LIVING ENGLISH POETS MDCCCLXXXII , University of California Berkeley Purchased as the gift of THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIRRARY l* LIVING ENGLISH POETS LIVING ENGLISH POETS MDCCCLXXXII LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE MDCCCLXXXIII. PREFACE 'nr^HE Editors of the present selection believe them- selves justified in claiming for the principle which lias directed them a certain novelty, at least as far as regards living writers. They have prepared an anthology which aims at being no casual or desultory assemblage of beautiful poems, but one which presents in chronological order examples of the highest attain- ment, and none but the highest, of the principal Poets of our own age. So great is the wealth of English poetry in this century, so varied its field, so versatile its execution, that the difficulty has been to know how to repress and omit. In making such a selection it has been felt that it was of the highest importance to avoid anything like narrowness of aim, and above all to seciire exemption from the prejudices and the vi PREFACE partialities of any one school. The Editors believe that they have been scrupulously catholic in their views ; they have not undertaken the work in haste, and they are anxious to record that, as far as they are able to learn, there is no living writer of verse, whose works have enjoyed any reputation either in a wide or narrow circle, to whom they have not given their imbiassed consideration, and that, if any names are found to be omitted here, the Editors must take upon themselves the responsibility of having felt obliged to omit them deliberately. There are but two exceptions to the names they have wished to include. An eminent writer whose verse deserves to be no less widely read than is his prose, has declined " to be bound with others in a selection;" and while this is in one sense a great regret to the Editors, it is not wholly without its compensations, since all readers who are aware of the omission of any favourite Poet will of course consider that he, their own Apollo, is the fastidious One who has refused to allow his flowers to be twined in the general garland. The other has succeeded in PREFACE vii forgetting the flight of time, and, being therefore unwilling that others should take note of that swift passage of years which blanches even poetic locks, is unwilling to comply with the chronological system which is an essential part of the Editors* plan. The Editors, then, having desired to include, to the best of their judgment, representative pieces from all the verse-writers who may really be called in any high and lasting sense Poets, have been gratified to find that the names have for the most part arranged themselves by a quantitative test in an order which approximately is that in which the public voice has classed the names selected. Not, however, that the test is infallible, or without its exceptions. Moreover, it has not been thought fitting to select from Dramas, since detached passages suffer by division from their context, and hence SIR HENRY TAYLOR is here repre- sented by lyrics alone, of which he has written far too few. The present age has been particularly rich in facetious and fantastic verse, but the Editors of the present selection have only ventured to avail them- viii PREFACE selves of it sparingly, and where an underlying seriousness of purpose and a close attention to form seemed to give it more than an ephemeral vahie. Throughout it may be said that a conviction of the enduring qualities of poems and of Poets has been allowed to outweigh a mere sense of brightness or cleverness in workmanship. The Editors have been particularly struck, in reading a very large number of volumes of verse for the purpose in hand, with the excellent manner in which much is now-a-days said, which in its essence is scarcely worth the saying, and they have not considered that sitch pieces, though in themselves at times exquisite, are likely to be of permanent value. It would have swelled the book beyond all reasonable limits to have included in it the masterpieces of con- temporary American poetry. Literature on the other side of the A tlantic has now extended so considerably in all directions that the Americans may safely be left to prepare their own anthology. It remains only to thank cordially all who have given permission to include their poems, and to PREFACE ix apologise for the unavoidable prominence given to these fezv words of preface, the mere string which has served to tie up our sweet posy. Since these words were written^ English literature is the poorer by the loss of a Poet to whom a large space had by right been assigned in the ensuing selec- tion. DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI will write no more, and although his name and fame die not, he is un- happily no longer to be classed among living Poets. It is with a sad satisfaction that the Editors mention the graceful courtesy with which he not merely acceded to their request to include several of his poems, but interested himself in their work. CONTENTS SIR HENRY TAYLOR FROM "PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE FROM "EDWIN THE FAIR" i . > > a FROM " THE VIRGIN WIDOW" i /// PAGE I 2 3 5 5 6 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN THE PILLAR OF THE CLOUD . . THE ELEMENTS . ' . . v , . \ THE MONTH OF MARY . . . VALENTINE TO A LITTLE GIRL FROM "THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS" 7 8 10 12 13 WILLIAM BARNES EVENEN IN THE VILLAGE HAY-CARREN . 15 16 xii CONTENTS PAGE THE CLOTE 18 NAIGHBOUR PLAYMEATES 19 THE LOVE CHILD. . . . . . .22 THE HUMSTRUM 23 RICHARD HENGIST HORNE FROM "ORION" i 26 ,, // 28 RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH THE MONK AND BIRD 30 THOMAS GORDON HAKE THE SNAKE-CHARMER 39 ALFRED TENNYSON \ LOVE AND DEATH 45 THE SISTERS 46 OF OLD SAT FREEDOM ON THE HEIGHTS . 47 LOVE AND DUTY 49 TITHONUS . . 53 FROM " THE PRINCESS" 56 NORTHERN FARMER OLD STYLE ... 57 CONTENTS xiii PAGE THE DAISY . v . ;. .... 62 WILL 67 IN THE GARDEN AT SWAINSTON ... 68 THE SAILOR BOY . ' .' '." * /' ^ .. " . 69 "/AT MEMORIAM" . . ". . . . 70 "MAUD" 73 RIZPAH , ... . 76 HOUGHTON THE BROOKSIDE ROBERT BROWNING HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD ... 86 /^0M "^4 BLOT IN THE * SCUTCHEON" . . 87 FROM "PARACELSUS" . ' .. . . , . . 88 WARING . '.. . ^ ' ^ ; >>-X .5*^:^' " . 89 CAMPAGNA . .....,,.. 99 TOGETHER . f; ,,. . 102 INSTANS TYRANNUS . . . ( . . . . 107 APPARENT FAILURE . . . . . . no r^-E BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH ..- V. . . '. 112 RABBI BEN EZRA . . . , ..... 117 xiv CONTENTS PAGE AUBREY DE VERE SONG 128 FROM " ODE ON THE ASCENT OF THE ALPS " 129 PHILIP JAMES BAILEY FROM ." FESTUS" . . . . . . .133 MATTHEW ARNOLD TO MARGUERITE 135 THE SCHOLAR GIPSY . . , . . .136 THE SICK KING IN BOKHARA . . . .147 LINES WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS 157 THE WORLD'S TRIUMPHS . . . . .159 A MODERN SAPPHO 160 COVENTRY P ATM ORE FROM " THE ANGEL IN THE HOUSE " / LOVE'S PERVERSITY 163 > H THE REVELATION * 165 THE TOYS v >.' , ;. ,\; . ..^ . . . .166 DEPARTURE . i '"". 167 THE AZALEA . k t . . . .169 CONTENTS WILLIAM CORY MIMNERMUS IN CHURCH . . i7i WILLIAM ALEXANDER A VISION OF OXFORD . 173 THOMAS WOOLNER FROM "PYGMALION" CYTHEREA . 178 CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI AMOR MUNDI . . v .. .,.;,. u - UP-HILL . . . ',.-,-<. ',.v* -. .. RAPTURES NOBLE SISTERS DREAM LAND AFTER DEATH 181 183 184 185 185 1 88 189 191 LYTTON THE HEART AND NATURE 192 xvi CONTENTS LEWIS MORRIS ON A FLIGHT OF LADY-BIRDS . . . .195 THE HOME ALTAR 199 FROM "GWEN" . . 200 FROM " THE ODE OF LIFE " THE ODE OF AGE . 204 RICHARD WATSON DIXON SONG 210 FROM " CHRIS rs COMPANY" THE HOLY MOTHER AT THE CROSS 211 WILLIAM MORRIS THE CHAPEL IN LYONESS 214 THE HAYSTACK IN THE FLOODS . . .219 FROM " THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON" i 225 ,, ,, // 228 FROM "THE EARTHLY PARADISE" . . .230 FROM "LOVE IS ENOUGH" THE MUSIC . . 232 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE FROM "ATALANTA IN CALYDON." CHORUS . 234 IN MEMORY OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR . 236 FROM " THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE" . . 239 CONTENTS xvn PAGE THE SUNDEW 241 FROM PREL UDE TO " SONGS BEFORE SUNRISE " 243 FROM "MATER TRIUMPHALIS" . 247 FROM "HERTHA" . + , . , f .,. ,.... ( . 249 A FORSAKEN GARDEN . . . .\, . 252 AUSTIN DOB SON "GOOD NIGHT, BABETTE!" THE CHILD-MUSICIAN . '/>. DIZAIN 257 260 261 JOHN ALDINGTON SYMONDS VERSOHNUNG . . .',''.' ON THE SACRO MONTE . 262 . 263 AUGUSTA WEBSTER IF . . TO ONE OF MANY . 264 266 HARRIET E. HAMILTON KING FROM * ' THE DISCIPLES " V . FROM "AGESILAO MILANO" 269 271 xviii CONTENTS PAGE ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN FROM " WHITE ROSE AND RED " DROWSIETOWN 274 WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE FROM " THE PARADISE OF BIRDS " CHORUS OF HUMAN SOULS 28l CHORUS OF BIRDS 284 FREDERIC W. H. MYERS TENERIFFE *. -, -. 287 SIMMENTHAL . . .... . . .290 ROBERT BRIDGES ELEGY . . . 292 MY SONG . 295 ANDREW LANG BALLADE OF SLEEP 297 BALLADE OF HIS CHOICE OF A SEPULCHRE 299 NATURAL THEOLOGY 300 EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE L YING IN THE GRASS ,301 CONTENTS xix PAGE THE RETURN OF THE SWALLOWS . . . 304 EUTHANASIA . . . . . . - .307 THE GOLDEN ISLES 307 PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON FROM " GARDEN SECRETS " THE ROSE AND THE WIND 312 THEOPHILE MARZIALS SONG . .315 A PASTORAL . .316 SONG .317 A. MARY F. ROBINSON TO A DRAGON-FLY . . . . . : . 318 LE ROI EST MORT . . .319 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 321 LIVING ENGLISH POETS SIR HENRY TAYLOR Born 1800 FROM "PHILIP VAN ARTE VELDE " SONG Quoth tongue of neither maid nor wife To heart of neither wife nor maid, Lead we not here a jolly life Betwixt the shine and shade ? Quoth heart of neither maid nor wife To tongue of neither wife nor maid, Thou wagg'st, but I am worn with strife, And feel like flowers that fade, LIVING ENGLISH POETS FROM "EDWIN THE FAIR" i SONG In the hall of Leodwulf was made good cheer ; On the board was a bowl, by the wall was a spear ; The spear and the bowl looked each at each, And the thoughts that rose in them wrought to speech. BOWL Thou in the corner so grim and spare, Who sent thee hither ? What dost thou there ? SPEAR I came of the ash-tree Ygdrasil, And do her bidding for woe or weal. BOWL For whom the weal, for whom the woe ? SPEAR Say who thou art, and thou shalt know. EOWL Broach the cask and fill me full I am the bold Logbrogdad's skull. SPEAR Thou liest, or else thou leak'st ; for once I pierced the bold Logbrogdad's sconce. SIX HENRY TAYLOR BOWL I neither lie nor leak. Behold ! The hole is here and pieced with gold. SPEAR I pray thee grace. 'Twas through that hole Passed out the bold Logbrogdad's soul. BOWL Then answer make that all may know, For whom the weal, for whom the woe ? SPEAR The weal is their's who do no wrong, And crown with gifts the sons of song. The woe is theirs who fain would flood Their father's land with brethren's blood. Their deeds the eagle and the kite Shall judge, and God shall guard the right. By Wellesbourne and Charlcote ford, At break of day, I saw a sword. Wessex warriors, rank by rank, Rose on Avon's hither bank ; Mercia's men in fair array Looked at them from Marraway ; B 2 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Close and closer ranged they soon, And the battle joined at noon. By Wellesbourne and Charlcote Lea I heard a sound as of the sea : Thirty thousand rushing men, Twenty thousand met by ten ; Rang the shield and brake the shaft, Tosty yelled, Harcather laughed ; Thorough Avon's waters red Chased by ten the twenty fled. By Charlcote ford and Wellesbourne I saw the moon's pale face forlorn. Kiver flowed and rushes sighed, Wounded warriors groaned and died ; Ella took his early rest, The raven stood on his white breast ; Hoarsely in the dead man's ear Raven whispered, " Friend, good cheer ! Ere the winter pinch the crow He that slew thee shall lie low." SIR HENRY TAYLOR FROM "THE VIRGIN WIDOW" I SONG Love slept upon the lone hill-side And dream'd of pleasant days When he with flowers should deck his bride And she deck him with bays. He rose like daybreak, flush'd with joy, And went his way to court ; But there they took him for a toy And turn'd him into sport. He hung his head, his dreams had fled, Not here, not here, he cried, . But I shall find her in my bed Upon the lone hill-side. The last year's leaf, its time is brief Upon the beechen spray ; The green bud springs, the young bird sings Old leaf, make room for May : Begone, fly away ; Make room for May. LIVING ENGLISH POETS Oh green bud, smile on me awhile, Oh young bird, let me stay : What joy have we, old leaf, in thee ? Make room, make room for May : Begone, fly away, Make room for May. The morning broke and Spring was there, And lusty Summer near her birth ; The birds awoke and waked the air, The flowers awoke and waked the earth. Up ! quoth he, what joy for me On dewy plain, in budding brake ! A sweet bird sings on every tree, And flowers are sweeter for my sake. Lightly o'er the plain he stept, Lightly brush'd he through the wood, And snared a little bird that slept And had not waken'd when she should. Lightly through the wood he brush'd, Lightly stept he o'er the plain, And yet a little flower was crush'd That never raised its head again. JOHN HENRY NEWMAN Born 1801 THE PILLAR OF THE CLOUD Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on ! The night is dark, and I am far from home Lead Thou me on ! Keep Thou my feet ; I do not ask to see The distant scene, one step enough for me. I was not ever thus, nor pray'd that Thou Shouldst lead me on. I loved to choose and see my path, but now Lead Thou me on ! I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, Pride ruled my will: remember not past years. So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still Will lead me on, LIVING ENGLISH POETS O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till The night is gone ; And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile. THE ELEMENTS A TRAGIC CHORUS Man is permitted much To scan and learn In Nature's frame ; Till he well-nigh can tame Brute mischiefs and can touch Invisible things, and turn All warring ills to purposes of good. Thus, as a god below, He can control, And harmonize, what seems amiss to flow As sever'd from the whole And dimly understood. But o'er the elements One Hand alone, One Hand has sway. What influence day by day JOHN HENRY NEWMAN In straiter belt prevents The impious Ocean, thrown Alternate o'er the ever-sounding shore ? Or who has eye to trace How the Plague came ? Forerun the doublings of the Tempest's race ? Or the Air's weight and flame On a set scale explore ? Thus God has will'd That man, when fully skill'd, Still gropes in twilight dim ; Encompass'd all his hours By fearfullest powers Inflexible to him. That so he may discern His feebleness. And e'en for earth's success To Him in wisdom turn, Who holds for us the keys of either home, Earth and the world to come. io LIVING ENGLISH POETS THE MONTH OF MARY SONG Green are the leaves, and sweet the flowers, And rich the hues of May ; We see them in the gardens round, And market-paniers gay : And e'en among our streets, and lanes, And alleys, we descry, By fitful gleams, the fair sunshine, The blue transparent sky. CHORUS O Mother maid, be thou our aid, Now in the opening year ; Lest sights of earth to sin give birth, And bring the tempter near. Green is the grass, but wait awhile, 'Twill grow, and then will wither ; The flowrets, brightly, as they smile, Shall perish altogether : The merry sun, you sure would say, It ne'er could set in gloom ; But earth's best joys have all an end, And sin, a heavy doom. JOHN HENR Y NE WMAN 1 1 CHORUS But Mother maid, thou dost not fade ; With stars above thy brow, And the pale moon beneath thy feet, For ever throned art thou. The green green grass, the glittering grove, The heaven's majestic dome, They image forth a tenderer bower, A more refulgent home ; They tell us of that Paradise Of everlasting rest, And that high Tree, all flowers and fruit, The sweetest, yet the best. CHORUS O Mary, pure and beautiful, Thou art the Queen of May ; Our garlands wear about thy hair, And they will ne'er decay. 12 LIVING ENGLISH POETS VALENTINE TO A LITTLE GIRL Little maiden, dost thou pine For a faithful Valentine ? Art thou scanning timidly Every face that meets thine eye ? Art thou fancying there may be Fairer face than thou dost see ? Little maiden, scholar mine, Wouldst thou have a Valentine ? Go and ask, my little child, Ask the Mother undefiled : Ask, for she will draw thee near, And will whisper in thine ear : " Valentine ! the name is good ; For it comes of lineage high, And a famous family : And it tells of gentle blood, Noble blood, and nobler still, For its owner freely pour'd Every drop there was to spill In the quarrel of his Lord. Valentine ! I know the name, Many martyrs bear the same ; JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 13 And they stand in glittering ring Round their warrior God and King, Who before and for them bled, With their robes of ruby red, And their swords of cherub flame." Yes ! there is a plenty there, Knights without reproach or fear, Such St. Denys, such St. George, Martin, Maurice, Theodore, And a hundred thousand more ; Guerdon gain'd and warfare o'er, By that sea without a surge, And beneath the eternal sky, And the beatific Sun, In Jerusalem above, Valentine is every one ; Choose from out that company Whom to serve and whom to love. FROM "THE DREAM OF GERONTJUS" Take me away, and in the lowest deep There let me be, And there in hope the lone night-watches keep, Told out for me. 14 LIVING ENGLISH POETS There, motionless and happy in my pain, Lone, not forlorn, There will I sing my sad perpetual strain, Until the morn. There will I sing, and soothe my stricken breast, Which ne'er can cease To throb, and pine, and languish, till possest Of its Sole Peace. There will I sing my absent Lord and Love : Take me away, That sooner I may rise, and go above, And see Him in the truth of everlasting day. WILLIAM BARNES Born 1801 EVENEN IN THE VILLAGE Now the light o' the west is a-turn'd to gloom, An' the men be at hwome vrom ground ; An' the bells be a-zenden all down the Coombe From tower, their mwoansome sound. An' the wind is still, An' the house-dogs do bark, An' the rooks be a-vled to the elems high an' dark, An' the water do roar at mill. An' the flickeren light drough the window-peane Vrom the candle's dull fleame do shoot, An' young Jemmy the smith is a-gone down leane, A-playen his shrill-vaKced flute. An' the miller's man Do zit down at his ease On the seat that is under the cluster o' trees, Wi' his pipe an' his cider can. 16 LIVING ENGLISH POETS HAY-CARREN Tis merry ov a zummer's day, When vo'k be out a-haulen hay Where boughs, a-spread upon the ground, Do meake the staddle big an' round ; An' grass do stand in pook, or lie In long-back'd weales or parsels, dry. There I do vind it stir my heart To hear the frothen hosses snort, A-haulen on, wi' sleek heair'd hides, The red-wheel'd waggon's deep-blue zides. Aye ; let me have woone cup o' drink, An' hear the linky harness clink, An' then my blood do run so warm, An' put sich strangth 'ithin my earm, That I do long to toss a pick, A-pitchen or a-meaken rick. The bwoy is at the hosse's head, An' up upon the waggon bed The Iwoaders, strong o' earm do stan', At head, an' back at tail, a man, Wi' skill to build the Iwoad upright An' bind the vwolded corners tight ; An' at each zide 6'm, sprack an' strong, A pitcher wi' his long-stem'd prong, WILLIAM BARNES 17 Avore the best two women now A-call'd to reaky after plough. When I do pitchy, 'tis my pride Vor Jenny Hine to reake my zide, An' zee her fling her reake, an' reach So vur, an' teake in sich a streech ; An' I don't shatter hay, an' meake Mwore work than needs vor Jenny's reake. I'd sooner zee the weales' high rows Lik' hedges up above my nose, Than have light work myzelf, an' vind Poor Jeane a-beat an' left behind ; Vor she would sooner drop down dead, Than let the pitchers get a-head. 'Tis merry at the rick to zee How picks do wag, an' hay do vlee. While woone's unlwoaden, woone do teake The pitches in ; an' zome do meake The lofty rick upright an' roun', An' tread en hard, an' reake en down, An' tip en, when the zun do zet, To shoot a sudden vail o' wet. An' zoo 'tis merry any day When vo'k be out a-carren hay. i8 LIVING ENGLISH POETS THE CLOTE WATER-LILY O zummer clote ! when the brook's a-gliden So slow an' smooth down his zedgy bed, Upon thy broad leaves so seafe a-riden The water's top wi' thy yollow head, By alder's heads, O, An' bulrush beds, O, Thou then dost float, goolden zummer clote ! The grey-bough' d withy's a-leanen lowly Above the water thy leaves do hide ; The benden bulrush, a-swayen slowly, Do skirt in zummer thy river's zide ; An' perch in shoals, O, Do vill the holes, O, Where thou dost float, goolden zummer clote ! Oh ! when thy brook-drinken flow'r 's a-blowen, The burnen zummer's a-zetten in ; The time o' greenness, the time o' mowen, When in the hay-vield, wi' zunburnt skin, The vo'k do drink, O, Upon the brink, O, Where thou dost float, goolden zummer clote ! WILLIAM BARNES 19 Wi' earms a-spreaden, an' cheaks a-blowen, How proud wer I when I vu'st could zwim Athirt the pleace where thou bist a-growen, Wi' thy long more vrom the bottom dim ; While cows, knee-high, O, In brook, wer nigh, O, Where thou dost float, goolden zummer clote ! Ov all the brooks drough the meads a-winden, Ov all the meads by a river's brim, There's nwone so feair o' my own heart's vinden, As where the maidens do zee thee swim, An' stan' to teake, O, Wi' long-stemm'd reake, O, Thy flow'r afloat, goolden zummer clote ! NAIGHBOUR PLAYMEATES O jay betide the dear wold mill, My nai'ghbour playmeates' happy hwome, Wi' rollen wheel, an' leapen foam, Below the overhangen hill, Where, wide an' slow, The stream did flow, c 2 20 LIVING ENGLISH POETS An' flags did grow, an' lightly vlee Below the grey-leav'd withy tree, While clack, clack, clack, vrom hour to hour, Wi' whirlen stwone, an' streamen flour, Did goo the mill by cloty Stour. An' there in geames by evenen skies, When Meary zot her down to rest, The broach upon her panken breast, Did quickly vail an' lightly rise, While swans did zwim In steately trim. An' swifts did skim the water, bright Wi' whirlen froth, in western light ; An' clack, clack, clack, that happy hour, Wi' whirlen stwone, an' streamen flour, Did goo the mill by cloty Stour. Now mortery jeints, in streaks o' white, Along the gearden wall do show In May, an' cherry boughs do blow, Wi' bloomen tutties, snowy white, Where rollen round, Wi' rumblen sound, The wheel woonce drown'd the vaice so dear To me. I fain would goo to hear WILLIAM BARNES 21 The clack, clack, clack, vor woone short hour, Wi' whirlen stwone, an' streamen flour, Bezide the mill on cloty Stour. But should I vind a-heaven now Her breast wi' a'fr o' thik dear pleace ? Or zee dark locks by such a brow, Or het o' play on such a feace ? No ! She's now staid, An' where she play'd, There's noo such mai'd that now ha' took The pleace that she ha' long vorsook, Though clack, clack, clack, vrom hour to hour, Wi' whirlen stwone an' streamen flour, Do goo the mill by cloty Stour. An' still the pulley rwope do heist The wheat vrom red-wheeled waggon beds, An' ho'ses there wi' Iwoads of grist, Do stand an' toss their heavy heads ; But on the vloor, Or at the door, Do show noo mwore the kindly feace Her father show'd about the pleace, As clack, clack, clack, vrom hour to hour, Wi' whirlen stwone, an' streamen flour, Did goo his mill by cloty Stour. 22 LIVING ENGLISH POETS THE LOVE CHILD Where the bridge out at Woodley did stride, Wi' his wide arches' cool sheaded bow, Up above the clear brook that did slide By the popples, befoam'd white as snow : As the gilcups did quiver among The white deaisies, a-spread in a sheet. There a quick-trippen maid come along, Aye, a girl wi' her light-steppen veet. An' she cried " I do pray, is the road Out to Lincham on here, by the mead ? " An' " oh ! ees," I meade answer, an' show'd Her the way it would turn an' would lead " Goo along by the beech in the nook, Where the childern do play in the cool, To the steppen stwones over the brook, Aye, the grey blocks o' rock at the pool." "Then you don't seem a-born an' a-bred," I spoke up, " at a place here about ; " An' she answer'd wi' cheaks up so red As a pi'ny but leate a-come out, No, I liv'd wi' my uncle that died Back in Eapril, an' now I'm a-come Here to Ham, to my mother, to bide, Aye, to her house to vind a new hwome." WILLIAM BARNES 23 I'm asheamed that I wanted to know Any mwore of her childhood or life, But then, why should so feair a child grow Where noo father did bide wi' his wife ; Then wi' blushes of zunrisen morn, She replied " that it midden be known, Oh ! they zent me away to be born, Aye, they hid me when zome would be shown." Oh ! it meade me a'most teary-ey'd, An' I vound I a'most could ha' groan' d What ! so winnen, an 7 still cast a-zide What ! so lovely, an' not to be own'd ; Oh ! a God-gift a-treated wi' scorn, Oh ! a child that a squier should own ; An' to zend her away to be born ! Aye, to hide her where others be shown ! THE HUM STRUM Why woonce, at Chris'mas-tide, avore The wold year wer a-reckon'd out, The humstrums here did come about, A-sounden up at ev'ry door. 24 LIVING ENGLISH POETS But now a bow do never screape A humstrum, any where all round, An' zome can't tell a humstrum's sheape, An' never heard his jinglen sound. As ing-an-ing did ring the string, As ang-an-ang the wires did clang. The strings a-tighten'd lik' to crack Athirt the canister's tin zide, Did reach, a glitt'ren, zide by zide, Above the humstrum's hollow back. An' there the bwoy, wi' bended stick, A-strung wi' heair, to meake a bow, Did dreve his elbow, light'nen quick, Athirt the strings from high to low. As ing-an-ing did ring the string, As ang-an-ang the wires did clang. The mother there did stan' an' hush Her child, to hear the jinglen sound, The merry ma'fd, a-scrubben round Her white-steav'd pail, did stop her brush, The mis'ess there, vor wold time's seake, Had gifts to gi'e, and smiles to show, An' measter, too, did stan' an sheake His two broad zides, a-chucklen low, While ing-an-ing did ring the string, While ang-an-ang the wires did clang. WILLIAM BARNES 25 The players' pockets wer a-strout, Wi' wold brown pence, a-rottlen in, Their zwangen bags did soon begin, Wi' brocks an' scraps, to plim well out. The childern all did run an' poke Their heads vrom hatch or door, an' shout A-runnen back to wolder vo'k. Why, here ! the humstrums be about ! As ing-an-ing did ring the string, As ang-an-ang the wires did clang. RICHARD HENGIST HORNE Born 1802 FROM "ORION" Ye rocky heights of Chios, where the snow, Lit by the far-off and receding moon, Now feels the soft dawn's purpling twilight creep Over your ridges, while the mystic dews Swarm down, and wait to be instinct with gold And solar fire ! ye mountains waving brown With thick-winged woods, and blotted with deep caves In secret places ; and ye paths that stray E'en as ye list ; what odours and what sighs Tend your sweet silence through the star-showered night, Like memories breathing of the Goddess forms That left your haunts, yet with the day return ! And still more distant through the grey sky floats The faint blue fragment of the dead moon's shell ; RICHARD HENGIST HORNE 27 Not dead indeed, but vacant, since 'tis now Left by its bright Divinity. The snows On steepest heights grave tints of dawn receive, And mountains from the misty woodland rise More clear of outline, while thick vapours curl From off the valley streams, and spread away, Till one by one the brooks and pools unveil Their cold blue mirrors. From the great repose What echoes now float on the listening air Now die away and now again ascend, Soft ringing from the valleys, caves, and groves, Beyond the reddening heights ? 'Tis Artemis come With all her buskined Nymphs and sylvan rout, To scare the silence and the sacred shades, And with dim music break their rapturous trance ! But soon the music swells, and as the gleam Of sunrise tips the summits tremblingly, And the dense forests on their sides exchange Shadows opaque for warm transparent tones, Though still of depth and grandeur, nearer grows The revelry ; and echoes multiply Behind the rocks and uplands, with the din Of reed-pipe, timbrel, and clear silver horns, With cry of Wood-nymphs, Fauns, and chasing hounds. 28 LIVING ENGLISH POETS * II Within the isle, far from the walks of men, Where jocund chase was never heard, nor hoof Of Satyr broke the moss, nor any bird Sang, save at times the nightingale but only In his prolonged and swelling tones, nor e'er With wild joy and hoarse laughing melody, Closing the ecstasy, as is his wont, A forest, separate and far withdrawn From all the rest, there grew. Old as the earth, Of cedar was it, lofty in its glooms When the sun hung o'erhead, and, in its darkness, Like Night when giving birth to Time's first pulse. Silence had ever dwelt there ; but of late Came faint sounds, with a cadence droning low, From the far depths, as of a cataract Whose echoes midst incumbent foliage died From one high mountain gushed a flowing stream, Which through the forest passed, and found a fall Within, none knew where, then rolled tow'rds the sea. There, underneath the boughs, mark where the gleam Of sunrise through the roofing's chasm is thrown Upon a grassy plot below, whereon The shadow of a stag stoops to the stream RICHARD HENGIST HORNE 29 Swift rolling tow'rds the cataract, and drinks deeply. Throughout the day unceasingly it drinks, While ever and anon the nightingale, Not waiting for the evening, swells his hymn His one sustained and heaven-aspiring tone And when the sun hath vanished utterly, Arm over arm the cedars spread their shade, With arching wrist and long extended hands, And graveward fingers lengthening in the moon, Above that shadowy stag whose antlers still Hang o'er the stream RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH Born 1807 THE MONK AND BIRD As he who finds one flower sharp thorns among, Plucks it, and highly prizes, though before Careless regard on thousands he has flung, As fair as this or more ; Not otherwise perhaps this argument Won from me, where I found it, such regard, That I esteemed no labour thereon spent As wearisome or hard. In huge and antique volume did it lie, That by two solemn clasps was duly bound, As neither to be opened nor laid by But with due thought profound. There fixed thought to questions did I lend, Which hover on the bounds of mortal ken, And have perplexed, and will unto the end Perplex the brains of men ; RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH 31 Of what is time, and what eternity, Of all that seems and is not forms of things Till my tired spirit followed painfully On flagging weary wings ; So that I welcomed this one resting-place, Pleased as a bird, that, when its forces fail, Lights panting in the ocean's middle space Upon a sunny sail. And now the grace of fiction, which has power To render things impossible believed, And win them with the credence of an hour To be for truths received That grace must help me, as it only can, Winning such transient credence, while I tell What to a cloistered solitary man In distant times befell. Him little might our earthly grandeur feed, Who to the uttermost was vowed to be A follower of his Master's barest need In holy poverty. Nor might he know the gentle mutual strife Of home affections, which can more or less Temper with sweet the bitter of our life, And lighten its distress. 