[Illustration: Sepia-toned profile portrait of Thomas Gordon Hake with
short hair and sideburns, facing right, dated 1872]
THE POEMS OF THOMAS GORDON HAKE
SELECTED
WITH A PREFATORY NOTE BY
ALICE MEYNELL
AND A PORTRAIT BY
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
LONDON: ELKIN MATHEWS AND
JOHN LANE
CHICAGO: STONE AND KIMBALL
1894
_Of this edition 500 copies have been printed for England_
Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty
PREFATORY NOTE
The Poems in this collection are chosen from volumes published at
intervals over more than fifty years—among them _The Piromides_, issued
in 1839, _Madeline_, reviewed by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the _Academy_
in 1871; _Parables and Tales_, to which Rossetti gave a _Fortnightly
Review_ article in 1873; down to _The New Day_, dated 1890; together
with verses which will be new even to the readers of the hitherto
published works.
Dr. Hake has a solemn and distinct note, little confusible with the
other notes of the concerted song of poets. Only nine years younger than
the century, he inherited, by right of his time and place, a tradition
of deep composure—poetry aloof from the peril of excitement which knows
neither how to contain nor how to express itself. Dr. Hake’s expression
always implies long intention, deliberate decision. The verse is a
consequence long foreseen.
The emotion of moments lacks indeed no swiftness of passage, but we are
made aware that it had a past of experience and has a future of power.
It was not a gust born of the moment and then no more. Poetic passion
must be like a wind; thou canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it
goeth; but surely it appeared with an approach and disappeared with a
departure; it was a thing of transitory phase, but not of transitory
life. Essentially durable and spiritual is the passion of those
infrequent poems in which this poet, raising himself from the attitude
of meditation, gathers his word into intenser action.
He has emotion which is thus proved true. For the proof of the
authenticity of his thought, also, the reader will look into his own
experience as he reads.
Il poeta mi disse: Che pense?
The question which Virgil asked of Dante is a poet’s question. The world
takes it as generally the reader’s question; but it is emphatically the
poet’s. Now, the thought to which Dr. Hake appeals in his reader’s mind
is unquestionably not an easy nor an obvious one. In saying this we
assign to the reader of poetry some part of the writer’s responsibility,
some part of his honour. Or, if this is too much to say, the reader is
at any rate responsible for choosing his poet. And if a poet is worth
reading at all, he is to be trusted both with the importance and with
the distinctness of his own thought.
The exceeding solemnity of what we have called Dr. Hake’s note—and it is
as indescribable and as peculiar as the note of a voice—suggests a
further meaning, even an allegory, where in fact he had no intention of
proposing anything beyond the text. The more does this illusion occur,
perhaps, because Dr. Hake tells a story—a story of events—in most
meditative stanzas. He writes movingly of dreams and sleep; and his
study of these has added to all or almost all his verse something of the
ecstasy of dreams.
ALICE MEYNELL.
_February 1894._
CONTENTS
PAGE
ALONE 1
OLD SOULS 8
VENUS URANIA 16
THE CRIPPLE 17
THE INFANT MEDUSA 28
THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 29
THE LOVER’S DAY 45
THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE 47
FLOWERS ON THE BANK 57
THE BLIND BOY 59
WHEN I THINK OF THEE, BROTHER 72
ECCE HOMO! 74
THE SNAKE CHARMER 80
PYTHAGORAS 88
THE FIRST SAVED 95
REMINISCENCE 101
THE SHEPHERDESS 110
FAREWELL TO NATURE 117
THE POET’S FEAST 121
THE EXILE 122
THE SIBYL 133
THE PAINTER 135
THE SUN-WORSHIPPER 139
THE INSCRUTABLE 145
THE WEDDING RING 149
LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR DEAD 152
THE GOLDEN WEDDING 154
ALONE
Loved, wedded, and caressed,
Although her children died
She still seemed doubly blest,
Her helpmate at her side
More dear than all the rest!
But sorrow did not kill
The thought of those so dear,
Who all her feelings fill,
As though still with her here
To play about her still.
Her little children’s fate
She never could recall,
Yet lived she desolate,
For she had lost them all,—
And then she lost her mate.
When came that hour of woe
And all she loved was gone,
Not sorrow’s keenest blow
Left her fond heart alone;
No parting could it know.
Nigh her he still appears,
The early times so cling;
Her simple heart still hears
Her children laugh and sing
As in the happy years.
The dead to her remain;
She heeds each gentle sound
Of theirs within her brain,
And answers smiling round:
‘Sweet love, say that again!’
Is it that angels dwell
In that lone mother’s breast?
She knows not what befell,
And so is doubly blest:
No more her heart can tell.
OLD SOULS
I
The world, not hushed, lay as in trance;
It saw the future in its van,
And drew its riches in advance,
To meet the greedy wants of man;
Till length of days, untimely sped,
Left its account unaudited.
II
The sun, untired, still rose and set,—
Swerved not an instant from its beat:
It had not lost a moment yet,
Nor used in vain its light and heat;
But, as in trance, from when it rose
To when it sank, man craved repose.
III
A holy light that shone of yore
He saw, despised, and left behind:
His heart was rotting to the core
Locked in the slumbers of the mind
Not beat of drum, nor sound of fife,
Could rouse it to a sense of life.
IV
A cry was heard, intoned and slow,
Of one who had no wares to vend:
His words were gentle, dull, and low,
And he called out, ‘Old souls to mend!’
He peddled on from door to door,
And looked not up to rich or poor.
V
His step kept on as if in pace
With some old timepiece in his head,
Nor ever did its way retrace;
Nor right nor left turned he his tread
But uttered still his tinker’s cry
To din the ears of passers-by.
VI
So well they knew the olden note
Few heeded what the tinker spake,
Though here and there an ear it smote
And seemed a sudden hold to take;
But they had not the time to stay,
And it would do some other day.
VII
Still on his way the tinker wends,
Though jobs be far between and few;
But here and there a soul he mends
And makes it look as good as new.
