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A CHANNEL PASSAGE 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
PRINTED BY 
 SPOTTISWOODE AMD CO. LTD., NEW'STRBET SQUARE 
 
A CHANNEL PASSAGE 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 
 
 LONDON 
 CHATTO & WINDUS 
 
 1904 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/channelpassageotOOswinrich 
 
IN MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS 
 
 AND 
 
 EDWARD BURNE JONES 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 A Channel Passage 
 
 The Lake of Gaube ... * 
 
 The Promise of the Hawthorn 
 
 Hawthorn Tide .... 
 
 The Passing of the Hawthorn 
 
 To A Baby Kinswoman 
 
 The Altar of Righteousness . 
 
 A New Year's Eve .... 
 
 In a Rosary . . . . . 
 
 The High Oaks ..... 
 
 Barking Hall: A Year After . 
 
 Music: an Ode • . . . 
 
 The Centenary of the Battle of the Nile, 
 
 Trafalgar Day .... 
 
 Cromwell's Statue . . * 
 
 A Word for the Navy 
 
 Northumberland . . . . . 
 
 Stratford-on-Avon .... 
 
 Burns : an Ode . . . . . 
 
 PAGB 
 I 
 
 lO 
 IS 
 
 i6 
 
 28 
 29 
 
 37 
 67 
 70 
 
 73 
 80 
 84 
 86 
 89 
 92 
 
 95 
 
 102 
 
 105 
 106 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 The Commonweal : a Song for Unionists 
 
 The Question .... 
 
 Apostasy .... 
 
 Russia: an Ode .... 
 
 For Greece and Crete 
 
 Delphic Hymn to Apollo 
 
 A New Century . . . 
 
 An Evening at Vichy 
 
 To George Frederick Watts 
 
 On the Death of Mrs. Lynn Linton 
 
 In Memory of Aurelio Saffi 
 
 Carnot ..... 
 
 After the Verdict . 
 
 The Transvaal .... 
 
 Reverse .... 
 
 The Turning of the Tide 
 
 On the Death of Colonel Benson 
 
 Astr.^:a Victrix .... 
 
 The First of June . 
 
 A Roundel from Villon. 
 
 A Roundel of Rabelais 
 
 Lucifer ..... 
 
 The Centenary of Alexandre Dumas 
 
 At a Dog's Grave 
 
 Three Weeks Old 
 
 A Clasp of Hands 
 
CONTENTS ix 
 
 • PACE 
 
 Prologue to Doctor Faustus . . . . i8o 
 
 Prologue to Arden of Feversham . . . 183 
 
 Prologue to Old Fortunatus . . . . 186 
 
 Prologue to The Duchess of Malfy . . .188 
 
 Prologue to The Revenger's Tragedy . . . 190 
 
 Prologue to The Broken Heart . . . 192 
 
 Prologue to A Very Woman . . . . 195 
 
 Prologue to The Spanish Gipsy . . . 197 
 
 Prologue to The Two Noble Kinsmen . . . 200 
 
 The Afterglow of Shakespeare . . . 202 
 
 Dedication . . . . . . . 207 
 
A CHANNEL PASSAGE 
 i8ss 
 
 Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset sum- 
 mer on autumn shone. 
 
 Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence 
 only the sun was gone : 
 
 Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man 
 welcome : a dim sweet hour 
 
 Gleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven 
 was fair as a field in flower. 
 
 Stars fulfilled the desire of the darkling world as with 
 music : the starbright air 
 
 Made the face of the sea, if aught may make the face of 
 the sea, more fair. 
 
 B 
 
A CHANNEL PASSAGE 
 
 Whence came change ? Was the sweet night weary of 
 rest ? What anguish ajvoke in the dark ? 
 
 Sudden, sublime, the strong storm spake : we heard the 
 thunders as hounds that bark. 
 
 Lovelier if aught may be lovelier than stars, we saw the 
 lightnings exalt the sky, 
 
 Living and lustrous and rapturous as love that is born 
 but to quicken and lighten and die. 
 
 Heaven's own heart at its highest of delight found utter- 
 ance in music and semblance in fire : 
 
 Thunder on thunder exulted, rejoicing to live and to 
 satiate the night's desire. 
 
 And the night was alive and anhungered of life as a tiger 
 
 from toils cast free : 
 And a rapture of rage made joyous the spirit and strength 
 
 of the soul of the sea. 
 
A CHANNEL PASSAGE 3 
 
 All the weight of the wind bore down on it, freighted 
 
 with death for fraught : 
 And the keen waves kindled and quickened as things 
 
 transfigured or things distraught. 
 And madness fell on them laughing and leaping ; and 
 
 madness came on the wind : 
 And the might and the light and the darkness of storm 
 
 were as storm in the heart of Ind. 
 Such glory, such terror, such passion, as lighten and 
 
 harrow the far fierce East, 
 Rang, shone, spake, shuddered around us : the night 
 
 was an altar with death for priest. 
 The channel that sunders England from shores where 
 
 never was man born free 
 Was clothed with the likeness and thrilled with the 
 
 strength and the wrath of a tropic sea. 
 As a wild steed ramps in rebellion, and rears till it 
 
 swerves from a backward fall, 
 The strong ship struggled and reared, and her deck was 
 
 upright as a sheer cliff's wall. 
 
4 A CHANNEL PASSAGE 
 
 Stern and prow plunged under, alternate : a glimpse, a 
 
 recoil, a breath, 
 And she sprang as the life in a god made man would 
 
 spring at the throat of death. 
 Three glad hours, and it seemed not an hour of supreme 
 
 and supernal joy. 
 Filled full with delight that revives in remembrance a 
 
 sea-bird's heart in a boy. 
 For the central crest of the night was cloud that thun- 
 dered and flamed, sublime 
 As the splendour and song of the soul everlasting that 
 
 quickens the pulse of time. 
 The glory beholden of man in a vision, the music of 
 
 light overheard. 
 The rapture and radiance of battle, the life that abides in 
 
 the fire of a word. 
 In the midmost heaven enkindled, was manifest far on 
 
 the face of the sea, 
 And the rage in the roar of the voice of the waters was 
 
 heard but when heaven breathed free. 
 
A CHANNEL PASSAGE 5 
 
 Far eastward, clear of the covering of cloud, the sky 
 
 laughed out into light 
 From the rims of the storm to the sea's dark edge with 
 
 flames that were flowerlike and white. 
 The leaping and luminous blossoms of live sheet lightning 
 
 that laugh as they fade 
 From the cloud's black base to the black wave's brim 
 
 rejoiced in the light they made. 
 Far westward, throned in a silent sky, where life was in 
 
 lustrous tune. 
 Shone, sweeter and surer than morning or evening, the 
 
 steadfast smile of the moon. 
 The limitless heaven that enshrined them was lovelier 
 
 than dreams may behold, and deep 
 As life or as death, revealed and transfigured, may shine 
 
 on the soul through sleep. 
 All glories of toil and of triumph and passion and pride 
 
 that it yearns to know 
 Bore witness there to the soul of its likeness and kinship, 
 above and below. 
 
6 A CHANNEL PASSAGE 
 
 The joys of the lightnings, the songs of the thunders, the 
 
 strong sea's labour and rage, 
 Were tokens and signs of the war that is life and is joy 
 
 for the soul to wage. 
 No thought strikes deeper or higher than the heights and 
 
 the depths that the night made bare, 
 Illimitable, infinite, awful and joyful, alive in the summit 
 
 of air — 
 Air stilled and thrilled by the tempest that thundered 
 
 between its reign and the sea's, 
 Rebellious, rapturous, and transient as faith or as terror 
 
 that bows men's knees. 
 No love sees loftier and fairer the form of its godlike 
 
 vision in dreams 
 Than the world shone then, when the sky and the sea 
 
 were as love for a breath's length seems — 
 One utterly, mingled and mastering and mastered and 
 
 laughing with love that subsides 
 As the glad mad night sank panting and satiate with 
 
 storm^ and released the tides. 
 
A CHANNEL PASSAGE 7 
 
 In the dense mid channel the steam-souled ship hung 
 
 hovering, assailed and withheld 
 As a soul born royal, if life or if death be against it, 
 
 is thwarted and quelled. 
 As the glories of myriads of glowworms in lustrous grass 
 
 on a boundless lawn 
 Were the glories of flames phosphoric that made of the 
 
 water a light like dawn. 
 A thousand Phosphors, a thousand Hespers, awoke in 
 
 the churning sea, 
 And the swift soft hiss of them living and dying was clear 
 
 as a tune could be ; 
 As a tune that is played by the fingers of death on the 
 
 keys of life or of sleep, 
 Audible alway alive in the storm, too fleet for a dream 
 
 to keep : 
 Too fleet, too sweet for a dream to recover and thought 
 
 to remember awake : 
 Light subtler and swifter than lightning, that whispers and 
 
 laughs in the live storm's wake, 
 
8 A CHANNEL PASSAGE 
 
 In the wild bright wake of the storm, in the dense loud 
 
 heart of the labouring hour, 
 A harvest of stars by the storm's hand reaped, each fair 
 
 as a star-shaped flower. 
 And sudden and soft as the passing of sleep is the passing 
 
 of tempest seemed 
 When the light and the sound of it sank, and the glory 
 
 was gone as a dream half dreamed. 
 The glory, the terror, the passion that made of the mid- 
 night a miracle, died, 
 Not slain at a stroke, nor in gradual reluctance abated of 
 
 power and of pride ; 
 With strong swift subsidence, awful as power that is 
 
 wearied of power upon earth. 
 As a God that were wearied of power upon heaven, and 
 
 were fain of a new God's birth, 
 The might of the night subsided : the tyranny kindled in 
 
 darkness fell ; 
 And the sea and the sky put off them the rapture and 
 
 radiance of heaven and of hell. 
 
A CHANNEL PASSAGE 9 
 
 The waters, heaving and hungering at heart, made way, 
 
 and were wellnigh fain, 
 For the ship that had fought them, and wrestled, and 
 
 revelled in labour, to cease from her pain. 
 And an end was made of it : only remembrance endures 
 
 of the glad loud strife ; 
 And the sense that a rapture so royal may come not 
 
 again in the passage of life. 
 
lO 
 
 THE LAKE OF GAUBE 
 
 The sun is lord and god, sublime, serene. 
 
 And sovereign on the mountains : earth and air 
 
 Lie prone in passion, blind with bliss unseen 
 By force of sight and might of rapture, fair 
 As dreams that die and know not what they were. 
 
 The lawns, the gorges, and the peaks, are one 
 
 Glad glory, thrilled with sense of unison 
 
 In strong compulsive silence of the sun. 
 
 Flowers dense and keen as midnight stars aflame 
 And living things of light like flames in flower 
 
 That glance and flash as though no hand might tame 
 Lightnings whose life outshone their stormlit hour 
 And played and laughed on earth, with all their power 
 
 Gone, and with all their joy of Hfe made long 
 
THE LAKE OF GAUBE ii 
 
 And harmless as the lightning life of song, 
 
 Shine sweet like stars when darkness feels them strong. 
 
 The deep mild purple flaked with moonbright gold 
 
 That makes the scales seem flowers of hardened light, 
 The flamelike tongue, the feet that noon leaves cold, 
 The kindly trust in man, when once the sight 
 Grew less than strange, and faith bade fear take flight. 
 Outlive the little harmless life that shone 
 And gladdened eyes that loved it, and was gone 
 Ere love might fear that fear had looked thereon. 
 
 Fear held the bright thing hateful, even as fear. 
 
 Whose name is one with hate and horror, saith 
 That heaven, the dark deep heaven of water near. 
 Is deadly deep as hell and dark as death. 
 The rapturous plunge that quickens blood and breath 
 With pause more sweet than passion, ere they strive 
 To raise again the limbs that yet would dive 
 Deeper, should there have slain the soul alive. 
 
12 THE LAKE OF GAUBE 
 
 As the bright salamander in fire of the noonshine exults 
 
 and is glad of his day, 
 The spirit that quickens my body rejoices to pass from 
 
 the sunlight away, 
 To pass from the glow of the mountainous flowerage, the 
 
 high multitudinous bloom, 
 Far down through the fathomless night of the water, the 
 
 gladness of silence and gloom. 
 Death-dark and delicious as death in the dream of a lover 
 
 and dreamer may be, 
 It clasps and encompasses body and soul with delight to 
 
 be living and free : 
 Free utterly now, though the freedom endure but the 
 
 space of a perilous breath. 
 And living, though girdled about with the darkness and 
 
 coldness and strangeness of death : 
 Each limb and each pulse of the body rejoicing, each 
 
 nerve of the spirit at rest. 
 All sense of the soul's life rapture, a passionate peace in 
 
 its blindness blest. 
 
THE LAKE OF GAUBE 13 
 
 So plunges the downward swimmer, embraced of the 
 
 water unfathomed of man, 
 The darkness unplummeted, icier than seas in midwinter, 
 
 for blessing or ban ; 
 And swiftly and sweetly, when strength and breath fall 
 
 short, and the dive is done, 
 Shoots up as a shaft from the dark depth shot, sped 
 
 straight into sight of the sun ; 
 And sheer through the snow-soft water, more dark than 
 
 the roof of the pines above. 
 Strikes forth, and is glad as a bird whose flight is impelled 
 
 and sustained of love. 
 As a sea-mew's love of the sea-wind breasted and ridden 
 
 for rapture's sake 
 Is the love of his body and soul for the darkling delight 
 
 . of the soundless lake : 
 As the silent speed of a dream too living to live for a 
 
 thought's space more 
 Is the flight of his limbs through the still strong chill of 
 
 the darkness from shore to shore. 
 
14 THE LAKE OF GAUBE 
 
 Might life be as this is and death be as life that casts off 
 
 time as a robe, 
 The likeness of infinite heaven were a symbol revealed of 
 
 the lake of Gaube. 
 
 Whose thought has fathomed and measured 
 
 The darkness of life and of death, 
 The secret within them treasured, 
 
 The spirit that is not breath ? 
 Whose vision has yet beholden 
 
 The splendour of death and of life ? 
 Though sunset as dawn be golden, 
 
 Is the word of them peace, not strife ? 
 Deep silence answers : the glory 
 
 We dream of may be but a dream. 
 And the sun of the soul wax hoary 
 
 As ashes that show not a gleam. 
 But well shall it be with us ever 
 
 Who drive through the darkness here 
 If the soul that we live by never, 
 
 For aught that a lie saith, fear. 
 
15 
 
 THE PROMISE OF THE HAWTHORN 
 
 Spring sleeps and stirs and trembles with desire 
 
 Pure as a babe's that nestles toward the breast. 
 The world, as yet an all unstricken lyre, 
 
 With all its chords alive and all at rest, 
 Feels not the sun's hand yet, but feels his breath 
 
 And yearns for love made perfect. Man and bird. 
 Thrilled through with hope of life that casts out death, 
 
 Wait with a rapturous patience till his word 
 Speak heaven, and flower by flower and tree by tree 
 
 Give back the silent strenuous utterance. Earth, 
 Alive awhile and joyful as the sea, 
 
 Laughs not aloud in joy too deep for mirth, 
 Presageful of perfection of delight. 
 Till all the unborn green buds be born in white. 
 
i6 
 
 HAWTHORN TIDE 
 
 I 
 
 Dawn is alive in the world, and the darkness of heaven 
 
 and of earth 
 Subsides in the light of a smile more sweet than the loud 
 
 noon's mirth. 
 Spring lives as a babe lives, glad and divine as the sun, 
 
 and unsure 
 If aught so divine and so glad may be worshipped and 
 
 loved and endure. 
 A soft green glory suffuses the love-lit earth with delight, 
 And the face of the noon is fair as the face of the star- 
 clothed night. 
 Earth knows not and doubts not at heart of the glories 
 
 again to be : 
 Sleep doubts not and dreams not how sweet shall the 
 
 waking beyond her be. 
 
HAWTHORN TIDE 17 
 
 A whole white world of revival awaits May's whisper 
 
 awhile, 
 Abides and exults in the bud as a soft hushed laugh in a 
 
 smile. 
 As a maid's mouth laughing with love and subdued for 
 
 the love's sake, May 
 Shines and withholds for a little the word she revives to 
 
 say. 
 
 When the clouds and the winds and the sunbeams are 
 warring and strengthening with joy that they live, 
 Spring, from reluctance enkindled to rapture, from 
 slumber to strife. 
 Stirs, and repents, and is winter, and weeps, and awakes 
 as the frosts forgive, 
 And the dark chill death of the woodland is troubled, 
 and dies into life. 
 And the honey of heaven, of the hives whence night 
 feeds full on the springtide's breath. 
 Fills fuller the lips of the lustrous air with delight in 
 the dawn : 
 
 c 
 
i8 HAWTHORN TIDE 
 
 Each blossom enkindling with love that is life and sub- 
 sides with a smile into death 
 Arises and lightens and sets as a star from her sphere 
 withdrawn. 
 Not sleep, in the rapture of radiant dreams, when sun- 
 dawn smiles on the night, 
 Shows earth so sweet with a splendour and fragrance 
 of life that is love : 
 Each blade of the glad live grass, each bud that receives 
 or rejects the light. 
 Salutes and responds to the marvel of Maytime around 
 and above. 
 
 Joy gives thanks for the sight and the savour of heaven, 
 and is humbled 
 With awe that exults in thanksgiving : the towers of 
 the flowers of the trees 
 Shine sweeter than snows that the hand of the season 
 has melted and crumbled, 
 And fair as the foam that is lesser of life than the 
 loveliest of these. 
 
HAWTHORN TIDE 19 
 
 But the sense of a life more lustrous with joy and 
 enkindled of glory 
 Than man's was ever or may be, and briefer than joys 
 most brief, 
 Bids man's heart bend and adore, be the man's head 
 golden or hoary. 
 As it leapt but a breath's time since and saluted the 
 flower and the leaf. 
 The rapture that springs into love at the sight of the 
 world's exultation 
 Takes not a sense of rebuke from the sense of 
 triumphant awe : 
 But the spirit that quickens the body fulfils it with 
 mute adoration, 
 And the knees would fain bow down as the eyes that 
 rejoiced and, saw. 
 
 02 
 
20 HAWTHORN TIDE 
 
 II 
 
 Fair and sublime as the face of the dawn is the splendour 
 
 of May, 
 But the sky's and the sea's joy fades not as earth's pride 
 
 passes away. 
 Yet hardly the sun's first lightning or laughter of love on 
 
 the sea 
 So humbles the heart into worship that knows not or 
 
 doubts if it be 
 As the first full glory beholden again of the life new- 
 born 
 That hails and applauds with inaudible music the season 
 
 of morn. 
 A day's length since, and it was not : a night's length 
 
 more, and the sun 
 Salutes and enkindles a world of delight as a strange 
 
 world won. 
 
