THE POEMS OF 
 THOMAS GORDON HAKE 
 
 SELECTED 
 WITH A PREFATORY NOTE BY 
 
 ALICE MEYNELL 
 
 AND A PORTRAIT BY 
 
 DANTE GABRIEL 
 ROSSETTI 
 
 LONDON: ELKIN MATHEWS AND 
 
 JOHN LANE 
 CHICAGO: STONE AND KIMBALL 
 
 1894
 
 Of this edition 500 copies have been printtd for England 
 
 Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 THE Poems in this collection are chosen from 
 volumes published at intervals over more than fifty 
 years among them The Piromides, issued in 1839, 
 Madeline, reviewed by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 
 the Academy in 1871 ; Parables and Tales, to which 
 Rossetti gave a Fortnightly Review article in 1 873 ; 
 down to The New Day, dated 1 890 ; together with 
 verses which will be new even to the readers of the 
 hitherto published works. 
 
 Dr. Hake has a solemn and distinct note, little 
 confusible with the other notes of the concerted 
 song of poets. Only nine years younger than the 
 century, he inherited, by right of his time and 
 place, a tradition of deep composure poetry 
 aloof from the peril of excitement which knows 
 neither how to contain nor how to express itself. 
 Dr. Hake's expression always implies long intention,
 
 iv THOMAS GORDON HAKE 
 
 deliberate decision. The verse is a consequence 
 long foreseen. 
 
 The emotion of moments lacks indeed no swift- 
 ness of passage, but we are made aware that it 
 had a past of experience and has a future of 
 power. It was not a gust born of the moment 
 and then no more. Poetic passion must be like 
 a wind ; thou canst not tell whence it cometh 
 nor whither it goeth; but surely it appeared 
 with an approach and disappeared with a depar- 
 ture ; it was a thing of transitory phase, but not 
 of transitory life. Essentially durable and spiritual 
 is the passion of those infrequent poems in which 
 this poet, raising himself from the attitude of 
 meditation, gathers his word into intenser action. 
 
 He has emotion which is thus proved true. For 
 the proof of the authenticity of his thought, also, the 
 reader will look into his own experience as he reads. 
 II poeta mi disse : Che pense ? 
 
 The question which Virgil asked of Dante is a poet's 
 question. The world takes it as generally the reader's 
 question ; but it is emphatically the poet's. Now,
 
 THOMAS GORDON HAKE v 
 
 the thought to which Dr. Hake appeals in his 
 reader's mind is unquestionably not an easy nor an 
 obvious one. In saying this we assign to the reader 
 of poetry some part of the writer's responsibility, 
 some part of his honour. Or, if this is too much to 
 say, the reader is at any rate responsible for choos- 
 ing his poet. And if a poet is worth reading at 
 all, he is to be trusted both with the importance 
 and with the distinctness of his own thought. 
 
 The exceeding solemnity of what we have called 
 Dr. Hake's note and it is as indescribable and 
 as peculiar as the note of a voice suggests a 
 further meaning, even an allegory, where in fact 
 he had no intention of proposing anything beyond 
 the text. The more does this illusion occur, 
 perhaps, because Dr. Hake tells a story a story 
 of events in most meditative stanzas. He writes 
 movingly of dreams and sleep ; and his study of 
 these has added to all or almost all his verse 
 something of the ecstasy of dreams. 
 
 ALICE MEYNELL. 
 
 February 1894.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ALONE . . . . . . . I 
 
 OLD SOULS ....... 8 
 
 VENUS URANIA . . . . . . 16 
 
 THE CRIPPLE . . . . . . . 17 
 
 THE INFANT MEDUSA . ... 28 
 
 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY .... 29 
 
 THE LOVER'S DAY ...... 45 
 
 THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE .... 47 
 
 FLOWERS ON THE BANK . . . . . 57 
 
 THE BLIND BOY ...... 59 
 
 WHEN I THINK OF THEE, BROTHER . . . 72 
 
 ECCE HOMO !....... 74 
 
 THE SNAKE CHARMER ..... 80 
 
 PYTHAGORAS ....... 88 
 
 THE FIRST SAVED . . . . . 95 
 
 REMINISCENCE . . . 1OI
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE SHEPHERDESS . . . . . IIO 
 
 FAREWELL TO NATURE . . . . .117 
 
 THE POET'S FEAST . . . . . .121 
 
 THE EXILE . . . . . . .122 
 
 THE SIBYL . . . . . . -133 
 
 THE PAINTER . . . . . .135 
 
 THE SUN-WORSHIPPER . . . . .139 
 
 THE INSCRUTABLE . . . . . .145 
 
 THE WEDDING RING 149 
 
 LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR DEAD . . . 152 
 THE GOLDEN WEDDING 154
 
 ALONE 
 v^ 
 
 LOVED, wedded, and caressed, 
 Although her children died 
 She still seemed doubly blest, 
 Her helpmate at her side 
 More dear than all the rest ! 
 
 But sorrow did not kill 
 
 The thought of those so dear, 
 
 Who all her feelings fill, 
 
 As though still with her here 
 
 To play about her still. 
 
 Her little children's fate 
 She never could recall, 
 Yet lived she desolate, 
 For she had lost them all, 
 And then she lost her mate. 
 
 A
 
 ALONE 
 
 When came that hour of woe 
 And all she loved was gone, 
 Not sorrow's keenest blow 
 Left her fond heart alone ; 
 No parting could it know. 
 
