LIBRARY I 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF I 
 V CALJ^ORNIA J 
 
 fJJl 
 
 n 
 
 )r'^'j ' 
 
THE MERMAID. 
 
SUBSCRIBERS' EDITION. 
 
 There will be no Second Edition of this Book 
 
 AS IT NOW STANDS. 
 
The Mermaid 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER PIECES. 
 
 BY 
 
 E. PATTERSON; 
 
 With an Introduction 
 
 By S. C. h\ 
 
 PUBLISHED 
 
 HV THE .\nTH<1K. JUNE, 1897. 
 
 earbif f : 
 
 Printed by Rees, Mallett and Stanbury, Bridge Stkeet, 
 
LOAN STACK 
 
A<ft 
 
 Inscribed 
 
 TO 
 
 James Munn, Esq. 
 
 525 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 hi HAVE been asked to write a few words of introduction to this 
 
 I volume of verse, to stand as literary godfather to the first-born of 
 
 an unknown Poet, but one who is deserving of being heard, 
 
 even should the public mis-hear his singing and fail to grasp his 
 
 message. 
 
 It is, I know, an unusual thing for one to pen an introduction to 
 another's work, except the latter be dead, when "elucidations" and in- 
 troductions are worked out in laudatory fashion. The best praise is 
 reserved for poets or for other men after they have passed beyond 
 human aid and encouragement. Living, the critics sting them as ihey 
 did Byron, Shelley, Keats, and Poe. But the days of Quarterly 
 Reviewing are past, and there are some critics, who boast of their profes- 
 sion, and yet can discover some good in the present-day poets. It is 
 no unusual thing to read in the literary papers criticisms, and just^ 
 even laudatory, appreciations of minor verse of new poets. But 
 by this I do not mean to assert that the carping critics are an extinct 
 race, or that it is an easy matter for a Poet to gain a hearing 
 for which he longs and works, and to which his ability justly entitles 
 him. 
 
 It is still the fashion of the majority of well-educated people to 
 sneer at Poetry, and especially at the Local Poet. Should some 
 acquaintance with a faculty for stringing together rhymes, or phrases 
 with a jingling alliteration, chance to write in an Album " a Sonnet," 
 full of exaggerated praise of the supposed virtues of its owner, then it is 
 possible that the contribution will be described as beautiful, exquisite, 
 and " so very fine " — but alas ! in how many cases does this sort of critic- 
 ism and appreciation of poetry sum up the critic's knowledge of tne 
 subject. The owner of that Album— whom I need not state is a sup- 
 
viii IntrodtLction. 
 
 positious person created to represent a type — who absorbs rhyming 
 flattery from his friend, will openly sneer at a lyrical poem and throw 
 down a volume of verse, uttering caustic criticism of " fellows who write 
 poetical nonsense." Anyone may sneer and criticise ; it requires little 
 ability or insight to do that even with the work of the greatest poets. 
 To enjoy poetry and to be able to realise the imagery, catch the rythmic 
 cadence of the poet's language, and the sublimity of his thought, re- 
 quire in the reader the possession of the poetic faculty ; and this poetic 
 faculty — the ear to catch the poet's music, the eye to see the beauties 
 of his imagery and the soul to receive his message — is in the possession 
 of most men. The faculty lies dormant, it is true, but it is there neverthe- 
 less. Instead of poetry being popular, as it should be, it is neglected in 
 the Schools, scorned in the drawing rooms, and, where it is not completely 
 disregarded, criticised and ridiculed. 
 
 Zoilus presented to Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a work of 
 many admirable parts. The god asked what were the beauties of the 
 book, whereupon Zoilus made answer that he only busied himself about 
 the errors. Thereupon Apollo handed him back a big measure of un- 
 winnowed wheat and bade him pick out all the chaff for his reward. I trust 
 that the reader into whose hands this volume falls will not busy himself 
 over-much with the errors, but will rather seek for the beauties of 
 thought and the music of the language in which the author has cast his 
 musings. 
 
 And here a word on the general subject of Poetry. I shall not 
 stay to discuss why Poetry has so many detractors. That would re- 
 quire too many pages and make wearisome an introduction to a volume 
 of pleasant verse. Yet it is strange, when we bear in mind the fact 
 that every literature of every country begins in Poetry, that only a 
 comparative few read poetry and find delight in the poetic. It is in the 
 poetic form that we get the first recorded thoughts and musings of men. 
 The thought and expression of a people find utterance in one man, and 
 he in his efforts to record the spirit and the thought of his age frames 
 his sentences in rhythmic measures. The earliest compositions in the 
 English language are in metrical form, and deal with religious and 
 
Introdtiction. ix 
 
 warlike subjects. And so, too, the grandest themes in the language of 
 Milton and Shakespeare — as those of Homer and Dante — are cast in 
 the poetic mould. For " poetry is the record of the best and happiest 
 moments of the happiest and best minds," it " makes immortal all that 
 is best and most beautiful in the world," and it "redeems from decay 
 the visitations of the divinity in man." If Poets are, as Shelley says, 
 " the unacknowledged legislators of the world " their fate is often com- 
 plete neglect ; they have not learned to compel attention by their legis- 
 lation, nor to make the many see the beauties and admire the wisdom 
 which is locked up in the work of English poets. Nor indeed have they 
 silenced the detractor of Poetry. From the days of Sir Philip Sidney, 
 who wrote " An Apologie for Poetrie " down to Hazlitt, many a 
 " Defence of Poetry " has been written, and there is still need for more. 
 Indeed, every Poet and poetaster is continually on his defence against 
 the detractors of Poetry. " He who has a contempt for poetry cannot 
 have much respect for himself, or for anything " wrote Hazlitt, but it is 
 an unbelieving world ! 
 
 It is still difficult for a Poet to get a hearing, save in the 
 *' Poet's Corner " of a weekly newspaper or on the quarter-page of a 
 Monthly Magazine, where a poem is frequently inserted by the Editor, 
 instead of leaving it for the Printer to fill up with an ugly " tail- 
 piece." But by these detached poems and stray sonnets it is impossible 
 to realise the genius of the Poet. A short time ago, when perusing a 
 play by the author of this volume, I ventured to ask — Have we in our 
 midst a Chatterton fretting out his soul to express himself and pining 
 because of the world's indifference to his genius or his physical wants ? 
 Manyapoetdiesunknown, unsung. Though quite a number of volumes 
 of minor verse have been published recently and others still come fresh 
 from the press, indicating that there are purchasers of poems, it is the 
 custom to look askance and with suspicion on a poet whose work is 
 still mostly in M.S. Poets and thoughts of " lunar influences " 
 are usually present together in the mind of the man who " can't 
 read poetry," whenever he hears of a neighbour who courts the 
 muses and wanders on the slopes of Parnassus. Poetry does not 
 
X Introduction. 
 
 pay, one is fiequently reminded, and it is often described as a 
 "drug in the market." The majority do not read poetry — for 
 them the sex-problem and the sensational in fiction. For the Poet 
 there is scant reward, and the Laureateship is not now for genius 
 but a plum for a Court versemaker. And I doubt not there have been 
 many like Chatterton. — 
 
 " The marvellous boy. 
 The sleepless soul, that perished in his pride." 
 
 By the publication of this volume the author of "The Mermaid," 
 and the other pieces herein contained, has been given a wider publicity 
 than the Poet's Corner in a newspaper, and the reading public have 
 thus an opportunity of judging his work by a very representative 
 collection of his poems. In writing this introduction I have studiously 
 avoided the very prevalent weakness which one sees manifested every 
 day to laud and bepraise the work of young writers by mentioning 
 them in favourable connection with the great names in Literature 
 How often do we read of some " Sir Walter Scott of Wales," a " Welsh 
 Shakespeare," and a " Welsh Charles Lamb " ! It is not my province 
 to compare the items contained in this volume with the work of the 
 Poets, to contrast a lyrical passage with the best that Shelley has 
 written, a classical image with one from Keats, an epigrammatic phrase 
 with another from Shakespeare, to set-off a fine poetical metaphor by 
 one from Milton ; nor do I desire to occupy the position of lecturer at a 
 panoramic show, nor accompany the reader through the volume, like 
 a professional " guide " declaiming on the beauties of this and that and 
 pointing to the rarest parts. The reader must do this for himself, for 
 what strikes one person as a gem, another will pass by unnoticed. 
 But of this I am confident : that if the reader does not, in the spirit of 
 Zoilus, occupy himself entirely in looking for errors and framing caustic 
 criticism on the work his reward will be more satisfactory than that 
 presented by Apollo. 
 
 S.C.F. 
 
 Cardiff, June, 1897. 
 
Contents. 
 
 The Mermaid^ a Lyrical and Descriptive 
 Monologue ..... 
 
 The Poet's Death .... 
 
 Erato: An Extract from " The Muses' 
 Entertainment'''^ . . . . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 18 
 
 27 
 
 Sonnets. 
 
 
 Dear Love .... 
 
 35 
 
 And shall an order bind 
 
 . 36 
 
 Must it he so? , 
 
 36 
 
 Goodbye ..... 
 
 37 
 
 At morn and noon 
 
 38 
 
 Though far from thee . 
 
 39 
 
 Oh ! Suffering heart 
 
 39 
 
 YeSy all or naught 
 
 40 
 
 Beloved, if we could bid . 
 
 41 
 
 Not thine the blame 
 
 42 
 
 Dear, stretch your arms across . 
 
 42 
 
 / will not give thee up . 
 
 43 
 
 You cannot bring 
 
 44 
 
 How fair thou art .... 
 
 45 
 
 Of life^ sweet Love 
 
 45 
 
Xll 
 
 Contents. 
 
 It cannot be . 
 
 . 46 
 
 Bourne of my Soul . 
 
 47 
 
 Dear^ let us love .... 
 
 . 48 
 
 Love truly 
 
 48 
 
 For God through thee . 
 
 49 
 
 When I am gone 
 
 50 
 
 Ofair sweet Lass .... 
 
 51 
 
 Take of my heart 
 
 52 
 
 I think that some day . 
 
 53 
 
 When I think of the songs . 
 
 54 
 
 A fond farewell .... 
 
 55 
 
 Blest hie of my birth 
 
 57 
 
 There are lads .... 
 
 . 58 
 
 Keep ye your Southern beauties . 
 
 60 
 
 Thou mavis o' the braes o' Ayr 
 
 61 
 
 ^ Tis this one* s gait 
 
 63 
 
 ^Tis only direst moments forge 
 
 . 64 
 
 Just when night is palling . 
 
 6s 
 
 There are beautiful eyes 
 
 . 67 
 
 Your golden crowns 
 
 68 
 
 fair was the morn 
 
 . 69 
 
 For what shall I praise thee f . 
 
 70 
 
 Beneath thy window 
 
 71 
 
 Ah ! do you remember f 
 
 73 
 
 There^s a lad .... 
 
 74 
 
 Come sing a song 
 
 76 
 
 God give ^ my Love » » 
 
 ' 11 
 
Contents. xiii 
 
 Miscellaneous. 
 
 Sonnet to J. M. and J. B. . . . 79 
 
 To my Lyre ...... 79 
 
 An Impromptu Wish ... 82 
 
 Gwalia ...... 83 
 
 To a Welsh Maiden .... 84 
 
 Lines 86 
 
 Sonnet ...... 87 
 
 Llandaf ...... 88 
 
 Llandaff Cathedral .... 90 
 
 Vale of Glamorgan . . . 91 
 
 Lines 92 
 
 Cilfynydd 93 
 
 Lines 97 
 
 An Impromptu 99 
 
 Pieces written in Roath Park. 
 
 Among the flowerbeds . 1 01 
 Vae victis . . . . . .103 
 
 Drifting 104 
 
 Pray for us 1C5 
 
 The Lassie^ s Poesy . . 106 
 
 A Reflection 107 
 
 Vale 108 
 
 Impromptu . . . .111 
 
 Curst 112 
 
 Of such are Poets made 114 
 
 Out of Touch : An Impromptu . 117 
 
 Gloom and Sunshine : An Impromptu . 119 
 
xiv Contents. 
 
 To my last two Medallions . . . 120 
 
 When I am dead 122 
 
 Street Murmurings. 
 
 The Newsboy . . . 125 
 A Living Fingerpost . . . .126 
 
 The Outcast 128 
 
 Another phase 130 
 
 ^i^ 
 
I^LAME not my lute ! for he must sound 
 
 Of this or that, as liketh me ; 
 For lack of wit the lute is bound 
 
 To give such tunes as pleaseth me ; 
 Though my songs be somewhat strange, 
 And speak such words as touch my change, 
 Blame not my lute ! 
 
 Sir Thomas Wyatt. 
 
t^t (niermaib. 
 
 Scene : Among the Ionian Islands. 
 
 Prelude. 
 
 *' Of^HEN skies are softly fair, 
 
 ^^^ And Night's small sentinels in shyness peep 
 Through foamlike clouds that idly creep 
 As thin as wanton air ; 
 And cooing breezes murmur low 
 Along the rippled bosom of the heaving deep, 
 And weary eyes are peacefully asleep ; 
 And phosphorescent glow 
 Of waters, as they swish 
 The lazy vessel's side, 
 
 The sailors tell of depths where eyeless fish 
 Can feel nor wind nor tide : 
 When horned is the moon. 
 And smooth the ebbless sea — 
 Enwrapt amid the glamouring mystery 
 Of witching night — 
 Then is the noon, 
 
2 The Mermaid. 
 
 The full ripe summer-time, 
 
 The flood-tide point, the prime 
 
 Of my delight. 
 
 When rides the soft Grey King,* ' 
 
 On damp and silent wing, 
 
 Above the ever restless wave 
 
 That slowly moves along the mighty unstoned grave 
 
 Wherein is merged some millions of men, 
 
 Or killed or drowned, 
 
 Oh ! I do then 
 
 Full gaily float around. 
 
 Where hidden rocks — 
 
 An unknown current seeks — 
 
 Give fearsome shocks. 
 
 Begetting stopless leaks ; 
 
 And while with pearly scallopped shell — 
 
 Found in an iridescent grot 
 
 Where Nereids dwell, 
 
 By Care and Pain forgot — 
 
 My amber hair, of finest scented weed, 
 
 I comb ; and there my song I sing, and lead 
 
 The drifting vessel where 
 
 Our caverned homes in secret lie, 
 
 Rock-hidden from the human eye. 
 
 *' Soft, soft as the sigh of the surging sea 
 On a silvery strand when sleepily 
 
 * Fog or thick mist. 
 
The Mermaid. 
 
 The slow waves shoreward roam ; 
 
 Low, low, low as the coo of the amorous gull, 
 
 When he struts on the rock at his season's full 
 
 To make himself a home ; 
 
 Sweet, sweet as the flesh of the pinky shell 
 
 That fishermen term the queenly belle 
 
 Of all this realm of foam, 
 
 Is the song that leaves my sea-loved lip 
 
 Deathward to lure the windless ship. 
 
 •^* When Zephyrs play, or Eurus gently sweeps 
 The star-lit surface of the fathomed deeps ; 
 Or whispering comes the soft Etesian wind ; 
 Or dry Solano, leaving woe behind, 
 1 mingle with their sound 
 The music of my song, 
 And woo the ship aground 
 Where undiscovered streams do throng 
 To rock or shoal or bank, 
 Where many a craft it struck and sank 
 To fishy depths beneath. 
 
 '^^ Over the waters with soft coo-coo 
 
 My voice goes stealing away ; 
 
 Lulling the senses as fond lovers do, 
 "Winning my loves with my lay ; 
 
 Rising and falling, and rising again ; 
 
4 The Mermaid, 
 
 Casting a spell o'er the hearts of men, 
 Finding, and winding about their ears, 
 Circe-like soothing their human fears ; 
 Winding and binding them all to me ; 
 Leading them down to my home in the sea — 
 To my white and my green and my violet-hued 
 Deep grot in the 'gulfing sea. 
 
 *' When Naiads sleep, and black the skies appear, 
 And sullen waves their crestless heads uprear — 
 As if the Cyclops played in sport below — 
 Then backward fall for want of Mistral's blow ; 
 When all the sea is labouring beneath, 
 And — like the child in its elastic sheath — 
 Doth cause a sign less marked without than in, 
 And e'en the air is murmuring of that din 
 Which but Erinyes make ; when on the beach 
 The agitated waters fall, and teach — 
 By sob and sigh and moan — the weather-wise, 
 The Spirit of the storm no longer lies 
 In letheistic sleep: 
 
 " I gleefully then prepare. 
 The battling men to snare 
 With songs, that ring 
 As if they spring 
 From seraphim in air. 
 
The Mermaid. 5 
 
 **' When Boreas bursts from icy north, 
 
 And whips our world to wrath ! 
 
 Or blasting Syrian hurries forth 
 
 To line the coast with froth ! 
 
 Or Africus, or Caecias, or biting Argestes 
 
 Howls at crooked Cynthia, and drives the savage seas ! — 
 
 With crested heads and curling tops 
 
 That naught but adamantine rock e'er stops, 
 
 Or undiminishable space 
 
 Returns to their appointed place — 
 
 To foam and hiss ; and leap on high, 
 
 As if to front the very sky 
 
 And Heaven itself invade ! 
 
 When round the rocks — in wild disorder made 
 
 To crash and roar, recede, return ; 
 
 To surge and seethe and spit, and spurn 
 
 Their very selves in impotence as fierce as Hell ! — 
 
 The waters sink, then rise and swell 
 
 As if they'd gulp the world ! 
 
 When darkness reigns ; 
 
 And snap Erinyes their prison chains. 
 
 And, winging o'er the seven-circling stream. 
 
 Return to night — their brooding, black-browed dream 
 
 And crime-begetting dam — their horrid heads aglow 
 
 With writhing snakes, while drops of blood out flow 
 
 Their damned and fearsome eyes ! 
 
 When driving cloud and hurrying scud 
 
 Shut out the light of moon, or star, that would 
 
 Assistance give the seaman in his plight ; 
 
6 The Mermaid. 
 
 And Death stalks large — in sheer despite 
 
 Of Mercy's pleading cry 
 
 To spare the unprepared -to-die ; 
 
 Who die with oath half-uttered on the lips, 
 
 And speak the rest in Hell, — and wholesale slips 
 
 The tethered souls of men, 
 
 As man would free from pound or pen 
 
 A flock of frightened sheep : 
 
 When ships — with broken spars and tattered sails,. 
 
 And men who craved for capfuls fight the gales 
 
 They did not ask — drive helpless on a dead 
 
 Leeshore ; and sailors, numbed with cold, do wed 
 
 Themselves, with grinding teeth and flashing eyes,. 
 
 To fight a hand-to-hand for life they prize 
 
 With fierce and socialistic death ; 
 
 " Then I seek the lee of a shelving rock. 
 Where I, Necken-like, their vain efforts mock. 
 