HAWTHORN TIDE ' 21 
 
 A new life answers and thrills to the kiss of the young 
 
 strong year, 
 And the glory we see is as music we hear not, and dream 
 
 that we hear. 
 From blossom to blossom the live tune kindles, from tree 
 
 to tree, 
 And we know not indeed if we hear not the song of the 
 
 life we see. 
 
 For the first blithe day that beholds it and worships and 
 cherishes cannot but sing 
 With a louder and lustier delight in the sun and the 
 sunlit earth 
 Than the joy of the days that beheld but the soft green 
 dawn of the slow faint spring 
 Glad and afraid to be glad, and subdued in a shame- 
 fast mirth. 
 When the first bright knoll of the woodland world 
 laughs out into fragrant light. 
 The year's heart changes and quickens with sense of 
 delight in desire, 
 
22 HAWTHORN TIDE 
 
 And the kindling desire is one with thanksgiving for utter 
 fruition of sight, 
 For sight and for sense of a world that the sun finds 
 meet for his lyre. 
 Music made of the morning that smites from the chords 
 of the mute world song 
 Trembles and quickens and lightens, unfelt, un- 
 beholden, unheard, 
 From blossom on blossom that climbs and exults in the 
 strength of the sun grown strong, 
 And answers the word of the wind of the spring with 
 the sun's own word. 
 
 Hard on the skirt of the deep soft copses that spring 
 refashions, 
 Triumphs and towers to the height of the crown of a 
 wildwood tree 
 One royal hawthorn, sublime and serene as the joy that 
 impassions 
 Awe that exults in thanksgiving for sight of the grace 
 we see, 
 
HAWTHORN TIDE 23 
 
 The grace that is given of a god that abides for a season, 
 mysterious 
 And merciful, fervent and fugitive, seen and unknown 
 and adored : 
 His presence is felt in the light and the fragrance, elate 
 and imperious, 
 His laugh and his breath in the blossom are love's, 
 the beloved soul's lord. 
 For surely the soul if it loves is beloved of the god as a 
 lover 
 Whose love is not all unaccepted, a worship not utterly 
 vain : 
 So full, so deep is the joy that revives for the soul 
 to recover 
 Yearly, beholden of hope and of memory in sunshine 
 and rain. 
 
24 HAWTHORN TIDE 
 
 III 
 
 Wonder and love stand silent, stricken at heart and 
 
 stilled. 
 But yet is the cup of delight and of worship unpledged 
 
 and unfilled. 
 A handsbreadth hence leaps up, laughs out as an angel 
 
 crowned, 
 A strong full fountain of flowers overflowing above and 
 
 around. 
 The boughs and the blossoms in triumph salute with 
 
 adoring mirth 
 The womb that bare them, the glad green mother, the 
 
 sunbright earth. 
 Downward sweeping, as song subsides into silence, 
 
 none 
 May hear what sound is the word's they speak to the 
 
 brooding sun. 
 
HAWTHORN TIDE 25 
 
 None that hearken may hear: man may but pass and 
 
 adore, 
 And humble his heart in thanksgiving for joy that is now 
 
 no more. 
 And sudden, afront and ahead of him, joy is alive and 
 
 aflame 
 On the shrine whose incense is given of the godhead, 
 
 again the same. 
 
 Pale and pure as a maiden secluded in secret and 
 cherished with fear, 
 One sweet glad hawthorn smiles as it shrinks under 
 shelter, screened 
 By two strong brethren whose bounteous blossom out- 
 soars it, year after year. 
 While earth still cleaves to the live spring's breast as 
 a babe unweaned. 
 Never was amaranth fairer in fields where heroes of old 
 found rest, 
 Never was asphodel sweeter : but here they endure 
 not long, 
 
26 HAWTHORN TIDE 
 
 Though ever the sight that salutes them again and 
 adores them awhile is blest, 
 And the heart is a hymn, and the sense is a soul, and 
 the soul is a song. 
 Alone on a dyke's trenched edge, and afar from the 
 blossoming wildwood's verge, 
 Laughs and lightens a sister, triumphal in love-lit pride ; 
 Clothed round with the sun, and inviolate : her blossoms 
 exult as the springtide surge. 
 When the wind and the dawn enkindle the snows of 
 the shoreward tide. 
 
 Hardly the worship of old that rejoiced as it knelt in the 
 vision 
 Shown of the God new-born whose breath is the 
 spirit of spring 
 Hailed ever with love more strong and defiant of death's 
 derision 
 A joy more perfect than here we mourn for as May 
 takes wing. 
 
HAWTHORN TIDE 27 
 
 Time gives it and takes it again and restores it : the 
 glory, the wonder, 
 The triumph of lustrous blossom that makes of the 
 steep sweet bank 
 One visible marvel of music inaudible, over and under, 
 Attuned as in heaven, pass hence and return for the 
 sun to thank. 
 The stars and the sun give thanks for the glory bestowed 
 and beholden. 
 For the gladness they give and rejoice in, the night 
 and the dawn and the day : 
 But nought they behold when the world is aflower and 
 the season is golden 
 Makes answer as meet and as sweet as the flower that 
 itself is May. 
 
28 
 
 THE PASSING OF THE HAWTHORN 
 
 The coming of the hawthorn brings on earth 
 
 Heaven : all the spring speaks out in one sweet word, 
 And heaven grows gladder, knowing that earth has 
 heard. 
 
 Ere half the flowers are jubilant in birth, 
 
 The splendour of the laughter of their mirth 
 Dazzles delight with wonder : man and bird 
 Rejoice and worship, stilled at heart and stirred 
 
 With rapture girt about with awe for girth. 
 
 The passing of the hawthorn takes away 
 
 Heaven : all the spring falls dumb, and all the soul 
 
 Sinks down in man for sorrow. Night and day 
 Forego the joy that made them one and whole. 
 
 The change that falls on every starry spray 
 
 Bids, flower by flower, the knell of springtime toll. 
 
29 
 
 I 
 
 TO A BABY KINSWOMAN 
 
 Love, whose light thrills heaven and earth, 
 Smiles and weeps upon thy birth. 
 Child, whose mother's love lit eyes 
 Watch thee but from Paradise. 
 Sweetest sight that earth can give, 
 Sweetest light of eyes that live, 
 Ours must needs, for hope withdrawn. 
 Hail with tears thy soft spring dawn. 
 Light of hope whose star hath set. 
 Light of love whose sun lives yet, 
 Holier, happier, heavenlier love 
 Breathes about thee, burns above, 
 Surely, sweet, than ours can be. 
 Shed from eyes we may not see. 
 Though thine own may see them shine 
 Night and day, perchance, on thine. 
 
30 TO A BABY KINSWOMAN 
 
 Sun and moon that lighten earth 
 Seem not fit to bless thy birth : 
 Scarce the very stars we know 
 Here seem bright enough to show 
 Whence in unimagined skies 
 Glows the vigil of such eyes. 
 Theirs whose heart is as a sea 
 Swoln with sorrowing love of thee 
 Fain would share with thine the sight 
 Seen alone of babes aright, 
 Watched of eyes more sweet than flowers 
 Sleeping or awake : but ours 
 Can but deem or dream or guess 
 Thee not wholly motherless. 
 Might they see or might they know 
 What nor faith nor hope may show, 
 We whose hearts yearn toward thee now 
 Then were blest and wise as thou. 
 Had we half thy knowledge, — had 
 Love such wisdom, — grief were glad, 
 
TO A BABY KINSWOMAN 31 
 
 Surely, lit by grace of thee ; 
 Life were sweet as death may be. 
 Now the law that lies on men 
 Bids us mourn our dead : but then 
 Heaven and life and earth and death, 
 Quickened as by God's own breath. 
 All were turned from sorrow and strife : 
 Earth and death were heaven and life. 
 All too far are then and now 
 Sundered : none may be as thou. 
 Yet this grace is ours — a sign 
 Of that goodlier grace of thine. 
 Sweet, and thine alone — to see 
 Heaven, and heaven's own love, in thee. 
 Bless them, then, whose eyes caress 
 Thee, as only thou canst bless. 
 Comfort, faith, assurance, love. 
 Shine around us, brood above, 
 Fear grows hope, and hope grows wise. 
 Thrilled and lit by children's eyes. 
 
32 TO A BABY KINSWOMAN 
 
 Yet in ours the tears unshed, 
 Child, for hope that death leaves dead, 
 Needs must burn and tremble ; thou 
 Knowest not, seest not, why nor how, 
 More than we know whence or why 
 Comes on babes that laugh and lie 
 Half asleep, in sweet-lipped scorn. 
 Light of smiles outlightening morn, 
 Whence enkindled as is earth 
 By the dawn's less radiant birth 
 All the body soft and sweet 
 Smiles on us from face to feet 
 When the rose-red hands would fain 
 Reach the rose-red feet in vain. 
 Eyes and hands that worship thee 
 Watch and tend, adore and see 
 All these heavenly sights, and give 
 Thanks to see and love and live. 
 Yet, of all that hold thee dear, 
 Sweet, the dearest smiles not here. 
 
TO A BABY KINSWOMAN 33 
 
 Thine alone is now the grace, 
 Haply, still to see her face ; 
 Thine, thine only now the sight 
 Whence we dream thine own takes light. 
 Yet, though faith and hope live blind, 
 Yet they live in heart and mind 
 Strong and keen as truth may be : 
 Yet, though blind as grief were we 
 Inly for a weeping- while, 
 Sorrow's self before thy smile 
 Smiles and softens, knowing that yet, 
 Far from us though heaven be set, 
 Love, bowed down for thee to bless, 
 Dares not call thee motherless. 
 May 1894. 
 
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
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37 
 
 THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 I 
 
 Light and night, whose clouds and glories change 
 
 and mingle and divide, 
 Veil the truth whereof they witness, show the truth of 
 
 things they hide. 
 Through the darkness and the splendour of the 
 
 centuries, loud or dumb. 
 Shines and wanes and shines the spirit, lit with love 
 
 of life to come. 
 Man, the soul made flesh, that knows not death from 
 
 life, and fain would know, 
 Sees the face of time change colour as its tides recoil 
 
 and flow. 
 
38 THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 All his hope and fear and faith and doubt, if aught at 
 
 all they be, 
 Live the life of clouds and sunbeams, born of heaven 
 
 or earth or sea. 
 All are buoyed and blown and brightened by their 
 
 hour's evasive breath : 
 All subside and quail and darken when their hour is 
 
 done to death. 
 Yet, ere faith, a wandering water, froze and curdled 
 
 into creeds. 
 Earth, elate as heaven, adored the light that quickens 
 
 dreams to deeds. 
 
 Invisible : eye hath not seen it, and ear hath not heard 
 
 as the spirit hath heard 
 From the shrine that is lit not of sunlight or starlight the 
 
 sound of a limitless word. 
 And visible: none that hath eyes to behold what the 
 
 spirit must perish or see 
 Can choose but behold it and worship : a shrine that if 
 
 light were as darkness would be. 
 
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 39 
 
 Of cloud and of change is the form of the fashion that 
 
 man may behold of it wrought : 
 Of iron and truth is the mystic mid altar, where worship 
 
 is none but of thought. 
 No prayer may go up to it, climbing as incense of glad- 
 ness or sorrow may climb : 
 No rapture of music may ruffle the silence that guards it, 
 
 and hears not of time. 
 As the winds of the wild blind ages alternate in passion 
 
 of light and of cloud. 
 So changes the shape of the veil that enshrouds it with 
 
 darkness and light for a shroud. 
 And the winds and the clouds and the suns fall silent, 
 
 and fade out of hearing or sight. 
 And the shrine stands fast and is changed not, whose 
 
 likeness was changed as a cloud in the night. 
 
 All the storms of time, and wrath of many winds, may 
 
 carve no trace 
 On the viewless altar, though the veil bear many a 
 
 name and face : 
 
40 THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 Many a live God's likeness woven, many a scripture 
 
 dark with awe, 
 Bids the veil seem verier iron than the word of life's 
 
 own law. 
 Till the might of change hath rent it with a rushing 
 
 wind in twain, 
 Stone or steel it seems, whereon the wrath of chance is 
 
 wreaked in vain : 
 Stone or steel, and all behind it or beyond its lifted 
 
 sign 
 Cloud and vapour, no subsistence of a change- 
 
 unstricken shrine. 
 God by god flits past in thunder, till his glories turn to 
 
 shades : 
 God to god bears wondering witness how his gospel 
 
 flames and fades. 
 More was each of these, while yet they were, than man 
 
 their servant seemed : 
 Dead are all of these, and man survives who made 
 
 them while he dreamed. 
 
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 41 
 
 Yet haply or surely, if vision were surer than theirs who 
 
 rejoiced that they saw, 
 Man might not but see, through the darkness of godhead, 
 
 the light that is surety and law. 
 On the stone that the close-drawn cloud which veils it 
 
 awhile makes cloudlike stands 
 The word of the truth everlasting, unspoken of tongues 
 
 and unwritten of hands. 
 By the sunbeams and storms of the centuries engraven, 
 
 and approved of the soul as it reads, 
 It endures as a token dividing the light from the dark- 
 ness of dreams and of deeds. 
 The faces of gods on the face of it carven, or gleajpaing 
 
 behind and above, 
 Star-glorified Uranus, thunderous Jehovah, for terror or 
 
 worship or love, 
 Change, wither, and brighten as flowers that the wind of 
 
 eternity sheds upon time, 
 All radiant and transient and awful and mortal, and leave 
 it unmarred and sublime. 
 
42 THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 As the tides that return and recede are the fears and 
 
 the hopes of the centuries that roll, 
 Requenched and rekindled : but strong as the sun is the 
 
 sense of it shrined in the soul. 
 
 II 
 
 In the days when time was not, in the time when days 
 
 were none. 
 Ere sorrow had life to lot, ere earth gave thanks for the 
 
 sun, 
 Ere man in his darkness waking adored what the soul 
 
 in him could, 
 And the manifold God of his making was manifest evil 
 
 and good. 
 One law from the dim beginning abode and abides in 
 
 the end. 
 In sight of him sorrowing and sinning with none but his 
 
 faith for friend. 
 
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 43 
 
 Dark were the shadows around him, and darker the 
 glories above, 
 
 Ere light from beyond them found him, and bade him 
 for love's sake love. 
 
 About him was darkness, and under and over him dark- 
 ness : the night 
 
 That conceived him and bore him had thunder for utter- 
 ance and lightning for light. 
 
 The dust of death was the dust of the ways that the 
 . tribes of him trod : 
 
 And he knew not if just or unjust were the might of the 
 mystery of God. 
 
 Strange horror and hope, strange faith and unfaith, were 
 his boon and his bane : 
 
 And the God of his trust was the wraith of the soul or 
 the ghost of it slain. 
 
 A curse was on death as on birth, and a Presence that 
 shone as a sword 
 
 Shed menace from heaven upon earth that beheld him, 
 and hailed him her Lord. 
 
44 THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 Sublime and triumphant as fire or as lightning, he 
 
 kindled the skies, 
 And withered with dread the desire that would look on 
 
 the light of his eyes. 
 Earth shuddered with worship, and knew not if hell were 
 
 not hot in her breath ; 
 If birth were not sin, and the dew of the morning the 
 
 sweat of her death. 
 The watchwords of evil and good were unspoken of men 
 
 and unheard : 
 They were shadows that willed as he would, that were 
 
 made and unmade by his word. 
 His word was darkness and light, and a wisdom that 
 
 makes men mad ^ 
 Sent blindness upon them for sight, that they saw but 
 
 and heard as he bade. 
 Cast forth and corrupt from the birth by the crime of 
 
 creation, they stood 
 Convicted of evil on earth by the grace of a God found 
 good. 
 
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 45 
 
 The grace that enkindled and quickened the darkness of 
 
 hell with flame 
 Bade man, though the soul in him sickened, obey, and 
 
 give praise to his name. 
 The still small voice of the spirit whose life is as 
 
 plague*s hot breath 
 Bade man shed blood, and inherit the life of th^ kingdom 
 
 of death. 
 
 " Bring now for blood-offering thy son to mine altar, and 
 
 bind him and slay, 
 That the sin of my bidding be done " : and the soul in 
 
 the slave said, " Yea." 
 Yea, not nay, was the word : and the sacrifice offered 
 
 withal 
 Was neither of beast nor of bird, but the soul of a man, 
 
 God's thrall. 
 And the word of his servant spoken was fire, and the 
 
 light of a sword, 
 When the bondage of Israel was broken, and Sinai 
 
 shrank -from the Lord. 
 
46 THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 With splendour of slaughter and thunder of song as the 
 
 sound of the sea 
 Were the foes of him stricken in sunder and silenced as 
 
 storms that flee. 
 Terror and trust and the pride of the chosen, approved 
 
 of his choice, 
 Saw God in the whirlwind ride, and rejoiced as the winds 
 
 rejoice. 
 Subdued and exalted and kindled and quenched by the 
 
 sense of his might. 
 Faith flamed and exulted and dwindled, and saw not, 
 
 and clung to the sight. 
 The wastes of the wilderness brightened and trembled 
 
 with rapture and dread 
 When the word of him thundered and lightened and 
 
 spake through the quick and the dead. 
 The chant of the prophetess, louder and loftier than 
 
 tempest and wave, 
 Rang triumph more ruthless and prouder than death, 
 
 and profound as the grave. 
 
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 47 
 
 And sweet as the moon's word spoken in smiles that the 
 
 blown clouds mar 
 The psalmist's witness in token arose as the speech of a 
 
 star. 
 Starlight supreme, and the tender desire of the moon, 
 
 were as one 
 To rebuke with compassion the splendour and strength ot 
 
 the godlike sun. 
 God softened and changed : and the word of his chosen, 
 
 a fire at the first, 
 Bade man, as a beast or a bird, now slake at the springs 
 
 his thirst. 
 The souls that were sealed unto death as the bones of 
 
 the dead lie sealed 
 Rose thrilled and redeemed by the breath of the dawn 
 
 on the flame-lit field. 
 The glories of darkness, cloven with music of thunder, 
 
 shrank 
 As the web of the word was unwoven that spake, and 
 
 the soul's tide sank. 
 
48 THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 And the starshine of midnight that covered Arabia with 
 
 light as a robe 
 Waxed fiery with utterance that hovered and flamed 
 
 through the whirlwind on Job. 
 And prophet to prophet and vision to vision made 
 
 answer sublime, 
 Till the valley of doom and decision was merged in the 
 
 tides of time. 
 
 ni 
 
 Then, soft as the dews of night, 
 
 As the star of the sundawn bright. 
 As the heart of the sea's hymn deep, 
 And sweet as the balm of sleep, 
 
 Arose on the world a light 
 Too pure for the skies to keep. 
 
