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A SUMMER NIGHT AND OTHER POEMS

A SU M M E R NIGHT
33 73 4.

AND OTHER POEMS
BY \ - $
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- . G R A H A M R. T.O MS ON J ſpace-ef.
WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY A. TOMSON
99etburn and QLo.
I 8 BURY STREET, W.C.
I 89 I
[.422 rights reserved]
TO
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AUGUST 1891
!, kº-> -> ?/^ º^? 2 e^- ;º） - 2/– Z.
SoME of the verses in this collection now
appear for the first time. Others are reprinted
by the kind permission of the editors of The
National Observer, The Atlantic Monthly, and
of Messrs. Longman's, Harper’s, Scribner’s,
and Macmillan’s Magazines.
C O N T E N T S
PAGE
A SUMMER NIGHT, . tº º e I
IN A LONDON GARDEN,
3
CHIMAERA, . 4.
-WORSHIP, 6
OF THE EARTH, EARTHY, e e gº 8
IN THE RAIN, & gº * :: I O
TRANSFORMATION, . g e * I 3
AUBADE, . & e & t I 5
RESURGAM, . gº sº * e 17
THE HOUSE OF DREAM, © * * 2 O
REVEILLE, . * e tº * 23
X CONTENTS
PAGE
SPRING SONG, g & & * 25
WESTWARD HO ! e * & e 27
ON THE DOWNS, * g gº ge 29
THE FARM ON THE LINKS, º * * 33
A VIGIL, . e tº e * 35
TWO SONGS, * ge e º 37
A SOUTH COAST IDYL, * e ę 39
AFTER SUNSET, * g * * 4. I
CLOUD ARMIES, e e e e 42
IN THE ORCHARD, . e tº * 43
ILLUSIONS . * º º * 45
HESTERNAE ROSE, * & & º 46
AT THE FERRY, º e e & 49
THE NIGHTINGALE’s CHILDREN, tº e 5 I
DORINDA’s MIRROR, . º * e 53
CONTENTS xi
PAGE
TO MY CAT, . e tº e & S 5
AN ENCHANTED PRINCESS, . g & 56
THE LAST FAIRY, * & & º 58
BORDERLAND, tº e e © 62
THE MOOR GIRL's WELL, e e e 66
A BALLAD OF THE WERE-woLF, * * 7 I
THE GYPSY wooER, . tº s * 74.
BALLAD OF THE WILLOW POOL, & * 77
A SU M M E R NIGHT.
‘Le vent qui vient d travers la montagne
Me rendra fou.’
HE linden leaves are wet,
The gas-lights flare—
Deep yellow jewels set
In dusky air,
In dim air subtly sweet
With vanished rain.
Hush l—from the distant street
Again—again—
Life’s music swells and falls,
Despairing—light—
Beyond my garden walls
This summer night.
A
A SUMMER NIGHT
Where do you call me, where?
O voice that cries l
O murky evening air,
What Paradise,
Unsought, unfound, unknown,
Inviteth me,
With faint night-odours blown 2
With murmurous plea P
Future art thou, or Past?
Hope, or Regret?
My heart throbs thick and fast,
Mine eyes are wet,
For well and well I know
Thou hast no share,
Nor hence, nor long ago,
Nor anywhere.
IN A L ON DO N G A R D EN.
O HANGING linden leaves the lamp shines through,
Loose-dropping discs of limpid yellow lustre,
Like magic fruits upon the dusky blue;
Voiceless and viewless as the falling dew,
Unshapen dreams amid your shadows cluster.
O dreaming airl your dream must needs be sweet,
The secret thought you fain would tell but dare not.
One with the message of the passing feet,
The roll of wheels, the murmur of the street,
Be it false or true, be it life or death, I care not.
O luminous dusk! Heart of the summer night!
Hold fast your secret, breathe the watchword never.
Keep it inviolate, veiled from sense and sight;
Safe from disclosure's disenchanting blight,
Dear and desired, unknown, beloved for ever.
C HIM AER A.
HE yellow light of an opal
On the white-walled houses dies
The roadway beyond my garden
It glimmers with golden eyes.
Alone in the faint spring twilight,
The crepuscle vague and blue,
Every beat of my pulses
Is quickened by dreams of you.
You whom I know and know not
You come as you came before
Here, in the misty quiet,
I greet you again once more.
CHIMAENA
Welcome, O best belovèd—
Life of my life—for lo!
All that I ask you promise,
All that I seek you know.
The dim grass stirs with your footstep,
The blue dusk throbs with your smile;
I and the world of glory
Are one for a little while.
The spring sun shows me your shadow,
The spring wind bears me your breath,
You are mine for a passing moment,
But I am yours to the death.
W OR SHIP.
IN the tremulous thin sunlight,
With the high red wall between them,
Lie my garden green and quiet,
And the Chapel of Our Lady.
Comes the sound of many voices
With the organ rising, falling :-
Waves of sound and waves of sunlight
Launch me on a sea of wonder;
And the mystery of worship,
All its glamour, all its sweetness,
Strong as death and deep as longing,
Sweet with more than human passion,
Deep with more than human yearning,
Leads me to the land I know not.
WORSHIP
Ah, the land, the land we know not,
Ah, the heart’s desire that claims us;
Where art thou, belovèd country?
Thou the dear, the long-desirèd;—
We that seek not, shall we find thee?
