BOOK V_The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Excluding the Eight Dramas

DEDICATED TO M. G. K.

THE WINNOWERS

Betwixt two billows of the downs

The little hamlet lies,

And nothing sees but the bald crowns

Of the hills, and the blue skies.

Clustering beneath the long descent

And grey slopes of the wold,

The red roofs nestle, oversprent

With lichen yellow as gold.

We found it in the mid-day sun

Basking, what time of year

The thrush his singing has begun,

Ere the first leaves appear.

High from his load a woodman pitched

His faggots on the stack:

Knee-deep in straw the cattle twitched

Sweet hay from crib and rack:

And from the barn hard by was borne

A steady muffled din,

By which we knew that threshèd corn

Was winnowing, and went in.

The sunbeams on the motey air

Streamed through the open door,

And on the brown arms moving bare,

And the grain upon the floor.

One turns the crank, one stoops to feed

The hopper, lest it lack,

One in the bushel scoops the seed,

One stands to hold the sack.

We watched the good grain rattle down,

And the awns fly in the draught;

To see us both so pensive grown

The honest labourers laughed:

Merry they were, because the wheat

Was clean and plump and good,

Pleasant to hand and eye, and meet

For market and for food.

It chanced we from the city were,

And had not gat us free

In spirit from the store and stir

Of its immensity:

But here we found ourselves again.

Where humble harvests bring

After much toil but little grain,

'Tis merry winnowing.

THE AFFLICTION OF RICHARD

Love not too much. But how,

When thou hast made me such,

And dost thy gifts bestow,

How can I love too much?

Though I must fear to lose,

And drown my joy in care,

With all its thorns I choose

The path of love and prayer.

Though thou, I know not why,

Didst kill my childish trust,

That breach with toil did I

Repair, because I must:

And spite of frighting schemes,

With which the fiends of Hell

Blaspheme thee in my dreams,

So far I have hoped well.

But what the heavenly key,

What marvel in me wrought

Shall quite exculpate thee,

I have no shadow of thought.

What am I that complain?

The love, from which began

My question sad and vain,

Justifies thee to man.

Since to be loved endures,

To love is wise:

Earth hath no good but yours,

Brave, joyful eyes:

Earth hath no sin but thine,

Dull eye of scorn:

O'er thee the sun doth pine

And angels mourn.

THE GARDEN IN SEPTEMBER

Now thin mists temper the slow-ripening beams

Of the September sun: his golden gleams

On gaudy flowers shine, that prank the rows

Of high-grown hollyhocks, and all tall shows

That Autumn flaunteth in his bushy bowers;

Where tomtits, hanging from the drooping heads

Of giant sunflowers, peck the nutty seeds;

And in the feathery aster bees on wing

Seize and set free the honied flowers,

Till thousand stars leap with their visiting:

While ever across the path mazily flit,

Unpiloted in the sun,

The dreamy butterflies

With dazzling colours powdered and soft glooms,

White, black and crimson stripes, and peacock eyes,

Or on chance flowers sit,

With idle effort plundering one by one

The nectaries of deepest-throated blooms.

With gentle flaws the western breeze

Into the garden saileth,

Scarce here and there stirring the single trees,

For his sharpness he vaileth:

So long a comrade of the bearded corn,

Now from the stubbles whence the shocks are borne,

O'er dewy lawns he turns to stray,

As mindful of the kisses and soft play

Wherewith he enamoured the light-hearted May,

Ere he deserted her;

Lover of fragrance, and too late repents;

Nor more of heavy hyacinth now may drink,

Nor spicy pink,

Nor summer's rose, nor garnered lavender,

But the few lingering scents

Of streakèd pea, and gillyflower, and stocks

Of courtly purple, and aromatic phlox.

And at all times to hear are drowsy tones

Of dizzy flies, and humming drones,

With sudden flap of pigeon wings in the sky,

Or the wild cry

Of thirsty rooks, that scour ascare

The distant blue, to watering as they fare

With creaking pinions, or--on business bent,

If aught their ancient polity displease,--

Come gathering to their colony, and there

Settling in ragged parliament,

Some stormy council hold in the high trees.

So sweet love seemed that April morn,

When first we kissed beside the thorn,

So strangely sweet, it was not strange

We thought that love could never change.

But I can tell--let truth be told--

That love will change in growing old;

Though day by day is nought to see,

So delicate his motions be.

And in the end 'twill come to pass

Quite to forget what once he was,

Nor even in fancy to recall

The pleasure that was all in all.

His little spring, that sweet we found,

So deep in summer floods is drowned,

I wonder, bathed in joy complete,

How love so young could be so sweet.

LARKS

What voice of gladness, hark!

In heaven is ringing?

From the sad fields the lark

Is upward winging.

High through the mournful mist that blots our day

Their songs betray them soaring in the grey.

See them! Nay, they

In sunlight swim; above the furthest stain

Of cloud attain; their hearts in music rain

Upon the plain.

Sweet birds, far out of sight

Your songs of pleasure

Dome us with joy as bright

As heaven's best azure.

THE PALM WILLOW

See, whirling snow sprinkles the starvèd fields,

The birds have stayed to sing;

No covert yet their fairy harbour yields.

When cometh Spring?

Ah! in their tiny throats what songs unborn

Are quenched each morn.

The lenten lilies, through the frost that push,

Their yellow heads withhold:

The woodland willow stands a lonely bush

Of nebulous gold;

There the Spring-goddess cowers in faint attire

Of frightened fire.

ASIAN BIRDS

In this May-month, by grace

of heaven, things shoot apace.

The waiting multitude

of fair boughs in the wood,

How few days have arrayed

their beauty in green shade.

What have I seen or heard?

it was the yellow bird

Sang in the tree: he flew

a flame against the blue;

Upward he flashed. Again,

hark! 'tis his heavenly strain.

Another! Hush! Behold,

many, like boats of gold,

From waving branch to branch

their airy bodies launch.

What music is like this,

where each note is a kiss?

The golden willows lift

their boughs the sun to sift:

Their sprays they droop to screen

the sky with veils of green,

A floating cage of song,

where feathered lovers throng.

How the delicious notes

come bubbling from their throats!

Full and sweet how they are shed

like round pearls from a thread!

The motions of their flight

are wishes of delight.

Hearing their song I trace

the secret of their grace.

Ah, could I this fair time

so fashion into rhyme,

The poem that I sing

would be the voice of spring.

JANUARY

Cold is the winter day, misty and dark:

The sunless sky with faded gleams is rent:

And patches of thin snow outlying, mark

The landscape with a drear disfigurement.

The trees their mournful branches lift aloft:

The oak with knotty twigs is full of trust,

With bud-thronged bough the cherry in the croft;

The chestnut holds her gluey knops upthrust.

No birds sing, but the starling chaps his bill

And chatters mockingly; the newborn lambs

Within their strawbuilt fold beneath the hill

Answer with plaintive cry their bleating dams.

Their voices melt in welcome dreams of spring,

Green grass and leafy trees and sunny skies:

My fancy decks the woods, the thrushes sing,

Meadows are gay, bees hum and scents arise.

And God the Maker doth my heart grow bold

To praise for wintry works not understood,

Who all the worlds and ages doth behold,

Evil and good as one, and all as good.

A ROBIN

Flame-throated robin on the topmost bough

Of the leafless oak, what singest thou?

Hark! he telleth how--

'Spring is coming now; Spring is coming now.

Now ruddy are the elm-tops against the blue sky,

The pale larch donneth her jewelry;

Red fir and black fir sigh,

And I am lamenting the year gone by.

The bushes where I nested are all cut down,

They are felling the tall trees one by one,

And my mate is dead and gone,

In the winter she died and left me lone.

She lay in the thicket where I fear to go;

For when the March-winds after the snow

The leaves away did blow,

She was not there, and my heart is woe:

And sad is my song, when I begin to sing,

As I sit in the sunshine this merry spring:

Like a withered leaf I cling

To the white oak-bough, while the wood doth ring.

Spring is coming now, the sun again is gay;

Each day like a last spring's happy day.'--

Thus sang he; then from his spray

He saw me listening and flew away.

I never shall love the snow again

Since Maurice died:

With corniced drift it blocked the lane

And sheeted in a desolate plain

The country side.

The trees with silvery rime bedight

Their branches bare.

By day no sun appeared; by night

The hidden moon shed thievish light

In the misty air.

We fed the birds that flew around

In flocks to be fed:

No shelter in holly or brake they found.

The speckled thrush on the frozen ground

Lay frozen and dead.

We skated on stream and pond; we cut

The crinching snow

To Doric temple or Arctic hut;

We laughed and sang at nightfall, shut

By the fireside glow.

Yet grudged we our keen delights before

Maurice should come.

We said, In-door or out-of-door

We shall love life for a month or more,

When he is home.

They brought him home; 'twas two days late

For Christmas day:

Wrapped in white, in solemn state,

A flower in his hand, all still and straight

Our Maurice lay.

And two days ere the year outgave

We laid him low.

The best of us truly were not brave,

When we laid Maurice down in his grave

Under the snow.

NIGHTINGALES

Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come,

And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom

Ye learn your song:

Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,

Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air

Bloom the year long!

Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams:

Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams,

A throe of the heart,

Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound,

No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound,

For all our art.

Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men

We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then,

As night is withdrawn

From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May,

Dream, while the innumerable choir of day

Welcome the dawn.

A song of my heart, as the sun peered o'er the sea,

Was born at morning to me:

And out of my treasure-house it chose

A melody, that arose

Of all fair sounds that I love, remembered together

In one; and I knew not whether

From waves of rustling wheat it was,

Recoveringly that pass:

Or a hum of bees in the queenly robes of the lime:

Or a descant in pairing time

Of warbling birds: or watery bells

Of rivulets in the hills:

Or whether on blazing downs a high lark's hymn

Alone in the azure dim:

Or a sough of pines, when the midnight wold

Is solitary and cold:

Or a lapping river-ripple all day chiding

The bow of my wherry gliding

Down Thames, between his flowery shores

Re-echoing to the oars:

Or anthem notes, wherever in archèd quires

The unheeded music twires,

And, centuries by, to the stony shade

Flies following and to fade:

Or a homely prattle of children's voices gay

'Mong garden joys at play:

Or a sundown chaunting of solemn rooks:

Or memory of my books,

Which hold the words that poets in many a tongue

To the irksome world have sung:

Or the voice, my happy lover, of thee

Now separated from me.

