The fountains of song that await but the wind of an April to

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Poems and Ballads

Third Series

By

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles

Swinburne--Vol. III

THE COLLECTED POETICAL WORKS OF ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

VOL. III

POEMS & BALLADS

(SECOND AND THIRD SERIES)

AND

SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES

SWINBURNE'S POETICAL WORKS

I. POEMS AND BALLADS (First Series).

II. SONGS BEFORE SUNRISE, AND SONGS OF TWO NATIONS.

III. POEMS AND BALLADS (Second and Third Series), and SONGS OF THE

SPRINGTIDES.

IV. TRISTRAM OF LYONESSE, THE TALE OF BALEN, ATALANTA IN CALYDON,

ERECHTHEUS.

V. STUDIES IN SONG, A CENTURY OF ROUNDELS, SONNETS ON ENGLISH DRAMATIC

POETS, THE HEPTALOGIA, ETC.

VI. A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY, ASTROPHEL, A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS.

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN

POEMS & BALLADS

(SECOND AND THIRD SERIES)

AND

SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES

By

Algernon Charles Swinburne

1917

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN

_First printed (Chatto), 1904_

_Reprinted 1904, '09, '10, '12_

_(Heinemann), 1917_

_London: William Heinemann, 1917_

POEMS AND BALLADS

THIRD SERIES

PAGE

MARCH: AN ODE 169

THE COMMONWEAL 174

THE ARMADA 187

TO A SEAMEW 211

PAN AND THALASSIUS 215

A BALLAD OF BATH 222

IN A GARDEN 224

A RHYME 226

BABY-BIRD 228

OLIVE 230

A WORD WITH THE WIND 234

NEAP-TIDE 238

BY THE WAYSIDE 241

NIGHT 243

IN TIME OF MOURNING 244

THE INTERPRETERS 245

THE RECALL 248

BY TWILIGHT 249

A BABY'S EPITAPH 250

ON THE DEATH OF SIR HENRY TAYLOR 251

IN MEMORY OF JOHN WILLIAM INCHBOLD 252

NEW YEAR'S DAY 257

TO SIR RICHARD F. BURTON 258

NELL GWYN 259

CALIBAN ON ARIEL 260

THE WEARY WEDDING 261

THE WINDS 270

A LYKE-WAKE SONG 271

A REIVER'S NECK-VERSE 272

THE WITCH-MOTHER 273

THE BRIDE'S TRAGEDY 276

A JACOBITE'S FAREWELL 281

A JACOBITE'S EXILE 282

THE TYNESIDE WIDOW 286

DEDICATION 289

POEMS AND BALLADS

THIRD SERIES

TO

WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

POET AND PAINTER

I DEDICATE THESE POEMS

IN MEMORY OF MANY YEARS

MARCH: AN ODE

1887

I

Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, and the splendour

of winter had passed out of sight,

The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that

fulfil us in sleep with delight;

The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and

branches that glittered and swayed

Such wonders and glories of blossomlike snow or of frost that

outlightens all flowers till it fade

That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, nor the night

than the day, nor the day than the night,

Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: such mirth had

the madness and might in thee made,

March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms that

enkindle the season they smite.

II

And now that the rage of thy rapture is satiate with revel and

ravin and spoil of the snow,

And the branches it brightened are broken, and shattered the

tree-tops that only thy wrath could lay low,

How should not thy lovers rejoice in thee, leader and lord of the

year that exults to be born

So strong in thy strength and so glad of thy gladness whose

laughter puts winter and sorrow to scorn?

Thou hast shaken the snows from thy wings, and the frost on thy

forehead is molten: thy lips are aglow

As a lover's that kindle with kissing, and earth, with her raiment

and tresses yet wasted and torn,

Takes breath as she smiles in the grasp of thy passion to feel

through her spirit the sense of thee flow.

III

Fain, fain would we see but again for an hour what the wind and the

sun have dispelled and consumed,

Those full deep swan-soft feathers of snow with whose luminous

burden the branches implumed

Hung heavily, curved as a half-bent bow, and fledged not as birds

are, but petalled as flowers,

Each tree-top and branchlet a pinnacle jewelled and carved, or a

fountain that shines as it showers,

But fixed as a fountain is fixed not, and wrought not to last till

by time or by tempest entombed,

As a pinnacle carven and gilded of men: for the date of its doom is

no more than an hour's,

One hour of the sun's when the warm wind wakes him to wither the

snow-flowers that froze as they bloomed.

IV

As the sunshine quenches the snowshine; as April subdues thee, and

yields up his kingdom to May;

So time overcomes the regret that is born of delight as it passes

in passion away,

And leaves but a dream for desire to rejoice in or mourn for with

tears or thanksgivings; but thou,

Bright god that art gone from us, maddest and gladdest of months,

to what goal hast thou gone from us now?

For somewhere surely the storm of thy laughter that lightens, the

beat of thy wings that play,

Must flame as a fire through the world, and the heavens that we

know not rejoice in thee: surely thy brow

Hath lost not its radiance of empire, thy spirit the joy that

impelled it on quest as for prey.

V

Are thy feet on the ways of the limitless waters, thy wings on the

winds of the waste north sea?

Are the fires of the false north dawn over heavens where summer is

stormful and strong like thee

Now bright in the sight of thine eyes? are the bastions of icebergs

assailed by the blast of thy breath?

Is it March with the wild north world when April is waning? the

word that the changed year saith,

Is it echoed to northward with rapture of passion reiterate from

spirits triumphant as we

Whose hearts were uplift at the blast of thy clarions as men's

rearisen from a sleep that was death

And kindled to life that was one with the world's and with thine?

hast thou set not the whole world free?

