t"- •■ ■■ ............. . } THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES *~\ I REHEARSALS REHEARSALS & goofe of Verses By JOHN LEICESTER WARREN AUTHOR OF ' PHII.OCTETES* A STRAHAN & CO., PUBLISHERS 56 LUDGATE HILL, LONDON 1870 JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PPINTERS. 4&o 6*6 CONTENTS. JOAN OF ARC MISREPRESENTATION HOW IT ENDS PANDORA . A HEBREW LAMENT AFTER DEFEAT AN ODE DAPHNE ' MAGA CIRCE ' AN EXPOSTULATION THE KNIGHT IN THE WOOD JOHN ANDERSON'S ANSWER REGRET MACHIAVEL IN MINIMIS PAGE I 17 18 21 47 53 53 63 67 76 78 81 86 VI CONTENTS. THE SOLDIER'S RETURN THE SPEAR-HEAD A LAMENT MUTATION FREEDOM OR FETTERS? ACQUIESCENCE A HEATHEN TO HIS IDOL. PART A HEATHEN TO HIS IDOL. PART THE STRANGE PARABLE A LAMENT FOR ADONIS NIMROD ZEUS .... A HYMN TO THE SUN THE DEATH OF HERACLES . THE FALL OF THE TITANS . THE SIREN TO ULYSSES THE CHILDREN OF THE GODS A LEAVE-TAKING HE MAY WHO CAN THE PRODIGAL A FROSTY DAY II. CONTENTS. VII THE POWER OF INTERVAL A SUNRISE EFFECT . DAFFODILS A FUTURE BE WISE IN TIME AT EVENING . THE NYMPH'S PROTEST ODE TO PAN . THE COUNT OF SENLIS AT HIS TOILET IN ARCADIA .... PAGE 192 193 194 195 I96 I98 '99 206 214 JOAN OF ARC. If I prevail shall any might be mine? Lord of all conflict, is not glory thine ? I'll get me very humbly and kneel down, And doff my myrtle chaplet at thy shrine. I am but fit to graze a few poor sheep : My office once, ere Mary on my sleep Grew in a vision reaching out a crown ; And fed my soul with dream-delight so deep, That not full morning with her solemn breeze Could that sweet voice unsweeten, or make cease. God's love it seemed to melt the mountains round, And wings of angels rustled in the trees. B 2 JOAN OF ARC. O voice eternal, glory of my dream, Blended with every wave of languid stream, Mingling with bleat of mother-ewes thy sound, Or whispered far as sunset's radiant seam. Voice, in the pine boughs beaten of great hail, Voice, in the wrestle of the wind-mill sail, In the jay's bicker from his mountain ground, Or in the sun-gilt insect's feeble wail, — I knew thee loud or gentle, far or near, On thee I brooded day and month and year ; Till the poor herd-girl became glorified Like an old saint with God's voice at his ear. ' What can have crazed you, girl?' my sire would say. ' What gives your eyes that bright and earnest ray ? ' For I indeed was strangely beautified, Seeing I spake with Mary every day. JOAN OF ARC. ' These are weak maiden dreamings, you shall wed And clear these bubble fancies from your head. O, but believe me, girls are often so, And wives no worse, when all these whims are fled.' The village mothers came with nod and smile ; Indeed, good souls, they vext me with no guile, To whisper, ' Where did that last vision go ? Girl, get you wed ; you wait too long a while.' O, but this human love I laid it by Without one tear. The chosen maid, should I Weep for a little sweet much flecked with stain, Or hold brief earth's fruition worth a sicrh ? *&* I heard discordant voices loud in hate Between two village lovers wedded late ; Never shall these go hand in hand again ; May shall return, but not their old estate. 4 JOAN OF ARC. Love ! What was love to me, when lordly France Lay desolate as one in mortal trance ; Beautiful mother, how for dead she lay ; And, when the alien rider with his lance Pierced her bright helpless bosom, as she slept, She only moaned a little while, and kept Her eyelids calm in sleep. But wailing they, Her daughters fainted, as they watched and wept. The vine lay broken in its time of flower, The gray dry field had lost her harvest power ; Darkness prevailed, and cloud of blood-red flame, Heads full of languor, all hearts beating slower. The shadow of thy death lay full on me, Who in thy travail dared to comfort thee ; Surely thy wail was mighty ; but none came Except the peasant girl of Domremi. JOAN OF ARC. J They fled, the lordly captains of thy pfide, Who sat at wine with thee in thy good tide. Each splendid warrior left thee, clothed in beams, "Who smiled so grandly, at his lady's side Disdaining fear, and trifling her white hand. They saved thee none, these proud ones, O my land. They jested at the inn-maid, and her dreams ; How is their valour fallen away like sand ! Thence is my glory travail to these lords ; My myrtle sweetens up in light ; their words Are wind, their boasting laughter ; so that these Would joy to bind me round with prison cords, And sell me to the alien. But God's eyes Save me and search unsleeping their device. So in the midst of death I take full ease, And let them vex their hate with devil lies. 6 JOAN OF ARC. In truce, they pass me with averted head Or whispered sneer ; but, as the fight grows red, Be thou my witness, Mary mine, how these Creep to the shadow of my sword in dread, Crying, ' O maid, our wretched soldiers flee, Rally and lead them up. In all but thee Our hope is broken, and fair France will cease Out from the kingdoms perished utterly ! ' God knows, the trampled war with furnace breath Seemed meadowy silence set with elms, beneath Warmed of slow breezes, when some vision stood Before my steed flashing the pale Christ's death. Or sudden blue eyes of the virgin's face Grew on the ramparts in the storming place, And smiled me up past iron men and blood ; How easy then to win the breach ! Her gaze JOAN OF ARC. And sweet mild voice among the ringing swords Came only to her maid in gracious words. Sustained of such high comfort could I yield To some poor brutish soldier ; whose rough lords Haled him from wine-cups and worse revellings To be my triumph ; whom the yellow wings Of angels shaded in dry autumn field ; And unseen fingers at my armour strings Continually lightened the strange toil And chafe of morion, with sweet holy oil Bathing my maiden brows ; so I rode on Greatly rejoicing ; tho' the cracked white soil Lay sick and gaping in fierce steamy light, And the glare seethed the hollow land like blight, And all fair leaf was poisoned for much sun ; I, onwards riding, knew not for delight. JOAN OF ARC. Since on my lips some pure stream never dry Came with remembrance of moist herbs thereby. With scent of bays that trail leaves in its run, And gray shelves dripping on continually. By Mary's aid I rode with keen sweet air. Where the lark fainted up in heaven for glare, Where my steed trod to sulphur-dust the ground Of burning pastures paler than despair. Yet. God he knows, the flesh itself was weak, And how for ruth my handmaids could not speak. If, easing off at night my helm, they found The eating iron dints on brow and cheek ; They wept ; mere girls and foolish rose-red flowers Whose blind brief loves made worship for their hours. Fit to trill little songs about a rose, Or trim "their raiment up in latticed bowers, JOAX OF ARC. And cackle, and lean hea d me boy Mincing along in - mite, curled and bright — ■ lord, I never set my heart with the~r. Who yearn to taste ere death the bride's delight Sweet is the trouble of the child; and sweet To guide the baby hand and feeble fe The fair light softens in a mother 5 eyes To cherish on her breast its helpless heat I held love cheaper than the patient dead ; Lonely I followed where thy visions le : . Xor made God we k looks ar. Is - But went with glea m ing eve an:. tread. As momir.- [gre :: gc Id from rost As a gale fresh with orchard - .ce blov. - As crgan-waftings thro' some minster door, Thy . _ and thy breath in my rep IO JOAN OF ARC. Whispered, ' Arise in armour,' and right fain, As some king treads the vintage of the slain, I went alone, and on the wine-press floor My maiden feet were red with onset stain. As some high captain clad in battle gear Leaning at even on his deadly spear, I, the mere maiden of an inn before, Grew great to shatter kingdoms with my fear. Therefore I said, thou art low, but God most great, Mighty to bruise down strong ones in their state, Calls from her flocks some mean and simple maid, And breathes into her arm a Titan weight. Is not all strength his doing and his own ? Even the glorious seraphs near his throne, If God forgot to strengthen them, would fade Abolished, in their place no longer known. JOAN OF ARC. I I He feeds them with his face and they are bright. He turns him and they perish. In his sight The ancient stars are glad : the sun arrayed To burn along the pathway of his might. He shall remember and forget not one. He binds into its orbit many a sun ; Allows the daisy fringes vernal red, And folds away the flower when day is done. He binds the broken weed up with his balm. The sons of pride are crushed beneath his arm. The iron hills are melted at his tread, But on the worm his shower and light are warm. Thou royal of my land without a throne, France, O sweet mother, cheated from thine own, Betrayed of laggard sons, who groaned outworn, ' God's anger smites our cities one by one ; ' 12 JOAN OF ARC. ' Therefore hang up thy spear and give him way. Who may resist his vengeance for a day ? His fury will not falter, tho' we mourn ; If we go out against him he will slay.' Who gave his incense up to God for thee ? God answered no great abbot on his knee. Such voices found a shepherd maid at morn Down in the pleasant fields at Domremi. So once as strangely had God's might appeared. Hill fronting hill the rival camps lay reared. Who slew Gath's Titan save a shepherd boy, While strong Saul kept his tent and Israel feared ? So I, God aiding, of no might my own Have trampled this invading giant down, And set my heel upon him to destroy, As some great angel bruises the snake's crown. JOAN OF ARC. 13 O great King, fair and noble, my poor hand Could lead thee to thy crowning and command. ' March on, my lord ; the God we glory in Will lead us scathless thro' a hostile land.' How dumb the armies lay on either side. No clarion blew or banner floated wide ; Their limbs dissolved beneath them, tranced in sin, They saw the terrible God, whom they defied, Lead thro' their ranks his chosen void of fear. They rose ; their trembling hands refused the spear. No sound of fight assailed our sacred band. No arrow flew against us. God was near. So, as in golden silences of dreams, We journeyed onwards by the happy streams, By blue small hills like flowers about the land, Till in the distance, lo, the gates of Rheims. 14 JOAN OF ARC. Then we rode in thro' lanes of beaming eyes, O'er roses strewn like sea-plains at sunrise, Under gay windows rocking with acclaim, Till the cathedral, keen on crisp gray skies, Uprose in many pinnacles before Our yearning eyes ; wide lay each monster door Set with stone saint-guards ; under these we came On cooler air, and dim great burnished floor ; Vast column'd spaces full of sound and blaze ; The pealing organ and the incense haze ; The concourse surging, as when shafted flame Smites down among the restless ocean-ways. There in the midst I set him throned in light Ruler indeed of nations. On his right I stood in full steel clothed, and over me Displayed the sacred ensign ; where God's might JOAN OF ARC. Easily held the islands in his palm, The rounded heaven, the long light ocean-calm, Yea, as babe-fingers hold a ball, so he. And all the banner edge was bloom of warm And dove-bright lilies pure as Heaven's own — Then I reached out and laid on him his crown, Shed oil, and gave him orb and sceptre-wand, Regent of God, whom none should trample down. Then all my soul was bathed in large delight ; Kneeling to clasp his knees, my sense and sight Failed in a rush of triumph pure and grand, Among the hymns, the incense, and the light. My consummation this. I should have died. Earth gives no more till Heaven's gate open wide. I have lived and done my joy, content to cease, And ease me from the armour of my pride. 1 6 JOAN OF ARC. I will return, resuming ancient days, To those few sheep along the mountain ways. My very soul is hungry after peace : Resume, O Lord, thy sword, accept my bays. Note. The return of Joan from Rheims in July, 1429, is taken as the period of this sketch, since it seems the acme of her success, before her self- faith had been shaken by reverses and captivity. i7 MISREPRESENTATION. Peace, there is nothing more for men to speak ; A larger wisdom than our lips' decrees. Of that dumb mouth no longer reason seek. No censure reaches that eternal peace, And that immortal ease. Believe them not that would disturb the end With earth's invidious comment, idly meant. Speak and have done thine evil ; for my friend Is gone beyond all human discontent, And wisely went. Say what you will and have your sneer and go. You see the specks, we only heed the fruit Of a great life, whose truth — men hate truth so— No lukewarm age of compromise could suit. Laugh and be mute ! i8 HOW IT ENDS. Take off thy hands, leave me and let us end. Peace, we have done our pastime ; why contend ? But, if thou wilt, bemoan love's altered power, Cover thy eyes and have thy weeping hour. Love cannot turn the stars, or loose their bands. Take off thy hands. How dead he lies our smiling mock of love, With all the lies he spake, the tales he wove : How beautiful his fallen lustre seemed ; Ah, we wake now, but surely then we dreamed, That there was nothing fair on sea or land As Love's light hand. HOW IT ENDS. 19 He will not rise, so heavy is his ear : He will not waken, tho' thou rouse him near : Shall his eyes smile, tho' thou make bright thine own, Shall his pulse falter to thy voice alone ? Shall he resume old empire at command ? Loose, loose thy hand. Nay, for a little, poor and little hour, Soft were his lips, his breathing like a flower, Whose petals breathe incense as to a song. But this, ah, this is changed so very long. Since who can tell the wind and show his way To-morrow say. Let him depart, have ending, sleep or die, Crown him with flowers or ashes, how care I ? Languish in chains or free abound in praise, To us at least until the end of days He comes not, when the flower is in the sod And spring is God. 20 HOW IT ENDS. Live in thy peace : remove me from thy thought. Live to thyself or be by lover sought, Try our old ways of loving in new eyes, Bring to the glare old grace of secret sighs, Clothe thee with love, but leave me in my rest Of all things best. Why should I break my slumber to revile Love, if thine lay no deeper than thy smile ? Shall I abase my soul at thy sweet call ? Thou art a weak girl only after all. Peace and repose are all that I demand. Release thy hand. 21 PANDORA A DIALOGUE. Prometheus. Epimetheus. Pandora. Epimetheus. Peace, in the bright courts of the tyrant, peace ! Rest, for the sweet world slain beneath his frown ! The strange sound deepens, peace ! our war is done. Strangely hath Zeus remembered mercy now. The prince god folds away his deadly shafts. The strong one moves his arrow from its string, Softens his stern lip-corners to a smile, And reaches out, as friend with friend, his hand Grown tired with hurling down perpetual death. Evil indeed that battle where none win. Weary is he and weary am I of war ; He, the unwearied, hungers for his rest. 2 2 PANDORA. If neither race prevail, as neither may, It is an idle thing with lidless eyes To watch each other, each bereaved of calm. We can disturb his ease, he ruin ours, And still no truce, no interval, no respite. Rejoice, if now be done these bitter ways ; Break into song and take hereafter ease. Smile, O thou warrior Titan, smile at last To find love fairer than perpetual fear. Behold, what love I bring thee, clear as air, Strange as a dream, soft as a mountain down, And moulded as the pauses of a song ; Even such a gracious thing and excellent I found this woman, in the shining lands Beyond the meadow parcels of blown seed, Languid as one from slumber newly come, And still her eyes had soft desire of sleep. In wonder I beheld and made no word, Till of herself she moved her lips to sound ; ' Thus to the Titan saith the lord of clouds, PANDORA. 23 race, unwearied, full of war and toil, Fate is more strong than your contentious arms. Ye hate, shall hatred then unsceptre Zeus, Or anger empty any throne in heaven ? 