Yet a little while we win thee
In the vague unearthly passion,
In the mystery of Worship.
OF THE EARTH, EARTHY.
NEVER for us those dreams aforetime shown
Of white-winged angels on a shining stair,
Or seas of sapphire round a jasper throne:
Give us the spangled dusk, the turbid street;
The dun, dim pavement trod by myriad feet,
stained with the yellow lamplight here and there;
The chill blue skies beyond the spires of stone:
The world's invincible youth is all our own,
Here where we feel life’s pulses burn and beat.
Here is the pride of Life, be it foul or fair,
This clash and swirl of streets in the twilight air;
Beauty and Grime, indifferent, side by side;
Surfeit and Thirst, Endeavour and Despair,
Content and Squalor, Lassitude and Care,
OF THE EARTH, EARTHY
All in the golden lamplight glorified:
All quick, all real, hurrying near and wide.
Life and Life’s worst and best be ours to share,
Charm of the motley I undefined and rare;
Melodious discord in the heart o’ the tune,
Sweet with the hoarse note jarring everywhere !
Let us but live, and every field shall bear
Fruit for our joy; for Life is Life's best boon.
IN THE RAIN.
AIN in the glimmering street—
Murmurous, rhythmical beat;
Shadows that flicker and fly;
Blue of wet road, of wet sky,
(Grey in the depths and the heights);
Orange of numberless lights,
Shapes fleeting on, going by.
Figures, fantastical, grim—
Figures, prosaical, tame,
Each with chameleon-stain,
Dun in the crepuscle dim,
Red in the nimbus of flame—
Glance through the veil of the rain.
IN THE RAIN I I
Rain in the measureless Street—
Vistas of orange and blue ;
Music of echoing feet,
Pausing, and pacing anew.
Rain, and the clamour of wheels,
Splendour, and shadow, and Sound;
Coloured confusion that reels
Lost in the twilight around.
When I lie hid from the light,
Stark, with the turf overhead,
Still, on a rainy Spring night,
I shall come back from the dead.
Turn then and look for me here
Stealing the shadows along ;
Look for me—I shall be near,
Deep in the heart of the throng:
I 2
IN THE RAIN
Here, where the current runs rife,
Careless, and doleful, and gay,
Moving, and motley, and strong,
Good in its sport, in its strife.
Ah, might I be—might I stay—
Only for ever and aye,
Living and looking on life
T R A N S FOR M A TI O N.
FAR from country lanes and leas,
O'er pavements foul with stain and spot,
I hastened, holding—half forgot—
In careless hands, a clustered knot
Of rosy, frail anemones.
The Sun shone round them, gold and rose,
And sudden wonder dawned on me,
For that mean by-way seemed to be
More fair than isles of Arcady,
Or splendours of eternal snows.
Transfigured stretched the squalid street,
With all its tawdry shops arow :
I felt the cowslips round me blow,
The cold spring twilights clear and slow,
The dews of dawn about my feet.
I4. TRANSFORMATION
O wonder-wealth without alloy,
Breath from the far-off fields divine !
The spring sun sheds his amber wine,
And makes the viewless glories mine,
The earth's illimitable joy.
A U B A D E.
HE lights are out in the street, and a cool wind
Swings
Loose poplar plumes on the sky;
Deep in the gloom of the garden the first bird sings:
Curt, hurried steps go by
Loud in the hush of the dawn past the linden
Screen,
Lost in a jar and a rattle of wheels unseen
Beyond on the wide highway:—
Night lingers dusky and dim in the pear-tree
boughs,
Hangs in the hollows of leaves, though the thrushes
rouse,
And the glimmering lawn grows grey.
I6 AUBADE
Yours, my heart knoweth, yours only, the jewelled
gloom,
Splendours of opal and amber, the scent, the bloom,
Yours all, and your own demesne—
Scent of the dark, of the dawning, of leaves and dew;
Nothing that was but hath changed—’tis a world
made new—
A lost world risen again.
The lamps are out in the street, and the air grows
bright—
Come—lest the miracle fade in the broad, bare light,
The new world wither away:
Clear is your voice in my heart, and you call me—
whence 2
Come—for I listen, I wait, bid me rise, go hence,
Or ever the dawn turn day.
R E S U R G A M.
Though I am old, the world will still be
young—
The spring wind breathes on slumbering memories,
The spring birds pipe amid my garden trees,
And dense and green the new year’s grass hath
sprung :
Ay, though my light is dimmed and my heart wrung
By pitiless eld’s unsparing cruelties.
Ah, for that shore beyond the unsailed seas 1
Where burns the Fire of Life with equal flame:
Where never sigheth song nor bringeth breeze
One whisper of the pride of youth's surcease,
The faded years’ inevitable shame.
I 8 RESURGAM
And yet—and yet—most sweet it is to know
That though my meagre days be withering,
Still shall be wrought the miracle of Spring,
That deep May nights shall bloom, and love-lamps
glow,
Still shall the town’s bright rapids swirl and flow,
The meteor troop of passions come and go ;
That men shall love, and hate, and laugh, and sing.
I see my imperfection perfected,
My hampered hopes by stronger hearts set free,
My halting plans by others crowned and sped,
Whose feet shall find the paths I might not tread,
Whose clearer eyes the things I loved shall see:–
The sunlight gold—the shadow of the dawn—
The autumn evening’s amber sorcery,
When o'er my head the veil of death is drawn
And all the waves of Night go over me.
