling hiss,

Musically, '
This is their first communion — this !

White sail winging See the pretty white young faces

Over the wave, These the All-Father's fond embraces!
They laugh at the grave Will you arraign mankind if these succumb,
Boatman wan. Or old Dame Nature, who is blind and
Or a doubled swan dumb? . . .

At a fleck of froth.
Or a drowning moth. " '
Visit again with me the London garret
Their mirth flows on ; Two parents, and five children have to
Youth's fount of mirth share it

Hath a holy birth Virtue, shame, modesty, may seldom come

From naught, from all, To those who litter in this pleasant home ;

From great and small, But slow starvation always trade is dull ; ;

Perennial ! . . .
Work hard to find live skeleton and skull. ;

" But one who watched the bark that brought With sallow skin stretched over, youth is here ;

Her child athwart the flood

Old sacks for bedding, and how soon the bier !

Bent eyes a moment, while she sought One friend insidious in the squalid stye

A favourite flower or bud, Leers — the gin-flask! What other friend is

To adorn the bosom of her daughter nigh?

Against the holy rite ; i;ut if to alleviate their want you fret,

And when she raised them to the water, Be sure grim Doom will circumvent you yet
No vessel was in sight • ! . .

Only a weltering dark mass " Or come and note small children
' at the

Upon the blaze abhorrent show,

The youth that played on summer glass, Who watch intent the mummers to and
Death-gript now in the current fro! . .
 ! —! ' ! ! ;
! ! ! !

410 A MODERN FAUST

"Fire! fire!" we yell! See, see how panic For subtlest ingenuities of pain
flies, Well, and so we laugh one long laugh the
Until the ways are choked with mad atrocities, more
Well-nigh more murderous even than the Grim Chance runs riot, drunken conqueror ;

human, He reels athwart the world's dim battle-

Almost too cynical for very man or woman fields ;

Heaped and piled. Purple his robe ; a dripping sword he wields,

With agonies contorted wild, While his pale horse's flanks are splashed
Of many an innocent little child !
with blood,
Gorged vultures flapping round him ; earth
" Then did they show me other dreadful isone red flood.
scenes And for what priests tell of a wrathful God,
The dull blind tyrant, with his myrmidons, Avenging ancient guilt, bale-fires like this
!

Who stalks, and slays his nobler brother Accumulate more gloom in the abyss ' . . .

beast,
" (Anon was changed the dark dream-
Warning off man, child, woman, blest with
imagery.)
vision,
From God's mountainside, His gift to all.
fair
Mad Mother
Let him beware red Revolution waits ! !

Ah fertile lands depopulate for game,

!
" After moonrise in autumn.
The charred and ruined hamlet on the waste By a wandering water.
Where once throve happy families there When a half-muffled moon,
skulks Dazed in a cloudland
Tyrannous Murder's blackened face ; there Of wandering grey.
struts Looked pale from the cloud.
Decorous Infamy, close-masked in Law, Dim branches uncoloured,
The gentleman evictor, who evicts In a line with the moon.
The dying babe, and its heart-broken mother. Under, over the moon,
W^ith choked sob praying shelter for her Faintly repeated.
child A dark woven lacework
He spurns her, hres the sheltering hut ; they In the wan wave . . .

wander, I heard a low singing,

Aimlessly wander up the bleak hillside, Thin, shadowy singing,
Some wailing, some with vacant stare, and Unwordable woe,
some A wail from the ruin
A silent curse in their wrecked hearts. . . . Of a heart desolated.
Behold A mind out of tune,
Upon the torrid sands of Africa As a wail from the wind :

Innumerable bones of spent black slave, A thin faded form by the pale flying
Starved, buried quick, knifed, mutilated. moon,
goaded A face with the youth faded out from
By callous driver, women, children, men ! . . . the eyes.
From the wan, weary eyes ;

" '
I hope you like our pretty magic slides ;
Save for her, not a soul

Earth is, in sooth, a very lively scene Save for her, and a child.

A water-drop beneath the microscope. Whom she held by the hand.

Where loathsome animalcules gorge and war In the shadowy silence ;

One huge disordered order, shrewdly planned But she ceaseth her singing.
 —
' ! ! — ' '

A MODERN FAUST 411

Low saith to the child On naked boards, life-crimsoned ; a thin fog

Come along, dear, with mammy
'
Of London atmosphere the pane
fouls the ;

Under the water, Only reveals red tile roof, and soiled chimney,
The soft flying water, Through shivered, grimed glass in the room ;

The sheltering water, is more

The kind, hiding water ; Now than one body ; cold upon her pallet
You are going with me !
Lay the dead maiden whom they starved ;

Then they went from the shelving and through

Low shore together The door half-open I behold the child
Into the water : Flit up and down, with those two heavy
And the child little knew irons
Where he was going, Dragging at skeleton arms ; while yonder
Only clung to the mother. stark
Deeming her wise. In that dim corner stares a small drowned
Was she not ever corse.
Wise for her little one. Loathly, unclean accoiiplements in air
Love for her little one ? Take hinted shape phantasmal, or withdraw.
Yea, Love is wise ! Amid the muttering of wicked words.
Ah she was true
!
;

But the woes of the world. " I feel death-chilled from some strange,
Driven home by the devil, ghostly air,
Had maddened her mind, And vital power drawn from me then rushed ;

And the child little knew, A supernatural Wind of ample pinion.

Knew not the mother That swooped, and wailed, and fell ; the
Herself little knew, affrighted chamber
Even she, even she Shuddered I was aware of a dread Presence.
:

Herself little knew It seemed a pale mist nourished on my life.

So they went in together, Deadly miasm exhaling from my body.
Mother and child, Trailing now convolutions serpentine
Awaking the cloudland Upon the floor ; a monster parasite.
In thewan water. It thickened, coiled voluminous and then ;

Awaking the moon. Rose solid, palpable, huge dragon train,

'
O mammy, how cold it is !

Towering high till it assumed a crest.

'
Yea, very cold, dear Human, yet half inhuman now it wavered, ;

Only 'tis colder As though in act to threaten with a fang.

Yonder on earth, love.
All the dull-white showed clots of Ijlood in it;
Yonder on land !

I deem them mine and yet the Thing

;

A gurgle, a silence,
appeared
Low wind in the rushes,
Very embodied soul of the vile scene,
Never note more of song now ;
Of all the loathly outer circumstance :

Nor mother, nor child knew ;

Whose human visage, livid like grim death,
Ah none of us know
! !
Whose vampire visage, monster life-in-death,
Fascinates with an evil-glittering eye.
Canto III. Satan
"Now again in the dreary blear-eyed room, "And still a grandeur outraged and defiled
Where the poor boy lay murdered on the Sat throned upon the ruin-countenance.
floor, On the large god-front, broadly reared and
I find me ; and that white heap lies there yet, high,
 — —— —— ; ! ! —

412 A MODERN FAUST

Like some pale crag, some temple wall, Every malignant word deprived of strength.
shagged over Drew life forth, slow blood from the gladiator,
With thickets of dull hair ; on loose lewd And fell like clods upon a coffin-lid.
lips I felt as though some fungus of the charnel

Dwelt Cruelty, Pride, arrogant Disdain, Were growing over my dim, withered heart.
While hard Hate glared from cavernous green
"
eyes, You shall not have your child for all
'

Unchallenged owner, with immense Despair; your pother.

Save when some lurid Passion smouldered For he is well extinguished so are these;

sullen, The happy children a fair accident.

Or flared infernal yet withal in them.
;
—
And these an uglier thus you say they seem
As on the haggard, marred, and wasted To you —yet they're congenial enough
cheek. To other folk — proverbially tastes differ !

There reigned so absolute a desolation, Your vice may relish what their virtue
That Pity rose upon the night of Fear frowns at,

And Horror, like a timid trembling star. The while your bridling virtue scorns their
Venturing even here with her faint ray vice.
Now It assumed the guise of a well-dressed. There is no right, nor wrong, nor heart in
And cynic-sneering modern gentleman. Nature
She suffocates the miner in the mine ;

" None could have told the age of the Earth yawns to swallow honest labour,
dread Thing tombed
It might have been or very old, or young Among the fallen stones of his poor home.
Whose haunting set grey face Slowly to starve there, inaccessible.
Is all one blight, and pregnant with decay. She shakes his roof down upon masquing
. . .

I can but grovel, cower underneath. Mirth,

Spell-bound by this, more dire than the And gaily-tripping Innocence, but dumb
Anaconda. And accomplice of a crime.
stolid stands,
What is it?" Cain, the murderer, the rebel? Who hurls the panic-stricken freight of men,
Or legendary wanderer. Ahasuerus? So roused from slumber, trapped in their
Or that Medusa fury's Gorgon-head ? own trains.
Ahriman, Satan, Mephistopheles, From high- built viaducts, their own proud
Arch-critic, nourished on belittlement work,
Malign joy strength accords to impotence Ablaze, one shrieking, dizzying chaos down
Or some projection of the worst in me, To iron-bound winter water, which denies
Horribly thriven at a soul's expense ? A drop to quench the fierce flame, that
devours
" I hear it breathe in tones sepulchral, low. At leisure victims, caged behind strong bars,
Some heart-o'erwhelming knolling of a knell, Themselves devised to guard from mis-
Which maddeneth, like that torture of the adventure !

drop Convulsed with mirth at her grim irony,

In mediaeval dungeons on the crown ! Look how she glowers over them, and grins !

Now loud with heart -cleft anguish, and

despair, "'What more? the time would fail me,
Syllables poignant with the wind's wild wail should I summon
Charged now with hollow mockery and gibe, All my great cloud of witnesses for evil
Thin, ringing false, blood-curdling, half a She grinds together huge ships in mid-ocean.
hiss. Mere brittle shells in Her portentous grasp,
 ——
! - ! ! — !

A MODERN FAUST 413

Holds puny, pale crews drenched in cold " '

Did God appoint the infant-murdering
suspense woman.
Over the maws of ravening wave-furies, Who slowly starves, and rols with foul

That pluck and hiss at them, and show white disease.

teeth, Through filth, stench, long neglect, cold

Where lurks the foul shark, ere she drops cruelty,

them in — Pale, pleading babes, she undertook to

Maddens in open boats, until they pray cherish.

Yes ! pray to God — then prey on one Presiding genius of the baby-farm,
another ! Vampire, that sucks the blood of innocence ?
Sun-smitten and delirious, after draughts Or did He make her heart, who does to
Of tantalising brine from the false water. . . . death
Her own child, for some base insurance fee,
" '
Huge ship dismasted, staggering to her Which she will pour fire-molten down her
doom, throat ?—
While the loud surge sweeps over her Or doth this brittle, poor potter's clay defy
drenched decks Him ?

A man is lashed to the helm ; the rest are Our confraternity applaud such deeds !

sealed. But God ! Even I dare not so frantically

And battened down beneath, shut in with Blaspheme as charge such petty crimes on
Horror, God!
To madden, rend one another, stifle, drown. If He commanded, then Myself am He,
in a hole whose screams and wails And if permitted, He is Impotence.
Rats ;

appeal Choose, man, your horn! or else, renounce

To ravening wind, and wildly hounded your God
cloud
One plunge ! one last loud shriek caught " Or '
will you, in sooth, sophisticate your
away by the blast. souls
Mangled, mocked, sucked into its mastering By arguing Wrong mere roundabout, masked
roar, Right ?

And consubstantiate with senseless Sound ! Well ! you are more mine for the specious

Dominant, blind black Vortex whirls, rolls, lie! . . .

rages. If there's a God, I never met with Him.

And brief-lived bubbles float in place of The emaciate, cruel-eyed inquisitor.
men !
And soldiers fanatic drenched earth with
Dive to the deeps ! there shapes of the well- blood,
loved Oppressed the unconscious air with human
Drift heaped, stiff, festered, eaten of mon- woe.
strous things ! . . . In that dread Name and who were glad !

She decimates with cancer, and long pangs but we?

On your sick beds ashore O Tamburlaine, :

Caligula, Tiberius,De Sade, There is no right, no wrong, no heart in

" '

Well may you droop your shamefast eyes, Nature :

and kneel Your right and wrong are rules for your own
Before your Queen, your Mistress crowned order.
with crime, Rules variable, moreover, and unsure.
Avowing how She dwarfs imagination Nay, virtue is but idiosyncrasies.
With hell-born ingenuities of wrong Similar, close-knit, long-inherited,
 ! ! ; ! I ! ;

4''4 A MODERN FAUST

Thrust upon others, under penalty.

Provide for your own order how ye may,
Deterioration. —
Great Nature careth but a little for it " '
I commend to you the ethics of de-
Nay, but She made your order ? Well, 'tis terioration.

true. A genius,a temperament of fire,

Yet you lean on her, you'll find a whore,
if Weighted with the dead weight of ancestral
Fickle of humour, fancying one to-day, sin 1

And much preferring another by to-morrow. Pegasus turning a mill-wheel,

Her rough -hewn plans jostle at cross- While his white wings wave, longing for the

purposes, ether
Malformed brats, fighting as they leave the Yet even Pegasus cannot feed on air.
womb. The portals of sense were closely barred
She shouldereth you unceremoniously Against the entrance of any lovely vision,
Aside in blundering on her big blind way, Barred against fair imagery from the world,
And trampleth on the writhing hearts she Though the man was gifted with all sensi-
whelped. bility.

Hers the volcanoes, hers the foodful fields Prepared in the stately temple of his spirit
They devastate ; who brings to birth fair Were niches for carven gods innumerable,
children. Who would have made it beautiful as a
And loathly monsters, with the same set dream.
smile. These by the Architect in irony.

Vacuous, impartial now the Fury wields

; These was it forbidden to fill in :

Storm, Earthquake, Pestilence, now Human- Night formless suffused the ample spaces ;

thonged For the Builder had left the windows blind.

Red scourges, Tyranny, or Revolution, Within were all appointments for ritual,
Lust, Murder; yet she neither bans nor Yet neither wrought gold, embroidered fabric,
blesses ;
nor pure white lily
For Mind informs not the Automaton ; Might ever be conveyed thither from without
One huge, impassive Immobility, And so the temple rites were maimed :

A Block, to whom Delirium lends gesture. Although friendly voices from the darkness.
Kindly accents of comrades, were fain to
cheer him ;
" '
Hers two colossal faces, and dread names,
Yea, the voice of his well-beloved spake to
Anarchy-Order, Order- Anarchy :

him.
She alternateth both ad libitum ; But one morning he addressed her.
(Her seesaw is a trifle wearisome !)
Her blind lover addressed her.
With fond playfulness, as was his wont,
" 'Whom she engendereth, shall she not And there came no answer ;

destroy ? So he leaned foreboding hands to feel for her,

Sole Fountain she of Honour and Dishonour To her in her accustomed place.
feel for

Absolute Sovereign, she may apportion either. Half hoping and believing she might be in
Who are you that arraign her ? Pray, whine, play,

whimper Because the alternative were too tremendous

for endurance.
But, fool do you suppose that she can hear ?
!

Who wearieth more of babes and population But her face was clay-cold when he touched it.
Than any murdering mother of you all. His consolation was clay-cold,
Whom she inspireth in her irony Who might have redeemed his soul
To emulate her royalty of wrong. A little later, the voices of companions,
 ! ! ! — !! — !

A MODERN FAUST 415

One by one, were put to silence ;

" '
Lo ! the blithe squirrel, with its nested
As lamps may be extinguished after service ;
young,
Until around the solitary inmate Who plays among lit laughter of young leaves,
Reigned one immensity of desolation. His stored nuts of the forest lying near.

"'Then awoke the House-Curse of the

Suddenly troubled he descends the boughs,!
—
Feebly resisting at the caverned trunk :

family,
Arrived, there glare fixed eyes of a stark
From where it slept in the dim crypt,
snake,
Feigning a mortal slumber ;
Ringed, mailed, fierce lusting for its proper
It wailed only for opportunity.
prey.
Now the Fury sprang upon him, Waiting him in the hollow : look! he leaps,
Seized him in his mortal weakness,
Death-doomed and dazed, into red-gulfing
In the lone hour of his despair,
jaws.
Gript him in relentless talon ;
Inevitable— type of your free-will
Till he, weary of unendurable
Example of the kindness of your gods !

Life, yielded him to temptation,

And their beneficent contrivance fie ! !

Delivered himself over to fatal vice,

What " good " can Horror do this animal ?
With unnatural lust wooing even Annihilation.
What "moral gain" to him in lingering
Then fell the fair temple, tottering to ruin.
torture.
'•
' Have you ever watched a drowning Or long, excruciating agony ?

thing in the water — Glad life grows out of, feeds on, painful
A little animal thrown into it by rough hands? death . . .

For a moment it struggles in mortal anguish ; Such the essential structure of the work
But stone upon stone, well-aimed, Omnipotent Benevolence devised
Sinks it with reiterated blows,
Mangled and choking, under the flood. . . .
" 'These slaughters, and that roasting of a
Who weighted with ancestral ruin the feeble mother
soul ? By her own children for a paltry hoard,
Who flung it in sunless gulfs to drown, ( )ver a slow fire ! yawnings of hell-fire,

Stoning it with misfortune upon misfor- Flame-flaps to show the furious furnace
tune? . . . under
But '^ credo quia impossibile" A boy of eight, her grandson, told the tale
I may boast, has never been my motto What admirable nurture your good gods
" Hast thou observed my servant Job ? " Provide for their young charges, to be sure
I think I may answer that I have observed Old Priestcraft did this family much good !

him often. Priestridden, Agnostic, ye are all one Death;

And such was the conclusion at which he Your Calvinist was right at least in that.
arrived.
So I leave you to conclude what was mine. . . .
" '
Some are born devil, and some saint,
Regard but the seething swarms of your huge they say,
cities While some born devil seem to turn to saint.
Steeped in muddy environments from their All by material necessity !

birth up. A brain secretes the virtue, and the vice,

The stagnant sewer of whose blood is one Which, decomposing, can secrete no more.
corruption. And blood-disease, or blows upon the head.
Dull reptiles nourished in congenial slime. Convert the sage saint back to a mad sinner.
If there wa-e another life beyond the grave. For all's laborious goodness, built with pain
These would enter it under favourable auspices That's a ' conversion " ; only upside down !
 ! ! ! —! ! ! ! !

4i6 A MODERN FAUST

Nay, I've known many a hale old man Why crush your heart against the Inevitable?
" converted " Nay, rather, sip your pleasure gulp your —
In such a wise, and cursing his pure youth ; bliss
Joseph regrets that wife of Potiphar, Get you can enjoy it while you may
all ! !

And rails on the prim boyhood, which refused Or you say you may not relish joy.
if

her, Because it tastes of alien suffering,

Because he'll never get another chance. As though some tears had dropped into the
The drivelling babe returns in the old dotard, cup.
Fool's babble of man relapsing to the silence, Then die ! die now ! Repose is with the
Whence it emerged so very uselessly. dead.
Cease, vain curvetting Virtue ! you who dance They have a monopoly of that
As you are wound by the fool, Circumstance And thank your stars, poor men, that ye are
mortal
"
'The use of suffering use of fiddlesticks
! ! What direr curse than immortality?
See yon blasphemer harden under it Than immortality without a God ?

And when primeval Chaos comes again, Alas ! alas ! . . .

The old Abyss remains indifferent. Ha what am I, then, who now talk with
!

If it's a comfort, pray to the deaf Silence ! you? . . .

But understand, it much as grin.

can't so Why, a phantasm of your disordered brain! . . .

To mock your prayer. And for your " wise," Mad are you ?
! wish you may indeed . . .

"good" men, go mad

Who, fumbling at old knots, entangle more, In such a world 'tis better to be mad.
Who, wrangling, only pour oil on hot hate, Lie down with this cold clay you say you
These are but bigger animalcules all love ;

Your little noise will cease at the last cold. What if some like their cuddles cold, some
The Deep once dreamed a nightmare of hot?
abortions.
" Old age, the shadowy vestibule of Death,
The Tragi-comedy of Human kind ; '

And when It woke, misshapen shadows fled; Long, chill, pale cloister, over-roofed with
I pray God to avert another, like it yew,
Looms lone and dreary Death awaits you ;

" '
Why did you leave your old glad gods ? all,

For now To still your tired hearts for you then ;

They lie dead; and younger gods lie dead.

yea, die!
Why stayed ye not with Bacchus and his Cut short the long unfriended road die ;

crew? now
Remains for worship iron-bound blind Law. Ye dawned at early morning from the Abyss ;
Ye move now in a dim, dun, dismal world Now it is evening fade, and cease therein ;

Of listless Wealth, of lean, monotonous Toil, And learn, man one dread name of mine. !

One bone between her savage and starved Despair,

sons, Most formidable name of all the names
Snarling and tearing madly for one bone, Men call nie by more life but means more !
—
Who make the earth that groans beneath pain.
red shamt)les. Then why live?
That inner burden which you deem your sin
"'There is no life for you beyond the grave. Weighs heavier, ever more intolerable,
No, nor redress, nor hope for these dead Weighs you to earth, yea, drags you down
children. to hell.
 ! ' ! ! — '!

A MODERN FAUST 417

" '
Vou cannot carry it with jaunty step, Methought this loomed more luge, till it

Or light heart, nor yet leave behind — how usurped

cure All space, and claimed to be tht Universe
The monstrous cancer of your own bad blood, Our flimsy decent coverings withdrawn.
Anger, and lust, and vanity, and pride ? Withdrawn at last. Now, ;im I fair ?
. . . '

Repentance ? Had I any laughter left it breathed

I'd keep it all for that Repent! To-morrow ! In hoarse, low mocking tones • . . and lo

You'll sin anew, and more yet Will remorse. ! this seemed
Were it sincere, undo the harm you did Mine own face, dead. . . . Tlirust down, I

To those weak souls, whom you dared feign reeled, and fell . . .

to /ove? . . . Yet clutched at somewhat in the jaws of

hell . . .

" '
Ye are but attitudinising apes, Yea, nerved my spirit with one last wild cry
With all your airs of penitence, reform ! . . . For one last wrestle with the enemy. . . .

Why scold your fellows ? hypocrite, look A Voice spake in me yea, mine own heart ;

nearer spoke.
You, the potential murderer of these ! Ah ! but it sounded like his, who forsook
You, their corrupter die, for very I . . . Our darkling path in that far-off drear night
shame, Of winter! and yet /cried out for light ! . . .

Before you inflict worse injury Begone ! !

Why seek not now the cold breast of your

mother? . . .

I mean the Abyss, your mother, fool ! to rest BOOK VI.— ORDER
There from more conflict, effort, vain en-
deavour. " Aerial walls of our wide world.
Even as they ? ... So very still they lie . . . Built round my heart, a stifling tomb,
Behold their slumber ! — that is sleep in- I would ye were asunder hurled.

deed. . . . And yielded me a little room

Your child, your mother, summon you Yon ample air-dome of our world
away. . . . Weighs on me like the ponderous lead,
What ! don't you recognise the sainted As nailed-down coffin curled
in a
tones? . . . I cower, alive, alas not dead ! !

Nothing is certain, save confusion . . . For if my lambs must suffer so,

go! . . . Fall on me, pillars of great Earth
Fall down, and worship ... in me behold Or let me breathe, O let me go
your god
!
Where I may find for these new birth.

I,cowering underneath the awful eyes. The wronged full-vindicated, blest,

Regarding, fascinated, the dread Face, And justice for the poor opprest ! . . .

Whose stony cold invades my own chill The Heart disdains your message of the sense,
heart, Demands the triumph of wronged innocence,
Beheld therein, with more supreme dismay. Demands to break up all the starry roof,
The same dire Visage, which confronted To rend and burn through )-on ethereal woof,
mine Claimeth to breathe in a Diviner day.
Erst in my lonely thought, when insolent Where all her winter buds will find their
I dared adjure great Isis to unveil. May.
And, for reward, beheld the countenance. Ah! what inspireth faith, and liope >ubliine.
The rigid countenance of Death, that wore If not One throned above your space and
Malign, set scowl of supernatural Hate. . . . time ?

2 D
 — ! ! ; —
! ! ! !';; — '! !

?i

4IS A MODERN FAUST

Gleams in the cloudy darkness of His feet, The Holy Innocents ! are they
Who, crowned with stars, hath sent the In God's garden here at play ?

Paraclete, Lo ! my one among them

little

Dim, weary wanderings of our path to meet Many lovely flowers he flung them
What ! if ambition, pride, lust, all my sin Where are, then, the scald, the scar,
Drag me from that high festival within That may their beauty-marvel mar?
Albeit I may never find the Grail, All unremembered, transitory
Yet will I testify, before I fail, Yet a richer, rarer glory
Thoui:;h from afar, like Balaam, all is well It was theirs indeed to gain

With God's own little ones, with Israel From their crucibles of pain ;

Yea, for Sandalphon waits on the high stair. From the bruising of the stone
Ushering to Heaven every humble prayer ;
A myriadfold the rainbow shone.
While Jesus, Mary, rise to lead them there. Starry gleams are in their eyes,
Lighted by no cloudless day,
A glory-glow of sacrifice,
Canto I. Heaven Born of night, and pale dismay
A world of stars, a milky way !

" Then burst asunder prison bars, Every child a Christ as well,
Men name earth, ocean, air, or stars ! A Holy Babe of Raffaelle.
Soto my inner sense revealed Are they dews in their soft hair.
A world their glory but concealed. The laughing irises at play ?

Like a pageantry of cloud. No, wild whirled wheels that never spare.
Or enchantment disavowed, Like fierce attritions of despair.
Yanished, and were rolled away, Ground the diamond to spray.
As a dream at dawn of day For tendril locks a laughing light
Laughing children, all in play, Red roses on their flower-white
Round one another veering flew. Have fervent hues of human blood ;

Swift, dallying swallows in the blue.
While the pulse of their white
Made audible soft winnowings,
In many a threefold flower-cluster
Dewy-eyed, a pure white lustre,
Delicate shadow falling fast
From each on either as they passed.
Joy I knew them for the same,
! Of children, warbling limpid antipbons.
Emerged from purgatorial flame
Surely there I see the boy
One killed because he bought the toy,
And there the spectre-child, whose arms
The cruel double iron harms ;
Nor are they born of only light
wings Mother Earth, her lowly wood.
Fed them, our grey rain for food.
" Then, with a fountain's delicate rain noises
(A silver moss leaps plashing where it poises),
. . . Iheard afar melodious young tones
1 Of singing children, sister answering brother,
And flying, flying after one another.
Fountain Song

(Ever up and down the stair First. ' '

Where is the rainbow ?
'

Nor Madness snatched him from Despair !) Where may I find it ?

These the little ones who starved ;
Second. '
In a fountain falling
One unheeded, while they carved
all With the sun behind it
!

Under her their toothsome meats ; First. '

Where the flying silver
These whom the hungry fire eats ; Falls loose, dishevelled?'
Yonder those hell-lust hath mangled Second. At an airier fountain
'

And whom God's laughing water strangled Your look be levelled !

 ' !! '!'! ! ' ! ' — ' ; ! ; '

A MODERN FAUST 419

Where gems enhancing Heaven-hues in a shower !

Aerial blue, Deliciously dying is

Are glimmering, glancing, Dear as the fleet

A delicate dew !'
Swift thrill of flying
First. '
Come you, and show ! Morning to meet !

I never shall find !

Second. '
Wait till he blow I

Ah ! whims of the wind !

Canto II. Heaven's Ministry
First. '
Silent in airy dew
Playfully wafted, " Then one of the fair flower-band
Rainbow, the fairy, flew Led me gently by the hand :

Swift from the shafted Had I to choose among them all,

Watery column On him alone my heart would call
He will beguile Yet by my grief I was aware
Old over-solemn Once more of our terrestrial air,

Faces to smile
!
Of pestilential dens, where those
Second. Here, over the leafage
'
Grim horrors litter and repose.
Glowing to golden. I murmur Love need we return below
'
!
?

Not for a moment 'In heaven I am unhappy while I know

Will he be holden ;
My playfellows in earth-life weeping so!
A glamour of glory Ah when your anguished littleones are going.
!

