Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT AND OTHER POEMS BEING A SELECTION FROM THE POETICAL WORKS OF JAMES THOMSON (" B.V.") LONDON P. J. and A. E. DOBELL. 77 CHARING CROSS ROAD, W.C. 1919 \,All rights restrvcd\ ROisERT STOCKWELL, printer, BADKN PLACE, CROSBY Row, BOKOUGH, LONDON, s.B. CONTENTS JAMES THOMSON THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN PART I II Stack Annex PR. i IV ........ SUNDAY UP THE RIVER ..... SUNDAY AT HAMPSTEAD ..... HE HEARD HER SING ..... TO OUR LADIES OF DEATH . INSOMNIA ....... IN THE ROOM ...... THE NAKED GODDESS . A VOICE FROM THE NILE . THE LORD OF THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE THE POET AND HIS MUSE . MATER TENEBRARUM ..... THE THREE THAT SHALL BE ONE . A POLISH INSURGENT ..... L'ANCIEN REGIME; OR, THE GOOD OLD RULE iii iv CONTENTS PAGET PROEM 2l6 THE SLEEPER 2ig AT BELVOIR 223 POLYCRATES ON WATERLOO BRIDGE . . . 228 DAY . .231 NIGHT 232 VIRTUE AND VICE 234 ART 236 PHILOSOPHY 239 LIFE'S HEBE 242 WILLIAM BLAKE 245 ROBERT BURNS 246 E. B. B . . 248 THE FIRE THAT FILLED MY HEART OF OLD . . 250 SONG . . . . . * . . . . 252 A REQUIEM . . . ... . . 254 A SONG OF SIGHING . . . . . 255, JAMES THOMSON* ALTHOUGH the fame of the second James Thomson is at last securely established, and he cannot now be confounded, save by the very ignorant, either with the author of "The Sea- sons," or with his almost equally unfortunate con- temporary, Francis Thompson, the story of his career is not yet so well or so generally known as to make it unnecessary to tell it here. Therefore, since that knowledge is the key to any proper appre- ciation of Thomson's writings, I will once more briefly relate the tragic story of a life which was, to use his own words, 'a long defeat.' Yet was it really that? As regards himself and his personal misfortunes it certainly was. Yet in this respect it was hardly more so than was that of Robert Burns, who at the close of his brief career might almost have used the same words. Yet what seemed to themselves defeat and * The present essay appeared originally in "THE BIBLIOPHILE." It is now reprinted (with some modifications) by the kind permission of the editor of that magazine. ( v ) ( vi ) failure we can now see was but the necessary dis- cipline which was to fit them for their allotted tasks. They were each of them tried 'so as by fire,' but both accomplished the work for which they were born. James Thomson was born at Port-Glasgow on the 23rd November, 1834. He was the first child of his parents who were both Scotch ; and certainly he him- self was by nature as well as by parentage no less a true son of the ' land of the mountain and the flood ' than Robert Burns or Sir Walter Scott. A stranger or more unaccountable report never got about than that which gave him for a father that compound of false sentiment and tinsel rhetoric, the author of 'Paul Clifford ' and ' Ernest Maltravers. 1 The poet's father was a sailor in the merchant sen-ice, in which he attained a good position and continued to prosper until, in 1840, when acting as chief officer of the ship Eliza Stewart of Greenock, he was disabled by a paralytic stroke, the effect, it is said, of a week of terrible storm, during which he was unable to change his drenched clothing. Up to this time he had been of a cheerful disposition, fond of society, and a delightful companion : but now a change greatly for the worse took place, and his temper became strange, moody, and uncertain. He lived on till 1853, but in a state of melancholy and weakness of mind which prevented him from pro- viding for his sons, or from acting as a guardian towards them. The poet's mother, nee Sarah Kennedy, was a deeply religious woman, and a de- voted follower of Edward Irving. It was from her, no doubt, that her son inherited the deep vein ot melancholy in his disposition ; for it appears that she was of a highly emotional and imaginative tempera- ment One of the best of wives and mothers, it was a ( vii ) great misfortune for the poet that she died when he was little more than eight years old. In December 1842, through the kind exertions of some friends of his parents, James Thomson was admitted to the Royal Caledonian Asylum. There he remained for the next eight years, and there is no reason to suppose that that period of his existence was anything but a happy one, or that he was less faU of the buoyant spirit of youth than is commonly the case. Pessimism indeed rarely afflicts the young: it allows its victims to enjoy at least a spring-time of hope and illusion before revealing to them ' the bitter, old, and wrinkled truth' of the hollowness and hope- lessness of human life. Thomson took his part in all the sports and recreations of his fellow-pupils, who saw nothing uncommon in him, except that he mas- tered his lessons with unusual ease and quickness, and was much above the average in general capacity. In 1850 Thomson quitted the Asylum and became a monitor in the " Model School " at the Royal Military College, Chelsea. He entered that institution because it had been decided that his future profession should be that of an army-schoolmaster ; and in order to obtain this post it was necessary first to qualify for it at the above-named College. This was hardly Thom- son's own choice of a career, but was adopted on the advice of his teachers at the Asylum. Their advice, I think, was the best that could have been given, for Thomson, so far as he was qualified for any employ- ment which requires its professors to go through an unvaried round of daily duties, was better qualified for the post of a schoolmaster than for any other. At the Royal Military College Thomson made some very good friends among his fellow-students, with some of whom he kept up friendly relations during a ( viii ) ;great part of his subsequent life. He was a hard student, and mastered easily and rapidly all that he was required to learn. He read all the standard authors, and acquired a good critical knowledge of English literature generally. As with most youths, his first favourite in poetry was Byron, but he soon outgrew his liking for him, and became a disciple of Shelley, to whom he remained ever after a faithful devotee. At the College too, he first began his studies of the French, German, and Italian languages. He left the College on August 5, 1851, in order to take up the post of assistant-teacher in the garrison-school at Ballincollig, a village near Cork. This was in pur- suance of the usual course, which required that candi- dates for the post of army-schoolmaster, before being appointed, should act for a time in a subordinate capacity. At Ballincollig Thomson's duty was to teach in the regimental school under the direction of Joseph Barnes, the garrison-master. He became an inmate of the household of Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, by both of whom he was much beloved, and who treated him with the utmost kindness. Here indeed he was for a brief period entirely happy, or at least as nearly so as it was possible for him to be. In a series of sonnets, written some ten or twelve years later, the poets recalls The tender memories, the moonlight dreams, Which make your home an ever-sacred shrine, And show your features, lit with heavenly gleams. In another of these sonnets he thus apostrophises Mrs. Barnes Of all those women fair and wise and good, Of all save only her who died so young, Thou art in this angelic womanhood, Whose solemn praises bards have seldom sung, Supreme to me most lovely and most pure, O second mother of my orphaned youth . . . Whose priceless goodness shed on worthless me Makes gratitude itself half agony. Mr. Barnes he describes as A man of genial heart and liberal mind, A man most rich in that rare commonsense, Whose common absence in its name we find. It was in the home of these ever dear and ever tenderly remembered friends that he first met his " Good Angel," the young girl who might, if she had lived, have prevented him from becoming an in- habitant of that "City of Dreadful Night," in whose sombre shadows he was to find the stimulus for the melancholia which was to destroy him, and the inspi- ration for his genius. I say might, for though there is little doubt that the fits of gloom and life-weariness from which he suffered were the result of consti- tutional causes and could not have been altogether conquered even under the most favourable circum- stances, it is yet, I think, probable that if she had lived they might have been so far controlled as to have afflicted him only at intervals, and then not in an intolerable degree. So at any rate he thought him- self. "You would have kept me from the burning sands, Bestrewn with bleaching bones, And led me through the friendly fertile lands, And changed my weary moans To hymns of triumph and enraptured love, And made our earth as rich as heaven above." This young girl was the daughter of the armourer- sergeant of a regiment which was then stationed at Ballincollig. Her name was Matilda Weller, and she i ( * ) was then about fourteen years of age. That she was an attractive and beautiful creature is certain, however much the the young poet's imagination may have idealised and transfigured her. At this time Thomson had hardly reached his eighteenth year, and therefore, it may be thought, was hardly old enough to conceive a serious and last- ing passion. It is true that such cases of youthful affection are common enough, and that they seldom outlast the period of boyhood and girlhood. But Thomson at eighteen was more advanced in all manly qualities than most young men who have reached their majority : and, as must needs be the case with all true poets, there was in him an unusually early awakening of the passion of love. There is abundant evidence that Thomson's affection for Matilda Weller was no mere passing fancy, but was a deep and abiding passion which affected his whole life, and had more influence upon his character and fate than any other event that ever happened to him. It was at Ballincollig that another event happened which was perhaps second only in importance to that which I have just related in its influence upon the poet's career. It was there that he first became acquainted with Charles Bradlaugh, who was then a private soldier in a dragoon regiment which was at that time stationed in the village. Of the friendship which was then cemented between the two young men much might be said were space available : here it can only be noted that in spite of their very dissimilar characters and their different status they at once became fast friends and comrades, and that the con- nexion thus formed between them lasted, not un- fortunately, to the end, but for upwards of twenty years. Their destinies at last were somewhat similar, for both, after attaining some measure of that success which they had long striven for, were struck down when the prize seemed to be at last within their grasp. After remaining' at Ballincoffig far rather more than seventeen months, Thomson returned to the "Normal Chelsea, to complete the coarse of studies for the post of army-schoolmaster to go through before being finally At this tone ^H things were apparently prospering with him, and a career, not brilliant it ought be, but yet somewhat better than the common lot, seemed to be in store for him. Literary distinc- tion be already felt to be within his power to achieve, and meantime his position in die army would secure him from that soul-destroying struggle for the mere means of subsistence which has exhausted the ener- gies and destroyed the powers of so many aspiring and finery-gifted spirits. But now the blow was to fall upon him which was to destroy for ever aO his hopes of happiness. One morning in July, 1853, he received a letter with the news that Matilda Wefler was dan- gerously 01 : the next morning he heard that she was dead. That this was an overwhelming blow to him, and that it affected his whole after-life, there can be no doubt whatever. An his plans for the future, and all his hopes had been bound up with her ; and with her death he had no longer any aim in life. Henceforth his existence was that of one whose will was broken, and who cared not whither be wandered, since there was nowhere a Mecca or a Promised Land, wherein be might hope to find rest and peace. It has jnd^^d been doubted whether this event did really affect him so deeply ; and it has been argued dial h was rather the ofcario* than the cause of his fife-long unhappi- ness. This was Carlyle*s opinion as regards the German poet, Novalis, who, like Thomson, was deeply affected by the loss of a young girl to whom he was devotedly attached. On this point Carlyle has much to say, but the pith of his observations lies in tne following sentences : "That the whole philosophical and moral existence of such a man as Novalis should nave been snaped and determined by the death of a young girl, almost a child, specially distinguished, so far as is shown, by nothing save her beauty,* which at any rate must have been very short- lived, will doubtless seem to every one a singular con- catenation. We cannot but think that some result pre- cisely similar in moral effect might have been attained by many different means ; nay, that by one means or another it would not have failed to be attained .... We do not say that Novalis continued the same as if this young maiden had not been ; causes and effects connecting every man and thing with every other extend through all Time and Space ; but surely it appears unjust to represent him as so altogether pliant in the hands of accident ; a mere pipe for Fortune to play tunes on ; and which sounded a mystic, deep, and almost unearthly melody, simply because a young woman was beautiful and mortal ?" It seems evident to me that in these observations Carlyle is expressing his own opinion as to what should have happened in Novalis's case, rather than considering what did actually happen. Those who knew Novalis were convinced that he was profoundly and lastingly affected by the loss of his beloved one ; and they surely were better judges than Carlyle, who did not know him. Whether it does or does not argue in cases like Novalis's or Thomson's an exces- * " By nothing save her beauty ! " Surely a very inept remark : as if one should say of Hercules that he was distinguished by nothing save his strength ; or of Shakespeare that his only gift was his imagination. sive weakness of character to allow themselves to be so deepiy affected oy one of the common incidents of life I will not now stop to enquire : I will only observe that such cases are by no means uncommon in the lives of ordinary mortals who have no pretensions to genius. Nor is it, I think, worth while to ask whether Thomson, if the young girl had lived, would not have found some other root of unhappiness, since that at best can only be a matter of mere conjecture. " What's done we partly may compute," but not what might have happened if events had taken a different turn. I am myself unable to conceive of any other misfortune which would have affected Thomson as he was affected by the death of Miss Weller. For any other calamity he would, I believe, have found " some drop of comfort " in his soul, and would have endured it stoically enough. Let anyone who doubts the reality of Thomson's life-long sorrow and regret for his lost love, read through his works, noting the many passages in which she is referred to, and then, I be- lieve, doubt will be no longer possible. Thomson remained at the Training College until August, 1854, when he was finally enlisted as an army- schoolmaster. He first served with a militia regiment in Devonshire, where he was by no means comfort- able, the men among whom he was placed being of a rough and uncouth character. During 1855 and part of 1856 he served with the Rifle Brigade at Aldershot. Here he seems, apart from his one great sorrow, 'to have been not altogether unhappy. He was a good and painstaking teacher, and performed his duties well and efficiently, though his heart was never in his profession. During his stay at Aldershot he made many friends, who, if they were not highly intellectual in their tasteSj were at any rate very good and com- panionable fellows. He read much and very discur- sively, going through the works of all the leading lights of English Literature. His chief favourites were Spenser, Keats, and Shelley. Shakespeare he was of course well acquainted with, though he never studied him so closely as he did Shelley, or, later, Heine and Leopardi. His studies here were gradually leading him farther and farther away from the Christian faith, to which indeed I cannot discover that he ever gave more than the formal assent, which in his position he could not avoid giving. Theism, how- ever, he did not abandon until some years later. In the summer of 1856 Thomson was sent to Ire- land with the 55th Foot, a regiment with which he remained until he quitted the army. The following years up to 1860 were spent either in Dublin or at the Curragh Camp. During this time his character and his genius were rapidly maturing, but unhappily his constitutional melancholy was gaining more and more upon him. He was full of dissatisfaction with himself and his achievements, though with little reason, since he had already accomplished much in the way of self- culture, and his intellect was steadily growing in power and reach of thought. He fancied, too, as a good many writers and thinkers have mistakenly done, that a life of action and adventure would have given greater scope to his energies, and enabled him to shake off the moods of despondency which op- pressed his spirit and enfeebled his will-power. The ten years from 1852 to 1862 may be looked upon as the period of Thomson's literary apprentice- ship. During that time he wrote much verse and prose, all of which has its interest for us because he was, later on, to write the masterpieces of his literary adolescence. Not that these early works are not worth reading on their own account, but because, had they not been followed by his greater achievements, they must inevitably have become alms for that ob- livion which now awaits all verse that has not been fashioned to endure in the white heat of imagination by the skilful hand of artistry. I do not think that Thomson ever wrote such worthless doggerel as Byron and Shelley perpetrated in their youth : if he did it has fortunately not been preserved. His critical faculty developed early : it not only enabled him to distinguish between what was good and bad in the writings of others, but also in his own ; not always at once perhaps, but at any rate after a brief interval of time. In these early works of Thomson's we see the germs from which his later and greater works were to be evolved ; but up to 1862 he had written nothing, excepting perhaps the poem "To our Ladies of Death," and three or four shorter pieces, which could have kept his name alive. Yet his early works have always the qualities of good craftsmanship, clear thought, and vigour of expression. Not many poets make such a promising beginning or rather it should perhaps be said that not many poets who afterwards attain eminence begin so well : for I believe it is a fact that many verse-writers, after making a good begin- ning, quite fail afterwards to improve upon their early efforts. Thomson's first appearance in print was made in 1858 in the pages of a small periodical called The London Investigator, which was edited by his friend, Charles Bradlaugh. His first contribution was signed " Bysshe Vanolis " ; afterwards he used the initials " B.V." only. The signature expressed at once his admiration for Shelley, and for the German poet best known as Novalis, of which name " Vanolis " is an anagram. From 1858 to 1860 a number of Thomson's early poems appeared in " Tait's Magazine " over the signature of " Crepusculus." In 1858 Charles Bradlaugh left the army, and began that course of political and anti-theological agitation which was to lead to such strange and unexpected results. He had many great qualities which, in almost any country save our own, would have made him a great popular leader. Here he broke himself against the stolid conservatism of our race. In 1860 he became co-editor with Joseph Barker, a man of remarkable ability, but of most unstable character, of the National Reformer, a newly-started Freethought paper. The two editors could not agree, and after a short time Barker was ousted, and Bradlaugh became sole editor. Soon after the starting of this paper Thomson became an occasional contributor to its pages : later on, from about 1863 to 1874, he was one of its most constant contributors. The Reformer had in the course of its existence many able writers on its staff; but it must ever be its chief distinction that in its pages much of Thomson's finest work made its first appearance. It is greatly to the editor's credit that he printed in it " The City of Dreadful Night," "Weddah and Om-el-Bonain," "Vane's Story," " Sunday at Hampstead," and many other poems by Thomson which few readers of the paper could be expected to appreciate or care for. In 1862 Thomson was discharged from the army on account of a breach of discipline on his part. It was a small matter in itself, and one which reflected no discredit upon him : but his great infirmity had, I believe, already begun to show itself, and so it is probable that the army authorities in discharging him were not influenced solely by the ostensible cause. I ( xvii ) cannot but think that this was a most unfortunate event for Thomson, for, irksome as his employment seemed to him, it was yet, I believe, like Lamb's clerkship at the India House, a great steadying force, and hence a real blessing to him. All his prospects were henceforth to be blighted by that fatal disease which made the world for him, as for Leopardi,* an Inferno only less horrible than Dante's because the tortures which he suffered were, as he conceived, not inflicted upon him by any conscious evil power, but by the blind action of unconscious forces. On leaving the army Thomson applied to Mr. Bradlaugh for assistance in his search for employ- ment. It is due to the latter to say that he treated his friend with much kindness and consideration. He helped him to obtain various situations, and moreover took him into his own household, where for some years he remained as a member of the family circle. In spite of his unfortunate failing he was a favourite with all the members of the great agitator's family, particularly the two daughters, Alice and Hypatia. The latter has given an interesting account of him as she knew him, and of the manner in which he exerted himself to please and amuse her and her sister. From 1862 to 1869 Thomson endeavoured with almost uniform ill-success to obtain admission for some of his poems and prose writings to the pages of the magazines of the time. Only in one important instance did he succeed. " Sunday up the River " was published in Eraser's Magazine, Mr. Froude, who was then its editor, having accepted the poem, after having * To save misapprehension let me say that there is no reason to suppose that Leopardi was ever addicted to intemperance. His mis- fortune was that his constitution, like that of Pascal, was from the first a crazy and unsound one. ( xviii ) consulted Charles Kingsley, who warmly recom- mended it Froude, however, declined to publish " Weddah and Om-el-Bonain " in Eraser; and Thomson made no further effort in that direction. So the poet's life went on in a dim and obscure way until 1872, when he became Secretary of "The Champion Gold and Silver Mines Company." In this capacity he was sent out to America by the Directors to look after the Company's interests at the mines. How the Directors came to select him for this office it is hard to conjecture, but doubtless they were unaware of the fact that he was a poet and a genius. However, as the mine seems to have been one of the wild-cat species Thomson was probably as well-fitted to look after it and to report upon its unproductiveness as a more practical expert would have been. He remained in America about eight months, and seems to have had a rather enjoyable time there, save that he was laid up for some days by a somewhat sharp attack of mountain fever. He returned to England in January, 1873, and, the Company being shortly afterwards wound up, he was once more without employment or means In July of this year he obtained (again through Mr. Bradlaugh's recommendation) the post of Special Correspondent of the New York World in Spain, where a contest was then going on between the Republican Government and the Carlists. From an account which Thomson gave of his experiences- in the Secularist, the fighting seems to have been somewhat after the comic opera pattern, neither of the combatants caring to spoil sport by engaging in a decisive struggle. They had too much of the old Spanish chivalry in them to bring the war to an unseemly or inartistic conclusion. After Thomson ( xix had been in Spain about two months, during which time nothing that could furnish an excuse for a scare headline had occurred, his employers began to think that the game wasn't worth the candle, and so recalled their correspondent He was not exactly an Archibald Forbes or an O' Donovan, but even they could not have made a reputation by reporting so unexciting a campaign. With his Spanish experiences what may be termed Thomson's active career terminated. Henceforth he became the literary man only, earning by his pen a scanty and precarious subsistence, and living a shadowed and dream-like life altogether alien to that of the unregarding multitude around him. It was in 1874 that the work which is his chief title to fame, though not to popularity, was first printed. On March 22nd in that year the first instalment of " The City of Dreadful Night," appeared in the National Reformer, and other parts appeared during April and May in the same paper. Not even Fitzgerald's ' Omar Khayyam," which had been published about fifteen years before, and was only then just beginning to be talked about, stole into the world less noiselessly, or seemed less likely to attract the world's attention and admiration, than did Thomson's masterpiece. The fates of the two poems were indeed much alike. Both would quickly have passed into complete oblivion but for the fact that they chanced to be seen by a very few discerning readers, who were able to persuade that small section of the world which takes an interest in poetry, to admire them too. Up to the appearance of "The City of Dreadful Night" nothing that Thomson had written had attracted any kind of public or even private notice, except in one instance. A reference to it in the Academy led to an article on the poem in the Spectator. Among private acknowledgments which Thomson received, were appreciative notes from "George Eliot" and Mr. W. M. Rossetti. It was also the occasion which led to my own acquaint- ance with the poet. I had been almost from its beginning a reader of the National Reformer, and from the first appearance in 1863 in its pages of the poem " To our Ladies of Death," I had been convinced that its author was a real and fine poet. Thenceforward I read everything of "B.V.'s" that appeared in the Reformer with keen interest, always becoming more and more assured of the writer's genius. After the publication of the first part of " The City " in the paper, some weeks elapsed before the second part appeared, and this led me to write to Mr. Bradlaugh, expressing my disappointment at the non-appearance of the continuation, and also saying how much I admired the writings of the author generally. Mr. Bradlaugh handed my letter to Thomson, and the latter thereupon wrote to me, thanking me for my interest in his work, and making himself known to me by his real name. In reply to his letter I expressed a wish to become personally acquainted with him, and offered to give him such help as I could in bringing out a volume of his poems. Thenceforward we remained on friendly terms until his death. It was a great grief to me that my cir- cumstances were not then so flourishing as to allow me to bear the whole cost of publishing his poems in book form ; and so the project fell through for the time. He made application to various publishers between 1874 an d 1880, but always without success. In the latter year, however, a fortunate thought led me to make application on Thomson's behalf to the late ( xxi ) Mr. William Reeves, of the well-known firm of Reeves and Turner, and that gentleman at once agreed to bring out the book in conjunction with myself. It was received, when issued, as favourably as could be expected, considering how much its leading contents ran counter to the current of popular opinion. With the publication of "The City of Dreadful Night" the poet at last emerged, at least partially, from the obscurity which had hitherto enshrouded him ; and had he been able to avail himself of his good fortune some degree of happiness might yet have been his. But it was now, alas ! too late for any sort of good fortune to save him from the evil con- sequences of the long years of desolation and despair which he had suffered. He had now lost almost all self-control, and had become the helpless slave and victim of intemperance. To see him when under the in- fluence of the malign power that robbed him of every good that life could give him, and at last of life itself, was to me the most pitiable and terrible of all sights. He had some very good friends ; he had never in fact even when most unfortunate been without them, who would gladly have rescued him from his misery, and who did in fact do all that they could for him ; but it was not possible, save for very brief periods, to prevent him from having recourse to the stimulant that was destroying him. Here it should, I think, in justice to the poet be stated that his fits of intemperance were not, as in many dipsomaniacs they seem to be I will not ven- ture to say they actually are the mere indulgence of a sensual desire against which the victim makes no effort ; but rather the effect of physiological causes against which no efforts, however strenuous, could avail. This fact has been so well explained in an ( xxii ) article upon Thomson by Mr. G. W. Foote, that I cannot do better than quote his testimony : " I am satisfied from close observation that Thomson's intemperance was an effect rather than a cause, and that its origin was purely physical. He was not a toper; on the contrary he was a remarkably temperate man, both in eating and drinking. His intemperate fits came on periodi- cally, like other forms of madness ; and naturally, as he grew older and weaker, they lasted longer and the lucid intervals became shorter. The fits were invariably pre- ceded by several days of melancholy, which deepened and deepened until it became intolerable. Then he fle%v to the alcohol, so naturally and unconsciously, that when he returned to sanity he could seldom remember the circum- stances of his collapse. Here, I submit, is the secret of Thomson's life-tragedy. He suffered from constilutional melancholia 'The " Melencholia " that transcends all wit,' as he himself expresses it." His case, no doubt, was very similar to that of Edgar Allan Poe, whose character and fate in many points bore a striking resemblance to his own. During the two years that he had still to live after the publication of "The City of Dreadful Night," Thomson enjoyed some brief intervals of comparative happiness. Much of this time was spent at Forest Edge, Leicester, in the household of his good and generous friend, Mr. John Barrs. Here his poetical genius, which had lain almost entirely dormant during " seven songless years " revived, and, wonderful to say, considering the state of physical weakness into which he had fallen, shone out once more with un- diminished lustre. It is given to hardly any poet to produce more than one great masterpiece ; and it was ( xxiii ) not to be expected that Thomson would write another poem equal or superior to his one supreme achieve- ment ; but in "A Voice from the Nile," "Insomnia," "The Poet and his Muse," and " He heard her Sing," we have fine and splendid work which any English poet might be proud of. That Thomson with the shadow of death upon him could write such poems as these was an astonishing instance of the triumph of the mental powers over the ruin of the physical or- ganisation. I must bring to an end this brief and inadequate sketch. During the last months of Thomson's life he fell into a most deplorable state of misery and despair. He was now homeless, and altogether under the malign influence of that evil power which seems to de- light in selecting its victims from the most intel- lectually gifted of men, and sometimes from the most loveable of women. When at last he died in Uni- versity Hospital, to which he had been removed from the lodgings of Philip Bourke Marston, his friends felt that it was not a misfortune which had befallen him, but a consummation, which, if not ' devoutly to be wished,' was at least not to be regretted. He died on the evening of June 3rd, 1882, and five days after- wards he was buried at Highgate Cemetery in the grave where his friend, Austin Holyoake (brother ol George Jacob Holyoake) had been laid to rest eight years before. ( xxiv ) " Victor or vanquished in the fearful strife, What matters ? Ah, within our mother's breast, From toil and tumult, sin and sofrow free, Sphered beyond hope and dread, divinely calm, He lies, upgathered into perfect rest ; And o'er the trance of his Eternity The Cypress waves, more holy than the palm." THOMSON'S "DOOM OF A CITY" (slightly altered}. The present volume contains a fairly representative selection from Thomson's poems. If any reader does not care for what is here presented to him, he may conclude that nothing else of the Author's will have any message for him : but it is my hope that most of those into whose hands this volume may fall will be led to seek a further acquaintance with the writings of so- great a poet and so vigorous and finely-gifted a prose- writer. As for myself I cannot but rejoice to think that it was my privilege to be of some use to him while living ; and that it has been my good fortune ta survive him long enough to see his name enrolled among the foremost of those writers whose genius made the Victorian era perhaps equal even to the Elizabethan, if the one overshadowing figure of the earlier period be left out of the account. B. D. THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT " Per me si va nel.'a citta dolente," DANTE. "Poi di tanto adoprar, di tanti nioti D'ogni celeste, ogni terrena cosa, Giiando senza posa, Per tornar sempre la donde son mosse ; Uso alcuno, alcun frutto Indovinar non so." " Sola nel mondo eterna, a cui si volve Ogni creata cosa, In te, morte, si posa Nostra ignuda natura ; Lieta no, ma sicura Dell' antico dolor. . . . Per6 ch' esser beato Nega ai mortali e nega a' morti il fato." LEOPARDI. PROEM. LO, thus, as prostrate, " In the dust I write My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears." Yet why evoke the spectres of black night To blot the sunshine of exultant years ? Why disinter dead faith from mouldering hidden ? Why break the seals of mute despair unbidden, And wail life's discords into careless ears ? A 2 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT Because a cold rage seizes one at whiles To show the bitter old and wrinkled truth Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles, False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth ; Because it gives some sense of power and passion In helpless impotence to try to fashion Our woe in living words howe'er uncouth. Surely I write not for the hopeful young, Or those who deem their happiness of worth, Or such as pasture and grow fat among The shows of life and feel nor doubt nor dearth, Or pious spirits with a God above them To sanctify and glorify and love them, Or sages who foresee a heaven on earth. For none of these I write, and none of these Could read the writing if they deigned to try : So may they flourish, in their due degrees, On our sweet earth and in their unplaced sky. If any cares for the weak words here written, It must be some one desolate, Fate-smitten, Whose faith and hope are dead, and who would die. Yes, here and there some weary wanderer In that same city of tremendous night, Will understand the speech, and feel a stir Of fellowship in all-disastrous fight ; THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT " I suffer mute and lonely, yet another Uplifts his voice to let me know a brother Travels the same wild paths though out of sight." O sad Fraternity, do I unfold . Your dolorous mysteries shrouded from of yore ? Nay, be assured ; no secret can be told To any who divined it not before : None uninitiate by many a presage Will comprehend the language of the message, Although proclaimed aloud for evermore. The City is of Night ; perchance of Death, But certainly of Night ; for never there Can come the lucid morning's fragrant breath After the dewy dawning's cold grey air ; The moon and stars may shine with scorn or pity ; The sun has never visited that city, For it dissolveth in the daylight fair. Dissolveth like a dream of night away ; Though present in distempered gloom of thought And deadly weariness of heart all day. But when a dream night after night is brought Throughout a week, and such weeks few or many Recur each year for several years, can any Discern that dream from real life in aught ? 