VI

For the breath of thy lips is freedom, and freedom's the sense of

thy spirit, the sound of thy song,

Glad god of the north-east wind, whose heart is as high as the

hands of thy kingdom are strong,

Thy kingdom whose empire is terror and joy, twin-featured and

fruitful of births divine,

Days lit with the flame of the lamps of the flowers, and nights

that are drunken with dew for wine,

And sleep not for joy of the stars that deepen and quicken, a

denser and fierier throng,

And the world that thy breath bade whiten and tremble rejoices at

heart as they strengthen and shine,

And earth gives thanks for the glory bequeathed her, and knows of

thy reign that it wrought not wrong.

VII

Thy spirit is quenched not, albeit we behold not thy face in the

crown of the steep sky's arch,

And the bold first buds of the whin wax golden, and witness arise

of the thorn and the larch:

Wild April, enkindled to laughter and storm by the kiss of the

wildest of winds that blow,

Calls loud on his brother for witness; his hands that were laden

with blossom are sprinkled with snow,

And his lips breathe winter, and laugh, and relent; and the live

woods feel not the frost's flame parch;

For the flame of the spring that consumes not but quickens is felt

at the heart of the forest aglow,

And the sparks that enkindled and fed it were strewn from the hands

of the gods of the winds of March.

THE COMMONWEAL

1887

I

Eight hundred years and twenty-one

Have shone and sunken since the land

Whose name is freedom bore such brand

As marks a captive, and the sun

Beheld her fettered hand.

II

But ere dark time had shed as rain

Or sown on sterile earth as seed

That bears no fruit save tare and weed

An age and half an age again,

She rose on Runnymede.

III

Out of the shadow, starlike still,

She rose up radiant in her right,

And spake, and put to fear and flight

The lawless rule of awless will

That pleads no right save might.

IV

Nor since hath England ever borne

The burden laid on subject lands,

The rule that curbs and binds all hands

Save one, and marks for servile scorn

The heads it bows and brands.

V

A commonweal arrayed and crowned

With gold and purple, girt with steel

At need, that foes must fear or feel,

We find her, as our fathers found,

Earth's lordliest commonweal.

VI

And now that fifty years are flown

Since in a maiden's hand the sign

Of empire that no seas confine

First as a star to seaward shone,

We see their record shine.

VII

A troubled record, foul and fair,

A simple record and serene,

Inscribes for praise a blameless queen,

For praise and blame an age of care

And change and ends unseen.

VIII

Hope, wide of eye and wild of wing,

Rose with the sundawn of a reign

Whose grace should make the rough ways plain,

And fill the worn old world with spring,

And heal its heart of pain.

IX

Peace was to be on earth; men's hope

Was holier than their fathers had,

Their wisdom not more wise than glad:

They saw the gates of promise ope,

And heard what love's lips bade.

X

Love armed with knowledge, winged and wise,

Should hush the wind of war, and see,

They said, the sun of days to be

Bring round beneath serener skies

A stormless jubilee.

XI

Time, in the darkness unbeholden

That hides him from the sight of fear

And lets but dreaming hope draw near,

Smiled and was sad to hear such golden

Strains hail the all-golden year.

XII

Strange clouds have risen between, and wild

Red stars of storm that lit the abyss

Wherein fierce fraud and violence kiss

And mock such promise as beguiled

The fiftieth year from this.

XIII

War upon war, change after change,

Hath shaken thrones and towers to dust,

And hopes austere and faiths august

Have watched in patience stern and strange

Men's works unjust and just.

XIV

As from some Alpine watch-tower's portal

Night, living yet, looks forth for dawn,

So from time's mistier mountain lawn

The spirit of man, in trust immortal,

Yearns toward a hope withdrawn.

XV

The morning comes not, yet the night

Wanes, and men's eyes win strength to see

Where twilight is, where light shall be

When conquered wrong and conquering right

Acclaim a world set free.

XVI

Calm as our mother-land, the mother

Of faith and freedom, pure and wise,

Keeps watch beneath unchangeful skies,

When hath she watched the woes of other

Strange lands with alien eyes?

XVII

Calm as she stands alone, what nation

Hath lacked an alms from English hands?

What exiles from what stricken lands

Have lacked the shelter of the station

Where higher than all she stands?

XVIII

Though time discrown and change dismantle

The pride of thrones and towers that frown,

How should they bring her glories down--

The sea cast round her like a mantle,

The sea-cloud like a crown?

XIX

The sea, divine as heaven and deathless,

Is hers, and none but only she

Hath learnt the sea's word, none but we

Her children hear in heart the breathless

Bright watchword of the sea.

XX

Heard not of others, or misheard

Of many a land for many a year,

The watchword Freedom fails not here

Of hearts that witness if the word

Find faith in England's ear.

XXI

She, first to love the light, and daughter

Incarnate of the northern dawn,

She, round whose feet the wild waves fawn

When all their wrath of warring water

Sounds like a babe's breath drawn,

XXII

How should not she best know, love best,

And best of all souls understand

The very soul of freedom, scanned

Far off, sought out in darkling quest

By men at heart unmanned?

XXIII

They climb and fall, ensnared, enshrouded,

By mists of words and toils they set

To take themselves, till fierce regret

Grows mad with shame, and all their clouded

Red skies hang sunless yet.

XXIV

But us the sun, not wholly risen

Nor equal now for all, illumes

With more of light than cloud that looms;

Of light that leads forth souls from prison

And breaks the seals of tombs.

XXV

Did not her breasts who reared us rear

Him who took heaven in hand, and weighed

Bright world with world in balance laid?

What Newton's might could make not clear

Hath Darwin's might not made?

XXVI

The forces of the dark dissolve,

The doorways of the dark are broken:

The word that casts out night is spoken,

And whence the springs of things evolve

Light born of night bears token.

XXVII

She, loving light for light's sake only,

And truth for only truth's, and song

For song's sake and the sea's, how long

Hath she not borne the world her lonely

Witness of right and wrong?