1 fear you not and yet ye weary me : That our old strife may therefore merge and die, I send this woman for a marriage gift. Let her accomplish peace for me with thine, Prometheus : be content : I have forgiven. Thine old rebellions I have put away, And my reward outweighs the harm I gave thee. Shall not her love efface the thunder scars, Wherewith I drave thee backward from my realm ? ' Therefore I joying led her to thy face, Here where the red cliff fronts the flats of sand, And short salt grasses cease in mountain sedge. Prometheus. Art sister to the race of sleep and dust, Or goddess scorning kinship with the dead ? 24 PANDORA. Pandora. The ruler sends me as his daughter down To kneel and touch thy strong hand with meek lips, His daughter and his gift, saying, be friends, Take her and love her, Titan, but forgive. Prometheus. Is Zeus grown sudden-generous to his foes ? Pandora. Nay, but it irks him thro' eternal hours To hold his arrow always on the string. Prometheus. Hast thou alone, O maid, of living souls, Heard this thing speak, as men speak, word and tone ? I feel his hand is heavy indeed to slay, But he will never face me eye to brow. I should not greatly fear him, tyrant, then ; But now he lets his mischiefs speak for him. PANDORA. 25 Pandora. Zeus in my waking life I have not seen ; A swift dream brought this word, faded and went, Before thy brother's footstep snapt my sleep. From my birth-trance in wonder I arose. But of my past remembrance none remains. I know not if I lived ere this day woke ; Or in what fields I wandered other hours. Yet earth is half familiar to mine eyes ; And in my thought old broken images Mix with the present and confuse me wholly. I am as one, who, eating some strange root, Loses life-record in the taste of it. Prometheus. I praise thee nothing, brother, for thy joy. If thou hast found a marvel, to thy harm This crafty Zeus hath brought thy feet to find, And stumble on his most pernicious gift. Wiser have left it in the meadow reeds, 26 PANDORA. Gotten thee home again and had no heed. Doth Zeus repent and love us, O unwise ? Shall we not rather weary out the -.-.tars. Eons and eons with this feud of ours. Wrinkles will creep on the eternal sun. And all large hills be vallied in waste seas, Ere one prevail ? Conquest alone is Peace. And now, forsooth, he overflows with gifts. Much careth he, the crafty, how I wed. Nay, this is some delusion of his own To work me death : this thing being wonderful, Specious, a fair trap to hold bound men's eyes ; Since she is smooth and pleasant as a wave, Fresh as a sea-flower, polished as its sea ; With a sweet subtle sadness haunting her, And ruling all her beauty with a calm That is the crown of beauty ; being fair, As the gods give their daughters to be fair, Still grace divine disdaining much to weep And far above all laughter. Such an one PANDORA. 27 As this beholding the fool human heart Leaps greatly, is suffused with blind delight, As tho' it stumbled on some mighty good Entreated long of the deaf gods in prayer. But this soft creature with her gracious ways And warmth and perfume and light fugitive glances, Whence is her birth, my brother, whence her charm ? Who wove the amber light into her hair, Who gave her all the changes of her eyes ? Who framed the treasures of her breast, and carved The balmy marvel of her throat, whose hand Fashioned the silver curving shoulder down ? Who clothed her limbs with colour like soft fruit, Who wrought and rounded her swift gleaming feet ? Come, let us reason this, desire is blind, And brief is love that follows of desire ; • Yea, very brief, but often at the end Treason and fire and poison, death and harm. Titans are we, not wholly gods, but more Than gods in this, if we possess our souls. 28 PANDORA. Why should we hanker after her sweet hands ? Let her be lovelier than the birth of light, Why should the incense of her presence move The soul-engirded Titan from resolve To have no dealing with the false arch-god, But to let always the clear flame of hate Burn steadily between his house and ours ? Can Zeus being evil give good gifts at all ? Can he renounce his nature in an hour ? Can he be piteous even to harmless men, And these have done no insult to his throne ? But we the Titan seed alone endure, And quail not, when he thunders in a* world Where all things else are chained beneath his feet. We toss defiance to his arrogant face, While all sweet nature grovels at his heel. Us he detests, us he abhors, us fears : Wilt thou have gift of such, for I will none ? Pandora. Cruel art thou, Prometheus, being wise PANDORA. 2 9 And yet not greatly cunning after all. Art thou no match for one weak girl that weeps, Thou Titan that would mate thyself with Zeus ? Tears are my wisdom, and my speech alone To kneel and put my cheek against thy hand, And weep a little over it and say, ' Fear me, my King, for I am terrible.' I, utterly broken, weaker than a weed, Am God's strong vengeance whom these Titans fear. She is worth trembling at, this girl that weeps, And awful, being melted into tears, Sighing she threatens and entreating slays : Zeus and his fire then fear not, but fear me. Woe, then, to the arch-god's crown, wail for his throne ; How shall his ruling comfort him at all ? Doth he not vainly build pavilion clouds, And bind sweet crisping heaven beneath his feet, That he tread firm and warmly in his realms ; And when these Titans scorn and spit at him, Can he invent no vengeance but a girl ? ■jo PANDORA. Thou sayest this Zeus is evil, let him be ; How should a woman reason of the gods ? Yet are they fierce and strange and sullen lords, As thy word goes ; they faint not, neither weep ; Shall they repent, be broken, bow them down ? Surely they shall not falter or remove, Tho' they rule blind and stay themselves on fear. Revile them ; what have I to do with these ? Heal thou my tears ; I care not how they rule. I only know that I am desolate, Since thou dost turn away thy gracious eyes In anger, saying, ' This woman means me death.' Excellent Titan, O great king, my light, To whom my nature blindly feels for aid, Hath not some fateful power supreme and strange Impelled me to thy presence, laid mine arms With feeble claspings at thy mighty knees, Saying, ' Behold thy king, adore him then Lord of thy service, master of thy days.' Do then my trembling arms and suppliant hands, PANDORA. 3 1 My lids unlifted, my short eager breath, Do these resemble Death and Vengeance so, That thou must push me off and stride away ? Thy hard eyes reason on each tear I shed ; With wise incurious musings, careless cold, Gloating on me unbeautified in pain, Thou weighest all my movements of despair. Lo, one word spoken and my lips are mute ; I, that am held this subtle poison plague, This utmost curse, born of thy tyrant's hate, I even, I, strewn in this dust, demand ; Doth the vine, feeling for her elm to raise Her frail limp garland-branch and pendant rings, Mean any death to that which is her stay ? On whom her feeble arms may lean and thrive, Since lonely and without him die she must ? Ah, such a death, ah, such a loving curse Would I be round thee, my great elm, my king ; Ah, such a trouble my warm arms, such fear My love, such hate my kisses. Let Zeus be ; 2,2 PANDORA. Can he turn my love backward if he choose, Can he command desire as babes are led ? God is*not strong against a woman's love ; And, tho' Zeus lust to crush thy race and thee, Zeus will not make me harm thee, if I love. Nature is more than any god of these. Let mercy guide thee if love may not lead. Thou art so great and wise, my puny love Would only vex thee, like an insect's wing Scarce worthy to be brushed in scorn aside. Let me remain and dream not to be loved, Where I may hear thy voice, and watch thine eyes, And the large gleams of purpose in their light ; Healer of worlds, thou godlier than all gods ; In whom the warm half mortal human heart Tempers chill ichors of Olympian veins. Leave me thy presence only ; for I faint In this sweet nature mateless and alone. The steep gray woods, the broken mountain halls Crush me with power. The lonely wave on the Cliff PANDORA. 33 Has tongue to make me tremble. The crisp cloud Rolling along shadows me like a fear. And all the old stern creations of the world, Founded for ever, lovely and most still, Oppress my soul ; till in their ageless eyes I seem to usurp in daring to live on. Yea, the large luminous unclouded Heaven Narrows about me full of voice and whisper. Let me from these gray ancient presences Creep to thy shadow and assuage my dread. Let me lie down with thy strong hunting dogs And guard the curtain-fold against thy tent ; Make me thy slave, no more ; almost thy hound. Employ me in some petty useful way, To watch thee sleeping and draw panther skins Warm to thy shoulder; as soft equal night Alters to chill touched by sweet scent of dawn. Or I have old-world harmonies to sing And fill thy wakeful eyes with folded sleep ; But in keen day, when thy wise thought has wing, D 34 PANDORA. Vain words of mine thy musings shall not break, But I will sit and love and be most still. Epimetheus. Wisdom is much, my brother : thou art wise. But reason over-strained is folly's thrall. Can this white perfect creature, excellent, Clothed in the lovely colour of pale light, Round her the scent of rainy forest pines, With hair like soft bents full of seed and flower, Lie with her lips against her sacred form ? Most holy must she be that is so fair ; Her fresh young beauty answers for her truth. I hold thee then intolerably wise To dare make weep a thing so strangely sweet. Prove her untruth ; I am content to seem For such delicious falsehood wholly fool. If thy perfection be the mask of guile, Slay me, sweet lily ; I accept my doom. For how should I in after hours endure, PANDORA. 35 If one year's wing reveal thee as divine, As we accept thee lovely, and discern Beautiful glory in thine outward frame, If, fearing stain or ambush taint within, I roughly move thee from my path, and go A fool for ever aping wisdom ill. But, O my brother, what a shaken life Broken with lees, stained with great drbps and dust, Thou buildest to thy soul renouncing love, Scoffing at rest and spitting out at peace. And thou art ever railing on this Zeus ; Clothed round and haunted with perpetual fear, And drooping at his vengeance. Dream thy fill, Thou wakest up with Zeus ; at festival There is thy Zeus in every cup again. So now this phantom scares thee from the joy Holy and best, commended of all gods. Wilt thou refuse this glowing lovely fruit Lest Zeus should put thee poison in its rind ? I charge thee, brother, it is a fearful thing, 36 PANDORA. Worthy of endless pity and disdain, To maim thy soul with fast and pinion her In solitude for ever. Love is great, His foemen will be broken at the end, His wheels are mighty. Titan, then arise, Touch with thy hand her bright hair suppliant ; Raise her and fold around her thy great arms. Take thy delight upon her fruitful lips ; So make her nature blossom with thy love, So bind her with strong influence wholly thine, So strengthen thee at the springs of her fresh life, Till thou wax more Titanic, and expand Thy lordly nature to new stateliness ; Till thou redouble might, and scoff at fear, And the arch-father of thy fear above ; Till thou, may be, in comfortable halls, No longer roaming under icy stars, Titan, in vengeance eating down thy heart ; Or toiling on the sterile lands of storm, Knee-deep in ruins of the mountain cone, PANDORA. 37 Or tumbled fields of pine ; shalt warm at home Listen the light wail of the nurseling child, And hear the mother murmuring over it, With cradle-kisses broken, songs of sleep. And, if eternal conflict must prevail With thee and thine against the thunder-kings, Let us breed offspring, nobler yet than we, Sustaining sterner onset ; to outpass Our deed in larger prowess ; tear their thrones Away, as withered branches, out of heaven ; Efface them, and rule calmly in their seat To teach man better comfort than their reign. Prometheus. The tune of thy word is anguish in my ear, The taste of thy persuasion bitter lees ; Grievous to hear at wise lips idiot sound. Art thou too blinded of this subtle king ? Hath he brought vapour on thy soul, and cloud Against thy reason ? So some witless bird 38 PANDORA. Toys with delight among the painted weed, But overhead forgets the hawk at poise. tremble then, ye Titans, for your house : 1 hear Zeus rouse his brothers to the field, I see them smile as if they scented death, I hear the grinding of their chariot-wheels. They shall prevail, their hour is at the doors. Yea, let them go and pluck bay-garlands soon, Let glory clothe them ; they have smitten well ; Prepare thy face, O Titan, for their heels, Put down a patient neck for them to tread. Ay me, the lordly race, so proud it was, Totters before them ; scorn is rightly theirs, Since no worm turns on earth against them now. And, by my soul, this shall hereafter be, If for one shining bauble thy heart fails, If great resolve quails under eye-delight. Thy blind confusions cloud my plainest word ; Mine eyes as thine pronounce her beautiful ; Lovely she is and true perchance may be. PANDORA. But this ' perchance ' is a wide slippery word, And in its foldings there are many deaths. I will believe, a thing so pure in grace Is in herself most clean of evil mind; She knows no death in each of her sweet hands. Her could I love, if, over all, this stern Supremest hate, whose eyelids vanquish sleep, Held not its lidless watch to torture us. If this prevail, lean mercy will be ours, Exquisite hurting, and most cruel pain. Therefore who sets to cope with Zeus his face, Hath slender hours of pastime, and lays by Love that is born, as some soft flower in dreams, The season lily of a wintry spring ; Must lay love by for ever and a day, And childless gird him braver for the fight, And wage securer onset ; if each child Is a new wounding place that he must guard, A new rift in his harness to defend Against the subtle vengeance ; keen of eye ; 39 4° PANDORA. Finger on bow ; crouched snake-like ; arrows near. He too that would not bend to save himself Will crawl to save his children ; let me gain A lonely glory or a childless fall. Therefore I do refuse her fair and true, False or unfair, resign her either way. He, who has made her in his craft, may guide Her darkened eyes in roads where is no light, Nor any song, but noise of smitten breasts, Wrung hands, tear-weeping, hiss and ache of woe. Is she not then his instrument and blind ? As we could train her in all gracious ways He will mislead her simple hands to harm, She guileless all the while. O brother, fear her ; Blind are steps, her master terrible, And hungry with the famine of old hate To crush our race out in red fire and gloom. Chorus of Nymphs. A wild sweet star in amber folds of morn, PANDORA. A violet pale in fields of twisted tares ; The lovely queen Pandora, newly born, Leaving her native ether unawares And regions golden in celestial dawn, Descends refreshing nature ; as the rain In pale sward renders daisy faces plain, Earth at thy coming wakens all her rills, The fountain heads remurmur, the light wave At the vale mouth a sweeter tribute spills ; And, once sonorous under mountain cave, The many winds are dead and done away ; Or up in broken spaces of the hills Among the ravens and the tumbled crags, Some breeze goes gentle as a child at play. The lowland rapid crisp with ruffled flags, The still tarn rippled by the marten's wing, The fleet unresting waters of the sea, Are shaken in the light of daedal spring. The shadows pass away because of thee, Pandora, crown of all created things. 42 PANDORA. A large deep music gathers from the land ; The gray cliff-head, the burnished island spire Tremble in lucid haze as veins of fire. The pale waves spend their foam and push the sand, Furrow and whiten, shatter and retire. Thy loveliness is as the moon's command To sway them as she will and make them flow ; They are amazed at thy ethereal brow. The fear of thy bride-beauty, and the love That changes fear till fear grows strangely sweet, Make nature listen if thou dost but move, And thrill the meadow-grasses at thy feet. The watery saffron, gentian, bloom of light, The lilies of the moorland amber-eyed, Sigh toward thee passing ; the dew-spider weaves Weak webs to tangle thy bright steps aside, The woodbine reaches ineffectual leaves. Beautiful sister, let us come to thee ; Fear not our worship, flee not, holy one, Be thy sweet breath about us like the sea, PANDORA. 