 With music sweeter and stranger than heaven had heard 
 When the dark east thrilled with light from a saviour's 
 word 
 
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 49 
 
 And a God grew man to endure as a man and abide 
 The doom of the will of the Lord of the loud world's 
 
 tide, 
 Whom thunders utter, and tempest and darkness hide, 
 With larger light than flamed from the peak whereon 
 Prometheus, bound as the sun to the world's wheel, 
 
 shone, 
 A presence passed and abode but on earth a span, 
 And love's own light as a river before him ran, 
 And the name of God for awhile upon earth was man. 
 
 O star that wast not and wast for the world a sun, 
 
 O light that was quenched of priests, and its work 
 
 undone, 
 O Word that wast not as man's or as God's, if God 
 Be Lord but of hosts whose tread was as death's that 
 
 trod 
 On souls that felt but his wrath as an unseen rod, 
 
50 THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 What word, what praise, what passion of hopeless 
 
 prayer, 
 May now rise up to thee, loud as in years that were, 
 From years that gaze on the works of thy servants 
 
 wrought 
 While strength was in them to satiate the lust of thought 
 That craved in thy name for blood as the quest it 
 
 sought ? 
 
 From the dark high places of Rome 
 
 Far over the westward foam 
 God's heaven and the sun saw swell 
 The fires of the high priest's hell. 
 
 And shrank as they curled and clomb 
 And revelled and ravaged and fell. 
 
 IV 
 
 Yet was not the work of thy word all withered with 
 
 wasting flame 
 By the sons of the priests that had slain thee, whose evil 
 
 was wrought in thy name. 
 
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 51 
 
 From the blood-sodden soil that was blasted with fires of 
 
 the Church and her creed 
 Sprang rarely but surely, by grace of thy spirit, a flower 
 
 for a weed. 
 Thy spirit, unfelt of thy priests who blasphemed thee, 
 
 enthralled and enticed 
 To deathward a child that was even as the child we 
 
 behold in Christ. 
 The Moors, they told her, beyond bright Spain and the 
 
 strait brief sea. 
 Dwelt blind in the light that for them was as darkness, 
 
 and knew not thee. 
 But the blood of the martyrs whose mission was witness 
 
 for God, they said, 
 Might raise to redemption the souls that were here, in the 
 
 sun's sight, dead. 
 And the child rose up in the night, when the stars were 
 
 as friends that smiled. 
 And sought her brother, and wakened the younger and 
 
 tenderer child. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 From the heaven of a child's glad sleep to the heaven of 
 
 the sight of her eyes 
 He woke, and brightened, and hearkened, and kindled as 
 
 stars that rise. 
 And forth they fared together to die for the stranger's sake, 
 For the souls of the slayers that should slay them, and 
 
 turn from their sins, and wake. 
 And the light of the love that lit them awhile on a brief 
 
 blind quest 
 Shines yet on the tear-lit smile that salutes them, belated 
 
 and blest. 
 
 And the girl, full-grown to the stature of godhead in 
 womanhood, spake 
 
 The word that sweetens and lightens her creed for her 
 great love's sake. 
 
 From the godlike heart of Theresa the prayer above all 
 prayers heard, 
 
 The cry as of God made woman, a sweet blind wonder- 
 ful word. 
 
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 53 
 
 Sprang sudden as flame, and kindled the darkness of 
 
 faith with love, 
 And the hollow of hell from beneath shone, quickened of 
 
 heaven from above. 
 Yea, hell at her word grew heaven, as she prayed that if 
 
 God thought well 
 She there might stand in the gateway, that none might 
 
 pass into hell. 
 Not Hermes, guardian and guide, God, herald, and com- 
 forter, shed 
 Such lustre of hope from the life of his light on the night 
 
 of the dead. 
 Not Pallas, wiser and mightier in mercy than Rome's 
 
 God shone. 
 Wore ever such raiment of love as the soul of a saint 
 
 put on. 
 So blooms as a flower of the darkness a star of the 
 
 midnight bom, 
 Of the midnight's womb and the blackness of darkness 
 
 and flames like morn. 
 
54 THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 Nor yet may the dawn extinguish or hide it, when 
 
 churches and creeds 
 Are withered and blasted with sunlight as poisonous and 
 
 blossomless weeds. 
 So springs and strives through the soil that the legions of 
 
 darkness have trod, 
 From the root that is man, from the soul in the body, 
 
 the flower that is God. 
 
 Ages and creeds that drift i 
 
 Through change and cloud uplift 
 The soul that soars and seeks her sovereign shrine, 
 Her faith's veiled altar, there 
 To find, when praise and prayer 
 Fall baffled, if the darkness be divine. 
 
 Lights change and shift through star and sun : 
 Night, clothed with might of immemorial years, is one. 
 
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 55 
 
 Day, born and slain of night, 
 Hath hardly life in sight 
 As she that bears and slays him and survives, 
 And gives us back for one 
 Cloud-thwarted fiery sun 
 The myriad mysteries of the lambent lives 
 Whose starry soundless music saith 
 That light and life wax perfect even through night and 
 death. 
 
 In vain had darkness heard 
 Light speak the lustrous word 
 That cast out faith in all save truth and love : 
 In vain death's quickening rod 
 Bade man rise up as God, 
 Touched as with life unknown in heaven above : 
 Fear turned his light of love to fire 
 That wasted earth, yet might not slay the soul's 
 desire. 
 
S6 THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 Though death seem life, and night 
 Bid fear call darkness light, 
 Time, faith, and hope keep trust, through sorrow 
 and shame, 
 
 Till Christ, by Paul cast out, 
 Return, and all the rout 
 Of raging slaves whose prayer defiles his name 
 Rush headlong to the deep, and die. 
 And leave no sign to say that faith once heard them lie. 
 
 VI 
 
 Since man, with a child's pride proud, and abashed as a 
 
 child and afraid, 
 Made God in his likeness, and bowed him to worship 
 
 the Maker he made. 
 No faith more dire hath enticed man's trust than the 
 
 saint's whose creed 
 Made Caiaphas one with Christ, that worms on the cross 
 
 might feed. 
 
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 57 
 
 Priests gazed upon God in the eyes of a babe new-born, 
 
 and therein 
 Beheld not heaven, and the wise glad secret of love, but 
 
 sin. 
 Accursed of heaven, and baptized with the baptism of 
 
 hatred and hell, 
 They spat on the name they despised and adored as a 
 
 sign and a spell. 
 " Lord Christ, thou art God, and a liar : they were children 
 
 of wrath, not of grace, 
 Unbaptized, unredeemed from the fire they were born 
 
 for, who smiled in thy face." 
 Of such is the kingdom — he said it -of heaven : and 
 
 the heavenly word 
 Shall live when religion is dead, and when falsehood is 
 
 dumb shall be heard. 
 And the message of James and of John was as Christ's 
 
 and as love's own call : 
 But wrath passed sentence thereon when Annas replied 
 
 in Paul. 
 
S« THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 The dark old God who had slain him grew one with the 
 
 Christ he slew, 
 And poison was rank in the grain that with growth of his 
 
 gospel grew. 
 And the blackness of darkness brightened : and red in 
 
 the heart of the flame 
 Shone down, as a blessing that lightened, the curse of a 
 
 new God's name. 
 Through centuries of burning and trembling belief as a 
 
 signal it shone, 
 Till man, soul-sick of dissembling, bade fear and her 
 
 frauds begone. 
 God Cerberus yelps from his throats triune : but his day, 
 
 which was night, 
 Is quenched, with its stars and the notes of its night-birds, 
 
 in silence and light. 
 The flames of its fires and the psalms of their psalmists 
 
 are darkened and dumb : 
 Strong winter has withered the palms of his angels, and 
 
 stricken them numb. 
 
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 59 
 
 God, father of lies, God, son of perdition, God, spirit 
 
 of ill. 
 Thy will that for ages was done is undone as a dead 
 
 God's will. 
 Not Mahomet's sword could slay thee, nor Borgia's or 
 
 Calvin's praise : 
 But the scales of the spirit that weigh thee are weighted 
 
 with truth, and it slays. 
 The song of the day of thy fury, when nature and death 
 
 shall quail, 
 Rings now as the thunders of Jewry, the ghost of a dead 
 
 world's tale. 
 That day and its doom foreseen and foreshadowed on 
 
 earth, when thou. 
 Lord God, wast lord of the keen dark season, are sport 
 
 for us now. 
 Thy claws were clipped and thy fangs plucked out by 
 
 the hands that slew 
 Men, lovers of man, whose pangs bore witness if truth 
 
 were true. 
 
6o THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 Man crucified rose again from the sepulchre builded to be 
 No grave for the souls of the men who denied thee, but, 
 Lord, for thee. 
 
 When Bruno's spirit aspired from the flames that thy 
 
 servants fed. 
 The spirit of faith was fired to consume thee and leave 
 
 thee dead. 
 When the light of the sunlike eyes whence laughter 
 
 lightened and flamed 
 Bade France and the world be wise, faith saw thee 
 
 naked and shamed. 
 When wisdom deeper and sweeter than Rabelais veiled 
 
 and revealed 
 Found utterance diviner and meeter for truth whence 
 
 anguish is healed, 
 Whence fear and hate and belief in thee, fed by thy 
 
 grace from above. 
 Fall stricken, and utmost grief takes light from the lustre 
 
 of love, 
 
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 6i 
 
 When Shakespeare shone into birth, and the world he 
 
 beheld grew bright, 
 Thy kingdom was ended on earth, and the darkness it 
 
 shed was light. 
 In him all truth and the glory thereof and the power and 
 
 the pride. 
 The song of the soul and her story, bore witness that 
 
 fear had lied. 
 All hope, all wonder, all trust, all doubt that knows not 
 
 of fear. 
 The love of the body, the lust of the spirit to see and to 
 
 hear. 
 All womanhood, fairer than love could conceive or 
 
 desire or adore. 
 All manhood, radiant above all heights that it held of 
 
 yore, 
 Lived by the life of his breath, with the speech of his 
 
 soul's will spake. 
 And the light lit darkness to death whence never the 
 
 dead shall wake. 
 
68 THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 For the light that lived in the sound of the song of his 
 
 speech was one 
 With the light of the wisdom that found earth's tune in 
 
 the song of the sun ; 
 His word with the word of the lord most high of us all 
 
 on earth, 
 Whose soul was a lyre and a sword, whose death was a 
 
 deathless birth. 
 Him too we praise as we praise our own who as he stand 
 
 strong ; 
 Him, ^schylus, ancient of days, whose word is the per- 
 fect song. 
 When Caucasus showed to the sun and the sea what a 
 
 God could endure, 
 When wisdom and light were one, and the hands of the 
 
 matricide pure, 
 A song too subtle for psalmist or prophet of Jewry to 
 
 know, 
 Elate and profound as the calmest or stormiest of waters 
 
 that flow, 
 
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 63 
 
 A word whose echoes were wonder and music of fears 
 
 overcome, 
 Bade Sinai bow, and the thunder of godhead on Horeb 
 
 be dumb. 
 The childless children of night, strong daughters of 
 
 doom and dread, 
 The thoughts and the fears that smite the soul, and its 
 
 life lies dead. 
 Stood still and were quelled by the sound of his word 
 
 and the light of his thought. 
 And the God that in man lay bound was unbound from 
 
 the bonds he had wrought. 
 Dark fear of a lord more dark than the dreams of his 
 
 worshippers knew 
 Fell [dead, and the corpse lay stark in the sunlight of 
 
 truth shown true. 
 
64 THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 VII 
 
 Time, and truth his child, though terror set earth and 
 
 heaven at odds, 
 See the light of manhood rise on the twilight of the 
 
 Gods. 
 Light is here for souls to see, though the stars of faith 
 
 be dead : 
 All the sea that yearned and trembled receives the sun 
 
 instead. 
 All the shadows on the spirit when fears and dreams 
 
 were strong. 
 All perdition, all redemption, blind rain-stars watched so 
 
 long. 
 Love whose root was fear, thanksgiving that cowered 
 
 beneath the rod, 
 Feel the light that heals and withers : night weeps upon 
 
 her God. 
 
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 65 
 
 All the names wherein the incarnate Lord lived his day 
 
 and died 
 Fade from suns to stars, from stars into darkness un- 
 
 descried. 
 
 Christ the man lives yet, remembered of man as dreams 
 
 that leave 
 Light on eyes that wake and know not if memory bid 
 
 them grieve. 
 Fire sublime as lightning shines, and exults in thunder 
 
 yet, 
 Where the battle wields the name and the sword of 
 
 Mahomet. 
 Far above all wars and gospels, all ebb and flow of time. 
 Lives the soul that speaks in silence, and makes mute 
 
 earth sublime. 
 Still for her, though years and ages be blinded and 
 
 bedinned, 
 Mazed with lightnings, crazed with thunders, life rides 
 
 and guides the wind. 
 
66 THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 Death may live or death may die, and the truth be light 
 
 or night : 
 Not for gain of heaven may man put away the rule of 
 
 right. 
 
67 
 
 A NEW YEAR'S EVE 
 Christina Rossetti died December 29, 1894 
 
 The stars are strong in the deeps of the lustrous night, 
 Cold and splendid as death if his dawn be bright ; 
 
 Cold as the cast-off garb that is cold as clay, 
 Splendid and strong as a spirit intense as light. 
 
 A soul more sweet than the morning of new-born May 
 Has passed with the year that has passed from the world 
 away. 
 A song more sweet than the morning's first-born song 
 Again will hymn not among us a new year's day. 
 
 Not here, not here shall the carol of joy grown strong 
 Ring rapture now, and uplift us, a spell-struck throng, 
 From dream to vision of life that the soul may see 
 By death's grace only, if death do its trust no wrong. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 A NEW YEAR'S EVE 
 
 Scarce yet the days and the starry nights are three 
 Since here among us a spirit abode as we, 
 
 Girt round with life that is fettered in bonds of time, 
 And clasped with darkness about as is earth with sea. 
 
 And now, more high than the vision of souls may climb, 
 The soul whose song was as music of stars that chime. 
 Clothed round with life as of dawn and the mounting 
 sun, 
 Sings, and we know not here of the song sublime. 
 
 No word is ours of it now that the songs are done 
 Whence here we drank of delight as in freedom won, 
 In deep deliverance given from the bonds we bore. 
 There is none to sing as she sang upon earth, not one. 
 
 We heard awhile : and for us who shall hear no more 
 The sound as of waves of light on a starry shore 
 
 Awhile bade brighten and yearn as a father's face 
 The face of death, divine as in days of yore. 
 
A NEW YEAR'S EVE 69 
 
 The grey gloom quickened and quivered : the sunless 
 
 place 
 Thrilled, and the silence deeper than time or space 
 
 Seemed now not all everlasting. Hope grew strong, 
 And love took comfort, given of the sweet song's grace. 
 
 Love that finds not on earth, where it finds but wrong. 
 Love that bears not the bondage of years in throng 
 
 Shone to show for her, higher than the years that mar. 
 The life she looked and longed for as love must long. 
 
 Who knows ? We know not. Afar, if the dead be far. 
 Alive, if the dead be alive as the soul's works are, 
 
 The soul whose breath was among us a heavenward 
 song 
 Sings, loves, and shines as it shines for us here a star. 
 
70 
 
 IN A ROSARY 
 
 Through the low grey archway children's feet that pass 
 Quicken, glad to find the sweetest haunt of all. 
 Brightest wildflowers gleaming deep in lustiest grass, 
 Glorious weeds that glisten through the green sea's glass, 
 Match not now this marvel, born to fade and fall. 
 
 Roses like a rainbow wrought of roses rise 
 Right and left and forward, shining toward the sun. 
 Nay, the rainbow lit of sunshine droops and dies 
 Ere we dream it hallows earth and seas and skies ; 
 Ere delight may dream it lives, its life is done. 
 
 Round the border hemmed with high deep hedges round 
 
 Go the children, peering over or between 
 
 Where the dense bright oval wall of box inwound, 
 
 Reared about the roses fast within it bound. 
 
 Gives them grace to glance at glories else unseen. 
 
IN A ROSARY 71 
 
 Flower outlightening flower and tree outflowering tree 
 Feed and fill the sense and spirit full with joy. 
 Nought awhile they know of outer earth and sea : 
 Here enough of joy it is to breathe and be : 
 Here the sense of life is one for girl and boy. 
 
 Heaven above them, bright as children's eyes or dreams, 
 Earth about them, sweet as glad soft sleep can show 
 Earth and sky and sea, a world that scarcely seems 
 Even in children's eyes less fair than life that gleams 
 Through the sleep that none but sinless eyes may know. 
 
 Near beneath, and near above, the terraced ways 
 Wind or stretch and bask or blink against the sun. 
 Hidden here from sight on soft or stormy days 
 Lies and laughs with love toward heaven, at silent gaze. 
 All the radiant rosary — all its flowers made one. 
 
 All the multitude of roses towering round 
 
 Dawn and noon and night behold as one full flower, 
 
72 IN A ROSARY 
 
 Fain of heaven and loved of heaven, curbed and crowned, 
 Raised and reared to make this plot of earthly ground 
 Heavenly, could but heaven endure on earth an hour. 
 
 Swept away, made nothing now for ever, dead. 
 Still the rosary lives and shines on memory, free 
 Now from fear of death or change as childhood, fled 
 Years on years before its last live leaves were shed : 
 None may mar it now, as none may stain the sea. 
 
73 
 
 THE HIGH OAKS 
 Barking Hall, July 19TH, 1896 
 
 Fourscore years and seven 
 Light and dew from heaven 
 Have fallen with dawn on these glad woods each day 
 Since here was born, even here, 
 A birth more bright and dear 
 Than ever a younger year 
 Hath seen or shall till all these pass away, 
 Even all the imperious pride of these. 
 The woodland ways majestic now with towers of trees. 
 
 Love itself hath nought 
 Touched of tenderest thought 
 With holiest hallowing of memorial grace 
 
74 THE HIGH OAKS 
 
 For memory, blind with bliss, 
 To love, to clasp, to kiss, 
 So sweetly strange as this, 
 The sense that here the sun first hailed her face, 
 A babe at Her glad mother's breast, 
 And here again beholds it more beloved and blest. 
 
 Love's own heart, a living 
 Spring of strong thanksgiving. 
 Can bid no strength of welling song find way 
 When all the soul would seek 
 One word for joy to speak, 
 And even its strength makes weak 
 The too strong yearning of the soul to say 
 What may not be conceived or said 
 While darkness makes division of the quick and dead. 
 
 Haply, where the sun 
 Wanes, and death is none. 
 The word known here of silence only, held 
 
THE HIGH OAKS 75 
 
 Too dear for speech to wrong, 
 May leap in living song 
 Forth, and the speech be strong 
 As here the silence whence it yearned and welled 
 From hearts whose utterance love sealed fast 
 Till death perchance might give it grace to live at last 
 
 Here we have our earth 
 Yet, with all the mirth 
 Of all the summers since the world began. 
 All strengths of rest and strife 
 And love-lit love of life 
 Where death has birth to wife, 
 And where the sun speaks, and is heard of man : 
 Yea, half the sun's bright speech is heard. 
 And like the sea the soul of man gives back his word. 
 