Once set to work, once fairly hired,
His dull old hammer seems inspired.
VIII
Over the task his features glow;
He knocks away the rusty flakes;
A spark flies off at every blow;
At every rap new life awakes.
The soul once cleansed of outward sins,
His subtle handicraft begins.
IX
Like iron unannealed and crude,
The soul is plunged into the blast;
To temper it, however rude,
’Tis next in holy water cast;
Then on the anvil it receives
The nimblest stroke the tinker gives.
X
The tinker’s task is at an end:
Stamped was the cross by that last blow.
Again his cry, ‘Old souls to mend!’
Is heard in accents dull and low.
He pauses not to seek his pay,—
That too will do another day.
XI
One stops and says, ‘This soul of mine
Has been a tidy piece of ware,
But rust and rot in it combine,
And now corruption lays it bare.
Give it a look: there was a day
When it the morning hymn could say.’
XII
The tinker looks into his eye,
And there detects besetting sin,
The decent old-established lie,
That creeps through all the chinks within.
Lank are its tendrils, thick its shoots,
And like a worm’s nest coil the roots.
XIII
Like flowers that deadly berries bear,
His seed, if tended from the pod,
Had grown in beauty with the year,
Like deodara drawn to God;
Now like a dank and curly brake,
It fosters venom for the snake.
XIV
The tinker takes the weed in tow,
And roots it out with tooth and nail;
His labour patient to bestow,
Lest like the herd of men he fail.
How best to extirpate the weed,
Has grown with him into a creed.
XV
His tack is steady, slow, and sure:
He plucks it out, despite the howl,
With gentle hand and look demure,
As cunning maiden draws a fowl.
He knows the job he is about,
And pulls till all the lie is out.
XVI
‘Now steadfastly regard the man
Who wrought your cure of rust and rot!
You saw him ere the work began:
Is he the same, or is he not?
You saw the tinker; now behold
The Envoy of a God of old.’
XVII
This said, he on the forehead stamps
A downward stroke and one across,
Then straight upon his way he tramps;
His time for profit, not for loss;
His task no sooner at an end
Than out he cries, ‘Old souls to mend!’
XVIII
As night comes on he enters doors,
He crosses halls, he goes upstairs,
He reaches first and second floors,
Still busied on his own affairs.
None stop him or a question ask;
None heed the workman at his task.
XIX
Despite his cry, ‘Old souls to mend!’
Which into dull expression breaks,
Not moved are they, nor ear they lend
To him who from old habit speaks;
Yet does the deep and one-toned cry
Send thrills along eternity.
XX
He gads where out-door wretches walk,
Where outcasts under arches creep;
Among them holds his simple talk.
He lets them hear him in their sleep.
They who his name have still denied,
He lets them see him crucified.
XXI
On royal steps he takes a stand
To light the beauties to the ball;
He holds a lantern in his hand,
And lets his simple saying fall.
They deem him but some sorry wit
Serving the Holy Spirit’s writ.
XXII
They know not souls can rust and rot,
And deem him, while he says his say,
The tipsy watchman who forgot
To call out ‘Carriage stops the way!’
They know not what it can portend,
This mocking cry, ‘Old souls to mend!’
XXIII
While standing on the palace stone,
He is in workhouse, brothel, jail;
He is to play and ball-room gone,
To hear again the beauties rail;
With tender pity to behold
The dead alive in pearls and gold.
XXIV
In meaning deep, in whispers low
As bubble bursting on the air,
He lets the solemn warning flow
Through jewelled ears of creatures fair,
Who, while they dance, their paces blend
With his mild words, ‘Old souls to mend!’
XXV
And when to church their sins they take,
And bring them back to lunch again,
And fun of empty sermons make,
He whispers softly in their train;
And sits with them if two or more
Think of a promise made of yore.
XXVI
Of those who stay behind to sup,
And in remembrance eat the bread,
He leads the conscience to the cup,
His hands across the table spread.
When contrite hearts before him bend,
Glad are his words, ‘Old souls to mend.’
XXVII
The little ones before the font
He clasps within his arms to bless;
For Childhood’s pure and guileless front
Laughs back his own sweet gentleness.
‘Of such,’ he says, ‘my kingdom is,
For they betray not with a kiss.’
XXVIII
He goes to hear the vicars preach:
They do not always know his face,
Him they pretend the way to teach,
And, as one absent, ask his grace.
Not then his words, ‘Old souls to mend!’
Their spirits pierce or bosoms rend.
XXIX
He goes to see the priests revere
His image as he lay in death:
They do not know that he is there;
They do not feel his living breath,
Though to his secret they pretend
With incense sweet, old souls to mend.
XXX
He goes to hear the grand debate
That makes his own religion law;
But him the members, as he sate
Below the gangway, never saw.
They used his name to serve their end,
And others left old souls to mend.
XXXI
Before the church-exchange he stands,
Where those who buy and sell him, meet:
He sees his livings changing hands,
And shakes the dust from off his feet.
May be his weary head he bows,
While from his side fresh ichor flows.
XXXII
From mitred peers he turns his face.
Where priests convoked in session plot,
He would remind them of his grace
But for his now too humble lot;
So his dull cry on ears devout
He murmurs sadly from without.
XXXIII
He goes where judge the law defends,
And takes the life he can’t bestow,
And soul of sinner recommends
To grace above, but not below;
Reserving for a fresh surprise
Whom it shall meet in Paradise.
XXXIV
He goes to meeting, where the saint
Exempts himself from deadly ire,
But in a strain admired and quaint
Consigns all others to the fire,
While of the damned he mocks the howl,
And on the tinker drops his scowl.
XXXV
Go here, go there, they cite his word,
While he himself is nigh forgot.
He hears them use the name of Lord,
He present though they know him not.
Though he be there, they vision lack,
And talk of him behind his back.
XXXVI
Such is the Church and such the State.
Both set him up and put him down,—
Below the houses of debate,
Above the jewels of the crown.