Over the trees We illume their way with gentle angel -glowing.
Ever murmuring story. We tender visions of serene repose,
Low melodies !
Havens from the weeping and the blows,
First. '
Now he is laving Hued like the rose,
Clear in the pool Where a healing fountain flows !

Wavelets are waving Your mortal mind may never paint

Delicate, cool! All Love doth for them, when they faint
He is all azure, You divine not, you are blind.
Purple and yellow, Angel anodynes behind
Following pleasure. Those outer agonies of dying
Beautiful fellow ! We wait invisible to soothe the sighing,
Awhile appearing, we may bear your ruffled birdlings home,
Till
Now here, now there Where never hawk may come !

Vanishing, veering, Poor earthbound eyes are native to the night.

A Glendoveer Unapt to bear the dazzle of our light,
Everywhere !
Familiar only with the realms of death,
Second. '
A bird who is washing Where many a formidable form drew breath ;

In a waterlily bath You only saw and heard the fiend ;

A very fine flashing None of our cadences, who weaned

Leaf-laver hath Your children from the breast of earth,
The young jet of joyance. And fed with food of heavenly birth !

Clear with no colour, Yea, and we will arouse in very death.

Will yield all her buoyance That battens vampire-like on blood and breath,
In a ruffling corolla, A pang of life-revival, a faint qualm
Fall, a resolving Disturbing to the horrible cold calm
Soft silvery flower. Of carrion conscience till it burn remorse.
;

Woven water involving Under the hot accumulating force

 ! ! ; ! ;!

420 A MODERN FAUST

Of righteous indignation breathed thereon, Nay ! for the soul is mistress, and not slave
Until for these, these even, be well-won Let her assume dominion, nobly brave :

Saving damnation of the fiercest hell For these, not she herself, shall feed the
Heaven's own dread dawn, for all your bigots grave.
tell!'
" The spirit of the universe will leaven,
'

However slowly, our poor earth with heaven;

Canto III.— Faith Only with ampler dawn of holy light
More sharply show the shadows of the night.
" Humbly I heard him, fair as morning-tide, God's foes have grown more desperately bold,
Whose high humility love-lore supplied. Sore pressed, and driven to their last strong-
hold.
" '
The future generations of such men The bruising of the ground, the stern up-
Will marvel at what little moved them then. heaval
Behold the gloom that hides the morrow Quickeneth germs of health, and feedeth evil.
parts ; Plant higher types, for these at length prevail,
And lo ! well-tended homes, and kindlier Strong to extirpate lower growths of bale —
hearts The Human deepens, widens evermore.
These evil natures, wandering astray. Till young Love reign from shining shore to
Have only arrived less far upon their way ; shore.
And they must pass where they are passing
now. The general Soul, with hidden help from '
'
'

That through them world-experience may you.

grow. Adapts fit frame for life-relation new.
The Lord transmuteth leaden ill to gold Death's changed environment Heaven will ;

With all-compelling alchemies untold endue ;

/-Eonial fire will melt the hardest stone With novel organ for communion, ;

By wave-persistence cliffs lie overthrown Congenial with powers ye put on ;

Through weathering circumstance high hills For ampler knowledge whosoe'er indict —
are gone. That mellow wisdom of the Stagyrite.

" '
What were you ! frighted with your own
shadow
Adown
thin
the lawny, flower-illumined meadow,
Canto IV. —
Human Service- • Songs
OF GoLDKN Deeds
Poor timid doe.
As you ran below ? " '
Now will I show true nobles of our race
Distortions of your short and feeble sight, Let them those libels on mankind efface
Calumniating our fair sons of light
You feared grim idols your own mind had Charity
wrought,
Confusions of a miscreating thought. " 'To dwell with evil loathed and drear.
Feared you yourselves would all dissolve and High ladies leave their natal sphere.
fade To dwell where reeketh manifold offence
InTime and space, which ye yourselves have For delicate, well-nurtured sense,

made ? Dividing holy heritage

Mere images phantasmal of the mind, Of inward treasure there to wage ;

Who knows but shadows of true things Deadly feud with the grim host
behii.d! Of Satan, sharing all with lost
 ; ! ! : ;
! ; — ; • ^

A MODERN FAUST 421

Wanderers in our wilderness, " '

And now alone o'er desert sands
Sallying to save and bless ; He rides to Ethiopian lands,
Yea, very bread of theirown mind and heart Where his mere presence is a spell
They break, celestial manna to impart, For yon dark race that loves him well.
Not hoard for mere "salvation" gifts more Where righteous, simple, tru". and brave,
;

blest Long he toiled to free the slav

Than gold faith, hope, and sympathy, with Tender as a woman, strong
;

rest, As a man to punish wrong

Strength, courage, wisdom, righteousness, Human lover, trampling self.
and love Scorning fame, and power, and pelf.
They bring to earth health, healing from
above. " Who, bursting on the boy of blood,
'

We do not halve, we double what we share ;

Walled in with his man-murdering brood,
It groweth more substantial, and more fair. A dark armed threatening multitude,
More ours, for being theirs (one family Slight, travel-marred, almost alone,
We him who is afar, yet nigh)
are of ;
But leaning on the mighty One,
Even as the widow's cruse of oil, or bread Dominated the fell clan
Wherewith the famished multitude One fed. With a power Promethean,
Now rich and poor join hands the air is ;
Power of greatest over least,
still. Of human tamer over beast.
Saving for angels, singing " Peace, good
will !" " '
Arrived, he welds to one strong blade
Yea, one may deem it even the happy morn Men disunited and dismayed ;

In Holy Land, when our dear Lord was born Burns the rods of tyranny,
And though the snow is on the ground. Breaks fetters from captivity ;

Warm human hearts abound. At his well-loved name they gather,

How dim soever, to be here is well. Hail him Lord, and Saviour, Father,
Where these are making heaven out of hell ;
Proclaiming equal law for all.
Hark merry peals of many a Christmas bell
! He bends to lift the weak who fall
Ding-dong-bell That large heart holds the dark young slave.
No more the evil ones low muttering talk, And our white waifs beyond the wave,"^
For nigh the hallowed ground no fiend may Whom he, delivering, with love
walk. Follows whereso'er they rove.

" 'At suniise how alert and eager,

Gordon.
'"Gordon, England's Red-cross Knight,
With many a dragon born to fight
Great Gordon, waving a mere wand,
Rouses warriors who despond ^
With beam of his grey eye
genial
Summons men to victory
Creates an army out of nought,
Unconquerables from hearts distraught
Where the dusky swarms beleaguer.
Behold him from the palace roof
Morn-flushed wave, and waste aloof —
Serene, yet anxious, watching Nile,
! Where he winds for many a mile,
Surveying grim besieging host.
;
His rabble armed, and guarded post,
Waiting till the redcoats come.
To save his people in Khartoum !

His character, and equal laws

Enthrone secure the better cause. 1 Suleiman, son of Zebehr. See Gordon's
"Journals" in the Soudan.
1 In China. 2 His Greenwich boys.
 ! !! ;: !

422 A MODERN FAUST

Confronting cataracts, sands, rocks, " Their '
lifeboat battles with the wave ;

Thronged foes' indomitable shocks, Grace Darling's countrymen will save,

How they stem the adverse tide, Or perish perish'
on the shore
. . . !

All British discipline, pluck, pride. They are thrown lifeless 'mid the roar!
Panting to be at his side! Now mothers, wives, and children weep. . . .

While England longs to rend the curtain, All mothers, wives, and children weep :

That shrouds her hero's fate uncertain. All England Ijends above their solemn sleep:
Too late the man, deserted, fell,
! Hear her intone their requiem full, and grand,
Whom only treachery might quell and deep!
Gordon, England's Red-cross Knight,
With many a dragon born to fight Sea Kings 1
" '
Who are these three, that in a little boat
The Lifeboat Have dared upon the Antarctic surge to float.
" '
The manhood of your rugged coast, Journey from Durban round the Cape of
Nelson's indomitable host. Storm,
Your manhood braves the raging seas. Which hero hearts again to-day transform
Deaf to prayers of siren Ease, Into a promontory of Good Hope,
Or warm Affection's humid eye, As when grand Gama, and Diaz did grope
To rescue shipwrecked souls who cry. . . .
Their all unknown dim waterway of old ?
These Scandinavian mariners, more bold,
"'Hoar ocean's wrathful night-usurping In a frail bark they hollowed far inshore,
noise Built from pitch-pine, and to the ocean
Warns, like a dread god's doom-denouncing bore,
voice ;
In a frail open bark ten months will beard
They lean athwart the solid wall of blast, Atlantic dark and formidable, steered
Blinded with flying froth from forth the vast, By their own sea-gnarled hands with daunt-
That spits contumely from moving mountains less strength.

Of toppling water torn to foam- white fountains Till they attain to our green land at length.
The maniac surge leaps furious while they From where grim bastioned Table Mountain
launch ;
frowns,
Falls a dead-weight upon the bark so staunch ;
And with the cloud his brooding forehead
But may not shake the mighty hearts that use crowns,
All strength of stalwart limbs and iron thews To the caged eagle-emperor's arid isle ;

To strain their oars athwart the swirling brine By flowery Azores they rest awhile ;

Big-booted, and large-chested, they incline By Mauros, Corobeda, tempest -driven.

Broad backs together grim face and set eyes They arrive in England's welcoming white
!

Of coxswain fail not, nor strong hand that plies haven ;

Swift function of the tiller how they bound The wonderful heroic voyage passed,
:

Up, down, abysmal cliffs of night profound, Through all vicissitudes come home at last.
That flash fierce scorn of them, engulfed Ah courage-consecrated little bark,
!

beneath. Men come to view thee, as wert thou sacred

Hiss up to Heaven, and threaten with white ark.
teeth Or very Argo of the Argonaut
Hark ! through the storm-embroilment a faint With tokens of Sea's rough embraces fraught,
sound
Of guns appealing piteous rend the sky; 1 See log of the Homeward Bound, exhibited
Red signals from the wreck's extremity ! at the Crystal Palace on her arrival.
 ! : ; ;

A MODERN FAUST 423

Rent canvas, cordage, bruised wood, plainly Appalled their ear; some supernatural scream
tell Advanced toward them through the drifting
Of rude storm-buffets ; tangled weed, and steam :

shell And they beheld prodigious ocean herds.

On keel and plank now long contented dwell Whales spouting geysers, porpoise, dolphin,
By half-amused, half-indolent contempt. birds
Or admiration for the bold attempt. Rushing in headlong wild pursuit of shoals,
Was Ocean held from drowning the three Menacing wreck, so hurling to their goals !

men? Buffeted bows " drove piles " in the hard sea
Rather the God they worshipped in his ken Storm, waving vast vans, howled tumultuously.
Kept, gave swift vision, accomplished craft,
with power " '
Dies from the cloud-range conflagration
To stem, surmount, and baffle danger's hour. red,
And from long roller, taking hues of lead,
" O'er beetling cliffs of water, lo ! they Sombre, oil-lustrous, fading dun and dead.
bound ;
Cloud-mountains massed on pale horizons
Engulphed now in a reeling chasm profound. lower ;

Obscure, foamed, swirling ; storm-breath on Grim monsters follow, hungry to devour.

their side One all unknown and horrible remains
Lays them, and plays with them ; and yet Beside them, while blood-chilling twilight
they ride, wanes,
Storm-seasoned hearts of oak, on the wild tide I Huge, livid-backed, dim welters, and to mock
Endurance, vigilance, strength, iron nerve, Their own mast, two long spectral rods that
Tense, ne'er relaxed, allowing none to swerve rock
One hair's breadth from his function, even Protrude in polished outgrowth from the
for stress spine
Of wet, cold, hunger, thirst, or weariness, Sinister, that lurks near them on the Vjrine !

Strain unrelieved on every faculty ! While on their masthead sits a weird wild
If caught off guard one moment, they shall glare,
die! Like Death's pale lanthorn : ha ! what doth
it there ?
" In peril from the monsters of the deep, And what is that, which writhes upon the bare
'

In peril from wild, ruptured surge's leap Pole, like what writhed upon the lance's head
;

Fierce blast drags down, ere they may reef Of Durer's knight, on his faint war-horse led
the sail, Into the forest gloom by Hell and Death ?
Wave's weight half fills the hollow pine, What means the Portent ? doth it breathe
bids bale life's breath? . . .

For very life, yet never great hearts fail.

" '
Immured in deep night the world seems
" It blew great guns
'
; stars blinked, and to be,
were blown out, Save when flashed flame lets out the boiling
Or re-illumed ; they saw the raging rout
Of billow smoking skyward ; squall-slung
spray " '
But in long languor of clear ocean calm.
Smote, stung like hail ; then louder than the When the loose tiller held in listless palm
roar Made easeful noises with the lapping wave.
Of breaker thundering on a rock-bound shore, Dear home-thought stole upon the heart so
A sound more terrible than aught before brave
 ; ! ; ! ! ! !

424 A MODERN FAUST

While loved familiar constellations rise, To those that loom more fair in the dim past
When they draw nearer native Northern When Gama loosed his canvas to the blast,
skies And Raleigh in strange waters anchor cast.
High planets hold communion with them,
Pure worlds arising from heaved Ocean's " '
Not ease, but hardship, suffering, priva-
rim ; tion
Luminous lives, how still and soft they move Root, toughen, hearts of oak, and mould a
In the grey wave, akin to stars above nation.
While elfin phosphorescence from the prow Bear witness Holland, Athens, Albion
Slopes in two murmuring widened folds Columbia, Teuton, Italy, made one
below. By toil, and strife, and agony 'twas done.
Or in blue day the momentary gem,
Lovelier than a fairy diadem,
Twinkles innumerable on the rolling The Isle of Lepers ^
Blue billow yellow birds for their consoling, "
;
'An isle of lepers ! perishing in pain.
Pale yellow, flying o'er the lisping foam,
Exiled from happy hale men ; Health is fain
Alight upon the ocean -cradled boom ;
To banish from her loathed Contamination.
The gentle giant Olsen fondly feeds
Yet a priest-hero of the gallant nation,
Till they, relyingon his kindly deeds,
France, saintly even as their priest of Ars,
Perch on his shoulder, lilting blithe and gay,
Or him who shineth, an immortal star
Who sorrows when he finds them flown away. In the grand page of Hugo, her grand bard,
Named Myriel, shrinking nerve will disregard
" '
Often before a merry breeze they flew,
For love of God, and of our human kind.
A wake of simmering silver in the blue ;
Deep pity made insensible and blind
Many a nautilus with filmy sail. To natural aversion, mortal danger.
And fishes panoplied in rainbow mail, Following One born in the lowly manger,
And flying fish with blithe young hearts they
He shuts himself from all he held most dear,
hail.
A minister from dreadful year to year
Or ample-pinioned, gleaming albatross, To men deserted, loathed, weighed down
Swooping and circling, dipped in soft sea-
with grief;
moss. Abandoning all that he may bring relief.
Then sunward soared, on calm, unwearied
Unscathed himself for years, the foul disease
wing.
Hath eye malign upon him, and will seize ;
With plaintive white mew, air-meandering. Hath claimed the high redeeming victim now.
Through whom your poor world will more
" Alone upon the inward-murmuring sea.
'

god-like grow
Alone with God in the Immensity
With worship, pious, temperate men, they call
Weekly together on the God of all. "Weak Things of the World"
" Kingcraft, and overlordship of the seas
'
" '
A Christian convert, a boy- African,
From Olsen, Nilsen, Bernhard, such as these. Knowing the bloody lord of his great clan
And Norse kindred, Nelson, Franklin,
their Sought him to visit with a lingering death,
Drake, Because he had embraced Christ, humbly
For men of other blood 'tis hard to take. saith
They prove the race of heroes not extinct,
By whom our common -seeming years are 1 An island in the Pacific. Father Damien
linked is the priest's name.
 — ; !

A MODERN FAUST 425

To a revered white teacher, urging flight, Whose very terrors wear a smile.
He may not bend his soul to feel it right Now Mercy doth his frown from him
For since he hath been commissioned by the beguile.
king Sweet Sister in the hospital,
Ingathered tribute of the tribes to bring Who vermeils with ethereal
Home to the sovereign coin of cowrie — Hues the cloud of wound, or fever
shells Her angel ministration never
Whatever cruel personal peril dwells Faileth ; hurt weans of our city
Among those evil courts, how dare he thrust Lie patient in her gentle pity.
From him the fatal honour of his trust ? Yea, Dora, Florence, all your sisterhood
And so he braves the tyrant ; ah ! young Render illustrious our flesh and blood ;

black, Ye twain appear ensphered aloft, afar,

Spurned as inferior, thou hast e'en put back In sorrow's Night, a luminous twin-star !

Poor human nature on the pedestal, Spring, summer, autumn, winter drear,
Whence pale dishonour dragged it to base Are needed to fulfil the year.
fall!

The lowest, whom men trample like the clod,

Mother's Love
Is of the royal family of God.
The humblest woman sits enthroned above "'She had tended, done her best to cure
The wise and proud by dignity of love. him ; now
Who liveth well alone hath found the key The little child of white and anguished brow
To every dim mind-baffling mystery.^ With her good-will is nursed in hospital.
Clad in worn withered weeds, she brought
her all.
World- Progress
And left the cherished burden ; she will start
" '
Enwombed in your imperial race Out of her brief and broken sleep her heart ;

Fair organising virtue trace, Still seems to hear him call to her, and moan ;
To one great arbitrating nation She flies to help, forgetting he is gone.
Moulding you by federation Now since herself no more may slave for him,
Of kindred peoples for defence, Dull daylight, rainy, chilly evening dim.
And high world-vitalising influence ;
Behold her undern^rath the window near
While in the purple pomp of war The little cot, where she hath left her dear.
Dawn lovely hues unknown before, She stays there till the allotted day for friends
Iris-hues of mercy mild, makes for all amends.
Arrive, the hour that
An arc o'er livid flashes wild, Every misty morning sees her come
Born 'mid ashen mists that loom From the mean alley, now no more a home.
'Thwart thunder-mountains in the gloom. Nurse, looking often from the ward, descries
Patience, Fortitude, Compassion, The wraith-like face with upward-seeking
Woven i' the awful storm of passion eyes,

On wrath-rent cloud, are only born Haunting the wall ; they wonder how he
Of rays that marry rains forlorn does.

Of Heaven, who weds the Earth you The ailing child ; but when at last she goes
scorn. Within the ward at the permitted hour,
Beyond high service war may render, She dare not ask for news about her flower,
Himself hath lineaments more tender, Before she reach him, lest the word be

spoken,
1 The Rev. Mr. Ashe, missionary to Uganda, Which, falling on her heart, would leave it

related this to me. broken.

 ! ! ! ; ; ! : !

426 A MODERN FAUST

" '
Love blooms more large in yonder world Distrust world-citizens, who fain would loose
of bliss ;
Thine argent armour, deemed of no more use
But Love was nourished on the tears of this.
" '
And thou, dark Afric's tempest-beaten
Cape,
Jubilee, and the Good Emperor
Around whom Gama dared his course to
'"Behold an empress-queen, who nobly shape.
reigns, Sublime sea-comrade of Columbus bold.
And an ideal womanhood sustains By perilous water-ways unknown of old,
Upon a throne, who wisely rules by laws. Thou, in the crown a diamond-beaming star,
From long deliberation, clause by clause. Art sending sons to jubilee from far
Grown fair, and growing, fed with patriot
blood "'The pageant of her triumph proudly
Of Tyndale, Hampden, Sidney, and the good shone
Martyred, unnamed illustrious multitude. With warriors, led erst by Wellington,
Her fifty years of dedicated toil And that Black-armoured Prince red, ; sable,
To all self-pleasing tyrants are a foil. grey
Who only nurse their poor prerogative, Plumed horsemen, helmed, with steel and
Whether the starving people die, or live. colour gay.
Her large, full heart goes forth to all that Swart Indian, jewelled in dim gold array ;

mourn, Elect Colonial, powerful of frame.

Itself, alas ! wrung, lacerate, and torn. With nation-founding faces, known to fame ;

Our monarch hath a grander coronet From every quarter of the world her guard !

Than any mighty predecessor yet. Whose people throng the chariot way they ;

With many a subject people's jewel set. ward

First, orient India, fount of morning's beam. Her throne from danger ; love is great
Realm of the Avatar, and wondrous dream ! reward.
young with earth's glad primal
Australia, Bending with royal grace and beaming eye,
power, Moves the good Queen, whose name is
Who weaves weird visions in her lonely Victory.
bower. The stately triumph of her glory moves
Arms for defence her well-knit, stalwart sons, With loud acclaim, upborne by all the loves
And launches navies, iron -mouthed with Of all the people kings and princes ride, ;

guns, Her escort with no ill-beseeming pride ;

To assure the Mother-mistress of the seas Her chariot rolls, surrounded by her sons.
Dominion more unchallenged over these Of whom the nobler, grander port he owns,
In you, blithe land of long lake, frost, and Who wedded England'sdaughter; who will be
fur. Magnanimous Emperor in Germany
Vast volumed waters of St. Lawrence pour He, though great empire his mild rule em-
Their foaming thunders with an ocean roar brace.
All ye sent children armed for many a mile, Hath character more lofty than his place.
To help us nobly by Egyptian Nile.
Court gentle Peace! and yet be well pre- " 'Here towering with eagle-crested casque,

pared ! Face, form, proclaim one born for his high

Without our England, ill the world had task.
fared ! He, a more gentle, just. God-fearing Saul,
Arm ships and soldiers ! ill may they be Hath waged grim conquering battle with the
spared Gaul
 ; !! ;! — — —; ; ;;

A MODERN FAUST 427

Will wage a deadlier with the dire Disease Doth welcome, Love's loud answering re-
That lays him low yet, scorning his own ;
bound
ease, From her Love-loyal reign, re-echoing
Conquereth here too patient, cheerful, bravci
;
round ! . . .

While borne in strong midmanhood to the Yet if this monarch were not good and just,
grave. To Heaven the pageantry were only dust.
Bends calm, composed eyes on the public
good.
Who in his long death helps the multitude, Canto V. Wisdom and Work
Country, and well -beloved ; who will not
swerve Deterioration. — II
For if Death numbs the right hand, left will " ' Did the fiend overwhelm you with
serve ; deterioration ?
But when one symptom '^apathy''' they named, is a mystery
Deterioration ;

Then all divined that Death at length hath Yet none descendeth below the appointed
claimed. deep.
If to the lover his dear world grew dim Henceforward the way mounteth upward
A Light and Hope of Europe quenched in It is darkest ere the day dawn.
him ! For none fadeth away into nonentity.
Alas for her, to whom he gave white heather,
! Nor doth any carcase fester, unmitigated
In Caledonia, in blue lover's weather defilement.
He lies in state, he lies in his long rest The fiend ignored, having blinded himself, a
And she hath laid the sere wreath on his core of soundness in the prodigal.
breast. He feigned that all was dead ;
Laurel, wherewith she crowned her Paladin, Being Death himself, he could feel no life
In war proved, as in peace, a king of men. around him.
Yet cheerfulness and amiability were well
" '
Our queen moves royally to Westminster. good also were generosity and patience.
Fortune hath dealt in gracious mood with her, These qualities rejoiced the heart of his friends.
Yet one irreparable bereavement laid Now surroundings more favourable being
A scathing hand upon her heart Snows provided. !

weighed Where germs of excellence may awaken.

Heavily, fallen from care-laden years The passion-driven may possess himself at last.
Changed, since that early hour of April tears, Enthralled and goaded by the slaver.
When young-winged Morning in the minster Cramped and grovelling in low dungeons.
shone. He never straightened himself to his full

Illumed with Heaven, her, wearing earthly height.

crown ; Nor looked around him to far horizons
Changed, since her marrying the wise prince Hindered, attained not his full stature
she lost. His were no opportunities for development
Before chill autumn, and the winter frost ! . . . Never for a moment was he a free man ;
Free to realise individuality.
"'But the broad highway laughs with Be sure the Universe needed the dread ex-
various hue. perience ;

That seems to pour from forth aerial blue : He was a scapegoat for Humanity :

Roof, balcony, door, window, all the street Moreover, he was endowed with genius ;

Teem with a happy people, fain to greet And her royal gifts are gain
Her, whom the loyal, glad, tumultuous sound However terrible the price paid ;
 ; ! ; —

428 A MODERN FAUST

Whatever roaring gulfs the diver sounded, Were there no God, or were the God malign,
He emergeth with a pearl of price ; Child-mirth and lark-song were impossible.
And for that let us be thankful
"
Offerings laid at the world's feet, they are the ' Hath not the World- Soul fallen from his
world's height,
Yet returning into his bosom, they are his also, His height of native Virtue, fallen low.
Yea ! his own for ever ! To sin and suffer, with the souls in him,

For he and the world are indeed one. Who are ourselves, and every animal,
The destructible shall be destroyed, Divergent, battling, erst one harmony?
Consumed with ineffable anguish, And they are elements within the Human,
And the unessential die. Dissonancy clashing in the man,
But Individuality transformed Fallen, that all may rise to altitude.

Will rise regenerate from the ashes, No otherwise attainable, I ween.

Ideally-moulded, fair. Now every lower life may climb, through
Or when doth God cease to heed. man,
To yearn for whom he foreknew ? To angel, dowered with experience.
Sending to eanh a chosen messenger, How else to be assimilated ? Wherefore,
Cease to yearn for His bosom-friend ? In yon dim realms of feeling under us
Nay, but all souls lie in His bosom ;
Confusion reigneth ; creatures are at war,
Verily they are His children ! A mutual prey ; disorder rules, and death ;

What though the mortal loitered, The strong wrest breathing-place from feebler
Frail tongue faltered in delivery lives,

Of the message thereto entrusted, TillBouddh, with free will's high prerogative,
Will Love hate, therefore, and forget ? Feeds the lean mother-tiger on his body,
Omnipotence own to failure. And, dying, brings the very Life to birth :

Or impatient Justice break her tool. Now Justice, Mercy, dawn in the wild waste.
Fling aside what herself hath fashioned?
"
Will God change like men ? ' All, sons of light, will form one Har-
Fickle, irresolute as one of you? mony,
Whom He loveth He loves for ever, Mutually permeable, cells
And will heal the hurt of His lamb. Functioned to serve with punctual, never-
failing
" '
Did Satan tell you Nature made the Service the Body, never isolated,
man ? False selves, to alien injury ; one only
Nay, rather, God in man hath fashioned her. Orbs to his own completeness in another.
To these, whom he averred that Nature slew, Then each will labour for the common weal,
Or cruel men, but whom we say God called. Aware the commonwealth hath nourished
Since they who die are only half in Him, him,
And half without, Death turns one pale dread Laid fair foundations for his energy.
face. With free environment ; one breathes for all
Yet shows another mild and merciful Inevitably ; now with glad intent.
For death is ever in the line of life. If each divined with kindly fellow-feeling
Anomalies pertain alone to sense ; Alien need, and thirsted to supply,
Yea, even to fairies of the fur and feather Justiceand Love would change your earth
Death is new birth to a life beyond, Heaven,
to
Subserveth life ; the spirit travelleth, And hallow poor relations of mankind ;
Through lower lives, to manhood, and yet All human impulses were innocent.
higher. And spontaneity benevolence.
 !: ! —

A MODERN FAUST 429

" Earth, air, and water are alive with

"'All, sons of light, will form one Har- '

mony,
Obedient orblets in their natal Orb,
Every one mirror, minister to other.
Warbling melodious in fontal spheres
voices,
Though men are only aware of a poor few.
The many aisles of forest, rapt by day
To deep dread silence, roar like ocean loud
;

We in our Mother Earth, the while She For other ears more sensitive to sound ;

sings Although no Storm descend in his hot wrath

Herself, with sister worlds, around the Sun, To lay a violent hand upon their pride,
And He, in his own course, obeys Another Nor, with the stress of his enormous weight.
Beyond all moons, and suns of sense abideth Strong swoop of his immense and monstrous
One Lifegiver invisible : the lion vans.
Will low with the lamb, sublimely calm,
lie Swaying huge boughs to writhen agony,
His lightnings veiled, his thunder laid to Their foliage streaming as in a flooded torrent.
rest, —
Hound on Confusion all the leaves wild
Sirength couchant, folding meek Humility ;
whirl.
A little child, with tender eyes, will lead Trees creak, scream, shattering, ancient
Them both to Eden-lake at evening-time. towers uprooted
By night beasts battle, bellowing o'er crushed
" 'Yours will be world-pervading faculty, prey
Known only now so far as fugitive But, even in the hush of sultry noon.
Aroma rising in the dewy dark There is a Babel hum of population
Of night may tell a tale of breathing flowers. From dense tribes of inhabitants that swarm
Who laugh illumed with morning, blithely Through bark and leaf; the velvet moth
fair, that flits

Or as the drowsy bird who dreams and By twilight sings like birds ; fine ears will

stirs, hear.
And twitters in the woven nest ere dawn. While vision banquets upon hues unnamed.
Foretells lull choir, awake in the clear sun. Marrying sights and sounds for a new world.
Earnests already of earth-emancipation,
Presaging a more ample life than yours, "' Well wedded worlds are mutually in- -

Open around, with sheath-dividing gleam volved ;

Of diffident warm colour, vivid hues But though the Centre radiate through all,
Of slumbering summer so the chambered Yet are they mutually impervious
;

cave To any but a few inhabitants

Allures with twilit possibility. Of either but in trance the soul may burn
;

Body and soul, evolving many folded. From sphere to sphere, and find a home in
As germen, embryo, shadow what will be. either ;

In ever complicating miracle. In trance profound the soul is free of many,

Doth Nature lure her children with vain Remembereth what she lost from memory ;

vow, Some long-secluded chamber of the Past,

Hi)pe hollow, longing ne'er to be fulfilled ? Experience obliterate, remote,
Only in seeming for her satisfaction
;
Whose windows are unbarred again to light.

