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 SONGS OF BRITAIN 
 
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 By the same Author. 
 
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 *»* For Notices of the Press, see end 0/ this Volume. 
 
 London : Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.
 
 SONGS OF BRITAIN 
 
 BY 
 
 LEWIS MORRIS 
 
 LONDON 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., i, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 1887
 
 
 {The rights of translation and of reproduction arc reserved.)
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The present volume comes so quickly after the 
 writer's tragedy, " Gycia," published last year, that 
 it may be well to say that the earlier poem 
 was written as far back as the end of the year 
 1X84. 
 
 Of the three legends from Wild Wales contained 
 in this volume, the fiust is derived partly from the 
 " Mabinogion," partly from a quasi-historical tradi- 
 tion. The two others follow as nearly as may be 
 the oral traditions collected by the writer's friend, 
 Professor Rhys, from all parts of Wales, and re- 
 produced by him in the pages of the Cymmrodorion
 
 vi Preface. 
 
 Society's Journal. It should be understood that 
 " The Physicians of Myddfai " is a poem rather 
 than a metrical exercise, and that the writer is well 
 aware that, without considerable indulgence in the 
 matter of metre, English elegiac verse must be 
 practically impossible. 
 
 Penury x, April, 1887.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I AGE 
 
 On a Thrush singing in Autumn ... ... ... i 
 
 In a Country Church ... ... ... ... 5 
 
 In Spring-tide ... ... ... ... ... 13 
 
 In Autumn ... ... ... ••• ••• 15 
 
 A Midsummer Night's Dream ... ... ... 17 
 
 An English Idyll ... ... ... ... 25 
 
 Anima Mundi ... ... ••• •■• ••■ 29 
 
 In Pembrokeshire, 1886 ... ... 31 
 
 Easter-tide ... ... ••• •■• ■•• 37 
 
 Ghosts ... ... ... ••• ••■ ■•■ 43 
 
 Song ... ... ■•• ••• ••• 4& 
 
 From Wild Wales : 
 
 i. llyn y morwynion... ... ... ... 48 
 
 II. The Physicians of Myddfai ... ... 59 
 
 III. The Curse of Pantannas ... ... ... 102
 
 viii Contents. 
 
 i'AGE 
 
 To a Gay Company ... ... ... ... ... 126 
 
 From Juvenal ... ... ... ... ... 130 
 
 Ightham Mote ... ... ... ... ... 132 
 
 The Secret of Things ... ... ... ... 13S 
 
 Oh, Earth ! ... ... ... ... ... 144 
 
 On a Birthday... ... ... ... ... 146 
 
 In a German Laboratory ... ... ... ... 149 
 
 The Summons ... ... ... ... ... 152 
 
 Silvern Speech ... ... ... ... ... 154 
 
 The Obelisk ... ... ... ... ... 157 
 
 A Song of Empire ... ... ... ... 16;
 
 SONGS OF BRITAIN. 
 
 ON A THRUSH SINGING IN AUTUMN. 
 
 Sweet singer of the Spring, when the new world 
 
 Was filled with song and bloom, and the fresh year 
 
 Tripped, like a lamb tender and void of fear, 
 
 Through daisied grass and juicy leaves unfurled, 
 
 Where is thy liquid voice 
 
 That all day would rejoice ? 
 
 Where now thy sweet and homely call, 
 
 Which from gray dawn to evening's chilling fall 
 
 Would echo from thin copse and tasselled brake, 
 
 For homely duty tuned and love's sweet sake ? 
 
 B
 
 Songs of Britain. 
 
 The spring-tide passed, high summer soon should come. 
 
 The woods grew thick, the meads a deeper hue ; 
 
 The pipy summer growths swelled, lush and tall ; 
 
 The sharp scythes swept at daybreak through the dew. 
 
 Thou didst not heed at all, 
 
 Thy prodigal voice grew dumb ; 
 
 No more with song mightst thou beguile, 
 
 She sitting on her speckled eggs the while, 
 
 Thy mate's long vigil as the slow days went, 
 
 Solacing her with lays of measureless content. 
 
 Nay, nay, thy voice was Duty's, nor would dare 
 
 Sing were Love fled, though still the world were fair ; 
 
 The summer waxed and waned, the nights grew cold, 
 
 The sheep were thick within the wattled fold, 
 
 The woods began to moan, 
 
 Dumb wert thou and alone; 
 
 Yet now, when leaves are sere, thy ancient note
 
 On a Thrush singing in Autumn. 
 
 Comes low and halting from thy doubtful throat. 
 Oh, lonely loveless voice, what dost thou here 
 In the deep silence of the fading year ? 
 
 Thus do I read the answer of thy song : 
 
 " I sang when winds blew chilly all day long ; 
 
 I sang because hope came and joy was near, 
 
 I sang a little while, I made good cheer ; 
 
 In summer's cloudless day 
 
 My music died away ; 
 
 But now the hope and glory of the year 
 
 Are dead and gone, a little while I sing 
 
 Songs of regret for days no longer here, 
 
 And touched with presage of the far-off Spring." 
 
 Is this the meaning of thy note, fair bird ? 
 
 Or do we read into thy simple brain 
 
 Echoes of thoughts which human hearts have stirred,
 
 Songs of Britain. 
 
 High-soaring joy and melancholy pain ? 
 
 Nay, nay, that lingering note 
 
 Belated from thy throat — 
 
 " Regret," is what it sings, " regret, regret ! 
 
 The dear days pass, but are not wholly gone. 
 
 In praise of those I let my song go on ; 
 
 Tis sweeter to remember than forget."
 
 IN A COUNTRY CHURCH. 
 
 The organ peals, the people stand, 
 The white procession through the aisles, 
 As is our modern use, defiles 
 In ranks, which part on either hand. 
 
 They chant the psalms with resonant voice 
 These peasants of our Saxon Kent ; 
 With the old Hebrew king rejoice, 
 With him grow contrite and repent. 
 
 But when the pale priest, blandly cold, 
 White-winged above the eagle bends, 
 I lose the ancient words of old, 
 The monotone which still ascends.
 
 Songs of Britain. 
 
 For there the village school is set, 
 A row of shining faces bright, 
 Round cheeks by time unwrinkled yet, 
 Smooth heads, and boyish collars white. 
 
 And through the row there runs a smile, 
 Like sunlight on a rippling sea — 
 A childish mirth, devoid of guile ; 
 What may the merry movement be ? 
 
 The teachers frown ; not far to seek 
 The wonder seems, for it is this : 
 A little scholar whose round cheek 
 A stain of gules appears to kiss. 
 
 For some low shaft of wintry sun 
 
 Strikes where Dame Dorothy of the Grange, 
 
 In long devotions never done, 
 
 Kneels on through centuries of change ;
 
 In a Country Church. 
 
 And from her robe's unfading rose, 
 Athwart the fair heads ranged below, 
 A ruddy shaft at random goes, 
 And lights them with unwonted glow. 
 
 And straightway all the scene but these 
 Grows dim for me ; I heed no more 
 The preacher's smooth monotonies, 
 The chants repeated o'er and o'er. 
 
 For I am borne on fancy's wings 
 Far from the Present to the Past ; 
 From those which pass to those which last, 
 The root and mystery of Things. 
 
 How many an old and vanished day 
 Has gone, she kneeling there the while, 
 And watching, with her saintly smile, 
 The generations fade away.
 
 8 Songs of Britain. 
 
 The children came each Sunday there 
 To hear the self-same chant and hymn ; 
 The boys grew strong, the girls grew fair, 
 Their lives with fleeting years grew dim. 
 
 Their children's children came and went, 
 She kneeling in the self-same prayer ; 
 They passed to withered age, and bent, 
 And left the Lady kneeling there. 
 
 They passed, and on the churchyard ground 
 No more their humble names are seen ; 
 Only upon the billowy mound 
 Yearly the untrodden grass grows green. 
 
 They grew, they waned through toil and strife, 
 From innocence to guilt and sin ; 
 They gained what prize was theirs to win, 
 They sank in shame the load of life.
 
 In a Country Church. 
 
 And still the kneeling Lady calm 
 Throws gules on many a childish head, 
 And still the self-same prayers are said, 
 The self-same chant, the self-same psalm. 
 
 So had they been, before as yet, 
 Her far-off grandsires lived and died, 
 Ere long descent had nourished pride, 
 Before the first Plantagenet. 
 
 No change, unless some change there were 
 In simpler rite or grayer stone, 
 The self-same worship never done, 
 And for its very age grown fair. 
 
 Great God, the creatures of Thy hand, 
 Must they thus fail for ever still 
 Thy high behests to understand, 
 To seek and find Thy hidden will ?
 
 ro Songs of Britain. 
 
 Are Thy hands slow to succour then ? 
 And are Thy eyes, then, slow to see 
 The toiling, tempted race of men 
 Born into sin and misery ? 
 
 For nineteen centuries of Time, 
 Nay more, for dim unnumbered years, 
 Men's gaze have sought Thy face sublime, 
 And turned uncomforted, in tears. 
 
 For countless years unsullied youth 
 Has sunk through grosser mire of sense ; 
 And yet men cherish innocence ! 
 And yet we are no nearer truth ! 
 
 And not the less from age to age 
 Heavenward the unchanging suffrage rolls 
 From hearts inspired by holy rage, 
 And meek and uncomplaining souls,
 
 In a Country Church. 1 1 
 
 Who see no cloud of doubt o'erspread 
 The far horizons of the sky, 
 But view with clear, undoubting eye 
 The mansions of the happy dead. 
 
 Oh, wonder ! oh, perplexed thought ! 
 Oh, interchange of good and ill ! 
 In vain, by life's long pain untaught, 
 We strive to solve the riddle still. 
 
 In vain, so mixed the twofold skein, 
 That none the tangle may unwind ; 
 Where one the gate of Heaven may find, 
 Another shrinks in hopeless pain. 
 
 So here the immemorial sum 
 Of simple reverence may breed 
 A finer worship than might come 
 For fruit of some severer creed.
 
 1 2 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Kneel, Lady, blazoned in thy place ! 
 Through generations children kneel. 
 To know is weaker than to feel : 
 Though Truth seem far, we know her face
 
 IN SPRING-TIDE. 
 
 This is the hour, the day, 
 
 The time, the season sweet. 
 
 Quick ! hasten, laggard feet, 
 
 Brook not delay ; 
 Love flies, youth passes, Maytide will not last; 
 Forth, forth, while yet 'tis time, before the Spring is past. 
 
 The Summer's glories shine 
 
 From all her garden ground, 
 
 With lilies prankt around, 
 
 And roses fine ; 
 But the pink blooms or white upon the bursting trees, 
 Primrose and violet sweet, what charm has June like 
 these ?
 
 14 Songs of Britain. 
 
 This is the time of song. 
 
 From many a joyous throat, 
 
 Mute all the dull year long, 
 
 Soars love's clear note ; 
 Summer is dumb, and faint with dust and heat ; 
 This is the mirthful time when every sound is sweet. 
 
 Fair day of larger light, 
 
 Life's own appointed hour, 
 
 Young souls bud forth in white — 
 
 The world's a-flower ; 
 Thrill, youthful heart ; soar upward, limpid voice ; 
 Blossoming time is come — rejoice, rejoice, rejoice !
 
 IN AUTUMN. 
 
 " Decay, decay," the wildering west winds cry, 
 " Decay, decay," the moaning woods reply ; 
 The whole dead autumn landscape, drear and chill, 
 Strikes the same chord of desolate sadness still. 
 The drifting clouds, the floods a sullen sea, 
 The dead leaves whirling from the ruined tree, 
 The rain which falling soaks the sodden way, 
 Proclaim the parting summer's swift decay. 
 No song of bird, nor joyous sight or thing, 
 Which smooths the wintry forefront of the spring ; 
 No violet lurking in its mossy bed, 
 Nor drifted snow-bloom bending overhead,
 
 1 6 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Nor kingcups carpeting the meads with gold, 
 Nor tall spiked orchids purpling all the wold ; 
 But thin dull herbage which no more may grow, 
 And dry reeds rustling as the chill winds blow, 
 Bleak hillsides whence the huddled flocks are fled, 
 And every spear of crested grass lies dead. 
 " Decay, decay," the leafless woodlands sigh, 
 The torpid earth, and all the blinded sky, 
 And down the blurred moor, 'mid the dying day, 
 An age-worn figure limps its weary way.
 
 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 
 
 Far in the west sinks down the Sun 
 
 On bars of violet and gold, 
 
 A soft breeze springs up fresh and cold, 
 
 And darkness a transparent pall 
 
 Upon the waiting earth begins to fall, 
 
 And, decked with countless gems of lucent light, 
 
 Walks forth the sable Night, 
 
 And once again the unfailing miracle is done. 
 
 Ineffable, illimitable, immense, 
 Wonder of wonders, mystery of Space, 
 How can a finite vision meet thy face ? 
 
 c
 
 1 8 Songs of Britain. 
 
 How shall not our poor eyes, dazzled and dim, 
 
 Which see but thy vast circle's outward rim, 
 
 Sink touched before thy gaze with impotence ? 
 
 How shall our feeble voices dare to hymn 
 
 Thy infinite glories — voices which were best 
 
 To mortal loves and earth's poor joys addrest ? 
 
 How seek our earthly limits to transcend, 
 
 And, without halt or pause, 
 
 Soaring beyond the limit of our laws, 
 
 Touch with a feeble hand on glories without end ? 
 
 Nay, great are these indeed 
 And infinite, but not so great as He 
 Their Maker who has formed them, who made me, 
 Who can in fancy leap, outward and outward still 
 Beyond our System and its farthest star, 
 Beyond the greater Systems ranged afar, 
 To which our faintest suns are satellites, and no more-
 
 A Midsummer Night's Dream. 19 
 
 Beyond, beyond, beyond, till mind can fill 
 The illimitable void which never sense 
 Nor thought alone may compass or contain, 
 And with a whirling brain 
 Return to the great Centre of all light, 
 Which doth control and bound the Infinite, 
 And, looking to the undiscovered Sun, 
 Find all perplexity and longing done, 
 And am content to wonder and to adore. 
 
 This 'tis alone 
 Which doth console and soothe our feeble thought, 
 Faint with the too great strain to comprehend 
 An Infinite Creation without end. 
 Wherever through the boundless wastes we stray, 
 For ever and for ever, some faint ray 
 Of the great central Sun, the hidden Will, 
 Attends our wanderings still ;
 
 20 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Beyond the utmost limits of the sky, 
 
 Unseen, yet seen, the gaze of an Eternal Eye. 
 
 No waste of systems lies around, 
 
 But a great Rule by which all things are bound. 
 
 A changeless order circles sun with sun ; 
 
 One great Will pulses through, and makes them one. 
 
 System on system, vast or small, 
 
 One great Intelligence directs them all. 
 
 No longer from the endless maze we shrink, 
 
 Like those who on some sea-cliff's dreadful brink 
 
 Long to fling down into the empty air 
 
 And lose the pain of living, and to be 
 
 Sunk in the deep abysses of the sea ; 
 
 To lose the pain of living and the care, 
 
 Which dogs life like its shadow. 
 
 Nay, no dread 
 Have we who know a great Sun overhead, 
 Which shines upon us always, unbeheld.
 
 A Midsummer Nights Dream. 2 1 
 
 How should our eyes behold what is too great 
 
 For our imperfect state ? 
 
 How should our minds reach to it ; how attain 
 
 With a too feeble brain, 
 
 To comprehend the Unbounded, the Immense, 
 
 Incomprehensible by finite sense ? — 
 
 How through the Finite view the Infinite, 
 
 Except by this clear Light ? 
 
 That is the light, indeed, 
 Which lights all souls which come upon the earth. 
 That is the central Sun which on our birth 
 Shone, and will shine upon us till the end ; 
 A central Will which holds the worlds in space ; 
 A Presence, though we look not on its face, 
 Which sows a cosmic order through the waste of things ; 
 A Being, all the beatings of whose wings 
 Are secular wastes of Time ; of whose great soul
 
 22 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Creations are but moods, in whose vast mind 
 Antinomies of Thought repose combined, 
 Till those which seem to us as changeless laws 
 Show but as phases of the Unchanging Cause, 
 And we and all things fade and pass away, 
 Lost in the effulgence of the Boundless Day. 
 
 Let, then, unbounded Space, 
 Sown thick with worlds, encompass us ; we care 
 No whit for it, nor shall our dazzled eyes 
 This waste of Worlds surprise, 
 Which have looked on its Maker, who is more 
 Than all his work can be, but not the less 
 Dwells in each human soul that looks on Him 
 Albeit with vision dim ; 
 
 Whose constant Presence all our lives confess, 
 Of whom we are a part, and closer far 
 Than is the farthest, most unmeasured star,
 
 A Midsummer Nights Dream. 2 
 
 ifflt- J ±s t cii>rri>. * $ 
 
 Than are His great suns, big with fruitful strife, 
 Seeing that we are a portion of His Life, 
 Seeing that we hold His Essence — some clear spark, 
 Which shines when all creation else grows dark, 
 And are, however impotent and small, 
 One with the Will that made and governs all. 
 ***** 
 And now the night grows thin ; 
 A subtle air of dawning seems to stir 
 Before the dawn, as if its harbinger 
 To prisoned souls within, 
 Proclaiming the near coming of the day. 
 Then Darkness, a great bird, with raven wing, 
 Flies to the furthest west, and in her stead 
 Young Day, an orient conqueror overhead, 
 Looks down, and all that waste of worlds has fled ; 
 And once again the Eternal, mystic Birth 
 Is born upon the earth,
 
 24 Songs of Britain. 
 
 And once again the round of wholesome life, 
 
 The doubt-dispelling stir and joyous strife, 
 
 Chases the dreadful visions of the night, 
 
 Lost in the increasing light ; 
 
 And from the spheres a still voice seems to say, 
 
 " Awake, arise, adore, behold the Day ! 
 
 It is enough to be, nor question why ; 
 
 It is enough to work our work and die ; 
 
 It is enough to feel and not to know. 
 
 Behold, the Dawn is breaking ; let us go."
 
 AN ENGLISH IDYLL. 
 
 Once I remember, in a far-off June, 
 
 Leaving the studious cloister of my youth, 
 
 Beside the young Thames' stream I laid me down, 
 
 Wearied, upon a bank. 'Twas midsummer ; 
 
 The warm earth teemed with flowers ; the kingcup's gold, 
 
 The perfumed clover, 'mid the crested grass, 
 
 The plantains rearing high their flowery crowns 
 
 Above the daisied coverts ; overhead, 
 
 The hawthorns, white and rosy, bent with bloom, 
 
 The broad-spread chestnuts spiked with frequent flowers, 
 
 And white gold-hearted lilies on the stream ;
 
 26 Songs of Britain. 
 
 All these made joy within my heart, and woke 
 
 The fair idyllic phantasies of Greece ; 
 
 And dreaming, well content with the rich charm 
 
 Of summer England, long I idly mused : 
 
 " And were the deep-set vales of Thessaly 
 
 Or fair Olympian beech-groves more than this ? 
 