 Earth's enkindled heart 
 Bears benignant part 
 In the ardent heaven's auroral pride of prime : 
 
76 THE HIGH OAKS 
 
 If ever home on earth 
 Were found of heaven's grace worth 
 So God-beloved a birth 
 As here makes bright the fostering face of time, 
 Here, heaven bears witness, might such grace 
 Fall fragrant as the dewfall on that brightening face. 
 
 Here, for mine and me. 
 All that eyes may see 
 Hath more than all the wide world else of good. 
 All nature else of fair : 
 Here as none otherwhere 
 Heaven is the circling air, 
 Heaven is the homestead, heaven the wold, the wood : 
 The fragrance with the shadow spread 
 From broadening wings of cedars breathes of dawn's 
 bright bed. 
 
 Once a dawn rose here 
 More divine and dear, 
 Rose on a birth-bed brighter far than dawn's. 
 
THE HIGH OAKS 77 
 
 Whence all the summer grew 
 Sweet as when earth was new 
 Andfpure as Eden's dew : 
 And yet its light lives on these lustrous lawns, 
 Clings round these wildwood ways, and cleaves 
 To the aisles of shadow and sun that wind unweaves and 
 weaves. 
 
 Thoughts that smile and weep, 
 Dreams that hallow sleep, 
 Brood in the branching shadows of the trees. 
 Tall trees at agelong rest 
 Wherein the centuries nest, 
 Whence, blest as these are blest. 
 We part, and part not from delight in these ; 
 Whose comfort, sleeping as awake. 
 We bear about within us as when first it spake. 
 
 Comfort as of song 
 Grown with time more strong, 
 Made perfect and prophetic as the sea, 
 
rS THE HIGH OAKS 
 
 Whose message, when it lies 
 Far off our hungering eyes, 
 Within us prophesies 
 Of life not ours, yet ours as theirs may be 
 Whose souls far off us shine and sing 
 As ere they sprang back sunward, swift as fire might 
 spring. 
 
 All this oldworld pleasance 
 Hails a hallowing presence. 
 And thrills with sense of more than summer near. 
 And lifts toward heaven more high 
 The song-surpassing cry 
 Of rapture that July 
 Lives, for her love who makes it loveliest here ; 
 For joy that she who here first drew 
 The breath of life she gave me breathes it here anew. 
 
 Never birthday born 
 Highest in height of morn 
 Whereout the star looks forth that leads the sun 
 
THE HIGH OAKS 79 
 
 Shone higher in love's account, 
 Still seeing the mid noon mourit 
 From the eager dayspring's fount 
 Each year more lustrous, each like all in one \ 
 Whose light around us and above 
 We could not see so lovely save by grace of love. 
 
8o 
 
 BARKING HALL: A YEAR AFTER 
 
 Still the sovereign trees 
 Make the sundawn's breeze 
 More bright, more sweet, more heavenly than it rose, 
 As wind and sun fulfil 
 Their living rapture : still 
 Noon, dawn, and evening thrill 
 With radiant change the immeasurable repose 
 Wherewith the woodland wilds lie blest 
 And feel how storms and centuries rock them still to rest. 
 
 Still the love-lit place 
 Given of God such grace 
 That here was bom on earth a birth divine 
 
BARKING HALL: A YEAR AFTER 8i 
 
 Gives thanks with all its flowers 
 Through all their lustrous hours, 
 From all its birds and bowers 
 Gives thanks that here they felt her sunset shine 
 Where once her sunrise laughed, and bade 
 The life of all the living things it lit be glad. 
 
 Soft as light and strong 
 
 Rises yet their song 
 And thrills with pride the cedar-crested lawn 
 
 And every brooding dove. 
 
 But she, beloved above 
 
 All utterance known of love. 
 Abides no more the change of night and dawn. 
 Beholds no more with earth-born eye 
 These woods that watched her waking here where all 
 
 things die. 
 
 Not the light that shone 
 When she looked thereon 
 Shines on them or shall shine for ever here. 
 
 G 
 
82 BARKING HALL: A YEAR AFTER 
 
 We know not, save when sleep 
 SlaysMeath, who fain would keep 
 His mystery dense and deep, 
 Where shines the smile we held and hold so dear. 
 Dreams only, thrilled and filled with love. 
 Bring back its light ere dawn leave nought alive above. 
 
 Nought alive awake 
 Sees the strong dawn break 
 On all the dreams that dying night bade live. 
 Yet scarce the intolerant sense 
 Of day's harsh evidence 
 How came their word and whence 
 Strikes dumb the song of thanks it bids them give, 
 The joy that answers as it heard 
 And lightens as it saw the light that spake the word. 
 
 Night and sleep and dawn 
 Pass with dreams withdrawn : 
 But higher above them far than noon may climb 
 
BARKING HALL: A YEAR AFTER 83 
 
 Love lives and turns to light 
 The deadly noon of night. 
 His fiery spirit of sight 
 Endures no curb of change or darkling time. 
 Even earth and transient things of earth 
 Even here to him bear witness not of death but birth. 
 
84 
 
 MUSIC: AN ODE 
 
 I 
 
 Was it light that spake from the darkness, or music 
 
 that shone from the word, 
 When the night was enkindled with sound of the sun 
 
 or the first-born bird ? 
 Souls enthralled and entrammelled in bondage of seasons 
 
 that fall and rise, 
 Bound fast round with the fetters of flesh, and blinded 
 
 with light that dies. 
 Lived not surely till music spake, and the spirit of life 
 
 was heard. 
 
 II 
 
 Music, sister of sunrise, and herald of life to be. 
 Smiled as dawn on the spirit of man, and the thrall 
 was free. 
 
MUSIC: AN ODE 85 
 
 Slave of nature and serf of time, the bondman of life 
 and death, 
 
 Dumb with passionless patience that breathed but for- 
 lorn and reluctant breath, 
 
 Heard, beheld, and his soul made answer, and com- 
 muned aloud with the sea. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Morning spake, and he heard : and the passionate 
 
 silent noon 
 Kept for him not silence : and soft from the mounting 
 
 moon 
 Fell the sound of her splendour, heard as dawn's in the 
 
 breathless night. 
 Not of men but of birds whose note bade man's soul 
 
 quicken and leap to light : 
 And the song of it spake, and the light and the darkness 
 
 of earth were as chords in tune. 
 
86 
 
 THE CENTENARY OF THE BATTLE 
 OF THE NILE 
 
 August 1898 
 * Horatio Nelson — Honor est a Nilo ' 
 
 A HUNDRED years have lightened and have waned 
 Since ancient Nile by grace of Nelson gained 
 
 A glory higher in story now than time 
 Saw when his kings were gods that raged and reigned. 
 
 The day that left even England more sublime 
 And higher on heights that none but she may climb 
 
 Abides above all shock of change-born chance 
 Where hope and memory hear the stars keep chime. 
 
 The strong and sunbright lie whose name was France 
 Arose against the sun of truth, whose glance 
 Laughed large from the eyes of England, fierce as 
 fire 
 Whence eyes wax blind that gaze on truth askance. 
 
CENTENARY OF BATTLE OF THE NILE Sy 
 
 A name above all names of heroes, higher 
 Than song may sound or heart of man aspire, 
 Rings as the very voice that speaks the sea 
 To-day from all the sea's enkindling lyre. 
 
 The sound that bids the soul of silence be 
 Fire, and a rapturous music, speaks, and we 
 
 Hear what the sea's heart utters, wide and far : 
 "This was his day, and this day's light was he." 
 
 O sea, our sea that hadst him for thy star, 
 A hundred years that fall upon thee are 
 
 Even as a hundred flakes of rain or snow : 
 No storm of battle signs thee with a scar. 
 
 But never more may ship that sails thee show, 
 But never may the sun that loves thee know. 
 
 But never may thine England give thee more, 
 A man whose life and death shall praise thee so. 
 
88 CENTENARY OF BATTLE OF THE NILE 
 
 The Nile, the sea, the battle, and the shore, 
 Heard as we hear one word arise and soar, 
 
 Beheld one name above them tower and glow — 
 Nelson : a light that time bows down before. 
 
89 
 
 TRAFALGAR DAY 
 
 Sea, that art ours as we are thine, whose name 
 Is one with England's even as light with flame, 
 Dost thou as we, thy chosen of all men, know 
 This day of days when death gave life to fame ? 
 
 Dost thou not kindle above and thrill below 
 With rapturous record, with memorial glow. 
 Remembering this thy festal day of fight, 
 And all the joy it gave, and all the woe ? 
 
 Never since day broke flowerlike forth of night 
 Broke such a dawn of battle. Death in sight 
 
 Made of the man whose life was like the sun 
 A man more godlike than the lord of light. 
 
90 TRAFALGAR DAY 
 
 There is none like him, and there shall be none. 
 When England bears again as great a son, 
 
 He can but follow fame where Nelson led. 
 There is not and there cannot be but one. 
 
 As earth has but one England, crown and head 
 Of all her glories till the sun be dead. 
 
 Supreme in peace and war, supreme in song, 
 Supreme in freedom, since her rede was read, 
 
 Since first the soul that gave her speech grew strong 
 To help the right and heal the wild world's wrong, 
 
 So she hath but one royal Nelson, born 
 To reign on time above the years that throng. 
 
 The music of his name puts fear to scorn. 
 
 And thrills our twilight through with sense of morn : 
 
 As England was, how should not England be ? 
 No tempest yet has left her banner torn. 
 
TRAFALGAR DAY 91 
 
 No year has yet put out the day when he 
 Who lived and died to keep our kingship free 
 
 Wherever seas by warring winds are worn 
 Died, and was one with England and the sea. 
 
 October 21, 1895. 
 
92 
 
 CROMWELL S STATUE^ 
 
 What needs our Cromwell stone or bronze to say 
 His was the light that lit on England's way 
 
 The sundawn of her time-compelling power, 
 The noontide of her most imperial day ? 
 
 His hand won back the sea for England's dower ; 
 His footfall bade the Moor change heart and cower ; 
 His word on Milton's tongue spake law to France 
 When Piedmont felt the she-wolf Rome devour. 
 
 From Cromwell's eyes the light of England's glance 
 Flashed, and bowed down the kings by grace of chance, 
 
 The priest-anointed princes ; one alone 
 By grace of England held their hosts in trance. 
 
 ' Refused by the party of reaction and disunion in the House of 
 Commons on the 17 th of June, 1895. 
 
CROMWELL'S STATUE 93 
 
 The enthroned Republic from her kinglier throne 
 Spake, and her speech was Cromwell's. Earth has known 
 
 No lordlier presence. How should Cromwell stand 
 With kinglets and with queenlings hewn in stone ? 
 
 Incarnate England in his warrior hand 
 
 Smote, and as fire devours the blackening brand 
 
 Made ashes of their strengths who wrought her wrong, 
 And turned the strongholds of her foes to sand. 
 
 His praise is in the sea's and Milton's song ; 
 
 What praise could reach him from the weakling throng 
 
 That rules by leave of tongues whose praise is shame — 
 Him, who made England out of weakness strong ? 
 
 There needs no clarion's blast of broad-blown fame 
 To bid the world bear witness whence he came 
 
 Who bade fierce Europe fawn at England's heel 
 And purged the plague of lineal rule with flame. 
 
94 CROMWELL'S STATUE 
 
 There needs no witness graven on stone or steel 
 For one whose work bids fame bow down and kneel ; 
 
 Our man of men, whose time-commanding name 
 Speaks England, and proclaims her Commonweal. 
 
 June 20, 1895. 
 
95 
 
 A WORD FOR THE NAVY 
 
 V 
 
 Queen born of the sea, that hast borne her 
 
 The mightiest of seamen on earth, 
 Bright England, whose glories adorn her 
 And bid her rejoice in thy birth 
 As others made mothers 
 
 Rejoice in births sublime. 
 She names thee, she claims thee. 
 The lordliest child of time. 
 
 II 
 
 All hers is the praise of thy story. 
 All thine is the love of her choice : 
 
 The light of her waves is thy glory, 
 The sound of thy soul is her voice. 
 
96 A WORD FOR THE NAVY 
 
 They fear it who hear it 
 
 And love not truth nor thee : 
 
 They sicken, heart-stricken, 
 Who see and would not see. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The lords of thy fate, and thy keepers 
 
 Whose charge is the strength of thy ships, 
 If now they be dreamers and sleepers, 
 Or sluggards with lies at their lips. 
 Thy haters and traitors, 
 
 False friends or foes descried, 
 Might scatter and shatter 
 Too soon thy princely pride. 
 
 IV 
 
 Dark Muscovy, reptile in rancour. 
 Base Germany, blatant in guile, 
 
 Lay wait for thee riding at anchor 
 On waters that whisper and smile. 
 
A WORD FOR THE NAVY 97 
 
 They deem thee or dream thee 
 
 Less living now than dead, 
 Deep sunken and drunken 
 
 With sleep whence fear has fled. , 
 
 V 
 
 And what though thy song as thine action 
 Wax faint, and thy place be not known, 
 While faction is grappling with faction, 
 Twin curs with thy corpse for a bone ? 
 They care not, who spare not 
 
 The noise of pens or throats ; 
 Who bluster and muster 
 
 Blind ranks and bellowing votes. 
 
 VI 
 
 Let populace jangle with peerage 
 
 And ministers shuffle their mobs ; 
 Mad pilots who reck not of steerage 
 
 Though tempest ahead of them throbs. 
 
98 A WORD FOR THE NAVY 
 
 That throbbing and sobbing 
 Of wind and gradual wave 
 
 They hear net and fear not 
 Who guide thee toward thy grave. 
 
 VII 
 
 No clamour of cries or of parties 
 
 Is worth but a whisper from thee, 
 While only the trust of thy heart is 
 At one with the soul of the sea. 
 In justice her trust is 
 
 Whose time her tidestreams keep ; 
 They sink not, they shrink not, 
 Time casts them not on sleep, 
 
 VIII 
 
 Sleep thou : for thy past was so royal. 
 Love hardly would bid thee take heed 
 
 Were Russia not faithful and loyal 
 Nor Germany guiltless of greed. 
 
A WORD FOR THE NAVY 99 
 
 No nation, in station 
 
 Of story less than thou, 
 Re-risen from prison, 
 
 Can stand against thee now. 
 
 IX 
 
 Sleep on : is the time not a season 
 
 For strong men to slumber and sleep, 
 And wise men to palter with treason ? 
 And that they sow tares, shall they reap ? 
 The wages of ages 
 
 Wherein men smiled and slept. 
 Fame fails them, shame veils them. 
 Their record is not kept* 
 
 X 
 
 Nay, whence is it then that we know it, 
 What wages were theirs, and what fame ? 
 
 Deep voices of prophet and poet 
 Bear record against them of shame. 
 
 n 2 
 
lOO A WORD FOR THE NAVY 
 
 Death, starker and darker 
 Than seals the graveyard grate, 
 
 Entombs them and dooms them 
 To darkness deep as fate. 
 
 XI 
 
 But thou, though the world should misdoubt thee, 
 
 Be strong as the seas at thy side ; 
 Bind on but thine armour about thee. 
 That girds thee with power and with pride. 
 Where Drake stood, where Blake stood, 
 
 Where fame sees Nelson stand, 
 Stand thou too, and now too 
 Take thou thy fate in hand 
 
 XII 
 
 At the gate of the sea, in the gateway, 
 They stood as the guards of thy gate ; 
 
 Take now but thy strengths to thee straightway, 
 Though late, we will deem it not late. 
 
A WORD FOR THE NAVY loi 
 
 Thy story, thy glory, 
 
 The very soul of thee. 
 It rose not, it grows not, 
 
 It comes not save by sea. 
 
I02 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND 
 
 Between our eastward and our westward sea 
 
 The narrowing strand 
 Clasps close the noblest shore fame holds in fee 
 Even here where English birth seals all men free — 
 
 Northumberland. 
 
 The sea-mists meet across it when the snow 
 
 Clothes moor and fell, 
 And bid their true-born hearts who love it glow 
 For joy that none less nobly born may know 
 
 What love knows well. 
 
 The splendour and the strength of storm and fight 
 
 Sustain the song 
 That filled our fathers' hearts with joy to smite, 
 To live, to love, to lay down life that right 
 
 Might tread down wrong. 
 
NORTHUMBERLAND 103 
 
 They warred, they sang, they triumphed, and they passed. 
 
 And left us glad 
 Here to be born, their sons, whose hearts hold fast 
 The proud old love no change can overcast. 
 
 No chance leave sad. 
 
 None save our northmen ever, none but we. 
 
 Met, pledged, or fought 
 Such foes and friends as Scotland and the sea 
 With heart so high and equal, strong in glee 
 
 And stern in thought. 
 
 Thought, fed from time's memorial springs with pride, 
 
 Made strong as fire 
 Their hearts who hurled the foe down Flodden side. 
 And hers who rode the waves none else durst ride — 
 
 None save her sire. 
 
 O land beloved, where nought of legend's dream 
 
 Outshines the truth. 
 Where Joyous Gard, closed round with clouds that gleam 
 For them that know thee not, can scarce but seem 
 
 Too sweet for sooth, 
 
I04 NORTHUMBERLAND 
 
 Thy sons forget not, nor shall fame forget, 
 
 The deed there done 
 Before the walls whose fabled fame is yet 
 A light too sweet and strong to rise and set 
 
 With moon and sun. 
 
 Song bright as flash of swords or oars that shine 
 
 Through fight or foam 
 Stirs yet the blood thou hast given thy sons like wine 
 To hail in each bright ballad hailed as thine 
 
 One heart, one home. 
 
 Our CoUingwood, though Nelson be not ours, 
 
 By him shall stand 
 Immortal, till those waifs of oldworld hours. 
 Forgotten, leave uncrowned with bays and flowers 
 
 Northumberland. 
 
I05 
 
 STRA TFORD-ON-A VON 
 June 27, 1901 
 
 Be glad in heaven above all souls insphered, 
 Most royal and most loyal born of men, 
 Shakespeare, of all on earth beloved or feared 
 Or worshipped, highest in sight of human ken. 
 The homestead hallowed by thy sovereign birth. 
 Whose name, being one with thine, stands higher than 
 
 Rome, 
 Forgets not how of all on English earth 
 Their trust is holiest, there who have their home. 
 Stratford is thine and England's. None that hate 
 The commonweal whose empire sets men free 
 Find comfort there, where once by grace of fate 
 A soul was born as boundless as the sea. 
 If life, if love, if memory now be thine. 
 Rejoice that still thy Stratford bears thy sign. 
 
io6 
 
 BURNS: AN ODE 
 
 A FIRE of fierce and laughing light 
 That clove the shuddering heart of night 
 Leapt earthward, and the thunder's might 
 
 That pants and yearns 
 Made fitful music round its flight : 
 
 And earth saw Bums. 
 