4 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT For life is but a dream whose shapes return, Some frequently, some seldom, some by night And some by day, some night and day : we learn, The while all change and many vanish quite, In their recurrence with recurrent changes A certain seeming order ; where this ranges We count things real ; such is memory's might. A river girds the city west and south, The main north channel of a broad lagoon, Regurging with the salt tides from the mouth ; Waste marshes shine and glister to the moon For leagues, then moorland black, then stony ridges ; Great piers and causeways, many noble bridges, Connect the town 'and islet suburbs strewn. Upon an easy slope it lies at large, And scarcely overlaps the long curved crest Which swells out two leagues, from the river marge. A trackless wilderness rolls north and west, Savannahs, savage woods, enormous mountains, Bleak uplands, black ravines with torrent fountains ; And eastward rolls the shipless sea's unrest. The city is not ruinous, although Great ruins of an unremembered past, With others of a few short years ago More sad, are found within its precincts vast. The street-lamps always burn ; but scarce a casement In house or palace front from roof to basement Doth glow or gleam athwart the mirk air cast. THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 5 The street-lamps burn amidst the baleful glooms, Amidst the soundless solitudes immense Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs. The silence which benumbs or strains the sense Fulfils with awe the soul's despair unweeping : Myriads of habitants are ever sleeping, Or dead, or fled from nameless pestilence ! Yet as in some necropolis you find Perchance one mourner to a thousand dead, So there ; worn faces that look deaf and blind Like tragic masks of stone. With weary tread, Each wrapt in his own doom, they wander, wander, Or sit foredone and desolately ponder Through sleepless hours with heavy drooping head. Mature men chiefly, few in age or youth, A woman rarely, now and then a child : A child ! If here the heart turns sick with ruth To see a little one from birth defiled, Or lame or blind, as preordained to languish Through youthless life, think how it bleeds with anguish To meet one erring in that homeless wild. They often murmur to themselves, they speak To one another seldom, for their woe Broods maddening inwardly and scorns to wreak Itself abroad ; and if at whiles it grow To frenzy which must rave, none heeds the clamour, Unless there waits some victim of like glamour, To rave in turn, who lends attentive show. 6 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT The City is of Night, but not of Sleep ; There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain ; The pitiless hours like years and ages creep, A night seems termless hell. This dreadful strain Of thought and consciousness which never ceases, Or which some moments' stupor but increases, This, worse than woe, makes wretches there insane. They leave all hope behind who enter there : One certitude while sane they cannot leave, One anodyne for torture and despair ; The certitude of Death, which no reprieve Can put off long ; and which, divinely tender, But waits the outstretched hand to promptly render That draught whose slumber nothing can bereave.* II. Because he seemed to walk with an intent I followed him ; who shadowlike and frail, Unswervingly though slowly onward went, Regardless, wrapt in thought as in a veil : Thus step for step with lonely sounding feet We travelled many a long dim silent street. * Though the Garden of thy Life be wholly waste, the sweet flowers withered, the fruit-trees barren, over its wall hang ever the rich dark clusters of the Vine of Death, within easy reach of thy hand, which may pluck of them when it will. THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 7 At length he paused : a black mass in the gloom, A tower that ir.ergeci into the heavy sky ; Around, the huddled stones of grave and tomb : Some old God's-acre now corruption's sty : He murmured to himself with dull despair, Here Faith died, poisoned by this charnel air. Then turning to the right went on once more, And travelled weary roads without suspense ; And reached at last a low wall's open door, Whose villa gleamed beyond the foliage dense : He gazed, and muttered with a hard despair, Here Love died, stabbed by its own worshipped pair. Then turning to the right resumed his march, And travelled streets and lanes with wondrous strength, Until on stooping through a narrow arch We stood before a squalid house at length : He gazed, and whispered with a cold despair, Here Hope died, starved out in its utmost lair. When he had spoken thus, before he stirred, I spoke, perplexed by something in the signs Of desolation I had seen and heard In this drear pilgrimage to ruined shrines : When Faith and Love and Hope are dead indeed, Can Life still live ? By what doth it proceed ? 8 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT As whom his one intense thought overpowers, He answered coldly, Take a watch, erase" The signs and figures of the circling hours, Detach the hands, remove the dial-face ; The works proceed until run down ; although Bereft of purpose, void of use, still go. Then turning to the right paced on again, And traversed squares and travelled streets whose glooms Seemed more and more familiar to my ken ; And reached that sullen temple of the tombs ; And paused to murmur with the old despair, Here Faith died, poisoned by this charnel air. I ceased to follow, for the knot of doubt Was severed sharply with a cruel knife : He circled thus for ever tracing out The series of the fraction left of Life ; Perpetual recurrence in the scope Of but three terms, dead Faith, dead Love, dead Hope.* ill. Although lamps burn along the silent streets ; Even when moonlight silvers empty squares The dark holds countless lanes and close retreats ; But when the night its sphereless mantle wears LXX . * Life divided by that persistent three = ='210. 333 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT The open spaces yawn with gloom abysmal, The sombre mansions loom immense and dismal, The lanes are black as subterranean lairs. And soon the eye a strange new vision learns : The night remains for it as dark and dense, Yet clearly in this darkness it discerns As in the daylight with its natural sense ; Perceives a shade in shadow not obscurely, Pursues a stir of black in blackness surely, Sees spectres also in the gloom intense. The ear, too, with the silence vast and deep Becomes familiar though unreconciled ; Hears breathings as of hidden life asleep, And muffled throbs as of pent passions wild, Far murmurs, speech of pity or derision ; But all more dubious than the things of vision, So that it knows not when it is beguiled. No time abates the first despair and awe, But wonder ceases soon ; the weirdest thing Is felt least strange beneath the lawless law Where Death-in-Life is the eternal king ; Crushed impotent beneath this reign of terror, Dazed with such mysteries of woe and error, The soul is too outworn for wondering. io THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT IV. He stood alone within the spacious square Declaiming from the central grassy mound, With head uncovered and with streaming hair, As if large multitudes were gathered round : A stalwart shape, the gestures full of might, The glances burning with unnatural light : As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert : All was black In heaven no single star, on earth no track ; A brooding hush without a stir or note, The air so thick it clotted in my throat ; And thus for hours ; then some enormous things Swooped past with savage cries and clanking wings But I strode on austere ; No hope could have no fear. As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert : Eyes of fire Glared at me throbbing with a starved desire ; The hoarse and heavy and carnivorous breath Was hot upon me from deep jaws of death ; Sharp claws, swift talons, fleshless fingers cold Plucked at me from the bushes, tried to hold : But I strode on austere ; No hope could have no fear. As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert : Lo you, there, THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT n That hillock burning with a brazen glare ; Those myriad dusky flames with points a-glow Which writhed and hissed and darted to and fro ; A Sabbath of the Serpents, heaped pell-mell For Devil's roll-call and some/te of Hell : Yet I strode on austere ; No hope could have no fear. As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert : Meteors ran And crossed their javelins on the black sky-span ; The zenith opened to a gulf of flame, The dreadful thunderbolts jarred earth's fixed frame : The ground all heaved in waves of fire that surged And weltered round me sole there unsubmerged : Yet I strode on austere ; No hope could have no fear. As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert : Air once more, And I was close upon a wild sea-shore ; Enormous cliffs arose on either han d, The deep tide thundered up a league-broad strand ; White foambelts seethed there, wan spray swept and flew ; The sky broke, moon and stars and clouds and blue : And I rode on austere ; No hope could have no fear. 12 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert : On the left The sun arose and crowned a broad crag-cleft ; There stopped and burned out black, except a rim, A bleeding eyeless socket, red and dim ; Whereon the moon fell suddenly south-west, And stood above the right-hand cliffs at rest : Still I strode on austere ; No hope could have no fear. As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert : From the right A shape came slowly with a ruddy light ; A woman with a red lamp in her hand, Bareheaded and barefooted on that strand ; O desolation moving with such grace ! O anguish with such beauty in thy face ! I fell as on my bier, Hope travailed with such fear. As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert : I was twain, Two selves distinct that cannot join again ; One stood apart and knew but could not stir, And watched the other stark in swoon and her ; And she came on, and never turned aside, Between such sun and moon and roaring tide : And as she came more near My soul grew mad with fear. THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 13 As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert : Hell is mild And piteous matched with that accursed wild ; A large black sign was on her breast that bowed, A broad black band ran down her snow-white shroud ; That lamp she held was her own burning heart, Whose blood-drops trickled step by step apart ; The mystery was clear ; Mad rage had swallowed fear. As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert : By the sea She knelt and bent above that senseless me ; Those lamp-drops fell upon my white brow there, She tried to cleanse them with her tears and hair ; She murmured words of pity, love, and woe, She heeded not the level rushing flow : And mad with rage and fear, I stood stonebound so near. As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert : When the tide Swept up to her there kneeling by my side, She clasped that corpse-like me, and they were borne Away, and this vile me was left forlorn ; I know the whole sea cannot quench that heart, Or cleanse that brow, or wash those two apart : They love ; their doom is drear, Yet they nor hope nor fear ; But I, what do I here ? 14 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT v. How he arrives there none can clearly know ; Athwart the mountains and immense wild tracts, Or flung a waif upon that vast sea-flow, Or down the river's boiling cataracts : To reach it is as dying fever-stricken ; To leave it. slow faint birth intense pangs quicken ; And memory swoons in both the tragic acts. But being there one feels a citizen ; Escape seems hopeless to the heart forlorn : Can Death-in-Life be brought to life again? And yet release does come ; there comes a morn When he awakes from slumbering so sweetly That all the world is changed for him completely, And he is verily as if new-born. He scarcely can believe the blissful change, He weeps perchance who wept not while accurst ; Never again will he approach the range Infected by that evil spell now burst : Poor wretch ! who once hath paced that dolent city Shall pace it often, doomed beyond all pity, With horror ever deepening from the first. Though he possess sweet babes and loving wife, A home of peace by loyal friendships cheered, And love them more than death or happy life, They shall avail not ; he must dree his weird ; THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 15 Renounce all blessings for that imprecation, Steal forth and haunt that builded desolation, Of woe and terrors and thick darkness reared : VI. I sat forlornly by the river-side, And watched the bridge-lamps glow like golden stars Above the blackness of the swelling tide, Down which they struck rough gold in ruddier bars ; And heard the heave and plashing of the flow Against the wall a dozen feet below. Large elm-trees stood along that river-walk ; And under one, a few steps from my seat, I heard strange voices join in stranger talk, Although I had not heard approaching feet ; These bodiless voices in my waking dream Flowed dark words blending with the sombre stream : And you have after all come back ; come back. I was about to follow on your track. And you have failed : our spark of hope is black. That I have failed is proved by my return : The spark is quenched, nor ever more will burn. But listen ; and the story you shall learn. 16 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT I reached the portal common spirits fear, And read the words above it, dark yet clear, ' ' Leave hope behind, all ye who enter here : " And would have have passed in, gratified to gain That positive eternity of pain, Instead of this insufferable inane. A demon warder clutched me, Not so fast ; First leave your hopes behind ! But years have passed Since I left all behind me, to the last : You cannot count for hope, with all your wit, This bleak despair that drives me to the Pit : How could I seek to enter void of it ? He snarled, What thing is this which apes a soul, And would find entrance to our gulf of dole Without the payment of the settled toll ? Outside the gate he showed an open chest : Here pay their entrance fees the souls unblest ; Cast in some hope, you enter with the rest. This is Pandora's box ; whose lid shall shut, And Hell-gate too, when hopes have filled it ; but They are so thin that it will never glut. THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 17 I stood a few steps backwards, desolate ; And watched the spirits pass me to their fate, And fling off hope, and enter at the gate. When one casts off a load he springs upright, Squares back his shoulders, breathes with all his might, And briskly paces forward strong and light : But these, as if they took some burden, bowed ; The whole frame sank ; however strong and proud Before, they crept in quite infirm and cowed. And as they passed me, earnestly from each A morsel of his hope I did beseech, To pay my entrance ; but all mocked my speech. Not one would cede a tittle of his store Though knowing that in instants three or four He must resign the whole for evermore. So I returned. Our destiny is fell ; For in this Limbo we must ever dwell, Shut out alike from Heaven and Earth and Hell. The other sighed back, Yea ; but if we grope With care through all this Limbo's dreary scope, We yet may pick up some minute lost hope ; B i8 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT And, sharing it between us, entrance win, In spite of fiends so jealous for gross sin : Let us without delay our search begin. VII. Some say that phantoms haunt those shadowy streets And mingle freely there with sparse mankind ; And tell of ancient woes and black defeats, And murmur mysteries in the grave enshrined : But others think them visions of illusion, Or even men gone far in self-confusion ; No man there being wholly sane in mind. And yet a man who raves, however mad, Who bares his heart and tells of his own fall, Reserves some inmost secret good or bad : The phantoms have no reticence at all : The nudity of flesh will blush though tameless, The extreme nudity of bone grins shameless, The unsexed skeleton mocks shroud and pall. I have seen phantoms there that were as men And men that were as phantoms flit and roam ; Marked shapes that were not living to my ken, Caught breathings acrid as with Dead Sea foam : The City rests for man so weird and awful, That his intrusion there might seem unlawful, And phantoms there may have their proper home. THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 19 VIII. While I still lingered on that river-walk, And watched the tide as black as our black doom, I heard another couple join in talk, And saw them to the left hand in the gloom Seated against an elm bole on the ground, Their eyes intent upon the stream profound. " I never knew another man on earth But had some joy or solace in his life, Some chance of triumph in the dreadful strife : My doom has been unmitigated dearth." " We gaze upon the river, and we note The various vessels large and small that float, Ignoring every wrecked and sunken boat." " And yet I asked no splendid dower, no spoil Of sway or fame or rank or even wealth ; But homely love with common food and health, And nightly sleep to balance daily toil." "This ail-too humble soul would arrogate Unto itself some signalising hate From the supreme indifference of Fate ! " " Who is most wretched in this dolorous place ? I think myself ; yet I would rather be My miserable self than He, than He Who formed such creatures to His own disgrace. 20 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT " The vilest thing must be less vile than Thou From whom it had its being, God and Lord ! Creator of all woe and sin ! abhorred, Malignant and implacable ! I vow " That not for all Thy power furled and unfurled, For all the temples to Thy glory built, Would I assume the ignominious guilt Of having made such men in such a world." " As if a Being, God or Fiend, could reign, At once so wicked, foolish, and insane, As to produce men when He might refrain ! " The world rolls round for ever like a mill ; It grinds out death and life and good and ill ; It has no purpose, heart or mind or will. " While air of Space and Time's full river flow The mill must blindly whirl unresting so : It may be wearing out, but who can know ? " Man might know one thing were his sight less dim ; That it whirls not to suit his petty whim, That it is quite indifferent to him. " Nay, does it treat him harshly as he saith ? It grinds him some slow years of bitter breath, Then grinds him back into eternal death." THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 21 IX. It is full strange to him who hears and feels, When wandering there in some deserted street, The booming and the jar of ponderous wheels, The trampling clash of heavy ironshod feet : Who in this Venice of the Black Sea rideth ? Who in this city of the stars abideth To buy or sell as those in daylight sweet ? The rolling thunder seems to fill the sky As it comes on ; the horses snort and strain, The harness jingles, as it passes by ; The hugeness of an overburthened wain : A man sits nodding on the shaft or trudges Three parts asleep beside his fellow-drudges : And so it rolls into the night again. What merchandise ? whence, whither, and for whom ? Perchance it is a Fate-appointed hearse, Bearing away to some mysterious tomb Or Limbo of the scornful universe The joy, the peace, the life-hope, the abortions Of all things good which should have been our portions, But have been strangled by that City's curse. 22 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT x. The mansion stood apart in its own ground ; In front thereof a fragrant garden-lawn, High trees about it, and the whole walled round : The massy iron gates were both withdrawn ; And every window of its front shed light, Portentous in that City of the Night. But though thus lighted it was deadly still As all the countless bulks of solid gloom : Perchance a congregation to fulfil Solemnities of silence in this doom, Mysterious rites of dolour and despair Permitting not a breath of chant or prayer ? Broad steps ascended to a terrace broad Whereon lay still light from the open door ; The hall was noble, and its aspect awed, Hung round with heavy black from dome to floor ; And ample stairways rose to left and right Whose balustrades were also draped with night. I paced from room to room, from hall to hall, Nor any life throughout the maze discerned ; But each was hung with its funereal pall, And held a shrine, around which tapers burned, With picture or with statue or with bust, All copied from the same fair form of dust : THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 23 A woman very young and very fair ; Beloved by bounteous life and joy and youth, And loving these sweet lovers, so that care And age and death seemed not for her in sooth : Alike as stars, all beautiful and bright, These shapes lit up that mausolean night. At length I heard a murmur as of lips, And reached an open oratory hung With heaviest blackness of the whole eclipse ; Beneath the dome a fuming censer swung ; And one lay there upon a low white bed, With tapers burning at the foot and head : The Lady of the images : supine, Deathstill, lifesweet, with folded palms she lay : And kneeling there as at a sacred shrine A young man wan and worn who seemed to pray A crucifix of dim and ghostly white Surmounted the large altar left in night : The chambers of the mansion of my heart, In every one whereof thine image dwells, Are black with grief eternal for thy sake. The inmost oratory of my soul, Wherein thou ever dwellest quick or dead, Is black with grief eternal for thy sake. 24 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT I kneel beside thee and I clasp the cross, With eyes for ever fixed upon that face, So beautiful and dreadful in its calm. I kneel here patient as thou liest there ; As patient as a statue carved in stone, Of adoration and eternal grief. While thou dost not awake I cannot move ; And something tells me thou wilt never wake, And I alive feel turning into stone. Most beautiful were Death to end my grief, Most hateful to destroy the sight of thee, Dear vision better than all death or life. But I renounce all choice of life or death, For either shall be ever at thy side, And thus in bliss or woe be ever well. He murmured thus and thus in monotone, Intent upon that uncorrupted face, Entranced except his moving lips alone : I glided with hushed footsteps from the place. This was the festival that filled with light That palace in the City of the Night. THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 25 XI. What men are they who haunt these fatal glooms, And fill their living mouths with dust of death, And make their habitations in the tombs, And breathe eternal sighs with mortal breath, And pierce life's pleasant veil of various error To reach that void of darkness and old terror Wherein expire the lamps of hope and faith ? They have much wisdom yet they are not wise, They have much goodness yet they do not well, (The fools we know have their own Paradise, The wicked also have their proper Hell) ; They have much strength but still their doom is stronger, Much patience but their time endureth longer, Much valour but life mocks it with some spell. They are most rational and yet insane : An outward madness not to be controlled ; A perfect reason in the central brain, Which has no power, but sitteth wan and cold, And sees the madness, and foresees as plainly The ruin in its path, and trieth vainly To cheat itself refusing to behold. And some are great in rank and wealth and power, And some renowned for genius and for worth ; And some are poor and mean, who brood and cower And shrink from notice, and accept all dearth 26 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT Of body, heart and soul, and leave to others All boons of life : yet these and those are brothers, The saddest and the weariest men on earth. XII. Our isolated units could be brought To act together for some common end? For one by one, each silent with his thought, I marked a long loose line approach and wend Athwart the great cathedral's cloistered square, And slowly vanish from the moonlit air. Then I would follow in among the last : And in the porch a shrouded figure stood, Who challenged each one pausing ere he passed, With deep eyes burning through a blank white hood : Whence come you in the world of life and light To this our City of Tremendous Night? From pleading in a senate of rich lords For some scant justice to our countless hordes Who toil half-starved with scarce a human right : I wake from daydreams to his real night. From wandering through many a solemn scene Of opium visions, with a heart serene And intellect miraculously bright : I wake from daydreams to this real night. THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 27 From making hundreds laugh and roar with glee By my transcendent feats of mimicry, And humour wanton as an elfish sprite : I wake from daydreams to this real night. From prayer and fasting in a lonely cell, Which brought an ecstasy ineffable Of love and adoration and delight : I wake from daydreams to this real night. From ruling on a splendid kingly throne A nation which beneath my rule has grown Year after year in wealth and arts and might : I wake from daydreams to this real night. From preaching to an audience fired with faith The Lamb who died to save our souls from death, Whose blood hath washed our scarlet sins wool-white : I wake from daydreams to this real night. From drinking fiery poison in a den Crowded with tawdry girls and squalid men, Who hoarsely laugh and curse and brawl and fight : I wake from daydreams to this real night. From picturing with all beauty and all grace First Eden and the parents of our race, A luminous rapture unto all men's sight : I wake from daydreams to this real night. 