 Or the Sicilian meads more rich in flowers, 
 
 Where the lost goddess plucked the asphodel ? 
 
 Or flowed the clear stream through a lovelier shade 
 
 Where Dian bathed and rapt Actseon saw ? 
 
 Or were they purer depths where Hylas played 
 
 Till the nymphs drew him down ? Ah, fairer dreams 
 
 Than our poor England holds ! Grave, toil-worn land ! 
 
 Poor aged mother of a graceless brood, 
 
 With shambling gait and limbs by labour bent ! 
 
 What should she know of such ? " 
 
 When straight I heard 
 A ripple of boyish mirth, and looking saw
 
 An English Idyll. 27 
 
 Far off along the meads a gliding boat 
 Float noiselessly ; lithe forms at either end — 
 The self-same forms which Phidias fixed of old — 
 With tall poles, pressed it forward, others lay 
 Reclined, and all had crowned their short smooth hair 
 With lilies from the stream, while one had shaped 
 Some hollow reed in semblance of a pipe, 
 Making a shrill faint sound — a joyous crew, 
 Clothed with the grace of innocent nakedness. 
 Then, while they yet were far, ere yet a sound 
 Of their poor rustic tones assailed the sense, 
 Or too great nearness marred the grace of form 
 
 Poised sudden in a white row, side by side, 
 
 They plunged down headlong in the sweet warm 
 
 tide. 
 Then, as I went, within myself I said, 
 " The young Apollo is not wholly fled,
 
 28 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Nor can long centuries of toil and care 
 Make youth less comely or the earth less fair. 
 To the world's ending Joy and Grace shall be. 
 I, too, have been to-day in Arcady."
 
 ANIMA MUNDI. 
 
 Oh great World-Spirit, wherefore art thou come ? 
 We crave an answer, but thy voice is dumb. 
 
 Oh great World-Spirit, whither dost thou tend ? 
 By what dark paths to what mysterious end ? 
 
 We do not know, we cannot tell at all, 
 Only before thy onward march we fall. 
 
 4f *|s w TT» -*P 
 
 Nay, but before thy throne we fall, we kneel ; 
 We crave not that thy face thou shouldst reveal ; 
 We do not seek to know, only to feel.
 
 3<d So7igs of Britain. 
 
 We praise thee not in words our tongues can tell ; 
 Though thy hand slay us, we will not rebel. 
 Whate'er thy will design for us, 'tis well. 
 
 Compute our lives with all thy boundless past, 
 Project them on thy abysmal Future vast ; 
 Only let all be merged in Thee at last.
 
 IN PEMBROKESHIRE, 1886. 
 
 Through crested grass I took my way 
 From my loved home. The sun was high ; 
 The warm air slept the live-long day ; 
 No shadowy cloudlet veiled the sky. 
 
 The swift train swept with rhythmic tune, 
 By endless pastures hurrying down, 
 White farm, lone chapel, castled town, 
 Then, fringed with weed, the salt lagune. 
 
 And last the land-locked haven blue. 
 Thin-sown with monstrous works of war, 
 And on the sweet salt air I knew 
 Paint sounds of cheering from afar.
 
 32 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Strong arms and backs are bent, and then 
 They draw us up the fluttering street ; 
 Behind, there comes the ordered beat 
 Of long-drawn files of marching men. 
 
 At last a halt ; a steep hillside 
 Set thick with toil-worn workers strong, 
 Grave faces stretching far and wide, 
 Fired with the hope to banish wrong. 
 
 Ah me ! how thin one voice appears, 
 To reach so many eager minds ! 
 Nay, for it speaks to willing ears, 
 And what the hearer seeks he finds. 
 
 Unhappy Island of the West ! 
 Thy brethren these in race and blood, 
 Not like thee tempted or opprest, 
 But filled with longing for thy good.
 
 In Pembrokeshire, 18S6. 
 
 1 1 
 
 30 
 
 For just is manhood rude and strong 
 And generous the toiler's soul ; 
 When these the ship of State control, 
 Oppression shall not flourish long. 
 ***** 
 The crowds are gone, the hillside bare, 
 The last good-nights at length are said, 
 The harbour crossed again, the fair 
 Large star of eve hangs overhead. 
 
 The shades of tardy evening fall ; 
 Lights come in casements here and there ; 
 Through dewy meads on the cool air 
 The wandering landrails hoarsely call. 
 
 The silent roads loom ghostly white ; 
 No veil of darkness hides the skies ; 
 A sunless dawn appears to rise 
 Upon the stilly charmed night. 
 
 I)
 
 34 Songs of Britain. 
 
 The day's hot concourse comes to seem 
 Far, far away ; the eager crowd, 
 The upturned gaze, the plaudits loud, 
 In the cool silence like a dream. 
 
 And oh, sweet odours, which the air 
 Of the calm summer midnight deep 
 Draws from the rose which lies asleep, 
 And bowery honeysuckles fair. 
 
 Oh, perfumed night ! Some tremulous bird 
 From the thick hedgerows seems to thrill. 
 No other sound but this is heard, 
 Save ringing horsehoofs, beating still. 
 
 Midnight is past ; there comes a gleam, 
 Precursor of the scarce-set sun. 
 Through gray streets hushed as in a dream 
 We sweep, and the long day is done.
 
 In Pembrokeshire, 1886. 
 
 Men pass, but still shall Nature keep 
 Her night's cool calm, her dawn's bright glow ; 
 Unseen her fragrant wild flowers creep, 
 Unmarked her midnight odours blow. 
 
 The long injustices of years 
 Shall pass ; the hapless Western Isle 
 Shall dry the age-long trace of tears, 
 And show instead a happy smile. 
 
 The wheels of Fate are swiftly borne 
 From point to point, from change to change ; 
 What yesterday was new and strange 
 To-morrow scouts as old and worn. 
 
 I may forget the shouting crowd, 
 The sea of eyes which upward turn, 
 The kindling cheeks, the plaudits loud, 
 The sympathies which glow and burn.
 
 36 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Ay, all things change, but hardly those 
 Shall fade — the midnight calm of June, 
 The cool sweet airs, the night-bird's tune, 
 The perfume of the sleeping rose.
 
 EASTER-TIDE. 
 
 Awake, arise, oh Earth ! 
 
 Thy hour has come at last ; 
 
 The winter's ruin past, 
 
 Spring comes to birth. 
 The virgin world with flowers again grows bright, 
 And in the increasing light 
 Doth clothe herself with beauty ; once again 
 A new creation issues with a stately train. 
 
 Oh soul of man, arise 
 And keep thy Easter-tide, 
 White clothed as is a bride, 
 With calm pure eyes ;
 
 38 Songs of Britain. 
 
 When all things living else rejoice, 
 
 Not thine should be the voice 
 
 Alone to keep dull silence, mute, unheard, 
 
 Amid the joy that wakens every nesting bird. 
 
 Tis an old Spring of mirth 
 
 That bids our souls arise ; 
 
 No other moved the priests and augurs wise 
 
 Upon the younger earth 
 When for the Passover the lamb was slain, 
 Nor when they did complain 
 Of old time for the fair Adonis dead, 
 Greeting with tears of joy that dear recovered head. 
 
 The same, yet not the same, 
 Joy fuller, deeper grief 
 Than in the old ages came 
 To wake belief.
 
 Easter-tidc. 
 
 The Spring our voices celebrate to-day- 
 Is not the Spring which fades with May, 
 Nor that renewal ours which shall be done 
 Soon as our earth leans outward from the averted sun. 
 
 Nor as theirs is our loss 
 
 Who wept the enamoured boy ; 
 
 Ours is a heavier cross, 
 
 A livelier joy, 
 Mixed in such sort with grief that one is bred 
 From the others and by it nourished, 
 So that without the salutary pain 
 Were no place left for this triumphant gain. 
 
 Great Law of Sacrifice 
 On which our lives are built, 
 That with our load of guilt 
 Soars to the skies,
 
 40 Songs of Britain. 
 
 I doubt if ever there was race of man 
 But based its life on such a mystic plan, 
 From old Prometheus' godlike treachery 
 To calm Osiris cold and sad Persephone. 
 
 Therefore, because the end 
 
 Of Winter comes and Death, 
 
 Our yearning souls ascend, 
 
 Faith quickeneth. 
 How should it be that man alone could cease 
 When all things else increase ? 
 Man, the first fruit of Time, Creation's crown — 
 Shall he, while all is Spring, lie hopeless and cast 
 
 down ? 
 
 Ay, always with the Spring 
 The waking comes again ; 
 Mixed tones of joy and pain 
 Our life-chords sing.
 
 Easter-tide. 4 1 
 
 Sweet are the songs of autumn, sweet of death, 
 And bitter sweet the first-drawn breath, 
 And sweet, though full of pain, the mortal strife 
 When from Death's grasp we struggle into Life 
 
 That is the law of life — 
 
 Joy bought by sacrifice/ 
 
 Pleasure for hopeless sighs, 
 
 And rest for strife. 
 The earth is no more, as it was at first, 
 By some strange spell accurst ; 
 A mystery has passed a mystery, 
 A boundless hope has bid new heavens and earth 
 to be. 
 
 Rise, happy Earth, arise, 
 Thy wintry darkness done, 
 To greet the new-risen sun 
 Oh soul, arise !
 
 42 Songs of Britain. 
 
 The joy which stirs the world let it wake thee. 
 A symbol of thy risen life is born. 
 Awake, arise ! this is the very morn ; 
 A mystery has been ! a mystery !
 
 GHOSTS. 
 
 Sometimes in some forsaken place, 
 Hid from the aspect of the sun, 
 
 We come on some forgotten trace 
 
 Of life and years long dead and done. 
 
 Some faded picture's doubtful truth, 
 Fixed in the springtime of our days, 
 
 Which through all change of mien portrays 
 The evanescent charm of youth — 
 
 The rounded cheek, the wealth of hair, 
 The bright young eye's unclouded blue. 
 
 White head, wan face, were you thus fair ? 
 Sad eyes, and were these ever you ?
 
 44 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Changed, and yet still unchanged through change, 
 
 The self-same lives for good or ill, 
 Thin ghosts with features known, yet strange, 
 
 Of us who live and travail still. 
 
 Thin ghosts ! or is it we who fade 
 And are deceased, and keep no more 
 
 Than some thin unsubstantial shade 
 Of the young hopes and fears of yore ? 
 
 Who knows what Life, or Death, or Time 
 
 Are in themselves, or whither tend 
 The great world's footsteps slow, sublime, 
 
 From what dim source — to what hidden end ? 
 
 Or if our growth be but decay, 
 
 Or if all Life must wax and grow, 
 Or if no change true Being know, 
 
 Though all things outward pass away ?
 
 Ghosts. 45 
 
 Ah ! not in outward things we know 
 
 The chiefest work of Time and Change ; 
 
 But new faiths come, old thoughts grown strange, 
 Old longings which no more may glow. 
 
 Some time-stained sheaf of youthful verse, 
 
 Some inarticulate yearning dumb, 
 Once dear, ere time and age had come 
 
 To turn the better to the worse. 
 
 In these the gazer starts to see 
 
 A self, not his, reflected most, 
 And asking, " Were these part of me ? " 
 
 Knows he has looked upon a ghost.
 
 SONG. 
 
 Love took my life and thrilled it 
 
 Through all its strings, 
 Played round my mind and filled it 
 
 With sound of wings, 
 But to my heart he never came 
 To touch it with his golden flame. 
 
 Therefore it is that singing 
 
 I do rejoice, 
 Nor heed the slow years bringing 
 
 A harsher voice, 
 Because the songs which he has sung 
 Still leave the untouched singer young.
 
 Song. 47 
 
 But whom in fuller fashion 
 
 The Master sways, 
 For him, swift winged with passion, 
 
 Fleet the brief days. 
 Betimes the enforced accents come, 
 And leave him ever after dumb.
 
 FROM WILD WALES. 
 I. 
 
 LLYN Y MORWYNION. 
 
 By fair Festiniog, 'mid the Northern Hills, 
 The vales are full of beauty, and the heights, 
 Thin-set with mountain sheep, show statelier far 
 Than in the tamer South. There the stern round 
 Of labour rules, — a silent land, sometimes 
 Loud with the blast that buffets all the hills 
 Whereon the workers toil, in quarries hewn 
 Upon the terraced rocksides. Tier on tier, 
 Above the giddy depths, they edge and cling 
 Like flies to the sheer precipice as they strike 
 The thin cleft slate. For solace of their toil
 
 Llyn y Morwynion. 49 
 
 Song comes to strengthen them, and songlike verse 
 
 In the old Cymric measures, and the dream 
 
 Of fame when all the listening thousands round 
 
 Are ranged in Session, and the rapt array 
 
 Expectant of the singer's soaring voice, 
 
 Or full quire rising thund'rous to the skies, 
 
 The sheathed swords, and the sacred Chair of oak, 
 
 Where sits the Bard. But most of all they prize 
 
 Old memories of the Past, forgotten feuds, 
 
 And battles long ago. One tale they tell 
 
 Of a deep tarn upon the mountain side, 
 
 Llyn y Morwynion called, — " The Maidens' Lake ; " 
 
 And thus it is the fair old story runs. 
 
 On Arvon once the men of Meirion, 
 Being alone, nor having hearth or home, 
 Swooped down when all her warriors were afield 
 
 E
 
 50 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Against the foemen. And they snatched from them 
 
 The flower of all the maidens of the race, 
 
 And to their mountain fastness far away 
 
 Bare them unchecked. There with great care and love 
 
 They tended them, and in the captives' hearts 
 
 The new observance slowly ousted all 
 
 The love of home and country, till they stayed 
 
 Content, forgetting all their lives before, 
 
 Parents and kinsfolk, everything but love. 
 
 But when the war was ended, and their arms 
 Set free, the men of Arvon sent demand 
 That they should straight restore to home and kin 
 The maidens they had rapt. Then came great doubt 
 Upon the men of Meirion, knowing well 
 Their strength too weak to match the Arvonian hosts 
 In unassisted war ; heralds they sent 
 To Arvon asking peace, making amends
 
 Llyn y Morwynion. 
 
 For what had been their fault. But the others nursed 
 
 Deep anger in their hearts, and to their words 
 
 Made only answer, " Give ye back untouched 
 
 Our daughters and our sisters, whom your fraud 
 
 Has stolen from us, or prepare to die." 
 
 Then they, taking deep counsel with themselves, 
 
 Swore not for life itself would they return 
 
 The women, only if themselves should will 
 
 To leave them ; and they made request of them 
 
 That they might know their wish. But when they sought 
 
 To question them, they answered with one voice — 
 
 "We will not go ; for barren is the lot 
 Of maidenhood, and cold the weary fate 
 Of loveless lives, the household tasks whose weight 
 Bears down the childless woman. Since we came 
 We have known life in the full light of home. 
 Say to our sires and brothers, that we stay
 
 52 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Willing, and bid our young men that they wive 
 From out some noble tribe ; for thus it is 
 Our Cymric race grows strong. But do ye bid 
 Our mothers comfort them, for they shall take 
 Their grandsons on their knees ; for we are wed 
 And cannot more return. Not Fate itself 
 Can e'er recall the irrevocable Past." 
 
 But when the men of Arvon heard the hest 
 The herald brought, their souls were wroth in them 
 Against the ravishers, whose cunning wiles 
 Had worked such wrong. They called their warriors 
 
 forth 
 From every hill and dale, and marched in haste 
 To Meirion. And they summoned them to yield, 
 But they would not ; and so the fight was set 
 For the morrow, on the margin of a mere 
 Deep down within the circuit of the hills.
 
 Llyn y Morwynion. 53 
 
 There, with the sun, within a close-set pass 
 The men of Meirion stood, a scanty band, 
 Waiting the approaching host. With grief and pain 
 They left their loves, and swift, with breaking day, 
 Marched with unfaltering steps, without a word, 
 To the field of honour, as men go who know 
 That all beside is lost. But as they stood, 
 Ranged in stern silence, waiting for the fray, 
 They saw a white procession thread the pass 
 Behind, now seen, now lost, by flowery bends, 
 Gorse gold and heather purple. At their head 
 Blodeuwedd, she the flower in face and form 
 By magic formed, by magical art foredoomed 
 To sin and suffer. Then again they knew 
 The bitterness of death, and clasped once more 
 The forms they loved, when by the lake the sun 
 Lit the fierce light of countless marching spears.
 
 54 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Then with a last embrace the tearful throng 
 Withdrew to where above the fastness rose 
 A purple slope. No way the assailing host 
 Might find to it while yet one stalwart arm 
 Of Meirion lived. Toward the lake it fell, 
 Till in a sheer, precipitous cliff it sank, 
 Its base in the unfathomable deep. 
 
 Now, while the maidens like a fleece of cloud 
 Whitened the hill, or like a timid flock 
 From nearer danger shrinking, swift there came 
 Along the grassy margin of the lake 
 The countless spears of Arvon. And their sires 
 And brethren saw them, and great wrath and joy 
 Fired them and urged them onward, till they surged 
 And broke on Meirion. But her strong sons stood 
 And flung them backward ; and the frightened throng 
 Of white-robed suppliants saw the deed, and feared,
 
 Llyn y Morwynion. 55 
 
 Hiding their eyes, hovering 'twixt hope and fear, 
 Divided 'twixt their lovers and their kin. 
 
 All day the battle raged, from morn to eve ; 
 All day the men of Arvon charged and broke, 
 And charged again the little band which stood 
 Unshaken in the pass, but hourly grew 
 Weaker and weaker still. But at the last 
 The noise of battle ceased awhile ; the shouts, 
 The cries, grew silent. On the purple hill 
 The kneeling women saw the Arvonian host 
 Retreating with their dead, and rose to go 
 With succour to their lovers. As they gazed, 
 Sudden, as with a last despairing strength 
 And a hoarse shout, again, a torrent of steel, 
 The men of Arvon, by their own weight pressed, 
 Burst on the scant defenders of the pass ; 
 Like some fierce surge which from the storm-vext sea,
 
 56 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Through narrow inlets fenced by rocky walls, 
 Lifts high its furious crest, and sweeps in ruin 
 Within the rayless, haunted ocean caves, 
 Rocks, wreckage, and the corpses of the dead. 
 
 And as the women, impotent to save, 
 With agonizing hands and streaming eyes 
 Looked down upon the pass, they saw their loves 
 Driven back, o'erwhelmed, surrounded, flashing swords 
 And thrusting spears and broken shields, and heard 
 The noise of desperate battle, then a pause 
 And silence, as the last of Meirion's sons 
 Sank in his blood and the long fight was done. 
 
 Then suddenly, ere yet the conquering host 
 Might climb to them, Blodeuwedd, standing clothed 
 In her unearthly beauty, faced the throng 
 Of shrinking women. Not a word she spake.
 
