by Bessie Rayner Parkes
If I in midst of youth should die,
With thou, beloved, to hold me dear,
And all my strong intents should lie
Like wither'd corn-blades, brown and sere,
Blown down in spring-time of the year,--
On baffled hope and vision broken
Were Death's dark pall untimely thrown,
Were my familiar name unspoken
By loving voices save thine own,--
In that dark day my greatest strength would be
Casting my soul on God,--my work on thee.
1850
INSCRIBED TO A.M.H. AND ALL TRUE ARTISTS
Thou that wouldst enter here,
Hold thy breath inward with an holy fear;
Put off thy shoes, thou in this place wilt see
The outward symbol of Divinity;
And so much of the mystery of things
As man may fathom with the light he brings:
A faint and flickering light, which can but show
The dim uncertain form of all we know;
Yet ever and anon shall fire from God
Flash on the Artists as they humbly plod,
Revealing more than knowledge; they must write
With firm recording hand the momentary sight.
Thou that wouldst enter here,
Fashion thy being with an art austere;
Leave thou thy bitterness of heart behind,--
Leave thou the wretched questions of the mind,--
Take of grief only such as, inly worn,
Hath grown incorporate, a blossom'd thorn,--
Take of love only such as, nursed in prayer,
Serves to thy spirit as an altar stair,--
All base ambitions see that thou forsake,--
All the bright armour of a Christian take,--
Turn thy face forward ever, cast thy lot
With saints and martyrs, and repent it not!
Thou must be open to all influence,
Whether of brain, or heart, or soul, or sense.
Thou must have nerves more subtle than the strings
Of that mysterious harp which sobs and sings
Under the elements, yet hold the sway,
Summon and master dreams which shall not pass away.
Be humble in interpreting the light,
Like some clear window undiscern'd by sight,
Save in its boundary arch, too sadly small
For that clear glory which might lighten all;
Yet confident as one who holds a torch,
And conquers darkness in a midnight church
For some small space around; be faithful, true,
As one who, standing under heaven's blue,
Sees truly all things visible--far skies,
And the fair flowery earth that near him lies,--
And gives them truly back, nor fails to know
More noble those above than this below.
Oh Artist! Sculptor! Poet! go thy way
With far more trembling care than others may!
Thou art anointed to as high a place,
Wilt thou but know it, as a man may grace.
Great is the lot assign'd thee, great the task
As even the most heroic soul dare ask;
Great be thy heart to meet it; it demands
A watchful spirit and untiring hands.
Not thine alone the burden and the care,
Not thine alone the duty and the prayer,
All earth prays with thee that thy hands be pure,
Thy work untainted and its teaching sure.
He who profanely touches things divine,
Carving base cups for sacramental wine;
Spoiling each sacred, sweet, and tender thought,
Bringing all natural gifts to worse than nought,
Wringing the heart of matter forth to show
What coarse and sensual meanings lurk below;
Or rather trailing his own evil mood
Over the innocent beauty God call'd good;
Placing on all he fingers such a mark
As proves his inner soul defiled and dark;
Sings the sad song our fallen hearts rehearse,
And spends his blessing to record the curse.
That he was born is sorrow! Like a blight
Is Art's false priest, he darkens all our light,
He poisons what were else our healing springs,
And casts a slur on all most holy things.
Oh far from all who labour and who pray,
Be such an awful vision swept away!
Better to perish as the poor field flower,
Which lives its beautiful unconscious hour;
Better to be that grass whose rock-sown blades
Utterly wither ere full summer fades;
Better to live unknown and die unwept,
In darkest, humblest shades of nature kept;
Better to know no hope, no power, no love,
No grace of earth below, nor heaven above,
Better the darkest doom can fall on us,
Better to have no life than use it thus!
But to the watchful eyes and praying hearts
Of those who nobly sought and used the Arts,
Whose very names all noble things suggest,
What shall Earth give them? Lo! they stand confess'd
The intellectual kings of Man. Oh! more,
Ten thousand times more bright the crowns they wore
Than any kings of Men; 'twas theirs to be
Prophets and poets of the mystery;
They bore the brightness and the diadem
Which He who call'd them servants gave to them.
Calm are the nights, and happy are the days,
Of those who sing His love or paint His praise;
For them this glorious world reveals her sign,
The mystic warrant of her birth divine
Unseen of duller eyes; for them are born
Fresh forms of beauty every eve and morn;
For them is nature but a shadowy veil
Of that white Throne before which suns are pale,
And the light blackness: clearly they discern,
And nobly render all the truths they learn,
Being with truth infused; happy is he
Who cannot measure what he strives to be!
O world of Art! O Shrine
Wherein we treasure all we hold divine,
How art thou blest!
Whoso is weary in this world of care
Finds in thy presence a perpetual prayer
And patient rest;
Finds a reminder of those things which bide
When we and all our phantasms drop aside
Into the gulf of death, a hope sublime,
A realm unfading set apart from time.
Did the great heart of Faith itself decay,
Were Cross and Church and Altar swept away,
Thou from thy treasury couldst that faith restore,
And light the Lamp of Sacrifice once more.
Oh thou fair world of Art!
From whence my soul would never fain depart,
But dwell up there and be
Number'd among that goodly company
No tint of whose bright freshness can decay,
Nor any silver utterance die away.
There lives whatever in past time befel,
There all that Sagas or that Epics tell,
All the great deeds that thrill a nation's heart
Live, bright and deathless, in the world of Art!
All beauty ever dreamt, all faith, all hope,
Hath there a glorious scope;
All of heroic, exquisite, or splendid,--
There Raffaelle walks a king with all his peers attended;
There the grand Sibyls sit, in whose dark eyes
Creation's unredeemed promise lies,
And thunderous prophets of gigantic mould
Wail us degenerate from the days of old.
There the fair woman of Venetian prime
Glows as when first she unveil'd her face to Time,
And bade him spare that beauty from the tomb;--
He gave her Titian, and reversed the doom!
Our heavenly types, who move in sacred story,
Cast on the threshold a diviner glory,
And from one central figure, as a sun,
Streams of the heavenly radiance earthward run;
Cradled on lilies as a Child He lies,
And sleeps amidst a chorus of the skies,
Or waxes fair beside a Virgin's knee,
And walks in thoughtful prime by Galilee.
Many are there we know,
Who visit us in dreams we love them so,--
The gracious poet and the stern-eyed saint,
And martyrs whom no flame could cause to faint,
Maidens and youths whom love did bind in one,
(That golden thread which doth through ages run,)
Pale matrons mourning in their widow weeds,
And babes whose promise spoke far more than deeds.
Ah thou fair world of Art,
From whence my soul would never fain depart,
Thy skies are ever grand!
They cast the shadow of immortal gloom,
Or glow and throb with supernatural bloom,
And open infinite vistas to the enchanted land.
Thy broad transparent river rolls along,
And every ripple breaks into a song;
On the green banks, where happy lovers go,
The golden apples grow,
And the fair fabulous birds of ancient tale
Warble their magic music without fail;
While winds that tremble round thy peaks of fire
Bring down rich echoes of the angelic choir.
Ah thou fair world of Art!
Happy are they who dwell in thee apart,
Who, being dead, yet live and cannot die,
In bless'd and blessing immortality;
Happy all bred in thine ethereal air,
And all deem'd worthy of translation there!
Happy the meanest servitor who waits
Humbly expectant of thine awful gates.
Thou! nobler conquest than a world-wide throne,
Who dost with more than royal sway enrich thine own.
Evan Lloyd, Evan Lloyd!
The sun is sinking in the sea,
The fishing-boats have homeward ploy'd,
Come home to me, come home to me!
The supper warms upon the hearth,
The pine-fed blaze is flashing higher,
Sleep stops the noisy children's mirth,
And Skye lies growling by the fire.
The thoughtful mother seeks the door,
Then, ever patient, sits and sings,
The sea-gulls on the neighbouring shore
Cry loud and flap their heavy wings,--
Or round and round the ancient place,
Fringed deep with tufts of pendent fern,
Fly with a melancholy grace,
And chorus to the crying hern.
What dreadful rumour fills the air,
As soft as silence and as deep,
Like the dumb utterance of despair,
Or that dark fear we feel in sleep?
From mouth to mouth the surmise spreads,
From face to face the horror flies;
The mother asks that news she dreads,
And reads the answer in their eyes.
Oh what a cry which rose to heaven!
And gave articulate voice to that
Which all unspoken knew, and even
Each outward thing was pointing at!
For hints of mystery seem'd to lurk
In twilight ocean's stealthy roll,
The shadow of the mountains murk
To brood above some struggling soul.
Evan Lloyd, Evan Lloyd!
He swims without a thought of fear.--
A thousand times and undestroy'd,
The water calm, the shore so near.--
Ah! some strong current suck'd him down,
And drew him on with giant breath,
And Evan turns an upward frown
In pitiful response to Death!
The supper warms upon the hearth,
Wide open swings the heavy door,
Grey darkness falls on sea and earth,
But Evan Lloyd comes home no more!
Get out the boats,--the moon is full,
And glistening like a magic glass,
The August waters beautiful
In softly welling currents pass.
So softly seem those waves to flow,
Controll'd by some mysterious charm,
What evil strength can lurk below,
What horror fraught with deadly harm?
Get out the boats, bring spike and rope,
Come rich and poor with eager eyes,
Each moment steals a fainter hope
From that chill sleep in which he lies.
The slowpaced moon which mounts the sky
Each moment measures out despair,
A curdling murmur passes by
And lingers in the silver'd air.
So calm, so fair, so soft a night
The summer gave us not before,
Nor any moon like that whose light
Saw Evan Lloyd return no more.
Lo, morning breaks upon the grief,
Broad lie the sands beneath the sun,
In dawn's cool stillness, all too brief,
The seaward currents swiftly run.
Broad lie the sands, the sea recedes,
The precious moments swift employ,
Thro' the salt pools and matted weeds
Go search for that ill-fated boy.
Ah! say within those rolling sands
Has Evan found a nameless grave,
Whom many hearts and many hands
Nor many prayers avail'd to save?
The crawling tides come in apace,
Then ebb to seaward as before,
But none shall see the boy's pale face,
For Evan Lloyd returns no more.
Beside the sea there stands a church,
The waves repeat the Sabbath Psalm,
Salt beats the wind about the porch,
Whose ivy sucks a briny balm.
In early days of Cambrian faith
Some pious souls did carve the stones,
And, their task ended, did bequeath
A saintly blessing with their bones:
And so upon the grassy verge,
Prayer-built, it does in prayer abide,
And with a steadfast patience urge
A holy life on groom and bride.
Unshaken thro' the countless storm
It seems to stand for evermore,
And with its old symbolic forms
Gathers to Christ the neighbouring shore.
The setting sun does paint and gild
The western window by the sea,
The greedy ocean's self is still'd
With the sweet words "Come home to me."
And here it was that Evan Lloyd,
Eight days a weary wanderer kept,
Found the great promise undestroy'd,
And like a lamb of Jesus slept.
They took him up upon the shore,
Just underneath the altar wall,
(Poor child! he look'd asleep, no more,)
And clothed him with a grassy pall.
Nor boots it now the chilly calm,
Nor howling of the winter blast,
He sleeps to music of the Psalm,
For Evan Lloyd came home at last!
Dec. 1854
Poor Love! It died a sudden death
While yet 'twas fill'd with hope and joy;
No lingering failure of the breath,--
No cruel doubt did it annoy;
Till in one evil hour it fell,
Struck by a dull shaft weighted well.
I took it up so dead and cold,
I smooth'd its garments' silken fold;
No living Love so dear, so fair!
The glimmer of its drooping hair
Cast a pale light upon my breast;
I cross'd its hands in sign of rest,
And in them laid the sweetest flower
That summer brings us in her dower,
Sweet as the Love that perish'd there,
And burning even as my despair.
Thus placed in decent order all,
I wrapp'd it in a stainless pall,
And bore it on my heart alway;
Its sweetness kept it from decay,
But wellnigh chill'd my heart away:
Yet so it to my life had grown
I could not lay the burden down.
How often on that dreary road
I fainted with mine awful load!
Too many years it was to me
A saintship and a company,
A blessing, an idolatry,
To lay it where I could not see.
Then spake my conscience of remorse,
"This lies upon thee like a curse;
Thine arms are full, thine heart is dull,
Lay down thine ill lest it grow worse,
Grow heavier as thou weaker grow,
And crush thee with a weight of snow."
Poor Love! Its dead face look'd reproach,
It seem'd to feel the foe's approach,
The foe Oblivion, worse than death,--
I warm'd it with my living breath,
I said, "Fear not, thou poor dead thing!
More precious than all Time can bring;
Thee shall the tenderest thoughts embalm
In memory's safe embracing calm,
Where only hushful breezes blow
From the far shores of long ago,
Bringing soft scent of summer flowers
And music of the golden hours,
And loving words which echo still
Thro' silence (which they cannot fill).
For thee the present and the past
Shall melt into one moment,--last--
Oh mournful Love! that still dost dread
Oblivion for the voiceless dead,--
A cross for a memorial
Of sweetness issuing forth from gall,
Of use from loss, of health from pain,
And from spent tears the noblest gain,
I will erect, and lilies three
Will twine about its foot, so be,
Oh dearest Love! content, that I
May walk once more in liberty.
So shall my deeds, in this regret
And earnest fondness strongly set,
Cling round the happy past, and be
One fresh perpetual song of Thee!"
1854.
Roaming through a forest deep
Once I wander'd in my sleep,
Moss grew thick and soft;
Insects floated on the breeze,
Herding deer beneath the trees
Toss'd their heads aloft.
In the dreamy noontide air
Buds and bells and creepers fair,
A very world of flowers,
With unfolding leaflets told
(And their chalices of gold,)
The flight of summer hours.
And a merry little stream
Sparkled in the hot sunbeam,
Or in deepest quiet
Crept between the tufted grass,
Resting for a little pass
From its playful riot.
Roaming thro' that forest deep,
Thus I mused (within my sleep),
Oh for olden days!
When upon the midnight green,
Just in such a lovely scene,
Danced the summer fays.
Is there ne'er a nymph or sprite,
Mortal vision to delight,
In the trees reposing?
Do no things of other birth
Now revisit this dull earth
At the evening closing?
Lo! (still dreaming) I advanced
Where of old the wood-fays danced
In a sunny glade;
There, beneath an arching bower,
Lay the spirit of a flower
Sleeping in the shade.
An ample robe of misty gold
Coil'd in many a graceful fold
This gentle spirit wore;
Such a choice attire I ween
Never form of mortal queen
At earthly festal bore.
Such a light and such a grace
Shone forth from its unearthly face
As never painter knew;
The subtle smile which flitted round
Its parted lips without a sound
In changeful glory flew,
And melted to as faint a frown,
In dreams which chased each other down
On that ethereal brow:
If fairy thoughts are far too fine
For us coarse mortals to divine
Who may their visions know?
Entranced upon that awful verge
Where nature and her mysteries merge,
I held my breath with fear.
"Whoso, beholding such a thing,
Shall not of fays devoutly sing,
He is no Poet dear!"
Thus I passionately spoke,
And the woodland sprite awoke
And frighten'd sprang away.
Half forgetting I had slept,
Vainly to recall I wept
At the dawn of day!
Reader, smile not in derision;
Never did a waking vision
Half so fair and real seem
As the Spirit of my Dream.
When my lady's blue eyes glisten
With the love I hold so dear,
And for joy to look and listen,
All my pulses throb and stir!
And I, timid, bow before her,
Scarcely daring kiss her hem,
Holy seems she,--I adore her,
Wondering whence so bright a gem!
Gracious maiden! I think rather
That thou art that wandering star,
For whom all the weeping Pleiads
Ever vainly longing are.
Oh! I tremble lest they win her
To go back,--the sisters seven,
Scornful all of me, a sinner,
From their shining walk in Heaven.
What distance parteth thee and me?
It is not space, it is not time,--
Death hath not put between our souls
His mystery cruel and sublime.
The love I bore thee thrills me yet
In ancient dearness unforgot,
Yet day by day my heart implores
For that--which cometh not.
Time, touching all with tender hand,
Will doubtless heal this hurt of mine,
Including this torn human love
In yearnings more divine.
Time, bringing blossom to the rose,
And seed-time unto flowers,
Will doubtless take the sting from out
These long impatient hours.
In the cool shadow of his wings
Our feverish sorrows sink to sleep,
He gives us faith in nobler things
Than Nature, but doth keep,
As in some tower made strong to hold
A king's rich gems, above
The earthly air which waxeth cold,
Our tender human love.
Then noble Time in whom I trust,
More noble Love, my strength and stay,
I will beseech thee till thou must
To my strong hope give way;
But this I know thou wilt not do,
How stern soe'er thou be,
Thou canst not, while my heart is true
Wring all my hope from me.
Behold, O Lord! these unhewn stones
Piled rudely for thy mighty towers,
And I, condemn'd to work alone,
Possessor of few fleeting hours;
Not on the carven cornices
Shall ever mark of mine belong,
But I might place the lowest range,--
Then for my labour make me strong!
I shall not live when this dear race
Shall widen to its nobler scope,
Nor dare I say I know my soul
Will see fulfilment of its hope;
But if I fail this faith to win,
Nor think the crown reserved for me,
If these few days be all Thou giv'st,
Help them to pass in serving Thee!
I know not of myself, my soul
Is stranger to me than the smile
On some beloved face; no lights
In future days these days beguile;
I only know I live to learn,
To love, to struggle, to endure,--
When all my sight is swathed in mist
Thou and my work alone are sure!
But art not Thou enough! unseen,
Unproved, unknown, but ever near,
The days are interfused with Thee,
And every day in Thee is dear!
Lord of my life! I dare to live
Where thousands of thy children be,
Living to live by thy dear power,
And if I sleep to sleep in Thee!
1851.
Like berries on some inner bough,
Which swell, grow red, and straight decay,
Finding for beauty no employ,
Till all their fitness fades away;
Yet join some elemental force
And fatten soil for other trees,--
How often seem our human lives
Useless, or useful but as these.
Whether, of earthly children, sires,
Men toil and store,--or whether, cross'd
In that most ardent of desires,
The current of their lives seem lost,
Whether the task be duly done,
Or the strong word unnoticed fall,
God counts his workmen one by one,
And surely too he uses all.
No life is lost, no hope is vain,
No prayer without a sequent deed,
He turns all seeming loss to gain,
And finds a soil for every seed.
Some fleeting glance He doth endow,
He sanctifies some casual word,
Unconscious gifts His children show,
For all is potent with the Lord.
We only see the outer thing,
The secret heart of force ignore,
Lo! from some harsh ungenial spring
Full summer blossoms forth the more!
Deep lie the channels of God's grace,
Deep lies the mystery of use,
He setteth in the chiefest place
That stone the builders all refuse.
The links of time are counted up,
And all were nought if one were broken.
He knows the drops in every cup,
No word remains as if unspoken;
We do not guess what we achieve,
Dim is the ending of our course,
Our faintest impulse may receive
The aid of supernatural force.
Half blind amidst the stir of things,
But safe in following out the law,
We know not what a moment brings,
Nor which way blows the burning straw.
When earth's great heart hath ceased to beat,
And all is finish'd as foreshown,
Marshall'd before the Judgment Seat,
Then shall we know as we are known.
1853.
Lord! If on earth Thou hast a Church,
And dost with fulness dwell therein,
Let me not wander past the porch,
And dwell forlorn in outer sin.
But whether it be straitly built,
Or, wide as all the world, embrace
Each soul that hates Thy hated guilt,
And watches for Thy quickening grace;--
Wherever Thine appointed fold
Doth like the gates of Morning stand,
And, flinging back its bars of gold,
Shows glimpses of the heavenly land,--
Oh! thither guide my wandering feet,
And grant me sight and keep me strong,
That, wrapt in Thy communion sweet,
I fail not from thy saints among.
So, stable in my inner mind,
With peace at heart whate'er befall,
May I abide amidst my kind,
Accepting, trusting, using all
Which Thou dost in thy love decree,
And by Thy will before me cast,
Till the true life bestow'd by Thee
Shall be by Thee resumed at last.
1855.