But when ‘Old souls to mend!’ he says,
They send him off about his ways.
XXXVII
He is the humble, lowly one,
In coat of rusty velveteen,
Who to his daily work has gone;
In sleeves of lawn not ever seen.
No mitre on his forehead sticks:
His crown is thorny, and it pricks.
XXXVIII
On it the dews of mercy shine;
From heaven at dawn of day they fell;
And it he wears by right divine,
Like earthly kings, if truth they tell;
And up to heaven the few to send,
He still cries out, ‘Old souls to mend!’
VENUS URANIA
Is this thy Paphos,—the devoted place
Where rests, in its own eventide, thy shrine?
To thee not lone is solitude divine
Where love-dreams o’er thy waves each other chase
And melt into the passion of thy face!
The twilight waters, dolphin-stained, are thine;
The silvery depths and blue, moon-orbed, entwine,
And in bright films thy rosy form embrace,—
Girdling thy loins with heaven-spun drapery
Wove in the looms of thy resplendent sea.
The columns point their shadows to the plain
And ancient days are dialed o’er again;
The floods remember: falling at thy feet,
Upon the sands of time they ever beat.
THE CRIPPLE
I
A brook beneath the hill-side flows
Amid the downs, whose chalky sweep
A scant though tender herbage grows,
Cropped close by scattered flocks of sheep.
And there a group of huts is seen
Dotted along a village green.
II
Yet, buildings of a statelier look
That poor sequestered valley grace:
An inn beside the village brook;
A church beside the burial-place.
Save at the park, the trees are few;
Still the old graveyard has its yew.
III
Beyond the park, the ring-dove’s haunt,
Red bricks insult the smokeless sky:
There stands the workhouse, bare and gaunt,
Like the drear soul of poverty,
And frowns upon a mossy fen,
Where willows crouch like agéd men.
IV
All life surrounds the roadside inn,
The home of welcome and good cheer,
Where barmaid scores the gill of gin
And oft-repeated pot of beer:
Unlike the fashion of the town—
To drink and fling the money down.
V
The wife, with eggs and milk for sale,
Wrapt in the coat of her good man,
Stops there and takes her drop of ale
While waiting for her empty can,
And, nodding at the landlord’s sport,
Keeps for the last her smart retort.
VI
The goodman, always on his mare,
Stops with familiar nod and wink,
And bids the landlord with him share
His amber draught of foamy drink;
With chuckling joke concludes his say,
And laughs when out of hearing’s way.
VII
There with his team the carter stays,
The water-trough his horses find;
Worn out himself, he little says—
No fun has he to leave behind.
Dull to the merry toper’s call,
His team he follows to their stall.
VIII
The squire, addicted not to chat,
But seldom draws the rein or speaks;
Seeing the landlord touch his hat,
Into a quiet trot he breaks;
Though at election, oft he stops
To praise the children and the crops.
IX
Between the horse-trough and the door
A widow’s son was wont to stand.
He was a cripple, crutched and poor,
Yet always ready with a hand,
Pleased when on trifling errands sent,
With little recompense content.
X
So oft a copper coin the boy
Would earn, that helped to buy him bread,
Too glad to get a light employ:
The parish all his mother’s dread.
Hard had she worked to earn him food
Through all her weary widowhood.
XI
More did that mother love her son
Than had he been the fairest born;
He was her pride to look upon,
Though shrunk of limb and feature worn:
May be she loved him all the more
For that his legs were crookt and sore.
XII
As a wrecked vessel on the sand,
The cripple to his mother clung:
Close to the tub he took his stand
While she the linen washed and wrung;
And when she hung it out to dry
The cripple still was standing by.
XIII
When she went out to char, he took
His fife, to play some simple snatch
Before the inn hard by the brook,
While for the traveller keeping watch,
Against the horse’s head to stand,
Or hold its bridle in his hand.
XIV
Sometimes the squire his penny dropped
Upon the road for him to clutch,
Which, as it rolled, the cripple stopped,
Striking it nimbly with his crutch.
The groom, with leathern belt and pad,
E’en found a copper for the lad.
XV
The farmer’s wife her hand would dip
Down her deep pocket with a sigh;
Some halfpence in his hand would slip,
When there was no observer nigh;
Or give him apples for his lunch,
That he loved leisurely to munch.
XVI
But for the farmer, what he made,
At market table he would spend,
And boys who used not plough or spade
Had got the parish for their friend;
He paid his poor rates to the day,
So let the boy ask parish-pay.
XVII
Yet would the teamster feel his fob,
The little cripple’s heart to cheer,
Himself of penny pieces rob,
That he begrudged to spend in beer;
His boy, too, might be sick or sore,
So gave he of his thrifty store.
XVIII
A sheep-worn walk along the brook
The cripple loved, for there the gush
Of water thralled him as it shook
The ragged roots of the green rush,
Which with its triple flowers of pink
Stood ripe for gathering at the brink.
XIX
The heather bristles round the knoll,
Where inlaid moss and leaflets blend:
’Tis there he sits and ends his stroll,
His crutch beside him as his friend,
And looks upon the other bank,
Where blue forget-me-not grows rank;
XX
Where purple loosestrife paints the sedge;—
Where bryony and yellow bine,
Locked in blush-bramble, climb the hedge,
And white convolvulus enshrine.
Nestled in leaves, they all appear
Each other’s flowers to nurse and rear.
XXI
There mused he like a child of yore—
By Nature’s simple teachings led;
The cog and wheel of human lore
Not yet were stirring in his head;
The Shaper of his destiny
He felt was smiling from the sky.
XXII
There with soft notes his fife he fills,
A mere tin plaything from the mart,
But his thin fingers as it thrills,
To that poor toy a grace impart,
While it obeys his lips’ control,
And is a crutch unto his soul.
XXIII
At church he longed his fife to try,
Where oboe gave its doleful note,
Where fiddle scraped harsh melody,
Where bass the rustic vitals smote.
Such old-day music was in vogue,
And psalms were sung in village brogue.