28 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT l~ From writing a great work with 'patient plan To justify the ways of God to man, And show how ill must fade and perish quite : I wake from daydreams to this real night. From desperate fighting with a little band Against the powerful tyrants of our land, To free our brethren in their own despite : I wake from daydreams to this real night. Thus, challenged by that warder sad and stern, Each one responded with his countersign, Then entered the cathedral ; and in turn I entered also, having given mine ; But lingered near until I heard no more, And marked the closing of the massive door. XIII. Of all things human which are strange and wild This is perchance the wildest and most strange, And showeth man most utterly beguiled, To those who haunt that sunless City's range ; That he bemoans himself for aye, repeating How time is deadly swift, how life is fleeting, How naught is constant on the earth but change. THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 29 The hours are heavy on him and the "days ; The burden of the months he scarce can bear ; And often in his secret soul he prays To sleep through barren periods unaware, Arousing at some longed-for date of pleasure ; Which having passed and yielded him small treasure, He would outsleep another term of care. Yet in his marvellous fancy he must make Quick wings for Time, and see it fly from us ; This Time which crawleth like a monstrous snake, Wounded and slow and very venomous ; Which creeps blindwormlike round the earth and ocean, Distilling poison at each painful motion, And seems condemned to circle ever thus. And since he cannot spend and use aright The little time here given him in trust, But wasteth it in weary undelight Of foolish toil and trouble, strife and lust, He naturally claimeth to inherit The everlasting Future, that his merit May have full scope ; as surely is most just. O length of the intolerable hours, O nights that are as aeons of slow pain, O Time, too ample for our vital powers, O Life whose woeful vanities remain 30 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT Immutable for all of all our legions Through all the centuries and in all the regions, Not of your speed and variance we complain. We do not ask a longer term of strife, Weakness and weariness and nameless woes : We do not claim renewed and endless life When this which is our torment here shall close, An everlasting conscious inanition ! We yearn for speedy death in full fruition, Dateless oblivion and divine repose. XIV. Large glooms were gathered in the mighty fane, With tinted moongleams slanting here and there ; And all was hush : no swelling organ-strain, No chant, no voice or murmuring of prayer ; No priests came forth, no tinkling censers fumed, And the high altar space was unillumed. Around the pillars and against the walls Leaned men and shadows ; others seemed to brood Bent or recumbent in secluded stalls. Perchance they were not a great multitude Save in that city of so lonely streets Where one may count up every face he meets. THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 31 All patiently awaited the event Without a stir or sound, as if no less Self-occupied, doomstricken, while attent. And then we heard a voice of solemn stress From the dark pulpit, and our gaze there met Two eyes which burned as never eyes burned yet : Two steadfast and intolerable eyes Burning beneath a broad and rugged brow ; The head behind it of enormous size, And as black fir-groves in a large wind bow, Our rooted congregation, gloom-arrayed, By that great sad voice deep and full were swayed : O melancholy Brothers, dark, dark, dark ! O battling in black floods without an ark ! O spectral wanderers of unholy Night ! My soul hath bled for you these sunless years, With bitter blood-drops running down like tears : Oh, dark, dark, dark, withdrawn from joy and light ! My heart is sick with anguish for your bale ! Your woe hath been my anguish ; yea, I quail And perish in your perishing unblest. And I have searched the heights and depths, the scope Of all our universe, with desperate hope To find some solace for your wild unrest. And now at last authentic word I bring, Witnessed by every dead and living thing ; Good tidings of great joy for you, for all : 32 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT There is no God ; no Fiend with names divine Made us and tortures us ; if we must pine, It is to satiate no Being's gall. It was the dark delusion of a dream, That living Person conscious and supreme, Whom we must curse for cursing us with life ; Whom we must curse because the life He gave Could not be buried in the quiet grave, Could not be killed by poison or by knife. This little life is all we must endure, The grave's most holy peace is ever sure, We fall asleep and never wake again ; Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh, Whose elements dissolve and merge afresh In earth, air, water, plants, and other men. We finish thus ; and all our wretched race Shall finish with its cycle, and give place To other beings, with their own time-doom Infinite aeons ere our kind began ; Infinite aeons after the last man Has joined the mammoth in earth's tomb and womb. We bow down to the universal laws, Which never had for man a special clause Of cruelty or kindness, love or hate : If toads and vultures are obscene to sight, If tigers burn with beauty and with might, Is it by favour or by wrath of fate ? THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 33 All substance lives and struggles evermore Through countless shapes continually at war, By countless interactions interknit : If one is born a certain day on earth, All times and forces tended to that birth, Not all the world could change or hinder it. I find no hint throughout the Universe Of good or ill, of blessing or of curse ; I find alone Necessity Supreme ; With infinite Mystery, abysmal, dark, Unlighted ever by the faintest spark For us the flitting shadows of a dream. O Brothers of sad lives ! they are so brief ; A few short years must bring us all relief : Can we not bear these years of labouring breath ? But if you would not this poor life fulfil, Lo, you are free to end it when you will, Without the fear of waking after death. The organ-like vibrations of his voice Thrilled through the vaulted aisles and died away The yearning of the tones which bade rejoice Was sad and tender as a requiem lay : Our shadowy congregation rested still As brooding on that " End it when you will." c 34 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT xv. "Wherever men are gathered, all the air Is charged with human feeling, human thought ; Each shout and cry and laugh, each curse and prayer, Are into its vibrations surely wrought ; Unspoken passion, wordless meditation, Are breathed into it with our respiration ; It is with our life fraught and overfraught. So that no man there breathes earth's simple breath, As if alone on mountains or wide seas ; But nourishes warm life or hastens death With joys and sorrows, health and foul disease, Wisdom and folly, good and evil labours, Incessant of his multitudinous neighbours ; He in his turn affecting all of these. That City's atmosphere is dark and dense, Although not many exiles wander there, With many a potent evil influence, Each adding poison to the poisoned air j Infections of unutterable sadness, Infections of incalculable madness, Infections of incurable despair. THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 35 XVI. Our shadowy congregation rested still, As musing on that message we had heard And brooding on that " End it when you will ; " Perchance awaiting yet some other word ; When keen as lightning through a muffled sky Sprang forth a shrill and lamentable cry : The man speaks sooth, alas ! the man speaks sooth : We have no personal life beyond the grave ; There is no God ; Fate knows nor wrath nor ruth : Can I find here the comfort which I crave ? In all eternity I had one chance, One few years' term of gracious human life : The splendours of the intellect's advance, The sweetness of the home with babes and wife ; The social pleasures with their genial wit ; The fascination of the worlds of art, The glories of the worlds of nature, lit By large imagination's glowing heart ; The rapture of mere being, full of health ; The careless childhood and the ardent youth, The strenuous manhood winning various wealth, The reverend age serene with life's long truth : 36 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT All the sublime prerogatives of Man ; The storied memories of the times of old, The patient tracking of the world's great plan Through sequences and changes myriadfold. This chance was never offered me before ; For me the infinite Past is blank and dumb : This chance recurreth never, nevermore ; Blank, blank for me the infinite To-come. And this sole chance was frustrate from my birth, A mockery, a delusion ; and my breath Of noble human life upon this earth So racks me that I sigh for senseless death. My wine of life is poison mixed with gall, My noonday passes in a nightmare dream, I worse than lose the years which are my all : What can console me for the loss supreme ? Speak not of comfort where no comfort is, Speak not at all : can words make foul things fair? Our life's a cheat, our death a black abyss : Hush and be mute envisaging despair. This vehement voice came from the northern aisle Rapid and shrill to its abrupt harsh close ; And none gave answer for a certain while, For words must shrink from these most wordless woes ; THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 37 At last the pulpit speaker simply said, With humid eyes and thoughtful drooping head : My Brother, my poor Brothers, it is thus ; This life itself holds nothing good for us, But it ends soon and nevermore can be ; And we knew nothing of it ere our birth, And shall know nothing when consigned to earth : I ponder these thoughts and they comfort me. XVII. How the moon triumphs through the endless nights ! How the stars throb and glitter as they wheel Their thick processions of supernal lights Around the blue vault obdurate as steel ! And men regard with passionate awe and yearning The mighty marching and the golden burning, And think the heavens respond to what they feel. Boats gliding like dark shadows of a dream, Are glorified from vision as they pass The quivering moonbridge on the deep black stream Cold windows kindle their dead glooms of glass To restless crystals ; cornice, dome, and column Emerge from chaos in the splendour solemn ; Like faery lakes gleam lawns of dewy grass. 38 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT With such a living light these dead eyes shine, These eyes of sightless heaven, that as we gaze We read a pity, tremulous, divine, Or cold majestic scorn in their pure rays : Fond man ! they are not haughty, are not tender ; There is no heart or mind in all their splendour, They thread mere puppets all their marvellous maze. If we could near them with the flight unflown, We should but find them worlds as sad as this, Or suns all self-consuming like our own Enringed by planet worlds as much amiss : They wax and wane through fusion and confusion ; The spheres eternal are a grand illusion, The empyrean is a void abyss. XVIII. I wandered in a suburb of the north, And reached a spot whence three close lanes led down, Beneath thick trees and hedgerows winding forth Like deep brook channels, deep and dark and lown : The air above was wan with misty light, The dull grey south showed one vague blur of white. I took the left-hand lane and slowly trod Its earthen footpath, brushing as I went The humid leafage ; and my feet were shod With heavy languor, and my frame downbent, THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 39 With infinite sleepless weariness outworn, So many nights I thus had paced forlorn. After a hundred steps I grew aware Of something crawling in the lane below ; It seemed a wounded creature prostrate there That sobbed with pangs in making progress slow, The hind limbs stretched to push, the fore limbs then To drag ; for it would die in its own den. But coming level with it I discerned That it had been a man ; for at my tread It stopped in its sore travail and half-turned, Leaning upon its right, and raised its head, And with the left hand twitched back as in ire Long grey unreverend locks befouled with mire. A haggard filthy face with bloodshot eyes, An infamy for manhood to behold. He gasped all trembling, What, you want my. prize ? You leave, to rob me, wine and lust and gold And all that men go mad upon, since you Have traced my sacred secret of the clue ? You think that I am weak and must submit ; Yet I but scratch you with this poisoned blade, And you are dead as if I clove with it That false fierce greedy heart. Betrayed ! betrayed I fling this phial if you seek to pass, And you are forthwith shrivelled up like grass. 40 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT And then with sudden change, Take thought ! take thought ! Have pity on me ! it is mine alone. If you could find, it would avail you naught ; Seek elsewhere on the pathway of your own : For who of mortal or immortal race The lifetrack of another can retrace ? Did you but know my agony and toil ! Two lanes diverge up yonder from this lane ; My thin blood marks the long length of their soil ; Such clue I left, who sought my clue in vain : My hands and knees are worn both flesh and bone ; I cannot move but with continual moan. But I am in the very way at last To find the long-lost broken golden thread Which reunites my present with my past, If you but go your own way. And I said, I will retire as soon as you have told Whereunto leadeth this lost thread of gold. And so you know it not ! he hissed with scorn ; I feared you, imbecile ! It leads me back From this accursed night without a morn, And through the deserts which have else no track, And through vast wastes of horror-haunted time, To Eden innocence in Eden's clime : 4! And I become a nursling soft and pure, An infant cradled on its mother's knee, Without a past, love-cherished and secure ; Which if it saw this loathsome present Me, Would plunge its face into the pillowing breast, And scream abhorrence hard to lull to rest. He turned to grope ; and I retiring brushed Thin shreds of gossamer from off my face, And mused, His life would grow, the germ uncrushed ; He should to antenatal night retrace, And hide his elements in that large womb Beyond the reach of man-evolving Doom. And even thus, what weary way were planned, To seek oblivion through the far-off gate Of birth, when that of death is close at hand ! For this is law, if law there be in Fate : What never has been, yet may have its when ; The thing which has been, never is again. XIX. The mighty river flowing dark and deep, With ebb and flood from the remote sea-tides Vague-sounding through the City's sleepless sleep, Is named the River of the Suicides ; For night by night some lorn wretch overweary, And shuddering from the future yet more dreary, Within its cold secure oblivion hides. 42 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT One plunges from a bridge's parapet, As by some blind and sudden frenzy hurled ; Another wades in slow with purpose set Until the waters are above him furled ; Another in a boat with dreamlike motion Glides drifting down into the desert ocean, To starve or sink from out the desert world. They perish from their suffering surely thus, For none beholding them attempts to save, The while each thinks how soon, solicitous, He may seek refuge in the self-same wave ; Some hour when tired of ever-vain endurance Impatience will forerun the sweet assurance Of perfect peace eventual in the grave. When this poor tragic-farce has palled us long, Why actors and spectators do we stay ? To fill our so-short roles out right or wrong ; To see what shifts are yet in the dull play For our illusion ; to refrain from grieving Dear foolish friends by our untimely leaving : But those asleep at home, how blest are they ! Yet it is but for one night after all : What matters one brief night of dreary pain ? When after it the weary eyelids fall Upon the weary eyes and wasted brain ; And all sad scenes and thoughts and feelings vanish. In that sweet sleep no power can ever banish, That one best sleep which never wakes again. 43 XX. I sat me weary on a pillar's base, And leaned against the shaft ; for broad moonlight Overflowed the peacefulness of cloistered space, A shore of shadow slanting from the right : The great cathedral's western front stood there, A wave-worn rock in that calm sea of air. Before it, opposite my place of rest, Two figures faced each other, large, austere ; A couchant sphinx in shadow to the breast, An angel standing in the moonlight clear ; So mighty by magnificence of form, They were not dwarfed beneath that mass enorm. Upon the cross-hilt of a naked sword The angel's hands, as prompt to smite, were held ; His vigilant intense regard was poured Upon the creature placidly unquelled, Whose front was set at level gaze which took No heed of aught, a solemn trance-like look. And as I pondered these opposed shapes My eyelids sank in stupor, that dull swoon Which drugs and with a leaden mantle drapes The outworn to worse weariness. But soon A sharp and clashing noise the stillness broke, And from the evil lethargy I woke. 44 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT The angel's wings had fallen, stone on stone, And lay there shattered ; hence the sudden sound : A warrior leaning on his sword alone Now watched -the sphinx with that regard profound ; The sphinx unchanged looked forthright, as aware Of nothing in the vast abyss of air. Again I sank in that repose unsweet, Again a clashing noise my slumber rent ; The warrior's sword lay broken at his feet : An unarmed man with raised hands impotent Now stood before the sphinx, which ever kept Such mien as if with open eyes it slept. My eyelids sank in spite of wonder grown ; A louder crash upstartled me in dread : The man had fallen forward, stone on stone, And lay there shattered, with his trunkless head Between the monster's large quiescent paws, Beneath its grand front changeless as life's laws. The moon had circled westward full and bright, And made the temple-front a mystic dream. And bathed the whole enclosure with its light, The sworded angel's wrecks, the sphinx supreme I pondered long that cold majestic face Whose vision seemed of infinite void space. THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 45 XXI Anear the centre of that northern crest Stands out a level upland bleak and bare, From which the city east and south and west Sinks gently in long waves ; and throned there An Image sits, stupendous, superhuman, The bronze colossus of a winged Woman, Upon a graded granite base foursquare. Low-seated she leans forward massively, With cheek on clenched left hand, the forearm's might Erect, its elbow on her rounded knee ; Across a clasped book in her lap the right Upholds a pair of compasses ; she gazes With full set eyes, but wandering in thick mazes Of sombre thought beholds no outward sight. Words cannot picture her ; but all men know That solemn sketch the pure sad artist wrought Three centuries and threescore years ago, With phantasies of his peculiar thought : The instruments of carpentry and science Scattered about her feet, in strange alliance With the keen wolf-hound sleeping undistraught ; Scales, hour-glass, bell, and magic-square above ; The grave and solid infant perched beside, With open winglets that might bear a dove, Intent upon its tablets, heavy-eyed ; 46 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT Her folded wings as of a mighty eagle, But all too impotent to lift the regal Robustness of her earth-born strength and pride ; And with those wings, and that light wreath which seems To mock her grand head and the knotted frown Of forehead charged with baleful thoughts and dreams, The household bunch of keys, the housewife's gown Voluminous, indented, and yet rigid As if a shell of burnished metal frigid ; The feet thick shod to tread all weakness down ; The comet hanging o'er the waste dark seas, The massy rainbow curved in front of it, Beyond the village with the masts and trees ; The snaky imp, dog-headed, from the Pit, Bearing upon its batlike leathern pinions Her name unfolded in the sun's dominions, The " MELENCOLIA " that transcends all wit Thus has the artist copied her, and thus Surrounded to expound her form sublime, Her fate heroic and calamitous ; Fronting the dreadful mysteries of Time, Unvanquished in defeat and desolation, Undaunted in the hopeless conflagration Of the day setting on her baffled prime. THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT 47 Baffled and beaten back she works on still, Weary and sick of soul she works the more, Sustained by her indomitable will : The hands shall fashion and the brain shall pore And all her sorrow shall be turned to labour, Till death the friend-foe piercing with his sabre That mighty heart of hearts ends bitter war. But as if blacker night could dawn on night, With tenfold gloom on moonless night unstarred^ A sense more tragic than defeat and blight, More desperate than strife with hope debarred, More fatal than the adamantine Never Encompassing her passionate endeavour, Dawns glooming in her tenebrous regard : The sense that every struggle brings defeat Because Fate holds no prize to crown success ; That all the oracles are dumb or cheat Because they have no secret to express ; That none can pierce the vast black veil uncertain Because there is no light beyond the curtain ; That all is vanity and nothingness. Titanic from her high throne in the north, That City's sombre Patroness and Queen, In bronze sublimity she gazes forth Over her Capital of teen and threne, 48 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT Over the river with its isles and bridges, The marsh and moorland, to the stern rock-ridges, Confronting them with a coeval mien. The moving moon and stars from east to west Circle before her in the sea of air ; Shadows and gleams glide round her solemn rest. Her subjects often gaze up to her there : The strong to drink new strength of iron endurance. The weak new terrors ; all, renewed assurance And confirmation of the old despair. 1870-1874, WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN NOTE. I found this story, and that of the short piece following,* which merit far better English versions than I have been able to accomplish, in the De I Amour of De Stendhal (Henri Beyle), chap. 53, where they are given among " Fragments Extracted and Translated from an Arabic Collection, entitled The Divan of Love, compiled by Ebn-Abi-Hadglat." From another of these fragments I quote a few lines by way of introduction : " The Benou-Azra are a tribe famous for love among all the tribes of Arabia. So that the manner in which they love has passed into a proverb, and God has not made any other creatures so tender in loving as are they. Sahid, son of Agba, one day asked an Arab, Of what people art thou? I am of the people who die when they love, answered the Arab. Thou art then of the tribe of Azra? said Sahid. Yes, by the master of the Caaba ! replied the Arab. Whence comes it, then, that you thus love? asked Sahid. Our women are beautiful and our young men are chaste, answered the Arab." On this theme HEINE has a poem of four unrhymed quatrains, Der Azra, of which the sense without the melody may be given in English : Daily went the wondrous-lovely Sultan's daughter to and fro there In the evening by the fountain, Where the waters white were plashing. Daily stood the youthful captive In the evening by the fountain, Where the waters white were plashing ; Daily grew he pale and paler. And one evening the princess Stepped to him with sudden question : " I would know your name, young captive, And your country and your kindred." Then the slave replied : " My name is Mohammed, I come from Yemen, And my kindred are the Azra, They who when they love must perish." * This poem is not included in the present selection. WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN PART I. V\77"EDDAH and Om-el-Bonain, scarcely grown W TO boy and girlhood from their swaddling bands, Were known where'er the Azra tribe was known, Through Araby and all the neighbouring lands ; Were chanted in the songs of sweetest tone Which sprang like fountains 'mid the desert sands : They were so beautiful that none who saw But felt a rapture trembling into awe. II. Once on a dewy evetide when the balm Of herb and flower made all the air rich wine, And still the sunless shadow of the palm Sought out the birthplace of the day divine, These two were playing in the happy calm. A young chief said : In these be sure a sign Great God vouchsafes ; a living talisman Of glory and rich weal to bless our clan. 52 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN in. Proud hearts applauded ; but a senior chief Said : Perfect beauty is its own sole end ; It is ripe flower and fruit, not bud and leaf; The promise and the blessing meet and blend, Fulfilled at once : then malice, wrath, and grief, Lust of the foe and passion of the friend, Assail the marvel ; for all Hell is moved Against the work of Allah most approved. IV. Thus beauty is that pearl a poor man found ; Which could not be surrendered, changed, or sold, Which he might never bury in the ground, Or hide away within his girdle-fold ; But had to wear upon his brow uncrowned, A star of storm and terrors ; for, behold, The richest kings raged jealous for its light, And just men's hearts turned robbers at the sight. v. But if the soul be royal as the gem, That star of danger may flash victory too, The younger urged, and bring the diadern To set itself in. And the other : True ; If all Life's golden apples crown one stem, Fate touches none ; but single they are few : And whether to defeat or triumph, this One star lights war and woe, not peaceful bliss. WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 53 VI. Cut nothing recked the children in that hour, And little recked through fifteen happy years, Of any doom in their surpassing dower : Rich with the present, free from hopes and fears, They dwelt in time as in a heavenly bower : Their life was strange to laughter as to tears, Serenely glad ; their partings were too brief For pain ; and side by side, what thing was grief? VII. Amidst their clan they dwelt in solitude, Not haughtily but by instinctive love ; As lion mates with lion in the wood, And eagle pairs with eagle not with dove ; The lowlier creatures finding their own good In their own race, nor seeking it above : These dreamt as little of divided life As that first pair created man and wife. VIII. The calm years flowed thus till the youth and maid Were almost man and woman, and the spell Of passion wrought, and each was self-dismayed ; The hearts their simple childhood knew so well Were now such riddles to them, in the shade And trouble of the mists that seethe and swell When the large dawn is kindling, which shall grow Through crimson fires to steadfast azure glow. 54 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN IX. That year a tribe-feud, which some years had slept Through faintness, woke up stronger than before ; And with its stir young hearts on all sides leapt For battle, swoln with peace and plenteous store ; Swift couriers to and fro the loud land swept Weaving thin spites to one vast woof of war : And Weddah sallied forth elate, ranked man, A warrior of the warriors of his clan. x. Ere long flushed foes turned haggard at his name ; The beautiful, the terrible : for fire Burns most intensely in the clearest flame ; The comeliest steed is ever last to tire And swiftest footed ; and in war's fierce game The noblest sword is deadliest in its gyre : His gentle gravity grew keen and gay In hottest fight as for a festal day. XI. And while he fought far distant with his band, Walid the Syrian, Abd-el-Malek's son ; Renowned already for a scheme long planned With silent patience, and a sharp deed done When its ripe fruit leaned ready for his hand, And liberal sharing of the fruit well won ; Came south to greet the tribe, and knit anew Old bonds of friendship and alliance true. WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 55 XII. He had full often from the poets heard Of these two children the divinely fair ; But was not one to kindle at a word, And languish on faint echoes of an air ; By what he saw and touched his heart was stirred Nor knew sick longings and the vague despair Of those who turn from every nearest boon To catch like infants at the reachless moon. XIII. But when one sunset flaming crimson-barred He saw a damsel like a shape of sleep, Who moved as moves in indolence the pard ; Above whose veil burned large eyes black and deep, The lairs of an intense and slow regard Which made all splendours of the broad world cheap, And death and life thin dreams ; fate-smitten there He rested shuddering past the hour of prayer. xiv. Be heaven all stars, we feel the one moon's rise : Who else could move with that imperial grace ? Who else could bear about those fateful eyes, Too overwhelming for a mortal face ? Beyond all heed of questions and surprise He stood a termless hour in that same place, Convulsed in silent wrestling with his doom ; Haggard as one brought living from the tomb. 56 WEDDAH AND OM-^L-BONAIN xv. And she had shuddered also passing by, A moment ; for her spirit though intent Was chilled as conscious of an evil eye ; But forthwith turned and o'er its one dream bent ; A woman lilting as she came anigh : But to destroy on earth was Weddah sent ; There where he is brave warriors fall before him. Where he is not pine damsels who adore him. XVI. And thus with purpose like a trenchant blade Forged in that fierce hour's fire, the Syrian chief Began new life. When next the Council weighed The heavy future charged with wrath and grief, He spoke his will : I ask to wed the maid, The child of Abd-el-Aziz : and, in brief, I bring for dowry all our wealth and might, Unto our last heart's blood, to fight your fight XVII. All mute with marvelling sat. Her sire then said : From infancy unto my brother's son She has been held betrothed : our lord can wed Full many a lovelier, many a richer one. But quite in vain they reasoned, flattered, pled : This was his proffer, other he had none : A boy and girl outweighed the Azra tribe ? 'Twas strange ! His vow was fixed to that sole bribe. WEDDAH N AND OM-EL-BONAIN 57 XVIII. And as their couriers came in day by day Pregnant with portents of yet blacker ill ; And all their urgence broke in fuming spray Against the rock of his firm-planted will ; The baffled current took a tortuous way, And drowned a happy garden green and still, O'erwhelming Abd-el-Aziz with that gibe, A boy and girl outvalue all our tribe ? XIX. He loved his daughter, and he loved yet more His brothers son ; and now the whole tribe prest The scale against them : there was raging war, Too sure of hapless issue in his breast ; Sea-tossed where rocks on all sides fanged the shore. She heard him moaning : Would I were at rest, Ere this should come upon me, in the grave ! Her poor heart bled to hear him weep and rave. XX. She flung herself all yearning at his feet ; The long white malehair dashed her brow with tears ; But her tears scalded him ; her kisses sweet Were crueller than iron barbs of spears : He had no eyes her tender eyes to meet ; Her soft caressing words scarce touched his ears But they were fire and madness in his brain : Yet while she clasped he mutely clasped again. $8 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 'XXI. At length he answered her : A heavy doom Is laid upon me ; now, when I am old, And weak, and bending toward the quiet tomb . . . Can it then be, as we are sometimes told, That women, nay, that young girls in their bloom, Lovely, beloved, and loving, have been bold To give their lives, when blenched the bravest man, For safety of their city or their clan ? XXII. She trembled in cold shadow of a rock Leaning to crush her where she knelt fast bound ; She grew all ear to catch the coming shock, And felt already quakings of the ground ; Yet firmly said : Your anguish would not mock Your daughter, O my Father : pray expound The woeful riddle ; and whate'er my part, It is your very blood which feeds this heart. XXIII. He told her all : the perils great and near ; The might of Walid ; and the friendship long Which bound them to his house, and year by year With mutual kindnesses had grown more strong His offer, his demand, which would nor hear A word in mitigation right or wrong. Her young blood curdled : Bring him to our tent, That I may plead ; perchance he will relent. WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 59 XXIV. He came ; and found her sitting double-veiled, For grief was round her like a funeral stole. She pleaded, she o'erwhelmed him, and she failed ; For still the more her passion moved his soul, The more he loved her ; when his heart most quailed, His purpose stretched most eager for the goal : I stake myself, house, friends, all, for the tribe Which gives me you ; but for no meaner bribe. XXV. So her face set into a stony mask, And heavy silence crushed them for an hour Ere she could learn the words to say her task : Let only mutes appeal to Fate's deaf power ! Behold I pledge myself to what you ask, My sire here sells me for the settled dower : The sheikhs can know we are at one ; I pray That none else know it ere the wedding-day. XXVI. Which shall be when next moon is on the wane As this to-night : my heart is now the bier Of that which we have sacrificed and slain ; My own poor Past, still beautiful and dear, Cut off from life, wants burial ; and though vain Is woman's weeping, I must weep I fear A little on the well-beloved's tomb Ere marriage smiles and blushes can outbloom. 