 Llyn y Morwynion. 57 
 
 The sinking sun upon her snowy robe 
 Shone with unearthly gold ; like some fair bird 
 Leading the flock she showed. With one white arm 
 She pointed to the dreadful pass where lay 
 The thick-piled corpses, with the other signed 
 Toward the sheer cliff, and to the lake beneath 
 Motioned. One word she uttered—" Follow me," 
 And all who heard it knew and shared her mind. 
 
 Then looking to the heavens, she hurried down 
 Through thyme and heather, chanting some wild hymn 
 To the Immortal Gods ; and with her went 
 The white-robed throng, and when they gained the 
 
 verge, 
 Without a pause, plunged through the empty air 
 Into the unfathomed depths, like some great flight 
 Of white birds swooping from a sea-cliff down 
 To ocean. The still waters leapt in foam ;
 
 5 8 Songs of Britain. 
 
 One loud shriek only woke the air, and then 
 Silence was over all, and night and death. 
 
 Still sometimes, when the dreaming peasants go 
 By the lone mountain tarn at shut of day, 
 The white clouds with the eve descending swift 
 Down the steep hillside to the lake may seem 
 The white-robed maidens falling, and the shriek 
 Of night birds, fair Blodeuwedd and her train ; 
 And fancy, by the ancient fable fed, 
 Turns from the duller Present's dust and glare 
 To the enchanted twilights of the Past.
 
 II. 
 
 THE PHYSICIANS OF MYDDFAI. 
 
 Far, far away in wild Wales, by the shore of the bound- 
 less Atlantic, 
 
 Where the cloud-capt peaks of the North are dwarfed to 
 the hills of the South, 
 
 And through the long vale to the sea, the full-fed, devious 
 Towy 
 
 Turns and returns on itself, like the coils of a silvery snake, 
 
 A grey town sits up aloft on the bank of the clear, flowing 
 river, 
 
 As it has sat since the days when the Roman was first in 
 the land.
 
 60 Songs of Britain. 
 
 A town, with a high ruined castle and walls mantled over 
 with ivy, 
 
 With church towers square and strong and narrow irre- 
 gular streets, 
 
 And, frequent in street and lane, many-windowed high- 
 shouldered chapels, 
 
 Whence all the still Sabbath ascend loud preaching and 
 passionate prayer, 
 
 Such violent wrestling with sin, that the dogs on the 
 pavement deserted 
 
 Wake with a growl from their dreams at the sound of 
 the querulous voice, 
 
 And the gay youths, released from the counter and 
 bound for the seaside or hillside, 
 
 Start as they wake on their way echoes of undevout 
 feet's, 
 
 And here and there a rude square, with statues of popular 
 heroes,
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. 61 
 
 A long quay with scarcely a ship, and a hoary bridge 
 
 spanning the stream, 
 The stream which struggles in June by the shallows 
 
 where children are swimming, 
 The furious flood which at Yule roars seaward, resistless 
 
 along, 
 Though the white steam ribbons float by it, forlorn it 
 
 seems, almost forsaken. 
 All the day long in the week the dumb streets are 
 
 hushed in repose, 
 But on market or fair days there comes a throng of 
 
 Welsh-speaking peasants 
 From many a lonely farm in the folds of the rain-beaten 
 
 hills, 
 And the long streets are filled with the high-pitched 
 
 speech of the chaffering Cymry, 
 With a steeple-crowned hat, here and there, and the red 
 
 cloaks which daunted the French.
 
 62 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Scarce in Keltic Britanny's self, or in homely Teutonic 
 
 Silesia, 
 So foreign a crowd may you see as in this far corner of 
 
 Wales. 
 
 Above the grey old town, at the mouth of the exquisite 
 
 valley, 
 Rises a quaint village church deep in o'ershadowing yews ; 
 On a round-topped hill it stands, looking down on the 
 
 silvery river 
 And the smooth meadows fenced by tall elms, and the 
 
 black kine, like flies on the green. 
 Below, midst its smooth-pleached lawns, stands the 
 
 many-roofed Anglican palace, 
 And aloft from its straight-ridged pines, the enchanter's 
 
 summit ascends. 
 Thence along the upward vale, by fold upon fold of the 
 
 river
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. 6 
 
 ^ 
 
 By park and by tower, at last the far-off mountain chains 
 
 soar, 
 Flecked with shadow and sunshine which float on the 
 
 side of the desolate moorland, 
 And the whole still landscape lies bathed in a haze of 
 
 ineffable peace. 
 
 There, where the mountains ascend by the white little 
 
 town of Llandovery, 
 Steeply the circular side of the crater-like summit 
 
 dips down. 
 A blue lake lies beneath, deep set in the desolate 
 
 hollow, 
 Where scarcely a breath of air ruffles in summer its face. 
 The Van Lake 'tis called of old time, like the Van Lake 
 
 of distant Armenia. 
 Hardly a wayfarer's foot comes near, or a wayfarer's 
 
 eye.
 
 64 Soiigs of Britain. 
 
 But far, far below are seen the white homesteads, dotting 
 
 the valley, 
 And to-day, as of old, still silence and solitude everywhere 
 
 reign. 
 
 There, as in crowded towns, life is real and full of 
 striving ; 
 
 There, too, is life fulfilled of small hopes and of trivial 
 fears. 
 
 There, too, the finger of fate, unavoidable, pitiless, awful, 
 
 Points with unfaltering aim, to the road which our foot- 
 steps shall tread. 
 
 Love is among them, and hate, low desires and high 
 aspirations, 
 
 Fortune is blind there as here, the good mourn, and 
 the wicked rejoice. 
 
 Only there the sense of the Past, the romantic, the 
 mystical lingers,
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. 65 
 
 Touched with a glamour and charm, denied to the 
 turmoil of towns. 
 
 The light which never has been, still shines on those 
 hillsides secluded 
 
 Illuming with rays, not of earth, those homely and 
 labouring lives. 
 
 Here is a tale which is cherished to-day through that far- 
 withdrawn valley, 
 
 Half believed by the aged folk still, but year by year 
 fading away. 
 
 Long, long ago, when our Princes were falling in fight 
 with the Norman, 
 And all our wild Wales lay o'erwhelmed by a torrent of 
 rapine and blood, 
 
 F
 
 65 Songs of Britain. 
 
 A brave peasant woman strove here with hard fate, though 
 
 her husband had fallen, 
 Strove for her only boy, who was rising to manhood apace. 
 So close was the bond which bound widowed mother and 
 
 dutiful stripling, 
 None of Myddfai's daughters touched the young man's 
 
 self-contained heart. 
 A kindly fortune smiled on the toil of the desolate woman, 
 Their flocks and their herds increased on the meads of 
 
 the bountiful vale, 
 So quickly their numbers grew, that from the shorn valley 
 
 he drove them 
 To fresh fields and pastures new on the side of the mystical 
 
 hills. 
 
 Morning and evening he watched on the lonely side of 
 the hollow, 
 While the grey kine wandered at will on the hill's half- 
 precipitous steep.
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. 67 
 
 Oft on the lake's still surface, no breath came to ruffle 
 
 the mirror, 
 Xor sound, save the boulders rolled downward, that 
 
 stirred for a moment its calm. 
 All the day long he mused, wrapt in thought on the 
 
 desolate hillside, 
 All day the sure-footed kine cropt the sweet grass of the 
 
 hills. 
 Thoughts came to him, innocent thoughts of a chaste 
 
 youth guileless of error, 
 Thoughts of a maiden as fair as a young man's passionate 
 
 dream. 
 
 Fair were the maidens of Myddfai, but fairer his far-off 
 
 ideal, 
 Which touched with a glamour of gold the day-dreams of 
 
 innocent youth. 
 All the day long he dreamt on, gazing down on the blue 
 
 of the waters,
 
 68 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Till the plash of the trout, as they rose, seemed the oar 
 
 of some mystical bark ; 
 All the day long he mused, and with evening, by moon- 
 light or starlight, 
 Dreaming he wound his slow way with his kine to the 
 
 valley below, 
 Dreaming through fair summer days and the long dark 
 
 evenings of winter 
 The sweet shy dreams of a youth fulfilled of a virginal 
 
 shame. 
 In secret his mother noted the dreams which her son 
 
 was dreaming, 
 Marking the far-off look in the absent eyes of the boy. 
 Fain would she rouse him with jests and bantering words, 
 
 but the stripling 
 Smiled a soft smile in reply, then turned to his musings 
 
 again.
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. 69 
 
 When he had spent many days in happy and undis- 
 turbed dreaming, 
 One day, as the setting sun threw beams of bright gold on 
 
 the lake, 
 Lo ! a great marvel and wonder, a herd of phantom-like 
 
 oxen 
 Seemed to his dazzled eyes to emerge from the mystical 
 
 depths, 
 White they were, brindled and white, heavy dewlapped, 
 
 lords of the meadows, 
 Driven as it seemed by a swan from the lake's far centre 
 
 along, 
 Nearer and nearer they drew, till the swan to his yearn- 
 ing vision 
 Grew to a maiden as fair as the fanciful Fair of his 
 
 dreams. 
 Gold were her locks and blue her eyes as the clear sky 
 of autumn,
 
 jo Songs of Britain. 
 
 White was her bosom and red the half-opened rose of 
 
 her mouth. 
 Nearer and nearer she came, till the youth, with ineffable 
 
 longing, 
 Stretched forth his passionate arms to fold to his bosom 
 
 the Fair, 
 Stretched forth, and offered her bread in humble token 
 
 of friendship ; 
 But the Fair smiled a sweet smile, smiled and eluded his 
 
 grasp. 
 Then, as he stood on the brink, in mute and motionless 
 
 yearning, 
 Lo ! with a silvery laugh, the fair vision faded away. 
 
 Oftentimes thus on the brink he stood afterwards wait- 
 ing the maiden, 
 Often she came not at all, or a strong wind ruffled the 
 deep.
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. 
 
 Twice again did she come, and he held forth bread for 
 
 her taking, 
 Still, with a silvery laugh, refusing, she faded away. 
 
 Careworn the young man grew, and spent with un- 
 satisfied yearnings, 
 
 Nor recked though the kine unheeded strayed on the 
 perilous steeps. 
 
 Never again the lake maiden came by sunlight or moon- 
 light, 
 
 Till his fond hope too long deferred, wasted him body and 
 soul. 
 
 All his sleepless nights were filled with the pitiless vision ; 
 
 All the musing days, a slow fire burned in his breast ; 
 
 Half ashamed, he told his mother his pain, and the 
 pitying woman 
 
 Sighed that her son should thus pine, but knew not to 
 succour his grief,
 
 72 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Marking his cheeks' red flush, she feared lest her son 
 
 might be taken, 
 Till she found no heart for her toil, and her substance 
 
 wasted away. 
 
 There, when Midsummer Eve was come, the magical 
 season, 
 
 The young man wandered in vain on the brink of the 
 mystical lake ; 
 
 There, when All-Hallow-tide came, he wandered, if only 
 the maiden 
 
 Might rise on his longing eyes ; but never at all did she 
 come. 
 
 At last, on the year's last night, he, stealthily rising at 
 midnight, 
 
 To the cold lake side went, hopeless, with faltering feet. 
 
 The full moon bathed in silver steep hillside and slumber- 
 ing waters.
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. 
 
 By the cold lake side he paused, with something of half- 
 renewed hope, 
 When, borne on the face of the waters, behold by the 
 
 reeds of the lake side 
 Floating a magical disc of milk-white mystical bread. 
 Swift, yet with reverence too, as one taking the Host at 
 
 the altar, 
 Kneeling, the youth partook of the strange ineffable food, 
 Till ere the strange rite was ended, again a marvellous 
 
 portent 
 Greeted his longing eyes, and stayed the quick throb of 
 
 his heart, 
 For on the silvery path of the moon on the undisturbed 
 
 waters, 
 The herd that he saw once before came slowly gliding 
 
 to land, 
 And beyond them — oh, vision of bliss ! — the maid of his 
 
 dreams, approaching,
 
 74 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Plying a light golden oar, in a swift-moving shallop of gold. 
 Nearer she came and more near, while his heart stood 
 
 still with emotion, 
 Fearing the glorious dream once again should vanish 
 
 away; 
 Nearer and nearer she came, and leaped from the skiff 
 
 to the lake side, 
 And lay, in unearthly beauty, willingly clasped in his arms. 
 
 When he found tongue to speak, " Oh, my love, at last 
 
 have I found thee ! 
 Though not of earth is thy race, oh, stoop to my virginal 
 
 love. 
 Oh, it is long I have loved thee, and though I know thee 
 
 immortal, 
 Tarry awhile, fair vision, leave me not loveless again ! 
 Come from thy mountain heights, come from thy dwelling 
 
 deep down in the waters.
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. 75 
 
 Pity me ere I die who can only live in thy love." 
 
 Then the maid, " RhiwaUon, I love thee ; long time have 
 
 I tried thy devotion, 
 Long have I pitied thy vigils spent in these desolate hills ; 
 Always have I been near thee, unseen have I witnessed 
 
 thy yearnings, 
 Only the mystical bread was wanting to join us in one. 
 Now we are one heart and soul, I will live with thee 
 
 always, and love thee." 
 And together the mystical bread they ate, and their 
 
 lives were made one. 
 
 Then said the maiden, " Oh, mortal ! this warning I 
 
 needs must give thee. 
 Thy wife will I be all thy days— thy dear wife, faithful and 
 
 true, 
 Nourish thy children, obey thee in all things, be dutiful 
 
 always,
 
 J 6 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Fill all thy fields with the dowry thou seest of full-uddered 
 kine, 
 
 Love thee and cherish thee always, and plenish thy barn 
 with good harvests, 
 
 Long as the will of high Heaven gives thee to live upon 
 earth. 
 
 Only, this ordinance holds if a maid of the race of im- 
 mortals 
 
 Wed with a mortal on earth, leaving her higher estate, 
 
 If he should strike her three times, she and hers, her 
 bonds be : ng loosened, 
 
 Whether she will it or not, return to her kindred 
 
 again." 
 
 Careless the fond youth heard, and smothered her warn- 
 ing with kisses, 
 
 And down through the joyous New Year he went with 
 his bride to their home.
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. 
 
 Long in great welfare they lived, knit together in happy 
 
 wedlock ; 
 Never a cloud arose on the tranquil sky of their home, 
 The great herds throve and increased more than all the 
 
 herds of the valley, 
 The robbers who harried the vale left them untouched 
 
 and in peace. 
 Never was husband more fond of the wife of his boyish 
 
 affection, 
 Never was wife more sweet, or fuller of dutiful love. 
 The good mother died full of years, and calling her 
 
 daughter blessed. 
 Children were born of their love, more than others prudent 
 
 and fair. 
 Their strong sons were good and discreet, laborious, 
 
 eager for knowledge, 
 Scarcely the Abbot himself equalled their learning, 'twas 
 
 said ;
 
 78 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Fair were the daughters and good, sweet, dutiful maidens, 
 
 and prudent ; 
 Nowhere in all our wild Wales was a race so gracious and 
 
 fair. 
 
 And yet, when their wedlock was new, that had hap- 
 pened which now was forgotten. 
 
 The young man and his wife were bidden one day to a 
 christening feast. 
 
 The young husband hastened to go ; but the wife, with 
 half-hid reluctance, 
 
 Loitered till almost too late to traverse the difficult hills. 
 
 Many a pretext she urged, not loving the rites of 
 religion, 
 
 Holding some primitive faith, old as the hills and the 
 seas, 
 
 Till, when the hour was grown late, Rhiwallon in play- 
 ful impatience,
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. 79 
 
 Seeking his wife up and down, found her reluctant at last. 
 ' ; Come," said he, " wife, it is time," and smilingly on her 
 
 fair shoulder 
 Tapped with his empty glove, and she rose and obeyed 
 
 with a sigh. 
 •• Dearest, remember," she said, "my warning when first 
 
 we were wedded ; 
 Once that has been which should not. Remember, be 
 
 careful, my heart ! " 
 Then to the christening she went, nor shrank from the 
 
 priest nor the water, 
 Only a vague disquietude long time troubled their souls. 
 
 Also long years after this, when the past was wellnigh 
 forgotten, 
 They were bidden together again to a gay marriage feast 
 in the vale ;
 
 So Song's of Britain. 
 
 Not now was the wife unwilling, but ready to go and 
 
 eager. 
 In deep contentment the pair went forth to the innocent 
 
 feast. 
 Duly the marriage sped, the priest said his mystical 
 
 office, 
 No word the good wife spake, as she knelt in her place 
 
 by her lord ; 
 But when the marriage was done, and they sate at the 
 
 jovial bride-feast, 
 Sudden the good man perceived his wife in a passion of 
 
 tears ; 
 Sobbing, she sate by his side inconsolable, loudly lament- 
 ing, 
 Till all the gay company rose with dismay from the midst 
 
 of their mirth. 
 Always her prescient soul saw the future hidden from 
 
 mortals,
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. Si 
 
 The grief that should come of that day, the dreadful 
 
 problems of life, 
 The lives that from that day's mirth should arise — to what 
 
 fate predestined ? 
 The long generations of men foredoomed to sorrow 
 
 alone. 
 Knowing the fever of life and its ending, the mystical 
 
 woman 
 Held not her peace, but burst forth in a passion of 
 
 weeping and pain ; 
 But Rhiwallon, knowing not all, but filled with distress 
 
 for the bridefolk, 
 Turned to her, and bidding her cease, touched lightly 
 
 her arm in reproof. 
 In one moment she ceased from her wailing, and scarcely 
 
 regarding her goodman, 
 "Love," she said, "that was the second time; only one 
 
 other remains." 
 
 G
 
 82 Songs of Britain. 
 
 All these things had they almost forgot, living happy in 
 
 wedlock, 
 Watching their children grow to strong manhood and 
 
 womanhood fair; 
 Smoothly their lives flowed along in unbroken weal and 
 
 affection, 
 As their devious Towy, which wound through cornland 
 
 and mead to the sea. 
 Not a thought had the goodman of death, or of parting, 
 
 than death more bitter ; 
 But the goodwife, loving her lord, watched with 
 
 solicitous thought. 
 Scarce from her prescient mind had faded the danger 
 
 which pressed them, 
 The bliss which a careless touch might turn in a 
 
 moment to pain ; 
 Here on the kindly earth she had made her choice and 
 her dwelling,
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. 8 
 
 3 
 
 Here she would willingly live with her husband, and 
 
 with him would die. 
 Far off her birthland appeared, cold and lifeless the 
 
 mystical waters ; 
 Better to sleep in the meads than to pass that cold portal 
 
 again. 
 Love's light beaming warm on her life, in her veins the 
 
 warm human life-blood 
 Filled with new longings a heart which was only half 
 
 human before. 
 " What would life profit her now to those ice-cold abysses 
 
 returning ? 
 Better to die upon earth by the fate which awaiteth 
 
 us all." 
 Thus the goodwife, half human in heart, mused in silence, 
 
 her children around her, 
 Filled with a deep boding sense of the terrible nearness 
 
 of fate.
 