43 Be thy pure brow above us as the sun. Be to us breath and ocean, light and spring, Reward us only with thy presence, bring Thyself, and be the deity of these ; Rule us and love us, and there shall not cease, O queen, thine adoration. Let thy hands Be near us for our worship, and thy hair Unfolded for our wonder ; as the sands New washed of tide are coloured, when waves spare Some of their liquid glowing as they go To leave them bright a little. But thy brows Have bound bright heavy sunlight on their snows For a perpetual spoil. Thou dost not know The stint and fluctuation of the tide ; For thou art clothed with fair on every side ; Thou art no cloud allowed one hour to glow. Nay, for thy lord who stablished thee so sweet, Hath put all change beneath thy perfect feet, Hedged thee with honour excellent ; made Praise A- drudge to hew thee wood, and Love to watch and wait > 44 PANDORA. A slave beside a lute-string, to make thee easy ways Of sleep, when pastime-wearied, and bondman to thy state. Yea, and thine eyes shall see meek Love beside thee, And smile a little, as not over-glad, Being too royal, with no joy denied thee, Than to be otherwise than grandly sad. As the gods laugh not overmuch, indeed They laugh or weep not ; what is worth their weeping ? Sweet youth fails not beneath them like a reed, The shadow and the shine are in their keeping. The large deep flows on under them, the cloud Is strewn along their tables, and the light Is broad about them, when the wind is loud ; And the deep gates of sunset in their sight Burn with the broken day. But these maintain High state as always. Their hands reap and slay Nor render any reason. They are fain, Because their rule cannot be put away ; Because their arrows swerve not when they draw, PANDORA. 45 Because their halls are winter-proof, their hate Mighty and fat with store of death, their law Shod with the iron permanence of fate. Being cruel, they can glut their cruel will ; Wrathful, allow their wrath its utmost way ; Insatiate, can almost lust their fill ; Listless, can drowse on tinted cloud all day, Lulled by the nations wailing as they pray- Nay, let us break our song nor think on these. To thee this conflict, Titan, doth belong ; We are but weak, as ineffectual seas That roll and spill their foam-lines all day long- She is as lovely, lord, as thou art strong. To us she cometh as some strange desire ; As a bird's voice thro' silence in the night : As scent of oaken woods : or perfumed fire Floated among the pines in curling spire : The loosening of her ringlets is like light. Refresh thy lordly spirit at her lips, They shall renew thy soul with subtle power. 46 PANDORA. Turn thee, O lord, to thy desired repose ; Time hath made ripe for thee this perfect flower, And folded up her fragance like a rose. Arise and take thy joy and dream no wrong ; Who shall assail thee in thy mighty hall ? Ours let it be to sing thy nuptial song, Until some beam auroral touch the trees, And wake thy palace with an ouzel's call ; And in sweet hush the perfumed wing of morn Arrive on amber cloud and shaken breeze. 47 A HEBREW LAMENT AFTER DEFEAT Thou hast thrust us away to a corner As refuse beneath. Thou hast given our cheek to the scorner, And broken our teeth. Thou hast hired us to death without wages, Because of our sins. Thou hast fastened our feet into cages, And trapped them in gins. Thou hast shattered the joints of our harness And loosened our greaves. Thou hast made us light dross in the furnace, Gray blight in the leaves. 48 A HEBREW LAMENT AFTER DEFEAT. Thou hast altered our marvellous places To pasture for cranes. Thou hast broken the flesh of our faces With leprosy stains. Thou hast wrought us reproof with thine arrow, Dismay with thy spear. Thou hast probed all our bones to the marrow, And slain us with fear. The rebuke of thy wasting is grievous As death on our tribe. Our glory and excellence leave us ; Fools mutter and gibe. The beam of our sun's way is broken ; Our moon bows her head. In the core of our sunset thy token Is darkness for red. A HEBREW LAMENT AFTER DEFEAT. 49 To the field we ran under thy mantle, Arrayed in thy name. Behold us a fragment, a cantle, A city of shame. They are slain, who arose in thy shelter, They lie gray in sleep. In the plash of the vine-hills they welter, Like plague-eaten sheep. They are snared in their trust. They are weaker Than sleep, who were strong. Will they sit with the lute-string and beaker At feasting or song ? Will they rise and reach lips to their spouses, And govern their hinds ? Will they rule with delight in their houses ? Weak are they as winds. E 50 A HEBREW LAMENT AFTER DEFEAT. Will they whine to the snow that she spare them, Or harbour in rain ? Can they tell thee the mother that bare them, Or pleasure from pain ? All these have inherited silence, Past favour, past light ; Thou hast sold them away to the islands, Whose ocean is night. Out of mind in the desolate porches And precinct of shade, They, desiring in dimness no torches, Forget they were made. Shall they smite with the sword, or be smitten, Bring spoil or be spoiled ? They are past as a dream ; who has written In books how they toiled? A HEBREW LAMENT AFTER DEFEAT. 5 1 They were sleek in all fulness of treasure, Sweet wine and soft bread ; They shone, till a tyrannous measure Was dealt to them dead. Wilt thou speak ? We are melted with trouble ; They sleep, we remain ; Wilt thou save, and restore to us double The blood of our slain ? Bring again thine own flock to their feeding In sweet pasture ways. In thine hand there is fulness exceeding, All fatness of days. Thou hast broken thy vineyard in anger And wasted its shoots ; Thou hast said to the son of the stranger, 'Go, trample the fruits.' 52 A HEBREW LAMENT AFTER DEFEAT. In rush-pits and reed-beds uncertain We wander till morn. We are clothed round with death as a curtain, Our raiment is scorn. Our slain people lie in each gate-way. Our city for shroud Has the smoke of her burning a great way Seen yellow in cloud. Remove as keen hoar-frost thine evil, Refresh drought with dew. Restore our brave summers thy weevil And canker-worm slew. Bring delight in our desolate garden ; Slay these whom we hate. Sprinkle ash in their eyes ; give us pardon ; Sow grass in their gate. 53 AN ODE. Sire of the rising day, Lord of the fading ray, King of sweet ways of morn or daylight done. Ruler of cloud and sleep, Whose tread is on the deep, Whose feet are red in glory like the sun. Whose hand binds up the winds as in a sheaf, Whose shadow makes them tremble like a leaf. Lordship and Fear are thine, Upon whose brow divine Thy diadem of pale eternal fire Burns over eyes that fear 54 AN ODE. No stain of earthly tear, Nor soften for a yearning world's desire. The treasure of strong thunder at thy hand Waits like an eagle watching thy command. Thee rosy beams enshroud ; Rich airs and amber cloud Reach the calm golden spaces of thy hall. The floods awake with noise Churning the deep, whose voice, Thou heedest not ; altho' the storm-wind call, And break beneath the swollen vapour-bands, In wild rains wearing at the sodden lands. Can then our weak-winged prayer Ascend and touch thee there, Sailing between the gleaming gates of heaven ? Can our wail climb and smite Thy council-seat of light ? Where for a garment is the moon-ray given AN ODE. 55 To clothe thy shoulders, and blue star-dust strown Bickers about the borders of thy throne. Ah, Lord, who may withstand One reaching of thy hand, Who from thy fury fence his house secure ? What citadel is there, In lifted hand or prayer ? If all the radiant heaven may not endure The scathing of thine anger, keen to blight, The strong stars rolling in their fields of light. Arise and take thine ease, For thou art Lord ; and these Are but as sprinkled dust before thy power. Art thou the less divine, If they lift hands and whine, Or less eternal since they crawl an hour ? After a little pain to fold their hands, And perish like the beasts that tilled their lands. 5^ AN ODE. They dug their field and died, Believed thee or denied ; Cursed at thy name, or fed thy shrine with fume. Loved somewhat, hated more, Hoarded, grew stiff and sore, Gat sturdy sons to labour in their room ; Became as alien faces in their land ; Died, worn and done with as a waste of sand. Strong are alone the dead. They need not bow the head, Or reach one hand in ineffectual prayer. Safe in their iron sleep What wrong shall make them weep, What sting of human anguish reach them there ? They are gone safe beyond the strong one's reign. Who shall decree against them any pain ? Will they entreat in tears The evil-laden years AN ODE. To sprinkle trouble gently on their head? Safe in their house of grass, Eternity may pass, And be to these an instant in its tread, Calm as an autumn night, brief as the song Of the wood dove. The dead alone are strong Love is not there or Hate, Weak slaves of feebler fate ; Their lord is nothing here. They dare not come. All pretty toys that vex, Great problems that perplex, And, worst, all vague life-hungers here are dumb. Their day is over. Sad they silence keep, Abashed before the perfect crowning sleep. 5 7 58 DAPHNE. The floating Moon went down the tract of night ; The rosiness of sunset yellowed down Into a lighted argent at the roots Of the soft clouds that bore her. All day long In devious forest, grove, and fountain side The God had sought his Daphne. The sweet light Had left him in his searching, but desire Immortal held all slumber from his brain, And drave him like a restless dream among The pale and sylvan valleys. Here each branch Swayed with a glitter all its crowded leaves, And brushed the soft divine hair touching them In ruffled clusters, as Apollo strode Among the foliage. DAPHNE. 59 Suddenly the Moon Smoothed herself out of vapour-drift, and made The deep night full of pleasure in the eye Of her sweet motion. Not alone she came Leading the starlight with her like a song ; And not a bud of all that undergrowth But crisped, and tingled out an ardent edge As the light steeped it ; over whose massed leaves The portals of illimitable sleep Faded in heaven. The chambers of the dawn Lay lordless yet, and, till the prime beam, gray. As some cloud-vapour caught among the pines, Alone in dim white shadow Phoebus went To seek her : only on his lip and brows Descended glory ; otherwise the God, His noble limbs marbled in moonlight, came, While on the crag-face infinite blue pines Crowded the vales, and, seeming in the mist Themselves as vapour, faded tier on tier. DArHNE. And as he wandered from the lips divine Came this complaining of the love-lorn god : — ' Beautiful Daphne, eagle-bird of the hills ; O lovely Daphne, sleek and slender fawn ; The wild bee hides her store among the rocks, Thou hidest up thy beauty in these hills ; Why in the wasting of the mountain side Dost thou delight, my darling, still to cower Behind gray boulders ? As some little fern Draws in its feathery tresses underneath Some fountain slab, and trembles half the day At each vale whisper. O my little neat And twinkling mountain lizard, rustling in Between the shadows, nestling a bright side ; A moment shining out into the light, Gone like a flash. My silent dove of the woods, Thou fearest lest thy song reveal thy nest. Thou tremblest as a dew-drop at my tread. Is my glance deadly, and my love unkind ? That thou wilt never set thy fugitive cheek DAPHNE. 6 1 Against my lips an instant, till my breath Revive thee ; till thy timid eyes look up And smile unwilling love to my desire. There is not any fear in loving ways ; Be comforted, thou restless little one. Let me approach thee, and thy life shall find Its music; and a sudden land of flowers Shall lift itself around thee, fleecy-deep, And veiling heaven out in exuberant Curtains of bloom.' ' Divine one, thy child days Are gone, their pretty echoes broken all ; More is the music of the hours that grow, Clothed with sweet sound and mellow chords of fire ; The lyric words are older than the gods, Coeval with the fruitful patient earth, Mother of many children. O my nymph, I dwelt alone in glory, crowned with light ; For thee I have forgot my radiant throne. The cloudy plains are weary to my feet, 62 DAPHNE. The nectar cup is bitter to my mouth ; A god, I languish, broken with desire, A king, I pine, bound of a mightier one. Veiling my golden brows in earthly gloom, Here, as a mist, I wander all night long, Until the dawning with a gush of fire Make blow the little winds and shake the meres.' 03 'MAGA CIRCE/ A PICTURE AT ROME. This is her island squared in cypress lines; With cedar ranks about her alley walks Set frequent, and the faces of their boles Are crimson deep as sunset stains of cloud. The floor between them, rank and overgrown, Is tangled with luxuriant heads of bloom All in a mat together, mixed with grass. There are the bells of some wide wine-deep flowers, Great apple fruits and tawny orange globes ; And bunchy cactus tipped in fire-bright buds, Gray aloe spikes and heavy curling vines, And speckled poison berries intertwined. 64 'MAGA CIRCE.' Her groves lead down upon the light free waves ; Here foam-heads dance and ripple into sound. The laughter of many birds is in her elms, Jays, owls, sea-crows, larks, lapwings, nightingales, As jumbled as the flowers beneath their notes. The Isle-grove ends abruptly on the sea, A stranded star-fish neighbours by the turf Where the snail toils beneath his painted walls. Small seaward gusts irresolute breathe near ; And sweeter waitings, sent from middle brine, Stir the deep grasses at her perfect feet, Where Circe, shining down the gaudy flowers, Leans centre-light of all this paradise. One ankle gleams against the margin turf Just, beyond where the wave-teeth cease to bite. And sea-pinks grow less rosy near her feet. But this enchantress, island-queen, herself Bears on her head a bright tire marvellous, And for a girdle one of many dyes '.MAGA CIRCE.' 65 Woven and traced with curious pattern-spells. Her face is not at first so beautiful, That one should say, ' Fear her, she will slay men And draw them into deaths by her strange ways, And some soft snare hid under all of her.' We must consider well upon her face, And then the silent beauty of it all, Begins upon us, grows and greatens on, Like sweet increasing music, chord on chord, Till all our being falters overthrown ; And she lures out our soul into her hands, As faint and helpless as a newborn babe, To have her way and will with all of it. O, she, this Circe mage, is strange and great, And deadlier than those terrible bright forms, That beam out on us obviously divine, And at a flash content us with their grace. Her love eats deeper to the core of men, Scathing and killing, fierce and unappeased ; 66 ' MAGA CIRCE.' Until not only the divine in us, But all the human also (which indeed Are one tho' this less perfect) fade and change, And fall corrupted into alien forms. Till we resemble those strange-headed things Herded away behind her island throne, Chimeras, tiger-apes, and wolfish swine. 67 AN EXPOSTULATION. O weakling nation, brood of foolish hearts, Sons of dismay, children of rebel seed, Ye that sin meanly in a joyless sin, Ye that seek after death without reward, And go and hire yourselves to follow him, Reaping your own destruction for ill wage — The strong God, merciful in all his power, Cries to this people thro' my feeble lips. Shall my soul always wrestle with your sins ? Are ye so mighty to despise my voice ? What are ye then ? A little crumbled dust Between my hands, an ash-cake in my palms. Array me then your power, that I may smite So mean ye are I will not lift an arm, Yea, with the breathing of a little breath, 68 AN EXPOSTULATION. I will blot out your record from the earth ; Shall the grain strive against the reaper's edge, Shall the sheep bind the shepherd, shall the smoke Throw down the altar ? Ah, my people, hear. Shall some dim vapour of a shaken wind Lift up herself in scorn against my seat ? Shall rain-drops say, come let us beat his throne ? When the great sea, strong as my light is strong, Mother of many a shining river-head, The great white water-garland of the world, Is shaken if I call across her deeps. She would remove beyond the day-spring gate In trembling undulation at my voice. She shakes this ocean I have made so strong, Is this then righteous, that ye know no fear ? Flee, crouch behind your gates ; creep under caves, Escape, depart, be hidden, get you far ■ Lest I bend down my bow, and the dart leap Hissing upon you brutish to obey, AN EXPOSTULATION. 