O why was I nursed on the knee, and suckled so well at the breast?
For now should I long have lain in quiet and folded in sleep,
And gathered of old to the great assembly of them that rest:
With judges and kings of earth in their pyramid-sepulchres lone,
With mighty princes that stuffed their tombs with treasures of worth;
So had I not been; so had I sweet peace and nothingness known,
As infants that never saw light, as a hidden untimely birth.
Ah! there do the wicked cease from troubling, the weary rest;
The prisoners rest together, they hear not the tyrant’s word.
Both small and great are there, the oppressor with the opprest;
But the small man hath not fear, the servant is free from his lord.
O wherefore is sweet life given to a soul in bitterness clad?
And wherefore light unto him whom sorrow and darkness hold?
Who waiteth for death all day, and seeing the grave is glad;
But finds it not though he dig for it more than treasures of gold.
O wherefore light unto him whose way is circled with gloom,
Whom God hath girt with a hedge, that he cannot or see or think?
O wherefore light unto me, or meat for my life, to whom
Sighing comes sooner than bread and weeping quicker than drink?
For even all things that I feared have alighted on me from the air;
I have nought of rest, or peace or quiet, but trouble is there.
_June_, 1870.
THE EVERNEW
I walk as one who, walking through the night
From village unto village far withdrawn,
Sees here and there a light and men who wake
With confused murmur growing unto dawn.
And suddenly the birds start into song,
And cart-wheels creak along the flinty ways,
And men are in the field, and lights are out,
While the first sunbeam fills the air with praise.
So louder, as I wander through the world,
Sounds that glad anthem of the glimmering day,
And lamps of men that grope within the dark
Flash quick and quicker through the morning grey,
Ere they grow dim. O glance a thousandwise
Through cold airs wreathing round my brow,
Ye heralds of a sun, before whose face,
The whiles ye fade, men hasten forth to bow.
* * * * *
ON A CRUCIFIX
IN THE CHURCH OF ST. JOHN LATERAN ROME
Still, still they crucify thee, O great Christ.
They took thee from thy cross on Calvary,
And nailed thee in a splendid place unpriced
Of malachite and gold and porphyry.
They counted all the wounds thy body bore,
They measured all the hours of misery,
On spear and reed and sponge they set great store:
Still, still they crucify thee, gentle Christ.
They used thy name, because thou wast so meek,
To be the watchword of all godless pride;
Because thou wast so gracious to the weak,
They held thy flaming cross up far and wide,
A curse and terror in the common street
To poor and ignorant and world-untried,
And then they came and crouched and kissed thy feet,
With folded hands and lips slavish and sleek.
Still, still they crucify thee, who didst say
Suffer the little ones to come to me,
Whose heart with love beguiled the beaten way,
And made all men behold thee joyfully;
For now they wave away the vulgar crowd,
No simple child of man may come nigh thee:
With obscure rites and incantations loud
They crucify thy love fresh every day.
Once, where the churches offer stones for bread,
And in their Holy Place call darkness light,
Thy sun-like truth-revealing presence shed
Shame on each false and Pharisaic rite:
Till, as thy lustre more intensely shone,
They took thee from thy chosen lowly site,
And set thee for their own especial sun,
And called thee by the name of Church’s Head.
And now, when in an aisle loud trumpets bray,
And facing thee the priests go to and fro,
And, distanced off, the kneeling people pray
And breathe thy name in trembling accents low:
High o’er the incense and the altar cloud,
Afar, and folded in thine own great woe,
Alone, thy head in deep dejection bowed,
Great Christ, they crucify thee every day.
Thy face is turned aside from all that scene,
Thine eyes are weary of their age-long gaze,
Thy frame is worn, thy shrunken limbs grow lean,
Thou seem’st to tremble at the song of praise;
For here, and in thy name, the evil word,
The ban, the curse, and damning pious phrase,
Century after century were heard,
Christ, as if thou their Counsellor hadst been.
So long? These twice ten hundred years, O Christ?
Hath no one yet come near to lift thee down?
Hath no one yet thy holy spirit priced
Above the three nails and the thorny crown?
Thy seamless robe the Roman soldiers took,
But these have woven thee another gown
Of all thy bitter shame and sharp rebuke
Wherein to crucify thee still, great Christ.
Slowly the days run on, the time is long,
The kneeling generations come and go,
Thy word is to them as an empty gong,
They look upon thee, but they do not know.
Thine arms, wide-spread for all the world’s embrace,
Are empty evermore of friend or foe,
Still, still set stiff and rigid in their place,
And straightened back from love with rivets strong.