RESURGAM I9
And so I cannot but be comforted
To think how fair my world will always be,
That Youth and Spring revive eternally,
That abler hands shall labour in my stead,
And gay new ventures dare the hazardous sea :
Thus shall I live again though I be dead;
And all my soul is glad unspeakably.
THE HOUSE OF DREAM.
STILL stands the mansion, glorious as of old,
My earliest citadel,
My strong, impregnable hold,
Where veriest dross was turned to purest gold,
Where my best hours befell.
These winter days are colourless and cold,
Yet I remember well
The painted books, the pictures on the walls,
The shadowy maze of corridors and halls;
The sweet secluded cell
Where through the casement crept the clustering vine,
And late, red sun-rays warmed my heart like wine
With joy unspeakable l
THE HOUSE OF DREAM 2 I
But I am banished from that dear demesne,
The tale is told, the spring-tide songs are sung :
Strange faces mock me, beautiful and young,
From the clear window-pane
Lit like a topaz; and I hear within
Clamour of shrill young voices, and the din
Of dancing feet upon the chamber floor,
While I, without, in the November rain,
Turn from the open door;
Raising the siege, ah, desperate quest and vain
Of my old home that knows me now no more.
Void is the vow, and naught the magic name,
Once would you give what now I could not claim,
Once were you dear and I the honoured guest—
The old order changeth at grey Time’s behest—
His be the blame !
22 THE HOUSE OF DREAM
O House beloved—unchanged I
Eld hath divided us and years estranged,
You stand immortal still—
Youth presses gaily through your open door,
But I–no more.
R E V E I L L E.
ETWEEN the dark and light,
Between the day and night,
*Twixt dreams and wakening,
Clear through the dawning grey,
Faintly, as far away,
I heard the first bird sing,
Like a cool fountain’s call
Singing in cadenced fall,
Limpid as Summer rain,
Leading the wand’rer, deep
In quiet groves of Sleep,
Back to the world again.
24
REVEILLE
II.
When I am dead and gone,
Over my breast a stone,
Dust on my tired head;
Should you but speak my name,
One withered hour reclaim—
Surely your voice would stir
Grief—or the ghost of her—
There in my darkened bed.
Should you but cry to me
As some stray memory
Fans you with fleeting wing;
I shall remember then
Life and the world of men,
Straight must I wake, alas !
Under the creeping grass,
Hearing—remembering.
S P R IN G. S O N G.
O many ways to wander in,
So many lands to see I
The west wind blows through the orchard-close,
And the white clouds wander free;
The wild birds sing in the heart of Spring,
And the green boughs beckon me.
And it’s O, for the wide world, far away !
'Tis there I fain would be,
It calls me, claims me, the live-long day,
Sweet with the sounds and the scents of May,
And the wind in the linden-tree;
The wild birds sing in the heart of Spring,
And the green boughs beckon me.
26
SPRING SONG
f
‘Far, and far, in the distance dim,
Thy fortune waiteth thee l’—
I know not where, but the world is fair
With many a strange countree;
The wild birds sing in the heart of Spring,
And the green boughs beckon me.
So many ways I may never win,
Skies I may never see I
O wood-ways sweet for the vagrant feet,
What may not come to be?—
What do they sing in the heart of Spring,
And where do they beckon me?
Farewell, farewell, to my father's house !
Farewell, true-love, to thee I
Dear, and dear, are the kind hearts here,
And dear mine own roof-tree—
But the wild birds sing in the heart of Spring,
And the green boughs beckon me.
W E S T W A R D H O !
HE wind blows warm and the skies are gay,
Gone is the last day left of May;
Summer has come at last,
But the best of the year is over,
Past with the prime of the blossoming time
And the little green buds in the clover.
The peonies flaunt their damask pride,
The red rose flames by the garden-side,
Summer holds royal state;
The nightingale’s note is stronger,
But the best of his tune was sung ere June
And the cowslips blow no longer.
28
WESTWARD HO !
But the end of the play is yet to see,
And the best time still is the time to be ;
So it’s hey for the onward way
To the bourne where the blue mists hover ;
What may not flower in the evening hour
Or the westering sun discover ?
O N T H E D O W N S.
ROAD and bare to the skies
The great Down-country lies,
Green in the glance of the Sun,
Fresh with the clean salt air;
Screaming the gulls rise from the fresh-turned mould,
Where the round bosom of the wind-swept wold
Slopes to the valley fair.
Where the pale stubble shines with golden gleam
The silver ploughshare cleaves its hard-won way
Behind the patient team,
The slow black oxen toiling through the day
Tireless, impassive still,
From dawning dusk and chill
To twilight grey.
3O ON THE DOWNS
Far off, the pearly sheep
Along the upland steep
Follow their shepherd from the wattled fold,
With tinkling bell-notes falling sweet and cold
As a stream’s cadence, while a skylark sings
High in the blue, with eager, outstretched wings,
Till the strong passion of his joy be told.
But when the day grows old,
And night cometh fold on fold,
Dulling the western gold,
Blackening bush and tree,
Veiling the ranks of cloud,
In their pallid pomp and proud,
That hasten home from the Sea,
Listen—now and again, if the night be still enow,
You may hear the distant sea range to and fro
Tearing the shingly bourne of his bounden track,
Moaning with hate as he fails and falleth back;
ON THE DOWNS 3 I
The Downs are peopled then;
Fugitive, low-browed men
Start from the slopes around;
Over the murky ground
Crouching they run with rough-wrought bow and spear,
Now seen, now hid, they rise and disappear,
Lost in the gloom again.