 The joyous lightning found its voice 
 And bade the heart of wrath rejoice 
 And scorn uplift a song to voice 
 
 The imperial hate 
 That smote the God of base men's choice 
 
 At God's own gate. 
 
BURNS: AN ODE 107 
 
 Before the shrine of dawn, wherethrough 
 The lark rang rapture as she flew, 
 It flashed and fired the darkling dew : 
 
 And all that heard 
 With love or loathing hailed anew 
 
 A new day's word. 
 
 The servants of the lord of hell 
 
 As though their lord had blessed them, fell 
 
 Foaming at mouth for fear, so well 
 
 They knew the lie 
 Wherewith they sought to scan and spell 
 
 The unsounded sky. 
 
 And Calvin, night's prophetic bird, 
 Out of his home in hell was heard 
 Shrieking ; and all the fens were stirred 
 
 Whence plague is bred ; 
 Can God endure the scoffer's word ? 
 
 But God was dead. 
 
lo8 BURNS: AN ODE 
 
 The God they made them in despite 
 Of man and woman, love and light, 
 Strong sundawn and the starry night. 
 
 The lie supreme, 
 Shot through with song, stood forth to sight 
 
 A devil's dream. 
 
 And he that bent the lyric bow 
 And laid the lord of darkness low 
 And bade the fire of laughter glow 
 
 Across his grave. 
 And bade the tides above it flow, 
 
 Wave hurtling wave. 
 
 Shall he not win from latter days 
 
 More than his own could yield of praise ? 
 
 Ay, could the sovereign singer's bays 
 
 Forsake his brow. 
 The warrior's, won on stormier ways. 
 
 Still clasp it now. 
 
BURNS: AN ODE 109 
 
 He loved, and sang of love : he laughed, 
 And bade the cup whereout he quaffed 
 Shine as a planet, fore and aft, 
 
 And left and right. 
 And keen as shoots the sun's first shaft 
 
 Against the night. 
 
 But love and wine were moon and sun 
 For many a fame long since undone. 
 And sorrow and joy have lost and won 
 
 By stormy turns 
 As many a singer's soul, if none 
 
 More bright than Burns. 
 
 And sweeter far in grief or mirth 
 Have songs as glad and sad of birth 
 Found voice to speak of wealth or dearth 
 
 In joy of life : 
 But never song took fire from earth 
 
 More strong for strife. 
 
no BURNS: AN ODE 
 
 The daisy by his ploughshare cleft, 
 The lips of women loved and left, 
 The griefs and joys that weave the weft 
 
 Of human time. 
 With craftsman's cunning, keen and deft, 
 
 He carved in rhyme. 
 
 But Chaucer's daisy shines a star 
 Above his ploughshare's reach to mar, 
 And mightier vision gave Dunbar 
 
 More strenuous wing 
 To hear around all sins that are 
 
 Hell dance and sing. 
 
 And when such pride and power of trust 
 In song's high gift to arouse from dust 
 Death, and transfigure love or lust 
 
 Through smiles or tears 
 In golden speech that takes no rust 
 
 From cankering years. 
 
BURNS: AN ODE iii 
 
 As never spake but once in one 
 
 Strong star-crossed child of earth and sun, 
 
 Villon, made music such as none 
 
 May praise or blame, 
 A crown of starrier flower was won 
 
 Than Burns may claim. 
 
 But never, since bright earth was bom 
 In rapture of the enkindling morn. 
 Might godlike wrath and sunlike scorn 
 
 That was and is 
 And shall be while false weeds are worn 
 
 Find word like his. 
 
 Above the rude and radiant earth 
 
 That heaves and glows from firth to firth 
 
 In vale and mountain, bright in dearth 
 
 And warm in wealth, 
 Which gave his fiery glory birth 
 
 By chance and stealth, 
 
[la BURNS: AN ODE 
 
 Above the storms of praise and blame 
 That blur with mist his lustrous name, 
 His thunderous laughter went an.d came, 
 
 And lives and flies ; 
 The roar that follows on the flame 
 
 When lightning dies. 
 
 Earth, and the snow-dimmed heights of air, 
 
 And water winding soft and fair 
 
 Through still sweet places, bright and bare. 
 
 By bent and byre, 
 Taught him what hearts within them were : 
 
 But his was fire. 
 
"3 
 
 THE COMMONWEAL 
 A Song for Unionists 
 
 Men, whose fathers braved the world in arms against our 
 isles in union, 
 Men, whose brothers met rebellion face to face. 
 Show the hearts ye have, if worthy long descent and high 
 communion. 
 Show the spirits, if unbroken, of your race. 
 
 What are these that howl and hiss across the strait of 
 westward water? 
 What is he who floods our ears with speech in flood ? 
 See the long tongue lick the dripping hand that smokes 
 and reeks of slaughter ! 
 See the man of words embrace the man of blood ! 
 
 I 
 
114 THE COMMONWEAL 
 
 Hear the plea whereby the tonguester mocks and charms 
 the gazing gaper — 
 "We are they whose works are works of love and 
 peace ; 
 Till disunion bring forth union, what is union, sirs, but 
 paper ? 
 Break and rend it, then shall trust and strength increase." 
 
 Who would fear to trust a double-faced but single-hearted 
 dreamer. 
 Pure of purpose, clean of hand, and clear of guile ? 
 " Life is well-nigh spent," he sighs ; " you call me 
 shuffler, trickster, schemer? 
 I am old — when young men yell at me, I smile." 
 
 Many a year that priceless light of life has trembled, we 
 remember, 
 On the platform of extinction — unextinct ; 
 Many a month has been for him the long year's last — 
 life's calm December : 
 Can it be that he who said so, saying so^ winked ? 
 
THE COMMONWEAL 115 
 
 No ; the lust of life, the thirst for work and days with 
 work to do in, 
 Drove and drives him down the road of splendid 
 shame ; 
 All is well, if o'er the monument recording England's ruin 
 Time shall read, inscribed in triumph, Gladstone's 
 name. 
 
 Thieves and murderers, hands yet red with blood and 
 tongues yet black with lies. 
 Clap and clamour — "Pamell spurs hil Gladstone 
 well ! " 
 Truth, unscared and undeluded by their praise or blame, 
 replies — 
 "Is the goal of fraud and bloodshed heaven or hell?" 
 
 Old men eloquent, who truckle to the traitors of the time. 
 Love not office — power is no desire of theirs : 
 
 What if yesterday their hearts recoiled from blood and 
 fraud and crime ? 
 Conscience erred — an error which to-day repairs. 
 
 12 
 
ii6 THE COMMONWEAL 
 
 Conscience only now convinces them of strange though 
 transient error : 
 Only now they see how fair is treason's face ; 
 See how true the falsehood, just the theft, and blameless 
 is the terror, 
 Which replaces just and blameless men in place. 
 
 Place and time decide the right and wrong of thought 
 and word and action ; 
 Crime is black as hell, till virtue gain its vote ; 
 Then — but ah, to think or say so smacks of fraud or 
 smells of faction ! — 
 Mercy holds the door while Murder hacks the throat. 
 
 Murder ? Treason ? Theft ? Poor brothers who succumb 
 to such temptations. 
 Shall we lay on you or take on us the blame ? 
 Reason answers, and religion echoes round to wondering 
 nations, 
 " Not with Ireland, but with England rests the shame." 
 
THE COMMONWEAL 117 
 
 Reason speaks through mild religion's organ, loud and 
 long and lusty — 
 Profit speaks through lips of patriots pure and true — 
 " English friends, whose trust we ask for, has not England 
 found us trusty ? 
 Not for us we seek advancement, but for you. 
 
 " Far and near the world bears witness of our wisdom, 
 courage, honour; 
 Egypt knows if there our fame burns bright or dim. 
 Let but England trust as Gordon trusted, soon shall 
 come upon her 
 Such deliverance as our daring brought on him. 
 
 " Far and wide the world rings record of our faith, our 
 constant dealing, 
 Love of country, truth to friends, contempt for foes. 
 Sign once more. the bond of trust in us that here awaits 
 but sealing, 
 We will give yet more than all our record shows. 
 
Ii8 THE COMMONWEAL 
 
 "Perfect ruin, shame eternal, everlasting degradation, 
 Freedom bought and sold, truth bound and treason 
 free." 
 Yet an hour is here for answer ; now, if here be yet a 
 nation, 
 Answer, England, man by man from sea to sea ! 
 
 June 30, 1886. 
 
119 
 
 THE QUESTION 
 1887 
 
 Shall England consummate the crime 
 That binds the murderer's hand, and leaves 
 No surety for the trust of thieves ? 
 
 Time pleads against it — truth and time — 
 And pity frowns and grieves. 
 
 The hoary henchman of the gang 
 Lifts hands that never dew nor rain 
 May cleanse from Gordon's blood again, 
 
 Appealing : pity's tenderest pang 
 Thrills his pure heart with pain. 
 
120 THE QUESTION 
 
 Grand helmsman of the clamorous crew, 
 The good grey recreant quakes and weeps 
 To think that crime no longer creeps 
 
 Safe toward its end : that murderers too 
 May die when mercy sleeps. 
 
 While all the lives were innocent 
 That slaughter drank, and laughed with rage, 
 Bland virtue sighed, " A former age 
 
 Taught murder : souls long discontent 
 Can aught save blood assuage ? 
 
 " You blame not Russian hands that smite 
 By fierce and secret ways the power 
 That leaves not life one chainless hour ; 
 
 Have these than they less natural right 
 To claim life's natural dower ? 
 
THE QUESTION 121 
 
 " The dower that freedom brings the slave 
 She weds, is vengeance : why should we, 
 Whom equal laws acclaim as free, 
 
 Think shame, if men too blindly brave 
 Steal, murder, skulk, and flee ? 
 
 " At kings they strike in Russia : there 
 Men take their life in hand who slay 
 Kings : these, that have not heart to lay 
 
 Hand save on girls whose ravaged hair 
 Is made the patriot's prey, 
 
 " These, whom the sight of old men slain 
 Makes bold to bid their children die. 
 Starved, if they hold not peace, nor lie, 
 
 Claim loftier praise : could others deign 
 To stand in shame so high ? 
 
ia« THE QUESTION 
 
 " Could others deign to dare such deeds 
 
 As holiest Ireland hallows ? Nay, 
 
 ■ 
 
 But justice then makes plain our way-: 
 Be laws burnt up like burning weeds 
 That vex the face of day. 
 
 " Shall bloodmongers be held of us 
 Blood-guilty ? Hands reached out for gold 
 Whereon blood rusts not yet, we hold 
 
 Bloodless and blameless : ever thus 
 Have good men held of old. 
 
 " Fair Freedom, fledged and imped with lies, 
 Takes flight by night where murder lurks. 
 And broods on murderous ways and works, 
 
 Yet seems not hideous in our eyes 
 As Austrians or as Turks. 
 
THE QUESTION 123 
 
 '* Be it ours to undo a woful past, 
 To bid the bells of concord chime, 
 To break the bonds of suffering crime, 
 
 Slack now, that some would make more fast : 
 Such teaching comes of time." 
 
 So pleads the gentlest heart that lives, 
 Whose pity, pitiless for all 
 Whom darkling terror holds in thrall, 
 
 Toward none save miscreants yearns, and gives 
 Alms of warm tears — and gall. 
 
 Hear, England, and obey : for he 
 Who claims thy trust again to-day 
 Is he who left thy sons a prey 
 
 To shame whence only death sets free : 
 Hear, England, and obey. 
 
124 I^HE QUESTION 
 
 Thy spoils he gave to deck the Dutch ; 
 Thy noblest pride, most pure, most brave, 
 To death forlorn and sure he gave ; 
 
 Nor now requires he overmuch 
 Who bids thee dig thy grave. 
 
 Dig deep the grave of shame, wherein 
 Thy fame, thy commonweal, must lie ; 
 Put thought of aught save terror by ; 
 
 To strike and slay the slayer is sin ; 
 And Murder must not die. 
 
 Bind fast the true man ; loose the thief ; 
 Shamed were the land, the laws accursed, 
 Were guilt, not innocence, amerced ; 
 
 And dark the wrong and sore the grief, 
 Were tyrants too coerced. 
 
THE QUESTION 125 
 
 The fiercest cowards that ever skulked, 
 The cowardliest hounds that ever lapped 
 Blood, if their horde be tracked and trapped, 
 
 And justice claim their lives for mulct, 
 Gnash teeth that flashed and snapped. 
 
 Bow down for fear, then, England : bow. 
 Lest worse befall thee yet \ and swear 
 That nought save pity, conscience, care 
 
 For truth and mercy, moves thee now 
 To call foul falsehood fair. 
 
 So shalt thou live in shame, and hear 
 The lips of all men laughjthee dead ; 
 The wide world's mockery round thy head 
 
 Shriek like a storm-wind : and a bier 
 Shall be thine honour's bed. 
 
126 
 
 APOSTASY 
 Et Judas m* adit: Tr afire !—\fiCTOYi Hugo 
 
 I 
 
 Truths change with time, and terms with truth. To-day 
 A statesman worships union, and to-night 
 Disunion. Shame to have sinned against the light 
 
 Confounds not but impels his tongue to unsay 
 
 What yestereve he swore. Should fear make way 
 For treason ? honour change her livery ? fright 
 Clasp hands with interest ? wrong pledge faith with 
 right? 
 
 Religion, mercy, conscience, answer — Yea. 
 
 To veer is not to veer : when votes are weighed, 
 The numerous tongue approves him renegade 
 
 Who cannot change his banner ; he that can 
 Sits crowned with wreaths of praise too pure to fade. 
 
 Truth smiles applause on treason's poisonous plan : 
 
 And Cleon is an honourable man. 
 
APOSTASY 127 
 
 Pure faith, fond hope, sweet love, with God for guide, 
 Move now the men whose blameless error cast 
 In prison (ah, but love condones the past !) 
 
 Their subject knaves that were — their lords that ride 
 
 Now laughing on their necks, and now bestride 
 
 Their vassal backs in triumph. Faith stands fast 
 Though fear haul down the flag that crowned her mast 
 
 And hope and love proclaim that truth has lied. 
 
 Turn, turn, and turn — so bids the still small voice, 
 The changeless voice of honour. He that stands 
 Where all his life he stood, with bribeless hands. 
 
 With tongue unhired to mourn, reprove, rejoice. 
 Curse, bless, forswear, and swear again, and lie. 
 Stands proven apostate in the apostate's eye. 
 
128 APOSTASY 
 
 III 
 
 Fraud shrinks from faith : at sight of swans, the raven 
 Chides blackness, and the snake recoils aghast 
 In fear of poison when a bird flies past. 
 
 Thersites brands Achilles as a craven ; 
 
 The shoal fed full with shipwreck blames the haven 
 For murderous lust of lives devoured, and vast 
 Desire of doom whose feast is mercy's fast : 
 
 And Bacon sees the traitor's mark engraven 
 
 Full on the front of Essex. Grief and shame 
 
 Obscure the chaste and sunlike spirit of Gates 
 
 At thought of Russell's treason ; and the name 
 
 Gf Milton sickens with superb disgust 
 
 The heaving heart of Waller. Wisdom dotes, 
 
 If wisdom turns not tail and licks not dust. 
 
APOSTASY 129 
 
 IV 
 
 The sole sweet land found fit to wed the sea, 
 With reptile rebels at her heel of old 
 Set hard her heel upon them, and controlled 
 The cowering poisonous peril. How should she 
 Cower, and resign her trust of empire ? Free 
 As winds and waters live the loyal-souled 
 And true-born sons that love her : nay, the bold 
 Base knaves who curse her name have leave to be 
 The loud-tongued liars they are. For she, beyond 
 All woful years that bid men's hearts despond. 
 Sees yet the likeness of her ancient fame 
 Bum from the heavenward heights of history, hears 
 Not Leicester's name but Sidney's — faith's, not fear's — 
 Not Gladstone's now but only Gordon's name. 
 
130 
 
 RUSSIA: AN ODE 
 1890 
 
 I 
 
 Out of hell a word comes hissing, dark as doom, 
 Fierce as fire, and foul as plague-polluted gloom ; 
 Out of hell wherein the sinless damned endure 
 More than ever sin conceived of pains impure ; 
 More than ever ground men's living souls to dust ; 
 Worse than madness ever dreamed of murderous lust. 
 Since the world's wail first went up from lands and seas 
 Ears have heard not, tongues have told not things like 
 
 these. 
 Dante, led by love's and hate's accordant spell 
 Down the deepest and the loathliest ways of hell. 
 Where beyond the brook of blood the rain was fire, 
 Where the scalps were masked with dung more deep 
 
 than mire, 
 
RUSSIA : AN ODE 131 
 
 Saw not, where the filth was foulest, and the night 
 Darkest, depths whose fiends could match the Muscovite. 
 Set beside this truth, his deadliest vision seems 
 Pale and pure and painless as a virgin's dreams. 
 Maidens dead beneath the clasping lash, and wives 
 Rent with deadlier pangs than death — for shame 
 
 survives, 
 Naked, mad, starved, scourged, spurned, frozen, fallen, 
 
 deflowered, 
 Souls and bodies as by fangs of beasts devoured, 
 Sounds that hell would hear not, sights no thought could 
 
 shape. 
 Limbs that feel as flame the ravenous grasp of rape, 
 Filth of raging crime and shame that crime enjoys. 
 Age made one with youth in torture, girls with boys, 
 These, and worse if aught be worse than these things 
 
 are, 
 Prove thee regent, Russia — praise thy mercy, Czar. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 RUSSIA : AN ODE 
 
 Sons of man, men born of women, may we dare 
 Say they sin who dare be slain and dare not spare ? 
 They who take their Hves in hand and smile on death, 
 Holding life as less than sleep's most fitful breath, 
 So their life perchance or death may serve and speed 
 Faith and hope, that die if dream become not deed ? 
 Nought is death and nought is life and nought is fate 
 Save for souls that love has clothed with fire of hate. 
 These behold them, weigh them, prove them, find them 
 
 nought, 
 Save by light of hope and fire of burning thought. 
 What though sun be less than storm where these aspire, 
 Dawn than lightning, song than thunder, light than 
 
 fire? 
 Help is none in heaven : hope sees no gentler star ; 
 Earth is hell, and hell bows down before the Czar. 
 All its monstrous, murderous, lecherous births acclaim 
 Him whose empire lives to match its fiery fame. 
 
RUSSIA: AN ODE 133 
 
 Nay, perchance at sight or sense of deeds here done, 
 Here where men may lift up eyes to greet the sun, 
 Hell recoils heart-stricken : horror worse than hell 
 Darkens earth and sickens heaven ; life knows the 
 
 spell. 
 Shudders, quails, and sinks — or, filled with fierier breath, 
 Rises red in arms devised of darkling death. 
 Pity mad with passion, anguish mad with shame, 
 Call aloud on justice by her darker name ; 
 Love grows hate for love's sake; life takes death for 
 
 guide. 
 Night hath none but one red star — Tyrannicide. 
 