32 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Yet we should err to deem that he was left To bear alone our being's lonely weight, Or that his soul was vacant and bereft Of pomp and inward state : Morn, when before the sun his orb unshrouds, Swift as a beacon torch the light has sped, Kindling the dusky summits of the clouds Each to a fiery red The slanted columns of the noon-day light, Let down into the bosom of the hills, Or sunset, that with golden vapour bright The purple mountains fills These made him say, If God has so arrayed A fading world that quickly passes by, Such rich provision of delight has made For every human eye, What shall the eyes that wait for him survey, Where his own presence gloriously appears In worlds that were not founded for a day, But for eternal years ? And if at seasons this world's undelight Oppressed him, or the hollow at its heart, One glance at those enduring mansions bright Made gloomier thoughts depart ; RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH 33 Till many times the sweetness of the thought Of an eternal country where it lies Removed from care and mortal anguish, brought Sweet tears into his eyes. Thus, not unsolaced, he longwhile abode, Filling all dreary melancholy time, And empty spaces of the heart with God, And with this hope sublime : Even thus he lived, with little joy or pain Drawn through the channels by which men re- ceive Most men receive the things which for the main Make them rejoice or grieve. But for delight, on spiritual gladness fed, And obvious to temptations of like kind ; One such, from out his very gladness bred, It was his lot to find. When first it came, he lightly put it by, But it returned again to him ere long, And ever having got some new ally, And every time more strong A little worm that gnawed the life away Of a tall plant, the canker of its root, Or like as when from some small speck decay Spreads o'er a beauteous fruit. D * 34 LIVING ENGLISH POETS For still the doubt came back, Can God provide For the large heart of man what shall not pall, Nor through eternal ages' endless tide On tired spirits fall ? Here but one look tow'rd heaven will oft repress The crushing weight of undelightful care ; But what were there beyond, if weariness Should ever enter there ? Yet do not sweetest things here soonest cloy ? Satiety the life of joy would kill, If sweet with bitter, pleasure with annoy Were not attempered still. This mood endured, till every act of love, Vigils of praise and prayer, and midnight choir, All shadows of the service done above, And which, while his desire, And while his hope was heavenward, he had loved, As helps to disengage him from the chain That fastens unto earth all these now proved Most burdensome and vain. What must have been the issue of that mood It were a thing to fear but that one day, Upon the limits of an ancient wood, His thoughts him led astray. RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH 35 Darkling he went, nor once applied his ear, (On a loud sea of agitations thrown,) Nature's low tones and harmonies to hear, Heard by the calm alone. The merry chirrup of the grasshopper, Sporting among the roots of withered grass, The dry leaf rustling to the wind's light stir, Did each unnoted pass: He, walking in a trance of selfish care, Not once observed the beauty shed around, The blue above, the music in the air, The flowers upon the ground : Till from the centre of that forest dim Came to him such sweet singing of a bird, As, sweet in very truth, then seemed to him The sweetest ever heard. That lodestar drew him onward inward still, Deeper than where the village children stray, Deeper than where the woodman's glittering bill Lops the large boughs away Into a central space of glimmering shade, Where hardly might the straggling sunbeams pass, Which a faint lattice-work of light had made Upon the long lank grass. D 2 36 LIVING ENGLISH POETS He did not sit, but stood and listened there, And to him listening the time seemed not long, While that sweet bird above him filled the air With its melodious song. He heard not, saw not, felt not aught beside, Through the wide worlds of pleasure and of pain, Save the full flowing and the ample tide Of that celestial strain. As though a bird of Paradise should light A moment on a twig of this bleak earth, And singing songs of Paradise invite All hearts to holy mirth, And then take wing to Paradise again, Leaving all listening spirits raised above The toil of earth, the trouble, and the pain, And melted all in love : Such hidden might, such power was in the sound ; But when it ceased sweet music to unlock, The spell that held him sense and spirit-bound Dissolved with a slight shock. All things around were as they were before- The trees, and the blue sky, and sunshine bright, Painting the pale and leafstrewn forest-floor With patches of faint light RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH 37 But as when music doth no longer thrill, Light shudderings yet along the chords will run, Or the heart vibrates tremulously still, After its prayer be done, So his heart fluttered all the way he went, Listening each moment for the vesper bell ; For a long hour he deemed he must have spent In that untrodden dell. And once it seemed that something new or strange Had past upon the flowers, the trees, the ground ; Some slight but unintelligible change On everything around : Such change, where all things undisturbed remain, As only to the eye of him appears, Who absent long, at length returns again The silent work of years. > And ever grew upon him more and more Fresh marvel for, unrecognized of all, He stood a stranger at the convent door : New faces filled the hall. Yet was it long ere he received the whole Of that strange wonder how, while he had stood Lost in deep gladness of his inmost soul, Far hidden in that wood, 38 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Three generations had gone down unseen Under the thin partition that is spread The thin partition of thin earth between The living and the dead. Nor did he many days to earth belong, For like a pent-up stream, released again, The years arrested by the strength of song Came down on him amain ; Sudden as a dissolving thaw in spring ; Gentle as when upon the first warm day, Which sunny April in its train may bring, The snow melts all away. They placed him in his former cell, and there Watched him departing ; what few words he said Were of calm peace and gladness, with one care Mingled one only dread Lest an eternity should not suffice To take the measure and the breadth and height Of what there is reserved in Paradise Its ever-new delight. THOMAS GORDON HAKE Born 1809 THE SNAKE-CHARMER The forest rears on lifted arms A world of leaves, whence verdurous light Shakes through the shady depths and warms Proud tree and stealthy parasite, There where those cruel coils enclasp The trunks they strangle in their grasp. An old man creeps from out the woods, Breaking the vine's entangling spell ; He thrids the jungle's solitudes, O'er bamboos rotting where they fell ; Slow down the tiger's path he wends Where at the pool the jungle ends. No moss-greened alley tells the trace Of his lone step, no sound is stirred, Even when his tawny hands displace The boughs, that backward sweep unheard. 40 LIVING ENGLISH POETS His way as noiseless as the trail Of the swift snake and pilgrim snail. The old snake-charmer, once he played Soft music for the serpent's ear, But now his cunning hand is stayed ; He knows the hour of death is near. And all that live in brake and bough, All know the brand is on his brow. Yet where his soul is he must go : He crawls along from tree to tree. The old snake-charmer, doth he know If snake or beast of prey he be ? Bewildered at the pool he lies And sees as through a serpent's eyes. Weeds wove with white-flowered lily crops Drink of the pool, and serpents hie To the thin brink as noonday drops, And in the froth-daubed rushes lie. There rests he now with fastened breath 'Neath a kind sun to bask in death. The pool is bright with glossy dyes And cast-up bubbles of decay : A green death-leaven overlies Its mottled scum, where shadows play THOMAS GORDON HAKE 41 As the snake's hollow coil, fresh shed, Rolls in the wind across its bed. No more the wily note is heard From his full flute the riving air That tames the snake, decoys the bird, Worries the she-wolf from her lair. Fain would he bid its parting breath Drown in his ears the voice of death. Still doth his soul's vague longing skim The pool beloved : he hears the hiss That siffles at the sedgy rim, Recalling days of former bliss, And the death-drops, that fall in showers, Seem honied dews from shady flowers. There is a rustle of the breeze And twitter of the singing bird ; He snatches at the melodies And his faint lips again are stirred : The olden sounds are in his ears ; But still the snake its crest uprears. His eyes are swimming in the mist That films the earth like serpent's breath : And now, as if a serpent hissed, The husky whisperings of Death 42 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Fill ear and brain he looks around Serpents seem matted o'er the ground Soon visions of past joys bewitch His crafty soul ; his hands would set Death's snare, while now his fingers twitch The tasselled reed as 'twere his net. But his thin lips no longer fill The woods with song ; his flute is still. Those lips still quaver to the flute, But fast the life-tide ebbs away ; Those lips now quaver and are mute, But nature throbs in breathless play : Birds are in open song, the snakes Are watching in the silent brakes. In sudden fear of snares unseen The birds like crimson sunset swarm, All gold and purple, red and green, And seek each other for the charm. Lizards dart up the feathery trees Like shadows of a rainbow breeze. The wildered birds again have rushed Into the charm, it is the hour When the shrill forest-note is hushed, And they obey the serpent's power, THOMAS GORDON HAKE 43 Drawn to its gaze with troubled whirr, As by the thread of falconer. As 'twere to feed, on slanting wings They drop within the serpent's glare : Eyes flashing fire in burning rings Which spread into the dazzled air ; They flutter in the glittering coils ; The charmer dreads the serpent's toils. While Music swims away in death Man's spell is passing to his slaves : The snake feeds on the charmer's breath, The vulture screams, the parrot raves, The lone hyena laughs and howls, The tiger from the jungle growls. Then mounts the eagle flame-flecked folds Belt its proud plumes ; a feather falls : He hears the death-cry, he beholds The king-bird in the serpent's thralls, He looks with terror on the feud, And the sun shines through dripping blood. The deadly spell a moment gone Birds, from a distant Paradise, Strike the winged signal and have flown, Trailing rich hues through azure skies : 44 LIVING ENGLISH POETS The serpent falls ; like demon wings The far-out branching cedar swings. The wood swims round ; the pool and skies Have met ; the death-drops down that cheek Fall faster ; for the serpent's eyes Grow human, and the charmer's seek. A gaze like man's directs the dart Which now is buried at his heart. The monarch of the world is cold : The charm he bore has passed away : The serpent gathers up its fold To wind about its human prey. The red mouth darts a dizzy sting, And clenches the eternal ring. ALFRED TENNYSON Born 1809 LOVE AND DEATH What time the mighty moon was gathering light Love paced the thymy plots of Paradise, And all about him roll'd his lustrous eyes ; When, turning round a cassia, full in view, Death, walking all alone beneath a yew, And talking to himself, first met his sight : 'You must begone,' said Death, 'these walks are mine.' Love wept and spread his sheeny vans for flight ; Yet ere he parted said, ' This hour is thine : Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree Stands in the sun and shadows all beneath, So in the light of great eternity Life eminent creates the shade of death ; The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall, But I shall reign for ever over all.* 46 LIVING ENGLISH POETS THE SISTERS We were two daughters of one race : She was the fairest in the face : The wind is blowing in turret and tree. They were together, and she fell ; Therefore revenge became me well. O the Earl was fair to see ! She died : she went to burning flame : She mix'd her ancient blood with shame. The wind is howling in turret and tree. Whole weeks and months, and early and late, To win his love I lay in wait : O the Earl was fair to see ! I made a feast ; I bade him come ; I won his love, I brought him home. The wind is roaring in turret and tree. And after supper, on a bed, Upon my lap he laid his head : O the Earl was fair to see I I kiss'd his eyelids into rest : His ruddy cheek upon my breast. The wind is raging in turret and tree. ALFRED TENNYSON 47 I hated him with the hate of hell, But I loved his beauty passing well. O the Earl was fair to see ! I rose up in the silent night : I made my dagger sharp and bright. The wind is raving in turret and tree. As half-asleep his breath he drew, Three times I stabb'd him thro' and thro'. O the Earl was fair to see ! I curl'd and comb'd his comely head, He look'd so grand when he was dead. The wind is blowing in turret and tree. I wrapt his body in the sheet, And laid him at his mother's feet. O the Earl was fair to see ! OF OLD SAT FREEDOM ON THE HEIGHTS Of old sat Freedom on the heights, The thunders breaking at her feet : Above her shook the starry lights : She heard the torrents meet. 48 LIVING ENGLISH POETS There in her place she did rejoice, Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind, But fragments of her mighty voice Came rolling on the wind. Then stept she down thro* town and field To mingle with the human race, And part by part to men reveal'd The fullness of her face Grave mother of majestic works, From her isle-altar gazing down, Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks, And, King-like, wears the crown : Her open eyes desire the truth. The wisdom of a thousand years Is in them. May perpetual youth Keep dry their light from tears ; That her fair form may stand and shine, Make bright our days and light our dreams, Turning to scorn with lips divine The falsehood of extremes ! ALFRED TENNYSON 49 LOVE AND DUTY Of love that never found his earthly close, What sequel ? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts ? Or all the same as if he had not been ? Not so. Shall Error in the round of time Still father Truth ? O shall the braggart shout For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law System and empire ? Sin itself be found The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun ? And only he, this wonder, dead, become Mere highway dust ? or year by year alone Sit brooding in the ruins of a life, Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself ? If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all, Better the narrow brain, the stony heart, The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days, The long mechanic pacings to and fro, The set gray life, and apathetic end. But am I not the nobler thro' thy love ? O three times less unworthy ! likewise thou Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit E 50 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Of wisdom. Wait : my faith is large in Time, And that which shapes it to some perfect end. Will some one say, Then why not ill for good ? Why took ye not your pastime ? To that man My work shall answer, since I knew the right And did it ; for a man is not as God, But then most Godlike being most a man. So let me think 'tis well for thee and me Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow To feel it ! For how hard it seem'd to me, When eyes, love-languid thro' half-tears would dwell One earnest, earnest moment upon mine, Then not to dare to see ! when thy low voice, Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep My own full-tuned, hold passion in a leash, And not leap forth and fall about thy neck, And on thy bosom, (deep desired relief !) Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that weigh'd Upon my brain, my senses and my soul ! For Love himself took part against himself To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love O this world's curse, beloved but hated came Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine, And crying, ' Who is this ? behold thy bride,' She push'd me from thee. If the sense is hard ALFRED TENNYSON '! To alien ears, I did not speak to these No, not to thee, but to thyself in me : Hard is my doom and thine : thou knowest it all. Could Love part thus ? was it not well to speak, To have spoken once ? It could not but be well. The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good, The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill, And all good things from evil, brought the night In which we sat together and alone, And to the want, that hollow'd all the heart, Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye, That burn'd upon its object thro' such tears As flow but once a life. The trance gave way To those caresses, when a hundred times In that last kiss, which never was the last, Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and died. Then followed counsel, comfort, and the words That make a man feel strong in speaking truth ; Till now the dark was worn, and overhead The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix'd In that brief night ; the summer night, that paused Among her stars to hear us ; stars that hung Love-charm'd to listen : all the wheels of Time Spun round in station, but the end had come. O then like those, who clench their nerves to rush Upon their dissolution, we two rose, E 2 52 LIVING ENGLISH POETS There closing like an individual life In one blind cry of passion and of pain, Like bitter accusation ev'n to death, Caught up the whole of love and utter'd it, And bade adieu for ever. Live yet live Shall sharpest pathos blight us, knowing all Life needs for life is possible to will Live happy ; tend thy flowers ; be tended by My blessing ! Should my Shadow cross thy thought' Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou For calmer hours to Memory's darkest hold, If not to be forgotten not at once Not all forgotten. Should it cross thy dreams, O might it come like one that looks content, With quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth, And point thee forward to a distant light, Or seem to lift a burthen from thy heart And leave thee freer, till thou wake refresh'd. Then when the first low matin-chirp hath grown Full quire, and morning driv'n her plow of pearl Far furrowing into light the mounded rack, Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea. ALFRED TENNYSON 53 TITHONUS The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, The vapours weep their burthen to the ground, Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, And after many a summer dies the swan. Me only cruel immortality Consumes : I wither slowly in thine arms, Here at the quiet limit of the world, A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream The ever-silent spaces of the East, Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn. Alas ! for this gray shadow, once a man So glorious in his beauty and thy choice, Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd To his great heart none other than a God ! I ask'd thee, ' Give me immortality.' Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile, Like wealthy men who care not how they give. But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills, And beat me down and marr'd and wasted me, And tho' they could not end me, left me maim'd To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all I was, in ashes. Can thy love, 54 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Thy beauty, make amends, tho' even now, Close over us, the silver star, thy guide, Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears To hear me ? Let me go : take back thy gift : Why should a man desire in any way To vary from the kindly race of men, Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance Where all should pause, as is most meet for all ? A soft air fans the cloud apart ; there comes A glimpse of that dark world where I was born. Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure, And bosom beating with a heart renew'd. Thy cheek begins to redden thro' the gloom, Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine, Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise, And shake the darkness from their loosen'd manes, And beat the twilight into flakes of fire. Lo ! ever thus thou growest beautiful In silence, then before thine answer given Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek. Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears, And make me tremble lest a saying learnt, ALFRED TENNYSON $ In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true ? * The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.' Ay me ! ay me ! with what another heart In days far-ofi^ and with what other eyes I used to watch if I be he that watch'd The lucid outline forming round thee ; saw The dim curls kindle into sunny rings ; Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood Glow with the glow that slowly crimson'd all Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay, Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy- warm With kisses balmier than half-opening buds Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss'd Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet, Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing, While Ilion like a mist rose into towers. Yet hold me not for ever in thine East : How can my nature longer mix with thine ? Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam Floats up from those dim fields about the homes Of happy men that have the power to die, And grassy barrows of the happier dead. Release me and restore me to the ground ; $6 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Thou seest all things, thou wilt see my grave Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn ; I earth in earth forget these empty courts, And thee returning on thy silver wheels. FROM "THE PRINCESS;" A MEDLEY ' Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height : What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang) In height and cold, the splendour of the hills ? But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, To sit a star upon the sparkling spire ; And come, for Love is of the valley, come, For Love is of the valley, come thou down And find him ; by the happy threshold, he, Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, Or red with spirted purple of the vats, Or foxlike in the vine ; nor cares to walk With Death and Morning on the silver horns, Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice, ALFRED TENNYSON 57 That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls To roll the torrent out of dusky doors : But follow ; let the torrent dance thee down To find him in the valley ; let the wild Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, That like a broken purpose waste in air : So waste not thou ; but come ; for all the vales Await thee ; azure pillars of the hearth Arise to thee ; the children call, and I Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet ; Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees.' NORTHERN FARMER OLD STYLE Wheer 'asta bean saw long and mea liggin' 'ere aloan ? Noorse ? thoort nowt o' a noorse : whoy, Doctor's abean an' agoan : 58 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Says that I moant J a naw moor aale : but I beant a fool: Git ma my aale, fur I beant a-gooin' to break my rule. Doctors, they knaws nowt, fur a says what's nawways true: Naw soort o' koind o' use to saay the things that a do. I've 'ed my point o' aale ivry noight sin' I bean 'ere, An' I've 'ed my quart ivry market-noight for foorty year. Parson's a bean loikewoise, an' a sittin' 'ere o' my bed. * The amoighty's a taakin o' you to 'issen, my friend,' a said, An' a towd ma my sins, an's toithe were due, an' I gied it in hond ; I done moy duty boy 'um, as I 'a done boy the lond. Larn'd a ma' bea. I reckons I 'annot sa mooch to larn. But a cast oop, thot a did, 'boot Bessy Harris's barne. Thaw a knaws I hallus voated wi' Squoire an' choorch an' staate, An' i' the woost o' toimes I wur niver agin the raate. An' I hallus coom'd to 's choorch afoor moy Sally wur dead, An' 'eerd 'um a bummin' awaay loike a buzzard- clock 1 ower my 'ead, 1 Cockchafer. ALFRED TENNYSON 59 An' I niver knaw'd whot a mean'd but I thowt a 'ad summut to saay, An' I thowt a said whot a owt to 'a said an' I coom'd awaay. Bessy Harris's barne ! tha knaws she laaid it to mea. Mowt a bean, mayhap, for she wur a bad un, shea. 'Siver, I kep 'urn, I kep 'um, my lass, tha mun under- stond ; I done moy duty boy 'um as I 'a done boy the lond. But Parson a comes an' a goos, an' a says it easy an' freea ' The amoighty's a taakin o' you to 'issen, my friend/ says 'ea. I weant saay men be loiars, thaw summun said it in 'aaste : But 'e reads wonn sarmin a weeak, an' I 'a stubb'd Thurnaby waaste. D'ya moind the waaste, my lass ? naw, naw, tha was not born then ; Theer wur a boggle in it, I often 'eerd 'um mysen ; Moast loike a butter-bump, 1 fur I 'eerd 'um aboot an aboot, But I stubb'd 'um oop wi' the lot, an' raaved an' rembled 'um oot. 1 Bittern. 60 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Reaper's it wur ; fo 5 they fun 'um theer a-laaid of 'is faace Doon i' the woild 'enemies 1 afoor I coom'd to the plaace. Noaks or Thimbleby toaner 'ed shot 'um as dead as a naail. Noaks wur 'ang'd for it oop at 'soize but git ma my aale. Dubbut loook at the waaste: theer warn't not feead for a cow ; Nowt at all but bracken an' fuzz, an' loook at it now Warnt worth nowt a haacre, an' now theer's lots o' feead, Fourscoor yows upon it an' some on it doon i' seead. Nobbut a bit on it's left, an' I mean'd to 'a stubb'd it at fall, Done it ta-year I mean'd, an' runn'd plow thruff it an' all, If godamoighty an' parson 'ud nobbut let ma aloan, Mea, wi' haate oonderd haacre o' Squoire's, an' lond o' my oan. Do godamoighty knaw what a's doing a-taakin' o' mea ? I beant wonn as saws 'ere a bean an' yonder a pea ; 1 Anemones. ALFRED TENNYSON 61 An' Squoire 'ull be sa mad an' all a' dear a' dear ! And I 'a managed for Squoire coom Michaelmas thutty year. A mowt 'a taaen owd Joanes, as 'ant nor a 'aapoth o' sense, Or a mowt 'a taaen young Robins a niver mended a fence : But godamoighty a moost taake mea an' taake ma now Wi' aaf the cows to cauve an' Thurnaby hoalms to plow! Loook 'ow quoloty smoiles when they seeas ma a passin' boy, Says to thessen naw doubt c what a man a bea sewer- loy!' Fur they knaws what I bean to Squoire sin fust a coom'd to the 'All ; I done moy duty by Squoire an' I done moy duty boy hall. Squoire's i' Lunnon, an' summun I reckons 'ull 'a to wroite, For whoa's to howd the lond ater mea thot muddles ma quoit ; Sartin-sewer I bea, thot a weant niver give it to Joanes, Naw, nor a moant to Robins a niver rembles the stoans. 62 LIVING ENGLISH POETS But summun 'ull come ater mea mayhap wi' 'is kittle o' steam Huzzin' an' maazin' the blessed fealds wi' the Divil's oan team. Sin' I mun doy I mun doy, thaw loife they says is sweet, But sin' I mun doy I mun doy, for I couldn abear to see it. What atta stannin' theer fur, an' doesn bring ma the aale ? Doctor's a 'toattler, lass, an a's hallus i' the owd taale ; I weant break rules fur Doctor, a knaws naw moor nor a floy ; Git ma my aale I tell tha, an' if I mun doy I mun doy. THE DAISY WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH O love, what hours were thine and mine, In lands of palm and southern pine ; In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine. ALFRED TENNYSON 63 What Roman strength Turbia show'd In ruin, by the mountain road ; How like a gem, beneath, the city Of little Monaco, basking, glow'd. How richly down the rocky dell The torrent vineyard streaming fell To meet the sun and sunny waters, That only heaved with a summer swell. What slender campanili grew By bays, the peacock's neck in hue ; Where, here and there, on sandy beaches A milky-bell'd amaryllis blew. How young Columbus seem'd to rove, Yet present in his natal grove, Now watching high on mountain cornice, And steering, now, from a purple cove, Now pacing mute by ocean's rim ; Till, in a narrow street and dim, I stay'd the wheels at Cogoletto, And drank, and loyally drank to him. Nor knew we well what pleased us most, Not the dipt palm of which they boast ; But distant colour, happy hamlet, A moulder'd citadel on the coast, * 64 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Or tower, or high hill-convent, seen A light amid its olives green ; Or olive-hoary cape in ocean ; Or rosy blossom in hot ravine, Where oleanders flush'd the bed Of silent torrents, gravel-spread ; And, crossing, oft we saw the glisten Of ice, far up on a mountain head. We loved that hall, tho' white and cold, Those niched shapes of noble mould, A princely people's awful princes, The grave, severe Genovese of old. At Florence too what golden hours In those long galleries, were ours ; What drives about the fresh Cascine, Or walks in Boboli's ducal bowers. In bright vignettes, and each complete, Of tower or duomo, sunny-sweet, Or palace, how the city glitter' d, Thro' cypress avenues, at our feet. But when we crost the Lombard plain Remember what a plague of rain ; Of rain at Reggio, rain at Parma ; At Lodi, rain, Piacenza, rain. ALFRED TENNYSON 65 And stern and sad (so rare the smiles Of sunlight) look'd the Lombard piles ; Porch-pillars on the lion resting, And sombre, old, colonnaded aisles. Milan, O the chanting quires, The giant windows' blazon'd fires, The height, the space, the gloom, the glory ! A mount of marble, a hundred spires ! 1 climb'd the roofs at break of day ; Sun-smitten Alps before me lay. I stood among the silent statues, And statued pinnacles, mute as they. How faintly- flush'd, how phantom-fair, Was Monte Rosa, hanging there A thousand shadowy-pencilFd valleys And snowy dells in a golden air. Remember how we came at last To Como ; shower and storm and blast Had blown the lake beyond his limit, And all was flooded ; and how we past From Como, when the light was gray, And in my head, for half the day, The rich Virgilian rustic measure Of Lari Maxume, all the way, 66 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Like ballad-burthen music, kept, As on The Lariano crept To that fair port below the castle Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept ; Or hardly slept, but watch'd awake A cypress in the moonlight shake, The moonlight touching o'er a terrace One tall Agave above the lake. What more ? we took our last adieu, And up the snowy Splugen drew, But ere we reach'd the highest summit I pluck'd a daisy, I gave it you. It told of England then to me, And now it tells of Italy. O love, we two shall go no longer To lands of summer across the sea ; So dear a life your arms enfold Whose crying is a cry for gold : Yet here to-night in this dark city, When ill and weary, alone and cold, I found, tho' crush'd to hard and dry, This nurseling of another sky Still in the little book you lent me, And where you tenderly laid it by : ALFRED TENNYSON 67 And I forgot the clouded Forth, The gloom that saddens Heaven and Earth, The bitter east, the misty summer And gray metropolis of the North. Perchance, to lull the throbs of pain, Perchance, to charm a vacant brain, Perchance, to dream you still beside me, My fancy fled to the South again. WILL O well for him whose will is strong ! He suffers, but he will not suffer long ; He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong : For him nor moves the loud world's random mock Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound, Who seems a promontory of rock, That, compass'd round with turbulent sound, In middle ocean meets the surging shock, Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown'd. But ill for him who, bettering not with time, Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will, * F 2 68 LIVING ENGLISH POETS And ever weaker grows thro' acted crime, Or seeming-genial venial fault, Recurring and suggesting still ! He seems as one whose footsteps halt, Toiling in immeasurable sand, And o'er a weary sultry land, Far beneath a blazing vault, Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill, The city sparkles like a grain of salt. IN THE GARDEN AT SWAINSTON Nightingales warbled without, Within was weeping for thee : Shadows of three dead men Walk'd in the walks with me, Shadows of three dead men and thou wast one of the three. Nightingales sang in his woods : The Master was far away : Nightingales warbled and sang Of a passion that lasts but a day ; Still in the house in his coffin the Prince of courtesy lay. ALFRED TENNYSON 69 Two dead men have I known In courtesy like to thee : Two dead men have I loved With a love that ever will be : Three dead men have I loved and thou art last of the three. THE SAILOR BOY He rose at dawn and, fired with hope, Shot o'er the seething harbour-bar, And reach'd the ship and caught the rope, And whistled to the morning star. And while he whistled long and loud He heard a fierce mermaiden cry, ' O boy, tho' thou art young and proud, I see the place where thou wilt lie. ' The sands and yeasty surges mix In caves about the dreary bay, And on thy ribs the limpet sticks, And in thy heart the scrawl shall play.' * Fool,' he answer'd, ' death is sure To those that stay and those that roam, 70 LIVING ENGLISH POETS But I will nevermore endure To sit with empty hands at home. ' My mother clings about my neck, My sisters crying, " Stay for shame ; " My father raves of death and wreck, They are all to blame, they are all to blame. ' God help me ! save I take my part Of danger on the roaring sea, A devil rises in my heart, Far worse than any death to me.' FROM "IN MEMORIAM" On that last night before we went From out the doors where I was bred, I dream'd a vision of the dead, Which left my after-morn content. Methought I dwelt within a hall, And maidens with me : distant hills From hidden summits fed with rills A river sliding by the wall. ALFRED TENNYSON 71 The hall with harp and carol rang, They sang of what is wise and good And graceful. In the centre stood A statue veil'd, to which they sang ; And which, tho' veil'd, was known to me, The shape of him I loved, and love For ever : then flew in a dove And brought a summons from the sea : And when they learnt that I must go They wept and wail'd, but led the way To where a little shallop lay At anchor in the flood below ; And on by many a level mead, And shadowing bluff that made the banks, We glided winding under ranks Of iris, and the golden reed ; And still as vaster grew the shore And roll'd the floods in grander space, The maidens gather'd strength and grace And presence, lordlier than before ; And I myself, who sat apart And watch'd them, wax'd in every limb ; I felt the thews of Anakim, The pulses of a Titan's heart ; 72 LIVING ENGLISH POETS As one would sing the death of war, And one would chant the history Of that great race, which is to be, And one the shaping of a star ; Until the forward-creeping tides . Began to foam, and we to draw From deep to deep, to where we saw A great ship lift her shining sides. The man we lov'd was there on deck, But thrice as large as man he bent To greet us. Up the side I went, And fell in silence on his neck : Whereat those maidens with one mind Bewail'd their lot ; I did them wrong : ' We served thee here,' they said, ' so long, And wilt thou leave us now behind ? ' So rapt I was, they could not win An answer from my lips, but he Replying, ' Enter likewise