Who is the Poet? He who sings
Of high, abstruse, and hidden things,
Or rather he who with a liberal voice
Does with the glad hearts of all earth rejoice?
O sweetest Singer! rather would I be
Gifted with thy kind human melody
Than weave mysterious rhymes and such as seem
Born in the dim depths of some sage's dream:
But I have no such art; they will not choose
The utterance of my harsh ungenial muse
For any cradle chant; I shall not aid
The mournful mother or the loving maid
To find relief in song. I shall not be
Placed side by side, O Poet dear, with thee
In any grateful thoughts, yet be it known
By all who read how much thou hast mine own!
When, with bent brow and all too anxious heart,
I walk with hurrying step the crowded mart,
And look abroad on men with faithless eyes,
Then do sweet snatches of thy song arise,
And float into my heart like melodies
Down dropping from the far blue deeps of heaven,
Or sweet bells wafted over fields at even.
Therefore, if thanks for any gifts be due,
If any service be esteemed true,
If any virtues do to verse belong,
Take thou the Poet's name, by right of song!
Suffer that I, who never yet did give
False words to that dear art by which I live
Pluck down bright bay-leaves from the eternal tree,
And place them where they have the right to be!
Oh what a charm in London dwells
For him who walks her streets with love;
The clang of immemorial bells
Flung from grey towers above,--
The deathless, undecaying Past
In which our days are set,
Preach ever, lest we live too fast,
All careless hearts forget.
Niched deep in streets where Commerce pours
Her torrent life regardless by,
We find the fruit of holy hours,
And see great thoughts forgotten lie.
Not dead, tho' slumbering,--at our need
To pristine life they start,
And scatter fresh abounding seed
On soul and mind and heart.
Lo! Christ the Lord, by all confess'd,
Did mould and sign the works of men;
Once throned, He is not dispossess'd,
But claims his own again.
The impress of His sacred feet
In all our ways we see,
Tho' faint and worn, reminder sweet
Of thine, dear Lord, and Thee.
All that our English hearts hold dear
Find here some symbol, here some sign,
To these dark stones each fateful year
Did her high tale resign.
Walk thro' their midst with heedful eyes.
And what they teach thee tell,
The wondrous past of London lies
In this great Chronicle.
Oh sylvan river, flowing on
For ever to the circling sea,
What wondrous epochs have begun,
What hopes been bred by thee!
Oh Spire and Cross and bridge and mart,
Whene'er I pass along,
Thy murmur makes unto my heart
One vast perpetual song!
Then what a charm in London lies
Let every English poet sing:
All mysteries lurk beneath her skies;
She, mighty in her spring
Of life and thought and hope and aim,
A nobler verse demands,
But with a lover's voice I claim
Her Mistress of the Lands.
In thy dark eyes, long sought and lately found,
A world of lovely meaning for me lies,
The riddle of my life seems all unwound,
And render'd in their living depth, dear eyes!
If I have hoped, my hopes are gather'd in,
Finding unlook'd fulfilment on this day;
If I have wept, now let fresh joy begin,
For I will cast my anxious thoughts away,
Meeting the world and life with clearer brow,
Since to me also that great gift is given
Of answering heart to heart, prophetic now
Of how we may be one with Christ in heaven.
Thy hand's kind clasp, which held my own in thrall,
Still'd all its pulses with as full a calm
As blesses earth when tender twilights fall,--
Thy voice to me is as remember'd Psalm.--
Is it indeed so strange? Or hath it run
In a faint melody thro' all my days,
Unknown, unnamed, like some fine thread of sun,
Or subtle sweetness thro' a poet's lays?
It is not time which doth build up true love,
(Tho' that more surely linketh like to like;)
It is all outer sense and hope above
When hearts new found do each on other strike
With instant music!--He who doth conduct
Rivers by divers channels to the sea,
Did in far different fires our souls instruct,
And, when the time was ripe, brought mine to thee!
Oh! word inadequate! Oh! wondrous hour,
Which like the Sibyl of past time did stand,
And, offering me her rich prophetic dower,
A moment waited with an outstretch'd hand!
Had I from her fair promise shrunk away,
Saying, "I peril not my late-won peace,
Leave me my round of duties day by day,
Love ever is a burden,--Tempter, cease!"--
I ever might have blamed my coward heart;
Not always must our past experience warn;
Still would I gather flowers where'er they start,
Nor dread the rose because it wears a thorn.
But thou! Thou wilt not pain me? (See, I trust
With a half-fearful faith!) If truth there be,
If any stedfastness, I think thou must,
By the sweet promise of thine eyes, love me.
Lo! to thy hand I give myself;--I give
What henceforth thou must never cast away,--
A loving human heart, and, while I live,
Will trust thee even as thou sayst I may.
Within a little room
Doth one dear Painter sit,
'Tis fringed with summer bloom,
And the ivy drops o'er it:
Down doth the ivy drop,
To all the arts akin;
Shy little birds will stop
And slily peep therein.
The clouds are curious!
So is the upper blue;
And the tall tree-tops that laugh at us
Bend their great heads to you.
Of cloud and tree and spray
The faint wall-shadow dances,
Murmurs the summer wind alway.
Envious of your sweet fancies!
Here doth full silence reign
Thro' all the golden morn,
While dreams flit in and out again
Ere Art's fair child is born.
Out on the far hill-side,
Begirt with curling fern,
Where chasing clouds do ride,
Doth the other Painter learn.
There's neither rock nor tree,
Nor restive mountain stream,
Cloud-peak nor valley
Cut by a slanting beam;
There's no flood on the meadow,
There's no bird in the sky,
Nor deep mid-forest shadow,
But fills this Painter's eye.
Perch'd on a crazy paling,
Deep in a hawthorn hedge,
Or briny air inhaling
Which whirls by ocean edge;--
Wherever Nature calls
Will this brave artist speed,
And I!--whate'er befalls,
Follow like Ganymede!
We met when time to both was young,
And even'd by our love it grew,
All scatter'd music which I sung
Was gather'd up and given by you.
Too mighty seems the golden spell
To bind it round with flowers of speech,
But high as heaven, or deep as hell,
I swear unbroken it shall reach.
If I should lose--I cannot say
The thing, for life and thought and hope
Are so knit up in you, my way
So well companion'd in your scope,
That, if I try the words to speak
Which picture me without you here,
The shuddering thrills which o'er me break
Say, wordless, if your thought is dear.
If I should lose,--my dream flows on,
With the dark yearning in my eyes
Of one who thinks he sees the sun
Sink blackly thro' dissolving skies.
Oft as this dream sweeps over me,
Sore troubled in your eyes I look,
The phantom of my fear you see.
That is the gaze you cannot brook.
"If I lose you,"--I brave the word,
I will repeat it day by day;
Who boldly grasps a naked sword
Perchance can fling the blade away.
Oh give me back my causeless trust,
My hope that never knew a fear,--
Fate, if thou strike me into dust,
Let me not know when thou art near!
"If I lose you,"--if I should see
Your dearest face quite pale and cold,
And death's dark shadow silently
Even the lingering smile enfold,
Straight comb'd beside your pulseless heart,
Unbraided lie chill shining hair,
And flickering sunbeams glow and start,
With no caress responsive there.
And I, whose voice is often mute
When love wells up within my soul,
Dared all my mocking hope refute,
Retreating on a dumb control,--
I do not know,--I cannot paint
In dreams what such a loss would be;
But if it come, and my soul faint,
Dear God in Heaven, be strong for me--
Be strong for me!
Time, rushing past me with the noise of wings,
Woke up my sleeping spirit, and I wept
At his receding pinions moving on
Into eternity whilst I had slept.
Vainly across the gulf would I have leapt,
Crying, Oh bear me on thy wings to heaven,
And place me on my God's right hand forgiven:
Or bear at least some Christian deed to lay
Before the throne--a faint and feeble sign
Of that which fills my heart. Came answer none
Across the abysmal darkness. Time was gone.
'Gainst he returning come, Soul, work and pray.
That he may take thee unto the Divine.
Time rolls, and month by month
The upwelling blood of Nature fills her veins,
And the bright wooing sun
From the dear earth hath won
A tender blush of flowers that gladden all her plains.
The waves come leaping in,
And I lie clasp'd within
The kind warm arms of Nature. I could die
In such a mood as this; my limbs, dissolved,
Should be to some new herb of loveliest shape resolved,
And I would pour my soul,
A cup of spirit-wine, from out its breathing bowl,
To help the vital force
Which wings the stars on their unchanging course,
Or sprouts among the leaves, and I could be
So lost in Nature as to compensate for me.
Thus dreams the poet, thinking,
Thus dreams the artist, drinking
Fresh draughts of beauty every fresh created day,
Till o'er his half-escaped spirit sweep
Those human memories ever folded deep
Within his heart: then rather would he say,
O friends! dear friends and true! Had I, forgetting you,
Surrender'd up my spirit before the throne
Of great Queen Nature, did you but require
My love, my service, from the quivering fire,
From rock, and wave, and flower, I know would start
The outward forms and strengths of my unwavering heart,
And my life spring obedient when you claim'd your own.
I fear not life, mine eyes are bold for seeing;
I fear not death nor any change of being;
Meek for the present, strong for the coming day,
I tell my soul to be, as be it may:
Only I fear that I, who walk along
In your dear love so happy and so strong,
Be cut from such communion, and the roll
Of death's impenetrable waters surge above my soul.
Oh Grave! hast thou the victory over Love?
Love with the fearless eyes? I do not think
That our frail brotherhood, if on that brink
Beneath whose depths lies black oblivion,
Could wear the high aspect it girdeth on
When it goes forth to conquer ill, and give
Each loving heart the assurance--"Thou shalt live."
Oh Grave! hast thou the victory over Love?
Black shadow, creep not over sunny life,
Which, striving to put forth
Some flowers of heavenly worth,
Shrinks from thine image in unequal strife.
Oh thou, who gatherest youth,
Genius, and beauty to thy dark embrace,
Let one dear smile of pity gleam upon thy face!--
Seeds which we sow in God expand to flowers above,--
Leave us, who lose so much, eternity and love!
What art thou, and what hidest thou,
Thou veil of fair material sense,
So thin, of baffling permanence?
What art thou, and what hidest thou,
Thick curtain, viewless to my sight,
But shutting me from power and light?
Grey clouds of morning barring rosy skies,
Barring the Hand which made me from mine eyes!
Sometimes from that most glorious shore
Where Christ the Lord sits evermore
Comes a faint wind; aside one moment rolls
The awful curtain; on our trembling souls
A vision of the Eternity which is,
Hath been, and ever shall be, very nigh
To the dear dreaming earth sweeps gloriously.
A moment hear we symphonies of Heaven,
A moment see blue depths thro' vapours riven,--
Then darkness steals upon us, and we seem
As though our hearts had fired at some unstable dream.
Again the stern and soulless laws of nature drag
Us unrelenting, crushing those who lag;
We hear no spheral hymns; the subtle soul
Which works or sobs around us flies our coarse control;
The oratorio of the waves is dumb,
Nor from the sighing groves do any voices come.
The household angels who walk'd with us melt
Into thin air, their present love unfelt;
And while their white wings glimmer far and faint,
Lo! where the prophet preach'd, men seek the sculptured
saint.
Ah! we have glorious days when we seem knit
To some great Heart, whose loving beat is round,
Above, below us, and the waves reply,
And the winds whisper when they catch the sound.
We walk as gods; a power is in our eyes,
Constraining others; and a finer flow,
A deeper meaning in our utterance lies,
A grander breadth of purpose on our brow.
Is this the Possible held up before us,
In the warm summer of our fitful spring,
When Christ's full bounteous presence shall be o'er us.
And like a sun shall perfect everything?
And thou, and thou, great Nature! soul'd with beauty,
Which is unto thee as my mind to me,--
No dead conglomerate of dust and forces,
But instinct with a vital energy.
Science, in uttering thy relations, knows not,
And cannot utter of the soul within;
But the dear love we bear thee is a witness
Thou and humanity are near of kin.
Oh! church or chapel preacheth not the fullness
Wrapt in the life of Nature: she can teach
To watchful shepherds how great mysteries circle
Our little life; and ever as we reach
The heart of some great truth, retreating flieth
Her all-surrounding essence, and we find,
Tho' we perchance half fancy that we seize it.
Impenetrable mystery lie behind.
"Come out," said Leonard, bursting through my door,
His black curls tangled like a fretting sea,--
"Come out, nor waste on lazy books this day,
Fit for the gods, and all too good for men.
Thou witless student, authors have two eyes,
As many thou! with complement of ears
(Though rather long ones); pray, had Plato more?
Bacon could smell and taste, and finger coin
As saith tradition; and great Socrates
Possess'd five senses and his ugliness;
An' if thou use thine own great store as well,
Thou shalt be learn'd and famous ere thou die.
Thou ever lookest thro' the telescope
Of great dead minds, seeing the shores remote
Of past and future time; thine own poor nose
Knocking meantime 'gainst every neighbour post.
Did Beauty die with her interpreters,
Dirged by the murmur of the Italian sea?
Did Science fly with Newton up to Heaven,
Leaving us here forlorn to read her past?
Or do they rather live a fuller life,
Now dropping blessings down like fruitful rain
On human hearts and homes? Who on the past
Is idly pleased to feed his mental frame,
May be indeed the pupil of great men,
But never their companion. We have priests
And teachers all about us every hour,--
Matter yet plastic from the hand of God,
And spirit welling up from founts divine,
Begging our thoughts. You give no heed to them;
You're like a child, who throw your lesson by
To fidget with the key, which in itself
Is nothing, can be nothing, but a help
Unto your task's right reading, being learnt."
The sapient Leonard stopp'd.
So I arose,
Took my round hat, and put my box of paints
Into a basket, with some bread and wine
To sustain the outer husk, and for our souls
A volume of Carlyle, poet-painter, one
Wherein he treats of Goethe, and a wee
Edition of Shakespeare's songs (whose title-page
Bore the dear name of some old German town
Where Leonard bought it, being sworn to him
As I to Goethe then); and, so equipp'd,
We sallied forth.
A slowly winding road
Led up and up; upon the boundary-wall
A fringe of ferns cut into delicate shapes
By Nature's graving tool, and richly dyed
In every shade of green, grew lavishly,
Rejoicing, quiet things, to be alive.
So wound we up, till unawares we gain'd
The broad high table-land, and to our eyes,
Our dazzled, utterly astonish'd eyes,
Broke all that sea of heather, purple toned,
A luscious carpet far as eye could see,
Variously shaded, and the cotton-rush
Here and there flecking with its snow-white plume
The great expanse; and by us brown game-birds
Went whirring in sharp fear. Ne'er in my life
Had I seen such a sight, and I stood dumb
In awful wonder. Leonard said, "God's book
Lieth before thee."
In a point of time
I seem'd to read long chapters, every word
Cramm'd full with meaning, and the strangest thoughts
Came over me; the great indwelling soul
Of all this beauty spake my heart within;
While in my veins a richer life-blood ran,
The chaos of my fancy open'd out
Into an order never known before;
New thoughts, new paintings, and new poems rose
Like dreams of a futurity, more bright
Than ever was my past; I thought I heard
The stars all singing, though I saw them not,
And the earth swell the chorus; their song said
"Glory to God who made the Beautiful!"
"Glory to God!" I said, and down my cheeks
Tears rain'd for gladness, till I could not see
The heather or the sunshine. Leonard then--
For he was of a different nature, strong
And blithe as mountain colt,--bid me come on
And try another page, and while he went
He sang at topmost voice, "What shall he have
That kills the deer? the horn, the horn to wear;"
Or else the "Greenwood Tree."
And so we pass'd
Over the hills, unto what seem'd a brink
O'erlooking half a world; hill after hill
Around us lay, encircling a great vale
Of many miles' extent; and to the right
An opening stretch'd away: we thither bent
Our steps, and gain'd a verdant pasture deep
In shadow of thick trees, beside the Wharf,
Where comfortable monks had built a church,
And dwelling for themselves, and pray'd and eat,
And drank and eat and pray'd and drank again,
And taught the neighbouring poor some little lore,
And gave them alms, and gossip'd; no place this
For rigid anchorite of dreams divine,
But rather in these blossoming Bolton woods
Might all the Greek and Roman poets lie
Out of the reach of harm on dusty shelves,
And prophesy--the unrighteous pagans--times
When Bolton Abbey should lie low, and they
Should, in quotations, illustrate its fall.
But we were not to that offence inclined;
Little of Roman or of Greek thought we,
But only of sweet England and her bards.
Down to the river thirstily we went,
Where yet no deeper than a child's blue eyes
It sparkled over stones; the yonder side
A rocky bank rose steeply, hung with trees.
There did we lie and dream in the hot noon;
Leonard read Shakespeare's songs, as was his wont
Whenever he was glad. I hid my face
Far in the thick rich grass, and poems sang,
Within my spirit, of the olden days,
And then about the ruins and the trees,
And children paddling in the river. I
Seem'd verily like an Æolian harp that day;
I was so moved by Nature that I sway'd
Beneath her like a willow to and fro;
And ever as a song came in at one ear,
I felt constrained to sing it, and it went
Out at the other. So we lay till dusk;
Then, when the silver moon in beauty rose
Into the dark blue sky, and twinkling stars
Rose over Bolton, shimmering in the Wharf,
We back return'd. Over the heathery moors,
Now darkly radiant, silently we went.
PART 1
"The night is dark as pitch, Harry,
But there's not a drop of rain,
And when the tide has risen
They'll all be there again;
"By yonder little eastward bay,
With the crags on either hand,
A lonely place,--'tis there, I think,
They'll run the boats to land.
"Ten of the worst and wildest lads
Are coming across the sea,
And the largest boat of the two, Harry,
Will be laden heavily."
They walk'd along the shore three miles,
The strong and fearless men,
As many as they could muster,--
But the force was smaller then,--
Till all within the shadow stood,
Speaking never a word;
Then over the sea the first boat
Came flying like a bird.
PART 2
Bright on the morrow rose the sun
And glitter'd on the sea,
The rippled foam of the ebbing tide
Was as white as it could be;
The long brown fields of trackless sand
Betray'd no mystery.
"Let us go to the bay, Harry;
'Twere well to find some token
Of who the smugglers were; 'tis strange
That not a word was spoken,
Nor, save by oaths and dying groans,
That awful silence broken."
Out to the bay went both the men,
And, onward as they pass,
The fishing-boats were doubled in
A sea as smooth as glass:
Until one stoop'd, and said, "My God!
Here's blood upon the grass."
"Here, Harry! no, it cannot be,
We came not near this wood."
Yet both the men paused silently,
And trembled as they stood,
For the round red drops were plain to see,
And nothing looks like blood.
Over the little violet-leaves
They track'd the life-stains on,
Over the jagg'd grey shadows
Of the lichen-crusted stone,
And midst the shining silver dew,
That ghastly crimson shone.
Beside the brook, by swaying reeds,
Under the shudd'ring trees,
And where the trailing ivy-sprays
Were singing to the breeze,
Sprinkled about the glorious grass
And white anemones,
They track'd it on: at last, a roof
Of sunlit leaves beneath,
Its white face nestled in the grass,
Lay the cold Thing of death;
The small birds sang in vain to it
With meek persuasive breath;
And all around, the lovely wood
Was pouring forth a hymn
At morning dawn: to his dead ear
All but God's trump were dim,
The anthem and the loveliness
Are nothing now to him.
Quiet he lay, and Harry bent
And touch'd the curling hair,
Which lay in tangles, and raised up
The face into the air,
And a sudden sob broke fearfully,
Of the strong man's great despair.
"Thou! sadly lost, and now found thus,
Thou darling of my mother!
Whose name has been a banish'd word,
Still dearer than all other."
Great God! how long must blood cry out?
The smuggler was his brother.
Christmas comes, Christmas comes,
Blessing wheresoe'er he roams,
And he calls the little children
Cluster'd in a thousand homes.
Stand you still, my little children,
For a moment while I sing,
Wreath'd together in a ring,
With your tiny hands embracing
In a snowy interlacing,
And your rich curls dropping down
Golden, black, and auburn-brown.
Over bluest little eyes;
Toss them back in sweet surprise
While my pretty song I sing.