XXIV
His cheerful ways gave many cause
For wonder; such ill-founded joy
To others’ mirth would give a pause:
His soul seemed lent him for a toy,
Though on his infant face was age
To mark him for life’s latter stage.
XXV
Dead is his crutch on moping days—
’Tis so they call his sickly fits,
When by his side his crutch he lays,
And in the chimney-corner sits,
Hobbling in spirit near the yew
That in the village churchyard grew.
XXVI
Ah! it befell at harvest-time,—
Such are the ways of Providence,—
That the poor widow in her prime
Was fever-struck, and hurried hence;
Then did he wish indeed to lie
Between her arms and with her die.
XXVII
Who shall the cripple’s woes beguile?
Who earn the bread his mouth to feed?
Who greet him with a mother’s smile?
Who tend him in his utter need?
Who lead him to the sanded floor?
Who put his crutch behind the door?
XXVIII
Who set him in his wadded chair,
And after supper say his grace?
Who to invite a loving air
His fife upon the table place?
Who, as he plays, her eyes shall lift
In wonder at a cripple’s gift?
XXIX
Who ask him all the news that chanced—
Of farmer’s wife in coat and hat,
Of squire who to the city pranced—
To draw him out in lively chat?
This flood of love, now but a surf
Left on a nameless mound of turf.
XXX
Some it made sigh, and some made talk,
To see the guardian of the poor
Call for the boy to take a walk,
And lead him to the workhouse door:
With lifted hands and boding look
They watched him cross the village brook.
THE INFANT MEDUSA
BY POSEIDON
I loved Medusa when she was a child,
Her rich brown tresses heaped in crispy curl
Where now those locks with reptile passion whirl,
By hate into dishevelled serpents coiled.
I loved Medusa when her eyes were mild,
Whose glances, narrowed now, perdition hurl,
As her self-tangled hairs their mass unfurl,
Bristling the way she turns with hissings wild.
Her mouth I kissed when curved with amorous spell,
Now shaped to the unuttered curse of hell,
Wide open for death’s orbs to freeze upon;
Her eyes I loved ere glazed in icy stare,
Ere mortals, lured into their ruthless glare,
She shrivelled in her gaze to pulseless stone.
THE LILY OF THE VALLEY
I
There was a wood, it does not change,
Not while the thrush pipes through its glades,
And she who did its thickets range
Has willed her sunbeam to its shades.
There still the lily weaves a net
With bluebell, primrose, violet.
II
The wood is what it was of old,
A timber-farm where wildflowers grow.
There woodman’s axe is never cold,
That lays the oaks and beeches low.
But though the hand of man deface,
The lily ever grows in grace.
III
Of loving natures, proudly shy,
The stock-doves sojourn in the tree,
With breasts of feathered cloud and sky,
And notes of soft though tuneless glee:
Hid in the leaves they take a spring,
And crush the stillness with their wing.
IV
The wood is deep-boughed, and its glade
Has ruts of waggon to and fro;
Yet where the print of wheel is made
The bracken ventures still to grow;
And where the foot of man may goad,
The ants are toiling with their load.
V
The wood, even old in olden days,
No longer alters with the year.
The gnarléd boughs, to Nature’s ways
Inured, their honours mildly bear.
And she who there has fixed her beam
Is still remembered as a dream.
VI
There many a legend of the wood
Has hovered from the olden time,
When, with their sooths and sayings good,
Men told not of its youth or prime.
The hollow trunks were hollow then,
And honoured like the bones of men.
VII
There like nine brethren, Nature’s own,
Nine trees within a circle stand,
And to a temple’s shape have grown,
Each trunk a column tall and grand.
And, there, a raven-oak uprears
Its dome that whitens with the years.
VIII
’Mid these, while on the earth at play,
She, the true beam of living spring,
The playmate of the lily’s ray,
Learnt of the piping thrush to sing.
The lily’s leaves were then her nest,
Its buds half-nestled in her breast.
IX
To her whose beam was lily-bright
’Neath brakes that hide the sky above,
A primrose seemed a holy sight:
Loveless itself, it taught her love.
It was her welcome to the bowers,
And lured her fingers to its flowers.
X
Not yet to her was Nature’s age
In gnarled and hollow shapes revealed:
The buds and leaflets stamped her page,
And all that Death could say concealed.
To gnarled and hollow Nature cold,
She had not caught the sense of old.
XI
When folk who gossiped thereabout
Asked the child’s name,—the child so pale,—
With looks that gave a sweetness out,
She answered, ‘Lily of the Vale.’
Not then her eyes had dew-drops shed
In early tribute to the dead.
XII
Alas! her parents came to die;
She was not then too young to weep.
Through all the wood was heard her cry;
Till with her sobs she fell asleep,
And o’er her slumber shot those beams
That with a shiver visit dreams.
XIII
The lilies in their nest had died,
Violets were closed, their petals crushed,
The bracken-stalks were parched and dried,
The flowers she loved no longer blushed.
Towards sorrow did her soul ascend;
Her dawn of joys was at an end.
XIV
The oak spread o’er her troubled sleep,
She sees a gnarled and hollow form
Whose riven branches seem to creep,—
Loosed from their long-enchanted storm,
And like a phantom in the air
It sets on her its naked stare.
XV
That oak she oft had seen before,
And in its empty cell had played,
But felt not it was bald and hoar
With the green ivy o’er it laid.
Now have those thoughtless moments flown
And with the oak she is alone.
XVI
Then she beheld o’ersnowed with age,
Her grandsire trembling in the wind,
Smiling on her, his heritage,
The child his son had left behind.
Old was she now, for she could see
Her grandsire agéd like the tree.
XVII
As flowers her eager heart once fired
With love for things that came and passed,
These visions in her soul inspired
An awe of sadder things that last:
The sire by age and trouble bent,
The tree by storm and lightning rent.
XVIII
Sleep left her, but her startled gaze
Met not the sire beside the oak
There standing in its leafless maze
As in her dream, when she awoke.