Ah, surely in the seeming endless years
Some momentary glance hath gladdened thee,
Some smile of recognition reached through tears
Hath shed light on thy later Calvary.
Yet is thy love more like a thing untold,
To stay and suffer still so patiently,
By suffering to overcome the cold
Heart of estrangement of thy loved compeers.
And now, the end, what is it? For each day
The magic ceremonious circle, drawn
Betwixt thee and the people, doth betray
Less room for love and more for serge and lawn;
The world grows weary seeking thee in vain,
And leaves thee to the priests, who self-withdrawn
In secret pride find popular disdain
And pitiful desertion and dismay.
The Papal pride has triumphed: it has set
Itself for thee. The world has turned away.
The Papal pride has fallen. Wilt thou yet
Remain to lead us in this later day?
Or will thy name, as something that is not,
Pass from the ears of men unlearned to pray,
Thy centuries of suffering forgot,
Thy love to men for evermore unmet?
Ah! greater is thy love than this, great Christ.
Thou givest, but thou askest not again:
And though our wayward worship be enticed
To other shrines, thy spirit shall remain,
Unknown, to breathe upon us purer life,
Refine us with the flame of earthly pain,
Until, our hearts with thine no more at strife,
We learn how not to crucify thee, Christ.
ROME, 1873.
THE GREAT PEEPSHOW
I
Walk up! walk up! This way to see the world!
Scant time allowed, must make the best of it:
Seventy years or so: your hair’ll be curled
Before that, though, with two or three sights fit
To set your eyes wide open--if you’ve wit,
That is to say, to win in the great strife
For bare existence ’gainst each brother chit--
To keep one eye upon the slide of life,
As ’twere an instant, ere death hood you with his coif.
II
Walk up! walk up! Well, you’re a stranger now;
But that won’t last. It’s excellent rare fun
Up here; but as we’ve much to see, allow
Me to begin at once. Now, there’s the Sun.
Where you come from I doubt that there was one
Or aught to match it; ’tis too far to touch,
But has its use, natheless, which is to run
From end to end of heaven, and give rays such
As may suffice to warm and light our earthly hutch.
III
It shines by day and is obscured at night--
A capital arrangement, such as I
Should have suggested if the Infinite
Had asked my counsel. If you ask me why,
’Tis clear ’twould not have suited men to lie
Abed with sun full-orbed at midnight blaze
And work their days by gaslight. We descry
Throughout these things the providential ways,
And are prepared in all to render them due praise.
IV
Walk up! walk up! There’s plenty more to see
By this said sun’s rays--simple and sublime.
The world’s a show which is, you’ll all agree,
The greatest ever advertised in rhyme,--
We’ve had the management of it some time
And can explain it fully;--and to-day
’Tis not too much to say ’tis in its prime;
Admission free--that is, if you obey
Our fatherly direction, there is nought to pay.
V
Move with the rest, and do not stop to gaze
Too long or closely. All is very good:
So the Creator said--in some amaze
At his own skill. Besides, in any mood,
Doubting or not, ’tis deemed a little rude
To look a gift-horse in the mouth. Move on:
And thank your planets--as indeed you should--
That you have got such good advice to con,
For which the world were worthy visiting, alone.
VI
Your eyes are caught at first by empty shows--
Bright colours, smiling faces, forms of grace.
To chase gold butterflies by green hedgerows,
To play regardless both of time and space
In unrestricted freedom, and to race
Propriety and prudence out of breath,
Seem pleasant and surprisingly in place
In this fair world where, as the preacher saith,
What profits he that works in that he laboureth?
VII
But look around you, and you’ll soon perceive
Your judgment is at fault, and, once for all,
’Tis best surrender freedom and not grieve,
But bend your neck demurely to the thrall--
Remembering the weak _must_ take the wall.
And get by rote, if not by heart, the themes
Which age and ancient custom learning call,
And leave enthusiastic youthful dreams,
To labour for what is and not for that which seems.
VIII
Such labour profits. Since it pleased the Lord
To shut us out of Paradise, the sweat
Of each man’s brow alone secures reward
(His or another’s); and we need not fret.
The bargain’s just, for if we do not get
Interest, we get profits, which are more.
Life’s interest is Nature’s secret, set
In untrod plains, and if all pleasant lore
Is there, Knowledge and Life,--an Eden-land whereo’er.
IX
The sun of freedom shines--still, here is gold,
Which, after all, surpasses any sun:
For without light were nothing to behold,
But without this is nothing to be done.