Soft on the dew-fall damp
Scarce sounds the measured tramp
Of bronze-mailed sentinels,
Dark on the darkened fells
Guarding the camp.
The Roman watch-fires glow
Red on the dusk; and harsh
Cries a heron flitting slow
Over the valley marsh
Where the sea-mist gathers low.
32
ON THE DOWNS
Closer, and closer yet
Draweth the night’s dim net
Hiding the troubled dead:
No more to see or know
But a black waste lying below,
And a glimmering blank o'erhead.
THE FARM ON THE LINKS.
REY o'er the pallid links, haggard and forsaken,
Still the old roof-tree hangs rotting overhead,
Still the black windows stare sullenly to seaward,
Still the blank doorway gapes, open to the dead.
What is it cries with the crying of the curlews?
What comes apace on those fearful, stealthy feet,
Back from the chill sea-deeps, gliding o'er the sand-
dunes,
Home to the old home, once again to meet 2
What is to say as they gather round the hearth-Stone,
Flameless and dull as the feuds and fears of old 2
Laughing and fleering still, menacing and mocking,
Sadder than death itself, harsher than the cold.
C
34 THE FARM ON THE LINKS
Woe for the ruined hearth, black with dule and evil,
Woe for the wrong and the hate too deep to die!
Woe for the deeds of the dreary days past over,
Woe for the grief of the gloomy days gone by
Where do they come from ? furtive and despairing,
Where are they bound for 2 those that gather there,
Slow, with the sea-wind sobbing through the chambers,
Soft, with the salt mist stealing up the stair?
Names that are nameless now, names of dread and
loathing,
Banned and forbidden yet, dark with spot and stain:
Only the old house watches and remembers,
Only the old home welcomes them again.
A VIGIL.
Neither side the gate,
Looking out o'er the land,
The two gaunt poplars stand;
Silent they watch and wait:
A red rose grows by the fastened door,
And blooms for those who will come no more
Up the pathway straight.
Empty are byre and stall,
But the waters flash and gleam,
And the low trees by the stream
Let their yellow leaflets fall
Bright as of old; and the waste vine flings
Her strangling tangle of leaves and rings
O'er the ruined wall.
36
A VIGIL
Who cometh hushed and late
Here in the dusk? For whom
Do the blood-red roses bloom
And the faithful poplars wait?
What is it steals through the crumbling gate,
With soundless feet on the pathway straight,
In the twilight gloom 2
T W O S O N G S.
HE sun is gone from the valleys,
The air breathes fresh and chill;
On the barn-roof yellow with lichen
A robin is singing shrill.
Like a tawny leaf is his bosom,
Like a dead leaf is his wing;
He is glad of the coming winter
As the thrush is glad of the spring.
The sound of a shepherd’s piping
Comes down from a distant fold,
Like the ripple of running water,
As tuneless, and sweet, and cold.
38
TWO SONGS
The two songs mingle together;
Like and unlike are they,
For one sounds tired and plaintive,
And one rings proud and gay.
They take no thought of their music,
The bird and the shepherd lad; .
But the bird-voice thrills with rapture,
And the human note is sad.
A SOUTH COAST IDYL.
BENEATH these sun-warmed pines among the
heather,
A white goat, bleating, strains his hempen tether,
A purple stain dreams on the broad blue plain,
The waters and the west wind sing together.
The soft grey lichen creeps o'er ridge and hollow,
Where swift and sudden skims the slim sea swallow;
The hid cicalas play their viols all the day,
Merry of heart, although they may not follow.
Beyond yon slope, out-wearied with his reaping,
With vine-bound brows, young Daphnis lies a-sleeping;
Stolen from the sea on feet of ivory,
The white nymphs whisper, through the pine stems
peeping.
40 A SOUTH COAST IDYL
We hear their steps, yet turn to seek them never,
Nor scale the sunny slope in fond endeavour;
It may not be, too swiftly would they flee
Our world-stained gaze and come no more for ever.
Pan, Pan is piping in the noontide golden,
Let us lie still, as in a dream enfolden,
Hear by the sea the airs of Arcady,
And feel the wind of tresses unbeholden.
A F T E R S UN SET.
A WHITE star in an opal sky
Peeps o'er pale cloud-wreaths drifting by:
Across the plain a small gold eye
Blinks from the blue profundity.
C L O U D A R MIES.
EYOND the dark bourne of the hill
The grey cloud-armies fight and fly:
Colossal heroes of the sky
Rank upon rank the welkin fill:
With lance and glaive uplifted high
They chase the flagging enemy,
And darkness finds them fighting still.
I N T H E O R C H A R D.
HE sunlight fades and flickers
And swoons in the flowering grass,
Where, dappled with sun and shadow,
The slow sheep wandering pass.
The wind comes up from the marshes,
A soft wind sunny and low ;
It kisses the rosy apples,
And tosses them to and fro.
It rustles the dim green leafage
That flutters against the blue,
Fresh as the breath of autumn
It murmurs the orchard through.
44
IN THE ORCHARD
The low trees, dun and silver,
Lean over the shepherd lad,
Who pipes in the mellow Sunshine
An old air, simple and Sad.