 84 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Last it befell once again that the pair were bidden 
 
 together 
 (Christening for youth, for full age bridefeasts, for old age 
 
 the grave), 
 To a solemn burial they went ; 'twas a friend of their 
 
 youth who was taken. 
 All the desolate house was hushed in mourning and 
 
 tears, 
 But before the dead was borne forth, the strange heart 
 
 of the mystical woman, 
 Long keeping silence with pain, broke out at last into 
 
 mirth. 
 Was it because she knew that the burden of living is 
 
 heavy, 
 From what load of misery here the dead are delivered by 
 
 death ? 
 Or was it because she knew of her old primaeval 
 
 religion
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. %^ 
 
 How much higher than human life is the lot of the just 
 
 who are dead ? 
 Or was it her soul had beheld the restitution of all 
 
 things, 
 And felt a great hope and joy which lightened the shadow 
 
 of death ? 
 Who shall tell? but her elfin nature broke forth in im- 
 moderate laughter, 
 Piercing the mourners' hearts, as they stood round the 
 
 bier of the dead. 
 Long time the goodman was mute, till at last keen shame 
 
 overcame him, 
 No more could he suffer unmoved that meaningless 
 
 laughter and joy. 
 " Hush, hush ! wife," he said, "you forget," and touched 
 
 her again on the shoulder. 
 " For the ending of troubles I laughed," she replied, and 
 
 grew grave and was still.
 
 86 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Then with a sob and a sigh the goodwife, looking behind 
 
 her, 
 Rose from her place by her lord and swiftly passed forth 
 
 by the door. 
 " Farewell," she said, " oh my love ; thou hast struck me 
 
 the third and the last time. 
 Fate 'tis that parteth us — Fate ! Farewell ! I shall see 
 
 thee no more." 
 So strange she showed and so weird that the goodman 
 
 dared not detain her. 
 Seeing his goodwife no more, and knowing the finger of 
 
 Fate; 
 Seeing his goodwife no more, no longer the well-beloved 
 
 features, 
 The hair that was silvered by time, the dim eyes with 
 
 their motherly care ; 
 But the radiant figure once more, golden-haired, azure- 
 eyed, and immortal,
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. Sj 
 
 That at midnight arose, long ago, from the depths of the 
 
 mystical lake. 
 None offered to stay her course, but she glided alone, 
 
 unattended, 
 Splendid in radiant youth, up the lonely, precipitous hills. 
 Not to her home or her children returned, nor tarried a 
 
 moment ; 
 Straight to the hillside she went, weeping and blinded 
 
 with tears, 
 And as she passed by the fields where her magical cattle 
 
 were grazing, 
 Always she carolled aloud a strange and mystical song. 
 " Come hither, Brindle ! " she sang ; " come, White Spot ! 
 
 bring your calves with you ! 
 Come thou, AVhite Lord of the Herd, who wert born in 
 
 the House of the King ! 
 Come, we must go to our home ! and ye, yoked patient- 
 eyed oxen,
 
 88 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Come with me, come with the rest ; it is time, come all 
 of ye home ! " 
 
 The great herds heard the call, and streamed in an end- 
 less procession ; 
 
 The gray oxen burst from the furrow, leaving the plough- 
 share behind. 
 
 Up the rough hillside they climbed behind her, obeying 
 her mandate, 
 
 Till they showed to the gazers below like a white cloud 
 mounting the steep. 
 
 Up the steep hillside they sped to the lake, and the 
 wondering peasants 
 
 Heard a clear voice from the hill, " Deuwch adre ! Deuwch 
 adre ! Come home ! " 
 
 Never again upon earth had Rhiwallon sight of his 
 helpmeet,
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. 89 
 
 Never again did he seek his love on the lake and the 
 
 hills ; 
 Wayworn and weary he grew, nor might dreams of beauty 
 
 allure him. 
 The face that he loved and lost was aged, with silvery 
 
 hair ; 
 But the beautiful being who went from her seat at the 
 
 fateful banquet — 
 What was her youth to his age, or his age to her radiant 
 
 youth ? 
 What if his eyes once again should perceive the bright 
 
 vision of old time, 
 Old as he was, and changed from the hopeful dreams of 
 
 the boy ? 
 Nay, it would kill him to see the black deep which had 
 
 taken his life's love. 
 Never again did he gaze on its hateful magical face.
 
 90 Songs of Britain. 
 
 But the strong sons, when they knew their mother was 
 
 gone from among them — 
 Gone without even a word, to strange death or to mys- 
 tical life — 
 Evening by evening would climb the lonely, precipitous 
 
 hillside, 
 Yearning if haply their eyes might see the loved features 
 
 again. 
 Long, long vigils they spent in vain, nor ever the vision 
 Came, any more than it comes to all children orphaned 
 
 on earth, 
 Till one night, when all hope was dead, they burst into 
 
 passionate weeping. 
 " Mother, thy children," they said, " call thee, and call 
 
 thee in vain. 
 Break through the fetters of Fate, take again thy 
 
 womanly nature ; 
 Come to us, mother, once more, let us see thee and hear 
 
 thee again."
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. 9 1 
 
 And lo ! as they looked, in the moonlight a shining, 
 
 beautiful figure 
 Came in a shallop of gold, on the silvery path of the 
 
 moon. 
 Nearer and nearer it came ; but lo ! as they gazed in fond 
 
 yearning, 
 Not as their mother it seemed, but a youthful, fairy-like 
 
 form. 
 Gold were her locks and blue her eyes, as the clear sky 
 
 of autumn. 
 Bitterly weeping, they turned from the lake side with 
 
 sinking young hearts — 
 Turned from the lake side, and went, side by side, down 
 
 the hill paths in silence, 
 Silent, with never a word, till they came within sight of 
 
 their home. 
 Then close behind them they heard a sweet voice, which 
 
 called to them softly,
 
 92 Songs of Britain. 
 
 And, turning round quickly, they saw the mother they 
 loved and had lost. 
 
 " Listen, dear sons," she said. " With what spells you 
 
 have drawn me ye know not. 
 No power but motherly love can bring an immortal to 
 
 earth, 
 No other love can avail to reknit the bonds that are 
 
 broken ; 
 Only her child's strong cry calls back a mother again. 
 Give me your hands and kiss me ; for see, I am old as 
 
 you knew me, 
 The youth of those cold depths changed for the kindlier 
 
 ripeness of earth. 
 Lo, I am now as I was, when an earthly love kept me 
 
 among you, 
 Only I view all things with a clearer and perfecter sight. 
 Yours, dear sons, it must be to succour your suffering 
 
 brothers.
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. 9; 
 
 Bound to a body which age and disease waste quickly 
 
 away, 
 Healers your race shall be. knowing many a secret of 
 
 nature, 
 And all the virtues of herbs, which are sent for the com- 
 fort of man. 
 When ye come to these lonely heights, I will meet you 
 
 and speak with you always, 
 Teaching the secrets of life, which are hid from the great 
 
 ones of earth. 
 Come to me often, dear sons ; I shall see you afar, and 
 
 will meet you, 
 Walk with you always, discourse with you, teach you to 
 
 live and be wise. 
 Say to my girls that they cherish their father and comfort 
 
 him always ; 
 Bid them remember their mother, who loves as she loved 
 
 them on earth.
 
 94 Songs of Britain. 
 
 And now, farewell, dear hearts, since to earth your yearn- 
 ings have brought me. 
 
 While you live I will always be with you. Be wise, then, 
 my children, and good." 
 
 Often at evening, the youths would climb to the mystical 
 
 lake side, 
 Culling the simples that grew on the slopes of the desolate 
 
 hills— 
 " Pant y Meddygon," men called it, " The dingle of the 
 
 Physicians " — 
 And with them, wherever they went, their mother invisible 
 
 came, 
 Teaching them all that 'tis lawful to know of the secrets 
 
 of Nature 
 And the powers of healing that seem to be God's own 
 
 prerogative gift. 
 Such was the knowledge they took from their loving, 
 
 mystical mother,
 
 The PJiysicians of Myddfai. 95 
 
 In all our wide Britain was found no leech so skilful as 
 
 they. 
 All the sick of the country around flocked to them to be 
 
 healed by their cunning ; 
 Broad lands in Myddfai and rank the Lord Rhys gave 
 
 for their skill. 
 Often, for years and for years, men might see the gentle 
 
 physicians 
 Culling the herbs on the hills, to battle with death 
 
 and with pain. 
 From manhood to age they passed, still learning and per- 
 fecting knowledge, 
 Mounting the hillside at last with slower and tottering 
 
 steps ; 
 And often a shepherd would tell of a clear voice which 
 
 spoke with them always, 
 And oft of a shadowy form, guiding their faltering 
 
 feet
 
 q 6 Songs of Britain. 
 
 So they passed, and were laid in the grave, obeying the 
 
 mandate of Nature, 
 Wrapt round in the sweet, cold earth by the kindly 
 
 general law. 
 Their sons and their sons' sons came, increasing the lore 
 
 of their fathers ; 
 But no kindly Presence came to walk with them over the 
 
 hills. 
 Slowly, through ages of Time, as the fierce glare of know- 
 ledge assails it, 
 Hardly the fair tale can live in the light of our commoner 
 
 day ; 
 But still through the country side runs the fame of the 
 
 gentle Physicians. 
 The grove of Physician Evan is known in Myddfai to-day. 
 " Llvvyn Ifan Feddyg," it runs, and another — " Llvvyn 
 
 Meredydd Feddyg." 
 Thus, in the old, old tongue, the old, old legend survives.
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. 97 
 
 The skill, which through centuries lightened the burden 
 
 of suffering mortals, 
 Lacked not memorials still in the hearts of the aged and 
 
 sick; 
 Nay, in fair Brecknock itself, in the church of far-off 
 
 Llandefallte, 
 Only a century since, were their praises engraved on their 
 
 tombs. 
 Where is the sceptic would doubt the tale of the mystical 
 
 mother, 
 If, five centuries after she went, the Meddygon of Myddfai 
 
 could heal? 
 Or if living men in their youth, on the first fair Sabbath 
 
 of August, 
 Have thronged from the fair town below to the banks of 
 
 the mystical lake, 
 Hoping to see its still surface boil sudden, the white 
 
 herds emerging, 
 
 H
 
 9 8 Songs of Britain. 
 
 And the golden shallop and oar, and the beautiful Presence 
 
 of old- 
 Hoping, but hoping in vain, yet in simple belief unshaken, 
 For had they not witnessed her cures of the weak, and 
 
 the halt, and the blind ? 
 
 But to-day, with its broader light, flouts these beautiful 
 stories romantic. 
 
 No more these fair visions unearthly are seen on the lakes 
 and the hills. 
 
 From knowledge alone is power ; but 'tis oh for the fair 
 dreams of old time, 
 
 The genius which clothed deep truths in fanciful vestures 
 and fair ! 
 
 Not more in the legends of Hellas, than these fair 
 myths of the Cymry, 
 
 Are grave truths and precious set in a beautiful frame- 
 work of song.
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. 99 
 
 Let them be ; they are fair, they are fine, though they 
 
 wear not their pearl on their foreheads. 
 Let them be ; they are flowers of our Race, and as is the 
 
 flower is the fruit. 
 Not in the savage tales of the Norseman the Cymry 
 
 delighted — 
 Tales of blood-stained feasts and rude gods, consumed 
 
 in a furnace of fire — 
 But this gentle Physician's story of ruth for suffering 
 
 mortals, 
 Mild wisdom, o'ermastering Fate, young passion, and 
 
 motherly love. 
 Not wholly your tale shall perish, oh kindly Physicians 
 
 of Myddfai, 
 Xor the charm of that mystical soul which was born of 
 
 and lost in the deep ; 
 Not wholly, while speech is mine, though the low rays of 
 
 knowledge shall flout you,
 
 ioo Songs of Britain. 
 
 And in its broad, pitiless glare you dwindle and vanish 
 away. 
 
 But still, as I linger and gaze, perusing the exquisite 
 
 valley, 
 Upward by castle and peak, downward by river and 
 
 town, 
 Whether from wooded Cystanog, or yew-shaded graves 
 
 of Llangunnor, 
 Closing the upward gaze, far off lies the mystical steep. 
 Many fair scenes lie between us — gray Drysllwyn's ver- 
 dant hillock, 
 Grongar long precious to verse, Dynevor's castle and 
 
 wood, 
 High perched on its precipice-crags the ruins of grim 
 
 Cerrigcennen, 
 Or the green vale higher than these, where the fair 
 
 Towy winds and unwinds.
 
 The Physicians of Myddfai. ior 
 
 However the gaze ascends, the dark precipice closes the 
 
 landscape, 
 Beneath whose difficult steep lies the haunted abyss of 
 
 the lake. 
 Always the story comes back as I gaze, the beautiful 
 
 legend 
 Which here for long ages of time the wondering peasants 
 
 believed. 
 In yonder churchyard lie those, who ere they were freed 
 
 from the body, 
 Grew strong through their poor brief lives by the gift 
 
 of the Fair of the lake ; 
 And, as the sun moves to the West and defines the deep 
 
 shades of the hollow, 
 I am fired by the fair old tale, till almost I take it for 
 
 true.
 
 III. 
 
 THE CURSE OF PANT ANN AS. 
 
 'Mid fair Glamorgan's hills the close-set vales 
 
 Teem with men's works and toil. The great shafts rise, 
 
 Belching forth smoke and fire ; the labouring beams 
 
 Of the great engines slowly rise and pause 
 
 And fall with rhythmic beat. The labouring town 
 
 Creeps down the winding valley ; the poor streets 
 
 Are deep in inky dust. There comes no sound 
 
 But children's clamour or the sob or shriek 
 
 Of the quick-throbbing steam. The men are sunk 
 
 Beneath the earth, or sleeping weary sleep. 
 
 Toil, toil, or rest from toil, that is the sum 
 
 Of those unnumbered lives. Yet are they filled
 
 The Curse of Pant annas. 103 
 
 With joys and griefs as are the great on earth, 
 And through the teeming village love and toil 
 Are everywhere ; the poor lives come to birth 
 Grow ripe and are deceased, but never more 
 The face of nature is as 'twas at first. 
 
 But on the unfenced hillsides, far above, 
 The sounds, the dust, the smoke, come not at all. 
 Still solitude is there, where seldom foot 
 Of weary toil intrudes ; the keen cool air 
 Blows fresh and still untainted on the hills ; 
 Awhile the dark pines climb aloft, then stay, 
 Like a tired traveller, and naught remains 
 But short sweet grass and thyme and nibbling sheep, 
 And mountain torrents hid in deep ravines, 
 While the swift gaze ranges from vale to vale 
 Masked by its veil of smoke. And, when 'tis night, 
 Immense Auroras, glaring o'er the sky,
 
 ] o-4 So Jigs of Britain. 
 
 Mark where amid the folded hillsides lies 
 The City of the Martyr. Here, where still 
 The Cymric lore, the Cymric speech survive, 
 The half-forgotten fables of old time, 
 Of gnome and fairy, flourish undisturbed 
 Amid the noontide glare of common day, 
 And one there is reaped from this very spot 
 And breathing of the race, and it is this : — 
 
 Long, long ago, the fair-folk on the earth 
 Were frequent, and their rings upon the meads 
 Showed green wherever virgin pastures were, 
 And o'er the leas their elfin music thrilled 
 Whether of oaten pipe or silvery flute, 
 While the young moon was rising on the hills, 
 And the gay elves footed it merrily
 
 The Ctirse of Pant annas. io- 
 
 Upon the dry smooth turf. So oft they came, 
 Summer and winter, on his sweet short grass, 
 That one grave churl who at Pantannas dwelt, 
 Hating the senseless revel and the race, 
 In anger to the witch who dwelt hard by 
 Revealed his case, demanding if she knew 
 Some potent charm wherewith to free his life 
 From this insensate mirth of godless souls. 
 Then she, knowing his wish and all the lore 
 Of the forbidden books, counselled him thus : — 
 
 " Wherever on thy pastures shows a ring 
 Which tells of elfin revelry by night, 
 Yoke thy strong oxen, driving straight through them 
 Thy ploughs, till all lie fallow. Sow them thick 
 With kindly corn fit for the use of man, 
 So, when the harvest comes, this tricksy folk, 
 That hates the newer race of mortal men
 
 106 Songs of Britain. 
 
 And that which gives them food, will come no more, 
 For chiefly the unsullied meads they love 
 Where never ploughshare came since the old time 
 Ere men were first on earth. So shalt thou gain 
 Great harvests for thy wealth, and shalt disperse 
 This cursed people, and shalt reap thy land 
 Till all thy barns o'erflow, and thou indeed 
 Art lord of thy own lands far more than now. 
 Do thou this thing, and Fortune shall be thine, 
 And peace and the full mastery of thy own." 
 
 So did the churl. He drove his iron ploughs 
 Through the inviolate meads, and straight the sounds 
 Of dance and song grew silent. Never more 
 Came those strange elfin rings upon hisfields, 
 Nor any traveller passing saw a glimpse 
 Of those quick-tripping feet ; but far away 
 The fair-folk turned, where yet no cruel share
 
 The Curse of Pant annas. 107 
 
 Was sent to kill the greensward. Springtide came : 
 
 The fields grew splendid with the wheat's bright green, 
 
 When, one day as the sun had kissed the hills, 
 
 The grave churl, turning homeward, saw a form 
 
 Upon his path which threatened him, and said, 
 
 " Daw dial ! " " Vengeance comes ! " And in the night, 
 
 When all was still, there came a noise which shook 
 
 The house as though 'twould fall, and the same voice, 
 
 " Daw dial ! " And when now 'twas harvest-tide 
 
 And the great barns stood open for the grain, 
 
 One night, no ear nor straw was in the fields, 
 
 Only black ashes, and the same strange form 
 
 Met him again, pointing a sword at him, 
 
 And in the same weird accents " It begins," 
 
 " Nid yw ond dechreu." 
 
 Then the churl, afraid, 
 Begged for forgiveness, willing that the fields 
 Should turn to meads again, whereon the sprite
 
 i o8 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Promised at last that he would pray his king 
 Forgiveness of the fault, and come again 
 ( )n the third day, bringing his lord's behest. 
 
 Now, when the third day came, the churl went forth 
 Through his burnt fields, and there again the elf 
 Waited, and to the other made report, 
 " The king's word is for aye unchangeable, 
 And vengeance must be done. Still, since thy fault 
 Thou dost repent, and hast atoned in part, 
 Therefore, not in thy time, nor of thy sons, 
 Shall the curse fall, but, poised on high, await 
 Thy distant seed." Then he, as one who hears 
 Reprieve from death, o'erjoyed sent forth his hinds 
 To turn the corn to pasture. Once again 
 The dark green rings grew frequent on the grass, 
 The gay elves danced, the old melodious sounds 
 Of song and music gladdened all the fields,
 
 The Curse of Pantannas. 109 
 
 And he grew rich and passed in peaceful age, 
 And his sons followed him, and slept in peace. 
 