 Ill 
 
 " God or man, be swift ; hope sickens with delay : 
 Smite, and send him howling down his father's way ! 
 Fall, O fire of heaven, and smite as fire from hell 
 Halls wherein men's torturers, crowned and cowering, 
 dwell ! 
 
134 RUSSIA: AN ODE 
 
 These that crouch and shrink and shudder, girt with 
 
 power — 
 These that reign, and dare not trust one trembling hour — 
 These omnipotent, whom terror curbs and drives — 
 These whose life reflects in fear their victims' lives — 
 These whose breath sheds poison worse than plague's 
 
 thick breath — 
 These whose reign is ruin, these whose word is death. 
 These whose will turns heaven to hell, and day to night, 
 These, if God's hand smite not, how shall man's not 
 
 smite?" 
 So from hearts by horror withered as by fire 
 Surge the strains of unappeasable desire ; 
 Sounds that bid the darkness lighten, lit for death ; 
 Bid the lips whose breath was doom yield up their 
 
 breath ; 
 Down the way of Czars, awhile in vain deferred, 
 Bid the Second Alexander light the Third. 
 How for shame shall men rebuke them ? how may we 
 Blame, whose fathers died, and slew, to leave us free ? 
 
RUSSIA : AN ODE 135 
 
 We, though all the world cry out upon them, know. 
 Were our strife as theirs, we could not strike but so ; 
 Could not cower, and could not kiss the hands that 
 
 smite ; 
 Could not meet them armed in sunlit battle's light. 
 Dark as fear and red as hate though morning rise, 
 Life it is that conquers ; death it is that dies. 
 
136 
 
 FOR GREECE AND CRETE 
 
 Storm and shame and fraud and darkness fill the nations 
 
 full with night : 
 Hope and fear whose eyes yearn eastward have but fire 
 
 and sword in sight : 
 One alone, whose name is one with glory, sees and seeks 
 
 the light. 
 
 Hellas, mother of the spirit, sole supreme in war and peace, 
 Land of light, whose word remembered bids all fear and 
 
 sorrow cease, 
 Lives again, while freedom lightens eastward yet for sons 
 
 of Greece. 
 
FOR GREECE AND CRETE 137 
 
 Greece, where only men whose manhood was as godhead 
 
 ever trod, 
 Bears the blind world witness yet of light wherewith her 
 
 feet are shod : 
 Freedom, armed of Greece, was always very man and 
 
 very God. 
 
 Now the winds of old that filled her sails with triumph, 
 
 when the fleet 
 Bound for death from Asia fled before them stricken, 
 
 wake to greet 
 Ships full-winged again for freedom toward the sacred 
 
 shores of Crete. 
 
 There was God born man, the song that spake of old 
 
 time said : and there 
 Man, made even as God by trust that shows him nought 
 
 too dire to dare, 
 Now may light again the beacon lit when those we worship 
 
 were. 
 
138 FOR GREECE AND CRETE 
 
 Sharp the concert wrought of discord shrills the tune of 
 
 shame and death, 
 Turk by Christian fenced and fostered, Mecca backed by 
 
 Nazareth : 
 All the powerless powers, tongue-valiant, breathe but 
 
 greed's or terror's breath. 
 
 Though the tide that feels the west wind lift it wave by 
 
 widening wave 
 Wax not yet to height and fullness of the storm that 
 
 smites to save, 
 None shall bid the flood back seaward till no bar be left 
 
 to brave. 
 
39 
 
 DELPHIC HYMN TO APOLLO 
 
 (B.C. 280) 
 
 Done into English 
 I 
 
 Thee, the son of God most high, 
 
 Famed for harping song, will I 
 Proclaim, and the deathless oracular word 
 From the snow-topped rock that we gaze on heard, 
 
 Counsels of thy glorious giving 
 
 Manifest for all men living, 
 How thou madest the tripod of prophecy thine 
 Which the wrath of the dragon kept guard on, a shrine 
 
 Voiceless till thy shafts could smite 
 
 All his live coiled glittering might. 
 
 II 
 
 Ye that hold of right alone 
 All deep woods on Helicon, 
 
I40 DELPHIC HYMN TO APOLLO 
 
 Fair daughters of thunder-girt God, with your bright 
 White arms uplift as to lighten the light, 
 
 Come to chant your brother's praise. 
 Gold-haired Phoebus, loud in lays. 
 Even his, who afar up the twin-topped seat 
 Of the rock Parnassian whereon we meet 
 Risen with glorious Delphic maids 
 Seeks the soft spring-sweetened shades 
 Castalian, fain of the Delphian peak 
 Prophetic, sublime as the feet that seek. 
 Glorious Athens, highest of state. 
 Come, with praise and prayer elate, 
 O thou that art queen of the plain unscarred 
 That the warrior Tritonid hath alway in guard. 
 Where on many a sacred shrine 
 Young bulls' thigh-bones bum and shine 
 As the god that is fire overtakes them, and fast 
 The smoke of Arabia to heavenward is cast, 
 Scattering wide its balm : and shrill 
 Now with nimble notes that thrill 
 
DELPHIC HYMN TO APOLLO 141 
 
 The flute strikes up for the song, and the harp of gold 
 Strikes up to the song sweet answer : and all behold, 
 
 All, aswarm as bees, give ear, 
 
 Who by birth hold Athens dear. 
 
142 
 
 A NEW CENTURY 
 
 An age too great for thought of ours to scan, 
 A wave upon the sleepless sea of time 
 That sinks and sleeps for ever, ere the chime 
 
 Pass that salutes with blessing, not with ban, 
 
 The dark year dead, the bright year born for man. 
 Dies : all its days that watched man cower and climb, 
 Frail as the foam, and as the sun sublime. 
 
 Sleep sound as they that slept ere these began. 
 
 Our mother earth, whose ages none may tell, 
 Puts on no change ; time bids not her wax pale 
 
 Or kindle, quenched or quickened, when the knell 
 Sounds, and we cry across the veering gale 
 
 Farewell — and midnight answers us. Farewell ; 
 Hail — and the heaven of morning answers, Hail. 
 
143 
 
 AN EVENING AT VICHY 
 
 September 1869 
 Written on the news of the death of Lord Leighton 
 
 A LIGHT has passed that never shall pass away, 
 A sun has set whose rays are unquelled of night. 
 
 The loyal grace, the courtesy bright as day. 
 The strong sweet radiant spirit of life and light 
 That shone and smiled and lightened on all men's sight, 
 
 The kindly life whose tune was the tune of May, 
 For us now dark, for love and for fame is bright. 
 
 Nay, not for us that live as the fen-fires live, 
 
 As stars that shoot and shudder with life and die. 
 Can death make dark that lustre of life, or give 
 
 The grievous gift of trust in oblivion's lie. 
 
 Days dear and far death touches, and draws them nigh. 
 And bids the grief that broods on their graves forgive 
 
 The day that seems to mock them as clouds that fly. 
 
144 AN EVENING AT VICHY 
 
 If life be life more faithful than shines on sleep 
 When dreams take wing and lighten and fade like flame, 
 
 Then haply death may be not a death so deep 
 That all things past are past for it wholly — fame, 
 Love, loving-kindness, seasons that went and came. 
 
 And left their light on life as a seal to keep 
 Winged memory fast and heedful of time's dead claim. 
 
 Death gives back life and light to the sunless years 
 Whose suns long sunken set not for ever. Time, 
 
 Blind, fierce, and deaf as tempest, relents, and hears 
 And sees how bright the days and how sweet their chime 
 Rang, shone, and passed in music that matched the 
 clime 
 
 Wherein we met rejoicing — a joy that cheers 
 Sorrow, to see the night as the dawn sublime. 
 
 The days that were outlighten the days that are. 
 
 And eyes now darkened shine as the stars we see 
 And hear not sing, impassionate star to star, 
 
AN EVENING AT VICHY 145 
 
 As once we heard the music that haply he 
 Hears, high in heaven if ever a voice may be 
 The same in heaven, the same as on earth, afar 
 
 From pain and earth as heaven from the heaving sea. 
 
 A woman's voice, divine as a bird's by dawn 
 Kindled and stirred to sunward, arose and held 
 
 Our souls that heard, from earth as from sleep withdrawn. 
 And filled with light as stars, and as stars compelled 
 To move by might of music, elate while quelled. 
 
 Subdued by rapture, lit as a mountain lawn 
 By morning whence all heaven in the sunrise welled. 
 
 And her the shadow of death as a robe clasped round 
 Then : and as morning's music she passed away. 
 
 And he then with us, warrior and wanderer, crowned 
 With fame that shone from eastern on western day, 
 More strong, more kind, than praise or than grief 
 might say, 
 
 Has passed now forth of shadow by sunlight bound, 
 Of night shot through with light that is frail as May. 
 
146 AN EVENING AT VICHY 
 
 May dies, and light grows darkness, and life grows death : 
 Hope fades and shrinks and falls as a changing leaf : 
 
 Remembrance, touched and kindled by love's live breath, 
 Shines, and subdues the shadow of time called grief, 
 The shade whose length of life is as life's date brief, 
 
 With joy that broods on the sunlight past, and saith 
 That thought and love hold sorrow and change in fief. 
 
 Sweet, glad, bright spirit, kind as the sun seems kind 
 When earth and sea rejoice in his gentler spell, 
 
 Thy face that was we see not : bereft and blind. 
 We see but yet, rejoicing to see, and dwell 
 Awhile in days that heard not the death-day's knell, 
 
 A light so bright that scarcely may sorrow find 
 One old sweet word that hails thee and mourns — 
 Farewell. 
 
147 
 
 TO GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS 
 
 On the Eightieth Anniversary of his Birth, 
 February 23, 1897 
 
 High thought and hallowed love, by faith made one, 
 
 Begat and bare the sweet strong-hearted child, 
 Art, nursed of Nature ; earth and sea and sun 
 
 Saw Nature then more godlike as she smiled. 
 Life smiled on death, and death on life : the Soul 
 
 Between them shone, and soared above their strife, 
 And left on Time's unclosed and starry scroll 
 
 A sign that quickened death to deathless life. 
 Peace rose like Hope, a patient queen, and bade 
 
 Hell's firstborn, Faith, abjure her creed and die \ 
 And Love, by life and death made sad and glad, 
 
 Gave Conscience ease, and watched Good Will 
 pass by. 
 All these make music now of one man's name, 
 Whose life and age are one with love and fame. 
 
148 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF MRS. LYNN LINTON 
 
 Kind, wise, and true as truth's own heart, 
 
 A soul that here 
 Chose and held fast the better part 
 
 And cast out fear, 
 
 Has left us ere we dreamed of death 
 
 For life so strong, 
 Clear as the sundawn's light and breath, 
 
 And sweet as song. 
 
 We see no more what here awhile 
 
 Shed light on men : 
 Has Landor seen that brave bright smile 
 
 Alive again ? 
 
ON THE DEATH OF MRS. LYNN LINTON 149 
 
 If death and life and love be one 
 
 And hope no lie 
 And night no stronger than the sun, 
 
 These cannot die. 
 
 The father-spirit whence her soul 
 
 Took strength, and gave 
 Back love, is perfect yet and whole, 
 
 As hope might crave. 
 
 His word is living light and fire : 
 
 And hers shall live 
 By grace of all good gifts the sire 
 
 Gave power to give. 
 
 The sire and daughter, twain and one 
 
 In quest and goal, 
 Stand face to face beyond the sun. 
 
 And soul to soul. 
 
 I 
 
ISO ON THE DEATH OF MRS. LYNN LINTON 
 
 Not we, who loved them well, may dream 
 
 What joy sublime 
 Is theirs, if dawn through darkness gleam, 
 
 And life through time. 
 
 Time seems but here the mask of death, 
 
 That falls and shows 
 A void where hope may draw not breath : 
 
 Night only knows. 
 
 Love knows not : all that love may keep 
 
 Glad memory gives : 
 The spirit of the days that sleep 
 
 Still wakes and lives. 
 
 But not the spirit's self, though song 
 
 Would lend it speech, 
 May touch the goal that hope might long 
 
 In vain to reach. 
 
ON THE DEATH OF MRS. LYNN LINTON 151 
 
 How dear that high true heart, how sweet 
 
 Those keen kind eyes, 
 Love knows, who knows how fiery fleet 
 
 Is life that flies. 
 
 If life there be that flies not, fair 
 
 The life must be 
 That thrills her sovereign spirit there 
 
 And sets it free. 
 
152 
 
 IN MEMORY OF AURELIO SAFFI 
 
 Beloved above all nations, land adored, 
 Sovereign in spirit and charm, by song and sword. 
 
 Sovereign whose life is love, whose name is light, 
 Italia, queen that hast the sun for lord, 
 
 Bride that hast heaven for bridegroom, how should night 
 Veil or withhold from faith's and memory's sight 
 A man beloved and crowned of thee and fame. 
 Hide for an hour his name's memorial might ? 
 
 Thy sons may never speak or hear the name 
 Safifi, and feel not love's regenerate flame 
 
 Thrill all the quickening heart with faith and pride 
 In one whose life makes death and life the same. 
 
IN MEMORY OF AURELIO SAFFI 153 
 
 They die indeed whose souls before them died : 
 Not he, for whom death flung life's portal wide, 
 
 Who stands where Dante's soul in vision came, 
 In Dante's presence, by Mazzini's side. 
 
 March 26, 1896. 
 
154 
 
 CARNOT 
 
 Death, winged with fire of hate from deathless hell 
 Wherein the souls of anarchs hiss and die, 
 With stroke as dire has cloven a heart as high 
 
 As twice beyond the wide sea's westward swell 
 
 The living lust of death had power to quell 
 Through ministry of murderous hands whereby 
 Dark fate bade Lincoln's head and Garfield's lie 
 
 Low even as his who bids his France farewell 
 
 France, now no heart that would not weep with thee 
 Loved ever faith or freedom. From thy hand 
 The staff of state is broken : hope, unmanned 
 
 With anguish, doubts if freedom's self be free. 
 The snake-souled anarch's fang strikes all the land 
 
 Cold, and all hearts unsundered by the sea. 
 
 June 25, 1894. 
 
155 
 
 AFTER THE VERDICT 
 
 France, cloven in twain by fire of hell and hate, 
 Shamed with the shame of men her meanest born, 
 Soldier and judge whose names, inscribed for scorn. 
 Stand vilest on the record writ of fate, 
 Lies yet not wholly vile who stood so great, 
 Sees yet not all her praise of old outworn. 
 Not yet is all her scroll of glory torn, 
 Or left for utter shame to desecrate. 
 High souls and constant hearts of faithful men 
 Sustain her perfect praise with tongue and pen 
 Indomitable as honour. Storms may toss 
 
 And soil her standard ere her bark win home : 
 But shame falls full upon the Christless cross 
 Whose brandmark signs the holy hounds of Rome. 
 
 September 1899. 
 
156 
 
 THE TRANSVAAL 
 
 Patience, long sick to death, is dead. Too long 
 Have sloth and doubt and treason bidden us be 
 What Cromwell's England was not, when the sea 
 To him bore witness given of Blake how strong 
 She stood, a commonweal that brooked no wrong 
 From foes less vile than men like wolves set free 
 Whose war is waged where none may fight or flee — 
 With women and with weanlings. Speech and song 
 Lack utterance now for loathing. Scarce we hear 
 Foul tongues that blacken God's dishonoured name 
 With prayers turned curses and with praise found shame 
 Defy the truth whose witness now draws near 
 To scourge these dogs, agape with jaws afoam, 
 Down out of life. Strike, England, and strike home. 
 
 October 9, 1899. 
 
157 
 
 REVERSE 
 
 The wave that breaks against a forward stroke 
 
 Beats not the swimmer back, but thrills him through 
 With joyous trust to win his way anew 
 
 Through stronger seas than first upon him broke 
 
 And triumphed. England's iron-tempered oak 
 Shrank not when Europe's might against her grew 
 Full, and her sun drank up her foes like dew. 
 
 And lion-like from sleep her strength awoke. 
 
 As bold in fight as bold in breach of trust 
 We find our foes, and wonder not to find. 
 Nor grudge them praise whom honour may not bind : 
 
 But loathing more intense than speaks disgust 
 
 Heaves England's heart, when scorn is bound to greet 
 Hunters and hounds whose tongues would lick their feet. 
 
 November i, 1899. 
 
158 
 
 THE TURNING OF THE TIDE 
 
 Storm, strong with all the bitter heart of hate, 
 Smote England, now nineteen dark years ago, 
 As when the tide's full wrath in seaward flow 
 
 Smites and bears back the swimmer. Fraud and fate 
 
 Were leagued against her : fear was fain to prate 
 Of honour in dishonour, pride brought low, 
 And humbleness whence holiness must grow. 
 
 And greatness born of shame to be so great. 
 
 The winter day that withered hope and pride 
 Shines now triumphal on the turning tide 
 
 That sets once more our trust in freedom free, 
 That leaves a ruthless and a truthless foe 
 And all base hopes that hailed his cause laid low, 
 
 And England's name a light on land and sea. 
 
 February 27, 1900. 
 
159 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF COLONEL BENSON 
 
 Northumberland, so proud and sad to-day, 
 Weep and rejoice, our mother, whom no son 
 More glorious than this dead and deathless one 
 
 Brought ever fame whereon no time shall prey. 
 
 Nor heed we more than he what liars dare say 
 Of mercy's holiest duties left undone 
 Toward whelps and dams of murderous foes, whom none 
 
 Save we had spared or feared to starve and slay. 
 
 Alone as Milton and as Wordsworth found 
 And hailed their England, when from all around 
 
 Howled all the recreant hate of envious knaves. 
 Sublime she stands : while, stifled in the sound. 
 Each lie that falls from German boors and slaves 
 Falls but as filth dropt in the wandering waves. 
 
 November 4, 1901. 
 
I6b 
 
 ASTR^A VICTRIX 
 
 England, elect of time, 
 By freedom sealed sublime, 
 And constant as the sun that saw thy dawn 
 Outshine upon the sea 
 His own in heaven, to be 
 A light that night nor day should see withdrawn, 
 If song may speak not now thy praise, 
 Fame writes it higher than song may soar or faith may gaze. 
 
 Dark months on months beheld 
 
 Hope thwarted, crossed, and quelled, 
 And heard the heartless hounds of hatred bay 
 
 Aloud against thee, glad 
 
 As now their souls are sad 
 Who see their hope in hatred pass away 
 
ASTRJEA VICTRIX i6i 
 
 And wither into shame and fear 
 And shudder down to darkness, loth to see or hear. 
 
 Nought now they hear or see 
 That speaks or shows not thee 
 Triumphant ; not as empires reared of yore, 
 The imperial commonweal 
 That bears thy sovereign seal 
 And signs thine orient as thy natural shore 
 Free, as no sons but thine may stand, 
 Steers lifeward ever, guided of thy pilot hand. 
 