Is ever more than of immediate want ;

Light leaps to illuminate the annihilated,
Only in seeming she withholds to grant
; ;
Forgotten, dark ; for Spirit, after death,
Her mandate is upon you ; build your nest From vantage-ground of her eternity
For mottled ovals yet unmoulded winnow ; Proudly resumes her ante-natal sphere.
The air with wings for lovelier lands afar ;
And blends with earth-life ; her young eagle
Find other lands beyond the sundering sea vision
 :! '— ' — ! !- ;!

430 A MODERN FAUST

Surveys the suite of halls palatial, " What is your Faith
'
? a hand that feels
Once more reclaimed for knowledge, where the Hand,
she swept, Which ever holds it numb are all beside ;

Moved with her beautiful, imperial train Yea, many of you are numb, and deaf, and
Of fair and noble faculties, from life blind.
To life, a never-dying Queen divine. A woman loses children at one swoop
High throned, in glory, above Space, and (I find her in the hovel, in the palace ;
Time. I find her in the fanes of all the creeds,
Yea, drifted in the sands of ignorance) —
"Ponder the holy hieroglyph of Pain,
'
A woman loses children at one swoop ;

That hideth a high meaning Christ endured, The wave, engulphing all, rejects her only,
;

Hoping for joy of world-redemption, wrought Flings her alone upon the unchilded shore ;

Through crucifixion are not all the Christ ? The mother loved them more than all the
;

Who wail, unknown their grand prerogative, world,

But, when they are crowned, feel leap in More than her own self . . . doth she
them the virtue, smile ? . . . she sees
Conceived anon through mortal suffering. With far-away, sunk, visionary eyes,
Then they exult, oblivious of the woe ; Or inner eyes, that lend rapt air to these.
Earth a dim moment in their never-ending, Them all reposing on the heart of God,
Irradiate career from heaven to heaven. Yonder, as here, and they are with her still,
Whose virtue (for the human race is one), Because herself reposeth with them there.
A virtue sinewed from the strife with evil, Upon that heart ; then wherefore should she
In time will heal the human family, weep?
Full orb the grand Atonement of the Lord. Her faith, the world-o'ercoming victory
He, with whom myriad years are as one day, She is among the cloud of witnesses.
Beholds men through the well-beloved Son. Who testify poor human weakness can
Pause nor presume to wrench by violence
; Smile in the face of dire Extremity,
Flower from bud await the month for
; Because she recogniseth her own Father,
bloom. However closely-veiled our children trust !

Our poor love, though, alas we fail them oft, !

"'The Deep is only Wisdom dark from Confounding ours with that great Love
depth behind. . . .

We lose our lower lives indeed therein,

Only to find the higher lives we lost. . . . " '
Notes of a singer soaring into heaven
How do I know? One gave to me the They seem to mount on ample, unfolded
vision wings.
Blest are the pure in heart, for they see Like some white bird, who, joyful, breasts
God; the blue.
Galahad saw Him, even Percivale.' . . . Or undulate, frail boat upon a billow ;

I felt the fiend gone from me ; for the child They are rays of light, aslope on a mild
Rebuked him, like the lifting of the cross. cloud.
'
O not without the sorrow, and the sin,
Or doves, who pulsate, gleaming to and fro
May be our human pilgrimage ? Ah why ? About the carven cathedral front of Rheims,
!

'And what if God Himself hath life by Thwart silent, old-world, visionary glory
these ? Of shrined saint aureoled, kings robed, and
He answered, with a shadow on his joy, weird forms.
Musing as though bewildered ; then re- Now we are ware of dawn among pure snows
sumed Of mountain mystical keen flame divides ;
 ! ; ; : ;

A MODERN FAUST 431

Our downy vapours, and pervades their grey " What work
'
is thine ? to mirror in thine

An upward-mounting beam, that shines from art,

earth, Though feebly, as One may the power impart,

Arriving at the very heart of God, The human Quest, the Age's mind and heart
Swiftly arrives to nestle there at home, While Nature doth her lineaments uncover
Disclosing Him a moment with no veil To you, who have been her lowly and fond
To our dazed wonder seraphim are flying, !
lover.

Expatiate in blue celestial air. Build humbly a high music from within
Alight, wave wings from radiant promontory, With pain and pleasure, righteousness and
Clash, mix, confound their raptures in mid- sin,

heaven !
That shall not prove a merely jingling rhyme
And now a gentle languor fades the strain. To wheedle idle whimsies of the time.
Fallen gently, like a feather ; but in yon Nor blared applause of idle fool to win.
flashed Perishing with him uttered when you burn,
;

Ecstasy did you not surprise your lost, The world may welcome, or the world may
Reposing happy in the fields of Heaven ? spurn.
And tell me do you deem such sounds could
! Uttered for love thereof, as in your prime,
soar, The message you are commissioned to deliver,
And wake such dreaming, if one tortured If men will hear, well if not, to the Giver ! —
child Who breathes it though you will the word
Had but one life of want and anguish given, return.
Then foundered in the void ? It could not be Dare not to claim for self the utterance !
;

Might such a strain indeed afford such vision. One, out of His perfection, will advance
If God were not, or did desert one child ? The same to stand His own ambassador.
If this were more than seeming, all would Yea, full accomplish what He sent it for.
wither. In other ways, moreover, look that thou
Core-eaten shows of the false world fall in ! —
Serve men help whom or want or sorrow
bow.'

Caged Lark " His clear young tones, mine antidote to

" '
Hear the caged lark, athrob with the bane,
swift song, Methought resumed : I heard them once again.
Who floods our sense with notes, a hurrying '
The God in us, with God who is in the world.

throng Perchance electeth fi'om eternity

In spirit, doth he bathe in the blue day, Time-process, evil relative, for ends
And soar away Of grander good, beyond us, absolute
Over the dewy woodland, and green field? But here we falter,
Or doth he fancy a sweet nest concealed Grope darkling, and surmise with bated
In the warm turf, a downy mate and brood. breath :

While he finds food ? Yet our deep Best will justify the Lord :

Blithe captive, seems your prison ample, fair, How strengthen thews of any champion
Free voyage in illumined realms of air. Save through the powerful antagonist ?
Buoyed on your own full tides of happiness ? Civilisations only fall to ruin.
Dear bird, we bless That richer may be reared from their decay
Your glad content poor feet on a soiled sod From chaos ever nobler order grows.
!

May never rise and yet yoii rise to God

;
Who repents
!

Ah mortal men may feel, confined to earth. Hath God behind him, and the World-Idea,
!

Faith's morning-mirth To uplift him when he fails a mother holds

! . . . ;
 :

432 A MODERN FAUST

Her child, who falling, learns at length to He shading his, that sought the Infinite,
walk. I droop mine, blinded with the blaze of
Even that awful Shade, that made for Death, light
Changing resolves itself to Life at Methought now all the innocent victim-blood
length :

Trust only in the sound, strong Heart of Streamed with the Lord's upon the holy
all! rood :

Nor only Reason, Love belongs to (Jod I saw, and worshipped I believed in God.
: ; . . .

Our Human sunders our Divine will blend.

;

Evil and good are complemental more "And then he vanished. I awoke; but
;

I know not but there is a Deep beyond,

; earth
In the Abysmal Spirit. .Hide your Was lighter than before for his sweet birth
. . :

eyes Winter without me, in my heart was spring,

Before the mystery of mysteries !
' . . . Where all the happy birds began to sing."
 ;; !

TO MY ]\IOTHER In the home of our forefathers when, from

school
I AM weeping, mother, in your empty
chamber I came to wander with you in the wild wood.
^
Beyond the pane, a fair famiUar scene And my happiness ran over, very full.
;

As a far dream only may the man remember How I lingered on the hard road in the
All the mirth of childhood that hath been— damp night,
Hath been here about thy young joy, O my When you left me at my school, until aloof
mother. I beheld no more your lessening line of lamp-
All the mirth and laughter of a child !
light.
Was it I, indeed, and not another, Nor heard the minished trample of the hoof
Whom you folded in your dear armsundefiled? Among German forest-firs you tell the story.
(Jur nursery with snowy-folded curtain As we go, her hand who died, and mine in
!

Here you came to bless the dreaming boy yours. ;

All is melted to a memory uncertain, Ah the bonfire on the hillside, and the gloiy !

Evening prayer, the game, and many a toy. Of our rural meal among the bilberry bowers !

Clad in tender vivid verdure, early summer Then a cottage o'er a torrent-haunted valley
Kindles leaf and bloom about the land. In the summer-sounding vines was our abode,
While the nightingale, our passionate early Where Morn and Eve upon the mount
comer, continually
Overflows in song for one at hand. Wrought a robe of glory, as for God.^
Winds the river in the valley by the meadow, Yearly, later, on an evening of the winter
By the old grey bridge, anear the water-mill weather.
Old elms are on the green lawn with their With our youngest born who died we came
shadow, to you :

A bloom involves the orchard on the hill.

On arrival, what a welcome, at the meal we
You were wonttogivemeorange-petal candied, ate together,
From the china bird, laid yonder near the You gave to weans, and wife, and me, so
clock. . . . tender and so true ! . . .

Ah ! visionary' seasons, are ye banded All our converse in my manhood by the !

To weave illusion round me and to mock ? healthful ocean-margin,

In the chestnut grove our nest, where in the Or where we loved to hail the holy morning-
leaf-time glow,
We Beyond blue water, on the mountain men
children took our strawberries and tea.
Hath fallen dove, and cuckoo here renew
; have named the Virgin,-
their brief time, On the glory of her heavenward height of
Pale primrose, and the windflower, wood- pure and solemn snow.
anemone.
While I recall delightful days of childhood 1 Above the Rhone Valley ; in sight of the

Dent du Midi.
1 Barham Court, Kent. 2 Beatenberg.
433
2 E
 ! — —

434 FOWEY
In the isle where cloudy, melancholy Blaaven, Faded letters, and our pilgrimage in dreaming
Of noble mould, empurpled, rules the heaving Raise the dead, more dear than living
sea, men,
You, enfeebled, I supported from the haven. For, however we believe it only seeming,
To where Coruisk glooms crag-immured in Night brings them warm and real to our arms
lone sublimity. . . . again !

And the churchyard lieth beautiful to-day, It may mother mine, when you departed,
be,
love, White and silent, that you did not wholly go,
As in yonder dearer, earlier time, Never left your children broken-hearted.
When we wandered hand in hand with you Help them more, are nearer than they know.
in May, love, And your remembered tones are more than
We children, you in all your lovely prime music.
Every green grave is a garden gently tended, More than day the memory of your smile ;

And birds sing in the orchard near the Clear from all the cadences of sorrow,
dead. May I hear them, and behold them in a little

Meet repose for one whose day serenely ended, while !

Very weary, when the saintly spirit fled ! Our eldest, and our youngest, are they gone
Joy was yours, and yet your life knew much now ?

of anguish, For a mcjment I may

linger by the grave ;

Disenchantment, weariness, and pain ;

It may be that my
day is nearly done now ;
In the later years of weakness, when I saw Lord, I would have them yonder heal, and ;

you languish, save !

I felt our aching void would be your gain.

Love unfailing, kindly counsel, all the pleasure
In your mere delightful presence, and your
smile !
FOWEY
It is a loss that none may map or measure ;

Lite will feel it every weary mile ! Where the wooded hills enfold
O you, who were and so forgiving.
so kind A gleam of river water,
If I grieved you, how my heavy heart hath Luminous brown ripples hold
bled! Communion of laughter,
Ah ! and though unloyal hours may wrong Silent laughter with the trees,
the living. Water-woven cadences.
We never think unkindly of the dead i Bole and foliage leaning over
Friend in need, O consolation of the mourner, The innumerable water-lover.
Faithful heart, who suffered unremoved ! A weathered arch divinely hued,
You leaned upon the Faithful, not a scorner ; With drowsy waterlight imbued,
You loved well ;
yea, and you were well- All the delicate semitones,
beloved. Purple, lilac, greys, and browns,
A little lamb is playing in the orchard, As tho' ineffable fine feeling
Faery gleams are fleeting on the hill ; Over it were silent stealing
There is a lireath of lilac in the churchyard, Orbed to rondure in the stream ;

And the dead are lying very still. Ah ! ruffle not the glassy gleam,
All the vernal loveliness a shadow Nor mar the fair unearthly dream !

Of lovelier havens wherein you al)ide, A rill babbles like a child

Cooler woodland water, warmer meadow. In the ear of flowers wild,
In the love of Him, who healed you when Who, nodding to the lucid lapse,
you died ! Quiver when the silver taps ;
 !

FOWEY 435

Here a wheel revolving spills Your memories are dear to me,

Urgent weight of flashing rills, Your murmured tones soothe memory !

To soft white flour bruises yields St. Winnow's hoary old church tower
Of the mellow autumn fields. Drowses in a leafy bower.
But another resteth near While the waters gently steal
All idly ; this for many a year, From the groves of Lostwithiel.
Urged by falling water's weight,
Toiled for human ends ; of late, Now, rower, grapple with the wave
Roofed by woodland leaves from sun, Flood no longer smooth and suave.
It resteth, the long labour done. Brown-ridged with feud of wind and tide,
Silent ; little herbs and flowers For great ocean far and wide
Have woven delicate green bowers Invades the river swiftly glide.
;

Over the well-travelled wheel. Pass the orchard-nested village,

Wont to grind our misty meal. Fern, heath, pasture land, and tillage,
Blue germander, feathery grass, Pass the sounding woodland shore,
Jewelled with a dewy glass, And vessel lading, till the oar
Wild geranium, wood-sorrel. Be shipped in yonder ampler space
Visited by moths like coral, Near the battlements of Place.^
Azure butterflies, and bees. Whose the gleaming porphyry hall,
Lush luxuriant herbs like these Near Fimbarrus - fair and tall ;

The old water-wheel enwreathe There the lady of Treffry

With a kind of verdure-sheath : Compelled besieging hc^ists to fly ;

Even as a chrysalis, There bold gallants of the past

Lapped in silent silken bliss ; iVIarshalled many a seasoned mast.
To the toil-worn allmay seem Loosed the harbour chain, and met
Like a sweet long summer dream. The warrior King Plantagenet,
So a new-arrived saint, For irresistible advance
World-weary, after the death-faint, Upon the hostile coast of France.^
In the sleep wherewith Love bound her, A quaint old tottering house is here :

Finds a lovely dream around her. To the homely laddered pier

A radiant vision of repose Fishers bring their haul to sell,
Involves her when her eyelids close. Opal-hued, green mackerel.
Dry their nets, and gossip glad.
Blue-girt, big-booted, man or lad.
Here the folding hills abide How often our lithe oar-blades quiver
Wooded to the water edge , Upon the healthful lidal river!
Many a leafy nook they hide. How they round the guarding fort,
Where, landing on a grassy ledge. To find a well-beloved resort
One may moor the boat and lie. On tawny sand along the coast,
While leafy light and shadow play Where huge rugged rocks are tost,
With the rippling river nigh. By caves, for some enrapturing bathe.
Where tall heron, of plumage grey, Where nought may interrupt or scathe;
Waits, or bluebird flasheth by ;

Ample, warm, luxuriant light I The seat of the Treffry family.

Bathes in trance of deep delight. 2 The Church of St. Fimbarrus.
Till the joy resembles pain. •* Carew says that Fowey sent forty-seven
And full eyes begin to rain. sail to assist Pldward III. in the siege of
Fair Lerrin hamlet, Ethy cjuay, Calais.
 ; ! — ! ;; ; ; !

436 THE MERRY-GO-ROUND

Only green billows dance, and fly We are all children of the mighty Main
White sea-mews with their dear wild cry. Why fear to rest upon the Mother Heart
O the tender-tinted lavers, again ?

Where a dimpling water wavers, Launch forth, and sleep

Pink, purple, lilac ; turquoise gems Upon the deep
Illume imbathed amber stems.

Crimson weeds from ocean groves

Fleck the yellow floor of coves,
THE MERRY-GO-ROUND
Diapered by gently-flowing
The merry-go-round, the merry-go-round,
Ripple when no winds are blowing,
the merry-go-round at Fowey !
^

Memories of lace-like foam,

They whirl around, they gallop around,
Where confused soft bubbles roam.
man, woman, and girl, and boy
Launch forth a faery promontory, They circle on wooden horses, white, black,
Form momentary silver bays ;
brown, and bay.
And when they vanish, heavenly glory To a loud monotonous tune that hath a
All the shining shore inlays,
trumpet bray.
A mirrored pure cerulean hue.
All dark where the circus stands on the
is
Fine fleeces floating in the blue.
narrow quay.
Or by moonlight, how we drove Save for its own yellow lamps, that illumine
Our keel into a yielding cove
it brilliantly :

Pale foam whispering on the sand,

Painted purple and red, it pours a broad
Eerie as a goblin land,
strong glow
Shadowy arch, and cave, and stone, Over an old-world house, with a pillared
One phantasmal semitone place below
Like visions wizard Wagner raises
For the floor of the building rests on bandy
With mystical enchanted phrases. columns small.
And the bulging pile may, tottering, sud-
O'er the harbour's pale expanse. denly bury all.
Resembling a profound death-trance, But there upon wooden benches, hunched in

Under a cold misty moon, the summer night,

Fragments of an alien tune. Sit wrinkled sires of the village arow, whose
While with bated breath we float. hair is white
Are wafted from the anchored boat They sit like the mummies of men, with a

Choral singing, flute, or lyre glare upon them cast

;

The grey wave rolls a flickered fire From a rushing flame of the living, like

From her lit porthole shadowy ;

their own mad past.

Ships with phantom sail go by. They are watching the merry-make, and
their face is very grave
Hark some rushing, throbbing sound
!

Of a steamer outward bound !

Over all are the silent stars ! beyond the
And hound cold grey wave.
baying of a far-off ! . . .

And while I gaze on the galloping horses

circling round,
Beyond the harbour a dim-heaving sea The men caracoling up and down to a
Breathes, awful with infinity ;
weird, monotonous sound,
Recalls the vanity of man,
His idle noise, his feeble span : 1 Pronounce Foy.
 ; ! ; " ; ; ! ; ! ;

LOST ANGEL 437

I pass into a bewilderment, and marvel why Dear naiad, in a shadowy grot.
they go Fair nymph, who lave within the cave,

Itseems the earth revolving, with our vain Iyearn for you. and find you not,
to and fro O freshness of the early wave !

For the young may be glad and eager, but The river rolleth broad and strong.
some ride listlessly. Great vessels glide upon the tide,
And the old look on with a weary, dull, and High storied tower and temple throng
lifeless eye With human toil, and pain, and pride.
I know that in an hour the fair will all But where the purple light of morn,
be gone
Stars shining over a dreary void, the Deep And thou, fair queen of what hath been ?

have sound alone. Ah holy land where Hope was born.

!

I gaze with orb suffused at human things Ah ! freshness of the early green !

that fly, shrined within the lucent air.

And I am lost in the wonder of our dim Where Youth hath birth with morning mirth,
destiny. . . . Clear-welling crystal blithe and fair.

The merry-go-round, the merry-go-round, Leaf-mirror from the loins of earth !

the merry-go-round at Fowey ! am drifting far away,

But I

They whirl around, they gallop around, man, With many a stain, with many a pain,
woman, and girl, and boy. 1near the shadowy death of day,
And youth may never dawn again.
O grand cathedral where you prayed,
" AH ! LOVE YE ONE ANOTHER Divinely dight with jewelled light.
WELL !
Soft woodland water where we played,
Low music in the summer night
Ah ! love ye one another well. Melodiously flowing river !

For the hour will come Ah blithe sunshine upon the Rhine,
!

When one of you is lying dumb ; We would have leaned, and looked for ever,
Ye would give worlds then for a word, Your eyes more luminous, lady mine !

That never may be heard Dark as a russet forest pool,

Ye would give worlds then for a glance. With many a dream within their gleam.
That may be yours by ne'er a chance ; Now glancing mirth, now veiled and full
Ah love ye one another well
!
Were seem ?
they, or did they only . . .

There is no grove yonder grove,

like
For if ye wrung a tear.
No water clear as our mild mere.
Like molten iron it will sear ;
No dawn is like the dawn of love,
The look that proved you were unkind Nor any later flower so dear
With hot remorse will blind
As are the earliest of the year . . .

And though you pray to be forgiven,

Evanished where ? . . .

How will ye know that ye are shriven ?

Holds life, or death, immense and still,
Ah ! love ye one another well I

Thee darkly fair beyond compare?

May Love her silver orb fulfil
Unhindered there.
"LOST ANGEL"
Where Honour may not fetter will,
Lost angel of a holier youth, Nor Love Himself bid love despair?
O maiden fair beyond compare ! And you were one long vernal kiss,
Young dream of joy, return for ruth, Inimingling glows of lovelit rose,
Dawn, breathe around a holier air ! Perfume, rare amber, ambergris.
Evanished where? And all the fervid Orient knows I
 ! ; ! ! ;! ! ! ! ;;!

438 I LOVE YOU, DEAR

Ah ! mellow-ripe-of-autumn hue, True and clear as now they are
Young, willowy, warm, impassioned form, Keep them. Heaven, when I am far !

Tone gentler than the turtle-coo, I shall never come too near,

Brown eyes that took the heart by storm, Only pray, God save thee, dear
And lovelier inward grace that drew Guide in all thy griefs and blisses.
My soul with all-compelling charm ! Hold thee in the deep abysses
Ye who claim the name of friend,
Love one another to the end
Have we aught to equal Love,
"
" I LOVE YOU, DEAR !
Or in earth, or heaven above ?

I LOVE you, dear, and we must part,

Although your heart be on my heart !

I love thee, though thou art not mine

THE LITTLE IMBECILE
I love yet I may ne'er be thine
;
!

And will our passion ne'er be fed.

A MAN slow climbed a wooded hill
But wait, and wither, and lie dead ?
An boy was mounting too.
idiot
Alas it seems a world made ill.
!
Before him near, and nearer still
;

Where poor love may not find her fill

"HANDS THAT WANDER"
Hands that wander o'er the keys,
Lithe hands over ivory keys,
I remember hands
Flying over ivory keys
The elder gradually drew.
The boy paused often looking back
His knees were tremulous and bent
With large vague eyes along the track.
Upon a sound he seemed intent.
He crooned out "Waggon" o'er and
o'er,
For he could hear one far below,
like these
Then turning mounted as before,
His weary footsteps planting slow !

In the far-away dim years,

I remember them with tears
They were wont
In the early morning-shine,
And I wonder where they are
Very, very far
If I ever came too near,
I have prayed, God save you, dear
The man appeared oppressed with care,
Gloomy, sin-burdened, and distraught;
to rest in mine
He mused, "The little pilgrim there
Was born by accident, for nought
;
Yea, what avails the vacant life,
A mere grim burden unto kin ?
Yet he eludes the bitter strife,
; "
and
The wounded heart, the tyrant sin !

Heaven gave your griefs blisses.

And now that they are near abreast,
Holds in whatsoe'er abysses.
The elder feels a sudden hand
You, who were my dearest friend,
Laid boldly in his own to rest,
I loved, I love you to the end
What have we to equal love
A unashamed demand
quiet,
For kindly help the boy who
; tires
Here in earth, or heaven above ?
Prefers unhesitating claim

Maiden of the clear brown eyes. On whom unreasoned faith inspires

Where no sin nor sorrow lies, To a friend, without the name.

feel

I love thee for thy melodies, The man supports the smiling child
And for thine innocent deep eyes. With pleased amazement ; hear him cry—
In the faraway dim years, '
Forgive me, dear, if I defiled
May they rarely cloud with tears Thine innocence with calumny !
 ! ; !; " "

ARISE !
439

Yet I for whom affection fails, Miserable, dumb, and blind.

Who fail to others, wildered roam, Of humankind !

Am leaned on by the child who ails, With divinest discontent

Who sees, confides, and feels at home. Stony souls at last are rent.
I love thee for the confidence, Human souls immersed and bowed
That lightens and sustains my heart In the dark dull earth ye ploughed !

Through muffling mists, though ne'er so From brute suffering ye break ;

dense, Awake !

God's glory gleamelh, when they part

Murmur men who rule you, scared :
White wings of Ruth embowered above,
" What ye dared,!

Her breathing spheres thee like an air

Doltish bovine bondsmen, ye !

Unfathomable maternal love

To claim, with accents of the free,
Rebukes the ravings of despair.
P'or yourselves, and babes, and wives.
Thou quickenest dead hearts to bleed, "
Human lives !

And poor grey listless lives to live ;

My blessing on the gentle need, Mummied princelin;^ of the past,

Unlocks the miser hand to give. Ecclesiast,
Compels the barren womb to breed, Shopman, overshadowing shires.
Moves Heaven a damned soul to forgive ! Dining delega;es, and squires,
No uses ! were it only this ! A moneyed mob aghast and pale.
I see that all things have an end ;
Rant and rail :

The boy hath innocence and bliss,

"Who told yon, scum of all the earth 1

Yea, higher help himself may lend,

And dashed our mirth ?
Which will be known to him for his.
Who told you, rebels, that ye grovel
Remove thy shoes, adore, and bend ;
Hungry and cold in many a hovel.
Around are holy mysteries " !
Or that the famine of your wage
Tortures old age ?

" Who told you ? let him drown for this.

ARISE With our bliss !

We, though we leave you ignorant,

A SONG OF LABOUR 1
Lest ye behold a yawning want.
Doled you gracious doles, and gave
From the long sleep of centuries,
Ghostly cheer to keep you brave ;
Rise, arise !

Yea, paupers, and we dug your grave

Ye will be men at last, not slaves, !

Ye rave !

From your cradles to your graves ;

Life is dawning in your eyes ;

Stalwart, sturdy sons of toil.

Arise ! Ne'er recoil !

Dare they threaten violence?

Weary children of the soil, Form your phalanx deep and dense !

Who toil and toil ! What though tyrants always cry,

Patient millions of night. When God consumes their tyranny,
Turn worn faces to the light. " Dare not rouse you from your swound ;

Piteous hunger in dim eyes. Heaven's order ye confound !

Arise ! Never fear be calm, be wise

; I

Holy fire inflame your eyes !

1 Written on the formation of Unions for God shall smite your enemies :

agricultural labourers. Arise !