6o WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN XXVII. He left them, sire and daughter, to their woe ; Himself then sick at heart as they could be : But set to work at once, and spurred the slow Sad hours till they were fiery-swift as he : With messengers on all sides to and fro, With ravelled webs of subtle policy, He gave the sheikhs good earnest of what aid They had so cheaply bought with one fair maid. XXVIII. Thus he took Araby's one peerless prize, And homeward went ungrudging all the cost ; Though she was marble ; with blank arid eyes, Weary and hopeless as the waste they crossed When neither moon nor star is in the skies, And water faileth, and the track is lost. He took such statue triumphing for wife, Assured his love would kindle it to life. XXIX. She had indeed wept, wept and wailed that moon, But had not buried yet her shrouded Past ; Which ever lay in a most deathlike swoon, Pallid and pulseless, motionless and ghast, While Fate withheld from it death's perfect boon : She kept this doleful mystery locked up fast ; Her form was as its sepulchre of stone, Her heart its purple couch and hidden throne. WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 61 xxx. She went ; and sweeter voiced than cooing dove Hassan the bard his farewell ode must render : We had a Night, the dream of heaven above, Wherein one moon and countless stars of splendour ; We had a Moon, the face of perfect love, Wherein two nights with stars more pure and tender : Our Night with its one moon we still have here ; Where is our Moon with its twin nights more dear ? PART II. As Weddah and his troop were coming back From their first foray, which success made brief, Scouts met him and in sharp haste turned his track On special mission to a powerful chief, Who wavered still between the white and black, And lurked for mere self-profit like a thief. This errand well fulfilled, at last he came To flush her tear-pearls with the ruby fame. II. Into the camp full joyously he rode, Leading his weary escort ; as for him, The love and trust that in his bosom glowed Had laughed away all weariness of limb. 62 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN The sheikhs, his full report heard, all bestowed Well-measured praises, brief and somewhat grim ; As veterans scanning the enormous night In which this one star shone so bravely bright. III. Then Abd-el-Aziz rose and left the tent, And he accompanied with eager pace ; And marked not how his frank smiles as he went Were unreflected in each well-known face ; How joyous greetings he on all sides sent Brought hollow echoes as from caverned space : His heart drank sweet wine 'mid the roses singing, And thought the whole world with like revels ringing. IV. He entered with his uncle, and his glance Sank disappointed. But the old man wept With passion o'er him, eyeing him askance ; And made him eat and drink ; and ever kept Questioning, questioning, as to every chance Throughout his absence ; keen to intercept The fatal, But my cousin ? ready strung Upon the tense lips by the eager tongue. v. At length it flew, the lover's winged dart ; He sped it wreathed with flowers of hope and joy, It pierced with iron point the old man's heart, Who quivering cried : You are, then, still a boy ! WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 63 Love, love, the sweet to meet, the smart to part, Make all your world of pleasure and annoy ! Is this a time for dalliance in rose bowers ? The vultures gather ; do they scent sweet flowers ? VI. It is a time of woe and shame, of strife Whose victory must be dolorous as defeat : The sons of Ishmael clutch the stranger's knife To stab each other ; every corpse you meet Has held a Moslem soul, an Arab life : The town-serfs prisoned in stark fort and street Exult while countless tents that freely roam Perish like proud ships clashing in the foam. VII. We might learn wisdom from our foes and thralls ! The mongrels of a hundred barbarous races, Who know not their own sires, appease their brawls, Leave night and sunward set their impure faces, To bay in concert round old Syrian walls, And thrust their three gods on our holy places : We have one Sire, one Prophet, and one Lord, And yet against each other turn the sword. VIII. Thus long he groaned with fevered bitterness, Till, Say at least, my Father, she is well ! Stung prudence out of patience : Surely yes ! The children of the faith whom Azrael 64 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN Hath gathered, do they suffer our distress ? But smitten by that word the lover fell, As if at such rash mention of his name That bird of God with wings of midnight came. IX. Deep in the shadow of those awful plumes A night and day and night he senseless lay ; And Abd-el-Aziz cowered 'mid deeper glooms, Silent in vast despair, both night and day : It seemed two forms belonging to the tombs Had been abandoned in that tent ; for they Were stark and still and mute alike, although The one was conscious of their double woe. x. At last death left the balance, and the scale Of wretched life jarred earth : and in the morn The lover woke, confused as if a veil Of heavy dreams involved him ; weak and worn And cold at heart, and wondering what bale Had wounded him and left him thus forlorn : So still half-stunned with anguish he lay long, Fretful to rend the shroud that wrapt his wrong. XI. He turned ; and on the pillow, near his head, He saw a toy, a trifle, that gave tongue To mute disaster : forthwith on his bed The coiled-snake Memory hissed and sprang and stung: WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 65 Then all the fury of the storm was shed From the black swollen clouds that overhung ; The hot rain poured, the fierce gusts shook his soul Wild flashes lit waste gloom from pole to pole. XII. He hardly dared to touch the petty thing, The talisman of this tremendous spell : A purse of dark blue silk ; a golden ring, A letter in the hand he knew so well. Still as he sought to read new gusts would fling Wet blindness in his vision, and a knell Of rushing thunder trample through his brain Aud tread him down into the swoon again. XIII. He read : Farewell ! In one sad word I weave More thoughts than pen could write or tongue declare. No other word can Om-el-Bonain leave To Weddah, save her blessing ; and her prayer, That he will quail not, though his heart must grieve, That all his strength and valour, skill and care, Shall be devoted loyally to serve The sacred Tribe, and never self-ward swerve. XIV. For verily the Tribe is all, and we Are nothing singly save as parts of it : The one great Nile flows ever to the sea, The waterdrops for ever change and flit ; 66 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN And some the first ooze snares, and some may be The King's sweet draught, proud Cairo's mirror ; fit For all each service of the stream whose fame They share, by which alone they have a name. xv. And since I know that you cannot forget, And am too sure your love will never change, I leave my image to your soul : but yet Keep it as shrined and shrouded till the strange Sad dream of life, illusion and regret, Is ended ; short must be its longest range. Farewell ! Hope gleams the wan lamp in a tomb Above a corpse that waits the final doom. XVI. This writing was a dear but cruel friend That dragged him from the deep, and held him fast Upon life's shore, who would have found an end, Peace and oblivion. Turn from such a past To such a future, and unquailing wend Its infinite hopeless hours ! he shrank aghast : Yet in this utmost weakness swore to make The dreadful sacrifice for her dear sake. XVII. But when he stood as one about to fall, And would go weep upon her tomb alone, And Abd-el-Aziz had to tell him all, The cry of anguish took a harsher tone ; WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 67 Rich harem coverlets for funeral pall, For grave a Syrian marriage couch and throne ! A human rival, breathing mortal breath, And not the star-cold sanctity of Death ! XVIII. This truth was as a potent poison-draught, Fire in the entrails, wild fire in the brain, Which kindled savage strength in him who quaffed And did not die of its first maddening pain. It struck him like the mere malignant shaft Which stings a warrior into sense again, Who lay benumbed with wounds, and would have died Unroused: the fresh wound makes him crawl and hide. XIX. A month he wandered in wild solitude ; And in that month grew old, and yet grew strong : Now lying prone and still as death would brood The whole long day through and the whole night long ; Now demon-driven day and night pursued Stark weariness amidst the clamorous throng Of thoughts that raged with memory and desire, And parched, his bruised feet burning, could not tire. xx. When he came back, o'ermastered by his vow To serve the Tribe through which he was unblest, None gazed without remorse upon his brow, None felt his glance without an aching breast : 68 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN Magnificent in beauty even now, Ravaged by grief and fury and unrest, He moved among them swift and stern of deed, And always silent save in action's need. XXI. And thus went forth, and unrejoicingly Drank deep of war's hot wine : as one who drinks And only grows more sullen, while yet he Never the challenge of the full cup shrinks ; And rises pale with horror when the glee Of careless revellers into slumber sinks, Because the feast which could not give him joy At least kept phantoms from their worst annoy. XXII. The lion of the Azra is come back A meagre wolf ! foes mocked, who mocked no more When midnight scared them with his fresh attack After the long day's fighting, and the war Found him for ever wolf-like on their track, As if consumed with slakeless thirst of gore : Since he was cursed from slumber and repose, He wreaked his restlessness on friends and foes. XXIII. The lightnings of his keen sword ever flashed Without a ray of lightning in his glance ; His blade where blades were thickest clove or clashed Without a war-cry : ever in advance WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 69 He sought out death ; but death as if abashed Adopted for its own his sword and lance, And rode his steed, and swayed aside or blunted The eager hostile weapons he affronted. XXIV. Once in the thick of battle as he raged Thus cold and dumb amidst the furious cries, Hassan the bard was near to him engaged, And read a weird in those forlorn fixed eyes ; And singing of that combat they had waged Gave voice to what surpassed his own surmise : For our young Lion of the matdess doom Shall never go a cold corpse to the tomb ! xxv. Awe silenced him who sang, and deep awe fell On those who heard it round the campfire's blaze : But when they questioned he had nought to tell ; The vision had departed from his gaze. The verse took wing and was a mighty spell ; Upon the foe new terror and amaze, To friends redoubled force ; to one alone, The hero's self, it long remained unknown. XXVI. While Weddah in the South with fiery will Bore conquest wheresoe'er his banner flew, Walid with royal heart and patient skill Upon the Syrian confines triumphed too. 70 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN They never met : each felt a savage thrill Which jarred his inmost being through and through As still fresh fame the other's fame enlarged : Each wished his rival in the ranks he charged. XXVII. And when the foemen sued at length for peace To victors surfeited with war's alarms, Save him who knew all rest in rest must cease, They said : O warriors, not by your own arms, Though they are mighty ! may their might increase ! But more by Om-el-Bonain's fatal charms, Possessing both who lost her and who won, Have we been baffled, vanquished, and undone. XXVIII. Whence Hassan sang his sudden daring ode Of Beauty revelling in the storm of fight : For if the warriors into battle rode, Their hearts were kindled by her living light ; Either as sun that in pure azure glowed, Or baleful star in deep despair's black night : And whether by despair or joy she lit Intenser fires perplexed the poet's wit. XXIX. And would you know why empires break asunder, Why peoples perish and proud cities fall ; Seek not the captains where the steel clouds thunder, Seek not the elders in the council hall ; WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 71 But seek the chamber where some shining wonder Of delicate beauty nestles, far from all The turmoil, toying with adornments queenly, And murmuring songs of tender love serenely. xxx. The clashing cymbals and the trumpet's clangour Are peacefuller than her soft trembling lute ; The armies raging with hot fire of anger Are gentler than her gentle glances mute ; The restless rushings of her dainty languor Outveer the wind, outspeed the barb's pursuit : Well Hassan knows ; who sings high laud and blessing To this dear fatal riddle past all guessing. PART III. i. The war was over for the time : and men Returned to heal its wounds, repair its waste, And thus grow strong and rich to fight again. And Weddah, cold in victory's sun, embraced The uncle whom his glory warmed ; and then Gathering his spoil of gems and gold in haste, Rode forth : the clansmen wondered much to find His famous favourite steed was left behind. 72 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN II. He set out in the night : none knew his goal, Though some might fix it in their secret thought. He could no longer stifle or control, In calm by battle's fever undistraught, The piteous yearning of his famished soul Which unappeasably its food besought ; Fretting his life out like an infant's cry, Let us but see her once before we die ! ill. When he returned not, soon the rumour spread ; That he had vanished now his work was done : The prophecy had been fulfilled ; not dead But in the body borne beyond the sun, He lived eternal life. He heard this said Himself in Walid's city, where as one Who sojourns but for traffic's sake he dwelt ; And hearing it, more surely shrouded felt IV. Courteous and humble as beseemeth trade, While ever on the watch, some gems he sold : Men said, this young man is discreet and staid Yet fair in dealing, nor too fond of gold. He smiled to hear his virtues thus arrayed, A smile that gloomed to frowning ; but controlled The haughty spirit surging in his breast ; The end in view, what mattered all the rest ? WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 73 v. The end in reach : for now the favourite slave Of Om-el-Bonain, as he knew full well ; A frank-eyed girl, whose bosom was a wave Whereon love's lotus lightly rose and fell ; Drew near to him, attracted by his grave Unsceptred majesty, and by the spell Of his intense and fathomless regard, Splendid in gloom as midnight myriad -starred. VI. She haggled for a trinket with her tongue To veil the eager commerce of her eyes ; Those daring smugglers when the heart is young, For contraband of passion. His disguise In talk with her but loosely round him hung ; She glimpsed a secret and an enterprise ; Love's flower, unsunned by hope, soon fades ; she grieves, Yet still returns to scent the rich dead leaves. VII. Till sick at heart and desperate with delay He ventured all, abruptly flinging down The weary mask : if death must end the play Better at once : I learn that in your town Dwells Om-el-Bonain, whom you know men say. 'Upon her eye-flash dropped a decent frown : She is my mistress, and great Walid's wife The word his heart sought, stabbed in with a knife. 74 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN VIII. Your mistress is my cousin ; and will be The friend of who shall tell her I am here. But if I may not trust your secrecy, Tell Walid, tell not her : and have no fear That I will harm you for harm done to me, Unaimed at her. The life I hold not dear Might dower you well. But with a passionate oath The eager girl swore loyalty to both. IX. Then hurried from him to her lady sweet, And thrilled her frozen heart with burning pang : For life resigned and torpid in defeat To new contention with its fate upsprang, This sword of hope found lying at her feet While love's impetuous clarion summons rang : Weddah alive : alive and here ! Beware ! If you now mock, Hell mock your dying prayer ! x. I saw a merchant : never chiet or king Of form so noble visited our land ; He wore a little ring, a lady's ring, On the last finger of a feared right hand ; Some woe enormous overshadowing Made beauty terrible that had been bland ; He was convulsed.when he would speak your name, From such abysses of his heart it came. WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 75 XI. Now whether this be Weddah's self or not, My Lady in her wisdom must decide. The lady's questions ploughed the self-same spot Over and over lest some grains should hide Of this vast treasure fallen to her lot : Swear by the Prophet's tomb I may confide In you as in myself until the end ; And Om-el-Bonain lives and dies your friend. XII. Brave Amine swore, and bravely held the vow. Her mistress kept her babbling all that eve, A pleasant rill. And on the morrow : Now Go bid him tell all friends that he must leave In seven days ; so much we must allow, So many starving hours of bliss bereave ! His travels urge him in his own despite ; He gives a farewell feast on such a night : XIII. And in the meanwhile he shall fully learn What is to follow. When this message came, The thick dark in him 'gan to seethe and burn Till soul and body fused in one clear flame. His guests all blinked with wonder to discern This glowing heart of joy ; and flushed with jbame Unmerited for having thought him cold, Who made their old feel young, their young feel old 76 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN XIV. The long week passed ; the morning came to crown Or kill the lovers' hope. It was a day Well chosen, for some guests of high renown Left Walid, who would speed them on their way ; And festal tumult filled the sunny town. The merchant in departure strolled astray Amongst the groups about the palace heaving To glimpse the rich procession form for leaving. xv. And when it left, absorbing every eye ; A stream of splendours rolling with the din Of horn and tabor under that blue sky ; Came Amine carelessly and led him in, With chat of certain anklets she would buy ; And led him lounging onwards till they win A storeroom where her mistress daily spent Some matin hours on household cares intent. XVI. Large chests were ranged around it, one of which They had made ready with most loving care ; Lurked apertures among the carvings rich, Above its deep soft couch, for light and air : Behold your prison cell, your palace niche, The jewel casket of my Lady fair ! I lock you in : from her must come your key : Love's captives pay sweet ransom to get free ! WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 77 XVII. She found her mistress fever-flushed, and told Their full success : Our prisoner is secure ; A lion meek as lambkin of the fold, Prepared your harshest torments to endure ! But, dearest Lady, as you have been bold, Be prudent, prudent, prudent, and assure Long life to bliss. Now with your leave I go To be well seen of all the house below. XVIII. She took another stairway for descent, And sauntered round to the front courtyard gate, Chatting and laughing lightly as she went With various groups, all busy in debate On those departed guests : and some were shent For meanness maugre retinue and state, And some extolled for bounteous disposition, And all summed up with judgment-day precision. XIX. Of all her fellow-slaves it seemed but one, Whose breast was tinder for love's flame would she Vouchsafe a spark, had spied the venture run : Soho, my flirting madam, where is he You brought in here an hour since with your fun ? A happy rogue, whoever he may be ! Have you already tired of this new dandy, Or hid him somewhere to be always handy ? 78 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN XX. The stupid jealous creature that you are ! Where were your eyes, then, not to know his face ? For weeks back he has dealt in our bazaar, And now is on the road to some new place. He had an emerald and diamond star I thought might win my poor dear Lady's grace She would not even look at it, alack ! I packed him off for ever with his pack. XXI. Thus these long-hapless lovers for awhile, Enringed with dreadful fire, safe ambush found, Screened by its very glare ; a magic isle By roaring billows guarded well till drowned ; A refuge spot of green and liquid smile Whose rampart was the simoon gathering round : If darkness hid them, it was thunder gloom Whose light must come in lightnings to consume XXII. And even as Iskander's self, for whom The whole broad earth sufficed not, found at last Full scope vouchsafed him in the narrow tomb ; So he long pining in the desert vast As in a dungeon, found now ample room, Found perfect freedom and content, shut fast Alive within that coffer-coffin lonely, Which gave him issue to that chamber only. WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 79 XXIII. They knew what peril compassed them about, But could not feel the dread it would inspire ; Imperious love shut other passions out, Or made them fuel for his altar fire. At first one sole thought harassed them with doubt ; To kill her lord and flee ? Then tribe and sire Would justly curse them ; for in every act He had been loyal to the evil pact. XXIV. He had indeed wronged them ; for well he knew Their love from infancy, their plighted troth, When merciless in mastery he drew From her repugnant lips the fatal oath ! That love avenged the wrong of love was due ; But still his blood was sacred to them both ; The tender husband and the proved ally They dare not harm ; must death come, they could die. XXV. Die ! Often he would dream for hours supine Upon his lidded couch, Life's dream is over : I wait the resurrection in this shrine ! Anon an angel cometh to uncover The inmost glories of the realm divine, Because though dead I still am faithful lover My spirit drinks its fill of bliss, and then Sinks back into this twilight trance again. 8o WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN XXVI. Like bird above its young one in the nest Which cannot fly, he often heard her singing ; The thrill and swell of rapture from her breast In fountains of delightful music springing : It seemed he had been borne among the blest, Whose quires around his darksome couch were ringing ; Long after that celestial voice sank mute His heartstrings kept sweet tremble like a lute. XXVII. She heard his breathing like a muffled chime, She heard his tranquil heart-beats through the flow Of busy menials in the morning time ; Far-couched at night she felt a sudden glow, And straight her breathing answered rhyme for rhyme His softest furtive footsteps to and fro : And none else heard ? She marvelled how the sense Of living souls could be so dull and dense. XXVIII. Once early, early, ere the dawn grew loud, She stole to watch his slumber by its gleam ; And blushing with a soft laugh-gurgle bowed And sank as in the bosom of a stream, An ardent angel in a rosy cloud Resolving the enchantment of his dream : Where there is room for thee, is room for us ; So may I share thy death-sarcophagus ! WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 81 XXIX. She grew so lovely, ravishing, and sweet, Her brow so radiant and her lips so warm ; Such rich heart-music stirred her buoyant feet, And swayed the gestures of her lithe young form, And revelled in her voice to bliss complete ; That Walid whirled with his great passion's storm, Befooled with joy, went doting down his hell : Oh, tame and meek, my skittish wild gazelle ! xxx. Thus these, sings Hassan, of their love's full measure Drank swiftly in that circle of swift fire ; A veil of light and ardour to their pleasure Till it revealed their ashes on one pyre : Some never win, some spend in youth this treasure, And crawl down sad age starvelings of desire : These lavish royal wealth in one brief season, But death found both so rich he gave them reason. PART IV. i. The tender almond-blossom flushed and white Sank floating in warm flakes through lucid air ; The rose flung forth into the sea of light Her heart of fire and incense burning bare ; F 82 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN The nightingale thrilled all the breathless night With passion so intense it seemed despair : And still these lovers drank love's perfect wine From that gold urn of secrecy divine. II. Then Fate prepared the end. A grey old man, Bowed down with grief who had not bent with time, Made way to Walid in the full divan : His son, great-hearted and in youth's hot prime, Was now a fugitive and under ban For an indignant deed of sinless crime ; A noble heirloom pearl the suppliant brought To clear the clouded face ere he besought. ill. This pearl in Walid's mood of golden joy Shone fair as morning star in rosy dawn ; He called his minion, Motar : Take this toy Unto your Lady where she sits withdrawn, With my love-greeting, and this message, boy : Were this a string of such, a monarch's pawn, A pearl for every note, it would not pay That song I heard you singing yesterday. IV. They had been leaning for an hour perchance, Motionless, gazing in each other's eyes ; Floating in deep pure joy, whose still expanse Rippled but rarely with long satiate sighs ; WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 83 Their souls so intermingled in the trance, So far away dissolved through fervent skies, That it was marvel how each fair mute form Without its pulse and breath remained life-warm. v. When rapid footsteps almost at the door Stung her to vigilance, and her fierce start Shook Weddah, and that lion of proud war Must flee to covert like a timid hart : But drunken with the message he now bore The saucy youth flew in, Fate's servile dart, Without announcement ; and espied, what he, Still subtle though amazed, feigned not to see. VI. The message with the goodly pearl he gave : She could for wrath have ground it into dust Between her richer teeth, and stabbed the slave Who brought it ; but most bitterly she must Put on sweet smiles of pleasure, and the knave With tender answer full of thanks entrust. He lingered : Our kind lady will bestow Some little mark of bounty ere I go ? VII. Her anger cried : Only the message dear Has saved the messenger from punishment ; If evermore as now you enter here You shall be scourged and starved and prison-pent. 84 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN He cowered away from her in sullen fear, And darted from the room ; and as he went The sting of her rebuke was curdling all His blood of vanity to poison gall. VIII. He hissed in Walid's ear the seething spite : My Lord's pearl by my Lady's was surpassed ; In that rich cedar coffer to the right I saw the treasure being hidden fast ; A gallant, young and beautiful and bright. Unmothered slave, be that foul lie your last ! And clove the scandal with his instant sword Strong Walid : Motar had his full reward. IX. When Weddah, plunged from glory into gloom, Heard that last speech of Om-el-Bonain there A sudden ominous sense of icy doom Assailed his glowing heart with bleak despair. The moment that false slave had left the room She sprang to seize her lover in his lair : She bowed all quivering like a storm-swept palm ; He rose to meet her solemn, pale and calm. x. He clasped her with strong passion to his breast, He kissed her with a very tender kiss : Soul of my soul ! what lives men call most blest Can be compared to our brief lives in bliss ? WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 85 But one wild year of anguish and unrest ; Three moons of perfect secret love ! Were this My dying hour, I thankfully attest Of all earth's dooms I have enjoyed the best. XI. What, weeping, thou, such kiss-unworthy tears ! The glory of the Azra must not weep, Whom mighty Weddah worships, for cold fears ; But only for strong love, in stillness deep, Secluded from all alien eyes and ears. And now to vigil, and perchance to sleep, Enshrined once more : be proud and calm and strong ; Your second visitor will come ere long. XII. And scarcely was all said when Walid came, Full gently stealing for a tiger spring ; His love and fury, hope and fear and shame, All mad with venom from that serpent's sting, Like wild beasts huddled in a den of flame Within the cool white palace of a king : She rose to greet ; he deigned no glance of quest, But went and lolled upon that cedar chest XIII. I come like any haggler of the mart, Who having sent a bauble seeks its price : Will you forgive the meanness of my part, And one of these fair coffers sacrifice ? 86 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN A clutch of iron fingers gript her heart Till it seemed bursting in the cruel vice : And yet she quivered not, nor breathed a moan : Are not myself and all things here your own ? XIV. I thank you for the bountiful award ; And choose, say this whereon I now sit here ? Take any, take them all ; but that, my Lord, Is full of household stuff and woman's gear. I want the coffer, not what it may hoard, However rich and beautiful and dear. And it is thine, she said ; and this the key : Her royal hand outheld it stedfastly. xv. Swift as a double flash from thunder-skies The angel and the devil of his doubt Flamed from the sombre windows of his eyes : He went and took the key she thus held out, And turned as if he would unlock his prize. She breathed not ; all the air ran blood about A swirl of terrors and wild hopes of guilt ; Calm Weddah seized, then loosed, his dagger-hilt. XVI. But Walid had restrained himself, and thought : Shall I unlock the secret of my soul, The mystery of my Fate, that has been brought So perfectly within my own control ? WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 87 That were indeed a work by folly wrought : For Time, in this my vassal, must unroll To me, and none but me, what I would learn ; I hold the vantage, undiscerned discern. XVII. He summoned certain slaves, and bade them bear The coffer he had sealed with his own seal Into a room below with strictest care ; And followed thoughtful at the last one's heel. At noontide Amine found her mistress there, Benumbed with horror, deaf to her appeal ; The sightless eyes fixed glaring on that door By which her soul had vanished evermore. XVIII. Beneath the cedar whose noonshadow large, Level from massive trunk, outspread halfway Adown a swardslope to the river marge, Where rosebowers shone between the willows grey, The wondering bearers bore their heavy charge ; And where the central shadow thickest lay He bade them delve a pit, and delve it deep Till watersprings against their strokes should leap. XIX. Then waved them to a distance, while he bowed Upon the coffer, harkening for a space : If truth bought that poor wretch his bloody shroud, I bury thus her guilt and my disgrace ; 88 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN And you, as by the whole earth disavowed, Sink into nothingness and leave no trace . If not, it is a harmless whim enough To sepulchre a chest of household stuff. xx. With face encircled by his hands, which leaned Upon the wood, he challenged clear and slow : The hollow sound, his full hot breath thus screened Suffused his visage with a tingling glow ; His pulse, his vesture's rustling intervened And marred the silence : he drew back, and so Knelt listening yet awhile with bated breath : The secret lay as mute and still as death. XXI. Above there in her chamber Weddah might Have leapt forth suddenly their foe to kill. Ev'n here with hazard of swift fight and flight Escaped or perished as a warrior still : But thus through him her name had suffered blight : He locked his breath and nerves with rigid will. So Walid first let sink his key unused, Then signed the slaves back : they wrought on, he mused. XXIT. Against the dark bulk swelled the waters thin, The stones and earth were trampled to a mound He then broke silence stern and sad : Within That coffer ye have buried, sealed and bound, WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 89 ~ies one of the most potent evil djinn, Whose hate on me and mine hath darkly frowned ; He sought to kill your mistress : Hell and Doom And Allah's curse all guard this dungeon tomb i XXIII. And Walid never spoke of this again, And none dared ask him ; for his brow grew black, His eye flamed evil and appalling when Some careless word but strayed upon a track That might from far lead to it : therefore men Spoke only of the thing behind his back. The cedar shadow centred by that mound Was sacredly eschewed as haunted ground. XXIV. But one pale phantom, noon and night and morn, Was ever seen there ; quiet as a stone, Huddled and shapeless, weeping tears forlorn As silent as the dews ; her heart alone And not her lips, whose seal was never torn, Upbraiding sluggish death with constant moan. Hushed whispers circled, piteous eyes were wet ; The captive djinnee holds her captive yet. xxv. Thus Walid learned too well the bitter truth, His home dissolved, its marvellous joy a cheat ; Yet gave no sign to her : for there was ruth Of memories gall itself left subtly sweet ; 90 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN And consciousness of wrong against her youth, And surfeit of a vengeance so complete : He could not stab her bleeding heart ; her name With his own honour he kept pure from shame. XXVI. She thought Death dead, or prisoned in deep Hell As sole assuager of the human lot : But when the evening of the seventh day fell Walid alone dared tread the fatal spot : She crouched as who would plunge into a well, Livid and writhed into a desperate knot ; Her fingers clutched like talons in the mould : Thus the last time his arms about her fold. XXVII. As if to glut the demon with her doom, And break the spell, there where her corse was found He had it buried ; and a simple tomb Of black-domed marble sealed the dolorous mound ; And there was set to guard the cedar gloom A triple cirque of cypress-trees around : Thus Love wrought Destiny to join his slaves Weddah and Om-el-Bonain in their graves. XXVIII. True Amine, freed and richly dowered, no less Had served until the end her lady dear ; And shrouded for the grave that loveliness Whose noon-eclipse left life without its peer : WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 91 Then sought the Azra in her lone distress, And tended Abd-el-Aziz through the sere Forlorn last days ; and married in the clan, And bore brave children to a valiant man. XXIX. Great Walid lived long years beyond this woe, And still increased in wealth and power and glory ; A loyal friend, a formidable foe ; Each Azra was his mother's child saith story ; And he saw goodly children round him grow To keep his name green when Death took him hoary : So prosperous, was he happy too ? the sage Cites this one counsel of his reverend age : XXX. Have brood-mares in your stables, my young friend, And women in your harem, but no wife : A common daggerblade may pierce or rend, A month bring healing ; this, the choicest knife In Fate's whole armoury, wounds beyond amend, And with a scratch can poison all your life : And it lies naked in your naked breast When you are drunk with joy and sleep's rich rest XXXI. As surely as a very precious stone Finds out that jeweller who doth excel, So surely to the bard becometh known The tale which only he can fitly tell : 92 WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN A few years thence, and Walid's heart alone Had thrilled not to a talisman's great spell, His deathstone set in Hassan's golden verse ; Here poorly copied in cheap bronze or worse. XXXII. He ends : We know not which to most admire ; The lover who went silent to his doom ; The spouse obedient to her lord's just ire, The mistress faithful to her lover's tomb ; The husband calm in jealousy's fierce fire, Who strode unswerving through the doubtful gloom To vengeance instant, secret and complete, And did not strike one blow more than was meet. XXXIII. With stringent cords of circumstance dark Fate Doth certain lives here so entoil and mesh That some or all must strangle if they wait, And knife to cut the knots must cut quick flesh : The first strong arm free severs ere too late ; Fresh writhings would but tangle it afresh : To die with valiant fortitude, to kill As priest not butcher ; so much scope has will. xxxiv. These perished, and he slew them in such wise That all may meet as friends and free from shame, Whether they meet in Hell or Paradise, If he has won long life and power and fame, WEDDAH AND OM-EL-BONAIN 93 Our darlings too have won their own set prize, Conjoined for evermore in true love's name : The Azra die when they do love, of old Was graven with the iron pen, on gold. xxxv. May Allah grant eternal joy and youth In fateless Heaven to one and all of these. And for himself a little grain of ruth The bard will beg, this once, while on his knees ; Who cannot always see the very truth, And does not always sing the truth he sees, But something pleasanter to foolish ears That should be tickled not with straws but spears. 1868-9. SUNDAY UP THE RIVER* AN IDYLL OF COCKAIGNE. ' En allant promener aux champs, J 'y ai trouve les bles si grands, Les aubepiries florissant. En verite, en ve>it6, C'est le mois, le joli mois, C'est le joli mois de mr.i. " Dieu veuill' garder les vins, les Les jeunes filles a marier, Les jeun' gar$ons pour les aimer I En verite, en verit6, C'est IP mois, le joli mois, C'est le joli mois de mai." Carol of Lorraine. \ 1. I LOOKED out into the morning, I looked out into the west : The soft blue eye of the quiet sky Still drooped in dreamy rest ; * Reprinted from Phaser's Magazine, October 1869, with the kind assent of Messrs. Longmans & Co. t From Victor Fournel's charming book, " Ce qu'on voit dam Its ruts de Paris." 