 Fear, masked and veiled by fraud, 
 Found shameful time to applaud 
 Shame, and bow down thy banner towards the dust, 
 And call on godly shame 
 To desecrate thy name 
 And bid false penitence abjure thy trust : 
 Till England's heart took thought at last. 
 And felt her future kindle from her fiery past. 
 
 M 
 
i62 ASTR^A VICTRIX 
 
 Then sprang the sunbright fire 
 High as the sun, and higher 
 Than strange men's eyes might watch it undismayed : 
 But winds athwart it blew 
 Storm, and the twilight grew 
 Darkness awhile, an unenduring shade : 
 And all base birds and beasts of night 
 Saw no more England now to fear, no loathsome light. 
 
 All knaves and slaves at heart 
 Who, knowing thee what thou art, 
 Abhor thee, seeing what none save here may see. 
 Strong freedom, taintless truth. 
 Supreme in ageless youth. 
 Howled all their hate and hope aloud at thee 
 While yet the wavering wind of strife 
 Bore hard against her sail whose freight is hope and life. 
 
 And now the quickening tide 
 That brings back power and pride 
 To faith and love whose ensign is thy name 
 
ASTR^A VICTRIX 163 
 
 Bears down the recreant lie 
 That doomed thy name to die, 
 Sons, friends, and foes behold thy star the same 
 As when it stood in heaven a sun 
 And Europe saw no glory left her sky save one. 
 
 And now, as then she saw. 
 She sees with shamefast awe 
 How all unlike all slaves and tyrants born 
 Where bondmen champ the bit 
 And anarchs foam and flit, 
 And day mocks day, and year puts year to scorn, 
 Our mother bore us, English men. 
 Ashamed of shame and strong in mercy, now as then. 
 
 We loosed not on these knaves 
 
 Their scourge-tormented slaves : 
 We held the hand that fain had risen to smite 
 
 The torturer fast, and made 
 
 Justice awhile afraid, 
 And righteousness forego her ruthless right : 
 
 M 2 
 
i64 ASTRuEA VICTRIX 
 
 We warred not even with these as they ; 
 We bade not them they preyed on make of them their 
 prey. 
 
 All murderous fraud that lurks 
 In hearts where hell's craft works 
 Fought, crawled, and slew in darkness : they that died 
 Dreamed not of foes too base 
 For scorn to grant them grace : 
 Men wounded, women, children at their side. 
 Had found what faith in fiends may live : 
 And yet we gave not back what righteous doom would 
 give. 
 
 No false white flag that fawns 
 
 On faith till murder dawns 
 Blood- red from hell-black treason's heart of hate 
 
 Left ever shame's foul brand 
 
 Seared on an English hand : 
 And yet our pride vouchsafes them grace too great 
 
ASTR^A VICTRIX 165 
 
 For other pride to dream of : scorn 
 Strikes retribution silent as the stars at morn. 
 
 And now the living breath 
 Whose life puts death to death, 
 Freedom, whose name is England, stirs and thrills 
 The burning darkness through 
 Whence fraud and slavery grew, 
 We scarce may mourn our dead whose fame fulfils 
 The record where her foes have read 
 That earth shall see none like her born ere earth be dead. 
 
166 
 
 THE FIRST OF JUNE 
 
 Peace and war are one in proof of England's deathless 
 praise. 
 One divine day saw her foemen scattered on the sea 
 Far and fast as storm could speed : the same strong day 
 of days 
 Sees the imperial commonweal set friends and foemen 
 free. 
 Save where freedom reigns, whose name is England, fraud 
 and fear 
 Grind and blind the face of men who look on her and 
 Ue: 
 Now may truth and pride in truth, whose seat of old was 
 here, 
 See them shamed and stricken blind and dumb as 
 worms that die. 
 
THE FIRST OF JUNE 167 
 
 Even before our hallowed hawthom-blossom pass and 
 
 cease, 
 Even as England shines and smiles at last upon the 
 
 sun, 
 Comes the word that means for England more than 
 
 passing peace. 
 Peace with honour, peace with pride in righteous work 
 
 well done. 
 Crowned with flowers the first of all the world and all the 
 
 year, 
 Peace, whose name is one with honour born of war, is 
 
 here. 
 
i68 
 
 ROUNDEL 
 
 From the French of Villon 
 
 Death, I would plead against thy wrong, 
 Who hast reft me of my love, my wife, 
 And art not satiate yet with strife. 
 
 But needs wilt hold me lingering long. 
 
 No strength since then has kept me strong 
 But what could hurt thee in her life. 
 Death ? 
 
 Twain we were, and our hearts one song. 
 One heart : if that be dead, thy knife 
 Hath cut me off alive from life, 
 
 Dead as the carver's figured throng. 
 Death ! 
 
1 69 
 
 A ROUNDEL OF RABELAIS 
 
 . Theleme is afar on the waters, adrift and afar, 
 Afar and afloat on the waters that flicker and gleam. 
 And we feel but her fragrance and see but the shadows 
 that mar 
 Theleme. 
 
 In the sun-coloured mists of the sunrise and sunset 
 
 that steam 
 As incense from urns of the twilight, her portals ajar 
 Let pass as a shadow the light of the sound of a dream. 
 
 But the laughter that rings from her cloisters that know 
 
 not a bar 
 So kindles delight in desire that the souls in us deem 
 He erred not, the seer who discerned on the seas as a star 
 Theleme. 
 
I70 
 
 LUCIFER 
 
 £crasez Vinfdme.—'^Oi.iklKE. 
 Les pritres ont raison de Pappeler Lucifer. — Victor Hugo 
 
 Voltaire, our England's lover, man divine 
 Beyond all Gods that ever fear adored 
 By right and might, by sceptre and by sword, 
 By godlike love of sunlike truth, made thine 
 Through godlike hate of falsehood's marshlight shine 
 And all the fume of creeds and deeds abhorred 
 Whose light was darkness, till the dawn-star soared. 
 Truth, reason, mercy, justice, keep thy shrine 
 Sacred in memory's temple, seeing that none 
 Of all souls born to strive before the sun 
 
 Loved ever good or hated evil more. 
 The snake that felt thy' heel upon her head, 
 Night's first-born, writhes as though she were not dead, 
 But strikes not, stings not, slays not as before. 
 
171 
 
 THE CENTENARY OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS 
 
 Sound of trumpets blowing down the merriest winds of 
 morn, 
 Flash of hurtless lightnings, laugh of thunders loud and 
 glad, 
 Here should hail the summer day whereon a light was 
 born 
 Whence the sun grew brighter, seeing the world less 
 dark and sad. 
 Man of men by right divine of boyhood everlasting, 
 France incarnate, France immortal in her deathless 
 boy, 
 Brighter birthday never shone than thine on earth, fore- 
 casting 
 More of strenuous mirth in manhood, more of manful 
 joy. 
 
172 CENTENARY OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS 
 
 Child of warriors, friend of warriors, Garibaldi's friend. 
 Even thy name is as the splendour of a sunbright 
 
 sword : 
 While the boy's heart beats in man, thy fame shall find 
 
 not end : 
 Time and dark oblivion bow before thee as their lord. 
 Youth acclaims thee gladdest of the gods that gild his 
 
 days : 
 Age gives thanks for thee, and death lacks heart to 
 
 quench thy praise. 
 
173 
 
 AT A DOG'S GRAVE 
 
 I 
 
 Good night, we say, when comes the time to win 
 The daily death divine that shuts up sight. 
 Sleep, that assures for all who dwell therein 
 Good night. 
 
 The shadow shed round those we love shines bright 
 As love's own face, when death, sleep's gentler twin. 
 From them divides us even as night from light. 
 
 Shall friends born lower in life, though pure of sin. 
 Though clothed with love and faith to usward plight, 
 Perish and pass unbidden of us, their kin. 
 Good night ? 
 
174 AT A DOG'S GRAVE 
 
 To die a dog's death once was held for shame. 
 Not "all men so beloved and mourned shall lie 
 As many of these, whose time untimely came 
 To die. 
 
 His years were full : his years were joyous : why 
 Must love be sorrow, when his gracious name 
 Recalls his lovely life of limb and eye ? 
 
 If aught of blameless life on earth may claim 
 Life higher than death, though death's dark wave rise high, 
 Such life as this among us never came 
 To die. 
 
AT A DOG'S GRAVE I75 
 
 III 
 
 White violets, there by hands more sweet than they 
 Planted, shall sweeten April's flowerful air 
 About a grave that shows to night and day 
 White violets there. 
 
 A child's light hands, whose touch makes flowers more fair, 
 Keep fair as these for many a March and May 
 The light of days that are because they were. 
 
 It shall not like a blossom pass away ; 
 It broods and brightens with the days that bear 
 Fresh fruits of love, but leave, as love might pray. 
 White violets there. 
 
76 
 
 THREE WEEKS OLD 
 
 Three weeks since there was no such rose in being ; 
 
 Now may eyes made dim with deep delight 
 See how fair it is, laugh with love, and seeing 
 
 Praise the chance that bids us bless the sight. 
 
 Three weeks old, and a very rose of roses, 
 Bright and sweet as love is sweet and bright. 
 
 Heaven and earth, till a man's life wanes and closes, 
 Show not life or love a lovelier sight 
 
 Three weeks past have renewed the rosebright creature 
 Day by day with life, and night by night. 
 
 Love, though fain of its every faultless feature, 
 Finds not words to match the silent sight. 
 
177 
 
 A CLASP OF HANDS 
 
 Soft, small, and sweet as sunniest flowers 
 
 That bask in heavenly heat 
 When bud by bud breaks, breathes, and cowers, 
 
 Soft, small, and sweet, 
 
 A babe's hands open as to greet 
 
 The tender touch of ours 
 And mock with motion faint and fleet 
 
 The minutes of the new strange hours 
 That earth, not heaven, must mete ; 
 
 Buds fragrant still from heaven's own bowers. 
 Soft, small, and sweet. 
 
 N 
 
178 A CLASP OF HANDS 
 
 II 
 
 A velvet vice with springs of steel 
 
 That fasten in a trice 
 And clench the fingers fast that feel 
 
 A velvet vice — 
 
 What man would risk the danger twice, 
 
 Nor quake from head to heel ? 
 Whom would not one such test suffice ? 
 
 Well may we tremble as we kneel 
 
 In sight of Paradise, 
 If both a babe's closed fists conceal 
 
 A velvet vice. 
 
A CLASP OF HANDS 179 
 
 III 
 
 Two flower-soft fists of conquering clutch, 
 Two creased and dimpled wrists, 
 
 That match, if mottled overmuch. 
 Two flower-soft fists — 
 
 What heart of man dare hold the lists 
 -^ Agaibst sttchiodds artrfruch 
 Sweet vantage as no strength resists ? 
 
 Our strength is all a broken crutch. 
 Our eyes are dim with mists, 
 
 Oar hearts are prisoners as we touch 
 Two flower-soft fists. 
 
i8o 
 
 PROLOGUE TO DOCTOR FAUSTUS 
 
 Light, as when dawn takes wing and smites the sea, 
 Smote England when his day bade Marlowe be. 
 No fire so keen had thrilled the clouds of time 
 Since Dante's breath made Italy subhme. 
 Earth, bright with flowers whose dew shone soft as tears. 
 Through Chaucer cast her charm on eyes and ears : 
 The lustrous laughter of the love-lit earth 
 Rang, leapt, and lightened in his might of mirth. 
 Deep moonlight, hallowing all the breathless air, 
 Made earth and heaven for Spenser faint and fair. 
 But song might bid not heaven and earth be one 
 Till Marlowe's voice gave warning of the sun. 
 Thought quailed and fluttered as a wounded bird 
 Till passion fledged the wing of Marlowe's word. 
 
PROLOGUE TO DOCTOR FAUSTUS i8i 
 
 Faith bom of fear bade hope and doubt be dumb 
 Till Marlowe's pride bade light or darkness come. 
 Then first our speech was thunder : then our song 
 Shot lightning through the clouds that wrought us wrong. 
 Blind fear, whose faith feeds hell with fire, became 
 A moth self-shrivelled in its own blind flame. 
 We heard, in tune with even our seas that roll. 
 The speech of storm, the thunders of the soul. 
 Men's passions, clothed with all the woes they wrought, 
 Shone through the fire of man's transfiguring thought. 
 The thirst of knowledge, quenchless at her springs. 
 Ambition, fire that clasps the thrones of kings. 
 Love, light that makes of life one lustrous hour, 
 And song, the soul's chief crown and throne of power, 
 The hungering heart of greed and ravenous hate, 
 Made music high as heaven and deep as fate. 
 Strange pity, scarce half scornful of her tear, 
 In Berkeley's vaults bowed down on Edward's bier. 
 But higher in forceful flight of song than all 
 The soul of man, its own imperious thrall. 
 
i82 PROLOGUE TO DOCTOR FAUSTUS 
 
 Rose, when his royal spirit of fierce desire 
 Made life and death for man one flame of fire. 
 Incarnate man, fast bound as earth and sea, 
 Spake, when his pride would fain set Faustus free. 
 Eternal beauty, strong as day and night, 
 Shone, when his word bade Helen back to sight. 
 Fear, when he bowed the soul before her spell. 
 Thundered and lightened through the vaults of hell. 
 The music known of all men's tongues that sing. 
 When Marlowe sang, bade love make heaven of spring ; 
 The music none but English tongues may make. 
 Our own sole song, spake first when Marlowe spake ; 
 And on his grave, though there no stone may stand. 
 The flower it shows was laid by Shakespeare's hand. 
 
i83 
 
 PROLOGUE TO ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM 
 
 Love dark as death and fierce as fire on wing 
 
 Sustains in sin the soul that feels it cling 
 
 Like flame whose tongues are serpents : hope and fear 
 
 Die when a love more dire than hate draws near, 
 
 And stings to death the heart it cleaves in twain, 
 
 And leaves in ashes all but fear and pain. 
 
 Our lustrous England rose to life and light 
 
 From Rome's and hell's immitigable night, 
 
 And music laughed and quickened from her breath. 
 
 When first her sons acclaimed Elizabeth. 
 
 Her soul became a lyre that all men heard 
 
 Who felt their souls give back her lyric word. • 
 
 Yet now not all at once her perfect power 
 
 Spake : man's deep heart abode awhile its hour, 
 
i84 PROLOGUE TO ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM 
 
 Abode its hour of utterance ; not to wake 
 Till Marlowe's thought in thunderous music spake. 
 But yet not yet was passion's tragic breath 
 Thrilled through with sense of instant life and death, 
 Life actual even as theirs who watched the strife, 
 Death dark and keen and terrible as life. 
 Here first was truth in song made perfect : here 
 Woke first the war of love and hate and fear. 
 A man too vile for thought's or shame's control 
 Holds empire on a woman's loftier soul, 
 And withers it to wickedness : in vain 
 Shame quickens thought with penitential pain : 
 In vain dark chance's fitful providence 
 Withholds the crime, and chills the spirit of sense : 
 It wakes again in fire that burns away 
 Repentance, weak as night devoured of day. 
 Remorse, and ravenous thirst of sin and crime, 
 « Rend and consume the soul in strife sublime. 
 And passion cries on pity till it hear 
 And tremble as with love that casts out fear. 
 
PROLOGUE TO ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM 185 
 
 Dark as the deed and doom he gave to fame 
 
 For ever lies the sovereign singer's name. 
 
 Sovereign and regent on the soul he lives 
 
 While thought gives thanks for aught remembrance gives, 
 
 And mystery sees the imperial shadow stand 
 
 By Marlowe's side alone at Shakespeare's hand. 
 
I86 
 
 PROLOGUE TO OLD FORTUNATUS 
 
 The golden bells of fairyland, that ring 
 
 Perpetual chime for childhood's flower-sweet spring, 
 
 Sang soft memorial music in his ear 
 
 Whose answering music shines about us here. 
 
 Soft laughter as of light that stirs the sea 
 
 With darkling sense of dawn ere dawn may be, 
 
 Kind sorrow, pity touched with gender scorn, 
 
 Keen wit whose shafts were sunshafts of the morn, 
 
 Love winged with fancy, fancy thrilled with love. 
 
 An eagle's aim and ardour in a dove, 
 
 A man's delight and passion in a child. 
 
 Inform it as when first they wept and smiled. 
 
 Life, soiled and rent and ringed about with pain 
 
 Whose touch lent action less of spur than chain, 
 
PROLOGUE TO OLD FORTUNATUS 187 
 
 Left half the happiness his birth designed, 
 And half the power, unquenched in heart and mind. 
 Comrade and comforter, sublime in shame, 
 A poor man bound in prison whence he came 
 Poor, and took up the burden of his life 
 Smiling, and strong to strive with sorrow and strife. 
 He spake in England's ear the poor man's word, 
 Manful and mournful, deathless and unheard. 
 His kind great heart was fire, and love's own fire, 
 Compassion, strong as flesh may feel desire, 
 To enkindle pity and mercy toward a soul 
 Sunk down in shame too deep for shame's control. 
 His kind keen eye was light to lighten hope 
 Where no man else might see life's darkness ope 
 And pity's touch bring forth from evil good. 
 Sweet as forgiveness, strong as fatherhood. 
 Names higher than his outshine it and outsoar, 
 But none save one should memory cherish more : 
 Praise and thanksgiving crown the names above, 
 But him we give the gift he gave us, love. 
 
i88 
 
 PROLOGUE TO THE DUCHESS OF MALFY 
 
 When Shakespeare soared from life to death, above 
 
 All praise, all adoration, save of love. 
 
 As here on earth above all men he stood 
 
 That were or are or shall be — great, and good, 
 
 Past thank or thought of England or of man — 
 
 Light from the sunset quickened as it ran. 
 
 His word, who sang as never man may sing 
 
 And spake as never voice of man may ring, 
 
 Not fruitless fell, as seed on sterile ways, 
 
 But brought forth increase even to Shakespeare's praise. 
 
 Our skies were thrilled and filled, from sea to sea, 
 
 With stars outshining all their suns to be. 
 
 No later light of tragic song they knew 
 
 Like his whose lightning clove the sunset through. 
 
 Half Shakespeare's glory, when his hand sublime 
 
 Bade all the change of tragic life and time 
 
PROLOGUE TO THE DUCHESS OF MALFY 189 
 
 Live, and outlive all date of quick and dead, 
 
 Fell, rested, and shall rest on Webster's head. 
 
 Round him the shadows cast on earth by light 
 
 Rose, changed, and shone, transfiguring death and night. 
 
 Where evil only crawled and hissed and slew 
 
 On ways where nought save shame and bloodshed grew, 
 
 He bade the loyal light of honour live, 
 
 And love, when stricken through the heart, forgive. 
 
 Deep down the midnight of the soul of sin 
 
 He lit the star of mercy throned therein. 
 
 High up the darkness of sublime despair 
 
 He set the sun of love to triumph there. 
 