 Storm Song. 
 
 ** Wild and weird o^er the gale-lashed sea. 
 Twisted and twirled by the shrieking wind ; 
 
 Seeming a part of its maddened glee ! 
 Now here, now there, ahead, behind ; 
 
 I send my song through the blinding spray 
 
 To lead the mariners hither astray. 
 
The Mermaid, 
 
 ** Over the waters and over the deck, 
 
 About the sails and among the shrouds ; 
 
 Seeking the labouring ship to wreck ; 
 
 Now lost in the sea, now up in the clouds , 
 
 Hurrying, dallying, never at rest, 
 
 Ever bent on a ghoul-like quest. 
 
 " Now high ! then low ; now piercing sweet, 
 
 Then as a sigh of a spirit's pain ; 
 Now seemingly the driving sleet. 
 
 And now the cry of the troubled main ! 
 Through hatches, in cabins, — now tenderly soft, 
 Windward and leeward, alow and aloft. 
 
 '' Now borne on the crest of a towering wave, 
 
 The tortured soul of the wild Siroc ! 
 Now moaning low in the blue-green grave 
 
 Where the shifting sand, and the submergedjrock, 
 And the coral-reef, and we Sirens lurk 
 To do Posidon's special work. 
 
 ''Thrilling the soul, killing the sense, 
 Dwelling a pause . . . then swelling thence 
 In higher and wilder and sweeter notes, 
 Which far overhead the mad wind floats I 
 Appearing of Heaven, yet springing from Hell ; 
 Misleading the most when seeming to dwell 
 To the lee of the fated ship ! 
 
8 The Mermaid, 
 
 Fainting away in the flying spray, 
 As the sobbing soul of a slaughtered Fay ; 
 Yearning and turning and burning ; 
 Hiding, revealing ; 
 
 Wheeling and wounding, and healing ; 
 Playing tattoos on the heart, and feeling 
 The pulse of the listening soul — 
 As rolling and tumbling nearer the goal. 
 Pitching and surging comes the ship- 
 Is the song I sing, 
 And the wild storm-King 
 Bears far from mine unkissed lip ! 
 
 *^ When daylight breaks— dull, cold, and grey — 
 
 Revealing all the elemental fray 
 
 Has brought about : — sails torn to shreds, 
 
 And splintered spars that dangle o'er the heads 
 
 Of sopping-garbed men, whose faces tell 
 
 Of toil in salty lines — where lurking dwell 
 
 The yarns of many storms, — eyes bleared with brine, 
 
 And matted hair wherein — like frost — do shine 
 
 The particles of salt ; and fingers bent 
 
 And stiff with oft embracing ropes which lent 
 
 A succour from the waves ; decks white and bare. 
 
 Except the water swishing here and there ; 
 
 The dripping cordage, hatches battened fast ; 
 
 And broken halyards swaying round the mast — 
 
The Mermaid. 9 
 
 All proofs of storm unspent ; 
 
 *' When day has come, and still no sign of rest 
 
 In sky or wind — that rears the sea's great breast 
 
 Into a myriad of nipples, fierce 
 
 And large and white, that hissing rush to pierce 
 
 The groaning ship, and yield not life but death — 
 
 And sailors eye their mates, and catch their breath ; 
 
 And talk with fear of hatches over-turned ; 
 
 Knives stuck in masts, and low blue lights that burned 
 
 But yestereve about the weather-vane ; 
 
 Of many foundered ships that tried in vain 
 
 To run a Friday's voyage ; of drowned cats, 
 
 And vessels out of which the auguring rats 
 
 Decamped when last in port ; of sneezes done 
 
 To left, and squealing pigs, and whistling on 
 
 The bow by thoughtless lads ; of horsey dreams, 
 
 And where the light of woman's eye out-gleams 
 
 The brilliance of gems ; and other things 
 
 Which fill the sailor's mind with murmurings, 
 
 And speak to him of wrecks : 
 
 " When lulls the gale ; 
 And shouting seamen spread another sail 
 To check the roll, and forge the ship ahead 
 From where I lie near by that thing they dread 
 As dolphins do the shark, a bristling reef 
 Of rocks but just awash — a line of grief 
 As grim as Gorgon-Stheno's horrid face, 
 Outlined with foamy effervescent lace 
 
lO The Mermaid, 
 
 Instead of serpent-hair, a spot that oft, 
 While guarding thus th' adjacent coast, aloft 
 Has sent in haste, or else headlong to Hell, 
 A dozen souls at once. 
 
 " Then I sing my song in a different key, 
 To win the mariners hither to me. 
 
 When falls the night, and all the wind has gone, 
 
 Erinyes their share of work have done. 
 
 And hied them back below ; when stars once more, 
 
 And pale young moon, from cloudless sky, do o'er 
 
 The waters cast their tender light ; and rolls 
 
 The bark from side to side, until it tolls 
 
 The bell itself, as if in play 'twould call 
 
 The slumbering watch : when monstrous seas do fall 
 
 (Like lazy giants wanting mental force 
 
 To give a purpose to their feeble course 
 
 Of life) against the vessel's planks, and flaps 
 
 The sail about the mast in mimic claps 
 
 Of thunder ; while the worn-out watch on deck — 
 
 No longer dreading death, or wind, or wreck — 
 
 Do doze around forgetful of the fear 
 
 The storm-fiend made them feel. 
 
 " When such the hour, 
 
 I tune my voice to fit the time ; 
 
The Mermaid. 1 1 
 
 And mould my song with soothing rhyme 
 And subtle power. 
 
 " As soft as the down on Psyche's arm, 
 
 More gentle than youths when their loves they seek^ 
 
 The shy young maids to tell ; 
 As potent as ^sculapian balm, 
 And fair as the flush on a new bride's cheek 
 
 Where beauty and modesty dwell ; 
 As sweet as the snare of ^monian charm, 
 More lulling than love when it 'gins to speak 
 
 And cast o'er the heart its spell ; 
 Is my song to the sailors awake or asleep, 
 On the siren-like breast of the mystical deep. 
 
 Song: to the Night. 
 
 *' O'er turquoise-depths I float and sing. 
 While thus you move on world-shot wing 
 And stars their borrowed lustre show — 
 Calm, faint, and fair, with nun-like glow. 
 
 *' O beauteous stars ; ah, soothing Night ; 
 O wondrous bars of quivering light, 
 That tender roam o'er green-white foam — 
 Chaste diamonds in an azure dome ! 
 
12 The Mermaid. 
 
 " Smile on, O Night — mysterious veil — 
 While soft I tell my rhythmic tale 
 Of sweet enchanting grots below, 
 Where tides are not, nor breezes blow. 
 
 " Give sleep, O Moon ; stir not, O Wind 
 I crave the boon, the crew to bind 
 With spirit-thong, in bonds as strong 
 As was Calypso's magic song. 
 
 Song to the Sea. 
 
 *' Swelling sea and rolling billow, 
 Ye whereon my head I pillow 
 
 As I braid my yellow hair ; 
 While the Night soft tears is weeping. 
 And the mariners are sleeping. 
 
 Come, assist me then to snare. 
 
 " As ye wander — rising, falling. 
 Feathery-foam and green mounds calling 
 
 On the wind to hold ye up — 
 Bear their floating home where singing 
 Here I lie, in hope of bringing 
 
 Them to-night with me to sup. 
 
The Mermaid, 13 
 
 Twist a current, swiftly winding 
 Past the ship, and straightway finding 
 
 Where the rocks in hiding wait. 
 While I weave a charm about them, 
 Deeper than the grave without them, 
 
 Drift the sleepers to their fate. 
 
 5ons: to the Mariner5. 
 
 " The moonbeams step from wave to wave, 
 
 And silver thus each crest ; 
 The gale is o'er, and idly heaves 
 
 Old Ocean's loveless breast. 
 And over moving foam-capped hills, 
 
 Down vales of shimmering green — 
 Where fishes hold their star-lit court, 
 
 And rules a Nereid-queen — 
 With swaying sails your rolling ship rides high ; 
 Her vane-spike seems to write upon the sky. 
 
 " Come, follow on while thus I sing. 
 And sweet weird music free ; — 
 
 My instrument's a crimson shell. 
 Which Orpheus gave to me ; 
 
 The strings are made of Echo's hair, 
 And sweeter ne'er has been ; 
 
14 The Mermaid. 
 
 My bow is of Euterpe's lyre — 
 Of all the Nine the queen ; 
 Erato's shade doth dwell within and sings, 
 And when I play she breathes upon the strings. 
 
 *' Come to cerulean depths with me, 
 
 Come to our caverns below ; 
 Come where the mermaidens wanton free, 
 
 Down where no suns ever glow. 
 
 ^' CrystaHsed jewels give all light there, 
 
 Beryl and sapphire, and all ; 
 Diamond and emerald, and turquoise fair, 
 
 Set in a clear amber wall. 
 
 ^' Mother-of-pearl is the only thing 
 
 Mermaids will ever employ ; 
 All other things, to the songs we sing, 
 
 Leave we for you to enjoy. 
 
 *' Down in the mirroring depths beneath, 
 Purple, gold, crimson, and white, 
 
 Violet and pink in a rainbow-wreath 
 Render a glorious light. 
 
 ^' Gardens we make with bright-hued weeds 
 Scented, and sweet to the taste ; 
 
The Mermaid. 15 
 
 Kisses we give till the pale lip bleeds — 
 Come to our bosoms in haste. 
 
 ^* There in our grottos where dolphins die, 
 
 Giving the walls a new glow, * 
 Nereids shall tend you with rolling eye ; 
 
 Never a pain shall you know. 
 
 " Sleep, tired eyes, 
 A long sweet calm I bring ; 
 
 Elysian prize 
 For you is on the wing. 
 
 Rest . . . rest . . . rest ; 
 No more wild seas or gales 
 
 Shall stop your quest. 
 Or tear your speeding sails. 
 
 Sleep . . . sleep . . . sleep, 
 
 Upon the cradling deep ; 
 
 The task is nearly done, 
 
 The last port almost won — 
 Sleep . . . sleep ... ye weary sailors, sleep. 
 
 " While slumbers sweet 
 Enchain your roving minds, 
 
 Your winding sheet 
 I spread where no one finds. 
 
 'The d}nng dolphin turns almost all manner of pretty shades and 
 colours. 
 
1 6 The Mermaid. 
 
 Dream . . . dream . . . dream, 
 And think yourselves at home, 
 
 Where bright eyes gleam 
 A welcome from the foam. 
 
 Peace . . . peace . . . peace ; 
 
 From pain and toil release. 
 
 Now comes the long repose 
 
 From all your human woes ; 
 Your circumscribed lives shall cease 
 In waters deep ; 
 
 Sleep . . . sleep . . . sleep ; 
 For ever and for ever shall ye sleep . 
 
 ^' Crash ! on the rocks — 'tis the ship aground ! 
 A moment thus . . . and the waters bound 
 Into the hold, and she reels aside ; 
 Then backward falls in the wolfish tide ! 
 Flung from its feet is the watch on deck, 
 An instinct tells of approaching wreck ! 
 Up from below the affrighted leap ! 
 Half folded still in the arms of sleep. 
 
 " Time grants no space to think of boats, 
 Or planks, or anything that floats ! 
 Already creep the waters high ; 
 And circles round, with horrid cry. 
 
The Mermaid, 17 
 
 The vulture of the seas ! There's not 
 Enough of time but for a jot 
 Of low and half unconscious prayer, 
 As eyes dilate and daftly stare 
 About ; and then a rush ! a leap ! 
 A roll ! . . a gurgle; and the deep, 
 The rocks, the sea-gulls, and the foam, 
 The pallid moon and star-flecked dome, 
 Arrayed in mute sublimnity, 
 Are all the human eye can see." 
 
l8 The PoeVs Death. 
 
 THE POET'S DEATH 
 
 rtf^E sacred Nine of old Olympian birth 
 
 Ij Inspire my tale — poor lowly song of earth ; 
 And make it fit its subject to adorn, 
 Or it will be of every beauty shorn. 
 And thou, the Nine's fair mother, pray attend 
 And guide my else strayed thoughts unto the end 
 Of this poor verse ; which — though uncultured be, 
 And read h»y none — will yet be dear to me. 
 
 In garret bare, where all the world has long 
 
 Agreed in placing him, the Poet sits 
 
 With hectic-spotted hollow cheeks. His frame — 
 
 Ah ! once with rosy health aglow and plump, 
 
 And big with sinewed pledge of strength in years 
 
 To come — is shattered now, for foul Decay 
 
 Has laid a heavy hand on him. And yet. 
 
 He heeds it not. Nor does he know that, slow 
 
 But sure — ay ! doubly, cruelly sure — fell Death, 
 
 The grinning churl, fast steals on him ; for this his soul 
 
 Is lost too far a- wing in his own world. 
 
The Poet's Death. 19 
 
 His eyes, in youth so bright with quickening fire, 
 
 Are shrunk as though with age ; and round each lid 
 
 A circle dark has grown — Consumption paints 
 
 Her victims with those colours all her own. 
 
 Yet even now they glow with vivid light. 
 
 Come, mark him well, as here he sits so far 
 
 Removed in Fancy's witching realm. See, how 
 
 His orbs oft change their pensive mood as works — 
 
 In spite of him — the busy mind within. 
 
 Lo ! now a spark is bursting into flame, 
 
 That leaps, and grows with steady strong increase 
 
 Until it burns a veritable fire. 
 
 Now watch the varied lights those eyes display, 
 
 As riot on his too untethered thoughts ; 
 
 •One moment fierce, the next a little sad, 
 
 Then slowly comes their passion back again ; 
 
 Anon to droop and gently die away, 
 
 And give its place — ere scarce a minute's gone — 
 
 To looks of soft delight ; while these, in turn, 
 
 Are quickly followed by a deepening touch 
 
 Of love's unfathomable tenderness. . . . 
 
 Another change : this time a far-off gaze 
 
 His eyes assume : perhaps gone back to some 
 
 Time-misted age, and now are looking on 
 
 A life and race of men that differ from 
 
 His own, another set of manners and 
 
 Of forms, a widely different barbarous code 
 
 Of social laws and due observances ; 
 
 Or forward go to ages yet unborn. 
 
20 The Poefs Death. 
 
 And — wizard-like — now try their best to pierce 
 That most impenetrable veil, a dim 
 Futurity — a land unknown, undreamt. 
 No human tongue can say of what those eyes 
 Are gazing on, oblivious to Now ; 
 Forgetting all surrounding things, his soul — 
 His all, the prey of shackle-spurning genius. 
 
 He now sees not around him spread the signs 
 
 Of chilling, grinding, worldly poverty. 
 
 No thought of care, or grief, or pain ; no dread 
 
 Of scanty fare, bare walls, hard couch, or want 
 
 Of friends or magic pelf, assail him now. 
 
 The world's neglect, the cold disdain of those 
 
 Of higher state, the critics' snubs, the fool's 
 
 Wise sneer, the senseless hate of bigot-minds 
 
 Are mouthed by kind Oblivion — are lost 
 
 To heart and brain, are dead and e'en forgot. 
 
 His mind possessed is peopled with a race 
 
 Of Fancy born — a race none else may share. 
 
 Is it to fair Euterpe that he wakes 
 
 His lyric-lyre ? Or is't Thalia, with 
 
 A smile, who courts his thoughts ? Or does the Muse, 
 
 Melpomene, inhabit now his brain, 
 
 And fill his airy stage with horrid shapes 
 
 And deeds ? Perchance 'tis truthful Clio whom 
 
 He now invokes, or mutely calls the aid 
 
 Of Terpsichore to frame some witching dance ? 
 
 Perhaps the stately clear-cut eloquence 
 
The Poct\ Death. 21 
 
 Of epic-toned Calliope fills up 
 
 His soul ; or lovely gentle Erato 
 
 Engages it with some fond story of 
 
 A noble never-dying love ? While on 
 
 From stage to stage the kind Mnemosyne 
 
 Bides near that she might help the toiling brain. 
 
 Oh ! which ? Not e'en his rapid pen can trace 
 
 Imagination's whirling avalanche. 
 
 And yet, how little recks the world how toils 
 
 His soaring soul ; how limited its thought 
 
 Of those long nights he spends in mental pain ! 
 
 How petty is the meed of praise or heed 
 
 It gives his soul-born work ! — until at last, 
 
 When stops the tired brain its busy loom ; 
 
 When he no more the sickly taper burns ; 
 
 Nor longer with the muse sweet commerce holds, 
 
 And shattered lies the once too eager lyre : 
 
 Till then, and oh ! how often not till then, 
 
 Does man at large heed aught the Poet writes. 
 
 Here ! watch him now as, stretched on humble couch, 
 
 He yeilds his dying breath ; and mark his weak 
 
 And well-nigh palsied limbs, his quivering lips ; 
 
 His pitted cheeks, and glazing sunken eye. 
 
 Ay, gaze upon this high and dome-shaped head, 
 
 And think how works the over-active brain. 
 
 What fancy does it trace in these, the pangs 
 
 Of fast approaching death ? Behold his eyes — 
 
 The windows of a strangely musing soul — 
 
22 The Pbcfs Death. 
 
 And wonder what they see that makes them change 
 
 So oft, — now dim, now bright, now looking far 
 
 Away. Gaze yet again, and wonder still 
 
 Once more, does talent live within that head ? 
 
 Has Genius not a dwelling there ? Or can 
 
 That bulging brow contain no powerful thought, 
 
 No strong creative force ? Gaze, gaping crowd, 
 
 On this attenuated form and say 
 
 What is its secret cause ? " Is't wilful mad 
 
 Debauchery ? Or can it be a fool's 
 
 Extravagance ? Or blind heredity — 
 
 A legacy bequeathed by something less 
 
 Than man and little more than beast ? Or has 
 
 Long hardsome toil and meagre fare reduced 
 
 This form from its full state? " Ah, yes! 'tis this. 
 
 But not the labour of his hands — no, not 
 
 His body's force. 'Tis want of proper food, 
 
 A far too restless busy brain, and night 
 
 On night spent o'er a flickering flame, that thus 
 
 Hath marked him as the early tenant of 
 
 A clay-upholstered room. 
 
 Lo ! now his limbs 
 Grow weak ; his brow bears beads of sweat ; 
 His eyelids rise and fall with slow uncertain move, 
 And guttural sounds escape his parched throat. . 
 Man's friendly foe, the even-handed Leveller, 
 Now claims the poor neglected bard's loaned breath. i 
 
 Yet e'en in dissolution's pains the soul 
 Maintains its power, and fires the flagging pulse, — 
 
The Pbefs Death, 23 
 
 Imagination springs again to life 
 
 And lights the dimming eye ; instead of blood 
 
 The heart pumps through his veins wild lyrics such 
 
 As melt e'en human ice. Him do they thrill. 
 