 But still, when fourscore years or more had fled, 
 The dread voice came at times, repeating still 
 The self-same threat, " Daw dial ! " " Vengeance comes ! ' 
 Oft heard across the years ; but since long use 
 Obscures the sense, so, when this warning came 
 And no harm followed it, the wealthy squire 
 Who held Pantannas then, took little heed 
 Of half-forgotten memories. His young son 
 Rhydderch was come to manhood, and would wed 
 Gwen, daughter of Pencraig, and both their houses 
 Were fain of it. A noble pair were they, 
 In fitted years, and rank, and mutual troth. 
 No cloud came on the sky of their young love, 
 But all men praised the bridegroom's gallant port 
 And the bride's sweetness, and they made a feast
 
 1 10 Songs of Britain. 
 
 At gray Pantannas ere the marriage day, 
 Whereto the fair girl Gvven and all her kin 
 Were bidden. It was the wintry joyous time 
 Of Yuletide and the birth-time of the Lord, 
 When all hearts, for the sacred season glad, 
 Make merry in the fading of the year. 
 
 With mirth had sped the feast ; all round the hearth 
 
 Were seated, Gwen and Rhydderch side by side. 
 
 Careless they winged the hours with tale and song. 
 
 The night was still, there came no breath of sound, 
 
 Only without the loud unceasing fall 
 
 Of the full river plunging down the rocks, 
 
 Only within the noise of mirth and song. 
 
 Then suddenly they seemed to hear a voice 
 Above the roaring stream. A silence fell 
 On all the joyous group. Not as the voice
 
 The Curse of Paul annas. 1 1 1 
 
 So often heard it came, but seemed to wail 
 Some unremembered word. The maiden clung 
 Close to her lover for a while, and then 
 The jovial hearth, the jest, the tale, the song, 
 Chased all their fears, and all was as before. 
 No sound without but the unceasing noise 
 Of the full river plunging down the rocks. 
 
 Then, swift again, above the sounds of mirth, 
 Above the river roaring through the rocks, 
 A clear voice, dreadful, pealed, " The Time is come ! " 
 " Daeth Amser ! " thus it wailed. And all the guests 
 Rose to the door, seeking whence came the voice, 
 And first the goodman went, his worn cheek pale 
 With fear, remembering the tales he heard 
 In boyhood of the voice. Long time they stood 
 Expecting, but no voice they heard, nor sound, 
 But the loud river plunging down the rocks.
 
 1 1 2 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Till, as they turned them houseware! once again, 
 Above the roaring waters, three times 'heard, 
 The same voice pealed, " The Time is come ! the Time ! " 
 Then they affrighted and in silence went 
 Within the house, and then a mighty noise 
 Crashed round them, and it seemed a mighty hand 
 Shook all to the foundations. As they sate 
 In fear, without a word, a shapeless hag 
 Stood at the casement. Then one, bolder, said, 
 " Why comest thou, thou loathely thing ? " And she, 
 " Peace, chatterer, I have naught with thee. I come 
 To tell the doom which waits this cursed house 
 And that which weds with it. But since thy tongue 
 Is thus injurious, never will I lift 
 The veil that doth conceal it." With the word 
 She vanished, none knew whither. 
 
 When she had gone, 
 And all was still again, the cry, the cry,
 
 The Curse of Pantannas. 1 1 3 
 
 Rose loud and ceased not. Then a deep affright 
 Fell upon all, and gloom. The hour grew late, 
 And from the hapless house the trembling guests 
 Went on their lonely ways. Rhydderch alone, 
 Grown careless in the flush of innocent love, 
 Delayed his love's departure, till they went 
 Alone at midnight down the haunted vale, 
 Across the roaring waters. Unafraid 
 The lovers fared, nor voice nor shape of ill 
 Assailed them, undismayed, defying all 
 The unseen powers of Death and Doom and 111, 
 Strong in the virgin mail of mutual love. 
 
 But when the maid was safe within her home, 
 And it was time to part, some livelier sense 
 Of peril took her, and her boding fear 
 Burst forth in tender words. " Dearest," she said, 
 " Good-night ! Farewell ! Some sense of coming ill
 
 H4 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Weighs down my heart. If we should meet no more, 
 
 Or if some long delay should cheat our love, 
 
 I will be faithful always, and will wed 
 
 With thee, and none beside. Ay, though the powers 
 
 Of ill should part us all our lives and leave me 
 
 Widowed of thee ! " And he, " Fear not, my life, 
 
 The Power of Love protects us. If I come not 
 
 At once to claim thee, as indeed I hope, 
 
 And if the powers of ill have might to part 
 
 Our lives awhile, yet am I true to thee. 
 
 It may be some dark ruin waits our house 
 
 For some forgotten wrong ; yet, what care I ? 
 
 They cannot touch our lives, these envious powers, 
 
 Nor blight our love. What care I for the rest, 
 
 My treasure, having thee ? " 
 
 Then, with a kiss, 
 They parted unafraid, and the youth passed 
 The ceaseless voices and the roaring stream
 
 The Curse of Pantannas. 1 1 
 
 D 
 
 Undaunted, clothed with love, and caring naught 
 For things of earth or air. 
 
 But as he sped 
 Across the self-same fields, which long years past 
 The ploughshare broke, hard by some haunted cave 
 Beneath the hill, a ring of fairy green 
 Before him showed, around him bursts of mirth 
 Came of invisible throats, and silvery sounds 
 Of elfin music sweet ; and, rapt in love, 
 And thinking careless of his dear alone, 
 He stepped within the circle, and was lost, 
 While Time should last, to home, and kin, and love. 
 
 For nowhere might his sorrowing parents find 
 Trace of their son. They searched the country round, 
 Through every grove and brake ; they searched the 
 
 depths 
 Of the loud plunging stream ; but never at all
 
 116 Songs of Britain. 
 
 They found him. Then, when many weeks had gone, 
 
 They sought a hermit in his holy cell, 
 
 And told him all, the wailing cry which rang 
 
 Through the sad night, the loathely form which came. 
 
 They told him all, and he, with grief and tears, 
 
 Knowing what judgment must o'ertake the youth, 
 
 Though guiltless, bade the mourners hope no more 
 
 To see him, whether in life he was or death ; 
 
 And they, lamenting him as lost, at last 
 
 Lived their old life, and all was as before, 
 
 Till, losing not their sorrow, but bent down 
 
 By weight of time, they passed, and in the ground 
 
 "Were laid, but never again beheld their son. 
 
 But Gwen, the gentle maiden, when she knew 
 That which had been, and how her love was gone, 
 Mourned for him long, and long time would lament 
 The cruelty of fate, but never at all
 
 The Curse of Pantannas. 1 1 7 
 
 Believed that he was dead, for still she held 
 That he would come again — it might be soon, 
 It might be after years, but still would come, 
 As his word promised. So she dried her tears, 
 Feeding a deathless hope, and every day, 
 Morning and evening, when the circling sun 
 Burst from the gates of dawn, or sank in night, 
 Upon the summit of the scarped rock 
 Would stand, and scan the landscape far and near, 
 Seeking her love's return, and, when he came not, 
 Descend in grief. Year after year she came, 
 Till from love's casements her unfaltering soul 
 Looked dimly, and the gathering snows of time 
 Whitened her chestnut locks, yet still she came, 
 Steadfast, nor failed of hope, while yet she could, 
 Still looking for her love. Until, at last, 
 By the old chapel of the Van, they laid 
 Her mortal body and undying hope.
 
 1 1 S So?igs of Britain. 
 
 The years slipped by, the undelaying years, 
 And one by one they passed, the young and old 
 Who knew the story ; scarcely one was left 
 To tell of Rhydderch or his fate ; the world 
 Rolled round upon its course ; young lives were born, 
 drew ripe, and faded ; many a youth and maid 
 Came careless, rapt in love, and read the stone 
 Which told of Gvven, nor knew what powers of ill 
 Blighted her life and hope, for never more 
 The elfin music sounded on the leas 
 Since that dread night of Yule. Another race, 
 With other hopes and fears, was on the earth, 
 And the old vanished hopes, and fears, and loves, 
 Were gone, clean gone, like mist upon the hills. 
 
 Then, one fair summer morning, from the cave 
 Where, on that sad night four score years ago,
 
 The Curse of Pantdnnas. 1 1 9 
 
 His footsteps strayed, Rhydderch came forth again 
 In all the pride of youth. His heart beat high 
 With love and hope, nor felt he any change, 
 More than he feels, who, a brief month or more, 
 Leaves his loved home. His longing heart was full ; 
 He listened to the joyous notes of song 
 Which the gay thrushes sang, as when he went 
 To meet his love. Slow Nature showed no change, 
 The old oaks seemed the same, his sweetheart's home 
 The same, or hardly changed. The bitter Past 
 Touched him no more, who for the Future looked 
 And recompense of love. There were the graves 
 Beneath the yew, where he in happy tryst 
 Had lingered with his love when moonrise came, 
 As soon he should again. " He had been ill, 
 Entranced, and the good folk who tended him, 
 He knew not where, made light of the long weeks 
 Which lay 'tween him and health. When he was there
 
 1 20 Songs of Britain. 
 
 'Twas Yule-tide, now 'twas May." He raised his eyes 
 
 To see if there, where then it used to wait, 
 
 A girl's form waited. Something grey was there, 
 
 Half-hidden beneath the yew. Was it herself? 
 
 He vaulted o'er the wall, and found — a stone 
 
 Grey touched by time, and graven on it deep 
 
 In words half-hid by lichen, the sweet name 
 
 Of her he loved, "Died, aged threescore years," 
 
 And in some strange year, forty years to come. 
 
 Then not so much a sense of grief and pain 
 Took him as fear. He knew not what had been ; 
 He knew not what he was. His throbbing pulse 
 Grew slower at the chill cold touch of fate, 
 And great perplexity and new-born doubt, 
 And some half-consciousness of long-dead years, 
 As of a dream, enchained him. Soon he thought 
 The mists would vanish, leaving all things clear,
 
 The Curse of Pantannas. i - 1 1 
 
 And then the love, the passion of his youth 
 Once more would live again. So, eagerly 
 He left the place of graves, and took his way 
 Along the well-known paths, to where he saw, 
 In the old spot — the same, yet not the same — 
 The roof-tree of Pantannas. Not as yet 
 Had he seen human face, and a new fear 
 Came on him, and strange shame, as of one come 
 From other air than earth's; for now he knew 
 That either he was dazed and weak of brain, 
 Or some great change had passed upon his life, 
 Which nothing but the gaze of human eyes 
 And the remembered tones of human speech 
 Might ever again dispel. And so he went 
 Up the old path, and gained the well-known door, 
 And in the old room stood again and mused, 
 Changed — yet the same ; but human face or voice 
 He saw not. All the people were afield,
 
 122 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Nor was there any there to see or hear 
 
 Of those he knew of old. Then, when the load 
 
 Of silence grew too great, through the still house, 
 
 In his high youthful voice, he called for one, 
 
 His childish serving boy, who always loved 
 
 To follow him, whether with horse or hound, 
 
 All day upon the hills, " Ifan, 'tis I, 
 
 I have come back, ' Deuwch yma.' " The high voice 
 
 Through the void space resounding clear, at last 
 
 Echoed to where, within a sunny nook, 
 
 Bent double with the weight of ninety years, 
 
 There dozed an aged man, half deaf, half blind, 
 
 And when he heard, his limbs began to shake, 
 
 And he to mutter to himself; again 
 
 It came, the old man trembled to his feet ; 
 
 The third time came the cry, and then in haste, 
 
 Tottering, the aged figure, bowed and bent, 
 
 Moved quickly to the door, and there beheld
 
 The Curse of Pantaunas. i ° 
 
 .-i 
 
 His long-lost master, fair in youthful bloom, 
 Unchanged, and in his habit as he was 
 When all the world was young. 
 
 The old man's heart 
 Went out to him, who stood unmoved, untouched, 
 Not knowing whom he saw. One word alone 
 He uttered, " Rhydderch." 
 
 And with a flash of light 
 The Past revealed itself. The youth knew all 
 That had been, reading in another's face 
 The unnoted flight of Time. His life was done ; 
 He knew it now. All his old longings dead ; 
 Dust was his love, and all his yearnings dust ; 
 Dust was his life, and all his body dust. 
 No more upon the old earth could he bear 
 To walk amid the light of garish day, 
 And when the white-haired man, with tears of joy, 
 Would fain have kissed his hand, the Life in Death
 
 124 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Shrank from the Death in Life, and fading, left 
 Naught but a thin dust, lost in empty air. 
 
 Thus side by side they move, the Lives of Toil 
 And Fancy. What is Fancy but the Past 
 Or Future, bathed in light which never shone, 
 Or shall, upon the earth, and yet which shows 
 Nearer than real Life, and clearer far — 
 A Life wherein the terror of the world, 
 Its mystery, its awe, its boundless hope, 
 Are plainer than in ours, wherein the pang 
 Of hopeless longing and unmerited pain 
 Which vex our thought, the blind unequal lot 
 Which takes us, find some vague apology, 
 And hope some dim fulfilment, and the ways 
 Of Fate are justified, the righteous rise, 
 The wicked fall ? Die not, oh sacred star
 
 The Curse of Pantannas. 125 
 
 Of Fancy. Show us still the charm, the awe, 
 The glamour of our lives, bitterer griefs, 
 Joys keener than our own ; loftier heights, 
 Depths deeper still : keep mystery, which is 
 The nurse of knowledge, shading from the glare 
 Of the full noontide sun, our tree of Life.
 
 TO A GAY COMPANY. 
 
 A grassy little knoll I know, 
 Before the windows of my home, 
 Where, when the chill days longer grow, 
 And the slow Spring has come, 
 
 Forth gleams a golden company 
 Of lowly blossoms through the grass, 
 Smiling a welcome back to me 
 As the soft Spring days pass. 
 
 Daily they take the cloudless sun ; 
 With innocent faces free from guile, 
 And a sweet yearning never done, 
 They look on him and smile.
 
 To a Gay Company. 1 2 
 
 And while he shines, the livelong day, 
 From early morn to failing light, 
 Stands patiently the dense array, 
 Content and smiling bright. 
 
 But if cold rain or wintry hail 
 Touch them, the careful petals fold, 
 Safe where no violence may assail 
 Their shining cups of gold. 
 
 Oh, silent, innocent choir ! I seem 
 To hear your fairy voices rise, 
 Extolling faint, as in a dream, 
 Your great Lord in the skies ; 
 
 And read in your wide-opened eyes 
 Strange thoughts and human histories, 
 Till from your humble lives seems grown 
 Life fairer than your own.
 
 128 So Jigs of Britain. 
 
 Fair celandines, I love to see 
 Each year your radiant company 
 Bloom golden on the springing grass, 
 As the quick seasons pass. 
 
 No careless foot shall come to mar 
 Your peaceful lives, while life is mine ; 
 Still as the Spring-tide comes shall shine 
 Each multitudinous star, 
 
 So like the others, and the dead 
 Dear blossoms of forgotten Mays, 
 The joyous Springs which now are fled, 
 The wondering childish davs 
 
 ■a 
 
 When you, a joyous company, 
 Or yours, were of an age with me ; 
 When marvels filled the earth and sky, 
 Nor you could fade, nor I.
 
 To a Gay Company. 129 
 
 Still shall I seem to hear your voice 
 Of joyous praise, though all be still ; 
 The Spring-time, bidding all rejoice, 
 Through you and me shall thrill. 
 
 Whether we be alive on earth, 
 
 Or lying hidden in the mould, 
 
 The Spring shall come with throes of birth, 
 
 And clothe the fields with gold. 
 
 And me, whom the same Maker made, 
 Shall no renewal touch ? Shall I 
 Beyond all hope decay and fade ? 
 Deeper than Spring-tide lie ? 
 
 Nay, nay ! the sun shines overhead, 
 The Springtide calls, the winter's done; 
 At last, from close depths dark and dead, 
 I, too, shall greet the Sun. 
 
 K
 
 FROM JUVENAL. 
 
 I read to-day a Poet dead 
 
 In old Rome, centuries ago ; 
 Once more returned the days long fled, 
 
 The dried-up waters seemed to flow. 
 
 Once more the keen tongue known in youth 
 Lashed the gross vices of the time, 
 
 Portraying with a dreadful truth 
 
 The sloughs of sense, the deeps of crime. 
 
 Great city of the World ! were these 
 All that the race has gained of thee — 
 
 Foul lusts and soulless luxuries, 
 
 Fraud, bloodshed, depths of villany ?
 
 From Juvenal. 131 
 
 Was this what we have left of Rome, 
 This blood-stained sink of dark offence ? 
 
 Nay, still across the ages come 
 
 The high pure tones of innocence : 
 
 " Let nothing ever, base to see or hear, 
 Pass the chaste threshold where a young soul is ; 
 
 The innocence of boyhood, oh, revere, 
 Lest what of vileness you conceive be his. 
 
 " Despise not thou his pure and tender youth, 
 
 But let his weakness stand 'twixt thee and wrong." 
 
 Not wholly wert thou dumb, dread voice of Truth ! 
 Nor lost, oh sacred ministry of Song !
 
 IGHTHAM MOTE. 
 
 The gray house from the moat around 
 Rises four-square ; two white swans glide ; 
 A falling stream's uncertain sound 
 Is heard on every side. 
 
 A home in an untroubled land, 
 As 'twas at first it is to-day ; 
 Unchanged the grey quadrangles stand, 
 Through centuries past away. 
 
 The drawbridge and the entrance tower 
 Are still as in those good old days, 
 Ere freedom baffled lawless power, 
 Which dullards love to praise.
 
 Iphtham Mote 
 
 ^.v*,^,,* u. rJ .„^,. 1lJ0 
 
 *■> *> 
 
 So old, so grey, so ripe with time — 
 Ere the old cedars on the grass 
 Came from some new-discovered clime 
 It saw the centuries pass. 
 
 So old and yet so new ; to-day 
 Flowers of Japan, in gold and white, 
 Its builders dreamt not of, make bright 
 Its gradual decay. 
 
 And rounding into leafy bowers 
 The laurustinus' bulk is spread ; 
 A tall tree bending overhead 
 Its delicate wealth of flowers. 
 
 And over every moss-grown stone 
 A glamour of the dead is cast — 
 The charm of days deceased and done, 
 The phantoms of the Past.
 
 134 Songs of Britain. 
 
 A home, a hundred homes in one, 
 Before our English race grew great, 
 Before the doughty deeds were done 
 Which fixed her glorious fate ; 
 
 Before the dauntless Buccaneer 
 From Devon dared the western seas, 
 And drove the sullen Don in fear, 
 And robbed his argosies ; 
 
 Before the White Rose and the Red, 
 Ere Crecy proved our England's might, 
 When scarce the Paynim learnt to dread 
 The steel-clad Northern knight. 
 