ye And go with us : ' they enter'd in. And while the wind began to sweep A music out of sheet and shroud, We steer'd her toward a crimson cloud That landlike slept along the deep. ALFRED TENNYSON 73 FROM "MAUD" I have led her home, my love, my only friend. There is none like her, none. And never yet so warmly ran my blood And sweetly, on and on Calming itself to the long-wish'd-for end, Full to the banks, close on the promised good. None like her, none. Just now the dry-tongued laurels' pattering talk Seem'd her light foot along the garden walk, And shook my heart to think she comes once more ; But even then I heard her close the door, The gates of Heaven are closed, and she is gone. There is none like her, none. Nor will be when our summers have deceased. O, art thou sighing for Lebanon In the long breeze that streams to thy delicious East, Sighing for Lebanon, Dark cedar, tho' thy limbs have here increased, Upon a pastoral slope as fair, And looking to the South, and fed With honey'd rain and delicate air, And haunted by the starry head 74 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Of her whose gentle will has changed my fate, And made my life a perfumed altar-flame ; And over whom thy darkness must have spread With such delight as theirs of old, thy great Forefathers of the thornless garden, there Shadowing the snow-limb'd Eve from whom she came. Here will I lie, while these long branches sway, And you fair stars that crown a happy day Go in and out as if at merry play, Who am no more so all forlorn, As when it seem'd far better to be born To labour and the mattock-harden'd hand, Than nursed at ease and brought to understand A sad astrology, the boundless plan That makes you tyrants in your iron skies, Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes, Cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand His nothingness into man. But now shine on, and what care I, Who in this stormy gulf have found a pearl The countercharm -of space and hollow sky, And do accept my madness, and would die To save from some slight shame one simple girl. Would die ; for sullen-seeming Death may give More life to Love than is or ever was ALFRED TENNYSON 75 In our low world, where yet 'tis sweet to live. Let no one ask me how it came to pass ; It seems that I am happy, J;hat to me A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass, A purer sapphire melts into the sea. Not die ; but live a life of truest breath, And teach true life to fight with mortal wrongs. O, why should Love, like men in drinking-songs, Spice his fair banquet with the dust of death ? Make answer, Maud my bliss, Maud made my Maud by that long lover's kiss, Life of my life, wilt thou not answer this ? ' The dusky strand of Death inwoven here With dear Love's tie, makes Love himself more dear.' Is that enchanted moan only the swell Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay ? And hark the clock within, the silver knell Of twelve sweet hours that past in bridal white, And died to live, long as my pulses play ; But now by this my love has closed her sight And given false death her hand, and stol'n away To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell Among the fragments of the golden day. May nothing there her maiden grace affright ! Dear heart, I feel with thee the drowsy spell. My bride to be, my evermore delight, 76 LIVING ENGLISH POETS My own heart's heart, my ownest own, farewell ; It is but for a little space I go : And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell Beat to the noiseless music of the night ! Has our whole earth gone nearer to the glow Of your soft splendours that you look so bright ? / have climb'd nearer out of lonely Hell. Beat, happy stars, timing with things below, Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell, Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe That seems to draw but it shall not be so : Let all be well, be well. RIZPAH 17 Wailing, wailing, wailing, the wind over land and sea And Willy's voice in the wind, ' O mother, come out to me.' Why should he call me to-night, when he knows that I cannot go ? For the downs are as bright as day, and the full moon stares at the snow. ALFRED TENNYSON 77 We should be seen, my dear ; they would spy us out of the town. The loud black nights for us, and the storm rushing over the down, When I cannot see my own hand, but am led by the creak of the chain, And grovel and grope for my son till I find myself drenched with the rain. Anything fallen again ? nay what was there left to fall? I have taken them home, I have number' d the bones, I have hidden them all. What am I saying ? and what are you ? do you come as a spy ? Falls ? what falls ? who knows ? As the tree falls so must it lie. Who let her in ? how long has she been ? you what have you heard ? Why did you sit so quiet ? you never have spoken a word. O to pray with me yes a lady none of their spies But the night has crept into my heart, and begun to darken my eyes. Ah you, that have lived so soft, what should you know of the night, 78 LIVING ENGLISH POETS The blast and the burning shame and the bitter frost and the fright ? I have done it, while you were asleep you were only made for the day. I have gather'd my baby together and now you may go your way. Nay for it's kind of you, Madam, to sit by an old dying wife. But say nothing hard of my boy, I have only an hour of life. I kiss'd my boy in the prison, before he went out to die. * They dared me to do it,' he said, and he never has told me a lie. I whipt him for robbing an orchard once when he was but a child ' The farmer dared me to do it,' he said ; he was always so wild And idle and couldn't be idle my Willy he never could rest. The King should have made him a soldier, he would have been one of his best. But he lived with a lot of wild mates, and they never would let him be good ; They swore that he dare not rob the mail, and he swore that he would ; ALFRED TENNYSON 79 And he took no life, but he took one purse, and when all was done He flung it among his fellows I'll none of it, said my son. I came into court to the Judge and the lawyers. I told them my tale, God's own truth but they kill'd him, they kill'd him for robbing the mail. They hang'd him in chains for a show we had always borne a good name To be hang'd for a thief and then put away isn't that enough shame ? Dust to dust low down let us hide ! but they set him so high That all the ships of the world could stare at him, passing by. God 'ill pardon the hell-black raven and horrible fowls of the air, But not the black heart of the lawyer who kill'd him and hang'd him there. And the jailer forced me away. I had bid him my last goodbye ; They had fasten'd the door of his cell. ' O mother ! ' I heard him cry. I couldn't get back tho' I tried, he had something further to say, 8o LIVING ENGLISH POETS And now I never shall know it. The jailer forced me away. Then since I couldn't but hear that cry of my boy that was dead, They seized me and shut me up : they fasten'd me down on my bed. ' Mother, O mother ! ' he call'd in the dark to me year after year They beat me for that, they beat me you know that I couldn't but hear ; And then at the last they found I had grown so stupid and still They let me abroad again but the creatures had worked their will. Flesh of my flesh was gone, but bone of my bone was left I stole them all from the lawyers and you, will you call it a theft ? My baby, the bones that had suck'd me, the bones that had laughed and had cried Theirs ? O no ! they are mine not theirs they had moved in my side. Do you think I was scared by the bones ? I kiss'd 'em, I buried 'em all I can't dig deep, I am old in the night by the churchyard wall. ALFRED TENNYSON Si My Willy 'ill rise up whole when the trumpet of judgment 'ill sound, But I charge you never to say that I laid him in holy ground. They would scratch him up they would hang him again on the cursed tree. Sin ? O yes we are sinners, I know let all that be, And read me a Bible verse of the Lord's good will toward men ' Full of compassion and mercy, the Lord ' let me hear it again ; * Full of compassion and mercy long-suffering.' Yes, O yes! For the lawyer is born but to murder the Saviour lives but to bless. He'\\ never put on the black cap except for the worst of the worst, And the first may be last I have heard it in church and the last may be first. Suffering O long-suffering yes, as the Lord must know, Year after year in the mist and the wind and the shower and the snow. Heard, have you ? what ? they have told you he never repented his sin. G 82 LIVING ENGLISH POETS How do they know it ? are they his mother ? are you of his kin ? Heard ! have you ever heard, when the storm on the downs began, The wind that 'ill wail like a child and the sea that 'ill moan like a man ? Election, Election and Reprobation it's all very well. But I go to-night to my boy, and I shall not find him in Hell. For I cared so much for my boy that the Lord has look'd into my care, And He means me I'm sure to be happy with Willy, I know not where. And if he be lost but to save my soul, that is all your desire : Do you think that I care for my soul if my boy be gone to the fire ? I have been with God in the dark go, go, you may leave me alone You never have borne a child you are just as hard as a stone. Madam, I beg your pardon ! I think that you mean to be kind, But I cannot hear what you say for my Willy's voice in the wind ALFRED TENNYSON 83 The snow and the sky so bright he used but to call in the dark, And he calls to me now from the church and not from the gibbet for hark ! Nay you can hear it yourself it is coming shaking the walls Willy the moon's in a cloud Good night. I am going. He calls. G 2 LORD HOUGH TON Born iSog THE BROOKSIDE I wandered by the brook-side, I wandered by the mill, I could not hear the brook flow, The noisy wheel was still ; There was no burr of grasshopper, Nor chirp of any bird, But the beating of my own heart Was all the sound I heard. I sat beneath the elm-tree, I watched the long, long, shade, And as it grew still longer, I did not feel afraid ; For I listened for a footfall, I listened for a word, But the beating of my own hear! Was all the sound I heard. LORD HOUGHTON 85 He came not, no, he came not, The night came on alone, The little stars sat one by one, Each on his golden throne ; The evening air passed by my cheek, The leaves above were stirr'd, But the beating of my own heart Was all the sound I heard. Fast silent tears were flowing, When something stood behind, A hand was on my shoulder, I knew its touch was kind : It drew me nearer nearer, We did not speak one word, For the beating of our own hearts Was all the sound we heard. ROBERT BROWNING Born 1812 HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD Oh, to be in England Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough. In England now ! And after April, when May follows, And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows ! Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dew-drops at the bent spray's edge That 's the wise thrush ; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture ! ROBERT BROWNING 87 And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, And will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children's dower Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower ! FROM "A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON" SONG There 's a woman like a dew-drop, she 's so purer than the purest ; And her noble heart 's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith 's the surest : And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of lustre Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster, Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose- misted marble : Then her voice's music . . call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble ! And this woman says, " My days were sunless and my nights were moonless, Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's outbreak tuneless, 88 LIVING ENGLISH POETS If you loved me not ! " and I who (ah, for words of flame ! ) adore her, Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me, And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she makes me ! FROM "PARACELSUS" SONG Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes From out her hair : s'uch balsam falls Down sea-side mountain pedestals, From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, Spent with the vast and howling main, To treasure half their island-gain. And strew faint sweetness from some old Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud Which breaks to dust when once unrolled ; ROBERT BROWNING 89 Or shredded perfume, like a cloud From closet long to quiet vowed, With mothed and dropping arras hung, Mouldering her lute and books among, As when a queen, long dead, was young. WARING What 's become of Waring Since he gave us all the slip, Chose land-travel or seafaring, Boots and chest or staff and scrip, Rather than pace up and down Any longer London town ? Who 'd have guessed it from his lip Or his brow's accustomed bearing, On the night he thus took ship Or started landward ? little caring For us, it seems, who supped together (Friends of his too, I remember) And walked home thro' the merry weather, The snowiest in all December. 90 LIVING ENGLISH POETS I left his arm that night myself For what's-his-name's, the new prose-poet Who wrote the book there, on the shelf How, forsooth, was I to know it If Waring meant to glide away Like a ghost at break of day ? Never looked he half so gay ! He was prouder than the devil : How he must have cursed our revel ! Ay and many other meetings, Indoor visits, outdoor greetings, As up and down he paced this London, With no work done, but great works undone, Where scarce twenty knew his name. Why not, then, have earlier spoken, Written, bustled ? Who 's to blame If your silence kept unbroken ? "True, but there were sundry jottings, Stray-leaves, fragments, blurrs and blottings, Certain first steps were achieved Already which " (is that your meaning ?) " Had well borne out whoe'er believed In more to come ! " But who goes gleaning Hedge-side chance-blades, while full-sheaved Stand corn-fields by him ? Pride, o'erweenin^ Pride alone, puts forth such claims O'er the day's distinguished names. ROBERT BROWNING 91 Meantime, how much I loved him I find out now I Ve lost him. I who cared not if I moved him, Who could so carelessly accost him, Henceforth never shall get free Of his ghostly company, His eyes that just a little wink As deep I go into the merit Of this and that distinguished spirit His cheeks' raised colour, soon to sink, As long I dwell on some stupendous And tremendous (Heaven defend us ! ) Monstr'-inform'-ingens-horrend-ous Demoniaco-seraphic Penman's latest piece of graphic. Nay, my very wrist grows warm With his dragging weight of arm. E'en so, swimmingly appears, Through one's after-supper musings, Some lost lady of old years With her beauteous vain endeavour And goodness unrepaid as ever ; The face, accustomed to refusings, We, puppies that we were . . . Oh never Surely, nice of conscience, scrupled Being aught like false, forsooth, to ? Telling aught but honest truth to ? 92 LIVING ENGLISH POETS What a sin, had we centupled Its possessor's grace and sweetness ! No ! she heard in its completeness Truth, for truth 's a weighty matter, And truth, at issue, we can't flatter ! Well, 'tis done with ; she 's exempt From damning us thro' such a sally ; And so she glides, as down a valley, Taking up with her contempt, Past our reach ; and in the flowers Shut her unregarded hours. Oh, could I have him back once more, This Waring, but one half- day more ! Back, with the quiet face of yore, So hungry for acknowledgment Like mine ! I 'd fool him to his bent. Feed, should not he, to heart's content ? I 'd say, " to only have conceived, Planned your great works, apart from progress, Surpasses little works achieved ! " I 'd lie so, I should be believed. I 'd make such havoc of the claims Of the day's distinguished names To feast him with, as feasts an ogress Her feverish sharp-toothed gold-crowned child ! Or as one feasts a creature rarely ROBER T DRO WNING 93 Captured here, unreconciled To capture ; and completely gives Its pettish humours license, barely Requiring that it lives. Ichabod, Ichabod, The glory is departed ! Travels Waring East away ? Who, of knowledge, by hearsay, Reports a man upstarted Somewhere as a god, Hordes grown European-hearted, Millions of the wild made tame On a sudden at his fame ? In Vishnu-land what Avatar ? Or who in Moscow, toward the Czar, With the demurest of footfalls Over the Kremlin's pavement bright With serpentine and syenite, Steps, with five other Generals That simultaneously take snuff, For each to have pretext enough And kerchiefwise unfold his sash Which, softness' self, is yet the stuff To hold fast where a steel chain snaps, And leave the grand white neck no gash ? Waring in Moscow, to those rough 94 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Cold northern natures borne perhaps, Like the lambwhite maiden dear From the circle of mute kings Unable to repress the tear, Each as his sceptre down he flings, To Dian's fane at Taurica, Where now a captive priestess, she alway Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach, As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry Amid their barbarous twitter ! In Russia ? Never ! Spain were fitter ! Ay, most likely 'tis in Spain That we and Waring meet again Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid All fire and shine, abrupt as when there 's slid Its stiff gold blazing pall From some black coffin-lid. Or, best of all, I love to think The leaving us was just a feint ; Back here to London did he slink, And now works on without a wink Of sleep, and we are on the brink ROBERT BROWNING 95 Of something great in fresco-paint : Some garret's ceiling, walls and floor, Up and down and o'er and o'er He splashes, as none splashed before Since great Caldara Polidore. Or Music means this land of ours Some favour yet, to pity won By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers, " Give me my so-long promised son, Let Waring end what I begun ! " Then down he creeps and out he steals Only when the night conceals His face ; in Kent 'tis cherry-time, Or hops are picking : or at prime Of March he wanders as, too happy, Years ago when he was young, Some mild eve when woods grew sappy And the early moths had sprung To life from many a trembling sheath Woven the warm boughs beneath ; While small birds said to themselves What should soon be actual song, And young gnats, by tens and twelves, Made as if they were the throng That crowd around and carry aloft The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure, Out of a myriad noises soft, 96 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Into a tone that can endure Amid the noise of a July noon When all God's creatures crave their boon, All at once and all in tune, And get it, happy as Waring then, Having first within his ken What a man might do with men : And far too glad, in the even-glow, To mix with the world he meant to take Into his hand, he told you, so And out of it his world to make, To contract and to expand As he shut or oped his hand. Oh Waring, what 's to really be ? A clear stage and a crowd to see ! Some Garrick, say, out shall not he The heart of Hamlet's mystery pluck ? Or, where most unclean beasts are rife, Some Junius am I right ? shall tuck His sleeve, and forth with flaying-knife ! Some Chatterton shall have the luck Of calling Rowley into life ! Some one shall somehow run amuck With this old world for want of strife Sound asleep. Contrive, contrive To rouse us, Waring ! Who 's alive ? Our men scarce seem in earnest now. ROBERT BROWNING 97 Distinguished names ! but 'tis, somehow, As if they played at being names Still more distinguished, like the games Of children. Turn our sport to earnest With a visage of the sternest ! Bring the real times back, confessed Still better than our very best ! " When I last saw Waring . . ." (How all turned to him who spoke ! You saw Waring ? Truth or joke ? In land-travel or sea-faring ?) " We were sailing by Triest Where a day or two we harboured : A sunset was in the West, When, looking over the vessel's side, One of our company espied A sudden speck to larboard. And as a sea-duck flies and swims At once, so came the light craft up, With its sole lateen sail that trims And turns (the water round its rims Dancing, as round a sinking cup) 98 LIVING ENGLISH POETS And by us like a fish it curled, And drew itself up close beside, Its great sail on the instant furled, And o'er its thwarts a shrill voice cried, (A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's) ' Buy wine of us, you English Brig ? Or fruit, tobacco and cigars ? A pilot for you to Triest ? Without one, look you ne'er so big, They '11 never let you up the bay ! We natives should know best.' I turned, and 'just those fellows' way,' Our captain said ; ' The 'long-shore thieves Are laughing at us in their sleeves.' In truth, the boy leaned laughing back ; And one, half-hidden by his side Under the furled sail, soon I spied, With great grass hat and kerchief black, Who looked up with his kingly throat, Said somewhat, while the other shook His hair back from his eyes to look Their longest at us ; then the boat, I know not how, turned sharply round, Laying her whole side on the sea As a leaping fish does ; from the lee Into the weather, cut somehow ROBERT BROWNING 99 Her sparkling path beneath our bow, And so went off, as with a bound, Into the rosy and golden half Of the sky, to overtake the sun And reach the shore, like the sea-calf Its singing cave ; yet I caught one Glance ere away the boat quite passed, And neither time nor toil could mar Those features : so I saw the last Of Waring ! "You ? Oh, never star Was lost here but it rose afar ! Look East, where whole new thousands are ! In Vishnu-land what Avatar ? TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA I wonder do you feel to-day As I have felt since, hand in hand, We sat down on the grass, to stray In spirit better through the land, This morn of Rome and May ? For me, I touched a thought, I know, Has tantalized me many times, H 2 ioo LIVING ENGLISH POETS (Like turns of thread the spiders throw Mocking across our path) for rhymes To catch at and let go. Help me to hold it ! First it left The yellowing fennel, run to seed There, branching from the brickwork's cleft, Some old tomb's ruin : yonder weed Took up the floating weft, Where one small orange cup amassed Five beetles, blind and green they grope Among the honey-meal : and last, Everywhere on the grassy slope I traced it. Hold it fast ! The champaign with its endless fleece Of feathery grasses everywhere ! Silence and passion, joy and peace, An everlasting wash of air Rome's ghost since her decease. Such life here, through such lengths of hours, Such miracles performed in play, Such primal naked forms of flowers, Such letting nature have her way While heaven looks from its towers ! ROBERT BROWNING 101 How say you ? Let us, O my dove, Let us be unashamed of soul, As earth lies bare to heaven above ! How is it under our control To love or not to love ? I would that you were all to me, You that are just so much, no more. Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free ! Where does the fault lie ? What the core Of the wound, since wound must be ? I would I could adopt your will, See with your eyes, and set my heart Beating by yours, and drink my fill At your soul's springs, your part, my part In life, for good and ill. No. I yearn upward, touch you close, Then stand away. I kiss your cheek, Catch your soul's warmth, I pluck the rose And love it more than tongue can speak Then the good minute goes. Already how am I so far Out of that minute ? Must I go Still like the thistle-ball, no bar, Onward, whenever light winds blow, Fixed by no friendly star ? 102 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Just when I seemed about to learn ! Where is the thread now ? Off again ! The old trick ! Only I discern Infinite passion, and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn. THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER I said Then, dearest, since 'tis so, Since now at length my fate I know, Since nothing all my love avails, Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails, Since this was written and needs must be My whole heart rises up to bless Your name in pride and thankfulness ! Take back the hope you gave, I claim Only a memory of the same, And this beside, if you will not blame, Your leave for one more last ride with me. My mistress bent that brow of hers ; Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs When pity would be softening through, Fixed me a breathing-while or two With life or death in the balance : right ! ROBER T BRO WNING 103 The blood replenished me again ; My last thought was at least not vain : I and my mistress, side by side Shall be together, breathe and ride, So one day more am I deified. Who knows but the world may end to-night ? Hush ! if you saw some western cloud All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed By many benedictions sun's And moon's and evening-star's at once And so, you, looking and loving best, Conscious grew, your passion drew Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too, Down on you, near and yet more near, Till flesh must fade for heaven was here ! Thus leant she and lingered joy and fear ! Thus lay she a moment on my breast. Then we began to ride. My soul Smoothed itself out a long-cramped scroll Freshening and fluttering in the wind. Past hopes already lay behind. What need to strive with a life awry ? Had I said that, had I done this, So might I gain, so might I miss. Might she have loved me ? just as well 104 LIVING ENGLISH POETS She might have hated, who can tell ! Where had I been now if the worst befell ? And here we are riding, she and I. Fail I alone, in words and deeds ? Why, all men strive and who succeeds ? We rode ; it seemed my spirit flew, Saw other regions, cities new, As the world rushed by on either side. I thought, All labour, yet no less Bear up beneath their unsuccess. Look at the end of work, contrast The petty done, the undone vast, This present of theirs with the hopeful past ! I hoped she would love me ; here we ride. What hand and brain went ever paired ? What hand alike conceived and dared ? What act proved all its thought had been ? What v/ill but felt the fleshy screen ? We ride and I see her bosom heave. There 's many a. crown for who can reach. Ten lines, a statesman's life in each ! The flag stuck on a heap of bones, A soldier's doing ! what atones ? They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones. My riding is better, by their leave. ROBER T BRO WNING 105 What does it all mean, poet ? Well, Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell What we felt only ; you expressed You hold things beautiful the best, And pace them in rhyme so, side by side. Tis something, nay 'tis much ; but then, Have you yourself what's best for men ? Are you poor, sick, old ere your time Nearer one whit your own sublime Than we who never have turned a rhyme ? Sing, riding 's a joy ! For me, I ride.. And you, great sculptor so, you gave A score of years to Art, her slave, And that's your Venus, whence we turn To yonder girl that fords the burn ! You acquiesce, and shall I repine ? What, man of music, you, grown grey With notes and nothing else to say, Is this your sole praise from a friend, " Greatly his opera's strains intend, But in music we know how fashions end ! " I gave my youth ; but we ride, in fine. Who knows what 's fit for us ? Had fate Proposed bliss here should sublimate My being had I signed the bond io6 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Still one must lead some life beyond, Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried. This foot once planted on the goal, This glory-garland round my soul, Could I descry such ? Try and test ! I sink back shuddering from the quest. Earth being so good, would heaven seem best ? Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride. And yet she has not spoke so long ! What if heaven be that, fair and strong At life's best, with our eyes upturned Whither life's flower is first discerned, We, fixed so, ever should so abide ? What if we still ride on, we two, What life for ever old yet new, Changed not in kind but in degree, The instant made eternity, And heaven just prove that I and she Ride, ride together, for ever ride ? ROBER T BRQ WNING 107 INSTANS TYRANNUS Of the million or two, more or less, I rule and possess, One man, for some cause undefined, Was least to my mind. I struck him, he grovelled of course For, what was his force ? I pinned him to earth with my weight And persistence of hate : And he lay, would not moan, would not curse, As his lot might be worse. " Were the object less mean, would he stand At the swing of my hand ! For obscurity helps him and blots The hole where he squats." So, I set my five wits on the stretch To inveigle the wretch. All in vain ! Gold and jewels I threw, Still he couched there perdue ; I tempted his blood and his flesh, Hid in roses my mesh, Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth : Still he kept to his filth. io8 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Had he kith now or kin, were access To his heart, did I press Just a son or a mother to seize ! No such booty as these. Were it simply a friend to pursue 'Mid my million or two, Who could pay me in person or pelf What he owes me himself ! No : I could not but smile through my chafe For the fellow lay safe As his mates do, the midge and the nit, Through minuteness, to wit. Then a humour more great took its place At the thought of his face, The droop, the low cares of the mouth, The trouble uncouth 'Twixt the brows, all that air one is fain To put out of its pain. And, " no ! " I admonished myself, " Is one mocked by an elf, Is one baffled by toad or by rat ? The gravamen 's in that ! How the lion, who crouches to suit His back to my foot, Would admire that I stand in debate ! But the small turns the great ROBERT BROWNING 109 If it vexes you, that is the thing ! Toad or rat vex the king ? Though I waste half my realm to unearth Toad or rat, 'tis well worth ! " So, I soberly laid my last plan To extinguish the man. Round his creep-hole, with never a break Ran my fires for his sake ; Over-head, did my thunder combine With my under-ground mine : Till I looked from my labour content To enjoy the event. When sudden . . . how think ye, the end ? Did I say "without friend ? " Say rather, from marge to blue marge The whole sky grew his targe With the sun's self for visible boss, While an Arm ran across Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast Where the wretch was safe prest ! Do you see ? Just my vengeance complete, The man sprang to his feet, Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed ! So, / was afraid ! i io LIVING ENGLISH POETS APPARENT FAILURE " We shall soon lose a celebrated building." Paris Newspaper. No, for I '11 save it ! Seven years since, I passed through Paris, stopped a day To see the baptism of your Prince ; Saw, made my bow, and went my way : Walking the heat and headache off, I took the Seine-side, you surmise, Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff, Cavour's appeal and Buol's replies, So sauntered till what met my eyes ? Only the Doric little Morgue ! The dead-house where you show your drowned : Petrarch's Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue, Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned. One pays one's debt in such a case ; I plucked up heart and entered, stalked, Keeping a tolerable face Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked : Let them ! No Briton 's to be baulked ! First came the silent gazers ; next, A screen of glass, we 're thankful for ; Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text, The three men who did most abhor ROBERT BRO WNING 1 1 1 Their life in Paris yesterday, So killed themselves : and now, enthroned Each on his copper couch, they lay Fronting me, waiting to be owned. I thought, and think, their sin 's atoned. Poor men, God made, and all for that ! The reverence struck me ; o'er each head Religiously was hung its hat, Each coat dripped by the owner's bed, Sacred from touch : each had his berth, His bounds, his proper place of rest, Who last night tenanted on earth Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast, Unless the plain asphalte seemed best. How did it happen, my poor boy ? You wanted to be Buonaparte And have the Tuileries for toy, And could not, so it broke your heart ? You, old one by his side, I judge, Were, red as blood, a socialist, A leveller ! Does the Empire grudge You Ve gained what no Republic missed ? Be quiet, and unclench your fist ! And this why, he was red in vain, Or black, poor fellow that is blue ! 1 1 2 LIVING ENGLISH POE TS What fancy was it, turned your brain ? Oh, women were the prize for you ! Money gets women, cards and dice Get money, and ill-luck gets just The copper couch and one clear nice Cool squirt of water o'er your bust, The right thing to extinguish lust ! It 's wiser being good than bad ; It 's safer being meek than fierce : It 's fitter being sane than mad. My own hope is, a sun will pierce The thickest cloud earth ever stretched ; That, after Last, returns the First, Though a wide compass round be fetched ; That what began best, can't end worst, Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst. THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAIN1 PRAXE&S CHURCH ROME, 15- Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity ! Draw round my bed : is Anselm keeping back ? Nephews sons mine ... ah God, I know not ! Well ROBERT BRO WNING 113 She, men would have to be your mother once, Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was ! What 's done is done, and she is dead beside, Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, And as she died so must we die ourselves, And thence ye may perceive the world 's a dream. Life, how and what is it ? As here I lie In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask " Do I live, am I dead ? " Peace, peace seems all. Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace ; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know : Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care ; Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South He graced his carrion with, God curse the same ! Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, And up into the aery dome where live The angels, and a sunbeam 's sure to lurk : And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest, With those nine columns round me, two and two, The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands : Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse. 1 14 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, Put me where I may look at him ! True peach, Rosy and flawless : how I earned the prize ! Draw close : that conflagration of my church What then ? So much was saved if aught were missed ! My sons, ye would not be my death ? Go dig The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, Drop water gently till the surface sink, And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know not, I ! . . . Bedded in store of rotten figleaves soft, And corded up in a tight olive-frail, Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli, Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast . . . Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, That brave Frascati villa with its bath, So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, Like God the Father's globe on both his hands Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay, For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst ! Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years : Man goeth to the grave, and where is he ? Did I say basalt for my slab, sons ? Black 'Twas ever antique-black I meant ! How else Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath ? The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance ROBERT BRO WNING 1 1 5 Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables . . . but I know Ye mark me not ! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm ? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at ! Nay, boys, ye love me all of jasper, then ! 'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve My bath must needs be left behind, alas ! One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, There 's plenty jasper somewhere in the world And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs ? That 's if ye carve my epitaph aright, Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word, No gaudy ware like Gandolf s second line Tully, my masters ? Ulpian serves his need ! And then how I shall lie through centuries, And hear the blessed mutter of the mass, And see God made and eaten all day long, And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke ! I 2 U6 LIVING ENGLISH POETS For as I lie here, hours of the dead night, Dying in state and by such slow degrees, I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop Into great laps and folds of sculptor's work : And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts Grow, with a certain humming in my ears, About the life before I lived this life, And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests, Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount, Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes, And new-found agate urns as fresh as day, And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet, Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend ? No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best ! Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. All lapis, all, sons ! Else I give the Pope My villas ! Will ye ever eat my heart ? Ever your eyes were as a lizard 's quick, They glitter like your mother's for my soul, Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze, Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term, And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down, To comfort me on my entablature ROBERT BROWNING 1 17 Whereon I am to lie till I must ask " Do I live, am I dead ? " There, leave me, there ! For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude To death ye wish it God, ye wish it ! Stone Gritstone, a-crumble ! Clammy squares which sweat As if the corpse they keep were oozing through And no more lapis to delight the world ! Well go ! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, But in a row : and, going, turn your backs Ay, like departing altar-ministrants, And leave me in my church, the church for peace, That I may watch at leisure if he leers Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone, As still he envied me, so fair she was ! RABBI BEN EZRA Grow old along with me ! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made : Our times are in His hand Who saith " A whole I planned, " Youth shows but half ; trust God : see all, nor be afraid ! " 1 18 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Not that, amassing flowers, Youth sighed " Which rose make ours, Which lily leave and then as best recall ? " Not that, admiring stars, It yearned " Nor Jove, nor Mars ; Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all ! " Not for such hopes and fears Annulling youth's brief years, Do I remonstrate : folly wide the mark ! Rather I prize the doubt Low kinds exist without, Finished and finite clods, untroubled by spark. Poor vaunt of life indeed, Were man but formed to feed On joy, to solely seek and find and feast : Such feasting ended, then As sure an end to men ; Irks care the crop-full bird ? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast ? Rejoice we are allied To That which doth provide ROBER T BRO WNING 1 19 And not partake, effect and not receive ! A spark disturbs our clod ; Nearer we hold of God Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe. Then, welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go ! Be our joys three-parts pain ! Strive, and hold cheap the strain ; Learn, nor account the pang ; dare, never grudge the throe ! For thence, a paradox Which comforts while it mocks, Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail : What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me : A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale. What is he but a brute Whose flesh hath soul to suit, Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play ? 120 LIVING ENGLISH POETS To man, propose this test Thy body at its best, How far can that project thy soul on its lone way ? Yet gifts should prove their use : I own the Past profuse Of power each side, perfection every turn : Eyes, ears took in their dole, Brain treasured up the whole ; Should not the heart beat once " How good to live and learn ? " Not once beat " Praise be Thine ! I see the whole design, I, who saw power, see now Love perfect too : Perfect I call Thy plan : Thanks that I was a man ! Maker, remake, complete, I trust what Thou shalt do ! " For pleasant is this flesh ; Our soul, in its rose-mesh Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest : Would we some prize might hold To match those manifold Possessions of the brute, gain most, as we did best! ROBERT BRO WNING 1 2 1 Let us not always say " Spite of this flesh to-day I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole ! " As the bird wings and sings, Let us cry " All good things Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul ! " Therefore I summon age To grant youth's heritage, Life's struggle having so far reached its term : Thence shall I pass, approved A man, for aye removed From the developed brute ; a God though in the germ. And I shall thereupon Take rest, ere I be gone Once more on my adventure brave and new : Fearless and unperplexed, When I wage battle next, What weapons to select, what armour to indue. Youth ended, I shall try My gain or loss thereby ; Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold : 122 LIVING ENGLISH POETS And I shall weigh the same, Give life its praise or blame : Young, all lay in dispute ; I shall know, being old. For note, when evening shuts, A certain moment cuts The deed off, calls the glory from the grey : A whisper from the west Shoots" Add this to the rest, Take it and try its worth : here dies another day." So, still within this life, Though lifted o'er its strife, Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, " This rage was right i' the main, That acquiescence vain : The Future I may face now I have proved the Past." For more is not reserved To man, with soul just nerved To act to-morrow what he learns to-day : Here, work enough to watch The Master work, and catch Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. ROBERT BRO WNING 1 23 As it was better, youth Should strive, through acts uncouth, Toward making, than repose on aught found made; So, better, age, exempt From strife, should know, than tempt Further. Thou waitedst age ; wait death nor be afraid ! Enough now, if the Right And Good and Infinite Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own, With knowledge absolute, Subject to no dispute From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone. Be there, for once and all, Severed great minds from small, Announced to each his station in the Past ! Was I, the world arraigned, Were they, my soul disdained, Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last ! Now, who shall arbitrate ? Ten men love what I hate, 124 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Shun what I follow, slight what I receive ; Ten, who in ears and eyes Match me : we all surmise, They, this thing, and I, that : whom shall my soul believe ? Not on the vulgar mass Called " work," must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price ; O'er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice : But all, the world's coarse thumb And ringer failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account ; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount : Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke through language and escaped : All I could never be, ROBERT BROWNING 125 All, men ignored in me, This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped. Ay, note that Potter's wheel, That metaphor ! and feel Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay, Thou, to whom fools propound, When the wine makes its round, " Since life fleets, all is change ; the Past gone, seize to-day ! " Fool ! All that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall ; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure : What entered into thee, That was, is, and shall be : Time's wheel runs back or stops : Potter and clay endure. He fixed thee mid this dance Of plastic circumstance, This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest : Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently im- pressed. 126 LIVING ENGLISH POETS What though the earlier grooves Which ran the laughing loves Around thy base, no longer pause and press ? What though, about thy rim, Scull-things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress ? Look not thou down but up ! To uses of a cup, The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, The new wine's foaming flow, The Master's lips a-glow ! Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel ? But I need, now as then, Thee, God, who mouldest men ; And since, not even while the whirl was worst, Did I, to the wheel of life With shapes and colours rife, Bound dizzily, mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst : So, take and use Thy work ! Amend what flaws may lurk, ROBERT BROWNING 127 What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim ! My times be in Thy hand ! Perfect the cup as planned ! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same ! AUBREY DE VERE Born 1814 SONG When I was young, I said to Sorrow, " Come, and I will play with thee : " He is near me now all day ; And at night returns to say, " I will come again to-morrow, I will come and stay with thee." Through the woods we walk together ; His soft footsteps rustle nigh me ; To shield an unregarded head, He hath built a winter shed ; And all night in rainy weather, I hear his gentle breathings by me, AUBREY DE VERE 129 FROM "ODE ON THE ASCENT OF THE ALPS' All night as in my dreams I lay The shout of torrents without number Was in my ears " Away, away, No time have we for slumber ! The star-beams in our eddies play The moon is set : away, away ! " And round the hills in tumult borne Through echoing caves and gorges rocking, The voices of the night and morn Are crying louder in their scorn, My tedious languor mocking. Alas ! in vain man's wearied limbs would rise To join in elemental ecstasies ! " But thou, O Muse, our heavenly mate, Unclogged art thou by fleshly weight ! Ascend ; upbearing my desire Among the mountains high and higher. Leap from the glen upon the forest Leap from the forest on the snow : And while from snow to cloud thou soarest Look back on me below : Where from the glacier bursts the river With iron clang, pursue it ever ; K 130 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Where Eagles through the tempest break, Float forward in their viewless wake ; Where sunbeams gild the icy spire Fling from thy tresses fire on fire." I spake Behold her o'er the broad lake flying : Like a great Angel missioned to bestow Some boon on men beneath in sadness lying : The waves are murmuring silver murmurs low : Beneath the curdling wind Green through the shades the waters rush and roll, (Or whitened only by the unfrequent shoal) Till two dark hills, with darker yet behind, Confront them, purple mountains almost black, Each behind each self-folded and withdrawn Beneath the umbrage of yon cloudy rack That orange gleam ! 'tis dawn ! Onward ! the swan's flight with the eagle's blending, On, winged Muse ; still forward and ascending ! That mighty sweep, one orbit of her flight, Has overcurved the mountain's barrier height : She sinks, she speeds on prosperous wing prevailing, (Broad lights below and changeful shadows sailing) Over a vale upon whose breadth may shine Not noontide suns alone, but suns of even, Warming the gray fields in their soft decline, The green streams flushing with the hues of heaven. AUBREY DE VERE 131 In vain those Shepherds call ; they cannot wake The echoes on this wide and cultured plain, Where spreads the river now into a lake, Now curves through walnut meads its golden chain, In-isling here and there some spot With orchard, hive, and one fair cot : Or children dragging from their boat Into the flood some reverend goat O happy valley ! cradle soft and deep For blissful life, calm sleep, And leisure, and affections free and wide, Give me yon plough, that I with thee may bide ! Or climb those stages, cot-bestrown, Vast steps of Summer's mountain-throne, Terrace o'er terrace rising, line o'er line, Swathed in the light wreaths of the elaborate vine. On yonder loftiest steep, the last From whose green base the gray rocks rise, In random circle idly cast A happy household lies. There rests the grandsire : round his feet The children some old tale entreat, And while he speaks supply each word Forgotten, altered, or ill heard. In yonder brake reclines a maid, Her locks a lover's fingers braid ' K 2 132 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Fair, fearless maiden ! cause for fear Is none, though he alone were near : Indulge at will thy sweet security ! He doth but that bold front incline And all those wind-tossed curls on thine To catch from thy fresh lips their mountain purity ! PHILIP JAMES BAILEY Born 1816 FROM "FESTUS" Oh for the young heart like a fountain playing, Flinging its bright fresh feelings up to the skies It loves and strives to reach ; strives, loves in vain. It is of earth, and never meant for heaven, Let us love both and die. The sphinx-like heart Loathes life the moment that life's riddle is read. The knot of our existence solved, all things Loose-ended lie, and useless. Life is had, And lo ! we sigh, and say, can this be all ? It is not what we thought ; it is very well, But we want something more. There is but death. And when we have said and seen, done, had, enjoyed And suffered, maybe, all we have wished, or feared, From fame to ruin, and from love to loathing, There can come but one more change try it death. Oh it is great to feel that nought of earth, 1 34 LIVING ENGLISH POE TS Hope, love, nor dread, nor care for what 's to come, Can check the royal lavishment of life ; But, like a streamer strown upon the wind, We fling our souls to fate and to the future. For to die young is youth's divinest gift ; To pass from one world fresh into another, Ere change hath lost the charm of soft regret ; And feel the immortal impulse from within Which makes the coming, life, cry alway, on ! And follow it while strong, is heaven's last mercy. There is a fire-fly in the south, but shines When on the wing. So is \ with mind. When once We rest, we darken. On ! saith God to the soul, As unto the earth for ever. On it goes, A rejoicing native of the infinite, As is a bird, of air ; an orb, of heaven. MATTHEW ARNOLD Born 1822 TO MARGUERITE Yes ! in the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone. The islands feel the enclasping flow, And then their endless bounds they know, But when the moon their hollows lights, And they are swept by balms of spring, And in their glens, on starry nights, The nightingales divinely sing ; And lovely notes, from shore to shore, Across the sounds and channels pour Oh ! then a longing like despair Is to their farthest caverns sent ; For surely once, they feel, we were Parts of a single continent ! 136 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Now round us spreads the watery plain Oh might our marges meet again ! Who order'd, that their longing's fire Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd ? Who renders vain their deep desire ? A God, a God their severance ruled ! And bade betwixt their shores to be The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea. THE SCHOLAR GIPSY Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill ; Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes ! No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed, Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats, Nor the cropp'd grasses shoot another head ; But when the fields are still, And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest, And only the white sheep are sometimes seen Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanch'd green, Come, shepherd, and again renew the quest ! Here, where the reaper was at work of late In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves MA TTHE W A RNOLD 1 37 His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse, And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves, Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use Here will I sit and wait, While to my ear from uplands far away The bleating of the folded flocks is borne, With distant cries of reapers in the corn All the live murmur of a summer's day. Screen'd is this nook o'er the high, half-reap'd field, And here till sun-down, shepherd ! will I be. Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep, And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see Pale blue convolvulus in tendrils creep ; And air-swept lindens yield Their scent, and rustle down their perfum'd showers Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid, And bower me from the August-sun with shade ; And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers. And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book Come, let me read the oft-read tale again ! The story of that Oxford scholar poor Of shining parts and quick inventive brain, Who, tired of knocking at preferment's door, One summer morn forsook 1 38 LIVING ENGLISH POE TS His friends, and went to learn the gipsy-lore, And roam'd the world with that wild brotherhood, And came, as most men deem'd, to little good, But came to Oxford and his friends no more. But once, years after, in the country lanes, Two scholars, whom at college erst he knew, Met him, and of his way of life enquired. Whereat he answer'd, that the gipsy crew, His mates, had arts to rule as they desired The workings of men's brains, And they can bind them to what thoughts they will. " And I," he said, " the secret of their art, When fully learn'd, will to the world impart ; But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill." This said, he left them, and return'd no more. But rumours hung about the country-side, That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray, Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied, In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey, The same the gipsies wore. Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring ; At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors, On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frock'd boors Had found him seated at their entering, MA TTHE W ARNOLD 1 39 But, mid their drink and clatter, he would fly. And I myself seem half to know thy looks, And put the shepherds, wanderer ! on thy trace ; And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks I ask if thou hast pass'd their quiet place ; Or in my boat I lie Moor'd to the cool bank in the summer-heats, 'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills, And watch the warm, green-muffled Cumner hills, And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats. For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground ! Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe, Returning home on summer-nights, have met Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe, Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, As the punt's rope chops round ; And leaning backward in a pensive dream, And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers Pluck'd in shy fields and distant Wych wood bowers, And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream. And then they land, and thou art seen no more ! Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come To dance around the Fyfield elm in May, Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam, Or cross a stile into the public way ; Oft thou hast given them store 140 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Of flowers the frail-leaf d, white anemony, Dark bluebells drench'd with dews of summer eves, And purple orchises with spotted leaves But none hath words she can report of thee ! And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's here In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames, Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass Where black-wing'd swallows haunt the glittering Thames To bathe in the abandon'd lasher pass, Have often pass'd thee near, Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown ; Mark'd thine outlandish garb, thy figure spare, Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air But, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone ! At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills, Where at her open door the housewife darns, Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate To watch the threshers in the mossy barns. Children, who early range these slopes and late For cresses from the rills, Have known thee eying, all an April-day The springing pastures and the feeding kine ; MATTHEW ARNOLD 141 And mark'd thee, when the stars come out and shine, Through the long dewy grass move slow away. In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood Where most the gipsies by the turf-edged way Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see With scarlet patches tagg'd and shreds of grey, Above the forest-ground call'd Thessaly The blackbird picking food Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all ; So often has he known thee past him stray, Rapt, twirling in thy hand a wither' d spray, And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall. And once, in winter, on the causeway chill Where home through flooded fields foot-travellers go> Have I not pass'd thee on the wooden bridge Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow, Thy face toward Hinksey and its wintry ridge ? And thou hast climb'd the hill, And gain'd the white brow of the Cumner range ; Turn'd once to watch, while thick the snow-flakes fall, The line of festal light in Christ- Church hall Then sought thy straw in some sequester'd grange. 142 LIVING ENGLISH POETS But what I dream ! Two hundred years are flown Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls, And the grave Glanvil did the tale inscribe That thou wert wander'd from the studious walls To learn strange arts, and join a gipsy-tribe. And thou from earth art gone Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid Some country-nook, where o'er thy unknown grave Tall grasses and white flowering nettles wave, Under a dark, red-fruited yew-tree's shade. No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours ! For what wears out the life of mortal men ? 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls ; 'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, Exhaust the energy of strongest souls, And numb the elastic powers. Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen, And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit, To the just-pausing Genius we remit Our well-worn life, and are what we have been. Thou hast not lived, why should'st thou perish, so ? Thou hadst one aim, one business, one desire ; Else wert thou long since numbered with the dead! Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire ! MA TTHEW ARNOLD 143 The generations of thy peers are fled, And we ourselves shall go ; But thou possessest an immortal lot, And we imagine thee exempt from age, And living as thou liv'st on Glanvil's page, Because thou hadst what we, alas ! have not. For early didst thou leave the world, with powers Fresh, undiverted to the world without, Firm to their mark, not spent on other things ; Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt, Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings. O life unlike to ours ! , Who fluctuate idly without term or scope, Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives, And each half lives a hundred different lives ; Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope. Thou waitest for the spark from heaven ! and we, Light half-believers of our casual creeds, Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will'd, Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill'd ; For whom each year we see 144 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new ; Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day Ah ! do not we, wanderer ! await it too ? Yet, we await it ! but it still delays, And then we suffer ! and amongst us one, Who most has suffer'd, takes dejectedly His seat upon the intellectual throne ; And all his store of sad experience he Lays bare of wretched days ; Tells us his misery's birth and growth and signs, And how the dying spark of hope was fed, And how the breast was soothed, and how the head, And all his hourly varied anodynes. This for our wisest ! and we others pine, And wish the long unhappy dream would end, And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear ; With close-lipp'd patience for our only friend, Sad patience, too near neighbour to despair But none has hope like thine ! Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray, Roaming the country-side, a truant boy, Nursing thy project in unclouded joy, And every doubt long blown by time away. MA TTHEW ARNOLD 145 O born in days when wits were fresh and clear, And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames ; Before this strange disease of modern life, With its sick hurry, its divided aims, Its heads o'er-taxed, its palsied hearts, was rife Fly hence, our contact fear ! Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood ! Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern From her false friend's approach in Hades turn, Wave us away, and keep thy solitude ! Still nursing the unconquerable hope, Still clutching the inviolable shade, With a free, onward impulse brushing through, By night, the silver'd branches of the glade Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue, On some mild pastoral slope Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales Freshen thy flowers as in former years, With dew, or listen with enchanted ears, From the dark dingles, to the nightingales ! But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly ! For strong the infection of our mental strife, Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest ; And we should win thee from thy own fair life, L 146 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Like us distracted, and like us unblest. Soon, soon thy cheer would die, Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfix'd thy powers, And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made ; And then thy glad perennial youth would fade, Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours. Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles ! As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea, Descried at sunrise an emerging prow Lifting the cool-hair' d creepers stealthily, The fringes of a southward-facing brow Among the ^Egean isles ; And saw the merry Grecian coaster come, Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine, Green, bursting figs, and tunnies steep'd in brine And knew the intruders on his ancient home, The young light-hearted masters of the waves And snatch'd his rudder, and shook out more sail, And day and night held on indignantly O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale, Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, To where the Atlantic raves Outside the western straits, and unbent sails MA TTHE W ARNOLD 147 There where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam, Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come ; And on the beach undid his corded bales. THE SICK KING IN BOKHARA HUSSEIN O most just Vizier, send away The cloth-merchants, and let them be, Them and their dues, this day ! the King Is ill at ease, and calls for thee. THE VIZIER O merchants, tarry yet a day Here in Bokhara ! but at noon To-morrow, come, and ye shall pay Each fortieth web of cloth to me, As the law is, and go your way. O Hussein, lead me to the King ! Thou teller of sweet tales, thine own, Ferdousi's, and the others', lead ! How is it with my lord ? L 2 148 LIVING ENGLISH POETS HUSSEIN Alone, Ever since prayer-time, he doth wait, O Vizier ! without lying down, In the great window of the gate, Looking into the Registan, Where through the sellers' booths the slaves Are this way bringing the dead man. O Vizier, here is the King's door ! THE KING O Vizier, I may bury him ? THE VIZIER O King, thou know'st, I have been sick These many days, and heard no thing (For Allah shut my ears and mind), Not even what thou dost, O King ! Wherefore, that I may counsel thee, Let Hussein, if thou wilt, make haste To speak in order what hath chanced. THE KING O Vizier, be it as thou say'st ! HUSSEIN Three days since, at the time of prayer, A certain Moollah, with his robe All rent, and dust upon his hair, MA TTHE W A RNOLD H9 Watch'd my lord's coming forth, and push'd The golden mace-bearers aside, And fell at the King's feet, and cried : "Justice, O King, and on myself! On this great sinner, who did break The law, and by the law must die ! Vengeance, O King ! " But the King spake : " What fool is this, that hurts our ears With folly ? or what drunken slave ? My guards, what, prick him with your spears ! Prick me the fellow from the path ! " As the King said, so was it done, And to the mosque my lord pass'd on. But on the morrow, when the King Went forth again, the holy book Carried before him, as is right, And through the square his path he took ; My man comes running, fleck'd with blood From yesterday, and falling down Cries out most earnestly : " O King, My lord, O King, do right, I pray ! " How canst thou, ere thou hear, discern If I speak folly ? but a king, ISO LIVING ENGLISH POETS Whether a thing be great or small, Like Allah, hears and judges all. " Wherefore hear thou ! Thou know'st, how fierce In these last days the sun hath burn'd ; That the green water in the tanks Is to a putrid puddle turn'd ; And the canal, that from the stream Of Samarcand is brought this way, Wastes, and runs thinner every day. " Now I at nightfall had gone forth Alone, and in a darksome place Under some mulberry-trees I found A little pool ; and in short space With all the water that was there I fill'd my pitcher, and stole home Unseen ; and having drink to spare, I hid the can behind the door, And went up on the roof to sleep. " But in the night, which was with wind And burning dust, again I creep Down, having fever, for a drink. " Now meanwhile had my brethren found The water-pitcher, where it stood Behind the door upon the ground, And call'd my mother ; and they all, MA TTHE W ARNOLD 1 5 1 As they were thirsty, and the night Most sultry, drain' d the pitcher there ; That they sate with it, in my sight, Their lips still wet, when I came down, " Now mark ! I, being fever' d, sick (Most unblest also), at that sight Brake forth, and cursed them dost thou hear ? One was my mother Now, do right ! " But my lord mused a space, and said : " Send him away, Sirs, and make on ! It is some madman ! " the King said. As the King bade, so was it done. The morrow, at the self-same hour, In the King's path, behold, the man, Not kneeling, sternly fix'd ! he stood Right opposite, and thus began, Frowning grim down : " Thou wicked King, Most deaf where thou shouldst most give ear ! What, must I howl in the next world, Because thou wilt not listen here ? " What, wilt thou pray, and get thee grace, And all grace shall to me be grudged ? Nay but, I swear, from this thy path I will not stir till I be judged ! " 152 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Then they who stood about the King Drew close together and conferr'd ; Till that the King stood forth and said : " Before the priests thou shalt be heard." But when the Ulemas were met, And the thing heard, they doubted not ; But sentenced him, as the law is, To die by stoning on the spot. Now the King charged us secretly : " Stoned must he be, the law stands so. Yet, if he seek to fly, give way ; Hinder him not, but let him go." So saying, the King took a stone, And cast it softly ; but the man, With a great joy upon his face, Kneel'd down, and cried not, neither ran. So they, whose lot it was, cast stones, That they flew thick and bruised him sore. But he praised Allah with loud voice, And remain'd kneeling as before. My lord had cover'd up his face ; But when one told him, " He is dead," Turning him quickly to go in, " Bring thou to me his corpse," he said. MA TTHEW ARNOLD 153 And truly, while I speak, O King, I hear the bearers on the stair ; Wilt thou they straightway bring him in ? Ho ! enter ye who tarry there ! THE VIZIER O King, in this I praise thee not ! Now must I call thy grief not wise. Is he thy friend, or of thy blood, To find such favour in thine eyes ? Nay, were he thine own mother's son, Still, thou art king, and the law stands. It were not meet the balance swerved, The sword were broken in thy hands. But being nothing, as he is, Why for no cause make sad thy face ? Lo, I am old ! three kings, ere thee, Have I seen reigning in this place. But who, through all this length of time Could bear the burden of his years, If he for strangers pain'd his heart Not less than those who merit tears ? Fathers we must have, wife and child, And grievous is the grief for these ; 154 LIVING ENGLISH POETS This pain alone, which must be borne, Makes the head white, and bows the knees. But other loads than this his own One man is not well made to bear. Besides, to each are his own friends, To mourn with him, and shew him care. Look, this is but one single place, Though it be great ; all the earth round, If a man bear to have it so, Things which might vex him shall be found. Upon the Russian frontier, where The watchers of two armies stand Near one another, many a man, Seeking a prey unto his hand, Hath snatch'd a little fair-hair' d slave ; They snatch also, towards Merve, The Shiah dogs, who pasture sheep, And up from thence to Orgunje. And these all, labouring for a lord, Eat not the fruit of their own hands ; Which is the heaviest of all plagues, To that man's mind, who understands. The kaffirs also (whom God curse ! ) Vex one another, night and day ; MA TTHEW ARNOLD 155 There are the lepers, and all sick ; There are the poor, who faint alway. All these have sorrow, and keep still, Whilst other men make cheer, and sing. Wilt thou have pity on all these ? No, nor on this dead dog, O King ! THE KING O Vizier, thou art old, I young ! Clear in these things I cannot see. My head is burning, and a heat Is in my skin which angers me. But hear ye this, ye sons of men ! They that bear rule, and are obey'd, Unto a rule more strong than theirs Are in their turn obedient made. In vain therefore, with wistful eyes Gazing up hither, the poor man, Who loiters by the high-heap'd booths, Below there, in the Registan, Says : " Happy he, who lodges there ! With silken raiment, store of rice, And for this drought, all kinds of fruits, Grape syrup, squares of colour'd ice, J56 LIVING ENGLISH POETS " With cherries serv'd in drifts of snow." In vain hath a king power to build Houses, arcades, enamell'd mosques ; And to make orchard-closes, fill'd With curious fruit-trees brought from far ; With cisterns for the winter-rain, And in the desert, spacious inns In divers places if that pain Is not more lighten'd, which he feels, If his will be not satisfied ; And that it be not, from all time The law is planted, to abide. Thou wast a sinner, thou poor man ! Thou wast athirst ; and didst not see, That, though we take what we desire, We must not snatch it eagerly. And I have meat and drink at will, And rooms of treasures, not a few. But I am sick, nor heed I these : And what I would, I cannot do. Even the great honour which I have, When I am dead, will soon grow still ; So have I neither joy, nor fame. But what I can do, that I will. MA THE W ARNOLD. 157 I have a fretted brick-work tomb Upon a hill on the right hand, Hard by a close of apricots, Upon the road of Samarcand ; Thither, O Vizier, will I bear This man my pity could not save, And, plucking up the marble flags, There lay his body in my grave. Bring water, nard, and linen-rolls ! Wash off all blood, set smooth each limb ! Then say : " He was not wholly vile, Because a king shall bury him." LINES WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS In this lone, open glade I lie, Screen'd by deep boughs on either hand ; And at its end, to stay the eye, Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees stand ! Birds here make song, each bird has his, Across the girdling city's hum. 158 LIVING ENGLISH POETS How green under the boughs it is ! How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come Sometimes a child will cross the glade To take his nurse his broken toy ; Sometimes a thrush flit overhead Deep in her unknown day's employ. Here at my feet what wonders pass, What endless, active life is here ! What blowing daisies, fragrant grass ! An air-stirr 'd forest, fresh and clear. Scarce fresher is the mountain-sod Where the tired angler lies, stretch'd out, And, eased of basket and of rod, Counts his day's spoil, the spotted trout. In the huge world, which roars hard by, Be others happy if they can ! But in my helpless cradle I Was breathed on by the rural Pan. I, on men's impious uproar hurl'd, Think often, as I hear them rave, That peace has left the upper world And now keeps only in the grave. Yet here is peace for ever new ! When I who watch them am away, MA TTHEW ARNOLD 1 59 Still all things in this glade go through The changes of their quiet day. Then to their happy rest they pass ! The flowers upclose, the birds are fed, The night comes down upon the grass, The child sleeps warmly in his bed. Calm soul of all things ! make it mine To feel, amid the city's jar, That there abides a peace of thine, Man did not make, and cannot mar. The will to neither strive nor cry, The power to feel with others give ! Calm, calm me more ! nor let me die Before I have begun to live. THE WORLD'S TRIUMPHS So far as I conceive the world's rebuke To him address'd who would recast her new, Not from herself her fame of strength she took, But from their weakness who would work her rue. 160 LIVING ENGLISH POETS " Behold," she cries, " so many rages lull'd, So many fiery spirits quite cool'd down ; Look how so many valours, long undull'd, After short commerce with me, fear my frown ! Thou too, when thou against my crimes would'st cry, Let thy foreboded homage check thy tongue ! " The world speaks well ; yet might her foe reply : " Are wills so weak ? then let not mine wait long ! Hast thou so rare a poison ? let me be Keener to slay thee, lest thou poison me ! " A MODERN SAPPHO They are gone all is still ! Foolish heart, dost thou quiver ? Nothing stirs on the lawn but the quick lilac-shade. Far up shines the house, and beneath flows the river Here lean, my. head, on this cold balustrade ! Ere he come ere the boat, by the shining-branch'd border Of dark elms shoot round, dropping down the proud stream, MA TTHEW ARNOLD 161 Let me pause, let me strive, in myself make some order, Ere their boat-music sound, ere their broider'd flags gleam. Last night we stood earnestly talking together ; She enter'd that moment his eyes turn'd from me ! Fasten'd on her dark hair, and her wreath of white heather As yesterday was, so to-morrow will be. Their love, let me know, must grow strong and yet stronger, Their passion burn more, ere it ceases to burn. They must love while they must ! but the hearts that love longer Are rare ah ! most loves but flow once, and return. I shall suffer but they will outlive their affection ; I shall weep but their love will be cooling ; and he, As he drifts to fatigue, discontent, and dejection, Will be brought, thou poor heart, how much nearer to thee ! For cold is his eye to mere beauty, who, breaking The strong band which passion around him hath furl'd, Disenchanted by habit, and newly awaking, Looks languidly round on a gloom-buried world. M 162 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Through that gloom he will see but a shadow ap- pearing, Perceive but a voice as I come to his side. But deeper their voice grows, and nobler their bearing, Whose youth in the fires of anguish hath died. So, to wait ! But what notes down the wind, hark ! are driving ? Tis he ! 'tis their flag, shooting round by the trees ! Let my turn, if it will come, be swift in arriving ! Ah ! hope cannot long lighten torments like these. Hast thou yet dealt him, O life, thy full measure ? World, have thy children yet bow'd at his knee ? Hast thou with myrtle-leaf crown'd him, O pleasure ! Crown, crown him quickly, and leave him for me. COVENTRY P ATM ORE Born 1823 FROM THE ANGEL IN THE HOUSE" I LOVE'S PERVERSITY How strange a thing a lover seems To animals that do not love ! Lo, where he walks and talks in dreams, And flouts us with his Lady's glove ; How foreign is the garb he wears ; And how his great devotion mocks Our poor propriety, and scares The undevout with paradox ! His soul, through scorn of worldly care. And great extremes of sweet and gall, And musing much on all that's fair, Grows witty and fantastical ; He sobs his joy and sings his grief, And evermore finds such delight In simply picturing his relief, That 'plaining seems to cure his plight ; M 2 164 LIVING ENGLISH POETS He makes his sorrow, when there 's none ; His fancy blows both cold and hot; Next to the wish that she '11 be won, His first hope is that she may not ; He sues, yet deprecates consent ; Would she be captured she must fly ; She looks too happy and content, For whose least pleasure he would die ; Oh, cruelty, she cannot care For one to whom she 's always kind ! He says he 's nought, but, oh, despair, If he 's not Jove to her fond mind ! He 's jealous if she pets a dove, She must be his with all her soul ; Yet 'tis a postulate in love That part is greater than the whole ; And all his apprehension's stress, When he 's with her, regards her hair, Her hand, a ribbon of her dress, As if his life were only there ; Because she 's constant, he will change, And kindest glances coldly meet, And, all the time he seems so strange, His soul is fawning at her feet ; Of smiles and simple heaven grown tired, He wickedly provokes her tears, And when she weeps, as he desired, CO VENTR Y PA TMORE 1 65 Falls slain with ecstacies of fears ; He blames her, though she has no fault, Except the folly to be his ; He worships her, the more to exalt The profanation of a kiss ; Health 's his disease ; he 's never well But when his paleness shames her rose ; His faith 's a rock-built citadel, Its sign a flag that each way blows ; His o'erfed fancy frets and fumes ; And Love, in him, is fierce, like Hate, And ruffles his ambrosial plumes Against the bars of time and fate. THE REVELATION An idle poet, here and there, Looks round him ; but, for all the rest, The world, unfathomably fair, Is duller than a witling's jest. Love wakes men, once a lifetime each ; They lift their heavy lids, and look ; And, lo, what one sweet page can teach, They read with joy, then shut the book. r66 LIVING ENGLISH POETS And some give thanks, and some blaspheme, And most forget ; but, either way, That and the Child's unheeded dream Is all the light of all their day. THE TOYS My little Son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes, And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, Having my law the seventh time disobey'd, I struck him, and dismiss'd With hard words and unkiss'd, His Mother, who was patient, being dead. Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, I visited his bed, But found him slumbering deep, With darken'd eyelids, and their lashes yet From his late sobbing wet. And I, with moan, Kissing away his tears, left others of my own ; For, on a table drawn beside his head, He had put, within his reach, A box of counters and a red-vein'd stone, A piece of glass abraded by the beach CO VENTR Y PA TMORE 167 And six or seven shells, A bottle with bluebells And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art, To comfort his sad heart. So when that night I pray'd To God, I wept, and said : Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath, Not vexing Thee in death, And Thou rememberest of what toys We made our joys, How weakly understood, Thy great commanded good, Then, fatherly not less Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, Thou It leave Thy wrath, and say, " I will be sorry for their childishness." DEPARTURE It was not like your great and gracious ways ! Do you, that have nought other to lament, Never, my Love, repent Of how, that July afternoon, 1 68 LIVING ENGLISH POETS You went, With sudden, unintelligible phrase, And frighten'd eye, Upon your journey of so many days, Without a single kiss, or a good-bye ? I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon ; And so we sate, within the low sun's rays, You whispering to me, for your voice was weak, Your harrowing praise. Well, it was well, To hear you such things speak, And I could tell What made your eyes a growing gloom of love, As a warm South-wind sombres a March grove. And it was like your great and gracious ways To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear, Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash To let the laughter flash, Whilst I drew near, Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear. But all at once to leave me at the last, More at the wonder than the loss aghast, With huddled, unintelligible phrase, And frighten'd eye, And go your journey of all days With not one kiss, or a good-bye, COVENTRY PA TMORE 169 And the only loveless look the look with which you pass'd ; 'Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways. THE AZALEA There, where the sun shines first Against our room, She train'd the gold Azalea, whose perfume She, Spring-like, from her breathing grace dispersed. Last night the delicate crests of saffron bloom, For that their dainty likeness watch'd and nurst, Were just at point to burst. At dawn I dream'd, O God, that she was dead, And groan'd aloud upon my wretched bed, And waked, ah, God, and did not waken her, But lay, with eyes still closed, Perfectly bless'd in the delicious sphere By which I knew so well that she was near, My heart to speechless thankfulness composed. Till 'gan to stir A dizzy somewhat in my troubled head It was the azalea's breath, and she was dead ! The warm night had the lingering buds disclosed, i;o LIVING ENGLISH POETS And I had fall'n asleep with to my breast A chance-found letter press'd In which she said, " So, till to-morrow eve, my Own, adieu ! Parting's well-paid with soon again to meet, Soon in your arms to feel so small and sweet, Sweet to myself that am so sweet to you ! i " WILLIAM CORY Born 1823 MIMNERMUS IN CHURCH You promise heavens free from strife, Pure truth, and perfect change of will ; But sweet, sweet is this human life, So sweet, I fain would breathe it still : Your chilly stars I can forego, This warm kind world is all I know. You say there is no substance here, One great reality above : Back from that void I shrink in fear, And child-like hide myself in love : Show me what angels feel. Till then, I cling, a mere weak man, to men. You bid me lift my mean desires From faltering lips and fitful veins To sexless souls, ideal quires, Unwearied voices, wordless strains : i/2 LIVING ENGLISH POETS My mind with fonder welcome owns One dear dead friend's remembered tones. Forsooth the present we must give To that which cannot pass away ; All beauteous things for which we live By laws of time and space decay. But oh, the very reason why I clasp them, is because they die. WILLIAM ALEXANDER Born 1824 A VISION OF OXFORD Methought I met a Lady yestereven ; A passionless grief, that had nor tear nor wail, Sat on her pure proud face, that gleam'd to Heaven, White as a moon-lit sail. She spake : " On this pale brow are looks of youth, Yet angels listening on the argent floor Know that these lips have been proclaiming truth, Nine hundred years and more : " And Isis knows what time-grey towers rear'd up, Gardens and groves and cloister' d halls are mine, Where quaff my sons from many a myrrhine cup Draughts of ambrosial wine. "He knows how night by night my lamps are lit, How day by day my bells are ringing clear, Mother of ancient lore, and Attic wit, And discipline severe. 174 LIVING ENGLISH POETS " It may be long ago my dizzied brain Enchanted swam beneath Rome's master spell, Till like light tinctured by the painted pane Thought in her colours fell. " Yet when the great old tongue with strong effect Woke from its sepulchre across the sea, The subtler spell of Grecian intellect Work'd mightily in me. " Time pass'd my groves were full of warlike stirs ; The student's heart was with the merry spears, Or keeping measure to the clanking spurs Of Rupert's Cavaliers. " All those long ages, like a holy mother I rear'd my children to a lore sublime, Picking up fairer shells than any other Along the shores of Time. " And must I speak at last of sensual sleep, The dull forgetfulness of aimless years ? O ! let me turn away my head and weep Than Rachel's bitterer tears. " Tears for the passionate hearts I might have won, Tears for the age with which I might have striven, Tears for a hundred years of work undone, Crying like blood to Heaven. WILLIAM ALEXANDER 175 " I have repented, and my glorious name Stands scutcheon'd round with blazonry more bright. The wither'd rod, the emblem of my shame, Bloom'd blossoms in a night. " And I have led my children on steep mountains By fine attraction of my spirit brought Up to the dark inexplicable fountains That are the springs of thought : " Led them where on the old poetic shore The flowers that change not with the changing moon Breathe round young hearts, as breathes the sycamore About the bees in June. " And I will bear them as on eagle's wings, To leave them bow'd before the sapphire Throne, High o'er the haunts where dying pleasure sings With sweet and swanlike tone. " And I will lead the age's great expansions, Progressive circles toward thought's Sabbath rest, And point beyond them to the ' many mansions ' Where Christ is with the blest. 176 LIVING ENGLISH POETS " Am I not pledged, who gave my bridal ring To that old man heroic, strong, and true, Whose grey-hair'd virtue was a nobler thing Than even Waterloo ? " Surely that spousal morn my chosen ones Felt their hearts moving to mysterious calls, And the old pictures of my sainted sons Look'd brighter from the walls. " He sleeps at last no wind's tempestuous breath Play'd a Dead March upon the moaning billow, What time God's Angel visited with death The old Field-Marshal's pillow. " There was no omen of a great disaster Where castled Walmer stands beside the shore ; The evening clouds, like pillar'd alabaster, Hung huge and silent o'er. " The moon in brightness walk'd the ' fleecy rack/ Walk'd up and down among the starry fires, Heaven's great cathedral was not hung with black Up to its topmost spires ! " But mine own Isis kept a solemn chiming, A silver Requiescat all night long, And mine old trees, with all their leaves, were timing The sorrow of the song. WILLIAM ALEXANDER 177 " And through mine angel-haunted aisles of beauty From grand old organs gush'd a music dim, Lauds for a champion who had done his duty. I knew they were for him ! " THOMAS WOOLNER ( Born 1825 FROM " PYGMALION " CYTHEREA Uprisen from the sea when Cytherea, Shining in primal beauty, paled the day, The wondering waters hushed. They yearned in sighs That shook the world : tumultuously heaved To a great throne of azure laced with light And canopied in foam to grace their Queen. Shrieking for joy came Oceanides, And swift Nereides rushed from afar Or clove the waters by. Came eager-eyed Even shy Naiades from inland streams, With wild cries headlong darting thro' the waves ; And Dryads from the shore stretched their lorn arms. While hoarsely sounding heard was Triton's shell ; Shoutings uncouth ; sudden, bewildered sounds ; THOMAS WOOLNER 179 And the innumerable splashing feet Of monsters gambolling around their God, Forth shining on a sea-horse, fierce, and finned. Some bestrode fishes glinting dusky gold, Or angry crimson, or chill silver bright ; Others jerked fast on their own scaly tails ; And sea-birds, screaming upwards either side, Wove a vast arch above the Queen of Love, Who, gazing on this multitudinous Homaging to her beauty, laughed : She laughed The soft delicious laughter that makes mad ; Low warblings in the throat that clench man's life Tighter than prison bars. Then swayed a breath Of odorous rose and scented myrtle mixed, That toyed the golden radiance round her brows To wavy flames. When lo ! sweet murmurings Spread sudden silence on that gathered host ! And, as sped arrows to their mark ; as bees Drop promptly on the honey'd flower, as one Shone the three daughters of Eurynome ; Aglaia, and Thalia, each an arm * In reverence taking fondled tenderly ; Then pressed their blushing cheeks against her breasts : And loved Euphrosyne, scarcely less fair N 2 i8o LIVING ENGLISH POETS Than Cytherea's self, lay her white length Kissing the sacred feet. Such honour paid The powers of nature to the power of Love, Creation's longed-for Wonder sprung to life CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI Born 1830 AMOR MUNDI " O where are you going with your love-locks flowing, On the west wind blowing along this valley track ? " "The down-hill path is easy, come with me an it please ye, We shall escape the up-hill by never turning back." So they two went together in glowing August weather, The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right ; And dear she was to doat on, her swift feet seemed to float on The air like soft twin pigeons too sportive to alight. " Oh, what is that in heaven where grey cloud-flakes are seven, Where blackest clouds hang riven just at the rainy skirt ? " 182 LIVING ENGLISH POETS " Oh, that 's a meteor sent us, a message dumb, por- tentous, An undeciphered solemn signal of help or hurt." " Oh, what is that glides quickly where velvet flowers grow thickly, Their scent comes rich and sickly ? " "A scaled and hooded worm." " Oh, what 's that in the hollow, so pale I quake to follow ? " " Oh, that 's a thin dead body which waits the eternal term." " Turn again, O my sweetest, turn again, false and fleetest : This beaten way thou beatest, I fear is hell's own track." " Nay, too steep for hill mounting ; nay, too late for cost counting : This down-hill path is easy, but there 's no turning back." CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI 183 UP-HILL Does the road wind up-hill all the way ? Yes, to the very end. Will the day's journey take the whole long day ? From morn to night, my friend. But is there for the night a resting-place ? A roof for when the slow dark hours begin. May not the darkness hide it from my face ? You cannot miss that inn. Shall I meet other wayfarers at night ? Those who have gone before. Then must I knock, or call when just in sight ? They will not keep you standing at the door. Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak ? Of labour you shall find the sum. Will there be beds for me and all who seek ? Yea, beds for all who come. 1 84 LIVING ENGLISH POETS SONG When I am dead, my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me ; Plant thou no roses at my head, Nor shady cypress tree : Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet ; And if thou wilt, remember, And if thou wilt, forget. I shall not see the shadows, I shall not feel the rain ; I shall not hear the nightingale Sing on, as if in pain : And dreaming through the twilight That doth not rise nor set, Haply I may remember, And haply may forget. CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI 185 BIRD RAPTURES The sunrise wakes the lark to sing, The moonrise wakes the nightingale. Come darkness, moonrise, everything That is so silent, sweet, and pale, Come, so ye wake the nightingale. Make haste to mount, thou wistful moon, Make haste to wake the nightingale : Let silence set the world in tune To hearken to that wordless tale Which warbles from the nightingale. O herald skylark, stay thy flight One moment, for a nightingale Floods us with sorrow and delight. To-morrow thou shalt hoist the sail ; Leave us to-night the nightingale. NOBLE SISTERS " Now did you mark a falcon, Sister dear, sister dear, Flying toward my window In the morning cool and clear ? 186 LIVING ENGLISH POETS With jingling bells about her neck, But what beneath her wing ? It may have been a ribbon, Or it may have been a ring." " I marked a falcon swooping At the break of day : And for your love, my sister-dove, I 'frayed the thief away." " Or did you spy a ruddy hound, Sister fair and tall, Went snuffing round my garden bound, Or crouched by my bower wall ? With a silken leash about his neck ; But in his mouth may be A chain of gold and silver links, Or a letter writ to me." " I heard a hound, high-born sister, Stood baying at the moon: I rose and drove him from your wall Lest you should wake too soon." " Or did you meet a pretty page Sat swinging on the gate ; Sat whistling whistling like a bird, Or may be slept too late : With eaglets broidered on his cap, And eaglets on his glove ? CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI 187 If you had turned his pockets out, You had found some pledge of love." " I met him at this daybreak, Scarce the east was red : Lest the creaking gate should anger you, I packed him home to bed." " Oh patience, sister. Did you see A young man tall and strong, Swift-footed to uphold the right And to uproot the wrong, Come home across the desolate sea To woo me for his wife ? And in his heart my heart is locked, And in his life my life." " I met a nameless man, sister, Who loitered round our door : I said : Her husband loves her much. And yet she loves him more." " Fie, sister, fie ! a wicked lie, A lie, a wicked lie, I have none other love but him, Nor will have till I die. And you have turned him from our door, And stabbed him with a lie : I will go seek him thro' the world In sorrow till I die." i88 LIVING ENGLISH POETS " Go seek in sorrow, sister, And find in sorrow too : If thus you shame our father's name My curse go forth with you." AT HOME When I was dead, my spirit turned To seek the much-frequented house : I passed the door, and saw my friends Feasting beneath green orange-boughs ; From hand to hand they pushed the wine, They sucked the pulp of plum and peach ; They sang, they jested, and they laughed, For each was loved of each. I listened to their honest chat : Said one : " To-morrow we shall be Plod plod along the featureless sands, And coasting miles and miles of sea." Said one : " Before the turn of tide We will achieve the eyrie-seat." Said one : "To-morrow shall be like To-day, but much more sweet." CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI 189 " To-morrow," said they, strong with hope, And dwelt upon the pleasant way : " To-morrow," cried they one and all, While no one spoke of yesterday. Their life stood full at blessed noon ; I, only I, had passed away : " To-morrow and to-day," they cried : I was of yesterday. I shivered comfortless, but cast No chill across the tablecloth ; I all-forgotten shivered, sad To stay and yet to part how loth : I passed from the familiar room, I who from love had passed away, Like the remembrance of a guest That tarrieth but a day. DREAM LAND Where sunless rivers weep Their waves into the deep, She sleeps a charmed sleep Awake her not. 190 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Led by a single star, She came from very far To seek where shadows are Her pleasant lot. She left the rosy morn, She left the fields of corn, For twilight cold and lorn And water springs. Through sleep, as through a veil, She sees the sky look pale, And hears the nightingale That sadly sings. Rest, rest, a perfect rest Shed over brow and breast ; Her face is toward the west, The purple land. She cannot see the grain Ripening on hill and plain ; She cannot feel the rain Upon her hand. Rest, rest, for evermore Upon a mossy shore ; Rest, rest at the heart's core Till time shall cease : CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI 191 Sleep that no pain shall wake ; Night that no morn shall break Till joy shall overtake Her perfect peace. AFTER DEATH SONNET The curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay, Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept He leaned above me, thinking that I slept And could not hear him ; but I heard him say : " Poor child, poor child : " and as he turned away Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept. He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold That hid my face, or take my hand in his, Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head : He did not love me living ; but once dead He pitied me ; and very sweet it is To know he still is warm though I am cold. LORD LYTTON Born THE HEART AND NATURE The lake is calm ; and, calm, the skies In yonder cloudless sunset glow, Where, o'er the woodland, homeward flies The solitary crow ; No moan the cushat makes to heave A leaflet round her windless nest ; The air is silent in the eve ; The world's at rest. All bright below ; all pure above ; No sense of pain, no sign of wrong ; Save in thy heart of hopeless love, Poor Child of Song | Why must the soul through Nature rove, At variance with her general plan ? A stranger to the Power, whose love Soothes all save Man ? LORD LYTTON 193 Why lack the strength of meaner creatures ? The wandering sheep, the grazing kine, Are surer of their simple natures Than I of mine. For all their wants the poorest land Affords supply ; they browse and breed ; I scarce divine, and ne'er have found, What most I need. O God, that in this human heart Hath made Belief so hard to grow, And set the doubt, the pang, the smart In all we know Why hast thou, too, in solemn jest At this tormented Thinking-power, Inscribed, in flame on yonder West, In hues on every flower, Through all the vast unthinking sphere Of mere material Force without, Rebuke so vehement and severe To the least doubt ? And robed the world, and hung the night, With silent, stern, and solemn forms ; And strown with sounds of awe, and might, The seas and storms ; O 194 LIVING ENGLISH POETS All lacking power to impart To man the secret he assails, But arm'd to crush him, if his heart Once doubts or fails ! To make him feel the same forlorn Despair, the Fiend hath felt ere now, In gazing at the stern sweet scorn On Michael's brow ? LEWIS MORRIS Born 1833 ON A FLIGHT QF LADY-BIRDS Over the summer sea, Floating on delicate wings, Comes an unnumbered host Of beautiful fragile things ; Whence they have come, or what Blind impulse has forced them here, What still voice marshalled them out Over wide seas without fear, You cannot tell, nor I. But to-day the air is thick With these strangers from far away : On hot piers and drifting ships The weary travellers stay. On the sands where to-night they will drown, On the busy waterside street, O 2 196 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Trampled in myriads down By the careless wayfarers' feet The beautiful creatures lie. Who knows what myriads have sunk To drown in the oily waves, Till all our sea-side world shows Like a graveyard crowded with graves ? Humble creatures and small, How shall the Will which sways This enormous unresting ball, Through endless cycles of days, Take thought for them or care ? And yet, if the greatest of kings, With the wisest of sages combined, Never could both devise Strong arm and inventive mind So wondrous a shining coat, Such delicate wings and free, As have these small creatures which float Over the breathless sea On this summer morning so fair. ***** And the life, the wonderful life, Which not all the wisdom of earth Can give to the humblest creature that moves The mystical process of birth LEWIS MORRIS 197 The nameless principle which doth lurk Far away beyond atom, or monad, or cell, And is truly His own most marvellous work Was it good to give it, or, given, well To squander it thus away ? For surely a man might think So precious a gift and grand God's essence in part should be meted out With a thrifty and grudging hand. And hard by, on the yellowing corn, Myriads of tiny jaws Are bringing the husbandman's labour to scorn, And the cankerworm frets and gnaws, Which was made for these for a prey. For a prey for these ? but, oh ! Who shall read us the riddle of life The prodigal waste, which naught can redress But a cycle of sorrow and strife, The continual sequence of pain, The perpetual triumph of wrong, The whole creation in travail to make A victory for the strong, And not with frail insects alone ? For is not the scheme worked out Among us who are raised so high ? 