XXVIII

From light to light her eyes imperial

Turn, and require the further light,

More perfect than the sun's in sight,

Till star and sun seem all funereal

Lamps of the vaulted night.

XXIX

She gazes till the strenuous soul

Within the rapture of her eyes

Creates or bids awake, arise,

The light she looks for, pure and whole

And worshipped of the wise.

XXX

Such sons are hers, such radiant hands

Have borne abroad her lamp of old,

Such mouths of honey-dropping gold

Have sent across all seas and lands

Her fame as music rolled.

XXXI

As music made of rolling thunder

That hurls through heaven its heart sublime,

Its heart of joy, in charging chime,

So ring the songs that round and under

Her temple surge and climb.

XXXII

A temple not by men's hands builded,

But moulded of the spirit, and wrought

Of passion and imperious thought;

With light beyond all sunlight gilded,

Whereby the sun seems nought.

XXXIII

Thy shrine, our mother, seen for fairer

Than even thy natural face, made fair

With kisses of thine April air

Even now, when spring thy banner-bearer

Took up thy sign to bear;

XXXIV

Thine annual sign from heaven's own arch

Given of the sun's hand into thine,

To rear and cheer each wildwood shrine

But now laid waste by wild-winged March,

March, mad with wind like wine.

XXXV

From all thy brightening downs whereon

The windy seaward whin-flower shows

Blossom whose pride strikes pale the rose

Forth is the golden watchword gone

Whereat the world's face glows.

XXXVI

Thy quickening woods rejoice and ring

Till earth seems glorious as the sea:

With yearning love too glad for glee

The world's heart quivers toward the spring

As all our hearts toward thee.

XXXVII

Thee, mother, thee, our queen, who givest

Assurance to the heavens most high

And earth whereon her bondsmen sigh

That by the sea's grace while thou livest

Hope shall not wholly die.

XXXVIII

That while thy free folk hold the van

Of all men, and the sea-spray shed

As dew more heavenly on thy head

Keeps bright thy face in sight of man,

Man's pride shall drop not dead.

XXXIX

A pride more pure than humblest prayer,

More wise than wisdom born of doubt,

Girds for thy sake men's hearts about

With trust and triumph that despair

And fear may cast not out.

XL

Despair may wring men's hearts, and fear

Bow down their heads to kiss the dust,

Where patriot memories rot and rust,

And change makes faint a nation's cheer,

And faith yields up her trust.

XLI

Not here this year have true men known,

Not here this year may true men know,

That brand of shame-compelling woe

Which bids but brave men shrink or groan

And lays but honour low.

XLII

The strong spring wind blows notes of praise,

And hallowing pride of heart, and cheer

Unchanging, toward all true men here

Who hold the trust of ancient days

High as of old this year.

XLIII

The days that made thee great are dead;

The days that now must keep thee great

Lie not in keeping of thy fate;

In thine they lie, whose heart and head

Sustain thy charge of state.

XLIV

No state so proud, no pride so just,

The sun, through clouds at sunrise curled

Or clouds across the sunset whirled,

Hath sight of, nor has man such trust

As thine in all the world.

XLV

Each hour that sees the sunset's crest

Make bright thy shores ere day decline

Sees dawn the sun on shores of thine,

Sees west as east and east as west

On thee their sovereign shine.

XLVI

The sea's own heart must needs wax proud

To have borne the world a child like thee.

What birth of earth might ever be

Thy sister? Time, a wandering cloud,

Is sunshine on thy sea.

XLVII

Change mars not her; and thee, our mother,

What change that irks or moves thee mars?

What shock that shakes? what chance that jars?

Time gave thee, as he gave none other,

A station like a star's.

XLVIII

The storm that shrieks, the wind that wages

War with the wings of hopes that climb

Too high toward heaven in doubt sublime,

Assail not thee, approved of ages

The towering crown of time.

XLIX

Toward thee this year thy children turning

With souls uplift of changeless cheer

Salute with love that casts out fear,

With hearts for beacons round thee burning,

The token of this year.

L

With just and sacred jubilation

Let earth sound answer to the sea

For witness, blown on winds as free,

How England, how her crowning nation,

Acclaims this jubilee.

THE ARMADA

1588: 1888

I

I

England, mother born of seamen, daughter fostered of the sea,

Mother more beloved than all who bear not all their children free,

Reared and nursed and crowned and cherished by the sea-wind and

the sun,

Sweetest land and strongest, face most fair and mightiest heart

in one,

Stands not higher than when the centuries known of earth were less

by three,

When the strength that struck the whole world pale fell back from

hers undone.

II

At her feet were the heads of her foes bowed down, and the

strengths of the storm of them stayed,

And the hearts that were touched not with mercy with terror were

touched and amazed and affrayed:

Yea, hearts that had never been molten with pity were molten with

fear as with flame,

And the priests of the Godhead whose temple is hell, and his heart

is of iron and fire,

And the swordsmen that served and the seamen that sped them, whom

peril could tame not or tire,

Were as foam on the winds of the waters of England which tempest

can tire not or tame.

III

They were girded about with thunder, and lightning came forth of

the rage of their strength,

And the measure that measures the wings of the storm was the

breadth of their force and the length:

And the name of their might was Invincible, covered and clothed

with the terror of God;

With his wrath were they winged, with his love were they fired,

with the speed of his winds were they shod;

With his soul were they filled, in his trust were they comforted:

grace was upon them as night,

And faith as the blackness of darkness: the fume of their balefires

was fair in his sight,

The reek of them sweet as a savour of myrrh in his nostrils: the

world that he made,

Theirs was it by gift of his servants: the wind, if they spake in

his name, was afraid,

And the sun was a shadow before it, the stars were astonished with

fear of it: fire

Went up to them, fed with men living, and lit of men's hands for a

shrine or a pyre;

And the east and the west wind scattered their ashes abroad, that

his name should be blest

Of the tribes of the chosen whose blessings are curses from

uttermost east unto west.