 He turns him o'er, and motions for a pen — 
 
 On Death's own shadow-brow he would inscribe 
 
 The witching mystery of a magic line. 
 
 Alas ! he beckons to the air. No eyes 
 
 Tear-fraught, no soothing tongue, no heaving breast, 
 
 Nor kindly hand holds post beside his couch. 
 
 The effort was too much — his thin hand drops ; 
 
 His eyes put down their curtains wearily ; 
 
 The perspiration clammy giows ; his lean 
 
 White fingers twitch — one long last laboured heave, 
 
 A quivering throb, a strong convulsive throe, 
 
 And all is o'er : the dreamer lies asleep 
 
 On Death's cold breast. His starring spirit's took 
 
 Its latest longest flight, and gone to find 
 
 The realms of which it dreamt so oft on earth 
 
 His last long night of deepening thought is spent ; 
 No more for him the midnight's precious oil, 
 Nor roamings near the silent lake beneath 
 A waning moon ; ne'er will he court the muse. 
 Ne'er strike the pensive lyre ; nor ever feel 
 The galling stings of chill neglect from proud 
 And high-born men ; no more the curling lip 
 His gentle soul will touch, nor will he heed 
 The critic's grudged spite, nor fear embrace 
 
24 The Poet's Death, 
 
 From Penury's gaunt arms. All these are past, 
 To come no more to him in that far land 
 Beyond the grave where pain, and fear, and grief, 
 Where toil, and care, and death, are all unknown. 
 
 The morrow comes — the morrow is to-day, 
 
 And his old haunts no longer know his steps. 
 
 His garret's sought, and he is found outstretched, 
 
 A livid corse ; his death-bed bare and grim, 
 
 A hardened couch ; his handmaids. Want and Care ; 
 
 His valet, pale Consumption hollow-cheeked ; 
 
 His surgeon and physician, callous Death. 
 
 In steps the Law, all draped in robes of might, 
 
 And coarsely asks — with lack of feeling and 
 
 Of better sense — who is this foolish one 
 
 That ends his life in such a wretched state ? 
 
 His papers soon are searched to prove his name. 
 
 His birth or parentage. (Those written sheets 
 
 O'er which he spent so many weary nights 
 
 In loving toil ; corrected slips that prove 
 
 His great affection for his work — how well 
 
 He used the talent God entrusted to 
 
 His care ; sheets which are stamped so plainly with 
 
 The patent spirit-mark of Genius). 
 
 Eyes rude and coarse are eager gazing on, 
 
 And fingers even ruder touch, those slips 
 
 So dear to his lone soul ; then soon the world 
 
 Becomes aware that here a gifted mind 
 
The Poet's Death, 25 
 
 Lies dead — that one more alien soul has fled, 
 And gone to give a full account at God's 
 Own judgment bar. 
 
 And what now says the world ? 
 'Tis sorry that it knew him not ere this. 
 It lifts its hands in vast astonishment 
 That one, so strangely great in soul and mind, 
 Should unknown die of want amid such wealth ; 
 Then straight proceeds to make amends for its 
 Own past misdeeds. His works are quickly placed 
 Before a too-late conscience-smitten world, 
 And keenly scanned by eager waiting crowds. 
 The critics kind — Oh ! wise and gentle race — 
 O'erweight their talk with praise of lines on which, 
 A few brief months ago, they would have passed 
 A condemnation strong ; — de mortius 
 Nil nisi honutn ! — and the learned are much 
 Surprised to find that one poor soul could bring 
 Such truths to light in their benighted days. 
 The monied dunce — fool-fashion's ape — his few 
 Brains rack to grasp the meaning of those truths ; 
 The bigotted, and those of colder blood. 
 Now hold their bitter tongues ; and Envy e'en 
 Is silent made with admiration dumb. 
 So moves the world ! Another great has lived 
 And died unfound, unguessed, and left his mark 
 Indelible on Time's revolving scroll. 
 Anon the marble tells its own vast tale ; 
 Yet, pray what recompense is this to that 
 
26 The Poefs Death, 
 
 Poor soul who made himself an early grave ? — 
 
 Who wrote for his own day ; who asked for food ; 
 
 Who begged a spark of sympathy and love ; 
 
 And found he wrote and hungered, begged and wept in 
 vain. 
 
37 
 
 ERATO. 
 
 (An Extract.) 
 
 jS^WEET Erato, Iove*s own peculiar muse, 
 ^^ Then up and 'gan soft pity to diffuse : 
 Fair being made of love's forlonest sigh, 
 A tear-fraught passion peeping from each eye. 
 So tender she, her birth she might have owed 
 Unto the perfume of a rose, that glowed 
 One time a pure white ; but forced to blush 
 A ruddy hue because, amid the garden's hush, 
 A maid had whispered to its virgin-heart 
 A secret love that caused her many a smart. 
 So, too, the pensive soulful muse was frail — 
 An unkind look would make the maiden quail. 
 And she had beauty — loveliness too sweet ; 
 Too fair, soft, winsome, delicate, complete 
 In all that forms ethereal beauty*s soul — 
 Essence divine, illimitable whole. 
 Wavy her hair as e'er was breath of Spring, 
 Or glinting sunbeams through the opening 
 
28 Erato, 
 
 Of Winter's massed black clouds ; or as the glow 
 
 Of true-love's shyest glances when they owe 
 
 Their being to a gentle maiden's eyes 
 
 Flashing quick looks, and fearing a surprise : 
 
 Light as the fancy of a fickle mind, 
 
 More buoyant than was ever flirting wind ; 
 
 Luxuriant as the growth of tropic weeds, 
 
 That for each plant cast down a thousand seeds : 
 
 It softly shone — soft with uncertain light, 
 
 Exuding from its threads as stars from night ; 
 
 Pale, luminous, hiding, playful like the glow 
 
 Of waves at midnight, 'gainst a vessel's prow : 
 
 Thickly it lay about her lily-bust. 
 
 Excepting when the sportive air discussed 
 
 Its right to be sole lover, and efface 
 
 So much sweet witchery by its close embrace ; 
 
 Then did it lift and float, and fall, and stream 
 
 Again ; a mass of beauteous light ; a dream 
 
 Of airy grace ; — a miniature cloud 
 
 Of twisted, mingling, fairy starbeams bowed 
 
 About with semi-darkness ; rising soft, 
 
 And falling softer ; gently touched aloft, 
 
 As zephyrs puff a bunch of thistle-bloom 
 
 Released from Earth's inimitable loom. 
 
 On each fair cheek there grew a shaming rose, 
 
 As delicate as were the tinted snows 
 
 Encircling them about. Her musing eyes — 
 
 Half- veiled first fonts of loves that idolise — 
 
 Were like the breaking of twin dewy morns. 
 
Erato. 29 
 
 Such as the land of Araby adorns ; 
 
 Encompassed, too, by purest pearly white, 
 
 Indefinitely blent with pink so slight 
 
 And fair and pensive it was scarcely seen, — 
 
 *Twas Beauty's spirit powerful demesne) ; 
 
 Two large and lustrous liquid poarls — full shy 
 
 And soft — afloat in gleaming dew of high 
 
 Transparency, and lit with love's own light 
 
 That far outshone the brightest gems of night ; 
 
 Two tender sentinels, fringed around 
 
 With finest threads of gold that could be found, 
 
 Set there to watch and guard the circling snow, 
 
 And treasured blooms upon the cheeks below. 
 
 Her brow was like an alabaster urn 
 
 In which a sweet soft rosy light doth burn ; 
 
 Or as a piece of ice evolved from dew. 
 
 Flushed with the faintest pinky-tinctured hue 
 
 That man or artist-Nature ever made. 
 
 And granted life. Her matchless lips (afraid, 
 
 Almost, to open wide because the breeze — 
 
 Enamoured of such charms — would leave the trees 
 
 To fasten on their luscious red, and kiss 
 
 Itself into a welcome death of bliss) 
 
 To love played prison-gates, of such a mould 
 
 As were but fashioned by Praxiteles of old ; 
 
 Gates that in durance kept two perfect rows 
 
 Of fairy tooth-shaped pearls, large, white as snows 
 
 On Alpine peaks long bleached with summer suns^ 
 
 And purer e'en than saintly life-long nuns. 
 
30 Erato. 
 
 Her bosom — tender home of love more chaste 
 
 Than e'er in human hearts has Eros placed — 
 
 More lightly rose than might a tiny sheet 
 
 Of breasted marble, living, warm, and sweet ; 
 
 And upward pressed by perfume-laden air, 
 
 That loved it so to touch it scarcely dare ; 
 
 Seductive 'twas as freedom to a mind 
 
 Imprisoned, and full eager as the wind ; 
 
 And gentler fell than e'en the velvet-foam 
 
 Falls on the golden beach from waves meandering 
 
 home. 
 Small was her head, yet suited to her form 
 As kisses fit the lips that love their storm. 
 Her limbs were downy like a ripened peach, 
 Rounded and full, and softer than Love's speech. 
 Nor tall was she, as daughters of great Jove 
 Have oft been said to be by those who rove 
 In Fancy's witching midnight-conjured realm — \ 
 Uneyed Imagination at the helm > 
 
 Of airy barks no seas can over-whelm ; ) 
 
 But she was tall enough for roaming Love 
 To wish her neither under nor above 
 Just what she was. Her neck, the source of grace, 
 So well it poised th' incomparable face ; 
 Like marble white, and supple to surpass 
 The jointless snake that crawls among the silken 
 
 grass. 
 Her pose, her bearing — that sweet spirit of 
 Her movements, looks, and manner, was as love 
 
Erato, 31 
 
 Unspoken is unto a pensive maid 
 
 Who longs to kiss the boy but is afraid ; 
 
 Or as the dew-besprinkled roseate light 
 
 That streaks the Orient dawn, subtle and bright, 
 
 Fairy-like dancing on the skirts of Night ; 
 
 So airy was it that it seemed to me 
 
 As starry down ; or gossamer set free 
 
 And full of light, soft-toyed with by a wind 
 
 As gentle as a mother love-refined : 
 
 'Twas like a spirit-rose such as might grow 
 
 On stem of twisted wind, lit with the glow 
 
 Of spirit-light, and buoyant as the air 
 
 That laughs o'er lakes where rain and fogs are rare. 
 
 Her parted lips gave sounds more rich than notes 
 
 That issue from the warm voluptuous throats 
 
 Of blackbirds, in their full spring-tide of song 
 
 When home-providing hawthorne trees among ; 
 
 Yet were they low — low as should be Love's voice 
 
 When joy is much too heavy to rejoice ; 
 
 Clear as the radiant font of Heaven's own light, 
 
 And sweeter than the poet's mad delight 
 
 When revelling in frenzy-painted sweets 
 
 Down wild Imagination's deep retreats : 
 
 Such was their music that they might have stayed 
 
 The lifted hand of vengeance, stopped the blade 
 
 By grimest justice aimed ; or could have made 
 
 The first of sinners to release a soul 
 
 O'er which he held the fullest of control ; 
 
 Giv'n joy to hearts that had a life-time mourned ; 
 
32 Erato. 
 
 Turned into love the hate of woman scorned, 
 And in whose breast the worst intent did lurk 
 Or called a maddened murderer from his work 
 While yet the awful deed was incomplete, 
 Though dying lay the victim at his feet. 
 
 Such was the muse who then begun to tell 
 Of things that long ago to gods and men befel. 
 
 ■S.^ 
 
 (^^^^ 
 
If thou sunrive my day, 
 
 When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover, 
 And shalt by fortune once more re-survey 
 
 These poor rude lines of thy deceasM lover, — 
 Compare them with the bettering of the time ; 
 
 And tho' they be out-stripp'd by every pen, 
 Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, 
 
 Exceeded by the height of happier men. 
 O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought !— 
 
 " Had my friend's muse grown with his growing age, 
 A dearer birth than this his love had brought, 
 
 To march in ranks of better equipage ; 
 
 But since he died, and poets better prove, 
 Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love." 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
35 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 Dear Love. 
 
 QcIEAR Love, — in whose fair bosom spotless beams 
 '^ A heaven here on earth, whose glowing eyes 
 Soft point my musing soul to yon' fair skies, 
 
 And flame with love as sweet as poets* dreams 
 
 Could ever be — thy soul doth dwell where streams 
 A-fresh the light of pure love ; and sighs, 
 Nor tears, nor pain can dim the light that dies 
 
 Not out from thee, and all my joy redeems ! 
 
 Eudaemonist am I in thee, thou sweet 
 Evangelist of love, in whom I see 
 
 ^irtue enthroned — my Vishnu all complete. 
 Adherent then forever I to thee, 
 
 •ear refuge from the world's unrest, replete 
 Shekinah guiding to eternity. 
 
36 Sonnets, 
 
 '*And shall an order bind.' 
 
 And shall an order bind such heart as thine ? 
 Shall icy duty rule within thy breast, 
 And Love, sweet Love, pass on to seek a nest 
 
 Less fair ? Ah, fate forbid ! thy eyes should shine 
 
 On one who would upbraid, or lone heart pine 
 In after years to welcome that sweet guest 
 Now knocking at thy heart — as if to test 
 
 Thy sense of duty by thy love and mine. 
 
 O faithful heart, O depth of love untried ! 
 
 Abjure thy word and Heaven will forgive ; 
 Or we who love, alas ! must drift a wide. 
 
 Choose now, O heart ; shall Love or Duty give 
 Thy life its light ? and then for ever bide 
 
 The verdict — whether we drag on or live. 
 
 Must it be so? 
 
 Must it be so ? Must here our paths divide ? 
 No more sweet walks, no conversation dear ? 
 Must this great love be parent of a tear. 
 
Sonnets. 37 
 
 And shattered lie our barks on life's rough tide ? 
 
 Oh, God ! forfend that thou shouldst cease to guide 
 My faltVing footsteps where no lights appear 
 From thy dear eyes ; for in my soul is fear, 
 
 O Love ! when thou art not myself beside. 
 
 How dark must be my path when thou art gone ! 
 
 Thou love, thou life, thou soul of my late dajrs ; 
 Thou treasured all my future rests upon. 
 
 If this must be the parting of our ways. 
 Oh, grave ! then open fly — my task is done ; 
 
 Let cypress be my laurel and my bays. 
 
 ** Good-bye." 
 
 Good-bye : so let it be. Our paths must now 
 For ever lie apart. Those beaming eyes — 
 Where gleams a soul that angels pure might prize — 
 
 I May shine on me no more ; thy fair smooth brow, 
 O Love, my hand can not caress. Yet how, 
 And why this break ? — Ah ! deep my soul outcries 
 To know. And cold hard Duty's voice replies : — 
 *'' O warm of heart, remember thou the vow." 
 
^S Sonnets. 
 
 Then be it so— the darkened path be mine, 
 
 The lonely heart, the tear, the crushed-down sigh ; 
 Enough ! if joy unchecked be ever thine. 
 
 Smile on, Beloved ! Be light thy heart, and I 
 
 Will pray for thee ; and wish thee all the wine 
 Of life, though breaks the heart that breathes good-bye. 
 
 " At morn and noon.*' 
 
 At morn and noon I thread the busy street. 
 
 Where throngs of faces pass my searching sight ; 
 In peopled rooms I often tread at night, 
 
 Where flit rare beauties owning charms too sweet ; 
 
 Throughout the day soft silvery voices greet 
 
 My hungering ears : but through the dark and light 
 Thy winning voice, thy smiles so pure and bright, 
 
 My yearning eyes and ears do never meet. 
 
 Yet though I see thee not with outer eye. 
 
 Nor hear the music of thy lilting tongue. 
 Thy spirit-self will never from me fly. 
 
 Though songs that soothe are on my hearing flung 
 By those who would me please, they ne'er can die 
 From memory mine which thou to me hast sung. 
 
Sonnets, 39 
 
 •• Though far from thee." 
 
 Though far from thee jade Tycke bids me stay, 
 A-like regardless of my love and thine — 
 Cares she no whit howe'er our hearts may pine 
 
 To feel each other beat, — though mountains lay 
 
 Between thyself and me, and night and day 
 Pass on without these longing eyes of mine 
 Finding their mirror in thy orbs divine, 
 
 Yet leagues nor time thy image can decay. 
 
 For rising far above the fertile plains, 
 
 And over-topping e'en the mountains high. 
 
 My pensive spirit Hfts itself and gains 
 A newer sight of thee, and earth and sky — 
 
 I think, Ifeel — are filled with thy soft strains. 
 And straight away is checked my rising sigh. 
 
 •*OhI suffering heart." 
 
 Oh ! suffering heart that pines in vain to know 
 A breast responsive to thine own peculiar needs 
 Oh ! buoyant Hope that on the future feeds 
 
40 Sonnets, 
 
 The yearning, starving soul with vivid glow 
 
 That lights Time's distant chambers dark : Oh ! flow 
 
 Of Love, more strong than death, that burns and 
 bleeds 
 
 The heart that verdant keeps — 'mid tangled weeds — 
 In spite of age, or Want's benumbing snow. 
 
 O hungering heart, O glowing hope, O love 
 
 That cannot die ! go on your way through life, 
 And ye shall reap your full reward above. 
 
 Beyond the grave, beyond the stars, no strife 
 Shall rip your ardent souls apart. There love 
 Too pure for earth shall know eternal life. 
 
 **Ye5, all or naught." 
 
 Yes, all or naught, dear heart, not poised and kept — 
 Like vagrant cloud between the earth and sky — 
 By sweet uncertain glances, or a sigh 
 
 That softly breathes of tears — wiped or unwept. 
 
 The wakened soul o'er which thine own hath swept, 
 As gently as a seraph from on high 
 Might touch a sleeping lute, would up and fly 
 
 To thee, O Love, for it too long hath slept. 
 
Sonnets. 41 
 
 If I must be the cloud ; then I will rise, 
 
 And pay my worship at the very feet 
 Of Him who sits enthroned upon the skies ; 
 
 Or burst my bonds, rush down to earth, and greet 
 In instant death, before my Maker's eyes, 
 
 The only refuge I am left to meet. 
 
 " Beloved, if we could bid.** 
 
 Beloved, if we could bid the day return — 
 Not many years ago — when you and I 
 Had not yet learnt the language of a sigh ; 
 
 When our young hearts knew not what 'twas to yearn 
 
 To pluck life's ripest fruit ; and love did burn 
 A pure light that lit your gray-brown eye, 
 More bright than star in yonder azure sky ; 
 
 And life's flood-tears were griefs for us to learn. 
 
 Ah ! Sweet, if that could be — with what fond care 
 I then would trim your rosy bark's white sail 
 
 To catch the breeze of joy ; and onward bear 
 
 You to those sunny climes, where love's true tale 
 
 Is told the long day through, and night is fair 
 With songs of love that never can grow stale. 
 