I have apples, I have cakes,
Icicles, and snowy flakes,
Hanging on each naked bough:
Sugar strawberries and cherries,
Misletoe and holly-berries
Nail'd above the glorious show.
I have presents rich and rare,
Beauties which I do not spare,
For my little children dear;
At my steps the casements lighten,
Sourest human faces brighten,
And the carols, music strange,
Float in their melodious change
On the night wind cold and drear.
Listen now, my little children,
All these things I give to you,
And you love me, dearly love me,
(Witness'd in your welcome true.)
Why do I thus yearly scatter,
With retreating of the sun,
Sweetmeats, holiday, and fun?
There must be something much the matter
Where my wine-streams do not run.
Once I was no more than might be
Any season of the year;
No kind tapers shone to light me
On my way advancing here;
No small children rush'd to meet me
Happy human smiles to greet me;
True, it was a while ago,
But I mind me it was so,
Then believe me, children dear.
Till one foggy cold December,
Eighteen hoary centuries past,
(Thereabouts as I remember,)
Came a voice upon the blast,
And a strange star in the heaven;
One said that unto us was given
A Saviour and a Brother kind;
The star upon my head shed down
Of golden beams this living crown,
The birthday-gift of Jesus Christ,
Whereby my glory might be known.
You all keep your little birthdays;
Keep likewise your fathers', mothers',
Little sisters', little brothers';
To commemorate this birth
Sings aloud the exulting earth!
Every age and all professions,
In all distance-parted nations,
Meet together at this time
In spirit, while the church-bells chime.
Little children, dance and play,
We will join; but likewise pray
At morning, thinking of the day
I have told you I remember
In a bleak and cold December
Long ago and far away.
1848
I said last year,
Old Christmas cometh with an open hand,
Bright holly wreath'd about his temples bland,
Icicles twisted in his curling hair
And hanging from his breast in crystals rare:
All men rejoice when Christmas draweth near.
All men rejoice! No, no, this royal guest--
This jolly fellow--hath a double face;
Ice-cold and hard as iron is his brow
When, wrapp'd in pitiless storms and vest of snow,
He hovers o'er the household of the poor
And strikes with clenched fist the fragile door.
When far away the wandering sun hath borne
His molten beams to drop on Capricorn,
There is no faggot to supply his place.
Low lie the embers in the darkening room,
The baby's feeble hands are pinch'd with cold,
The old man, sightless in the gathering gloom,
Hath sunk into a past of memories old.
Over their heads the bleak December howls,
And sleety winds about the chimneys beat,
While miserable rafters scarce prevent
The oozy drops from pattering to their feet.
Wet, cold, and dark. "How long will Christmas last?"
Say little children who should love it well.
They cannot sleep at night when that great blast
Moans in its fury like a funeral bell
Through such thin walls. Old Christmas passes by,
His arms fill'd up with a luxurious store
But ah! of cake, and toy, and dance, and fire,
Hath nothing for the children of the poor.
Poor tiny outcasts of the rich heir's feast,
They stand with wistful eyes and hear the song
Of how, when Jesus was a little child,
His mother tended him the whole night long.
In the dim street the carol chanteth how
The three wise kings brought presents rich and rare.
While, giftless they, within their untrimm'd walls,
Watch the snow falling through the twilight air,
And count the hours till bed-time--then lie down
With shivering limbs, in broken sleep, till day;
And how shall these believe that in the night
The kind Child Jesus can have pass'd that way?
For shame, old Christmas! when you visit here
And bring our little children feast and toy,
Tell them they shall not have one bit this year
Till they have fed a child who cannot buy.
"Good Christians all who in this town reside,"
For whom the season since your birth has smiled,
Besides the tracts and blankets, beef and bread,
Give something to the Christmas of the Child!
1849
Good bye, Old Year!
And with thee take
Thanks for the gifts to every land
Thou broughtest in thy bounteous hand,
And all that thou hast taught to hearts thy lingering steps
forsake.
Good bye, Old Year!
The Past awaiteth thee.
Who ruleth in her power alone
The kingdom of Oblivion.
Silent she sits in ebon chair;
Falling mists of dusky hair
Veil her dark eyes' glorious shine,
Full of wise help, and truth divine.
Silent, unless a fitful sound,
As from some cavern underground,
Steal from her lips; the company
Of ancient Years that round her be,
Then chanting, one by one, give tongue
To old experience in their song.
Good bye, Old Year!
Thou goest forth alone,
As we shall do: thy pages gay,
Seasons and months who round thee lay,
Attend thee to Earth's farthest verge, then back! to greet thy
son.
Hail, New-born Year!
Cradled in morning clouds
Golden and white. I cannot see
Thy face--'tis wrapp'd in mystery;
But Spring for thee is painting flowers,
And Summer decks her woven bowers;
Rich Autumn's sheaves will soon be reap'd,
With store of fruits in sunbeams steep'd,
And one by one with gentle hand folds back thy sunlit
shrouds.
Hail, New-born Year!
Shining and beautiful,
Thou wilt step forth in plenitude
Of youth and its rejoicing mood.
Last child of the half-century,
And time of coming victory
Over the spirits of night and sin,
Whose howlings of defeat begin:
Thou bringest hope, and labour bless'd
In visions of successful rest,
Bringest great thoughts, and actions wrought
In fire upon that forge of thought,
And with the soul of earnestness I think thy youths are full.
Hail, New-born Year!
My utterance is too weak
To tell of all I think thou bringest,
To echo back the song thou singest;
But the very winds of Heaven for those who listen to them,
speak!
Who calleth? I am coming, I am coming
O'er the hills with a swift step from dawn till gloaming,
Pouring from my broadlipp'd horn
Increase over grass and corn.
As I haste I hear discourses,
From the murmurous watercourses,
Of the purple-pinion'd rover,
While from fragrant fields of clover
Comes a drowsy dreamy hum;
They say, "Doth not Summer come?"
Yes, I'm coming, oh! I'm coming!
Who calleth? Bird in greenwood, deer in forest,
Meadow blossoms, and those small things (much the dearest,)
Who blossom in the town,
And in every alley known
To venturous explorers among men;--
All say, "Come, sweet Summer, quicken
Thy slow steps, for, oh! we sicken
Of the darkness and the snow;
We fain would bud and blow,
And we fain would build our nest
Where the green boughs shelter best.
And we fain would go and play
In the meadows yond' all day.
Oh sweet Summer, sweetest Summer, come again!"
Yes, I'm coming, oh! I'm coming.
Who calleth? All the great sea-waves are weary
Of wrestling with the roaring wind in fury,
And would like to go to sleep
On the surface of the deep,
Dreaming of the mermaids down below.
All the little streams awake;
Their silver threads I take,
With the filmy morning mist
By early sunbeams kiss'd,
And wreathe them in a veil about my brow.
So I walk upon the land,
Scattering from my hand
Richest fruits and flowers,
While the winged hours
Paint the sky with gold,
And loveliness untold
Of blue and rose and gray,
Invoking every day
Fresh spells of colour and fresh majesty of form.
Oh! little child and sire,
Seated by your waning fire,
And storm-beat wanderer on the great earth roaming,
Fold your glad hands in prayer because I'm coming!
In this rejoicing time, when sun and shower
In shining alternation rule the sky,
And the brown fields are shadow'd every hour
By cloudy masses scudding swiftly by;
Fields soon to smile in greenness, when the breeze
Leaves on the placid water tracks of light,
Or, hurrying, dimples all the crystal seas
With flecking foam and little wavelets bright,--
Then every flower sings out its joyous song;
The wood-anemones and violets after,
Springing each Sussex hedge and shaw among,
Make all beholders glad with April laughter.
The primrose opens all her folded buds
In yellow beauty to the wooing sun;
Beneath, thro' banks her lavish bounty studs,
The fretting streams o'er stones and branches run.
The celandine, and lilac lady's smock,
Warning the gatherer of the cuckoo near;
The white oxalis, and each old grey rock,
Whence glossy ferns hang down, to artists dear
In every graceful group; the knotted stumps
Embroider'd with green ivy, the bare down,
With windclipp'd oaks securely set in clumps,
Meet our glad eyes, emerging from the town.
At every step we take the cattle stare
With great soft eyes, which ask when summer's coming
And days of grateful heat and tranquil air,
Wherein their lazy worships bask till gloaming.
Fast run the little dogs and snuff the earth,
Or chase the flying birds with vain endeavour;
The cat considers if to venture forth
And greet on sunny flags the warmer weather.
Round go the windmill-sails, and children hie
To various games; the sick come slowly walking,
Released by this spring day, and you and I
Will pace the High Street for an hour's grave talking,--
I mean that raised and sunny pavement, curb'd
Above the road, and bounded by a wall
Which dear green trees o'erhang, quite undisturb'd,
Save where our meditative shadows fall,--
Or out into the country, to that bank
Of blue-bell and red orchis, you with drawing,
And I with Tennyson; no creature near
But the quiet donkey peacefully hee-hawing
Over the hedge. So much for Hastings, full
Of sight and sound in April. Every time
Of the long year hath others, beautiful,
Gladdening the heart, and meet for duteous rhyme.
Long winding lanes and hedges red with bloom
Of sweet wild robin, and starr'd with tender white;
A sun down dropping gold on summer green
Of perfum'd woods, whose laced foliage shows,
In sudden glimpses, depths unfathomable
Of the far coolness, bower on bower of leaves,
Various in shade and shape; which following,
They're lost in sudden darkness of thick trees,
Or branch far up upon the dim blue sky.
And here are nests of birds, whole colonies
Of poets singing ever; nightingales
As in old Grecian woods; not mournfully,
But in glad bursts and far resounding calls
Filling the air with music holiest. We
Stay here awhile and listen: on the faint
Sweet breath of the wind comes tuneful insect hum,
Mix'd with a rustle of the swaying leaves,
Bass to the birds' clear treble--"Beautiful!"
Trot on again, dear pony, thro' boss'd stems
Huge in their venerable age, green slopes
Of tall June grass, thick set with sorrel, on fire
With poppies, royally gemm'd with buttercups,
Ripe to the mower's scythe. The grove-crown'd hills
Swell up on either side, divinely raised,
Stretching away with distant sunlit copes.
On--crossing "shallow rivers;" verily
They must be those unto whose grassy banks
The shepherd woo'd his darling; they flow by
With such a pleasant rustle over stones,
'Mid moss and water-lilies, and eddies bright,
And deeper lucent pools, where silver fish
Dart ever to and fro. The lazy groups
Of meek-eyed cattle saunter down to drink,
And, standing ankle deep, look startled up
At our unwonted wheels. By Stoneleigh bridge
Are dotted cottages, with tottering babes,
And smoke that wreathes against the trees and sky.
I scarce can think, on this luxurious eve,
That dismal towns exist, tho' tapering spires
Rise far away, and warn us such there be;
Towns with the thronged street and smoky air,--
Towns with close alleys breeding fever-plagues,--
Towns of sad men. Oh blessed summer sun!
As thou art to this landscape, which were dull
And bare indeed without thee, so may we
Be to the shadowy places round us, full
Of an interior radiance, shedding forth
A stedfast light of tenderness and truth.
Broad level fields, and hedges thick with trees,
A calm still evening dropping fitful rain,
And hawthorns loaded with their perfumed snow;
All Nature languorous, and yet alive
With humming insects and with bleating sheep;
A sky both grey and tender,--misty clouds
Floating therein, streak'd here and there with gold,
And golden flowers topping the tall June grass.
Ivy clothes all the ruins, sprouting weeds,
Lichen, and moss for richest tapestry
While for festivity and regal pomp
Held in the olden time, is nothing now
But tune of children's voices, and the calm
Quiet evening, misty on the ruins. Far
Over the fields are farms and gardens gay;
And strong magnificent oaks, beneath whose boughs
Twilight sits brooding ere she walks abroad.
A soft moist summer eve,--'tis Nature grieving
For the depart of Spring; not yet the sun
Hath dried her thoughtful tears; or else it is
The death of the Last Fairy, and the flowers
Hang down their heavy heads in grief for her.
I on this highest tower look far away
Over this lovely England; and I think
There is a poetry in our northern land
Peculiar to itself: though it hath not
The gorgeous colouring of southern shores,
Peopled with hero shades and temple-crown'd,
Yet we too have our tale of deeds sublime,
And spirits haunting our green forest glades,
And a grave meditation, born from out
Endeavouring lives and quiet scenery
And summer evenings so divine as this.
Spiked reed and golden Iris bending over
Low-running streams, and that small pleading flower
We none of us forget, with foxgloves ranged
In rows of crimson bells, and many more
From hedge and coppice and flat marshes, make
My glad mind wander forth where they were born,
When the dim dawn awoke with summer songs,
And June with glory crown'd proclaim'd the morn.
With glory crown'd! oh month of wealth untold!
From the high moorland sweeps the scented breeze,
Gorse spreads a golden pavement under heaven;
No stars can pierce the woven forest-trees
When night again hath lit her silver lamp,--
Brooding above the homes of sleeping men
And wide-spread plains of God, who sleepeth not,
Till all the dykes are lustrous once again.
Murmur, slow streams, and sway within the wind,
Spiked reed and golden Iris, while the day
Breaks red upon the plain, the moon grows dim,
And all the piled clouds are roll'd away.
I love to lie
In the dreamy heat of an autumn day,
Where the painted insects idly play,
Floating about in the noontide ray;
Or at evening hours
By the gillyflower on the old grey wall,
And the scented pea, and the sunflower tall,
And the ivy trailing over them all,
In the time of flowers.
By the deep old moat where the duckweed grows,
And the drowsy streamlet scarcely flows,
Overhung with garlands of gay wild rose
And bryony,
Where mosses carpet each sloping mound,
And the white convolvulus twineth round
The cluster'd shrubs and over the ground,
I love to lie;
Where all is still, and warm, and bright,
Or glowing with a chasten'd light,
Which fades away in a moonlit night,
In every time
Ere the death of the flowers, while the wandering breeze
Whispers and laughs 'mid the crowned trees,
To the song of the birds and the hum of the bees
I would lie and rhyme.
I sat once more within a tangled wood,
Beside a quiet river, on whose breast
A world of trees look'd down admiringly
At their own beauty; and the sportive fish
Leapt up, in their unviolated home
Fearless of heart; 'twas on an autumn day,
And, save the dropping of a waterfall,
Or the low plashing of a distant mill,
Sound there was none; the moss grew thick and soft,
And many a flower o'ertopp'd the heavy grass
With luscious gifts of colour and perfume.
And there I used to lose myself amidst
The tales of old Romance, with beating heart
Tremble beneath the power of Merlin's spell,
And follow where Sir Launcelot du Lac
Braved in the Sangreal's quest the powers of hell.
Nor less my fancy peopled that green wood
With the creations of his magic pen
Who call'd the centuries from their silent grave,
And bade each graceful legend charm again;
I loved right well each high chivalric name
By him a second time enshrined in fame;
Dreamt of the Monarch of Linlithgow fair,
And wept with Constance or rejoiced with Clare.
On the still water when the sun went down,
And the flowers nodded on their slender stems,
And earth was hush'd, the angels spoke again,
And counsell'd, in their low sweet tones, to save
Adam, of God's deep love the latest born,
And his fair consort, from the snares of hell:
Or Shakespeare led me where the summer fays
Dance thro' the midnight hours beneath the moon.
Old times, dear times! no sentimental fears
Shall mourn your flight: tho' we may never read,
With youth's peculiar fresh and wond'ring mind,
Those glorious books again--from hindering thought
And worldly care and worldly sorrow free--
Yet ever to our elder years they bring
A bright remembrance and a fitting charm,
And what we lose in childish faith we gain
In fond appreciating reverence;
While the young generations round us rise,
And drink, unslaked, at our old founts of joy.
Clambering up the rocky bank,
Briers and honeysuckles fling
Greenest branches unto air
Fragrant in the early spring:
Streams let loose from winter's thrall
Sparkling thro' the meadows play.
And with silver voices call:
Wherefore must I be away?
Crocuses by sunbeams lit,
Hypaticas of many dyes,
Lose the lover who adored them,
Singing sonnets to their eyes,--
I, who knew each little nook
Where the early violets grow,
I, who used to hail the snowdrops
Softly blooming through the snow.--
All who used to peep at me
Now unsought, unsung must be.
Every voice of Nature calls me,
Here immur'd must I remain;
Ever in my dreams I whisper,
"When will summer come again?"
Within a wood, no farther from the sea
Than you might hear the waves dash audibly,
These flowers grew; the high hills, closing round,
Made of the little dell a fairy ground
For warmth and greenness; never winter dare
Invade the softness of its tranquil air.
Adown the wood a lucent stream doth brawl,
And earliest here the welcome cuckoos call;
In the far distance white-sail'd vessels ride,
Or tiny fleets of fishers deck the tide.
My picture is too faint, but it may bring
Some image to you of the scenes I sing.
Oh! thoughts of Genius, clothed in hues divine,
And sanctifying this time-honour'd spot,--
Oh! sacrifices on the holy shrine
Of Arts to God, by Him rejected not;
Most true religious teachers, ye allot
A portion of Heaven's blessedness to men
Shut up in weary town, the darksome den
Of much unrighteousness, who seldom see
The gracious form of Nature save in ye.
Nature interpreted by Love is Art,
Which, entering in the inmost spirit, calls
Tears from the eyes and blessings from the heart,
And longing lingering reverence to these glorious walls.
Out from the house I went when early dawn
As yet had hardly tinged the peaks with gold,
And cottage-smoke in faint ascending wreaths
Stole from the inner depth of valleys old.
At length upon a sunny hill I sat,
Looking at meadows, cattle-strown, below,
And upwards where into the clear blue sky
Shot out the tapering peaks of pathless snow:
And many similes within my brain
Stirr'd as if Nature spoke aloud to me,
And said, "Oh child that watcheth ever, learn
That which I mean by my solemnity.
Even as these high peaks above thee rear,
So stand great souls above the ranks of men;
No summer warmth caresses year by year
Grand heads encircled by a glorious pain.
But if of verdure bare, thou must not doubt
Joys of their own to such great souls are given:
Lonely they are; but though forlorn of men,
They stand in the unchanging light of heaven.
Oh child! receive their teaching; even as here,
Below them, fir and flower are glistering bright,
Wanner, more beautiful, the dawn descends,
Till all the lowest vales are fill'd with light."
1850
Black eyes, unearthly in their depth and fire,
Gleam out from under shade of trellis'd vines,--
And faces cut more delicately than
The forest-flowers by God. Swart brows, and shapes
Moulded by mountain air, or early ripe
Amidst the feather'd plains of Indian corn,
Step (like old pictures out of golden frames)
From sunlit arches through the glowing streets;
And by the shrines the peasants kneel in prayer
As in the time of Dante. Tall white towers
Gleam on the steep hill-sides, and such sweet names
As Leonato and Vincenzio, writ
Above the cottage doors, bring vividly
Bright fireside memories of our English home,
And Shakespeare teaching us of what he learnt
When his great spirit at midnight wandering went
Far from the moonlit Avon, to discourse
With the ghost of old Time Past, and to drink in
The secret spirit of things in stranger lands.
Here lived (more real lives than many a man,)
Those glorious lovers, patriots, soldiers, friends,
Whose words are ever in our mouths, whose deeds
Stand out for our example; this the land
Where Brutus, standing over Cæsar's body, made
That great oration which is now more true
Than ever it was then. Oh land much loved
Of all our northern nations! age by age
Thou lift'st among them thy young vigorous head,
Queen of some new and unexcelled realm.
Thine was the Empire of the Sword, and thine
The Royalty of Faith, and thine the Soul
Of Beauty through external things transfused;
Now be the Doctrines of the century thine--
The People's Progress and their wise self-rule.
All eyes look on thee, all hearts yearn to thee;
For thee are prayers put up, for thee tears shed:
Give thou thine own best strength, for all men lose
What thou, so dear, so honour'd, canst not gain.
1850
Heavily hang the purple grapes
By fair Lake Garda's waveless side;
Above, in slow ethereal march,
Battalion'd clouds in order ride.
Oh Italy, dear Italy!
Did thy sun but light the free,
What earth, what sky, were so divine,
So full of majesty as thine?