So sad, so sweet in the sunshine
It quavers, that foolish tune,
It fills with a nameless trouble
The tremulous autumn noon.
O Sad, O strange in the Sunshine,
To think that the day must be
To think of the fragrant autumns
I shall not feel nor see.
I L L U S I O N S.
HEY say our best illusions soonest fly—
Bright, many-tinted birds on rainbow wing,
Adown the dim dawn-valleys vanishing
Long ere our noon be white upon the sky:
Nay, never so, in sooth; ourselves go by,
Leaving the Sun that shines, the birds that sing,
The hazy, golden glamours of the Spring,
The summer dawning’s clear obscurity.
sº
O woven sorceries of sun and shade I
O bare brown Downs by grasslands glad and green
Deep, haunted woods, with shadows thick between ;
Young leaves, with every year, new-born, remade ;
Fair are ye still, and fair have ever been—
While we, ephemera, but fail and fade.
H E S T E R N AE R O S AE.
BETWEEN the bounds of night and day,
Far out into the west they lie,
More Sweet than any song may say,
The red rose-gardens of the sky.
Beyond the Sunset wrack forlorn,
Of tower and temple overthrown,
Of fallen fort and banner torn,
Burns the red flame of roses blown.
Through jewelled jalousies ajar,
That ruddy lustre shines aslant
From terraced vistas stretching far,
The mellow light of old romaunt.
HESTERNAE ROSAE 47
'Tis there the vanished roses blow
In splendour of eternal prime,
That graced the Summers long ago,
The royal revels of old time.
The faded pageants’ flush and bloom,
The pomp and pride of all things fair,
Like golden censers of perfume
Exhale upon that haunted air.
The rainbow fountains plash and play,
The falling water gleams and pales,
While echoes every cloistered way
With piping of the nightingales.
And who are they whose happy feet
May thread that petal-clustered maze,
Of all who found the roses sweet,
Of all who sang the summer’s praise?
48
HESTERNAE ROSAE
We know not of their name or kin,
So far those garden alleys seem 1
For there no living man may win
Save on the light wings of a dream.
The brazen mountains tower between,
With crag, and peak, and sheer abyss,
And many a shadow-hung ravine,
And many an airy precipice.
Oh, deep into the west they lie,
Beyond the swiftest swallows' flight,
The red rose-gardens of the sky,
Between the bounds of day and night.
A T T H E F E R R Y.
ERE by the stream I sit,
Where the dull water floweth evermore, —
The listless water lapping on the shore—
This long low Strand by Sun and stars unlit.
Knee-deep in river musk
I hear the black-leaved poplars sigh and Sway,
The plash of oars upon the water-way
As Charon’s boat Swings huge upon the dusk.
I watch the phantoms land,
And some step shoreward faint and shuddering,
With brows rose-garlanded for life's fair Spring;
And others mute and sore-bewildered stand,
D
5 O AT THE FERRY
With eyes bedimmed and dazed
In the new twilight-gloom;-yet some there be,
That seek the smooth still haven longingly
And through the gloaming wander unamazed.
But when she cometh—fair
And passing sweet this murky land shall be,
Soul of my soul—unmet by shore or sea—
Whom knew I never in the upper air,
Then sudden day shall dawn,
And wheresoe’er her lovely feet be set
Shall spring the crocus and the violet,
And lilies white as ivory new-sawn.
Where never daylight shone,
Before her face a tremulous gold ray
Shall turn to golden mist this twilight grey,
And roses blossom here in Acheron.
THE NIGHTING ALE’S CHILDREN.
It is an antique superstition that the nightingale's children are
born dead, and she sings them alive.
ARK, a voice that cries and calls,
As the summer twilight falls ;
Deep with longing, keen with pain,
Sobbing through the summer rain.
“Wake, wake, wake I
Ere my heavy heart doth break l'
'Tis the bird of silver tongue
Singing summer leaves among,
Calling to her children dead
With the wet leaves overhead :
In the living, leafy wood,
Calling on her silent brood
32 THE NIGHTINGALE'S CHILDREN
Ever still and liſeless born
To the nightingale forlorn.
“Wake, wake, wake
Waken ere my heart doth break |
Nightingale of golden throat
Sobbing forth thy silver note;
Were it ours, thy charmèd skill,
Might we raise our dead at will.
Is there aught we would not give 2
Would we leave, so they might live,
Aught unventured, aught unsaid,
Could they wake, the dreams born dead 2
D OR IN DA’S MIRR O R.
Through the gleaming shadowed space
Of my mirror, hanging low,
Trip to me in measured pace
Jingling airs of long ago;
O'er my shoulder, Sad and slow,
Phantom faces peer and pass;
Tarnished colours come and go
In the faded looking-glass.
Murmuring the shadows rise;
Rustling hoop and flirted fan,
Ghostly laughter, ghostly sighs,
Fill the misty circle's span
‘Well-a-day that beauty flies 1’
Maid and mistress–dame and lass,
Lift to mine their wistful eyes
From the faded looking-glass.
54
DORINDA’S MIRROR
Hoary mirror, stained and grey,
Where are all your damsels trim P
Where the folk of yesterday,
Light and modish, staid and prim P
None but Death, the Jester grim,
Knows the way they went, Alas !
Still we watch our world grow dim
In a faded looking-glass.