42 Sonnets, 
 
 **Not thine the blame.' 
 
 Not thine the blame — if such be constancy ; 
 
 Thou did'st for me rebel, for me do wrong ; 
 
 I was the weak, who should have been the strong. 
 Thy heart — unless 'twere done unwittingly — 
 Is far too good for faults, if fault there be 
 
 In love so pure as ours ; a glow, among 
 
 Earth's sordid passions, that shines out along 
 Life's road, and points towards eternity. 
 
 Then let the blame, if there be aught of such. 
 
 Here rest on me. No breath of censure e'er, 
 While I do live, thy noble heart shall touch. 
 
 Be mine the joy — the dear sweet joy to bear 
 That punishment, nor matters it how much, 
 Thy folks or God may deem is justly fair. 
 
 "Dear, stretch your arms across." 
 
 Dear, stretch your arms across pain's dark abyss. 
 
 And twine them round the breast that beats alone 
 For you ; but which, alas ! must go to moan 
 
Sonnets. 43 
 
 Its sad life out where it, O Love, will miss 
 Youi smiling face, and never know the bliss 
 Of meeting you again . . . Nay, let the groan 
 Pass on, and seal your lips to mine, my own. 
 And we will swoon to death amid the kiss ! 
 
 And if the world should say that we forsook 
 The path that leads to Heaven, and were lost 
 
 Because in our hot hands we madly took 
 Our fate — regardless of the after cost — 
 
 What then ? Upon the white and sapphired book 
 Of love our souls will ever be embossed. 
 
 ** 1 would not give thee up. 
 
 I would not give thee up ; though all the world 
 Cried out — Forego ! And, standing in between 
 Thyself and me, e'en strove and fought to screen 
 Thee from my sight ; like bird on wing unfurled, 
 I would o'ertop the seething crowd, though hurled 
 I were a thousand times aback, and lean 
 My heart to thine. Though wells of envious spleen 
 Should seem — my angel white, fair, pure, impearled 
 In human form — to paint thee black as night 
 
 Where moon nor star looks out, and hating scorn 
 Thrust its envenomed finger at thy bright 
 
44 Sonnets. 
 
 And purer soul, I still would thee adorn 
 With all my love — ay, find a sweet delight 
 In clinging closer to my heart's dear bourne ! 
 
 **You cannot bring:." 
 
 You cannot bring yourself to think that here 
 Our passionship should end ? Ah, sweetest one, 
 I knew your tender heart the union 
 
 Could never break — not yours the cold austere, 
 
 Not yours the act unjust. And thus those dear, 
 Soft, soulful eyes of yours that guide me on — 
 Love-lighted stars — in life's oblivion. 
 
 From these dull orbs, will never disappear. 
 
 Then brighter, rosier beam your life through me, 
 Whom you would not abruptly let depart. 
 
 Loom fair the coming years, and light shall be — 
 If love and strength avail — ^your noble heart ; 
 
 While mine the joy to put, full tenderly. 
 Away from you all fear of Sorrow 's dart. 
 
bonnets. 4 5 
 
 How fair thou art." 
 
 How fair thou art. Thy form's ineffably 
 More fair than Eastern flush at dawn of day 
 That smiHng beams o'er Egypt's sandy way ; 
 
 More beauties in thy soft-souled face I see 
 
 Than prismed glories hath a Westering sun to me. 
 The budding rose, and all in garden gay ; 
 The Eastern night, the fountain's sun-pierced spray^ 
 
 Have centred all their lovliness in thee. 
 
 Thy beauty is my feeling soul's delight. 
 
 And dearer far than first-born's chastened kiss 
 
 To fondling mother in the lonesome night ; 
 It gives me joys that all my pains dismiss ; 
 
 And forms a lamp of sweet inspiring light, 
 Wherein I find immeasurable bliss. 
 
 ** Of life, sweet Love." 
 
 Of life, sweet Love, I cannot be afraid 
 
 If but thou guide my else strayed bark, awhile 
 It ploughs life's sea ; — ay, guide it with that smile 
 
 Of thine, which — like the stars — doth never fade. 
 
46 Sonnets, 
 
 For, as amid the darkened forest glade 
 The lonely flowers bloom, and so beguile 
 The drooping traveller to some brooklet -aisle, 
 
 Thy featured-light is by its setting made. 
 
 But if I were to lose the smiles that greet 
 My eyes, I then should fear to stumble on ; 
 
 Because without thee life were incomplete : 
 What would be joys, or highest victories won, 
 
 Apart from thee — but griefs ? Wert not, my Sweet, 
 For thee, Age — Death would find life's task undone. 
 
 It cannot be.' 
 
 It cannot be — I may not judge the worth, 
 
 That marks another's soul, by weight of things 
 Undone ; not mine to stay the murmurings 
 
 Of roaming winds, nor lift from mother Earth 
 
 My would-be soaring feet ; th' infinite girth 
 Of space I may not span who have no wings ; 
 Nor can I judge at what the Morrow brings 
 
 By value of To-day. There is no dearth 
 Of what I may not do. Then how shall I — 
 
 Who cannot weigh the world in one small hand, 
 Put checks on winds, size up a soul, nor fly 
 
Sonnets, 47 
 
 To other realms than this ; ne'er count the sand 
 Of ocean, nor the worlds that float on high — 
 Thus gauge this love I do not understand. 
 
 ** Bourne of my soul. 
 
 Bourne of my soul, magnetic human star 
 
 That draws me on from earth to higher things, 
 And makes my heart forget life's murmurings ; 
 
 Source of my song, in whom I see afar 
 
 That virtue which doth ever form a bar 
 To keep away regret, my soul now wings 
 Itself to thee, and tenderly it sings — 
 
 Amid the night — the songs that never jar. 
 
 List then, sweet one, and may thy life be blest 
 While hearkening to my simple heart-felt lays, 
 
 Which fain would breathe to thee a perfect rest. 
 So would I bring a calm — amid the ways 
 
 Of life — as full of peace to thy dear breast, 
 As e'er to panting souls were Heaven's rays. 
 
 f 
 
48 Sonnets. 
 
 *• Dear, let us love." 
 
 Dear, let us love for love's sweet self alone — 
 Not for a glance, a smile, or beaming eye ; 
 Affection's words, or soft responsive sigh, 
 
 Or noble deed ; nor that new strength one's tone 
 
 The other gives : let our love-seeds be sown 
 For their unsullied sake, pure as the sky 
 That smiles — blue, deep, and fair — above where lie 
 
 Rich Indian isles to clouds and cold unknown. 
 
 Then if we love because we feel we must 
 Hold thus for sake of simple love ; and see 
 
 In each our soul's ideal one, no rust 
 Of sad regret — however small it be — 
 
 Or Care-born tear can dim the love and trust 
 We feel, and borrow from Eternity. 
 
 ** Love truly." 
 
 " Love truly ere the time for love grows late :" — Goethe, 
 Find love's true self in youth while hearts are young ; 
 Songs die away which years gone past have sung ; 
 
Sonnets. 49 
 
 Life wears apace, and Death will never wait 
 For love that's true : then love, — and smile at Fate — 
 Oh ! truly, firmly as the skies high-hung 
 Above yon' sailing clouds ; so when is rung 
 The bell of death Love's self will sit in state. 
 
 Then shall thy life, my heart's queen, be as sweet 
 
 As softer evening kissing gentle day ; 
 And all thy nights and days in joy shall greet 
 
 The love so true it cannot die away ; 
 And song shall round thee float replete 
 
 With music dearer, richer than the lay. 
 
 •* For God through thee."* 
 
 For God through thee — so let my life be spent ; 
 My welcome task to strive to win, for Him, 
 To light some souls that grope amid the dim 
 
 Lone ways of life ; give helping nourishment 
 
 To noble thought, and mend poor friendship's rent ; 
 To light my lamp of usefulness, and trim 
 It with that large-souled love on which doth swim- 
 
 A-clear of sighs — the buoyant bark Content. 
 
 'Milton. 
 
50 Sonnets. 
 
 Then fair, as star in azure setting mild, 
 
 Shall be my pathway hence to him ; through thee. 
 Who blest the life which else had been full wild. 
 If such my life, Ah ! not afraid will be 
 
 My Soul to meet its God, thro' one who smiled 
 My rescued spirit to Eternity. 
 
 **When I am gone. 
 
 When I am gone from you — have passed away ; 
 And your dear eyes can gaze no more in mine. 
 Your soft voice whisper — " Ah, love is divine ; 
 
 'Tis light from Him : " when night has come to stay, 
 
 And you can ne'er more take my hand and say — 
 ^' Work bravely on ; we will not now repine, 
 For coming days may brighter on us shine : " 
 
 When this is o'er remember me, I pray. 
 
 Bear me in mind ; yet do not. Love, be sad, — 
 
 But smile ; ay smile. Whene'er you think of me. 
 
 It is my wish the thought shall make you glad. 
 Let no salt tears be shed ; but tenderly. 
 
 And smiling, remember him who had 
 The lasting joy to win your sympathy. 
 
>I 
 
 SONGS. 
 
 O fair sweet lass.' 
 
 OFAIR sweet lass o* Cymric toon, 
 Sac bonnie and sae witching O ; 
 Wi' hair o' black, and een o' broon 
 
 That set me a' a-itching O — 
 A-itching for ta be wi' thee, 
 And find a lower heaven i* thy e'e. 
 
 Thy step is like a mom i' June, 
 
 Sae gentle and sae lightsome O ; 
 Thy manner's like a song i' tune, 
 
 Sae winning and sae blithesome O — 
 Know, Cardiff toon, ye ha'e the best 
 O' a' the fairest lassies i' the West. 
 
 Thy voice is like the lavVocks when 
 At morn it 'gins a-singing O ; 
 
 It stirs me sae I dinna ken 
 But that it is the winging o* 
 
52 Songs. 
 
 Some angel through the upper air, 
 
 And chanting soothing songs o' beauty rare. 
 
 Thy touch is Hke the thistle-doon, 
 
 Sae velvety and slender O ; 
 And tho' the warld ca's me a cloon, 
 
 1*11 aye be true and tender O — 
 I'll love thee spite o' Fate's warst thongs, 
 And hail thee queen o' a' my better songs. 
 
 ** Take of my heart." 
 
 Take of my heart what thou carest — 
 
 Take, Love, 'tis all ever thine. 
 Bring me the trouble thou bearest ; 
 
 Sweet, I will take it as mine. 
 Lean thou on me as I love thee, 
 
 Then wilt thou give me thy all, 
 Pure as the heaven above thee — 
 
 Free from the world and its gall. 
 
 Dear, I will love thee for ever — 
 Ever while life it doth last ; 
 
 Time, tears, nor trials may sever 
 Love that shall weather Care's blast. 
 
Soii^^A. 53 
 
 Thou art to me all I cherish — 
 Life, love, and link unto God ; 
 
 Sweet, an I lose thee I perish 
 Pining to rest 'neath the sod. 
 
 Night-star and day-star, O guide me ; 
 
 True is thine eye's tender light. 
 Dear, I would ever beside thee 
 
 Find an increasing delight. 
 Come then, come share in my gladness 
 
 Smile, thou hast nothing to fear : 
 Soul, let me rob thee of sadness ; 
 
 Give me, O Love, thy last tear. 
 
 '* I think that some day. 
 
 I think that some day I shall sing 
 A song of miraculous power ; 
 
 A song of a land where ever 'tis Spring, 
 And ever a noon-tide hour. 
 
 I believe I shall some day give. 
 With utterance strangely sweet, 
 
 A song sublime, and ever 'twill live 
 Where seraphs' voices meet. 
 
54 Songs, 
 
 I feel that deep down in my soul 
 There lies this song unsung ; 
 
 But I cannot piece it and make it whole — 
 'Tis too sweet for a human tongue. 
 
 Yet ever in dreams when asleep 
 
 I sing this marvellous song ; 
 It stirs my soul with a melody deep 
 
 As the Father's love is strong. 
 
 Yes, I know that this song I shall sing — 
 When my soul breaks free from its clay, 
 
 And soars on high on a snowy wing, 
 In the full of eternity's day. 
 
 *' When I think of the songs. 
 
 When I think of the songs that dead poets have sung 
 
 For loves not so fair, Sweet, as thou — 
 Of the strains that have leaped from a mightier tongue 
 
 Than this which would sing of thee now, 
 Then I sigh for the wealth of their gifts and their hearts 
 
 To render a tithe of thy due ; 
 And my soul into passion with impotence starts 
 
 To write thee a song ever new. 
 
Son^s. 55 
 
 When I look in thine eyes — soul-stars leading to God — 
 
 For similies search I in vain. 
 Then I gaze on thy lips, and the merciless rod 
 
 Of helplessness whips me amain. 
 Not the red of the rose, nor the juice of the grape, 
 
 Can vie for a moment with them ; 
 For they pulsate with life, and my powers 
 
 Escape to find a met^phoric gem. 
 
 When I watch thy dear movements I think of the grace 
 
 Of swans as they glide with the stream ; 
 For each soft rhythmic motion, each soul- wave on face, 
 
 Is but the sweet part of a dream : — 
 Of a vision that's haunting, enthralling, and dear, 
 
 Yet baffles my powers' best scope ; 
 For thou seemest a strain, from some melody-sphere, 
 
 Illuming where else I should grope. 
 
 A fond farewell. 
 
 A fond farewell, O sweetest maid that eyes 
 
 Have ever dwelt upon ; 
 Misfortune's clouds shut out the skies 
 
 Where shone our hearts' bright sun. 
 
56 Soit^s. 
 
 Fate's stern decree we must obey — 
 
 Life's night enwraps us round ; 
 And bids each seek a separate way, 
 
 Where only tears abound. 
 
 Still, should worse circumstances pierce 
 
 This crushed keen-feeling heart, 
 And troubles come more wild and fierce 
 
 Than this that makes us part ; 
 Yet will thy love illume the gloom — 
 
 O faithful heart and rare ! — 
 As heavenly rays the martyr's doom. 
 
 Thou Sweet beyond compare. 
 
 Oh, weep not, Love ! that Sorrow's night 
 
 Hath marred our life's fair noon ; 
 Look up — the clouds shall break, and bright 
 
 Will shine our harvest-moon. 
 Come, ere we part, and let me kiss 
 
 The tears from out thine eyes ; 
 That they may glow — fair stars of bliss. 
 
 Where soul of beauty lies. 
 
 That done. Beloved, a last embrace, 
 
 A silent lipped-goodbye ; 
 One lingering look on thy fair face, 
 
 One smothered heart-born sigh. 
 
Songs. 57 
 
 Then, smiling, let thy kerchief wave 
 
 Me on this new sad way ; 
 For loves like thine make cowards brave, 
 
 And fit them for the fray. 
 
 "Blest Isle of my birth." 
 
 Blest Isle of my birth, thee will I adore 
 
 Till the last drop of blood ebbs away from my heart ; 
 And though spite defame thee, down to the core 
 
 I will love thee, my Country, till death bids us part. 
 
 Though strangers deride thee — knowing thee not, 
 
 Nor the loved tongue I learnt in thy flowering vales — 
 
 Though fogs and thick clouds be mostly thy lot. 
 Thou art still the dear object affection entails. 
 
 Thy bays and thy headlands, rocks, and grey streams— 
 On whose bosoms glides proudly a world's floating 
 wealth — 
 
 Have been and will be our poets' loved themes. 
 
 And thy oft-changing climate begets us rude health. 
 
 As shimmering star in azure on high. 
 
 When calm Night droops her mantle all moonless and 
 clear, 
 
58 So7ig-s. 
 
 Points souls that are sad, and ready to die, 
 
 To that realm where they never shall know of a tear ; 
 
 So, land of my boyhood, thou art to me. 
 When old Neptune's wild waters heave skyward 
 between, 
 A star to my fancy beckoning and free. 
 
 Out-gleaming all earth's stars though great be their 
 sheen. 
 
 Thus ever while life gives power to my frame, 
 
 I will love thee, and hail thee the first of all lands ; 
 
 And barter no tithe of nobly-won fame. 
 
 Which thy sons have bequeathed thee at Duty's 
 commands. 
 
 There are Lads. 
 
 There are lads with gentle manners. 
 Tender words, and frank blue eyes 
 
 Where the love-light lies a-gleaming. 
 As do stars in frosty skies ; 
 
 There are lads with health and lads with 
 wealth, 
 And comely all to see ; 
 
Son^s. 
 
 Some bold, some shy, some with a sigh, 
 Whenever they come a-courting — 
 
 When they come a-courting me ; 
 Whene'er they come a-courting — 
 
 When they come a-courting me. 
 
 Come there lads of limb and muscle, 
 
 Brave as heroes e'er have been ; 
 Lads whose dark eyes glow with fondness, 
 
 As they deeply murmur — '' queen ; " 
 Lads of loyal hearts and manly parts, 
 
 Who come full eagerly, 
 And ask me why I turn and sigh 
 
 Whene'er they come a-courting — 
 
 When they come a-courting me. 
 
 Repeat, 
 
 There are those that bring me presents — 
 
 Roses from the Squire's trees. 
 From the city shawls and ribbons 
 
 Which they offer on their knees ; 
 But I turn away and say them nay, 
 
 All handsome though they be, 
 And check the sigh that rises high, 
 
 Whene'er they come a-courting — 
 
 When they come a-courting me. 
 
 Repeat, 
 
 There are lads — ay, lads in plenty. 
 Who come craving for a kiss ; 
 
6o So7i.:^s. 
 
 Saying it would make them happy, 
 Give them years of purest bHss — 
 But I keep them all, however small, 
 
 For Colin o'er the lea ; 
 And that is why no lad may buy, — 
 Until he comes a-courting — 
 
 Till he comes a-courting me ; 
 Until he comes a-courting — 
 
 Till he comes a-courting me. 
 
 ** Keep ye your Southern beauties." 
 
 Keep ye your Southern beauties with 
 
 Their dark and luminous eyes. 
 Where sparks of hazy passion lie 
 
 Like stars in midnight skies ; 
 Keep ye their sensuous movements, and 
 
 Their wealths of jetty hair, — 
 Though rise they high, they come not nigh 
 
 My British girls so rare. 
 
 I care not for their luscious lips — 
 
 Though none so richly red — 
 So tempting that e'en Cupid might. 
 
 To make them so, have bled. 
 I hear their dreaming-bell-like tones, 
 
 And mark their languid air ; 
 
Son^s. 6l 
 
 Yet, kin nor kith, they cannot with 
 My British girl compare. 
 
 Though saunter they 'mid orange groves, 
 
 Or bask in terraced-shade ; 
 Or move at night through famous halls 
 
 In sprightly masquerade ; 
 Yet not their witching lace-draped forms, 
 
 Nor white busts full and bare, 
 Can equal thee on daised-lea — 
 
 My British girl so fair. 
 