Fading away to formless mist,
In grand long aisles thy mountains stand;
The flame-lit trails of broad-leaved vine
Cling round their poles on either hand;
Or over stones of warm grey wall
Droopingly hang like maids forlorn;
A foreground rich with white church-towers,
And feather'd spires of Indian corn.
Oh Italy, dear Italy!
Often we dreamt of thee unknown.
A far-off home, a painter's heaven,
A heritage the poet's own:
How have thy saints more holy seem'd
Since we beheld the earth they trod!
Where Leonard work'd, and Dante dream'd,
And Raphael's thoughts were sent of God.
The day is dying, midst the blue
A molten sun sinks slowly down;
The earth is black, the purple hills
Like heavenly shadows earthward thrown.
Blind with the glory mute we stand,
The glorious plains now lost in light;
And shortly twilight's tender veil
Is lifted by the silver night.
When we afar shall think of this.
How glorious will the memory be!
A golden dream for northern nights,--
A daily prayer that thou wert free,--
A vision of beauty cheering us
Who labour under paler skies;
May God be with thee in the day
When thou and all thy Sons arise!
1850
Throned high above these restless towns are three
Great elder spirits, calm-brow'd and beautiful,
As much inhabitants as any be
Who walk the streets to-day; their hearts are full
Of ever-blessing kindness, and I see
Their pictured thoughts and smiles benignant shine
From all the walls around with love divine,
And their past words declare a prophecy.
Time was when these great spirits walk'd the earth,
And time shall be when such again be born;
The shining constellation of their birth
Shall open to a wider glow of morn;
And all the pious thoughts these ancient works declare
Be by our children sung and painted everywhere.
1850.
We stand together on the deck,
Around us twilight falleth fast,
And the soft rain of autumn bears
Its welcome on the fitful blast.
That tender greyness of the north
The late October day hath donn'd;
Save, over England, one pale streak
Of amber tells of skies beyond.
Glorious lands we leave behind us!
(Bleeding life from every pore),
Those great native hopes which bind us
Shall but make us love you more;
But we feel your noble memories,
All whose teachings we revere,
Your grand skies and grander artists,
Pale to life which waits us here.
Ev'n as that faint streak of amber
Speaks of a clear heavenly air,
England, prophesying nobly,
Bids the nations not despair;
The great thoughts she rears within her
Waft a message o'er the sea,
And we say, in swift approaching,
"All our heart is wrapt in thee."
1850
Hills that were born of ages,
Heaving slowly from the deep,
Are shaking down their tresses,
Silver-threaded from the steep;
Curling shining tresses
Streaming ever down the steep.
Hills! prophets of the future,
Hills! teachers of the past,
Like monuments to mighty gods
Upon the broad earth cast.
Robed in the purple heather,
Crown'd with the snow-white mist,
Kings sit they all together,
Vouchsafing to be kiss'd
By the tender sunlight
Only when they list.
The unfathom'd lakes lie meekly
Looking upwards to the sky,
And image forth the monarchs
As a dream or fantasy;
And the hill-wind runneth o'er them,
Singing in Æolian strains,
Singing of the earth's divineness
To the dwellers in the plains.
Fine and strong
'T has stood for long,
Jetting up its slender lances
Far athwart the arched sky,
On whose tops the sunshine glances,
While the birds wing brightly by.
Fine and strong,
A sculptured song
Of forest hours,
Boughs, fruit, and flowers.
The oak, the vine, the summer rose,
With buds and bells no herbist knows,
Twisting round each great stone column.
With its aspect high and solemn.
Fine and strong,
Thick trees among.
Carven niche,
Wrought in rich
Knotted angles interlacing,
Holds each fast in its enchasing,
Divided by a slender shaft.
Many a face grotesque has laugh'd
Ages from the pipes. A Virgin
Stands upon the porch's margin,
And the Child
Thus long has smiled,
Praying the weary and the poor
To come unto his Father's door.
Many warriors hereabout
Lie, some with crossèd hands devout,
Under the blue sky, but others
The great inner aisle-roof covers.
Ah! Within 'tis all divine,
With soften'd shine
From every pane
Whose gorgeous stain
Lies upon
The pavement stone,
Telling many an awful story
Of the martyr days divine;
While a dim torch-lighted glory
Streams from every pictured shrine;
And the anthem slowly rolls
Over the assembled souls,
With a free
Full melody.
God Almighty framed this church
In the artist's mind I think;
Beauty's fountains none may search,
Save who religiously will drink.
This for the Spirit
To inherit
Built he humbly,
Ay, and dumbly
We can but say some man once thought
In this wise, nought else is known,
And with long endeavour wrought
His thoughts divinely into stone.
The sultry sun
Burn'd hotter in December than the skies
Of our far land in June; within a bower,
Where all the lucent leaves were fill'd with light
And shed it greenly round, a lady mused,
While the laced shadows quiver'd on her face,
As skimming clouds on earth, or thoughts in hearts
Which drink their influence in. Down to the ground
Swept her long hair, stiller than scrolls of stone.
So broadly curved her thoughtful brow, I said,
"This is the model we have waited for,
By poets sought unseen; still slow to take
Her sceptre in her hand; Fate's prisoner.
This is the Spirit of Freedom, calm and fair,
Which many lands desire. She bides her time.
Within her awful eyes such sorrow dwells
As shakes my heart with fear; and yet I know
When she arises not a throb or pang
Will usher in her steps. She bides her time.
When the far thunder sinks below the sea
She will walk forth to govern; noiseless flowers
Will spring around her feet. Till then she bears,
With the stern patience only gods can feel,
The groans which minute Time,--'Eternity,'
(I read her thoughts,) 'Eternity is mine.'"
Night loosen'd all the blackness of her hair,
Which fell about her in an ample cloud
Dropp'd with no jewels, veiling her blue eyes
In ebon fringes, and a sighing sound
Stole from her closed lips, as in unrest
She sway'd with slowest motion to and fro;
Then sat serene, and seem'd to search within
The abysses of her soul and memory vast,
And thoughts unknown to men; and wept her hours
(Her lovely starlit hours, choice gifts,) defiled
By evil cruel thoughts, and bloodier deeds.
"Time was, when from my cooling urn
I scatter'd dews, and with my delicate hands
Closed up the flowers, that sages lit their lamps
And ponder'd heavenly secrets, keeping fast.
Dark vapours hover now about my brow,
And bad things seek their shelter. I am weak.
And tremble powerless to inspire a prayer.
Where art thou gone, my brother?" Thro' the dim earth
Sounded the cry of Night, and heavily
Fell the large tears from her mist-blinded eyes.
Now rang the silver bells of Dawn; sweet smells
Breathed from the wakening flowers; a streak of light
Was mirror'd in the sea; and Night arose,
Gathering her robe, retreating towards the west,
Till in its farthest depths her lofty form
Was lost, and all her path refulgent shone
With jewels, and the Day, advancing, shook
Perfume and music from his golden curls.
Aspasia, sitting crown'd the queen of souls,
In days when Athens scorn'd to own a king,
Or Pericles to stoop on regal power;--
Aspasia, sitting under olive-trees,
Shows in that company of noble men
Like some rich clasp that holds a chain of pearls.
Her fair mild eyes and broad Milesian brow
Framed in thick rippling waves of gather'd hair,
Bright with the blue sky shadows; one white hand
Raised motionless in thought which scarcely flows
From the grave portal of her parted lips,--
This poised majestic figure, sweet as love,
Yet firm as all high hearts and loyal are,
Shows like soft light between past troublous times
And wars that follow'd after. Not to preach
Upon thy claims and honours would I bring
Thy face to life in art; but that thou hast
The central place, the warm and human charm,
'Midst records of the sovereign state, and art
Unto a poet infinitely dear.
Fair wert thou in thy noon of gracious deeds
Upholding and upholden; beautiful
Wert thou in marble Athens, beautiful
Art thou enshrined in history; nor less
That thou art shadow'd in a mountain cloud,
While meaner heads show clear. (O Painter! thou
Who dwellest in fair dreams, but all too sad!
Summon this grand shade from Elysium,
And having held high converse, and embued
Thy spirit with her smile, cast potent spells
Over her beauty, and retain it here!)
Birds will pipe another spring
Songs we shall not hear,
Ancient Sabbath-bell will ring
Vainly for our ear.
Never more with willing feet
To its calling shall we meet,
Never more on summer's day
All together sing and pray.
On our hearths will fires burn
To which we shall not return
Homeward when the nights grow cold,
As we did in days of old.
Here we leave our cradle's corner,
Here likewise we leave a grave,
Within which, a tired sojourner,
One of us a rest will crave.
Unforgotten, unforgetting,
Footsteps faltering and slow,
Uncheck'd tears our eyelids wetting,
To another home we go.
Hoping on, and ever hoping,
Fill'd with solemn trust alway;
With all evil bravely coping,
Move we forward--God our stay.
Not the sharp torture of the critic's pen,
The curse of genius in our days, tho' scorn'd,
Nor full fore-knowledge of the ban which men
Would set upon thee, Lady, have suborn'd
Thee from the simple truth; nor that gay crown
Of dry gilt leaves and roses overblown,
Which intellectual cliques delight to give
To wits and scribes of drawing-room renown,
And they, debased, on bended knees receive,
Weighs 'gainst the awful claims of that which you believe.
What you assert the critics will deny,
What you deplore pronounce eternal law,
Sneer at the echo of your bitterest sigh,
At home lock up your book, abroad decry,
Quashing your doctrine with some dusty saw.
Sincerely vow'd to every high command,
And bent on duty with a stedfast soul,
Truth for your only monarch, hand in hand
With all who own the same august control,
No word of pity, if the storm should beat,
Need any voice bestow which calls you dear;
You will not quail beneath the foolish heat,
Nor mourn anathemas you do not fear.
Truth is, your strong and loyal heart will say,
Of all her martyrs the sufficing friend,
And when the lamp of love has paled away,
Will without fail her own great glory lend.
Oh voices raised in passionate protest once,
Brave spirits from whose pains our freedoms spring,
Who dared your birthright of delights renounce,
And, finding God, feel rich in everything,--
How long shall we your noble names revere,
And write your actions where our sons may see,
Your ancient utterance in our hearts ensphere
And, when your steps are follow'd, turn and flee?
Peace on the hush'd earth fell at eventide
As dew from heaven upon the thirsty grass;
No sound unmusical broke on the ear,
The fields all tranquil, and the waters calm.
Each drowsy flower hung down its gentle head,
The murmur of each insect died away,
As, floating down, it sank with folded wing,
Weary with play and happiness, to sleep.
No vapour o'er the populous city hung,
Spread out in grandeur on the horizon's verge;
But dome and pinnacle and pillar tall,
And all the royal works of royal men
Lay carved in miniature before my eyes;
And graceful gardens rearing amidst spires
Rich burnish'd hues of autumn, and proud piles
Of charity (the gift of timorous death,
Hoping perchance to cancel evil deeds),
And halls of learning consecrate for long,
And giant fabrics for each social craft,
The so-call'd crown of these luxurious times:
And there were mighty sepulchres to men
Unhonour'd in their lives; and tombs of kings,
And ancient gateways into busy haunts,
Full of the modern spirit of loss and gain,
All in one vast confusion intermix'd.
A noble city and a nation's pride,
Set in a lovely frame of sloping hills,
And girdled by a river, where the sun
Quiver'd and danced, as glows a ring of fire.
The radiance died away, and Night walk'd forth,
Darkness and Sleep with her, her children twain,
And brooded o'er the town; yet many eyes
Watch'd weary doubtless, and slept not till dawn.
Then to the distant height whereon I stood
Rose a sad sound, which, filling all the air,
(This to my fancy, not my waking sense,)
Struck fear into my heart, as of one who sees
Dimly the black edge of an awful gulf,
And guesses at the unknown depth below.
Musing, I closed my eyes, and visions rose
In long array before them--of times past,
And times to come; and pictures of true life
Even at the moment painting stirr'd my tears.
Oh God! this hour, thy gift, how rich it is
In all we love of heroism, how black
In all we hate of sin!
In one abode,
Dark from the clouded air, remote from heaven,
Or aught that nature made, were two that spake
In whisper mournful, and with clasping hands.
They were not lovely, nor of high repute,
Gifted in intellect, nor mild of mood;
Two rougher spirits scarcely might be found
In all the city, but a spell was on
Their darken'd natures, and work'd strong within,
And brought from out the abyss of evil days
A touch of holier feeling undecay'd.
It was night;
Small sign of beauty or of wealth was there,
Save one poor primrose dull'd and dried with smoke,
And one poor human bud, than all more sweet,
Which lay on a little couch; its eyes were closed,
But the long lashes quiver'd restlessly,
And from the small pale lips a moaning cry
Broke, as of pain. Father and mother there
Sat in their desolation all alone.
This was the first-born and the only one,
For whom they often hush'd their wicked words
That he might learn no ill; they pray'd for him
When reckless of themselves, and hoped the lad
Might find some better teaching in a school
Than they had found in gaols; but now, no hope,--
The fiat had gone forth, "The child must die;"
And wherefore? Kill'd by very want and care!
It never play'd by marge of river clear,
It nothing knew of natural sounds or scents,
Nor thought of things divine; it only knew
A coarse humanity, a Godless world
Of streets and alleys, an avenging law:
So, one of many children, thus it died.
Father and mother mourn'd it all alone,
And weeping stood beside the little grave,
While cold eyes look'd on them with curious stare,
And then pass'd on; for not in churchyard green,
Quiet and holy, in some nest alone,
Was this grave made; no sound of village bells
Lull'd him to sleep; but where the rattling wheels
And loud shrill voices broke their darling's rest
Throughout the day, and all the dismal night,
While yet he linger'd on the dreary earth
There, in a corner, with no stone to mark,
Rail'd from the common street with open bars,
They laid their boy, and back return'd alone.
Oh London! great among the nations, great
In thought, in wealth, and greater being free;
Who dwellest under thine own magistrates,
And say'st "My express'd opinion awes the world,"--
Oh mother city! oft thy freedom seems
One vast corruption of the eternal ties
Which bind men to each other!
With a sweet murmur dropping waters play,
Breaking the stillness of this summer's day,
And all things beautiful and light and fair
Rejoice, half sleeping in the noontide air,
Or lie, dream-revelling, through luxurious hours,
Children and insects, cattle, birds, and flowers.
Oft in my childhood did I lie and think,
As these do now, upon this river brink;
And watch'd the osiers swaying to and fro,
Or oak-trees mirror'd in the stream below;
And many a nook, branch-bower'd, here I knew,
Whose unsunn'd water never caught the blue
Of distant heaven in summer; only green
Of million lucent leaves and boughs between.
Thence gazing out with happy dazzled eyes
Over that bounteous land where ever lies
A future beautiful to striving men,
The land of Hope yclept, I deem'd it then
Begemm'd with flowers, and rich in mossy dales
Soft unto waysore feet, with open vales
Of greenest pasture sloping to the sun,
Where sparkling streams and placid rivers run.
O'er the blue hills the rolling white-ridg'd clouds
Wrapp'd peaks and fir-woods in their fleecy shrouds;
And mountains rose in far recession, far,
Where dwellings fit for kings and prophets are.
Yet in those mountains many a deep abyss
Yawns to engulf the traveller, serpents hiss,
And in the twilight thickets many a danger
Of man and nature lurks to greet the stranger.
When all these terrors strike his trembling heart,
Alone who enter'd, to alone depart,
Shall he walk feebly in the appointed track,
Falter, or, worse, with timid steps turn back?
There many a dark valley must he pass,
Eying with strained sight the tangled grass;
And oftentimes the dreary clouds will pour
Unceasingly, and heavy thunder roar.
No succour lies in love or kindred blood,--
They cannot save him, even if they would.
Oh! yet above him is a glorious sky;
Around the joyful helps of nature lie;
Beside him ever Faith and Hope and Love;
Within, his thousand vigorous pulses move;
Beyond him, farther than his eyes discern,
Much to be conquer'd, everything to learn.
Oh heart, be brave and tender; eye, be true,
Of vision keen to pierce all danger through;
Feet, bear your master manfully along;
Be his whole spirit teachable and strong,
And joyful too, as standing in the light
Of heav'nly hope; for God's sun shineth bright,
To show all good men their right road, their prayer
Gives light in darkness when the days are drear.
Earth! grant some cheering love, such love is due.
God help the helpful, and uphold the true!
When trembling angels stand aloof,
Watching the fight with folded wings,
Forbid or succour or reproof,
And every hasting second brings
News of the battle fought below,
Where Satan dares his human foe,
God! leave us not alone!
When morning dawns, and daylight breaks
Mournfully into golden flakes;
When aching hearts and heavy eyes
To meet the coming day arise,
And wondering grope, as in a dream,
Midst things that are and things that seem;
Finding that in our bitterest needs
Our usual Faiths were broken reeds,
God! hear us from thy throne!
That grief there is when every light
Seems deep engulf'd in blackest night;
No hope, no peace, no comfort left,
And Faith of its own cross bereft,
Some know, all may; what rescue then?
How shall the weary rise again?
A power descends on striving men,
Helping us that we live!
More strong belief, a deeper hope.
More noble aims, a wider scope
Of love and thoughtfulness, to heal
All nearer hurts our spirits feel,
We, Father, ask, who grieve and sigh
As if no Christ were ever nigh,
Who compass'd every grief that we
Have known, though sharp our agony.
And so, by wrestling, may at length
Our very weakness teach us strength.
All-Mighty! hear and give!
Painted on a little cloud,
Opposite the sunset sky,
Far above the high-piled crowd
Sailing slowly softly by,
I saw a face, its tender rose
Framed in braids of golden hair;
A beauty underived of earth
Was pictured and suggested there.
Oh beautiful beyond my thought!
Oh beautiful beyond my dream!
Half fading in the tremulous nought,
Half merging in the golden gleam;
Spiritual as the blue, blue sky,
And rich as any western ray,
Most like some woman of the past,
Whose memory knoweth no decay,--
Yet humanly expression'd, full
Of all that Nature teacheth, power,
And grace, and love, and tender joy,
Unconscious as of any flower.
Was it some heavenly minister?
Or memory of mine own, more fair?
The golden braids were lost in stars,
The cloud-face melted into air.
Deep heart and earnest eyes
Seeking for rest,
Finding a weight that lies
Cold on thy breast,
Musing on nearest ties
Mournfully riven,
In thy despair arise,
Turn thou to Heaven.
Humanity, gifted
With patience and love,
Thereby should be lifted
Earth's sorrow above;
Should read with believing
The words of the bond;
While dull hearts are grieving,
Shouldst thou see beyond.
Strong will and eager mind
Striving to mould
Deeds to remain behind
When thou art cold;
Choose thou the better part
Written in story,
Live in man's grateful heart,
And for God's glory.
On the still water of our childish days
The noonday blue and midnight heaven look down,
Painting themselves, while every drooping flower
Or lovely human thing which haunts its bank
Lives in the mirror with a fairer life.
Perchance some holy and love-gleaming eyes
Gaze in our stream, or music-voiced prayer
Ripples the water and floats up to God;
But comes a blustering wind, do earthquakes split
The trembling globe, does winter's thralling ice
Hem in our little path,--and all the peace
Of this our life is gone, and we go forth
With troublous murmur to encounter man.
Nay, less than this, the petty trivial cares,
The pebbles flung by hand of idle boys,
The fall of leaves upon our waters, and
The noiseless drop of an unceasing rain,
Such little worthless trifles have the power
To mar our glorious mirror; no more stars
Lose themselves, gliding thro' the dark twin depths;
And he who seeks to find within our breast
Aught of tranquillity or loveliness,
Finds fragments of a thousand jumbled things,
Circle on circle, and the roll confused
Of unreflective wave succeeding wave,
Grief restless and complaining, and past joy
Sadder than sorrow, and a broken tale
Of our life's picture; many days must pass
Ere the chafed waters gain their wonted calm,
And then--the leaves have fallen, and the wind
Has kill'd the flowers; another time of year
Has laid our love in the grave, and gather'd fogs
Obscure the glory of the midnight stars.