 Things foul or frail his touch made strong and pure, 
 
 And bade things transient like to stars endure. 
 
 Terror, on wings whose flight made night in heaven, 
 
 Pity, with hands whence life took love for leaven. 
 
 Breathed round him music whence his mortal breath 
 
 Drew life that bade forgetfulness and death 
 
 Die : life that bids his light of fiery fame 
 
 Endure vrith England's, yea, with Shakespeare's name. 
 
I90 
 
 PROLOGUE TO THE REVENGER'S TRAGEDY 
 
 Fire, and behind the breathless flight of fire 
 Thunder that quickens fear and quells desire, 
 Make bright and loud the terror of the night 
 Wherein the soul sees only wrath for light. 
 Wrath winged by love and sheathed by grief in steel 
 Sets on the front of crime death's withering seal. 
 The heaving horror of the storms of sin 
 Brings forth in fear the lightning hid therein, 
 And flashes back to darkness : truth, found pure 
 And perfect, asks not heaven if shame endure. 
 What life and death were his whose raging song 
 Bore heaven such witness of the wild world's wrong. 
 What hand was this that grasped such thunder, none 
 Knows : night and storm seclude him from the sun. 
 By daytime none discerns the fire of Mars : 
 Deep darkness bares to sight the sterner stars, 
 
PROLOGUE TO REVENGER'S TRAGEDY 191 
 
 The lights whose dawn seems doomsday. None may tell 
 
 Whence rose a world so lit from heaven and hell. 
 
 Life- wasting love, hate born of raging lust, 
 
 Fierce retribution, fed with death's own dust 
 
 And sorrow's pampering poison, cross and meet. 
 
 And wind the world in passion's winding-sheet. 
 
 So, when dark faith in faith's dark ages heard 
 
 Falsehood, and drank the poison of the Word, 
 
 Two shades misshapen came to monstrous birth, 
 
 A father fiend in heaven, a thrall on earth : 
 
 Man, meanest born of beasts that press the sod. 
 
 And die : the vilest of his creatures, God. 
 
 A judge unjust, a slave that praised his name, 
 
 Made life and death one fire of sin and shame. 
 
 And thence reverberate even on Shakespeare's age 
 
 A light like darkness crossed his sunbright stage. 
 
 Music, sublime as storm or sorrow, sang 
 
 Before it : tempest like a harpstring rang. 
 
 The fiery shadow of a name unknown 
 
 Rose, and in song's high heaven abides alone. 
 
192 
 
 PROLOGUE TO THE BROKEN HEART 
 
 The mightiest choir of song that memory hears 
 
 Gave England voice for fifty lustrous years. 
 
 Sunrise and thunder fired and shook the skies 
 
 That saw the sun-god Marlowe's opening eyes. 
 
 The morn's own music, answered of the sea, 
 
 Spake, when his living lips bade Shakespeare be. 
 
 And England, made by Shakespeare's quickening breath 
 
 Divine and deathless even till life be death, 
 
 Brought forth to time such godlike sons of men 
 
 That shamefaced love grows pride, and now seems then. 
 
 Shame that their day so shone, so sang, so died. 
 
 Remembering, finds remembrance one with pride. 
 
 That day was clouding toward a stormlit close 
 
 When Ford*s red sphere upon the twilight rose. 
 
PROLOGUE TO THE BROKEN HEART 193 
 
 Sublime with stars and sunset fire, the sky 
 Glowed as though day, nigh dead, should never die, 
 Sorrow supreme and strange as chance or doom 
 Shone, spake, and shuddered through the lustrous gloom. 
 Tears lit with love made all the darkening air 
 Bright as though death's dim sunrise thrilled it there 
 And life re-risen took comfort. Stern and still 
 As hours and years that change and anguish fill, 
 The strong secluded spirit, ere it woke, 
 Dwelt dumb till power possessed it, and it spoke. 
 Strange, calm, and sure as sense of beast or bird, 
 Came forth from night the thought that breathed the word ; 
 That chilled and thrilled with passion-stricken breath 
 Halls where Calantha trod the dance of death. 
 A strength of soul too passionately pure 
 To change for aught that horror bids endure, 
 To quail and wail and weep faint life away 
 Ere sovereign sorrow smite, relent, and slay. 
 Sustained her silent, till her bridal bloom 
 Changed, smiled, and waned in rapture toward the tomb. 
 
 
 
194 PROLOGUE TO THE BROKEN HEART 
 
 Terror twin-bom with pity kissed and thrilled 
 
 The lips that Shakespeare's word or Webster's filled : 
 
 Here both, cast out, fell silent : pity shrank, 
 
 Rebuked, and terror, spirit-stricken, sank : 
 
 The soul assailed arose afar above 
 
 All reach of all but only death and love. 
 
195 
 
 PROLOGUE TO A VERY WOMAN 
 
 Swift music made of passion's changeful power, 
 Sweet as the change that leaves the world in flower 
 When spring laughs winter down to deathward, rang 
 From grave and gracious lips that smiled and sang 
 When Massinger, too wise for kings to hear 
 And learn of him truth, wisdom, faith, or fear, 
 Gave all his gentler heart to love's light lore. 
 That grief might brood and scorn breed wrath no more. 
 Soft, bright, fierce, tender, fitful, truthful, sweet, 
 A shrine where faith and change might smile and meet, 
 A soul whose music could but shift its tune 
 As when the lustrous year turns May to June 
 And spring subsides in summer, so makes good 
 Its perfect claim to very womanhood. 
 The heart that hate of wrong made fire, the hand 
 Whose touch was fire as keen as shame's own brand 
 
 o 2 
 
196 PROLOGUE TO A VERY WOMAN 
 
 When fraud and treason, swift to smile and sting, 
 Crowned and discrowned a tyrant, knave or king, 
 False each and ravenous as the fitful sea. 
 Grew gently glad as love that fear sets free. 
 Like eddying ripples that the wind restrains, 
 The bright words whisper music ere it wanes. 
 Ere fades the sovereign sound of song that rang 
 As though the sun to match the sea's tune sang, 
 When noon from dawn took life and light, and time 
 Shone, seeing how Shakespeare made the world sublime. 
 Ere sinks the wind whose breath was heaven's and day's, 
 The sunset's witness gives the sundawn praise. 
 
197 
 
 PROLOGUE TO THE SPANISH GIPSY 
 
 The wind that brings us from the springtide south 
 Strange music as from love's or life's own mouth 
 Blew hither, when the blast of battle ceased 
 That swept back southward Spanish prince and priest, 
 A sound more sweet than April's flower- sweet rain, 
 And bade bright England smile on pardoned Spain. 
 The land that cast out Philip and his God 
 Grew gladly subject where Cervantes trod. 
 Even he whose name above all names on earth 
 Crowns England queen by grace of Shakespeare's birth 
 Might scarce have scorned to smile in God's wise down 
 And gild with praise from heaven an earthlier crown. 
 And he whose hand bade live down lengthening years 
 Quixote, a name lit up with smiles and tears, 
 
198 PROLOGUE TO THE SPANISH GIPSY 
 
 Gave the glad watchword of the gipsies' life, 
 
 Where fear took hope and grief took joy to wife. 
 
 Times change, and fame is fitful as the sea : 
 
 But sunset bids not darkness always be, 
 
 And still some light from Shakespeare and the sun 
 
 Burns back the cloud that masks not Middleton. 
 
 With strong swift strokes of love and wrath he drew 
 
 Shakespearean London's loud and lusty crew : 
 
 No plainer might the likeness rise and stand 
 
 When Hogarth took his living world in hand. 
 
 No surer then his fire-fledged shafts could hit, 
 
 Winged with as forceful and as faithful wit : 
 
 No truer a tragic depth and heat of heart 
 
 Glowed through the painter's than the poet's art. 
 
 He lit and hung in heaven the wan fierce moon 
 
 Whose glance kept time with witchcraft's air-struck tune : 
 
 He watched the doors where loveless love let in 
 
 The pageant hailed and crowned by death and sin : 
 
 He bared the souls where love, twin-born with hate, 
 
 Made wide the way for passion-fostered fate. 
 
PROLOGUE TO THE SPANISH GIPSY 199 
 
 All English-hearted, all his heart arose 
 
 To scourge with scorn his England's cowering foes : 
 
 And Rome and Spain, who bade their scorner be 
 
 Their prisoner, left his heart as England's free. 
 
 Now give we ajl we may of all his due 
 
 To one long since thus tried and found thus true. 
 
200 
 
 PROLOGUE TO THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN 
 
 Sweet as the dewfall, splendid as the south, 
 Love touched with speech Boccaccio's golden mouth, 
 Joy thrilled and filled its utterance full with song, 
 And sorrow smiled on doom that wrought no wrong. 
 A starrier lustre of lordlier music rose 
 Beyond the sundering bar of seas and snows 
 When Chaucer's thought took life and light from his 
 And England's crown was one with Italy's. 
 Loftiest and last, by grace of Shakespeare's word. 
 Arose above their quiring spheres a third, 
 Arose, and flashed, and faltered : song's deep sky 
 Saw Shakespeare pass in light, in music die. 
 No light like his, no music, man might give 
 To bid the darkened sphere, left songless, live. 
 Soft though the sound of Fletcher's rose and rang 
 And lit the lunar darkness as it sang, 
 
PROLOGUE TO TWO^ NOBLE KINSMEN 20I 
 
 Below the singing stars the cloud-crossed moon 
 Gave back the sunken sun's a trembling tune. 
 As when at highest high tide the sovereign sea 
 Pauses, and patience doubts if passion be, 
 Till gradual ripples ebb, recede, recoil, 
 Shine, smile, and whisper, laughing as they toil, 
 Stark silence fell, at turn of fate's high tide. 
 Upon his broken song when Shakespeare died, 
 Till Fletcher's light sweet speech took heart to say 
 What evening, should it speak for morning, may. 
 And fourfold now the gradual glory shines 
 That shows once more in heaven two twinborn signs, 
 Two brethren stars whose light no cloud may fret. 
 No soul whereon their story dawns forget. 
 
202 
 
 THE AFTERGLOW OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Let there be light, said Time : and England heard : 
 
 And manhood grew to godhead at the word. 
 
 No light had shone, since earth arose from sleep, 
 
 So far j no fire of thought had cloven so deep. 
 
 A day beyond all days bade life acclaim 
 
 Shakespeare : and man put on his crowning name. 
 
 All secrets once through darkling ages kept 
 
 Shone, sang, and smiled to think how long they slept. 
 
 Man rose past fear of lies whereon he trod : 
 
 And Dante's ghost saw hell devour his God. 
 
 Bright Marlowe, brave as winds that brave the sea 
 
 When sundawn bids their bliss in battle be. 
 
 Lit England first along the ways whereon 
 
 Song brighter far than sunlight soared and shone. 
 
 He died ere half his life had earned his right 
 
 To lighten time with song's triumphant light. 
 
THE AFTERGLOW OF SHAKESPEARE 203 
 
 Hope shrank, and felt the stroke at heart : but one 
 
 She knew not rose, a man to match the sun. 
 
 And England's hope and time's and man's became 
 
 Joy, deep as music's heart and keen as flame. 
 
 Not long, for heaven on earth may live not long, 
 
 Light sang, and darkness died before the song. 
 
 He passed, the man above all men, whose breath 
 
 Transfigured life with speech that lightens death. 
 
 He passed : but yet for many a lustrous year 
 
 His light of song bade England shine and hear. 
 
 As plague and fire and faith in falsehood spread, 
 
 So from the man of men, divine and dead. 
 
 Contagious godhead, seen, unknown, and heard, 
 
 Fulfilled and quickened England ; thought and word. 
 
 When men would fain set life to music, grew 
 
 More sweet than years which knew not Shakespeare knew. 
 
 The simplest soul that set itself to song 
 
 Sang, and may fear not time's or change's wrong. 
 
 The lightest eye that glanced on life could see 
 
 Through grief and joy the God that man might be. 
 
204 THE AFTERGLOW OP SHAKESPEARE 
 
 All passion whence the living soul takes fire 
 
 Till death fulfil despair and quench desire, 
 
 All love that lightens through the cloud of chance, 
 
 All hate that lurks in hope and smites askance, 
 
 All holiness of sorrow, all divine 
 
 Pity, whose tears are stars that save and shine. 
 
 All sunbright strength of laughter like the sea's 
 
 When spring and autumn loose their lustrous breeze, 
 
 All sweet, all strange, all sad, all glorious things, 
 
 Lived on his lips, and hailed him king of kings. 
 
 All thought, all strife, all anguish, all delight. 
 
 Spake all he bade, and speak till day be night. 
 
 No soul that heard, no spirit that beheld, 
 
 Knew not the God that lured them and compelled. 
 
 On Beaumont's brow the sun arisen afar 
 
 Shed fire which lit through heaven the younger star 
 
 That sank before the sunset : one dark spring 
 
 Slew first the kinglike subject, then the king. 
 
 The glory left above their graves made strong 
 
 The heart of Fletcher, till the flower-sweet song 
 
THE AFTERGLOW OF SHAKESPEARE 205 
 
 That Shakespeare culled from Chaucer's field, and died, 
 Found ending on his lips that smiled and sighed. 
 From Dekker's eyes the light of tear-touched mirth 
 Shone as from Shakespeare's, mingling heaven and earth. 
 Wild witchcraft's lure and England's love made one 
 With Shakespeare's heart the heart of Middleton. 
 Harsh, homely, true, and tragic, Rowley told 
 His heart's debt down in rough and radiant gold. 
 The skies that Tourneur's lightning clove and rent 
 Flamed through the clouds where Shakespeare's thunder 
 
 went. 
 Wise Massinger bade kings be wise in vain 
 Ere war bade song, storm-stricken, cower and wane. 
 Kind Heywood, simple-souled and single-eyed. 
 Found voice for England's home-born praise and pride. 
 Strange grief, strange love, strange terror, bared the sword 
 That smote the soul by grace and will of Ford> 
 The stern grim strength of Chapman's thought found 
 
 speech 
 Loud as when storm at ebb-tide rends the beach : 
 
2o6 THE AFTERGLOW OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 And all the honey brewed from flowers in May 
 Made sweet the lips and bright the dreams of Day. 
 But even as Shakespeare caught from Marlowe's word 
 Fire, so from his the thunder-bearing third, 
 Webster, took light and might whence none but he 
 Hath since made song that sounded so the sea 
 Whose waves are lives of men — whose tidestream rolls 
 From year to darkening year the freight of souls. 
 Alone above it, sweet, supreme, sublime, 
 Shakespeare attunes the jarring chords of time ; 
 Alone of all whose doom is death and birth, 
 Shakespeare is lord of souls alive on earth. 
 
207 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 The sea that is life everlasting 
 
 And death everlasting as life 
 Abides not a pilot's forecasting, 
 
 Foretells not of peace or of strife. 
 The might of the night that was hidden 
 
 Arises and darkens the day, 
 A glory rebuked and forbidden, 
 
 Time's crown, and his prey. 
 
 No sweeter, no kindlier, no fairer, 
 No lovelier a soul from its birth 
 
 Wore ever a brighter and rarer 
 Life's raiment for life upon earth 
 
2o8 DEDICATION 
 
 Than his who enkindled and cherished 
 Art's vestal and luminous flame, 
 
 That dies not when kingdoms have perished 
 In storm or in shame. 
 
 No braver, no trustier, no purer. 
 
 No stronger and clearer a soul 
 Bore witness more splendid and surer 
 
 For manhood found perfect and whole 
 Since man was a warrior and dreamer 
 
 Than his who in hatred of wrong 
 Would fain have arisen a redeemer 
 
 By sword or by song. 
 
 Twin brethren in spirit, immortal 
 As art and as love, which were one 
 
 For you from the birthday whose portal 
 First gave you to sight of the sun, 
 
DEDICATION 209 
 
 To-day nor to-night nor to-morrow 
 
 May bring you again from above, 
 Drawn down by the spell of the sorrow 
 
 Whose anguish is love. 
 
 No lightjrearising hereafter 
 
 Shall lighten us here as of old 
 When seasons were lustrous as laughter 
 
 Of waves that are snowshine and gold. 
 The dawn that imbues and enkindles 
 
 Life's fluctuant and fugitive sea 
 Dies down as the starshine that dwindles 
 
 And cares not to be. 
 
 Men/ mightier than death which divides us, 
 Friends, dearer than sorrow can say, 
 
 The light^that is darkness and hides us 
 Awhile from each other away 
 
iio DEDICATION 
 
 Abides but awhile and endures not, 
 We know, though the day be as night. 
 
 For souls that forgetfulness lures not 
 Till sleep be in sight. 
 
 The sleep that enfolds you, the slumber 
 
 Supreme and eternal on earth, 
 Whence ages of numberless number 
 
 Shall bring us not back into birth, 
 We know not indeed if it be not 
 
 What no man hath known if it be, 
 Life, quickened with light that we see not 
 
 If spirits may see. 
 
 The love that would see and would know it 
 
 Is even as the love of a child. 
 But the fire of the fame of the poet 
 
 Who gazed on the past, and it smiled, 
 
DEDICATION 211 
 
 But the light of the fame of the painter 
 Whose hand was as morning's in May, 
 
 Death bids not be darker or fainter, 
 Time casts not away. 
 
 We, left of them loveless and lonely, 
 
 Who lived in the light of their love, 
 Whose darkness desires it, we only, 
 
 Who see them afar and above, 
 So far, if we die not, above us, 
 
 So lately no dearer than near, 
 May know not of death if they love us, 
 
 Of night if they hear. 
 
 We, stricken and darkling and living. 
 Who loved them and love them, abide 
 
 A day, and the gift of its giving, 
 An hour, and the turn of its tide, 
 
212 DEDICATION 
 
 When twilight and midnight and morrow 
 Shall pass from the sight of the sun, 
 
 And death be forgotten, and sorrow 
 Discrowned and undone. 
 
 For us as for these will the breathless 
 
 Brief minute arise and pass by : 
 And if death be not utterly deathless, 
 
 If love do not utterly die, 
 From the life that is quenched as an ember 
 
 The soul that aspires as a flame 
 Can choose not but wholly remember 
 
 Love, lovelier than fame. . 
 
 Though sure be the seal of their glory 
 
 And fairer no fame upon earth, 
 Though never a leat shall grow hoary 
 
 Of the crowns that were given them at birth, 
 
DEDICATION 213 
 
 While time as a vassal doth duty 
 To names that he towers not above, 
 
 More perfect in price and in beauty 
 For ever is love. 
 
 The night is upon us, and anguish 
 
 Of longing that yearns for the dead. 
 But mourners that faint not or languish, 
 
 That veil not and bow not the head, 
 Take comfort to heart if a token 
 
 Be given them of comfort to be : 
 While darkness on earth is unbroken, 
 
 Light lives on the sea. 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD. NEW -STREET SQUARE; 
 
 LONDON