Wonderland is here and there;
Wonderland is everywhere;
Fly not then to east or west
On some far, uncertain quest.
Seek not India nor Japan,
Nor the city Ispahan,
Where to-day the shadows brood
Over lonely Zendarood.
Somewhere smileth far Cathay
Through the long resplendent day;
Somewhere, moored in purple seas,
Sleep the fair Hesperides.
Somewhere, in vague realms remote
Over which strange banners float,
Lies, all bathed in silver gleams,
The dear Wonderland of dreams.
Yet no need to sail in ships
Where the blue sea dips and dips,
Nor on wings of cloud to fly
Where the haunts of faery lie.
For by miracle of morn
Each successive day is born;
And wherever shines the sun,
There enchanted rivers run!
Would you go to Wonderland?
Lo! it lieth close at hand;
Wonderland is wheresoe’er
Eyes can see and ears can hear!
IN A GALLERY
(ANTWERP, 1891)
The Virgin floating on the silver moon;
Madonna Mary with her holy child;
Pale Christs on shuddering crosses lifted high;
Sweet angel faces, bending from the blue;
Saints rapt from earth in ecstasy divine,
And martyrs all unmindful of their pain;
Bold, mail-clad knights; fair ladyes whom they loved;
Brown fisher-boys and maidens; harvest-fields,
Where patient women toiled; with here and there
The glint of summer skies and summer seas,
And the red glow of humble, household fires!
Breathless I stood and silent, even as one
Who, seeing all, sees nothing. Then a face
Down the long gallery drew me as a star;
A winsome, beckoning face, with bearded lips
Just touched with dawning laughter, and clear eyes
That kept their own dear secret, smiling still
With a soft challenge. Dark robes lost in shade,
Laces at throat and wrist, an ancient chair,
And a long, slender hand whose fingers held
Loosely a parchment scroll—and that was all.
Yet from those high, imperial presences,
Those lofty ones uplifted from dear earth
With all its loves and longings, back I turned
Again and yet again, lured by the smile
That called me like a voice, “Come hither, friend!”
“Simon de Vos,” thus saith the catalogue,
And “Painted by himself.”
Three hundred years
Thou hast been dust and ashes. I who write
And they who read, we know another world
From that thine eyes looked out on. Wouldst thou smile,
Even as here thou smilest, if to-day
Thou wert still of us? O, thou joyous one,
Whose light, half-mocking laughter hath outlived
So much earth held more precious, let thy lips
Open and answer me! Whence was it born,
The radiance of thy tender, sparkling face?
What manner of man wert thou? For the books
Of the long generations do not tell!
Art thou a name, a smile, and nothing more?
What dreams and visions hadst thou? Other men
Would pose as heroes; would go grandly down
To coming ages in the martyr’s _rôle_;
Or, if perchance they’re poets, set their woes
To wailing music, that the world may count
Their heart-throbs in the chanting of a song.
Immortal thou, by virtue of one smile!
IN MARBLE PRAYER
(CANTERBURY, 1891)
So still, so still they lie
As centuries pass by,
Their pale hands folded in imploring prayer;
They never lift their eyes
In sudden, sweet surprise;
The wandering winds stir not their heavy hair
Forth from their close-sealed lips
Nor moan, nor laughter, slips,
Nor lightest sigh to wake the entrancèd air!
Yet evermore they pray!
We creatures of a day
Live, love, and vanish from the gaze of men;
Nations arise and fall;
Oblivion’s heavy pall
Hides kings and princes from all human ken,
While these in marble state,
From age to age await
The rolling thunder of the last amen!
Not in dim crypts alone,
Or aisles of fretted stone,
Where high cathedral altars gleam afar;
And the red light streams down
On mitre and on crown,
Till each proud jewel blazes like a star;
But where the tall grass waves
O’er long-forgotten graves,
Their silent worship no rude sounds can mar!
Dost Thou not hear and heed?
O, in Earth’s utmost need
Wilt Thou not hearken, Thou who didst create?
Not for themselves they pray
Whose woes have passed for aye;
For us, for us, before Thy throne they wait!
Thou Sovereign Lord of All,
On whom they mutely call,
Hear Thou and answer from thine high estate!