A ruby of fire in the burning sleep of my brain

Long hid my thought had lain,

Forgotten dreams of a thousand days

Ingathering to its rays,

The light of life in darkness tempering long;

Till now a perfect song,

A jewel of jewels it leapt above

To the coronal of my love.

FOUNDER'S DAY. A SECULAR ODE

ON THE NINTH JUBILEE OF

ETON COLLEGE

Christ and his Mother, heavenly maid,

Mary, in whose fair name was laid

Eton's corner, bless our youth

With truth, and purity, mother of truth!

O ye, 'neath breezy skies of June,

By silver Thames's lulling tune,

In shade of willow or oak, who try

The golden gates of poesy;

Or on the tabled sward all day

Match your strength in England's play,

Scholars of Henry, giving grace

To toil and force in game or race;

Exceed the prayer and keep the fame

Of him, the sorrowful king, who came

Here in his realm a realm to found,

Where he might stand for ever crowned.

Or whether with naked bodies flashing

Ye plunge in the lashing weir; or dashing

The oars of cedar skiffs, ye strain

Round the rushes and home again;--

Or what pursuit soe'er it be

That makes your mingled presence free,

When by the schoolgate 'neath the limes

Ye muster waiting the lazy chimes;

May Peace, that conquereth sin and death,

Temper for you her sword of faith;

Crown with honour the loving eyes,

And touch with mirth the mouth of the wise.

Here is eternal spring: for you

The very stars of heaven are new;

And aged Fame again is born,

Fresh as a peeping flower of morn.

For you shall Shakespeare's scene unroll,

Mozart shall steal your ravished soul,

Homer his bardic hymn rehearse,

Virgil recite his maiden verse.

Now learn, love, have, do, be the best;

Each in one thing excel the rest:

Strive; and hold fast this truth of heaven--

To him that hath shall more be given.

Slow on your dial the shadows creep,

So many hours for food and sleep,

So many hours till study tire,

So many hours for heart's desire.

These suns and moons shall memory save,

Mirrors bright for her magic cave;

Wherein may steadfast eyes behold

A self that groweth never old.

O in such prime enjoy your lot,

And when ye leave regret it not;

With wishing gifts in festal state

Pass ye the angel-sworded gate.

Then to the world let shine your light,

Children in play be lions in fight,

And match with red immortal deeds

The victory that made ring the meads:

Or by firm wisdom save your land

From giddy head and grasping hand:

IMPROVE THE BEST; so shall your sons

Better what ye have bettered once.

Send them here to the court of grace

Bearing your name to fill your place:

Ye in their time shall live again

The happy dream of Henry's reign:

And on his day your steps be bent

Where, saint and king, crowned with content,

He biddeth a prayer to bless his youth

With truth, and purity, mother of truth.

The north wind came up yesternight

With the new year's full moon,

And rising as she gained her height,

Grew to a tempest soon.

Yet found he not on heaven's face

A task of cloud to clear;

There was no speck that he might chase

Off the blue hemisphere,

Nor vapour from the land to drive:

The frost-bound country held

Nought motionable or alive,

That 'gainst his wrath rebelled.

There scarce was hanging in the wood

A shrivelled leaf to reave;

No bud had burst its swathing hood

That he could rend or grieve:

Only the tall tree-skeletons,

Where they were shadowed all,

Wavered a little on the stones,

And on the white church-wall.

--Like as an artist in his mood,

Who reckons all as nought,

So he may quickly paint his nude,

Unutterable thought:

So Nature in a frenzied hour

By day or night will show

Dim indications of the power

That doometh man to woe.

Ah, many have my visions been,

And some I know full well:

I would that all that I have seen

Were fit for speech to tell.--

And by the churchyard as I came,

It seemed my spirit passed

Into a land that hath no name,

Grey, melancholy and vast;

Where nothing comes: but Memory,

The widowed queen of Death,

Reigns, and with fixed, sepulchral eye

All slumber banisheth.

Each grain of writhen dust, that drapes

That sickly, staring shore,

Its old chaotic change of shapes

Remembers evermore.

And ghosts of cities long decayed

And ruined shrines of Fate

Gather the paths, that Time hath made

Foolish and desolate.

Nor winter there hath hope of spring,

Nor the pale night of day,

Since the old king with scorpion sting

Hath done himself away.

* * *

The morn was calm; the wind's last breath

Had fal'n: in solemn hush

The golden moon went down beneath

The dawning's crimson flush.

NORTH WIND IN OCTOBER

In the golden glade the chestnuts are fallen all;

From the sered boughs of the oak the acorns fall:

The beech scatters her ruddy fire;

The lime hath stripped to the cold,

And standeth naked above her yellow attire:

The larch thinneth her spire

To lay the ways of the wood with cloth of gold.

Out of the golden-green and white

Of the brake the fir-trees stand upright

In the forest of flame, and wave aloft

To the blue of heaven their blue-green tuftings soft.

But swiftly in shuddering gloom the splendours fail,

As the harrying North-wind beareth

A cloud of skirmishing hail

The grievèd woodland to smite:

In a hurricane through the trees he teareth,

Raking the boughs and the leaves rending,

And whistleth to the descending

Blows of his icy flail.

Gold and snow he mixeth in spite,

And whirleth afar; as away on his winnowing flight

He passeth, and all again for awhile is bright.

FIRST SPRING MORNING

A CHILD'S POEM.

Look! Look! the spring is come:

O feel the gentle air,

That wanders thro' the boughs to burst

The thick buds everywhere!

The birds are glad to see

The high unclouded sun:

Winter is fled away, they sing,

The gay time is begun.

Adown the meadows green

Let us go dance and play,

And look for violets in the lane,

And ramble far away

To gather primroses,

That in the woodland grow,

And hunt for oxlips, or if yet

The blades of bluebells show:

There the old woodman gruff

Hath half the coppice cut,

And weaves the hurdles all day long

Beside his willow hut.

We'll steal on him, and then

Startle him, all with glee

Singing our song of winter fled

And summer soon to be.

A VILLAGER

There was no lad handsomer than Willie was

The day that he came to father's house:

There was none had an eye as soft an' blue

As Willie's was, when he came to woo.

To a labouring life though bound thee be,

An' I on my father's ground live free,

I'll take thee, I said, for thy manly grace,

Thy gentle voice an' thy loving face.

'Tis forty years now since we were wed:

We are ailing an' grey needs not to be said:

But Willie's eye is as blue an' soft

As the day when he wooed me in father's croft.

Yet changed am I in body an' mind,

For Willie to me has ne'er been kind:

Merrily drinking an' singing with the men

He 'ud come home late six nights o' the se'n.

An' since the children be grown an' gone

He 'as shunned the house an' left me lone:

An' less an' less he brings me in

Of the little he now has strength to win.

The roof lets through the wind an' the wet,

An' master won't mend it with us in 's debt:

An' all looks every day more worn,

An' the best of my gowns be shabby an' torn.

No wonder if words hav' a-grown to blows;

That matters not while nobody knows:

For love him I shall to the end of life,

An' be, as I swore, his own true wife.

An' when I am gone, he'll turn, an' see

His folly an' wrong, an' be sorry for me:

An' come to me there in the land o' bliss

To give me the love I looked for in this.

Weep not to-day: why should this sadness be?

Learn in present fears

To o'ermaster those tears

That unhindered conquer thee.

Think on thy past valour, thy future praise:

Up, sad heart, nor faint

In ungracious complaint,

Or a prayer for better days.

Daily thy life shortens, the grave's dark peace

Draweth surely nigh,

When good-night is good-bye;

For the sleeping shall not cease.

Fight, to be found fighting: nor far away

Deem, nor strange thy doom.

Like this sorrow 'twill come,

And the day will be to-day.

NEW POEMS

[Illustration: decoration]

_PREVIOUS EDITION_

_Collected for the first time in 1899. Smith, Elder & Co. Vol. II.

See notes at end of that volume._

NEW POEMS

ECLOGUE I

THE MONTHS

_BASIL AND EDWARD_

Man hath with man on earth no holier bond

Than that the Muse weaves with her dreamy thread:

Nor e'er was such transcendent love more fond

Than that which Edward unto Basil led,

Wandering alone across the woody shires

To hear the living voice of that wide heart,

To see the eyes that read the world's desires,

And touch the hand that wrote the roving rhyme.

Diverse their lots as distant were their homes,

And since that early meeting, jealous Time

Knitting their loves had held their lives apart.

But now again were these fine lovers met

And sat together on a rocky hill

Looking upon the vales of Somerset,

Where the far sea gleam'd o'er the bosky combes,

Satisfying their spirits the livelong day

With various mirth and revelation due

And delicate intimacy of delight,

As there in happy indolence they lay

And drank the sun, while round the breezy height

Beneath their feet rabbit and listless ewe

Nibbled the scented herb and grass at will.

Much talked they at their ease; and at the last

Spoke Edward thus, ''Twas on this very hill

This time of the year,--but now twelve years are past,--

That you provoked in verse my younger skill

To praise the months against your rival song;

And ere the sun had westered ten degrees

Our rhyme had brought him thro' the Zodiac.

Have you remembered?'--Basil answer'd back,

'Guest of my solace, how could I forget?

Years fly as months that seem'd in youth so long.

The precious life that, like indifferent gold,

Is disregarded in its worth to hold

Some jewel of love that God therein would set,

It passeth and is gone.'--'And yet not all,'

Edward replied: 'The passion as I please

Of that past day I can to-day recall;

And if but you, as I, remember yet

Your part thereof, and will again rehearse,

For half an hour we may old Time outwit.'

And Basil said, 'Alas for my poor verse!

What happy memory of it still endures

Will thank your love: I have forgotten it.

Speak you my stanzas, I will ransom yours.

Begin you then as I that day began,

And I will follow as your answers ran.'

JANUARY

ED. The moon that mounts the sun's deserted way,

Turns the long winter night to a silver day;

But setteth golden in face of the solemn sight

Of her lord arising upon a world of white.