II

I

Hell for Spain, and heaven for England,--God to God, and man to

man,--

Met confronted, light with darkness, life with death: since time

began,

Never earth nor sea beheld so great a stake before them set,

Save when Athens hurled back Asia from the lists wherein they

met;

Never since the sands of ages through the glass of history ran

Saw the sun in heaven a lordlier day than this that lights us

yet.

II

For the light that abides upon England, the glory that rests on her

godlike name,

The pride that is love and the love that is faith, a perfume

dissolved in flame,

Took fire from the dawn of the fierce July when fleets were

scattered as foam

And squadrons as flakes of spray; when galleon and galliass that

shadowed the sea

Were swept from her waves like shadows that pass with the clouds

they fell from, and she

Laughed loud to the wind as it gave to her keeping the glories of

Spain and Rome.

III

Three hundred summers have fallen as leaves by the storms in their

season thinned,

Since northward the war-ships of Spain came sheer up the way of the

south-west wind:

Where the citadel cliffs of England are flanked with bastions of

serpentine,

Far off to the windward loomed their hulls, an hundred and

twenty-nine,

All filled full of the war, full-fraught with battle and charged

with bale;

Then store-ships weighted with cannon; and all were an hundred and

fifty sail.

The measureless menace of darkness anhungered with hope to prevail

upon light,

The shadow of death made substance, the present and visible spirit

of night,

Came, shaped as a waxing or waning moon that rose with the fall of

day,

To the channel where couches the Lion in guard of the gate of the

lustrous bay.

Fair England, sweet as the sea that shields her, and pure as the

sea from stain,

Smiled, hearing hardly for scorn that stirred her the menace of

saintly Spain.

III

I

"They that ride over ocean wide with hempen bridle and horse of

tree,"

How shall they in the darkening day of wrath and anguish and fear

go free?

How shall these that have curbed the seas not feel his bridle who

made the sea?

God shall bow them and break them now: for what is man in the Lord

God's sight?

Fear shall shake them, and shame shall break, and all the noon of

their pride be night:

These that sinned shall the ravening wind of doom bring under, and

judgment smite.

England broke from her neck the yoke, and rent the fetter, and

mocked the rod:

Shrines of old that she decked with gold she turned to dust, to the

dust she trod:

What is she, that the wind and sea should fight beside her, and war

with God?

Lo, the cloud of his ships that crowd her channel's inlet with

storm sublime,

Darker far than the tempests are that sweep the skies of her

northmost clime;

Huge and dense as the walls that fence the secret darkness of

unknown time.

Mast on mast as a tower goes past, and sail by sail as a cloud's

wing spread;

Fleet by fleet, as the throngs whose feet keep time with death in

his dance of dread;

Galleons dark as the helmsman's bark of old that ferried to hell

the dead.

Squadrons proud as their lords, and loud with tramp of soldiers

and chant of priests;

Slaves there told by the thousandfold, made fast in bondage as

herded beasts;

Lords and slaves that the sweet free waves shall feed on, satiate

with funeral feasts.

Nay, not so shall it be, they know; their priests have said it; can

priesthood lie?

God shall keep them, their God shall sleep not: peril and evil

shall pass them by:

Nay, for these are his children; seas and winds shall bid not his

children die.

II

So they boast them, the monstrous host whose menace mocks at the

dawn: and here

They that wait at the wild sea's gate, and watch the darkness of

doom draw near,

How shall they in their evil day sustain the strength of their

hearts for fear?

Full July in the fervent sky sets forth her twentieth of changing

morns:

Winds fall mild that of late waxed wild: no presage whispers or

wails or warns:

Far to west on the bland sea's breast a sailing crescent uprears

her horns.

Seven wide miles the serene sea smiles between them stretching from

rim to rim:

Soft they shine, but a darker sign should bid not hope or belief

wax dim:

God's are these men, and not the sea's: their trust is set not on

her but him.

God's? but who is the God whereto the prayers and incense of these

men rise?

What is he, that the wind and sea should fear him, quelled by his

sunbright eyes?

What, that men should return again, and hail him Lord of the

servile skies?

Hell's own flame at his heavenly name leaps higher and laughs, and

its gulfs rejoice:

Plague and death from his baneful breath take life and lighten, and

praise his choice:

Chosen are they to devour for prey the tribes that hear not and

fear his voice.

Ay, but we that the wind and sea gird round with shelter of storms

and waves

Know not him that ye worship, grim as dreams that quicken from dead

men's graves:

God is one with the sea, the sun, the land that nursed us, the love

that saves.

Love whose heart is in ours, and part of all things noble and all

things fair;

Sweet and free as the circling sea, sublime and kind as the

fostering air;

Pure of shame as is England's name, whose crowns to come are as

crowns that were.

IV

I

But the Lord of darkness, the God whose love is a flaming fire,

The master whose mercy fulfils wide hell till its torturers tire,

He shall surely have heed of his servants who serve him for love,

not hire.

They shall fetter the wing of the wind whose pinions are plumed

with foam:

For now shall thy horn be exalted, and now shall thy bolt strike

home;

Yea, now shall thy kingdom come, Lord God of the priests of Rome.

They shall cast thy curb on the waters, and bridle the waves of the

sea:

They shall say to her, Peace, be still: and stillness and peace

shall be:

And the winds and the storms shall hear them, and tremble, and

worship thee.

Thy breath shall darken the morning, and wither the mounting sun;

And the daysprings, frozen and fettered, shall know thee, and cease

to run;

The heart of the world shall feel thee, and die, and thy will be

done.

The spirit of man that would sound thee, and search out causes of

things,

Shall shrink and subside and praise thee: and wisdom, with

plume-plucked wings,

Shall cower at thy feet and confess thee, that none may fathom thy

springs.