TO MY CA. T.
ALF loving-kindliness and half disdain,
Thou comest to my call serenely suave,
With humming speech and gracious gestures grave,
In salutation courtly and urbane;
Yet must I humble me thy grace to gain,
For wiles may win thee though no arts enslave,
And nowhere gladly thou abidest save
Where naught disturbs the concord of thy reign.
Sphinx of my quiet hearth ! who deign'st to dwell
Friend of my toil, companion of mine ease,
Thine is the lore of Ra and Rameses;
That men forget dost thou remember well,
Beholden still in blinking reveries
With sombre, sea-green gaze inscrutable.
AN ENCHANTED PRINCESS.
FOUND her deep in the forest,
The beeches and elms between,
A delicate amber plane-tree
"Mid masses of bronze and green;
A sorrowful, spell-bound princess
Awaiting her lover there.
She said: ‘He will know me, surely,
By the veil of my yellow hair.’
‘He seeks me the wide world over,
He seeks me the whole year through,
To loosen the charm that binds me—
My prince, and my lover true !”
\
AN ENCHANTED PRINCESS 57
She shivered beneath her foliage
And sighed in the twilight chill:
‘Ay me I wilt thou find me never,
Thy love that thou seekest still 2 °
“I saw him,’ chirruped a blackbird,
‘He passed by this very spot;
He is come and gone, O princess
He passed—and he knew you not.’
The cold wind rustled her branches
Till the yellow leaves fell slow—
‘He is dead and gone, O princess
Many a year ago.”
T H E L A S T FAIR Y.
UNDER the yellow moon, when the young men
and maidens pass in the lanes,
Outcast I flit, looking down through the leaves of the
elm-trees,
Peering out over the fields as their voices grow
fainter;
Furtive and lone
Sometimes I steal through the green rushes down by
the river,
Hearing shrill laughter and song while the rosy-
limbed bathers
Gleam in the dusk.
Seen, they would pass me disdainful, or stone me
unwitting;
No room is left in their hearts for my kinsfolk or me.
Fain would I, too, fading out like a moth in the
twilight,
Follow my kin,
THE LAST FAIRY 59
Whither I know not, and ever I seek but I find not.—
Whither I know not, nor knoweth the wandering
swallow ;
‘Where are they, where?'
Oft-times I cry; but I hearken in vain ſor their
footsteps,
Always in vain.
High in a last year’s nest, in the boughs of the pine-
tree,
Musing I sit, looking up to the deeps of the sky,
Clasping my knees as I watch there and wonder,
forsaken ;
Ever the hollow sky
Voiceless and vast, and the golden moon Silently sailing,
Look on my pain and they care not,
There is none that remembers:
Only the nightingale knows me—she knows and
remembers—
Deep in the dusk of the thicket she sorrows for me.
60 THE LAST FAIRY
Yet, on the wings of the wind sweeping over the
uplands,
Fitfully borne,
Murmuring echoes remembered—the ghosts of old
voices
Faint as a dream, and uncertain as cloud-shadowed
Sunlight,
Fall on mine ear.
Whence do they call me? From golden-dewed
valleys forgotten ?
Or from the strongholds of eld, where red banners of
Sll nSet
Flame o'er the sea P
Or from anear, on the dim airy slopes of the dawn-
world,
Over light-flowering meads between daybreak and
Sunrise 49
Level and grey P
Truly I know not, but steadfast and longing I listen,
Straining mine ears ſor the lilt of their tinkling laughter
THE LAST FAIRY 6 I
Sweeter than sheep-bells at even ;-I watch and I
hearken.
O for the summons to sound . For the pipes plaining
shrilly,
Calling me home !
B O R D E R L AN D.
HE sun shines fair aboune the brae,
And the leaf upon the tree:
But my heart is wae for the outland grey
Where the Elfin meadows be.
My heart is wae for yon Summer night
I would sae fain forget:
On the green brae-side as I watched my sheep,
I canna tell how I fell asleep,
But I mind the waking yet.
I held my een, for I couldna ken
How siccan a thing could be :— e
Flock and fell were vanished and gane,
And I lay out on an unco plain
By the waves o' a sounding sea.
BORDERLAND 63
The mead was a in a licht, licht mist
O’ flowers tall and fair ;
Blithe rang the bells on the mantles green,
Bonnie an’ bricht glowed the gowden een,
And the locks o' the lint-white hair.
My heart gaed oot to that winsome folk
Wi’ their great e'en glancing wide,
An' their limbs as licht as a willow-withe,
The bonnie bit things sae kind an’ blithe—
‘ Gude keep ye a'l’ I cried.
There cam’ a crash and a wailing cry,
An' mirk, mirk grew the nicht :
A hollow wind gaed whistling by
Wi’ rustling noises, thin an' dry,
An' fleering laughter licht—
64 BORDERLAND
Yet, wi' the mirth cam’ a wailing sound
Like a bairnie greeting Sair;
A sma’ hand touched me, saft as snaw,
2
A cauld breith sighed, ‘Ye maun come awa’
An' I saw, nor kenned, nae mair.
Gane was the flock o’ the Elfin folk,
Gane were the gowans rare,
Gane was the silvery meadow still ;
An' the birds piped clear i' the dawning chill
On the brae-side braid an’ bare.
O the sun shines bricht aboune the brae,
An' the leaf upon the tree,
But my heart is was for yon outland grey
Where the Elfin-meadows be.