What then, sad spirit? leaving field and glade,
And thy sweet progress between blossoming banks,
There is no less a glorious destiny
For thy vex'd waters; stately ships shall ride
In triumph on thy bosom, populous towns
Murmur beside thee, noble work be thine,
Till thou at last shalt lose thyself within
The infinite ocean, and find infinite peace.
We walk in mysteries howsoe'er we tread,
And none less awful that we see them not,
Or that our solemn musings o'er our dead
In life's tumultuous whirl are soon forgot.
All common things we take as if our due,
We see no riddle in the earth or sky,
We watch all beauty year by year renew,
And then with casual speech walk coldly by.
The miracle of never-dying force,
That revelation of a present God,
The torrent rushing down its Alpine course,
The tiny grass-blade piercing thro' the sod,
We talk about, but do not feel; the sun
Rains gold on all the hills, and starry flowers
Look up in gladness; the young birds are flown,
And soft sweet evenings mark the length'ning hours.
And then, perhaps, a child is born, weak thing
Created for eternity, a soul
At whose advent the heavenly angels sing,
Whom Faith and Hope and Love would fain control
But we,--upon its face we do not see
The spirit-traces, nor within its cry
Hear marvellous whispers of much misery,
Or peace, as may be, it shall labour by.
Men die, we bury them; 'tis so much dust,
Muscular, nervous tissue, Heavens! what not?
"He was a moral man, and God is just."
And so we leave the corpse alone--to rot.
Moral? Perhaps; yet he in former years,
While yet a man, did sin, or leave undone
That which he should have done, and then the tears
Down his pale cheeks repentantly would run.
And he had inward struggles, and he still,
Tho' rising bravely after every fall,
Fought hardest battles with an evil will;
And by the midnight stars for help would call,
Importuning his God. The poor soul loved,
And left what he did love, and question'd sore
The mysteries of the world, and ever proved
The truth in those wise words of one of yore
Who knew that he did nothing know. This man
In truth was something more than flesh and blood;
Not to be lightly spoken of; a plan
Among the many of eternal good
Cunningly wrought, and in him was the breath
Of life; but what is that? It came at birth:
From whence? and how? Was exorcis'd by Death;
Departing where? We know not. Pray, thou earth,
And think on all these things, and dwell in awe
Of holiness upon thee; neither walk
Regardless of divinity and law
Writ in thy conscience. In thy daily talk
Mingle sometimes these themes--all is not plain,
And amidst holy oracles we live;
Shall their dim messages be all in vain,
Or wilt thou into thought and action them receive?
Deem not thy labours or thy sufferings hard;
The weary traveller makes a tuneless bard.
Wouldst thou to raise and comfort earth aspire,
Learn thou her language first, and tune thy lyre
To such sweet music of familiar chords
As may give life and clearness to thy words.
How shalt thou breathe a charm o'er weeping eyes,
Who never desolately groan'd and wept?
How shalt thou tell of that deep peace which lies
In faith, whose restless spirit never slept?
How shalt thou dry those tears forlornly shed,
Whose eyes, unlesson'd, never watch'd their dead?
How speak of meeting to the lonely-hearted,
Who never from thine own beloved hast parted?
How sing sweet ditties to enchant the child,
When fair young eyes have never on thee smiled?
Or teach Christ Jesus' loving doctrines, when
Thou art thyself unloved, unsought, by men?
How that dispense which thou hast not received?
How give to others life, who hast not lived?
Think not an empty form of words to borrow,--
All know by instinct who has felt their sorrow;
In vain thine art,--the mourner's cry would be
"Thou'rt ignorant, poet, of what aileth me."
We counsel seek from judgment taught by years,
But trust our heart-griefs to the wise by tears.
He tortured most will most search out the pain,
A tyrant's victim breaks the nation's chain.
View then thy grieving as a thing of worth,
If thou thereby canst meet a grieving earth;
Ponder on tombs till thou hast learnt how much
Of life's best treasure is encased in such;
Hold up to men the form of the Divine,
And bid its radiance on their tear-drops shine;
Singing, O Poet, "Once I wept with ye;
That hour is past; now, overcome with me."
Sweet melody amidst the moving spheres
Breaks forth, a solemn and entrancing sound,
A harmony whereof the earth's green hills
Give but the faintest echo; yet is there
A music everywhere, and concert sweet!
All birds which sing amidst the forest deep
Till the flowers listen with unfolded bells;
All winds that murmur over summer grass,
Or curl the waves upon the pebbly shore;
Chiefly all earnest human voices raised
In charity and for the cause of truth,
Mingle together in one sacred chord,
And float, a grateful incense, up to God.
Deem not thy labours or thy sufferings
hard;
The weary traveller makes a tuneless bard.
Wouldst thou to raise and comfort earth aspire,
Learn thou her language first, and tune thy lyre
To such sweet music of familiar chords
As may give life and clearness to thy words.
How shalt thou breathe a charm o'er weeping eyes,
Who never desolately groan'd and wept?
How shalt thou tell of that deep peace which lies
In faith, whose restless spirit never slept?
How shalt thou dry those tears forlornly shed,
Whose eyes, unlesson'd, never watch'd their dead?
How speak of meeting to the lonely-hearted,
Who never from thine own belov'd hast parted?
How sing sweet ditties to enchant the child,
When fair young eyes have never on thee smil'd?
Or teach Christ Jesus' loving doctrines, when
Thou art thyself unlov'd, unsought, by men?
How that dispense which thou hast not receiv'd?
How give to others life, who hast not liv'd?
Think not an empty form of words to borrow,--
All know by instinct who has felt their sorrow;
In vain thine art,--the mourner's cry would be,
"Thou'rt ignorant, poet, of what aileth me."
Mine eyes are grown too dim with tears to gaze
Into the future with that eager eye
Which, in the fulness of my young amaze
At this fair earth and various harmony,
I bent on all things, hoping to descry
A parallel in spirit; but I found
Such grief and desolation all around,
And the air fill'd with such a mournful cry
Of human tones, that I shook off my dream,
And comfortless arose. And then God spake--
Have I not given thee work wherein shall be
A life's joy and abiding-place for thee?
Time to thine eyes fairy vision brake,
Time does but perfect every noble aim.
Oh cruel England! standing coldly by,
While groans of human creatures rend the sky.
The mother's darling and the sister's pride,
And many a maid's betroth'd one, side by side,
Send up the stifled sob and heartsick moan
Which break the peace of God's eternal throne.
Low-thoughted England! since you could not feel
How dear to noble souls their country's weal,
Consider'd only in the fair aspect
Of rights which ask and which command respect;
How the soul needs her own peculiar bread,
And stricken honour bows the sturdiest head.
Were all material good to Hungary left,
And only this of her desires bereft,
Were only honour lost and mourn'd in vain,
Oh Hampden's England! you might feel that stain.
But not alone her patriot or sage
Weeps as he pores upon the sullied page
Which tells how Hungary to the heart was riven,
And the lost Pleiad shone no more in heaven.
O cursèd prisons! festering where you stand
With that black misery which defiles a land!
Lo, far and wide, paternal homes deplore
The gay young feet which now return no more.
When households gather round at break of day,
And lips too sad to talk are fain to pray,
The mother, gazing in a mute despair,
Turns, sick and shuddering, from each empty chair.
Oh England! slow to speak the indignant word;
Oh England! sheathing an ungenerous sword;
Deaf to the voices you have call'd divine,
From each grey tomb you consecrate a shrine,
Which say, "Before you dare your homage pay,
Do as we had done, had we lived to-day,
Nor make us mourn who bend on earth our pitying eyes,
Death binds our hands whose love for freedom never dies."
Where shall ye lay me? not in foreign climes,
Where stranger winds would sadly waft the unaccustom'd
chimes;
Where my weary spirit would in pain a lonely vigil keep,--
Oh! in that distant land, I pray, lay me not to sleep.
Where shall ye lay me? not where mermaids sigh,
'Mid the roughly chafing billows, so dolefully;
And, longing for the summer days, o'er shipwreck'd sailors
weep,--
Within the waves of the deep dark sea lay me not to sleep.
Where shall ye lay me? not on mountain brow
Where the white snow lies, and the dark firs grow;
I do not love the precipice and chasm's yawning deep,--
Upon the frowning mountain, then, lay me not to sleep.
Where shall ye lay me? Not 'mid haunts of men,
Where crime and poverty peep out from every crowded den,
Where loud the ceaseless bells would clang, Death's harvest-ears
to reap,--
Oh! in the city's busy range lay me not to sleep.
Where shall ye lay me? far far away,
Where freshly in the early spring the dancing leaflets
play.
Tall poplars by my grave long watch shall keep;
There, by those I loved in life, lay me to sleep.
Waves which discourse, in a melodious whisper,
Mutual knowledge with the marshall'd clouds,--
Murmur of June, which riseth up with Hesper
When the wing'd squadrons hover round in crowds,--
Colours which change and melt at every station
Won by the sun within a glowing sky,
Whose lawful order points a fine relation
Linking the spheres of light and harmony,--
Shadows which flit and fade on every pasture,
Like to the flight of passing souls above,--
Say, "Grieved hearts, lay down the cherish'd creature.
Let the grass quiver o'er our buried love;"--
All these are angels, offering no solution,
Yet to my sickening mind they speak of peace;
Laying calm wings about our fierce emotion,
Softly and lovingly they whisper "Cease."
Here on this hill-top lay her; she was lovely,
Gentle, of knowledge wishful, brave to hold
All sad fears silently; the leaves shall tremble
And the birds sing above her quiet mould.
As she loved Nature, so be Nature round her,
So may she best sleep, so we best attain
To some composure, knowing Death ne'er bound her,
And ere those trees lie low we meet again.
Quietly sleeping on its little couch
The cherish'd infant lay; its curly hair
Twined lovingly about the tranquil brow,
And droop'd caressing o'er its eyelids fair,
As if to guard from harm some soft blue tinge
Of those sweet eyes within their glossy fringe.
Its small white limbs beneath the snowy folds,
Models of infant beauty, strength and grace,
Reposed: a childish smile of love and glee
Rested upon the yet untainted face:
Its tiny hands enclosed a scented flower,
Cull'd in its evening sports at twilight hour
A year pass'd by; and at the eventide
A little child lay quietly,--and slept.
Its innocent face was dew'd with tears as if
Some loving eye had lately o'er it wept
In agony of grief; yet why were tears
Shed for the pure in heart, the young in years?
It is so quiet; when we saw it last
It smiled, as though some airy sprite had brought
A vision of gay fairy-land, and woven
The golden tissue with its infant thought;
And the little heart beat softly as it press'd
A fragrant blossom to its snowy breast.
Mother!--in former times the first-born son
Was vow'd unto the Lord, and shalt thou now
Murmur because Jehovah claims his own,
And sets his seal upon thy darling's brow?
Shall thy devoted heart be found more cold
Than Samuel's mother in the days of old?
Sever from that dear head one curly lock,
And treasure it with care; in after years,
When gazing on it, think the others wave
O'er eyes that gaze on Christ undimm'd by tears.
Some truth, some warning made the trial fit:
He gave, he took away. Do thou submit.
I was a painter; if I loved
Her glorious face too much,
It was that thought had carved its lines,--
I worshipp'd it as such:
Hour by hour I gazed on her,
And trembled at her touch.
The earnest fire of her deep eyes
Burnt all her thoughts in me,
Each smile that trembled round her mouth
Struck me inwardly:
Her voice went shivering through my heart
Like a spheral harmony.
Thus soul and gesture blended were,
(Such Truth is truest Art;)
Her soul was as a shrine, wherein
My hope was set apart;
And every thread of her golden hair
Was twisted about my heart.
And oftentimes I could not speak,
Because my reverence fill'd me so
That when I strove her pause to break
The words came falteringly and slow;
It seem'd as though my thought met hers,
And the double current would not flow.
So she to me was sanctified,
A symbol full of meanings holy,
The dove sat brooding by her side
With eyes unstain'd by melancholy;
Her face was fill'd with a woman's pride,
And my spirit bow'd before her wholly.
Oh! fear sometimes possessing me
Lest I were left and she were taken,
"How could I paint again," I said,
"For eyes which would no more awaken?"
Great God!--Thou hast Eternity
For every love by Time unshaken!
"Too many poets in the land!" quoth they,
The stern and angry band who paced to meet
The Master Plato in Elysian Fields.
"Too many poets!" thunder'd Æschylus
With knitted brow; "I form'd the glorious stage
Of Athens, hew'd the perfect fabric out
From that rough block which strolling Thespis left.
The sweet-voiced chorus moved at my behest,
For me Castalian deities, and they,
The linked three whom Aphrodite loves,
Essay'd their matchless powers and stirr'd all hearts.
My rites were sacred; to presiding Gods
Rose up sweet incense at the morning dawn.--
'Too many poets!' poets are as priests,
The messengers of God, and I have dared
To cast on Jove's injustice a rebuke.
Singing the rock-bound Titan, and the scourge
Whipping the matricide athwart the world.--
Hast thou, O Plato, nobler lessons taught,
Thyself! in all thy philosophic pride?"
Then spoke his gentler rival, loyal bard,
The prince of poets and a warrior brave,
Gifted by Nature and refined by Art
Till Athens boasted him the pride of Greece.
Stately and sweet his voice, recounting how
He had incited men to glorious deeds
By visions of the old heroic time,
Causing the stern and rugged hearts of those
Unused to throb at pity's gentle pangs
To bleed, compassioning Electra's woe,
To die with Ajax, and to quench the pyre
On which Antigone gave life, with tears.
"Oh, why," said they, "denounce our godlike craft
For some degenerate bards who play'd us false,
And dimm'd the brightness of our Attic Crown?
Our swords are double-edged and can pierce thro'
The heart of virtue or the heart of vice
According to the wearer; we, the bold
True poets wielded them to raise the right;
Others, to further their base private ends,
Have seized our weapons with injurious hands.
Far into future days, in barbarous realms,
Midst men whose very language is unborn,
Shall our names echo with a golden ring,
And train the youths to virtue link'd with thine,
A triune glory streaming from the tomb
Of our loved land, where worship shall be paid."
They ceased and strode away, but whether he,
The sage, was moved in heart, I do not know.
No sign or gesture made he, and his eyes,
Fix'd on the ground in musing, told no tale.
As time flew by, fresh crowds came pouring in,
A strange and motley concourse; over Styx
Old Charon ferried souls from every land,
The young, the old, the guilty, and the pure,
Statesmen and soldiers, actors, fools, and kings,
And here and there a crowned star, who lit
The pitchy river with a moment's gleam
Of serious lambent eyes and glistering locks.--
These, as they landed, ever bent their steps
Unto the Master, and in lofty tones
Rebuked him for his false accusing words.
Among the crowd, one, with a gayer face
Than most, came swaggering; the Sabine Bard,
The Roman Priest of Song, with grape-leaves crown'd
And tendrils of green ivy intermix'd.
"I' faith," quoth he, in his sweet easy voice,
And tender'd Plato sundry vellum leaves,
Whereon were writ some lines, unforced and few,
In liquid fire indited, which flash'd up
Like eastern jewels, or the dawning beam
Shed by the sun on dew-besprinkled vines
In clusters hanging on Falernian hills,--
"I' faith," quoth he, "these summer songs shall be
Torches enkindled on the sea of Time,
No waves shall whelm them, and no breezes kill,
Or deep night quench their lustre. They shall float
And glitter midst the surges, dropping fire.
Read these, old Plato; I warrant they will chafe
Thy dull blood to a quick and dancing flow;
Thou hadst no odes like these in thy life's day!
'Too many poets!' When humanity
Shall lie i' the sun and dream, and weary cares
Cease to weigh down the fainting hearts of men;
When Pelion shall on Ossa be upheaved,
And men or Titans climb their steeps to heaven;
When Time shall fold his wings, impartial Death
Cut down the beggar's boy and spare the king's;
Then from thy pillow banish songs like mine!
Meantime I sing the glories of the grape,
The midnight revel and the morning chace,
Preach patience to the poor, and teach the rich
How peace can dwell upon a Sabine hill.
'Too many poets,' Plato! Monarchs love
Such wit as mine to speak their victories;
Young maidens love to listen to my lyre
(Jove's benison on their sweet eyes!), and boys
Sing o'er in treble tones my martial strains.
There is much honesty in me, old sage,
Much sober thought amidst my jollity,
Much maxim wise by rattling tongue enforced;
Did I not ceaseless warn of life's brief span,
The approach of night, the unerring stroke of Death,
To rich and poor alike, harsh summoner?"
"Of Death," said Plato, "yea, to bid men drink,
And waste the night in tumult; to besmear
The stately Roman face with purple wine,
And all the long bright hours of summer days
By glittering fountains stretch their lazy length
Beneath green canopies, jesting to maids
With water-pitchers on their graceful heads.
A worthy citizen of mine wert thou!
A guide in our Republic, verily!"
The Sabine Poet stood,--and on his brow
A serious shade stole quietly, while thus
He answer gave the Athenian: "For mine age
I was scarce worse than other men; they loved--
Those royst'ring Romans of th' Augustan age--
To quaff the bowl and sing of ladies' smiles;
But in this was I nobler--I have wrought
Rich imagery, legends of the past,
Replete with glorious music--and with tears.
I soften and refine; my name shall last
Long in the loving hearts of men, a niche
Kings should be proud, most proud, their form should fill;
And for the imperishable good I did,
Mine evil be forgotten by mankind."
Virgil the stately spoke, and pleaded well,
And many another, (poets flourish'd then,
By kind and wealthy patrons entertain'd.)
Then came a pause. The Master calmly sat,
Rolling in his unfathomable mind
The mysteries of eternity and time.
But strange phantasmagoria flitted by
As in a magic mirror, shadowings faint
Of matter pending upon middle earth.
All bloody were the brows of those dim shades
Of history floating in the silent air:
A noble city saw I, crown'd with towers,
A horde of hungry savages, with eyes
Untrain'd to beauty, and with murderous hands
Destroying miracles they could not frame.
The city sack'd, the fierce fires quench'd in gore,
The cries of maidens and the wail of sires,
And then a dreary prospect, as a sea
Which, fretted into foam by tempest-winds,
And whirling all things to its hungry maw,
Frets and foams on, although the winds fall down,
For many dangerous nights and cheerless days.
I saw the sequence of the Fall of Rome,
Discord and murder stretching thro' long lines
Of far successions, fathers cursed with sons,
Brothers with brothers, and young orphan'd boys,
Dependent on a treacherous uncle's care,
Wrestling for crowns; the blow, the bowl, the knife,
The midnight strangle, and the secret wave,
Dark hate and rapine, haughty lord, crush'd serf,
Rumours of wars and wars, the land untill'd,
The forests deathful, and the liberal arts
Banish'd from Europe to an eastern realm,
And subdivided into quibbling schools;
While the Church Militant upheld the Cross,
And wrestling on, struck down but undismay'd,
Fought for the mastery with none to help,
And by her subtle penetrative power
Won surely day by day. She, flinging by
Her gold harp wreath'd with lilies, stood complete
In armour of the Faith, a glorious form.--
So pass'd the vision in infernal shades,
(For yet Elysium is,--inhabited
By all brave Pagans till the voice of Christ
Shall sweep the mists away) until anon
Soft sunny gleams did seem to shoot and start
Athwart the picture, and. this chaos 'gan
To roll more orderly, and whispering chords
Were heard at intervals, ill tuned perchance,
The prelude notes of song, the faint essays
Of Poetry wakening her dumb strings to life,
Æolian guesses after verse divine.
As each strain died, a dim and flickering light
Shone on the dark-waved river, last a Flame
With laughter bursting from its thousand rays,
And playing round the arch Italian eye,--
Then his half-brother, "Morning-star of song,"
The pilgrim with the gentle woman face,
The loyal knight, whom every virtuous dame
Should honour for his women-honouring verse,
The gay but tender poet, "with a tear
Dropp'd in his wine,"--these two, with zeal inspired,
Did straightly unto Plato bend their way,
Though heaven awaited them, and all the saints!
To these a fiery train of light succeeds,
They come, they come, and make a day of night!
The souls of men expand in one great song;
The world's discordant noises, cries, and shrieks,
Are caught into the increasing harmony,
And drown'd in tempests of melodious notes.