Therefore seek first for gold, and therefore shun
Unthrifty habits or excessive vice:
Honesty’s best policy in the long run,
Dishonour ruins credit in a trice,
And virtue, being its own reward, thus pays you twice.
X
Yet all with moderation. We, who came
Into the world and learned our lesson flush
Ere you were thought of, have the prior claim
In law as well as profits. Do not push!
As if gold were the very flaming bush.
Order! If there’s not room, why, some must wait;
First comers first: ’tis just. And I’ll not blush
To say I’ve tarried yearlong for a great
Opening which now the due rotation brings--though late.
XI
Nay, do not push. Ah! Vengeance on you all!
’Tis lost. What greediness!--a vulgar crowd
Pressing and trampling forward--I shall fall.
Help! hear me! Here is hard cash: I’m not proud.
In vain. All lost. Before my eyes a cloud
Hides the great show, the scene becomes obscure.
I could have wished that chance had been allowed;
But no, the risk of limb outweighed the lure,--
And, taking all in all, the show’s a little poor.
XII
Adieu. See how they fight! So has it been
Since the beginning, as if unaware
The panorama’s but a shifting scene,
And all its wonders only empty air.
Hear me, my friends. Believe me that I bear
No grudge against you, but would have you know,
For your own good, the lust of gold’s a snare.
The world’s no shop, but only a peepshow:
What’s seen or handled you surrender when you go.
XIII
Carry him out! more room! come up behind!
One peephole vacant! now the show’s at height.
Strange, that our predecessors--though not blind--
Ne’er fully saw or understood the sight,
Withal so anxious to display their light
For our illumination! But away:
Our time for all such questioning is quite
Too limited. Enough, while yet ’tis day,
To use the precious hours. Let night come when it may.
FLORENCE, 1873.
THE FELLOWSHIP OF HUMANITY
As one who, late at eve returning home
Under the stars, hears on the common road
A fellow-footstep fall, and sees one come
Dimly, he knows not whom, nor can forebode;
But cries to him ‘God speed thee,’ and is glad
Hearing his restful answer through the night,
And dreams of love, and though his heart be sad
Feels darkly some strange instinct of delight;
So I to thee. If on this earthly way
Our paths had lain together, I perchance
In the sweet sunlight had beheld thy day
And known thee as thou art--as in a trance,--
And loved thee, and thou me. But seeing now
Sad night compels us, and our way is won
Through ignorance and blindness to the brow
Of that fair mountain of the morning Sun
Whence Truth is manifest, let us remain
In word and action strangers, yet in heart
One and well-known by every joy and pain
That makes divine our little human part.
1872.
THE FELLOWSHIP OF SUFFERING
O weary child of man, O mortal friend,
Afar, unseen, by road or river-bend,
By mountain, plain, or city, still the same,
Human, unfriended, with the piercing flame
Of endless sorrow in thine aching heart:
Hear me, for unto thee my spirit yearns;
Touch me, behold me, where the twilight turns,
Uplifting white arms to the tireless morn:
Hear me, for in thy torment I am torn;
Hear me, for in thy passion I have part.
O child, O child, how sadly sang the world
Its old old song of keen cold carelessness,
How blindly blew the wind of loneliness
About thy soul in frozen garments furled;
How with pale speechless lips and wan didst pace
Crushing beneath thy days that deadly feud;
How to the bitter wall didst turn thy face,
Glad from the glances of the multitude.
Ah! here or there; the same sad song of woe,
More desolate than world-despair or death,
The cry of souls the cruel sun severeth,
The moan of love to madness smitten low.
Ah, here or there; the same sad end of things,
The same fond fruitless ineffectual life,
High-feathered hope and passionate pulse of wings,
Chill sorrow, failure, and despairing strife.
Behold, beyond the mountains of the West,
Where sparkle white domes of the purple hills,
The light of evening Earth’s broad bosom fills
And like a golden dove broods o’er her breast,
And fades, afar--for you and me, afar,--
Shared token of our common deep desire,
Which fadeth not, but like a beacon-star
Devours the darkness of our hearts with fire.
1872.
THE ANGEL OF DEATH--AND LIFE
I call thee in all hours of life and death:
Friend, whom the days hide and the months and years
Darken before my face: I call and cry
Still, as of old time, ere the morning star
Mounts in the moonlit heavens; and still, ere dawn
Visits the vale of sleep, I call to thee.