198 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Are there no wasted minds among men No hearts that aspire and sigh For the hopes which the years steal away, For the labour they love, and its meed of fame, And feel the bright blade grow rusted within, Or are born to inherited shame, And a portion with those that groan ? How are we fettered and caged Within our dark prison-house here ! We are made to look for a loving plan ; We find everywhere sorrow and fear. We look for the triumph of Good ; And, from all the wide world around, The lives that are spent cry upward to heaven, From the slaughter-house of the ground, Till we feel that Evil is lord. And yet are we bound to believe, Because all our nature is so, In a Ruler touched by an infinite ruth For all His creatures below. Bound, though a mocking fiend point, To the waste, and ruin, and pain Bound, though our souls should be bowed in despair- Bound, though wrong triumph again and again, And we cannot answer a word. LEWIS MORRIS 199 THE HOME ALTAR Why should we seek at all to gain By vigils, and in pain, By lonely life and empty heart, To set a soul apart Within a cloistered cell, For whom the precious, homely hearth would serve as well ? There, with the early breaking morn, Ere quite the day is born, The lustral waters flow serene, And each again grows clean ; From sleep, as from a tomb, Born to another dawn of joy, and hope, and doom. There through the sweet and toilsome day, To labour is to pray ; There love with kindly beaming eyes Prepares the sacrifice ; And voice and innocent smile Of childhood do our cheerful liturgies beguile. There, at his chaste and frugal feast, Love sitteth as a Priest ; 200 LIVING ENGLISH POETS And with mild eyes and mien sedate, His deacons stand and wait ; And round the holy table Paten and chalice range in order serviceable. And when ere night, the vespers said, Low lies each weary head, What giveth He who gives them sleep, But a brief death less deep ? Or what the fair dreams given But ours who, daily dying, dream a happier heaven ? Then not within a cloistered wall Will we expend our days ; But dawns that break and eves that fall Shall bring their dues of praise. This best befits a Ruler always near, This duteous worship mild, and reasonable fear. FROM " G WEN " EPILOGUE The silent Forces of the World, Time, Change, and Fate, deride us still ; Nor ever from the hidden summit, furled, LEWIS MORRIS 201 Where sits the Eternal Will, The clouds of Pain and Error rise Before our straining eyes. It is to-day as 'twas before, From the far days when Man began to speak, Ere Moses preached or Homer sung, Ere Buddha's musing thought or Plato's silvery tongue. We pace our destined path with failing footsteps weak ; A little more we see, a little more Of that great orb which shineth day and night Through the high heaven, now hidden, now too bright, The Sun to which the earth on which we are, Life's labouring world, is as the feeblest star. Nor this firm globe we know Which lies beneath our feet ; Nor by what grades we have grown and yet shall grow, Through chains of miracle, more and more complete ; By what decrees the watery earth Compacted grew the womb of countless birth ; Nor, when the failing breath Is taken by the frozen lips of Death, 202 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Whither the Spoiler, fleeing with his prey, The fluttering, wandering Wonder bears away. The powers of Pain and Wrong, Immeasurably strong, Assail our souls, and chill with common doubt Clear brain and heart devout : War, Pestilence, and Famine, as of old, The lust of the flesh, the baser lust of gold, Vex us and harm us still ; Fire comes, and crash and wreck, and lives are shed As if the Eternal Will itself were dead ; And sometimes Wrong and Right, the thing we fear, The thing we cherish, draw confusedly near ; We know not which to choose, we cannot separate Our longing and our hate. But Love the Conqueror, Love, Immortal Love, Through the high heaven doth move, Spurning the brute earth with his purple wings, And from the great Sun brings Some radiant beanr to light the House of Life, Sweetens our grosser thought, and makes us pure ; And to a Higher Being doth mature Our lower lives, and calms the ignoble strife, And raises the dead life with his sweet breath, And from the arms of Death LEWIS MORRIS 203 Soars with it to the eternal shore, Where sight or thought of evil comes no more. Love sitteth now above, Enthroned in glory, And yet hath deigned to move Through life's sad story. Fair Name, we are only thine ! Thou only art divine ! Be with us to the end, for there is none But thou to bind together God and Man in one. 204 LIVING ENGLISH POETS FROM "THE ODE OF LIFE" THE ODE OF AGE There is a sweetness in autumnal days, Which many a lip doth praise ; When the earth, tired a little and grown mute Of song, and having borne its fruit, Rests for a little space ere winter come. It is not sad to turn the face towards home, Even though it shows the journey nearly done It is not sad to mark the westering sun, Even though we know the night doth come. Silence there is, indeed, for song, Twilight for noon ; But for the steadfast soul and strong Life's autumn is as June. As June itself, but clearer, calmer far ; Here come no passion-gusts to mar, No thunder-clouds or rains to beat To earth the blossoms and the wheat, No high tumultuous noise Of youth's self-seeking joys, But a cold radiance white As the moon shining on a frosty night. To-morrow is as yesterday, scant change, LEWIS MORRIS 205 Little of new or strange, No glamour of false hope to daze, Nor glory to amaze, Even the old passionate love of love or child A temperate affection mild, And ever the recurring thought Returning, though unsought : How strange the scheme of things ! how brief a span The little life of man ! And ever as we mark them, fleeter and more fleet, The days and months and years, gliding with winged feet. And ever as the hair grows grey, And the eyes dim, And the lithe form which toiled the live-long day, The stalwart limb, Begin to stiffen and grow slow, A higher joy they know : To spend the season of the waning year, Ere comes the deadly chill, In works of mercy, and to cheer The feet which toil against life's rugged hill ; To have known the trouble and the fret, To have known it, and to cease In a pervading peace, 206 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Too calm to suffer pain, too living to forget, And reaching down a succouring hand To where the sufferers are, To lift them to the tranquil heights afar, Whereon Time's conquerors stand. And when the precious hours are done, How sweet at set of sun To gather up the fair laborious day ! To have struck some blow for right With tongue or pen ; To have smoothed the path to light For wandering men ; To have chased some fiend of 111 away ; A little backward to have thrust The instant powers of Drink and Lust ; To have borne down Giant Despair ; To have dealt a blow at Care ! How sweet to light again the glow Of warmer fires than youth's, tho' all the blood runs slow ! Oh ! is there any joy, Of all that come to girl or boy Or manhood's calmer weal and ease, To vie with these ? Here is some fitting profit day by day, LEWIS MORRIS 207 Which none can render less ; Some glorious gain Fate cannot take away, Nor Time depress. Oh, brother, fainting on your road ! Poor sister, whom the righteous shun ! There comes for you, ere life and strength be done, An arm to bear your load. A feeble body, maybe bent, and old, But bearing 'midst the chills of age A deeper glow than youth's ; a nobler rage ; A calm heart yet not cold. A man or woman, withered perhaps, and spent, To whom pursuit of gold or fame Is as a fire grown cold, an empty name, Whom thoughts of Love no more allure Who in a self-made nunnery dwell, A cloistered calm and pure, A beatific peace greater than tongue can tell. And sweet it is to take, With something of the eager haste of youth, Some fainter glimpse of Truth For its own sake ; To observe the ways of bee, or plant, or bird ; To trace in Nature the ineffable Word, Which by the gradual wear of secular time, Has worked its work sublime ; 208 LIVING ENGLISH POETS To have touched, with infinite gropings dim, Nature's extremest outward rim; To have found some weed or shell unknown before ; To advance Thought's infinite march a footpace more ; To make or to declare laws just and sage ; These are the joys of Age. Or by the evening hearth, in the old chair, With children's children at our knees, So like, yet so unlike the little ones of old Some little lad with curls of gold, Some little maid demurely fair, To sit, girt round with ease, And feel how sweet it is to live, Careless what fate may give ; To think, with gentle yearning mind, Of dear souls who have crossed the Infinite Sea ; To muse with cheerful hope of what shall be For those we leave behind When the night comes which knows no earthly morn ; Yet mingled with the young in hopes and fears, And bringing from the treasure-house of years Some fair-set counsel long-time worn ; To let the riper days of life The tumult and the strife, Go by, and in their stead Dwell with the living past, so living, yet so dead : LEWIS MORRIS 209 The mother's kiss upon the sleeper's brow, The little fish caught from the brook, The dead child-sister's gentle voice and look, The school-days and the father's parting hand ; The days so far removed, yet oh ! so near, So full of precious memories dear ; The wonder of flying Time, so hard to understand ! Not in clear eye or ear Dwells our chief profit here. We are not as the brutes, who fade and make no sign; We are sustained where'er we go, In happiness and woe, By some indwelling faculty divine, Which lifts us from the deep Of failing senses, aye, and duller brain, And wafts us back to youth again ; And as a vision fair dividing sleep, Pierces the vasts behind, the voids before, And opens to us an invisible gate, And sets our winged footsteps, scorning Time and Fate, At the celestial door. RICHARD WATSON DIXON Born 1833 SONG The feathers of the willow Are half of them grown yellow Above the swelling stream ; And ragged are the bushes, And rusty now the rushes, And wild the clouded gleam. The thistle now is older, His stalk begins to moulder, His head is white as snow ; The branches all are barer, The linnet's song is rarer, The robin pipeth now. RICH A RD WA TSON DIXON 2 1 1 FROM "CHRIST'S COMPANY" THE HOLY MOTHER AT THE CROSS Of Mary's pains may now learn whoso will, When she stood underneath the groaning tree Round which the true Vine clung : three hours the mill Of hours rolled round ; she saw in visions three The shadows walking underneath the sun, And these seemed all so very faint to be, That she could scarcely tell how each begun, And went its way, minuting each degree That it existed on the dial stone : For drop by drop of wine unfalteringly, Not stroke by stroke in blood, the three hours gone She seemed to see. Three hours she stood beneath the cross ; it seemed To be a wondrous dial stone, for while Upon the two long arms the sunbeams teemed, So was the head-piece like a centre stile ; Like to the dial where the judges sat Upon the grades, and the king crowned the pile, In Zion town, that most miraculous plat On which the shadow backward did defile ; And now towards the third hour the sun enorme Dressed up all shadow to a bickering smile I' the heat, and in its midst the form of form Lay like an isle. ^ 212 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Because that time so heavily beat and slow That fancy in each beat was come and gone ; Because that light went singing to and fro, A blissful song in every beam that shone ; Because that on the flesh a little tongue Instantly played, and spake in lurid tone ; Because that saintly shapes with harp and gong Told the three hours, whose telling made them one ; Half hid, involved in alternating beams, Half mute, they held the plectrum to the zone, Therefore, as God her senses shield, it seems A dial stone. Three hours she stood beside the cross ; it seemed A splendid flower ; for red dews on the edge Stood dropping ; petals doubly four she deemed Shot out like steel knives from the central wedge, Which quadranted their perfect circle so As if four anthers should a vast flower hedge Into four parts, and in its bosom, lo, The form lay, as the seed-heart holding pledge Of future flowers ; yea, in the midst was borne The head low drooped upon the swollen ledge Of the torn breast ; there was the ring of thorn ; This flower was fledge. RICHARD WATSON DIXON 213 Because her woe stood all about her now, No longer like a stream as ran the hour ; Because her cleft heart parted into two, No more a mill-wheel spinning to time's power ; Because all motion seemed to be suspense ; Because one ray did other rays devour ; Because the sum of things rose o'er her sense, She standing 'neath its dome as in a bower ; Because from one thing all things seemed to spume, As from one mouth the fountain's hollow shower ; Therefore it seemed His and her own heart's bloom, A splendid flower. Now it was finished ; shrivelled were the leaves Of that pain-flower, and wasted all its bloom, She felt what she had felt then ; as receives, When heaven is capable, the cloudy stroom The edge of the white garment of the moon ; So felt she that she had received that doom ; And as an outer circle spins in tune, Born of the inner on the sky's wide room, Thinner and wider, that doom's memories, Broken and thin and wild, began to come As soon as this : St. John unwrapt his eyes, And led her home. WILLIAM MORRIS Born 1834 THE CHAPEL IN L YONESS SIR OZANA LE CURE HARDY. SIR GALAHAD. SIR BORS DE GANYS SIR OZANA All day long and every day, From Christmas-Eve to Whit-Sunday, Within that Chapel-aisle I lay, And no man came a-near. Naked to the waist was I, And deep within my breast did lie, Though no man any blood could spy, The truncheon of a spear. No meat did ever pass my lips. Those days (Alas ! the sunlight slips From off the gilded parclose, dips, And night comes on apace.) WILLIAM MORRIS 215 My arms lay back behind my head ; Over my raised-up knees was spread A samite cloth of white and red ; A rose lay on my face. Many a time I tried to shout ; But as in dream of battle-rout, My frozen speech would not well out ; I could not even weep. With inward sigh I see the sun Fade off the pillars one by one, My heart faints when the day is done, Because I cannot sleep. Sometimes strange thoughts pass through my head; Not like a tomb is this my bed, Yet oft I think that I am dead ; That round my tomb is writ, " Ozana of the hardy heart, Knight of the Table Round, Pray for his soul, lords, of your part ; A true knight he was found." Ah ! me, I cannot fathom it. He sleeps. 2j6 LIVING ENGLISH POETS SIR GALAHAD All day long and every day, Till his madness pass'd away, I watch'd Ozana as he lay Within the gilded screen All my singing moved him not ; As I sung my heart grew hot, With the thought of Launcelot Far away, I ween. So I went a little space From out the chapel, bathed my face In the stream that runs apace By the churchyard wall. There I pluck'd a faint wild rose, Hard by where the linden grows, Sighing over silver rows Of the lilies tall. I laid the flower across his mouth ; The sparkling drops seem'd good for drouth ; He smiled, turn'd round towards the south, Held up a golden tress. The light smote on it from the west : He drew the covering from his breast, WILLIAM MORRIS 217 Against his heart that hair he prest ; Death him soon will bless. SIR BORS I enter'd by the western door ; I saw a knight's helm lying there : I raised my eyes from off the floor, And caught the gleaming of his hair. I stept full softly up to him ; I laid my chin upon his head ; I felt him smile ; my eyes did swim, I was so glad he was not dead. I heard Ozana murmur low, " There comes no sleep nor any love." But Galahad stoop'd and kiss'd his brow He shiver'd ; I saw his pale lips move. SIR OZANA There comes no sleep nor any love ; Ah me ! I shiver with delight. I am so weak I cannot move ; God move me to thee, dear, to-night ! Christ help ! I have but little wit : My life went wrong ; I see it writ, 218 LIVING ENGLISH POETS " Ozana of the hardy heart, Knight of the Table Round, Pray for his soul, lords, on your part, A good knight he was found." Now I begin to fathom it. He dies. SIR BORS Galahad sits dreamily ; What strange things may his eyes see, Great blue eyes fix'd full on me? On his soul, Lord, have mercy. SIR GALAHAD Ozana, shall I pray for thee ? Her cheek is laid to thine ; No long time hence, also I see Thy wasted ringers twine Within the tresses of her hair That shineth gloriously, Thinly outspread in the clear air Against the jasper sea. WILLIAM MORRIS 219 THE HAYSTACK IN THE FLOODS Had she come all the way for this, To part at last without a kiss ? Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain That her own eyes might see him slain Beside the haystack in the floods ? Along the dripping leafless woods, The stirrup touching either shoe, She rode astride as troopers do ; With kirtle kilted to her knee, To which the mud splash'd wretchedly ; And the wet dripp'd from every -tree Upon her head and heavy hair, And on her eyelids broad and fair ; The tears and rain ran down her face. By fits and starts they rode apace, And very often was his place Far off from her ; he had to ride Ahead, to see what might betide When the roads cross'd ; and sometimes, when There rose a murmuring from his men, Had to turn back with promises ; Ah me ! she had but little ease ; 220 LIVING ENGLISH POETS And often for pure doubt and dread She sobb'd, made giddy in the head By the swift riding ; while, for cold, Her slender fingers scarce could hold The wet reins ; yea, and scarcely, too, She felt the foot within her shoe Against the stirrup ; all for this, To part at last without a kiss Beside the haystack in the floods. For when they near'd that old soak'd hay, They saw across the only way That Judas, Godmar, and the three Red running lions dismally Grinn'd from his pennon, under which, In one straight line along the ditch, They counted thirty heads. So then, While Robert turn'd round to his men, She saw at once the wretched end, And, stooping down, tried hard to rend Her coif the wrong way from her head, And hid her eyes ; while Robert said : " Nay, love, 'tis scarcely two to one, At Poictiers where we made them run So fast why, sweet my love, good cheer, WILLIAM MORRIS 221 The Gascon frontier is so near, Nought after this." But, " O," she said, " My God ! My God ! I have to tread The long way back without you ; then The court at Paris ; those six men ; The gratings of the Chatelet ; The swift Seine on some rainy day Like this, and people standing by, And laughing, while my weak hands try To recollect how strong men swim. All this, or else a life with him, For which I should be damned at last, Would God that this next hour were past ! " He answer'd not, but cried his cry, " St. George for Marny ! " cheerily ; And laid his hand upon her rein. Alas ! no man of all his train Gave back that cheery cry again ; And, while for rage his thumb beat fast Upon his sword-hilts, some one cast About his neck a kerchief long, And bound him. Then they went along To Godmar; who said : "Now, Jehane, 222 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Your lover's life is on the wane So fast, that, if this very hour You yield not as my paramour, He will not see the rain leave off Nay, keep your tongue from gibe and scoff, Sir Robert, or I slay you now." She laid her hand upon her brow, Then gazed upon the palm, as though She thought her forehead bled, and " No." She said, and turn'd her head away, As there were nothing else to say, And everything were settled : red Grew Godmar's face from chin to head : " Jehane, on yonder hill there stands My castle, guarding well my lands : What hinders me from taking you, And doing that I list to do To your fair wilful body, while Your knight lies dead ? " A wicked smile Wrinkled her face, her lips grew thin, A long way out she thrust her chin : " You know that I should strangle you While you were sleeping ; or bite through Your throat, by God's help ah ! " she said, " Lord Jesus, pity your poor maid ! WILLIAM MORRIS 223 For in such wise they hem me in, I cannot choose but sin and sin, Whatever happens : yet I think They could not make me eat or drink, And so should I just reach my rest." " Nay, if you do not my behest, O Jehane ! though I love you well," Said Godmar, " would I fail to tell All that I know." " Foul lies," she said. " Eh ? lies my Jehane ? By God's head, At Paris folks would deem them true ! Do you know, Jehane, they cry for you, ' Jehane the brown ! Jehane the brown ! Give us Jehane to burn or drown ! ' Eh gag me, Robert ! sweet my friend, This were indeed a piteous end For those long fingers, and long feet, And long neck, and smooth shoulders sweet ; An end that few men would forget That saw it So, an hour yet : Consider, Jehane, which to take Of life or death ! " So, scarce awake, Dismounting, did she leave that place, And totter some yards : with her face Turn'd upward to the sky she lay, 224 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Her head on a wet heap of hay, And fell asleep ; and while she slept, And did not dream, the minutes crept Round to the twelve again ; but she, Being waked at last, sigh'd quietly, And strangely childlike came, and said : " I will not." Straightway Godmar's head, As though it hung on strong wires, turn'd Most sharply round, and his face burn'd. For Robert both his eyes were dry, He could not weep, but gloomily He seem'd to watch the rain ; yea, too, His lips were firm ; he tried once more To touch her lips ; she reach'd out, sore And vain desire so tortured them, The poor grey lips, and now the hem Of his sleeve brush'd them. With a start Up Godmar rose, thrust them apart ; From Robert's throat he loosed the bands Of silk and mail ; with empty hands Held out, she stood and gazed, and saw, The long bright blade without a flaw Glide out from Godmar's sheath, his hand In Robert's hair ; she saw him bend Back Robert's head ; she saw him send WILLIAM MORRIS 225 The thin steel down ; the blow told well, Right backward the knight Robert fell, And moan'd as dogs do, being half dead, Unwitting, as I deem : so then Godmar turn'd grinning to his men, Who ran, some five or six, and beat His head to pieces at their feet. Then Godmar turn'd again and said : " So, Jehane, the first fitte is read ! Take note, my lady, that your way Lies backward to the Chatelet ! " She shook her head and gazed awhile At her cold hands with a rueful smile, As though this thing had made her mad. This was the parting that they had Beside the haystack in the floods. FROM "THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON" I Now Neptune, joyful of the sacrifice Beside the sea, and all the gifts of price That Jason gave him, sent them wind at will, And swiftly Argo climbed each changing hill, And ran through rippling valleys of the sea ; Q 226 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Nor toiled the heroes unmelodiously, For by the mast sat great QEager's son, And through the harp-strings let his fingers run Nigh soundless, and with closed lips for a while ; But soon across his face there came a smile, And his glad voice brake into such a song That swiftlier sped the eager ship along. " O bitter sea, tumultuous sea, Full many an ill is wrought by thee ! Unto the wasters of the land Thou holdest out thy wrinkled hand ; And when they leave the conquered town, Whose black smoke makes thy surges brown, Driven betwixt thee and the sun, As the long day of blood is done, From many a league of glittering waves Thou smilest on them and their slaves. " The thin bright-eyed Phoenician Thou drawest to thy waters wan, With ruddy eve and golden morn Thou temptest him, until, forlorn, Unburied, under alien skies Cast up ashore his body lies. " Yea, whoso sees thee from his door, Must ever long for more and more ; Nor will the beechen bowl suffice, WILLIAM MORRIS 227 Or homespun robe of little price, Or hood well-woven from the fleece Undyed, or unspiced wine of Greece ; So sore his heart is set upon Purple, and gold, and cinnamon ; For as thou cravest, so he craves, Until he rolls beneath thy waves. Nor in some landlocked, unknown bay, Can satiate thee for one day. " Now, therefore, O thou bitter sea, With no long words we pray to thee, But ask thee, hast thou felt before Such strokes of the long ashen oar ? And hast thou yet seen such a prow Thy rich and niggard waters plough ? " Nor yet, O sea, shalt thou be cursed, If at thy hands we gain the worst, And, wrapt in water, roll about Blind-eyed, unheeding song or shout, Within thine eddies far from shore. Warmed by no sunlight any more. " Therefore, indeed, we joy in thee, And praise thy greatness, and will we Take at thy hands both good and ill, Yea, what thou wilt, and praise thee still, Enduring not to sit at home, Q 2 228 LIVING ENGLISH POETS And wait until the last days come, When we no more may care to hold White bosoms under crowns of gold, And our dulled hearts no longer are Stirred by the clangorous noise of war, And hope within our souls is dead, And no joy is remembered. " So, if thou hast a mind to slay, Fair prize thou hast of us to-day ; And if thou hast a mind to save, Great praise and honour shalt thou have ; But whatso thou wilt do with us, Our end shall not be piteous, Because our memories shall live When folk forget the way to drive The black keel through the heaped-up sea, And half dried up thy waters be." SONG " I know a little garden close Set thick with lily and red rose, Where I would wander if I might From dewy dawn to dewy night, And have one with me wandering. WILLIAM MORRIS 229 "And though within it no birds sing, And though no pillared house is there, And though the apple boughs are bare Of fruit and blossom, would to God, Her feet upon the green grass trod, And I beheld them as before. " There comes a murmur from the shore, And in the place two fair streams are, Drawn from the purple hills afar, Drawn down unto the restless sea ; The hills whose flowers ne'er fed the bee, The shore no ship has ever seen, Still beaten by the billows green, Whose murmur comes unceasingly Unto the place for which I cry. " For which I cry both day and night, For which I let slip all delight, That maketh me both deaf and blind, Careless to win, unskilled to find, And quick to lose what all men seek. " Yet tottering as I am, and weak, Still have I left a little breath To seek within the jaws of death An entrance to that happy place, To seek the unforgotten face Once seen, once kissed, once reft from me Anigh the murmuring of the sea." 230 LIVING ENGLISH POETS FROM "THE EARTHLY PARADISE" INTRO D UC TION Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing, I cannot ease the burden of your fears, Or make quick-coming death a little thing, Or bring again the pleasure of past years, Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears, Or hope again for aught that I can say, The idle singer of an empty day. But rather, when aweary of your mirth, From full hearts still unsatisfied ye sigh, And, feeling kindly unto all the earth, Grudge every minute as it passes by, Made the more mindful that the sweet days die Remember me a little then I pray, The idle singer of an empty day. The heavy trouble, the bewildering care That weighs us down who live and earn our bread, These idle verses have no power to bear ; So let me sing of names remembered, Because they, living not, can ne'er be dead, Or long time take their memory quite away From us poor singers of an empty day. WILLIAM MORRIS 231 Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time, Why should I strive to set the crooked straight ? Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme Beats with light wing against the ivory gate, Telling a tale not too importunate To those who in the sleepy region stay, Lulled by the singer of an empty day. Folk say, a wizard to a northern king At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show, That through one window men beheld the spring, And through another saw the summer glow, And through a third the fruited vines a-row, While still, unheard, but in its wonted way, Piped the drear wind of that December day. So with this Earthly Paradise it is, If ye will read aright, and pardon me, Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss Midmost the beating of the steely sea, Where tossed about all hearts of men must be ; Whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay, Not the poor singer of an empty day. 232 LIVING ENGLISH POETS FROM "LOVE IS ENOUGH" THE MUSIC Love is enough : ho ye who seek saving, Go no further ; come hither ; there have been who have found it, And these know the House of Fulfilment of Craving ; These know the Cup with the roses around it ; These know the World's Wound and the balm that hath bound it : Cry out, the World heedeth not, 'Love, lead us home ! ' He leadeth, He hearkeneth, He cometh to you-ward ; Set your faces as steel to the fears that assemble Round his goad for the faint, and his scourge for the froward : Lo his lips, how with tales of last kisses they tremble ! Lo his eyes of all sorrow that may not dissemble ! Cry out, for he heedeth, ' O Love, lead us home ! ' O hearken the words of his voice of compassion : ' Come cling round about me, ye faithful who sicken Of the weary unrest and the world's passing fashion ! As the rain in mid-morning your troubles shall thicken, WILLIAM MORRIS 233 But surely within you some Godhead doth quicken, As ye cry to me heeding, and leading you home. ' Come pain ye shall have, and be blind to the ending ! Come fear ye shall have, mid the sky's overcasting ! Come change ye shall have, for far are ye wending ! Come no crown ye shall have for your thirst and your fasting, But the kissed lips of Love and fair life everlasting ! Cry out, for one heedeth, who leadeth you home ! ' Is he gone ? was he with us ? ho ye who seek saving, Go no further; come hither; for have we not found it ? Here is the House of Fulfilment of Craving; Here is the Cup with the roses around it ; The World's Wound well healed, and the balm that hath bound it : Cry out ! for he heedeth, fair Love that led home. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE Born 1837 FROM "ATALANTA IN CALYDON" CHORUS When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain ; And the brown bright nightingale amorous Is half assuaged for Itylus, For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces, The tongueless vigil, and all the pain. Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers, Maiden most perfect, lady of light, With a noise of winds and many rivers, With a clamour of waters, and with might ; Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet, Over the splendour and speed of thy feet ; ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 235 For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers, Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night. Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her, Fold our hands round her knees, and cling ? O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring ! For the stars and the winds are unto her As raiment, as songs of the harp-player ; For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her, And the south west-wind and the west-wind sing. For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins ; The days dividing loVer and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins ; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins. The full streams feed on flower of rushes, Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot, The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes From leaf to flower and flower to fruit ; And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire, And the oat is heard above the lyre, And the hoofed heel of a satyr crushes The chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root. 236 LIVING ENGLISH POETS And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night, Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid, Follows with dancing and fills with delight The Maenad and the Bassarid ; And soft as lips that laugh and hide The laughing leaves of the trees divide, And screen from seeing and leave in sight The god pursuing, the maiden hid. The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair Over her eyebrows hiding her eyes ; The wild vine slipping down leaves bare Her bright breast shortening into sighs ; The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves, But the berried ivy catches and cleaves To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies. IN MEMORY OF WALTER SAVAGE LAND OR Back to the flower-town, side by side, The bright months bring, New-born, the bridegroom and the bride, Freedom and spring. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 237 The sweet land laughs from sea to sea, Filled full of sun ; All things come back to her, being free ; All things but one. In many a tender wheaten plot Flowers that were dead Live, and old suns revive ; but not That holier head. By this white wandering waste of sea, Far north, I hear One face shall never turn to me As once this year : Shall never smile and turn and rest On mine as there, Nor one most sacred hand be prest Upon my hair. I came as one whose thoughts half linger, Half run before ; The youngest to the oldest singer That England bore. I found him whom I shall not find Till all grief end, In holiest age our mightiest mind, Father and friend. 