They come! they come! the Jewish bards arise
From their long slumber in monastic cells,
And take their station by each cottage hearth.
Vocal with David and inspired by John.
What said the Master? Nothing; but kept fixd
His eyes enrooted to the voiceless ground,
While Styx grew luminous, and Charon smiled!
For one at his right hand told such strange tales
As even Charon's heart might not resist.
He had a genial look in his thin face,
And eyes infused with sylvan tenderness,
Being bred up by Nature where she dwells
Hard by a silver river; (which bears on
His name for ever to the world-wide sea.)
He, mixing with the brother bards who throng'd
Around the Grecian Master, spake one word,
And that word "Plato," but with such a voice,
So rich in blending of all moving tones,
Such tremulous tears were in it, yet such mirth,
Such wisdom and such human sympathy,
Such soft pathetic music fill'd that voice
And rang in the word "Plato," that amazed
The Master lifted up his musing eyes,
And, stirr'd beyond his philosophic creed.
The lofty poet heart within him woke,
And made confession with unshrinking lip:
"I wrong'd thee, ay, I wrong'd thee, and thou art
In thy vocation greater of the two;
I saw, when late Earth's vision met mine eye,
How she to music ever onward rolls,
The music poets make, if base or mute
Their golden harps, the glorious motion fails
Or flags uncertain; not my vaunted lore,
My most persuasive arguments, can move
The rugged spirits of an age as thou!
Therefore, if I be reverenced as thou say'st
I am and shall be, may my words endure
Wherever they are good, but for that speech
Wherein I slander'd poetry,--blot it out,
Blot out the evil memory and forgive!"
I lived in an old house, you ne'er saw one older,
The wind whistled loud when the winter set in;
But I don't see why whistling need make the place colder,
Nor why in not stopping cracks there should be sin.
Ah! poor little thing, dear little thing,--
I've grieved like a child since I heard that bell ring!
Well, Sir, my old house had two rooms on a floor:
With one window, pray why should I pay to have more?
And as to the water between the bricks welling,
Folks may talk, but I'll never do things for their
telling!
Why, yes, the bad air in those two rooms, I own,
Was enough, I was told, to knock any man down;
But Lord, Sir! I've lived and am now forty-six,
And the saw says you'll scarce teach an old dog new tricks.
I dirty? Indeed, Sir, you're quite wrong I know;
None cleaner in Hastings; and if folks say so,
'Tis because we're like cats, Sir, and can't abide water,
All our family, Sir, and wife's brother, Tim Carter.
Ah! poor little thing, dear little thing,--
How Tim did take on when he heard that bell ring!
I had one little daughter, Sir, fresh as a daisy,
She made our old house joyful tho' it was crazy;
My darling! a bit of red tipp'd her soft cheek,
She could just run to school on her wee toddling feet.
Then came the hot season, no breath of air stirr'd,
The roll of the sea was the only sound heard,
And down on the beach it was worse than elsewhere,
The Devil of Fever seem'd riding the air.
Ah! poor little thing, dear little thing,--
I dreamt his long thin fingers made that bell ring!
I do not know why, Sir, indeed, I can't tell,
Why the young ones about us did not die as well;
'Tis nonsense to talk about houses, say I,
I like my old house, tho' they call it a sty.
So the fever came on, and it touch'd here and there,
In the strangest chance way that you ever did hear;
They did say the deaths might be summ'd with bad drains,--
If you think I think that, you're a fool for your
pains;
But my poor little thing, my dear little thing,--
I scarce know what I think since I heard that bell ring!
So the fever came on, Sir; my wife, stricken down,
(As knowing a soul, Sir, as lives in the town,--
None of your newfangled cranks about her,)
Will never be well in this world, Sir, I fear;
And poor little Polly, Sir, all the long day
Lay tossing in agony, moaning away;
Her bright hair was matted with fever, and dull,
It lay on my arm, Sir, who prided each curl;
Towards night, Sir, her pretty blue eyes became dim,
But her little parch'd lips still kept muttering a hymn
She had learnt at the school, or some queer notion bred
Of the hot fever poison would run in her head.
Ah! poor little thing, dear little thing,--
She died like one mad, and I heard the bell ring!
Indeed, Sir, tho' she was my darling and pride,
I was thankful at heart when my poor Polly died.
We buried her, Sir, safe at rest from her pain;--
And I, Sir?--Went back to my Old House again!
"To lead a life divine?"
This is the question which, with upward strife,
Earth to herself proposes, asking ever,
"How shall I lead this life?"
And in her infancy
From east and west according answer came,
Poet and priest the doctrine taught and bless'd,
"Divinity is Fame."
In a more polish'd age,
"Poor toilsome, fools, fair women, fairer wine,
Purple, fine linen, pictures, statues, gold,
Beauty is most divine."
Long-bearded sages then
With still more scorn their own solution gave,--
"Thought is the only good to be desired,
Leave matter to the slave."
God gave a helping word,
But Earth was blind, and would misread the sign,
Saying; "It means, deny, fast, scourge, and pray,--
The ascetic is divine."
And now we, year by year,
Do painfully spell out our golden rule
In woe for its neglect; the wisest men,
The little child at school,
Learning that wisdom, art,
Denying vow, world's honour, are but slaves to love,
Whose law encircles us with a command,
Ev'n as its pleadings move.
We are not free to choose,
But ever find our portions strictly meted
When we look purely for them, and a sign
Of blessing if completed:
Set in a narrow groove,
In our obedience alone made free
With freedom worth the purchase, and enjoin'd
To work it silently:
Which following
In meek surrender,--"Not my will but Thine"--
Is, in its aspect, fruit, and consciousness,
Indeed a Life Divine.
Where do we hide when the year is old,
When the days are short and the nights are cold?
Where?
When the flowers have laid them down to die,
And the winds rush past with a hollow sigh,
And witches and fiends on their broomsticks ride,
Where do we delicate fairies hide?
Where?
Some of us borrow the white mouse skin,
(Our gossamer dresses are far too thin,)
And get up a ball in the palace of ice,
With a hop and a skip we are there in a trice;
And we don't go home from these midnight balls
Till the sun lights up our diamond halls,
We don't go home till morning.
The queer old elves of the Northern land
Welcome our beautiful fairy band,
Praise our eyes and our curling hair,
Our nimble steps and our music rare,
Our golden crowns and the gems we wear,
And all our rich adorning.
Sometimes we fly to the noonday isles,
Where summer for ever unfading smiles,
And crumple the tropical flowers for beds,
Where fairies nestle their small tired heads;
But when the stars of the South shine bright,
We chase the firefly thro' the night;
When the tigers growl and the lions roar
We fly over their heads and laugh the more,
And pinch their ears and their tails for spite,--
These are our games on a tropical night!
Sometimes we visit the children of earth,
And take up our stand at the social hearth;
We hover and sing by the couch of pain,
Till the frighten'd dreamer smiles again;
We polish the lash of a deep-blue eye,
And hush the troublesome baby's cry,
And make mushrooms grow on our verdant rings,--
Are not we fairies good little things?
As the dormouse curl'd in its darken'd grave,
As the mermen and maids in the ice-bound cave,
As the poor scarlet-breast when it longs for a crumb,
As the naked woods when the birds are dumb,
As the torrent penn'd up in its glittering sheath,
We welcome the sight of the first green leaf.
Away! away! o'er the hills to-day,
Where the sunshine lies and the waters play,
Or where in the depths of shadowy gloom,
Flowers of the forest in beauty bloom,
A hazy blue o'er the distance shed,
And green boughs tangled above our head.
Our gallant horses are prancing on,
Their sleek necks gleam in the autumn sun.
Their glancing eyes are bright with glee,
As they gallop o'er meadow and woodland free!
Away! away! o'er the hills to-day,
Jewell'd leaves on the branches play,
Mocking in sport with their autumn dies
The burnish'd hues of the orient skies.
Bright is the foam on each clear green wave,
They dance with joy as the shore they have,
As merry as they are our horses and we
As we rush o'er the hills and in sight of the sea!
Faster and faster for ever I'd go,
Till I'd circled the bounds of this earth below
Joyously blows the autumn breeze,
Kissing the shy and shrinking trees,
Insects yet sport in the freshening air,
Royal robes doth all nature wear;
Away! away! o'er the hills to-day,
Everything is at careless play,
As merry as they are our horses and we
As we rush o'er the hills and in sight of the sea!
Great Spirit of an ancient faith,
Hear my vow,
Which I thy solemn shrines beneath
Offer now!
With time and toil and heart and hand
To live as they
Who glorified around me stand
At peace alway.
Uneasy fear and restless hope,
Longing for love,
Ambition eager for more scope,--
Behold above
The meek Christ nail'd to cruel Cross,
The heart-struck John,--
What is thy petty gain or loss?
Vain dreams,--begone!
Oh God! pour strength on my weak soul,
Who fret and faint,
Such as in that most awful moment stole
On friend and saint.
Who holds us heart to heart it mattereth not,
If Thou, who holdest all within thy hand,
Wilt say, "Well done!" upon our outward lot
Thy blessing oft is burnt with fiery brand.
If we, thus humbly reading, clasp it close,
Accepting every law which lies therein,
Thou (who hast covenanted) wilt unloose
Our hearts from longing and our souls from sin.
The love abash'd, the shuddering dread, the fail
Of hopeful courage, unheroic fear,
All that we cannot conquer, being frail,
God of the Faithful! help thou us to bear!
Alone, O tender Christ! we cannot be,
When every street we pass is mark'd by thee,
And glances born of thy great Spirit shine
From fellow-faces with a light divine.
Oh, look'd we clearly on the sharp ascent
So many elder pilgrim-feet have trod,
Seeing the End, we should not dare to faint,
Nor speak of loneliness--alone with God!
Help of the Faithful! my full heart to-day
Was sad and weak.
I said, "Before some altar I will pray,
And He will speak."
And Thou hast spoken! All thy words are sure
And surety give,
I will more bravely all henceforth endure,
More humbly live.
Ludwig's Kirche, Munich
Ye who though unseen are near,
Guard her from all harm,
Watch her well, encompass her
With every potent charm;
Bend above her slumbers,
Kiss her waking eye,
Soothe with your sweet numbers
Each feeble infant cry.
Away from every danger
Besetting baby feet,
Turn her little footsteps far,
Guardian angels sweet:
Ever on her quiet lot
Your watchful gazes keep;
Shadow her and shelter her,
Waking or asleep.
We dwelt in an old palace near to Rome;
It was decay'd from its magnificence,
But not less beautiful than when the sun
Shone on the freshness of its marble pride.
Those fair Italian gardens of old time!
Sloping in many terraces adown
A gentle hill unto the southern beam;
Such was our father's. Many fountains leap'd
With murmuring music in the soften'd light,
Or, hush'd to quietness by age, crept forth
Lazily from the overflowing brim
Of each carved basin, and, slow trickling down,
Deepen'd the gracious hue of turfy lawns.
There in profusion glow'd such gorgeous flowers
As thou of northern birth hast never seen--
The paler children of thy English home
Exulting in Italian warmth and light:
Burning red roses, and the snowy heath,
The lofty silver rod, the asphodel,
'Midst stately verdant walls of closest trim,
Wherein our ancestors took such delight;
Hawthorn and myrtle hedges, and thick wreaths
Of honeysuckle flaunting in the breeze;
Wild brier and ivy, and the golden fringe
Of gorse, o'erhanging many a craggy bank
Of the Campagna we transplanted there;
Such passionate flowers, daughters of Italy,
Where everything is beautiful and strong.
Then in those gardens were rich gems of art,
Nymphs, Fawns, and Dryads carved in living stone,
Instinct in grace, who peopled solemn groves
With genius, tho' the master-hand were cold.
From the steep terraces we look'd abroad
On Rome and all her towers, the far expanse
Of verdant loneliness around her spread,
And the blue mountains melting in the sky.
Dear smoky Birmingham, since long ago
I left your native streets, my heart and hope
Have been with those dense crowds which daily flow
Over their pavements, finding ample scope
For meditation and for thought-born plan
Of active life within the destinies
Of these my fellow-townsmen. Every man
Inherits a great memory, how was won,
Hardly, the first of many victories
Over Feudality; and a command
Insep'rably goes with it hand in hand,
That, as the father strove, should strive the son.
Therefore, brave Town, say to thy best ones, "Rise,
Leav'ning the masses with your energies."
May every effort as the spring-dew fall
On a prepared soil, and, like the ore
On which you spend your labour, may there spring
From out your social depths a noble power
To cope with and work out each worthy thing.
I was a child when first I read your books,
And loved you dearly, so far as I could see
Your obvious meanings, your more subtle depths
Being then (as still, perhaps,) a mystery.
I had no awe of you, so much does love,
In simple daring, all shy fears transcend;
And when they told me, "You shall travel south,"
I chiefly thought, "In Florence dwells my friend!"
In those first days I seldom heard your name,
You seem'd in my strange fancy all my own,
Or else as if you were some saint in Heaven
Whose image took my bookcase for a throne.
As time went on, your words flew far and wide,
I heard them quoted, critically scann'd
With grave intentness, learnt, half mournfully,
That you were a great Poet in the land,
So far, so far from me, who loved you so,
And never might one human blessing claim;
Yet oh! how I rejoiced that you were great,
And all my heart exulted in your fame;
A woman's fame, and yours! I use no words
Of any careful beauty, being plain
As earnestness, and quiet as that Truth
Which shrinks from any flattering speech with pain.
Indeed, I should not dare--but that this love,
Long nursed, demands expression, and alone
Speaks by love's dear strength--to approach near you
In words so weak and poor beside your own.
AT NEW YORK
I saw you seated in your lonely room,
Of human friends forlorn, of spirits full,
Who gave you comfort in your solitude,
And spoke to you in accents beautiful.
Hearing your voice, unknown, my spirit leapt
(Which, knowing, I have learnt to call so dear),
Fond memory of that first hour have I kept,
Tho' scantly its result recorded here;
But in my heart such thoughts to it belong,
As hath, of its little fount, a river deep and strong.
And now to those far shores, I say, God speed,
Where I have never been, but often now
That anxious heart will of your path take heed
And daily pray success may crown your brow,
Shedding its glory on your quiet face,
Which needs that baptism, dear friend, no less
That you are strong, upheld in no embrace,
And, deeply natured, if unbless'd could bless.
By years of loving hope at length fulfill'd
In our true friendship, by a common aim,
By weariness subdued and doubtings still'd,
By joint allegiance to a slander'd name;
By that eternity towards which we speed,
By glorious faiths we would incarnate here,
By ties which nor of space nor time take heed,
I charge you, going hence, to hold me dear.
(Lilian writing at night in a little country inn. Lights are upon the table, and a jug, from the grotesque mouth of which immense ferns and foxgloves tower upwards, and cast trembling graceful shadows upon the wall. All the implements of an artist lie scattered about the room, and books lettered "Gervinus," "Keats," "Ruskin." A low hum of voices comes from the bar of the inn, and the night wind rustles softly among the trees of the garden. Lilian smiles to herself as she writes.)
Dear Helen, in your smoky town
Forget not that I love you well,
And often in my studies brown
Walk with you where Paul's thunderous bell
Warns citizens of hour of noon;
This said, (because the month of June
Is sentimental, and the moon
Commands our feelings to expand,)
I take our travels up in hand.
Say, River God! whose fountain rills
Gush joyfully midst Cotswold Hills.
But whom thro' London doomed to run
White feet of cautious Naiads shun:
When daily blear'd by London fogs
Thou circlest round the Isle of Dogs,
Does not thy mighty bosom heave
Once more Heaven's radiance to receive?
Ah! when the misty mass recedes
And thou regain'st thy crowned reeds
And flowest grandly towards the sea,
Who, Father Thames, more glad than thee?
Our childhood, as his founts serene.
Developed in a busier scene;
Oh, weary London, e'en in June!
Oh, dusty streets! oh, dusky moon!
Joyful as e'er I wish to be,
(Joyful, tho' even leaving thee,)
That hour, when after brief confab,
I started in a Bond Street cab,
To where converge, like rays of light,
In one broad focus of delight,
From windruff'd sea and chalky ridge,
Three southern lines at London Bridge.
Oh, what a storm of carpet-bags
And panting folk was there!
How madly waved the signal flags,
With what a grand despair
Ran everybody to and fro,
Such railway stations only know.
The porters (clad in Lincoln green)
Dash right and left in haste;
Music accompanies the scene--
Of steam let out to waste,
And while the carriages are filling,
Cosmos is selling for a shilling!
Great authors! had ye only known
That while ye coin'd your brains
To such grand words, they would be sown
Like seeds broadcast, in trains!
The hum subsides, the doors enclose
A hundred people pack'd in rows,--
Our train, at sound of signal bell,
Starts forth, like soul released from hell.
Cast thy light pen away, my muse,
Some graver influence seek and use,
Frame words of more persuasive power
To paint a different scene and hour,
And with what thoughts, on wings of wind.
We left the world's great Heart behind.
Oh, dreary London, dark with smoke,
But more obscured by crime,
On whom no morning ever broke
Fit to be sung in rhyme.
Oh, dreary streets that well I know!
Oh, stifled households nursed in woe!
Oh. hapless children never crown'd
With purity divine!
Young hearts in which no peace is found
Unchristen'd by the sign,--
The outward sign of inward joy,
Born heritage of girl and boy.
In those green fields towards which we flew,
Kind hearts are labouring with the Lord;
Here, for a space, the laws eschew
Their keen hereditary sword;
Hard justice, to compassion won,
Regrets the sire and spares the son.
Perhaps across the oblivious sea
These boys shall build a fairer fame,
In social kingdoms yet to be
Transmit an honourable name,
And scarcely blush as they recall
Those distant scenes which saw their fall.
Redhill inspires no gloomy page,
'Tis lit with light from future days;
This is the purpose of the age,
Which all fulfil in various ways.
From every rank upsprings the cry,
"Gather the children, lest they die."
From theft, from drink, from sensual sin,
(Listen, O women, meek and pure,)
Snatch these poor children, bring them in
By thousands to your homes secure.
They wail, from many an awful den,
"O save us ere we grow to men."
Fain would I write one labourer's name,
Did reverence not withhold my hand;
Work such as this affects not fame,
A dew of kindness on the land
It falls in vivifying rain,
Sinks deep, and asketh nought again,
Yet none the less the public heart,
With its full beat, her name will bless
Who fills that hard and anxious part,
A mother's, to the motherless;
Tho', if beheld, it should but raise
One only thought,--"Be silent, Praise."
On thro' those wooded slopes once more,
The fiery steed puffs on before,
An ichthyosaurus, dead as nail,
Boasts no such length of jointed tail.
At Dorking we abjured the train,
And started, in a gentle rain.--
A pure soft rain, whose drops between,
Tall hedges shone a brighter green;
Thick hedges darkening into bowers,
And lit with such a wealth of flowers,
And topp'd with such rich wide-boled trees
As only England ever sees.
So drove we on by winding lanes,
(Where soft the nightingale complains,)
Past cottage home and house of squire,
Rose-cluster'd school and loftier spire,
Past tranquil pool and ancient mill,
Remnant of pile more stately still,
Whose arched door and window shows
That here some prayerful abbey rose.
Deep lie the shadows in the pool,
Loud laugh the children out from school,
The yellow light of evening steals
Thro' cloudy veil, and now reveals
Blue curling smoke against the leaves,
And moss-grown thatch with populous eaves,
We all stand up, and round us peer,
And stop,--for ham and eggs, at Shere.
Secluded is the vale of Shere,
Old charms of England linger here:
And, while mine hostess gets the tea,
(The commissariat falls on me,)
We, so few hours escaped from town,
Most joyful wander up and down.
Two great trees overhang the porch,
Beyond whose branches stands the church.
Oh, happy parson preaching here,
Oh, happy Christians taught at Shere,
Oh, happy spirits looking down
On grassy graves so far from town!
I almost think 't were sweet to lie
(Tho' yet uncall'd) 'neath such a sky,
Dimly to hear the sauntering tread
Of some glad artist overhead,
Or the light chirrup of the birds.
Or musing poet's murmur'd words
To lie, unchill'd by mortal pang,
While childish voices pray'd and sang.