 ; ;

440 A CASUAL SONG

With feeble hand she strikes her mother,

A CASUAL SONG Who gravely kind reproves ;

And now the child her grief would smother,

She sang of lovers met to play Upon the heart that loves.
" Under the may bloom, under the may,"
But when I sought her face so fair, The parent folds her little maid
I found the set face of Despair. More closely to her breast
Upon her own the child hath laid
She sang of woodland leaves in spring, Her doll, and sinks to rest.
And joy of young love dallying ;

But her young eyes were all one moan, I wonder if the Heart of all,

And Death weighed on her heart like stone. Whence our poor hearts arise,
Be more unpitying when we fall,

From being wholly wise ?

I could not ask, I know not now,
The story of that mournful brow ;

It haunts me as ithaunted then,

A flash from fire of hellhound men.
THE TRUE KING
Azure waters lapt in light,
To folds of gleaming, widening blue.
THE CHILD'S JOURNEY Parted by the prow's swift flight,

Soft simmered as we lightly flew ;

A LITTLE child at morning-tide A mile-long lane of foam we left ;

Was journeying by train ; White winging birds the clear air cleft.
She saw the shining landscape glide A princely boy of Eastern blood,
By the clear window-pane. Swathed all in silk-inwoven gold,
Of royal mien, with joy imbued,
and green field.
Tall trees, fair village, A form of fmely-chiselled mould.
Blithe boys with bat and ball, Played upon the deck well-kept.
Church spire and meadowed kine appealed Watched the flying fish that leapt.
To eyes that answer all. An dame addressed the child,
English
"Shall I tell you of the Lord,

Blue-frocked, by her fond mother, she

We English love?" He sweetly smiled.
Embraced a doll in red.
And blithely took from her the word
(From some white nurse he may have heard)
And when she dined, full tenderly
" I'll tell you ! He was gentle, mild
The faded doll she fed. ;

None see Him, though they try to find

Yet He is here ! but like the wind.
The trains flew by with fleecy steam Though Jesus Christ a king was born,
That melted in the blue ;
Men put on him no real crown,
But when there sloped the westering beam. They made Him wear one all of thorn!
Weary the maiden grew. Nay, none more real e'er was known.
Than that by which His brows were torn."
And when the mother fond compels She answered, " Your ancestral gem
With wisdom more than hers. Burns low beside that diadem !

The weary little heart rebels. The purple robe of Night He wears,
The childish anger stirs. Starred over with the world's wild tears,
 ; ; : : ; ; ; ; !

RETURNING THANKS 441

Was dyed in Flis own harmless blood,

Whose throne imperial was the rood.
No rival royalty Love fears ; Now in the month of the nightingale
Who spends Himself for all is king; I have lost my love !

He hath you under His wide wing " !

And heed no more the tender tale.
I
The large eyes wonder, and grow grave But I hear the sorrow in a flute-like wail
A moment ; then he runs to play, Deliciously complain
To note the glancing of the wave. No pain to him,
Or the red pennon flicker gay. No sorrow to the bird in his covert dim ;

But in far years, 'mid pomps so brave Only foreboding of a human pain,
Of yon resplendent Indian court, Searing hearts to a barren plain.
And dangerous homage dark men brought, When we find the love we deemed im-
A hallowing on his heart there lay mortal
From that meek lesson which she taught. Only death's flower-enwoven portal
And we wander alone,
In a desolate land alone, alone.
THE MONTH OF THE Hearing a dove's low, soft love-moan,
NIGHTINGALE Among primroses and young buds,
Where cresses waver in the clear spring floods.
I know not how Love faints away,
It was in the month of the nightingale, And with him all the bloom from day.
I found my love ! And with him all divine delight
Flowing with rivers of light in the vale, From dull unconsecrated night
Haunting a heart of moonlight pale, I know not how Love dies, nor how he is

The bird o'erflowed ;;

born
Or in the dusk of his green abode I know my life is left forlorn.
A cuckoo vied
With the lovesong tide,
And with a lark's divine delight
In a fountainous, azure-imbathed flight RETURNING THANKS
We lay and listened, I and my love,
We lay and listened in the grove I THANK Thee, Lord, I may enjoy
Butterflies blue Thy holy sacrament of Spring !

Merrily flew For dancing heart when leaflets toy.

Over wood-sorrel dewy wet Or when birds warble, and wave wing.
Mossed windflower and violet For tears, for April tears of joy !

Thrilled in the air, and our lips met The cuckoo thrills me as of yore,
From under a shade of sunny boughs The nightingale is more than wine
We saw the green blade sprout in the brown Bluebells in the wild woodland pour
Field fallows, and far haze of the town, Hues purpler, but not more Divine
Cattle in misty water-meadow browze, Than blithe, fresh hues of Heaven on high ;

And young lambs play I thank thee. Lord, before I die !

In far fields of May. Sidelong glance, brown rabbit furry.

All the young happiness of spring Ere to foot-patted hole you hurry.
Supremely flowered, burst forth, took wing, Under large leaf, rumpled, shady.
In two young hearts to sing, By a folded lord or lady !

In two young lovers, in our own love, Anemone, and pale primrose
Pure and happy as the saints above ! Already gone ! in place of those,
 ; ;

442 THE POLISH MOTHER

Blue speedwell, purple violet, Whose son. Count Roman, made a prisoner
With the dews of morning wet. In those great hopeless battles, which the race
These innocent pleasures never cloy ;
Fought, for the right to be, with the strong
I thank Thee, Lord, I may enjoy ! Tzar,
Pure, fresh scents pervade the wood, Had been condemned to labour in the mines
A dim, life-teeming solitude ; Of far Siberia perpetually.
Young juices mount, and gums exude !

Our children in dear days long fled Now she conferred with one, whom suffo-

Pulled daisy, and sleek golden cup cation

One left us, and men deem him dead ;
Of all free thought and speech in Russia made
And two have well fulfilled our hope ;
Wild to wrest freedom by main force, a lady,
And all by Thee, my Lord, are led !
Young, fair, fanatical ; to whom she told
I lieupon the woodland green. The story of the wrongs, that wrung consent
With sorrel, little strawberry flower ;
from her
Through pink wild apple-bloom sun-sheen To violent counsels of conspiracy.
Plays hide-and-seek, in the lush bower
Of murmurous leaves, and hour by hour " I could not kneel ; my knees were turned
Makes shine and shade for the soft flower. to marble
While birds unbosom love's young glee, I could not save my son, my only child !

Dallying round the nested tree ;

And yet you know well how I loved him ! how
For I, and all, are dear to Thee ! I had waited for him, tended from the
How long since Iboywas a blithe ! birth,
Much went with youth's removing wing ;
Fed from my own life's fountain ; when he
But, Lord, I thank Thee I enjoy ailed,

As then, Thy sacrament of Spring ! Bent over, watching wakeful by the bed,
Hearing him breathe, and soothed when he
awoke.
Myself I ministered to want and whim :

THE POLISH MOTHER My being hung on his ; my thoughts returned

Thither, however far afield they flew,
A DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE ^
Hovered around him, birds about the nest.
Ah boy beloved, my heart's home was in
!

She looked a matron from the ancient world thee !

Of Roman grandeur, tall, pale, proud, black-

robed. "Hours of our early love, the balmy moons
Strong passion chained, with poignant suf- By drowsy, lisping seas in the warm south,
fering. Were they more dear than later summer
Held down by stern hand, crouched, yet evenings,
writhed alive When, after favourite tale, accompanied
In her fine countenance ; whose graven lines, By rippling laughter from my baby boy,
White hair, death-pallor, and deep caverned Mother undressed him (nurse had holiday,
eyes, Sweet birds were warbling, the young rose
That lustrous burned with fierce intensity. was blown) ?
All prophesied the death-doom imminent. We sang our simple songs, dear, you and I,
She was a Pole of ancient lineage. Until you only crooned them, half in dream,
Then softly glided into slumberland.
1 Founded on a real incident, mentioned by Away from mother ; but her heart still held
Liszt in his " Life of Chopin." you !
 ! — ! —— ! —— '

THE POLISH MOTHER 443

" Where is he now ? In some profounder And drew warm life I stored up there for
sleep. him
Where is he now? . . . they say I might For whom I would have parted with all

have saved him. mine. . . .

I was too proud. My God ! I might have Why, then, did I not save him ? why ? God
knelt knows
There was one moment only — I could not If God there be — but when the tyrant came,
An upon his curving lips,
evil sneer
" My son, the count, fought like a patriot My knees were turned to stone I could not ;

Pole move
Against our old hereditary foe. Kneel to the insolent murderer of my people,
Made captive, Nicholas himself had added, Who now would torture my poor ciiild, in
When signing the imperial decree wrath.
Of lifelong death in far Siberian mine, Because he paid his country what he owed
Whence none emergeth more to social day, her
'Thither shall he go manacled, on foot.' You know not the conditions the man made,
Ha! do you know what that means? 'chained, Indignities designed to break my pride
on foot ' ? To break the pride of Poland of one born —
It means to tramp long winter through to Illustrious as any emperor.
summer, On such conditions, if I craved for pardon,
Athwart interminable steppes, and snow, (Pardon forsooth! and mercy! and from
To that bleak outcast region beyond hope. him !)
With one coarse convict yoked a bondfellow, He would toss me the freedom of my child,
Defiled in body, and defiled in mind, Contemptuously as you toss bone to dog
With him to tramp, to feed, to lie by night, Exemption from his own injustice, his
Subject to every brutal outrage from Inhuman sentence nay, there is a God — !

Soldiers who love to wreak indignity This man must needs be punished for his
Upon one outlawed, of high grade, refined : life !

And if his strength (but he was weak, and These degradations I refused for honour
;

ailing) Is more than life ; more even than one's

Sustained through that dread journey to the child.
goal, At last, the Empress, pitying me, arranged
Live burial in the nether deeps of earth, That I should ask an audience of her ;

Toil so repulsive, so interminable, Then he the autocrat would cross the room,
That men have killed their guard, to win And I upon my knees might crave for
the grace grace. . . .

Of being knouted to a speedier death He entered, while we talked ; I never

Or else malignant years, that beat men down. moved.
Each with his own peculiar stroke, combine So she, supposing that I knew him not.

Here their slow malice into one supreme Rose, and I rose too ; but he slowly passed.
Assault, and turn the young man deaf, blind, Staring, incarnate Insult, in mine eyes,
grey. The stare of arrogant autocracy,
Quench in a year the fading faculties. With sneer that relished our humiliation.
Render imbecile ere the very end. He slowly passed, looked, lingered, and
Or men escape in winter weather then went out. ;

They may lie down, and faint out in the The Empress seized my two hands, and she
snow. . . . cried :

And this was he who lay upon my breast, '

You have lost your only opportunity
 — ! — ;

444 THE POLISH MOTHER

" Face to face with the murderer of my Jolted along the frozen snows, for nurse
country, The brutal Cossack, cursing when they cried.
I was the daughter of Poland, and no mother Their mothers following the dwindling carts.

In that brief moment I beheld my Mother, And floundering into snowdrifts; happy they,
Poland, my Mother, If to remain there ! while the children's cry
Dishonoured, and dismembered ; felt them Dwindled to silence all became so still ; ! . . .

part Supreme stroke this of cynic cruelty

Her frame, yet warm, assigned among three Infants torn from their native land, to learn
tyrants. . . . Upon an alien soil from iiiortal foe
What did I see ? I saw in vivid vision Forgetfulness of our parental love.
Our green fields bloodied, corpses in the Indifference to their people's agony.
woods That so young Polish hearts might ossify

Of fair, brave brothers — felt them beaten to To Russian trained to arms

! for their

death oppressor.
By Tartar soldiers, maddening in dungeons Young Poles made Russian soldiers, and
Deprived of day, dank, loathsome, for the degraded.
love Cajoled by demons to abjure themselves. . . .

They bore our common Mother ; saw corn, Seeing and hearing which, how could I
food kneel
Trampled by hooves barbarian, crushed down To him, in whom our injury was summed,
Under the mangled bodies of her sons ;
And centred radiated, from a deadly sun ?
;

The flaming smoke rolled up from ruined I could not kneel, not even to save my
homes, child. . . .

And women sobbing on the unroofed, wrecked But I am going to Roman ; all is well
hearths If not to meet him, then to rest in sleep.

And not one heart, but multitudes of hearts. He sleeps, he rests now. Very soon I with
True hearts —
lay broken in the mines of him.
hell ! . . . Ah so is best
! much better than if Time
!

What did I hear ? heard the syllables

I Slackened the close clasp of Love's fingers,
We loved to lisp in childhood on loved knees, ere,
Silenced for ever among living men. Wearying of His mumbling fools. He broke
Forbidden to be spoken by the children. . . . them. . . .

Ah ah the children wailing they were

! ! ! And vengeance only slumbers : work your
dragged. will
Dragged from mad mothers' arms, and heaped Upon the tyrant ! I will help ; take gold ;

in waggons, Earth will be cleaner for one stain wiped out."

POOR PEOPLE'S CHRISTMAS
1890
 —— : ; :

POOR PEOPLE'S CHRISTMAS

Hakk ! the Christmas bells ring round ! Bitter winter wind shrilled through
Many with joy abound
light hearts ! Rotten door and window when it blew.
They come and go upon the wind,
" Peace and goodwill to all mankind "
! She, working early, working late,
Breathes no impatient word nor wail
Where bleared faces of mean houses Her heavy task may ne'er abate.
Lean as if to touch each other, Though eyesight fade and strength may
Where idle, ugly vice carouses, fail.

And brown fogs choke and smother,

the
In a room confined, dun, damp, Her husband, long through accident
Sits a woman scantly clad, Disabled, might no more endure
Sewing by a feeble lamp To watch her, burden-bowed and bent,
Some lovely raiment deftly made, The wife, whom these dark dens immure,
Rich apparel to be worn Whom no longing love may cure.
In splendid halls by laughing wealth, Nor help, though she be bruised and
Whose pale sister here forlorn rent.
Leaves in her youth and health
it all Confused, heartbroken, he will hide
Ah ! I wonder, can it bless. His eyes for ever under tide
Such living lining to a dress? . . . Of deeply, darkly rolling Thames,
Take the lovely raiment off! That quenches hottest human flames.
Hell hath given it with a scoff!
For she must toil ere daydawn dim, Merry Christmas bells ring round !

Long after winter suns have set, Many light hearts with joy abound ;

And even so, the Hunger grim They come and go upon the wind,
Slow feeds on lives she fights for yet " Peace and goodwill "
to all mankind !

Three tattered little ones who play

Faint-hearted on the mouldy floor : Merry Christmas chimes rang round,
She fought for other two but they ; When he sought the river's bank,
Have gone where want can hurt no more. Rang over him the while he drowned.
And in the depths a third time sank.
Vile fumes, with subtle poison-breath. While laughing youth's swift-flying feet
That fouls the throat, killed one young child To music danced in yonder street.
Roofs bulge in this abode of death. And in gay halls glad masquers meet.
Walls totter and tumble, damp-defiled ;

While on the too scant space intrude Now the flickering lamplights float
Rats, hustling the young human brood. Idly over corpse and boat
A mean bed, table, broken chair, From tower and temple London frowns
Furnish the degraded room ;
On all this ruin of her sons ;

A print, some one flower fair,

delf, On her huge dome the cross of gold
Are fain to mitigate the gloom. Gleams in winter starlight cold ;
 ——— — ! — — ——
! ! ' ; ;

448 POOR PEOPLE'S CHRISTMAS

Nor storied old-world obelisk, Half naked ; matted ringlets curled
Nor the illumined horal disk He had no friend in all the world.
High orbed on stately Westminster, He peers in where these wonders are ;

Where the Parliaments confer, O'er him wavers the snowstar,

Take any heed of the black spot Ghostly in the yellow gleam ?'
That doth the moonlight blot,
silver From the mansion's window-beam.
A human shape unhearing hours, Willie took him by the hand :

Pealed now from modern, ancient towers, '

Won't you with me nearer stand ?
That dark on turbid water ridges He entered, shaking off the snow.
Rocks in reflected flame from bridges Shone for us, laughing, our sunshine,
Where steam-lit trains, with living freight, Exhilarating hearts like wine ;

Going to glad homes elate, The dear glad face was all aglow,
Near ships laden with merchandise. Though mostly pale from want, like mine.
Spice, or silk of gorgeous dyes, Then Mary took his jacket off,
Where men from far realms of sunrise Put the small torn boots to dry,
Wait, forgetting care and sorrow, And we made little of the cough

In hope to greet dear friends to-morrow, That on our hearts weighed heavily.
While their paddle-wheel foams over A Christmas treat with cakes and tea
The swaying corse, a senseless rover. We gave our bairns the fare was rough
; ;

Yet this poor Yule-meal by the fire

We all enjoyed, a lordly feast

He turned from life, but left some words
She rested from long toils that tire,
Dyed in the anguish of his soul ; And my small wage the store increased
Deep anguish the brief page records.
I got a little bit of green
Before dull waters o'er him roll.
To and brighten up the scene.
try
But now, skilled craftsman I, unused
" Upon the bed, or broken chair, To ruder labour, weights must lift,
I sitand brood in my despair, That overstrain my strength abused ;

Those Christmas bells it is two years

! Famine else will give short shrift
Since our sweet little boy went home ; So to this impotence I drift !

I see him now through blinding tears, At times my brain seems all confused
The snowflakes melting on him, come, To watch my Mary's failing eyes,
Delighted, babbling of the joys And youth consumed with too much toil,
Behind a lighted window-pane While patient at her task she dies !

Firs taper-lit, festooned with toys, I, pinioned, helpless, may not foil

Sweets, trinkets, woolly lamb, doll, train Slow deaths that round my dear ones
For he had peeped in from the flags, coil

Where the lustrous hall discloses Over a new dress sits she bowed?
To the boy in faded rags I thought it was her own white shroud ;

Happy children, pink like roses, Our wee Willie, like a weed.
Playful, laughter-loving posies. Thrown into a nameless grave

Clustered flowers with coloured dresses ;

I am but one more mouth to feed !

One pretty girl had such long tresses ! They starve here,and I cannot save . . .

And then, the feast in all its pride ! I am but one more mouth to feed ! . . .

Our cold, wan child stood eager-eyed, We could not even put a stone,
Until some menial waved aside To show where Willie lies alone !

Another waif stood far

little : When I left home, my love would write
On his thin face he wore a scar ;
That, ere our Willie went to bed,
 • ' ' —— —— !;

POOR PEOPLE'S CHRISTMAS 449

He, wishing fether a good-night, Why doth this mother of the free
Kissed the written words, she said, Let her strong sons with cruel glee
Ere softly slept the curly head. Crush weak sisters at her knee ?
Ah ! and now the boy is gone !— Set thine own house in order then —
We could not even put a stone ! Go and preach to evil men !

In feudal dungeons underground

" O Christmas bells, ye chime to jeer They buried their live victims l)ound,
Poor folk shut in with mortal fear ! And we in our vile vaults immure
'
Peace and goodwill to all mankind !
These whose crime is to be poor.
— Save those whom want and rich men Starve babes and women innocent,
grind — Tortured, in black prisons pent.
Art, Science, Banquet, Church, and Revel Feudal lords ^NOvXAfeed the slave ;

Westward feed sense, heart and mind ;

But Capital from his despair
Down East, the unshared rule of the devil ! Extorts more toil than flesh can bear,
Long have I sought I cannot find ;
Keeps him half-living in his grave,
God who delivers men from evil ! . . . That serf may earn, and master have.
Till kindlier Death arrive to save.

{Bells peal.) "... Well loved those chimes

" True men devise large schemes to heal
In happier times. . . .

Once more we have our cheerful home, This gangrene of the Commonweal,
Around the window roses blow ;
This prime injustice of the world.
I see my Mary fair as foam, That drones, who waste the wealth, may
Blithely singing, come and go. steal

While rosed with health the children roam. . . From makers, to the dunghill hurled. . . .

Now we are ground 'twixt two millstones . Ah, many hearts will founder and
. . fail

The man that wrings the murderous rent. Before these noble aims prevail ! . . .

Yet shelters not the naked bones (Not violence the cause will serve,
Cooped in his plague-fraught tenement, For blood and iron breed their kin ;

And vampires who suck sleek content Yet the serried ranks ne'er swerve,
From human anguish, tears, and groans, Armed Force and Fraud, Law-masquing
Clutch the fruit of our life's toil. Sin ! . . .)

And batten upon the unholy spoil. Ah ! Violence may be forgiven

Throwing a wage-scrap back for fuel. To men fate-harried, God-bereaven ;

Lest man- mills stop the labour cruel. They tear their way forth to the end,
And cease with Death unequal duel. Toward which by vital growth we tend ;

Shall we, chained starvelings, go, buy law. Yea, war may plant good laws, free states
To save us from the robber's claw ? One cuts the knot in desperate straits.
Law is a cumbrous thing to move ;
. . . My comrades yonder at the club
It will not come and help for love ! Willmake short work of these that rob,—
Buy women to starve at '
market-price,' While we prepare the general mind,
Gallio-Law, with looks of ice. Uur best- beloved rot here and perish. . . .

Smiles placid ; poor man, steal a crust, watch no more these millstones grind
I'll

To feed them, Jefferies, judge most just. The tender hearts and lives I cherish ! . . .

Thee, wrath-red, into gyves will thrust. That robber's rent was in arrear ;
'
Church and State will guard,' saith he, He came with flint-face, cane, black coat,
'
The sacred rights of property !
Would fling us on the street yea, here. ;

England wrestles for tlie slave Shook my poor Mary, white with fear
Enthralled beyond the alien wave ;
No strength was mine to clutch his throat
2 F
 —— "
! ! ! ; ! !

450 POOR PEOPLE'S CHRISTMAS

My dying wife must stitch at those ;
Flinging to the wild winds all affiances !

Rich sick folk may lie abed, Do ye not hear low thunders rumble.
Or fly from our black smoke and snows Ere, lightning-struck, the fabric crumble ?

To where blue air and ocean wed. . . . Your marts are thronged, luxurious, bright,
Man's right we are powerless to assert it,
! Your magic moons confound the night,
And man himself is God-deserted ! Yet marbled warehouse, palace height.
. What use to watch slow murder done
. . Grey minster that hath borne the brunt
On wife, and babe, and little son Of Time's long battle, all confront
"
When near me glides Oblivion ? Shame, grim Nakedness, and Want
While close-shut doors of secret sin
So, while the indifferent body rolls,
Open upon hell-flames within!
With other things that have no souls,
On the blind tide to random goals,
Hearken how grand organ strains
!

In lustred lordly palace hall

Shake the emblazoned window-panes,
Radiant boys and maidens play ;
Where priest and gorgeous ritual blesseth
On whose cold doorstep women fall
Whoso prayeth, or confesseth.
Starved, numbed, and naked, life gone grey
In holy twilight of hushed fanes
Within, youth's agile feet to sound
Yet Christmas carols from the church
Of music flying, bells ring round,
Mock those dim figures by the porch,
Come and go upon the wind,
Huddled, famished in their rags :
'
Peace and goodwill to all mankind
' I

Drink-sodden these from alehouse lurch.

On massy bridge, on broadbuilt quay, And those lie numbed upon the flags,
Tumultuous tides of hurrying wealth Till, passing, a policeman drags
Sweep the marred sons of misery To ward or workhouse, " moves them on "
(Who thrid by sufferance, by stealth. Somewhere, while they make low moan,
Their faint way ; near the parapet Pale spectres of dread Babylon
Cower, dull aware of fume and fret). But the flaunting harlot's ditty
Sweep them to where they may forget Striketh even a deeper pity,
For riverward wan eyes are bowed ;
Cruel Want's degraded daughter.
Beside whom roars the traffic loud, On her way to the dark water.
And the many-nationed crowd. Where horror-breathing, dense brown air
See grimed and haggard him or her. Grimly shrouds a dumb despair. . . .

Amid the animated stir ... Is their a worse hell over there ?
Of throngs that leave a theatre ;

Well-dressed men cab and carriage call. The holly and the mistletoe
Round white shoulders fold the shawl. Cheer our banquet, wine-cups flow.
Praise or blame what box or stall Light laughter bubbles o'er the bowl,
Observed of acted joy or grief. And we forget no Christmas dole
Carelessly, with comment brief Yet our grief-burdened sisters die
Civic, or military pomp, Around us in slow agony.
Massed colour, banner, drum and trump. While we are ringing in the morn
Court dames in well-appointed carriages, When man's Deliverer was born ; . . .

Fair-favoured, fashionable marriages . Ah but our Brother too wore

. . ! thorn
Wolf-lean Hunger's eye disparages !

Wherein, as in some magic glass, Pale Mary toils ; her hollow eyes
Ye may foresee your triumph pass. Are patient, mild, of heavenly blue ;

Learning's vaunted vast appliances Hourly repeats the sacrifice

Shattered in terrible defiances, That all the world to Calvary drew ;
 ! ! ; ! ; ;; ! ——
! ;

POOR PEOPLE'S CHRISTMAS 451

" Father, forgive their cruelties ;

Around His heart like snakes lie curled
For they know not what they do." . . . The sins and sorrows of the world :

. .She murmurs, " Now I feel Thee near

. ! But the full orb of light iiehind,
My little ones I leave to Thee : Unmuffled, would strike mortals blind
Do what Thou wilt, — I trust, not fear. . . . Bad men slunk dwindled and abashed
Thy Birthday bells ring merrily When from His eyes the sunbeam flashed.
I am weary, and would rest.

Gentle Jesus, on Thy breast " My servants fashion even now

I shall see Willie, — yes, and Jim, Justice for the commonweal
My heart's own husband turbid, dim, ; From toilers with the hand, the brow,
His mind was from our suffering so Idle men no more may steal
Therefore the Lord forgave, I know. My servants seek ; I whisper how
The unbelief that conquered him. They may remedy.
find the
Ah but I wonder much how long
! Save My little ones who cry :

He will endure their cruel wrong " ! For I am poor Myself, you know ;

The poor are Mine, and I will heal!

A high-born sister who had left Already dawns millennium
Her vantage-ground to help the weak. Soon My holy reign will come.
Supplying unto these bereft The man who loved you, whom you love,
From her full store whate'er they seek. Was of the faithful band I move.
Came that night, a nurse, to tend Awhile I hid my face from him.
The dying woman ; and she heard For awhile his ways were dim ;
Near the poor pallet, ere the end. Baser, earthlier passion jars
Low song as from some heavenly bird. With spheral music of the stars ;

Although no human lips were stirred Yet in the end all makes, not mars
Christ came, in vision, to the dying, I vindicate his human place
Led by the hand their own lost child ; For every member of My race ;

He saith :
" Love justifies relying Let every manhood find free scope !

On him, daughter " and she smiled

! ! Now, beasts of burden, with no hope,
Near the boy a Christmas tree Men ripen not peculiar grain.
Laughed with lights full merrily ! Given to each for general gain.
And the little waif was there, The social body to sustain.
Rosy, with a joyful air, Your Churches rarely worship Me,
Recovered from his life-despair. Who am the incarnate Charity :

Near Willie the boy kept his place, They call indeed upon My name ;

But fearless looked into the Face But their proud Christ with crown and flame
That seemed to him one pure embrace. Is another, not the same.
" Love justifieth your relying, I made known a suffering God ;

And heareth ever bitter crying I consecrated Pain's abode.

Of those whom the hard world hath spurned : Yet are they refiiges for faith,
My martyrs high estate have earned." Though she be faded to a wraith.
A common workman seemed the Lord, Though driven from the altar, she
Standing by the poor bedside ; Oft in the world find sanctuary.
Vet she knew He was the Word, Strong men, refrain from legal greed
That Jesus who was crucified, Hear the fate-smitten when they plead I

And poured contempt on human pride. Justice, not almsgiving, they need.
Pale and suffering His air. God with conscience dowered you,
From sympathy with our despair ; With more than in mere Nature grew ;
 — "

452 POOR PEOPLE'S CHRISTMAS

All are brethren, all are one ;
In the old Syrian garden, He
Wound other hearts, ye wound your own ! Shamed with a God-word quietly
Strong men ! poor weak worms when ye ! Phylacteried fathers of the men.
fall, Whose race hath the hard heart, as then.
On whom, in trouble, will ye call ? " My birthday bells chime merrily !