 Then all your night-eyed beauties keep, 
 
 Their glamour flits me by ; 
 Their ^passioned warmth, their loved 
 romance, 
 
 Beget in me no sigh : 
 For roaming by the babbling brook. 
 
 Or merged in household cares. 
 My every part, by Nature's art, 
 
 My British girl ensnares. 
 
 " Thou mavis o' the braes o' Ayr." 
 
 (Written on the anniversary of the hour on which Burns died). 
 
 Thou mavis o' the braes o' Ayr, 
 Whase spirit's noo wi' bonnie Jean, 
 
62 So7tgs. 
 
 Thy death-day roond has rolled ance mair — 
 Sin' then a hundred years atween. 
 
 And o'r the wide warld far and near, 
 Wherever Scotia's sons are foond, 
 
 To thy luved mem'ry fa's the tear — 
 On north and sooth and tropic groond. 
 
 The daisy draps its white-fringed face, — 
 
 The wee bit mouse ca'd thee its friend. 
 Fu' mournfu' was thy earth-boond race, 
 
 And, ah ! sae darksume was its end. 
 Nae peace the warld wad gi'e thee, Rab ; 
 
 Yet ne'er on airth were sangs mair sweet, 
 Than these thou sung'st mid tearfu' sab, 
 
 Thy winsume Highland lass ta greet. 
 
 Thy life's sad star went dreary doon — 
 
 Alas ! sae aft do singers' stars. 
 Thy day ca'd thee a witless loon, 
 
 And marked thy blithesume soul wi' scars. 
 Noo shimmering gleams thy fame alang 
 
 The track auld Father Time has trod ; 
 Bright meteor 'mang the stars o' sang, 
 
 Nae mair's for thee the cankert rod. 
 
 Sweet songster o' the misty North, 
 
 The braes and lochs and winding streams, 
 
 Ne'er may thy name frae tongue gae forth 
 But blent wi' honest kindly themes. 
 
Son^s. 03 
 
 Thou poet o' the heathered hills, 
 
 Wha asked for bread — not flinty stanes — 
 
 Thy name shall live while rin those rills, 
 And aught o' song the warld retains. 
 
 «*'Tis this one's Gait.' 
 
 'Tis this one's gait, and that one's style, 
 And now the contour of a face ; 
 
 Again the radiance of a smile, 
 
 That 'minds me of thy witching grace — 
 
 But moulded all into a whole. 
 
 They yet would lack thy kindred soul. 
 
 Now beams an eye so like to thine 
 
 It might have borrowed been from thee; 
 
 And now, more rich than rose-red wine, 
 Come lips that know love's alchemy — 
 
 But give to them one heart, and still. 
 
 They touch me not where thou canst thrill. 
 
 Again I see a damasked-cheek. 
 Or supple neck, or wealth of hair ; 
 
 A figure full yet trim and sleek, 
 
 And movements such as hearts ensnare — 
 
 But were they given all to one. 
 
 They could not charm as thou hast don e. 
 
64 Songs. 
 
 Though tender tones, mirth-sparkhng eye, 
 
 Rosed-cheek, sweet mouth, and winning 
 ways ; 
 
 Soul-gleams that features beautify, 
 
 And all that win a life-long praise, — 
 
 In one fair form with love were blent, 
 
 My heart would own thy government. 
 
 'Tis only direst moments forge " — 
 
 *Tis only direst moments forge 
 
 The blood-dictated blade, 
 That cuts the galling bonds of Kings 
 
 Who would in slaughter wade. 
 O Britain ! thou hast forged ere this 
 
 Sharp steel for tyrants high ; 
 Hast hauled the foul oppressor down — 
 
 Wilt now stand idly by ? 
 
 Wilt watch the bludgeon's murderous blow, 
 
 While brightly smiles the sun ; 
 The monarch-ordered sword descend. 
 
 And leave thy work undone ? 
 Forbid it, O Thou Christian God ! 
 
 Rouse Britain to a man ! — 
 Up Scot, and Celt, and English, too ; 
 
 And God be in the van ! 
 
Songs, 65 
 
 Dost see these butchered children lie 
 
 Beside thy dallying feet ? 
 Their blood-still-oozing wounds a gape — 
 
 O lambs unfit though sweet ! 
 Dost see yon' Turkish scimitar 
 
 Cleave ope that woman's head ? 
 Canst hear her call for mercy as 
 
 She falls, outraged — and dead ? 
 
 Hell has once more its devils loosed ; 
 
 Out East stalks Murder large ; 
 Horrors by fiends invented, and 
 
 Weak innocence the targe. 
 Men, babes, and women, slaughtered down 
 
 Because Christ is their creed ; — 
 O Tyranny most foul ! Arm, arm ! 
 
 And to the East proceed. 
 
 "Just when Night is palling.** 
 
 (recitative). 
 
 Just when Night is palling the earth, and day is done ; 
 Just when birds are calling their loves at set of sun ; 
 Just when leaves are falling, all burnt and brown and dry; 
 When summer joys have fled, and winter draweth nigh ; 
 Just when life's dark embers are dying, and the sun 
 Of life is setting ; ay, just ere the race is run, 
 
66 Son^s. 
 
 And wings thy soul on its embassy, 
 Beloved, call on me. 
 
 When flees the garish day. 
 
 And fretful children leave their tiring play. 
 
 Then call, Sweetheart, on me. 
 
 When Night doth round thee cast her sable pall, 
 
 And bares thy poor soul's agony, 
 
 O Love, remember me and call. 
 
 When nights refuse thee sleep. 
 
 And days — like famished men — woefully creep, 
 
 And sap thy faith that God can see, 
 
 Call then — call thou on me. 
 
 When trouble fills thy breast. 
 
 And aches thy poor bruised heart for gentle rest — 
 
 Oh, loved one, call on me. 
 
 When seeming friends turn cold and pass thee by, 
 
 And scorch thy soul to enmity, 
 
 Call thou on me thy tears to dry. 
 
 When blinding grows life's mist. 
 
 And starves thy soul to be again deep kist, 
 
 Amid life's bloodless tragedy, 
 
 O twin-heart call on me. 
 
 When looms the silent grave. 
 
 With nameless horror, numbing hearts erst brave- 
 Then must thou call on me. 
 
Songs, 67 
 
 When kindly opes the path that leads to Heaven — 
 
 Ere quits thy soul captivity, 
 
 Call thou, that wrongs may be forgiven ; 
 
 That thou to God may soar 
 
 Forgiving, pardoned — there to kneel, adore, 
 
 And plead for me His clemency — 
 
 Call, loved through death, call me. 
 
 "There are beautiful eyes.' 
 
 There are beautiful eyes which come seeking my own, 
 There are lovely lips that tempt me the while ; 
 
 There are cheeks whose pink roses are ever full-blown. 
 But they move me not though sweet is their guile — 
 
 For they are not of thee ; no, they are not thine, 
 
 And they never thyself from my heart can untwine. 
 
 There are willowy figures that soft brush me by, 
 A.nd which pause and turn as if to ensnare ; 
 
 There are rounded white arms which by gestures imply, 
 " We would clasp you close if we only dare " — 
 
 But they cause no flutter ; they lack thy clue 
 
 To the secreted gate of my heart's avenue. 
 
 There are fanciful tricks of sweet womanly grace ; 
 There are ample tresses, golden , and dark ; 
 
68 Songs, 
 
 There are smiles full as sweet as a Siren's embrace, 
 
 And there's laughter such as wrecks a life's bark — 
 Yet they breathe not of thee, and they never shake 
 lAy unswerving deep faith in thy love for my sake. 
 
 There are words — not to me — lowly said for my ear, 
 There are love-songs sung to please only me ; 
 
 There are heart-witching ways, O my peerless and dear • 
 Ay, and looks e'en such as 'mind me of thee — 
 
 But they come not from thee, is my heart's still moan ; 
 
 Not from thee, O Beloved, my soul's very own. 
 
 *'Your golden crowns." 
 
 Your golden crowns are heavy. 
 
 And bitter their wear, I ween ; 
 There's canker in your metal. 
 
 And corruption in its sheen ; 
 They reek of blood of victims, 
 
 They trample freedom down — 
 Oh ! icy the touch, to a glorious soul. 
 
 Is that of jewelled crown. 
 
 Away with your baubles of power ! 
 
 Cumbersome, hard, and cold ; 
 And give me a wreath of the living leaf. 
 
 And keep your circled gold. 
 
There's life and joy in verdure — 
 
 O give me a crown of green ; 
 And let the gems be flowers, 
 
 To jewel the leaves at ween : 
 Let the wild winds toss my hair, 
 
 And brush my cheek a-glow ; 
 Come bind me a fillet of bright green leaves, 
 
 They will not overawe. 
 
 O lair was the morn/' 
 
 O fair was the morn when my Dearie and I, 
 With health on her cheek and sweet love in her eye, 
 Roamed over the meadows by TafF's purling stream, 
 To joy in the sunshine and bask in its gleam. 
 
 Not long had we wandered, not far had we strayed, 
 When 'neath a low willow to r£st sank the maid ; 
 While TafF softly murmured his song to the breeze 
 That whispered it gently among the tall trees. 
 
 We had not long rested, when, raising her head, 
 She asked me to pluck her a wild rose so red. 
 With pleasure I reached her the flow'r from the tree, 
 To deck her fair beauty and sweet modesty. 
 
7® Songs, 
 
 With joy she then fastened the red rose so fair — 
 That loaded with perfume the fresh morning air — 
 Upon the dear bosom, to save from all strife 
 I freely would render the rest of my life. 
 
 Soon after, when moving, a thorn on the stem 
 Did ruthlessly prick the white breast of my gem. 
 And caused her to start with a cry at the pain ; 
 And fling the wild rose on the stream's mimic main. 
 
 "Ah! who would have thought," said the maiden so 
 
 rare, 
 "That fangs could e'er lurk near a flower so fair ?" 
 "Think not, my sweet loved one," I soothingly said, 
 " That aught here's more perfect than yon' rose so red; 
 But thee — alone thee, has there ever been born 
 A being so perfect — a rose without thorn." 
 
 **For what shall I praise thee?" 
 
 For what shall I praise thee, my Dearie ? 
 
 For the light that glows in thine eyes. 
 And speaks of the heaven within thee. 
 
 And shames even that of yon' skies ; 
 Shall it be for thy wonderful beauty. 
 
 Or the starred-night hue of thy hair ? 
 
Son^s. 71 
 
 Shall it be for thy charm of expression ? — 
 That charm that none other doth share. 
 
 Shall 1 laud thee, my Love and my Dearie, 
 
 For the white soul that lives in thy voice ? 
 So pure, so sweet, and enthralling, 
 
 That to hear it e'en birds do rejoice. 
 Or, say, shall it be for the rapture, 
 
 Thy soft touch doth rouse in my breast? 
 Shall it be for the love that is endless, 
 
 And cradled in such a fair nest ? 
 
 Oh, no ! not for these do I praise thee, 
 
 Though rich are the joys that they give ; 
 It is for the glow and the sunshine 
 
 That ever within thee do live : 
 For the sweet, and the pure, and the noble, 
 
 Dear virtues that grace every part ; 
 Ah, yes, 'tis for this that I praise thee — 
 
 The womanly cast of thy heart. 
 
 ** Beneath thy window." 
 
 (Written to a Swedish Air). 
 
 Beneath thy window, maiden, 
 Again love makes me dare 
 
 To stand with passion laden, 
 And prove my tender care. 
 
72 S0f7^S. 
 
 Not a branch of yonder tree, 
 Nor the murmuring river, 
 
 Nor a roving wind so free 
 
 From sleep shall thee deliver. 
 
 Sleep on, sleep on, sleep on. 
 Till cold night dews be gone — 
 
 Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep on. 
 
 Ay, slumber on till morning ; 
 
 Till sunshine comes again, 
 The starless blue adorning. 
 
 And drying Night's still rain. 
 Not a sound however soft, 
 
 Will I let escape me ; 
 Not a screeching owl aloft 
 
 Shall this night awake thee. 
 
 The birds, O Love, are sleeping 
 
 Within thine arbour nigh : 
 The twinkling stars are keeping 
 
 Their lonely watch onjhigh ; 
 And beneath thy lattice pane, 
 
 Full of tender loving, 
 I, thy guard, here stand again — 
 
 Thus my passion proving. 
 
Son^s, 73 
 
 **Ah! do you remember." 
 
 Ah ! do you remember, my Dearie, 
 
 When the light that shone in your eyes 
 Was warmer and sweeter and clearer 
 
 Than suns in Italian skies ? — 
 When the grace and the charm of each movement 
 
 Was a spell and a honey-steeped snare ? — 
 When the child would leave its gilded toy 
 
 To play with the sheen of your hair ? 
 
 Ah ! do you remember, my Dearie, 
 
 When a smile was sufficient return 
 For months of watching and waiting, 
 
 And a salve for a heart's deep burn ? — 
 When the glow and the glamour of passion 
 
 Seemed all that our hearts desired ? — 
 When kisses as warm as sunbeams 
 
 We rained, and were never tired ? 
 
 Ah ! do you remember, my Dearie, 
 
 When earth seemed a heaven complete ? — 
 When love had the perfume of roses 
 
 All jewelled with dew-drops so sweet ? 
 Ah ! do you remember the day. Love, 
 
 When we parted in anger and haste ? 
 Since then life's grown so weary. 
 
 And the world has become a waste. 
 
74 Sofig-s. 
 
 Now the glamour and glow and the light, Sweet, 
 
 Have faded away with the past, 
 And through the mist of the years gone by 
 
 We can see who was right, at last. 
 We can see, now the scales have fallen, 
 
 As we near the silent grave. 
 How wronged, how hurt, how injured, 
 
 Was the heart that most forgave. 
 
 There's a lad.' 
 
 There's a lad in our village — 
 
 Bold and free, bold and free — 
 Who so loves sweet lips to pillage, 
 
 And he does it roguishly ; 
 But though by lane or stile 
 He may kiss or he may smile. 
 Yet he never kisses me ; 
 Ah ; he never kisses me ; 
 Yet he never ; no, he never ; no, he never kisses me ; 
 Ah ! he never kisses me. 
 
 His gay tongue is ever chaffing — 
 
 Bold and free, bold and free — 
 And his blue eyes gleam with laughing, 
 
 As the sunlight on the lea ; 
 
Son^s. 75 
 
 But though at work or play 
 
 He will joke with Nance or May, 
 
 Yet he seldom jests with me ; 
 
 Ah ; he seldom jests with me ; 
 
 He^s as clean of limb as merry — 
 Bold and free, bold and free — 
 And his lips are like a cherry, 
 
 While no lad can run as he ; 
 But though so tall and strong. 
 As he speeds the maids among. 
 Yet he rarely runs to me ; 
 Ah ! he rarely runs to me ; 
 
 Repeat. 
 
 Yet I think whene'er he passes — 
 Bold and free, bold and free — 
 By ourselves, or *mong the lasses 
 
 On the Green where all can see ; 
 Yet I think his glances tell, 
 Though he tries to hide them well. 
 That he loves none else but me ; 
 Ah ! he loves none else but me : 
 No, he loves none ; ah, he loves none ; no, he loves none 
 else but me ; 
 
 Ah ! he loves none else but me. 
 
76 Son^ 
 
 zs. 
 
 "Come sing a Song. 
 
 Come sing a song to-night ; 
 
 A song of other days, 
 When Hope and Life were bright 
 
 Beneath Illusion's rays. 
 Sing low, not sad, but sweet, 
 
 Of those dear blissful hours, 
 When Love around our feet 
 
 Lay like fair wondrous flowVs. 
 
 Come sing a song to-night, 
 My heart is full of pain ; 
 
 Sing songs of other days 
 And wake my soul again. 
 
 Peal then your clear notes high, 
 
 And point a Hfe-long aim ; 
 Ay, sing of Hope and try 
 
 To paint a deathless Fame ! 
 Then gently sober down. 
 
 And show a broken heart 
 How not to heed the frown. 
 
 When Love and Fame depart. 
 
 Ere done sing one wee verse 
 Of how wine drowns our pain. 
 
 And show how women nurse 
 Us back to peace again. 
 
Son^s. 77 
 
 Then point a better way, 
 
 Beyond the Grave and Death, 
 
 Where passions have no sway 
 O'er God's eternal breath. 
 
 God give, ray Love." 
 
 God give, my Love, 
 
 The music and the song to thee ; 
 
 And all the pain of wrong to me. 
 
 God give to thee each white-souled hope fulfilled ; 
 
 Thy life a dream, or song that's gaily trilled. 
 
 God give to thee — God give to thee, 
 
 Each white-souled hope fulfilled. 
 
 Take thou the rose. 
 
 Let fortune give to me the thorn ; 
 
 Thus ever may it be : the morn, 
 
 A-glow, with roseate flush, be thine ; 
 
 The night — the long dark pitiless night be mine. 
 
 Be mine the night — be mine the night, 
 
 The roseate flush be thine. 
 
 Take thou the sweets, 
 
 The wormwood and the strife be mine ; 
 
 The joys of love and life be thine — 
 
78 Songs, 
 
 Thine be life's sunshine and its glow ; 
 Enough for me its winter and its snow. 
 Enough for me — enough for me, 
 Its winter and its snow. 
 
 Take thou the palm ; 
 For life shall give its guerdon unto thee, 
 And I will take its burden unto me — 
 Its burden unto me. 
 
 
79 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 To J. M. and J. B. 
 
 (jl^HIS morn I read upon a trophied page 
 
 V/ How, far at sea, a lone ship tossed m grief ; 
 
 While prayed its crew that God would send relief — 
 Ay, prayed as only pray those men who wage 
 A fight that ends but with corruption's stage ; 
 
 Then down there bore two ships which robbed the 
 reef. 
 
 That foam-capped lay a-lee, of that poor fief, 
 Misfortune else had paid to Nature's rage. 
 
 So came ye twain, when Life's wild billows roared 
 About my hapless bark — sail-torn and spent, 
 Unhelmed, short-manned, uncaptained and lee-shored. 
 
 Ay, came ye thus, and unsought succour lent ; 
 The one to pilot, while the other oared 
 
 My fallen fortunes into Bay-Content. 
 
 To my Lyre. 
 
 Thou dear companion of many sweet 
 
 Long lingering hours of palm o'er-shadowed noon, 
 
8o Miscellaneous. 
 