FEBRUARY

BA. I have in my heart a vision of spring begun

In a sheltering wood, that feels the kiss of the sun:

And a thrush adoreth the melting day that dies

In clouds of purple afloat upon saffron skies.

MARCH

ED. Now carol the birds at dawn, and some new lay

Announceth a homecome voyager every day.

Beneath the tufted sallows the streamlet thrills

With the leaping trout and the gleam of the daffodils.

APRIL

BA. Then laugheth the year; with flowers the meads are bright;

The bursting branches are tipped with flames of light:

The landscape is light; the dark clouds flee above,

And the shades of the land are a blue that is deep as love.

MAY

ED. But if you have seen a village all red and old

In cherry-orchards a-sprinkle with white and gold,

By a hawthorn seated, or a witch-elm flowering high,

A gay breeze making riot in the waving rye!

JUNE

BA. Then night retires from heaven; the high winds go

A-sailing in cloud-pavilions of cavern'd snow.

O June, sweet Philomel sang thy cradle-lay;

In rosy revel thy spirit shall pass away.

JULY

ED. Heavy is the green of the fields, heavy the trees

With foliage hang, drowsy the hum of bees

In the thund'rous air: the crowded scents lie low:

Thro' tangle of weeds the river runneth slow.

AUGUST

BA. A reaper with dusty shoon and hat of straw

On the yellow field, his scythe in his armës braw:

Beneath the tall grey trees resting at noon

From sweat and swink with scythe and dusty shoon.

SEPTEMBER

ED. Earth's flaunting flower of passion fadeth fair

To ripening fruit in sunlit veils of the air,

As the art of man makes wisdom to glorify

The beauty and love of life born else to die.

OCTOBER

BA. On frosty morns with the woods aflame, down, down

The golden spoils fall thick from the chestnut crown.

May Autumn in tranquil glory her riches spend,

With mellow apples her orchard-branches bend.

NOVEMBER

ED. Sad mists have hid the sun, the land is forlorn:

The plough is afield, the hunter windeth his horn.

Dame Prudence looketh well to her winter stores,

And many a wise man finds his pleasure indoors.

DECEMBER

BA. I pray thee don thy jerkin of olden time,

Bring us good ice, and silver the trees with rime;

And I will good cheer, good music and wine bestow,

When the Christmas guest comes galloping over the snow.

Thus they in verse alternate sang the year

For rabbit shy and listless ewe to hear,

Among the grey rocks on the mountain green

Beneath the sky in fair and pastoral scene,

Like those Sicilian swains, whose doric tongue

After two thousand years is ever young,--

_Sweet the pine's murmur, and, shepherd, sweet thy pipe,--_

Or that which gentle Virgil, yet unripe,

Of Tityrus sang under the spreading beech

And gave to rustic clowns immortal speech,

By rocky fountain or on flowery mead

Bidding their idle flocks at will to feed,

While they, retreated to some bosky glade,

Together told their loves, and as they played

Sang what sweet thing soe'er the poet feigned:

But these were men when good Victoria reigned,

Poets themselves, who without shepherd gear

Each of his native fancy sang the year.

ECLOGUE II

GIOVANNI DUPRÈ

_LAWRENCE AND RICHARD_

LAWRENCE

Look down the river--against the western sky--

The Ponte Santa Trinità--what throng

Slowly trails o'er with waving banners high,

With foot and horse! Surely they bear along

The spoil of one whom Florence honoureth:

And hark! the drum, the trumpeting dismay,

The wail of the triumphal march of death.

RICHARD

'Twill be the funeral of Giovánn Duprè

Wending to Santa Croce. Let us go

And see what relic of old splendour cheers

The dying ritual.

LAWRENCE

They esteem him well

To lay his bones with Michael Angelo.

Who might he be?

RICHARD

He too a sculptor, one

Who left a work long to resist the years.

LAWRENCE

You make me question further.

RICHARD

I can tell

All as we walk. A poor woodcarver's son,

Prenticed to cut his father's rude designs

(We have it from himself), maker of shrines,

In his mean workshop in Siena dreamed;

And saw as gods the artists of the earth,

And long'd to stand on their immortal shore,

And be as they, who in his vision gleam'd,

Dowering the world with grace for evermore.

So, taxing rest and leisure to one aim,

The boy of single will and inbred skill

Rose step by step to academic fame.

LAWRENCE

Do I not know him then? His figures fill

The tympana o'er Santa Croce's gate;

In the museum too, his Cain, that stands

A left-handed discobolos....

RICHARD

So great

His vogue, that elder art of classic worth

Went to the wall to give his statues room;

And last--his country's praise could do no more--

He cut the stone that honoured good Cavour.

LAWRENCE

I have seen the things.

RICHARD

He, finding in his hands

His life-desire possest, fell not in gloom,

Nor froth'd in vanity: his Sabbath earn'd

He look'd to spend in meditative rest:

So laying chisel by, he took a pen

To tell his story to his countrymen,

And prove (he did it) that the flower of all,

Rarest to attain, is in the power of all.

LAWRENCE

Yet nought he ever made, that I have learn'd,

In wood or stone deserved, nay not his best,

The Greek or Tuscan name for beautiful.

'Twas level with its praise, had force to pull

Favour from fashion.

RICHARD

Yet he made one thing

Worthy of the lily city in her spring;

For while in vain the forms of beauty he aped,

A perfect spirit in himself he shaped;

And all his lifetime doing less than well

Where he profess'd nor doubted to excel,

Now, where he had no scholarship, but drew

His art from love, 'twas better than he knew:

And when he sat to write, lo! by him stood

The heavenly Muse, who smiles on all things good;

And for his truth's sake, for his stainless mind,

His homely love and faith, she now grew kind,

And changed the crown, that from the folk he got,

For her green laurel, and he knew it not.

LAWRENCE

Ah! Love of Beauty! This man then mistook

Ambition for her?

RICHARD

In simplicity

Erring he kept his truth; and in his book

The statue of his grace is fair to see.

LAWRENCE

Then buried with their great he well may be.

RICHARD

And number'd with the saints, not among them

Who painted saints. Join we his requiem.

ECLOGUE III

FOURTH OF JUNE AT ETON

_RICHARD AND GODFREY_

RICHARD

Beneath the wattled bank the eddies swarm

In wandering dimples o'er the shady pool:

The same their chase as when I was at school;

The same the music, where in shallows warm

The current, sunder'd by the bushy isles,

Returns to join the main, and struggles free

Above the willows, gurgling thro' the piles:

Nothing is changed, and yet how changed are we!

--What can bring Godfrey to the Muses' bower?

GODFREY

What but brings you? The festal day of the year;

To live in boyish memories for an hour;

See and be seen: tho' you come seldom here.

RICHARD

Dread of the pang it was, fear to behold

What once was all myself, that kept me away.

GODFREY

You miss new pleasures coveting the old.

RICHARD

They need have prudence, who in courage lack;

'Twas that I might go on I looked not back.

GODFREY

Of all our company he, who, we say,

Fruited the laughing flower of liberty!

RICHARD

Ah! had I my desire, so should it be.

GODFREY

Nay, but I know this melancholy mood;

'Twas your poetic fancy when a boy.

RICHARD

For Fancy cannot live on real food:

In youth she will despise familiar joy

To dwell in mournful shades; as they grow real,

Then buildeth she of joy her far ideal.

GODFREY

And so perverteth all. This stream to me

Sings, and in sunny ripples lingeringly

The water saith 'Ah me! where have I lept?

Into what garden of life? what banks are these,

What secret lawns, what ancient towers and trees?

Where the young sons of heav'n, with shouts of play

Or low delighted speech, welcome the day,

As if the poetry of the earth had slept

To wake in ecstasy. O stay me! alas!

Stay me, ye happy isles, ere that I pass

Without a memory on my sullen course

By the black city to the tossing seas!'

RICHARD

So might this old oak say 'My heart is sere;

With greater effort every year I force

My stubborn leafage: soon my branch will crack,

And I shall fall or perish in the wrack:

And here another tree its crown will rear,

And see for centuries the boys at play:

And 'neath its boughs, on some fine holiday,

Old men shall prate as these.' Come see the game.

GODFREY

Yes, if you will. 'Tis all one picture fair.

RICHARD

Made in a mirror, and who looketh there

Must see himself. Is not a dream the same?

GODFREY

_Life is a dream._

RICHARD

And you, who say it, seem

Dreaming to speak to a phantom in a dream.

ELEGY

THE SUMMER-HOUSE ON THE MOUND

How well my eyes remember the dim path!

My homing heart no happier playground hath.

I need not close my lids but it appears

Through the bewilderment of forty years

To tempt my feet, my childish feet, between

Its leafy walls, beneath its arching green;

Fairer than dream of sleep, than Hope more fair

Leading to dreamless sleep her sister Care.

There grew two fellow limes, two rising trees,

Shadowing the lawn, the summer haunt of bees,

Whose stems, engraved with many a russet scar

From the spear-hurlings of our mimic war,

Pillar'd the portico to that wide walk,

A mossy terrace of the native chalk

Fashion'd, that led thro' the dark shades around

Straight to the wooden temple on the mound.

There live the memories of my early days,

There still with childish heart my spirit plays;

Yea, terror-stricken by the fiend despair

When she hath fled me, I have found her there;

And there 'tis ever noon, and glad suns bring

Alternate days of summer and of spring,

With childish thought, and childish faces bright,

And all unknown save but the hour's delight.

High on the mound the ivied arbour stood,

A dome of straw upheld on rustic wood:

Hidden in fern the steps of the ascent,

Whereby unto the southern front we went,

And from the dark plantation climbing free,

Over a valley look'd out on the sea.

That sea is ever bright and blue, the sky

Serene and blue, and ever white ships lie

High on the horizon steadfast in full sail,

Or nearer in the roads pass within hail,

Of naked brigs and barques that windbound ride

At their taut cables heading to the tide.