69 Till ye be tamed with burning sores of death. Ah, chosen people, once my strength and joy, Have I not pleaded with your swerving feet ? I do not love, ye vain ones, that ye die. Your foolish blood is bitter in mine eyes. Yet am I weary crying all day long, What if I make an end and call no more, And let the red grave reap you suddenly ? Ye have not seen me in my battle might ; No supplication longer will restore That mild god, your old refuge and supreme Munition ; when ye hold my easy laws, Your path is pleasant underneath my hand, Your soul is fed with dew. The old gray earth Sleeps in content, hearing my spirit call, ' Be thou renewed.' To her my care is sweet, And my word works upon her ; as some dawn, When the strong seed of light outspreads its stem And leafage in among heaven's darkened floor ; 70 AN EXPOSTULATION. Till there be no room vacant from the pure Prevailing beams that touch the cloud to flower. Ay, in such might my word hath wrought alone ; A little spoken word, a thrust-out hand, The moving of an eyelid can prevail Beyond the violent deep or burning cloud. Nay more, my thought is greater than your deed, My silent purpose than your wrestling arms. What if I will it, tho' my lips be mute, The raining of my favour winnows down The soft air radiant. Feather-light it falls, Balm to the broken, to the wounded sleep, To parched lips honey, to the hungry bread. In all sweet ways upon the sorest hearts ; Mighty indeed to heal being mine. The grain Beaten about the field of many winds Straightens again. From refuge creep the ewes Bleating amid the vapour of the crags : The doves begin a little in the rocks : The vinedressers crawl out against the hills. AN EXPOSTULATION. 7 I Why should ye disobey me any more ? Ye are in no wise great to purchase death. The kings of men indeed — such are ye none — Great of estate, in treasure -towers display Excelling tissues, silk, and purple spoil, Gold, spices, precious vessels, cedar, gums. They can command desire with such a store, And purchase costly evil to their wills. They barter to lean death insatiable Their fat souls at some profit. Sin rewards Their service duly for a waning day. He sits and pipes them back lascivious tunes To mock the senses with a dream of heaven. The unfailing fountains of their garden leap, When drought has blackened half the village mouths, The spice-air thickens in their orange-boughs ; And heavy scent of orchard terraces Comes as the wind comes, with a swing of leaves. It is a region sweet in air and sound ; But, out beyond the cincture of his lawns, ■J 2 AN EXPOSTULATION. And brazen portals firm as mountain face, The pestilence is heavy on the land, And the dead thicken in the silent streets. And round the failing wells the dying crawl ; And a strange haze, like lost low scraps of cloud, Sickens their edges into poisoned hues, And they float thick with swollen bandaged things. And men who pass shudder and will taste none, And no man reckons if he live the day. But in his garden lolls the bloated king, And laughs a languid laugh, to see the slave Curl her lithe limbs down fleecy coverlets, And finger at the stringing of her lute, Waiting upon his eye-lash, to command Her lovely tones to tremble ; as she sets Her sweet breath into song to make him joy. How he is lord of earth and love besides ; Absolute god ; to whom her nature flows In adoration ; as some puny stream Born in far hills throbs towards the amber gates, AN EXPOSTULATION. 73 Where sun and ocean mingle crowned in fire. He is delighted in his days, for these Few shadows of deliciousness ill-bought, Some lying praises of a lute-girl's lay, Some falser laughter, a brief purple state, Fulness of bread, and plenitude of ease ; And like a smoke he is done with, and put down. He shall not cry loud in the grave, or moan For that sweet pleasaunce where he feasted well. But I will lay no hand to heave him out. But thou art even vainer than this fool ; Seeing that while he lived he took rare wine In a large cup and yellow, with sweet lees ; Time came a little season for his slave To cram his senses full of spice, and meat, And music, till he tumbled in his grave. But thou wilt serve on death without a wage, Since bitter is the best of thy day's fruit. Thou art not mighty. Thou art storeless, cold, Unroyal, hungry. Earth to thee is lean 74 AN EXPOSTULATION. And pastureless. How should'st thou not obey My easier precept ? Wilt thou leave so much, To make thee serve me in a dainty heed ? But my reward is great in after-fruit, And my delight is lovely as sweet rain ; My chosen never shall be trampled down ; I will reveal them hidden water-heads, Fountains of moisture quiet in sweet grass, And reeds that sound at season with the quail. Cry out upon my glory and have rest ; Crowd to my shadow, and feed full with ease. Cry, oh, my children, and my shine shall break Flower-wise from heaven. Am I, the great one, waned To this exceeding weakness ? Is my hand Feeble to save, since ye refuse to call ? Can I not bring again the sweet old years ? I will restore the broken, and set straight The failing knees. I will bring back your rest, Ye bruised and forgotten ones of sin. Ye shall emerge from hill-dens cavernous AN EXPOSTULATION. 75 Whereby ye made your harbour with the wolves, Your bread wild berries, bitter herb your oil. Ye shall have housing warm and store of beeves, And comfortable prospect at your doors. I will command the locust that he spare, I will refrain the canker lest he spoil. I will make heavy in its husk the ear, So that it bend the straw-stalk under it. Against the light cloud I will stand and say, Render thy moisture, satisfy the land ; So that my people dwell fulfilled with ease. I will reward them, if they will obey ; But if, with stubborn faces, they return To surfeit on the savour of old sins ; Lo, I predict of these fair things not one, But for all feasting-houses emptiness, Ash for choice raiment, wail for viol song, Wormwood for wine, for all fine silver scum, Darkness and wrath and burning and dismay. 7 6 THE KNIGHT IN THE WOOD. The thing itself was rough and crudely done, Cut in coarse stone, spitefully placed aside As merest lumber, where the light was worst On a back staircase. Overlooked it lay In a great Roman palace crammed with art. It had no number in the list of gems, Weeded away long since, pushed out and banished, Before insipid Guidos over-sweet, And Dolce's rose sensationalises, And curly chirping angels spruce as birds. And yet the motive of this thing ill-hewn And hardly seen did touch me. O, indeed, THE KNIGHT IN THE WOOD. 77 The skill-less hand that carved it had belonged To a most yearning and bewildered heart, There was such desolation in its work ; And through its utter failure the thing spoke With more of human message, heart to heart, Than all these faultless, smirking, skin-deep saints ; In artificial troubles picturesque, And martyred sweetly, not one curl awry — Listen ; a clumsy knight who rode alone Upon a stumbling jade in a great wood Belated. The poor beast with head low-bowed Snuffing the treacherous ground. The rider leant Forward to sound the marish with his lance. You saw the place was deadly ; that doomed pair, The wretched rider and the hide-bound steed Feared to advance, feared to return — That's all ! 73 JOHN ANDERSON'S ANSWER. I cannot kiss thee as T used to kiss ; Time who is lord of love must answer this. Shall I believe thine eyes are grown less sweet ? Nay, but my life-blood fails on heavier feet. Time goes, old girl, time goes. I cannot hold as once I held thy hand ; Youth is a tree whose leaves fall light as sand. Hast thou known many trees that shed them so ? Ay me, sweetheart, I know, ay me, I know. Time goes, my bird, time goes. I cannot love thee as I used to love. Age comes, and little Love takes flight above. JOHN ANDERSONS ANSWER. 79 If our eyes fail, have his the deeper glow ? I do not know, sweetheart, I do not know. Time goes, old girl, time goes. Why, the gold cloud grows leaden, as the eve Deepens, and one by one its glories leave. And, if you press me, dear, why this is so, That this is worth a tear is all I know. Time flows and rows and goes. In that old day the subtle child-god came; Meek were his eyelids, but his eyeballs flame, With sandals of desire his light feet shod, With eyes and breath of fire a perfect god He rose, my girl, he rose. He went, my girl, and raised your hand and sighed, ' Would that my spirit always could abide.' And whispered ' Go your ways, and play your day, Would I were god of time, but my brief sway Is briefer than a rose.' So john Anderson's answer. Old wife, old love, there is a something yet That makes amends, tho' all the glory set ; The after-love that holds thee trebly mine Tho' thy lips fade, my dove, and we decline, And time, dear heart, still goes. 8i REGRET. If in this church-yard's crowded round The letters on this simple stone Seem common tale of burial ground, Why pause so long before this one, • Bearing, you see, a female name And years that show she died when young? A thousand grave-stones tell the same In peace our rural vales among. Shall I claim special emphasis Of pain beyond my neighbour's share? My love, and is it come to this, Men think that I no longer care? 82 REGRET. ' So fails,' they sneer, ' this noisy woe That would reprove our calmer grief. He made us sick with all the show Of his despair. He must be chief, ' And lord above all grief before ; His finer feelings, sole of men, Could wring out sorrow to the core : Such ostentatious tears, and then, ' He dries them soon enough ; behold, He's much as others ; only say From dulness now his manner's cold : He always had a sullen way. ' He'd surely wed, could one be found To take her chance with him so sour, But not a maid, thank God, all round Would judge the risk half worth the dower. REGRET. 8 J Ay me, to vex my soul with lies. The fools may cackle as they need ; I hold him most, whom such despise, Whom least their sordid praises feed. Thou seest clear at least, my own, Thou knowest, is my sorrow done ? So my thought reach thee near the throne That lends his brightness to the sun. My heart within me frets and burns This trivial round of days to bear. My spirit from old habit turns To where thou wert ; a void is there. I take my laugh and bear a hand In what the busy neighbours strive ; Ah, could they come to understand The heart is dead, the man alive. &4 REGRET. A dreamy life without a will I move as friends would have me go ; I hardly heed, if yonder hill Be gentian-clad or crisp with snow. Rock on thro' space, thou weary globe, Let each month wake her sister flower ; Night is around me like a robe : The throstle's song is harsh and sour. I brood thro' all the light, and wait Thro' all the darkness : wait ? for whom ? I watch for something sure as fate. I hear its footsteps thro' the gloom. I know it comes and it will come. Ay me, why must I watch so long ? The slow clouds crumble dome on dome, And change their colours like a song, REGRET. 85 Note-changing ripples into new. Would clouds dissolve and show thy face In chasms of eternal blue, Ringed with the radiant morning's grace. Thy face I cannot call at will, But casual eyes of mart and street I can depict with faithful skill, Tho' these I hardly know to greet. As words lose meaning often said, Confused thy gracious image lies Too often dwelt upon. I fed My thought too often on thine eyes. I've dried my tears, as gossips say ; And shall be merry then they know. My trivial tears are done away, Precursors to the deeper woe. 86 MACHIAVEL IN MINIMIS. I turn the puzzle over, side by side Set all its myriad facets to the light, State and re-state it. Still the clue eludes. Who can work nature out in diagrams ? Or cast the fluid essence volatile ( )f human motive flawless into moulds Of statist theory ? Clear flows the stuff, Till meeting with a sand-grain all runs wrong. Spoilt in an instant, ruined by a hair ; And we bend grimly to our toil again. There's my solution written clean and clear, No letter wrong, not one erasure seen, MACHIAVEL IN MINIMIS. 87 The periods flowing as a rill of oil. Shut in my desk it seems a perfect thing : Put it in action, and some wretched fly Tangles himself against it for a whim, And all goes out of gear. It worked so smooth Till some fool-passion touched the intricate wheels And wrecked itself and them. Man still eludes Logic and computation like weak cloud. He will not be consistent, this poor beast ; And I complain, that on no certain plan Will he ordain existence. Virtue's well, And Vice affords some grist to nature's mill. So, man, be good or evil once for all. Each scheme of life presents peculiar charm. But, being evil, why slide back to saint, Or being saint, relapse to sinner's ways ? That's what this fatuous human nature does. Man, ever-veering, fails in either part ; Makes quite a sorry milk-and-water fiend, < )r drapes himself in paltry angel plume . 88 MACHIAVEL IN MINIMIS. And snuffs for carrion in the nearest hedge. Who can put rule to such a thing as he ? Could I not master with an easy hand A devil legion true to devil law, Or sweet obedient seraph-birds of heaven ? But this thing looking both ways, going none, Remorseful in his murder, tyrannous In his best loving ; false as hell to a wife, And constant to a harlot as a dove. Merry at church, and in a wine-vault sad, How shall I build a science of his soul ? There's one type here and there I understand. Take this lean kneeling monk, who scores his knees Into a gristle with the sharpest flints Pegged close as mussel-bed between the tides, Who gauges saintship by lean flesh and dirt. And there's some burning purpose in that other, Who takes and sucks the orange of all sin Clean dry in spite of thunder, and makes mouths MACHIAVEL IN MINIMIS. 89 At the big eyes of the indignant priests. O, I could frame a science of the world Time-proof and out of shot of accident, If only and if always men as these Were black and white about it ; but confound These neutral grays unfit for heaven or hell. Here am I, statist and philosopher, Just paid enough to wrap my bones and feed. Who pull the strings of this great booby duke, Manage the nobles, give the mob their cue, When they may roar for charters with success. Rule this small realm by balancing the three Against each other with a wary thumb, Being an unseen providence almost To all and each, but reaping thanks of none. Thus in the game of government play men, Tike chess, except your pieces won't keep still, Stir of themselves, if you but turn your head, Will not be passive. Why should this pert knight go MACHIAVEL IN MINIMIS. Move, no word given, within the castle's reach, And suicidal, rush upon his doom ? He saw one yard around him in the smoke, Having no glimpse how fared the outer fight, Where the foe queen lay helpless 'twixt a pawn And her poor king's exposure. Much he knew : While the whole battle-plan beneath mine eyes Lay mapped and meted like a pasture plain. Or state my troubles in another view- Mankind is here in that weak infant stage When it just totters but can't go alone ; Is fractious if you aid it, wails the more If, when the stumble comes, your arm don't catch And interpose at the instant. You look on, Preaching of balance, how to plant the feet, Till, using your tuition to escape, Some weary hour souse goes the sullen child Into the nearest horse-pond ; chokes and roars To you, who pull it out and cleanse its rags, And curse the pains you took to get it in ; MACHIAVEL IN MINIMIS. 