When God hath changed your counte- Come, dear child, more close to me !

nance, My best is evermore the prize

"
And sends you feeble, fainting, hence ? Of souls who nobly agonise !

Then that gentle Face grew stern ;

No feeble glimmer in the room,
Sun-blazing eyes confront and burn Heaven's own effulgence doth illume
All the Temple-shadowed lies. Her spirit the poor sempstress died,
;

The marble-tomb proprieties And Love immortal claimed a bride.

Of our later Pharisees,
Pious, proud, decorous, hard ;
Hark ! the Christmas bells ring round !

He blasted base content, and marred. Many abound

light hearts with joy ;

They shrinking wither up, nor linger They come and go upon the wind :

Even as when, writing with His finger, " Peace and goodwill to all mankind !"
 POEMS
FIRST PUBLISHED IN
THE "CANTERBURY POETS" SERIES
 ; ! ; !;

TO A CHILD, WHO ASKED ME Every frail face looking a different way,

FOR A POEM O'er you arriveth a silver ray
Bronze boughs embroider a pearly grey,
You ask me for a poem, dear. Luminous air in the wildwood.
You want from me a lay,
Who are a music blithe and clear O white windflower with the purple dyes,
Sung sweetly day by day ! Your candour of innocence meets mine eyes.
You, child, have songs within your heart, And bids the bowed heart in me arise :

More pure than aught of mine ;

You are kin to the little ones, humble and
P'or Life, my dear, is more than Art, wise,
Who sings you is Divine. Young, newly-born in the wildwood.

The joy of our Earth-mother thrills through

the groves ;

EARLY APRIL A long cooing sound of woodland doves !

Feathered folk serenade the fair nest-lying

Is sweet to look into one another's faces
it loves,

Over where the clear laughing water races, Call young flowers in the wildwood.
Where the herbs are all like delicate laces ?
Are ye in love with one another's faces ? We are glad you are here again lovely and gay,
Flowers of the wildwood, tell me Dull was the winter when you were away ;

We never have had any heart to play,

While you were afar from the wildwood,
Virginal purity of pale primroses !

And now we are off to the woodland !

Petal on petal of a sister reposes,

And the shadow of eitheron either dozes ;
Come along, little children ! blithe birds are
Wildwood flowers, we hail you !

singing,
Budding leaves with a magical melody ringing,
Many daintily - formed green leaves have Flowers faint censers of odour swinging ;

met, Come along, little loves, to the wildwood

Strawberry leaf and violet, We may find fairy forms in the woodland !

'Tis a little too cold for the nightingale

yet All the boughs are alive with a luminous
Philomel, he'll not fail you !
green,
Leaflets uncurl fairy frills to the sheen,
Fairy windflower, wood anemones, Wings dip and dart o'er the woodland scene
Delicate company under the trees, We listen and lighten, we know what they
Snowflake ruffled by a merryfoot breeze, mean,
Frolicsome singing aerial glees, Spring has arrived in the wildwood !

Frail white stars of the wildwood ! Sing heigh sing ho for the woodland
! ! !

455
 ; ! ! ! ! — ! ! ;

456 THE SECRET OF THE NIGHTINGALE

Into the heart of the verdure stole
THE SECRET OF THE My feet, and a music enwound my soul

NIGHTINGALE Zephyr flew over a cool bare brow

I am near, very near to the secret now !

The ground I walked on felt like air, For the rose-covers, all alive with song,
Airs buoyant with the year's young mirth ; Flash with it, plain now low and long ;

Far, filmy, undulating fair, Sprinkle a holy water of notes ;

The down lay,a long wave of earth On clear air melody leans and floats ;

And a still green foam of woods rose high The blithe-winged minstrel merrily moves,
Over the hill-line into the sky. Dim bushes burn with mystical loves
In meadowy pasture browse the kine,
Thin wheat-blades colour a brown plough- Lo ! I arrive I immersed in green,
line ;
Where the wood divides, though barely
Fresh rapture of the year's 5-oung joy seen,
Was in the unfolded luminous leaf, A nest in one of the blue leaf-rifts !

And birds that shower as they toy There over the border a bird uplifts
Melodious rain that knows not grief, Her downy head, billed, luminous-eyed ;

A song-maze where my heart in bliss Behold the chosen one, the bride I

Lay folded, like a chrysalis. And the singer, he singeth by her side.
They allured my feet far into the wood, Leap, heart be aflame with them loud, not
! !

Down a winding glade with leaflets walled, dumb.

With an odorous dewy dark im^'ued ; Give a voice to their epithalamium
Rose, and maple, and hazel called Whose raptures wax not pale nor dim
Me into the shadowy solitude ; Beside the fires of seraphim.
Wild blue germander eyes enthralled, These are glorious, glowing stairs.

Made me free of the balmy bowers, In gradual ascent to theirs ;

Where a wonderful garden-party of flowers. With human loves acclaim and hail
Laughing sisterhood under the trees, The holy lore of the nightingale
Dancing merrily, played with the bees ;

Anemone, starwort, bands in white,

Like girls for a first communion dight,
And pale yellow primrose ere her flight. A SONG OF NEREIDS
Ushered me onward wondering
To a scene more fair than the court of a Ding, dong, bell!
king. We breathe you a sea-spell
Ah they were very fair themselves.
! While we leap into the blue,
Sweet maids of honour, woodland elves Link hands with ours, dear mortal, do.
Frail flowers that arrive with the cuckoo.
Pale lilac, hyacinth purple of hue, Away! away! away!
And the little pink geranium, Our clear green waters are at play
All smiled and nodded to see me come With a wave-bewildered ray,
;

All gave me welcome " No noise," they Where the billow-bathed shell-floor
;

said, Looks a fantasy unsure

" For we will show you the bridal bed, Through the fluctuating billow,
Where Philomel, our queen, was wed Where will be your pillow
;

Hush move with a tender, reverent foot,

! Fish float there in open mail ;

Like a shy light over the bole and root " ; Ere your senses wholly fail.
And they blew in the delicate air for flute. We will tell you a wondrous tale.
 ! ! ; ! ; ! "
! ;

O YEARS! 457

We alone may truly tell While we leap into the blue,

Of what befell Link hands with ours, dear mortal, do!
Before the mournful years began We are breathing a sea-spell ;

For mind-beclouded, wildered man ;

Ding, dong, bell
With our rhythmic rise and fall
We will ring your funeral
PORTHCURNO.
Cease the civil war of life ;

For the turmoil and the strife

Of a human heart and mind SEA SLUMBER-SONG
Are more than toil ofwave or wind
You who lay in Love's white bosom Sea-birds are asleep,
more fair our cool sea-blossom
Shall find ;
The world forgets to weep.
Leander homing to his love, Sea murmurs her soft slumber-song
And lipping the fond seas he clove, On the shadowy sand
We lured to our still coral grove, Of this elfin land ;

Where years might ne'er deflower his youth. " I, the Mother mild.
Nor wither slowly with no ruth ;
Hush thee, my child.
While our kind fair Hylas took Forget the voices wild !

From his lover's longing look. Isles in elfin light

Dream, the rocks and caves.
You who late could climb the rocks. Lulled by whispering waves.
Where the tidal water shocks, Yeil their marbles bright,
You who dared to breast the wave Foam glimmers faintly white
That yields wild rapture to the brave, Upon the shelly sand
Life at full, or glassy grave, Of this elfin land ;

Come and sleep, and be at rest Sea-sound, like violins.

We will lull you on our breast ;
To slumber woos and wins,
Never weep, nor strive, nor cry. I murmur my soft slumber-song,
Nor wait till age shall strand you high Leave woes, and wails, and sins.

Afar from our sweet revelry. Ocean's shadowy might

And our wild, aerial glee !
Breathes good-night,
!

But plunge into our gulfs, and cease, Good-night

Finding there a sweet release
Kynanxe Cove.
Foam, like lace illumined, smiles
Round the feet of granite piles ;

O'er sunny sands for miles and miles. O YEARS!

Along the breezy briny bay.
Melodiously we plash and play ;
O YEARS, years, years !

Our wild joy's tumultuous sound Would ye were rolled away.

Fills the air and all around ;
And I, 'mid April smiles and tears.

You are young, and you are old. With my true love at play.
You are warm, and you are cold. O years, years, years.
Never wearying we sing. Who were all one May !

All our foamy bells we ring Ah I the fragrant pine,

The fountain's pure, low bubble ;

Away ! away ! away Flowers fondle her feet and mine

Link hands with ours in play, Air-and-bird-wings trouble
 ! ! ! ; ; ; ! ;

45^' DYING
Lightly light young leaves By still water they would rest,

Of our enchanted wood, In the shadow of the tree ;

While the season weaves After battle sleep is best,

Around our vernal mood After noise tranquillity.
A beautiful silk sheath
Of sight and scent and sound,
Where we lie warm and breathe.
Softly folded round.
LOVE: TO A
And our young pulses bound.
As of old the wildered dove.
Wandering over waters dark,
O years, years, years !

Finding neither fount nor grove,

That have nor warmth nor sun.
Sought shelter in her home, the ark,
And little else that cheers,
We are drifting on
With other things that were So my little one, my love,
Rose-red once and fair.
Turns my restless heart to thee,
O years, years, years
Weary, wheresoe'er she rove
Drooping bowed to earth
O'er the inhospitable sea.
With sorrows, wrongs, and fears,
Radiant your birth, Time hath linked us heart to heart
All one morning-mirth With links of mutual memory.
Now feeble, faint, in tears, Of gentle power if aught would part
Wings low trailed in dust, To bind us close until we die.

On your mail the rust,

Years, years, years If the world arise to sever,
Steals a tiny spirit-hand.
Glides to reunite us ever,
From the holy silent land.

DYING
Find the birthplace of sweet Love ;

They are waiting on the shore All our fairest gifts may go,
For the bark to take them home Yet will He immortal prove.
They will toil and grieve no more Fairest of all gods we know !

The hour for release hath come.

All their long life lies
Like a dimly blending dream
There is nothing left to bind
Find his nest within the grove
Of mystic manifold delight,
behind,
Though all the summer leaves remove,
;
He will abide through winter's night
Unsearchable the ways of Love !

To the realms that only seem. Though all the singing choirs be gone.
Love himself will linger on.

They are wailing for the boat,

There is nothing left to do ;
Discover hidden paths of love,
What was near them grows remote, Explain the conmion miracle.
Happy silence falls like dew Dear abundant treasure-trove,
Now the shadowy barkcome, is Celestial springs in earthly well,
And the weary may go home. In human vase Heaven's cenomel
 ; ; ;

BALLAD OF THE DEAD MONK 459

Me and my village friend through shine and

PASSION shower
Crowned, pacing level sands by foamy flood ;

O PALE my where shall we ride?

lady, Tintagel, thy dark legendary tower
Into the forest dark and wide, Dreams o'er the seas of Tristram and Isoud
Into the roaring deep sea-tide. By cliff and cavern gleam Romance's aery
You and I only, side by side ? brood !

Your eyes, like stars in a well's clear gloom, Toward thee, wild Treryn Dinas, oft I

May be sinister orbs imposing doom, steer,

Gates of life, or doors of the tomb, From whose weird form wake melancholy
Yet mellower than moonlit foam wings
Your burning beauty warms the room. Of cloudy memories divinely dear ;

Thou lookest all unutterable things,

CHng to me, ding to me, lady mine, Haunt of some mystic atmosphere that clings
Your lips are more than the red red wine, From faintly-imagined, vanished Druid time,
Your flower white glows in the rosy shine. While a low wind, like one demented,
We quaff to-day from a draught divine, sings.
And still I pine, I pine, I pine !
Or murmurs a lorn, incoherent rhyme
Of mariners wrecked here since Earth was in

pale my lady, and were you death, her prime.

Kissing away the soul's own breath,
1 would follow, for all cold Reason saith. I love Bedruthan's frowning, storm-swept
Even where Ruin raveneth !
steep.
Saint Columb's minster -caverned purple
gloom.
Where bosoms of the babe-waves heave in
THE COAST OF CORNWALL sleep :

Around Tol-Pedn's sombre height they boom

For me, true son of Erin, thou art rife,
Through tall fantastic arches glancing foam ;

Grand coast of Cornwall, cliff, and cave, and

By grey Saint Levan, surge-ringed Rundle-
surge.
stone,
With glamour of the Kelt. Strong sons at
Whose bell wave-tolled hath learned sad
strife
sounds from Doom,
With wind and wave if healthier influence
How often do I wander all alone.
purge
With quest bewildered hearing the sea's
Not wholly yet from wrecker's blood, nor
monotone !

merge
All in mild manners, yet there do not fail
Ancestral hero hearts and lives to urge
Their native virtue, that will never pale BALLAD OF THE DEAD MONK;
In any strait, nor cringe, nor need to wear a
veil.
OR, BROTHER BENEDICT

Tired hearts' refreshment, friend, glad life

The monk upon the bier lies dead

was mine
Hearing rich music in Lamorna's bower ;
Seven tapers burn by him ;

Robed brethren at the feet, the head,

And where thy whelming, tawny dunes incline,
Saint Piran waveward, many a siren hour
!
Chaunt a low requiem.
 ; ; : ! ! !

460 BALLAD OF THE DEAD MONK

Deep gloom involves the vaulted church, . . What ails

. the body on the bier?
Save where the moon's pale face What troubleshakes the dead?
Shows through unbarred doors of the porch All shrink aloof, heart-chilled with fear
A misty mountain grace. The corpse, eyes open, said :

He came, a knight of high degree,

" By the just judgment of the Lord,
His former life untold ;
I am damned I my spirit

The noble proud served lowlily, For evil life now reaps reward,
With thoughts that self-enfold. Hell-fire my sins inherit.

" Mine own ill-deeds environ me,

Self-scourged in stony cells he prayed ;

Himself did sore afflict Build dungeons of deep sorrow,

Thorned sarks on delicate flesh he laid The live pit-walls laugh loud their glee,
Men called him Benedict. Yesterday, now, to-morrow

Or he would roam the lonely hills,

"Ye lambs my selfish pleasure stained,

Where faintly floats the chime

Who once were virgin snow
An eyrie the far cloister dwells
;
O burden not to be sustained!
Pity ! I suiTer so !

Upon the crag sublime.

"Nay, look not with your dovelike eyes

The brother came in bygone years,
On me, your murderer I

A wild-eyed penitent The death-shroud o'er my spirit lies.

Now famed for vigil, fasting, tears.
Your blood streams over her.
The brethren o'er him bent.

" O'er lonely realms I wander far,

They kissed the hands, they kissed the feet Following a marish-gleam ;
God dowers with gifts of healing Me ever the false elfin star
A saint so pure, for Earth unmeet. Eludes ; I do but dream.
Ripe for Heaven's revealing. . . .

" O dreadful luring breasts and arms !

. . . Yet under the monk's shadowy cowl. Witch banquets with no name !

On that carven countenance, Bondslave am I to baleful charms.

Do writhen anguish, and a scowl That feed on me like flame.
Mate with heavenly trance ?
XVII
" By ruined shores rove alone,
I

In pace requiescat ! roll, Dull storm-beaten brine

rain, !

O solemn, dirgeful sound ! By cliff and cave heart-broken moan,

Fill pause in prayer for human soul. Low light on the sea-line.
Vast torrent-boom profound ! . . . Dim, desolate, like mine !
 ; ;; ;

BALLAD OF THE DEAD MONK 461

XVIII XXVI
" Mine own unquenchable desire, " Avaunt, foul torturers, in the Name
Ambition, lust, consumes. Of Him who died on cross !

Clothes me with a shirt of fire Now will I lead thee from thy shame,
I mourn among the tombs." Although thou suffer loss.

XXVII
. The phantom words were like a wail " Fly with me where the healing streams
. .

Of low wind in the vault From bloomy hills descend ;

Resuming, " May your prayer prevail Where leafy groves with birds and beams
To loose me from my fault " I
Melodiously blend."

XXVIII

They prayed less poignant grew the tone.

;
The vision-gifted monk beheld
. . . He seemeth to converse What men by him discerned not,
With one invisible, unknown. Whose eyes wide-wondering were held,
Who lighteneth the curse. A rigid form that turned not.

XXIX
Transfigured was the common boy.
A monk affirmed he saw and heard
The form grew radiant
A semblance in the air,
;

The face, a sunrise of deep joy,

As of a child, pale, tattered, marred.
Like Christ, the child of want.
Of aspect little fair.

Now one whom he hath injured most

'
' Who art thou , dear ?
'
' saith the dead brother.
Brings pardon of her love ;
With accent marvelling.
" Not know me?
The weak twain were a mighty host,
left by mine own mother,
And through great armies clove
You found me wandering. ;

His own will heartened strove.

XXIII
XXXI
'*
In that black bitter night of snow ;
She came, the woman he did wound,
So faint I scarce may move Lay weeping on his breast
Food, shelter, clothes, were mine with you ;
She loosed him, in the grave-clothes bound.
And more you gave me love. — And lulled despair to rest.

XXXII
" You took me home, and by your side Intent the straining senses drank
Set in my rags and dirt, Looks, words, of soft repose,
You found me friends ; I early died ; And then poor eyelids gently sank.
My father none shall hurt. As when Love's fingers close.

XXXIII
" Thou father of my heart, so dear ! Each awed own
cell hath gone
to his ;

I am but a poor child ;

Night folds the world in gloom ;

Yet I may use the Name they fear. The dead are sleeping still as stone ;

These, lurid, and defiled. So ends a tale of doom.

 ! ; ! ; —

462 SEVERN, FRIEND OF KEATS

Fair spoil washed here from precious

SEVERN, FRIEND OF KEATS freight
Of that fair ship which bore the state
Severn, dear Severn, friend of our boy- Of royal pilgrim, guard and priest,

bard, Journeying to a marriage feast,

Thy hallowed offices of love for whom And here by winds and billows broken,
Through that long closing agony in Rome When the fatal word was spoken ;
Outshine bright beams of great verse we Where now in lordly isolation
would guard I
Our waters, after devastation.
Among the soul's regalia unmarred, Wander with their wild, free voice,
Thy patient loxang care in that dark doom Causing wild hearts to rejoice.

That fell on Keats, the singer, doth illume Wander through the lordly halls
Our night of life above the noblest word Echoing their lone foot-falls,
Of noblest poet ;
yet I love the boy Singing songs that charm and cheer,
Who sang and suffered, saw the glorious sight Warbled for no mortal ear

Behind the poor appearance, child of light, Yet if one surprise their scope,
Told some of his high vision, nursed a joy He will be blessed beyond all hope.

Undreamed by those who stoned him, sons

of earth. Beyond the demon-guarded portal,

Denying, hating, envying his high birth. Fashioned by no hands of mortal,

THE CALL OF THE CAVES
"We allure you, lo! we
Into our storm-moulded hall.
Where the emerald water-pulse
Moves the laver and the dulse.
Where swim cloud-white living gems
Of dream-born form jade, amber stems
;
Bud living flowers we liberal fling
; Under a storm-wrought
Live jewels o'er drowned queen and king.
While the haughty heads of them
With some consuming diadem
Of clinging life we crown white limbs
Our oozy robe corroding dims
Ship timbers jammed between great stones
Are mixed with fish-peeled human bones
Grotesque mailed creatures sidle athwart
From some dark cranny of their fort.
Here the yellow sands are silting
Over lips how lately lilting,
Here the shadowy waters moving
Over hearts how lately loving
Our lilac and our purple dye.
Where towering monsters still as stone
Hear old ocean's monotone
Sound and resound for evermore,
Watch the restless entrance-floor
By rude purple rock roofed o'er,
call Whose rippled surface-hues invoke
Memories of woodland smoke
Beyond where twilit water reaches.
There be dim mysterious beaches.
Whence should put forth some elfin bark
To ferry pilgrims toward the dark
architecture,
That fills the soul with strange conjecture.
Where a courage-conquering sound
Travels from the gulf profound.
; Like muffled thunder murmureth.
; As though some sea-god threatened death,
Drowsy-souled, with bated breath.
To whosoever dared intrude
Upon his awful solitude
Here unhuman consciousnesses
Inhabit green sea-drowned recesses,
Clothed in a fantastic form,
Native to the realms of storm.
And ocean calm, the mystic deep;
Where many thrilling secrets sleep.

Our shelly incrustations vie Come and swim, or wade, or float,

With gold embossed, rich broidery. Bring the light, oar-dripping boat I
 ;; ! ;; ! ! ; ;

THE CALL OF THE CAVES 463

Here's rare fretwork, hued like wine, WTiile the centuries rolled by,
More richly gemmed than storied shrme, Slow-fashioned there in irony
Or monstrance clear piscina pool
;
Of Gothic minster, Gothic creed,
With fair)- lives made beautiful, Human worship, human need ;

Finely frilled, and delicate tinted, For there the wind sings all the psalms.

Or shyer beauties only hinted ;

With the wave in storms and calms.
Here landwater ceaseth not Whose congregations pouring in
Dropping from the groined grot. Know nor penitence, nor sin ;

Whose tender fresh green ferns above There unseen they hold high revel.

Look like a dream of virgin love. No thralls to righteousness or evil.

We allure you, lo ! we call Rich traceries on the clifi" were wrought

Into our storm-moulded hall By subtle hands with tempest fraught,
Where the shadowy wave is still. O'er that great Eastern front rust-red.
If you who are so weary will. Grey or golden, high and dread.
Crooning, we will rock to rest Shagged with byssus like a beard.
In the twilight of our breast Where the wild bird broods are reared.
In sleep we would all ills disperse, Ere they assay their glorious flight
Crooning like some ancient nurse, Round the blue-imbathed hoar height.
And dissolve the ancestral curse
But that rude mimicry of fanes
Vet there is one private gate. The mocking mountain ill sustains,
Consecrate to royal state With his huge protending flanks,
Of ocean billows there they dance
;
And the maned sea-surge in ranks
Buoyant under the sun's glance, Chafing round his iron feet
Clear-green, hilarious, in and out. For such a part he's all unmeet!
Foam-laughing, ever-fluctuant rout; Bastion, buttress, battered, bruised,

Fair traces of their blithe swift feet Spire with pinnacle confused
In heaved long floating lines you meet, Were ne'er for human worship used ;

Long loose lines of silver foam Rough-hewn battlements and towers

Round high rock ramparts of their home Bewray the Elemental Powers
O'er these faint shadows of the clouds Lawless, abrupt, their lines have nought
Slowly mount, like welcome shrouds ; Of human but the Genii wrought
;

Within the surges hold high revel. Jamb, soffit, frieze, and architrave,
All unaware of good or evil, For giant porches of the wave.
But what they do in that dim court The huge pile leans to view the sky,
Is known to them who there resort. And all his mighty lines awry
And to none other the rude arch,
;
Reveal the mountain-irony
Sacred to their sounding march, So some huge Pagan, masked as priest

So hewn as though the forked levin At a solemn Christian feast,

Had been the norm for walls uneven. Might leer and reel, disguise let fall ;

Leans back upon the sheer grey crag. Stand revealed a Bacchanal
Loud haunt of sea-bird, mer, and shag.
Or gulls that gleam in poised flight . Here a boy who sought a nest
. .

About the grey cathedral height. Was by reverent hands to rest

laid

A herb-sown pentroof crowns the pile. In winter he was prisoned here.

That doth the soaring eyes beguile Away from all who held him dear,
Aloft o'er what seems window vast, By ravening waves the loud winds churn
Which Time, the old Iconoclast, To humble home they barred return.
 ! !

464 THE SPIRIT OF STORM

Though he and his with longing eye But westward from my lair the crags are
One another could descry shattered
Beyond the maniac revelry, Into the semblance of a palace-fort,
Of cold and drought they saw him die. Or temple hypiethral, tower and battlement,
Surge batteries had availed to sever Pinnacle, buttress, gurgoyled arch and spire.
By long, implacable endeavour Chasms yawn between twin walls one longs :

This arid isle from the mainland. to know

Save for one causeway none might stand
;
Where, and how far, into the mountain heart
There when it was tempest-swept, They labyrinthine wander one would fain ;

And the wild billows o'er it leapt. Ask of the restless surge, or the wild bird.
Who are made free of them, who wander ever
Still they allure me, still they call Unchallenged in and out the sombre halls.
Into their storm-moulded hall! And corridors roofed over with wan cloud,
Ceiled with the storm-drift Hurrying ! —
vapours gleam
Anon with slant pale shafts from the veiled
THE SPIRIT OF STORM sun.
Hail, royal ocean! in thy presence-chamber Watery pour
rays, that faintly fitful

Arrived, I feel thy deep abounding life A on the deep.

ruffled silver lustre

Transfused into my blood, replenishing Irradiating the white wings of mews.

My dwindling store alone, and at thy
; feet. That hover o'er the abysses but more bright ;

Dear as are human hearts, I am at home And warm this ardent beam from forth my-
heart.
Sheltered within a cleft of the tall crag. That blesseth and illumineth with love,
Granite of many delicate tints, I hear Beloved birds your multitudinous cry.
!

The wind's vast voice make chorus with the Music I dearly cherish far inland ;

sea's, Erewhile I heard the wail of one of you

Broken upon grim, dark rock-teeth below, Imprisoned ; mine eyes melted ; for there
Ruins of the mainland neighbouring which
; flashed.
the shoals As though revealed in a dark night by
Are green as beryl, wine-stained with the lightning.
weed Hashed unaware upon my sense within,
Of stone submerged one wrinkled indigo
; The vision of the glory of the sea
Watery wastes aloof from shore, inlaid
With devious lines, like branching iriercury. Ye weave delightful motions in the air,
The groundswell, sullen heaving, shows the Passing, repassing ; call to one another.
sea And cherish in the abysses your brown young.
Perturbed by rumours of far water-war. Now one alights upon the bounding wave
Atlantic reigns immeasurable, alone, A moment now he cleaves the darkling air.
;

Far as the weary wandering eyes can range. How the unfettered sweep of his poised pinion
Save for one ghostlike, mist-enshrouded isle Vies in majestic freedom with the fall
There in the ofting, and more nigh at hand, Of a blown billow in mid-ocean, driven,
Yon brown sail of the bark that brought me Fierce-hounded by the blast the roller bows !

hither, With large, deliberate, imperial bend

And bears dear comrades, great -limbed Of haughty crest, and massy-muscled neck.
fishermen, Neck clothed with thunder, as the Roman
Whose grave reserve derives from the stern fell.

sea. Who in the Curia, at the feet of Pompey,

 !; ; ; ; !

THE SPIRIT OF STORM 465

By treachery struck, fell, royal-robed, a king. Have counterparts more terrible within ;

So swings, so falls, the Atlantic wave to ruin. Those rend the body, these lay waste the
Smitten by immense vans of the strong south- soul.
west ;

For all is noble and grand about the sea. One sees his brethren crushed to earth
and maimed,
O hymn sublime, confounded, infinite Tortured, and slowly ground to powder,
Of Tempest, how the chaos in my soul starved.

Responds to your appeal, and drifts with Harried by hard Vicissitude, or Man
cloud More cruel then he questions, doubts,
;

I too am worn with many moods at war, denies

Wind thwarting tide ; stern duty, passion, The omnipotent God of justice and of love.

love,
To whom he hands in prayer,
lifted childish

Wrestle while, unresolved to harmony, Taught by a sainted mother whom she ;

They urge me blindly, violent, confused. trusted

The old-world order passeth, and the new Through a long life, and, dying, leaned upon.