 A hundred tales of good and ill, 
 Of love and right, of hate and wrong, 
 The joyance and the dole which fill 
 The treasure-house of song.
 
 IghtJiam Mote. 135 
 
 The old knights with their mail were here, 
 The dames demure with high-built hair, 
 The grave ruffed sage, the cavalier 
 Flaunting his lovelocks fair, 
 
 The periwigged and powdered Beau, 
 The Dame with hoops and patches brave ; 
 The generations come and go — 
 The cradle and the grave. 
 
 Our grandsires and our granddames came ; 
 They came awhile, their times are dead, 
 And we, the modern sir and dame, 
 Are reigning in their stead. 
 
 Unchanged the old grange stands, and will 
 When we in turn are past and gone ; 
 The hurrying years flit by us still, 
 Life glides unnoticed on.
 
 136 So7igs of Britain. 
 
 And what the end? No Goth or Hun 
 Can blot the record of thy past ; 
 Shalt thou, unchanged, untroubled, last 
 Till history be done ? 
 
 The peasants spared thee, the long shock 
 Of warring Roses came not near ; 
 The Roundhead and the Cavalier, 
 The King's head on the block, 
 
 Thou hast survived. Shall peace o'erturn 
 What banded foemen deigned to spare, 
 In some deep hate, when all things fair 
 In one red ruin burn ? 
 
 Or shall a wider faith and trust 
 Bind all, until men recognize 
 No good but mutual sacrifice, 
 Nor aim but to be just ?
 
 Ightham Mote. 137 
 
 Thou liest within the net of Fate, 
 Oh ancient England of our love ! 
 Howe'er the circling world may move. 
 Thou art, thou hast been great !
 
 THE SECRET OF THINGS. 
 
 Did the Race of men descend from a Nature sublime, 
 From a type which is higher than man and almost 
 divine, 
 Sinking from higher to lower through seons of time, 
 Through a hopeless decay and slow unmeasured 
 decline ? 
 
 Whence came, then, this downward force to degrade 
 what God gave ? 
 Can we rest in the thought that we fell from a higher 
 estate ? 
 Shall the work of His hand grow weaker in time and fade, 
 And that which was once above death, sink down to 
 the grave ?
 
 The Secret of Tilings. 139 
 
 And if we are born with the seeds of a deep decay, 
 Can it ever be stayed, though it were by an Infinite 
 Will ; 
 
 Or are all things fated to fade and diminish away 
 
 Through all stages of lower life till Creation lies still ? 
 
 Or if power there be to stay, and willing for good, 
 
 Where then shall be set the limit of gradual shame ? 
 Not there, maybe, where we think, nor then when we 
 would, 
 And how shall our being reascend to the height 
 whence we came ? 
 
 Or shall this faith rather be ours, that the Infinite Plan 
 Is worked by a gradual miracle bettering the Race, 
 
 Since the quickening Spirit breathed on the sea's dead face, 
 And the faint life stirred, which one day should blossom 
 in Man ?
 
 140 Songs of Britain. 
 
 It were liker, indeed, to the work of an Infinite Might 
 
 To raise all the gradual Past from lower to higher ; 
 Nay, but where, were it thus, were there room for the 
 heaven-sent light 
 That, 'midst growing darkness shining, could bid us 
 aspire ? 
 
 And what were our profit to rise from the general shame, 
 
 If we knew that the Race were doomed to a deeper 
 
 decay, 
 
 Or if millions of lives that are past should wither in 
 
 flame, 
 
 Nor rise from the darkness of Hell to a Heavenly day? 
 
 And does not all Nature teem, not only with types that 
 ascend, 
 But with those their ineffable fates from a higher ideal 
 degrade,
 
 The Secret of Things. 141 
 
 High archetypes dwindling down, which from higher to 
 lower tend, 
 Keen organs, and powers of might, which to feeble 
 energies fade ? 
 
 Great Universe, what is thy Secret, what are thy 
 Laws ? 
 Do they dwindle through secular time by the power of 
 an Infinite Will ? 
 Or do all things to Perfectness tend by a changeless 
 ordinance still, 
 Impelled by the upward force of an inborn Beneficent 
 Cause ? 
 
 But if such were the law of things, how then should any 
 ignore 
 The self-same embryo growth of man and the lowest 
 ape,
 
 142 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Which an inborn necessity moulds to such difference of 
 being and shape, 
 That one rises to godlike discourse, one lies soulless 
 for evermore? 
 
 Or shall we believe, indeed, that deep down in the 
 covering earth 
 May be found, some day, a trace of a Being that once 
 has been, 
 Which in long dead seons of time was parent of either 
 birth, 
 And, in Nature's gradual scheme, stood centred and 
 fixed between ? 
 
 Can the Individual rise, though the Race sinks down in 
 disgrace, 
 And, while all is ruined beside, increase to a heavenly 
 height ?
 
 The Secret of Tilings. 143 
 
 Can the Individual sink to some dark, ineffable place, 
 "While the Race rises higher and higher in face of the 
 Infinite Light? 
 
 Is the soul of Humanity one with the Individual soul ? 
 Shall each rise with the other or sink, as the suns are 
 illumined or fade ? 
 Shall the hand of the Maker show weak as the aeons 
 unchangeably roll, 
 Grown helpless to stay the wreck of the Cosmos itself 
 hath made ? 
 
 Nay, from out of the House of despair shall be heard a 
 
 jubilant voice, 
 
 Beneath the deepest depths and hopeless abysses of 111, 
 
 Which in cosmical accents immense, bids all things living 
 
 rejoice, 
 
 And out of the pit of Hell strive onward and upward still .
 
 OH, EARTH! 
 
 Oh, earth ! that liest still to-night 
 
 Beneath the starlit skies, 
 How splendid dost thou loom and bright 
 
 To planetary eyes ! 
 
 But if some storm-cloud, vast and dark, 
 Should hide thee from the day : 
 
 If through blind night no faintest spark 
 Should force its feeble way, 
 
 No other would thy face appear, 
 
 Than on this cloudless sky, 
 Though all the world should quake with fear, 
 
 Though all our race should die.
 
 Oh, Earth! 145 
 
 Great Universe ! too vast thou art, 
 Too changeless and too far, 
 
 Dull grows the brain and chill the heart 
 Before the nearest star. 
 
 Oh, kindly earth ! upon thy breast 
 
 For ever let me lie, 
 Wrapt round with thy eternal rest, 
 
 But gazing on the sky. 
 
 L
 
 ON A BIRTHDAY. 
 
 What shall be written of the man 
 
 Who through life's mingled hopes and fears 
 Touches to-day our little span 
 Of seventy years ; 
 
 Who, with force undiminished still, 
 A Nestor stands among his peers, 
 Full of youth's fire and dauntless will 
 At seventy years ; 
 
 Who knows no creeping chill of age, 
 But, rich in all which life endears, 
 Keeps still the patriot's noble rage 
 Through seventy years,
 
 On a Birthday. \\\ 
 
 The form unbent, the flashing eye, 
 
 The curious lore, the wit that cheers, 
 The scorn of wrong which can defy 
 His seventy years ; 
 
 To whom no wound which mars the state, 
 No humblest neighbour's grief or tears, 
 Appeal in vain for love or hate 
 These seventy years ; 
 
 For whom home's happy radiance yet 
 
 A steadfast beacon-fire appears, 
 Bright through the storms, the stress, the fret 
 Of seventy years ; — 
 
 What else but this ? " Brave heart, be strong, 
 
 Be of good hope ; life holds no fears, 
 Xor death, for him who strives with wrong 
 For seventy years.
 
 148 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Live, labour, spread that sacred light 
 
 Of knowledge which thy soul reveres ; 
 Fight still the old victorious fight 
 Of seventy years. 
 
 Live, labour, ripen to fourscore 
 
 While still the listening Senate hears ; 
 Live till new summers blossom o'er 
 These seventy years. 
 
 Or if a brighter briefer lot 
 
 Withdraw thee from thy country's tears, 
 Be sure there is where change is not, 
 Nor age, nor years."
 
 IN A GERMAN LABORATORY. 
 
 A most intelligent dog I took, 
 Affectionate, full of caressing grace, 
 With something of human love in his look, 
 And such a trustful, half-human face. 
 
 Had learnt tricks, too — would give you a paw 
 Where a brother-man would offer a hand, 
 Right or left, as you asked him ; could understand 
 Your speech — it might almost fill one with awe, 
 
 Seeing how near to mankind, yet how far 
 These dumb and pitiful creatures are ; 
 How all their faith and belief and love 
 Is centred in Man as a Lord above.
 
 150 Songs of Britain. 
 
 And looking into his eyes for awhile, 
 
 For knowledge is precious and gained through pain, 
 
 I bound him down with a pitying smile, 
 
 And deftly removed the left lobe of his brain. 
 
 And then, with all that I had of skill, 
 I healed it again, so that presently, 
 Though lame and sick, in his love for me, 
 The creature strove to obey my will. 
 
 And when I asked him to give me a paw, 
 
 He gave the left first, but when for the right 
 
 I asked, his maimed brain failing him quite, 
 
 Gave the left — and I thought I had touched on a Law. 
 
 So I persevered, and the brute again, 
 With a loving, sorrowful look of pain, 
 Brought the left paw over the helpless right, 
 And I marked the effort, with deep delight.
 
 /// a German Laboratory. 1 5 1 
 
 And having pushed knowledge so far, again 
 
 I divided the opposite lobe of the brain, 
 
 And the poor brute, though willing to offer a paw, 
 
 Could no longer obey — and I grasped a Law. 
 
 Later on, still athirst for knowledge, once more 
 I carved the weak brain, as I did before, 
 Till the poor dumb wretch, as he lay on his side, 
 With a loving look regarding me, died. 
 
 Poor brute ! he lies dead for knowledge, and I, 
 If I grasp not the clue, yet I may by-and-by. 
 Strange how weak Man is, and infirm of will, 
 For sometimes I see him and shudder still !
 
 THE SUMMONS. 
 
 March 28, 1S84. 
 
 Away from love of child and wife, 
 From the first flush of ripening life, 
 From books and Art, from all things fair, 
 From homely joys, from public care, 
 A low voice summons us away, 
 And prince and peasant must obey. 
 
 Sometimes amid the noonday throng, 
 Amid the feast, the dance, the song, 
 Amid the daily wholesome round, 
 The inevitable accents sound, 
 And the ear hears the summons come 
 As his who calls a truant home.
 
 The Summons. 
 
 Do 
 
 And sometimes in the lonely night 
 It sounds and brings with it the light. 
 Alone, with none but strangers nigh, 
 Comes the cold voice which bids us die ; 
 Sudden, or after months of pain, 
 And weary vigils spent in vain. 
 
 What shall it bring of profit then 
 
 To have loomed large in the eyes of men ? 
 
 Or what of comfort shall endure, 
 
 Save soaring thoughts and memories pure ? 
 
 Nought else of thoughts and things that be 
 
 Can solace that great misery. 
 
 Oh dreadful summons, full of fear 
 For weakling mortal souls to hear ! 
 When that last moment shall be ours, 
 'Mid failing brain and sinking powers, 
 May one great strength our steps attend, 
 The constant presence of a Friend.
 
 SILVERN SPEECH. 
 
 There are whom Fate's obscure decree 
 
 Dooms in deep solitude to be ; 
 
 For whom no word that mortal spake 
 
 The sullen silence comes to break ; 
 
 And e'en the music of the Spheres 
 
 Falls only on unheeding ears. 
 
 For them, life's loud processions seem 
 
 A noiseless and unmeaning dream. 
 
 Around their prison, joyous life 
 
 Echoes with noise of fruitful strife. 
 
 Yet, to their cells no sound may come, 
 
 But all the universe is dumb. 
 
 Ah ! strange that while all things rejoice
 
 Silvern SpeecJi. 155 
 
 Man only should be wanting voice ! 
 Ah ! strange that morning-song of bird 
 By living ears is never heard ! 
 Nor mighty master-music dim, 
 Nor Heaven-thrilled note of soaring hymn, 
 Nor rippling laugh of happy child, 
 Nor the Deep's thunder-voices wild ! 
 Unreached by life's tumultuous sound 
 Even as the dead, beneath the ground. 
 And still, though all creation groan, 
 Unmoved in loneliness alone. 
 
 Ah, cruel fate ! unequal doom 
 That sinks the innocent in gloom ! 
 What first the depths of chaos stirred 
 
 But the Ineffable Spoken Word ? 
 
 What else our inmost souls can reach 
 
 I ,ike that Divinest Gift of Speech ? 
 
 Ah, hapless fate that thus deprives 
 
 ( )f half their life unconscious lives !
 
 156 So??gs of Britain. 
 
 Ah ! could a soft compassion gain 
 To soothe the victims' lonely pain ! 
 
 What if with knowledge, love combined, 
 
 Can wake the undeveloped mind, 
 
 And without speech or sound can teach 
 
 The use of sound alike and speech ; 
 
 To those dumb solitudes profound 
 
 Convey some blessed ghost of sound, 
 
 And kindle from the dormant sense 
 
 Bright sparks of new intelligence ; 
 
 Assist the undeveloped brain 
 
 New loftier summits to attain, 
 
 Till knowledge grow the guide of love, 
 
 And love turned Heavenward point above 
 
 And the illumined soul confess 
 
 The innate love of Righteousness ! 
 
 Surely a miracle it is 
 
 Which works so blest a change as this !
 
 THE OBELISK. 
 
 Upon the river side, 
 
 Above the turbid stream, 
 
 Which rolls on, deep and wide ; 
 Strange as a dream, 
 
 The obelisk defies 
 
 Its dim unnumbered years, 
 Facing the murky skies, 
 
 Their snows, their tears. 
 
 Three thousand years it stood 
 Upon the sweet, broad Nile, 
 
 And watched the gliding flood, 
 The blue skies smile.
 
 158 Songs of Britain. 
 
 And many a century more, 
 Where it of old would stand, 
 
 It lay half covered o'er 
 By the hot sand. 
 
 Now with signs graven deep, 
 In this our Northern Isle, 
 
 Where the skies often weep 
 And seldom smile, 
 
 Once more again it rears 
 Its dim, discrowned head, 
 
 Though all those countless years 
 Its life is dead. 
 
 Forgotten is the lore 
 
 Its mystic symbols keep ; 
 
 Its builders evermore 
 Sleep their last sleep.
 
 The Obelisk. 159 
 
 Amid this Northern air, 
 Beyond the storm-tost sea, 
 
 Where earth nor sky is fair, 
 Why shouldst thou be ? 
 
 Standing amidst the strife, 
 The modern city's roar, 
 
 Memorial of a life 
 Dead evermore, 
 
 And of the end of all 
 
 That shows to-day so strong, 
 The greatness that shall fall, 
 
 After how long ? 
 
 The city which to-day 
 
 Shows mightier than thy own, 
 Which yet shall pass away, 
 
 Like thine o'erthrown.
 
 160 So7?jrs of Britain. 
 
 And thou ? Where shalt thou be 
 When Time has ruined all, 
 
 And Faith and Empery 
 Together fall ? 
 
 Shalt thou at last find rest 
 Beneath the river's flow, 
 
 And mark upon its breast 
 New ages grow ? 
 
 Or shall some unborn race 
 Take thee as prize of war, 
 
 And set thee up to grace 
 New cities far ? 
 
 Or shall our Northern frost, 
 Our chill and weeping skies, 
 
 Sap thee, till thou art lost 
 To mortal eyes ?
 
 The Obelisk. 161 
 
 The Past it is, the Past 
 
 Whose ghost thou comest here ; 
 The years fleet by us fast, 
 
 The end draws near. 
 
 But while the Present flies 
 The far-off Past survives ; 
 
 It lives, it never dies, 
 In newborn lives. 
 
 It lives, it never dies, 
 
 And we the outcome are 
 Of countless centuries 
 
 And ages far. 
 
 What if our thought might see 
 
 The Future ere it rise, 
 The ages that shall be, 
 
 Before our eyes ; 
 
 M
 
 1 62 Songs of Britain. 
 
 And if incorporate, 
 
 Graven by some mystic hand, 
 Our hieroglyph of Fate 
 
 By thine might stand ? 
 
 Nay, nay, our Future shows 
 
 Implicitly in thee ; 
 For well the thinker knows 
 
 What was, shall be. 
 
 And though a ghost thou art, 
 'Tis well that thou art here 
 
 To touch each careless heart 
 With hope and fear.
 
 A SONG OF EMPIRE. 
 
 June 20, 1887. 
 
 First Lady of our English race, 
 
 In Royal dignity and grace 
 
 Higher than all in old ancestral blood, 
 
 But higher still in love of good, 
 
 And care for ordered Freedom, grown 
 
 To a great tree where'er 
 
 In either hemisphere, 
 
 Its vital seeds are blown ; 
 
 Where'er with every day begun 
 
 Thy English bugles greet the coming sun !
 
 1 64 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Thy life is England's. All these fifty years 
 Thou from thy lonely Queenly place 
 Hast watched the clouds and sunshine on her face ; 
 Hast marked her changing hopes and fears ; 
 Her joys and sorrows have been always thine ; 
 Always thy quick and Royal sympathy 
 Has gone out swiftly to the humblest home, 
 Wherever grief and pain and suffering come. 
 
 Therefore it is that we 
 Take thee for head and symbol of our name. 
 For fifty years of reign thou wert the same, 
 Therefore to-day we make our jubilee. 
 Firm set on ancient right, as on thy people's love, 
 Unchecked thy wheels of empire onward move. 
 Not as theirs is thy throne 
 Who, though their hapless subjects groan, 
 Sit selfish, caring not at all,
 
 A Song of Empire. 165 
 
 Until the fierce mob surges and they fall, 
 Or the assassin sets the down-trod free. 
 Not such thy fate on this thy jubilee. 
 But love and reverence in the hearts of all. 
 
 Oh England ! Empire wide and great 
 As ever from the shaping hand of fate 
 Did issue on the earth, august, large grown ! 
 What were the Empires of the past to thine, 
 The old old Empires ruled by kings divine — 
 Egypt, Assyria, Rome ? What rule was like thine own, 
 Who over all the round world bearest sway ? 
 Not those alone who thy commands obey 
 Thy subjects are ; but in the boundless West 
 Our grandsires lost, still is thy reign confest. 
 "The Queen" they call thee, the young People strong, 
 Who, being Britons, might not suffer wrong, 
 But are reknit with us in reverence for thee ; 
 Therefore it is we make our jubilee.
 
 1 66 Songs of Britain. 
 