9 1 Since in its crawling state it always kept A dry skin till you taught it. A sweet life ! And sweetly grateful service, you may say ; And surely sweet example they assume, These many masters mine, to imitate The license of the shoaling forest-flies ; Who cloud your head, and with your moving move, And madden you with droning undersong And feeble sting. My legion rulers these ; My Lord in chief another, that's the Duke, Whom 'tis my gracious duty to direct From a state-paper to a love-affair ; That vacuous thing, arch-dotard of the herd, That most uncertain blockhead, ' Charlemagne In council and in bravery Roland.' So ran the late address, a birthday thing, Presented by the council of the town, Phrased somewhat neatly. I composed it all ; And taught them how to speak it end to end. 9- MACHIAVEL IN MINIMIS. As, in a ducal and less flowing style, I wrote the answer of our gracious Lord ; Which in the reading he was pleased to change To dismal nonsense. Well, that audience done, The crassest alderman must pluck my robe, Draws down a serious mouth and whispers me, To this effect; 'I meddle overmuch, Clerk as I am of no degree and mean, Between the people and the awful throne ; Let me beware.' His neighbour caught the cry To the same tune ; another civic light Snorted approval, stared with oozy eyes Glazed over with a weak malevolence ; Essayed to speak, but only gurgles came From that throat eloquent ; and all this coil Arose, because one pushing alderman Wished to intrude his daughter, Lammas last, About the duchess as a tiring-wench. And I, who read this daughter at a glance, Brewer of mischief, in suave sort declined, MACHIAVEL IN MINIMIS. 93 In our o'erstocked menagerie of cats, To introduce another of the breed, So promising already in the rough. Well, to return, I listen, rub my hands ; Row to the burghers ; hope I know my place, Smile as I watch them stumbling down the stairs, Muse for a space. Another taps my sleeve, The audience usher, the duke waits, I go, Knowing the leader of his people sends Most graciously intending, in his turn, To wipe his sacred buskins for an hour Upon the trivial carcase of his slave. Which comes to pass exactly as I said ; His Highness rates me with a heated face ; The burghers' speech has rubbed him the wrong way, Seems less effusive than last birthday's one, When our grain crops were beaten less by scuds, And native woollens beat the Flemish looms. Then one seditious rumour frets his soul, Was ever worthy ruler plagued as he ? 94 MACHIAVEL IN MINIMIS. The thing was nothing, a mere contretemps, About a damsel he had noticed once. Such things will happen — noticed, mind, I say ; No further. But thereon the silly child Must choose to wail and moan about our streets, And utter, Lord knows what, best left unsaid. The weaker sort caught up her idle tale, And spread it, till one trivial accident Had made men's loyal feelings limp and lean. The duke was pleased to vent all this on me, Blameable somehow for his merry hours ; I stood a-shiver, like a coatless man Caught in a good ripe drench of harvest rain Upon a treeless common. He stormed on Merrily, till it ended ; all must end. I stumble backwards from the inner shrine Dazed with the thunder of this royal Jove. Crossing the ante-room I'm caught again, The Countess Emma wants a word with me, Will take denial none. I needs must go ; MACHIAVEL IN MINIMIS. 95 Because our duke esteems her ladyship, Consults her much — of course on state affairs— In short, you'd best be well with her just now. Tho' perhaps a month or two shall change all that. Well, there's a tedious tale of when and how, Of ways and tears and means. These female scrapes Disgust me most. They're so illogical. I could instruct them, if they'd come to me, How to be twice as bad at half the risk, And still to sin with some consistency About their scheme of sinning. As it seems, Some distant cousin of her countess-ship, The sex is immaterial to the tale — Must have at any price relays of cash. She tries her teasing ways upon the duke. But his exchequer runs at grievous ebb ; Until one certain evening, having dined, More to be rid of her than anything, He gave her, or allowed her to divest, Certain crown-jewels that he happed to wear. 96 machiavel in minimis. The case lay sweetly in a nutshell thus. No goldsmith in this loyal burgh would buy ; He dared not melt and could not sell the gear. Besides his Highness might not well recall The details of their giving : who would deal In wares that savoured of the axe and cord ? One thing was certain. Money must be found. And blood is much, tho' distant be the kin. She ends in weeping as a thing of course. Then in one instant I discern my way. This trash must fall or my court days are done. This tangle must disroot herself or me. Hail ! thou great glow of conflict, action hail ! My blood warms for the first time in the day. Here is a thing to do, a road to tread, As clear as noon-light. Exquisite and clean This action with a precipice all round But one way. Forward in sweet confidence ! The doubts that vex our science are as dead As Saint Paul's viper. MACHIAVEL IN MINIMIS. 97 I don't push her out Of any malice, mind. She is as well As she will be who treads into her shoes. But she has woven a knot I dare not break ; Therefore I know she will hate me, plan my fall ; So my resolve is taken, I decline To intermeddle with her jewel sales. She weeps, entreats, and threatens finally, As I expected. Then I speak indeed My word of power and quell her at one blow Within an hour his Highness must be taught Who battens on the jewels of his crown. As for herself, all harvest hence is spoiled. Let her pack up her bundles and begone, A cheated jealous Jove is apt to flash In formidable ire, unmerciful. Might it not peril her smooth neck to stay ? And one hour's law I even gave her then, Gave her this space to outwit me, if she dared Being curious on the surmise, if she could H 98 MACHIAVEL IN MINIMIS. Summon the needful courage. I believe, I love the sciences political Beyond my personal danger. Not at all ; She is a low poor creature, fierce enough With the game hers, but prostrate at a blow. She flies. We hang the cousin out of hand ; And, out of sheer compassion, I procure A pension for her. Tho' the duke storms out. That I am false to ask it for the jade, But finally concedes it. Off she goes To her castle in the vineyards ; where she milks Two cows and goes to chapel twice a day, And takes her serving-maids on stipulation That they should see no sweethearts. R. I. P., As they say in the grave-yards. To my task, I am grown garrulous indeed to-night. I think at seasons I am ageing fast. What ! midnight chimes, and with the morning comes The knavish envoy of the neighbour throne. MACHIAVEL IN MINIMIS. 99 And I must have my wits in sweetest gear ; His cormorant kingdom snatches at our land, And preys upon our marches half-way round, Would quarrel on a nutshell if she could. She is strong and we are crafty. Let her come ; I can subdue her in a paper war And drive her from the field with argument. Suppose it comes to fighting. Well, that goes Beyond my province. I've philosophy To face the issue ; cosmopolitan, I have no land, my science is the world. IOO THE SOLDIER'S RETURN. The warrior after years of war Leant in a doorway, bent and gray. He dared not enter, for he saw Her children at their noisy play. ' Here, trembling at the love-word both, Her first kiss touched me, ripe as May. We plighted here eternal troth That dawn of death I rode away.' ' A secret, sister, hear and keep.' The boy within began to say, ' I know what made our mother weep To watch our sport the other day. THE SOLDIERS RETURN". 1 01 ' She said, " Sweet death, be swift to me. My lord's love died this many a day." Guess, who this cruel lord can be — ' The warrior sighed, and moved away. 102 THE SPEAR-HEAD. In a field on a hill pacing alone, Near a gray stone-wall and peat-plash of rushes. Something one mound means, the field's only one, Where the sour autumn wind saddens and hushes. When the wind pauses the weird of the place Greatens in stillness ; low whispers in silence Grow with strange faces ; Alas, not his face ; And the sound comes of a river round islands. Hearken ! I fancy a trample of steeds. See, they meet with a clash ; lances are broken. One steed goes riderless : one rider bleeds : Has he not brave rippled hair for a token ? THE SPEAR-HEAD. IC Soon fades the vision. I'm pacing there still ; Musing, with wraiths of old anguish surrounded. Is that a raven's cry half down the hill ? Why must it sound like a groan of the wounded ? But where he fell a curse rests. It grows bald ; Why will no countryman climb up and sow it ? Seen from the valley, a broken brown scald, Even the school-children point at and know it. Has the gray hill-gloom infected its grass, Since but a crow or two cares to sail thither ? Shrubs in that place have arrived at a pass When it seems worse to exist than to wither. There's mat-grass anyhow ; pale, dry as hay. Why should I search every tussock twice over ? I had gone seeking a year and a day, When at length what do you think I discover? 104 THE SPEAR-HEAD. Treasure ! I hurried it home to my nest. Wore my lips out on it till I was wearied. See, like a jewel, it hangs in my breast, Tho' it be only a broken-off spear-head. I0 5 A LAMENT. Ye glades within whose shade the rose Is withered, where no dews may fall. Ye lulling winds that love repose When cloud comes pausing over all. The wave is hush'd upon the sands, Still is the wave-bird on her nest. And calm the gleaming sunset-bands Reveal their islands in the west. Soon will the ripple move again, Soon every nest outpour its song ; Soon in new glory argent rain \\\\\ dance its flakes the blue along. 106 A LAMENT. Long ere my heart have light again, Long ere my breast be full of song. For till the earth reveal her slain, The night-cloud on my life is strong. 107 MUTATION. If but a little while the flowers are new Till broken over-ripely with great dew, Shall Love remain untarnished till his close, Clear in his depth, heart-perfect like a rose ? Yet, O my love, one little changeful year O'er Amor's laughing eyes will render sere The pretty petals, and uncrimson soon The brave new posies garlanded in June. If I have led thee in sweet way of flowers, If we have heard the dove's voice answer ours, Where the sharp woods grew mellow nearer noon, Shall love endure more than the cuckoo's tune? Io8 MUTATION. If I have pastured at thy lips as well As the bee trembles at the asphodel, Are their ripe bloom and tender incense breath Secure alone from stain of dust and death ? Love in his sheaf has bound us breast to breast, Why reason sourly at his harvest feast ; Or seek for ashes under every rose That cinctures round his beaming tresses close ? And yet, dear heart, this phantom clothed in fear, Makes not in dearness thee one shade less dear : And I will hunger for more love indeed, If love be briefer than a wayside weed. I will not leave my ruler, tho' his reign Change as a rose or like a crescent wane. What answer shall we render, sweet, to these Who hate our Lord, because his rule shall cease? MUTATION. 109 Say, with thy sweet lip rested under mine, ' Lord of an hour, thou only art divine.' Sing, while I feel the perfume of thy breath, ' Love is eternal and more strong than death.' no FREEDOM OR FETTERS? Come, let us leave, have no smooth words but go ; Better break off at once than palter so. Have out the ending, cloud in idle tears. Freedom outweighs regret of altered years Gone by and done. Review the lovely dream we thought to reach ; The blind desire that held us each to each ; Count out in calmness all the loss and gain ; And say, when all is done, could we remain Heart-bound as one ? Peace is a nobler thing than loving thee, More than love's sweet is to be trouble-free. FREEDOM OR FETTERS? Ill We shall not better our old loving ways, And the chain galled us in those half-sweet days Though silken fine. Content thee and depart. Can I control The lapsing month or bind the season's roll ? Can I command that change shall flee away ? Will Fate, who rules the gods, hear what I say ? Is all power mine ? You give me your old smiling as I speak ; You whisper, I was vain if you were weak. Ah, child, refrain to portion each his blame ; Is it delight to weigh how each fault came ? Ah, who shall tell ? Still, though I be most hungry to begone, Weary of all things, asking peace alone ; Yet, if you smile me that old smile again, My soul will grow a weakling, and refrain To say farewell. 112 ACQUIESCENCE. Man, leave the gods their way. Let them, man, prevail : Mighty and more than thou, How should their anger fail ? Why settest thou thy baby palms To wrestle down the thews that may not tire ? Why wilt thou vex thyself to be as they, Weakling of sorrow and sleep ? Why wilt thou thrust about the world for peace ? God is at peace alone. Take from their careless hands The morsels of their pity as they fall : Take from their scornful brows The curse, and call them just. ACQUIESCENCE. I I Nay, thou art foolish to have any pride : They use thee as they choose. Count every happy dream As stolen from the envy of their power. Turn at the last to slumber, if no great woe Hath taken thee, secure, That under the warm earth to vex thy sleep Their hands can never come. o H4 A HEATHEN TO HIS IDOL. IN TIME OF PEACE. By the gold bosses drilled in thy fe By the stones shedding flame at thine eyes, By the canopied weft of thy seat, By the blood, by the censer. — arise 1 Ah. lord, thou art not as the rest, Poor idols, that falter at need : Thou art cased up in gold to each breast Strung over with jewel and bead. Gods needy our neighbours o* Lean idols, whose altars are bare : Their faces are rusted and gray. The spider weaves over their hair. A HEATHES 7 HIS IDOL 11 = re needy, their brc . _loom : r in trt ZZ-. rriur cil:ur :r : ": " - 7-.7-L: :~ rUti Utt: ZS.t 7'. if ire cold in tml: odes. ire feeble n~ i r__: ■ - : . n: fir :be : 1: : i :eei i :::e. The - - . rrs are weary to come. Lamp flickers out in then: shrine. mi. fur Thru irt « :m:e :::i: . ::' • " i We tend : - - ■ - Il6 A HEATHEN TO HIS IDOL. Thy bountiful hair like a fleece, Outflows by a fathom thy chair. O Idol, O god, let thy peace Descend as a rain that is fair. O wonderful image we serve, Uphold in thy counsel our seat ; Establish, redeemer, preserve ; Not in vain let us slay thee thy meat. We have given thee cymbal and song, Much praising with censer and knee, Such scent of sweet blood for so long, Shall no reward follow from thee ? We give, and our neighbour repays ; We lend, he restores us our loan. Are men to be fair in their ways, And gods to deal falsely alone ? A HEATHEN TO HIS IDOL. I17 Wilt thou snuff at the fat of our beeves, And show us no token of good ? Is recompense lighter than leaves ? Is gratitude thinner than blood ? Wilt thou listen the drone of our hymn, And glaze thy dull orbs to a stare ? Wilt thou bring us dark days for a whim, And send us as handmaid despair? We have done thee due worship indeed. We have sown : is no reaping to come ? We have crawled in thy courts for our meed : We have prayed, who had better been dumb. We have wrestled in praise. Were it worse To have made thee lewd mock with light words. To have haled down thy niche with a curse, And twisted thy feet into cords ? IlS A HEATHEN TO HIS IDOL. Ah Lord, will one kneeler remain If worship and cursing are one ? If chaff be accounted as grain, In the silence where all things are done? If record be lost in the tomb \ If, after the failing of breath, One measure, one silence, one doom, Be borne in the strong hands of death ? If in that dim storehouse of years, Who shall love as a lover ? Who weep ? Be thy seed good or evil, it bears One fruit in the fallows of sleep. If life, and not death, O divine, Thou wilt bring us with choiceness of days, We will light thee great lamps at thy shrine And burn thee huge beeves in thy praise. "9 A HEATHEN TO HIS IDOL. IN TIME OF WAR. At our gates is the stranger arrayed, And the edge of the spoiler is strong ; If thou save not as dead we are made, Who give thee no worship or song. Before them the harvest is flame, Behind them its ashes are gray. Their lords are of terrible name, Their arrows of resolute way. Thou art mighty, then save. Thou art great, Then shred me this people like sand. Reach down thro' the darkness of fate, Rise up with reward in thy hand. 120 A HEATHEN TO HIS IDOL. Who knows what disdain they have done ? How they came with a blast, with a cry, To encamp in the grove of the sun, To drink at the waters thereby ? How they gibed as they tightened the girth, How they scoffed as they hammered the chain ? They are clothed in an insolent mirth ; Thou shalt wipe them away like a stain. By his tent at the dawning always The lute-girls assemble, and sing This paean of blasphemous praise To awaken their captain and king. Lithe maidens, the flower of the spoil, They twitter like cranes in the cool ; Their shoulders are softer than oil, Their tresses are