Delaying dawns, one crimson, loud with

voices
We may not find the wholly excellent

We know not, with wild

we vainly seek
wars in earth and
In frail mortality ;

Or in ourselves, or others, for the type

heaven
The fountains of the great Deep are broken up, Which hides within the Heart of the Most
Threatening deluge our firm earth goes
High,—
;

Foundation-stone of this inferior sphere.

under
Even as well-beloved familiar stars
More loudly roars the tempest in my soul
Beneath the dusk horizon disappear
For all the creeds make shipwreck on grim
For him who journeys over alien seas,
reefs
So the ideals of our childhood change ;
Of iron Fact before mine eyes no charts :

And as for such lone wanderers there rise

Of olden time have laid them down dis- ;

Clear constellations all unknown, for us

covered
Ideas undivined of common weal
But yesterday, the ravening surge for prey
New duties are the children of new needs,
Claims the pale crews, who have embarked
And wider wants yet in the onward way
;
their all
Stand venerable godlike forms opposed,
On such frail planks, firm Faith, aspiring
Reverend from usage and dear memory.
Hope,
Young-faced ideals, rosy like the dawn,
High confidence that all will yet be well.
Beckoning promise joy, then eagerly
We hurtle old familiars, while we wound Sheltered a little in the rude cliff-cleft,
Hearts well beloved, responsive to their call. I sit and hear the turmoil of the storm,
And full-mouthed ardours of their warm Where strange small fissures in the lofty crag
embrace. Suggestdwarfhomesofsome weird troglodyte,
Then Conscience bleeds, for Virtue shocks Or dim cave-tombs of a long buried race
with Virtue While round white boulders near high-water
And sweet Affection, on the embattled plain, mark
While Passion raving more embroils the Lie under ; rain flings full athwart the stone.
strife.

And what is duty, what is only pleasure. I send my spirit adrift upon the storm,
In the uncertain glimmer who can tell ? Careering along the triumph of the blast,
Tumultuous conflicts in the elements Exultant ! well I know the living God,
2 G
 " ; ! ; !

466 THE SPIRIT OF STORM

God the creator, for destroyer too ; Through Man, through Nature ! or say that
Who purifies by hurricane, evolves he permits,
From birth-throes of rebellion, fraught with Who could prevent ! nay, freely choose your
fear, horn
Perplexity and pain, the common weal, Yet Reason proves Intelligence supreme ;

Kaised to a higher excellence wise measures, : Not Force nor Chance unfathomable then
; ;

With blind experiment, crude theory That all-wise Will, that moral character.
Of men who deem that they initiate. By the plumb-line of our intelligence.
Yea, feel in them the mystical free-will,
Though whirled in broad winds of seonian I fling my heart abroad on waves of
motion. pleasure,
Wheeled in predestined orbits round their For pleasure is a very friend of man
sun, And yet would moderate, would guide my
Man.
All issue in the nobler type of course,
Lo the World-Soul commandeth to emerge
! A calm, strong switnmer ; with a modern
From dead, resolved, more simple forms the mind
higher Float in the turbulence of revolution.
Through pain, defect, death, folly, sorrow, Challenge outworn, intolerable Wrong,
sin, That may have been for olden times fair

Compelleth all to be themselves, through all. Right,

And still, amid the clash of swords and sounds,
From thee, O mystic Mother, deeply dark, Forebear, enraptured, heavenly harmonies ;
From thee, O mother Nature, impulse floweth, In tattered, streaming banners of the cloud.
Urging mankind to launch, like wintering Marching to battle, would divine, foreknow
bird, The vision of the firmly founded State,
Upon the unknown dim airs, by faith to find The calm, eternal City of the Lord. . . .

Fair undiscovered realms beyond the dawn !

From thee the whisper, never disobeyed, . . . Huge purple phantoms, ash-pale
" Advance a pace into the Infinite ; wings, wan, wide.
Claim young dominions from the formless Are marshalled as for conflict ; and they
Deep !
move
For Man is child of Nature ; on her breast outline deep
Momently changing their weird ;

He lieth ; she feeds him ; body feeds and Growls a far thunder lo a sudden glare ; !

mind Within them tells of angers while the main ;

From her more large, her all-involving soul. Reflects pearl, Tyrian dyes, chalcedony,
Change wells from dark unfathomable Founts And opal, from the interspaces, clear
Of Love and Wisdom other, more than ours A moment, shining, delicately veiled.
Ours a poor rill from these and therefore we ;

Must fail to comprehend them yet we know The people now begin to reach warm hands
;

Wisdom and Love are by the Antagonist Of fellowship athwart the estranging bounds
Absorbed, assimilated in farworlds Of sea and land, for mutual defence
Beyond our knowledge ; though we travel Against the common tyrant, who can crush
thither. Them jealous, disunited, one by one.
For mutual service are the countries linked
But who of us that loved would murder By thrilling nerves electric how they flash ;

one With human feeling, swift intelligence

Child by slow torture ? worse the Highest While great fire-breathing vessels, throbbing
doth trains,
 ;

THE SPIRIT OF STORM 467

Hurry the many-languaged throngs from All are in Him, and He abides in all.

home, Will not the Soul, inHer immortal flight

With bales of produce for exchange, fair Along the ages, change Her loss to gain ?
wrought But Virtue pushes from Her sepal-sheath,
By whirHng-Hmbed machines ; thus arteries Proving a prison, though it sheltered well
Are highways for the transport of supplies And in Her alien habit of the flower
To every several organ ; and the frame Men may mistake Her for Her fallen fair
Yields to imaginative informing thought, sister.
That moulds a many-functioned manifold
Into one body from an embryo. I, when I dared presumptuous to ascend
Confiasion reigns for eyes that only view The perilous heights of contemplation, left
Cells moving blindly through a tiny tract Void windows of the outer sense but now ;

Of seeming at cross-purposes
tissue, ;
Keen glances filled them gazing, I beheld
;

And so the Race, through varying minds and The Empyrean wholly clear of cloud.
wills. All azure, save for what appeared the wing
And clashing ends of personality, Of a great Angel, guardian over all,
Grows to one Body, after that
Type, fair Plumy, and soft, and full-irradiate,
In the eternal mind of the Most High. Reaching athwart wide heaven until it ;

grew
For me, I would be faithful, point the way To some celestial armour, like chain- mail ;

To heights communing with ethereal worlds, Only the links were tender down, with blue
Though myself should stumble on the spurs
I Between the interstices mild ocean under
;

F'ar under; yet in face of all their clamour Mirrored blue air, and alabaster cloud ;

Would save the Good uninjured ; but the Ark It seemed as calm indeed as when oi old
Is God's, not mine ; the whole wide world One stilled the angry waves on Galilee !

His own. And all the storm was hushed within my

How should He lose one single creature in it? heart.
 MY SEA
AND OTHER POEMS
1896
 —— — ; ! ; —
; ;

MY SEA
MY SEA, MY SEA Ah ! the fault is all in me,
Who seek what here never be.may
MY SEA, my sea ! Who adore ethereal dreams,
From east to west thou callest me, That lend our earth few fleeting gleams
From east to west I follow thee ; And yet I know one glimpse of Love
1of the homeless heart go home Is more than mines or treasure trove ;

To hear thy lullaby of foam, But he hath swift wings like a dove ;

Thou homeless sea. Light-nets on clear-water sand

Whose dear voice hath no promise broken ; Are less than Love's entangling band ;

Of disappointing change no token Silent, unaware they come,

Thy sweet monotony of sound Silent, unaware, pass home ;

Involveth, and thou callest me ; But when Love flieth, when he fadeth.
There's little human left so true Pain grows for something that degradeth ;

As thy deep billowy breast of blue Thy shores are flecked with crimson weed.
To lay the weary head upon, But Love's with drops from hearts that bleed ;

Whose earthly day is nearly done So for me, for me

Thy crystal doors would let me through My lipping, leaping, laughing sea
To the infinite beyond My sea, my sea
From this our life's too galling bond :

Whether on the pebbly beach.

Or on sand, thy tender speech
Makes living music, or on rock INCONSISTENT
The jubilant dear surges shock,
I hear thy voice, A PROUD man, I adore the lowly.
And I rejoice, Sinful, kneel before the holy.
Who was so very full of pain, Unclean, fall prone before the pure ;

Ideemed I could not smile again. Rebel, salute Who did endure
They ask why —
since I set my dwell- Unmurmuring give blow for blow,
;

ing Yet Ilim who, burdened with world's woe,

By thy billowy bosom swelling Unmindful of Mis own, fell low,
I do not seekmy holiday Glory to avow I serve
Inland : I know not what to say : And though men jeer, I will not swerve !

Why I travel not inland Lord, take my heart, and open it

Indeed I hardly understand ;
Judge Thou if that be hypocrite !

But, O my sea, my sea ! Gold, pomp, revenge, the sword, the drum.
Mystic voices summon me, Scorn flaunted full by Christendom,
And, like a weeping child, I come In face of Him we feign to follow.
O sheen elusive, fluctuant foam And worship with lip-service hollow !

Where you sing your lullaby, Yet why take this mean Man for God,
There to live, or there to die. Unless for His poor, dark abode,
471
 ! ! ! " — ;

472 WILD LOVE ON THE SEA

Where gloweth Love's eternal fire, "You're the loveliest lady that ever was
We felt some hidden deep desire ? known ;

We are captive, who would fain be free 1 My rival I slew, and the bride is my own
Soul of my soul, O Lord, deliver me! Warm bosom to bosom, hot mouth unto
mouth,
We are flying to lovelier lands of the
South. ..."
WILD LOVE ON THE SEA " Nay, the sky's growing darker, I fain would
"
return
"O SING to me, sing to me, foam of the
" Your doubts are too late, love, your scruple
Sea,
I spurn ;

Sing, while we sail, to my darling and me,

" I fear thee, I fear thee, fierce lover of mine;
While we heel to the wind, the foam flies
Thy lips are the wild wave, thy breasts are
from the bow. !"
the brine
My love laughs, we were never so happy as
now " Ho ! with storm to the windward, and
breakers to lee.
" We rush through the water, we scatter the They go swimming with Death, who go
"
spray. sailing with me !

The foam-bubbles leap in the blue light

away.
My sails are less white than your bosom or
hand, NOCTURNE
We will sail on for ever afar from the land.
At the close of a day in December
I went by the winter sea,
" O dotards may mumble their winterly talk.
And my soul was a fading ember
But the young joy of living their age may
In abysms of immensity.
not baulk.
We shall soon be beyond their bleak Northerly Then God spake out of the gloaming.
Clime, Where the wave gave over strife.
Who fain would persuade us that love is a And fell, wan, feeble, and foaming

crime. " Man, what hast thou done with life?"

me, I was ware of a mournful throbbing.

•'
Never fear, never fear, nestle closer to
Of a seapulse on the shore,
O we joy to bound over wild waves and
And I heard in it women sobbing.
be free
For our bridal sing, winds! and, blithe
Whom I loved and who loved me of yore.

billows, your song In a rift of the cloudy distance

Breathe into your clarion loudly and long Lay blood from the fallen sun.
While the wind, with a low insistence,
"Winds whistle, and fill the full-bellying sail; Like a breaking heart moaned on.
Yea, what if they rise, and blow shrill to a

gale? O blithely the sun ascended

My boat is a rare one, she swims like a With carol of bird and breeze !

bird— And now, his career being ended.

Ha! what if the roar on the reefs may be He fell through the leafless trees,

heard ? Amid sighing sounds of seas.

 ; ; " ; ;

AT PORTHCURNO 473

Do the life and the work fail wholly The presence of the child
For a man who hath lived and loved ? That made my world so fair
Through the joy and the melancholy From whose frame undefiled
With finishing hand God moved. The soul fled otherwhere !

O lilt of playful wave,

dance of wild green billow.
Winning spells ye have,
AT PORTHCURNO Each following his fellow ;

Clash, confound your foam

O RUDE cliff-castle pile, In your aerial home,
resonant shell-shore, Refluent from the stone
Your clear green waters smile On following wave to run,
In sunshine as of yore. Immingling treble laughter
Rebuffed from the grave granite rock With his that follows after !

With many a frolic water-shock ! And yet surpassing this

Their laughter glads your sand Were peals of boyish bliss,
With delicate white foam, When he danced with you.
A dancing light green band And laughed into the blue I

Under a deep blue dome. Ah, what a harmony

It is the same blithe scene Were then the earth and sky !

Of wild aerial glee ;

Now too like a knell.
But years have rolled between Wanting the master-spell,
My happy past and me ! Their music seems to fall
And yet aloud I call, On a heart beneath a pall
In fellowship with all, For while live air I quaff,
1 catch my breath for joy 1 seem to hear him laugh
To see the wavelets toy. . . . With the breeze and brine,
Till stabbed to the heart I fall. And, hearing him, I pine.
Remembering my boy Yonder is the cot white-walled,
For where the wavelets toy, Where I brooded o'er my rhyme,
He did out-dance the hours. And the solitude ne'er palled
Out-dance the briny brood. Amid the fragrance of the thyme
Arrayed in soft sea-flowers. By wild wave and cliff sublime ;

While I defied the flood, Yet I do not love them less,

At flood-tide of my powers ! Now I feel my loneliness,

My forehead strikes the stone ;
Nor brook that hurries toward the Sea,
Convulsed with sobs I moan, To hide in His Eternity !

Hear voices calling, " Come, And mine are a few hearts who love
To rest beneath the foam !
More than wastes of foam that rove !

But, ah, sweet sea you conquer me

!

The day was even as this, With your unconquerable glee !

Heaven wore as clear a brow, I plunge, do what you will with me !

Sea and earth one bliss Every fluctuant foam-blossom.

Ah what is wanting now
! ? Glassed within a limpid bosom,
The sunshine of the breast. Foamy hair, dishevelled blown
Youth more blithe than day, In all the glory of the sun,
Whose every wild behest How ye race toward the shore
Unwearying limbs obey ! Immingling on a shelly floor,
 ; !! —— ;

474 EROS IN MAY

Labyrinthine lines of light
Dallying with you in your flight,

While the gleaming birds above ISANDULA

Hover over fish that move
In the lucid realms they love.
Near the close of the dim day
That saw defeat of England's pride.
Oh, how the young air abounds
With happy musical sea-sounds !
Two horsemen cleave their torrent way
Through the dusk overwhelming tide
Waves are they, or young children's voices ?
Of those who hurl the assagai
The world is young my heart rejoices
! !

Ruin yawns above their ride.

And surely he cannot be far
Swarthy warriors mown like hay
From here where such sweet voices are !

Carrying with them England's colours

I will follow where you lead,
From the field of death and dolours,
Flow over me, or wind your weed ;
Riding from Isandula.
In a cave I'll learn your rede ;

Where reposing at full length

I may recover youth and strength. Never draw they bridle rein.
Followed by the loud pursuit
Their swift gallop burns the plain
Until either gallant brute
EROS IN MAY Failing with the mighty strain
Faints with ebbing life on foot
Maybi.oom foameth pink and white, ;

Applebloom hath purple light,

They take up the flight again,
Carrying with them England's colours
Butterflies have fairy flight,
Leaves dally in their young delight.
From the field of death and dolours,
After dark Isandula.
Goldencups with burnished boat
On billowy verdure blithely float
They have reached the swollen river.
In labyrinths under, dim, remote,
Lurid twilight falls around.
Daisy and speedwell blend their fine " Comrade, now or never,"
One cries
Trebles in the joy divine,
Both have plunged in the profound.
While yellow-dusted bees hum over
For the goal of their endeavour
Honied purple of the clover.
Is to land on English ground ;

Soft, fertile gold fills every flower, From their flag no fiend may sever ;

Birds warble and pair in every bower

They will save oldEngland's colours
;

We yield to Life's abounding power !

From the field of death and dolours.
Now, or never, Love's full hour !
Flying from Isandula

Laburnum burned in burning blue, Two warriors on the further shore

Windwaves o'er sheeny grasses flew Whose crimson glows
;
with other red,
No blossom was more fair than you ;
Gashed and waterstained and frore.
Longing lips together grew !

Their countrymen discover dead.

Now warm kisses melt, combine.

Our colours round their waist they wore.

Limbs are white and warm and fine. Royal on their lowly bed !

Love is more than mantling wine. England on their heart they bore
All or nothing, lady mine !
Wound in emblems of Her glory.
She remembers them in story.
June 1889. Weeping for Isandula
 ! ; — —— ; — ;

MIDNIGHT 475

We wonder at their funerals ;

To-morrow men will bear our palls.

MIDNIGHT
Sure that we always grieve
shall
Ah, how soon the tears are dry I

Bewildered in aworld of stars, Vowing we will always cleave

I wander in the dim midnight ;
To one love only, how we sigh
November mist their glory mars, At other feet, yea, lightly leave
Bare boughs relieved on doubtful light Ere Death can hasten to bereave !

I cower beneath the infinite. Poor broken wrecks of Love and Joy
Unseen one paces by my side. Lie stranded on the shores of Time
The past gone far beyond recall Our Reason, a fool's broken toy,
Where now the laughter, joy, and pride, Once loomed so wondrous and sublime !

Of life before the autumn fall ? Weak feet are ours yon heights to climb.
My heart lies under a dull pall. And O what puny hands to span
Dear forms and voices of my dead !
Twin spheres of nature, and of man !

Restore them, O thou milky way ! One treads an insect into earth
Serene you shine, though they are fled ! —
Unheeding ne'er a jest nor jeer
The maze of worlds, cold, awful, grey, Yet some inviolable hearth
Abides unchanged, but where are they ? Of private conscious life was here !

I cower beneath chill eyes unmoved, High Mundane Powers mock man's despair,
And like a lost child weeping go : Who recked not even what we were.
May hearts once loving and beloved But crushed us in their awful mirth.
Be nought, while ye are all aglow ? Young Love, who leaps to life like Rhine,
Nor you, nor them, nor self I know. Child of the hills, reverberates morn,
Where are they ? only wild winds wail. With laughter and with joy divine,
Or wander moaning on the wold : Exulting only to be born ;

Far surges on the rocks are rolled : He crowned, abounding, feeds with corn
Gloom-involving mind will fail, The races, warms their hearts with wine,
And the warmest heart lie cold. Yet the Life that blest the lands
O whelming wilderness of stars. Dies dwindled in ignoble sands I

Of whom some never spake to men !

Blind behind our mortal bars,

Dare we boast our eagle-ken,
Vaunt poor Earth the centre, when She swathed him in his comforter,
Other reasons, rights and wrongs, And watched him down the miry street
Joys, woes, battle-cries, and songs, The dreary dawn was all one blur ;

Reign yonder ? all-devouring gloom She heard the parting horse's feet.
Demands my soul to feed the tonib ! He serves the milk from door to door.
They darting rays of varied splendour The milkman his well-trusted friend ;

Mutual service royal render, But the mother him more

trusts
While evermore their lights advance To One who knows nor change nor
In solemn many-motioned dance. end
The pageant of the illumined Past — The boy returns whom she did lend
Surrounds me in dim dream-array ; — But how ? knifed, mutilated, stark,
Mine own, now vanished in the vast, With foulest outrage done to death !

Once more I hear their voices say, O power tremendous, dire and dark,
" Well-loved faces fade away : From Whom we all derive this breath,
"
We shall be like these one day ! (He slays, and He delivereth !)
 ; ! — ! ; !!

476 MIDNIGHT
Men owe Thee life and strength and IfOne who bore the wide world's pain
food Heartbroken, blest and trusted God,
Thou Thou canst bind
canst loose, and ! I may look up and smile again.
Vet I will Thee good,
not call Kiss the plague-enravelled rod.
And I dare not call Thee kind And follow where the Master trod.
Until Thou deafen and make blind ! Surely each is kin to all,

Is our awful world endued And man, a mirror of the whole ;

With Demon's heart, that pumps black Should worlds, gods, demons, aught appal
blood ? ^^^lo knows himself a conscious soul ?
With and accident,
sin, disease, Give me but time, no bounds may thrall
Thou doest what the murderer doth ! One who hath God Himself for goal
Amid wrecked trains burnt, scalded, rent, Ah, solitudes immense, profound!
Thou mangiest babes of cherished growth And lonelier solitudes within !

To tell the horrors Art is loth. Ye shine, O worlds, in solemn swound ;

Yoked to Hell's triumphal car
Toil we, prisoners of war
Ah, longer than my peers forlorn,
I held to what appeared firm hold.
But now wild winds and waves
sworn
All the discord, all the din
? Of acity's moil and sin
Heard from a tower or higher ground.
Blend to one great ocean-sound ;
have So from memories are lost
All we gladly would forget ;

The loss of one who seemed too bold ;

Faces white with Death's deep frost
And, plunged in the abysses cold, Lose the fever and the fret
Over me their night hath rolled. So yonder orbs in darkness met,
Each a silver tranquil ghost,
Lose all of vext and tempest-tost;
By mortal eyes undreamed in day,
Revealed alone to darkling night,
And yet, what little hearts are ours They rest so far, so far away,
To hold the miseries of the world! I deem their calm and gentle light
Behind our private belts of flowers For our consoling seems to say,
We play, nor view to ruin hurled "Absorbed within the Infinite,

Our kindred till for us Death lowers.

;
Deforming away,
evils fallen

And summons from the pleasant bowers. No dishonouring care can stain,
Dare not forecast the Future know — The Ideal only rule and reign " !

The doom that Fate reserves for you !

Look no World-Gorgons in the face I

Grisly Madness waits that way
Only help as help ye may
We have to pass the loathly place
To reach yon heights of holy Day,
Serenely shining far away.
Dear places, feelings, thoughts, will go,
; Calm revolving worlds will fail.
But when the stars have ceased to glow
Abideth One who ne'er can pale,
And all in Him, immortal, hale.
Our Life, abide whate'er remove,
;

So we justify the Lord, Remaineth the Eternal Love ;

And sword
kiss the terrible red !
And surely Love will reunite
Far throned hidden eternal state.
in Who wander sundered here in night
Though wingless, desolate, she roam. Surely Love will lead them home,
The Soul hath chosen all Her fate. However far afield they roam !

Now remembering not the Home,

Whereunto wealthier she will come. Begun November 1888 ; finished May 1889.
 ; ;! ! ! !; ! ! !;

LIGHT LOVE BY THE SEA-GLORY 477

Little shells on a yellow sand,

LIGHT LOVE BY THE With a wave-damascening.
mellowland.
SEA- GLORY Little wells in the
Eyes of deep meaning
O LOVE, how the chorus The glad ripple, in dancing
Of billowy laughter On the shore with a light froth,

Softens here for us, In his footing and glancing

And the winds' merry wafture Leaves it marked like a night-moth.
To a murmur subsideth, Gems in the carmine
Dulled by uneven Of dim fretted hollows
Cavewall that hideth The cave is a starmine
A span of blue heaven, Where the eye follows ;

And sunflashing ocean, Purple seaweeds are laving

Yet all in a minute In pure pools at leisure,
If you make a mere motion, Languidly waving
Your ear is full in it, With delicate pleasure ;

In the full tide of thunder Fantastical arches

Sea pours in his joying ;
With cloud's wavy margin,
Even so with blithe wonder W'here the ocean-wave marches,
A child who is toying Plumed cavalry charging
To a shell's heart may listen, You behold lonely islands
Hold the lips near, withdraw them ;
On the sea's azure through them ;

How the jewel waves glisten. I feel they are my lands,

While sunny winds flaw them I a bird flying to them.

Green billows are blending ... If the wet sand be sinking
Clear luminous bosoms, Under your frail foot,

Confusedly lending That in water land drinking

One another white blossoms Groweth down like a pale root,

Rank after rank they Sit here on my knee, love,

On the sand fall in froth, or 'Tis firmer and drier

Where iron cliffs flank, they Safe here will you be, love,
Rush athwart one another. From seas that aspire ;

Grow transient fountains Ah ! let us enjoy, love.

Cloudily foaming, The moment in flying

Robe grim craggy mountains Even while we toy, love,

Whitefurred with their coming. Daylight dying

is

Hear what a glorious Then will the hour come,

Wild warsong resounding. And touch with forgetting.
As from ever- victorious Stars over our numb
Hosts leaping and bounding ! Forms rising and setting.

Blue air is alive with Alive the World-Wonder

Young joy of their forces ;
Flames thundering onward.
Lo how they drive with
! And while we go under,
Tossed manes of white horses Earth sweepeth sunward
From flickering foam-blossom I acclaim the wild world-masque,
Shadows are sliding Who cease to be agent,
Down the waves' hollow-dome-bosom, Who, faint with my furled task.
Gleaming and gliding. Fall out of the pageant
 ; ; ! —— ;

478 TO
O God, O God, the duty is too hard
TO Ever, on every hand. Thy citadel to guard !

Yet, comrade, life is to be loved, and love

Comrade beloved, and helpful soulfellow,
!

Will not these two remain when all remove ?

I fear lest that fine pallor I admire,
However deep the abysses that divide.
Wherefrom by twilight of the rosy fire
Your eyes, like stars in limpid water, glow, However roars between the sundering tide !

From pain and frequent weariness may flow !

Ah more than one who loved me and my

!

TO
lyre
Hath left me darkling, and hath risen higher As one who rideth pale and weary
I pray thee, comrade, to abide below !
Through a barren lonely land
While the dull horizons dreary
With and with the Poet's heart
tuneful voice, Around, one solitude, expand
You and gladden our sad time.
sing to heal Finds unaware a limpid spring
With Mary you have chosen the better part, Of warbling water on the way.
Shedding soul-rays upon our weary clime ; Lovely home of flower and wing,
Neither your friend will yield you, nor your Gentle bird and flitting jay ;
Art Parched lips unto the fountain cling.
He needs yourself, and she requires your In those wan eyes there dawns a ray,
rhyme. New life to languid limbs they bring,
Chill October yields to May :

So thy brilliant bloom, thy prime,

TO
To my heart was when I met thee
Translation from the German O passion flower from sunnier clime,
In memory's garland have I set thee !

But once again, my spirit cries, Glorious gain, or honeyed harm.

I would behold thy face. Thine the subtle, witching charm ;

Ere in the sunshine of thine eyes In thy large, thy limpid eyes
I fade, nor leave a trace ! The labyrinthine mysteries.

It was a dream, a lovely dream, Aug. 9, 1893.

I livedwith thee, my love ;

All vanished, like the foaming gleam
That on the wave may move !
GREY EYES
There now remains in memory Lady of the large grey eyes.
Thine image, thine alone Limpid lakes, aerial skies,
;

My heart broods ever over thee, Home of heavenly harmonies

And longs for thee, mine own 1
Like a bird, my soul takes flight
To ample light.
lose herself in
Warm and deep and infinite
TO A COMRADE Soundeth all the gloaming mine,
Where the living jewels shine,
He said, "Now I shall go to sleep," ^ and Passeth happy languid hours.
died. Dreaming in the lovelit bowers.
Ah ! brother, when shall we rest side by Wanders meshed in mazy flowers !

side? Patience, Courage strong and true,

Pity dwells amid their dew.
1 Byron's last words. Tender flower soft and blue.
 —
! ; ; ;

NATURA NATURANS 479

for human pain,

Yea, from care So a fountain fails and flows.

Weeping warm and gentle rain. The organised high strain reverted
You would even embrace your bane. To formless murmur whence it rose.
Wanting only to sustain ! The hearer's heart dropped disconcerted.
Roused by wrong, the starry dream The flower withered to a close ;

Veileth all her tranquil beam ;

All the glowing glories faded.
Cloud-enshrouded lightnings dart Common day oppressed the view.
Angers of a righteous heart Dream-palace frontage blurred and shaded :

Hideth there an earthlier fire, And yet, ah yet, he hears anew,

To consume us on the pyre Evolving order from confusion.
Of wild, flame-beautiful desire? The rhymic travail throbbing low,
I know not only in your eyes
! Reforming kosmos no illusion.
;

Limpid, large, responsive, wise, Whatever comrades named it so.

Lo my soul, a bird, takes flight
! For he knew the breathing chorus
To lose herself in ample light, Not from him alone did flow
Warm, and deep, and infinite ! Like spring-tides of the ocean, bore us.
Pealing at full flood again,
August '89.
To goals beyond the primal strain.
More vital even, rich, sonorous.
Fed on failure, want and pain.
MYSTIC MUSIC He knew the anthem re-created
Ever by the general soul.

Faint memory of a dreamborn tune, The human soul with nature mated,
Muflled low the music sounded. Who lives to organise the whole.
But the same air, reforming soon, That would fain evade control
More lovely, ever more abounded. So the God grows formed within us.

Broke bonds wherein the silence wound it, And without us in the world ;

Growing more articulate Till the spheral music win us.