238 LIVING ENGLISH POETS But thou, if anything endure, If hope there be, O spirit that man's life left pure, Man's death set free, Not with disdain of days that were Look earthward now ; Let dreams revive the reverend hair, The imperial brow ; Come back in sleep, for in the life Where thou art not We find none like thee. Time and strife And the world's lot Move thee no more ; but love at least And reverent heart May move thee, royal and released, Soul, as thou art. And thou, his Florence, to thy trust Receive and keep, Keep safe his dedicated dust, His sacred sleep. So shall thy lovers, come from far, Mix with thy name As morning-star with evening-star His faultless fame. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 239 FROM "THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE " Pale, beyond porch and portal, Crowned with calm leaves, she stands Who gathers all things mortal With cold immortal hands ; Her languid lips are sweeter Than love's who fears to greet her To men that mix and meet her From many times and lands. She waits for each and other, She waits for all men born ; Forgets the earth her mother, The life of fruits and corn ; And spring and seed and swallow Take wing for her and follow Where summer song rings hollow And flowers are put to scorn. There go the loves that wither, The old loves with wearier wings ; And all dead years draw thither, And all disastrous things ; Dead dreams of days forsaken, Blind buds that snows have shaken, Wild leaves that winds have taken, Red strays of ruined springs. 240 LIVING ENGLISH PQETS We are not sure of sorrow, And joy was never sure ; To-day will die to-morrow ; Time stoops to no man's lure ; And love, grown faint and fretful, With lips but half regretful Sighs, and with eyes forgetful Weeps that no loves endure. From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever ; That dead men rise up never ; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea. Then star nor sun shall waken, Nor any change of light : Nor sound of waters shaken, Nor any sound or sight : Nor wintry leaves nor vernal, Nor days nor things diurnal ; Only the sleep eternal In an eternal night. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 241 THE SUNDEW A little marsh-plant, yellow green, And pricked at lip with tender red. Tread close, and either way you tread Some faint black water jets between Lest you should bruise the curious head. A live thing may be ; who shall know ? The summer knows and suffers it ; For the cool moss is thick and sweet Each side, and saves the blossom so That it lives out the long June heat. The deep scent of the heather burns About it ; breathless though it be, Bow down and worship ; more than we Is the least flower whose life returns, Least weed renascent in the sea. We are vexed and cumbered in earth's sight With wants, with many memories ; These see their mother what she is, Glad-growing, till August leave more bright The apple-coloured cranberries. Wind blows and bleaches the strong grass, Blown all one way to shelter it From trample of strayed kine, with feet R 242 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Felt heavier than the moorhen was, Strayed up past patches of wild wheat. You call it sundew : how it grows, If with its colour it have breath, If life taste sweet to it, if death Pain its soft petal, no man knows : Man has no sight or sense that saith. My sundew, grown of gentle days, In these green miles the spring begun Thy growth ere April had half done With the soft secret of her ways Or June made ready for the sun. red-lipped mouth of marsh-flower, 1 have a secret halved with thee. The name that is love's name to me Thou knowest, and the face of her Who is my festival to see. The hard sun, as thy petals knew, Coloured the heavy moss-water : Thou wert not worth green midsummer Nor fit to live to August blue, O sundew, not remembering her. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 243 FROM PRELUDE TO "SONGS BEFORE SUNRISE " Play then and sing ; we too have played, We likewise, in that subtle shade. We too have twisted through our hair Such tendrils as the wild Loves wear, And heard what mirth the Maenads made, Till the wind blew our garlands bare And left their roses disarrayed, And smote the summer with strange air, And disengirdled and discrowned The limbs and locks that vine-wreaths bound. We too have tracked by star-proof trees The tempest of the Thyiades Scare the loud night on hills that hid The blood-feasts of the Bassarid, Heard their song's iron cadences Fright the wolf hungering from the kid, Outroar the lion-throated seas, Outchide the north-wind if it chid, And hush the torrent-tongued ravines With thunders of their tambourines. But the fierce flute whose notes acclaim Dim goddesses of fiery ame, R 2 244 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Cymbal and clamorous kettledrum, Timbrels and tabrets, all are dumb That turned the high chill air to flame ; The singing tongues of fire are numb That called on Cotys by her name Edonian, till they felt her come And maddened, and her mystic face Lightened along the streams of Thrace. For Pleasure slumberless and pale, And Passion with rejected veil, Pass, and the tempest-footed throng Of hours that follow them with song Till their feet flag and voices fail, And lips that were so loud so long Learn silence, or a wearier wail ; So keen is change, and time so strong, To weave the robes of life and rend And weave again till life have end. But weak is change, but strengthless time, To take the light from heaven, or climb The hills of heaven with wasting feet. Songs they can stop that earth found meet, But the stars keep their ageless rhyme ; Flowers they can slay that spring thought sweet, But the stars keep their spring sublime ; Passions and pleasures can defeat, ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 245 Actions and agonies control, And life and death, but not the soul. Because man's soul is man's God still, What wind soever waft his will Across the waves of day and night To port or shipwreck, left or right, By shores and shoals of good and ill ; And still its flame at mainmast height Through the rent air that foam-flakes fill Sustains the indomitable light Whence only man hath strength to steer Or helm to handle without fear. Save his own soul's light overhead, None leads him, and none ever led, Across birth's hidden harbour-bar, Past youth where shoreward shallows are, Through age that drives on toward the red Vast void of sunset hailed from far, To the equal waters of the dead ; Save his own soul he hath no star, And sinks, except his own soul guide, Helmless in middle turn of tide. No blast of air or fire of sun Puts out the light whereby we run With girdled loins our lamplit race, And each from each t#kes heart of grace 246 LIVING ENGLISH POETS And spirit till his turn be done, And light of face from each man's face In whom the light of trust is one ; Since only souls that keep their place By their own light, and watch things roll, And stand, have light for any soul. A little time we gain from time To set our seasons in some chime, For harsh or sweet or loud or low, With seasons played out long ago And souls that in their time and prime Took part with summer or with snow, Lived abject lives out or sublime, And had their chance of seed to sow For service or disservice done To those days dead and this their son. A little time that we may fill Or with such good works or such ill As loose the bonds or make them strong Wherein all manhood suffers wrong. By rose-hung river and light-foot rill There are who rest not ; who think long Till they discern as from a hill At the sun's hour of morning song, Known of souls only, and those souls free, The sacred spaces of the sea. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 247 FROM ^ MATER TRIUMPHALIS" I do not bid thee spare me, O dreadful mother ! I pray thee that thou spare not, of thy grace. How were it with me then, if ever another Should come to stand before thee in this my place ? I am the trumpet at thy lips, thy clarion Full of thy cry, sonorous with thy breath ; The graves of souls born worms and creeds grown carrion Thy blast of judgment fills with fires of death. Thou art the player whose organ-keys are thunders, And I beneath thy foot the pedal prest, Thou art the ray whereat the rent night sunders, And I the cloudlet borne upon thy breast. I shall burn up before thee, pass and perish, As haze in sunrise on the red sea-line ; But thou from dawn to sunsetting shalt cherish The thoughts that led and souls that lighted mine. Reared between night and noon and truth and error, Each twilight-travelling bird that trills and screams Sickens at midday, nor can face for terror The imperious heaven's inevitable extremes. 248 LIVING ENGLISH POETS I have no spirit of skill with equal fingers At sign to sharpen or to slacken strings ; I' keep no time of song with gold-perched singers And chirp of linnets on the wrists of kings. 5-', I am thy storm-thrush of the days that darken, Thy petrel in the foam that bears thy bark To port through night and tempest ; if thou hearken, My voice is in thy heaven before the lark. My song is in the mist that hides thy morning, My cry is up before the day for thee ; I have heard thee and beheld thee and give warning, Before thy wheels divide the sky and sea. Birds shall wake with thee voiced and feathered fairer, To see in summer what I see in spring ; I have eyes and heart to endure thee, O thunder-bearer, And they shall be who shall have tongues to sing. I have love at least, and have not fear, and part not From thine unnavigable and wingless way ; Thou tarriest, and I have not said thou art not, Nor all thy night long have denied thy day. Darkness to daylight shall lift up thy paean, Hill to hill thunder, vale cry back to vale, With wind-notes as of eagles ^Eschylean, And Sappho singing in the nightingale. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 249 Sung to by mighty sons of dawn and daughters, Of this night's songs thine ear shall keep but one ; That supreme song which shook the channelled waters, And called thee skyward as God calls the sun. Come, though all heaven again be fire above thee ; Though death before thee come to clear thy sky ; Let us but see in his thy face who love thee ; Yea, though thou slay us, arise and let us die. FROM "HERTHA" The tree many-rooted That swells to the sky With frondage red-fruited, The life-tree am I ; In the buds of your lives is the sap of my leaves : ye shall live and not die. But the Gods of your fashion That take and that give, In their pity and passion That scourge and forgive, They are worms that are bred in the bark that falls off ; they shall die and not live. 250 LIVING ENGLISH POETS My own blood is what stanches The wounds in my bark ; Stars caught in my branches Make day of the dark, And are worshipped as suns till the sunrise shall tread out their fires as a spark. Where dead ages hide under The live roots of the tree, In my darkness the thunder Makes utterance of me ; In the clash of my boughs with each other ye hear the waves sound of the sea. That noise is of Time, As his feathers are spread And his feet set to climb Through the boughs overhead, And my foliage rings round him and rustles, and branches are bent with his tread. The storm-winds of ages Blow through me and cease, The war-wind that rages, The spring-wind of peace, Ere the breath of them roughen my tresses, ere one of my blossoms increase. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 251 All sounds of all changes, All shadows and lights On the world's mountain-ranges And stream-riven heights, Whose tongue is the wind's tongue and language of storm-clouds on earth-shaking nights ; All forms of all faces, All works of all hands In unsearchable places Of time-stricken lands, All death and all life, and all reigns and all ruins, drop through me as sands. Though sore be my burden And more than ye know, And my growth have no guerdon But only to grow, Yet I fail not of growing for lightnings above me or deathworms below. These too have their part in me, As I too in these ; Such fire is at heart in me, Such sap is this tree's, Which hath in it all sounds and all secrets of infinite lands and of seas. 252 LIVING ENGLISH POETS In the spring-coloured hours When my mind was as May's, There brake forth of me flowers By centuries of days, Strong blossoms with perfume of manhood, shot out from my spirit as rays. And the sound of them springing And smell of their shoots Were as warmth and sweet singing And strength to my roots ; And the lives of my children made perfect with freedom of soul were my fruits. A FORSAKEN GARDEN In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland, At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee, Walled round with rocks as an inland island, The ghost of a garden fronts the sea. A girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses The steep square slope of the blossomless bed Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses Now lie dead. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 253 The fields fall southward, abrupt and broken, To the low last edge of the long lone land. If a step should sound or a word be spoken, Would a ghost not rise at the strange guest's hand So long have the grey bare walks lain guestless, Through branches and briers if a man make way, He shall find no life but the sea-wind's, restless Night and day. The dense hard passage is blind and stifled That crawls by a track none turn to climb To the strait waste place that the years have rifled Of all but the thorns that are touched not of time. The thorns he spares when the rose is taken ; The rocks are left when he wastes the plain. The wind that wanders, the weeds wind-shaken, These remain. Not a flower to be prest of the foot that falls not ; As the heart of a dead man the seed-plots are dry ; From the thicket of thorns whence the nightingale calls not, Could she call, there were never a rose to reply. Over the meadows that blossom and wither Rings but the note of a sea-bird's song ; Only the sun and the rain come hither All year long. 254 LIVING ENGLISH POETS The sun burns sere and the rain dishevels One gaunt bleak blossom of scentless breath. Only the wind here hovers and revels In a round where life seems barren as death. Here there was laughing of old, there was weeping, Haply, of lovers none ever will know, Whose eyes went seaward a hundred sleeping Years ago. Heart handfast in heart as they stood, " Look thither," Did he whisper ? " Look forth from the flowers to the sea ; For the foam-flowers endure when the rose-blossoms wither, And men that love lightly may die but we ? " And the same wind sang and the same waves whitened, And or ever the garden's last petals were shed, In the lips that had whispered, the eyes that had lightened, Love was dead. Or they loved their life through, and then went whither ? And were one to the end but what end who knows ? Love deep as the sea as a rose must wither, As the rose-red seaweed that mocks the rose. Shall the dead take thought for the dead to love them ? ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 255 What love was ever as deep as a grave ? They are loveless now as the grass above them Or the wave. All are at one now, roses and lovers, Not known of the cliffs and the fields and the sea. Not a breath of the time that has been hovers In the air now soft with a summer to be. Not a breath shall there sweeten the seasons hereafter Of the flowers or the lovers that laugh now or weep, When as they that are free now of weeping and laughter We shall sleep. Here death may deal not again for ever ; Here change may come not till all change end. From the graves they have made they shall rise up never, Who have left nought living to ravage and rend. Earth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing, When the sun and the rain live, these shall be ; Till a last wind's breath upon all these blowing Roll the sea. Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble, Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink, 256 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink, Here now in his triumph where all things falter, Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread, As a god self-slain on his own strange altar, Death lies dead. AUSTIN DOBSON Born 1840 "GOOD NIGHT, BABETTE 1" "Si vieillesse pouvait / " SCENE. A small neat Room. In a high Voltaire Chair sits a white-haired old Gentleman. MONSIEUR VIEUXBOIS. BABETTE. M. VIEUXBOIS (turning querulotisly) Day of my life ! Where can she get ? BABETTE ! I say ! BABETTE ! BABETTE ! ! BABETTE (entering hurriedly} Coming, M'sieu' ! If M'sieu' speaks So loud he won't be well for weeks ! M. VIEUXBOIS Where have you been ? 258 LIVING ENGLISH POETS BABETTE Why, M'sieu' knows : April ! . . . Ville-d'Avray ! . . . Ma'am'selle ROSE ! M. VIEUXBOIS Ah ! I am old, and I forget. Was the place growing green, BABETTE ? BABETTE But of a greenness ! yes, M'sieu' ! And then the sky so blue ! so blue ! And when I dropped my immortelle, How the birds sang ! (Lifting her apron to her eyes.) This poor Ma'am'selle ! M. VIEUXBOIS You 're a good girl, BABETTE, but she, She was an Angel, verily. Sometimes I think I see her yet Stand smiling by the cabinet ; And once, I know, she peeped and laughed Betwixt the curtains . . . Where 's the draught ? (She gives him a cup.} Now I shall sleep, I think, BABETTE ; Sing me your Norman ctiansonnette. AUSTIN DOBSON 259 BABETTE (sttlfft) " Once at the Angelus (Ere I was dead), Angels all glorious Came to my Bed ; Angels in blue and white Crowned on the Head." M. VIEUXBOIS (drowsily] " She was an Angel " . . . " Once she laughed "... What, was I dreaming ? Where 's the draught ? BABETTE (showing the empty cup) The draught, M'sieu' ? M. VIEUXBOIS How I forget ! I am so old ! But sing, BABETTE ! BABETTE (sings) " One was the Friend I left Stark in the Snow ; One was the Wife that died Long, long ago ; One was the Love I lost . . . How could she know ? " S 2 260 LIVING ENGLISH POETS M. VIEUXBOIS (murmuring) Ah, PAUL ! ... old PAUL ! . . . EULALIE^OO ! And ROSE ! . . . And O ! " the sky so blue ! " BABETTE (sings) " One had my Mother's eyes, Wistful and mild ; One had my Father's face ; One was a Child: All of them bent to me, Bent down and smiled ! " (He is asleep !) M. VIEUXBOIS (almost inaiidibly) " How I forget ! " " I am so old " . . . " Good night, BABETTE ! " THE CHILD-MUSICIAN He had played for his lordship's levee, He had played for her ladyship's whim, Till the poor little head was heavy, And the poor little brain would swim. A US TIN DOB SON 261 And the face grew peaked and eerie, And the large eyes strange and bright, And they said too late " He is weary ! He shall rest for, at least, To-night ! " But at dawn, when the birds were waking, As they watched in the silent room, With the sound of a strained cord breaking, A something snapped in the gloom. 'Twas a string of his violoncello, And they heard him stir in his bed : " Make room for a tired little fellow, Kind God ! " was the last that he said. DIZAIN As, to the pipe, with rhythmic feet In windings of some old-world dance, The smiling couples cross and meet, Join hands, and then in line advance, So, to these fair old tunes of France, Through all their maze of to-and-fro, The light-heeled numbers laughing go, Retreat, return, and ere they flee, One moment pause in panting row, And seem to say los plaudite ! JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS Born 1840 VERSOHNUNG A BELIEF No seed shall perish which the soul hath sown. Nothing in man declines toward death, but flies Heavenward to fold pure, plumes in Paradise, And build the immortal concert, tone by tone. Of earthly grossness purged, zone over zone Ascending, 'neath those everlasting eyes That stud with stars of life the invisible skies, Each word, each act shines clear before the throne. There He makes all things whole. Not down to vice, But up to good, sustained by strong desire, This faith prompts man to soar. This fervent fire Melts at a touch fear's old thick-ribbed ice, Consumes hope's dungeon-bars, and sets love free To triumph o'er destructibility. JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS 263 ON THE SACRO MONTE Gods fade ; but God abides, and in man's heart Speaks with the clear unconquerable cry Of energies and hopes that cannot die. We feel this sentient self the counterpart Of some self vaster than the star-girt sky. Yea, though our utterance falter ; though no art By more than sign or symbol may impart This faith of faiths that lifts our courage high : Yet are there human duties, human needs, Love, charity, self-sacrifice, pure deeds, Tender affections, helpful service, war Waged against tyranny, fraud, suffering, crime : These, ever strengthening with the strength of time, Exalt man higher than fabled angels are. AUGUSTA WEBSTER Born 1840 IF If I should die this night, (as well might be, So pain has on my weakness worked its will), And they should come at morn and look on me Lying more white than I am wont, and still In the strong silence of unchanging sleep, And feel upon my brow the deepening chill, And know we gathered to His time-long keep, The quiet watcher over all men's rest, And weep as those around a death-bed weep- There would no anguish throb my vacant breast, No tear-drop trickle down my stony cheek, No smile of long farewell say " Calm is best." I should not answer aught that they should speak, Nor look my meaning out of earnest eyes, Nor press the reverent hands that mine should seek ; ' AUGUSTA WEBSTER 265 But, lying there in such an awful guise, Like some strange presence from a world unknown Unmoved by any human sympathies, Seem strange to them, and dreadfully alone, Vacant to love of theirs or agony, Having no pulse in union with their own. Gazing henceforth upon infinity With a calm consciousness devoid of change, Watching the current of the years pass by, And watching the long cycles onward range, With stronger vision of their perfect whole, As one whom time and space from them estrange. And they might mourn and say " The parted soul " Is gone out of our love ; we spend in vain " A tenderness that cannot reach its goal." Yet I might still perchance with them remain In spirit, being free from laws of mould, Still comprehending human joy and pain. Ah me ! but if I knew them as of old, Clasping them in vain arms, they unaware, And mourned to find my kisses leave them cold, And sought still some part of their life to share Still standing by them, hoping they might see, And seemed to them but a% the viewless air ! 266 LIVING ENGLISH POETS For so once came it in a dream to me, And in my heart it seemed a pang too deep, A shadow having human life to be. For it at least would be long perfect sleep . Unknowing Being and all Past to lie, Void of the growing Future, in God's keep : But such a knowledge would be misery Too great to be believed. Yet if the dead In a diviner mood might still be nigh, Their former life unto their death so wed That they could watch their loved with heavenly eye, That were a thing to joy in, not to dread. TO ONE OF MANY What ! wilt thou throw thy stone of malice now, Thou dare to scoff at him with scorn or blame ? He is a thousand times more great than thou : Thou, with thy narrower mind and lower aim, Wilt thou chide him and not be checked by shame ? He hath done evil God forbid my sight Should falter where I gaze with loving eye, AUGUSTA WEBSTER 267 That I should fail to know the wrong from right. He hath done evil let not any tie Of birth or love draw moral sense awry. And though my trust in him is yet full strong I may not hold him guiltless, in the dream That wrong forgiven is no longer wrong, And, looking on his error, fondly deem That he in that he erreth doth but seem. I do not soothe me with a vain belief; He hath done evil, therefore is my thought Of him made sadness with no common grief. But thou, what good or truth has in thee wrought That thou shouldst hold thee more than him in aught ? He will redeem his nature, he is great In inward purpose past thy power to scan, And he will bear his meed of evil fate And lift him from his fall a nobler man, Hating his error as a great one can. And what art thou to look on him and say " Ah ! he has fallen whom they praised, but know My foot is sure " ? Upon thy level way Are there the perils of the hills of snow ? Yea, he has fallen, but wherefore art thou low ? 268 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Speak no light word of him, for he is more Than thou canst know and ever more to me, Though he has lessened the first faith I bore, Than thou in thy best deeds couldst ever be ; Yea, though he fall again, not low like thee. HARRIET . HAMILTON KING Born 1840 FROM "THE DISCIPLES" And now I speak, not with the bird's free voice, Who wakens the first mornings of the year With low sweet pipings, dropped among the dew ; Then stops and ceases, saying, " All the spring And summer lies before me ; I will sleep ; And sing a little louder, while the green Builds up the scattered spaces of the boughs ; And faster, while the grasses grow to flower Beneath my music ; let the full song grow With the full year, till the heart too is filled." But as the Swan (who has pass'd through the spring, And found it snow still in the white North land, And over perilous wilds of Northern seas, White wings above the white and wintry waves, Has won, through night and battle of the blasts, Breathless, alone, without one note or cry) 270 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Sinks into summer by a land at last ; And knows his wings are broken, and the floods Will bear him with them whither God shall will ; And knows he has one hour between the tides ; And sees the salt and silent marshes spread Before him outward to the shining sea, Whereon was never any music heard. I am not proud for anything of mine, Done, dreamed, or suffered, but for this alone : That the great orb of that great human soul Did once deflect and draw this orb of mine, (In the shadow of it, not the sunward side), Until it touched and trembled on the line By which my orbit crossed the plane of his ; And heard the music of that glorious sphere Resound a moment ; and so passed again, Vibrating with it, out on its own way ; Where, intertwined with others, it may yet Spin through its manifold mazes of ellipse, Amid the clangour of a myriad more, Revolving, and the dimness of the depths Remotest, through the shadows without shape, Arcs of aphelion, silences of snow : But henceforth doth no more go spiritless, But knows its own pole through the whirling ways, And hath beheld the Angel of the Sun, HARRIET E. HAMILTON KING 271 And yearns to it, and follows thereunto ; And feels the conscious thrill that doth transmute Inertia to obedience, underneath The ordered sway of balanced counter-force, That speedeth all life onward through all space ; And hears the key-note of all various worlds, Caught and combined in one vast harmony, And floated down the perfect Heavens of God. FROM "AGESILAO MILANO" Sunrise ! and it is summer, and the morning Waits glorified An hour hence, when the cool clear rose-cloud gathers About heaven's eastern side, And down the azure grottoes where the bathers Loose the tired limbs, a lovely light will glide. Fold after fold the winding waves of opal The sands will drown ; And when the morning-star amid the pearly Light of the east goes down, Then my star shall arise, and late and early Shine for a jewel in the IV^aster's crown. 272 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Mazzini, Master, singer of the sunrise ! Knowest thou me ? I held thy hand once, and the summer lightning Still of thy smile I see ; Me thou rememberest not amidst the heightening Vision of God, and of God's Will to be. But thou wilt hear of me, by noon to-morrow, And henceforth I Shall be to thee a memory and a token Out of the starry sky ; And when my soul unto thy soul hath spoken, Enough, I shall not wholly pass nor die. Italia, when thou comest to thy kingdom, Remember me ! Me, who on this thy night of shame and sorrow Was scourged and slain with thee ; Me, who upon thy resurrection morrow Shall stand among thy sons beside thy knee. Shalt thou not fte one day, indeed, O Mother, Enthroned of all, To the world's vision as to ours now only, At Rome for festival ; Around thee gathered all thy lost and lonely And loyal ones, that failed not at thy call. HARRIET E. HAMILTON KING 273 With golden lyre, or violet robe of mourning, Or battle-scar ; And one shall stand more glorious than the others, He of the Morning-Star, Whose face lights all the faces of his brothers, Out of the silvery northern land afar. But grant to me there, unto all beholders, Bare to the skies, To stand with bleeding hands, and feet, and shoulders, And rapt, unflinching eyes, And locked lips, yielding to the question-holders Nor moanings, nor beseechings, nor replies. Is the hour hard ? Too soon it will be over, Too sweet, too sore ; The arms of Death fold over me with rapture, Life knew not heretofore ; Heaven will be peace, but I shall not recapture, The passion of this hour, for evermore. ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN Born 1841 FROM WHITE ROSE AND RED " DROWSIETOWN O so drowsy ! In a daze Sweating 'mid the golden haze, With its smithy like an eye Glaring bloodshot at the sky, And its one white row of street Carpetted so green and sweet, And the loungers smoking still Over gate and window-sill ; Nothing coming, nothing going, Locusts grating, one cock crowing, Few things moving up or down, All things drowsy Drowsietown ! Thro' the fields with sleepy gleam, Drowsy, drowsy steals the stream, ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN 275 Touching with its azure arms Upland fields and peaceful farms, Gliding with a twilight tide Where the dark elms shade its side ; Twining, pausing sweet and bright Where the lilies sail so white ; Winding in its sedgy hair Meadow-sweet and iris fair ; Humming as it hies along Monotones of sleepy song ; Deep and dimpled, bright nut-brown, Flowing into Drowsietown. Far as eye can see, around, Upland fields and farms are found, Floating prosperous and fair In the mellow misty air : Apple-orchards, blossoms blowing Up above, and clover growing Red and scented round the knees Of the old moss-silvered trees. Hark ! with drowsy deep refrain, In the distance rolls a wain ; As its dull sound strikes the ear, Other kindred sounds grow clear Drowsy all the soft breeze blowing, Locusts grating, onecock crowing, T 2 2/6 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Cries like voices in a dream Far away amid the gleam, Then the waggons rumbling down Thro' the lanes to Drowsietown. Drowsy ? Yea ! but idle ? Nay ! Slowly, surely, night and day, Humming low, well greased with oil, Turns the wheel of human toil. Here no grating gruesome cry Of spasmodic industry ; No rude clamour, mad and mean, Of a horrible machine ! Strong yet peaceful, surely roll'd, Winds the wheel that whirls the gold. Year by year the rich rare land Yields its stores to human hand Year by year the stream makes fat Every field and meadow-flat Year by year the orchards fair Gather glory from the air, Redden, ripen, freshly fed, Their bright balls of golden red. Thus, most prosperous and strong, Flows the stream of life along Six slow days ! wains come and go, Wheat-fields ripen, squashes grow, ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN 277 Cattle browse on hill and dale, Milk foams sweetly in the pail, Six days : on the seventh day, Toil's low murmur dies away All is husht save drowsy din Of the waggons rolling in, Drawn amid the plenteous meads By small fat and sleepy steeds. Folk with faces fresh as fruit Sit therein or trudge afoot, Brightly drest for all to see, In their seventh-day finery : Farmers in their breeches tight, Snowy cuffs, and buckles bright ; Ancient dames and matrons staid In their silk and flower'd brocade, Prim and tall, with soft brows knitted, Silken aprons, and hands mitted ; Haggard women, dark of face, Of the old lost Indian race ; Maidens happy-eyed and fair, With bright ribbons in their hair, Trip along, with eyes cast down, Thro' the streets of Drowsietown. Drowsy in the summer day In the meeting-hou%e sit they : 278 LIVING ENGLISH POETS 'Mid the high-back'd pews they doze, Like bright garden-flowers in rows ; And old Parson Pendon, big In his gown and silver' d wig, Drones above in periods fine Sermons like old flavour'd wine Crusted well with keeping long In the darkness, and not strong. O ! so drowsily he drones In his rich and sleepy tones, While the great door, swinging wide, Shows the bright green street outside, And the shadows as they pass On the golden sunlit grass. Then the mellow organ blows, And the sleepy music flows, And the folks their voices raise In old unctuous hymns of praise, Fit to reach some ancient god Half asleep with drowsy nod. Deep and lazy, clear and low, Doth the oily organ grow ! Then with sudden golden cease Comes a silence and a peace ; Then a murmur, all alive, As of bees within a hive ; And they swarm with quiet feet ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN 279 Out into the sunny street : There, at hitching-post and gate Do the steeds and waggons wait. Drawn in groups, the gossips talk, Shaking hands before they walk ; Maids and lovers steal away, Smiling hand in hand, to stray By the river, and to say Drowsy love in the old way Till the sleepy sun shines down On the roofs of Drowsietown. In the great marsh, far beyond Street and building, lies the Pond, Gleaming like a silver shield In the midst of wood and field ; There on sombre days you see Anglers old in reverie, Fishing feebly morn to night For the pickerel so bright. From the woods of beech and fir, Dull blows of the woodcutter Faintly sound ; and haply, too, Comes the cat-owl's wild " tuhoo " ! Drown'd by distance, dull and deep, Like a dark sound heard in sleep ; 28o LIVING ENGLISH POETS And a cock may answer, down In the depths of Drowsietown. Such is Drowsietown but nay ! Was, not is, my song should say Such was summer long ago In this town so sleepy and slow. Change has come : thro' wood and dale Runs the demon of the rail, And the Drowsietown of yore Is not drowsy any more ! WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE Born 1842 FROM "THE PARADISE OF BIRDS" CHORUS OF HUMAN SOULS Mortals who attempt the seas Where man's breath and blood must freeze You whom Fortune, by despite, Destiny, or daring, carry Farther in the four months' night Than M'Clintock, Sabine, Parry, Hayes, or Kane Say, we charge ye, why ye come Where humanity is dumb ; Is it but to reive and harry, Or for gain, That you break the arctic barriers where the feathered spirits reign ? Are you whalers, blown astray In the chase through Baffin's Bay ? 