The fountains of song that await but the wind of an April to be

To burst the bonds of the winter, and speak with the sound of a

sea,

The blast of thy mouth shall quench them: and song shall be only of

thee.

The days that are dead shall quicken, the seasons that were shall

return;

And the streets and the pastures of England, the woods that burgeon

and yearn,

Shall be whitened with ashes of women and children and men that

burn.

For the mother shall burn with the babe sprung forth of her womb in

fire,

And bride with bridegroom, and brother with sister, and son with

sire;

And the noise of the flames shall be sweet in thine ears as the

sound of a lyre.

Yea, so shall thy kingdom be stablished, and so shall the signs of

it be:

And the world shall know, and the wind shall speak, and the sun

shall see,

That these are the works of thy servants, whose works bear witness

to thee.

II

But the dusk of the day falls fruitless, whose light should have

lit them on:

Sails flash through the gloom to shoreward, eclipsed as the sun

that shone:

And the west wind wakes with dawn, and the hope that was here is

gone.

Around they wheel and around, two knots to the Spaniard's one,

The wind-swift warriors of England, who shoot as with shafts of the

sun,

With fourfold shots for the Spaniard's, that spare not till day be

done.

And the wind with the sundown sharpens, and hurtles the ships to

the lee,

And Spaniard on Spaniard smites, and shatters, and yields; and we,

Ere battle begin, stand lords of the battle, acclaimed of the sea.

And the day sweeps round to the nightward; and heavy and hard the

waves

Roll in on the herd of the hurtling galleons; and masters and

slaves

Reel blind in the grasp of the dark strong wind that shall dig

their graves.

For the sepulchres hollowed and shaped of the wind in the swerve of

the seas,

The graves that gape for their pasture, and laugh, thrilled through

by the breeze,

The sweet soft merciless waters, await and are fain of these.

As the hiss of a Python heaving in menace of doom to be

They hear through the clear night round them, whose hours are as

clouds that flee,

The whisper of tempest sleeping, the heave and the hiss of the sea.

But faith is theirs, and with faith are they girded and helmed and

shod:

Invincible are they, almighty, elect for a sword and a rod;

Invincible even as their God is omnipotent, infinite, God.

In him is their strength, who have sworn that his glory shall wax

not dim:

In his name are their war-ships hallowed as mightiest of all that

swim:

The men that shall cope with these, and conquer, shall cast out

him.

In him is the trust of their hearts; the desire of their eyes is

he;

The light of their ways, made lightning for men that would fain be

free:

Earth's hosts are with them, and with them is heaven: but with us

is the sea.

V

I

And a day and a night pass over;

And the heart of their chief swells high;

For England, the warrior, the rover,

Whose banners on all winds fly,

Soul-stricken, he saith, by the shadow of death, holds off him, and

draws not nigh.

And the wind and the dawn together

Make in from the gleaming east:

And fain of the wild glad weather

As famine is fain of feast,

And fain of the fight, forth sweeps in its might the host of the

Lord's high priest.

And lightly before the breeze

The ships of his foes take wing:

Are they scattered, the lords of the seas?

Are they broken, the foes of the king?

And ever now higher as a mounting fire the hopes of the Spaniard

spring.

And a windless night comes down:

And a breezeless morning, bright

With promise of praise to crown

The close of the crowning fight,

Leaps up as the foe's heart leaps, and glows with lustrous rapture

of light.

And stinted of gear for battle

The ships of the sea's folk lie,

Unwarlike, herded as cattle,

Six miles from the foeman's eye

That fastens as flame on the sight of them tame and offenceless,

and ranged as to die.

Surely the souls in them quail,

They are stricken and withered at heart,

When in on them, sail by sail,

Fierce marvels of monstrous art,

Tower darkening on tower till the sea-winds cower crowds down as to

hurl them apart.

And the windless weather is kindly,

And comforts the host in these;

And their hearts are uplift in them blindly,

And blindly they boast at ease

That the next day's fight shall exalt them, and smite with

destruction the lords of the seas.

II

And lightly the proud hearts prattle,

And lightly the dawn draws nigh,

The dawn of the doom of the battle

When these shall falter and fly;

No day more great in the roll of fate filled ever with fire the

sky.

To fightward they go as to feastward,

And the tempest of ships that drive

Sets eastward ever and eastward,

Till closer they strain and strive;

And the shots that rain on the hulls of Spain are as thunders afire

and alive.

And about them the blithe sea smiles

And flashes to windward and lee

Round capes and headlands and isles

That heed not if war there be;

Round Sark, round Wight, green jewels of light in the ring of the

golden sea.

But the men that within them abide

Are stout of spirit and stark

As rocks that repel the tide,

As day that repels the dark;

And the light bequeathed from their swords unsheathed shines lineal

on Wight and on Sark.

And eastward the storm sets ever,

The storm of the sails that strain

And follow and close and sever

And lose and return and gain;

And English thunder divides in sunder the holds of the ships of

Spain.

Southward to Calais, appalled

And astonished, the vast fleet veers;

And the skies are shrouded and palled,

But the moonless midnight hears

And sees how swift on them drive and drift strange flames that the

darkness fears.

They fly through the night from shoreward,

Heart-stricken till morning break,

And ever to scourge them forward

Drives down on them England's Drake,

And hurls them in as they hurtle and spin and stagger, with storm

to wake.

VI

I

And now is their time come on them. For eastward they drift and

reel,

With the shallows of Flanders ahead, with destruction and havoc

at heel,

With God for their comfort only, the God whom they serve; and

here

Their Lord, of his great loving-kindness, may revel and make

good cheer;

Though ever his lips wax thirstier with drinking, and hotter the

lusts in him swell;

For he feeds the thirst that consumes him with blood, and his

winepress fumes with the reek of hell.