closer than wool. A HEATHEN TO HIS IDOL. 121 They are cunning to modulate song ; They are trained in the dance from the teat. They whirl and are wafted along On nimble and rhythmical feet. They are tired with gold orbs to their hair. Their robe edges shine with device. Their raiment is clearer than air. In each ear is an earring of price. ' We will make thee thy throne as the sun, Thy seed as the infinite stars. In glory as thou hast begun, Shall endure the swift path of thy wars. ' Who shall faint with thy voice in his ear, Who refrain with thy word to arise ? Thou hast shaken a realm with thy spear, And scattered a host with thine eyes. 122 A HEATHEN TO HIS IDOL. ' They prevailed over all men but ours ; Proud were they of face, yet are slain. They fenced out their inland with towers, And strengthened the rims of their main. ' By the chosen of waves in their sight, They sought them dry places to dwell. They burnished the gates of their might, With iron they girded them well. ' Their turrets were crimson afar, As blood in the way of the sun. On the crest of their temples a star Came burning ere day was begun. ' They scoffed in their city of light. They laughed to their idol at ease. "Thou hast bound away death from our sight, Thou hast crowned us with glory and ease. A HEATHEN TO HIS IDOL. ' " Thou hast filled us with meat to the lips. Our soul is thine own and secure. Thou rulest the waves to our ships. Thou heedest our name shall endure." ' So cried they, but he of their trust Was feeble to turn thee away. Thou hast broken their root into dust, And trodden their branch down as clay. ' He sold them their god to a snare. And now thy war reaches to these, Who clasp round their Dagon in prayer, Natheless thou shalt bruise them with ease. ' The hoarfrost is keen on the fold. The furrows are crisp in their clay. The winds are at peace in the cold Until the uprising be gray. 1^4 A HEATHEN TO HIS IDOL. ' In slumber's deep toils thou art blest ; Thou art folded and clothed in its grace. How firm is the strength of thy rest, How grand the repose in thy face. ' What shadows portentous of fight, What hurling of foes from the steep, What fragments, O giant, of night, Pass over thy spirit asleep ? ' Dost thou draw back thy shaft to its head, Dost thou crash to the charge in thy car, Dost thou wade in a phalanx of dead, Dost thou shout in the trample of war ? ' O mighty, the dawning is near. Arise to thy glory and reap. This people shall prove when they hear One blast of thine onset like sheep. A HEATHEN TO HIS IDOL. 1 25 ' Ascend in thy raiment of might, Their battlements melt at thy word. Arise in thy worship and smite. Destroy with one sweep of thy sword ! ' To such strain they have chaunted their hate. Ah, Lord, their lewd boasting reprove. Keep ward at thy treasury gate. Shall a weakling thy godhead remove ? Nay, ruler and refuge, contrive, A network of snares to their feet : Entangle them. Save us alive. Rain on them thy curses as sleet. Afflict them with trouble of blood. Consume them in violent ways. Let pain be their portion for good. Exchange for amazement their praise. 126 A HEATHEN TO HIS IDOL. Let them parch with no river in sight ; Let them march in a sun-blaze on sands ; Let no dew-fall refresh them at night, Let them wake, weak as sheep, in our hands ; That their bleeding may redden our rills ; That no dust of their foot-print remain ; For they boasted, their god of the hills Could vanquish our god of the plain. 127 THE STRANGE PARABLE.* I think it left me when the sun was great. I cannot tell the very point of time When the cure wrought and I was free of this. What drave it from me less and least I know. Was it some word compelling from without, Some royal accent potent to expel This tribe of thing ? It rent my soul, and fled, Upon the waste wind, down the void. Who knows ? Let me consider, I had no pain then. Only a kind of echo-pain remained. And yet my soul ached with the loss of this, My old abhorrence. It had wrought its roots * St Luke xi. 24. 123 THE STRANGE PARABLE. And worked its fibres round my nature so, That I was lost without the thing I loathed ; Painless, I seemed to hanker for old pain ; To crave a presence necessary long Thro' custom, rather than that new unrest Which had replaced the banished agony. Well, it was gone at last and plucked away. The day it went resembled other days So much. That latest conflict with the thing Was so like others, where I always sank Worsted. I thought as little it would go, As that the sun would blacken his round orb. I had grown feebler every day with it, Cared, strove, and hated less, when like a clap My soul was empty and the spirit gone. Strangely I rose, felt myself sound and free, But so belated ; as a man that dreams, And knows that he is dreaming in a land THE STRANGE PARABLE. I 29 Of phantoms, and he thinks ; ' my dream must break This moment or the next. I will lie still And only watch. All here is smoke, and dream.' So nature seemed a filmy veil of sleep, The hills delusion, the firm fields as mist, The cloud-cones vapour, mirage the bright woods. The languor and the vacancy of change Replaced the antagonistic element, That gave a substance to my life erewhile, And stung my native energies from sleep, To war against this noxious demon's way And push of still encroaching filaments. All this indeed had found most sudden end. The ferment as by miracle withdrew. The tyranny was gone and left no wound. The agony's vibration smoothed itself To apathetic calm. And I remained A painless naked thing without a soul. Then I fared forth alone beneath the skies K 130 THE STRANGE PARABLE. Without a will to guide me on my way, In automatic motion like a drift; Or as a feather teased by some side-breeze Athwart the master-current of the wind. So nerveless and chaotic was my life. My stagnant heart was empty save of fear. A little eddying influx strangely stirred Of barren dread beneath my barren heart. O, but indeed this thing is pitiful, When fear, in dearth of any purpose, rules ; When the man, wretched beyond wretchedness, Has still the primal instinct left of fear ; Why should he fear, poor brute ? yet he fears still. And this ignoble thing usurps the seat ( )f purpose, and her vacant function fills, And, save one dreamy fear, the man is nought. After this fashion I fared aimless then ; The sting that stood for purpose drave me on. THE STRANGE PARABLE. 131 I wound along the roots of battered crags, Arid as death ; and jumbled as a dream Of ruin driving thro' a sick man's brain, Who doubts and wearies on his fevered bed. Then, as I clomb, rose yawning heights, abrupt, Broken in flanks and ledges of great flags, Immeasurable levels of smooth death ; Tilted in pinnacles among the clouds, Where the hill-raven faltered in the mist. My mood was calmer in these solitudes, I loathed to look upon the valley world, Fat, with slow smoke, gray crowded homes, and squares Of meadow, rank with juicy undermath, And languid cropping kine dwarfed into bees ; And the faint sprinkle of the water-wheels, And each mill-torrent's shudder-gleam below. Weary was I of all my fellows' ways ; And lonely on the summits I was best. Sometimes a peat-tarn capped the giant chain ; A waste of ice, pale grass, and sodden sedge 132 THE STRANGE PARABLE. And rotten fangs of rush ; whose trembling floor Festered in moss, and darkened to decay. Yet here I shuddered, as the star-time came, To see the evil spirits of the fen Trimming their lamps to lure me. And I sighed, Knowing how fiends had marred the under vales, To find new demons herded in the snows Up in the eternal solitudes of God. Therefore I wandered on, and still no peace : And still I paced the uplands dry and drear. And still the curse stung burning at my heart. Then to myself I spake and spake with heed, — The isolation and the restless feet Of Cain are mine for always. Shall I choose To roam for ever, with no living voice Save mine own sighing, hear no word of love ? Love, tho' a lie on lying lips, still sweet — To wander till God blind me and I cease. This is the desolation of the grave. THE STRANGE PARABLE. 1 33 My pain erewhile to this was almost peace. Is my gloom shaken with one rift of morn, Is my verge radiant with one hint of sun ? Is this a phantom or a wreath of cloud Eyed like a death, that beckons as I move ? And I with heedful steps devised return ; My slow blood sickened in the weary ways ; And all the evil I had ever done Came crowding on me in slow loathsome shapes, Saying, behold thy deed, changed, thy deed still, In its corruption. Twas a merry deed In thine old careless season. Mark it now ; For time is great to find things in their truth, And this was foul beneath its shining hide In those days even ; but the taint has spread And bloated it and shown the world its core. And then came others, reaching out foul hands, Distorted from young faces I had known, Until I fled along the barren hills J 34 THE STRANGE PARABLE. And prayed to find death with a bitter prayer : I loathed myself too greatly to endure The hateful and irrevocable past. What then sustained me through ? No hand of heaven. No death sat waiting by the granite slab, Or in the cracks of that dread violet lake Frozen and fast since God created snow. The greedy chasm refused me : at my tread The snows yelled downwards, loosened ere my feet Had made two onward steps. The crazy shales Withheld me by an inch of crumbling ledge From the abysmal silence leagues below. At last the plain, O God : the bitter heights Are whistling long behind. This rooted flower Comes on me like the voices of my friends. There is my place, last of the level plain : The mist had masked it wholly, yet I know The faintest border of the filmy wall, THE STRANGE PARABLE. 1 35 And nearer, nearer drawn, my weary feet Pause on the empty precinct of my race. Ay me, returning. This is no return. The core of desolation, where no rest Shall come for ever, or one eyelid fall In that sweet pure oblivion of the just. Empty and swept and garnished tho' it be, This is no home, but some sepulchral den Set round with urn and ashes of the dead ; Death breathes about its chambers like a blight, The hearth is darkened with a phantom curse ; I think no child will play there any more, And I am lonelier here than on the void. So went I forth, and took unto my need Seven former comrades in the naked walls ; They came and dwelt there, souls that mock the light, And banter with the melancholy time, Unheeding the to-morrow ; drowning sense 136 THE STRANGE PARABLE. And foresight down ; contented to maintain A grim carousal with a staring death, And imminent destruction, in an hour Ready to touch the cup and put away From all pale lips for ever lust of wine. Therefore the drift and end I do not know ; Only this thing is certain in my soul, That man with men must change his words or die. And this I hold, man lonely is not man, Dowered with the curse and need of social bond, And leavened by his fellows into sin, Because he cannot take his path alone. The fretful ache of living goads him on. Tho' he pry vainly thro' the secret doors Of future, only gloom and cloud within Are seen for answer ; joy before his feet Fades, and sweet rest retires in rainbow foam ; Perilous instincts lure him and mislead. Tho' for a season he may conquer down And put to flight the traitor legion well, THE STRANGE PARABLE. 1 37 Yet with to-morrow's light they will return ; And if he yield, relapsing to their rule, Relapse is worse perdition to the man, Than to have never left his sin at all. Ay me, mysterious doom ; what help is mine ? US A LAMENT FOR ADONIS. We will lament the beautiful Adonis ! The sleepy clouds are lull'd in all their trails. The water-heads are weary for the rain. The branchy volumes of the clouded pines, Like drooping banners, in excess of noon Languish beneath the forehead of the sun : Nor dares one gale to breathe, one ivy-leaf To flicker on its strings about the boles. Lament Adonis here in dead-ripe noon ; Weep for her weeping, Queen of love and dream, Disconsolate, love's ruler love-bereaved : Where is thy godhead fallen, what avail To throne it on the clouds yet lose thy joy ? A LAMENT FOR ADONIS. 1 39 Couldst thou not hold Adonis on thy lips Eternally, and scorn the ebbing years ? This, this were meed of immortality, To wear thy stately love secure and fair Of rainy eyes : now shalt thou ne'er resume, Enamoured Queen, thy shelter at his heart : His arms no longer Aphrodite's nest. Kneel then, and weep with her and weep with her. It is not meet that pure cheek's crimsoning, It is not fate those bloom-ripe limbs endure The stain of thick corruption and the rule Of common natures : Queen, possess thy power, Raise him beyond the region of the sun ; There cherish back the heavy eyes to blend With that full morning of the ageless gods : Watch him to life in bloomy asphodel, Dissolve thy soul on his reviving lips. In vain, 'tis idle dreaming this shall be. 14° A LAMENT FOR ADONIS. In vain, ye maidens, this our sister toil To scatter posies on his sacred sleep With dole for him that was so beautiful : He shall not wake from that lethean dream : He shall not move for her immortal smile, Nor hear the busy kisses at his cheek : She ceases and she sobs upon her hands : Come, let us weep with her and weep with her. Smother his head with roses as he lies. The day may draw the sacred twilight down : The dew-lights on the grasses and the leaves May speck the woods, as night the sky, with stars ; The sun-down gale shall not, because we weep, Forego his perfume, or night's bird her song. Nature is greater than the grief of gods, And Pan prevails, while dynasties in heaven Rule out their little eons and resign The thunder and the throne to younger hands. He is the rock, but these the rounding waves. A LAMENT FOR ADONIS. 141 Lament not, Queen of love, lament no more : Nature and love alone are ageless powers ; Thy queendom, Aphrodite, shall not fail. The reign of might shall fail, the wisdom fail That wrought out heavenly thrones : the weary clouds Shall not sustain them longer : only love And nature are immortal. Nature sealed Adonis' eyes : the kindly hand forgave The creeping years that held Tithonus old Before the smiles that loved and saw him fade. Have comfort ; and our homeward choir shall hymn Thy godhead thro' the cedarn labyrinths, Till they emerge upon the flushing sheet Of sunset : on those waters many an isle And cape and sacred mountain ripe with eve, Cherish thy myrtle in delicious groves : Infinite worship at this hour is thine. They name thee Aphrodite, and the name Blends with the incense towards the crimson cloud. l 4 2 NIMROD. Vedea Nembrotte appie del gran lavoro Quasi smarrito, et riguardar le genti Che in Sennaar con Iui suberbi foro. Dante. Towards thy great clouds I reach my arms and cry, Confounded yet unconquered, if my power Could rend thee down, thou tyrant, from thy seat, Then would I barter twenty million years Of agonies, if at the last revenge Would crown me lord and master for a day. Ye hireling nations melting at his hand Across the plain, who is your king but I ? Who made you one and held you by the bond Of kingship, till the world had never seen NIMROD. 14; Your like for strength and empire, firm as gods ? Were ye not strays upon the earth before ? Weak as the puny rillets of the hill, I rolled you into one imperial stream, ( Grinding the mountains where ye chose to tread, Not to be turned aside, more strong than they. Together we were masters of the earth, Divided ye were nothing, this ye knew; And he the tyrant knew it as his throne Trembled beneath him ; then we journeyed on And found this Shinar level as a sea, Perpetual plain, and the low clouds came down And touched the verge wherever we beheld. I looked, and in my wake there journeyed on The leagues of nations lessening o'er the waste In coils of distance : I was king of these, And at one spoken word their strength was mine. There came a mighty thought upon my brain ; I knew that it was greater than myself And quailed in joy before it, as it said, 144 NIMROD. Monarch of nations, thou hast conquered much And always : there is nothing for thy sword ; And it is puny praise to conquer men, And stale endeavour : look upon the clouds, They are not hung so high above thy head As is the length of nations in thy wake : Reach them and find at last an equal foe : Reach them, resistless king, and war with gods, That tremble now to think thou hast divined How very great thou art, and weak are they. I paused, and made the mighty thought a deed. The nations came around me, and a shout Of myriads hailed me God in my device. And straight they went about it, mad with zeal. The stiff blue clay lay ready at their hand ; It seemed that nature owned her future Lord, And brought the humble tribute of her earth To build his throne, and laid it at his feet. Eager they dug and baked the moulded marl ; NIMROD. 