94 SUNDAY UP THE RIVER 95 The trees were still like clouds there, The clouds like mountains dim ; The broad mist lay, a silver bay Whose tide was at the brim. I looked out into the morning, I looked out into the east : The flood of light upon the night Had silently increased ; The sky was pale with fervour, The distant trees were grey, The hill-lines drawn like waves of dawn Dissolving in the day. I looked out into the morning ; Looked east, looked west, with glee : O richest day of happy May, My love will spend with me ! II. " Oh, what are you waiting for here, young man ? What are you looking for over the bridge ? " A little straw hat with the streaming blue ribbons Is soon to come dancing over the bridge. Her heart beats the measure that keeps her feet dancing, Dancing along like a wave o' the sea ; 96 SUNDAY UP THE RIVER Her heart pours the sunshine with which her eyes glancing Light up strange faces in looking for me. The strange faces brighten in meeting her glances ; The strangers all bless her, pure, lovely, and free : She fancies she walks, but her walk skips and dances, Her heart makes such music in coming to me. Oh, thousands and thousands of happy young maidens Are tripping this morning their sweethearts to see ; But none whose heart beats to a sweeter love-cadence Than hers who will brighten the sunshine for me. "Oh, what are you waiting for here, young man? What are you looking for over the bridge?" A little straw hat with the streaming blue ribbons ; And here it comes dancing over the bridge ! ill. In the vast vague grey, Mistily luminous, brightly dim, The trees to the south there, far away, Float as beautiful, strange and grand As pencilled palm-trees every line Mystic with a grace divine, In our dreams of the holy Eastern Land. SUNDAY UP THE RIVER 97 There is not a cloud in the sky ; The vague vast grey Melts into azure dim on high. Warmth, and languor, and infinite peace ! Surely the young Day Hath fallen into a vision and a trance, And his burning flight doth cease. Yet look how here and there Soft curves, fine contours, seem to swim, Half emerging, wan and dim, Into the quiet air : Like statues growing slowly, slowly out From the great vault of marble ; here a limb, And there a feature, but the rest all doubt. Then the sculpturing sunbeams smite, And the forms start forth to the day ; And the breath of the morning sweepeth light The luminous dust away : And soon, soon, soon, Crowning the floor of the land and the sea, Shall be wrought the dome of Noon. The burning sapphire dome, With solemn imagery ; vast shapes that stand Each like an island ringed with flashing foam, Black-purple mountains, creeks and rivers of light, Crags of cleft crystal blazing to the crest : Vast isles that move, that roam A tideless sea of infinite fathomless rest. G 98 SUNDAY UP THE RIVER Thus shall it be this noon : And thus, so slowly, slowly from its birth In the long night's dark swoon, Through the long morning's trance, sweet, vague, and dim, The Sun divine above Doth build up in us, Heaven completing Earth, Our solemn Noon of Love. IV. The church bells are ringing : How green the earth, how fresh and fair ! The thrushes are singing : What rapture but to breathe this air ! The church befls are ringing : Lo, how the river dreameth there ! The thrushes are singing : Green flames wave lightly everywhere The church bells are ringing : How all the world breathes praise and prayer ! The thrushes are singing : What Sabbath peace doth trance the air J SUNDAY UP THE RIVER 99 v. I love all hardy exercise That makes one strain and quiver : And best of all I love and prize This boating on our river. I to row and you to steer, Gay shall be Life's trip, my dear : You to steer and I to row, All is bright where'er we go. We push off from the bank ; again We're free upon the waters ; The happiest of the sons of men, The fairest of earth's daughters. And I row, and I row ; The blue floats above us as we go : And you steer, and you steer, Framed in gliding wood and water, O my dear. I pull a long calm mile or two, Pull slowly, deftly feather : How sinful any work to do In this Italian weather ! Yet I row, yet I row ; The blue floats above us as we go : While you steer, while you steer, Framed in gliding wood and water, O my dear. loo SUNDAY UP THE RIVER Those lovely breadths of lawn that sweep Adown in still green billows ! And o'er the brim in fountains leap ; Green fountains, weeping willows ! And I row, and I row ; The blue floats above us as we go : And you steer, and you steer, Framed in gliding wood and water, O my dear. We push among the flags in flower, Beneath the branches tender, And we are in a faerie bower Of green and golden splendour. I to row and you to steer, Gay must be Life's trip, my dear ; You to steer and I to row, All is bright where'er we go. A secret bower where we can hide In lustrous shadow lonely ; The crystal floor may lap and glide To rock our dreaming only I to row and you to steer, Gay must be Life's trip, my dear ; You to steer and I to row, All is bright where'er we go. SUNDAY UP THE RIVER 101 VI. I love this hardy exercise, This strenuous toil of boating : Our skiff beneath the willow lies Half stranded and half floating. As I lie, as I lie, Glimpses dazzle of the blue and burning sky ; As you lean, as you lean, Faerie Princess of the secret faerie scene. My shirt is of the soft red wool, My cap is azure braided By two white hands so beautiful, My tie mauve purple-shaded. As I lie, as I lie, Glimpses dazzle of white clouds and sapphire sky As you lean, as you lean, Faerie Princess of the secret faerie scene. Your hat with long blue streamers decked, Your pure throat crimson-banded ; White-robed, my own white dove unflecked, Dove-footed, lilac handed. As I lie, as I lie, Glimpses dazzle of white clouds and sapphire sky ; As you lean, as you lean, Faerie Princess of the secret faerie scene. 102 SUNDAY UP THE RIVER If any boaters boating past Should look where we're reclining, They'll say, To-day green willows glassed Rubies and sapphires shining ! As I lie, as I lie, Glimpses dazzle of the blue and burning sky ; As you lean, as you lean, Faerie Princess of the secret faerie scene. VII. Grey clouds come purring from my lips, And hang there softly curling, While from the bowl now leaps, now slips, A steel-blue thread high twirling. As I lie, as I lie, The hours fold their wings beneath the sky ; As you lean, as you lean, In that trance of perfect love and bliss serene. I gaze on you and I am crowned, A monarch great and glorious, A Hero in all realms renowned, A Faerie Prince victorious. As I lie, as I lie, The hours fold their wings beneath the sky ; As you lean, as you lean, In that trance of perfect love and bliss serene. SUNDAY UP THE RIVER ioj Your violet eyes pour out their whole Pure light in earnest rapture ; Your thoughts come dreaming through my soul, And nestle past recapture. As I lie, as I lie, The hours fold their wings beneath the sky ; As you lean, as you lean, In that trance of perfect love and bliss serene. O friends, your best years to the oar Like galley-slaves devoting, This is and shall be evermore The true sublime of boating ! As I lie, as I lie, The hours fold their wings beneath the sky ; As you lean, as you lean, In that trance of perfect love and bliss serene. VIII. The water is cool and sweet and pure, The water is clear as crystal ; And water's a noble liquid, sure ; But look at my pocket-pistol ! Tim Hoyland gave it me, one of two The rogue brought back from Dublin : With ajar of the genuine stuff: hurroo ! How deliciously it comes bubblin' ! 104 SUNDAY UP THE RIVER It is not brandy, it is not wine, It is Jameson's Irish Whisky : It fills the heart with joy divine, And it makes the fancy frisky. All other spirits are vile resorts, Except its own Scotch first cousin ; And as for your Clarets and Sherries and Ports, A naggin is worth a dozen. I have watered this, though a toothful neat Just melts like cream down the throttle : But it's grand in the punch, hot, strong, and sweet Not a headache in a bottle. It is amber as the western skies When the sunset glows serenest ; It is mellow as the mild moonrise When the shamrock leaves fold greenest. Just a little, wee, wee, tiny sip ! Just the wet of the bill of a starling ! A drop of dew for the rosy lip, And two stars in the eyes of my darling ! 'Faith your kiss has made it so sweet at the brim I could go on supping for ever ! We'll pocket the pistol : And Tim, you limb, May this craturr abandon you never 1 IX. Like violets pale i' the Spring o' the year Came my Love's sad eyes to my youth ; Wan and dim with many a tear, But the sweeter for that in sooth : Wet and dim, Tender and true, Violet eyes Of the sweetest blue. Like pansies dark i' the June o' the year Grow my Love's glad eyes to my prime ; Rich with the purple splendour clear Of their thoughtful bliss sublime : Deep and dark, Solemn and true, Pansy eyes Of the noblest blue X. Were I a real Poet, I would sing Such joyous songs of you, and all mere truth ; As true as buds and tender leaves in Spring, As true as lofty dreams in dreamful youth ; That men should cry : How foolish every one Who thinks the world is getting out of tune ! io6 SUNDAY UP THE RIVER Where is the tarnish in our golden sun ? Where is the clouding in our crystal moon ? The lark sings now the eversame new song With which it soared through Eden's purest skies ; This poet's music doth for us prolong The very speech Love learnt in Paradise ; This maiden is as young and pure and fair As Eve agaze on Adam sleeping there. XL When will you have not a sole kiss left, And my prodigal mouth be all bereft ? When your lips have ravished the last sweet flush Of the red with which the roses blush : Now I kiss them and kiss them till they hush. When will you have not a glance to give Of the love in whose lustre my glances live ? When, O my darling, your fathomless eyes Have drawn all the azure out of the skies : Now I gaze and I gaze till they dare not rise. When will you find not a single vow Of the myriads and myriads you lavish now? When your voice has gurgled the last sweet note That was meant from the nightingales to float : Now I whisper it, whisper it dumb in your throat. SUNDAY UP THE RIVER 107 vVhen will you love me no more, no more, And my happy, happy dream be o'er ? When no rose is red, and no skies are blue, And no nightingale sings the whole year through, Then my heart may have no love for you. XII. My Love o'er the water bends dreaming ; It glideth and glideth away : She sees there her own beauty, gleaming Through shadow and ripple and spray. Oh, tell her, thou murmuring river, As past her your light wavelets roll, How steadfast that image for ever Shines pure in pure depths of my soul. XIII. The wandering airs float over the lawn, And linger and whisper in at our bovver ; (They babble, babble all they know :) The delicate secrets they have drawn From bird and meadow and tree and flower ; (Gossiping softly, whispering low.) io8 SUNDAY UP THE RIVER Some linden stretches itself to the height, Then rustles back to its dream of the day ; (They babble, babble all they know :) Some bird would trill out its love-delight, But the honey melts in its throat away ; (Gossiping softly, whispering low.) Some flower seduced by the treacherous calm Breathes all its soul in a fragrant sigh ; (They babble, babble all they know :) Some blossom weeps a tear of balm For the lost caress of a butterfly ; (Gossiping softly, whispering low.) Our Mother lies in siesta now, And we listen to her breathings here ; (They babble, babble all they know :) And we learn all the thoughts hid under her brow, All her heart's deep dreams of the happy year : (Gossiping softly, whispering low.) XIV. Those azure, azure eyes Gaze on me with their love ; And I am lost in dream, And cannot speak or move. SUNDAY UP THE RIVER 109 Those azure, azure eyes Stay with me when we part ; A sea of azure thoughts Overfloods my heart.* XV. Give a man a horse he can ride, Give a man a boat he can sail ; And his rank and wealth, his strength and health, On sea nor shore shall fail. Give a man a pipe he can smoke, Give a man a book he can read ; And his home is bright with a calm delight, Though the room be poor indeed. Give a man a girl he can love, As I, O my love, love thee ; And his heart is great with the pulse of Fate, At home, on land, on sea. * " Mil deinen blauen Augen Siehst du rcich lieblich an; Da ward mir so traumend zu Sinne Dass icb nicbt sprecben kann. " An deine blauen Augen Gedenk' ich allerwarts ; Ein Meer von blauen Gedanken grgiesst sich Ubcr mein Herz." Heine, no SUNDAY UP THE RIVER XVI. My love is the flaming Sword To fight through the world ; Thy love is the Shield to ward, And the Armour of the Lord, And the Banner of Heaven unfurled. XVII. Let my voice ring out and over the earth, Through all the grief and strife, With a golden joy in a silver mirth : Thank God for Life ! Let my voice swell out through the great abyss To the azure dome above, With a chord of faith in the harp of bliss : Thank God for Love ! Let my voice thrill out beneath and above The whole world through : O my Love and Life, O my Life and Love, Thank God for you ! SUNDAY UP THE RIVER in XVIII. The wine of Love is music, And the feast of Love is song : And when Love sits down to the banquet, Love sits long : Sits long and ariseth drunken, But not with the feast and the wine ; He reeleth with his own heart, That great rich Vine. XIX. Drink ! drink ! open your mouth ! This air is as rich as wine ; Flowing with balm from the sunny south,. And health from the western brine. Drink ! drink ! open your mouth ! This air is as strong as wine : My brain is drugged with the balm o' the south, And rolls with the western brine. Drink ! drink ! open your mouth ! This air is the choicest wine ; From that golden grape the Sun, i' the south Of Heaven's broad vine. 112 SUNDAY UP THE RIVER xx. Could we float thus ever, Floating down a river, Down a tranquil river, and you alone with me : Past broad shining meadows, Past the great wood-shadows, Past fair farms and hamlets, for ever to the sea. Through the golden noonlight, Through the silver moonlight, Through the tender gloaming, gliding calm and free ; From the sunset gliding, Into morning sliding, With the tranquil river for ever to the sea. Past the masses hoary Of cities great in story, Past their towers and temples drifting lone and free : Gliding, never hasting, Gliding, never resting, Ever with the river that glideth to the sea. With a swifter motion Out upon the Ocean, Heaven above and round us, and you alone with me : Heaven around and o'er us, The Infinite before us, Floating on for ever upon the flowing sea. SUNDAY UP THE RIVER 113 What time is it, dear, now ? We are in the year now Of the New Creation one million two or three. But where are we now, Love ? We are as I trow, Love, In the Heaven of Heavens upon the Crystal Sea. And may mortal sinners Care for carnal dinners In your Heaven of Heavens, New Era millions three? Oh, if their boat gets stranding Upon some Richmond landing, They're thirsty as the desert and hungry as the sea ! SUNDAY AT HAMPSTEAD (AN IDLE IDYLL BY A VERY HUMBLE MEMBER OP THE GREAT AND NOBLE LONDON MOB.) THIS is the Heath of Hatnpstead, There is the dome of Saint Paul's Beneath, on the serried house-tops, A chequered lustre falls : And the mighty city of London, Under the clouds and the light, Seems a low wet beach, half shingle, With a few sharp rocks upright. Here will we sit, my darling, And dream an hour away : The donkeys are hurried and worried, But we are not donkeys to-day : Through all the weary week, dear, We toil in the murk down there, Tied to a desk and a counter, A patient stupid pair ! SUNDAY AT HAMPSTEAD 115 But on Sunday we slip our tether, And away from the smoke and the smirch ; Too grateful to God for His Sabbath To shut its hours in a church. Away to the green, green country, Under the open sky ; Where the earth's sweet breath is incense And the lark sings psalms on high. On Sunday we're Lord and Lady, With ten times the love and glee Of those pale and languid rich ones Who are always and never free. They drawl and stare and simper, So fine and cold and staid, Like exquisite waxwork figures That must be kept in the shade : We can laugh out loud when merry, We can romp at kiss-in-the-ring, We can take our beer at a public, We can loll on the grass and sing. . . . Would you grieve very much, my darling, If all yon low wet shore Were drowned by a mighty flood-tide, And we never toiled there more ? Ii6 SUNDAY AT HAMPSTEAD Wicked? there is no sin, dear, In an idle dreamer's head ; He turns the world topsy-turvy To prove that his soul's not dead. I am sinking, sinking, sinking ; It is hard to sit upright ! Your lap is the softest pillow ! Good-night, my Love, good night ! II. How your eyes dazzle down into my soul ! I drink and drink of their deep violet wine, And ever thirst the more, although my whole Dazed being whirls in drunkenness divine. Pout down your lips from that bewildering smile, And kiss me for the interruption, Sweet ! I had escaped you : floating for awhile In that far cloud ablaze with living heat : I floated with it through the solemn skies, I melted with it up the Crystal Sea Into the Heaven of Heavens ; and shut my eyes To feel eternal rest enfolding me. . . . Well, I prefer one tyrannous girl down here, You jealous violet-eyed Bewitcher, you ! To being lord in Mohammed's seventh sphere Of meekest houris threescore ten and two ! SUNDAY AT HAMPSTEAD 117 III. Was it hundreds of years ago, my Love, Was it thousands of miles away, That two poor creatures we know, my Love, Were toiling day by day ; Were toiling weary, weary, With many myriads more, In a City dark and dreary On a sullen river's shore ? Was it truly a fact or a dream, my Love ? I think my brain still reels, And my ears still throbbing seem, my Love, With the rush and the clang of wheels ; Of a vast machinery roaring For ever in skyless gloom ; Where the poor slaves peace imploring Found peace alone in the tomb. Was it hundreds of years ago, my Love, Was it thousands of miles away ? Or was it a dream to show, my Love, The rapture of to-day ? This day of holy splendour, This Sabbath of rich rest, Wherein to God we render All praise by being blest. ii8 SUNDAY AT HAMPSTEAD IV. Eight of us promised to meet here And tea together at five : And who would ever believe it ? We are the first to arrive ! Oh, shame on us, my darling ; It is a monstrous crime To make a tryst with others And be before our time ! Lizzie is off with William, Quite happy for her part ; Our sugar in her pocket, And the sweet love in her heart. Mary and Dick so grandly Parade suburban streets ; His waistcoat and her bonnet Proving the best of treats. And Fanny plagues big Robert With tricks of the wildest glee : O Fanny, yotfll get in hot water If you do not bring us our tea ! Why, bless me, look at that table, Every one of them there ! " Ha, here at last we have them, The always behindhand pair J SUNDAY AT HAMPSTEAD 119 " When the last trumpet-solo Strikes up instead of the lark, They'll turn in their sleep just grunting Who's up so soon in the dark ? " Babble and gabble, you rabble, A thousand in full yell ! And this is your Tower of Babel, This not-to-be-finished Hotel.* "You should see it in the drawing, You'd think a Palace they make, Like the one in the Lady of Lyons, With this pond for the lovely lake ! " " I wish it wasn't Sunday, There's no amusement at all : Who was here Hot-cross-bun-day? We had such an open-air ball ! " The bands played polkas, waltzes, Quadrilles ; it was glorious fun ! And each gentleman gave them a penny After each dance was done." " Mary is going to chapel, And what takes her there, do you guess ? Her sweet little duck of a bonnet, And her new second-hand silk dress." '(Since finis-bed, in a fashion. The verses were written in 1863.) 120 SUNDAY AT HAMPSTEAD " We went to Church one Sunday, But felt we had no right there ; For it's only a place for the grand folk Who come in a carriage and pair. "And I laughed out loud, it was shameful ! But Fanny said, Oh, what lives / He must have been clever, the rascal, To manage seven hundred wives ! " "Suppose we play Hunt-the-Slipper ?" " We can't, there's the crinoline ! " " Phew ! Bother it, always a nuisance ! " " Hoop-de-dooden-do ! " " I think I've seen all the girls here, About a thousand, or more ; But none of them half so pretty As our own loving four." " Thank you ! and I've been listening To lots of the men, the knaves ; But none of them half such humbugs As our devoted slaves." ' Do you see those purple flushes ? The sun will set in state : Up all ! we must cross to the heath, friends, Before it gets too late. SUNDAY AT HAMPSTEAD "We will couch in the fern together, And watch for the moon and the stars ; And the slim tree-tops will be lighted, So the boys may light their cigars. " And while the sunset glory Burns down in crimson and gold, LAZY shall tell us a story Of his wonderful times of old." v. Ten thousand years ago, ("No more than /hat?") Ten thousand years, (" The age of Robert's hat .'" "Silence, you gods .'" " Pinch Fanny ! " " Now wdre good?} This place where we are sitting was a wood, Savage and desert save for one rude home Of wattles plastered with stiff clay and loam ; And here, in front, upon the grassy mire Four naked squaws were squatted round a fire : Then four tall naked wild men crushing through The tangled underwood came into view ; Two of them bent beneath a mighty boar, The third was gashed and bleeding, number four Strutted full-drest in war-paint, (" That was Dick ! ") Blue of a devilish pattern laid on thick. The squaws jumped up to roast the carcass whole ; The braves sank silent, stark 'gainst root and bole. 122 SUNDAY AT HAMPSTEAD The meat half-done, they tore it and devoured, >'''/'' Sullenly ravenous ; the women cowered Until their lords had finished, then partook. Mist rose ; all crept into their cabin-nook, And staked the mouth ; the floor was one broad bed Of rushes dried with fox and bearskins spread. Wolves howled and wild cats wailed ; they snored ; and so The long night passed, shedding a storm of snow ; This very night ten thousand years ago. VI. Ten thousand years before, (" Come, draiv it mild! Dorit waste Conk-ology like that, my child /"} From where we sit to the horizon's bound A level brilliant plain was spread all round, As level and as brilliant as a sea Under the burning sun ; high as your knee Aflame with flowers, yellow and blue and red : Long lines of palm-trees marked out there the bed Of a great river, and among them gleamed A few grey tents. Then four swift horsemen streamed Out of the West, magnificent in ire, Churning the meadow into flakes of fire, Brandishing monstrous spears as if in fight, They wheeled, ducked, charged, and shouted fierce delight : So till they reach the camp : the women there Awaiting them the evening meal prepare ; SUNDAY AT HAMPSTEAD 123 Milk from the goats and camels, dates plucked fresh, Cool curds and cheese, millet, sweet broiled kid's flesh. The spear struck deep hath picketed each barb ; A grave proud turbaned man in flowing garb Sups with a grave meek woman, humbly proud, Whose eyes flash empire. Then the solemn crowd Of stars above, the silent plain below, Until the East resumes its furnace-glow ; This same night twenty thousand years ago. VII. Ten thousand years before, (" But if you take Such mouthfuls, you will soon eat tip Timtfs cake ! ") Where we are sitting rose in splendid light A broad cool marble palace ; from the height Broad terrace-gardens stairlike sank away Down to the floor of a deep sapphire bay. Where the last slope slid greenly to the wave, And dark rich glossy foliage shadow gave, Four women or four goddesses leaned calm, Of mighty stature, graceful as the palm : One stroked with careless hand a lion's rnane, One fed an eagle ; while a measured strain Was poured forth by the others, harp and voice, Music to make the universe rejoice. An isle was in the offing seen afar, Deep-purple based, its peak a glittering star ; Whence rowed a galley (drooped the silken sails), A dragon-barque with golden burning scales. 124 SUNDAY AT HAMPSTEAD Then four bronzed giants leapt to land, embraced The glorious women chanting : " Did we haste ? The Cavern-Voice hath silenced all your fears ; Peace on our earth another thousand years ! " On fruits and noble wine, with song's rich flow, They feasted in the sunset's golden glow ; This same night thirty thousand years ago. VIII. Ten thousand years before, ("Another ten! Good Lord, how greedy are these little men / ") This place where we are sitting (" Half asleep"") Was in the sea a hundred fathoms deep : A floor of silver sand so fine and soft, A coral forest branching far aloft ; Above, the great dusk emerald golden-green ; Silence profound and solitude serene. Four mermaids sit beneath the coral rocks, Combing with golden combs their long green locks, And wreathing them with little pearly shells ; Four mermen come from out the deep-sea dells, And whisper to them, and they all turn pale : Then through the hyaline a voice of wail, With passionate gestures, " Ever alas for woe ! A rumour cometh down the Ocean-flow, A word calamitous ! that we shall be All disinherited from the great sea : Our tail with which like fishes we can swim Shall split into an awkward double-limb, SUNDAY AT HAMPSTEAD 125 And we must waddle on the arid soil, And build dirt-huts, and get our food with toil, And lose our happy, happy lives ! " And so These gentle creatures wept " Alas for woe ! " This same night forty thousand years ago. IX. " Are you not going back a little more? What "was the case ten thousand years before ? " Ten thousand years before 'twas Sunday ni^ht ; Four lovely girls were listening with delight, Three noble youths admired another youth Discoursing History crammed full of truth : They all were sitting upon Hampstead Heath, And monstrous grimy London lay beneath. " The stupidest story LAZY ever told ; I've no more faith in his fine times of old." " How do you like our prospects now, my dears ? We'll all be mermaids in ten thousand years." " Mermaids are beautiful enough, but law ! Think of becoming a poor naked squaw ! " " But in these changes, sex will change no doubt ; We'll all be men and women turn about." " Then these four chaps will be the squaws? that's just ; With lots of picaninnies, I do trust ! " " If changes go by fifty thousand, yes ; But if by ten, they last were squaws, I guess ! " " Come on ; we'll go and do the very beers We did this night was fifty thousand years." 126 SUNDAY AT HAMPSTEAD Thou prophet, thou deep sage ! we'll go, we'll go : The ring is round, Life naught, the World an O ; This night is fifty thousand years ago ! X. As we rush, as we rush in the Train, The trees and the houses go wheeling back, But the starry heavens above the plain Come flying on our track. All the beautiful stars of the sky, The silver doves of the forest of Night, Over the dull earth swarm and fly, Companions of our flight. We will rush ever on without fear ; Let the goal be far, the flight be fleet ! For we carry the Heavens with us, Dear, While the Earth slips from our feet ! XI. Day after day of this azure May The blood of the Spring has swelled in my veins ; Night after night of broad moonlight A mystical dream has dazzled my brains. A seething might, a fierce delight, The blood of the Spring is the wine of the world My veins run fire and thrill desire, Every leaf of my heart's red rose uncurled. SUNDAY AT HAMPSTEAD 127 A sad sweet calm, a tearful balm, The light of the Moon is the trance of the world ; My brain is fraught with yearning thought, And the rose is pale and its leaves are furled. O speed the day, thou dear, dear May, And hasten the night I charge thee, O June, When the trance divine shall burn with the wine And the red rose unfurl all its fire to the Moon ! XII. O mellow moonlight warm, Weave round my Love a charm ; O countless starry eyes, Watch from the holy skies ; O ever-solemn Night, Shield her within thy might : Watch her, my little one ! Shield her, my darling ! How my heart shrinks with fear, Nightly to leave thee, dear ; Lonely and pure within Vast glooms of woe and sin : Our wealth of love and bliss Too heavenly-perfect is : Good night, my little one ! God keep thee, darling ! 1863; 1865. HE HEARD HER SING VVTE were now in the midmost Maytime, in the full " green flood of the Spring, When the air is sweet all the daytime with the blossoms and birds that sing ; When the air is rich all the night, and richest of all in its noon ; When the nightingales pant the delight and keen stress of their love to the moon ; When the almond and apple and pear spread wavering wavelets of snow In the light of the soft warm air far-flushed with a delicate glow ; When the towering chestnuts uphold their masses of spires red or white, And the pendulous tresses of gold of the slim labur- num burn bright, And the lilac guardeth the bowers with the gleam of a lifted spear, And the scent of the hawthorn flowers breathes all the new life of the year, And the linden's tender pink bud by the green of the leaf is o'errun, HE HEARD HER SING 129 And the bronze-beech shines like blood in the light of the morning sun, And the leaf-buds seem spangling some network of gossamer flung on the elm, And the hedges are filling their fretwork with every sweet green of Spring's realm ; And the flowers are everywhere budding and blowing about our feet, The green of the meadows star-studding and the bright green blades of the wheat An evening and night of song. For first when I left the town, And took the lane that is long and came out on the breeze-swept down, The sunset heavens were all ringing wide over the golden gorse With the skylarks' rapturous singing, a revel of larks in full force, A revel of larks in the raptures surpassing all rap- tures of Man, Who ponders the blessings he captures and finds in each blessing some ban. And then I went on down the dale in the light of the afterglow, In that strange light green and pale and serene and pathetic and slow In its fading round to the north, while the light of the unseen moon I 130 HE HEARD HER SING From the east comes brightening forth an ever-in- creasing boon. And there in the cottage my Alice, through the hours so short and so long, Kept filled to the brim love's chalice with the wine of music and song : And first with colossal Beethoven, the gentlest spirit sublime Of the harmonies interwoven, Eternity woven with Time ; Of the melodies slowly and slowly dissolving away through the soul, While it dissolves with them wholly and our being is lost in the Whole ; As gentle as Dante the Poet, for only the lulls of the stress Of the mightiest spirits can know it, this ineffable gentleness : And then with the delicate tender fantastic dreamer of night, Whose splendour is starlike splendour and his light a mystic moonlight, Nocturn on nocturn dreaming while the mind floats far in the haze And the dusk and the shadow and gleaming of a realm that has no days : And then she sang ballads olden, ballads of love and of woe, J^ove all burningly golden, grief with heart's-blood in its flow ; HE HEARD HER SING 131 Those ballads of Scotland that thrill you, keen from the heart to the heart, Till their pathos is seeming to kill you, with an ex- quisite bliss in the smart. And then we went out of the valley and over the spur of the hill, And down by a woodland alley where the sprinkled moonlight lay still ; For the breeze in the boughs was still and the breeze was still in the sprays, And the leaves had scarcely a thrill in the stream of the silver rays, But looked as if drawn on the sky or etched with a graver keen, Sharp shadows thrown from on high deep out of the azure serene : And a certain copse we knew, where never in May- time fails, While the night distils sweet dew, the song of the nightingales : And there together we heard the lyrical drama of love Of the wonderful passionate bird which swelleth the heart so above All other thought of this life, all other care of this earth, Be it of pleasure or strife, be it of sorrow or mirth, Saving the one intense imperious passion supreme Kindling the soul and the sense, making the world but a dream, 132 HE HEARD HER SING The dream of an aching delight and a yearning afar and afar, While the music thrills all the void night to the loftiest pulsating star : " Love, love only, for ever ; love with its torture and bliss ; All the world's glories can never equal two souls in one kiss." And when I had bidden farewell to my Love at the cottage door, For a night and a day farewell, for a night and a day and no more, I went down to the shining strand of our own beloved bay, To the shore of soft white sand caressed by the pure white spray, In the arms of the hills serene, clothed from the base to the crest With garments of manifold green, curving to east and to west ; And high in the pale blue south where the clouds were white as wool, Over the little bay-mouth the moon shone near the full; And I walked by the waves' soft moan, for my heart was beyond control, And I needed to be alone with the night and my love and my soul, HE HEARD HER SING 133 And I could not think of sleep in the moonlight broad and clear, For a music solemn and deep filled all my spirit's sphere, A music interwoven of all that night I had heard, From the music of mighty Beethoven to the song of the little brown bird. And thus as I paced the shore beneath the azure abyss, And my soul thrilled more and more with a yearning and sadness of bliss, A voice came over the water from over the eastern cape, Like the voice of some ocean daughter wailing a lover's escape, A voice so plaintive and distant, as faint as a wounded dove, Whose wings are scarcely resistant to the air beneath and above, Wavering, panting, urging from the farthest east to the west, Over some wild sea surging in the hope forlorn of its nest ; A voice that quivered and trembled, with falls of a broken heart, And then like that dove reassembled its forces to play out its part ; Till it came to a fall that was dying, the end of an infinite grief, A sobbing and throbbing and sighing that death was a welcome relief ; 134 HE HEARD HER SING And so there was silence once more, and the moon- light looked sad as a pall, And I stood entranced on the shore and marvelled what next would befall. And thus all-expectant abiding I waited not long, for soon A boat came gliding and gliding out in the light of the moon, Gliding with muffled oars, slowly, a thin dark line, Round from the shadowing shores into the silver shine Of the clear moon westering now, and still drew on and on, While the water before its prow breaking and glistering shone, Slowly in silence strange ; and the rower rowed till it lay Afloat within easy range deep in the curve of the bay ; And besides the rower were two ; a Woman, who sat in the stern, And Her by her fame I knew, one of those fames that burn, Startling and kindling the world, one whose likenes.s we everywhere see ; And a man reclining half-curled with an indolent grace at her knee, The Signor, lord of her choice ; and he lightly touched a guitar ; A guitar for that glorious voice ! Illumine the sun with a star ! She sat superb and erect, stately, all-happy, serene, HE HEARD HER SING 135 Her right hand toying unchecked with the hair of that page of a Queen ; With her head and her throat and her bust like the bust and the throat and the head Of Her who has long been dust, of Her who shall never be dead, Preserved by the potent art made trebly potent by love, While the transient ages depart from under the heavens above, Preserved in the colour and line on the canvas fulgently flung By Him the Artist divine who triumphed and vanished so young : Surely there rarely hath been a lot more to be envied in life Than thy lot, O FoRNARiNA, whom RAPHAEL'S heart took to wife. There was silence yet for a time save the tinkling capricious and quaint, Then She lifted her voice sublime, no longer tender and faint, Pathetic and tremulous, no ! but firm as a column it rose, Rising solemn and slow with a full rich swell to the close, Firm as a marble column soaring with noble pride In a triumph of rapture solemn to some Hero deified ; In a rapture of exultation made calm by its stress intense, In a triumph of consecration and a jubilation immense. 