Where was the sire? She could not see
The face that smiled beside the tree.
XIX
And then she towards the cottage ran,
There was the sire in his retreat,
There was he still,—the agéd man,—
Calm-sitting on his mossy seat,
And of her dream, as true, she spoke
While resting ’neath the raven-oak.
XX
He told her how the raven reared
Her young ones on the leafy crest,
And now the oak by lightning seared
Could give no shelter for a nest.
With this her simple thoughts he led
To how the bird the prophet fed.
XXI
Then did she feel that he was poor;
That on a scanty crust he fared.
She longed to see within his door
The frugal meal she oft had shared,
And prayed the raven in her need
To do for them the loving deed.
XXII
Through every grove she poured her lay,
This drooping Lily of the Vale;
As through the brakes she took her way
She told the thrush her touching tale,
And bade it in her service press
The bird that waits on man’s distress.
XXIII
So, like a creature on the wing,
She spoke her griefs to all she met.
The thrush had taught her how to sing
Soft notes to all things living set;
Conies that peeped from out the grass,
They had no fear and let her pass.
XXIV
She thought the thrush with mellow song
Would answer to her simple strain,
She thought the other birds would throng
To bring the raven back again,
But not to her the raven sped
Who brought from heaven the prophet’s bread.
XXV
Meantime her grandsire day by day
Was hungered, hopeless though he smiled,
For he would hide his pains away
From her, the watchful, loving child.
She saw him sink upon his bed
Not by the kindly raven fed.
XXVI
Again through brake and bush she flew;
Beyond the wood there lay the field
And paths unknown broke on her view;
Must she to childish terror yield?
She looked at heaven and saw its scope,
Taught by her mother there was hope.
XXVII
And then she to her mother said,
‘Can God the prophet’s raven spare?
For grandsire lies upon his bed,
And cannot earn his daily fare.
All father’s work he leaves undone,
And says I soon shall be alone.’
XXVIII
Then she went on and seemed to tread
The buoyant air that past her blew,
But cast her looks about in dread,
As o’er the footless path she flew.
At last she stayed to breathe her fear,—
All was so strange, and no one near.
XXIX
And then she to her father said,
‘Can God the prophet’s raven spare?
For grandsire lies upon his bed,
And cannot earn his daily fare.
He leaves the work you left undone,
And says I soon shall be alone.’
XXX
Her slackening pace now plainly told
The way was long for timid feet.
She felt her heart no longer bold:
Oft she looked back her wood to greet.
Her wood from sight a moment gone,
She felt herself indeed alone.
XXXI
She stood where hills and valleys blend;
One struggle more, and heaven seemed nigh.
Beyond where fields and woods ascend,
She saw a mansion towering high,
A noble lady’s home, that seemed
To her the heaven of which she dreamed.
XXXII
‘Could I,’ she thought, ‘that hill ascend,
Then should I see the lady’s face.
She lives above, where troubles end,
And I have found her heavenly place.
God gives her plenty for the poor,
Who come home laden from her door.’
XXXIII
She looked till flashed across her dreams
A sight that all her spirit fired;
A form behind the window gleams,—
Could it be she so long desired?
Through windows in that stately pile,
She thought she saw a human smile.
XXXIV
And then she to the lady said,
‘Can God the prophet’s raven spare?
For grandsire lies upon his bed,
And cannot earn his daily fare.
All father’s work he leaves undone,
And says I soon shall be alone.’
XXXV
The mansion stood against the sun:
There long she looked for her reply.
The ball of fire whose course had run,
Filled with its red the western sky,
’Twas awful to her childish sight:
She turned her troubled steps for flight.
XXXVI
Dared she but enter at the gate
To reach that mansion vast and fair,
Then could she all her tale relate
To that sweet lady dwelling there.
But all her little courage fled:
With fainting steps she homeward sped.
XXXVII
First slowly, then with swifter pace,
She outran terror at her heels,
As if to win with Death the race,
Whose shroud now brushing by she feels.
She starts at every rugged bank,
For with the sun her spirit sank.
XXXVIII
The orb, yet vast beyond the height,
Had set more early in the wood;
But o’er the trees the lingering light
Spread floating in a rosy flood.
The birds sank one by one to rest,
As pale and paler grew the west.
XXXIX
She spied her cot, O vision sweet!
A rushlight through the lattice flamed,
And threw its radiance at her feet,
As it the grudging twilight shamed.
Through diamond panes a glimpse to catch,
She held her finger on the latch.
XL
No sound, no breath she heard above,
Where grandsire in the garret lay.
But one was there whose looks of love,
‘Poor little orphan,’ seemed to say.
She knew the chaplain’s kindly face;
The bearer of the lady’s grace.
XLI
‘Where hast thou been, my darling maid?
Reply to one who likes thee well.’
‘To fetch the raven home,’ she said;
‘And him my grandsire’s wants to tell.
I stood beneath the raven-tree
And found no bird to succour me.’
XLII
‘Why call the raven to thy door,
Thy little heart’s distress to share?’
‘Because,’ said she, ‘the sire is poor,
And has not earned his daily fare.
All father’s work he leaves undone,
And says I soon shall be alone.’
XLIII
‘To kiss thee, child, he would have stayed,
For oft he called thee to his side.
Where didst thou wander, little maid?’
‘I went across the world so wide.
I looked at heaven and saw its scope,
Taught by my mother there was hope.
XLIV
‘I looked for mother in the sky:
She taught me there my wants to tell;
I looked for father standing by,
For both among the happy dwell;
I cried to them with heart of care,
Can God the prophet’s raven spare?
XLV
‘Then I came nigh a stately pile,
Where those who ask seek not in vain.
I looked, and saw a human smile,
And thought a lady looked again.
Through windows I beheld her face,
As she looked from her heavenly place.
XLVI
‘And then I to the lady said,
“Can God the prophet’s raven spare?
For grandsire lies upon his bed,
And has not earned his daily fare.
My father’s work he leaves undone,
And says I soon shall be alone.”’