BORDERLAND 65
An' its O that there could I win ance mair,
Or I at rest micht be,
Low and alane wi' a tall heid-stane
An' the green mools over me.
THE MOOR GIRL’S WELL.
HERE the still Sunshine falls
On faded splendours of old days long done—
The Moorish castle halls
Void and forsaken, save for wind and Sun—
Lies a square court-yard fenced with painted walls.
There, where the yellow sunlight lies asleep,
Bound in a drowsy spell,
Glimmers that silent water, clear and deep,
Our village maidens call the Moor Girl’s Well.
Fair are the village maidens—kind and fair—
And black-browed Manuela smiles on me,
Driving her white goats homeward leisurely
Up from the pastures through the evening air
THE MOOR GIRL’S WELL 67
And I fling back her jest,
Laughing, with all the will to woo her—yet
I pass—the words unspoke, mine eyelids wet.
Why, my heart knoweth best.
Through the grey dusk of dawn
I went one autumn morning, long ago,
Forth, with my flock behind me trailing slow;
And to that castle in the vale below—
I know not why—my vagrant steps were drawn.
And I beheld a woman, fair and young,
Beside the well-spring in the court-yard bare,
Dabbling her slim feet in the water there,
And singing softly in some outland tongue;
No veil about her golden beauty clung—
No veil nor raiment rare,
Save but her dusky hair.
68 THE MOOR GIRL’S WELL
Sweetly she smiled on me, and, lisping, spake,
Even as a child that strives to say aright
Some unlearned language for its teacher’s sake;
Her long eyes pierced me with their diamond light.
She told me of an old spell laid on her
, That bound her in the semblance of a Snake,
Lonely and mute as in the sepulchre.
And he who would this bitter bondage break
Must suffer her in serpent form to cling
Close to his breast, unshrinking, undismayed,
And let her cold kiss on his lips be laid
Thrice without ſaltering.
All this I promised her, for fervently
I longed to free her from the evil spell—
Pity and love so swiftly wrought on me !
(Scarce I beheld her but I loved her well.)
THE MOOR GIRL’S WELL 69
Then, as I spake, she vanished suddenly,
And o'er the marble came
A great snake, brighter than a shifting flame ;
With scales of emerald and of amethyst
Her lithe coils dazzled me, and yet the same
Shone her sad eyes; but quickly, ere I wist,
She twined about me, clammy-chill and cold,
Staying my life-breath with her strangling fold;
The bright eyes neared mineown, the thin mouth hissed,
And I, nigh Swooning, shrank from her embrace.
* Leave me,’ I gasped, and turned aside my face—
‘Leave me, and loose me from thy loathly hold !’
The icy bands fell from me; numb with pain,
Half blind, I sank beside the Moor Girl’s Well,
Hearing a sough as of the summer rain,
A slow, sad voice from out the depths complain,
* Redoubled tenfold is the cruel spell.’
7o
THE MOOR GIRL’S WELL
And sometimes when the yellow dawn is chill
The memory grips my heart so that I rise,
And go with hurried footsteps down the hill
Where the lone court-yard lies,
And kneeling gaze into those waters still
Beneath the quiet skies :
‘Only come back and I shall do thy will l’
I seek, and still the steely deep denies
The piercing sorrow of her diamond eyes
I seek, but only see
Mine own gaze back at me.
A BALLAD OF THE WERE-WOLF.
HE gudewife sits i' the chimney-neuk,
An' looks on the louping flame;
The rain fa’s chill, and the win’ ca’s shrill,
Ere the auld gudeman comes hame.
‘Oh, why is your cheek sae wan, gudewife?
An' why do ye glower on me?
Sae dour ye luik i' the chimney-neuk,
Wi’ the red licht in your e'e
‘Yet this nicht should ye welcome me,
This ae nicht mair than a’,
For I hae scotched yon great grey wolf
That took our bairnies twa.
72
A BALLAD OF THE WERE-WOLF
‘’Twas a sair, sair strife for my very life,
As I warstled there my lane;
But I’ll hae her heart or e'er we part,
Gin ever we meet again.
“An’’twas ae sharp stroke o' my bonny knife
That gar'd her haud awa’;
Fu’ fast she went out-owre the bent
Wi’outen her right fore-paw.
g p
‘Gae tak’ the foot o' the drumlie brute,
And hang it upo' the wa’;
An' the next time that we meet, gudewife,
The tane of us shall fa’.”
He’s flung his pouch on the gudewife's lap,
I” the firelicht shinin’ fair,
Yet naught they saw o' the grey wolf’s paw,
For a bluidy hand lay there.
A BALLAD OF THE WERE-WOLF 73
O hooly, hooly rose she up,
Wi’ the red licht in her e'e,
Till she stude but a span frae the auld gudeman
Whiles never a word spak’ she.
But she stripped the claiths frae her lang richt arm,
That were wrappit roun’ and roun',
The first was white, an’ the last was red;
And the fresh bluid dreeped adown.
She stretchit him out her lang right arm,
An’ cauld as the deid stude he.
The flames louped bricht i' the gloamin’ licht—
There was nae hand there to see l
T H E G Y PSY W O O E. R.
HE young lords rade frae east and west,
Sae blithe were they and bonnie,
And all to court our lady gay,
For she was best of ony.