II

Fierce noon beats hard on the battle; the galleons that loom to

the lee

Bow down, heel over, uplifting their shelterless hulls from the

sea:

From scuppers aspirt with blood, from guns dismounted and dumb,

The signs of the doom they looked for, the loud mute witnesses

come.

They press with sunset to seaward for comfort: and shall not they

find it there?

O servants of God most high, shall his winds not pass you by, and

his waves not spare?

III

The wings of the south-west wind are widened; the breath of his

fervent lips,

More keen than a sword's edge, fiercer than fire, falls full on the

plunging ships.

The pilot is he of their northward flight, their stay and their

steersman he;

A helmsman clothed with the tempest, and girdled with strength to

constrain the sea.

And the host of them trembles and quails, caught fast in his hand

as a bird in the toils;

For the wrath and the joy that fulfil him are mightier than man's,

whom he slays and spoils.

And vainly, with heart divided in sunder, and labour of wavering

will,

The lord of their host takes counsel with hope if haply their star

shine still,

If haply some light be left them of chance to renew and redeem the

fray;

But the will of the black south-wester is lord of the councils of

war to-day.

One only spirit it quells not, a splendour undarkened of chance or

time;

Be the praise of his foes with Oquendo for ever, a name as a star

sublime.

But here what aid in a hero's heart, what help in his hand may be?

For ever the dark wind whitens and blackens the hollows and heights

of the sea,

And galley by galley, divided and desolate, founders; and none

takes heed,

Nor foe nor friend, if they perish; forlorn, cast off in their

uttermost need,

They sink in the whelm of the waters, as pebbles by children from

shoreward hurled,

In the North Sea's waters that end not, nor know they a bourn but

the bourn of the world.

Past many a secure unavailable harbour, and many a loud stream's

mouth,

Past Humber and Tees and Tyne and Tweed, they fly, scourged on from

the south,

And torn by the scourge of the storm-wind that smites as a harper

smites on a lyre,

And consumed of the storm as the sacrifice loved of their God is

consumed with fire,

And devoured of the darkness as men that are slain in the fires of

his love are devoured,

And deflowered of their lives by the storms, as by priests is the

spirit of life deflowered.

For the wind, of its godlike mercy, relents not, and hounds them

ahead to the north,

With English hunters at heel, till now is the herd of them past the

Forth,

All huddled and hurtled seaward; and now need none wage war upon

these,

Nor huntsmen follow the quarry whose fall is the pastime sought of

the seas.

Day upon day upon day confounds them, with measureless mists that

swell,

With drift of rains everlasting and dense as the fumes of ascending

hell.

The visions of priest and of prophet beholding his enemies bruised

of his rod

Beheld but the likeness of this that is fallen on the faithful, the

friends of God.

Northward, and northward, and northward they stagger and shudder

and swerve and flit,

Dismantled of masts and of yards, with sails by the fangs of the

storm-wind split.

But north of the headland whose name is Wrath, by the wrath or the

ruth of the sea,

They are swept or sustained to the westward, and drive through the

rollers aloof to the lee.

Some strive yet northward for Iceland, and perish: but some through

the storm-hewn straits

That sunder the Shetlands and Orkneys are borne of the breath which

is God's or fate's:

And some, by the dawn of September, at last give thanks as for

stars that smile,

For the winds have swept them to shelter and sight of the cliffs of

a Catholic isle.

Though many the fierce rocks feed on, and many the merciless

heretic slays,

Yet some that have laboured to land with their treasure are

trustful, and give God praise.

And the kernes of murderous Ireland, athirst with a greed

everlasting of blood,

Unslakable ever with slaughter and spoil, rage down as a ravening

flood,

To slay and to flay of their shining apparel their brethren whom

shipwreck spares;

Such faith and such mercy, such love and such manhood, such hands

and such hearts are theirs.

Short shrift to her foes gives England, but shorter doth Ireland to

friends; and worse

Fare they that came with a blessing on treason than they that come

with a curse.

Hacked, harried, and mangled of axes and skenes, three thousand

naked and dead

Bear witness of Catholic Ireland, what sons of what sires at her

breasts are bred.

Winds are pitiful, waves are merciful, tempest and storm are kind:

The waters that smite may spare, and the thunder is deaf, and the

lightning is blind:

Of these perchance at his need may a man, though they know it not,

yet find grace;

But grace, if another be hardened against him, he gets not at this

man's face.

For his ear that hears and his eye that sees the wreck and the wail

of men,

And his heart that relents not within him, but hungers, are like as

the wolf's in his den.

Worthy are these to worship their master, the murderous Lord of

lies,

Who hath given to the pontiff his servant the keys of the pit and

the keys of the skies.

Wild famine and red-shod rapine are cruel, and bitter with blood

are their feasts;

But fiercer than famine and redder than rapine the hands and the

hearts of priests.

God, God bade these to the battle; and here, on a land by his

servants trod,

They perish, a lordly blood-offering, subdued by the hands of the

servants of God.

These also were fed of his priests with faith, with the milk of his

word and the wine;

These too are fulfilled with the spirit of darkness that guided

their quest divine.

And here, cast up from the ravening sea on the mild land's merciful

breast,

This comfort they find of their fellows in worship; this guerdon is

theirs of their quest.

Death was captain, and doom was pilot, and darkness the chart of

their way;

Night and hell had in charge and in keeping the host of the foes of

day.

Invincible, vanquished, impregnable, shattered, a sign to her foes

of fear,

A sign to the world and the stars of laughter, the fleet of the

Lord lies here.

Nay, for none may declare the place of the ruin wherein she lies;

Nay, for none hath beholden the grave whence never a ghost shall

rise.

The fleet of the foemen of England hath found not one but a

thousand graves;

And he that shall number and name them shall number by name and by

tale the waves.