From hidden orchestras that mould it, And our weary wings unfurled
Assumed a more majestic state. Young, unwearying, unhasting.
Labyrinthine flower unfolded Fulfil their high emprise, while resting.

Hourly by the breath of spring.

April 1893.
Until the Harmony all glorious
Rose on strong, expansive wing
Dominating, pealed victorious.
Erst budding, dim -divined thing ; NATURA NATURANS
Now the elate exultant hearer
Feels his heart arrived at home, The woodlands have a green world all their

While that paean ever clearer own.

W^ith thunder-roll expands the
His heart, a royal-ported swan,
Sails the sound, where wondrous vision
As by some harbour-river shone
Dream-palace fronts, the world's derision,
dome Young joy of life among the delicate leaves.
To men who wander under them unknown,
Where whispering Zephyr light and shadow
weaves.
And dewy-eyed blithe birds of various tone

Deemed fancies vain arow they flank

!
Thrid labyrinths ilhmiined singing heaves
;

The flower-terraced shore ; but pinion Their dewy bosoms while they charm the
Of the eagle-music sank ;
bowers.
Fell from that sublime dominion. And gaily set a-swinging many a spray
 ; ;;; ; ;;

48o NATURA NATURANS

With buoyant, swift caprices ; tall beech Softly, and then were silent, their souls
towers, blent.
Mossed bole of mottled variegated grey, The ecstasy of nightingales awoke
From thronging grasses flecked with sulphur Within the downy- foliaged firmament
flowers Rivers and lakes of hyacinths meander
Among the boughs a sweet perpetual play Among the teeming greenery below.
Of living things newborn ; a mystic sound Where many a humming velvet bee may
Pervades their interwoven sea -murmuring wander,
roof, And the dew-elves' illuminations glow,
Where love-built nests, where cooing doves 'Mid tiny herbs, pale primrose, blue ger-
abound mander.
Of Love's high advent the young world gives But those great aisles of pillared forest show
proof Large open spaces, clear of trees, whose
Love at full flood makes earth one holy mast.
ground And russet leaves of many years have browned
Love's hands aerial weave a wondrous woof Floors, only greenlit by young fern here ;

Of melody and mystery Divine passed ;

So that I wish for my dear dead a dwelling The storm's might, wrestling with the strength
No lovelier than this lovely land of mine of crowned
When Spring arrives, and waves her wand, Tall forest kings, and bowed their pride at
compelling last.

A million blades and blooms to rise and shine Yonder a piteous sight upon the ground !

Yea, from sere leaf-lace, humid mould sweet- Huge oak that would nor bend nor break,
smelling, uprooted,
Life-feeding generations of the dead. Though with prodigious talons it grasped
Beauty and health are nourished with young earth,
joy. Deepbased in Night ; as high in Day fair-

Here the veined fragile sorrel bells are fed. fruited ;

Whose leaf's a triple heart ; babe roseleaves Dowered with a home inalienable from birth.
toy whose fall was
It seemed for ever here ;

With hazel wands, wee crimson thorns they bruited

wed With league-wide tumult, when the storm's
With wandering woodbine leaflets tumble fierce mirth
;

coy Hurled low the giant, and a wide wound

Out of pink winter-cots o'er one another, made
Rumpled and laughing by sweet sun called In rich brown soil a very garden-space
; ;

early Of mould and stones the tree clutched as it

Obeying the dear still voice of their Mother swayed
While infant ferns wake peeping, scaled and In that dread shock there many a flower's ;

curly ;
fair face

Ruffled, fresh green leaf-sister calls to brother; Peers now 'mid those great rent roots naked
The warm South shepherds showers mild laid.

and pearly. The forest patriarchs live out long years.

Here lady beech, embraced by her lord oak, all unknown to man
Their inner secret
Leaned in his strong rude arms, while well They groan, they labour in the storm, with
content tears
Under their breaths young leaves immingling Of rain they twinkle, glow with light ; but
spoke can
 ;; ; — ; ; — ; ! ;

NATURA NATURANS 481

Any divine what feeling saddens, cheers, But yonder ants with their economies
What mind informs the inarticulate clan ? Are every whit as wonderful as man !

Nay, they are resting on their own calm For note how each his proper function plies.

shade. Counting for world-crest his poor bustling

While men pine under them, men fume and clan ;

fret; These have towns, loves, wars, long-drawn

The gentle grass and flowers are ne'er afraid histories,
With dews, not tears, the woodland ways And famous bards, with critics born to ban!
are wet Ah, men ! your laughter-moving airs and
Though human hearts were broken while graces.
they prayed. Your fond assumptions of authority,
Serenely breathed the wee wild violet. Seem calm eternal faces
antics to the
Yon trees live out long lives ; our genera- Regarding you from yonder world-eyed sky
tions, For haughty gesture, proud look, royal
Like their own leaves, rise, fall about their paces.
feet, Turn palsy, rheum-drops, flotsam idling by
Through periods ; mere shadowed clouds Leaf-filtered sunshine lies upon the moss,
men fleet, Between cool shadows, like a tranquil
While these drowsed Druid forms keep blessing ;

wonted stations, The exhilarated merry branches toss

Lives individual, dynasties, and nations ;
Their newborn leaves in azure air caressing ;
Their mystic souls and ours may never meet. With red-tipped daisies, cups of silver gloss,
These have known rose-red youth, fair love, Young Spring the wrongs of Winter is
young gladness, redressing.
Have seen Heartshine ascend the heavens Hearken ! what passion-hearted wealth of
to wane, song
Heard the blithe hunter's horn, bells toiled With fire-spray, mazy blossom, thrills the air.
for sadness, Vicing a moment with more during throng
Seen child grow man, then turn to child Of budded plants, that make wood-floors so
again, fair

Stern, strong resolve fade out to halt, blind From fountain-stems of pining low and long
madness. Flies many-spangling rapture rich and rare.
Their peers in age beheld the Red King The solemn-pillared aisles are misty-dim
droop, With distance ; their moss waves are green
His heart stilled by a random-glancing dart. and brown
While pulsing with hot life, and loud with All blends with the sweet mood of her and
hope him,
Beheld the royal jester, lewd and swart, Whose fair young forms are lying listless
Cower 'mid their boughs from that rough down
Roundhead troop. Under a forest lord of giant limb,
Questing like sleuthhounds under their green His dragon roots around their beauty thrown.
heart They leaned anear a stately tower of beech.
Saw Henry hide his Rose-of-all-the-world Against a caverned ruin of old oak.
In bowers like these, lest Eleanor discover Where nestling very closely each to each,
The adored and dainty morsel closely curled They were so happy that they seldom spoke,
Away from her, fierce wedded hawk a-hover. Silently waiting for dear Love to teach ;

He found her slain, the nest to ruin hurled, Whose breath was gentler than mild airs
Then raving anguish burned the royal lover. that woke
 ! — ! ! ; — ; ; ;

482 NATURA NATURANS

In festal foliage, tenderly defined (In such a scene the Druid poured young
Athwart the still blue waters of a lake, blood!)
A woodbird's flight away, where moorhens But not one leaf upon its monstrous age
find This chilled their hearts a moment as it stood
Their reedy home with ; flash and plash they In dead brown drifts, an evil-threatening
make mage ;

Warm sweeter for the twain reclined,

stillness Yet subtle spells rose from the breathing
As o'er the water their glad way they take ;
wood
And yet anon a harmless sylvan sound The caterpillar in a fine silk swung
Of squirrel, bird, or restless russet leaf From frondage o'er them, hued like pale
Startles the timid hearts with sudden bound green jade.
They fear some coldly-prying human thief While flower-bells a fairy peal faint rung
May snatch the bliss wherein they both are In leafy cradles the aurelia swayed.
wound, And now the lovely lovers closer clung.
So and rapturous, albeit so brief
rich Feeling a summer-sense in all the glade ....
Fair woodland labyrinths weave green lithe But away one heard the woodman's axe
far
arms Splinter the cream-white, fragrant woods
To roof the curly head of either lover. resounding
And downy leaves are whispering soft charms, Muscle-ridged arms, andsupple stalwart backs
While to and fro the nimble Ariels hover. The man-surpassing years of trees are round-
Fanning desire that never dreams of harms, ing ;

Whatever sword unseen be hanging over. So God, the woodman, clears the space He
Fine limbs, fair undulating delicate flesh. lacks
Invite to joy the solitude allows, Among His men and women, too abounding;
While vital sap that rises pure and fresh To warm Himself the human faggot stacks.
Challenging calls the kindred blood which Is it Dame Nature's frolic thus to dangle
flows She who made us knows we can't resist?
Baits
In their warm veins sun weaves a glowing Set Conscience and blind Passion all a-jangle,
;

mesh Then frown because we have too hotly kissed,

With foliaged shadows on the smooth, white And done her bidding bad folk will she ;

skin ;
mangle ?
From Pleasure's mantling bowl the ripe lips Nay, for Her mills use bad and good for
quaft"; grist

They hear the cuckoo call leave off, begin

Ever afresh, doves coo, and the wild laugh
Of woodpecker, tit's tinkle clear and thin. 'Mid gorgeous autumn gold she creeps to die ;
Yet for a moment they observe what half All the deep forest burns with wondrous fires
Alarms ; it stares, they deem, with spectral The low red sun glares like God's angry eye
scowl, Through black contorted boughs, whose leafy
A dwarfed, deformed trunk, huge-girthed, lyres
mouldering, dark, Are muttering veiled oracles on high
By Heaven's bolt blasted ; a monk's shadowy While she flits haggard through rain-sodden
cowl mires.
It seems to wear, one blackened arm stretched Her heart a-flame ; wild-eyed and pale she
stark. fares ;

As in denunciation a grim ghoul ;

The branches pluck at her the while she goes;
Head-tentacled, with fungus-blotched rude Few songsters warble where the hectic flares,
bark, But on a winedark bramble the wind blows
 ; ;

NATURA NATURANS 483

Some soft grey down, blood-reddened; an Of life and song in those twinned hearts ;

owl scares who met

Her hooting from the hollow oak she knows To dance at early dawn, there dance grim
;

That place too well the lake is at her feet,

; Death
Where he and she lay lapped in heaven's bliss! And pale gaunt Horror, with a ghastly
Dimrobed in cloth of gold those beeches greet motion ;

Her, stately curtseying dusk waves they kiss, For now no dear enchantment of Love's
;

In carmined mirrors their own image meet, breath

Whispering " Maiden, here your haven is Transmutes dull Fact (as when through
From the hard world " dense-thronged !
some clear ocean
around the lake. Plain weeds form lambent fairy realms be-
Whereon there lay a kind of oily scum. neath) ;

A misty phantom brood ; she deemed they But they have drunken Time's belittling

spake, potion,
" Poor child ! and can you hesitate to come, And through once warm veins creeps the
When Love and your cruel race forsake.
all wintry frost
"
Where kind Oblivion offers you a home ? Of age, indifference, disillusionment,
The tall grey heron in chill twilight stands Wrath, hate ; each droopeth, a tired haggard
Unmoved as stump or stone, until it hears ghost
A plash, a human cry ; the form expands Poor cankering cares for trivial things had
Wide wings a grey ; ghost flies ; she dis- blent
appears ;
With these to wither hopeful buds that, lost,
The water-rings grow large. Can ne'er form fruit now ; so, wan eyes
— One roamed the strands, downbent,
Days after, a young man beset with fears They fare upon life's dreary barren road,
For her strange flight he saw above the water
; Snows of deep winter on bowed heads and
At dusk a pale light by the sighing grove ;
hearts,
Upon him wandering the labourer's daughter. As on bare-boughs that groan beneath their

Missed from her home, flashed unaware, his load.

love, Ah but the acorn dropped in summer starts

!

Though she loved a young noble ; her self- A winged green seedling from its blind abode
slaughter Of burial in kind earth ; and sleep imparts
Will soon be plain when that dread treasure- For renovation rest the workworn dead, ;

trove Who only longed to cease, have found more

Grim grappling-irons labouring up-buoy, life

An awful formless burden which was youth, Unwearying ; and hearts who once were wed
Inanimate dim chaos which was joy ! (So Faith low-breathes, with strangling
doubts at strife),
For all change, failure, torpor, wounds that
But ah, the cruel vision, void of ruth, bled,
Shifts now the scene, to show love's brittle toy In sunnier climes will grow true man and wife.

Broken, 'mid direr death's-heads of dull truth
See those once lovely lovers walk the earth.
Still side by side, for both are living yet.
Yea, they were married but the morning
! What shocks the best in us can ne'er be true,
Nor aught unlovely, save in outward seeming
These are the larval Virtues that endue
;
Slow ripening perfections richly teeming ;

mirth They wore another aspect while they grew ;

Hath yielded to chill rain, and dull regret. But Sense may prove less near the Truth
In the gaunt winter woodlands there is dearth than Dreaming.
UNPUBLISHED POEMS
I
 — , ; ;

UNPUBLISHED POEMS

BRIDAL SONG Dead with them in thy manhood's flower

thee Death
[Sung by children strewing flowers Took using all thy strength to wrest a friend
Exton,June 12, 1862.) From his cold clutch but he would take ;

you both.
No famous man hath ended better God ;

Dearest lady, loved of all, Approveth, and thy comrade honours thee.
Gifts undying, rich and true True child of ocean, whom wild wind and
O'er thy paih kind Heaven let fall, wave
More than fading flowers we strew Bronzed with much kissing, claiming for
their own ;

Convivial, improvident, free-handed,

Since thou hast not sought thine own. Who more than once plucked human lives

Wants of others sweet supplied, from waves

Our Great feather's care is shown. That would have whelmed in their tre-

Making thee a happy bride. mendous play.

But life, alas proves often hard to bear

!

Take her, Bridegroom, shield her well, For such as you, one warfare grim and long
Treasure of ours resigned to thee ; With famine, daily want of those who lean
On you both Christ's blessing dwell On you for daily needs, your children, wives ;

Now and through Eternity !

And so, may be, the horror of cold gloom,
That unaware enshrouded my poor heart,
To thee was but the long-delayed, blithe sail,
If some shade o'erwing
fleeting Scarce hoped for, dawning on the mariner
Life's fair sward of smooth green gold, Who thirsts and hungers on a sullen sea ;

Startle not, but closer cling For niggard Life had used thee hardly Death ;

Lo, He smiles behind the fold. Relieves from burdens unendurable.

But, ah ! myfriend, I maynot see thee more.

TO J. H. Nor hear, nor feel ! whnm now in this my
R.I. P.
dwelling
The very rooms with their appurtenances,

Comrade, my comrade, they are calling Inanimate and trivial, recall

names The frame well-knit, well-moulded, the deft
Of epoch-making men about the town hand,
Who died but now and these are nought
; to That so disposed them even now yon beach ;

me, That strews my garden speaks of thee

Who mourn my brother, lowly, poor, un- Who brought it still I seek a face well-loved,
;

known. And listen for a well-remembered tone

487
 ; : ; — !!

WRECK
Upon the stairway, in my private chamber ;

Ah who will do thine office for me now ?

!
MERELY FRIENDS
Nay, we may never more climb waves to-
gether We dwelt awhile in heaven, my dear,
In bounding boats, nor ply the limber oar And paid for it full well,
Among those bounding billows but I roam :
For soon the gods from jealous fear
Heart-wounded in chill twilight by the shore. Sent us down to hell,
Like him of old of whom blind Homer Banished us to hell, my dear ;

sang, But and mirth

after tears
How, reft of one he loved, disconsolate, How dull to live on earth, my dear.
He went by the sounding sea
in silence How tame will seem poor earth !

I hear that rhythmic breathing of the sea Ah me, the pain, the triumph ends.
!

And evermore the surge repeats thy name. And we shall meet as merely friends.
Even so Achilles mourned his friend
Patroclus,
So Alexander wept Hephaestion.
SEABIRD OF THE BROKEN
O may thy soul repose in peace, my friend,
WING
Nor any troubled dream disturb thy rest ;
Seabird of the broken wing.
But from a maze of tranquil reverie
For you no more wild wandering
May one remembrance, light as a rose- Soaring heart and tameless eye
petal.
Woo passionately sea and sky ;
Float to my world and wandering to me Even as of old you long to fly ;

Here by my side assume the form beloved

Ah, never more O child of air
!

Brighton, October And ocean, now let dim despair

1891.
Close your lids, lie down and die
For what may homely Patience bring
To soothe the bird of broken wing?
WRECK
October 1890.
The wind is roaring in the pine to-night.
The demons howling in the chine to-night,
A terrible unrest is mine to-night "YE, LOYERS TWAIN"
Wild surges leap the boulder.
Ye, lovers twain, went home
There's wreck on the roaring reef below Through tender deepening night,
And wreck in a heart of grief below. But all your life to come
Love's bark, whose flight was very brief, Looked to you one light.
lies low ;

Night's wild whirled gulfs enfold her. One light indeed it is,

Or may be, if ye will

Foam's faery chimes were rung in the Nay, trust your Lord for this,
morning, In weal, in woe and ill.

Love floated young and fair in the morn-

ing; For Night herself hath stars
On sunny sands was he flung, and lovers More glorious than the sun ;

clung, in the morning; Behind our cloudy bars

Now Night's wild hollows hold him. They are shining on.
 ) ; " — — ;

ONLY A LOCK OF HAIR 489

Go home, dear hearts, in peace One bent o'er his dead darling wild,
Athwart the twilit land ;
P'ound the sun grown cold and dim ;

Forest leaves ne'er cease Or a mother lost her child,

Soft sounds on either hand. And knew her life gone out with him.

And if a tear fall low

Or youth divided from his May,
From me who have lived lonj^
None knowing how the twain had loved.
For loves of long ago
Compelled to journey far away.
Earth no more may know,
Ere Death more far apart yet moved
Faith sings her under-song ;
Their loves, hid here that lock one day ;

Or perchance he faithless proved,

" They only seem to die,
Forgetting where the token lay :

God numbered all and knew ;

Beautiful they lie

In calm eternity, For boys, who roam about the world,
Alive and fresh with dew. Finding many lovely maids,
Remember not the early curled
September 1889. Fairy gold in folded braids ;

{Reprinted by perrnissiofi from

Leisu re Hour.
'
'
' Or of that primal honey hived
'

Death robbed him, of the priceless pearl

But he for consolation wived
Once more, then hid love's own younr curl.
ONLY A LOCK OF HAIR Till, growing old, Time's fool survived
Desire for pelf, or power, or girl.
I FOUND, within a secret drawer
Of mine old ancestral home.
In the wing with ages hoar
O pitiful, soft human hair !

Shall I drop you in the fire ?

Where the living rarely come,
Will some ghost haunt me if I dare

A lock of young unfaded hair. Or do the dead forget desire ?

Tied with tiny crimson cords,

Hidden safe by loving care, Live human gold, I will not scatter ;

With some nearly faded words Winds, or hands unscrupulous

Will treat you as superfluous matter.
On the paper that enfolds ; Poor hair unknown, void, vain to us !

/ wt/l tievermore forget.

Oblivion impassive holds
These pale love-letters that I burn,
That scroll, with memories once wet.
What a cherished sacred trust
There remainelh ne'er a clue
Of fresh young heart to heart we spurn
hopes, and fears that seem but dust
Whose fingers pressed the damp-blurred vow, Hot
!

Nor to whom he would be true ;

If he kept or broke it, now, Ah ! sad as a neglected grave,

NN'here the indifferent stranger wanders,
Who can tell? No gleam, no flash. Where Time and Chance join hands and rave,
Divides the darkness of the past Emperor Death's immortal panders ;

Some loving hearts burned out to ash ;

The good, the bad, the fool, the brave.
We know not more ours follow fast.
; Our tears, our laughter, all He squanders.
 ;; ;

490 THE BABES IN THE SNOW

Souls we love, like flowers, have broken
THE BABES IN THE SNOW From our dim dreamland's wildering prison
With One, the fairest, earliest token
Two little children seek their home Of our immortal life, have risen.
Within the folding hills ;

From yon far village school they come, Soft eyes within the woodland scene,
Blithe babbling like two rills. Dewy, gleaming, open stilly,
Violet, bird, celandine,
Anemone, primrose, lentlily.
Earth shines and sparkles to the sun,
Blue airs are keen and bright
Winter was the nursing-time
The children's shadows while they run
For bird, for delicate leaf or flower ;
Grow long behind their flight.
Souls lie darkling now, their prime
Yet lingers full-unfolding power
;

Now eddying snow-feathers fall; Will weave the amaranthine bower

The rosy children play That heareth low ethereal chime.
With flakes that soon will prove their pall,

Dark drifting o'er their way.

They flounder helpless in the snow,

Unheard their piteous cry. THE DEATH OF TENNYSON
Drowned in blasts that round them blow ;

No mother's help is
As robin buried under leaves
Lost babes within the wood,
Snowflake a winding sheet soft weaves
For these, the pure and good.
nigh ! Thk last of all our mighty bards is low,
And who is leftto wear the conqueror's
crown ?
Bays all too ample for a lesser brow.
I mourn the Master- singer and the friend.
In at the oriel, as he passed, the moon
Shone at her full ; the stars looked but no
;

light

Now they are lying breast to breast, Kindled by human hands confused the beam
Poor fluttered hearts are still Wherewith God ushered him to worlds un-

The babes arrived they found ; their rest known.

In Homes beyond the hill. After the day's long task, accomplished well.
He with the failing sense of one who faints
From life to life beheld them, and the
lands
In elf-light lying, field, moor, autumn wood
FLOWERS AT EASTER Meet emblems of a fortune-favoured life,
And ordered art, a fair, serene domain.
A ROSY sunbeam glides the maid,
While youngling flowers are waving round
So that loud-pealing thunderstorm which
her ;

Earth in flower-songs conveyed, rapt

Silent songs, the joy that found her, The eagle soul of Byron from our ken
Awaking from the sleep that bound her ;
In yon far land, -in Greece, with birth-throes

Rapture fills both shine and shade. torn

 ; !

THE SONG OF TENNYSON 491

Of revolution, 'mid the clash and clang Bucolic men, dry humour in their talk.

Of turbulent war, was emblem meet for him, His flowing music haunts the murmuring
Who from hot heart and idol-shattering soul grove.
Rolled the wild torrent of impetuous song, Full-flowered meadow, fields alive with corn,
'Whelming old landmarks ; exile young and The gentle hills and dewy vales we love,
broken, Where dainty, delicate birdnotes meander,
Whose dying lips might frame not their last With lyric warble of the woodland rill.
wish More subtle-toned than bird, or rippling rill,

To that one hired dependent ah not so ; ! This human strain of Tennysonian song.
Our later master, Tennyson, went forth Our loveliest looser of brief flights of song.
From us but now for he, from that pure
;
Free-floater of toy navies of light ditty
home Was he, on whose deep, ample-bosomed river
Deserved success had made for him, went Of clearest English undefiled there shine
forth, Barges rich wrought from realms of old
Whispering words of love from his true heart Romance,
To her true heart who loved him through the Carrying goodly crews of armoured men,
years. With armour chased, enamelled in bright
One hand on the dear volume he had opened, hues.
His Shakespeare; slept, well worn with noble Fair dames in samite raimented ; the knights
use, Have port of heroes ; holy fires illume
Gently as when a child he fell asleep, Their eyes, on quests ideal bound behold ; !

His mother keeping her love-vigil o'er him. Guinevere, Arthur, Galahad and poised ;

Then the moon hallowed that sublime repose, Over fantastic gold of dragon-prows
As of pale marble in cathedral gloom. A wondrous Vision, like the Holy Grail

1892. But these there follow gallant ships that

sail.
{Reprinted by permission from the
''Nineteenth Century.")
Or steam, from English harbours proudly
launched,
In the full searching light of History,
With scarlet clothed, and blue ; their com-
THE SONG OF TENNYSON panies
Show mettle high, indomitable ; aims
His song's abounding, clear, and tranquil Heroic throned on homely weathered faces
river Of soldier, sailor, who hath greatly dared
Flows through the land, beneficently broad, For England grand as any Lancelot,
;

Flows fertilising mirrors in its journey

; Or Arthur, knights, who loom through mists
Whate'er pertains to our imperial race of time.
Of a most ancient Order's pillared state, And myth colossal. Ah ! what glows of
Time-tinttd Custom, firm palatial Law, colour.
Reverend spires of hoar consoling Faith, As from deep-burning airs of orient,
And comfortable homes of wedded Peace Emblazoning the limpid lapse of song !

On daisied lawn a-flower the grange, the

; Dream figures from the legendary past,
glebe, Awake to our new Merlin's waving wand.
The lordly park, where wander English girls, And forms familiar of fair famous women
Beautiful, pure, in play linked, or with youths, Are mirrored lifelike in the magic glass,
Ruddy and stalwart, loyal gentlemen Each at the flowering moment of her fate,
Of cleanly life, their lovers village maidens
; The soul-disclosing hour of her career.
 ' ! ; ; ;

492 THE SIGNALMAN

But now Night falls, and starlight flickers So drove the rushing train to doom,
cool And that one broken man to gloom
Upon the stream ; some piercing tragic cry Of vain self-torment oh : ! great God !

From sorrow-rended, living human heart Didst Thou not drive us where we trod ?
Disturbs that even flow of the wan water,
And some far sound of rapids breaks the
calm. In tear-choked accents hear him tel'

Then wails a dirge of solemn measured How, coming from the iron road
woe, That morning home to where they dwell
And wildered question ;
yon dark Infinite, In their small orchard-girt abode.
With subtly-woven mysteries of cloud.
Descends within the bosom of the wave, His wife and family, he learned
And hallowed Wisdom finds her dwelling From her that something ailed their Rose :

there. But, since who works by night hath earned

Pale twilight dawns, as of a rising moon, The daytime's leisure for repose,
While Faith uplifts faint pinions of the
" Let the child lie snug with me,"
dirge
That drooped so wearily — the moon hath He bade "for school make ready Ted
; :

risen
You can bring me up my tea,
Upon our Bard's last slumber ! lo ! how grand Then take our Rosy from my bed."
He lies, pale marble, warrior gone to rest,
But four bare hours of sleep are all
Black-bearded, stately-featured, lofty-browed,
The weary signalman can steal
The long life-battle fought, the victory won.
For then he hears his wife loud call

1893. She fears poor Rose is very ill.

[Reprinted by permission front So he must tramp the country round

' '
Leisure Hour. )
'

To find a doctor, if he may ;

Yet ne'er a one the father found

And the child lay cold and grey
THE SIGNALMAN!
On his return ; the wife declares
I
That she can never bide alone
The signalman at Manor House, With that dead darling child of theirs
A guiltless instrument of evil, In the house, when he has gone,
Should pity in kind hearts arouse,
Made a cat's-paw for the devil To-night he walks to wire the news
;

To mother " Take the train

his old ;

I deem the Fates were very hard At once, and come to wife," he sues ;

On the signalman that night ;

Then, fearing the unwonted strain.
needed rest they marred
First, his ;
Next he seeks the station-master ;
Next, they killed his heart's delight.
" I'm in bad fettle for my work,"
His baby Rose then they denied
;
He tells ; and why he dreads disaster.
To him, themselves had made unfit, If unrelieved ;"yet I'll not shirk,
Reprieve from duty, though he cried
" In case you find no substitute."
To be relieved that once from it
Alas not one to take his place.
!

Referring to the railway accident at Thirsk, But, after having urged his suit.
Home again with quickened pace
 ; : " ! —
'

THE SIGNALMAN 493

He walks to comfort his poor Jane, Head fallen on his arms he sleeps,
And find a neighbour to sup with her By the gleaming, levered frame ;

That night, in case the expected train A needle clicks, the clock's hand creeps,
Should bring no mother hastening thither, ; Flaps the cabin's coalfire flame.