There many an hour I have sat to watch; nay, now

The brazen disk is cold against my brow,

And in my sight a circle of the sea

Enlarged to swiftness, where the salt waves flee,

And ships in stately motion pass so near

That what I see is speaking to my ear:

I hear the waves dash and the tackle strain,

The canvas flap, the rattle of the chain

That runs out thro' the hawse, the clank of the winch

Winding the rusty cable inch by inch,

Till half I wonder if they have no care,

Those sailors, that my glass is brought to bear

On all their doings, if I vex them not

On every petty task of their rough lot

Prying and spying, searching every craft

From painted truck to gunnel, fore and aft,--

Thro' idle Sundays as I have watch'd them lean

Long hours upon the rail, or neath its screen

Prone on the deck to lie outstretch'd at length,

Sunk in renewal of their wearied strength.

But what a feast of joy to me, if some

Fast-sailing frigate to the Channel come

Back'd here her topsail, or brought gently up

Let from her bow the splashing anchor drop,

By faint contrary wind stay'd in her cruise,

The _Phaethon_ or dancing _Arethuse_,

Or some immense three-decker of the line,

Romantic as the tale of Troy divine;

Ere yet our iron age had doom'd to fall

The towering freeboard of the wooden wall,

And for the engines of a mightier Mars

Clipp'd their wide wings, and dock'd their soaring spars.

The gale that in their tackle sang, the wave

That neath their gilded galleries dasht so brave

Lost then their merriment, nor look to play

With the heavy-hearted monsters of to-day.

One noon in March upon that anchoring ground

Came Napier's fleet unto the Baltic bound:

Cloudless the sky and calm and blue the sea,

As round Saint Margaret's cliff mysteriously,

Those murderous queens walking in Sabbath sleep

Glided in line upon the windless deep:

For in those days was first seen low and black

Beside the full-rigg'd mast the strange smoke-stack,

And neath their stern revolv'd the twisted fan.

Many I knew as soon as I might scan,

The heavy _Royal George_, the _Acre_ bright,

The _Hogue_ and _Ajax_, and could name aright

Others that I remember now no more;

But chief, her blue flag flying at the fore,

With fighting guns a hundred thirty and one,

The Admiral ship _The Duke of Wellington_,

Whereon sail'd George, who in her gig had flown

The silken ensign by our sisters sewn.

The iron Duke himself,--whose soldier fame

To England's proudest ship had given her name,

And whose white hairs in this my earliest scene

Had scarce more honour'd than accustom'd been,--

Was two years since to his last haven past:

I had seen his castle-flag to fall half-mast

One morn as I sat looking on the sea,

When thus all England's grief came first to me,

Who hold my childhood favour'd that I knew

So well the face that won at Waterloo.

But now 'tis other wars, and other men;--

The year that Napier sail'd, my years were ten--

Yea, and new homes and loves my heart hath found:

A priest has there usurped the ivied mound,

The bell that call'd to horse calls now to prayers,

And silent nuns tread the familiar stairs.

Within the peach-clad walls that old outlaw,

The Roman wolf, scratches with privy paw.

O Love, I complain,

Complain of thee often,

Because thou dost soften

My being to pain:

Thou makest me fear

The mind that createth,

That loves not nor hateth

In justice austere;

Who, ere he make one,

With millions toyeth,

And lightly destroyeth

Whate'er is begun.

An' wer't not for thee,

My glorious passion,

My heart I could fashion

To sternness, as he.

But thee, Love, he made

Lest man should defy him,

Connive and outvie him,

And not be afraid:

Nay, thee, Love, he gave

His terrors to cover,

And turn to a lover

His insolent slave.

THE SOUTH WIND

The south wind rose at dusk of the winter day,

The warm breath of the western sea

Circling wrapp'd the isle with his cloke of cloud,

And it now reach'd even to me, at dusk of the day,

And moan'd in the branches aloud:

While here and there, in patches of dark space,

A star shone forth from its heavenly place,

As a spark that is borne in the smoky chase;

And, looking up, there fell on my face--

Could it be drops of rain

Soft as the wind, that fell on my face?

Gossamers light as threads of the summer dawn,

Suck'd by the sun from midmost calms of the main,

From groves of coral islands secretly drawn,

O'er half the round of earth to be driven,

Now to fall on my face

In silky skeins spun from the mists of heaven.

Who art thou, in wind and darkness and soft rain

Thyself that robest, that bendest in sighing pines

To whisper thy truth? that usest for signs

A hurried glimpse of the moon, the glance of a star

In the rifted sky?

Who art thou, that with thee I

Woo and am wooed?

That robing thyself in darkness and soft rain

Choosest my chosen solitude,

Coming so far

To tell thy secret again,

As a mother her child, in her folding arm

Of a winter night by a flickering fire,

Telleth the same tale o'er and o'er

With gentle voice, and I never tire,

So imperceptibly changeth the charm,

As Love on buried ecstasy buildeth his tower,

--Like as the stem that beareth the flower

By trembling is knit to power;--

Ah! long ago

In thy first rapture I renounced my lot,

The vanity, the despondency and the woe,

And seeking thee to know

Well was 't for me, and evermore

I am thine, I know not what.

For me thou seekest ever, me wondering a day

In the eternal alternations, me

Free for a stolen moment of chance

To dream a beautiful dream

In the everlasting dance

Of speechless worlds, the unsearchable scheme,

To me thou findest the way,

Me and whomsoe'er

I have found my dream to share

Still with thy charm encircling; even to-night

To me and my love in darkness and soft rain

Under the sighing pines thou comest again,

And staying our speech with mystery of delight,

Of the kiss that I give a wonder thou makest,

And the kiss that I take thou takest.

I climb the mossy bank of the glade:

My love awaiteth me in the shade.

She holdeth a book that she never heedeth:

In Goddës work her spirit readeth.

She is all to me, and I to her:

When we embrace, the stars confer.

O my love, from beyond the sky

I am calling thy heart, and who but I?

* * *

Fresh as love is the breeze of June,

In the dappled shade of the summer noon.

Catullus, throwing his heart away,

Gave fewer kisses every day.

Heracleitus, spending his youth

In search of wisdom, had less of truth.

Flame of fire was the poet's desire:

The thinker found that life was fire.

O my love! my song is done:

My kiss hath both their fires in one.

To my love I whisper, and say

Knowest thou why I love thee?--Nay:

Nay, she saith; O tell me again.--

When in her ear the secret I tell,

She smileth with joy incredible--

Ha! she is vain--O nay--

Then tell us!--Nay, O nay.

But this is in my heart,

That Love is Nature's perfect art,

And man hath got his fancy hence,

To clothe his thought in forms of sense.

Fair are thy works, O man, and fair

Thy dreams of soul in garments rare,

Beautiful past compare,

Yea, godlike when thou hast the skill

To steal a stir of the heavenly thrill:

But O, have care, have care!

'Tis envious even to dare:

And many a fiend is watching well

To flush thy reed with the fire of hell.

My delight and thy delight

Walking, like two angels white,

In the gardens of the night:

My desire and thy desire

Twining to a tongue of fire,

Leaping live, and laughing higher;

Thro' the everlasting strife

In the mystery of life.

* * *

Love, from whom the world begun,

Hath the secret of the sun.

Love can tell, and love alone,

Whence the million stars were strewn,

Why each atom knows its own,

How, in spite of woe and death,

Gay is life, and sweet is breath:

This he taught us, this we knew,

Happy in his science true,

Hand in hand as we stood

Neath the shadows of the wood,

Heart to heart as we lay

In the dawning of the day.

SEPTUAGESIMA

Now all the windows with frost are blinded,

As punctual day with greedy smile

Lifts like a Cyclops evil-minded

His ruddy eyeball over the isle.

In an hour 'tis paled, in an hour ascended

A dazzling light in the cloudless grey.

Steel is the ice; the snow unblended

Is trod to dust on the white highway.

The lambkins frisk; the shepherd is melting

Drink for the ewes with a fire of straw:

The red flames leap at the wild air pelting

Bitterly thro' the leafless shaw.

Around, from many a village steeple

The sabbath-bells hum over the snow:

I give a blessing to parson and people

Across the fields as away I go.

Over the hills and over the meadows

Gay is my way till day be done:

Blue as the heaven are all the shadows,

And every light is gold in the sun.

The sea keeps not the Sabbath day,

His waves come rolling evermore;

His noisy toil grindeth the shore,

And all the cliff is drencht with spray.

Here as we sit, my love and I,

Under the pine upon the hill,

The sadness of the clouded sky,

The bitter wind, the gloomy roar,

The seamew's melancholy cry

With loving fancy suit but ill.

We talk of moons and cooling suns,

Of geologic time and tide,

The eternal sluggards that abide

While our fair love so swiftly runs,

Of nature that doth half consent

That man should guess her dreary scheme

Lest he should live too well content

In his fair house of mirth and dream:

Whose labour irks his ageing heart,

His heart that wearies of desire,

Being so fugitive a part

Of what so slowly must expire.

She in her agelong toil and care

Persistent, wearies not nor stays,

Mocking alike hope and despair.

--Ah, but she too can mock our praise,

Enchanted on her brighter days,

Days, that the thought of grief refuse,

Days that are one with human art,

Worthy of the Virgilian muse,

Fit for the gaiety of Mozart.

Riding adown the country lanes

One day in spring,

Heavy at heart with all the pains

Of man's imagining:--

The mist was not yet melted quite

Into the sky:

The small round sun was dazzling white,

The merry larks sang high:

The grassy northern slopes were laid

In sparkling dew,

Out of the slow-retreating shade

Turning from sleep anew:

Deep in the sunny vale a burn

Ran with the lane,

O'erhung with ivy, moss and fern

It laughed in joyful strain:

And primroses shot long and lush

Their cluster'd cream;

Robin and wren and amorous thrush

Carol'd above the stream:

The stillness of the lenten air

Call'd into sound

The motions of all life that were

In field and farm around:

So fair it was, so sweet and bright,

The jocund Spring

Awoke in me the old delight

Of man's imagining,

Riding adown the country lanes:

The larks sang high.--

O heart! for all thy griefs and pains

Thou shalt be loth to die.

PATER FILIO

Sense with keenest edge unusèd,

Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire;

Lovely feet as yet unbruisèd

On the ways of dark desire;

Sweetest hope that lookest smiling

O'er the wilderness defiling!