XLVII
‘Thou art not all alone, my child;
Thy griefs that righteous lady hears:
She loves a spirit undefiled;
Her heart is open to thy tears.
Thy father’s work at last is done,
And thou shalt never be alone.’
THE LOVER’S DAY
I
Gorse-plains that flower their gold into the streams
Beneath the opal blossoms of the sky;
Sea-floods that weave their blue and purple seams;
White sails that lift the billows as they fly:
Not these in their abounding rapture vie
With love’s diviner dreams.
II
Those lovers tire not when the sun is pale;
No statelier awning than a bristled tree
With branches cedared by the salten gale,
Stretched back, as if with wings that cannot flee:
They linger, and the sun departs by sea;
He spreads his crimson sail.
III
They watch him as he piles his busy deck
With golden treasure; as his sail expands;
They see him sink; they gaze upon the wreck
Through the still twilight of the silvery sands.
One cloud is left to the deserted lands:
The blue-set moon’s cold fleck.
IV
They linger though the pageant hath gone by,
The opal cloud is lit o’er sea and plain;
The moon is full of one day’s memory,
And tells the tale of Nature o’er again,
Its glory mingled in the soul’s refrain
Under that lover’s sky.
THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE
I
There was a haunt, it does not change,
Not while the fiend its path invades;
But he who did its alleys range
Has willed his penance to its shades.
There still the nightshade breathes its pest
On fallen spirits not at rest.
II
It is the haunt it was of yore,
A den where thieves and harlots creep,
Where Nature’s voice is heard no more,
Where guilt-stained men night-vigil keep,
And crimes like months afresh appear,—
Ere one runs out, another near.
III
A haunt where all in common share
The sleepless hour, the murderous toil;
Where Death on all has set his stare,
To drag them forth, to grasp their spoil:
Between their gallows and their den,
A hardening sight for other men.
IV
This is the charnel that doth hide
A frantic woman who at play
Has lost her wealth of virgin pride,
And reckless games her soul away;
Whose scarlet rags, deep-dyed, replace
The blushes of her maiden face.
V
A mother’s bitter hour sets in;
Wrecked on her breast the infant lies,
As if to perish for its sin,
There set adrift from human ties
Till its ear-piercing scream prevail
And sullen pity hush the wail.
VI
Where only shadows rise and set,
And love at morn awaketh not,
This child of woe his being met,
To share a loveless parent’s lot,
And at his birth his sentence meet
Before a mother’s judgment-seat.
VII
The mother moaning in the gloom
Laughed when a peaceful breath he drew,
Too conscious of his early doom.
On wounded wings the tidings flew,
On bosoms pitiless they fell:
‘A child of heaven was born in hell!’
VIII
His place of birth the skies deplored,
No trees, no brooks, no meadows seen;
And still his heart those skies adored
Before he saw the fields were green.
Born amid broils, in squalor bred,
His soul knew not to where it sped.
IX
The child is taught through many a blow
To shed with sobs the beggar’s tear,
Reared as a prodigy of woe
That gentle women pay to hear.
And many listened and bestowed;
For younger tears had never flowed.
X
Held at his mother’s hand, he hung
A broken spray with misery’s drip;
And often to the ground he clung,
His passion bursting at his lip.
And still she dragged him o’er the stones,
Though tender was he to the bones.
XI
Her eyes of prey like fangs were laid
On all who gave a hurried look.
And while she whined for kindly aid,
She hid away the coin she took,
When suddenly she begged no more
And rushed within a slamming door.
XII
With nostrils spread, and eyes aflame,
Before the shrine of death she stands,
The infant by her, sick and lame,
The lava trembling in her hands.
She drinks it with a vengeful frown;
She feels the fiend of sorrow drown.
XIII
Now in a prison left to rage,
She thirsts, she burns with vain desire
Her deadly sickness to assuage,
To quench its fiery pang in fire.
With what a mother sent to dwell,
This child of heaven reared up in hell!
XIV
Not far away from infancy—
Through weary time a single stage,
The livelong years had hustled by
But left him still of tender age,
When from his mother’s reach he fled,
Outside the doors to make his bed.
XV
Where odours wander, dank and foul,
Through crowded streets and alleys lone,
By day and night his footsteps prowl;
His wants, not many, asked by none:
The roads were new he hourly crossed,
Yet was his way not wholly lost.
XVI
When hunger like a conscience cries,
He asks the needy to bestow,
Afraid to raise his drooping eyes
Except to those who famine know;
Such he believes their crust will break,
And share with him for pity’s sake.
XVII
Hopeful, he glides into a den
Up whose dusk path a shudder flew,
And asks of sick, half-famished men
Whose strength no plenty could renew.
Yet with what startling oaths they rave
And bid him run his neck to save!
XVIII
Still to the poor is his appeal,
And they his mild entreaty spurn:
Some whisper, Be a man and steal;
Some bid him to the gallows turn.
Child-like he credits all he hears,
And rests his troubled heart in tears.
XIX
He rests,—but oft starts up in fear;
His mother’s driving shadow breaks
Upon his slumber unaware,
And sleep’s too light repast awakes
Where dreams the festive board have spread
And turned his sorrow into bread.
XX
Hope, ’mid those shapes of famine sent,
Smiles on him;—she is Childhood’s bride!
The mother’s image, o’er him bent,
Cannot the angel wholly hide,—
Not when her halo o’er him plays,
And all but hunger’s pang allays.
XXI
How did he long for once to taste
Of the forbidden food whose smell
From cellar gratings ran to waste!
Gusts that the passing crowd repel.
As when a rose some maid regales,
The grateful vapour he inhales.
XXII
Less favoured than the dog outside,
He lingers by some savoury mass;
He watches mouths that open wide,
And sees them eating through the glass.
Oft his own lips he opes and shuts,
And sympathy his fancy gluts.
XXIII
So, oft a-hungered has he stood,
And yarn of fasting fancy spun,
As wistfully he watched the food,
With one foot out prepared to run,
In vague misgiving of his right
To revel in the dainty sight.