 Of myrtle-fragranced nights 'neath Southern Cross, 
 And lone moons spent five hundred leagues from land- 
 Responsive Lyre, thou font of lyric-strain, 
 Voluptuous swelling, cadenced to its core ; 
 Emotion's parent, child — its source, its self ! 
 Calm, gentle spring of rhythmed meditation ; 
 Unfingered strings that never fail to give 
 The asked for lay, though sweet, or gay, or sad ; 
 How often have I turned to thee when pain — 
 Out-born of temperamental misery — weighed 
 Me down, or other troubles pressed me sore, 
 And found my richest consolation in 
 Thy humble self. Though friends forsake, keen foes 
 Wax strong, and Want abides while love grows cold ; 
 Though Sorrow crowds upon me fast, and Age 
 Comes stealing on apace ; though all combine 
 To render me fell Misery's mark, I still 
 Have thee. Though Ignorance — with fattened sides 
 Out-puflfed nigh till his belly bursts, and big 
 With self-importance and blind bigotry — 
 With coarse guffaws points his dull finger. 
 Wisely grown, at thine unlettered musings ; 
 Yet thou art salve for all the wounds he makes. 
 Though Fame — that brittle bubble bursting ere 
 *Tis touched — comes not to me, I miss the bites 
 Of venomous fangs that lacerate but souls. 
 Though, gaunt and bare, chill Poverty o'erhangs 
 My lowly lot, I yet can say — Beloved, 
 I make no plaint, for thou hast sweets enough 
 
Miscellaneous. 8 1 
 
 To sweeten gall. The critic's spleeny jest — 
 A lean-jawed wolfs hoarse bark at straying deer, 
 A jackal mouthing at an eagle's flight, 
 A snake's low hiss from 'mongst the tangled grass 
 At wondrous singing Philomel — the fool's 
 Disdain, the cold neglect of cultured wealth, 
 The envy of a brainless crowd, the hate 
 Of senseless party crews ; and all the darts, 
 So poison-steeped and foul, that Fame shoots 
 From her mighty bow, are arrows sent that pass 
 Me by. 
 
 Far from the crowded haunts of men, 
 In sweet sequestered sylvan shade, beside 
 A lane, or bosky primrosed dell in dingled wood, 
 I sit me down ; or lie and listen to 
 A nature's concert made by joyous birds 
 And romping stream ; Or, 'neath the pale 
 Moon's yellow beams, I wander near the still 
 Smooth lake to commerce with the stars, and wake, 
 Sweet Lyre, thy tuneful soul and make my own 
 Ideal world. With thee thus ever blest. 
 My treasured friend, I sigh not for a higher state ; 
 But live content on lowly fare. 
 In humble cot by woodland side, where morn 
 And noon and eve are freighted with rich songs 
 From feather- throated friends, and Nature paints 
 My pictures fair. 'Tis here I pass my days 
 In peace, with naught to mar their gentle course ; 
 Removed from man's unmanly fight, and all 
 
82 Miscellaneous, 
 
 His callous heartlessness. 'Tis here my soul 
 Finds life, and answers back thy calling strains ; 
 'Tis here my veins with witching lyric-fire, 
 Are charged by thee, thou pain-endeared Lyre. 
 
 An Impromptu Wish. 
 
 O for a quivering spirit -pen 
 Dipped deep in seraphic fire ! 
 
 O for a heart of poet-make ! — 
 The gift of a deathless lyre. 
 
 O for the blood by genius thrilled 
 To quicken this palsied brain ! 
 
 O for the power to fashion lines 
 That make an immortal strain. 
 
 O for the soul of singer sprung 
 Direct from the heart of song, 
 
 To mould a lyric with thy name. 
 And stamp it on Time's great gong. 
 
 O, Sweet, for such strength would I give- 
 An could the fair gift be mine — 
 
 A red heart's blood, a whole life's work, 
 To sing thee a song divine. 
 
Miscellaneous. ^3 
 
 Qwalia. 
 
 Hail, land of Cymru ! home of bardic song ; 
 
 My alien soul now rests in peace among 
 
 Thy hills and valleys fair. Romantic land ! 
 
 My pensive soul no other would command ; 
 
 For none can fit my idiosyncrasies 
 
 Like thee, thou land of stranger mysteries. 
 
 My feet have trod the classic soil of Greece, 
 
 Mine eyes have gazed where Sappho sweet did cease 
 
 To sing inspired songs. Where Ilium stood, 
 
 I, too, have resting found ; and felt my blood 
 
 Leap through its narrow bounds, while heaved my breast, 
 
 At thought of ruined Troy — grim jeering jest 
 
 At woman's faithlessness. Where Euphrates, 
 
 The mystic Nile, and Tiber, rush to seas 
 
 Which Ilelliconia blindly thought to be 
 
 The wide world's limit, I have wandered free. 
 
 Ay ! hither, thither, o'er yon old-time world 
 
 My roaming feet have strayed ; my thoughts unfurled 
 
 Their sluggish selves, and backward they have sped 
 
 To live among the book-remembered dead. 
 
 Yet, Cambria, yet, no land has been to me 
 
 As dear as thou art grown in surety. 
 
 What Greece to Byron was ; Italia fair 
 
 To Shelley's pensive mind ; and Britain rare 
 
 To Dante lone exiled ; so, Gwalia, thou — 
 
 Mountains and vales — to me endeared art now. 
 
84 Miscellaueous.\ 
 
 Thou art the prism fair through which my thought 
 Is polarised, and purified, and brought 
 To dwell on nobler things. 
 
 Then wake, my soul^ 
 And soar away to reach this higher goal ; 
 Or break, in wild attempt, thy feeble wings. 
 Strike, strike thy lyre, my muse ! and from its strings 
 Awake such songs, such lyrics, breathing soft 
 Aonian love, and murmuringly waft 
 Thine " lo adorato " unto this — 
 The mistress who has filled thy soul with bliss 
 As pure as drafts from fair Castalia's stream. 
 And sweeter than a soft-souled fairy dream ; 
 Or break, and cast away for evermore. 
 The lyre which thou didst love so well of yore. 
 
 To a Welsh maiden. 
 
 (Whom I met in the woods of Courtyralla, Dinas Powis). 
 
 No Stilted theme my rhyme adorns ; 
 
 No belted knight ; no lady fair ; 
 No maiden's heart sore pricked with thorns 
 
 Of love, to show she must not dare. 
 
 No gallants gay ; no sweethearts cold ; 
 No courtly dame ; no kingly pomp ; 
 
Miscellaneous. 85 
 
 No monks well-fed ; no outlaws bold ; 
 No witching eye proclaiming romp. 
 
 A humble muse, is this of mine, 
 
 Who cares not for a high estate ; 
 Who looks not where the glories shine ; 
 
 Who envies not the rich and great. 
 
 A woodland beauty blithe and free. 
 With careless air and freedom's guise ; 
 
 And robed in love's sweet majesty. 
 That shyly peeps from liquid eyes. 
 
 Her raven hair of blackest shade 
 
 Hangs round a neck of beauty's mould — 
 
 Of lovely form, this woodland maid ; 
 Nor would she, e'en she could, be cold. 
 
 By morn and noon, and even's close, 
 Her busy hands work all the while : 
 
 No sluggard is this human rose. 
 
 Whose dower's a heart unknown to guile. 
 
 Her blackcap voice in unchecked strains 
 
 Awakes to life the woodland glade ; 
 And birds are gladdened with refrains 
 
 Trilled forth by this dear rustic maid. 
 
 There's music in the very air ; 
 
 The trees a rhythmic answer wave — 
 
86 Miscellaneous. 
 
 For such as her men do and dare 
 
 The deeds that make mean cowards brave. 
 
 Her skin is oHve, pink her cheek ; 
 
 Her eyes are bright and dark of hue ; 
 Her manner neither proud nor meek, 
 
 But one sweet blending of the two. 
 
 Now such is this, my woodland muse, — 
 
 A breathing lily hither sent 
 By Him, crushed hearts to lift — infuse 
 
 With nobler, holier intent. 
 
 Lines. 
 
 (Written in a storm, while sheltering behind the ruin on the top of 
 Caerphilly Mountain.) 
 
 A thousand rugged feet I stand above 
 The valley dark, alone with nature and 
 With God. No human form I see to greet 
 My searching eyes. Around, above, below. 
 Rude Boreas howls, and drives with hurried haste 
 The dark'ning clouds — surcharged with Earth's refresh- 
 ening 
 Drink — against the mountain tops which rend 
 Their tender breasts apart and spill their tears ; 
 
Miscellaneous. 87 
 
 As Sorrow's ruthless thorn so often rips 
 
 And lacerates the feeling heart of man. 
 
 Below me flash with lurid glare, that lights 
 
 A moment brief the valley's gloom, 
 
 Stern Nature's crook'd electric gleams ; and peal 
 
 On peal of thunder wake the glade 
 
 That backward sends their echoes far and wide 1 
 
 Forbidding gloom and lofty grandeur clothe, 
 
 As with a cloak that hides the inner one, 
 
 The towering timbered slopes. 
 
 So like to complex human nature seems 
 
 Yon' rugged mountain side ; here rocks, there trees 
 
 That nobly brave the rush of Winter's winds. 
 
 And there, again, so desolate and wild ; 
 
 While yonder far beneath me hide, amid 
 
 The woody gloom from eyes that roam but do 
 
 Not penetrate, the lovely greenwood nooks 
 
 So sweet and fair, unseen, unknown, unguessed, 
 
 Until the traveller stumbles in. 
 
 5onnet. 
 
 (Written in the Churchyard of Peterstonc-Super-Ely.) 
 
 Embowered lies, 'mid nestling hills that gird 
 The peaceful hamlet in, this village where 
 Serenely smiles from cot and garden fair 
 
88 MiscellaneoiLS. 
 
 The angel bright of peace ; here warbhng bird, 
 
 With nature's sweetest melody, is heard 
 Unfettered, unrestrained ; the lambent air 
 Here on its roaming wings sweet health doth bear ; 
 
 Here dwells content, and strife is never stirred. 
 
 No hot ambition moves the rustic breast ; 
 
 The seasons fair, his daily work well done. 
 The smiling fields to him give all the rest. 
 
 In peace he lives, in peace his life begun ; 
 Himself this world's most tranquilising guest, 
 
 And thus serene his rural race is run. 
 
 Llandaff. 
 
 {This and the following piece were penned in the field adjoining the 
 Cathedral.) 
 
 By TaflPs meandering limpid stream, 
 (Where bards have often sate to dream, 
 Or sing with ever changing tone 
 Those songs they sang for melody alone) 
 'Mid peaceful fields, and waving trees 
 Now softly swayed by ev'ning's breeze, 
 Lies Llandaff city, old and gray — 
 The wasted relic of a bygone day. 
 Tho' short removed, yet still within 
 The ceaseless sound of toiling din — 
 
Miscellaneous, 89 
 
 Of man's ignoble, selfish strife, 
 
 The warping outcome of our modern life. 
 
 Now Autumn's leaves lie thick along 
 
 These meadows which have rung with song ; 
 
 And there, where stood in ages past 
 
 The Bishop's Castle, strong and grand and vast, 
 
 A pile of crumbling ruins lie ; 
 
 Their floor the earth — their roof the sky. 
 
 And there, too, where the martyred one 
 
 Did gladly yield his life in ages gone 
 
 For love of that dear faith he knew 
 
 To be the one — the only true ; 
 
 There, there old Time has shown his hand 
 
 As changing as a false and shifting sand ! 
 
 Alas ! old City, now is flown 
 
 The prime which once was all thine own ; 
 
 No more thy bards will carol gay, 
 
 At early morn or close of day. 
 
 There 'passioned songs of chivalry, 
 
 Of love and fame and mystery. 
 
 Old Llandaff" grey, thy day has fled. 
 
 Thy hopes are numbered with the dead ; 
 
 Unless thine humble prophet told 
 
 The simple truth like those of old. 
 
 And thou, like fabled Phoenix, rise 
 
 From ashes dead toward the skies. 
 
 And once again be Llandaff great — 
 
 A pow'r alike in Church and State. 
 
90 Miscellaneous. 
 
 Llandaff Cathedral. 
 
 Tis sweet to roam, at even's peaceful hour, 
 
 Along thy holy dimly lighted ways ; 
 And, musing there, in fancy paint the pow'r 
 
 Thy nobles held in unremembered days. 
 
 Or sit within thy time-resisting pile, 
 
 And picture there, by fond Illusion's wand. 
 
 The long processions down thy vaulted aisle 
 Of Canons dead, and Deans, and Prelates grand. 
 
 Or 'mong thy tombs to wander at sweet will, 
 
 Where rests the dust of some unknown to fame — 
 
 Yet who, perhaps, their mission did fulfil — 
 
 Now side by side with Pembroke's honoured name. 
 
 And, musing still, think how Sir Matthew fought 
 On Bosworih field in Henry's rightful cause ; 
 
 And how the grasping Richard there was brought 
 To curse at heart Ambition's greedy laws. 
 
 Then, wandering on still deep in past events. 
 Above the doorways — resting with the dead — 
 
 See warlike flags in torn suggestive rents. 
 Their duty done — their history left unsaid. 
 
 And thus the ever moving hand of Time 
 
 Alike destroys the glory of all things ; 
 Our birth and death, our state, ambition, prime. 
 
 All, all must fly ! for all, alas, have wings ! 
 
Miscellaneous. 9 1 
 
 Vale of Glamors^an. 
 
 Dear Vale of Glamorgan, my heart clings to thee, 
 Thou birthplace of beauty and sweet minstrelsy ; 
 Thy fields and thy hedgerows are dearer by far 
 To me than the glories of towns ever are. 
 
 How sweet 'tis to wander among thy green glades, 
 Entranced by the beauty of Cambria's maids ; 
 No mountains nor woodlands nor lowlands could be 
 So sweetly attractive as thou art to me. 
 
 Keep ye your hot strife and your close crowded streets, 
 Where jealousy ever the wayfarer meets ; 
 Your noise and confusion, your grief and its sting, 
 Ye haunts of the trader where Mammon is king. 
 
 Here blithely do warble, in freedom so dear. 
 The songsters whose songs so delight my lone ear ; 
 And spring the sweet flowers whenever I rove, 
 By wayside and hedgerow, in field and in grove. 
 
 No strife of contention here fretteth my soul, 
 No grubbing in darkiiess like burrowing mole ; 
 No din, and no dust to poison the air 
 So pure from the wild wood, so green and so fair. 
 
 Thy woods, sweet Glamorgan ; thy dearly-loved streams, 
 Whose music I love to accomp'ny my dreams ; 
 
92 Miscellaneous. 
 
 Thy peace, — Ah ! so soothing to world-wearied breast- 
 That enters the heart with a sense of true rest ; 
 
 Thy health-bearing breezes perfumed with the smell 
 Of violet and primrose, and nodding bluebell. 
 Are dearer and sweeter than ever could be 
 The glory of fame, wealth, or beauty — to me. 
 
 Lines. 
 
 (Written at Sunset on Cardiff Bridge). 
 
 Sweet Nature lends this lovely scene a charm 
 That soothes the soul, and softens down the harm 
 Begot of callous life. The river fair, 
 Here lost in deep'ning shade so sweet, and there 
 In basking light displayed ; the drooping trees 
 Which hem it in, as if to keep the breeze. 
 That would its peace disturb, from coming near 
 The winding way — the stream to them so dear ; 
 The mossy banks where bards of old did sing 
 Impassioned songs, and with their harps did ring 
 The silent thickets deep ; the pretty flow'rs, — 
 As innocently sweet as childhood's hours — 
 That droop their nodding heads and close their eyes, 
 As sinks the sun in ruddy Western skies ; 
 
Miscellaneous. 93 
 
 All, all alike with peace pervade the soul 
 That yearning pants to reach a fairer goal 
 Than worldly hearts can know. 
 
 Thou rippling stream 
 That onward bear'st thy way beneath the gleam 
 Of yonder gen'rous sun, and lavest the bough 
 Of fondling grateful bush and tree that now, 
 For watered life, thy limped waters smooth. 
 As if they would thy inner troubles soothe — 
 How like to life art thou. 
 
 How pure begins — 
 A tiny babbling brook that softly sings 
 Its happy song all day — thy broadening stream, 
 To lose ere long thine early life's fair dream, 
 And from pollution's touch become as foul 
 As thou wert once so fair. 
 
 Then rolling on, 
 Thy whilom charm, alas, forever gone ! 
 At last be lost in yonder stretching sea, 
 As life is lost in death's dark mystery. 
 
 Cilfynydd. 
 
 High overhead in golden beauty shone, 
 
 The germ of life. 
 The air was sweet with scent of hay new mown. 
 
 And peace was rife. 
 
94 Miscellaneous, 
 
 The feathered songsters sang, 'mid leafy grove, 
 
 Their noontide lay ; 
 And kindly Flora o'er the valley wove 
 
 Her carpet gay. 
 
 From song and sunshine, bird, and bee, and flow'r, 
 
 And pure air, 
 The miner sank, at mid-day's ripened hour, 
 
 We know not where. 
 
 Some fifteen hundred blackened feet he sank ; i 
 
 And left behind, 
 Upon the black yet heaven-lighted bank, 
 
 His women kind. 
 
 His children, wife — ay, all that made life dear 
 
 And sweet to him ! 
 He left without a thought of coward fear. 
 
 Nor death so grim. 
 
 The morn so bright ; the noon, in full-blown beauty 
 decked. 
 
 Knew not a care ; — 
 A fitting prelude to a sight so flecked 
 
 With black despair. 
 
 Not long had Sol his arched meridian passed 
 
 When upward rose. 
 From out the colliery shaft, a blast 
 
 Of fire that froze — 
 
Miscellaneous, 95 
 
 In petrified amaze — each pair of eyes 
 
 That saw the flame 
 Rushing above, as if upon the skies 
 
 'Twould write its name ! 
 
 Then Horror rolled his heavy avalanche 
 
 A-down the hills ; 
 And here and there, where met to mix and branch 
 
 The valley's rills, 
 
 Hell stood a-gape. Then spread the fatal news, 
 
 As it alone 
 Can spread ; and e'en the air bore many a bruise 
 
 From shriek and groan. 
 
 From village near ; from town, and field, and wood, 
 
 All grades of life 
 Rolled on to view, in one continuous flood. 
 
 Death's gruesome strife. 
 
 Now round the shaft in quaking horror stand 
 
 A paley crowd ; 
 And consternation upon ev'ry hand 
 
 Strong heads has bowed. 
 
 Rings out a call — " Who, who will volunteer ?' - 
 
 And not in vain. 
 A hundred tongues respond from men who fear 
 
 Nor death nor pain. 
 
96 Miscellaneous. 
 
 Heroic men, God's noblest master-work, 
 
 Enter the cage ; 
 And in the task of rescue do not shirk 
 
 Death's fiercest rage. . . 
 
 Now eager stand around the gaping shaft, 
 
 With hung'ring eyes, 
 The stricken crowd whose silent pray'rs do waft 
 
 Toward the skies. . . 
 
 Stand back ! stand back ! The cage now reascends. 
 