282 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Or men tired of the sun, Human thought and speech and feature, That you seek, what all things shun, Night, that hides each kind and creature ? Have hard times Driven you up, in hopes of food, To this landless latitude ? Know ye not, indeed, that Nature In these climes For our race produces nothing but requital for our crimes ? Back, we do beseech ye, back To the ice-floe and the pack ! If your hand has driven a quill, Clipped a wing, or plucked a feather, Were your purpose good or ill, Ye are ruined altogether, Body and soul ! We were men who speak these words, But for harm we did the birds Now are beaten in this weather, Past control, Round the Paradise that holds the Aviary of the Pole. For our crimes are here decreed Pains proportioned to each deed : WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE 283 As on earth we played our parts, Such in Purgatory our measure : But behold our human hearts Are transfigured, and old pleasure Here is pain : Some become the birds they slew ; Some fruitlessly pursue Feathered phantoms ; all at leisure, In one strain, Swear the birds should live for ever could they live their lives again. Therefore, back ! and if one bird By your dwelling still be heard (Since for all this winter none Pass our barriers), we implore ye Leave this singer in the sun, Telling the live world our story ; For 'tis meet That the infidel should so By report believe the woe, Waiting all in Purgatory, Who entreat Cruelly with death or dungeon things so simple and so sweet. 284 LIVING ENGLISH POETS CHORUS OF BIRDS We wish to declare how the Birds of the air all high Institutions designed, And holding in awe, art, science, and law, delivered the same to mankind. To begin with : of old Man went naked and cold whenever it pelted or froze, Till we showed him how feathers were proof against weathers ; with that he bethought him of hose. And next it was plain that he in the rain was forced to sit dripping and blind, While the reed-warbler swung in a nest with her young, deep-sheltered and warm from the wind. So our homes in the boughs made him think of the house ; and the swallow, to help him invent, Revealed the best way to economise clay, and bricks to combine with cement. The knowledge withal of the carpenter's awl is drawn from the nuthatch's bill, And the sand-marten's pains in the hazel-clad lanes instructed the mason to drill. Is there one of the arts more dear to men's hearts, to the birds' inspiration they owe it, For the nightingale first sweet music rehearsed, prima donna, composer, and poet. WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE 285 The owl's dark retreats showed sages the sweets of brooding to spin or unravel Fine webs in one's brain, philosophical, vain, the swallows the pleasures of travel, Who chirped in such strain of Greece, Italy, Spain, and Egypt, that men, when they heard, Were mad to fly forth from their nests in the north, and follow the tail of the bird. Besides, it is true to our wisdom is due the knowledge of sciences all, And chiefly those rare Metaphysics of air men Me- teorology call. For, indeed, it is said a kingfisher when dead has his science alive in him still ; And, hung up, he will show how the wind means to blow, and turn to the point with his bill. And men in their words acknowledge the birds' erudi- tion in weather and star ; For they say, " 'Twill be dry the swallow is high ; " or, " Rain for the chough is afar." 'Twas the rooks who taught men vast pamphlets to pen upon Social Compact and Law, And Parliaments hold, as themselves did of old, ex- claiming " Hear, hear," for " Caw, caw ! " When they build, if one steal, so great is their zeal for justice, that all, at a pinch, Without legal test will demolish his nest, and hence is the trial by Lynch. 286 LIVING ENGLISH POETS And whence arose love ? Go ask of the dove, or behold how the titmouse, unresting, Still early and late ever sings by his mate, to lighten her labours of nesting. Their bonds never gall, though the leaves shoot and fall, and the seasons roll round in their course, For their Marriage each year grows more lovely and dear, and they know not decrees of Divorce. That these things are Truth we have learned from our youth, for our hearts to our customs incline, As the rivers that roll from the fount of our soul, immortal, unchanging, divine. Man, simple and old, in his ages of gold, derived from our teaching true light, And deemed it his praise in his ancestors' ways to govern his footsteps aright. But the fountain of woes, Philosophy, rose, and what betwixt Reason and Whim, He has splintered our rules into sections and schools, so the world is made bitter for him. But the birds, since on earth they discovered the worth of their souls, and resolved, with a vow, No custom to change for a new or a strange have attained unto Paradise now. FREDERIC W. H. MYERS Born 1843 TENERIFFE Atlantid islands, phantom-fair, Throned on the solitary seas, Immersed in amethystine air, Haunt of Hesperides ! Farewell ! I leave Madeira thus Drowned in a sunset glorious, The Holy Harbour fading far Beneath a blaze of cinnabar. What sights had burning eve to show From Tacoronte's orange bowers, From palmy headlands of Ycod, From Orotava's flowers ! When Palma or Canary lay Cloud-cinctured in the crimson day Sea, and sea-wrack, and rising higher Those purple peaks 'tyvixt cloud and fire. 288 LIVING ENGLISH POETS But oh the cone aloft and clear Where Atlas in the heavens withdrawn To hemisphere and hemisphere Disparts the dark and dawn ! O vaporous waves that roll and press ! Fire-opalescent wilderness ! O pathway by the sunbeams ploughed Betwixt those pouring walls of cloud ! We watched adown that glade of fire Celestial Iris floating free, We saw the cloudlets keep in choir Their dances on the sea ; The scarlet, huge, and quivering sun Feared his due hour was overrun, On us the last he blazed, and hurled His glory on Columbus' world. Then ere our eyes the change could tell, Or feet bewildered turn again, From TenerifTe the darkness fell Head-foremost on the main : A hundred leagues was seaward flown The gloom of Teyde's towering cone, Full half the height of heaven's blue That monstrous shadow overflew. Then all is twilight ; pile on pile The scattered flocks of cloudland close, FREDERIC W. H. MYERS 289 An alabaster wall, erewhile Much redder than the rose ! Falls like a sleep on souls forspent Majestic Night's abandonment ; Wakes like a waking life afar Hung o'er the sea one eastern star. O Nature's glory, Nature's youth ! Perfected sempiternal whole ! And is the World's in very truth An impercipient soul ? Or doth that Spirit, past our ken, Live a profounder life than men, Awaits our passing days, and thus In secret places calls to us ? O fear not thou, whate'er befall Thy transient individual breath, Behold, thou knowest not at all What kind of thing is Death ; And here indeed might Death be fair, If Death be dying into air, If souls evanished mix with thee, Illumined heaven, eternal sea. u 290 LIVING ENGLISH POETS SIMMENTHAL Far off the old snows ever new With silver edges cleft the blue Aloft, alone, divine ; The sunny meadows silent slept, Silence the sombre armies kept, The vanguard of the pine. In that thin air the birds are still, No ringdove murmurs on the hill Nor mating cushat calls ; But gay cicalas singing sprang, And waters from the forest sang The song of waterfalls. O Fate ! a few enchanted hours Beneath the firs, among the flowers, High on the lawn we lay, Then turned again, contented well, While bright about us flamed and fell The rapture of the day. And softly with a guileless awe Beyond the purple lake she saw The embattled summits glow ; FREDERIC W. H. MYERS 291 She saw the glories melt in one, The round moon rise, while yet the sun Was rosy on the snow. Then like a newly-singing bird The child's soul in her bosom stirred ; I know not what she sung : Because the soft wind caught her hair, Because the golden moon was fair, Because her heart was young. I would her sweet soul ever may Look thus from those glad eyes and grey, Unfearing, undefiled : I love her ; when her face I see, Her simple presence wakes in me The imperishable child. u 2 ROBERT BRIDGES Born 1844 ELEGY ON A LADY, WHOM GRIEF FOR THE DEATH OF HER BETROTHED KILLED Assemble, all ye maidens, at the door, And all ye loves assemble ; far and wide Proclaim the bridal, that proclaimed before Has been deferred to this late eventide : For on this night the bride, The days of her betrothal over, Leaves the parental hearth for evermore ; To night the bride goes forth to meet her lover. Reach down the wedding vesture, that has lain Yet all unvisited, the silken gown : Bring out the bracelets, and the golden chain Her dearer friends provided : sere and brown Bring out the festal crown, And set it on her forehead lightly : ROBERT BRIDGES 293 Though it be withered, twine no wreath again ; This only is the crown she can wear rightly. Cloke her in ermine, for the night is cold, And wrap her warmly, for the night is long, In pious hands the flaming torches hold, While her attendants, chosen from among Her faithful virgin throng, May lay her in her cedar litter, Decking her coverlet with sprigs of gold, Roses, and lilies white that best befit her. Sound flutes and tabors, that the bridal be Not without music, nor with these alone ; But let the viol lead the melody, With lesser intervals, and plaintive moan Of sinking semitone ; And, all in choir, the virgin voices Rest not from singing in skilled harmony The song that aye the bridegroom's ear rejoices, Let the priests go before, arrayed in white, And let the dark stoled minstrels follow slow, Next they that bear her, honoured on this night, And then the maidens, in a double row, Each singing soft and low, And each on high a torch upstaying : 294 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Unto her lover lead her forth with light, With music, and with singing, and with praying. 'Twas at this sheltering hour he nightly came, And found her trusty window open wide, And knew the signal of the timorous flame, That long the restless curtain would not hide Her form that stood beside ; As scarce she dared to be delighted, Listening to that sweet tale, that is no shame To faithful lovers, that their hearts have plighted. But now for many days the dewy grass Has shown no markings of his feet at morn : And watching she has seen no shadow pass The moonlit walk, and heard no music borne Upon her ear forlorn. In vain has she looked out to greet him ; He has not come, he will not come, alas ! So let us bear her out where she must meet him. Now to the river bank the priests are come : The bark is ready to receive its freight : Let some prepare her place therein, and some Embark the litter with its slender weight : The rest stand by in state, And sing her a safe passage over ; ROBERT BRIDGES 295 While she is oared across to her new home, Into the arms of her espectant lover. And thou, O lover, that art on the watch, Where, on the banks of the forgetful streams, The pale indifferent ghosts wander, and snatch The sweeter moments of their broken dreams,- Thou, when the torchlight gleams, When thou shalt see the slow procession, And when thine ears the fitful music catch, Rejoice ! for thou art near to thy possession. MY SONG I have loved flowers that fade, Within whose magic tents Rich hues have marriage made With sweet unmemoried scents A joy of love at sight, A honeymoon delight, That ages in an hour : My song be like a flower ! I have loved airs, that die Before their charm is writ 296 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Upon the liquid sky Trembling to welcome it. Notes, that with pulse of fire Proclaim the spirit's desire, Then die, and are nowhere : My song be like an air ! Die, song, die like a breath, And wither as a bloom : Fear not a flowery death, Dread not an airy tomb ! Fly with delight, fly hence ! 'Twas thine love's tender sense To feast, and on thy bier Beauty shall shed a tear. ANDREW LANG Bom 1844 BALLADE OF SLEEP The hours are passing slow, I hear their weary tread Clang from the tower, and go Back to their kinsfolk dead. Sleep ! death's twin brother dread ! Why dost thou scorn me so ? The wind's voice overhead Long wakeful here I know, And music from the steep Where waters fall and flow. Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep ? All sounds that might bestow Rest on the fever'd bed, All slumb'rous sounds and low Are mingled here and wed, 298 LIVING ENGLISH POETS And bring no drowsihead. Shy dreams flit to and fro With shadowy hair dispread ; With wistful eyes that glow, And silent robes that sweep. Thou wilt not hear me ; no ? Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep ? What cause hast thou to show Of sacrifice unsped ? Of all thy slaves below I most have laboured With service sung and said ; Have cull'd such buds as blow, Soft poppies white and red, Where thy still gardens grow, And Lethe's waters weep. Why, then, art thou my foe ? Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep ? ENVOY Prince, ere the dark be shred By golden shafts, ere low And long the shadows creep : Lord of the wand of lead, Soft-footed as the snow, Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep ! ANDREW LANG 299 BALLADE OF HIS CHOICE OF A SEPULCHRE Here I'd come when weariest ! Here the breast Of the Windburg's tufted over Deep with bracken ; here his crest Takes the west, Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover. Silent here are lark and plover ; In the cover Deep below the cushat best Loves his mate, and croons above her O'er their nest, Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover. Bring me here, Life's tired-out guest, To the blest Bed that waits the weary rover, Here should failure be confessed ; Ends my quest, Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover ! ENVOY Friend, or stranger kind, or lover, Ah, fulfil a last behest, Let me rest Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover ! 300 LIVING ENGLISH POETS NATURAL THEOLOGY eirei Kai TOVTOV 6'to/u.ai adacarourti' i Havre? Se Oes and features move. 304 LIVING ENGLISH POETS I do not hunger for a well-stored mind, I only wish to live my life, and find My heart in unison with all mankind. My life is like the single dewy star That trembles on the horizon's primrose-bar, A microcosm where all things living are. And if, among the noiseless grasses, Death Should come behind and take away my breath, I should not rise as one who sorroweth ; For I should pass, but all the world would be Full of desire and young delight and glee, And why should men be sad through loss of me ? The light is flying ; in the silver-blue The young moon shines from her bright window through : The mowers are all gone, and I go too. THE RETURN OF THE SWALLOWS " Out in the meadows the young grass springs, Shivering with sap," said the larks, " and we Shoot into air with our strong young wings, Spirally up over level and lea ; EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE 305 Come, O Swallows, and fly with us Now that horizons are luminous ! Evening and morning the world of light, Spreading and kindling, is infinite ! " Far away, by the sea in the south, The hills of olive and slopes of fern Whiten and glow in the sun's long drouth, Under the heavens that beam and burn ; And all the swallows were gathered there Flitting about in the fragrant air, And heard no sound from the larks, but flew Flashing under the blinding blue. Out of the depths of their soft rich throats Languidly fluted the thrushes, and said : " Musical thought in the mild air floats, Spring is coming and winter is dead ! Come, O Swallows, and stir the air, For the buds are all bursting unaware, And the drooping eaves and the elm-trees long To hear the sound of your low sweet song." Over the roofs of the white Algiers, Flashingly shadowing the bright bazaar, Flitted the swallows, and not one hears The call of the thrusfies from far, from far ; x 306 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Sighed the thrushes ; then, all at once, Broke out singing the old sweet tones, Singing the bridal of sap and shoot, The tree's slow life between root and fruit. But just when the dingles of April flowers Shine with the earliest daffodils, When, before sunrise, the cold clear hours Gleam with a promise that noon fulfils, Deep in the leafage the cuckoo cried, Perched on a spray by a rivulet-side, Swallows, O Swallows, come back again To swoop and herald the April rain. And something awoke in the slumbering heart Of the alien birds in their African air, And they paused, and alighted, and twittered apart, And met in the broad white dreamy square, And the sad slave woman, who lifted up From the fountain her broad-lipped earthen cup, Said to herself, with a weary sigh, " To-morrow the swallows will northward fly ! " EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE 307 EUTHANASIA When age comes by and lays his frosty hands So lightly on mine eyes, that, scarce aware Of what an endless weight of gloom they bear, I pause, unstirred, and wait for his commands ; When time has bound these limbs of mine with bands, And hushed mine ears, and silvered all my hair, May sorrow come not, nor a vain despair Trouble my soul that meekly girded stands. As silent rivers into silent lakes, Through hush of reeds that not a murmur breaks, Wind, mindful of the poppies whence they came, So may my life, and calmly burn away, As ceases in a lamp at break of day The fragrant remnant of memorial flame. THE GOLDEN ISLES Sad would the salt waves be, And cold the singing sea, And dark the gulfs that echo to the seven-stringed lyre If things were what they seem, If life had no fair dream, No mirage made to tip the "dull sea-line with fire. x 2 3o8 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Then Sleep would have no light, And Death no voice or sight, Their sister Sorrow, too, would be as blind as they, And in this world of doubt Our souls would roam about, And find no song to sing and no word good to say. Or else, in cloud and gloom The soul would read her doom, And sing a rune obscure above a murky sea, Dark phrases that would wrong The crystal fount of song, For limpid as a pearl the poet's thought should be. Not in the storm and rain, Not pale with grief and pain, But red with sunlit pulse and breathing health and hope, The bard in garments gay Should tread the sacred way That leads him towards his god high up the laurelled slope. But on the shores of time, Hearkening the breakers' chime Falling by night and day along our human sand, The poet sits and sees, Borne on the morning breeze, The phantom islands float a furlong from the land. EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE 309 The reverend forms they bear Of islands famed and fair, On whose keen rocks, of old, heroic fleets have struck, Whose marble dells have seen In garments pale and green The nymphs and gods go by to bringthe shepherds luck. White are their crags, and blue Ravines divide them through, And like a violet shell their cliffs recede from sight ; Between their fretted capes Fresh isles in lovely shapes Die on the horizon pale, and lapse in liquid light Past that dim straitened shore, The Argive mother bore The boy she brought to Zeus, pledge of the golden fee; Here Delos, like a gem, Still feels Latona's hem, A lordlier Naxos crowns a purpler arc of sea. There mines of Parian lie Hid from the sun's clear eye, And waiting still the lamp, the hammer, and the axe ; And he who, pensive, sees These nobler Cyclades Forgets the ills of life, and Nothing mortal lacks. 3io LIVING ENGLISH POETS But many an one, in vain, Puts out across the main, And thinks to leap on land and tread that magic shore ; He comes, for all his toil, No nearer to their soil, The isles are floating on, a furlong still before. So he contends, until The storm wind, harsh and chill, Beats on his sail, and blots the heaven with cloud and flame, And well indeed he fares, After a world of cares, Returning, if he reach the harbour whence he came. The poet sits and smiles, He knows the golden isles, He never hopes to win their cliffs, their marble mines, Reefs where their green sea raves, The coldness of their caves, Their felspars full of light, their rosy corallines. All these he oft has sought, Led by his travelling thought, Their glorious distance hides no inward charm from him; He would not have their day To common light decay, He loves their mystery best, and bids their shapes be dim. EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE 311 They solace all his pains, They animate his strains, Within their radiant glow he soon forgets the world ; They bathe his torrid noons In the soft light of moons, They leave his lingering evenings tenderly empearled. As one who walks all day Along a dusty way, May turn aside to plunge in some sequestered pool, And so may straight forget His weariness and fret, So seeks the poet's heart those islands blue and cool. Content to know them there, Hung in the shining air, He trims no foolish sail to win the hopeless coast, His vision is enough To feed his soul with love, And he who grasps too much may even himself be lost. He knows that, if he waits, One day the well-worn gates Of life will ope and send him westward o'er the wave ; Then will he reach ere night The isles of his delight, But they must float until they anchor in the grave. PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON Born 1850 FROM " GARDEN SECRETS" THE ROSE AND THE WIND DAWN Tlte Rose. When think you comes the wind, The wind that kisses me and is so kind ? Lo ! how the lily sleeps ; her sleep is light ; Would I were like the lily pale and white ; Will the wind come ? The Beech. Perchance for thee too soon. The Rose. If not, how could I live until the noon ? What, think you, Beech-tree, makes the wind delay ? Why comes he not at breaking of the day ? The Beech. Hush, child, and, like the lily, go to sleep. The Rose. You know I cannot. The Beech. Nay, then, do not weep. The Beech (after a pause}. Thy lover comes, be happy now, O Rose, PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON 313 And softly through my bending branches goes. Soon he shall come, and you shall feel his kiss. The Rose. Already my flushed heart grows faint with bliss ; Love, I have longed for thee through all the night. The Wind. And I to kiss thy petals warm and bright. The Rose. Laugh round me, love, and kiss me ; it is well. Nay, have no fear, the lily wi\l not tell. MORNING 'Twas dawn when first you came, and now the sun Shines brightly and the dews of dawn are done. 'Tis well you take me so in your embrace ; But lay me back again into my place, For I am worn, perhaps with bliss extreme. The Wind. Nay, you must wake, love, from this childish dream. The Rose. 'Tis thou, love, seemest changed ; thy laugh is loud, And 'neath thy stormy kiss my head is bowed. O love, O Wind, a space wilt thou not spare ? The Wind. Not while thy petals are so soft and fair. The Rose. My buds are blind with leaves, they cannot see, O love, O Wind, wilt thotr not pity me ? 314 LIVING ENGLISH POETS EVENING The Beech. O Wind, a word with you before you pass, What didst thou to the Rose that on the grass Broken she lies and pale, who loved thee so ? The Wind. Roses must live and love, and winds must blow. THEOPHILE MARZIALS Born 1850 SONG There 's one great bunch of stars in heaven That shines so sturdily, Where good Saint Peter's sinewy hand Holds up the dull gold-wroughten key. There 's eke a little twinkling gem As green as beryl-blue can be, The lowest bead the Blessed Virgin Shakes a-telling her rosary. There 's one that flashes flames and fire, No doubt the mighty rubicel, That sparkles from the centre point I' the buckler of stout Raphael. And also there 's a little star So white a virgin's it must be ; Perhaps the lamp my love in heaven Hangs out to light thfe way for me. 316 LIVING ENGLISH POETS A PASTORAL Flower of the medlar, Crimson of the quince, I saw her at the blossom-time, And loved her ever since ! She swept the draughty pleasance, The blooms had left the trees, The whilst the birds sang canticles, In cheery symphonies. Whiteness of the white rose, Redness of the red, She went to cut the blush-rose-buds To tie at the altar-head ; And some she laid in her bosom, And some around her brows, And as she past, the lily-heads All beck'd and made their bows. Scarlet of the poppy, Yellow of the corn, The men were at the garnering, A-shouting in the morn ; I chased her to a pippin-tree, The waking birds all whist, THEOPHILE MARZIALS 317 And oh ! it was the sweetest kiss That I have ever kiss'd. Marjorie, mint, and violets A-drying round us set, 'Twas all done in the faience-room A-spicing marmalet ; On one tile was a satyr, On one a nymph at bay, Methinks the birds will scarce be home To wake our wedding-day ! SONG I dream'd I was in Sicily, All sky and hills and flowers ; We sat us under a citron tree And courted, hours and hours. I woke by the dunes of a bleak north-land, Along a lonely grave in the snow ; The salt wind rattled the ivy-band I 'd tied at the headstone long ago. A. MARY F. ROBINSON Born 1856 TO A DRAGON-FLY You hail from Dream-land, Dragon-fly ? A stranger hither ? So am I, And (sooth to say) I wonder why We either of us came, Are you (that shine so bright i' the air) King Oberon's state-messenger ? Come tell me how my old friends fare, Is Dream-land still the same ? Who won the latest tourney fight, King Arthur, or the Red- Cross Knight, Or he who bore away the bright Renown'd Mambrino's Casque ? Is Caliban King's councillor yet ? Cross Mentor jester still and pet ? Is Suckling out of love and debt ? Has Spenser done his task ? A. MARY F. ROBINSON 319 Say, have they settled over there, Which is the loveliest Guinevere, Or Gloriana or the fair Young Queen of Oberon's Court ? And does Titania torment still Mike Drayton and sweet-throated Will ? In sooth of her amours 'twas ill To make such merry sport. Ah, I have been too long away ! No doubt I shall return some day, But now I'm lost in love and may Not leave my Lady's sight. Mine is, (of course), the happier lot, Yet tell them I forget them not, My pretty gay compatriot, When you go home to-night. LE ROI EST MORT And shall I weep that Love's no more, And magnify his reign ? Sure never mortal man before Would have his grief again. 320 LIVING ENGLISH POETS Farewell the long-continued ache, The days a-dream, the nights awake, I will rejoice and merry make, And never more complain. King Love is dead and gone for aye, Who ruled with might and main, For with a bitter word one day, I found my tyrant slain, And he in Heathenesse was bred, Nor ever was baptized, 'tis said, Nor is of any creed, and dead Can never rise again. INDEX OF FIRST LINES PAGE A little marsh-plant, yellow green. . ' - * ". . 241 All day long and every day . - % ^ ' . - . 214 All night as in my dreams I lay . . -'*" . 129 And now I speak, not with the bird's free voice . . 269 And shall I weep that Love's no more . ; ' ; ;* r. /v ' . 319 An idle poet, here and there . . . >.> \y '. . 165 A s he who finds one flower sharp thorns among . . * . 30 As, to the pipe, with rhythmic feet v, * ';' . 261 Assemble, all ye maidens, at the door . - * ' . . 292 Atlantid islands, phantom-fair . . V ..*?;.' . 287 Back to the flower -town, side by side . ^; . . 236 Between two golden tufts of summer grass \, : ii > . 301 By Wellesbourne and Charlcote ford *.. v - ..' ^ ."-.. 3 C . 263 G 1 ^, ybr they call you, shepherd, from the hill. . .136 Green are the leaves, and sweet the flowers . -, . 10 Grow old along with me . . . . . . 117 322 INDEX OF FIRST LINES Had she come all the way for this . . . . .219 Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes . . . . 88 He had played for his lordship's levee .... 260 Here Pd come when weariest ..... 299 He rose at dawn and, fired with hope .... 69 How strange a thing a lover seems . . . .163 I do not bid thee spare me, O dreadful mother. . . 247 I dreamed I was in Sicily 317 If I should die this night, (as well might be . . . 264 / have led her home, my love, my only friend ... 73 / have loved flowers that fade 295 I know a little garden close ...... 228 In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland . 252 In the hall of Leodwulf 'was made good cheer . . . 2 In this lone, open glade I lie . . . . . . 157 I said Then, dearest, since 'tis so . . . . .102 // was not like your great and gracious ways . . .167 / wandered by the brook-side ..... . 84 I wonder do you feel to-day . . .^ . . -99 Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom . . ^ Little maiden, dost thou pine .12 Love is enough : ho ye who seek saving . . . . 232 Love slept upon the lone hill-side . V . 5 Man is permitted much. .8 Methought I met a Lady y ester even . . ; . ^3 Mortals who attempt the seas . . . r *"",] 281 My little Son, who looked from thoughtful eyes v? t v . . 166 Nightingales warbled without . p .'*.../..><*",} V*. ? .. v 68 No, for I '// save it / Seven years since ..; \\ [^ ; <; .v . no No seed shall perish which the soul hath sown > u*. : . 262 Now did you mark a falcon . . ^ i ;.v*s v . .185 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 323 PAGE Now Neptune, joyful of the sacrifice .... 225 Now the light o' the west is a-turrfd to gloom r * * * . 15 Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing . . . 230 Of love that never found his earthly close . . ' . 49 Of Mary's pains may now learn whoso will . . '* '' 211 Of old sat Freedom on the heights . . ; > .' - r ' > ; ; - . 47 Of the million or two, more or less -. . .*" 107 Oh for the young heart like a fountain playing < v ' ' 1 33 Oh, to be in England . .. * .' - V . % i - 86 O jay betide the dear wold mill . '. \ > '. \- . "--i l ' * 19 O Love, what hours were thine and mine ; K i . 62 O most just Vizier, send away . s - .-". ; . 147 O^ Cagn was like a father, kind and good . " ; . 300 O M^/ ^/ ?^/ before we went . i : - , , ..'' . . ' . 70 so drowsy / In a daze . . ' . . . . 274 Out in the meadows the young grass springs . ''.', . 304 Over the summer sea . . ..... . 195 O well for him whose will is strong . : '' * "' ;- J . v ' . 67 (9 where are you going with your love-locks flowing . 1 8 1 O summer dote / when the brook^s a-gliden . . . 18 Pale, beyond porch and portal . . . .- .- ; . . 239 Play then and sing ; we too have played . . . 243 Quoth tongue of neither maid nor wife . . . . I Sad would the salt waves be . v v 'i'-'Vv "' * '' . 307 So far as I conceive the world's rebuke . ; * v ' . 159 Sunrise ! and it is summer, and the morning. . .271 away, and in the lowest deep . ' . . . 13 Z$ curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept . . 191 The feathers of the willow . * . >*:. . . 210 324 INDEX OF FIRST LINES PAGE The forest rears on lifted arms ..... 39 The hours are passing slow ...... 297 The lake is calm; and, calm, the skies . . . .192 The last year* s leaf, its time is brief .... 5 The morning broke and Spring was there ... 6 There is a sweetness in autumnal days .... 204 There J s a woman like a dew-drop, she 'j so purer than the purest -87 There's one great bunch of 'stars in heaven . . .315 There, where the sun shines first : . . . . , 169 The silent Forces of the World 200 The sunrise wakes the lark to sing. . . , .185 The tree many-rooted 249 The woods decay, the woods decay and fall , 53 They are gone all is still! Foolish heart, dost thou quiver 160 'TVj merry ov a summer's day . . . . .16 Uprisen from the sea when Cytherea . . . .178 Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity . . . . .112 Wailing, wailing, wailing, the wind over land and sea . 76 We were two daughters of one race . . .46 We wish to declare how the Birds of the air all high In- stitutions designed _>, 284 What" 1 s become of Waring . * . - .' . 89 What time the mighty moon was gathering light . . 45 What / wilt thou throw thy stone of malice now . . 266 Wheer ^asta bean saw long and med liggin" 1 ''ere alodn . 57 When age comes by and lays his frosty hands . 307 When I am dead, my dearest . ,; " ' *.j .184 When I was dead, my spirit turned . '-, y .-, >v- J 88 When I was young, I said to Sorrow u . -* T. =,. . 128 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 325 PAGI When the hounds of spring are on winters traces . . 234 When think you comes the wind . . ; . . 312 Where sunless rivers weep . . . * . . 189 Where the bridge out at Wood ley did stride . 4 . 22 Why should we seek at all to gain. ... ' . . 199 Why woonce, at Christmas-tide, avore . . . 23 Within the isle, far from the walks of men . ; . 28 Ye rocky heights of Chios, where the snow . . .26 Yes ! in the sea of life enisled . .. . -V . 135 You hail from Dream-land, Dragon-fly. . - . . 318 You promise heavens free from strife . . . .171 London : Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Limited, Stamford Street and Charing Cross. [b^v? G^5j[ ^1^r-]Tt^^9 ( &t BmSm '0M*PS laraTtr=icJ !vr^mSrf b/^trfc T" ^ ij^J :J t=/9 ! f%-HU^'v ;'$ 1 6 l9K^t : "P? M'? ? 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