Then all this golden world should seem
Like picture in a midnight dream,
And to the sleeper every sound
Be in thin silence muffled round,
Thro' which the heart might only feel
Love's sweetness, not its sorrow, steal.
From Shere we slowly drove again,
(Not this time in a gentle rain,)
But thro' thick hedges, as before,
By skies that deepen'd more and more,
Till twilight brooding o'er the scene
Saw us deposed on Ockley Green.
Ockley is a model village,
Planted mainly amidst tillage;
The tillage on that wholesale scale
Which doth in England much prevail;
No garden-farms of dainty trim,
But all things with an ample rim
Of hedge and grass, a double charm
In every fertile English farm,
A sweet concession to the need
Of Nature for her roadside weed,
A fair appeal to human sight
And simple beauty's lawful right.
And now that white-wing'd eagles fly
To where primæval pastures lie,
And England, with a welcome hand,
Can gather corn from every land,--
That far and wide, in virgin soil
Which pays an hundredfold to toil,
A Saxon nation digs and delves,
Leave English woods to English elves.
Ockley has a church, a spire,
A many-generation'd Squire,
Straight roads which cut it left and right,
A noble green by Nature dight,
Old houses quaint and weather-streak'd,
And troops of children rosy-cheek'd.
The arrival of an alien cart
Makes everybody look and start.
About the roads, inspiring awe,
Stalks one sole guardian of the law,
Before whose stern magnetic eye,
Murder and theft,--supposed to fly,--
Leave the dear village free from wrong,
The very theme for pastoral song.
Him, as he strolls beneath the trees,
The timid Dryad, wondering, sees,
And the shy birds salute with eyes
Distended to a round surprise.
Here, when the morning, broadening over
Glorious fields of wheat and clover,
Strikes on every glistening leaf
And kisses all the firs on Leith,
The sense of freedom, rest and calm,
Falls on the town-sick heart like balm.
Ockley has a village school,
You pass the well, and next the pool,
When a fair building meets the eye,
Framed with simple symmetry.
Above the portal, pass it not,
Are writ plain words, a name,--Jane Scott.
Rest, gentle Woman! nobler far
In this thy deed than nobles are,
Thy purpose breathes a living breath,
Thy voice of weakness speaks in death.
Nothing know I, Jane Scott, of thee,
Save that a teacher's name was thine,
A function, worthily discharged,
More than all else divine.
That sickness held thee long enchain'd,
Thy duty, wrested from thy hand,
Left thee, mild sufferer, detain'd
A waiter on thy Lord's command.
This also know I, noble thoughts
And happy visions cheer'd thee then,
Whose ripen'd fruits were blessed gifts
And springing seeds for men.
No vain bequest of wealth thou gav'st,
What labour earn'd, to labour given,
Brought health to many a toiling frame
And little souls to heaven.
Obedient to thy kindly will
The well's bright water upward rose,
And a shy flock, untrain'd before,
The schoolroom's blossom'd walls enclose.
And these two springs of nobler life,
First flowing from thy wise decree,
Carry a blessing far and wide
And sing perpetual mass for thee.
To me, who muse beneath the elms,
Thy spirit seems to hover near,
And watch, with clear benignant eyes,
The tranquil scene in life so dear.
Ah! often have I thought that though
Thou bore no mother's precious claim,
Some heart which gave thee all its love
Now scarcely bears to meet thy name;
And mingling with the general voice
A deeper note of love and pain,
Turns from this spot with sadden'd steps.
Full of a past recall'd in vain.
Thus link'd to earth by many a tie,
The memory of the just is sure;
The widening influence lives and grows
As years their purposes secure.
And I, a stranger, taught by thee,
Shall honour and forget thee not,
And blend with thoughts of saintly deeds
Those plain words eloquent--Jane Scott.
This little inn, our calm abode,
Abuts upon a country road,
Sole fastener, and link to bind
Us with the rest of all mankind.
(Simple my words, it were a tax on
Sense to speak in aught but Saxon
Of this little model village
Planted mainly amidst tillage.)
Yet this little rose-fringed lane
Is an adamantine chain.
Politics and piety,
Friendship and philosophy,
History, novel, song and sonnet,
Absolutely hang upon it.
Slight electric shocks of thought
By its agency are wrought,
And prevent a dead stagnation
In the village circulation.
Some of London's vigorous blood
Flows along this country road;
Wesley's tracts perennial flow
In from Paternoster Row;
Tea from China, grapes from Spain,
Travel on this rose-fringed lane;
Or sunburnt pedlars with a bale
Of cotton, silk and wool for sale,
Bring Paisley, Leeds, and Bolton here,
And --charge commission very dear!
Here we have a household plan
Framed without the help of man;
The hostess holds an even sway,
And tho' 't is here at close of day
The village worthies love to walk,
And take a little ale, and talk,
Yet, like the ebbing of the tides,
Duly the murmuring sound subsides;
Silence and Time their vigil keep
While the tired household sinks to sleep.
The breakfast hour, at half-past eight,
Sees us in the sunshine wait;
Ella, with a rustic air,
Twisting roses in her hair,
Catching at them where they grow
The other side a paling low,
Fifty blossoms all a-row.
Oh, dear to me the simple flowers
Which bloom in gardens such as these,
Let jasmine shine in ladies' bowers,
And myrtle fringe the southern seas.
Let gentians star primæval rocks,
And pierce the late-dissolving snow,
But give me gilly-flowers and stocks,
And those sweet gardens where they grow.
I like grey walls with ivy hung,
And roofs where flickering shadows play,
Old apple-trees where birds have sung
While generations pass'd away.
Thick hedges shaven fine and neat,
And wild ones where the woodbine creeps,
All clumps of blossom smelling sweet,
All grassy banks where sunshine sleeps.
Tall firs like sturdy sentinels,
Elms habited by cawing rooks,
And lilies ringing various bells
To prayer and praise in shady nooks.
Let India boast her fan-leaf'd palm,
And Lebanon her cedar trees,
Give me a summer Sunday's calm,
And garden fill'd with flowers like these,
And any song that I can sing
Will overflood my lips in rhyme;
My heart, possess'd of every thing,
Forget the sense of space and time.
All sorrow softly melt away,
Dissolving in a rainbow shower;
And I, for one long happy day,
Dream that I am a soulless flower.
Lilian, June 28th
No letter, Helen! Dear, the days are long
In which I learn not of the deeds you do;
Prefaced with such a mild rebuke, my song
Must draw some newsful answer back from you.
What would you learn? About a summer's day?
From where I last concluded,
I'll trace the journal of our work and play
Amidst these scenes secluded.
The hour was half-past eight, suppose
Ella (with the aforesaid rose,)
Saunters down the avenue
With the letters (none from you).
Now, as they're no concern of mine.
My faithful painting I'll resign,
And tell you what in me arose
When I saw Ella with her rose.
This avenue, (I call it so
Because the hedge-row oak-trees grow
Boldly right and left, and form
A shelter to the heaviest storm,
Lacing firmly over head,
And bar the road with light and shade,)
Framed her like a portrait old
In a rim of green and gold.
Suddenly to memory flew
Words of one whom once I knew.
He is dead, dead long ago,
Summer leaves and winter snow
Lie upon him where he lies,
And do him tenderness by turns;
He left an echo in the skies
Which is not silent, often burns
Some little word before me, bright,
Lit, I think, with immortal light;
Some bar of music fills my ears,
And only gathers strength by years.
Often I was wroth because
He fell beneath the widest laws
In his philosophy, loved more
Some midland farm than mountain hoar,
Sought Nature in her sunniest bloom,
And hated women leaving home.
Yet lie had an instinct fine
And pure, could nobleness divine
Where'er he found it, ever paid
Strict reverence to wife or maid;
Willing to learn and apt to find
New forms of beauty to his mind.
So, lying once amidst the grass,
Where the swift bees did o'er him pass,
Yet almost hover'd to his eyes,
He search'd the depths of azure skies;
Losing himself, as all well may,
Where that blank softness melts away,
Building ideals up in space,
Their beauty mirror'd in his face,
Divine reflections from a thought
In harmonies with nature wrought,
And then in idle joy he sung
This lyric to a listener young.
"Pure and saintly must she be,
The lady who could meetly fill
The shrine of my idolatry;
Very fair and very still,
With a halo round her thrown
Of her own bright locks of brown.
Fitted both in form and mind,
A virgin young, to be enshrined
In some ancient gothic fane,
Where, as in a bowery lane,
Carving delicate and rich
Should enframe her sacred niche.
"I'll have no name of regal sound,
No Cleopatra jewel crown'd,
Ne'er a dame of monarch's court
With a cold unflinching port;
My love must be stately too,
Ere I condescend to woo;
Not a gentle timid thing
Shelter'd 'neath a parent's wing,
But one who might a pilgrim be,
Secure in her own purity.
"Never saw I yet the dame
Who might my allegiance claim,
Only in the still midnight
O'er me floats a vision bright.
Dreaming I imagine faintly
Of a thing so pure and saintly
As the Lady who could be
The shrine of my idolatry."
Here comes Fanny. Water hot?
I put the tea within the pot
And sound the call to breakfast, we
Are a snug party, only three;
Ella, Mistress Clare, and I,
Escaped from every social tie,
Dwell at this inn, and for the rest
Live just the life that suits us best,
And for this parenthetic season
Opine we are at square with reason.
Much hearty laughter you would hear
While we attack our simple cheer,
Much grave discourse steals in as well
On what the daily papers tell.
Oh, what a change one century brings
In dynasties and greater things!
If those poor pigmy sheets had known,
In thought prophetic forward flown,--
Those sheets of seventeen fifty-three,--
What sort of papers ours would be,
What sort of news our scribes indite,
I think they would have died for spite!
They said, "The Arrow, without fail,
Will start on Tuesday with the mail;
The passengers, if book'd for Bristol,
Would very wisely take a pistol."
Or, "Mr. Brown of Holborn begs
The public to inspect his kegs."
Or, "It is rumour'd that a book
Will soon proceed from Doctor Snook;"
And tiny tattle of the time
When Richardson was in his prime.
Now what a mighty voice is that
Which every passing morn awakes!
It stoops to tell no idle chat;
Such thunder in its rising breaks
As well attends the ship of state
When all the winds are big with fate!
With eager hands we loose the strings
And long to learn a thousand things,
For in this compass tightly curl'd
We hold the log-book of a world;
The daily journal kept by man
Of how he works the Eternal Plan;
Close-printed columns pack'd with thought,
Each with peculiar labour wrought,
A giant in efficient power,
And born to die within an hour,
And then, embalm'd as history's self,
Entomb'd on a museum shelf.
Let us hear of foreign friends,
Let us hear of noble ends
Wisely gain'd, or that new bond,
Framed Atlantic waves beyond,
To bind reformers and recall
A Church that shall embrace us all.
(Perhaps you did not note that page,
Most curious index of the age.
Their creed and service was to be
Devotion to humanity,
Not render'd to a soulless clod,
But man as child and heir of God.
And further, since on every side
Those who subscribed lived far and wide,
They each and all, in separate ways
Should offer up their work and praise,
Only, to fan this flame sincere,
Hold a great conclave once a year!)
Ah, glorious dream! Ah, prophecy
Of times I cannot hope to see!
When some great thought, new-cloth'd in form,
Shall rise and take the world by storm,
The all-including Church restore,
And make us Catholic once more.
But now,--these stones of various dyes,
Unlike in strength, and weight and size,
Nor yet adapted each to each,
Will hardly build a bridge to reach
A stable causeway for our need,
Across the yawning gulphs of creed.
Yet not in vain the prophet paints
A grand communion of the saints,
The thousand subtle links which bind
Pure souls of an according mind,
Draw them together even here,
Expectant of a nobler sphere.
Their letters fly like shuttles swift
Between them, and the rarest gift
Of each the others still receive,
Magic communion they weave,
Which, like that famed Arabian mat
On which the wandering hero sat,
Carpets for them a meeting place,
A church beyond the bounds of space.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
I do this outward bond mistrust;
I think a neighbour nearness sways
All action in these railroad days,
That all who sympathise in aim
Do form a church without a name,
And tighter bond no man can frame.
Yet none the more, when some plain course
Of action is to be pursued,
Do I mistrust the triple force
With which all UNION is endued.
I trust the coming days will show
Wide systems which we dream not now,
And our loose units move with awe
Obedient to harmonious law.
Stand forth, thou spectre grim and gaunt,
Dim dweller in Cimmerian haunt,
Shunn'd by the prudent and the good,
Red-spotted with the stains of blood.
A scent of evil clogs thy name,
England rejects the word of shame,
Yet I believe the day will come,
When thou, bright robed in heavenly bloom.
Spirit of social order named,
No more reviled, no more disclaim'd,
Shalt shake thy hem from lawless strife,
And lead us to the nobler life.
I see a vision in the future, fair
As sunrise over stormy waves at sea,
It softly shines in amber fields of air,
And lies embalm'd in floods of harmony.
Whiter than snow its polish'd marble towers,
Whose lofty portals speak a statelier race,
Greener its groves than any groves of ours.
Windstirr'd they tremble with a subtler grace.
Poets and artists built these arching halls,
Devoutest warriors walk these halls among.
And women of an aspect that recalls
No ancient Goddess yet renown'd in song,
But something more divine, their children play,
Young naked Titans, bathed in rosy bloom,
And the calm Angel Death persuades away
Fulfill'd existence to a dreadless tomb.
Again our speech flies far and wide,
Our thoughts strike fire on every side;
For not a question raised of late
Is from its fellows isolate,
But books that treat of large and less,
And preachers echo'd by the press,
And the great glorious world of art,
And poets dreaming dreams apart,
And science scattering hour by hour
Seeds of illimitable power,
Seem to obey one law's behest,
Forge no loose link but fits the rest,
And that one aim which sways the whole
Is--amplest growth for every soul
And this includes the widest scope
For our more individual hope
Of richer culture, nobler use
In our own lives, to interfuse
A purpose and a unity
Which, self~sustain'd, if need there be,
Shall bind, where loving hearts aspire
To offer sacrificial fire,
Two lives in one harmonious aim,
Diversely wrought, but still the same.
Ah! with no careless pen would I report
Our words on such a topic, 't is a text
For divine sermons, did the angels preach,
Its bearings wide as half the human race.
Let no untimely deed, no crude desire
Profane our aspiration, it should rise
And swell and broaden like the blessed light
Which momently, yet with so soft a sound
We cannot hear its coming, opens out
Its silver wings and mounts the slopes of dawn.
It should, like an accumulating flood,
Gather its forces from a thousand rills,
Until by its unquestionable might
It sweep the rocks away, yet scarcely show
A foam-flake on its bosom, steadfastly
Careering to the sea. A spirit moves
Amidst the silk of gilded drawing-rooms
And in laborious homes, with equal voice
It summons us to labour and to prayer,--
To labour which is prayer, and which alone
Can solve the question which the age demands,
"What is a woman's right, and fitting sphere?"
How best she may, with free and willing mind,
Develope every special genius,
Retaining and perfecting every charm
And sweetness sung of old, so, even paced,
Walk in a joint obedience with man,
And equal freedom of the law of God,
Up to the height of an immortal hope.
Vainly would any poet, tho' he own'd
The "double-nature" of the poet breed,
Paint the completed circle of her powers,
Whose germs await the future, undisclosed.
What she will be, she can alone define,
Nor knows she yet, but, dimly feeling, strives
To gain the fair ideal; what she will do
Is folded in her nature, as the flower
Is folded in the bud, or masterpiece
Of statuary in marble. She is not
Like some dead animal whose nerves and veins,
Bones, muscles, functions, powers and highest use
Can be defined by an anatomist
Brooding above her with a sharpen'd knife.
Suppose some small philosopher declared
"Man is a creature framed to such an end.
And this is his ideal, which attain'd
He will not top; this is the possible
Of his capacity, perhaps a fact
At which ambitious strugglers will rebel,
But none less true for that, let him sit down
And swallow it in silence."--Witness all,
That this is said of women every day.
Diverse in nature, with unsparing creed
They limit hers, unseeing where it tends.--
Girdle with iron bands the sapling tree,
It shoots into deformity, but He
Who first its feeble breath of life inspired,
Ordain'd its growth by an interior law
To full development of loveliness,
Whereof the planter wots not till he leaves
It to the kindly care of elements
And the free seasons' change of storm and shine.
Not for a moment would I underrate
That sweet ideal which has charm'd the world
For ages, and will never cease to charm.
Fair as the creatures of an upper sphere,
Women among the charities of home
Walk noiseless, undefiled; oh! who would wish
To turn from this green fertilizing course
Such rills of promise! let each amplify
In its own proper measure far and wide,
According to its bounty; sacred be
The radiant tresses of such ministers,
And beautiful their feet; but with my voice,
And with my pen, and with mine uttermost,
I say this is not all, and even this,
This loveliest life to hidden music set,
Must be a blossom of spontaneous growth,
Must spring from aptitude and natural use
Of gracious deeds, not hardly forced on all
As the sole good and fit, lest it decay
Under the pressure to a loathsome thing,
A thing of idleness and sensuous mind,
At which the angels weep. If this be all,
Speak, thou true heart, out from the hungry sea
Which suck'd thee down just in thy fruit of life.
Speak, wife and mother, from that unmark'd grave
Which those so vainly seek who loved thee well,
Speak, rather, Margaret, from thy seat in heaven,
Where thou, in knowledge larger, but in love
Scarce more perfected, dost those days recall
Spent in strong aspiration and pursuit
Of dim ideals, now reveal'd in full,
With shape sustain'd and meanings more divine.
Ah, could I give thy dear and honour'd name
Some little tribute, who wert brave and bold,
And faithful, as are few! 'T is a small thing,
An easy thing, to write such witty words
As Lowell wrote of thee; 't is a hard thing,
A royal thing, to live so kind a life,--
Dying, to leave so dear a memory,
And such a want where thou wast wont to be.
Now let these earnest martyrs, and this hope
Which ferments round, one special prayer suggest;
That, as the founders of a colony
Create a nation's heart, so we, who strive
For the foundation of a principle,
May work with pure hands and a clean heart,
Regarding nought as trivial; be it said,--
As of those noble hearts who left their land
And planted a new empire with the seeds
Of piety and strength,--"they very much
Did labour for the world, and the mere rights
Of man amidst his fellows, but, with zeal
Far more inclusive, gave their lives to God."
To this intent
We chatted for an hour, each answering each
With lighter accents than I here record,
For the free flow of conversation plays
With such a subtle change and counterchange,
No pen, at least not mine, could take it down,
More than camera paint the fleeting hues
And delicate variations of a face
When all the soul's awake. Therefore I give
The sum of what we said; to keep you in
The current of our lives, and you may find
The rest in your imagination
And knowledge of the speakers.
Lo, the sun
Rode high in July heavens, and Ella rose,
And from the open door look'd o'er the green
Which slept in summer warmth. Straightway she quoth--
"Nonsense, what's to do to-day?
These fine visions are but play
Till they stiffen into deed.
Till the blossom crowns the seed.
I to-day must catch the hue
Of a fir-tree 'gainst the blue,
Lilian, you must write a poem
With these visions for a proem.
So with pencil and with pen
We must translate our thoughts to men."
"No," said I, "I shall not pen
Any of these thoughts for men.
My life has had too small a scope
To warrant any sober hope
That any poem I could frame
Should merit such a sounding name.
There is a story which, if told,
Might have an interest manifold,
Simply those things we think and do,
The daily life of 'I and you;'
Which, were it told in plainest words,
Might strike some sympathetic chords,
At least in every woman's heart;
Nor would I seek profounder art
Than should convey it truly, so
Some honest love of truth might grow
Where fiction long has taken root,
Swaying with sway most absolute."
Ah, how much deeper, more sincere,
More full of serious hope and fear,
Alive to fun and apt for wit,
It is than song has painted it!
Thou fearless voice whose echo fills
Not only thine own moorland hills,
But dost compel the world to hear,
To smile thy smile and weep thy tear,
And thy revealings learn with ruth,
Depicting thine own side of truth;--
Thou, free, yet vow'd to duty, pure
Yet ardent, and of footing sure,
Seeking in life the law which lies
Not hidden to desiring eyes,
Thou, strong in soul and keen of ken,
Keepest a conscience in thy pen;
Where my experience meets not thine,
Thou and my heart have made it mine.