 What news ? What news ? 
 A corse appears. A shriek the air now rends ! — 
 
 And such the news. 
 
 Now cry on cry and groan on groan do pierce 
 
 Th' affrighted air ; 
 And mis'ry broods around, wan -faced yet fierce, 
 
 E'en ev'rywhere. 
 
 Corse after corse is borne from far below. 
 
 And laid around, 
 For recognition, in a sick'ning row 
 
 Upon the ground. 
 
 By kindly hands, to homes erstwhile so gay — 
 
 Now sad and drear — 
 Those who are known are gently borne away, 
 
 'Mid sob and tear. 
 
Miscellaneous, 97 
 
 But what of these with not a friend to own 
 
 Their crushed remains ? 
 (Poor ones unwept, unfollowed, yeVe out-grown 
 
 This world's small pains). 
 
 Though here unknown in death, in life were ye, 
 
 Alas ! unprized ? 
 Beyond the grave — above the stars you will not be un- 
 recognised. , 
 
 Cilfynydd, Oh ! Cilfynydd, how great 
 
 Thy woes must be. 
 Thy morning fair ; thy noon with joy elate ; 
 
 Thy night — misery. 
 
 Lines. 
 
 (Penned on the top of Garth Mountain). 
 
 What grandeur meets my ravished eyesight here ! 
 Now fades cold earth, and draws my soul more near 
 To peacefulness and God . . . 
 
 Beneath me lies — 
 And seems to smile at yonder sunny skies — 
 A carpet weaved by lavish Nature's hand. 
 Where lowland beauty blends with mountains grand. 
 
98 Miscellaneous, 
 
 The winding path ; the shady wooded dell, 
 
 The haunt of primrose and of sweet bluebell ; 
 
 The browsing kine ; the meadows fresh with dews 
 
 All decked and garbed in verdure's sweetest hues ; 
 
 The village church ; the river rolling free, 
 
 Whose music fills the air with harmony ; 
 
 The skylark's warble, high above the crown 
 
 Of Garth's great summit tipped with green and brown ; 
 
 The rural cot from which upcurling come 
 
 The quiet smoke, and sense of peace — all dumb ; 
 
 ('Cept yonder warbler's soul-uplifting song, 
 
 And Taffs rough music as he speeds along) ; 
 
 Yet, Oh ! how eloquent. The woods, the fields. 
 
 The dells, the streams ; ay ! ev'ry item yields 
 
 A silent tome of thought. 
 
 Fade, fade, vain worm, 
 And all of which thou art the fleeting germ. 
 Thy puny strength, and thine enfeebled efforts all, 
 Thy vaunted name, thy stumbling rise and fall, 
 Thy pigmy woes, thy hungering to be free, 
 Thy cursed ambition and thy galling tyranny ; 
 Thy greed, and crushing down another's soul 
 That thou may'st reach thine own hot selfish goal, 
 Have here no place. Not thou, nor aught of thee, 
 Can ever reach the grand sublimity 
 That voiceless nature knows. 
 
Miscellaneous, 99 
 
 An Impromptu. 
 
 Written immediately after receiving — from a then unknown admirer, 
 
 afterwards discovered to be E.M.B.R. — a picture of 
 
 the genius of poetry). 
 
 O fair, unknown, yet treasured giver of the gift 
 
 Of poetry unveiled, 
 
 Whene'er my fancy sailed 
 Away from earth clouds thickly clustered round the rift, 
 
 And all my songs curtailed. 
 
 But not of words. No richness ran in riot o'er 
 
 My ink-bespattered page ; 
 
 No jewel did engage 
 The reader's eye — no imaged gem of thought to pour 
 
 Its truth along our age. 
 
 Where'er I tried to soar — whatever song I sung — 
 
 Earth stamped it with her stain. 
 
 But now — the spirit-plain 
 Of poesy I may pursue with purer tongue, 
 
 And higher heights attain. 
 
 My walls bore not such pictured gems as this thou'st sent. 
 
 It lifts my soul, and straight 
 
 I seek the sunny gate 
 Of sweet descriptive song ; surpassing all my pent 
 
 Up past to reach such state. 
 
lOO Miscellaneous, 
 
 Be thy reward, my gift, these few imperfect Hnes. 
 
 Thy guerdon, too — thou'st freed 
 
 A fettered tongue, a reed 
 Made strong, broke clouds and shown a warmer sun tha; 
 shines 
 
 Where bosomed lie new seed. 
 
 ^ it J^ ^' 
 
 ^^^^^^ 
 
Miscellaneous. lOI 
 
 Pieces written in Roath Park, 
 
 Among the Flowerbeds, 
 
 /^\ BLOOMS, ye are rich in your glories ; 
 
 ^y O, Earth, thou art gay with thy blooms, 
 That sing me my old rhythmic stories, 
 
 And draw my dead hopes from their tombs. 
 O flowers, how fair is your beauty. 
 
 How tenderly sweet, and how frail ! 
 Yet, growing, ye teach me my duty — 
 
 To work though I fail. 
 
 Ah, once in the past I resembled 
 
 Ye blooms in your glorious hues ; 
 Like ye, too, I bowed me and trembled — 
 
 Ay, shook with the rapturous views 
 Which that inner eye gained in roaming 
 
 From bloom unto bloom of the mind, 
 From sunpeep through noontide to gloaming — 
 
 Stern practice behind. 
 
102 Miscellaneous. 
 
 Ah, heart, thou art sad with thy yearning ; 
 
 Ah, soul, thou art racked with the pain 
 Of striving and hoping and burning 
 
 To poHsh the best of thy brain. 
 Oh, blooms of the mind, ye are blasted, 
 
 Scorched up with the drought of despair ; 
 Oh, flowers, had ye but outlasted 
 
 The hunger and care ! 
 
 O, Man, thou art callous and cruel. 
 
 And dead to the sweets of the mind ; 
 The ermine and velvet and jewel 
 
 Thy senses to sordidness bind. 
 Cold earth hath more love for the lonely 
 
 Than thou with thy heart and thy brain ^ 
 It offers him peace, and thou only 
 
 Dost tender him pain. 
 
 O, Pan, with thy goat's legs all hairy. 
 
 O, Pan, with thy sweet sounding pipe, 
 Wouldst thou of thy kindness be chary 
 
 As men who are made in God's type ? 
 Nay, then, to old Earth be my singing — 
 
 Out, Man, from my song evermore ! 
 Henceforth will I woodward go winging 
 
 Its blooms to adore. 
 
Miscellaneous, 103 
 
 Vae VictisI 
 
 Ever the same, ever the same, 
 Morning and noontide and night; 
 
 Far though I gaze never a flame 
 Lightens the gloom of the fight ; 
 
 Under the hill the shadows hang still — 
 Heavy as Death in his might. 
 
 Weary the wait, weary the wait. 
 
 Hard is the battle and long ; 
 Fortune, I stood here at thy gate 
 
 Serving with hand and with song — 
 Stood till I fell to torments of hell, 
 
 Down 'neath the feet of thy throng. 
 
 Oh, to be free ; oh, to be free 
 
 From the sharp gleaming teeth of care ! 
 Freed from the wolf's maddening glee, 
 
 Out of cold Penury's lair — 
 Peaceful asleep where eyes never weep. 
 
 Breathed not unanswered is prayer. 
 
 Blood of the brave, blood of the brave. 
 Staining the millstones of gods ; 
 
 Writhing with pain, wishing the grave 
 Tender its shelter of sods. 
 
 Sensitive child, of genius wild, 
 
 Whipped with hell's keenest of rods. 
 
104 Miscellaneous, 
 
 ** Drifting." 
 
 Drifting away with the stream ; 
 
 Drifting apart from the source ; 
 Drifting outward to oceans wide, 
 
 Beyond the river's course ; 
 Drifting afar to terrible seas 
 
 Where tossed, and dashed, and broken, 
 It sinks at last — 'tis sodden so — 
 
 This little branch of oaken. 
 
 Drifting away from home ; 
 
 Drifting, oh, how much ! 
 Drifting — driven to depths beneath 
 
 Respectability's touch ! 
 
 Drifting further from love ; 
 
 Drifting nearer to Hell ; 
 Drifting along the downward grade 
 
 To end where none can tell. 
 
 Drifting away to Death ; 
 
 Drifting a-down the course ; 
 Drifting — hounded from former self, 
 
 By Fate's irresistible force ! 
 
 Drifting afar from friends ; 
 Drifting apart from kind ; 
 
Miscellaneous. 105 
 
 Drifting away to a grave at last 
 That none, perhaps, can find — 
 
 Driven to knock at the gates 
 Where the devil sits grinning behind. 
 
 Pray for us. 
 
 The mills of the gods ''grind slowly, 
 But they grind exceedingly " fine j 
 
 High, loiv, or evil, or holy, 
 And to them the blood is as wine : 
 They grin while they grind the immartial, 
 These millers immortal and mystical. 
 
 The mills of the gods are blasted, 
 And the gods of the mills have grown blind ; 
 
 Their justice — a ship dismasted. 
 And exposed to demon-like wind : 
 They howl and they revel,' as madmen rave. 
 While grinding the hearts of the good and brave. 
 
 The gods of the mills are dancing 
 For ever about the great stones ; 
 
 And yell they while wildly prancing 
 To the airs composed of our groans. 
 O mighty the millers that grind us fine. 
 And drink of our blood as the rich drink wine. 
 
Io6 Miscellaneous. 
 
 The Lassie's Poesy. 
 
 (A Mardy incident of the journey of the Prince and Princess of Wales 
 from Aberystwith to Cardiff.) 
 
 On a bank by the glistening lines 
 Of steel, where the carriages were ; 
 
 In the midst of the blackening mines, 
 And coal-dust air, 
 
 Among a small group of the lowly 
 
 She stood in her maidenhood holy. 
 
 Poor and stricken, yet winsome and sweet, 
 Her shrinking and fearing wee court 
 
 On the bank round about her to greet 
 Life's master-sort ; 
 
 Her eyelids adroop, and her gazing 
 
 Askant through her lashes amazing. 
 
 She was only a working-man's child. 
 So humble and crippled and frail ; 
 
 And she tendered her blooms from the wild 
 And brackened dale — 
 
 Her scentless and dust-ridden flowers 
 
 That nodded for want of cool showers. 
 
 'Twas a marvellous sight to behold. 
 
 Not hers were the rich buds and rare ; 
 Yet she brought them, their weak red and gold 
 
 More dull than fair — 
 
Miscellaneous. 107 
 
 She brought her small offering mutely, 
 Presenting it humbly and suitly. 
 
 'Twas a tribute to offering's worth, 
 And Denmark's sweet lily approved ; 1 
 
 *Twas humanity's touch, spite of birth. 
 The Princess moved 
 
 To take the wee lassie's dim token 
 
 Of loyalty pure and unbroken. 
 
 O ye cringers, in open or stealth. 
 
 Go fawn for such honours in vain ! 
 Take your cold loveless hearts and your wealth, 
 
 Your mud-hued brain. 
 And lay your mean souls — so earthy — 
 In mire for a smile from the worthy. 
 
 A Reflection. 
 
 Now falls the sere and yellow leaf, 
 And weeping Nature dons her garb of grief ; 
 Her prime is past — the full-bloom summer fled- 
 And mourning deep she sees her idol dead.i 
 Low at her feet, now gone or going fast. 
 The lovely flow'rs — too beautiful to last — 
 Are lying now, their last soft sweet perfume — 
 Their soul, their inner essence — to illume 
 
Io8 Miscellaneous, 
 
 Their weeping mother's woe is stealing up, 
 
 And sweeten thus kind Nature's bitter cup. 
 
 Across the darkened, misty, hidden sky 
 
 The low'ring clouds with hurried haste go by ; 
 
 And pour their tears — of which there's now less dearth- 
 
 On too long thirsting palpitating earth. 
 
 Now Boreas strong — a spirit from a cage — 
 
 Goes roaming free, and vents his pent-up rage ; 
 
 The dying zephyr moans her own requiem soft, 
 
 Unsung, unwept except by clouds aloft ; 
 
 Then melts away amid her saddened theme, 
 
 Like soul by anguish torn and waked as from a dream 
 
 Angelically fair, 'mid unalloyed repose. 
 
 To straightway bear a dying murderer's throes. 
 
 Thus Nature yields the summer passed away, 
 
 And shrouds herself in robes of sombre grey. 
 
 Vale. 
 
 Farewell to all ye fields and lanes, and wood 
 Beneath whose shade so oft we two have stood 
 And watched the rosy tints as ev'ning fell — 
 With softening touch — on woodland stream and deli ; 
 Each wrapt in sweet Reflection's mazy fold, 
 Each mind gone back to knightly days of old 
 When men and maids were true ; so near, so much, 
 So deeply were our twin-like souls in touch. 
 
Miscellaneous. 109 
 
 Farewell, thou pool whose smooth and placid face 
 
 So oft has tried to mirror out the grace 
 
 Her matchless figure knew ; but vain the task, 
 
 Of her sweet self 'twas part, and not a mask 
 
 Of comely view to hide a darker side ; 
 
 For love to all did in her soul abide. 
 
 Adieu to each association dear ; 
 
 Each scene of joy, where Doubt would disappear 
 
 When Hope displayed her shaft of 'luring light 
 
 And vainly try to chase away the night, 
 
 Alas ! the future held. Farewell, ye brakes — 
 
 Beside the stilly, sweet, reflecting lake's 
 
 Cool margin fair — within whose shade 
 
 My breast her head a heaving pillow made 
 
 (So welcome each to each) full oft and long : 
 
 And where her dear soft sorrow-soothing song, 
 
 At twilight's hour, has lulled to gentle rest 
 
 Whatever cares within my tired breast 
 
 The toilsome day had roused ; her song, at which 
 
 The feathered singers, with a sudden twitch 
 
 Of joy, have checked their tuneful ev'ning praise, 
 
 And mute remained to hear her sweeter lays. 
 
 Adieu to friends, to home, to all most dear; 
 
 Now heaves the sigh, and falls the pain-forced tear 
 
 A-down my burning cheek. Now throbs the heart 
 
 With deep-felt woe that we, alas ! must part. 
 
 Some other clime, to me as yet unknown. 
 
 Must shroud this form ; and I — a wanderer — own 
 
 No land, no love, no home. Some other air 
 
no Miscellaneous. 
 
 (Though foul, 'twould still be sweet to me if there 
 
 Thy form could be) my panting lungs must breathe, 
 
 And lonely soul its crown of sorrow wreathe. 
 
 Some foreign soil my alien feet must tread ; 
 
 The stranger's pillow lie beneath my head. 
 
 Some generous hearts a kindly shelter give 
 
 The wanderer, who as such must ever live. 
 
 Some stranger hands will grasp the hand which thou 
 
 Shouldst claim thine own, and keep the virgin vow. 
 
 An unknown grave, may-hap where graves are not, 
 
 At last will end the exile's joyless lot. 
 
 Farewell to thee — thou first, thou last, thou best — 
 
 Whose winning smile first waked my soul from rest 
 
 It ne'er can know again ; whose loving word 
 
 My inmost soul and nobler instincts stirred ; 
 
 Whose soft influence turned my callous heart 
 
 To better ways, and stilled its baser part ; 
 
 Whose face and form — whose self and dearer love 
 
 My sleeping soul so lifted far above 
 
 Its former self as Heaven over earth ; 
 
 Whose sweet, unguessed, yet lasting priceless worth 
 
 God only knew, and I the power did feel 
 
 Whose heart it changed to gold from frosted steel. 
 
 Adieu to thee, who made my heart to glow 
 
 With love as such we mortals seldom know, 
 
 Yet who hath cast a cloud of sorrow o'er 
 
 My wakened soul, and closed and barred the door 
 
 Of joy and peace for ever 'gainst my heart, 
 
 Though made it better by a deathless smart. 
 
Miscellaneous. ill 
 
 Farewell to all ; to all a last adieu ; 
 Where'er I be my soul will still be true 
 To thee, lost love, to thee. 
 
 Impromptu. 
 
 (Written to a lark while hearing it sing). 
 
 Heaven-ward winging, 
 Seraph-like singing, 
 Bird of inimitable note ; 
 Out o'er the lambent air 
 Sweet goes thy song and rare 
 Making a grave for care — 
 Magic melodious throat. 
 
 Musical flyer. 
 Lifting man higher. 
 Further and further from earth. 
 Day's richest singer thou ; 
 Smoother of wrinkled brow, 
 Oh ! to be with thee now, 
 Finding a mighty new birth. 
 
 Songster material. 
 
 Poet ethereal, 
 
 Speck in the glorious vault : 
 
 Propping yon' skies of God's 
 
112 Miscellaneous. 
 
 With thy rhythmic rods, 
 Richer thy periods — 
 Richer at every halt. 
 
 Melody flinging, 
 Earth-ward bringing 
 Heaven and love by thy song ; 
 Up in thy barless cage 
 Sing, and the soul engage. 
 Free it from pain and rage 
 Gotten by man and his wrong. 
 
 Curst. 
 
 Scorned is the letterless one. 
 
 Who would fain blend his rhymes with some sense ; 
 
 Scouted by some who are schooled 
 
 In the world of book-learning or pence. 
 
 Though his work bears the stamps of the gods 
 
 He may sing ! — he may starve, until hence 
 
 He is under the sods. 
 
 Tempted to seek the green bowers, 
 
 And by nature unfitted for trade, — 
 
 Priest of the Muses and flowers. 
 
 His sky-overarched temple a glade ; 
 
 While his choresters, rich with sweet powers, 
 
Miscellaneous, 1 13 
 
 Are the birds in the leafs kindly shade. 
 From the dawn to the moon's pale hours. 
 Poor muser and dreamer at best, 
 How little his life hath of rest ! 
 
 Damned with ethereal thoughts 
 
 That up-send his lone soul to the stars ! 
 
 Whether or no he may wish 
 
 To be borne in his airy-wrought cars ; — 
 
 To be winged and be wafted away, 
 
 To the gates of the great golden bars 
 
 Where the white angels pray. 
 
 Gifted ? Ah, no ! He is blasted ! 
 
 In his temperament he is curst — 
 
 Laughed at by fools, and dismasted 
 
 In the midst of east winds from the purst ; 
 
 Ay, and when he has thirsted and fasted. 
 
 And has toiled — while misfortune him nurst — 
 
 He may die ere his pain's outlasted ; 
 
 May die with a song on his tongue, 
 
 Or wormwood at callous hearts flung. 
 
 Curst with the gifts which the gods. 
 
 In their wrath, have inflicted on him, — 
 
 Gifts they will never take back. 
 
 Though his sensitive soul it should swim 
 
 In the throes of a world of fierce care ^ 
 
 And his faith flicker down until dim 
 
 In his crushed heart's despair. 
 