XXIV
Harmless, yet to the base akin,
He feels a blot no eye could see,
And drags his rags about his skin
To hide from view his pedigree.
He deems himself a thief by birth,
An alien on the teeming earth.
XXV
He begs not, but as in a trance
Admires the gay and wealthy throng;
But if the curious on him glance,
He is abashed and slinks along;
He cares no more, the spell once broke,
Scenes of false plenty to invoke.
XXVI
The man of charity beholds
His vagrant looks with pent-up grief;
He stops, reproves; he gently scolds,
But fails to give the child relief;
‘So sad,’ he says, ‘to see them thrive
Who on another’s earnings live.’
XXVII
Then comes the child, this ill-sown seed,
To sweep the purlieus and the wynds,
But few bethink them of his need,
And scanty is the help he finds.
At times he walks upon his head:
A form of prayer for daily bread.
XXVIII
Now seem his days for sorrow made!
He hears that men on Sunday pray;
A world’s proud secret on parade
To him appears the Sabbath-day.
All have asked heaven to take their cares,
But hunger says for him his prayers.
XXIX
Some words have reached him such as jar
On sinners’ ears and seem devout;
They are but as a light from far,
They come from heaven and soon die out,
Too weak as yet to turn a spell
Wove in the alphabet of hell.
FLOWERS ON THE BANK
I
Flowers on the bank,—we pass and call them gay:
The primroses throw pictures to the mind,
The buttercups lag dazzlingly behind,
And daisy-friends we spy but do not say
A word of joy;—thoughts of them follow not,
And soon are they forgot.
II
What care we for wildflowers except their name?
Bright maidens at the sight in rapture start,
Which, as our smiles say, comes not from the heart:
Flowers dance not, sing not, all their ways are tame;
They love not, neither love in us inspire;
Nor blush when we admire.
III
Yet stay, the fingers of that panting child
Have culled for us the choice ones,—many a gem,—
Have set their lovely colours stem to stem
In her fond hands they are not tame or wild,
Nestled in fringy fern so changed appears
The little gift she bears!
IV
She gives herself, and she can dance and sing,
And she can love inspire and blush at praise;
The flowers are part of her, have caught her ways;
She gives herself who gives so sweet a thing.
And she is gone, with other thoughts than ours
Gathering fresh love and flowers.
THE BLIND BOY
I
In dark ascent the pine-clad hills
Repose on heaven their rocky crest.
Lit by the flash of falling rills
That in the valley-shadow rest,
Chafing in rainbow-spray that finds
Its sunshine in the gusty winds.
II
Clouds folded round the topmost peaks
Shut out the gorges from the sun:
’Tis mid-day ere the early streaks
Of sunshine down the valley run;
But where the opening cliffs expand,
The early sea-light breaks on land.
III
Before the sun, like golden shields,
The clouds a lustre shed around;
Wild shadows gambol o’er the fields;
Tame shadows stretch upon the ground.
Towards noon the great rock-shadow moves,
And takes slow leave of all it loves.
IV
The beam-shot clouds dissolve apace;
Stray shades that linger like a scroll,
Draw nearer to their craggy base,
And in clefts and caverns roll;
The light falls down the rocky piles;
The vale a lake of glory smiles.
V
There dwell two orphans: Heaven ordains
The sister’s eyes shall live in light:
Her brother in the shade remains
When morning bursts upon her sight.
Sister and brother, far and wide
As one they wander side by side.
VI
When to the shore through woods and fields
The brother has a wish to stray,
The sister takes the hand he yields;
She by fond habit leads the way.
Skipping along, oft face to face,
Her hand directs his timid pace.
VII
The plains that strike the grey-white line
Where earth’s dim curve in distance fades;
The streams that near the dwelling shine;
The quiet meads; the rustling glades;
The sand-dunes waiting on the shore,
The sister’s eyes for him explore.
VIII
’Tis all his own, but her loved hand,
Her gentle voice, her sayings dear,
Are choicer gifts than all the land
That he inherits far and near,
For all his light is in her mind,—
The path he loses she can find.
IX
At early morn, embraced by her,
He sits within the shadow’s dip
To list to his sweet minister,
And paint his visions from her lip.
He sees the waters, earth, and skies
Only through her enchanted eyes.
X
Her eyes are bright, his now are blind;
All he once saw has passed away,
But her fond visions fill his mind,
And there disclose the dawn of day.
Her morning breaks upon his night,
Enlivened by her spirit’s light.
XI
She tells him how the mountains swell,
How rocks and forests touch the skies;
He tells her how the shadows dwell
In purple dimness on his eyes,
Whose tremulous orbs the while he lifts,
As round his smile their spirit drifts.
XII
More close around his heart to wind,
She shuts her eyes in childish glee,
‘To share,’ she says, ‘his peace of mind;
To sit beneath his shadow-tree.’
So, half in play, the sister tries
To find his soul within her eyes.
XIII
His hand in hers, she walks along
And leads him by the river’s brink;
She stays to catch the water’s song,
Closing her eyes with him to think.
His ear, more watchful than her own,
Had caught the ocean’s distant moan.
XIV
‘The river’s flow is bright and clear,’
The blind boy said, ‘and were it dark
We should no less its music hear:
Sings not at eventide the lark?
Still when the ripples pause, they fade
Upon my spirit like a shade.’
XV
‘Yet, brother, when the river stops
And in the quiet bay is hushed,
E’en though its gentle murmur drops,
’Tis bright as when by us it rushed;
Not like a shade, when heard no more,
Except beneath the wooded shore.’
XVI
Now the resounding beach, wave-swept,
Greets them; now silence softly bears
The likeness of the wave that leapt
Unseen, and broke upon their ears.
‘Dear sister, tell me once again
The wonders of the sea’s domain!’
XVII
Down the moist sands she guides his way,
And gazes on the lonesome shores,
Where desultory waves at play,
Enthral her looks ere she explores
The far-off deep; ere those quick eyes
Rove o’er the waters, cliffs, and skies.