136 HE HEARD HER SING And the Voice flowed on and on, and ever it swelled as it poured, Till the stars that throbbed as they shone seemed throbbing with it in accord ; Till the moon herself in my dream, still Empress of all the night, Was only that voice supreme translated into pure light : And I lost all sense of the earth though I still had sense of the sea ; And I saw the stupendous girth of a tree like the Norse World-Tree ; And its branches filled all the sky, and the deep sea watered its root, And the clouds were its leaves on high and the stars were its silver fruit ; Yet the stars were the notes of the singing and the moon was the voice of the song, Through the vault of the firmament ringing and swell- ing resistlessly strong ; And the whole vast night was a shell for that music of manifold might, And was strained by the stress of the swell of the music yet vaster than night. And I saw as a crystal fountain whose shaft was a column of light More high than the loftiest mountain ascend the abyss of the night ; And its spray filled all the sky, and the clouds were the clouds of its spray, HE HEARD HER SING 137 Which glittered in star-points on high and filled with pure silver the bay ; And ever in rising and falling it sang as it rose and it fell, And the heavens with their pure azure walling all pulsed with the pulse of its swell, For the stars were the notes of the singing and the moon was the voice of the song Through the vault of the firmament ringing and swell- ing ineffably strong ! And the whole vast night was a shell for that music of manifold might, And was strained by the stress of the swell of the music yet vaster than night : And the fountain in swelling and soaring and filling beneath and above, Grew flushed with red fire in outpouring, transmuting great power into love, Great power with a greater love flushing, immense and intense and supreme, As if all the World's heart-blood outgushing ensan- guined the trance of my dream ; And the waves of its blood seemed to dash on the shore of the sky to the cope With the stress of the fire of a passion and yearning of limitless scope. Vast fire of a passion and yearning, keen torture of rapture intense, A most unendurable burning consuming the soul with the sense : 138 HE HEARD HER SING "Love, love only, for ever ; love with its torture of bliss ; All the world's glories can never equal two souls in one kiss : Love, and ever love wholly ; love in all time and all space ; Life is consummate then solely in the death of a burning embrace." And at length when that Voice sank mute, and silence fell over all Save the tinkling thin of that lute, the deep heavens rushed down like a pall, The stars and the moon for a time with all their splendours of light, Were quenched with that Voice sublime, and great darkness filled the night .... When I felt again the scent of the night-flowers rich and sweet, As ere my senses went, and knew where I stood on my feet, And saw the yet-bright bay and the moon gone low in my dream, The boat had passed away with Her the Singer supreme ; She was gone, the marvellous Singer whose wonder- ful world- wide fame Could never possibly bring her a tithe of her just acclaim. And I wandered all night in a trance of rapture and yearning and love, HE HEARD HER SING 139 And saw the dim grey expanse flush far with the dawning above ; And I passed that copse in the night, but the nightin- gales all were dumb From their passionate aching delight, and perhaps whoever should come On the morrow would find, I have read, under its bush or its tree Some poor little brown bird dead, dead of its melody, Slain by the agitation, by the stress and the strain of the strife, And the pang of the vain emulation in the music yet dearer than life. And I heard the skylarks singing high in the morning sun, All the sunrise heavens ringing as the sunset heavens had done : And ever I dreamed and ."pondered while over the fragrant soil, My happy footsteps wandered before I resumed my toil: Truly, my darling, my Alice, truly the whole night long Have I filled to the brim love's chalice with the wine of music and song. I have passed and repassed your door from the singing until the dawn A dozen times and more, and ever the curtains drawn ; And now that the morn is breaking out of the stillness deep, 140 HE HEARD HER SING Sweet as my visions of waking be all your visions of sleep ! Could you but wake, O my dearest, a moment, and give one glance, Just a furtive peep the merest, to learn the day's advance ! For I must away up the dale and over the hill to my toil, And the night's rich dreams grow pale in the working day's turmoil ; But to-night, O my darling, my Alice, till night it will not be long, We will fill to the brim love's chalice with the wine of music and song ; And never the memory fails of what I have learnt in my dream From the song of the nightingales and the song of the Singer supreme : " Love, love only, for ever ; love with its torture and bliss ; All the world's glories can never equal two souls in one kiss : Love, love ever and wholly ; love in all time and all space ; Love is consummate then solely in the death of a burn- ing embrace." February 1882. TO OUR LADIES OF DEATH* "Tired with all these, for restful death I cry." SHAKESPEARE : Sonnet 66. WEARY of erring in this desert Life, Weary of hoping hopes for ever vain, Weary of struggling in all-sterile strife, Weary of thought which maketh nothing plain, I close my eyes and calm my panting breath, And pray to Thee, O ever-quiet Death ! To come and soothe away my bitter pain. The strong shall strive, may they be victors crowned ; The wise still seek, may they at length find Truth ; The young still hope, may purest love be found To make their age more glorious than their youth. For me ; my brain is weak, my heart is cold, My hope and faith long dead ; my life but bold In jest and laugh to parry hateful ruth. Over me pass the days and months and years Like squadrons and battalions of the foe * The Three Ladies suggested by the sublime sisterhood of Our Ladies of Sorrow, in the " Suspiria de Profundis " of De Quincey 141 /42 TO OUR LADIES OF DEATH Trampling with thoughtless thrusts and alien jeers Over a wounded soldier lying low : He grips his teeth, or flings them words of scorn To mar their triumph : but the while, outworn, Inwardly craves for death to end his woe. Thus I, in secret, call, O Death ! to Thee, Thou youngest of the solemn Sisterhood, Thou Gentlest of the mighty Sisters Three Whom I have known so well since first endued By Love and Grief with vision to discern What spiritual life doth throb and burn Through all our world, with evil powers and good. The Three whom I have known so long, so well, By intimate communion, face to face, In every mood, of Earth, of Heaven, of Hell, In every season and in every place, That joy of Life has ceased to visit me, As one estranged by powerful witchery, Infatuate in a Siren's weird embrace. First Thou, O priestess, prophetess, and queen, Our Lady of Beatitudes, first Thou : Of mighty stature, of seraphic mien, Upon the tablet of whose broad white brow Unvanquishable Truth is written clear, The secret of the mystery of our sphere, The regnant word of the Eternal Now. 143 Thou standest garmented in purest white ; But from thy shoulders wings of power half-spread Invest thy form with such miraculous light As dawn may clothe the earth with : and, instead Of any jewel-kindled golden crown, The glory of thy long hair flowing down Is dazzling noonday sunshine round thy head. Upon a sword thy left hand resteth calm, A naked sword, two-edged and long and straight ; A branch of olive with a branch of palm Thy right hand proffereth to hostile Fate. The shining plumes that clothe thy feet are bound By knotted strings, as if to tread the ground With weary steps when thou vvouldst soar elate. Twin heavens uplifted to the heavens, thine eyes Are solemn with unutterable thought And love and aspiration ; yet there lies Within their light eternal sadness, wrought By hope deferred and baffled tenderness : Of all the souls whom thou dost love and bless, How few revere and love thee as they ought ! Thou leadest heroes from their warfare here To nobler fields where grander crowns are won ; Thou leadest sages from this twilight sphere To cloudless heavens and an unsetting sun ; Thou leadest saints unto that purer air Whose breath is spiritual life and prayer ! Yet, lo ! they seek thee not, but fear and shun ! 144 TO OUR LADIES OF DEATH Thou takest to thy most maternal breast Young children from the desert of this earth, Ere sin hath stained their souls, or grief opprest, And bearest them unto an heavenly birth, To be the Vestals of God's Fane above : And yet their kindred moan against thy love, With wild and selfish moans in bitter dearth. Most holy Spirit, first Self-conqueror ; Thou Victress over Time and Destiny And Evil, in the all-deciding war So fierce, so long, so dreadful ! Would that me Thou hadst upgathered in my life's pure morn ! Unworthy then, less worthy now, forlorn, I dare not, Gracious Mother, call on Thee. Next Thou, O sibyl, sorceress and queen, Our Lady of Annihilation, Thou ! Of mighty stature, of demoniac mien ; Upon whose swarthy face and livid brow Are graven deeply anguish, malice, scorn, Strength ravaged by unrest, resolve forlorn Of any hope, dazed pride that will not bow. Thy form is clothed with wings of iron gloom ; But round about thee, like a chain, is rolled, Cramping the sway of every mighty plume, A stark constringent serpent fold on fold : Of its two heads, one sting is in thy brain, The other in thy heart ; their venom-pain Like fire distilling through thee uncontrolled. TO OUR LADIES OF DEATH 145 A rod of serpents wieldeth thy right hand ; Thy left a cup of raging fire, whose light Burns lurid on thyself as thou dost stand ; Thy lidless eyes tenebriously bright ; Thy wings, thy vestures, thy dishevelled hair Dark as the Grave ; thou statue of Despair, Thou Night essential radiating night. Thus have I seen thee in thine actual form ; Not thus can see thee those whom thou dost sway, Inscrutable Enchantress : young and warm, Pard-beautiful and brilliant, ever gay ; Thy cup the very Wine of Life, thy rod The wand of more voluptuous spells than God Can wield in Heaven ; thus charmest thou thy prey. The selfish, fatuous, proud, and pitiless, All who have falsified life's royal trust ; The strong whose strength hath basked in idleness, The great heart given up to worldly lust, The great mind destitute of moral faith ; Thou scourgest down to Night and utter Death, Or penal spheres of retribution just. O mighty Spirit, fraudful and malign, Demon of madness and perversity ! The evil passions which may make me thine Are not yet irrepressible in me ; And I have pierced thy mark of riant youth, And seen thy form in all its hideous truth : I will not, Dreadful Mother, call on Thee. K 146 TO OUR LADIES OF DEATH Last Thou, retired nun and throneless queen, Our Lady of Oblivion, last Thou : Of human stature, of abstracted mien ; Upon whose pallid face and drooping brow Are shadowed melancholy dreams of Doom, And deep absorption into silent gloom, And weary bearing of the heavy Now. Thou art all shrouded in a gauzy veil, Sombrous and cloudlike ; all, except that face Of subtle loveliness though weirdly pale. Thy soft, slow-gliding footsteps leave no trace, And stir no sound. Thy drooping hands infold Their frail white fingers ; and, unconscious, hold A poppy-wreath, thine anodyne of grace. Thy hair is like a twilight round thy head : Thine eyes are shadowed wells, from Lethe-stream With drowsy subterranean waters fed ; Obscurely deep, without a stir or gleam ; The gazer drinks in from them with his gaze An opiate charm to curtain all his days, A passive languor of oblivious dream. Thou hauntest twilight regions, and the trance Of moonless nights when stars are few and wan : Within black woods ; or over the expanse Of desert seas abysmal ; or upon Old solitary shores whose populous graves Are rocked in rest by ever-moaning waves ; Or through vast ruined cities still and lone. TO OUR LADIES OF DEATH 147 The weak, the weary, and the desolate, The poor, the mean, the outcast, the opprest, All trodden down beneath the march of Fate, Thou gatherest, loving Sister, to thy breast, Soothing their pain and weariness asleep ; Then in thy hidden Dreamland hushed and deep Dost lay them, shrouded in eternal rest. O sweetest Sister, and sole Patron Saint Of all the humble eremites who flee From out life's crowded tumult, stunned and faint, To seek a stern and lone tranquillity In Libyan wastes of time : my hopeless life With famished yearning craveth rest from strife ; Therefore, thou Restful One, I call on Thee ! Take me, and lull me into perfect sleep ; Down, down, far-hidden in thy duskiest cave ; While all the clamorous years above me sweep Unheard, or, like the voice of seas that rave On far-off coasts, but murmuring o'er my trance, A dim vast monotone, that shall enhance The restful rapture of the inviolate grave. Upgathered thus in thy divine embrace, Upon mine eyes thy soft mesmeric hand, While wreaths of opiate odour interlace About my pulseless brow ; babe-pure and bland, Passionless, senseless, thoughtless, let me dream Some ever-slumbrous, never-varying theme, Within the shadow of thy Timeless Land. 148 TO OUR LADIES OF DEATH That when I thus have drunk my inmost fill Of perfect peace, I may arise renewed ; In soul and body, intellect and will, Equal to cope with Life whate'er its mood ; To sway its storm and energise its calm ; Through rhythmic years evolving like a psalm Of infinite love and faith and sanctitude. But if this cannot be, no less I cry, Come, lead me with thy terrorless control Down to our Mother's bosom, there to die By abdication of my separate soul : So shall this single, self-impelling piece Of mechanism from lone labour cease, Resolving into union with the Whole. Our Mother feedeth thus our little life, That we in turn may feed her with our death : The great Sea sways, one interwoven strife, Wherefrom the Sun exhales a subtle breath, To float the heavens sublime in form and hue, Then turning cold and dark in order due Rain weeping back to swell the Sea beneath. One part of me shall feed a little worm, And it a bird on which a man may feed ; One lime the mould, one nourish insect-sperm ; One thrill sweet grass, one pulse in bitter weed ; This swell a fruit, and that evolve in air ; Another trickle to a springlet's lair, Another paint a daisy on the mead : TO OUR LADIES OF DEATH 149 With cosmic interchange of parts for all, Through all the modes of being numberless Of every element, as may befall. And if earth's general soul hath consciousness, Their new life must with strange new joy be thrilled, Of perfect law all perfectly fulfilled ; No sin, no fear, no failure, no excess. Weary of living isolated life, Weary of hoping hopes for ever vain, Weary of struggling in all-sterile strife, Weary of thought which maketh nothing plain, I close my eyes and hush my panting breath, And yearn for Thee, divinely tranquil Death, To come and soothe away my bitter pain. 1861. INSOMNIA "Sleepless himself to give to others sleep." " He givetb His beloved sleep." I HEARD the sounding of the midnight hour ; The others one by one had left the room, In calm assurance that the gracious power Of sleep's fine alchemy would bless the gloom, Transmuting all its leaden weight to gold, To treasures of rich virtues manifold, New strength, new health, new life : Just weary enough to nestle softly, sweetly. Into divine unconsciousness, completely Delivered from the world of toil and care and strife. Just weary enough to feel assured of rest, Of Sleep's divine oblivion and repose, Renewing heart and brain for richer zest Of waking life when golden morning glows, As young and pure and glad as if the first That ever on the void of darkness burst With ravishing warmth and light ; On dewy grass and flowers and blithe birds singing, And shining waters, all enraptured springing, Fragrance and shine and song, out of the womb of night. 150 INSOMNIA 151 But I with infinite weariness outworn, Haggard with endless nights unblessed by sleep, Ravaged by thoughts unutterably forlorn, Plunged in despairs unfathomably deep, Went cold and pale and trembling with affright Into the desert vastitude of Night, Arid and wild and black ; Foreboding no oasis of sweet slumber, Counting beforehand all the countless number Of sands that are its minutes on my desolate track And so I went, the last, to my drear bed, Aghast as one who should go down to lie Among the blissfully unconscious dead, Assured that as the endless years flowed by Over the dreadful silence and deep gloom And dense oppression of the stifling tomb, He only of them all, Nerveless and impotent to madness, never Could hope oblivion's perfect trance for ever : An agony of life eternal in death's pall. But that would be for ever, without cure ! And yet the agony be not more great ; Supreme fatigue and pain, while they endure, Into Eternity their time translate ; Be it of hours and days or countless years, And boundless aeons, it alike appears 152 INSOMNIA To the crushed victim's soul ; Utter despair foresees no termination, But feels itself of infinite duration ; The smallest fragment instant comprehends the whole. The absolute of torture as of bliss Is timeless, each transcending time and space ; The one an infinite obscure abyss, The other an eternal Heaven of grace. Keeping a little lamp of glimmering light Companion through the horror of the night, I laid me down aghast As he of all who pass death's quiet portal Malignantly reserved alone immortal, In consciousness of bale that must for ever last. I laid me down and closed my heavy eyes, As if sleep's mockery might win true sleep ; And grew aware, with awe but not surprise, Blindly aware through all the silence deep, Of some dark Presence watching by my bed, The awful image of a nameless dread ; But I lay still fordone ; And felt its Shadow on me dark and solemn And steadfast as a monumental column, And thought drear thoughts of Doom, and heard the bells chime One. INSOMNIA 153 And then I raised my weary eyes and saw, By some slant moonlight on the ceiling thrown And faint lamp-gleam, that Image of my awe, Still as a pillar of basaltic stone, But all enveloped in a sombre shroud Except the wan face drooping heavy-browed, With sad eyes fixed on mine ; Sad weary yearning eyes, but fixed remorseless Upon my eyes yet wearier, that were forceless To bear the cruel pressure ; cruel, unmalign. Wherefore I asked for what I knew too well : O ominous midnight Presence, What art Thou ? Whereto in tones that sounded like a knell : " I am the Second Hour, appointed now To watch beside thy slumberless unrest." Then I : Thus both, unlike, alike unblest ; For I should sleep, you fly : Are not those wings beneath thy mantle moulded ? O Hour ! unfold those wings so straightly folded, And urge thy natural flight beneath the moonlit sky. "My wings shall open when your eyes shall close In real slumber from this waking drear ; Your wild unrest is my enforced repose ; Ere I move hence you muet not know me here." Could not your wings fan slumber through my brain, Soothing away its weariness and pain ? 154 INSOMNIA " Your sleep must stir my wings : Sleep, and I bear you gently on my pinions Athwart my span of hollow night's dominions, Whence hour on hour shall bear to morning's golden springs." That which I ask of you, you ask of me, O weary Hour, thus standing sentinel Against your nature, as I feel and see Against my own your form immovable : Could I bring Sleep to set you on the wing, What other thing so gladly would I bring ? Truly the poet saith : If that is best whose absence we deplore most, Whose presence in our longings is the foremost, What blessings equal Sleep save only love and death ? I let my lids fall, sick of thought and sense, But felt that Shadow heavy on my heart ; And saw the night before me an immense Black waste of ridge- walls, hour by hour apart, Dividing deep ravines : from ridge to ridge Sleep's flying hour was an aerial bridge ; But I, whose hours stood fast, Must climb down painfully each steep side hither, And climb more painfully each steep side thither, And so make one hour's span for years of travail last. INSOMNIA 155 Thus I went down into that first ravine, Wearily, slowly, blindly, and alone, Staggering, stumbling, sinking depths unseen. Shaken and bruised and gashed by stub and stone ; And at the bottom paven with slipperiness, A torrent-brook rushed headlong with such stress Against my feeble limbs, Such fury of wave and foam and icy bleakness Buffeting insupportably my weakness That when I would recall dazed memory swirls and swims. How I got through I know not, faint as death ; And then I had to climb the awful scarp, Creeping with many a pause for panting breath. Clinging to tangled root and rock -jut sharp ; Perspiring with faint chills instead of heat, Trembling, and bleeding hands and knees and feet ; Falling, to rise anew ; Until, with lamentable toil and travel Upon the ridge of arid sand and gravel I lay supine half-dead and heard the bells chime Two ; And knew a change of Watchers in the room Without a stir or sound beside my bed ; Only the tingling silence of the gloom. The muffled pulsing of the night's deep dread ; And felt an image mightier to appal, And looked ; the moonlight on the bed-foot wall 156 INSOMNIA And corniced ceiling white Was slanting now ; and in the midst stood solemn And hopeless as a black sepulchral column A steadfast shrouded Form, the Third Hour of the night. The fixed regard implacably austere, Yet none the less ineffably forlorn. Something transcending all my former fear Came jarring through my shattered frame out- worn : I knew that crushing rock could not be stirred ; I had no heart to say a single word, But closed my eyes again : And set me shuddering to the task stupendous Of climbing down and up that gulf tremendous Unto the next hour-ridge beyond Hope's farthest ken. Men sigh and plain and wail how life is brief: Ah yes, our bright eternities of bliss Are transient, rare, minute beyond belief, Mere star-dust meteors in Time's night-abyss ; Ah no, our black eternities intense Of bale are lasting, dominant, immense, As time which is their breath ; The memory of the bliss is yearning sorrow, The memory of the bale clouds every morrow Darkening through nights and days unto the night of Death. INSOMNIA 157 No human words could paint my travail sore In the thick darkness of the next ravine, Deeper immeasurably than that before : When hideous agonies, unheard, unseen, In overwhelming floods of torture roll, And horrors of great darkness drown the soul, To be is not to be In memory save as ghastliest impression, And chaos of demoniacal possession I shuddered on the ridge, and heard the bells chime Three. And like a pillar of essential gloom, Most terrible in stature and regard, Black in the moonlight filling all the room The image of the Fourth Hour, evil-starred, Stood over me ; but there was Something more, Something behind It undiscerned before, More dreadful than Its dread, Which overshadowed it as with a fateful Inexorable fascination hateful, A wan and formless Shade from regions of the dead. I shut my eyes against that spectral Shade, Which yet allured me with a deadly charm ; And that black Image of the Hour, dismayed By such tremendous menacing of harm ; And so into the gulf as into Hell ; Where what immeasurable depths I fell, 158 INSOMNIA With seizures of the heart Whose each clutch seemed the end of all pulsation, And tremors of exanimate prostration, Are horrors in my soul that never can depart. If I for hope or wish had any force, It was that I might rush down sharply hurled From rock to rock until a mangled corse Down with the fury of the torrent whirled, The fury of black waters and white foam, To where the homeless find their only home, In the immense void Sea, Whose isles are worlds, surrounding, unsurrounded, Whose depths no mortal plummet ever sounded, Beneath all surface storm calm in Eternity. Such hope or wish was as a feeble spark, A little lamp's pale glimmer in a tomb, To just reveal the hopeless deadly dark And wordless horrors of my soul's fixed doom : Yet some mysterious instinct obstinate, Blindly unconscious as a law of Fate, Still urged me on and bore My shattered being through the unfeared peril Of death less hateful than the life as sterile : I shuddered on the ridge, and heard the bells chime Four. INSOMNIA 159 The Image of that Fifth Hour of the night Was blacker in the moonlight now aslant Upon its left than on its shrouded right : And over and behind it, dominant, The shadow not Its shadow cast its spell, Most vague and dim and wan and terrible, Death's ghastly aureole, Pregnant with overpowering fascination, Commanding by repulsive instigation, Despair's envenomed anodyne to tempt the Soul I closed my eyes, but could no longer keep Under that Image and most awful Shade, Supine in mockery of blissful sleep, Delirious with such fierce thirst unallayed : Of all worst agonies the most unblest Is passive agony of wild unrest : Trembling and faint I rose, And dressed with painful efforts, and descended With furtive footsteps and with breath suspended, And left the slumbering house with my unslumbering Constrained to move through the unmoving hours, Accurst from rest because the hours stood still ; Feeling the hands of the Infernal Powers Heavy upon me for enormous ill, Inscrutable intolerable pain, Against which mortal pleas and prayers are vain, 160 INSOMNIA Gaspings of dying breath, And human struggles, dying spasms yet vainer : Renounce defence when Doom is the Arraigner ; Let impotence of Life subside appeased in Death. I paced the silent and deserted streets In cold dark shade and chillier moonlight grey ; Pondering a dolorous series of defeats And black disasters from life's opening day, Invested with the shadow of a doom That filled the Spring and Summer with a gloom Most wintry bleak and drear ; Gloom from within as from a sulphurous censer Making the glooms without for ever denser, To blight the buds and flowers and fruitage of my year. Against a bridge's stony parapet I leaned, and gazed into the waters black ; And marked an angry morning red and wet Beneath a livid and enormous rack Glare out confronting the belated moon, Huddled and wan and feeble as the swoon Of featureless Despair : When some stray workman, half-asleep but lusty, Passed urgent through the rainpour wild and gusty, I felt a ghost already, planted watching there. As phantom to its grave, or to its den Some wild beast of the night when night is sped, I turned unto my homeless home again To front a day only less charged with dread INSOMNIA 161 Than that dread night ; and after day, to front Another night of what would be the brunt ? I put the thought aside, To be resumed when common life unfolded In common daylight had my brain remoulded ; Meanwhile the flaws of rain refreshed and fortified. The day passed, and the night ; and other days, And other nights ; and all of evil doom ; The sun-hours in a sick bewildering haze, The star-hours in a thick enormous gloom, With rending lightnings and with thunder-knells ; The ghastly hours of all the timeless Hells : Bury them with their bane ! I look back on the words already written, And writhe by cold rage stung, by self-scorn smitten, They are so weak and vain and infinitely inane. . . . " How from those hideous Malebolges deep I ever could win back to upper earth, Restored to human nights of blessed sleep And healthy waking with the new day's birth?" How do men climb back from a swoon whose stress, Crushing far deeper than all consciousness, Is deep as deep death seems? Who can the steps and stages mete and number By which we re-emerge from nightly slumber ? Our poor vast petty life is one dark maze of dreams. March 1882. IN THE ROOM "Ceste itisigne fable et tragicque comedie." RABELAIS. I. THE sun was down, and twilight grey Filled half the air ; but in the room, Whose curtain had been drawn all day, The twilight was a dusky gloom : Which seemed at first as still as death, And void ; but was indeed all rife With subtle thrills, the pulse and breath Of multitudinous lower life. II. In their abrupt and headlong way Bewildered flies for light had dashed Against the curtain all the day, And now slept wintrily abashed ; And nimble mice slept, wearied out With such a double night's uproar ; But solid beetles crawled about The chilly hearth and naked floor. IN THE ROOM 163 in. And so throughout the twilight hour That vaguely murmurous hush and rest There brooded ; and beneath its power Life throbbing held its throbs supprest : Until the thin-voiced mirror sighed, I am all blurred with dust and damp, So long ago the clear day died, So long has gleamed nor fire nor lamp. IV. Whereon the curtain murmured back, Some change is on us, good or ill ; Behind me and before is black As when those human things lie still : But I have seen the darkness grow As grows the daylight every morn ; Have felt out there long shine and glow, In here long chilly dusk forlorn. V. The cupboard grumbled with a groan, Each new day worse starvation brings : Since he came here I have not known Or sweets or cates or wholesome things : But now ! a pinch of meal, a crust, Throughout the week is all I get. I am so empty ; it is just As when they said we were to let. 164 IN THE ROOM VI. What is become, then, of our Man ? The petulant old glass exclaimed ; If all this time he slumber can, He really ought to be ashamed. I wish we had our Girl again, So gay and busy, bright and fair : The girls are better than these men, Who only for their dull selves care. VII. It is so many hours ago The lamp and fire were both alight I saw him pacing to and fro, Perturbing restlessly the night. His face was pale to give one fear, His eyes when lifted looked too bright ; He muttered ; what, I could not hear : Bad words though ; something was not right. VIII. The table said, He wrote so long That I grew weary of his weight ; The pen kept up a cricket song, It ran and ran at such a rate : And in the longer pauses he With both his folded arms downpressed, And stared as one who does not see, Or sank his head upon his breast. IN THE ROOM 165 IX. The fire-grate said, I am as cold As if I never had a blaze ; The few dead cinders here I hold, I held unburned for days and days. Last night he made them flare ; but still What good did all his writing do ? Among my ashes curl and thrill Thin ghosts of all those papers too. x. The table answered, Not quite all ; He saved and folded up one sheet, And sealed it fast, and let it fall ; And here it lies now white and neat. Whereon the letter's whisper came, My writing is closed up too well ; Outside there's not a single name, And who should read me I can't tell. XI. The mirror sneered with scornful spite, (That ancient crack which spoiled her looks Had marred her temper), Write and write ! And read those stupid, worn-out books ! That's all he does, read, write, and read, And smoke that nasty pipe which stinks : He never takes the slightest heed How any of us feels or thinks. 