"TALIESSEN is our fullest throat of song."--_The Holy Grail_.
Our fullest throat of song is silent, hushed
In Autumn, when the songless woods are still,
And with October's boding hectic flushed
Slowly the year disrobes. A passionate thrill
Of strange proud sorrow pulses through the land,
His land, his England, which he loved so well:
And brows bend low, as slow from strand to strand
The Poet's passing bell
Sends forth its solemn note, and every heart
Chills, and sad tears to many an eyelid start.
Sad tears in sooth! And yet not wholly so.
Exquisite echoes of his own swan-song
Forbid mere murmuring mournfulness; the glow
Of its great hope illumes us. Sleep, thou strong
Full tide, as over the unmeaning bar
Fares this unfaltering darer of the deep,
Beaconed by a Great Light, the pilot-star
Of valiant souls, who keep
Through the long strife of thought-life free from scathe
The luminous guidance of the larger faith.
No sadness of farewell? Great Singer, crowned
With lustrous laurel, facing that far light,
In whose white radiance dark seems whelmed and drowned,
And death a passing shade, of meaning slight;
Sunset, and evening star, and that clear call,
The twilight shadow, and the evening bell,
Bring naught of gloom for thee. Whate'er befall
Thou must indeed fare well.
But we--we have but memories now, and love
The plaint of fond regret will scarce reprove.
Great singer, he, and great among the great,
Or greatness hath no sure abiding test.
The poet's splendid pomp, the shining state
Of royal singing robes, were his, confest,
By slowly growing certitude of fame,
Since first, a youth, he found fresh-opening portals
To Beauty's Pleasure-House. Ranked with acclaim
Amidst the true Immortals,
The amaranth fields with native ease he trod,
Authentic son of the lyre-bearing god.
Fresh portals, untrod pleasaunces, new ways
In Art's great Palace, shrined in Nature's heart,
Sought the young singer, and his limpid lays,
O'er sweet, perchance, yet made the quick blood start
To many a cheek mere glittering; rhymes left cold.
But through the gates of Ivory or of Horn
His vivid vision flocked, and who so bold
As to repulse with scorn
The shining troop because of shadowy birth.
Of bodiless passion, or light tinkling mirth?
But the true god-gift grows. Sweet, sweet, still sweet
As great Apollo's lyre, or Pan's plain reed,
His music flowed, but slowly he out-beat
His song to finer issues. Fingers fleet,
That trifled with the pipe-stops, shook grand sound
From the great organ's golden mouths anon.
A mellow-measured might, a beauty bound
(As Venus with her zone)
By that which shaped from chaos Earth, Air, Sky,
The unhampering restraint of Harmony.
Hysteric ecstasy, new fierce, now faint,
But ever fever-sick, shook not his lyre
With epileptic fervours. Sensual taint
Of satyr heat, or bacchanal desire,
Polluted not the passion of his song;
No corybantic clangor clamoured through
Its manly harmonies, as sane as strong;
So that the captious few
Found sickliness in pure Elysian balm,
And coldness in such high Olympian calm.
[Illustration: "CROSSING THE BAR."
"TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL, AND AFTER THAT THE DARK"
"AND MAY THERE BE NO SADNESS OF FAREWELL, WHEN I EMBARK."--TENNYSON.]
Impassioned purity, high minister
Of spirit's joys, was his, reserved, restrained.
His song was like the sword Excalibur
Of his symbolic knight; trenchant, unstained.
It shook the world of wordly baseness, smote
The Christless heathendom of huckstering days.
There is no harshness in that mellow note,
No blot upon those bays;
For loyal love and knightly valour rang
Through rich immortal music when he sang.
ARTHUR, his friend, the Modern Gentleman,
ARTHUR, the hero, his ideal Knight,
Inspired his strains. From fount to flood they ran
A flawless course of melody and light.
A Christian chivalry shone in his song
From Locksley Hall to shadowy Lyonnesse,
Whence there stand forth two figures, stately, strong,
Symbols of spirit's stress;
The blameless King, saintship with scarce a blot,
And song's most noble sinner, LANCELOT.
Lover of England, lord of English hearts,
Master of English speech, painter supreme
Of English landscape! Patriot passion starts
A-flame, pricked by the words that glow and gleam
In those imperial pæans, which might arm
Pale cowards for the fray. Touched by his hand
The simple sweetness, and the homely charm
Of our green garden-land
Take on a witchery as of Arden's glade,
Or verdant Vallombrosa's leafy shade.
The fragrant fruitfulness of wood and wold,
Of flowery upland, and of orchard-lawn,
Lit by the lingering evening's softened gold,
Or flushed with rose-hued radiance of the dawn;
Bird-music beautiful; the robin's trill,
Or the rook's drowsy clangour; flats that run
From sky to sky, dusk woods that drape the hill,
Still lakes that draw the sun;
All, all are mirror'd in his verse, and there
Familiar beauties shine most strangely fair.
Poet, the pass-key magical was thine,
To Beauty's Fairy World, in classic calm
Or rich romantic colour. Bagdat's shrine
By sheeny Tigris, Syrian pool and palm,
Avilion's bowery hollows, Ida's peak,
The lily-laden Lotos land, the fields
Of amaranth! What may vagrant Fancy seek
More than thy rich song yields,
Of Orient odour, Faëry wizardry,
Or soft Arcadian simplicity?
From all, far Faëry Land, Romance's realm,
Green English homestead, cloud-crown'd Attic hill,
The Poet passes--whither? Not the helm
Of wounded ARTHUR, lit by light that fills
Avilion's fair horizons, gleamed more bright
Than does that leonine laurelled visage now,
Fronting with steadfast look that mystic Light.
Grave eye, and gracious brow
Turn from the evening bell, the earthly shore,
To face the Light that floods him evermore.
Farewell! How fitlier should a poet pass
Than thou from that dim chamber and the gleam
Of poor earth's purest radiance? Love, alas!
Of that strange scene must long in sorrow dream.
But we--we hear thy manful music still!
A royal requiem for a kingly soul!
No sadness of farewell! Away regret,
When greatness nears its goal!
We follow thee, in thought, through light, afar
Divinely piloted beyond the bar!
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