VII

I

Sixtus, Pope of the Church whose hope takes flight for heaven to

dethrone the sun,

Philip, king that wouldst turn our spring to winter, blasted,

appalled, undone,

Prince and priest, let a mourner's feast give thanks to God for

your conquest won.

England's heel is upon you: kneel, O priest, O prince, in the dust,

and cry,

"Lord, why thus? art thou wroth with us whose faith was great in

thee, God most high?

Whence is this, that the serpent's hiss derides us? Lord, can thy

pledged word lie?

"God of hell, are its flames that swell quenched now for ever,

extinct and dead?

Who shall fear thee? or who shall hear the word thy servants who

feared thee said?

Lord, art thou as the dead gods now, whose arm is shortened, whose

rede is read?

"Yet we thought it was not for nought thy word was given us, to

guard and guide:

Yet we deemed that they had not dreamed who put their trust in

thee. Hast thou lied?

God our Lord, was the sacred sword we drew not drawn on thy

Church's side?

"England hates thee as hell's own gates; and England triumphs, and

Rome bows down:

England mocks at thee; England's rocks cast off thy servants to

drive and drown:

England loathes thee; and fame betroths and plights with England

her faith for crown.

"Spain clings fast to thee; Spain, aghast with anguish, cries to

thee; where art thou?

Spain puts trust in thee; lo, the dust that soils and darkens her

prostrate brow!

Spain is true to thy service; who shall raise up Spain for thy

service now?

"Who shall praise thee, if none may raise thy servants up, nor

affright thy foes?

Winter wanes, and the woods and plains forget the likeness of

storms and snows:

So shall fear of thee fade even here: and what shall follow thee no

man knows."

Lords of night, who would breathe your blight on April's morning

and August's noon,

God your Lord, the condemned, the abhorred, sinks hellward, smitten

with deathlike swoon:

Death's own dart in his hateful heart now thrills, and night shall

receive him soon.

God the Devil, thy reign of revel is here for ever eclipsed and

fled:

God the Liar, everlasting fire lays hold at last on thee, hand and

head:

God the Accurst, the consuming thirst that burns thee never shall

here be fed.

II

England, queen of the waves whose green inviolate girdle enrings

thee round,

Mother fair as the morning, where is now the place of thy foemen

found?

Still the sea that salutes us free proclaims them stricken,

acclaims thee crowned.

Times may change, and the skies grow strange with signs of treason

and fraud and fear:

Foes in union of strange communion may rise against thee from far

and near:

Sloth and greed on thy strength may feed as cankers waxing from

year to year.

Yet, though treason and fierce unreason should league and lie and

defame and smite,

We that know thee, how far below thee the hatred burns of the sons

of night,

We that love thee, behold above thee the witness written of life in

light.

Life that shines from thee shows forth signs that none may read not

but eyeless foes:

Hate, born blind, in his abject mind grows hopeful now but as

madness grows:

Love, born wise, with exultant eyes adores thy glory, beholds and

glows.

Truth is in thee, and none may win thee to lie, forsaking the face

of truth:

Freedom lives by the grace she gives thee, born again from thy

deathless youth:

Faith should fail, and the world turn pale, wert thou the prey of

the serpent's tooth.

Greed and fraud, unabashed, unawed, may strive to sting thee at

heel in vain:

Craft and fear and mistrust may leer and mourn and murmur and plead

and plain:

Thou art thou: and thy sunbright brow is hers that blasted the

strength of Spain.

Mother, mother beloved, none other could claim in place of thee

England's place:

Earth bears none that beholds the sun so pure of record, so clothed

with grace:

Dear our mother, nor son nor brother is thine, as strong or as fair

of face.

How shalt thou be abased? or how shall fear take hold of thy heart?

of thine,

England, maiden immortal, laden with charge of life and with hopes

divine?

Earth shall wither, when eyes turned hither behold not light in her

darkness shine.

England, none that is born thy son, and lives, by grace of thy

glory, free,

Lives and yearns not at heart and burns with hope to serve as he

worships thee;

None may sing thee: the sea-wind's wing beats down our songs as it

hails the sea.

TO A SEAMEW

When I had wings, my brother,

Such wings were mine as thine:

Such life my heart remembers

In all as wild Septembers

As this when life seems other,

Though sweet, than once was mine;

When I had wings, my brother,

Such wings were mine as thine.

Such life as thrills and quickens

The silence of thy flight,

Or fills thy note's elation

With lordlier exultation

Than man's, whose faint heart sickens

With hopes and fears that blight

Such life as thrills and quickens

The silence of thy flight.

Thy cry from windward clanging

Makes all the cliffs rejoice;

Though storm clothe seas with sorrow,

Thy call salutes the morrow;

While shades of pain seem hanging

Round earth's most rapturous voice,

Thy cry from windward clanging

Makes all the cliffs rejoice.

We, sons and sires of seamen,

Whose home is all the sea,

What place man may, we claim it;

But thine--whose thought may name it?

Free birds live higher than freemen,

And gladlier ye than we--

We, sons and sires of seamen,

Whose home is all the sea.

For you the storm sounds only

More notes of more delight

Than earth's in sunniest weather:

When heaven and sea together

Join strengths against the lonely

Lost bark borne down by night,

For you the storm sounds only

More notes of more delight.

With wider wing, and louder

Long clarion-call of joy,

Thy tribe salutes the terror

Of darkness, wild as error,

But sure as truth, and prouder

Than waves with man for toy;

With wider wing, and louder

Long clarion-call of joy.

The wave's wing spreads and flutters,

The wave's heart swells and breaks;

One moment's passion thrills it,

One pulse of power fulfils it

And ends the pride it utters

When, loud with life that quakes,

The wave's wing spreads and flutters,

The wave's heart swells and breaks.

But thine and thou, my brother,

Keep heart and wing more high

Than aught may scare or sunder;

The waves whose throats are thunder

Fall hurtling each on other,

And triumph as they die;

But thine and thou, my brother,

Keep heart and wing more high.