The young lords rade to east and west,
Wi’ heavy dule and grieving,
Their hearts were wae, for she said them nay,
And bade them cease their deaving.
She lookèd frae her bower window,
The sun it shone sae brightly,
An’ over field and over fell
A gypsy steppit lightly.
THE GYPSY WOOER 75
The gypsy man cam' doun the brae,
And clear his pipes were singing
An outland sang as wild and fey
As Elfin bridles ringing.
O whiles the sang went wud wi' joy,
And whiles it sorrowed sairly ;
The saut tear stood in our lady's e'e,
It rang Sae Sweet and rarely.
‘An’ are ye come at last?’ she said,
‘An’ do I see and hear ye P
If this be no my ain true love,
Then name shall be my dearie.’
‘An' where hae ye been sae lang?’ quo she,
‘An' why cam ye ne'er before, O !
If ye be no my ain true love,
My heart will break for sorrow.’
76 THE GYPSY WOOER
O, never a word the gypsy said,
And naething did he linger,
But his e'en laughed bright as he turned his head,
And beckoned wi' his finger.
She's casten off her silken Snood,
And ta'en her mantle to her,
An’ she ’s awa’ to Silverwood,
To follow the gypsy wooer.
BALLAD OF THE WILLOW POOL.
THERE was never a face, to my mind, like hers,
Nor ever a voice so sweet ;
I would hearken aye at set o’ the sun,
When the last long furrow was turned and done,
For her song and her lightsome feet.
*Tween the summer sward and gold of the west,
Through the quiet air and cool,
She would lead her goats on their homeward way
By the grass-grown road and the sedges grey,
By the side of the Willow Pool.
Curst and curst be the Willow Pool,
And the life that dwells therein
'Twas never a rival of flesh and blood,
But a chill, unholy fiend of the flood
That tempted her soul to sin.
78 BALLAD OF THE WILLOW POOL
What glistering mesh could the Neckan weave
For a soul so pure and fair P
She would dream all day in the old black boat,
And she wore a circlet about her throat
Of a single red-gold hair.
One summer twilight I saw her lean,
Low down to the water’s edge.
‘Farewell,” she wailed, ‘to the old days o'er,
Farewell for ever and evermore l’
And she sank through the waving Sedge.
The spell that had bound me snapped and broke,
I sped to the water-side;
There was never a ring nor a steely track
In the water gleaming cold and black,
No sound—but a curlew cried.
BALLAD OF THE WILLOW POOL 79
And ever at dusk as that Summer waned,
And the green fields turned to brown,
I would take my pipes to the slope above,
And play the airs that she used to love
Ere the Neckan lured her down.
There was no star once in the murky sky,
But a sullen, blood-red moon;
The waters gleamed and the air was still ;
The voice of my reeds rang cracked and shril
As I strove to shape the tune.
But I strove till the reeds sang keen and clear
As they never had sung before
(Sang till the black pool heaved and stirred),
Sweet as the song of a prisoned bird
That sings for the Spring once more.
8O BALLAD OF THE WILLOW POOL
A faint, faint cry rose up through the gloom—
I watched with a beating heart—
But the voice died out in a strangled wail;
Longing and love could naught avail
'Gainst the powers of Evil Art.
The morrow’s dawn was dim and grey,
With a mist like a winding-sheet;
She leaned in the dusk by my open door,
Slid through my arms to the rush-strewn floor,
Like a drowned corpse at my feet.
There were pale bright gems at her breast and
throat,
Their like had I never known ;
She was wrapped in a web of blue and gold,
Her eyes were closed and her lips were cold,
And her breast like the marble-stone.
BALLAD OF THE WILLOW POOL 8 I
Her folk came up from the harvest fields,
But they crossed themselves amain ;
The mother that bore her turned away,
Shuddered alooſ from the poor cold clay,
Of my lass come home again.
So I drew from her limbs the glistering gear
Where the water dripped and ran,
I wrung the drops from her yellow hair
And wrapped her in linen white and fair,
White webs that my mother span.
And the carven stones and the woven gold
(Ill meshes of death and dool I),
And the dim blue gown, like a coiling Snake,
I flung far out to the Sedgy lake,
To their lord in the Willow Pool.
F
82 BALLAD OF THE WILLOW POOL,
I took my store in the leathern pouch,
(Laid by for our plenishing),
I sought the priest and I prayed him lay
My lass in the hallowed ground that day,
Secure from the Evil Thing.
He said me may—‘Through the kirkyard gates
No corse accurst may win,
Nor ghoul in its semblance—who can tell?
For this is sure, in the deepest Hell
Bides that soul seared black with sin.”
So I digged her grave on a shadowed slope
Where the poplars sigh and stir,
I laid her down with her face to the west,
With a sprig of the rowan athwart her breast,
And a cross 'tween the Pool and her.
BALLAD OF THE WILLOW POOL 83
The priest cries shame on my dead white dove,
(May the foul fiend hunt his track 1);
If she loved the Neckan 2–nay, what then P
Glamour is strong past mortal ken—
And my piping brought her back.
My heart’s like the water, dark and still,
With a curse for its inmost guest ;
The Neckan keepeth his gems and gold,
The priest and his flock are safe in the fold,
And my true-love lies at rest.
E DIN B U R G H
T. & A. CON STABLE
Printers to Her Majesty
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
DATE DUE
APR 2 5 2002
="T
III,
9015 03084 389
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