145 And all the plain lay like a heaven of stars With frequent kiln at midnight, and by day An under-heaven of blue and crisping cloud. And the tower rose : the masons at its height Could see the ocean now that we had left A year behind us : ever at its base The thousand-throated labour like a sea Continually murmured : tier on tier It darkened heaven, a monster in the sand, And height succeeded height and pause was none : Until its summits entered in the zones Of cloud, and these about it clave all day As on some giant peak untrod of man. And the cloud made the tiers above itself Seem more stupendous, and yet pause was none. And now I thought, this wish is in my hand, And at the base I held my men of war In harness for encounter, to ascend When the word came that heaven was scaled at last : For now the cloud was permanent, and still L 1 46 NIMROD. The men built in it, hoping to emerge Up thro' the rack upon the floor of heaven. And still they built : and mad in our desire We waited : slowly height on height it drew : ' An hour and we attain it.' Sudden light Brake from above, ' Ye armies, heaven is won : I lead you, come.' A roar behind me came, As if against the land I led the sea : And now I set my foot upon the stair — When darkness drave in on my brain — I fell. There as I lay confounded, like a child That cannot move his limbs ; it seemed there grew Enormous light out up above the cloud : And smote the cloudy bastions, like a sun Rending the mists, to put them at a sweep From some long coast for ever : light of light Glowed in the core of vapour, writhing it : The blue haze crushed and shuddered as it came : NIMROD. 147 Whereon a voice to hear as terrible, As, to behold, that radiance, throb by throb, Dealt out its language larger than the sense Of man receives in meanings on his brain. Dead by the courses of their bricks they lay The builders : one escaping down the stair Spake idiot-like with charr'd distorted face, And gibbered out a language of the dead. And, as he spake, confusion seemed to spread Upon our tongues who heard him. Horrid fear Supplanted man's familiar eloquence To jargon viler than a drunkard's song. And I, altho' the god-voice and the light Dazed me, arose, and cried to rally them, ' Be not afraid, this terror is not long : If we possess our souls in such deep fear, Then are we masters of these gods that know No further torment for us : heaven is ours : More great for this repulse I lead you on.' 148 NIMROD. They heard a sound of language at my lips : They knew my tone, the gesture of command : Then for a moment instinct, lord of fear, Rallied their ranks behind me : not for long : I was to these a babbler as the rest : Their fellow's language on their ear became Ineffable confusion, idiot sound. They bore it but an instant and they fled : They turned their eyes to all the winds of heaven, And trod each other in their panic down : And melted thro' the broad earth every way In mad divergence, to escape alone The mighty horror of the place. They left The tower of their confusion, as one great Unfinished protest of the toil of men Against the lazy tyrants of the sky. They fled : I raised my reeling blinded eyes, Against the mocking clouds my hands I spread, And cursed my birth, for on the Shinar plain, Monarch of nations, lo, I stand alone. 149 ZEUS. Who hath revealed his name, Father of clouds, eternal as death is, Who, ere the mountains came, Sat in the morning light and had no care, Great and austerely fair ? Under his feet the dew and spice of dawn And little wells arose : Murmur and supplication, laugh and prayer, Came up like vapour to his footstool there : And the faint pulse of distant throbbing woe Rose as an echo very far below, A moan the wind beats back, a sound that cannot grow. He will not comfort any in his bliss, : : ZEUS m the treasures of the ides belcr . : thou draw down his feet with sacrifice, Or lure his mete: c res* and we 5, he is strong. H . _ iesire of him no aid. -i out the rocks with weeping at thy harm. Thou shalt not make him as a man afraid. - overcome the shadow of his calm brother gods that feast up there with him Are before him ere they : ach the cup. B presence makes their lesser glories dim, i underneath his throne earth's wail comes up. And now men praise him that he is so great, curse him that he lets them die, And now some blessing feign, dissembling hate. But one and all he lets th he slumbers on the tinted cloud, We sick on earth the feeble nations fear hat fail and forehead earthward bowed. if thy name be •raken and he^- ZEUS. 151 Descend and break the mountains, if thou hearest, Awake, arise, and smite the secret seas. Put on that strength of panoply thou wearest When thou dost rise to prosper thy decrees. Say to the deep, ' refrain thy ocean roaring ; ' Command the darkened places of the wind. Bid thou the cloud dissolve her stately soaring ; Speak to the tempest, ' flee thou like a hind : ' Bind up in vapour thy strong golden light. Make pale the mild uprisings of the stars. Scatter in weeping the broad earth's delight ; Assume thy vengeance, thou of many wars. O tried and terrible, resume thy sword, Mighty in visitation, prove thy spear, Lay to thine hand to justify thy word, Zeus, if thy name be Zeus, waken and hear. Ah, lord, ah, strong and sudden god, whose feet Rest on the throb of all created pain, Thou feelest thy dominion is so sweet, 152 ZEUS. Thou wilt not loose one rivet of our chain : Thou wilt not say, ' Arise, and taste again Love and the genial hour, Where no cloud came : Clothe back upon thy darling's cheek its flower, And fear no blame. Was she not wholly sweet and bound to thee With innocent joy? But this I did destroy By the great might and scathe of my decree ; Worm, what is this to me, If time flowed sweetly once and now is ended ? Before thou knewest I was great, Thy lips my ways commended, When thou in old estate Wentest so light of dream, With love that nature gave, To find a sister in each wave, A brother in the flower, And some old blind mild god thy father of the hour.' ZEUS. 153 Thou art not mild, mysterious ! and thine eyes Reach as the lightning reaches, and thy hands Smite down the old perfections of the earth, That came with blind old Saturn's dead commands, And totter with his fall. The new god stands Supreme, altho' his royal robe is wet With his sire's blood ; and in his ears as yet There waileth on a father's agony, And yet he falters nothing : and shall we, Seeing he has no mercy, have any fears ? Nay, rather crave his thunder, if he hears And is not drowsy with his long revenge. Who shall ascend unto thine iron eyes, Who shall make moan or prayer that may prevail ? For thou art satiate with so many sighs I do not think, O Zeus, thou wilt arise, Fed with delight and all sweet dream and thought, Thou wilt not rise supreme In thy beatitude ; 154 ZEUS. For fleeting love is nought, And human gratitude In thy cold splendid cloud, must tremble to intrude. Let us go up and look him in the face, We are but as he made us ; the disgrace Of this, our imperfection, is his own. And unabashed in that fierce glare and blaze, Front him and say, ' We come not to atone, To cringe and moan : God, vindicate thy way. Erase the staining sorrow we have known, Thou, whom ill things obey ; And give our clay Some master bliss imperial as thine own : Or wipe us quite away, Far from the ray of thine eternal throne. Dream not, we love this sorrow of our breath, Hope not, we wince or palpitate at death ; ZEUS. Slay us, for thine is nature and thy slave : Draw down her clouds to be our sacrifice, And heap unmeasured mountain for our grave. Flicker one cord of lightning north to south, And mix in awful glories wood and cloud ; We shall have rest, and find Illimitable darkness for our shroud ; We shall have peace then, surely, when thy mouth Breathes us away into the darkness blind, Then only kind.' i56 A HYMN TO THE SUN. From the wave in thy purple ascend, Crown of day, king of rays, lord of dreams. Be thine excellent strength without end, As eternal thy garment of beams. In the tremble of manifold winds, In the flush and the flicker of rose, The waves they have seen thee arise, And the voice of their clash thrills and throes. Thou hast made the least brightest of these, That roughens the glance of the sea, To exult, to be fire, to be music, At the sound of thy glory and thee. A HYMN TO THE SUN. 1 57 In the hush of the ripple grow gold, Till thou crumble the cloud in thy joy. Let thy flakes and ray-branches unfold, Smite the mist, mellow orb, and destroy. O drench us with flame from thy wing : Let thy bright arm break darkness like sleep : Fling light, like a tempest that sings And seethes from the core of the deep. Be upon us, vast light, like a dream ; Be about us, pure noon, like a fire ; Enfold us, embrace us, extreme Mighty glory beyond our desire. From the fire of the fountains of God, Swift art thou as thunder or death. The blind silence of air thou hast trod, Thou art shod with the speed of god's breath. 158 A HYMN TO THE SUN. As a god thou art perfectly fair. Thou art strong, thou art swift, thou art bright Thou shalt rouse thee, and stars from thy hair Shall fall like a raining of light. Our eyelids endure not thy blaze. Thou art excellent over man's need. We bow down our heads at thy gaze, We quail at the pulse of thy speed. Thou art young, thou art young in thy ways. Earth ages : thou art as of yore, Still robing the might of thy face In fiercer effulgence and more. Thou art God and untiring and strong : Thou restest for pleasure, not need. Though the way of thy glory be long, Thy feet shall not falter or bleed. A HYMN TO THE SUN. 1 59 Shall it weary thy steps like a steed, Shall it deepen thy breathing to pain ? Shall it dry thee away like a reed, Shall it sift thee and shake thee as grain ? Nay, rather the heart of thy fire Sheds over in bountiful rays, As it touches the verge of desire Attaining the goal of thy ways. Go about, olive cloud of day's end : Be silent, thou leaf and thou rose : Float down like an island and wend God of sun to supremest repose. i6o THE DEATH OF HERACLES. The athlete Heracles had ending thus : He drew that garment steeped in curses on, And felt the poison eat his flesh bone-deep — Nor could he tear it from him, baleful web, — And knew the mighty horror of his doom Inevitable, clothing him throughout With creeping flame intensest. And he said, ' My death is on me, comrade, in thy love I charge thee nowise leave me till the end. Thine will be full brief service, for I climb This CEta, there I sacrifice and die.' And so we clomb together. All day long We toiled up (Eta, and the evening fell One red great ball of sun, and flared and split THE DEATH OF HERACLES. l6l The radiance : and he ever moaning clomb, Moaning and shuddering, and huge agonies Of sweat were on the muscles of his limbs, And in his eyes a dumb pain terrible. And now he clomb, and now in torment sat With set teeth on some boulder, swaying slow His head and rugged beard ; and all his breast Lay heaving, and the volumes of its breath Went up in dry hot vapour. Or he sat Staring as in amazement. And I went And touched him and he moved not, and again I touched him. Suddenly the whole man leapt Straightened on the instant, and addressed himself To the sheer hill and leaning clomb. At length It ceased into a level desolate As death, a summit platform : the near clouds Racked over us until the hill itself Seemed giddy with their motion. Cruel winds Flapt icily at our heated limbs, and seemed To bite away in very cruelty M 1 62 THE DEATH OF HERACLES. The few black shivering grasses in the peat, Or tugged the fangs of heath long dead in cold. And, when he saw the horror of the place, He stayed himself and called with a great voice, ' Here;' Suddenly calling it. And I began To pile an altar at his word of all The hill-side nourished, birch and pine and stunt Gray sallow of the peat-tops. He that time Tore at his flesh or heavily sobbing rolled Against the shaly edges. And in fear I built it, tremble-handed, dizzy-eyed ; And when it rose he turned his face and cried, ' O comrade, is all ready ? ' And I said, ' All ready, master.' Then I lit a brand Of resinous pine storm-riven, as I strake Two clear hill-pebbles, gave blue fire free birth ; So stood with a great beating heart to wait The issue, ready with my torch. But he Climbing disspread upon the wood his vast And throbbing frame. And after a deep breath, THE DEATH OF HERACLES. 1 63 He gathered up his final strength to speak, And reached his hand, and thus his speech found way :— ' This is the end, and I am bounded here, And all my ancient triumph is decayed. One agony enwraps me, scalp to heel ; So I am made derision to the gods That smile above my torment. This is he The eminent of labours, conqueror, The universal athlete, whose rash arm Would stifle down the evils of the earth. Behold, in what a mesh of woven pain The deity confounds him. Think not thou Hereafter, simple-hearted as was I, To stand between the gods and their desire That man receive no comfort only woes. They hate for us to stand upon our strength And love our degradation chiefly. Thou Consider this, my friend, and think no shame To let them have their wills, and stand aside, Seeing my end, and all this ruined flesh 164 THE DEATH OF HERACLES. I thought so strong in beautiful living power ; And, lo, a little poison quenches all Into a writhing worm, ensheathed with fire ; The smoke-sighs of whose torment shall ascend A music to the sleepy gods, a dream Lulling the dew of pleasure in their eyes With echoes of mine infelicity. Have they not cursed these mortals long ago ? And every curse is fruitful as a seed : And woe to him who dares disroot but one, Thro' foolish loving of his fellow-men. And now I die : fire only reaps away This stain upon me. But, O comrade, learn I may bequeath thee something, tho' I seem So utterly naked of all honour now, Because thou hast not left a stricken man. Guard thou mine arrows, they to guard are thine. The gall of hydra on their barbs is death. And once a strange seer told me they should end A mighty war of Hellas soon to be. THE DEATH OF HERACLES. 1 65 This fell not out in any day of mine. Therefore, if blind-eyed Eris fling this dread Upon the measure of thy time, rejoice, For I have given thee its remedial power, To use as thy heart bends thee. Any way Guard these at least for ancient love of mine.' And his voice brake ; and then he mightily called, ' Light it ! ' and I forbore ; and he called twice, ' If thou dost love me, light it ; ' and I lit. Then came the rushing creature of the flame Over and under, writhing into spire And branch and eager inward-licking rings, And mighty stifling pine-smoke, volumed round. And I endured no longer to behold, Exceedingly unnerved, and wailing fled Down the sheer hill, till in a secret vale I found a corner, and there grovelling lay, And brought my face into my hands, and hid The daylight and its doings out. Yet still Sung in mine ears the horrible hiss of the flame. 1 66 THE DEATH OF HERACLES. Until, a great while after, I had heart, Again ascending, from the smouldered pyre To gather very reverently his bones. These I concealed in mounded sepulture, Guarding the arrows, which I treasure now To feed my vengeance. Thus died Heracles. 