XVIII
‘The farthest seas bend as a bow
Into the light, o’er-arching sky;
There, curdled breakers row on row
With scarce a motion, distant lie;
Or if one vanish from the rest,
It shows again its snowy crest.
XIX
‘But nearer, midway toward the sands,
I see long lines of billows creep;
One stops and into froth expands,
Then fades away upon the deep;
Close to the shore the waves contend,
And shouting reach the journey’s end.’
XX
While her bright tones upon him broke
The curtain from his soul was drawn;
His spirit quickened as she spoke,—
Then flashed as at a sudden dawn,
With visions of a world once known,
That for the moment seemed his own.
XXI
‘O tell me of the changing sky,
Sunless once more!’ ‘’Neath lovely blue,’
The sister says, ‘the clouds float by,
Of orange, white, and inky hue.
The shifting waves that cannot rest
Are ’neath the gusty breezes pressed.
XXII
‘A cloud is loosened from the sun;
The sea’s sky-blue now skims the green,
Chasing the billows as they run
And drip their foam in troughs between.
Oh, could you see them as they roar,
Scooping away the glistening shore!’
XXIII
‘The waves,’ he said, ‘before me fall,
And memories of a long-lost light
From far-off mornings on me call,
And what I hear comes into sight.
The beauteous skies flash back again,
But, ah! the light will not remain!’
XXIV
Awhile he pauses; as he stops,
Her little hand the sister moves
And pebbles on the water drops,
As it runs up the sandy grooves,
Or to her ear a shell applies,
With parted lips and dreaming eyes.
XXV
‘That noise!’ said he, with lifted hand.
‘The sea-gull’s scream and flapping wings,
Before the wind it flies to land,
And omens of a tempest brings.’
She tells him how the sea-bird pale
Whirls wildly on the coming gale.
XXVI
‘And is the sea alone? Even now
I hear faint mutterings,—not the waves’;
It seems a murmur sweeping low
And hurrying through the distant caves.
I hear again that smothered tone,
As if the sea were not alone.’
XXVII
‘Heaven slopes o’er us on every side,
And shuts us from the distant land.
The waters only here abide,
And we who sit upon the sand.
A porpoise revels in the spray,
And purple vapours veil the bay.
XXVIII
‘Come, hasten,’ cries she, ‘to the woods
Where twisted boughs are thickly set,
For soon the rain must fall in floods:
Here is no shelter from the wet.
While like a sea the sky upheaves,
We’ll watch beneath the matted leaves.’
XXIX
‘Stay, sister! Listen to that sound;—
It thunders—does the flash appear?’
‘It lightens now, and, whirling round,
The gull dips low, as if in fear.’
The boy now turns his floating eyes,
Though not the way the sea-bird flies.
XXX
‘The wind is balmy on my cheek,
But now I feel the rain-drop plash.
Let us,’ he said, ‘the woodland seek,
And hear it on the foliage dash.
On the ground-ivy we shall tread,
And through the grove its perfume spread.’
XXXI
And so they prattle as they leave
The sandy beach, in pensive mood,
His ear turned to the billow’s heave,
Her vision leaning on the wood,
While, as the honeysuckle clings,
About his neck her arm she flings.
XXXII
Better than she the blind boy hears
The whispers of the patient shore,
While yet the wave its crest uprears
To break once more,—and evermore.
Better than she the blind boy feels
The simple pictures she reveals.
XXXIII
Clapping her hands, she spies above
Rich elms, the turrets grey and old,—
But love of home was only love
When to her darling brother told.
Thus ever to his soul replies
The infant passion of her eyes.
XXXIV
While they return, the dwelling near,
One word must yet the sister say.
She lifts her voice: ‘O brother dear,
If good my eyes have been to-day,
Kiss them for every new delight
That kindles in your spirit’s sight!’
XXXV
Deep in his eyes the love-lights strove;
He clasped her in a close embrace:—
With lips that shook with grateful love
He kissed her eyes—he kissed her face—
He wept upon that tender brow;
‘Dearest, the darkness leaves me now!
XXXVI
‘I view all beauty through your eyes;
I see within, you see outside.
Your love has raised me to the skies,—
Once narrow,—lofty now and wide,
And not, as once, of sombre hue;
For I can dream the dark to blue.
XXXVII
‘The upward-toiling hill; the stream;
The valley; the wide ocean’s sweep;
All take the colours of a dream,—
The glories of the land of sleep.
You are my soul, my eyes, my sight;
’Tis dark no more, you are my light.’
WHEN I THINK OF THEE, BROTHER
I
When I think of thee, brother,
Is my heart not all thine?
Yet the face of another
Seems bending o’er mine.
I call thee by name, yet a name not thy own
Has whispered already its dear undertone.
II
When I think thine eyes greet me,
Their sweet flash of blue
Brings another’s to meet me
Of somberer hue;
And ever before me they seem to remain,
Though my heart but repines to behold thee again.
III
When I list, and would hear thee
Once more in our home,
And thy voice appears near me,
Another’s has come.
I dream of thee only, for thee only sigh,
Yet thy image forsakes me; another’s is nigh.
IV
When thy fond smiles come o’er me,
As in moments now flown,
There riseth before me
A look not thy own:
’Tis thee I recall to my mind, O my brother!
Yet ever with thine comes the gaze of another.
ECCE HOMO!
I
He strikes his staff to find his way,
He feels but may not see the day.
The warm sun floods his sightless eyes
That tremble in answer to the skies:
Yet oft he stays as if to look
At memories of the scenes of yore,—
The vine and fig-tree at his door,
The pleasant places by the brook.
II
The voice within him sighs aloud,
When murmurs of a moving crowd
Fall on his ear; he breathes the dust
But, with a blind man’s sturdy trust,
He grasps his staff, and oft he cries,
‘Who cometh here?’ A voice replies,
‘O blind man, turn thy step aside,
’Tis Christ!’
III