Why such beauty, to be blighted

By the swarm of foul destruction?

Why such innocence delighted,

When sin stalks to thy seduction?

All the litanies e'er chaunted

Shall not keep thy faith undaunted.

I have pray'd the sainted Morning

To unclasp her hands to hold thee;

From resignful Eve's adorning

Stol'n a robe of peace to enfold thee;

With all charms of man's contriving

Arm'd thee for thy lonely striving.

Me too once unthinking Nature,

--Whence Love's timeless mockery took me,--

Fashion'd so divine a creature,

Yea, and like a beast forsook me.

I forgave, but tell the measure

Of her crime in thee, my treasure.

NOVEMBER

The lonely season in lonely lands, when fled

Are half the birds, and mists lie low, and the sun

Is rarely seen, nor strayeth far from his bed;

The short days pass unwelcomed one by one.

Out by the ricks the mantled engine stands

Crestfallen, deserted,--for now all hands

Are told to the plough,--and ere it is dawn appear

The teams following and crossing far and near,

As hour by hour they broaden the brown bands

Of the striped fields; and behind them firk and prance

The heavy rooks, and daws grey-pated dance:

As awhile, surmounting a crest, in sharp outline

(A miniature of toil, a gem's design,)

They are pictured, horses and men, or now near by

Above the lane they shout lifting the share,

By the trim hedgerow bloom'd with purple air;

Where, under the thorns, dead leaves in huddle lie

Packed by the gales of Autumn, and in and out

The small wrens glide

With a happy note of cheer,

And yellow amorets flutter above and about,

Gay, familiar in fear.

And now, if the night shall be cold, across the sky

Linnets and twites, in small flocks helter-skelter,

All the afternoon to the gardens fly,

From thistle-pastures hurrying to gain the shelter

Of American rhododendron or cherry-laurel:

And here and there, near chilly setting of sun,

In an isolated tree a congregation

Of starlings chatter and chide,

Thickset as summer leaves, in garrulous quarrel:

Suddenly they hush as one,--

The tree top springs,--

And off, with a whirr of wings,

They fly by the score

To the holly-thicket, and there with myriads more

Dispute for the roosts; and from the unseen nation

A babel of tongues, like running water unceasing,

Makes live the wood, the flocking cries increasing,

Wrangling discordantly, incessantly,

While falls the night on them self-occupied;

The long dark night, that lengthens slow,

Deepening with Winter to starve grass and tree,

And soon to bury in snow

The Earth, that, sleeping 'neath her frozen stole,

Shall dream a dream crept from the sunless pole

Of how her end shall be.

WINTER NIGHTFALL

The day begins to droop,--

Its course is done:

But nothing tells the place

Of the setting sun.

The hazy darkness deepens,

And up the lane

You may hear, but cannot see,

The homing wain.

An engine pants and hums

In the farm hard by:

Its lowering smoke is lost

In the lowering sky.

The soaking branches drip,

And all night through

The dropping will not cease

In the avenue.

A tall man there in the house

Must keep his chair:

He knows he will never again

Breathe the spring air:

His heart is worn with work;

He is giddy and sick

If he rise to go as far

As the nearest rick:

He thinks of his morn of life,

His hale, strong years;

And braves as he may the night

Of darkness and tears.

Since we loved,--(the earth that shook

As we kissed, fresh beauty took)--

Love hath been as poets paint,

Life as heaven is to a saint;

All my joys my hope excel,

All my work hath prosper'd well,

All my songs have happy been,

O my love, my life, my queen.

When Death to either shall come,--

I pray it be first to me,--

Be happy as ever at home,

If so, as I wish, it be.

Possess thy heart, my own;

And sing to the child on thy knee,

Or read to thyself alone

The songs that I made for thee.

WISHES

I wish'd to sing thy grace, but nought

Found upon earth that could compare:

Some day, maybe, in heaven, I thought,--

If I should win the welcome there,--

There might I make thee many a song:

But now it is enough to say

I ne'er have done our life the wrong

Of wishing for a happier day.

A LOVE LYRIC

Why art thou sad, my dearest?

What terror is it thou fearest,

Braver who art than I

The fiend to defy?

Why art thou sad, my dearest?

And why in tears appearest,

Closer than I that wert

At hiding thy hurt?

Why art thou sad, my dearest,

Since now my voice thou hearest?

Who with a kiss restore

Thy valour of yore.

ΕΡΩΣ

Why hast thou nothing in thy face?

Thou idol of the human race,

Thou tyrant of the human heart,

The flower of lovely youth that art;

Yea, and that standest in thy youth

An image of eternal Truth,

With thy exuberant flesh so fair,

That only Pheidias might compare,

Ere from his chaste marmoreal form

Time had decayed the colours warm;

Like to his gods in thy proud dress,

Thy starry sheen of nakedness.

Surely thy body is thy mind,

For in thy face is nought to find,

Only thy soft unchristen'd smile,

That shadows neither love nor guile,

But shameless will and power immense,

In secret sensuous innocence.

O king of joy, what is thy thought?

I dream thou knowest it is nought,

And wouldst in darkness come, but thou

Makest the light where'er thou go.

Ah yet no victim of thy grace,

None who e'er long'd for thy embrace,

Hath cared to look upon thy face.

THE FAIR BRASS

An effigy of brass

Trodden by careless feet

Of worshippers that pass,

Beautiful and complete,

Lieth in the sombre aisle

Of this old church unwreckt,

And still from modern style

Shielded by kind neglect.

It shows a warrior arm'd:

Across his iron breast

His hands by death are charm'd

To leave his sword at rest,

Wherewith he led his men

O'ersea, and smote to hell

The astonisht Saracen,

Nor doubted he did well.

Would wé could teach our sons

His trust in face of doom,

Or give our bravest ones

A comparable tomb:

Such as to look on shrives

The heart of half its care;

So in each line survives

The spirit that made it fair;

So fair the characters,

With which the dusty scroll,

That tells his title, stirs

A requiem for his soul.

Yet dearer far to me,

And brave as he are they,

Who fight by land and sea

For England at this day;

Whose vile memorials,

In mournful marbles gilt,

Deface the beauteous walls

By growing glory built:

Heirs of our antique shrines,

Sires of our future fame,

Whose starry honour shines

In many a noble name

Across the deathful days,

Link'd in the brotherhood

That loves our country's praise,

And lives for heavenly good.

THE DUTEOUS HEART

Spirit of grace and beauty,

Whom men so much miscall:

Maidenly, modest duty,

I cry thee fair befall!

Pity for them that shun thee,

Sorrow for them that hate,

Glory, hath any won thee

To dwell in high estate!

But rather thou delightest

To walk in humble ways,

Keeping thy favour brightest

Uncrown'd by foolish praise;

In such retirement dwelling,

Where, hath the worldling been,

He straight returneth telling

Of sights that he hath seen,

Of simple men and truest

Faces of girl and boy;

The souls whom thou enduest

With gentle peace and joy.

Fair from my song befall thee,

Spirit of beauty and grace!

Men that so much miscall thee

Have never seen thy face.

THE IDLE FLOWERS

I have sown upon the fields

Eyebright and Pimpernel,

And Pansy and Poppy-seed

Ripen'd and scatter'd well,

And silver Lady-smock

The meads with light to fill,

Cowslip and Buttercup,

Daisy and Daffodil;

King-cup and Fleur-de-lys

Upon the marsh to meet

With Comfrey, Watermint,

Loose-strife and Meadowsweet;

And all along the stream

My care hath not forgot

Crowfoot's white galaxy

And love's Forget-me-not:

And where high grasses wave

Shall great Moon-daisies blink,

With Rattle and Sorrel sharp

And Robin's ragged pink.

Thick on the woodland floor

Gay company shall be,

Primrose and Hyacinth

And frail Anemone,

Perennial Strawberry-bloom,

Woodsorrel's pencilled veil,

Dishevel'd Willow-weed

And Orchis purple and pale,

Bugle, that blushes blue,

And Woodruff's snowy gem,

Proud Foxglove's finger-bells

And Spurge with milky stem.

High on the downs so bare,

Where thou dost love to climb,

Pink Thrift and Milkwort are,

Lotus and scented Thyme;

And in the shady lanes

Bold Arum's hood of green,

Herb Robert, Violet,

Starwort and Celandine;

And by the dusty road

Bedstraw and Mullein tall,

With red Valerian

And Toadflax on the wall,

Yarrow and Chicory,

That hath for hue no like,

Silene and Mallow mild

And Agrimony's spike,

Blue-eyed Veronicas

And grey-faced Scabious

And downy Silverweed

And striped Convolvulus:

Harebell shall haunt the banks,

And thro' the hedgerow peer

Withwind and Snapdragon

And Nightshade's flower of fear.

And where men never sow,

Have I my Thistles set,

Ragwort and stiff Wormwood

And straggling Mignonette,

Bugloss and Burdock rank

And prickly Teasel high,

With Umbels yellow and white,

That come to kexes dry.

Pale Chlora shalt thou find,

Sun-loving Centaury,

Cranesbill and Sinjunwort,

Cinquefoil and Betony:

Shock-headed Dandelion,

That drank the fire of the sun:

Hawkweed and Marigold,

Cornflower and Campion.

Let Oak and Ash grow strong,

Let Beech her branches spread;

Let Grass and Barley throng

And waving Wheat for bread;

Be share and sickle bright

To labour at all hours;

For thee and thy delight

I have made the idle flowers.

But now 'tis Winter, child,

And bitter northwinds blow,

The ways are wet and wild,

The land is laid in snow.

DUNSTONE HILL

A cottage built of native stone

Stands on the mountain-moor alone,

High from man's dwelling on the wide

And solitary mountain-side,

The purple mountain-side, where all

The dewy night the meteors fall,

And the pale stars musically set

To the watery bells of the rivulet,

And all day long, purple and dun,

The vast moors stretch beneath the sun,

The wide wind passeth fresh and hale,

And whirring grouse and blackcock sail.

Ah, heavenly Peace, where dost thou dwell?

Surely 'twas here thou hadst a cell,

Till flaming Love, wandering astray

With fury and blood, drove thee away.--

Far down across the valley deep

The town is hid in smoky sleep,

At moonless nightfall wakening slow

Upon the dark with lurid glow:

Beyond, afar the widening view

Merges into the soften'd blue,

Cornfield and forest, hill and stream,

Fair England in her pastoral dream.