 Such is the wight who, though poor, yet would sing — 
 
114 Miscellaneous, 
 
 Poverty lashed, and soul riven, 
 
 Till he feels that God's name he could fling 
 
 In the faces of those who have Heaven 
 
 On their tongues without ceasing, and sting 
 
 The sore heart of the metrical steven : — 
 
 O generous man, and how just ! 
 
 Poor wriggling blind worm in the dust. 
 
 Of such are Poets made. 
 
 " Come, tell me, Love, what poets are — 
 
 Of gods or men ? " she said. Then, pointing far, 
 
 Where planets moved in atmospheric cars 
 
 Of luminosity, — " Are they such stars 
 
 As yonder gleam, but wandered far astray ; 
 
 Some fair worlds' souls from Milky Way — 
 
 Bright fallen gems off Heaven's jewelled breast, 
 
 Dropped to illume our life, and make it blest ? 
 
 Or are they crushed lone spirits, whom 
 
 A roving wind has caught in cruel play ; 
 
 And carried off through space and gloom, i 
 
 To be sweet lights within a tomb, 
 
 And chase the dark away ? — 
 
 Strange spirits from some stranger unknown land, 
 
 Where seas of love upheave on Passion's strand ; 
 
 Where golden Hope for ever sheds her night. 
 
 And Day glides on unchased by frowning Night. 
 
Miscellaneotts, 115 
 
 Are they of such ? — from such a sphere, 
 Made sad by slow transition here ? 
 Poor punished alien souls in human mould ? 
 White-heated sacred fires encased in cold 
 And common outer shells ? 
 Come, Sweet, unloose thy pent-up mind, 
 And let it act as acts a wanton wind 
 'On fine-toned sensitive bells : 
 Are they of gods or human-kind. 
 These poets who excel ? 
 ♦O loved one, quickly tell ! " 
 
 'Thus ceased the maid, 
 .And glowed the dear love-light 
 Within her soulful eyes. 
 As soft we strayed ; 
 "While smiled the Queen of Night 
 From yon* mysterious skies. 
 Then, as she bent an ear of pearly-shell. 
 Most gracefully down-brought, 
 I did assay my fair Abdiel to tell 
 Why works the rhythmed thought. 
 
 •^* The poet. Dearie, is of human-kind. 
 Yet made to know as knows no common mind 
 The heights of joy, and darkling depths of woe ; 
 Life, love, and friendship, and the hate of foe. 
 His thoughts unbidden gush in flowing song. 
 To find an echo here and there among 
 
Il6 Miscellaneous, 
 
 The feeling hearts of men. He haply sings 
 
 While others idly rest their untouched strings. 
 
 'Tis his to bear immeasurable love, 
 
 To soar away to worlds of light above 
 
 This canker-eaten life. 'Tis his to know, 
 
 And feel within, the ever burning glow 
 
 Of Hope's undying flame. 'Tis his to sink, 
 
 By misery thrilled and weighted down, and drink 
 
 Full deep of life's sad draught ; to have engraved 
 
 Upon his plastic, hot, impulsive heart — 
 
 Too quick to love, or hate, or writhe and smart — 
 
 The idle hopes with which Hell's floor is paved. 
 
 But not alone to him the power is given. 
 
 Hades to taste and know the joys of heaven. 
 
 There be of those who tread this yielding earth, 
 
 Whose silent hearts give not in gladsome birth 
 
 The songs that well within ; some poets — mutes — 
 
 Whose stringless lyres and voiceless lutes 
 
 Sweet echoes never wake, and thus impart 
 
 A kindred joy unto another's heart. 
 
 It is the fate of bard, who strikes his lyre. 
 
 To fan the flame of feebly smouldering fire ; 
 
 To paint anew all heart-upstirring themes, 
 
 To give in song what others feel in dreams ; 
 
 To touch the silent chords in others' breasts — 
 
 The chords that sleep enfolded in the nests 
 
 Of hearts less warm than his. 'Tis his to live 
 
 Misunderstood, yet dying all forgive ; — 
 
 To know, to feel, to grasp, describe, — ay, ride 
 
Miscellaneous. 1 1 7 
 
 The waves of feeling in the passion-tide 
 Of life's tempestuous sea. Of such strange make 
 Are singers, who their trembling lyres awake 
 To give their souls in song." 
 
 Out of Touch : An Impromptu. 
 
 *•'' I'm out of touch with my work to-day, 
 And the world seems all forlorn ; 
 So ril up and away 
 To the fields and play, 
 As oft I did in the bright heyday 
 Of life's untarnished morn. 
 
 '* I'll leave my books and my work behind 
 
 To care for themselves to-day, 
 And out in the fields with rustic kind 
 I'll sport and play 
 At hide and find 
 Among the newmown hay. 
 And there philosophy I will make 
 To quit my puzzling brains ; 
 And again I'll awake 
 From its sleep, and break 
 My soul from its trance, and then partake- 
 With the lassies and their swains — 
 
1 1 S Miscellaneous, 
 
 Of a luncheon earned with the sweat of brow, 
 Beneath the oak tree's sheltering bough, 
 In the heat of the summer day.'- 
 
 Then up from his chair the greybeard sprung. 
 And into the fields he went ; 
 
 And so gaily rung, 
 
 As he bhthely sung, 
 The air with his merriment. 
 
 He frolicked with Youth, and he talked with AgQ^ 
 And gamboled the time away ; 
 Then 'neath a tree — 
 So tired was he — 
 The student grey 
 Stretched out his weary frame among 
 The fragrant fresh-cut hay. 
 
 And then when the sun was sinking fast, 
 
 Away in the Western sea, 
 
 They tried to wake 
 
 From its sleep, and break 
 His soul from its trance, but they found it free 
 To soar away to the heights beyond 
 
 The reach of philosophy. 
 
 He left his books and his work behind. 
 And went to the fields to play ; 
 And there in sleep — ^ 
 So long, so deep — 
 
Miscellaneous. \ 1 9 
 
 The things that had troubled his earthy day- 
 Were rendered plain, in a plainer way 
 Than all the thought 
 Which in life he had brought 
 To chase the mist away. 
 
 Qloom and Sunshine: An Impromptu. 
 
 I left my sombre chamber to-day when the sun peeped in ; 
 
 And out of the town with its dust and heat, 
 
 Its toiling crowds, its narrow street, 
 And its maddening weight of sin, 
 
 I bent my steps to the country, where 
 
 I could poise my soul for scenes more fair. 
 
 I sought this Park and its upland rise. 
 
 Its flower-beds, its murmuring stream, 
 
 To play at hide-and-seek with a dream, 
 And oust the specks from my smoke-dimmed eyes— - 
 
 Once more to revel on Nature^s breast, 
 
 And smother the cares that life infest. 
 
 I romped and rolled with the sunny child — 
 Again a child was I — and welcomely, 
 Like a frolicksome boy in laughing glee ! 
 
 The gallant wind toyed full gaily wild 
 
 With my tangled locks, grown stiff" and staid 
 With the town's miasmal air so death-inlaid. 
 
1 20 Miscellaneous, 
 
 In happy mood — in fierce despite of blistered hand ! 
 
 I rowed my boat on the mimic sea ; 
 
 While tears of happiness leapt all free, 
 To roam again my dim lost Glamour-land. 
 
 As I rowed and rowed, with tightening grip, 
 
 O'er the laughtering waves in my mastless ship, 
 
 Low down in my heart a wordless song, 
 
 Of infinite tenderness, grateful joy 
 
 For the gift that thus did my cares destroy, 
 I sung to the winds as I glided along. 
 
 Then cried to Nature — " Greet, greet your child ! 
 
 I am here again, unfettered and wild." 
 
 I left my books and my sombre room. 
 
 And came to the Park to play ; 
 
 Then rented myself a dreamhouse gay, — 
 Unknown to philosophy, care, or gloom — 
 
 Where yon' laughing brook babbles along to the sea, 
 
 And stirs my heart with its melody. 
 
 To my last two Medallions. 
 
 Ye hateful cause of all my cares and pain, 
 
 A thousand curses rest on your foul name ! — 
 On all your callous brood ! 
 For ye I've toiled with might of limb and brain — 
 Not with a hope, nor e'en a thought of fame, 
 But just for daily food. 
 
Miscellaneous. 121 
 
 Still all my snares, however finely set, 
 
 Ye've managed to elude and keep me poor — 
 Ye bright highway to Hell. 
 Mayhap I worshipped not enough ; and yet 
 
 I beat, both day and night, your brazen door, 
 My health and work to sell. 
 
 I do not ask a plenty of your kind — 
 
 Ye captain-general of the Devil's crew ! 
 I have no wish for wealth. 
 My wants are few, and simple to my mind ; 
 
 I would not let your power my soul imbue, 
 In open or in stealth. 
 
 I am a poor disciple ? Ay, no doubt ; 
 I cannot sell my self-regard for ye — 
 You fair Damnation's friend. 
 Though I have starved — my light well-nigh put out— ' 
 I could not hail ye first of gods, tho' free 
 My soul were mine to lend. 
 
 Nor will I ever love ye as do some ; 
 
 Tho' hunger greets me with each setting sun, 
 I'll spite ye to your face ! 
 Tho* Want's relentless avalanches come, 
 I'll ye defy until I have out-run 
 This ill-conditioned race. 
 
122 Miscellaneotis. 
 
 When I am dead. 
 
 When cold and stark this carping body lies 
 
 Consign it to no grave, 
 
 Neither in land or wave ; 
 For both are dear — too dear so to despise. 
 
 Bear me away — or what corruption's left — 
 
 To some wild rocky shore, 
 
 Free as the spirit bore 
 Its own untrammelled self ere life was reft ; 
 
 Yet where the waters lap, in calmer moods, 
 
 A tender soothing song 
 
 The dreamy whole day long, 
 When tempests sleep and nature softly broods. 
 
 There, where the two I love — earth rippling wave- 
 In fond embraces meet. 
 And laughing, singing, greet 
 
 Each other's self by sands or sounding cave, 
 
 Build me a funeral pyre ; my pall the sky — 
 
 The wordless book of God, 
 
 Each star a period — 
 Whereto my soul doth ever want to fly. 
 
Miscellaneous. 1 25 
 
 Strew round about me every flowV that grows — 
 
 There is no death, no gloom ; 
 
 What need we of a tomb ? 
 'Tis only change — for sweet my spirit knows 
 
 A boundless love for them ; and I would fain 
 
 Their scented souls are near 
 
 With mine above the bier, 
 And chant unto the spheres a spirit-strain. 
 
 Meanwhile the rite goes on. And when *tis o'er, 
 
 Take up the ashes left — 
 
 Of all earth's stains bereft — 
 And e'en let them some time attempt to soar. 
 
 Go seek, 1 ask, some mountain's fronting crest, 
 
 And freely scatter there 
 
 To every roaming air, 
 From North and South, grey East and ruddy Westy 
 
 The small material left. For so in life 
 
 I loved the fair and free. 
 
 The winds that sung to me 
 Their songs unstained by man's contentious strife. 
 
' 24 Miscellaneous. 
 
 Then up amid the soaring throng I'll wing 
 My singing self to hear 
 Each separate glowing sphere, 
 
 And really know what songs the stars do sing. 
 
 ^ ^. ^ 
 
Miscellaneo its. 12 c; 
 
 Street Murmurings. 
 
 The Newsboy. 
 
 St. Mary Street, 10 p.m. 
 " Hi, hi ! *' The Star " an' all the latest news,— 
 Oh, criky ! but its cold. An' that big bruise 
 As father made on my left leg last night 
 Aches fearful bad, as if it owed a spite. . . 
 
 " Hi ! * Hextra Speshul,' ' murder of a Nun,* 
 The Burstin ' of a' Eighty-one Ton Gun ' ! — 
 Oh, say, 'ere's rain. I'll 'ave my papers wet. 
 An' then another wackin', sure, I'll get. . . 
 
 *' My, patience ! Eh, but w'at a 'owlin' wind. 
 
 I'll go an' — Buy a paper. Sir. I'll find 
 
 You change ! Just 'old my copies . . There, that's one. 
 
 'Ere goes — sell out afore the people's gone ; 
 
 " Or else a thrash—Yes, Sir ! . 'Ere, Sir ! . That's three. 
 Hi ! * Fearful Storm," *' Collisions on the Sea,' 
 
 * Great Loss of Life ' ; ' A' Earthquake in Japan ' ; 
 
 * Lord SalisbVy's Speech ! an' — my, there's Tom M'Cann. 
 
126 Miscellaneous, 
 
 •*' Say, Tommy, 'ave ycr sold yer papers out ? . . 
 Me ? No. My throat's so bad that I can't shout. 
 An' w'en a feller's lost 'is pow'r ter yell, 
 This sellin' papers is a reg'lar sell. . . 
 
 ■^* Me a-goin' 'ome ? No ; / must sell the lot 
 
 Afore I goes, or else I'll catch it 'ot. 
 
 Goodnight. . . Hi ! ^ Hextra Speshul,' ^ Ships gone 
 down,' 
 
 * Another Robb'ry in Temp'rance Town ! ' . . 
 
 *' By jingo ! but I wish I had some shoes — 
 It's mighty 'ard ter work like this fer booze. 
 Nigh ten o'clock ; an' 'alf-a-dozen yet. 
 I'll get a wackin' 'fore I sleeps, I'll bet. 
 
 ii.o p.m. 
 
 *** I'll creep inter this alley out the rain. 
 
 An' try ter sleep in spite o' cold and pain. 
 
 There's one good thing — I'll get no thrashin' 'ere." 
 • • • • 
 
 He sleeps, while trembles on his cheek a tear. 
 
 A Living Finsrerpost. 
 
 Time, 11.45 a.ra. 
 
 ■*' My God, how hotly pours the sun's fierce ray 
 On my devoted head the livelong day ! 
 
Miscellaneous, 127 
 
 It seems that here the penalty is paid, 
 
 And Hell has clipped me ere my body's laid 
 
 At rest. . . Yet must I go thus placed between 
 
 Two dangling boards, each bearing words of green 
 
 And sickly hue upon a field of white, 
 
 Reflecting back the heat and dazzling light 
 
 Of yonder cursed sun : and telling all 
 
 Who read, to-night a fashionable ball 
 
 Is to be held, adjacent to a room 
 
 As such the one that witnessed the gloom 
 
 Which fell on me, and which I made myself 
 
 By thirsting so to gain that subtle elf 
 
 By men call gold — that very place wherein 
 
 I oft had stood to prove another's sin. 
 
 Thus grinning Fate's unalterable law 
 
 Has deemed it just that Retribution's claw 
 
 Should lacerate the little conscience left, 
 
 And find a sermon, too, to bind the cleft. 
 
 Keen, cutting mockery of fate ! too weak 
 
 To use a pick, or shovel coals, or seek 
 
 A means to live in any other way, 
 
 I needs must be a fingerpost all day, 
 
 And point to where gay Pleasure holds her court , 
 
 And where I once was known ; but now resort — 
 
 By force of having worn a prison dress — 
 
 Where crimes are hatched to bear a damned success. 
 
 Thus day by day I trudge the blistering street, 
 
 Hateful of all ; and wishing but to meet 
 
128 Miscellaneous. 
 
 The wheels of some big sympathetic dray 
 To end the life I dare not take away." 
 
 The Outcast. 
 
 Time 11.45 P-™. 
 " I Stan's a-thinkin' an' musin' at w'iles — 
 
 O' nights w'en summer is come — 
 Of the lanes an' fields, with the'r paths an' stiles, 
 
 And the bees with the'r drowsy 'um. 
 
 " I dreams sometimes w'en the weather is 'ot, 
 
 An' dust lies thick on the street. 
 Of some shady trees, and a w'ite-washed cot. 
 
 In a corner w'ere hedges meet. 
 
 " Then I shuts my eyes, an' I thinks 1 sees fiow'rs- 
 Soft vi'lets an' daisies fringed w'ite — 
 
 As I plucked in my innercent young hours, 
 W'en I rambled from morn ter night. 
 
 " An' I 'ears the thrush an' blackbird 'at sings 
 
 In 'edge, an' wood, an' in tree ; 
 Till I sees the face of the devil wot flings 
 
 From the'r 'omes such women as me. 
 
Miscellaneous, 129 
 
 ** Then a blur gets up ; an' I curses at 'cart, 
 
 An' goes fer brandy ter drink ; 
 Fer it brings fergetfulness — makes me parti 
 
 With the wantin' ter jump the brink. 
 
 '' Oh, God ! 'ow I'd give my life ter be back — 
 
 A woman pure as the best, 
 But I can't — I'm stamped with a curse ! I'm black, 
 
 An' can never get w'ite, or rest. 
 
 " The world of good people wants none of me ; 
 
 So I walks the streets up an' down. 
 Till the copper comes with 'is cries ter be — 
 
 * Off away ' ; an' 'e tries ter frown. 
 
 "But 'e knows who're bad, an' 'e tries ter be fair, 
 
 An' not be 'arsher than needs ; 
 *E's the one as knows, if no others care, 
 
 That a' outcast's heart often bleeds. 
 
 " Then I moves away ter the 'ouse, or a bar, 
 
 An' goes fer brandy again ; 
 Till I quenches thought, an' forgets there are 
 
 Some human devils called men." 
 
130 Miscellaneous. 
 
 Another Phase. 
 
 Time 7.30 p.m. 
 " Oh, how they sweep their cleaner skirts aside 
 
 For fear of touching mine ! 
 
 They walk the narrow line 
 Of chastity — I run the hellward wide. 
 
 " And yet, my silk is just as good as theirs — 
 
 My language as correct. 
 
 But I, alas ! am flecked 
 With stains so foul they mouth of poisonous lairs ! 
 
 " Oh, sisters ! — for I am a woman still, 
 
 And crave a pitying word ! — 
 
 Why do ye spurn the bird, 
 Soiled, battered, cursed, that fell — against its will ? 
 
 " Have mercy, ye who tread untempted, good. 
 
 Life's even pathway fair ; 
 
 And breathe the healthy air 
 Of homes where peaceful glides the sluggish blood. 
 
 " Ye do not know the fearful life we live ! 
 
 We are not evil all. 
 
 Oh ! spare your quiet gall. 
 Dear Christ forgave. Can you not pity give ? 
 
Miscellaneous. 
 
 'Oh! there be Magdalenes a-seeking rest ; 
 
 And who would gladly die 
 
 If that would rectify 
 The past, the body clean, and ease the breast. 
 
 '' Would you — all ye who us despise — quit life 
 
 To keep you names as now ? 
 
 I doubt it, though the vow 
 Were given on the edge of scorn's keen knife. 
 
 " Oh, Father ! deal more kindly with our sins 
 Than she who scorns, and fears — 
 Poor birds of night, and tears 
 
 In secret wept — to speak the word that wins." 
 
 131 
 
 
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