 See what a glorious throng they come, 
 Turned to their ancient home, 
 The children of our England ! See 
 What vigorous company 
 
 Thou sendest, Greater England of the Southern Sea ! 
 Thy stately cities, thick with domes and spires, 
 Chase the illumined night with festal fires 
 In honour of their Queen, whose happy reign 
 Began when, 'mid their central roar, 
 The naked savage trod the pathless plain. 
 Thousands of miles, North, South, East, West, to-day, 
 Their countless herds and flocks unnumbered stray. 
 Theirs are the vast primaeval forest depths profound ; 
 Yet everywhere are found 
 The English laws, the English accents fair, 
 'Mid burning North or cooler Southern air. 
 A world within themselves, and with them blent 
 Island with continent
 
 A Song of Empire. 1 6 7 
 
 The green isles, jewels on the tropic blue, 
 
 Where flower and tree and bird are strange and 
 
 new ; 
 Or that which lies within a temperate air 
 As summer-England fair ; 
 Or those, our Southern Britain that shall be, 
 Set in the lonely sea. 
 
 Lands of deep fiord and snow-clad soaring hill, 
 Wherethrough the ocean-currents ebb and fill, 
 And craters vast, wherefrom the prisoned force 
 Of the great earth-fires runs its dreadful course. 
 And vales of fern and palm, whence rising like a dream 
 High in mid-heaven, the ghostly ice-fields gleam. 
 
 And from her far and wintry North 
 The great Dominion issues forth, 
 Fit nurse of stalwart British hearts and strong ; 
 From her black pine woods, deep in snow,
 
 1 68 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Her billowy prairies boundless as the sea, 
 Where on the sweet untroubled soil 
 Yearly the unnoticed, countless wild-flowers blow, 
 And by men's fruitful and compelling toil 
 Yearly the deep and bounteous harvests grow ; 
 From the lone plains, wherethrough the icy wind 
 Sweeps from the North, leaving the Pole behind ; 
 In whose brief summer suns, so fierce they shine, 
 Flourish alike the apple and the vine ; 
 From teeming ancient cities bright and fair, 
 Whether in summer's heat or frosty wintry air, 
 Stamped with the nameless charm and grace 
 Of a more joyous race ; 
 Or on the rounding prairie nestling down 
 Homestead and frequent new-built town. 
 Even to those ultimate wilds where comes to be 
 Another Westminster on the Pacific Sea.
 
 A Song of Empire. 1 69 
 
 Nor shall thy Western Isles 
 Be wanting, where the high green breakers fall 
 Upon the torrid shore, and nature smiles ; 
 And yet sometimes broods over all, 
 Thick woods and hot lagunes with steaming breath, 
 A nameless presence with a face of death. 
 Fair balmy Isles, where never wintry air 
 Ruffles the scentless tropic blossoms fair, 
 Upon whose sun-warmed fruitful soil 
 Our father's dusky freedmen toil. 
 Lands of bright plumes that flash from tree to tree, 
 Long creepers trailing thick with brilliant bloom, 
 And loud upon the forest's silent gloom 
 The plunging surges of the encircling sea. 
 
 And from the ancient land 
 Scorching beneath the strong unfailing sun, 
 Round thee thy unnumbered subject millions stand ;
 
 1 70 Songs of Britain. 
 
 From many a storied city fair, 
 
 Old ere our England, first begun, 
 
 From marble tomb and temple white, 
 
 Built ere our far forefathers were, 
 
 And still a miracle defying Time ; 
 
 Palaces gray with age and dark with crime, 
 
 Fierce superstitions, only quenched in blood, 
 
 And sweet flower-fancies yearning towards the light, 
 
 And lustral cleansings in the sacred flood, 
 
 Where by dim temple cool, or shaded street, 
 
 From hill or parched plain the wayworn pilgrims meet. 
 
 And from the unhappy Continent 
 Which breeds the savage and the slave — 
 From our enormous South, there shall be sent 
 A scanty band of strong self-governed men. 
 And from those poisoned swamps, to-day a grave, 
 But which one day shall smile with plenty, when
 
 A Song of Empire. 1 7 1 
 
 The onward foot of Knowledge, slow, sublime, 
 
 Has traversed her and set her children free 
 
 From ocean to her fabulous inland sea, 
 
 And the fierce savage, full of kingly grace, 
 
 Is father of a gentler race, 
 
 And peaceful commerce heals the wounds of Time, 
 
 And the long history of blood and pain 
 
 Comes nevermore again. 
 
 And nearest to thee, and of all most dear, 
 Thy people of these little Northern Isles, 
 Who never shall their Queen forget, 
 Nor be forgotten, whether Fortune smiles 
 Or armed Europe storm around, 
 Whom none assail, beyond the waves' deep sound ; 
 Behind their surge-struck ramparts safe and free 
 These are thy closest subjects, these 
 The brain and heart of Empire, as thy Rose
 
 172 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Within its close-ranged petals comes to hold 
 
 A perfumed heart of gold, 
 
 Wherein the seed of the miraculous flower, 
 
 Safe hid, defies Fate's power. 
 
 And most of all thy wondrous mother-town 
 
 Upon our broad Thames sitting like a crown, 
 
 Who, 'mid her healthful labour-laden air, 
 
 Grows every day more fair ; 
 
 Whom not for fairness do her children prize, 
 
 But for her gracious homely memories — 
 
 A nation, not a city, the loved home 
 
 Whereto the longing thoughts of exiled Britons come 
 
 What is it that their voices tell ? 
 What is it that in naming thee they praise ? 
 Not wider empire only ; that is well. 
 But there are worthier triumphs, peaceful days, 
 Just laws, a people happier than before,
 
 A Song of Empire. 17, 
 
 And rolling on untroubled evermore, 
 
 With larger stream, and fuller and more free 
 
 The tide of ordered liberty. 
 
 These things than empire higher are, 
 
 Higher and nobler far. 
 
 Our old Draconic Law 
 With children's blood cemented, no more kills 
 Its tale of innocent victims. Pitying Love 
 Amid the abjects deigns to-day to move 
 Whom no man cared for. If the cruel city 
 Still claims its thousands, by the outcasts stand 
 Pure men and women in a gentle band, 
 Linked in a ministry of Love and Pity. 
 No more the insensate State 
 Binds down the worker, to exaggerate 
 The unequal gifts of Fate, 
 But comes instead, some care for common good,
 
 i 74 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Some glimmering sense of growing brotherhood. 
 No more half deafened by the unresting loom, 
 Soulless as is the brute, the pallid children pine ; 
 Nor hapless slaves, half naked, 'mid the gloom 
 And grime and squalor of the sunless mine, 
 The young girl-workers coarsen, but all take 
 Some modest gleam of knowledge, which may breed 
 The faith that is above, yet under, every creed, 
 And of these humble lives, one day shall make 
 True citizens indeed. 
 
 Nor shall thy peoples' voice 
 Keep silence of the salutary change 
 Which brought the gift of fullest freedom down 
 To humble lives, whether by field or town ; 
 The potent gift, and strange, 
 Which wakes alone the wider civic sense, 
 Which, more than knowledge, sobers heart and mind,
 
 A Song of Empire. 1 7 5 
 
 And rich and poor in closer ties can bind, 
 
 And knits a nation firm in harmony ! 
 
 Let civil broils and fiercer dissidence 
 
 Come — we are one. What care have we ? 
 
 In speech, in action, we are free. 
 
 No mob law need we fear, or senseless anarchy, 
 
 And for all these rejoice. 
 
 What law for us has done, 
 For all our greater England 'neath the sun, 
 Let us do now, building on high a State 
 Of half the World confederate ! 
 Sure, 'twere the noblest victory of mind 
 Thy scattered realms to bind ; 
 To guide the toiling, hopeless feet 
 To where is work for all, and life is sweet ; 
 To teach our millions their great heritage , 
 To call together high world-councils sage,
 
 i 7 6 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Strong as the Priest's, in this our island-home ; 
 
 Then, though the armed world shall come, 
 
 What care, what fear, have we, 
 
 Who, being free, are one ; and, being one, are free ? 
 
 If all the wide Earth brings our millions food, 
 And if our navies whiten every sea, 
 If we have rest and wider brotherhood, 
 All these began with thee ; 
 
 And shall, if Heaven so will, still more increase 
 With thy remaining years, till blessed Peace, 
 Half frighted from us now by grave alarms 
 Of half a world in arms, 
 
 Shall brood, a white-winged Angel, o'er the Earth. 
 Then may the rule of Wrong be done ! 
 Then may a new and Glorious Sun 
 Gild the illumined World ! and then 
 Come Righteousness to men !
 
 A Song of Empire. 177 
 
 Three sovereigns of our English line 
 Have reached thy length of rule, each of his name the 
 
 third, 
 But never England's heart was stirred 
 By those as 'tis by thine. 
 Our Henry died lonely and girt with foes ; 
 Our greater Edward fell in dotage ere life's close ; 
 And he thy grandsire knew a troublous time, 
 A dim pathetic figure ! full of pain 
 And care too great for mortal to sustain, 
 And in his rayless sorrow grown sublime ! 
 
 Three Queens have swayed 
 Our England's fortunes — great Elizabeth, 
 In whose brave times the blast of war 
 Blew loud and fierce and far. 
 Her dauntless sailors dared the unbounded West, 
 And fought the Armada's might, and did prevail, 
 
 x
 
 1 7 8 Songs of Britain. 
 
 And wheresoe'er was seen an English sail 
 
 Her Empire was confest ; 
 
 And round her gracious throne immortal flowers of song 
 
 Bloomed beautiful, bloomed long, 
 
 And left our English tongue as sweet as it was strong. 
 
 And when a century and more had passed 
 In blood and turmoil, came a Queen at last. 
 Her soldiers and her sailors once again 
 Conquered on tented field and on the main, 
 And once more rose the choir of song ; 
 Not as the Elizabethan, deep and strong, 
 But, tripping lightly on its jewelled feet, 
 Issued politely sweet, 
 And Shakespeare's tongue and Milton's learned to 
 
 dance 
 The minuet of France.
 
 A Song of Empire. i 79 
 
 And now again once more 
 A Queen reigns o'er us as before ; 
 Again by land and sea 
 We cast the chequered sum of victory. 
 Once more our English tongue 
 Wakes to unnumbered bursts of song. 
 A great choir lifts again its accents fair, 
 And to those greater singers, if we find 
 To-day no answering mind, 
 Tis that too large the Present fills the view, 
 Yet has its great names too. 
 Part of the glorious fellowship are we 
 The great Victorian company, 
 
 Which, since old Caedmon's deep voice carolled strong, 
 Through England's chequered story bore along 
 The high pure fire of the world's sweetest song.
 
 180 Songs of Britain. 
 
 But not in the increase 
 Of Empire, or the victories of peace, 
 Chiefly we seek thy praise. 
 But that thy long and gracious days, 
 Lived in the solitude that hems a throne, 
 Since thy great sorrow came and left thee lone, 
 Were ever white, and free from thought of blame. 
 Not once in thy long years shadow of envy came 
 On thee, or him, whose stainless manhood bore 
 Thy love's unfading flower. Never before 
 In all our England was a royal home 
 Whereto the loving thoughts of humble hearts might come. 
 Thy children's children stand around thy knees, 
 Their children come in turn as fair as these ; 
 Thy people and thy children turn to thee, 
 Knit all in one by bonds of sympathy 
 With thee, our Queen, are we ; 
 Therefore we make our solemn jubilee !
 
 A Song of Empire. 1 8 1 
 
 Flash, festal fires, high on the joyous air ! 
 Clash, joy-bells .' joy-guns, roar ! and, jubilant trumpets, 
 
 blare ! 
 Let the great noise of our rejoicing rise ! 
 Gleam, long-illumined cities, to the skies 
 Round all the earth, in every clime, 
 So far your distance half confuses time ! 
 As in the old Judsean history, 
 Fling wide the doors and set the prisoners free ! 
 Wherever England is o'er all the world, 
 Fly, banner of Royal England, stream unfurled ! 
 The proudest Empire that has been, to-day 
 Rejoices and makes solemn jubilee. 
 For England ! England ! we our voices raise ! 
 Our England ! England ! England ! in our Queen we 
 
 praise ! 
 We love not war, but only peace, 
 Yet never shall our England's power decrease !
 
 1 82 Songs of Britain. 
 
 Whoever guides our helm of State, 
 
 Let all men know it, England shall be great ! 
 
 We hold a vaster Empire than has been ! 
 
 Nigh half the race of man is subject to our Queen ! 
 
 Nigh half the wide, wide earth is ours in fee ! 
 
 And where her rule comes, all are free. 
 
 And therefore 'tis, oh Queen, that we, 
 
 Knit fast in bonds of temperate liberty, 
 
 Rejoice to-day, and make our solemn jubilee ! ! 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
 
 SELECTIONS FROM THE NOTICES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 POETICAL WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 LEWIS MORRIS.
 
 SONGS OF TWO WORLDS. 
 
 These poems were originally published in three volumes, 
 issued in the years 1872, 1874, and 1875. The following 
 are a few selections from the Press notices which 
 appeared as they were issued. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 
 
 No one, after reading the first two poems — almost perfect in 
 rhythm and all the graceful reserve of true lyrical strength — 
 could doubt for an instant that this book is the result of 
 lengthened thought and assiduous training in poetic forms. 
 These poems will assuiedly take high rank among the class to 
 which they belong." — British Quarterly Review, April, 1872. 
 
 "If this volume is the mere prelude of a mind growing in 
 power, we have in it the promise of a fine poet. ... In ' The 
 Wandering Soul,' the verse describing Socrates has that highest 
 note of critical poetry, that in it epigram becomes vivid with life, 
 and life reveals its inherent paradox. It would be difficult to 
 describe the famous irony of Socrates in more poetical and more 
 accurate words than by saying that he doubted men's doubts 
 away." — Spectator, February 17th, 1872. 
 
 "In all this poetry there is a purity and delicacy of feeling 
 which comes over one like morning air." — Graphic, March 16th, 
 1872.
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 SECOND SERIES. 
 
 ' ' In earnestness, sweetness, and the gift of depicting nature, 
 the writer may be pronounced a worthy disciple of his compatriot, 
 Henry Vaughan, the Silurist. Several of the shorter poems are 
 instinct with a noble purpose and a high ideal of life. One 
 perfect picture, marginally annotated, so to speak, in the specula- 
 tions which it calls forth, is 'The Organ-Boy.' But the most 
 noteworthy poem is the ' Ode on a Fair Spring Morning,' which 
 has somewhat of the charm and truth to nature of ' L'Allegro ' 
 and ' II Penseroso.' It is the nearest approach to a master-piece 
 in the volume." — Saturday Review, May 30th, 1874. 
 
 " This volume is a real advance on its predecessor of the same 
 name, and contains at least one poem of great originality, as well 
 as many of much tenderness, sweetness, and beauty. ' The 
 Organ-Boy ' we have read again and again, with fresh pleasure 
 on every reading. It is as exquisite a little poem as we have 
 read for many a day." — Spectator, June 13th, 1874. 
 
 " The reception of the New Writer's first series shows that, in 
 his degree, he is one of the poetical forces of the time. Of the 
 school of poetry of which Horace is the highest master, he is a 
 not undistinguished pupil." — Academy, August nth, 1874. 
 
 " The verses are full of melodious charm, and sing themselves 
 almost without music." — Blackwood's, August 1st, 1874. 
 
 THIRD SERIES. 
 
 " Not unworthy of its predecessors. It presents the same 
 command of metre and diction, the same contrasts of mood, the 
 same grace and sweetness. It cannot be denied that he has won 
 a definite position among contemporary poets." — Times, October 
 16th, 1875. 
 
 "'Evensong' shows power thought, and courage to grapple 
 with the profoundest problems. In the ' Ode to Free Rome '
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 we find worthy treatment of the subject and passionate expres- 
 sion of generous sympathy."— Saturday Review, July 31st, 1875. 
 
 " More perfect in execution than either of its predecessors. 
 . . . The pure lyrics are sweeter and richer. In the ' Birth 
 of Verse ' every stanza is a little poem in itself, and yet a part of 
 a perfect whole." — Spectator, May 22nd, 1875. 
 
 " If each book that he publishes is to mark as steady improve- 
 ment as have his second and third, the world may surely look 
 for something from the writer which shall immortalize him and 
 remain as a treasure to literature." — Graphic, June 1st, 1875. 
 
 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 BOOK II* 
 
 ' ' Fresh, picturesque, and by no means deficient in intensity ; but 
 the most conspicuous merits of the author are the judgment and 
 moderation with which his poem is designed, his self-possession 
 within his prescribed limits, and the unfailing elegance of his 
 composition, which shrinks from obscurity, exuberance, and rash 
 or painful effort as religiously as many recent poets seem to 
 cultivate such interesting blemishes. . . . Perhaps the fine 
 bursts of music in Marsyas, and the varied emotions portrayed in 
 Andromeda, are less characteristic of the author than the prompt, 
 yet graceful, manner in which he passes from one figure to another. 
 . . . Fourteen of these pieces written in blank verse which 
 bears comparison with the very best models make up a thoroughly 
 enjoyable little volume. . . ." — Pall Mall Gazette, March 10th, 
 1876. 
 
 " It is natural that the favourable reception given to his ' Songs 
 of Two Worlds' should have led the author to continue his 
 
 * Book II. was issued as a separate volume prior to the publication of 
 Books I. and III. and of the complete work.
 
 6 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 poetical exercises, and it is, no doubt, a true instinct which has led 
 him to tread the classic paths of song. In his choice of subject 
 he has not shrunk from venturing on ground occupied by at least 
 two Victorian poets. In neither case need he shrink from com- 
 parison. His Marsyas is full of fine fancy and vivid description. 
 His Andromeda has to us one recommendation denied to 
 Kingsley's — a more congenial metre ; another is its unstrained 
 and natural narrative." — Saturday Review, May 20th, 1876. 
 
 "In his enterprise of connecting the Greek myth with the 
 high and wider meaning which Christian sentiment naturally 
 finds for it, his success has been great. The passage in which 
 Apollo's victory over Marsyas and its effect are described is full 
 of exquisite beauty. It is almost as fine as verse on such a 
 subject could be. . . . The little volume is delightful reading. 
 From the first line to the last, the high and delicate aroma of 
 purity breathes through the various spiritual fables." — Spectator, 
 May 27th, 1876. 
 
 "The blank verse is stately, yet sweet, free, graceful, and never 
 undignified. We confidently believe that our readers will agree 
 with us in regarding this as one of the finest and most sugges- 
 tive poems recently published. We trust to have, ere long, 
 more poetic work from his hand." — British Quarterly Review, 
 April 1st, 1876. 
 
 "The writer has shown himself more critical than his friends, 
 and the result is a gradual, steady progress in power, which we 
 frankly acknowledge. . . . This long passage studded with 
 graces." — Academy, April 29th, 1876. 
 
 BOOKS I. and III. mid the COMPLETE WORK. 
 
 "In one sense the idea of his Epic is not only ambitious, 
 but audacious, for it necessarily awakens reminiscences of Dante. 
 Not unfrequently he is charmingly pathetic, as in his Helen and 
 Psyche. There is considerable force and no small imagination
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 7 
 
 in the description of some of the tortures in the ' Tartarus. ' 
 There is genuine poetical feeling in the ' Olympus. ' . . . We 
 might invite attention to many other passages. But it is more 
 easy to give honest general praise than to single out particular 
 extracts." — Times, February 9th, 1877. 
 