To one who looketh from this hill

Life seems asleep, all is so still:

Nought passeth save the travelling shade

Of clouds on high that float and fade:

Nor since this landscape saw the sun

Might other motion o'er it run,

Till to man's scheming heart it came

To make a steed of steel and flame.

Him may you mark in every vale

Moving beneath his fleecy trail,

And tell whene'er the motions die

Where every town and hamlet lie.

He gives the distance life to-day,

Rushing upon his level'd way

From man's abode to man's abode,

And mocks the Roman's vaunted road,

Which o'er the moor purple and dun

Still wanders white beneath the sun,

Deserted now of men and lone

Save for this cot of native stone.

There ever by the whiten'd wall

Standeth a maiden fair and tall,

And all day long in vacant dream

Watcheth afar the flying steam.

SCREAMING TARN

The saddest place that e'er I saw

Is the deep tarn above the inn

That crowns the mountain-road, whereby

One southward bound his way must win.

Sunk on the table of the ridge

From its deep shores is nought to see:

The unresting wind lashes and chills

Its shivering ripples ceaselessly.

Three sides 'tis banked with stones aslant,

And down the fourth the rushes grow,

And yellow sedge fringing the edge

With lengthen'd image all arow.

'Tis square and black, and on its face

When noon is still, the mirror'd sky

Looks dark and further from the earth

Than when you gaze at it on high.

At mid of night, if one be there,

--So say the people of the hill--

A fearful shriek of death is heard,

One sudden scream both loud and shrill.

And some have seen on stilly nights,

And when the moon was clear and round,

Bubbles which to the surface swam

And burst as if they held the sound.--

'Twas in the days ere hapless Charles

Losing his crown had lost his head,

This tale is told of him who kept

The inn upon the watershed:

He was a lowbred ruin'd man

Whom lawless times set free from fear:

One evening to his house there rode

A young and gentle cavalier.

With curling hair and linen fair

And jewel-hilted sword he went;

The horse he rode he had ridden far,

And he was with his journey spent.

He asked a lodging for the night,

His valise from his steed unbound,

He let none bear it but himself

And set it by him on the ground.

'Here's gold or jewels,' thought the host,

'That's carrying south to find the king.'

He chattered many a loyal word,

And scraps of royal airs gan sing.

His guest thereat grew more at ease

And o'er his wine he gave a toast,

But little ate, and to his room

Carried his sack behind the host.

'Now rest you well,' the host he said,

But of his wish the word fell wide;

Nor did he now forget his son

Who fell in fight by Cromwell's side.

Revenge and poverty have brought

Full gentler heart than his to crime;

And he was one by nature rude,

Born to foul deeds at any time.

With unshod feet at dead of night

In stealth he to the guest-room crept,

Lantern and dagger in his hand,

And stabbed his victim while he slept.

But as he struck a scream there came,

A fearful scream so loud and shrill:

He whelm'd the face with pillows o'er,

And lean'd till all had long been still.

Then to the face the flame he held

To see there should no life remain:--

When lo! his brutal heart was quell'd:

'Twas a fair woman he had slain.

The tan upon her face was paint,

The manly hair was torn away,

Soft was the breast that he had pierced;

Beautiful in her death she lay.

His was no heart to faint at crime,

Tho' half he wished the deed undone.

He pulled the valise from the bed

To find what booty he had won.

He cut the straps, and pushed within

His murderous fingers to their theft.

A deathly sweat came o'er his brow,

He had no sense nor meaning left.

He touched not gold, it was not cold,

It was not hard, it felt like flesh.

He drew out by the curling hair

A young man's head, and murder'd fresh;

A young man's head, cut by the neck.

But what was dreader still to see,

Her whom he had slain he saw again,

The twain were like as like can be.

Brother and sister if they were,

Both in one shroud they now were wound,--

Across his back and down the stair,

Out of the house without a sound.

He made his way unto the tarn,

The night was dark and still and dank;

The ripple chuckling neath the boat

Laughed as he drew it to the bank.

Upon the bottom of the boat

He laid his burden flat and low,

And on them laid the square sandstones

That round about the margin go.

Stone upon stone he weighed them down,

Until the boat would hold no more;

The freeboard now was scarce an inch:

He stripp'd his clothes and push'd from shore.

All naked to the middle pool

He swam behind in the dark night;

And there he let the water in

And sank his terror out of sight.

He swam ashore, and donn'd his dress,

And scraped his bloody fingers clean;

Ran home and on his victim's steed

Mounted, and never more was seen.

But to a comrade ere he died

He told his story guess'd of none:

So from his lips the crime returned

To haunt the spot where it was done.

THE ISLE OF ACHILLES

(FROM THE GREEK)

Τὁν φἱλτατὁν σοι παἱδ' ἑμοἱ τ', Ἁχιλλἑα

ὑψει δὑμους ναἱοντα νησιωτικοὑς

Δευκἡν κατ' ἁκτἡν ἑντὁς Εὑξεἱνου πὁρου.

Eur. And. 1250.

Voyaging northwards by the western strand

Of the Euxine sea we came to where the land

Sinks low in salt morass and wooded plain:

Here mighty Ister pushes to the main,

Forking his turbid flood in channels three

To plough the sands wherewith he chokes the sea.

Against his middle arm, not many a mile

In the offing of black water is the isle

Named of Achilles, or as Leukê known,

Which tender Thetis, counselling alone

With her wise sire beneath the ocean-wave

Unto her child's departed spirit gave,

Where he might still his love and fame enjoy,

Through the vain Danaan cause fordone at Troy.

Thither Achilles passed, and long fulfill'd

His earthly lot, as the high gods had will'd,

Far from the rivalries of men, from strife,

From arms, from woman's love and toil of life.

Now of his lone abode I will unfold

What there I saw, or was by others told.

There is in truth a temple on the isle;

Therein a wooden statue of rude style

And workmanship antique with helm of lead:

Else all is desert, uninhabited;

Only a few goats browse the wind-swept rocks,

And oft the stragglers of their starving flocks

Are caught and sacrificed by whomsoe'er,

Whoever of chance or purpose hither fare:

About the fence lie strewn their bleaching bones.

But in the temple jewels and precious stones,

Upheapt with golden rings and vials lie,

Thankofferings to Achilles, and thereby,

Written or scratch'd upon the walls in view,

Inscriptions, with the givers' names thereto,

Some in Romaic character, some Greek,

As each man in the tongue that he might speak

Wrote verse of praise, or prayer for good to come,

To Achilles most, but to Patroclus some;

For those who strongly would Achilles move

Approach him by the pathway of his love.

Thousands of birds frequent the sheltering shrine,

The dippers and the swimmers of the brine,

Sea-mew and gull and diving cormorant,

Fishers that on the high cliff make their haunt

Sheer inaccessible, and sun themselves

Huddled arow upon the narrow shelves:--

And surely no like wonder e'er hath been

As that such birds should keep the temple clean;

But thus they do: at earliest dawn of day

They flock to sea and in the waters play,

And when they well have wet their plumage light,

Back to the sanctuary they take flight

Splashing the walls and columns with fresh brine,

Till all the stone doth fairly drip and shine,

When off again they skim asea for more

And soon returning sprinkle steps and floor,

And sweep all cleanly with their wide-spread wings.

* * *

From other men I have learnt further things.

If any of free purpose, thus they tell,

Sail'd hither to consult the oracle,--

For oracle there was,--they sacrificed

Such victims as they brought, if such sufficed,

And some they slew, some to the god set free:

But they who driven from their course at sea

Chanced on the isle, took of the goats thereon

And pray'd Achilles to accept his own.

Then made they a gift, and when they had offer'd once,

If to their question there was no response,

They added to the gift and asked again;

Yea twice and more, until the god should deign

Answer to give, their offering they renew'd;

Whereby great riches to the shrine ensued.

And when both sacrifice and gifts were made

They worship'd at the shrine, and as they pray'd

Sailors aver that often hath been seen

A man like to a god, of warrior mien,

A beauteous form of figure swift and strong;

Down on his shoulders his light hair hung long

And his full armour was enchast with gold:

While some, who with their eyes might nought behold,

Say that with music strange the air was stir'd;

And some there are, who have both seen and heard:

And if a man wish to be favour'd more,

He need but spend one night upon the shore;

To him in sleep Achilles will appear

And lead him to his tent, and with good cheer

Show him all friendliness that men desire;

Patroclus pours the wine, and he his lyre

Takes from the pole and plays the strains thereon

Which Cheiron taught him first on Pelion.

* * *

These things I tell as they were told to me,

Nor do I question but it well may be:

For sure I am that, if man ever was,

Achilles was a hero, both because

Of his high birth and beauty, his country's call,

His valour of soul, his early death withal,

For Homer's praise, the crown of human art;

And that above all praise he had at heart

A gentler passion in her sovran sway,

And when his love died threw his life away.

AN ANNIVERSARY

Bright, my belovèd, be thy day,

This eve of Summer's fall:

And Autumn mass his flowers gay

To crown thy festival!

SHE

I care not if the morn be bright,

Living in thy love-rays:

No flower I need for my delight,

Being crownèd with thy praise.

O many years and joyfully

This sun to thee return;

Ever all men speak well of thee,

Nor any angel mourn!

SHE

For length of life I would not pray,

If thy life were to seek;

Nor ask what men and angels say

But when of thee they speak.

Arise! The sky hath heard my song,

The flowers o'erhear thy praise;

And little loves are waking long

To wish thee happy days.

REGINA CARA

JUBILEE-SONG, FOR MUSIC, 1897

Hark! The world is full of thy praise,

England's Queen of many days;

Who, knowing how to rule the free,

Hast given a crown to monarchy.

Honour, Truth and growing Peace

Follow Britannia's wide increase,

And Nature yield her strength unknown

To the wisdom born beneath thy throne!

In wisdom and love firm is thy fame:

Enemies bow to revere thy name:

The world shall never tire to tell

Praise of the queen that reignèd well.