166 IN THE ROOM XII. But Lucy fifty times a day Would come and smile here in my face, Adjust a tress that curled astray, Or tie a ribbon with more grace . She looked so young and fresh and fair, She blushed with such a charming bloom, It did one good to see her there, And brightened all things in the room. XIII. She did not sit hours stark and dumb As pale as moonshine by the lamp ; To lie in bed when day was come, And leave us curtained chill and damp. She slept away the dreary dark, And rose to greet the pleasant morn ; And sang as gaily as a lark While busy as the flies sun-born. XIV. And how she loved us every one ; And dusted this and mended that, With trills and laughs and freaks of fun, And tender scoldings in her chat ! And then her bird, that sang as shrill As she sang sweet ; her darling flowers That grew there in the window-sill, Where she would sit at work for hours. IN THE ROOM 167 xv. It was not much she ever wrote ; Her fingers had good work to do ; Say, once a week a pretty note ; And very long it took her too. And little more she read, I wis ; Just now and then a pictured sheet, Besides those letters she would kiss And croon for hours, they were so sweet. XVI. She had her friends too, blithe young girls, Who whispered, babbled, laughed, caressed, And romped and danced with dancing curls, And gave our life a joyous zest. But with this dullard, glum and sour, Not one of all his fellow-men Has ever passed a social hour ; We might be in some wild beast's den. I XVII. This long tirade aroused the bed, Who spoke in deep and ponderous bass, Befitting that calm life be led, As if firm-rooted in his place : In broad majestic bulk alone, As in thrice venerable age, He stood at once the royal throne, The monarch, the experienced sage : 168 IN THE ROOM XVIII. I know what is and what has been ; Not anything to me comes strange, Who in so many years have seen And lived through every kind of change. I know when men are good or bad, When well or ill, he slowly said ; When sad or glad, when sane or mad, And when they sleep alive or dead. XIX. At this last word of solemn lore A tremor circled through the gloom, As if a crash upon the floor Had jarred and shaken all the room : For nearly all the listening things Were old and worn, and knew what curse Of violent change death often brings, From good to bad, from bad to worse ; XX. They get to know each other well, To feel at home and settled down ; Death bursts among them like a shell, And strews them over all the town. The bed went on, This man who lies Upon me now is stark and cold ; He will not any more arise, And do the things he did of old. IN THE ROOM 169 XXI. But we shall have short peace or rest ; For soon up here will come a rout, And nail him in a queer long chest, And carry him like luggage out. They will be muffled all in black, And whisper much, and sigh and weep : But he will never more come back, And some one else in me must sleep. XXII. Thereon a little phial shrilled, Here empty on the chair I lie : I heard one say, as I was filled, With half of this a man would die. The man there drank me with slow breath, And murmured, Thus ends barren strife : O sweeter, thou cold wine of death, Than ever sweet warm wine of life. XXIII. One of my cousins long ago, A little thing, the mirror said, Was carried to a couch to show, Whether a man was really dead. Two great improvements marked the case : He did not blur her with his breath, His many-wrinkled, twitching face Was smooth old ivory : verdict, Death. 170 IN THE ROOM XXIV. It lay, the lowest thing there, lulled Sweet-sleep-like in corruption's truce ; The form whose purpose was annulled, While all the other shapes meant use. It lay, the he become now //, Unconscious of the deep disgrace, Unanxious how its parts might flit Through what new forms in time and space. xxv. It lay and preached, as dumb things do, More powerfully than tongues can prate ; Though life be torture through and through, Man is but weak to plain of fate : The drear path crawls on drearier still To wounded feet and hopeless breast ? Well, he can lie down when he will, And straight all ends in endless rest XXVI. And while the black night nothing saw, And till the cold morn came at last, That old bed held the room in awe With tales of its experience vast. It thrilled the gloom ; it told such tales Of human sorrows and delights, Of fever moans and infant wails, Of births and deaths and bridal nights. 1867-8. THE NAKED GODDESS "Arcane danze D'immortal piedc i ruinosi gioghi Scossero e 1'ardue selve (oggi romito Nido de' vend)." LEOPARDI. THROUGH the country to the town Ran a rumour and renown, That a woman grand and tall, Swift of foot, and therewithal Naked as a lily gleaming, Had been seen by eyes not dreaming, Darting down far forest glades, Flashing sunshine through the shades. With this rumour's swelling word All the city buzzed and stirred ; Solemn senators conferred ; Priest, astrologer, and mage, Subtle sophist, bard, and sage, Brought their wisdom, lore, and wit, To expound or riddle it : Last a porter ventured "We Might go out ourselves to see." 171 172 THE NAKED GODDESS Thus, upon a summer morn Lo the city all forlorn ; Every house and street and square In the sunshine still and bare, Every galley left to sway Silent in the glittering bay ; All the people swarming out, Young and old a joyous rout, Rich and poor, far-streaming through Fields and meadows dank with dew, Crowd on crowd, and throng on throng ; Chatter, laughter, jest, and song Deafened all the singing birds, Wildered sober grazing herds. Up the hillside 'gainst the sun, Where the forest outskirts run ; On along the level high, Where the azure of the sky, And the ruddy morning sheen, Drop in fragments through the treen, Where the sward surrounds the brake With a lucid, glassy lake, Where the ample glades extend Until clouds and foliage blend ; Where whoever turneth may See the city and the bay, And, beyond, the broad sea bright, League on league of slanting light ; THE NAKED GODDESS 173 Where the moist blue shadows sleep In the sacred forest deep. Suddenly the foremost pause, Ere the rear discern a cause ; Loiterers press up row on row, All the mass heaves to and fro ; All seem murmuring in one strain, All seem hearkening fixed and fain : Silence, and the lifted light Of countless faces gazing white. Four broad beech-trees, great of bole, Crowned the green, smooth-swelling knoll ; There She leant, the glorious form Dazzling with its beauty warm, Naked as the sun of noon, Naked as the midnight moon : And around her, tame and mild, All the forest creatures wild Lion, panther, kid, and fawn, Eagle, hawk, and dove, all drawn By the magic of her splendour, By her great voice, rich and tender, Whereof every beast and bird Understood each tone and word, While she fondled and carest, Playing freaks of joyous zest. Suddenly the lion stood, Turned and saw the multitude, 174 THE NAKED GODDESb Swelled his mighty front in ire, Roared the roar of raging fire : Then She turned, the living light, Sprang erect, grew up in height, Smote them with the flash and blaze Of her terrible, swift gaze ; A divine, flushed, throbbing form, Dreadmller than blackest storm. All the forest creatures cowered, Trembling, moaning, overpowered ; All the simple folk who saw Sank upon their knees in awe Of this Goddess, fierce and splendid, Whom they witless had offended : And they murmured out faint prayers, Inarticulate despairs, Till her hot and angry mien Grew more gentle and serene. Stood the high priest forth, and went Halfway up the green ascent : There began a preachment long Of the great and grievous wrong She unto her own soul wrought In thus living without thought Of the gods who sain and save, Of the life beyond the grave : Living with the beasts that perish, Far from all the rites that cherish THE NAKED GODDESS 175 Hope and faith and holy love, And appease the thrones above : Full of unction pled the preacher ; Let her come and they would teach her Spirit strangled in the mesh Of the vile and sinful flesh, How to gain the heavenly prize, How grow meet for Paradise ; Penance, prayer, self-sacrifice, Fasting, cloistered solitude, Mind uplifted, heart subdued ; Thus a Virgin, clean and chaste, In the Bridegroom's arms embraced. Vestal sister's hooded gown, Straight and strait, of dismal brown, Here he proffered, and laid down On the green grass like a frown. Then stood forth the old arch-sage, Wrinkled more with thought than age : What could worse afflict, deject Any well-trained intellect Than in savage forest seeing Such a full-grown human being With the beasts and birds at play, Ignorant and wild as they ? Sciences and arts, by which Man makes Nature's poor life rich, Dominates the world around, Proves himself its King self-crowned, 176 THE NAKED GODDESS She knew nothing of them, she Knew not even what they be ! Body naked to the air, And the reason just as bare ; Yet (since circumstance, that can Hinder the full growth of man, Cannot kill the seeds of worth Innate in the Lord of Earth), Yet she might be taught and brought To. full sovranty of thought, Crowned with reason's glorious crown. So he tendered and laid down, Sober grey beside the brown, Amplest philosophic gown. Calm and proud she stood the while With a certain wondering smile ; When the luminous sage was done She began to speak as one Using language not her own, Simplest words in sweetest tone : " Poor old greybeards, worn and bent ! I do know not what they meant ; Only here and there a word Reached my mind of all I heard ; Let some child come here, I may Understand what it can say." So two little children went, Lingering up the green ascent, THE NAKED GODDESS 177 Hand in hand, but grew the while Bolder in her gentle smile ; When she kissed them they were free, Joyous as at mother's knee. " Tell me, darlings, now," said she, " What they want to say to me." Boy and girl then, nothing loth, Sometimes one and sometimes both, Prattled to her sitting there Fondling with their soft young hair : "Dear kind lady, do you stay Here with always holiday ? Do you sleep among the trees ? People want you, if you please, To put on your dress and come With us to the City home ; Live with us and be our friend : Oh, such pleasant times we'll spend ! . . . But if you can't come away, Will you let us stop and play With you and all these happy things With hair and horns and shining wings?" She arose and went half down, Took the vestal sister's gown, Tried it on, burst through its shroud, As the sun burns through a cloud : Flung it from her split and rent ; Said : " This cerement sad was meant M i;8 THE NAKED GODDESS For some creatures stunted, thin, Breastless, blighted, bones and skin." Then the sage's robe she tried, Muffling in its long folds wide All her lithe and glorious grace : " I should stumble every pace ! This big bag was meant to hold Some poor sluggard fat and old, Limping, shuffling wearily, With a form not fit to see ! " So she flung it off again With a gesture of disdain. Naked as the midnight moon, Naked as the sun of noon, Burning too intensely bright, Clothed in its own dazzling light ; Seen less thus than in the shroud Of morning mist or evening cloud ; She stood terrible and proud O'er the pallid quivering crowd. At a gesture ere they wist, Perched a falcon on her wrist, And she whispered to the bird Something it alone there heard ; Then she threw it off: when thrown Straight it rose as falls a stone, THE NAKED GODDESS 179 Arrow-swift on high, on high, Till a mere speck in the sky ; Then it circled round and round, Till, as if the prey were found, Forth it darted on its quest Straight away into the West. . . . Every eye that watched its flight Felt a sideward flash of light, All were for a moment dazed : Then around intently gazed ; What had passed them ? Where was She, The offended deity ? O'er the city, o'er the bay, They beheld her melt away, Melt away beyond their quest Through the regions of the west ; While the eagle screamed rauque ire, And the lion roared like fire. That same night both priest and sage Died accursed in sombre rage. Never more in wild wood green Was that glorious Goddess seen, Never more : and from that day Evil hap and dull decay Fell on countryside and town ; Life and vigour dwindled down ; Storms in Spring nipped bud and sprout, Summer suns shed plague and drought, i8o THE NAKED GODDESS Autumn's store was crude and scant, Winter snows beleaguered want ; Vines were black at vintage-tide, Flocks and herds of murrain died ; Fishing boats came empty home, Good ships foundered in the foam ; Haggard traders lost all heart Wandering through the empty mart : For the air hung thick with gloom, Silence, and the sense of doom. But those little children she Had caressed so tenderly Were betrothed that self-same night Grew up beautiful and bright, Lovers through the years of play Forward to their marriage-day. Three long moons of bridal bliss Overflowed them ; after this, With his bride and with a band Of the noblest in the land, Youths and maidens, wedded pairs Scarcely older in life's cares, He took ship and sailed away Westward Ho from out the bay : Portioned from their native shrine With the Sacred Fire divine, They will cherish while they roam, Quenchless 'mid the salt sea foam, THE NAKED GODDESS 181 Till it burns beneath a dome In some new and far-off home. As they ventured more and more In that ocean without shore, And some hearts were growing cold At the emprise all too bold, It is said a falcon came Down the void blue swift as flame ; Every sunset came to rest On the prow's high curving crest, Every sunrise rose from rest Flying forth into the west ; And they followed, faint no more, Through that ocean without shore. Three moons crescent fill and wane O'er the solitary main, When behold a green shore smile : It was that Atlantic isle, Drowned beneath the waves and years, Whereof some faint shadow peers Dubious through the modern stream Of Platonic legend-dream. High upon that green shore stood She who left their native wood ; Glorious, and with solemn hand Beckoned to them there to land. Though She forthwith disappeared As the wave-worn galley neared, 182 THE NAKED GODDESS They knew well her presence still Haunted stream and wood and hill. There they landed, there grew great, Founders of a mighty state : There the Sacred Fire divine Burned within a wondrous shrine Which Her statue glorified Throughout many kingdoms wide. There those children wore the crown To their children handed down Many and many a golden age Blotted now from history's page ; Till the last of all the line Leagued him with the other nine Great Atlantic kings whose hosts Ravaged all the Mid Sea coasts : Then the whelming deluge rolled Over all those regions old ; Thrice three thousand years before Solon questioned Egypt's lore * 1866-7. * Plato : the Timtxus, and the Critias. A VOICE FROM THE NILE* T COME from mountains under other stars A Than those reflected in my waters he"e ; Athwart broad realms, beneath large skies, I flow, Between the Libyan and Arabian hills, And merge at last into the great Mid Sea ; And make this land of Egypt. All is mine : The palm-trees and the doves among the palms, The corn-fields and the flowers among the corn, The patient oxen and the crocodiles, The ibis and the heron and the hawk, The lotus and the thick papyrus reeds, The slant-sailed boats that flit before the wind Or up my rapids ropes hale heavily ; Yea, even all the massive temple-fronts With all their columns and huge effigies, The pyramids and Memnon and the Sphinx, This Cairo and the City of the Greek As Memphis and the hundred-gated Thebes, Sais and Denderah of Isis queen ; Have grown because I fed them with full life, * Reprinted by permission from the Fortnightly Review. 183 184 A VOICE FROM THE NILE And flourish only while I feed them still, For if I stint my fertilising jlood, Gaunt famine reaps among the sons of men Who have not corn to reap for all they sowed, And blight and languishment are everywhere ; And when I have withdrawn or turned aside To other realms my ever-flowing streams, The old realms withered from their old renown, The sands came over them, the desert-sands Incessantly encroaching, numberless Beyond my water-drops, and buried them, And all is silence, solitude, and death, Exanimate silence while the waste winds howl Over the sad immeasurable waste. Dusk memories haunt me of an infinite past, Ages and cycles brood above my springs, Though I remember not my primal birth. So ancient is my being and august, I know not anything more venerable ; Unless, perchance, the vaulting skies that hold The sun and moon and stars that shine on me ; The air that breathes upon me with delight ; And Earth, All-Mother, all-beneficent, Who held her mountains forth like opulent breasts To cradle me and feed me with their snows, And hollowed out the great sea to receive My overplus of flowing energy : Blessed for ever be ou* Mother Earth. A VOICE FROM THE NILE 185 Only, the mountains that must feed my springs Year after year and every year with snows As they have fed innumerable years, These mountains they are evermore the same, Rooted and motionless ; the solemn heavens Are evermore the same in stable rest ; The sun and moon and stars that shine on me Are evermore the same although they move : I solely, moving ever without pause, Am evermore the same and not the same ; Pouring myself away into the sea, And self-renewing from the farthest heights ; Ever-fresh waters streaming down and down, The one old Nilus constant through their change. The creatures also whom I breed and feed Perpetually perish and dissolve, And other creatures like them take their place, To perish in their turn and be no more : My profluent waters perish not from life, Absorbed into the ever-living sea Whose life is in their full replenishment. Of all these creatures whom I breed and feed, One only with his works is strange to me, Is strange and admirable and pitiable, As homeless where all others are at home. My crocodiles are happy in my slime, And bask and seize their prey, each for itselt, And leave their eggs to hatch in the hot sun, 186 A VOICE FROM THE NILE And die, their lives fulfilled, and are no more, And others bask and prey and leave their eggs. My doves they build their nests, each pair its own, And feed their callow young, each pair its own, None serves another, each one serves itself; All glean alike about my fields of grain, And all the nests they build them are alike, And are the self-same nests they built of old Before the rearing of the pyramids, Before great Hekatompylos was reared ; Their cooing is the cooing soft and sweet That murmured plaintively at evening-tide In pillared Karnac as its pillars rose ; And they are happy floating through my palms. But Man, the admirable, the pitiable, These sad-eyed peoples of the sons of men, Are as the children of an alien race Planted among my children, not at home, Changelings aloof from all my family. The one is servant and the other lord, And many myriads serve a single lord : So was it when the pyramids were reared, And sphinxes and huge columns and wrought stones Were haled long lengthening leagues adown my banks By hundreds groaning with the stress of toil, And groaning under the taskmaster's scourge, With many falling fofedone by the way. Half-starved on lentils, onions, and scant bread ; So is it now with these poor fellaheen A VOICE FROM THE NILE 187 To whom my annual bounty brings fierce toil With scarce enough of food to keep-in life. They build mud huts and spacious palaces ; And in the huts the moiling millions dwell, And in the palaces their sumptuous lords Pampered with all the choicest things I yield : Most admirable, most pitiable Man. Also their peoples ever are at war, Slaying and slain, burning and ravaging, And one yields to another and they pass, While I flow evermore, the same great Nile, The ever-young and ever-ancient Nile : The swarthy is succeeded by the dusk, The dusky by the pale, the pale again By sunburned turbaned tribes long-linen-robed : And with these changes all things change and pass, All things but Me and this old Land of mine, Their dwellings, habitudes, and garbs, and tongues : I hear strange voices ; * never more the voice Austere priests chanted to the boat of death Gliding across the Acherusian lake, Or satraps parleyed in the Pharaoh's halls ; Never the voice of mad Cambyses' hosts, Never the voice of Alexander's Greece, Never the voice of Caesar's haughty Rome : And with the peoples and the languages, With the great Empires still the great Creeds change; *"and Nilus beareth strange voices. "Sir Thomas Browne. i88 A VOICE FROM THE NILE They shift, they change, they vanish like thin dreams, As unsubstantial as the mists that rise After my overflow from out my fields, In silver fleeces, golden volumes, rise, And melt away before the mounting sun ; While I flow onward solely permanent Amidst their swiftly-passing pageantry. Poor men, most admirable, most pitiable, With all their changes all their great Creeds change : For Man, this alien in my family, Is alien most in this, to cherish dreams And brood on visions of eternity, And build religions in his brooding brain And in the dark depths awe-full of his soul. My other children live their little lives, Are born and reach their prime and slowly fail, And all their little lives are self-fulfilled ; They die and are no more, content with age And weary with infirmity. But Man Has fear and hope and phantasy and awe, And wistful yearnings and unsated loves, That strain beyond the limits of his life, And therefore Gods and Demons, Heaven and Hell : This Man, the admirable, the pitiable. Lo, I look backward some few thousand years, And see men hewing temples in my rocks With seated forms gigantic fronting them, And solemn labyrinthine catacombs A VOICE FROM THE NILE 189 With tombs all pictured with fair scenes of life And scenes and symbols of mysterious death ; And planting avenues of sphinxes forth, Sphinxes couched calm, whose passionless regard Sets timeless riddles to bewildered time, Forth from my sacred banks to other fanes Islanded in the boundless sea of air, t Upon whose walls and colonnades are carved Tremendous hieroglyphs of secret things ; I see embalming of the bodies dead And judging of the disembodied souls ; I see the sacred animals alive, And statues of the various-headed gods, Among them throned a woman and a babe, The goddess crescent-horned, the babe divine ! Then I flow forward some few thousand years, And see new temples shining with all grace, Whose sculptured gods are beautiful human forms. Then I flow forward not a thousand years, And see again a woman and a babe, The woman haloed and the babe divine ; And everywhere that symbol of the cross I knew aforetime in the ancient days, The emblem then of life, but now of death. Then I flow forward some few hundred years, And see again the crescent, now supreme On lofty cupolas and minarets Whence voices sweet and solemn call to prayer. So the men change along my changeless stream, And change their faiths ; but I yield all alike igo A VOICE FROM THE NILE Sweet water for their drinking, sweet as wine, And pure sweet water for their lustral rites : For thirty generations of my corn Outlast a generation of my men, And thirty generations of my men Outlast a generation of their gods : O admirable, pitiable Man, My child yet alien in my family. And I through all these generations flow Of corn and men and gods, all-bountiful, Perennial through their transientness, still fed By earth with waters in abundancy ; And as I flowed here long before they were, So may I flow when they no longer are, Most like the serpent of eternity : Blessed for ever be our Mother Earth. November 1881. NOR did we lack our own right royal king, The glory of our peaceful realm and race. By no long years of restless travailing, By no fierce wars or intrigues bland and base, Did he attain his superlofty place : But one fair day he lounging to the throne Reclined thereon with such possessing grace That all could see it was in sooth his own, That it for him was fit and he for it alone. He there reclined as lilies on a river, All cool in sunfire, float in buoyant rest ; He stirred as flowers that in the sweet south quiver ; He moved as swans move on a lake's calm breast, Or clouds slow gliding in the golden west ; He thought as birds may think when 'mid the trees Their joy showers music o'er the brood-filled nest ; He swayed us all with ever placid ease As sways the throned moon her world-wide wandering seas. igz THE LORD OF THE CASTLE Look as within some fair and princely hall The marble statue of a god may rest, Admired in silent reverence by all ; Soothing the weary brain and anguished breast, By life's sore burthens all-too-much oppressed, With visions of tranquillity supreme ; So, self-sufficing, grand and bland and blest, He dwelt enthroned, and whoso gazed did seem Endowed with death-calm life in long unwistful dream. While others fumed and schemed and toiled in vain To mould the world according to their mood, He did by might of perfect faith refrain From any part in such disturbance rude. The world, he said, indeed is very good, Its Maker surely wiser far than we ; Feed soul and flesh upon its bounteous food, Nor fret because of ill ; All-good is He, And worketh not in years but in Eternity. How men will strain to row against the tide, Which yet must sweep them down in its career ! Or if some win their way and crown their pride, What do they win ? the desert wild and drear, The savage rocks, the icy wastes austere, Wherefrom the river's turbid rills downflow : But he upon the waters broad and clear, In harmony with all the winds that blow, 'Mid cities, fields and farms, went drifting to and fro. THE LORD OF THE CASTLE 193 The king with constant heed must rule his realm, The soldier faint and starve in marches long, The sailor j>uide with sleepless care his helm, The poet from sick languors soar in song : But he alone amidst the troubled throng In restful ease diffused beneficence ; Most like a mid-year noontide rich and strong, That fills the earth with fruitful life intense, And yet doth trance it all in sweetest indolence When summer reigns the joyous leaves and flowers Steal imperceptibly upon the tree ; So stole upon him all his bounteous hours, So passive to their influence seemed he, So clothed they him with joy and majesty ; Basking in ripest summer all his time, We blessed his shade and sang him songs of glee ; The dew and sunbeams fed his perfect prime, And rooted broad and deep he broadly towered sublime. Thus could he laugh those great and generous laughs Which made us love ourselves, the world, and him And while they rang we felt as one who quaffs Some potent wine-cup dowered to the brim, And straightway all things seem to reel and swim, Suns, moons, earth, stars sweep through the vast profound, Wrapt in a golden mist-light warm and dim, Rolled in a volume of triumphant sound ; So in that laughter's joy the whole world carolled round, IT 194 THE LORD OF THE CASTLE The sea, the sky, wood, mountain, stream and plain, Our whole fair world did serve him and adorn, Most like some casual robe which he might deign To use when kinglier vesture was not worn. Was all its being by his soul upborne, That it should render homage so complete ? The day and night, the even and the morn, Seemed ever circling grateful round his feet, "With Thee, through Thee we live this rich life pure and sweet ! " For while he loved our broad world beautiful, His placid wisdom penetrated it, And found the lovely words but poor and dull Beside the secret splendours they transmit, The heavenly things in earthly symbols writ : He knew the blood-red sweetness of the vine, Yet did not therefore at the revel sit ; But straining out the very wine of wine, Lived calm and pure and glad in drunkenness divine. Without an effort the imperial sun With ever ample life of light doth feed The spheres revolving round it every one : So all his heart and soul and thought and deed Flowed freely forth for every brother's need ; He knew no difference between good and ill, But as the sun doth nourish flower and weed With self-same bounty, he too ever still Lived blessing all alike with equal loving will 195 The all-bestowing sun is clothed with splendour, The all-supporting sun doth reign supreme ; So must eternal justice ever render Each unsought payment to its last extreme : Thus he most rich in others' joy did seem, And reigned by servitude all-effortless ; For heaven and earth must vanish like a dream Ere such a soul divine can know distress, Whom all the laws of Life conspire to love and bless. 1859. THE POET AND HIS MUSE I SIGHED unto my Muse, "O gentle Muse, Would you but come and kiss my aching brow, And thus a little life and joy infuse Into my brain and heart so weary now ; Into my heart so sad with emptiness Even when unafflicted by the stress Of all our kind's poor life ; Into my brain so feeble and so listless, Crushed down by burthens of dark thought resistless Of all our want and woe and unresulting strife : " Would you but come and kiss me on the brow, Would you but kiss me on the pallid lips That have so many years been songless now, And on the eyes involved in drear eclipse ; That thus the barren brain long overwrought Might yield again some blossoms of glad thought, And the long-mute lips sing, And the long-arid eyes grow moist and tender With some new vision of the ancient splendour Of beauty and delight that lives in everything. 196 THE POET AND HIS MUSE 197 "Would you but kiss me on the silent lips And teach them thus to sing some new sweet song ; Would you but kiss my eyes from their eclipse With some new tale of old-world right and wrong : Some song of love and joy or tender grief Whose sweetness is its own divine relief, Whose joy is golden bliss ; Some solemn and impassioned antique story Where love against dark doom burns out in glory, Where life is freely staked to win one mutual kiss : " Would you but sing to me some new dear song Of love in bliss or bale alike supreme ; Some story of our old-world right and wrong With noble passion burning through the theme : What though the story be of darkest doom, If loyal spirits shining through its gloom Throb to us from afar ? What though the song with heavy sorrows languish, If loving hearts pulse to us through its anguish ? Is not the whole black night enriched by one pure star ? " And lo ! She came, the ever-gentle Muse, Sad as my heart, and languid as my brain ; Too gentle in her loving to refuse, Although her steps were weariness and pain ; Although her eyes were blank and lustreless, Although her form was clothed with heaviness I9& THE POET AND HIS MUSE And drooped beneath the weight ; Although her lips were blanched from all their blooming, Her pure face pallid as from long entombing, Her bright regard and smile sombre and desolate. "Sad as thy heart and languid as thy brain I come unto thy sighing through the gloom, I come with mortal weariness and pain, I come as one compelled to leave her tomb : Behold, am I not wrapt as in the cloud Of death's investiture and sombre shroud ? Am I not wan as death ! Look at the withered leafage of my garland, Is it not nightshade from the sad dim far land Of night and old oblivion and no mortal breath ? " I come unto thy sighing through the gloom, My hair dishevelled dank with dews of night, Reluctantly constrained to leave my tomb ; With eyes that have for ever lost their light ; My vesture mouldering with deep death's disgrace, My heart as chill and bloodless as my face, My forehead like a stone ; My spirit sightless as my eyes are sightless, My inmost being nerveless, soulless, lightless, My joyous singing voice a harsh sepulchral moan. THE POET AND HIS MUSE 199 "My hair dishevelled dank with dews of night, From that far region of dim death I come, With eyes and soul and spirit void of light, With lips more sad in speech than stark and dumb : Lo, you have ravaged me with dolorous thought Until my brain was wholly overwrought, Barren of flowers and fruit ; Until my heart was bloodless for all passion, Until my trembling lips could no more fashion Sweet words to fit sweet airs of trembling lyre and lute. " From the sad regions of dim death I come ; We tell no tales there for our tale is told, We sing no songs there for our lips are dumb, Likewise our hearts and brains are graveyard mould ; No wreaths of laurel, myrtle, ivy or vine, About our pale and pulseless brows entwine, And that sad frustrate realm Nor amaranths nor asphodels can nourish, But aconite and black- red poppies flourish On such Lethean dews as fair life overwhelm. " We tell no tales more, we whose tale is told ; As your brain withered and your heart grew chill My heart and brain were turned to churchyard mould, Wherefore my singing voice sank ever still : 200 THE POET AND HIS MUSE And I, all heart and brain and voice, am dead ; It is my Phantom here beside your bed That speaketh to you now ; Though you exist still, a mere form inurning The ashes of dead fires of thought and yearning, Dead faith, dead love, dead hope, in hollow breast and brow." When it had moaned these words of hopeless doom, The Phantom of the Muse once young and fair, Pallid and dim from its disastrous tomb, Of Her so sweet and young and dtbonnaire, So rich of heart and brain and singing voice, So quick to shed sweet tears and to rejoice And smile with ravishing grace ; My soul was stupefied by its own reaping, Then burst into a flood of passionate weeping, Tears bitter as black blood streaming adown my face. " O Muse, so young and sweet and glad and fair, O Muse of hope and faith and joy and love, O Muse so gracious and so cttbonnaire, Darling of earth beneath and heaven above ; If Thou art gone into oblivious death, Why should I still prolong my painful breath ? Why still exist, the urn Holding of once-great fires the long dead ashes, No sole spark left of all their glow and flashes, Fires never to rekindle more and shine and burn ? THE POET AND HIS MUSE 201 " O Muse of hope and faith and joy and love, Soul of my soul, if Thou in truth art dead, A mournful alien in our world above, A Phantom moaning by my midnight bed ; How can I be alive, a hollow form With ashes of dead fires once bright and warm ? What thing is worth my strife ? The Past a great regret, the Present sterile, The Future hopeless, with the further peril Of withering down and down to utter death-in-life. " Soul of my soul, canst Thou indeed be dead ? What mean for me if I accept their lore, Thy words, O Phantom moaning by my bed, ' I cannot sing again for evermore' ? / nevermore can think or feel or dream Or hope or love the fatal loss supreme ! I am a soulless clod ; No germ of life within me that surpasses The little germs of weeds and flowers and grasses Wherewith our liberal Mother decks the graveyard sod. " I am half-torpid yet I spurn this lore, I am long silent yet cannot avow My singing voice is lost for evermore ; For lo, this beating heart, this burning brow, This spirit gasping in keen spasms of dread And fierce revulsion that it is not dead, 202 THE POET AND HIS MUSE This agony of the sting : What soulless clod could have these tears and sobbings, Thase terrors that are hopes, these passionate, throbbings ? Dear Muse, revive ! we yet may dream and love and sing ! " February 1882. MATER TEN EBR ARUM T N the endless nights, from my bed, where sleepless * in anguish I lie, I startle the stillness and gloom with a bitter and strong cry : O Love ! O Beloved long lost ! come down from thy Heaven above, For my heart is wasting and dying in uttermost famine for love ! Come down for a moment ! oh, come ! Come serious and mild And pale, as thou wert on this earth, thou adorable Child ! Or come as thou art, with thy sanctitude, triumph and bliss, For a garment of glory about thee ; and give me one kiss, One tender and pitying look of thy tenderest eyes, One word of solemn assurance and truth that che soul with its love never dies 1 204 MATER TENEBRARUM II. In the endless nights, from my bed, where sleepless in frenzy I lie, I cleave through the crushing gloom with a bitter and deadly cry : Oh ! where have they taken my Love from our Eden of bliss on this earth, Which now is a frozen waste of sepulchral and horrible dearth? Have they killed her indeed ? is her soul as her body, which long Has mouldered away in the dust where the foul worms throng ? O'er what abhorrent Lethes, to what remotest star, Is she rapt away from my pursuit through cycles and systems far ? She is dead, she is utterly dead ; for her life would hear and speed To the wild imploring cry of my heart that cries in its dreadful need. III. In the endless nights, on my bed, where sleeplessly brooding I lie, I burden the heavy gloom with a bitter and weary sigh: No hope in this worn-out world, no hope beyond the tomb ; No living and loving God, but blind and stony Doom. MATER TENEBRARUM 205 Anguish and grief and sin, terror, disease and despair : Why throw not off this life, this garment of torture I wear, And go down to sleep in the grave in everlasting rest? What keeps me yet in this life, what spark in my frozen breast ? A fire of dread, a light of hope, kindled, O Love, by thee ; For thy pure and gentle and beautiful soul, it must immortal be. 1859. THE THREE THAT SHALL BE ONE LOVE on the earth alit, Come to be Lord of it ; Looked round and laughed with glee, Noble my empery ! Straight ere that laugh was done Sprang forth the royal sun, Pouring out golden shine Over the realm divine. Came then a lovely may, Dazzling the new-born day, Wreathing her golden hair With the red roses there, Laughing with sunny eyes Up to the sunny skies, Moving so light and free To her own minstrelsy. Love with swift rapture cried, Dear Life, thou art my bride ! Whereto, with fearless pride, Dear Love, indeed thy bride ! Ml THREE THAT SHALL BE ONE 207 All the earth's fruit and flowers, All the world's wealth are ours ; Sun, moon, and stars gem Our marriage diadem. So they together fare, Lovely and joyous pair ; So hand in hand they roam All through their Eden home ; Each to the other's sight An ever-new delight : Blue heaven and blooming earth Joy in their darling's mirth. Who comes to meet them now, She with the pallid brow, Wreathing her night-dark hair With the red poppies there, Pouring from solemn eyes Gloom through the sunny skies, Moving so silently In her deep reverie ? Life paled as she drew near, Love shook with doubt and fear. Ah, then, she said, in truth (Eyes full of yearning ruth), Love, thou would'st have this Life, Fair may ! to be thy wife ? Yet at an awful shrine Wert thou not plighted mine * 208 THREE THAT SHALL BE ONE Pale, paler poor Life grew ; Love murmured, It is true ! How could I thee forsake ? From the brief dream I wake. Yet, O beloved Death, See how she suflfereth ; Ere we from earth depart Soothe her, thou tender heart ! Faint on the ground she lay ; Love kissed the swoon away ; Death then bent over her, Death the sweet comforter ! Whispered with tearful smile, Wait but a little while, Then I will come for thee ; We are one family. 