While yonder train swings, sways and leaps,

Among the new arrivals her
Bounds eager, urged by Destiny,
He finds not therefore, heavyhearted,
;

From that station-platform-stir

By sleeping home, and leafless tree,
of care, departed
Through the mist-enfolded gloom,
He, weary, full
With wailing winds on ruined lea ;

For his post, the signal box Who voyage in yon cars of doom ?
Tries to think of trains, and lever,

And semaphore, and signal blocks,

The child sees visionary toys.
While Ambition's air-wrought scheme,
Using all his best endeavour
Or lighter bubbles' fleeting gleam,
Not to fret for wife so ill. Amuses older girls and boys ;

Or little Rose so sudden taken, Soon they will meet dear friends, they

With all her merry prattle still deem. . . .

•"'

" I'm drowsy, but this tea may waken !

But grim Death, at the signal box,

A few yards further, waits and mocks. . . .

Itwas a cold November night. " I wonder if the mother's come.

Now and then the fog in drifts And if that neighbour came to sup.
Enshrouded the glass cabin bright, Poor Jane I poor Jane ! would I were
Whose fires made moonstone glows in wefts home I . . .

That signal arm wants putting up. . . .

Of wandering vapour ; all went well

Until the earlier Scotch Express, " Come, Rosy, baby, come and play
One chaos of blurred lights and steam, Under the apple-bloom Tand back. ;
'

With earthquake tread rushed past " ; I bless The Expess the Expess what's!
!
' that
The Lord because so clear doth seem you say ?
'
Don't tand there. Daddy, on the tack !

" My head now have entered all

The signals in
;

my
I

book, the trains

— " But, Rosy, something seems amiss
Then, mocking him, the shadows fall With you, and yet you look so well
All unaware nought clear remains
; ; Come and give your dad a kiss. . . .

. . . What's that you've got ? Why it's a

For though he raised the danger red bell!
When that first " passenger" went by,
Sleep held him bound in bonds of lead " A harsh, shrill bell! — sounds very odd
Ere the fatal "goods " drew nigh ; Why, 'tis the electric telegraph I

Which, finding the line blocked, stood still. My mate at Otterington ! O God !

He hears no snort, no lumbering tramp, I thought it was dead Rosy's laugh I

No clash and clang there halts, to kill.

!

" Be ready that must be the quick

The shrouded Terror, with red lamp !

Threefold at tail of it, that feigns, Scotch train, — and have never sent
I

Line clear for that — the more thick fog's

Dim-burning baleful through the damp,
In me than there." His instrument
To warn the doomed onrushing trains.
 ; ; —

494 THE SECOND COMING

He straightway works, and turns to white For since He appeareth not in glory
Red lamps that blocked the line; the "goods" Nor, as of old, in sacred story,
Snorts slowly on then — wildered fright Girt with Oriental dress,
Holds him a moment, while he broods. But, clothed as we are, comes to bless,
Who He is men never guess !

On memory flashed the second part

Of that Express now and he heard;
Yet when He passeth through the city
The heavy " goods " go with a start ;
His dove-like eyes are dim with pity
Flung wide the cabin-door, and peered ;
For His overburdened poor ;

Could see those three red baleful eyes Every pang their hearts endure
Slow, murderously slink to gloom . . .

He beareth on His own ; but when

... A whirlwind-winged volcano flies, He goeth among evil men.
The engine huge, that drags to doom Wearing ordinary garb,
The fated human hecatomb, All unknown to those who barb
Shrieks madly, like a damned, lost soul, Shafts for feeble folk oppressed,
Foreseeing plunges to the goal,
;
The lowly, unapprehended Guest
Wrecked, shattered ; one red ruin piled. Breatheth pity blent with anger.
Wood crushed with twisted iron, child, Till Laughter's dissonant, harsh clangour
Man, woman mangled, all one wild Jangles, or a steely smile
Dread, kneaded chaos now a cry, ;
Flashes from faces that revile
Such as makes hell's revelry, Generous Folly, void of guile;
Peals maimed victims pointing halt.
!
Wondering, inwardly they jeer
Thronged round the signalman; "Your fault! At One so strange and alien near.
Your fault! your fault!" fierce flames de- But in Him pity blends with wrath
vour Aware of what a deep hell-broth
At ease dead, living, in their power . . .
These have plunged their live souls in :

For suffering is less than sin.

" My fault
!
" he sobs in telling it

" I warned them that I was not fit ;

We do not know Him better now,

There was a young child killed and burned ;
Than the sires who crowned His brow
Badly hurt too was his father ;
In shallow scorn,
The man recovered as I learned
With cruel thorn ;

He said he would have died much rather."

Though Christ be risen ;

Have burst the prison !

Yet Innocence at mirthful feast,

THE SECOND COMING Or a virgin-hearted priest.

Brother, father of his people
Christ is risen !
(Who in hushed church with tower or steeple,
Hath burst the prison !
Weary wings a moment furled.
Find a refuge from the world),
Some say the Lord is come again Or any lowly worshipper,
And walks familiarly with men, The Holy Presence may confer.
Though we may pass Him in the street, We find Him in the brave long strife,

Never surmising whom we meet, Wherewith our common ways are rife,

Sit near Him at the social meal In frank swift yielding health —yea, life

Conversing, and yet never feel Of one who champions a high cause,
The Royal Birth he would conceal. Or saves a victim from the paws
 ! !

THE SECOND COMING 495

Of strong Vicissitude, that glowers In good governors, who serve ;

Ere it mangles and devours. In wan toilers who ne'er swerve

From labour, bearing death for them.
Intolerant of every wrong, Yet for others gold and gem ;

He suffers patiently and long. Through some poor sempstress He be-

To jeers and threats and calumny stows
He returneth low reply ;
Blessings, in return for blows.
Knowing Earth, our realm of night, Christ is risen
Isled in unfathomable light ! Hath burst the prison !

Christ may be needlewoman, nurse,

Rich or poor dull clouds disperse
; Yet if indeed Thy feet have pressed
Before the undivined Revealer ; Our common ways here in the West,
Reformer, scholar, poet, healer, Since mournful followers laid to rest

Every calling, every trade, Thy worn heart in the Syrian tomb,
Claimeth honour of His aid ;
Hasten, Lord to rend the gloom
!
;

In Whose mild genial radiance Restore our ruined earth, O God,

Stern-environing Circumstance And make it worthy Thy abode !

Relenteth melts and gently glows

; ;
Or, cankered, old, worm-eaten, alloyed.
Iron-bound doors fly wide, disclose Must the dark planet be destroyed.
Fair friends, in place of grisly foes. Her fragments scattered to the void,
And far more even what He doth As hath befallen many a star
Maketh to prevail the Truth. Whose rays diffused her glory far.

Well indeed for one who can For Love to build upon the site

Discern the face of God in man A worthier world for Love's delight ?
NOTES

2 I
 ) — —

NOTES
I. It may be said by somebody that I have Geography of Inner Africa, Journal R. Geog.
I

taken a liberty with the Mountains of the Moon. Society, 1864.

Let him that is without sin cast the first stone.
Burton maintains that Ptolemy knew perfectly
well what he was about in making a great
range of mountains run east and west across
3. In Manyuema, west of Tanganyika, where
i Livingstone has been, the huts are built almost
entirely of ivory while in Ashantee gold is
;

Central Africa. It is even probable (from profusely employed.

what Du Chaillu and others have seen) that
snowy Kilimandjaro (Meru) and Kenia form 4. Du Chaillu and -Schweinfurth, the record
;

its eastern limit, while Burton's Cameroons of whose very remarkable and daring explora-
Mountain, with the mountains Du Chaillu tions has been recently published. I am of
saw, form its western. But, at any rate, the course aware that Livingstone did not really
most recent discoveries seem to indicate that know of the latter. It is indeed sad to think
the Karagw6 highlands also send out branches how near the two travellers were to one another
southward. These flank Tanganyika, and run when both were turned bacK.
down to the west of Lake Bangweolo or
Bemba, afterwards trending off again south 5. I do not deem
this inconsistent with
of the same lake to enclose lakes Nyassa and Livingstone's large, though reverent and
Shirwa (see Keith Johnston's Map of Living- evangelical, utterance respecting the death of
stone's discoveries). The high plateau of Sebituane. (See " Missionary Travels. ")
Lobisa, where the river Chambezi probably
takes its rise, may on this view be considered 6. A
bird of Ashantee with brilliant red
as belonging to the same system. But there plumage. This vision is suggested by de-
are north and south coast ranges inosculating scriptions given of African races that practise
with these latitudinal mountains— while pos- human sacrifice e.g. those of Ashantee and
sibly neither Abyssinian highlands on the one Dahomey.
hand, nor heights enclosing Albert Nyanza
on the other, ought to be regarded as cut 7. The negroes can hardly conceive of death,
off from them. Where Livingstone's "four in the case of young persons, without supposing
fountains of Herodotus" (which he was so it brought about by some malignant enchant-
keen to seems indeed to be still a
find) are, ment. They believe themselves surrounded by
moot point — like
most matters connected with all kinds of spiritual agencies, good and bad
Central African geography. and, though their ideas about spiritual matters
are vague and variable enough, they are often
2. Livingstone's discoveries remarkably con- found 10 hold a somewhat crude form of the
firmed Sir R. Murchison's theories as to the doctrine of transmigration.
—
geological condition of .South Africa for he
found no evidences of marine formations, 8. The medicine-man or magician is relied
which would be found if the land had been on to point out who have bewitched the dead
submerged, as other continents have been, — which affords him ample scope for malignity.
since the oldest secondary era of geologists. He makes each victim drink the ordeal poison
In his books may be read his statements of (various plants are used the Mauve, the —
fact, and his inferences on these matters. Mboujidou, &c. then if the poison takes
) ;

The great lakes that, at the time of the deposi- effect, the popular v;jice decides tiiat the person
tion of the oldest secondary strata, were much is truly guilty, and the tribe despatch him or
larger than at present, have been let out, he her with knives. It is said that the old
believes, by fissures suddenly opened in the rascal has some by the knowledge of
secret,
flanking ranges, as at the Falls of Mosi- which he renders the poison innocuous to
oa-tunya. (See Murchison on the Physical himself.
 !; a

Soo NOTES
9. This anecdote is told in Livingstone's necessary to enable him to go from Linyanti
first great book of missionary travels and it — to the West Coast, and afterwards to the East.
was by the imperfectly healed fracture of the Without these " niggers," who urged him and
bone of his left arm that the remains brought —
helped him to explore to open a highway for
over to England were identified on their arrival commerce and Christianity he could have —
as those of Livingstone Sir W. Ferguson
; done nothing.
making the examination in the presence of
the Rev. Dr. Moffat, Dr. Kirk, Mr. Webb of 14. This was the little ship Livingstone
Newstead, and Mr. Waller, who had formerly built with the j/^6ooo derived from the sale of
seen Livingstone's injured arm. his first book for the steamer sent by Govern-
;

ment did not answer his purpose of exploring

10. This dog the traveller seems to have the Zambesi and Shirfe. This sum, as Stanley
procured on his last voyage. Mr. Young, in tells us, in his latest edition of "How I
his "Search for Livingstone," says that he Found Livingstone," the traveller lost. Hav-
heard of this dog at a village where he arrived ing crossed to Bombay in his little craft —
and where he gained such information as as- —
marvellous feat he sold her for £'2000 but ;

sured him of the falsehood of the traitor Musa's
fabricated report respecting Livingstone's mur-
—
der by the Ma-Zitu said to have taken place
in 1866. Sir R. Murchison, doubting the re-
port, as President of the Royal Geographical
Society, together with the Council, sent out
Mr. E. Young to ascertain the truth. He
proved a most competent leader. The native
woman who spoke of this dog said, laughing,
"it seemed to have two tails" and the Rev. —
Mr. Waller afterwards suggested an expla-
nation of this to Mr. Young relating how
; there should be an effluent in the direction
Livingstone (ever fond of a joke) had disputed
the fact alleged by learned men, that every
afterwards through the bankruptcy of
lost this
the banker with whom it was deposited.
15. See Irving's " Life of Columbus."
16. A kind of cuckoo, so called by the
natives.
17. This was before Stanley explored the
north of Tanganyika with Livingstone, and
found the Rusizi River to be an influent. If
of the Kabogo Mountains, to the west, this
might join the Lualaba and so possibly
;

dog under domestication still retains the ten-
dency of a wild dog's tail to curl to the left,
and complained that he was always obliged
now, whenever he heard a dog bark, to march
out of his way in order to examine his tail
(according to Livingstone's theory) the Nile.
Perhaps Lieutenant Cameron, now at Ujiji,
will discover this. Schweinfurth's discoveries
seem to prove that this could only be by way of
the Albert Nyanza not by way of Petherick's
;

Mr. Waller further suggested that Livingstone branch the Bahr el Ghazal.
,

had picked up a dog, whose tail curled to the

right; and that this controversy being ex-
plained to the natives, they made a hash of it,
saying the dog Chitani seemed to have two tails.
11. At St. Paul de Loanda, the Portuguese
settlement on the West Coast.
12. Mrs. Livingstone died at Shupanga,
whither she had come from England to join
her husband for the second time having
before gone with him, after their marriage,
from Kuruman (Moffat's station) to Kolobeng
18. Named by Livingstone "Victoria Falls."
The native name signifies "sounding smoke."
Mr. Osweli, who was with Livingstone when
he first discovered the cataract, and had seen
Niagara, gave the palm to Mosi-oa-tunya.
The Mowana is the gigantic Baobab tree of
Africa. The Mohono7io tree is said to be like
a cedar, and the Motsouri like a cypress. For
a full account of the falls, see Livingstone's
— two books of travel. The water (of the river
Zambesi, or Leeambayee) clears a moment as
;
it falls, becomes a sheet of foam, or rather a

and after residing with him there as a mis- sheet of comets of foam, separate from one
sionary's wife, having travelled with him and another, with nucleus and tail. This pheno-
some of their children to Lake Ngami, across menon is apparently very remarkable; though
the Kalahari desert, when the children greatly I think I remember to have observed some-
suffered. In the lyric that follows I have to thing like the falls of the Rhine.
it in The
acknowledge some obligation to a jsretty poem "Evergreen Grove" is on a ledge of rock

in a small life of the traveller, published by opposite the fall. But "Garden Island,"
Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton. Bishop Mac- where the travellers made a garden, is on the
kenzie and Rev. Mr. Burrup are alluded to. same side.

13. The Makololo chief, Sekeletu, and his 19. Ntanda, a native name for the planet
people, furnished Livingstone with the means Venus, m&?Lmng firstborn.
 NOTES 501

20. The Bakwain chief, with whom Living- 29. The author in this volume, even where
stone resided at Kolobeng. For an account of he speaks in his own person, hopes not to be

Africaner, see the Rev. Dr. Moffat's "Mis-
sionary Travels."
21. Mr. Young, of Kelly, a true friend to
Livingstone, without whose private generosity
held responsible for all the negations he may
have expressed or implied in poems ranging,
as regards their date of composition, over
several years, a few of them having been
written some time before his " Little Child's
Monument, published in 1881. The earlier
"

he could not have carried forward his great

poems, however, have been revised but, save ;

labours.
in one instance, only the form of them, not the
substance, has been altered. Yet, where not
22. Dysentery was the disease to which he impersonal, all remain as e.xpression of tem-
was subject, and of which he died (1873). The porary moods, feelings, or ideas.
precise locality where he died seems almost
strangely vague.
30. I am indebted for this incident to a
writer in the Daily Telegraph.
23. Zanzibar.
31. See "Underground Russia," Stepniak,
Jacob Wainwright, a negro slave, edu-
24. p. 208.
cated at Nassick College, near Bombay, came A
young man, the better to guard the secret
over in the Malwa with his master's remains, of the revolutionary printing-press, thus effaced
and attended the funeral in Westminster Abbey. himself from all record and recognition among
He read some of the English service over those the living, dwelling in a poisoned atmosphere,
parts of the body that were buried under the without ever leaving it, until, the place being
tree at Muilala, or Ilala. He was sent up to discovered and captured by the police, be
the Doctor from Zanzibar by Mr. Stanley, committed suicide.
with other valuable men, as soon as the latter
—
reached the coast Livingstone having resolved Suggested by the fire in the Ring Theatre,
32.
to wait for them and other necessary supplies atVienna, after which to the poor, as chief
at Unyanyembe. mourners, was allotted the post of honour at
the funeral in St. Stephen's.
25. If in Lobisa the Chambezi rises — which
is the same river that flows out of Lake Bang- See Pliny.
33.
weolo or Bemba which again,
as the Luapula ;

on issuing from Lake Moero, becomes Lualaba " " Thalatta "
34. The metres of " Suspiria and
— and if the Lualaba send one branch to the
were suggested to me by the sound of the sea
Congo, and another to the Nile then this — that of " Suspiria" is of course a modification
;

claim may be made for the presumed where-
abouts of Livingstone's death. On the other
hand, Mr. Findlay still maintains (unless I
mistake), with SirS. Baker and Captain Burton,
that Tanganyika is virtually the same as Albert
Nyanza or has an effluent north, which joins
;
the latter. But as Livingstone died somewhere
near the southern feeders of Lake Liemba,
which is the same lake as Tanganyika, even on
this view, the same claim can be made.
26. It is to be hoped that the provisions of
Sir Bar»le Frere's treaty, concluded with the
Sultan of Zanzibar, which we owe to Living-
stone's fearless representations by letter of the
slave-trading horrors he witnessed on his last
journey, will be faithfully carried out, and that
England will see that they are.
27. Written at the time of the Bulgarian
massacres.
28. Vendome column at Paris,
of the hexameter, with rhyme in the alternate
lines. To my ear it appears that the hexa-
meter ought not be written with two single
words in the last (trochaic) foot, but that in
this particular, at least, the structure of the
verse in its native sources should be respected.
35. This poem is suggested by old Krllamey
But though it is to be read primarily
legends.
as a fairy-tale, it is also intended to convey a
further meaning. Only that is not to be sought
in every detail, because I think that in all works
of art, the story, form, or concrete presentment
of whatever kind, ought to be paramount, and
the inner significance only implicit, or sug-
gested. The reader or spectator, moreover,
has cause for complaint if the artist should, by
over-insistence on this latter element, foreclose
the right of all to find their own lesson or sig-
nificance in a work of art. Barely didactic art
there cannot be. But there should be more in
a poem of this kind than the maker ever put
there. Whether I have here succeeded in
502 NOTES
doing what I wished is of course another
question. Time and place are not respected
in the world of enchantment, which is also
that of Thought, whence all Creation issues.
And Melcha, once having lived there, can no
longer find the same old home-world, to which
she was accustomed, when she would fain
do so, the quiet, innocent, trustful home of
early years. I will add, in order to explain
one of the similes, that the Arabs believe
the huge substructures of Baalbek and Tad-
nior were brought by the genii, slaves of
Solomon.
36. At Hucknall Torkard, the sexton said to
me, "You are now standing just over where
the head lies."
37. The great composer grew deaf toward
the close of his career. And, on one occasion,
after conducting one of his own great sym-
phonies, he was touched on the shoulder by
another person, in order that he might turn
and see the rapturous welcome which he could
not hear.
38. The allusion is to the Magdalene, by
Correggio, and that by D. G. Rossetti, lately
exhibited in the Burlington Club.
39. Published in the Leeds Mercury, just
before the elections, which gave a majority to
the Liberals, in 1880, when Mr. Gladstone had
expressed his determination not to take office
again.
 — — —

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS

A (p. I) much faded out of them. ... I thank you

foran expression, which commends itself to me
"So you have got hold of 'Behind the as e.xcessively happy, in describing what feel
Veil'! I thought no copies were to be had about a special mood of my own — '
I

passionate
now !I forbade it to be advertised and / contemplation of nature.' It is just tiiat.
wanted it forgotten. It is so very crude in Now own, a brooding, loving elaborate-
this, I

style, though it is a quarry for poetry, and I ness of picturing appears to me to express.
have used some of it, and may use more else- Certainly the mood is purely between nature
where, for poems. It realises your sculptor, and myself, and therefore the mode of picturing
who had no power of expression for his idea ! is so. To object to that, is to object to the
Before this, I wrote very fluent poetry by the mood and, on the theory tiiat
; nature shall be
yard, but with no ideas in it. Then I fell back nothing but a background, it is objectionable ;

on deep thought and study of prose; and when highly so, to the person who does not love
I tried to embody this in poetry, I made this Nature; but I submit not otherwise."
fiasco of a book. But as you have it, you January 21, 1869.
may as well know something about it. I was
brought up a Calvinist. . . . Then, under the " Right, right You have hit the right nail
!

religious influence of F.D. Maurice, and philo- on the head, and I am awfully glad of it. The
suphers like Swedenborg, I wrote this book, '
agglutination and exuberance that is com-
'

which on the whole is religious. Afterwards plained of is essential to the individuality of

I gradually lost my beliefs, and became partly
agnostic, partly pantheistic and in those
frames of mind 'Beatrice,' 'The Red Flag,'
and Ravensburg were written also some of
' '
the other poems, republished from magazines
in '
Songs of the Heights and Deeps' (How-
the descriptions. Those people, with the best
; of intentions possible, are not in sympathy
with me in my passionate adoration of Nature.
; That is the real point. I daresay the minute-
ness bothers them and seems to destroy the
picture and I fear it must with most people,
:

ever, much in that book was written when even the cultivated but if tliey had 'swooned
;

faith was restored to me, after Eric's death.) away' into the Pan, as I often do, they would
My first book inspired by faith, graduallv re- see the thing as I have pictured it. Abstract-
stored after his death, was the 'Monument.' edly the more consecutive style, I certainly
That is the record of doubt and despair, confess and allow, conforms more to the
at first, and of faith only towards the end." elementary law of art, that there shall be some
September 3, 1889. central light." February 11, 1869.

"Definite vision and intense emotion seem

B(p. I) to me to be the first requisites in a poet."
" Certainly tiie matter ought, as Matthew
Arnold pomts out, even for its own sake, to be C (p. 87)
as well presented as possible but let it be ;

'
always for the sake of the substance. And if ' To whom shallwe go?' occurred to me
you grant that, it uill certainly follow that an standing in a somewhat similar position to
ultra minuteness of finish, in cases where that describe at the outset.
I Misery is doubt-
tenderness of human pathos is concerned, and less necessarily symbolised by night and storm.
equally where overwhelming passion or scorn Superstition first and rational religion after,
are concerned, must necessarily let the feeling as necessarily, by two Churches. Then the
evaporate into a region of unreality, so that falling hack upon first principles of religion
you get merely delicately presented mimetic (still concrete) by a revisiting in vision the old

images in a magic mirror, with the life very scenes of Christ's original coming, while the
 — —— ) — )

504 EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS

longing grows upon the seeker for a fresh at all, in view of the frightful moral and
human manifestation of the Divine adapted to physical evils I see around me."
the time." December i6, 1866.

G (p. 249)
D (p. 123)
"After Eric's death a complete revolution
"The last passage in 'A Vision of the took place in my thought very gradually . . .

Desert" means to express a half-despairing, . . which, however, was not accomplished

.

till two years later. I was before that an

yearning doubt as to individual immortality,
which I do not now feel, or much less of it. uncompromising champion of the so-called
The Father issues from the East with one
' common-sense view of matter and force, as
new-born at the individual's birth. But does
' external to all minds, existing out there by
the Father, as it were, reach the tranquil themselves, as they seem to do I was an :

havens or oases of calm with a dead son on his opponent of Berkeley and wrote many an essay
breast or a living one? Is God ever alive, in in that sense and then the correlation of
:

Whom our spirits are and by Whom they are body and soul being so close (as is proved by
borne onward, but are zve, after a brief life, physiology, of which I read at one time a
put out within His bosom, do we cease from great deal), it was impossible for me to believe
living ? The poem ends with the e.xpression of in a personal survival of the destruction of this
this doubt." September i, 1891. body. Now I hold that the soul creates for
itself its own appropriate body. (See the
end of Modern Faust and De Profundis
'
'
' '

E (p. 134) . .Do you believe in systems,' the ele-

.
'

ments of which never contradict each other?

'
Thalatta and
'
'
Richmond Hill doubt
'
'
'
That's where I think a poet is superior to a
personal immortality and look to peace and professional philosopher, that he won't and
rest in the absorption of our personality into can't be bound by any systems — the Universe
the unconscious forces of Nature as I then is too big none of them will fit.
; And Thou, '

(regarding the world from the scientific point O Lord, art more than they.' Therefore we
of view of force) accounted them though I ;
must sometimes contradict ourselves, till we
did believe they were latently spiritual, and get the higher truth which includes both horns
would develop into self-consciousness. (See of the dilemma." iSqi. —
the end of 'Autumn in Ireland,' and 'Pan,'
for instance, in '
Beatrice.'
"Though now an idealist, not a realist, I H (p. 329)
still hold development upward to man and
beyond him of man upward. Now the very " '
Melcha my longest
' is one of philoso-
lowest is to me a soul. phical poems, allegorical, though the firstpart
"In Ravensburg immortality is purely
'
'
can be read simply as a fairy story. It is the
dramatic and I did not believe in it. The philosophy of my ante-Christian years, a sort
change of view comes first in the Monu- ' of pantheistic evolution philosophy. It is
ment.'" November x-^, 1891. also the tragedy of two loving, but differing
natures; intellect and genius, and goodness
and heart their sundering and final recon-
;

F (p. 203) ciliation." May 6, 1889.

" I am not the poet of free-will as Browning

was. So far, I may be less a moral poet. . . . I 379)
(P-
My Calvinism is much what it was, but it is
now turned into Pantheism, with the additional "The ode 'Pan' has condensed the re-
idea of ultimate restoration for all, and estab- lationship of my thoughts about Nature and
lishment of each in the function proper to Christ fairly well. Nature lives, pulsates with
him as integral factor and unit (or cell) of the spirituallife before these gods I must bow
;
' '

universal organism, through the experience, but they must bow, in their turn, before the
good or evil, he has gone through (which yet, perfection of Humanity, which is not beauty
mind you, may sink him into the hells for but the spirit of the little child, the secret of '

ages, as it sunk Sigismund and my monk Jesus,' and that is realised in 'the Babe of
Benedict). I am not prepared to say that Betiilehem," before therefore the Pagan Whom
many may not find this an immoral doctrine. oracles grow dumb. Yet they do represent
I cannot help it. Only so can I keep faith gods. I worship beauty, will, power, energy.
 EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 505

but the Little Child is more Divine

intellect, stituting Nature. But Christ, our blessed
still. He is my most adequate incarnation of Lord, supersedes them because He reveals the
the unseen and unknown God, and He is the innermost of the universal God Love, self- ;

Son of the Father, the Woid or Logos at its sacrifice, patience, the child-spirit in whom all
highest, the God Who is in all of us, the in- intelligences live, move, and have their being.'
'

most truth and substance of our nature. Love, They only reveal the outermost therefore, ;

Justice, Lituition (or Faith). Paganism teaches '

us to assert the superficial outer separate self;
Christianity to elicit the true, inner, solitary
self, which is latent, and undeveloped. . .
'Pan' is a restoration of the old mythology.
I am an idealist of a peculiar kind. I hold
that Nature is the objective manifestation, or
body, of spirits, intelligences, nkin to but
Pan is dead,' i.e. conquered by the higher
revelation of God which we possess, which was
made in the fulness of tmie in Christ. The
. dispensation of the spirit will follow, when all
shall be in Christ. How do I reconcile this
with Science ? I will only say Science reveals
only a law and order of manifestation to
us, relative to our limitation of faculty but ;

external to us, and that they are mixed, some not causes, not origins, not substance, only
good, some bad, some undeveloped and below phenomena. What is the cause and substance?
man. Ergo, according to me, Schiller is Spirit, soul, there is nothing else substantial,
wrong in lamenting that the gods are dead eternal, — and that, according to my philosophy,
because Science has killed them and Mrs.
; is necessarily individual, personal. 'Matter'
Browning is equally wrong in holding that is but a body or manifestation of soul or spirit.

scientific truth (so called) is enough, and, There are as many kinds of matter as there
when added to Christianity, is even better are species of souls capable of apprehending
than the old mythology. No Pan is not
; and perceiving differently. The suns, moons,
dead i.e. the ancients worshipped real exist-
;
planets, are themselves spirits, as the ancients
ing 'gods,' i.e. spirits or intelligences con- have taught.' "
— 1893.

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