O FELIX ANIMA, DOMINA PRAECLARA,

AMORE SEMPER CORONABERE

REGINA CARA.

LATER POEMS

OCCASIONAL ODES &C.]

[Illustration: decoration]

_PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS_

_1. Monthly Review. February, 1903._

_2. Country Life. 1906._

_3. 'Volunteer Haversack.' 1902._

_4. Daniel Press. Poems by A. Buckton.

1901._

_5, 6. Saturday Review._

_7. 'The Sheaf.' June, 1902._

_8. English Review. March, 1911._

_9. Academy. April 1, 1905._

_10, 11. Monthly Review. June, 1904._

_13. Speaker._

_14. Monthly Review. March, 1902._

_15. 'Wayfarer's Love.' 1904._

_16. Saturday Review. April 13, 1907.

Book of the Oxford Pageant. July

1907._

_17, 18, 19. Published with the Music by

Novello, Ewer & Co._

LATER POEMS

RECOLLECTIONS OF SOLITUDE

AN ELEGY

Ended are many days, and now but few

Remain; since therefore it is happy and true

That memoried joys keep ever their delight,

Like steadfast stars in the blue vault of night,

While hours of pain (among those heavenly spheres

Like falling meteors, the martyr's tears)

Dart their long trails at random, and anon,

Ere we exclaim, pass, and for aye are gone;

Therefore my heedy thought will oft restore

The long light-hearted days that are no more,

Save where in her memorial crypt they shine

Spangling the silent past with joy divine.

But why in dream of this enchanted mood

Should all my boyhood seem a solitude?

Good reason know I, when I wander there,

In that transmuted scene, why all is fair;

The woods as when in holiday of spring

Million buds burst, and flowers are blossoming;

The meadows deep in grass, the fields unshorn

In beauty of the multitudinous corn,

Where the strait alleys hide me, wall'd between

High bloomy stalks and rustling banners green;

The gardens, too, in dazzling hues full-blown,

With wafted scent and blazing petals strewn;

The orchards reddening thro' the patient hours,

While idle autumn in his mossy bowers

Inviteth meditation to endear

The sanctuaries of the mellowing year;

And every spot wherein I loved to stray

Hath borrowed radiance of eternal day;

But why am I ever alone, alone?

Here in the corner of a field my throne,

Now in the branching chair of some tall tree

Drinking the gale in bird-like liberty;

Or to the seashore wandered in the sun

To watch the fateful waves break one by one;

Or if on basking downs supine I lie

Bathing my spirit in blue calms of the sky;

Or to the river bank am stolen by night

Hearkening unto the moonlit ripple bright

That warbles o'er the shallows of smooth stone;

Why should my memory find me all alone,

When I had such companions every day

Jocund and dear? 'Twixt glimpses of their play

'Tis a vast solitude, wherein I see

Only myself and what I came to be.

Yet never think, dear spirits, if now ye may

Remember aught of that brief earthly day,

Ere ye the mournful Stygian river crost,

From our familiar home too early lost,--

O never think that I your tears forget,

Or that I loved not well, or love not yet.

Nor ye who held my heart in passion's chain,--

As kings and queens succeed in glorious reign--

When, as a man, I made you to outvie

God's work, and, as a god, then set you by

Among the sainted throng in holiest shrine

Of mythic creed and poetry divine;

True was my faith, and still your loves endure,

The jewels of my fancy, bright and pure.

Nor only in fair places do I see

The picture fair now it has ceased to be:

For fate once led me, and myself some days

Did I devote, to dull laborious ways,

By soaring thought detained to tread full low,--

Yea might I say unbeauteous paths of woe

And dreary abodes, had not my youthful sprite

Hallow'd each nook with legends of delight.

Ah! o'er that smoky town who looketh now

By winter sunset from the dark hill-brow,

Under the dying trees exultantly

Nursing the sting of human tragedy?

Or in that little room upstair'd so high,

Where London's roofs in thickest huddle lie,

Who now returns at evening to entice

To his fireside the joys of Paradise?

Once sacred was that hearth, and bright the air;

The flame of man's redemption flickered there,

In worship of those spirits, whose deathless fames

Have thrilled the stars of heaven to hear their names;

They that excell'd in wisdom to create

Beauty, with mortal passion conquering fate;

And, mid the sovran powers of elder time,

The loveliness of music and new rhyme,

The masters young that first enthrallèd me;

Of whom if I should name, whom then but thee,

Sweet Shelley, or the boy whose book was found

Thrust in thy bosom on thy body drowned?

O mighty Muse, wooer of virgin thought,

Beside thy charm all else counteth as nought;

The revelation of thy smile doth make

Him whom thou lovest reckless for thy sake;

Earthborn of suffering, that knowest well

To call thine own, and with enamouring spell

Feedest the stolen powers of godlike youth

On dear imagination's only truth,

Building with song a temple of desire;

And with the yearning music of thy quire,

In nuptial sacrament of thought and sense

Hallowest for toil the hours of indolence:

Thou in thy melancholic beauty drest,

Subduest ill to serve thy fair behest,

With tragic tears, and sevenfold purified

Silver of mirth; and with extremest pride,

With secret doctrine and unfathomed lore

Remainest yet a child for evermore,

The only enchantress of the earth that art

To cheer his day and staunch man's bleeding heart.

O heavenly Muse, for heavenly thee we call

Who in the fire of love refinest all,

Accurst is he who heark'neth not thy voice;

But happy he who, numbered of thy choice,

Walketh aloof from nature's clouded plan:

For all God's world is but the thought of man;

Wherein hast thou re-formed a world apart,

The mutual mirror of his better heart.

There is no foulness, misery, nor sin,

But he who loves finds his desire therein,

And there with thee in lonely commerce lives:

Nay, all that nature gave or fortune gives,

Joys that his spirit is most jealous of,

His only-embraced and best-deserving love,

Who walketh in the noon of heavenly praise,

The troubled godhead of his children's gaze,

Wear thine eternity, and are loved best

By thee transfigured and in thee possest;

Who madest beauty, and from thy boundless store

Of beauty shalt create for evermore.

1900.

Gay Marigold is frolic,

She laughs till summer is done;

She hears the Grillie chirping

All day i' the blazing sun.

But when the pale moon rises,

She fain her face would hide;

For the high Queen of sorrows

Disdains her empty pride.

* * *

Fair Primrose haunts the shadow

With children of the Spring,

Till in the bloomy woodland

The nightingale will sing.

And when he lauds the May-night

And spirits throng the grove,

The moon shines thro' the branches

And floods her heart with love.

MATRES DOLOROSAE

Ye Spartan mothers, gentle ones,

Of lion-hearted, loving sons,

Fal'n, the flower of English youth,

To a barbarous foe in a land uncouth:--

O what a delicate sacrifice!

Unequal the stake and costly the price

As when the queen of Love deplor'd

Her darling by the wild-beast gor'd.

They rode to war as if to the hunt,

But ye at home, ye bore the brunt,

Bore the siege of torturing fears,

Fed your hope on the bread of tears.

Proud and spotless warriors they

With love or sword to lead the way;

For ye had cradled heart and hand,

The commander hearken'd to your command.

Ah, weeping mothers, now all is o'er,

Ye know your honour and mourn no more:

Nor ask ye a name in England's story,

Who gave your dearest for her glory.

_May 20, 1902._

A VIGNETTE

Among the meadows

lightly going,

With worship and joy

my heart o'erflowing,

Far from town

and toil of living,

To a holy day

my spirit giving,...

* * *

Thou tender flower,

I kneel beside thee

Wondering why God

so beautified thee.--

An answering thought

within me springeth,

A bloom of the mind

her vision bringeth.

Between the dim hill's

distant azure

And flowery foreground

of sparkling pleasure

I see the company

of figures sainted,

For whom the picture

of earth was painted.

Those robèd seers

who made man's story

The crown of Nature,

Her cause his glory.

They walk in the city

which they have builded,

The city of God

from evil shielded:

To them for canopy

the vault of heaven,

The flowery earth

for carpet is given;

Whereon I wander

not unknowing,

With worship and joy

my heart o'erflowing.

1901.

MILLICENT

Thou dimpled Millicent, of merry guesses,

Strong-limb'd and tall, tossing thy wayward tresses,

What mystery of the heart can so surprise

The mirth and music of thy brimming eyes?

Pale-brow, thou knowest not and diest to learn

The mortal secret that doth in thee burn;

With look imploring 'If you love me, tell,

What is it in me that you love so well?'

And suddenly thou stakest all thy charms,

And leapest on me; and in thy circling arms

When almost stifled with their wild embrace,

I feel thy hot tears sheltering on my face.

1901.

VIVAMUS

When thou didst give thy love to me,

Asking no more of gods or men

I vow'd I would contented be,

If Fate should grant us summers ten.

But now that twice the term is sped,

And ever young my heart and gay,

I fear the words that then I said,

And turn my face from Fate away.

To bid thee happily good-bye

I have no hope that I can see,

No way that I shall bravely die,

Unless I give my life for thee.

1901.

One grief of thine

if truth be confest

Was joy to me;

for it drave to my breast

Thee, to my heart

to find thy rest.

How long it was

I never shall know:

I watcht the earth

so stately and slow,

And the ancient things

that waste and grow.

But now for me

what speed devours

Our heavenly life,

our brilliant hours!

How fast they fly,

the stars and flowers!

In still midsummer night

When the moon is late

And the stars all watery and white

For her coming wait,

A spirit, whose eyes are possest

By wonder new,

Passeth--her arms upon her breast

Enwrapt from the dew

In a raiment of azure fold

With diaper

Of flower'd embroidery of gold

Bestarr'd with silver.

* * *

The daisy folk are awake

Their carpet to spread,

And the thron'd stars gazing on her make

Fresh crowns for her head,

Netted in her floating hair

As she drifteth free

Between the starriness of the air

And the starry lea,

From the silent-shadow'd vale

By the west wind drawn

Aloft to melt into the pale

Moonrise of dawn.

1910.

MELANCHOLIA

The sickness of desire, that in dark days

Looks on the imagination of despair,

Forgetteth man, and stinteth God his praise;

Nor but in sleep findeth a cure for care.