1863. A POLISH INSURGENT VVTHAT would you have ? said I ;* W 'Tis so easy to go and die, 'Tis so hard to stay and live, In this alien peace and this comfort callous, Where only the murderers get the gallows, Where the jails are for rogues who thieve. 'Tis so easy to go and die, Where our Country, our Mother, the Martyr, Moaning in bonds doth lie, Bleeding with stabs in her breast, Her throat with a foul clutch prest, Under the thrice-accursed Tartar. But Smith, your man of sense, Ruddy, and broad, and round like so ! Kindly but dense, but dense, Said to me : " Do not go : It is hopeless ; right is wrong ; The tyrant is too strong." * Some time after writing this I found that the great BALZAC, in La. Cousine Bette, dwells on this very phrase, " Que voulez-vous ? " as characteristic of the gallant and reckless Poles. 209 O 2io A POLISH INSURGENT Must a man have hope to fight ? Can a man not fight in despair ? Must the soul cower down for the body's weakness, And slaver the devil's hoof with meekness, Nor care nor dare to share Certain defeat with the right ? They do not know us, my Mother ! They know not our love, our hate ! And how we would die with each other, Embracing proud and elate, Rather than live apart In peace with shame in the heart. No hope ! If a heavy anger Our God hath treasured against us long, His lightning-shafts from His thunder-clangour Raining a century down : We have loved when we went most wrong ; He cannot for ever frown. No hope ! We can haste to be killed, That the tale of the victims get filled ; The more of the debt we pay, The less on our sons shall weigh : This star through the baleful rack of the cope Burns red ; red is our hope. A POLISH INSURGENT 211 O our Mother, thou art noble and fair ! Fair and proud and chaste, thou Queen ! Chained and stabbed in the breast, Thy throat with a foul clutch prest ; Yet around thee how coarse, how mean, Are these rich shopwives who stare ! Art thou moaning, O our Mother, through the swoon Of thine agony of desolation ? * Do my sons still love me ? or can they stand Gazing afar from a foreign land, Loving more peace and gold the boon Of a people strange, of a sordid nation ? " O our Mother, moan not thus ! We love you as you love us, And our hearts are wild with thy sorrow : If we cannot save thee, we are blest Who can die on thy sacred bleeding breast. So we left Smith-Land on the morrow, And we hasten across the West. 1863. L'ANCIEN REGIME OR, THE GOOD OLD RULE WHO has a thing to bring For a gift to our lord the king, Our king all kings above ? A young girl brought him love ; And he dowered her with shame, With a sort of infamous fame, And then with lonely years Of penance and bitter tears : Love is scarcely the thing To bring as a gift for our king. Who has a thing to bring For a gift to our lord the king ? A statesman brought him planned Justice for all the land ; And he in recompense got Fierce struggle with brigue and plot, L'ANCIEN REGIME 213 Then a fall from lofty place Into exile and disgrace : Justice is never the thing To bring as a gift for our king. Who has a thing to bring For a gift to our lord the king ? A writer brought him truth ; And first he imprisoned the youth ; And then he bestowed a free pyre, That the works might have plenty of fire, And also to cure the pain Of the headache called thought in the brain : Truth is a very bad thing To bring as a gift for our king. Who has a thing to bring For a gift to our lord the king ? The people brought their sure Loyalty fervid and pure ; And he gave them bountiful spoil Of taxes and hunger and toil, Ignorance brutish plight, And wholesale slaughter in fight : Loyalty's quite the worst thing To bring as a gift for our king. Who has a thing to bring For a gift to our lord the king ? A courtier brought to his feet Servility graceful and sweet, 214 L'ANCIEN REGIME With an ever ready smile And an ever supple guile ; And he got in reward the place Of the statesman in disgrace : Servility's always a thing To bring as a gift for our king. Who has a thing to bring For a gift to our lord the king ? A soldier brought him war, La gloire^ la victoire, Ravage and carnage and groans, For the pious Te Deum tones ; And he got in return for himself Rank and honours and pelf : War is a very fine thing To bring as a gift for our king. Who has a thing to bring For a gift to our lord th$ king? A harlot brought him her flesh, Her lusts, and the manifold mesh Of her wiles intervolved with caprice ; And he gave her his realm to fleece, To corrupt, to ruin, and gave Himself for her toy and her slave : Harlotry's just the thing To bring as a gift for our king. L'ANCIEN REGIME 215 Who has a thing to bring For a gift to our lord the king ? Our king who fears to die ? A priest brought him a lie, The blackness of hell uprolled In heaven's shining gold ; And he got as guerdon for that A see and a cardinal's hat : A lie is an excellent thing To bring as a gift for our king. Has any one yet a thing For a gift to our lord the king ? The country gave him a tomb, A magnificent sleeping-room : And for this it obtained some rest, Clear riddance of many a pest, And a hope which it much enjoyed That the throne would continue void : A tomb is the very best thing For a gift to our lord the king. 1867. PROEM O ANTIQUE fables ! beautiful and bright And joyous with the joyous youth of yore O antique fables ! for a little light Of that which shineth in you evermore, To cleanse the dimness from our weary eyes, And bathe our old world with a new surprise Of golden dawn entrancing sea and shore. We stagger under the enormous weight Of all the heavy ages piled on us, With all their grievous wrongs inveterate, And all their disenchantments dolorous, And all the monstrous tasks they have bequeathed And we are stifled with the airs they breathed ; And read in theirs our dooms calamitous. Our world is all stript naked of their dreams ; No deities in sky or sun or moon, No nymphs in woods and hills and seas and streams Mere earth and water, air and fire, their boon ; 216 PROEM 217 No God in all our universe we trace, No heaven in the infinitude of space, No life beyond death coming not too soon. Our souls are stript of their illusions sweet, Our hopes at best in some far future years . For others, not ourselves ; whose bleeding feet Wander this rocky waste where broken spears And bleaching bones lie scattered on the sand ; Who know we shall not reach the Promised Land ; Perhaps a mirage glistening through our tears. And if there be this Promised Land indeed, Our children's children's children's heritage, Oh, what a prodigal waste of precious seed, Of myriad myriad lives from age to age, Of woes and agonies and blank despairs, Through countless cycles, that some fortunate heirs May enter, and conclude the pilgrimage ! But if it prove a mirage after all ! Our last illusion leaves us wholly bare, To bruise against Fate's adamantine wall, Consumed or frozen in the pitiless air ; In all our world, beneath, around, above, One only refuge, solace, triumph, Love, Sole star of light in infinite black despair. 218 PROEM Of antique fables ! beautiful and bright, And joyous with the joyous youth of yore ; O antique fables ! for a little light Of that which shineth in you evermore, To cleanse the dimness from our weary eyes And bathe our old world with a new surprise Of golden dawn entrancing sea and shore. January 1882. THE SLEEPER* ' I 'HE fire is in a steadfast glow, A The curtains drawn against the night ; Upon the red couch soft and low Between the fire and lamp alight She rests half-sitting, half-reclining Encompassed by the cosy shining, Her ruby dress with lace trimmed whitv Her left hand shades her drooping eyes Against the fervour of the fire, The right upon her cincture lies In languid grace beyond desire, A lily fallen among roses ; So placidly her form reposes, It scarcely seemeth to respire. She is not surely all awake, As yet she is not all asleep ; The eyes with lids half-open take A startled deprecating peep Of quivering drowsiness, then slowly The lids sink back, before she wholly Resigns herself to slumber deep. * Reprinted by permission from the Cfrnkill Mag atiit t. !2o THE SLEEPER The side-neck gleams so pure beneath The underfringe of gossamer, The tendrils of whose faery wreath The softest sigh suppressed would stir. The little pink-shell ear-rim flushes With her young blood's translucent blushes, Nestling in tresses warm as fur. The contour of her cheek and chin Is curved in one delicious line, Pure as a vase of porcelain thin Through which a tender light may shine ; Her brow and blue- veined temple gleaming Beneath the dusk of hair back-streaming Are as a virgin's marble shrine. The ear is burning crimson fire, The flush is brightening on the face, The lips are parting to suspire, The hair grows restless in its place As if itself new tangles wreathing ; The bosom with her deeper breathing Swells and subsides with ravishing grace. The hand slides softly to caress, Unconscious, that fine-pencilled curve " Her lip's contour and downiness," Unbending with a sweet reserve ; A tender darkness that abashes Steals out beneath the long dark lashes, Whose sightless eyes make eyesight swerve. THE SLEEPER 221 The hand on chin and throat downslips, Then softly, softly on her breast ; A dream comes fluttering o'er the lips, And stirs the eyelids in their rest, And makes their undershadows quiver, And like a ripple on a river Glides through her breathing manifest I feel an awe to read this dream So clearly written in her smile ; A pleasant not a passionate theme, A little love, a little guile ; I fear lest she should speak revealing The secret of some maiden feeling I have no right to hear the while. The dream has passed without a word Of all that hovered finely traced ; The hand has slipt down, gently stirred To join the other at her waist ; Her breath from that light agitation Has settled to its slow pulsation ; She is by deep sleep re-embraced. Deep sleep, so holy in its calm, So helpless, yet so awful too ; Whose silence sheds as sweet a balm As ever sweetest voice could do ; Whose tranced eyes, unseen, unseeing Shadowed by pure love, thrill our being With tender yearnings through and through. 222 THE SLEEPER Sweet sleep ; no hope, no fear, no strife ; The solemn sanctity of death, With all the loveliest bloom of life ; Eternal peace in mortal breath : Pure sleep from which she will awaken Refreshed as one who hath partaken New strength, new hope, new love, new faith. January 1882. AT BELVOIR Sunday, July 3, 1881. A BALLAD, HISTORICAL AND PROPHETIC. ("In maiden meditation, fancy free."} Ayf Y thoughts go back to last July, 'A Sweet happy thoughts and tender ;- " The bridal of the earth and sky," A day of noble splendour ; A day to make the saddest heart In joy a true believer ; When two good friends we roamed apart The shady walks of Belvoir. A maiden like a budding rose, Unconscious of the golden And fragrant bliss of love that glows Deep in her heart infolden ; A Poet old in years and thought, Yet not too old for pleasance, Made young again and fancy-fraught By such a sweet friend's presence- 323 224 AT BELVOIR The other two beyond our ken Most shamefully deserted, And far from all the ways of men Their stealthy steps averted : Of course our Jack would go astray, Erotic and erratic ; But Mary ! well, I own the day Was really too ecstatic. We roamed with many a merry jest And many a ringing laughter ; The slow calm hours too rich in zest To heed before and after : Yet lingering down the lovely walks Soft strains anon came stealing, A finer music through our talks Of sweeter, deeper feeling : Yes, now and then a quiet word Of seriousness dissembling In smiles would touch some hidden chord And set it all a-trembling : I trembled too, and felt it strange ; Could I be in possession Of music richer in its range Than yet had found expression ? The cattle standing in the mere, The swans upon it gliding, The sunlight on the waters clear, The radiant clouds dividing ; AT BELVOIR 225 The solemn sapphire sky above, The foliage lightly waving, The soft air's Sabbath peace and love To satisfy all craving. We mapped the whole fair region out As Country of the Tender, From first pursuit in fear and doubt To final glad surrender : Each knoll and arbour got its name, Each vista, covert, dingle ; No young pair now may track the same And long continue single ! And in the spot most thrilling-sweet Of all this Love-Realm rosy Our truant pair had found retreat, Unblushing, calm and cosy : Where seats too wide for one are placed, And yet for two but narrow, It's " Let my arm steal round your waist, And be my winsome marrow ! " Reclining on a pleasant lea Such tender scenes rehearsing, A freakish fit seized him and me For wildly foolish versing : We versed of this, we versed of that, A pair of mocking sinners, While our lost couple strayed or sat Oblivious of their dinners. 226 AT BELVOIR But what was strange, our maddest rhymes In all their divagations Were charged and over-charged at times With deep vaticinations : I yearn with wonder at the power Of Poetry prophetic Which in my soul made that blithe hour With this hour sympathetic. For though we are in winter now, My heart is in full summer : Old Year, old Wish, have made their bow ; I welcome each new-comer. "The King is dead, long live the King The throne is vacant never ! " Is true, I read, of everything, So of my heart for ever ! My thoughts go on to next July, More happy thoughts, more tender ; "The bridal of the earth and sky," A day of perfect splendour ; A day to make the saddest heart In bliss a firm believer ; When two True Loves may roam apart The shadiest walks of Belvoir. There may be less of merry jest And less of ringing laughter, Yet life be much more rich in zest And richer still thereafter ; AT BELVOIR 227 The love-scenes of that region fair Have very real rehearsing, And tremulous kisses thrill the air Far sweetlier than sweet versing ; The bud full blown at length reveal Its deepest golden burning ; The heart inspired with love unseal Its inmost passionate yearning : The music of the hidden chord At length find full expression ; The Seraph of the Flaming Sword Assume divine possession. January 1882. POLYCRATES ON WATERLOO BRIDGE LET no mortals dare to be Happier in their lives than we : Thus the jealous gods decree. This decree was never heard, Never by their lips averred, Yet on high stands registered. I have read it, and I fear All the gods above, my Dear, All must envy us two here. Let us, then, propitiate These proud satraps of sole Fate ; Our hearts' wealth is all too great Say, what rich and cherished thing Can I to the river fling As a solemn offering ? POLYCRATES ON WATERLOO BRIDGE 229 O beloved Meerschaum Pipe, Whose pink bloom would soon be ripe, Must thou be the chosen type ? Cloud-compeller ! Foam o' the Sea, Whence rose Venus fair and free On some poet's reverie ! In the sumptuous silken-lined Case where thou hast lain enshrined Thou must now a coffin find ! And, to drag thee surely down, Lo ! I tie my last half-crown : We shall have to walk through town. Penny toll is paid, and thus All the bridge is free to us ; But no cab, nor even a 'bus ! Far I fling thee through the gloom ; Sink into the watery tomb, O thou consecrate to Doom ! May no sharp police, while they track Spoils thrown after some great " crack," Ever, ever bring thee back 1 230 POLYCRATES ON WATERLOO BRIDGE No mudlarkers, who explore Every ebb the filthy floor, Bring thee to the day once more ! No sleek cook I spare the wish ; Dead dogs, cats, and suchlike fish, Surely are not yet a dish ? . . Gods ! the dearest, as I wis, Of my treasures offered is ; Pardon us our heavenly bliss ! What Voice murmurs full of spleen ? Not that Pipe, but Ssss ! how mean All the gods have ever been ! 1865. DAY VVTAKING one morning * In a pleasant land, By a river flowing Over golden sand : Whence flow ye, waters, O'er your golden sand ? We come flowing From the Silent Land. Whither flow ye, waters, O'er your golden sand ? We go flowing To the Silent Land. And what is this fair realm? A grain of golden sand In the great darkness Of the Silent Land. 1866. SJI H NIGHT E cried out through the night "Where is the light? Shall nevermore Open Heaven's door? Oh, I am left Lonely, bereft ! " He cried out through the night : It spread vaguely white, With its ghost of a moon Above the dark swoon Of the earth lying chill, Breathless, grave still. He cried out through the night : His voice in its might Rang forth far and far, And then like a star Dwindled from sense In the Immense. 233 NIGHT 233 He cried out through the night No answering light, No syllabled sound ; Beneath and around A long shuddering thrill Then all again still. 1864 VIRTUE AND VICE SHE was so good, and be was so bad : A very pretty time they had ! A pretty time and it lasted long ; Which of die two was mote in the wrong ? He befouled in the slough of sin ; Or she whose piety pushed him in ? He found her yet more cold and staid As wedded wife than courted maid: She filled their home with freezing gloom ; He felt it di*""l as a tomb : Her steadfast mind disdained his toys Of worldly pleasures, carnal joys ; Her heart firm-set on things above Was frigid to his earthly love. So he came staggering home at night, Where she sat chilling, chaste, and white : She smiled a scornful virtuous smile, He flung good books with curses vile. Fresh with the early morn she rose, While he yet lay in a feverish doze : M VIRTUE AND VICE 235 She prayed for blessings from the Throne, He called for "a hair of the dog* with a groan : She blessed God for her strength to bear The heavy load, he 'gan to swear : She sighed, Would Heaven, ere yet too late, Bring him to see his awful state ! The charity thus sweetly pressed Made him rage like one possessed. So she grew holier day by day. While he grew all the other way. She left him : she had done her part To wean from sin his sinful heart, But all in vain ; her presence might Make him a murderer some mad night. Her family took her back, pure saint, Serene in soul, above complaint : The narrow path she strictly trod, And went in triumph home to God : While he into the Union fell, Our halfway bouse on the road to Hell. With which would you rather pass your life, The wicked husband or saintly wife? 1865. WHAT precious thing are you making fast In all these silken lines ? And where and to whom will it go at last ? Such subtle knots and twines ! I am tying up all my love in this, With all its hopes and fears, With all its anguish and all its bliss, And its hours as heavy as years. I am going to send it afar, afar, To I know not where above ; To that sphere beyond the highest star Where dwells the soul of my Love. But in vain, in vain, would I make it fast With countless subtle twines ; For ever its fire breaks out at last, And shrivels all the lines. 336 ART 237 II. If you have a carrier-dove That can fly over land and sea ; And a message for your Love, "Lady, f love but thee!" And this dove will never stir But straight from her to you, And straight from you to her, As you know and she knows too. Will you first ensure, O sage, Your dove that never tires With your message in a cage, Though a cage of golden wires ? Or will you fling your dove : " Fly, darling, without rest, Over land and sea to my Love, And fold your wings in her breast"? ill. Singing is sweet ; but be sure of this, Lips only sing when they cannot kiss. Did he ever suspire a tender lay While her presence took his breath away ? 238 ART Had his fingers been able to toy with her hair Would they then have written the verses fair ? Had she let his arm steal round her waist Would the lovely portrait yet be traced ? Since he could not embrace it flushed and warm, He has carved in stone the perfect form. Who gives the fine report of the feast ? He who got none and enjoyed it least. Were the wine really slipping down his throat Would his song of the wine advance a note ? Will you puff out the music that sways the whirl, Or dance and make love with a pretty girl ? Who shall the great battle-story write ? Not the hero down in the thick of the fight. Statues and pictures and verse may be grand, But they are not the Life for which they stand. 1865. PHILOSOPHY HIS eyes found nothing beautiful and bright, Nor wealth nor honour, glory nor delight, Which he could grasp and keep with might and right Flowers bloomed for maidens, swords outflashed for boys, The world's big children had their various toys ; He could not feel their sorrows and their joys. Hills held a secret they would not unfold, In careless scorn of him the ocean rolled, The stars were alien splendours high and cold. He felt himself a king bereft of crown, Defrauded from his birthright of renown, Bred up in littleness with churl and clown. n. How could he vindicate himself? His eyes, That found not anywhere their proper prire, Looked through and through the specious earth and skies. "39 240 PHILOSOPHY They probed, and all things yielded to their probe ; They saw the void around the massy globe, The raging fire within its flowery robe. They pierced through beauty ; saw the bones, the mesh Of nerves and veins, the hideous raw red flesh, Beneath the skin most delicate and fresh : Saw Space a mist unfurled around the steep Where plunge Time's waters to the blackest deep ; Saw Life a dream in Death's eternal sleep. ill. A certain fair form came before his sight, Responding to him as the day to night : To yearning, love ; to cold and gloom, warm light. A hope sprang from his breast, and fluttered far On rainbow wings ; beyond the cloudy bar, Though very much beneath the nearest star. His eyes drew back their beams to kindle fire In his own heart ; whose masterful desire Scorned all beyond its aim, lower or higher. This fire flung lustre upon grace and bloom, Gave warmth and brightness to a little room, Burned Thought to ashes in its fight with gloom. PHILOSOPHY 241 IV. He said : Those eyes alone see well that view Life's lovely surfaces of form and hue ; And not Death's entrails, looking through and through. Bones, nerves and veins, and flesh are covered in By this opaque transparency of skin, Precisely that we should not see within. The corpse is hid, that Death may work its vile Corruption in black secrecy ; the while Our saddest graves with grass and fair flowers smile. If you will analyse the bread you eat, The water and the wine most pure and sweet, Your stomach soon must loathe all drink and meat. Life liveth but in Life, and doth not roam To other realms if all be well at home : " Solid as ocean-foam," quoth ocean-foam. If Midge will pine and curse its hours away Because Midge is not Everything For-aye, Poor Midge thus loses its one summer day ; Loses its all and winneth what, I pray ? 1866. LIFE'S HEBE IN the early morning-shine Of a certain day divine, I beheld a Maiden stand With a pitcher in her hand ; Whence she poured into a cup Until it was half filled up Nectar that was golden light In the cup of crystal bright And the first who took the cup With pure water filled it up ; As he drank then, it was more Ruddy golden than before ; And he leapt and danced and sang As to Bacchic cymbals' clang. But the next who took the cup With the red wine filled it up ; What he drank then was in hue Of a heavy sombre blue : First he reeled and then he crept, Then lay faint but never slept. LIFE'S HEBE 243 And the next who took the cup With the white milk filled it up ; What he drank at first seemed blood, Then turned thick and brown as rnud : And he moved away as slow As a weary ox may go. But the next who took the cup With sweet honey filled it up ; Nathless that which he did drink Was thin fluid black as ink : As he went he stumbled soon, And lay still in deathlike swoon. She the while without a word Unto all the cup preferred : Blandly smiled and sweetly laughed As each mingled his own draught. And the 1 next who took the cup To the sunshine held it up, Gave it back and did not taste ; It was empty when replaced : First he bowed a reverent bow, Then he kissed her on the brow. But the next who took the cup Without mixture drank it up ; When she took it back from him It was full unto the brim : He with a right bold embrace Kissed her sweet lips face to face, 244 LIFE'S HEBE Then she sang with blithest cheer : Who has thirst, come here, come here ! Nectar that is golden light In the cup of crystal bright, Nectar that is sunny fire Warm as warmest heart's desire : Pitcher never lacketh more, Arm is never tired to pour ! Honey, water, milk or wine Mingle with the draught divine, Drink it pure, or drink it not ; Each is free to choose his lot : Am I old ? or am I cold ? Only two have kissed me bold ! She was young and fair and gay As that young and glorious day. 1866. WILLIAM BLAKE HE came to the desert of London town Grey miles long ; He wandered up and he wandered down, Singing a quiet song. He came to the desert of London town, Mirk miles broad ; He wandered up and he wandered down, Ever alone with God. There were thousands and thousands of human kind In this desert of brick and stone : But some were deaf and some were blind, And he was there alone. At length the good hour came ; he died As he had lived, alone : He was not missed from the desert wide, Perhaps he was found at the Throne. 1866. H ROBERT BURNS 'E felt scant need Of church or creed, He took small share In saintly prayer, His eyes found food for his love ; He could pity poor devils condemned to hell, But sadly neglected endeavours to dwell With the angels in luck above : To save one's precious peculiar soul He never could understand is the whole Of a mortal's business in life, While all about him his human kin With loving and hating and virtue and sin Reel overmatched in the strife. "The heavens for the heavens, and the earth for the earth ! I am a Man I'll be true to my birth Man in my joys, in my pains." So fearless, stalwart, erect and free, He gave to his fellows right royally His strength, his heart, his brains ; 246 ROBERT BURNS 24? For proud and fiery and swift and bold Wine of life from heart of gold, The blood of his heathen manhood rolled Full-billowed through his veins. 1859. E. B. B. THE white-rose garland at her feet, The crown of laurel at her head, Her noble life on earth complete, Lay her in the last low bed For the slumber calm and deep : " He giveth His beloved sleep." Soldiers find their fittest grave In the field whereon they died : So her spirit pure and brave Leaves the clay it glorified To the land for which she fought With such grand impassioned thought Keats and Shelley sleep at Rome, She in well-loved Tuscan earth : Finding all their death's long home Far from their old home of birth, Italy you hold in trust Very sacred English dust. E. B. B. 249 Therefore this one prayer I breathe, That you yet may worthy prove Of the heirlooms they bequeath Who have loved you with such love : Fairest land while land of slaves Yields their free souls no fit graves. 1861. THE FIRE THAT FILLED MY HEART OF OLD i. THE fire that filled my heart of old Gave lustre while it burned ; Now only ashes grey and cold Are in its silence urned. Ah ! better was the furious flame, The splendour with the smart : I never cared for the singer's fame, But, oh ! for the singer's heart Once more The burning fulgent heart ! II. No love, no hate, no hope, no fear, No anguish and no mirth ; Thus life extends from year to year, A flat of sullen dearth. THE FIRE THAT FILLED MY HEART 251 Ah ! life's blood creepeth cold and tame, Life's thought plays no new part : I never cared for the singer's fame, But oh ! for the singer's heart Once more The bleeding passionate heart 1864. SONG ""THE Nightingale was not yet heard, - For the Rose was not yet blown." * His heart was quiet as a bird Asleep in the night alone, And never were its pulses stirred To breathe or joy or moan : The Nightingale was not yet heard For the Rose was not yet blown. Then She bloomed forth before his sight In passion and in power, And filled the very day with light, So glorious was her dower ; And made the whole vast moonlit night As fragrant as a bower : The young, the beautiful, the bright, The splendid peerless Flower. * " Traveller in Persia " (Mr. Binning) ; cited by Mr. FitzGerald in the notes to bis translation of Omar Khayyam. SONG 253 Whereon his heart was like a bird When Summer mounts his throne, And all its pulses thrilled and stirred To songs of joy and moan, To every most impassioned word And most impassioned tone ; The Nightingale at length was heard For the Rose at length was blown. February 1877. A REQUIEM '""PHOU hast lived in pain and woe, A Thou hast lived in grief and fear ; Now thine heart can dread no blow, Now thine eyes can shed no tear : Storms round us shall beat and rave ; Thou art sheltered in the grave. Thou for long, long years hast borne, Bleeding through Life's wilderness, Heavy loss and wounding scorn ; Now thine heart is burdenless : Vainly rest for ours we crave ; Thine is quiet in the grave. We must toil with pain and care, We must front tremendous Fate, We must fight with dark Despair ; Thou dost dwell in solemn state, Couched triumphant, calm and brave, In the ever-holy grave. 1858. A SONG OF SIGHING YVTOULD some little joy to-day W Visit us, heart ! Could it but a moment stay, Then depart, With the flutter of its wings Stirring sense of brighter things. II. Like a butterfly astray In a dark room ; Telling : Outside there is day, Sweet flowers bloom, Birds are singing, trees are green Runnels ripple silver sheen. in. Heart ! we now have been so long Sad without change, Shut in deep from shine and song Nor can range ; It would do us good to know That the world is not all woe. 256 A SONG OF SIGHING IV. Would some little joy to-day Visit us, heart ! 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