More high than wrath or anguish,

More strong than pride or fear,

The sense or soul half hidden

In thee, for us forbidden,

Bids thee nor change nor languish,

But live thy life as here,

More high than wrath or anguish,

More strong than pride or fear.

We are fallen, even we, whose passion

On earth is nearest thine;

Who sing, and cease from flying;

Who live, and dream of dying:

Grey time, in time's grey fashion,

Bids wingless creatures pine:

We are fallen, even we, whose passion

On earth is nearest thine.

The lark knows no such rapture,

Such joy no nightingale,

As sways the songless measure

Wherein thy wings take pleasure:

Thy love may no man capture,

Thy pride may no man quail;

The lark knows no such rapture,

Such joy no nightingale.

And we, whom dreams embolden,

We can but creep and sing

And watch through heaven's waste hollow

The flight no sight may follow

To the utter bourne beholden

Of none that lack thy wing:

And we, whom dreams embolden,

We can but creep and sing.

Our dreams have wings that falter,

Our hearts bear hopes that die;

For thee no dream could better

A life no fears may fetter,

A pride no care can alter,

That wots not whence or why

Our dreams have wings that falter,

Our hearts bear hopes that die.

With joy more fierce and sweeter

Than joys we deem divine

Their lives, by time untarnished,

Are girt about and garnished,

Who match the wave's full metre

And drink the wind's wild wine

With joy more fierce and sweeter

Than joys we deem divine.

Ah, well were I for ever,

Wouldst thou change lives with me,

And take my song's wild honey,

And give me back thy sunny

Wide eyes that weary never,

And wings that search the sea;

Ah, well were I for ever,

Wouldst thou change lives with me.

_Beachy Head: September 1886._

PAN AND THALASSIUS

A LYRICAL IDYL

THALASSIUS

Pan!

PAN

O sea-stray, seed of Apollo,

What word wouldst thou have with me?

My ways thou wast fain to follow

Or ever the years hailed thee

Man.

Now

If August brood on the valleys,

If satyrs laugh on the lawns,

What part in the wildwood alleys

Hast thou with the fleet-foot fauns--

Thou?

See!

Thy feet are a man's--not cloven

Like these, not light as a boy's:

The tresses and tendrils inwoven

That lure us, the lure of them cloys

Thee.

Us

The joy of the wild woods never

Leaves free of the thirst it slakes:

The wild love throbs in us ever

That burns in the dense hot brakes

Thus.

Life,

Eternal, passionate, awless,

Insatiable, mutable, dear,

Makes all men's law for us lawless:

We strive not: how should we fear

Strife?

We,

The birds and the bright winds know not

Such joys as are ours in the mild

Warm woodland; joys such as grow not

In waste green fields of the wild

Sea.

No;

Long since, in the world's wind veering,

Thy heart was estranged from me:

Sweet Echo shall yield thee not hearing:

What have we to do with thee?

Go.

THALASSIUS

Ay!

Such wrath on thy nostril quivers

As once in Sicilian heat

Bade herdsmen quail, and the rivers

Shrank, leaving a path for thy feet

Dry?

Nay,

Low down in the hot soft hollow

Too snakelike hisses thy spleen:

"O sea-stray, seed of Apollo!"

What ill hast thou heard or seen?

Say.

Man

Knows well, if he hears beside him

The snarl of thy wrath at noon,

What evil may soon betide him,

Or late, if thou smite not soon,

Pan.

Me

The sound of thy flute, that flatters

The woods as they smile and sigh,

Charmed fast as it charms thy satyrs,

Can charm no faster than I

Thee.

Fast

Thy music may charm the splendid

Wide woodland silence to sleep

With sounds and dreams of thee blended

And whispers of waters that creep

Past.

Here

The spell of thee breathes and passes

And bids the heart in me pause,

Hushed soft as the leaves and the grasses

Are hushed if the storm's foot draws

Near.

Yet

The panic that strikes down strangers

Transgressing thy ways unaware

Affrights not me nor endangers

Through dread of thy secret snare

Set.

PAN

Whence

May man find heart to deride me?

Who made his face as a star

To shine as a God's beside me?

Nay, get thee away from us, far

Hence.

THALASSIUS

Then

Shall no man's heart, as he raises

A hymn to thy secret head,

Wax great with the godhead he praises:

Thou, God, shalt be like unto dead

Men.

PAN

Grace

I take not of men's thanksgiving,

I crave not of lips that live;

They die, and behold, I am living,

While they and their dead Gods give

Place.

THALASSIUS

Yea:

Too lightly the words were spoken

That mourned or mocked at thee dead:

But whose was the word, the token,

The song that answered and said

Nay?

PAN

Whose

But mine, in the midnight hidden,

Clothed round with the strength of night

And mysteries of things forbidden

For all but the one most bright

Muse?

THALASSIUS

Hers

Or thine, O Pan, was the token

That gave back empire to thee

When power in thy hands lay broken

As reeds that quake if a bee

Stirs?

PAN

Whom

Have I in my wide woods need of?

Urania's limitless eyes

Behold not mine end, though they read of

A word that shall speak to the skies

Doom.

THALASSIUS

She

Gave back to thee kingdom and glory,

And grace that was thine of yore,

And life to thy leaves, late hoary

As weeds cast up from the hoar

Sea.

Song

Can bid faith shine as the morning

Though light in the world be none:

Death shrinks if her tongue sound warning,

Night quails, and beholds the sun

Strong.

PAN

Night

Bare rule over men for ages

Whose worship wist not of me

And gat but sorrows for wages,

And hardly for tears could see

Light.

Call

No more on the starry presence

Whose light through the long dark swam:

Hold fast to the green world's pleasance:

For I that am lord of it am

All.

THALASSIUS