Friend, like a stranger loved and known before,
Or brother long forgot, with intricate
World-written countenance, obscure to read,
Yet flashing ancient meanings: thou, for whom,
Morning and night, with ever-new desire,
I, waiting, watch without the gates of Time,
If haply at length thy vagrant feet efface
The way of our estrangement; yea, O thou,
Who in that way’s delay decipherest
These words of my great need, I call to Thee.
O wilt thou hear me: know that night by night
I dwell beside thee, and before the dawn
Touch thy loved forehead with my lips, and fill
With joy each hour of waking. Evernear
I gaze upon thee as thou goest forth
To each day’s due encounter; step by step,
And hour by hour each stroke of all thy work
Wears out the world to more transparency
Between us. Even now the flinty way,
Flaming beneath thy feet, is grown like glass;
My glance is on thee from the well-turned field,
The mill, the net, the loom, and woven stuff,
From desk and counter and rock-quarried gold,
Waste seas and stormbeat headlands, and from all
The faces of thine enemies in the fight--
Strike home: the stroke is fair for me and thee.
Nay, from these words I spring to meet thy soul,
Which else were lonely in the world of men;
O take them as the token of a love
Within, without thee, Lord and minister,
Unknown, of all thy actions, until death
Reveal it, visual, thine, the perfect life.
Yea, now I call to Love that is in thee,
And cry, as one that sees her shadow pass
And the lamp flash, waiting without the house
For his fair one at the window: O come forth,
That I may see thee as thou art, and hear
Thy hidden thought, and hold thy very self
In presence undisturbed. Thou are descried:
Thy light is beauty and cannot be hid;
But, through the tangle of frail purposes
That fringe the lattice windows of thy life,
Shines to perpetual promise. Fear thou not.
Ay, though I come clad grimly as for war,
In brazen heat or scaly northern cold,
By rock or river, famine, hatred, fire;
Though I assail thee at the cannon’s mouth,
Or drag thee down to listless years of pain,
Arise thou, and with forehead unabashed
Come forth, and so confront me. In that day,
Thine eyes, beholding mine, within their depths
Shall see, resurgent from the past, all forms
Of long-lost joy and lovely memory,
All faces and fair smiles of time, set forth
And forward in the future; all else fled.
O stand and conquer so: for see, I touch
Thee through this outer world, in the hot Sun
I slay thee with my lips, all day to thee
I whisper in the Light, and to myself
Desirous draw thee in the Lightning flash
Arrayed in death. Arise and vanquish me:
Grasp firm my tangled hair, brandish thy sword,
Breathe heavily thy hot breath in my ears,
And I will yield; and thou shalt know that Love
Stands ever by thy side through Life and Death,
Signing allegiance of a thousand hearts
That still are One.
O hear my voice once more.
I am with thee. Rise up, thy duty calls;
Pass down into the world; I am with thee.
FLORENCE, 1873.
SONNETS
I
GENOA
Where Genoa spreads white arms crescent-wise,
Her feet o’er well-packed bale and polished spar
Step on the quay with men of every star.
Her heart stays with her people; but her eyes
From those high garden-terraces devise
New realms of peaceful conquest, where afar
Ocean’s white horses at the harbour-bar
Wait ever for their rider to arise.
Here boy Columbus stood, and o’er the blue
Immeasurable fields imagined new.
Here young Mazzini, while for men he yearned,
Another world within their eyes discerned--
The one Republic without place or date.
So both for men lived,--and died execrate.
_January_, 1873.
II
BEETHOVEN
Betwixt the actual and unseen, alone,
Companionless, deaf, in dread solitude
Of soul amid the faithless multitude,
He lived, and fought with life, and held his own;
Knew poverty, and shame which is not shown,
Pride, doubt, and secret heart-despair of good,--
Insolent praise of men and petty feud:
Yet fell not from his purpose, framed and known.
For, as a lonely watcher of the night,
When all men sleep, sees the tumultuous stars
Move forward from the deep in squadrons bright,
And notes them, he through this life’s prison bars
Heard all night long the spheric music clear
Beat on his heart,--and lived that men might hear.
_January_, 1873.
III
IN MORTEM. F. D. MAURICE
So day by day my life, thus nearer drawn
Down the dark avenues unto the dawn,
Cries to Thee: O Lord, Lord of life and death,
Whom from our gaze the sad night sundereth,
Reveal Thyself; be unto us no more
A darkly-felt thick darkness by the shore;
But like the wind, that wingeth cold and clear
Before the dawn by meadow-land and mere,
Blow on us; scatter from our sickly brains
The feverish fancies that ill conscience feigns;
Raise us to stand like men to meet the strife,
Fearless and grand, because within thy life
Our lives are hidden,--as is his to-day,
Thy servant who from sight hath passed away.