Incertainty that once gave scope to dream

Of laughing enterprise and glory untold,

Is now a blackness that no stars redeem,

A wall of terror in a night of cold.

Fool! thou that hast impossibly desired

And now impatiently despairest, see

How nought is changed: Joy's wisdom is attired

Splendid for others' eyes if not for thee:

Not love or beauty or youth from earth is fled:

If they delite thee not, 'tis thou art dead.

1904.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF MAGDALEN

COLLEGE, OXFORD

Since now from woodland mist and flooded clay

I am fled beside the steep Devonian shore,

Nor stand for welcome at your gothic door,

'Neath the fair tower of Magdalen and May,

Such tribute, Warren, as fond poets pay

For generous esteem, I write, not more

Enhearten'd than my need is, reckoning o'er

My life-long wanderings on the heavenly way:

But well-befriended we become good friends,

Well-honour'd honourable; and all attain

Somewhat by fathering what fortune sends.

I bid your presidency a long reign,

True friend; and may your praise to greater ends

Aid better men than I, nor me in vain.

TO JOSEPH JOACHIM

Belov'd of all to whom that Muse is dear

Who hid her spirit of rapture from the Greek,

Whereby our art excelleth the antique,

Perfecting formal beauty to the ear;

Thou that hast been in England many a year

The interpreter who left us nought to seek,

Making Beethoven's inmost passion speak,

Bringing the soul of great Sebastian near:

Their music liveth ever, and 'tis just

That thou, good Joachim, so high thy skill,

Rank (as thou shalt upon the heavenly hill)

Laurel'd with them, for thy ennobling trust

Remember'd when thy loving hand is still

And every ear that heard thee stopt with dust.

TO THOS. FLOYD

How fares it, friend, since I by Fate annoy'd

Left the old home in need of livelier play

For body and mind? How fare, this many a day,

The stubborn thews and ageless heart of Floyd?

If not too well with country sport employ'd,

Visit my flock, the breezy hill that they

Choose for their fold; and see, for thence you may,

From rising walls all roofless yet and void,

The lovely city, thronging tower and spire,

The mind of the wide landscape, dreaming deep,

Grey-silvery in the vale; a shrine where keep

Memorial hopes their pale celestial fire:

Like man's immortal conscience of desire,

The spirit that watcheth in me ev'n in my sleep.

1906.

LA GLOIRE DE VOLTAIRE

A DIALOGUE IN VERSE.

_Je donnerais pour revivre à vingt ans

L'or de Rothschild, la gloire de Voltaire._

I like that: Béranger in his printems,

Voltaire and Rothschild: what three graces there

Foot it together! But of old Voltaire,

I'd ask what Béranger found so sublime

In that man's glory to adorn his rhyme.

Was it mere fame?

Nay: for as wide a fame

Was won by the gold-garnering millionaire,

Who in the poet's verse might read his name

And what is that? when so much froth and scum

Float down the stream of Time (as Bacon saith),

What is that for deliverance from the death?

Could any sober man be proud to hold

A lease of common talk, or die consoled

For thinking that on lips of fools to come

He'll live with Pontius Pilate and Tom Thumb?

That were more like eternal punishment,

The true fool's Paradise by all consent.

Béranger thought to set a crown on merit.

Man's merit! and to crown it in Voltaire?

The modest eye, the gentle, fearless heart,

The mouth of peace and truth, the angelic spirit!

Why Arouet was _soufflé_ with the leaven,

Of which the little flock was bid beware:

His very ambition was to play a part;

Indifferent whether he did wrong or right,

So he won credit; eager to deny

A lie that failed, by adding lie to lie;

Repaying evil unto seven-times-seven;

A fount of slander, flattery and spite;

Vain, irritable; true but to his face

Of mockery and mischievous grimace,

A monkey of the schools, the saints' despair!

Yet for his voice half Europe stood at pause

To hear, and when he spoke rang with applause.

Granted he was a wonder of his kind.

There is a devilish mockery in things

Which only a born devil can enjoy.

True banter is of melancholy mind,

Akin to madness; thus must Shakespeare toy

With Hamlet's reason, ere his fine art dare

Push his relentless humour to the quick;

And so his mortal thrusts pierce not the skin.

But for the superficial bickerings

That poison life and never seem to prick,

The reasonable educated grin,

Truly no wag is equal to Voltaire;

His never-dying ripple, wide and light,

Has nigh the force of Nature: to compare,

'Tis like the ocean when the sky is bright,

And the cold north-wind tickles with surprise

The briny levels of the infinite sea.

--Shall we conclude his merit was his wit,

His magic art and versatility?

And think of those foredoom'd in Dante's pit,

Who, sunk at bottom of the loathly slough,

Made the black mud up-bubble with their sighs;

And all because they were unkind to Mirth,

And went with smoky heart and gloomy brow

The while they lived upon the pleasant earth

In the sweet air that rallies to the sun,

And ne'er so much as smiled or gave God thanks:

Surely a sparkle of the Frenchman's fun

Had rescued all their souls.

I think I see

The Deity who in this Heaven abides,

_Le bon Dieu_, holding both his aching sides,

With radiant face of Pan, ruddy and hairy:

Give him his famous whistles and goat-shanks,

And then present him to Alighieri.

Nay, 'twixt the Frenchman and the Florentine

I ask no truce, grave Dante weaving well

His dark-eyed thought into a song divine,

Drawing high poetry from heaven and hell--

And him who lightly mockt at all in turn.

It follow'd from his mundane thought of art

That he contemn'd religion: his concern

Was comfort, taste, and wit: he had no heart

For man's attempt to build and beautify

His home in Nature; so he set all by

That wisdom had evolved with purpose kind;

Stamped it as folly, or as fraud attacked;

Never discerning how his callow zest

Was impiously defiling his own nest;

Whereas the least philosophy may find

The truths are the ideas; the sole fact

Is the long story of man's growing mind.

Upon your thistle now I see my fig--

Béranger thought of Voltaire as a seer,

A latter-day John Baptist in a wig;

A herald of that furious gospel-storm

Of words and blood, that made the nations fear;

When sickening France adulterously sinn'd

With Virtue, and went mad conceiving wind.

He ranks him with those captains of reform,

Luther and Calvin; who, whate'er they taught,

Led folk from superstition to free thought.

They did. But whence or whither led Voltaire?

The steward with fifty talents given in charge,

Who spent them on himself, and liv'd at large;

His only virtue that he did not hide

The pounds, but squander'd them to serve his pride;

His praise that, cunning in his generation,

He of the heavenly treasure did not spare

To win himself an earthly habitation.

Deny him not this laurel, nor to France

The apostolate of modern tolerance:

Their Theseus he, who slew the Minotaur,

The Dragon Persecution, in which war

He tipp'd the shafts that made the devil bleed;

And won a victory that hath overcome

Many misdoings in a well-done deed;

And more, I think, the mind of Christ revealing,

Yea, more of common-sense and human feeling

Than all the Creeds and Bulls of Christendom.

Yet was he only one of them that slew:

The fiend had taken a deadly wound from Bayle;

And did he 'roar to see his kingdom fail'

'Neath Robespierre, or raise his head anew?

Nay, Voltaire's teaching never cured the heart:

The lack of human feeling blots his art.

When most his phrase with indignation burns,

Still to the gallery his face he turns.

You bear him hard. Men are of common stuff,

Each hath some fault, and he had faults enough:

But of all slanderers that ever were

A virtuous critic is the most unfair.

In greatness ever is some good to see;

And what is character, unless it be

The colour of persistent qualities,

That, like a ground in painting, balances

All hues and forms, combining with one tone

Whatever lights or shades are on it thrown?

Now Voltaire had of Nature a rich ground,

Two virtues rarely in conjunction found:

Industry, which no pedant could excel,

He matched with gaiety inexhaustible;

And with heroic courage held these fast,

As sailors nail their colours to the mast,

With ruling excellence atoning all.

Though, for the rest, he still for praise may call;

Prudent to gain, as generous to share

_Le superflu, chose si nécessaire_;

To most a rare companion above scorn,

To not a few a kind, devoted friend

Through his long battling life, which in the end

He strove with good works richly to adorn.

I have admired, and why should I abuse

A man who can so long and well amuse?

To some Parisian art there's this objection,

'Tis mediocrity pushed to perfection.

'Judge not,' say I, 'and ye shall not be judged!'

Let me say, 'praise men, if ye would be praised:'

Let your unwholesome flattery flow ungrudged,

And with ungrudging measure shall men pour

Their stifling homage back till ye be crazed,

And sane men humour you as fools past cure.

But these wise maxims deal not with the dead,

'Tis by example that the young are led,

And judgement owes its kindness but to them;

Nor will I praise, call you me hard or nice,

One that degraded art, and varnished vice.

They that praise ill thereby themselves condemn.

Béranger could not praise.

Few are who can;

Not he: if ever he assay'd to impart

A title loftier than his own renown,

Native irreverence defied his art,

His fingers soil'd the lustre of his crown.

Here he adored what he was envious of,

The vogue and dazzling fashion of the man.

But man's true praise, the poet's praise, is love.

And that, perhaps, was hardly his affair....

Pray, now, what set you talking of Voltaire?

This only, that in weeding out my shelves,

In fatherly regard for babes upgrown,

Until they learn to garden for themselves,

Much as I like to keep my sets entire,

When I came out to you I had just thrown

Three of his precious works behind the fire.

TO ROBERT BURNS

AN EPISTLE ON INSTINCT

Thou art a poet, Robbie Burns,

Master of words and witty turns,

Of lilting songs and merry yarns,

Drinking and kissing:

There's much in all thy small concerns,

But more that's missing.

The wisdom of thy common sense,

Thy honest hate of vain pretence,

Thy love and wide benevolence

Full often lead thee

Where feeling is its own defence;

Yet while I read thee,

It seems but chance that all our race

Trod not the path of thy disgrace,

And, living freely to embrace

The moment's pleasure,

Snatch'd not a kiss of Nature's face

For all her treasure.

The feelings soft, the spirits gay

Entice on such a flowery way,

And sovran youth in high heyday

Hath such a fashion

To glorify the bragging sway

Of sensual passion.

The Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Excluding the Eight Dramas · 第 5 / 6 章