 " The whole of this last portion of the poem is exceedingly 
 beautiful. . . . Nor will any, except critics of limited view, 
 fail to recognize in the Epic a distinct addition to their store of 
 those companions of whom we never grow tired." — Athetutum, 
 March 3rd, 1877. 
 
 " We believe that the Epic will approve itself to students as 
 one of the most considerable and original feats of recent English 
 poetry." — Saturday Review, March 31st, 1877. 
 
 "Thought, fancy, music, and penetrating sympathy we have 
 here, and that radiant, unnamable suggestive delicacy which 
 enhances the attraction with each new reading. "—British Quar- 
 terly Review, April, 1877. 
 
 " The present work is by far his greatest achievement ; the 
 whole tone of it is noble, and portions, more especially the con- 
 cluding lines, are excessively beautiful." — Westminster Review, 
 April, 1877. 
 
 " The work is one of which any singer might justly be proud. 
 In fact, the Epic is in everyway a remarkable poem, which to 
 be appreciated must not only be read, but studied." — Graphic, 
 March 10th, 1877. 
 
 "We do not hesitate to advance it as our opinion that 'The 
 Epic of Hades' will enjoy the privilege of being classed amongst 
 the poems in the English language which will live." — Civil 
 Service Gazette, March 17th, 1877. 
 
 "Exquisite beauty of melodious verse. ... A remarkable 
 poem, both in conception and execution. We sincerely wish 
 for the author a complete literary success." — Literary World, 
 March 30th, 1877.
 
 3 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 " Will live as a poem of permanent power and charm. It will 
 receive high appreciation from all who can enter into its meaning, 
 for its graphic and liquid pictures of external beauty, the depth 
 and truth of its purgatorial ideas, and the ardour, tenderness, 
 and exaltation of its spiritual life," — Spectator, May 5th, 1877. 
 
 " I have lately been reading a poem which has interested me 
 very much, a poem called ' The Epic of Hades.' Many of you 
 may never have heard of it ; most of you may never have seen 
 it. It is, as I view it, another gem added to the wealth of the 
 poetry of our language." — Mr. Brig/it's speech on Cobden, at 
 Bradford, July 25th, 1877. 
 
 " In the blank verse of the ' Epic of Hades,' apt words are so 
 simply arranged with unbroken melody, that if the work were 
 printed as prose, it would remain a song, and every word would 
 still be where the sense required it ; not one is set in a wrong 
 place through stress of need for a mechanical help to the music. 
 The poem has its sound mind housed in a sound body." — PRO- 
 FESSOR Morley in the Nineteenth Century, February, 1878. 
 
 " I have read the ' Epic of Hades,' and find it truly charming. 
 Its pictures will long remain with me, and the music of its 
 words." — Oliver Wendell Holmes, April, 1884. 
 
 THE EPIC OF HADES. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED QUARTO EDITION. 
 
 "Of Mr. Chapman's illustrations it is pleasant to be able to 
 speak with considerable admiration, not only because they are 
 a fortunate echo of the verse, and represent the feelings and 
 incidents of the 'Epic,' but because of their intrinsic merits. 
 There is in them a fine and high inspiration of an indefinite 
 sort." — Athenceum, March 29th, 1879.
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 9 
 
 " ' The Epic of Hades ' is certainly one of the most remarkable 
 works of the latter half of the nineteenth century. Here is an 
 edition de luxe which may possibly tempt the unthinking to 
 search for the jewel within the casket." — World, February 
 I2th, 1879. 
 
 "The exquisite aerial feeling of 'Eros and Psyche,' — by far 
 the best of the drawings, — in which the figures seem literally to 
 float in ether. ' Laocoon ' is grand and dignified, and all deserve 
 to be noticed with attention." — Graphic, January 25th, 1879. 
 
 " These designs of themselves would be of the highest value, 
 and when they are placed, as in this book, by way of illustration 
 of a text which is full of power, their value is not easily 
 estimated. The book ought to be one of the most cherished 
 gifts that any lover of poetry or the pencil could desire." — 
 Scotsman, January 23rd, 1879. 
 
 " The author has been most fortunate in his illustrator. The 
 designs are gems of drawing and conception, and the mezzotint 
 is admirably adapted to the style of drawing and subject. This 
 is truly a charming addition to the literary table. It is seldom 
 one sees figure illustrations of such graceful and powerful beauty, 
 and so thoroughly in sympathy with the visionary subjects of the 
 author." — Art Journal, April, 1879. 
 
 " 'The Epic of Hades' has already won a place among the 
 immortals. The lovely and terrible figures of the Greek 
 mythology have never received a more exquisite consecration 
 than at the hands of the author, who, with the true divination of 
 the poet, has known how to interpret in the modern spirit the 
 profound and pathetic fables of antiquity without vulgarizing by 
 modern affectations their divine simplicity. This beautiful poem 
 appears now in an edition de luxe — a setting not unworthy of 
 such gems. The designs are noteworthy for their tenderness 
 of sentiment and their languid grace." — Daily News, April 
 2nd, 1879.
 
 io OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 GWEN: 
 
 A DRAMA IN MONOLOGUE. 
 
 "The charm of this beautiful little poem is its perfect sim- 
 plicity of utterance ; its chastened and exquisite grace. There 
 is nothing very new in the incidents or in the characters of this 
 most touching story, except in its unconventional ending, which 
 takes the reader by surprise. The genius of the author has 
 closed an idyll of love and death with a strain of sweet, sad 
 music in that minor key which belongs to remembrance and 
 regret." — Daily News, January 22nd, 1879. 
 
 " We have read this new work with the interest arising from 
 the expectations which the author had quickened in us, and with 
 the hope of finding those expectations confirmed. We are not 
 disappointed, for we have here the same selectness of language, 
 the same high, pure tone, the same delicate power of touching 
 the deeper chords of thought and feeling, which have previously 
 won our attention and sympathy." — Literary World, January 
 17th, 1879. 
 
 "At the close of the tale the heart swells with pathos, and the 
 tears all but force their way into the eyes. To turn from the 
 most noteworthy of modern poetry to the verse in which ' Gwen ' 
 is written is like turning from a brilliant painting to a fine statue. 
 We are scarcely sensible of want of colour, so refreshed are we 
 by purity of outline. All, indeed, is graceful, good, and poetical 
 work, as pure and limpid in flow as a brook." — Sunday Times, 
 February 2nd, 1879. 
 
 " The piece as a whole will repay very attentive perusal, while 
 here and there in it there is a particular choice bit of work. 
 Here, for example, is a fine lyric . . . and here a love-song of 
 rare and exquisite beauty." — New York Evening Post, February 
 20th, 1879.
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 11 
 
 " Few among the later poets of our time have received such 
 a generous welcome as the author. He has been appreciated 
 not by critics alone, but by the general public. . . . The charm 
 of ' Gwen ' is to be found in the limpid clearness of the versifica- 
 tion, in the pathetic notes which tell the old story of true love 
 wounded and crushed. Nothing can be more artistically appro- 
 priate or more daintily melodious than the following. . . ." — 
 Pall Mall Gazette, October 8th, 1879. 
 
 " The poem is, as a whole, tender, simple, chaste in feeling, 
 and occasionally it rises to a lyrical loftiness of sentiment or 
 grows compact with vigorous thought." — New York " Nation" 
 March 27th, 1879. 
 
 " The writer has gained inspiration from themes which 
 inspired Dante ; he has sung sweet songs and musical lyrics 
 and whether writing in rhyme or blank verse, has proved him- 
 self a master of his instrument. He knows, like all true poets, 
 how to transmute what may be called common into the pure 
 gold of poetry." — Spectator, July 26th, 1879. 
 
 THE ODE OF LIFE. 
 
 " The ' Ode of Life ' ought to be the most popular of all the 
 author's works. People flock to hear great preachers, but in this 
 book they will hear a voice more eloquent than theirs, dealing 
 with the most important subjects that can ever occupy the 
 thoughts of man.."— Westminster Review, July, 1880. 
 
 "The many who have found what seemed to them of value 
 and of use in the previous writings of the author, may confidently 
 turn to this, his latest and, in his own view, his most mature 
 work. It is full of beauty of thought, feeling, and language."— 
 Daily News, April 8th, 1880.
 
 i2 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 "Full of exquisite taste, tender colour, and delicate fancy, 
 these poems will add considerably to the reputation of their 
 author." — Sunday Times, April 25th, 1880. 
 
 " The author is one of the few real poets now living. Any- 
 thing at once more sympathetic and powerful it would be 
 difficult to find in the poetry of the present day." — Scotsman, 
 May nth, 1880. 
 
 "Next to the 'Epic of Hades,' it is his best work." — Cam- 
 bridge Review, May 19th, 1880. 
 
 " Here is one standing high in power and in fame who has 
 chosen a nobler course. . . . The experiment is successful, and 
 though we must not now discuss the laws to which the structure 
 of an ode should conform, we rank the poem in this respect 
 as standing far above Dryden's celebrated composition, but 
 below the Odes of Wordsworth on Immortality and of Milton 
 on the Nativity, which still remain peerless and without a 
 rival." — Congregationalist, May 1st, 1880. 
 
 "A high devout purpose and wide human sympathy ennoble 
 all the writer's work, and his clear language and quiet music 
 will retain his audience." — Nineteenth Century, August, 1880. 
 
 " In all that respects technical points, certainly the most 
 finished work we have yet had from the author's hand, and here 
 and there the phrasing is exquisite. For ambitious aims, and 
 for art which so far has justified those aims, for elevation and 
 refinement, these poems are in advance of any of the author's 
 former works." — British Quarterly Review, July, 1880. 
 
 "Any notice of recent poetry would be inadequate without a 
 reference to the ' Ode of Life.' The only fault we have to find 
 with this really remarkable effort — a sort of expansion of Words- 
 worth's famous Ode — is that it is rather too long for its ideas ; 
 but it possesses power, sweetness, occasional profundity, and
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 13 
 
 unmistakable music. It is, when all is said and done, a true 
 ' Ode,' sweeping the reader along as the ode should do, and 
 ' Growing like Atlas, stronger for its load.' 
 
 It appears to us to bring definite proof that the writer's pre- 
 tensions have not been over-stated." — Contemporary Review, 
 February, 1S81. 
 
 SONGS UNSUNG. 
 
 " Some of the more important pieces make almost equal and 
 very high demands alike on my sympathy and my admiration, 
 and I hope you may long be enabled to cherish the enviable gift 
 of finding utterance for Truths so deep in forms of so much power 
 and beauty." — Letter from Mr. Gladstone, November, 1883. 
 
 " The reader of his former work will probably commence 
 this volume with considerable expectations. Nor will he be 
 altogether disappointed, although he will probably wish that 
 Mr. Morris had given the world more of his exquisite classical 
 workmanship." — Fortnightly Review, November, 1883. 
 
 "'The New Creed' is, in some respects, his most striking 
 achievement. The poem is one well suited to his mind, but 
 we are not aware that he has ever before written anything 
 at once so impressive, so solemn, and so self-restrained. The 
 last two lines have all the happy energy of the highest poetry." — 
 Spectator, November 10th, 1883. 
 
 "In reading it one feels constantly ' How worthy this book 
 would be of beautiful illustrations 1 ' " — Academy, November 
 24th, 1883. 
 
 " The volume is full of the sweet fruits of a large experience ; 
 a profound study of the many problems of life ; a clear insight
 
 , 4 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 into human nature ; and the book as a whole ranks among the 
 best gifts which the press has in recent years bestowed upon 
 us." — Leeds Mercury, November 21st, 1883. 
 
 "There is not one of these 'Songs Unsung' which does not 
 deserve to be read and re-read." — Glasgoiv Herald, November 
 l6th, 18S3. 
 
 " In Mr. Morris's new volume we recognize the old qualities 
 which are so dear to his wide circle of admirers." — Daily News, 
 December 4th, 1883. 
 
 "We may safely predict as warm a welcome for the new- 
 volume as has been accorded to its predecessors."— Ecclesiastical 
 Gazette, November 15th, 1883. 
 
 " Those who have followed Mr. Morris's career will be pleased 
 to find that his poetic grasp, his argumentative subtlety, his 
 tenderness of sympathetic observation, his manly earnestness, 
 are as conspicuous and impressive as before." — Mr. Bayne, in 
 the Helensburgh Times. 
 
 "The reputation earned by the author's books has been such 
 as few men in a century are permitted to enjoy. Beginning 
 with the first volume, it has gone on increasing." — Liverpool 
 Mercury, November 9th, 1883. 
 
 "For ourselves we dare hardly say how high we rank Mr. 
 Morris. This last volume is deserving of highest praise. In 
 some of its contents no living poet, to our mind can surpass 
 him." Oxford University Herald, March 8th, 1884. 
 
 " The gems of this volume, to our mind, are some of the 
 shorter poems, which are full of melody and colour, saturated with 
 lyrical feeling, and marked by that simplicity without which no 
 poem of this class can be called great."— British Quarterly 
 Review, January, 1884.
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. IS 
 
 "The writer is never diffuse or vague or pointless, both his 
 road and the end of it are always in view." — New York Critic, 
 January 19th, 1884. 
 
 " In one sense ' Songs Unsung ' is more typical of Mr. Morris's 
 genius than any of his previous works. There is in them the 
 same purity of expression, the same delicate fancy, the same 
 mastery of technique, and withal the same loftiness of concep- 
 tion." — Scotsman, December 22nd, 1883. 
 
 " In some respects we must award him the distinction of hav- 
 ing a clearer perception of the springs of nineteenth-century 
 existence than any of his contemporaries. . . . What could be 
 more magnificent than the following conception of the beginning 
 of things. . . ." — Whitehall Review, October, 1883. 
 
 "Mr. Morris has always that picturesque power which limns 
 in a few words a suggestive and alluring picture of nature or of 
 life evoking the imagination of the reader to supplement the 
 clear and vigorous work of the poet." — New York Christian 
 Union, February, 1884. 
 
 " No lover of poetry will fail to make himself possessed of this 
 volume from the pen of one who has made for himself so 
 high and distinctive a place among modern writers." — Manchester 
 Examiner, January 31st, 1884. 
 
 " After making every possible deduction, ' Songs Unsung ' is a 
 noble volume, and ought to be received by those who, like our- 
 selves, believe in the necessary subordination of art to morality 
 with profound gratification." — Freeman, April 18th, 1884. 
 
 "We have quoted enough to show that this book has genuine 
 merit in it, merit in poetry, merit in philosophy, and, we may 
 add, merit in religion. Lewis Morris takes the ' new and deeper 
 view of the world' of which Carlyle now and then caught sunny 
 glimpses. He sings in sweet and measured Tennysonian strains 
 of philosophy what Darwin and Herbert Spencer teach in prose ;
 
 i6 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 without the informing glow of the imagination. There are 
 living poets greater than Lewis Morris, but of the younger race 
 of poets he is foremost." — The Inquirer, April 5th, 1884. 
 
 " The hold which a poet who writes with such intense serious- 
 ness of purpose and such passionate earnestness gains upon his 
 generation is far stronger and more lasting than if his sole 
 attempt were to stimulate or to satisfy the sense of the beautiful. 
 All the things of which we wish that poetry should speak to us, 
 have voice given to them in the song of this glorious singer." — 
 South Australian Advertiser, March 24th, 1884. 
 
 "As a whole this volume, while charming anew the poet's 
 former admirers, should win for his genius a wider acquaintance 
 and appreciation." — Boston Literary World, February 23rd, 
 1884. 
 
 " Mr. Morris has the invaluable gift of recognizing and being 
 in full sympathy with the current ideas and feelings of the time. 
 The broad humanitarianism, the genuine sympathy with the 
 sufferings of the poor and unfortunate, characteristic of our age, 
 is one of the most attractive features of his poetry, and to the 
 revival of the feeling for classical beauty, which may be looked 
 upon as a collateral branch of the ' aesthetic ' movement, he 
 owes more than one charming inspiration. ... To sum up. 
 Mr. Morris's volume is likely to add to his reputation. It is 
 healthy in tone, and shows no decline of the varied qualities to 
 which the author owes his widespread reputation." — Times, 
 June 9, 1884.
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 17 
 
 GYCI A. 
 
 " ' Gycia ' abounds in powerful dramatic situations, while 
 the intricate evolutions of a double plot in love and state- 
 craft provoke perpetual curiosity, which is only fully 
 satisfied at the end. The heroine, in her single-minded 
 patriotism and her undeviating devotion to duty, rises to 
 the level of the loftiest feminine conceptions of the old 
 Greek dramatists. And she is finely contrasted with her 
 generous and impulsive husband, who has neither her 
 sternness of principle nor her steadiness of purpose. The 
 form of the verse is so picturesque, and the flow is so free, 
 that we should say, if effectively delivered, it must com- 
 mand an appreciative audience. It would have been 
 difficult for any poet to do full justice to the thrilling- 
 scene where Gycia denounces the treason of her hus- 
 band and his countrymen to the chief magistrates of the 
 State. Yet Mr. Morris has done it well. Nearly as 
 stirring, and even more pathetic, is the scene where the 
 pair are seated side by side in state, with anguished hearts 
 and smiling faces, at the banquet, which, as each knows 
 well, is to end with a horrible catastrophe." — Time's, 
 October 1 8th, 1 836. 
 
 " The dramatis ftersojia? have life and individuality ; 
 the situations are for the most part strong and rich in 
 really dramatic effects ; the architecture of the plot is 
 simple, harmonious, and symmetrical, without any of that 
 obtrusive artificiality which often accompanies symmetry ;
 
 18 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 and the action never drags, but is always in determinate 
 progressive movement. A drama of which these things 
 can be truthfully said is not merely good as drama, but 
 has that element of popularity which is of more practical 
 value than the absolute goodness of which only critics 
 take account. The verse is, throughout, strong, fluent, 
 rich, variously expressive, and adequate with that ade- 
 quacy which satisfies without drawing attention to itself." 
 — Mr. J. A. Noble, in the Academy, November 20th, 
 1886. 
 
 " Throughout there is the artistic contrast and striving 
 between the spirit of liberty and of tyranny, between 
 Republican simplicity and patrician form and ceremony, 
 and a great political lesson is taught. It is hardly neces- 
 sary to praise the nobility and the dignity, the sweetness 
 and the strength, of Mr. Morris's verse. ' Gycia ' will add 
 to his already firmly founded reputation as a dramatic 
 poet and writer of noble blank verse. It is one of the 
 few works by recent English poets that seems capable of 
 thrilling an audience upon the stage, as well as enchain- 
 ing the mind of the student in the chamber." — Scotsman, 
 November 10th, 1886. 
 
 " I have lost no time in reading your tragedy. I 
 perused it with great interest, and a sense throughout of 
 its high poetic power." — Letter from Mr. Gladstone, 
 October 20th, 1886. 
 
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