_April_, 1872.
IV
WILLIAM SMITH
(AUTHOR OF “THORNDALE,” ETC.)
Such courage in so sensitive a frame
Had given the world rebuke, but that it came
In such light exquisite companionship
Of gentle glance and laughter-loving lip
That few, beholding, could forebode the force
Wherewith that inward current kept its course
In wave-like large emotion, calm and free,
Towards Truth, the high compelling deity.
So when, obedient to the heavenly guide,
Night-long the sea with stedfast-flowing tide
Rises along the land and searches o’er
Each bay and inlet of its bounding shore,
The moving goddess doth her empire trace
In lines of silver laughter on its face.
* * * * *
V
INSCRIBED ON A GRAVE
TO THE READER
O child of light and shadow: though I pass,
The mountains and the plains where we two played
Our part of earthly pleasance still are laid
Out in the open world of sun and grass,--
For thy fruition. Not in stone or brass
Seek any sign of me. Let no tear braid
Thy light-fringed lids because my path is made
Beyond the bounds thy sight cannot surpass.
Turn thee again unto the sunlit plain,
Let all pure influences of the air
And sweet sad fellowship of mortal pain
Wreathe round thy head immortal fancies fair.
Where’er suns rise on men or late moons wane,
I leave thee at this stone to meet thee there.
ROME, 1873.
VI
DEATH
Since, small or great, and every man on earth,
Must know thee at the last, thy lonely gloom
Is bright with something of diviner birth--
The lamp of human love, that o’er our doom
Sheds undivided radiance. For in this
Our modern world of finely graded life,
The soul is nursed knowing nothing of the bliss
Of sorrow borne, since human. In this strife
Of complex individual interests
Poor man and princely, side by side, share not
One pain or passion of a common lot,
Till death, more liberal than life, invests
All men alike in his wide winding-sheet,
And in that suit of sorrow makes them meet.
* * * * *
VII
Since, in thine hour of sorrow, unto thee
Came sweet remembrance of the summer sea
And one who sat beside it--in his eyes
The far-off thought of sea and summer skies:
Since in thine heart the visionary gleam
Of one half-wasted life, more like a dream,
Pale in its pleading, stood to be the sign
Of Love, as Love is, passionate, divine:
Ah! since in all this world no fuller sound
Than my faint spirit’s utterance was found
Bidding thee cherish hope: so let it be.
Behold, beyond the summer and the sea
I utter not myself, but am His voice
Who bids all Nature live, and thee rejoice.
* * * * *
VIII
SEVERANCE
My life thy life unto itself doth fold
Closer than death. My soul clasps all of thine,
As in the bud rose-petals intertwine
Before the light divides them. I behold
Deep in the mystic shadow-caverns shine
Thine image on the fire-fed sources cold
Whereby my spirit dwells; and with the old
Foreboding unforgotten, dream divine,
Thou dost disturb me. Yet the dim-lit day
Dawns down between us, staring face to face,
Strange as the stormy Atlantic; with swift pace
We tread the track which sets our steps astray;
Thy lips are mute; mine move not; evermore
I wait and wearily knock at Death’s dark door.
1872.
IX
IT SHALL BE
It shall be. Although far away the sound
Dies in the infinite silence of the sky,
Although obscure, and hid in the profound,
Our days stream outwards, onwards, and pass by.
It shall be. Behold a new world is made
Out of the old, and the old dieth not;
For though the mountain-forms and flowers fade,
Ageless remains the far-informing Thought.
Ah! when this troublous dream and mortal sleep
Fades from our eyelids, and the end is near,
Down through the spaceless void and starry steep
Instinct with Love the dreaming soul shall hear
One whispered word; and all the past shall be
Up-gathered into Love’s eternity.
* * * * *
X
WALDSTEIN SONATA. BEETHOVEN
O changeless in thy beauty, stedfast, strong,
Exultant in the calm of victory,
A mighty poet flung thee forth, to be
A part of Nature. So that I, thus long
Listening to thy majestic voices, dream
Of some vast snow-veiled mountain far away,
Whose front is crimson fire at orient day;
Where in the dark Dian’s silver lances gleam;
Where shadows of the tireless storm-wreathed mist
Move on in changeless interchange; where call
Clamorous echoes of the waterfall
From crag to crag; whom Night alone hath kissed,
And everlasting silence, and the far
Glimmering magic of the Morning star.
_November_, 1869.
_Printed in Great Britain by_
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED
LONDON AND WOKING
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