Often as to thy page I turn
The living words before me burn,
And all my spirit thrills and strives
Up to the height of noble lives.
"Nay, let us talk these things beneath
The heart-inspiring firs of Leith."
Dragging Latin, long and slow,
Should paint the pace at which we go;
Students of the world of art
Trundling onwards in a cart;
Poor small pony, lank and thin,
Surely expiates some sin
Committed in a human state,
Trudging on resign'd to fate.
Women will not beat an ass,--
"Tempt him on with freshest grass."
Up the hill and o'er the stones
On he goes, a bag of bones,
Chorus'd by persuasive groans;
Till upon the top he stands,
Comforted by stroking hands.
Leith has firs and fields of fern,
Teachings which we all can learn;
Never anthems more divine
Swell'd from church of saints' design.
When amidst those spiny firs
Suddenly the west wind stirs.
'Tis like some Eolian tune
Chanted to the advancing moon.
When the south wind swells and falls,
'Tis like the lutes in heavenly halls.
When the north wind raves and rushes,
And the clouds together crushes,
It is like the echo driven
Backward from the gates of heaven,
When the angels, unaccurst,
In a storm of glory burst.
Soft with spines the ground beneath,
Sweet the air with perfumed breath,
Bluest blue the sky above them,
Fair are firs to all that love them!
Grand and spiritual trees,
None have meanings such as these.
All their long dependent boughs,
Arms aloft which each one throws,
All their depth of blackness, dark
Relieved against a golden bark,
All their jagged, snapt beginnings,
(Like our short-comings and sinnings,)
Heavenward shoots and earthly leanings,
Seem to make them full of meanings,
Steep'd with life in every feature,
And I love them like a creature.
When we reach'd the highest slopes,
Ella, fired with sudden hopes
Of covering an enormous block,
Settled down upon a rock
Which jutted thro' the turfy ground,
Strew'd a whole shop of goods around,
And, save one scant half-hour to eat
Our basketful of bread and meat,
Sat silently among the flowers,
And painted for eight mortal hours.
But, as for me, I chose a knoll
Whence were a stone let drop, 't would roll
Fathoms into the plain below;
And there the west wind murmur'd so,
And the blue forest, far away,
Melted to such a tender grey
Against the downs, with gleams of chalk,
That, being undisturb'd by talk,
And as the sunshine, bright and hot,
Lay goldenly upon this spot,
Then lost itself amidst the deep
Fir shadow, why,--I went to sleep.
And in that sleep the healing breath
Which sweeps the world at war with death,
Stole over me, and lull'd the pain
Which eats into an anxious brain.
The flowers on that hill-side which be
Gave some of their sweet life to me.
I have a fancy that the sun
Regenerates what he looks upon,
And love to loiter in his rays
Thro' the warm length of summer days.
Some power with which the god's endued
Renders me back to life renew'd.
When first I open'd infant eyes
He rode his highest in the skies,
The amber softness of his light
Long-lingering in the summer night.
And when the life-streams ebb and flow
Within, I bask beneath his glow,
Renew the covenant framed before,
And the warm currents run once more.
I wish that I had words as grand
As those which flow'd from Humboldt's pen,
To paint this southern England, plann'd
Long ere earth's consummation,--Men.
When some great river, broad and deep
As Niger or as Ganges be,
Sought some great silent continent
Embedded in the primal sea.
The Saurian of gigantic breed
Play'd lazily about its banks,
But no mild mother nursed her young,
Nor song-bird chanted forth its thanks.
Silent and slow the river ran,
And gather'd up the threaded rills,
And suck'd the life from glassy pools
Calm lying on a thousand hills.
The tropic trees that on them grew,
And all the lush luxuriance bred
Amidst the solitude, decay'd,
And newer forests rear'd their head.
And all these things the river nursed,
Then bore them tombward on her breast,
And made their graves within her sands;
Their fossil forms reveal the rest.
Until, at the appointed time,
The uncomplaining hills declined,
And all their beauty sank away,
Unwept save of the whispering wind.
Saurian and fern and tropic palm
Congeal'd to stone, while silently,
Unstirring in its awful depths,
Above them roll'd the reef-starr'd sea.
Full of these thoughts, as evening fell
Downward we slowly went our way,
Over the fields a distant bell
Proclaim'd a dirge for "parting day."
The moon came slanting thro' the firs,
Mist gather'd round the pond-side flags,
The little boy (who call'd us "sirs,")
Trotted beside us with the bags,
Till the faint light the tapers cast
Warn'd us of nearing home at last.
And now before I go to bed
Shall but one gentle word be said.
Oh dear to me is China tea,
Indeed I think none like it better,
But far more fragrant to a vagrant
Poet is a London letter!
Let roses hang midst hazel twigs
I'll puff them like a special pleader,
But in my heart, to geese or pigs
I much prefer the "Times" or "Leader!"
Dearer than any ancient song
The chapters of our modern story,
(But I write whisperingly, among
These woods the very flowers are Tory!)
In this calm innocent retreat,
While grass is being cock'd and ricked,
It is so very nice to sit,
And chew the cud of something wicked!
And know that if the people knew
The thing that one was really thinking,
The village candles would burn blue,
And all the cats would take to winking!
Therefore, O Post Boy! hither come,
Sacred the dust upon thy shoes,
Tell us the deeds they do at home,
And all the cream of London news!
Lilian. July 1853
Dear Lilian,
Here amidst this "smoky town"
I scarce shall write an answer to your mind,
Who, looking back on London with the eyes
Of a glad poet wash'd in country dew,
See the poetic side of everything,
While I see chiefly prose.
But I conceive
The sort of hunger after public things
Which you and Ella under the hedgerows
Begin to feel, and so herewith I send
A batch of last week's papers, not the same
You have been poetising over, but
A regiment of the vanguard, gallant files,
Forlorn hopes of Progression. Here's the "Una,"
Chiefly by brave New England women penn'd
In favour of their movement, and the stream
Of good ideas flowing from their midst.
It has a most uncomfortable title,
For our plain nation likes plain words and round,
And here some such are needed. I include
A few stray copies of the Liberator,
And Wendell Phillips' speech.
The other sheets
Report associative experiments
Among the tailors, and a meeting held
Anent the next Reform-Bill. Here's enough
To put you under excommunication
Of all the village, if they did but know,
And make you blush amidst your walks, who wish
To change that calmly agricultural mind
By innovations strange and terrible.
Now, as to me, my days in even course
Run thro' the usual round of work; I paint
From morn to eve, from morn to eve again,
Striving against the hinderance of time
And all the weight of custom; and I will,
I tell you, Lilian, that I will succeed.
Last night I read your letter, and I thought
How different are your words from what they were
In this great Babel, when your soul seem'd faint
At all the smoke and noise. The very war
Of thought opposing thought, and wills that strive
Each against each in the metropolis,
Blinds the keen sight of where the field is won,
And measure of the victory, and we doubt
If Right indeed is Might. You could not see
The hope and glory of the Future, that
Which on the faces of her warriors
So often seems to shine. Dear Lilian,
Since the spirit of Life sits light within
The temple of your being, and you draw
Such pictures for me of the outward world,
Take, my dear poet, the true lesson home,
And when you are impatient (as you are
Most often) at the dirt which clogs the wheels,
And the slow ripening of the better time,
Bethink thee then what processes were wrought
(As you to me but lately did recall,
Painting the landscape from the Firs of Leith,)
Thro' silent ages, patient and unsung,
Ere this grand symmetry of Nature, shaped
Into completest beauty, yearn'd for love,
And brought forth Adam, he both flower and seed,
A fair suggestion of th' intent of Time.
The sea, once a devouring conqueror,
Was brought into subjection, held in chains
Of subtle but inflexible restraint
By Her that walks in Heaven, he foams in vain,
And gnaws the bounds he may not overstep.
The thousand forces that inspire the trees,
Breaking to life in diverse beauty, mix
And fashion the minutest tracery
Of elms against the sky in lawfulness
And strict obedience to unheard decree.
(Distinctly heard by them.) We see the wrecks
Of pre-ordain'd confusion, step by step
We trace the broken thoughts of centuries,
Which had a crude intelligence like ours
Watch'd in their changes, it had been dismay'd,
And deem'd no will presided o'er the whole,
Nor any ceaselessly evolving plan,
Whose working we call Providence. And lo!
No blade of grass upon a jungled hill,
No crumbling sandbank long decay'd to dust,
No strange enjoying monster of the deep,
But acted in a thousand complications
On all that followed after; and we speak
And act, think, move, smile, weep and pray
Otherwise than we should do, being men,
And closely knit unto the elements,
Had not some wind, evoked in ages past,
Swept like an organ blast about the tops
Of some great forest long since turn'd to coal,
Then mutter'd into silence. And where grew
These large-leaved forests of the elder time,
A busy population darkens day,
And makes the night alive with ruddy fires;
While these two facts ten thousand years divide
Are linked in one directest sequency,
Effect that follows cause.
Shall we not wait
In patient expectation, and go down
To solitary graves with joyfulness,
Knowing that as this last creation, Man,
Is nobler than all others, he shall be
Matured at greater cost, more gradual care,
Sway'd to and fro in oscillative change
Of wider segments? Eat thy bread in hope,
If thou wouldst nourish thee for action, Faith
Never yet fail'd her children, but Despair
Has held the feet of many, and debarr'd
Pilgrims from entering on the promised land.
If thou dost nourish in thee that best hope,--
(Dearest of all ambitions heart can frame,)
To be a people's poet,--it demands
A faith beyond the people's to sustain.
When we are dull and faint, let us sit down
Submissive to inaction, let us use
All brighter hours as golden weaponry
To forward the good cause, and if we die
We know the spirit of this stirring time
Will seize some other starker instruments
Without a moment's pause. Not on one man,
Had he the Prussian Frederick's iron will
Or Mirabeau's big heart, could rest the weight
Of England's progress now; the hour is come
When only he who serves shall safely rule,
In the interests of all. Men are awake,
They drink the grandest thoughts that wisdom speaks.
And profit by them, from the crowded town,
From country cottages and lone sea-coast,
And midland woods they come, a nobler race
Of thoughtful Saxons, individual lords
Over themselves and o'er the world of mind.
When thro' the vortex of these London streets
Amidst this tide of life I wend my way,
Which seems to catch a very quietness
From its unbroken speed, often I think
Of how thrice glorious is the time we live in,
How ripe in promise and how rich in deed.
Thank God I was born now! I watch with love
That is a passion all the dawning life
Which England nourishes, and often dream
Of those far-peopled realms beyond the sea
Which owe all to her blood, sit at the feet
Of her old poets, and which, whether bound
By her tradition'd law or their own wills,
Most truly are her sons. I could not die
And lose all knowledge of my country's fate;
But hope, with that strong hope which seems to bring
Promise of its fulfilment, that my soul
Shall live in this keen interest even as now.
That as the scroll on which the storied past
Is writ, another and another length
Unfolds to light, my eyes may see them all,
The history of the future, hid as yet
Deep in the will of God. It seems to me
Did the dear ties which weave about me now
Of many-threaded love to dust decay,
And I were left alone, I could live on,
After the shrinking of the natural heart,
Absorb'd in England's work and full of peace.
And yet, perhaps I know not,--
But good night,
We need not speculate on barren hours
Which to the loving come not, for we rear
The golden flowers of autumn on those graves
We turf'd in early spring, and the good life
Which scatters seeds of kindness is repaid
By fragrant growths of love.
The streets are hush'd,
Save where some wanderer's footfall breaks the night,
Bearing its weight of life; as oft before,
I sit alone with silence and the thoughts
Which yon great company of poets sang
Long, long ago, ere they, too, went to join
The harmonies of heaven. My heart is hush'd,
And lays itself before the feet of God,
Willing to beat His time. On your thick woods,
And softly veiling all the firs on Leith,
The darkness falls like dew, all London lies
Like some calm child asleep. And so good night.
Helen
The sun on Sussex hills shone bright
When first I saw thy dainty white
Amidst their valleys glowing;
"What is this flower so dainty white,
As born to be a maid's delight?"
"It is by clowns woodsorrel hight
Thou see'st before thee growing."
Oxalis books have christen'd it,
Which silver sound doth much befit
Its fair and fragile beauty;
A drop of snow left late in spring,--
A lady such as poets sing,--
Likens this flower,--or anything
Made more for love than duty.
Oh! far away from Sussex hills,
A northern light this valley fills;
As these broad slopes recede away
Eastward to greet the dawn of day,
Their opening depths disclose to view
No shining tracts of level blue,
But heath-crown'd scarps jut bleak and pale
Where Wharf's bright water threads the vale.
Yet when thy darling form I see,
This outer world fades back from me,
New loves, new hopes, new thoughts depart
The living tablets of my heart,
Which only those soft woods repaint
Whose purple tints are never faint.
Oh happy home, now home no more!
Oh Form that Time will not restore!
Oh blessed dreams then born in me
Who dwelt beside the sounding sea,
Which seemed to throb with travail-moan,
A mighty heart against my own,
As if 't would momently reveal
The secrets life and death conceal.
Ah, now I know that earth and sky
Will never yield a mystery
To those who seek for wisdom's ways
Amidst the calm of recluse days.
For ever threatening to disclose
The depths of heaven in sunset shows,
Nightly the promise dies away,
The golden curtains fade to grey,
We fancy troops of angels rise,
And only find--the silent skies.
Where life's great interests interchange
Dominion, with the widest range,--
Where old men die and babes are born
To earth's great trial night and morn,--
By working with a faithful will
In complex spheres of good and ill,--
Accepting meekly all the pain
Of stumbling but to rise again,--
By holding our best faith secure,--
Keeping love's precious fountains pure,
Thus only can the spirit grow
With ampler power to feel and know;
By those sharp lessons wisely taught
Where deeds of human will are wrought,
Within whose narrow compass lie
The seeds of an eternity;
For earth and sky shall pass away
When human beauty shrinks to clay,
Far tracks of space demand in vain
Dead comets, yet shall man remain.
Therefore, sweet messenger and friend,
As down this lovely lane I wend,
When thy calm snowy buds I see,
I know my path lies not by thee,
But where the stream of Nations meets
An echo in dark London streets.
I leave thee growing where thou art,
I bear thy portrait in my heart,
Set in thy place by Hand divine
As thou fill'st it so I would mine.
The streets are clear'd, the crowd restrain'd--
A mutter rises, "Lo they come!"
As far away, a shadowy scene,
The first battalions dimly seen
March to the muffled drum.
They swell upon the straining sight,
Deep silence holds the thousands there,
Broken but by that measured tread
And measured beat which mourns the dead,
While awe pervades the air.
Now rank by rank they slow advance,
Rich music links the lengthening chain,
As one melodious plaint subsides
Another into hearing glides,
And sinks to sleep again.
It seems as if whatever voice
To mourning, music ever gave,
In the great requiem all conspire,
Alternating in rival choir,
To sing him to his grave.
The curtain'd vapours roll aside,
The sun would see this last display
Of England's love for her dear son,
And gives to honour Wellington
A much unwonted ray.
And as the clocks tell out the hour,
And each from each catch up the tale,
Some vision of eternity,
And judgments pass'd on those who die,
May well make gazers pale.
Now as he journeys to the grave
We will not praise him overmuch;
Before that throne where mercy sits,
A modest silence best befits
Creatures imploring such.
But in so far as earth may give
Her honour and her love
For such a life of noble deeds,
As, measured by, fulfilled her needs,
It will be known above.
And God, who weighs this man's desert,
Knows every tear by England shed,
Forgets not all she could recount,
Nor fails to reckon the amount
By which she weeps him, dead.
It is not bronze with laurel strew'd,
Nor silver-starr'd and voiceful pall,
Nor that small coffin gliding by,
Which England gives him, should she sigh
To think that this is all--
Which she can give, or he receive,
Say, "no, she gives a glorious grief."
She gave him love, as day by day
He paced along the accustom'd way,
She gives it now to Death.
All honour which she could devise
She gave with an ungrudging hand;
If his transfigured head looks down
On these great symbols of renown
Which England's sorrow plann'd,
He will behold the true intent,
And know that thro' this mighty throng
More thought than of this funeral car,
More praise than show these ranks of war,
Are bearing him along.
The coffin and the car recede,
They fade from sunshine into gloom;
The solemn transit he completes,
While over the deserted streets
The heavy cannons boom.
Where Paul's gold cross salutes the sky.
And towers above the burden'd air
Full of the town's great hum, and looks
On all its densest dreariest nooks,
We'll lay the hero there.
It shall be head-stone to the Duke,
We need not write his name thereon.
England is mindful of her debt,
Nor will from age to age forget
Here lieth WELLINGTON.
Calm graves, whereon the western light
And long fir shadows fall,
While twilight in the purple east
Unfolds her silver pall,
Wherewith she covers that hush'd earth
By Death's light footsteps trod,
Do you, of all this gloriousness,
Alone belong to God?
They say He holds a balanced scale
To measure Earth and heaven,
And renders for what earth withholds
A portion more than even;
But tho' we strive to live by this,
And nurse a faith sublime,
No man who trusts Eternity
Denies a prayer to Time.
Not always must our darling earth
Be spotted with decay,
She bears a promise on her brows
Fulfil it when she may.
Not always shall she sacrifice
The dearest souls she rears,
And give them hopes beyond her own
To cheat the heart of tears.
But perfectness return to her,
And all her children know
That even as God reigns above,
He also reigns below.
No space be barr'd apart for him,
With cypress in it sown,
But all which bounds humanity
Be His and nature's own.
She twisted up her royal lengths
Of fallen hair with a silver pin,
Her eyes were frowning, molten depths
Which stirr'd to flame when I look'd within
Dress'd in a gown of velvet, black,
With a diamond clasp, and a silver band,
Walk'd from the door with a stately step,
And our young son held by his mother's hand.
Walter ran by his mother's side
More like in his eyes to her than me,
The Queen would have barter'd her ivory throne
For such a blossom of royalty.
Heavily over the far-hill tops
Booms the bell in the minster tower,
From city to city between the hills
Echo the bells at the burial hour.
"Amen!" saith the bough in the ten-mile forest,
"Amen!" saith the sea from its cavernous bed,
"Amen!" saith the people when bow'd at the sorest,
"Who is dead?" said the rooks, "who is dead? who is dead?"
The young man is dead, in his strength, in his beauty,
His curls lie loose on his white-fringed pall;
Loud cry the people and priests at the altar,
Soft wails the requiem over them all.
Low in the midst of the Church of the Merciful
Lieth the young man,--gone to his rest,
His sword is sheath'd and his coronet broken,
Flowers of yesterday cover his breast.
"Babe, child, brave youth," wept the Queen in her
closet,
"Heir of my name," sigh'd the King on his throne,
"Who leads us to battle?" cried they of the market,
"My lover," look'd one face as cold as a stone.
Slow toll'd the bells from the north to the southern
sea,
Winds caught them up with a desolate cry,
Solemn he lies under darkening arches,
The hand of eternity press'd on each eye.
The market-cross, with its sculptured Christ,
Mid the crush and the trample stood steady and strong,
The welded masses of voiceless folk
As a sea at midnight roll'd along.
Booming bells, as they struck the ear,
Died away in the silent skies;
Gossiping women were dumb with fear,
And each gabled house was alive with eyes.
But lo!--in the distance a shadowy file,
They move to the beat of a muffled drum,
The waves recede as for Israel's march,
And the thick crowd mutters, "They come, they come."
Where the bier was borne by the central fount,
She stood as still as the carven stone,
Saying, "O King, behold my boy,
His smile is the dead's, and his eye is your own.
"From my broad domain in one true man's heart,
From the home I chose of mine own free will,
I give you my jewel to wear in your crown."
Then snatching him hack for one last long fill
Of his rippling smiles, they heard her say,
With a haughty glance at her marriage ring,
"Well is my home by the forester's hearth,
But Walter, my son, is the heir of a king!"
When the shadows fell on our quiet pool,
And the birds were asleep in the firs overhead,
She return'd alone, but her face was white,
And her step as the step of one waked from the dead.
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