167 THE FALL OF THE TITANS. Beautiful might Of the earth-born children, Brood of the Titans, Ah, utterly fallen ! Ye were too noble to sit still Beneath oppression ; other spirits Gave Zeus his way. They said, ' Go to, he wields the thong of masterdom, Exceedingly revengeful ; and his plagues Bite to the marrow of his foes. Under his feet is laid Dominion, will ye then Resist him ? Nay, not we.' 1 68 THE FALL OF THE TITANS. But ye had other song, Ye Titans feasting with the lion-nerve, Pressing your lips in, as the new young god Played with his thunder, as a raw boy tries His newly-handled sword Upon the bark of trees. Ye saw him, ye grim brood, Scored with a many years, ere he had drawn His baby milk ; ye saw him, and ye smiled In that he called, ' Begone, ye old monsters, time Has done with you. Did Saturn stand before My bathing rays of glory ? One finger of my strength Wipes you away like drops of dew.' Then with a whisper ye rose up, Ye spake no word of council, Ye came one-minded, Still and very terrible. Ye piled the mountains To scale the cloud-line. THE FALL OF THE TITANS. 1 69 Heaven saw ye come, and all Her cloud munitions trembled. Then howling fled Zeus and his tyrant-brood, Shrill-voiced as girls, And sheltered them awhile In bestial forms. Awhile, but ye were easy in the flush Of conquest, unrevengeful, when ye might Have crushed them out, Mild were ye and forgave Their extirpation utterly. So these drew breath and guile Reseated them : O Titan sons of earth, O mild great brethren, when the coiling beast Resumed the terrors of his battered crest, There was no mercy for you. Mercy ! nay, but horrible Rapture of vengeance, How they settled to it, 170 THE FALL OF THE TITANS. And all their eyes Swam with the luxury of the feast. Ye have seen a pack Of wild dogs pulling Against each other, At some sick beast they have conquered ; And all their teeth Are clogged with their tearings, And they snarl at each other Half-blinded with blood-spurts. Ay me, my Titans — Why have ye fallen ? Nobler than these which thrust you under night. For ye were calm and great, And when ye heard The cry of earth your mother, whom these gods Continually afflicted, Ye flung yourselves on the new power, and just Were stifling out the creature at its neck, When it edged slily THE FALL OF THE TITANS. 1 7 T Its secret teeth out, And stung you down to darkness. Beautiful might Of the earth-born children, Brood of the Titans, Ah, utterly fallen. 172 THE STREN TO ULYSSES. Mighty in glory, king of patient brain, Reef thy brown sails and gather up the oars : The rest is here and limit of thy way. The gods have here decreed thee thy repose. The slant and driving valleys of green brine Shall never rock thee more in gusty foam. The gathered clouds against an angry moon, The fleecy wave-rush on the shoaling crags, Shall be remembered as abolished things, The laboured preludes to thy larger joy. Here is an island that the violet waves Ripple against, uncrested, musical : There is no turmoil on its lustrous seas, THE SIREN TO ULYSSES. 1 73 Nor any day in which the singing birds Pause thro' the measure of the fadeless year. Thou who hast oared the long world's humid floor, My lithe arms soon shall wind thee, and my mouth Smoothe out the stain of travel from thy brow : Soft and serene the bosom of my rest. Silvering groves in twilight shall be ours, Where the moon dare not come for secrecy, But sends the comer of a peering beam. While the leaves rustle, lest our kisses wake The nested thrushes, philomels of dawn. And I will sing thee songs of sacred lore As low as breathing : and my lucid arms Shall move the heavy fragrance of the night, To soothe aside the glosses of my hair From thy deep earnest eyes, and front of care, Large, level, wise. My lips shall seem on thine, As cowslip petals sweet and faint within, Divinest in the hours of the prime dews. 174 THE SIREN TO ULYSSES. An hour of this, my love, shall bring thee more Of wisdom, than a century of toil In seeing traffic places, marts of men, Gray citadels on headlands, arsenals, Quays, temples, harbours, races, customs, minds ; Then intervals of buffet with the surge, Hearing the crags beaten with reeling sprays. Wisdom is thine, but I can give thee more : For thou art subtle as a man alone : But I, that am immortal, can reveal The things which gods have shrouded from of old, Fearing that man should know them and be wise ; And, scaling on from height to height, attain Their drowsy empire in his thirsty zeal To grasp the utter knowledge of the earth. For man is restless, but the God at rest : And that enormous energy of man Implies his imperfection : perfect they, Exempt and firm, in no disquietude, THE SIREN TO ULYSSES. 1 75 A consummation scorning thought beyond. Wisdom is mine ; but I can give thee love ; Which, twinned with wisdom, is most perfect life, Love being crown of wisdom, unen joyed Save of the wise in its essential core, An ecstasy beyond the fleeting sense ; Which wisdom nearest godhead can attain In glimpses only : but the herd of men Love as the herds : the scale of higher love Ascends with higher wisdom and the joy. Thine oars are warpt, thy sails are worn awry : Thy keels are cumbered with the boring shell : Thy sailors loathe the long perpetual path Where sweeps the waste vibration, vale on vale. Thou only, King, art haughty in thy soul To overbear the adverse elements With human purpose sterner than the wave. Thy face is set upon thy barren rock 176 THE SIREN TO ULYSSES. To reach it in despite of gods or men. But either death shall reach thee on the road Of the moist waters ; or this island gained Shall seem a bitter cheat for all thy toil. For man must ever hold some wish before, And drape it up in cloudy attribute Beyond perfection, lest his laggard feet Loiter beside the highway of the world. But when the wish is scaled he casts it by, And feigns another landmark far away, Till his brain darkens and his feet are still. Therefore he wisely lives, who wisely reaps The dew upon the grass before the noon Has quenched it ; taking wisely what the days Lay at his feet, nor asking much beyond. Love may be his and wisdom in degree ; There is no further scope for mortal days : The aims of highest natures all resolve Themselves in these ; and these are in my hand THE SIREN TO ULYSSES. 1 77 To bring thee : more than others' they are thine. The seas are yonder crested in gray bloom, But here is stormless ether evermore : And love without one ripple on his rest, And toiling done away with and no tear. i 7 8 THE CHILDREN OF THE GODS. Und meiden, im enkel Die eh'mals geliebten Still redenden ziige Des Ahnherrn zu sehn. Iphigenia. Goethe. The rulers of Olympus owe no bond Of earthly kindred : in their cloudy state They see the wrong and anguish of their sons, And turn the brilliance of their eyes away. Is it in nature that a mother's soul Forgets the child she held upon her breast ? Can love to that same helpless little one Be utterly abolished, when the years Have made the fibres of those strengthless hands THE CHILDREN OF THE GODS. 1 79 Strong with the spear ? Is human love so vile, Ye gods, that ye despise it ? Do you shrink, Immortal fathers, by the cradle-head To see your mighty likeness, as a babe, Renewed in features of the helpless years ? Is there reproach in that small wailing voice To dash the high reserve of majesty To mere emotion ? And these children grow To men with record of the godlike eyes, And something better than the common breed. But can the father in his amber halls Retain one dim least instinct towards his own, To let them reap and hustle with the herd ? Is winter's interval less rough to these, The god-begotten ? Doth the sour ice rain Flood by their vineyard scathless? Drought and dust Vex them and vex their works, as other men's. But those inexorable listless sires Move round their drowsy eyes in much disdain Of earthward care and all vicissitude. I So THE CHILDREN OF THE GODS. They see the setting and the rising stars : The storm is like a distant waterfall : Except they listen, this they will not hear : Except they will, they need not watch its wings, That far, far down, one blot of violet shower, Move on the terraced islands edged in foam, Green bays of earth and patches of gray sea. 1 They slumber in their careless citadel. The centuries are gathered to their homes, Beneath them, ancients of an ageless dawn : The strength and beauty of impregnable Pavilions are their haven in a calm, Deeper than silence, avenued in stars. They will not raise a hand for any woe. The pestilence and agonies of earth Dare not invade the porches of their rest : Only the sudden glory of a dream Plays on the stern lip-corners like a light, Nor turns them in their slumber on the cloud. THE CHILDREN OF THE GODS. l8l Infirm am I to dream that bond or blood, Justice or love, as tender-minded men Use them and die, are anything to these. Not these it angers, that their sons have worn Their feature in disaster infinite, Debasing god-resemblance fallen low With stain of earth ; as one a captive king Slaves in his royal garment fray'd and old. Compassion scales not to that terrible land, If the sons perish wailing, with a gleam Of the cold sun-dawn on their rigid face. They raise a heavenward arm : it falls : and dust Is in their fingers : answers thus the sire : Those lips can name their father now no more. These gods it moves not, that the cheeks grow old Which in their bloom drew down immortal lips To taste them, sweet as anything above The cloud : gods changed the long monotony, Eonian calm, and irksome eminence 182 THE CHILDREN OF THE GODS. For pastime : leaving desolate in heaven Their Heres for the daughter of a day. They scorned their empty thrones and passionless heights, Weary of isolation due to gods, To bathe in that strange river of desire ; Which flows not from Olympus' girth of snow, But skirts the lowland precincts of the race, That knows no certain morrow, cheering these. There is no memory in omnipotence : They change their love-dreams as the meadows change Their raiment month by month. The hireling slave Mates with a bondsmaid longer. Human love Of meaner creatures is a nobler thing. But these when love is sated make an end And crush remembrance, like an evil snake That stings them in the asphodels of heaven ; Where nothing comes, save that which fosters up Eternal sense of self-sufficiency, Careless of past, of forward days secure. THE CHILDREN OF THE GODS. The earthly sons of these in narrow homes By marges of the solitary seas Give glory to their fathers, if the earth Ripens the seed, or rounds the grape to wine, That they may mingle them a little cup, Or sheaf the threshold of the marsh for bread ; And breed in turn new offspring handing down The record of their lineage, bitterly Remembered in the dim degenerate days ; Or serving as an ancient lullaby To rock the cradles of an alien race. The generations pass, the gods abide. The beauty and perfections of the earth Are due to silence in a little while. And other things displace them fair as these. The hearth is broken where the children played : The gradual wave is eating at the land, The gradual river shallows up the sea. The mounds are garnered with the bones of men. 184 THE CHILDREN OF THE GODS. We creep to silence : but the eternal earth, With all her gods above her, evermore Sleeps into night and wakens into dawn. iS 5 A LEAVE-TAKING. Kneel not and leave me : mirth is in its gi-ave. True friend, sweet words were ours, sweet words decay. Believe, the perfume once this violet gave Lives — lives no more, though mute tears answer ' nay.' Break off delay ! Dead, Love is dead ! Ay, cancelled all his due. We say he mocks repose — we cannot tell- Close up his eyes and crown his head with rue, Say in his ear, Sweet Love, farewell ! farewell ! A last, low knell. 1 86 A LEAVE-TAKING. Forbear to move him. Peace, why should we stay ? Go back no more to listen for his tread. Resume our old calm face of every day : Not all our kneeling turns that sacred head Long dear, long dead ! Go with no tear-drop ; Love has died before : Stay being foolish ; being wise begone. Let severed ways estrange thy weak heart more ; Go, unregretful, and refrain thy moan. Depart alone. iSy HE MAY WHO CAN. We are wise, the world is old, Antic changes shift and hold, Boys will swear and maids will weep, Weep and smile again. Songs are for an April breast, Feathers for a gleaming crest, They may wake that need no sleep, Sing, that feel no pain. In a race young limbs are fleetest, Boyhood's mouth must kiss the sweetest, Falsy cheek and head of gray, Mope beside thy fire. J 83 HE MAY WHO CAN. Changes push us on our grave ; Can we keep the orts we have ? Ours is but a waning day, What should we desire ? 189 THE PRODIGAL. The scath of sin is on my brow like lead. The draff of swine is in my lips for bread. Father, I know thy glory is not dead. I will arise. The servants in thy house are clothed and fed Full and to spare. I perish here for bread. My sin hath clothed thy presence with such dread, I may not rise. Mine, mine the guilt, all trespass deep and red : Thine, thine the mercy on this fallen head. Naked I come, yet thou shalt give me bread. I will arise. 190 A FROSTY DAY. Grass afield wears silver thatch, Palings all are edged with rime, Frost-flowers pattern round the latch, Cloud nor breeze dissolve the clime ; When the waves are solid floor, And the clods are iron-bound, And the boughs are crystall'd hoar, And the red leaf nail'd a-ground. When the fieldfare's flight is slow, \n Relent, and whisper, ' Love, my scorn is gone. IN ARCADIA. 229 I am changed, and sigh after Love's touch and tone. I am broken for his voice, who did not heed. I am slain with needing love, who did not need ; Save me, whom thou hast vainly called to save, Lest I go maiden to the barren grave.' Shall I not answer, dove, who have loved thee long, ' Thy prayer is sweeter than a banquet song ; New tender captive in the honey lands, I will bind down with kisses thy fair hands, And have no ruth to lead thee garland-bound, Thro' great woods heavy with their summer sound. Till in an oak -glade lovelier than the rest, A temple rises columned to the west. Sacred it is to a baby god and blind, There, O my sweet, our haven let us find.' THE END. JOHN CIIH.DS AND SON, PRINTERS. By the same Author, PHILOCTETES §^ |flttrual grama AFTER THE ANTIQUE. Opinions of \\t |]rcss. '• i his is a fine poem, beautiful in detail, powerful as a whole ; leaving the same sort of impression of sad majesty upon us as many of the finest Greek dramas themselves ; combining the self-restrained and subdued passion of the antique style, with here and there a touch of that luxuri- ance of conception, and everywhere that wider range of emotions and deeper love of natural beauty, characteristic of the modern. To whose pen we owe it does not appear to be known. It might have been taken for Mr Matthew Arnold's but for a less supremely intellectual, a profounder ethical and moral essence than it usually pleases him to embody : and Philoctetes is certainly as far above Merope in success of execution as Mr Arnold's finest poems are above his poorest." — The Spectator, June 30th, 1866. " In careful structure of plot, in classic chasteness of style and language, in nice and exact interweaving of part with part, in finish and completeness of the whole, Philoctetes is worthy — and that is saying much— to be named in the same day with Atalanta in Calydon, although the latter is entitled to a marked precedence . . . Passing from the drift and scope of this new Philoc- tetes to its poetry, one is struck by abundant tokens of grace and refinement, and discerns a fancy fed on loving study of the ancient classics. The author has plied the ' exemplaria Graeca ' to good purpose, and has learnt from them to a creditable extent that completeness in itself of each thought, image, and description which is to be found in a Greek poet's composition The classical field is open and unrifled. Let the author pursue his re- searches amongst its treasures, and go on to delight his generation with fresh studies ' from the antique ' as truth- fully conceived as his Philoctetes." — The Saturday Review, August iSth, 1866. " That desolate old Greek idea of the hopeless misery of man is clothed by our anonymous poet in language of great beauty and power." — Loudon Review, July i%th, 1866. " Every abatement, however, being made, Philoctetes is undoubtedly the work of a poetical mind, and may be read with enjoyment. With pains and matured art, the writer may produce what will endure." — The Athenceum, May 26th, 1866. " There is fine poetry in Philoctetes, but it is the song of despair." — The Reader, May 19th, 1866. STRAHAN & CO., PUBLISHERS. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. rm L9-100m-9,'52(A3105)444 m» y^rmem WIMIWIH mm