 Nigh her he still appears, 
 The early times so cling ; 
 Her simple heart still hears 
 Her children laugh and sing 
 As in the happy years. 
 
 The dead to her remain ; 
 She heeds each gentle sound 
 Of theirs within her brain, 
 And answers smiling round : 
 ' Sweet love, say that again ! ' 
 
 Is it that angels dwell 
 In that lone mother's breast ? 
 She knows not what befell, 
 And so is doubly blest : 
 No more her heart can tell.
 
 OLD SOULS 
 
 THE world, not hushed, lay as in trance 
 It saw the future in its van, 
 
 And drew its riches in advance, 
 To meet the greedy wants of man ; 
 
 Till length of days, untimely sped, 
 
 Left its account unaudited. 
 
 The sun, untired, still rose and set, 
 Swerved not an instant from its beat 
 
 It had not lost a moment yet, 
 
 Nor used in vain its light and heat ; 
 
 But, as in trance, from when it rose 
 
 To when it sank, man craved repose.
 
 OLD SOULS 
 
 in 
 A holy light that shone of yore 
 
 He saw, despised, and left behind : 
 His heart was rotting to the core 
 
 Locked in the slumbers of the mind 
 Not beat of drum, nor sound of fife, 
 Could rouse it to a sense of life. 
 
 IV 
 
 A cry was heard, intoned and slow, 
 Of one who had no wares to vend : 
 
 His words were gentle, dull, and low, 
 And he called out, ' Old souls to mend ! 
 
 He peddled on from door to door, 
 
 And looked not up to rich or poor. 
 
 v 
 
 His step kept on as if in pace 
 
 With some old timepiece in his head, 
 
 Nor ever did its way retrace ; 
 
 Nor right nor left turned he his tread 
 
 But uttered still his tinker's cry 
 
 To din the ears of passers-by.
 
 OLD SOULS 
 
 VI 
 
 So well they knew the olden note 
 Few heeded what the tinker spake, 
 
 Though here and there an ear it smote 
 And seemed a sudden hold to take ; 
 
 But they had not the time to stay, 
 
 And it would do some other day. 
 
 VII 
 
 Still on his way the tinker wends, 
 
 Though jobs be far between and few ; 
 
 But here and there a soul he mends 
 And makes it look as good as new. 
 
 Once set to work, once fairly hired, 
 
 His dull old hammer seems inspired. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Over the task his features glow ; 
 
 He knocks away the rusty flakes ; 
 A spark flies off at every blow ; 
 
 At every rap new life awakes. 
 The soul once cleansed of outward sins, 
 His subtle handicraft begins.
 
 OLD SOULS 
 
 IX 
 
 Like iron unannealed and crude, 
 The soul is plunged into the blast ; 
 
 To temper it, however rude, 
 'Tis next in holy water cast ; 
 
 Then on the anvil it receives 
 
 The nimblest stroke the tinker gives. 
 
 x 
 
 The tinker's task is at an end : 
 
 Stamped was the cross by that last blow. 
 Again his cry, ' Old souls to mend ! ' 
 
 Is heard in accents dull and low. 
 He pauses not to seek his pay, 
 That too will do another day. 
 
 XI 
 
 One stops and says, 'This soul of mine 
 Has been a tidy piece of ware, 
 
 But rust and rot in it combine, 
 And now corruption lays it bare. 
 
 Give it a look : there was a day 
 
 When it the morning hymn could say.'
 
 OLD SOULS 
 
 XII 
 
 The tinker looks into his eye, 
 And there detects besetting sin, 
 
 The decent old-established lie, 
 
 That creeps through all the chinks within. 
 
 Lank are its tendrils, thick its shoots, 
 
 And like a worm's nest coil the roots. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Like flowers that deadly berries bear, 
 His seed, if tended from the pod, 
 
 Had grown in beauty with the year, 
 Like deodara drawn to God ; 
 
 Now like a dank and curly brake, 
 
 It fosters venom for the snake. 
 
 xrv 
 
 The tinker takes the weed in tow, 
 And roots it out with tooth and nail ; 
 
 His labour patient to bestow, 
 
 Lest like the herd of men he fail. 
 
 How best to extirpate the weed, 
 
 Has grown with him into a creed.
 
 OLD SOULS 
 
 xv 
 
 His tack is steady, slow, and sure : 
 He plucks it out, despite the howl, 
 
 With gentle hand and look demure, 
 As cunning maiden draws a fowl. 
 
 He knows the job he is about, 
 
 And pulls till all the lie is out. 
 
 XVI 
 
 ' Now steadfastly regard the man 
 
 Who wrought your cure of rust and rot ! 
 
 You saw him ere the work began : 
 Is he the same, or is he not ? 
 
 You saw the tinker ; now behold 
 
 The Envoy of a God of old.' 
 
 XVII 
 
 This said, he on the forehead stamps 
 A downward stroke and one across, 
 
 Then straight upon his way he tramps ; 
 His time for profit, not for loss ; 
 
 His task no sooner at an end 
 
 Than out he cries, ' Old souls to mend ! '
 
 OLD SOULS 
 
 XVIII 
 
 As night comes on he enters doors, 
 He crosses halls, he goes upstairs, 
 
 He reaches first and second floors, 
 Still busied on his own affairs. 
 
 None stop him or a question ask ; 
 
 None heed the workman at his task. 
 
 XIX 
 
 Despite his cry, ' Old souls to mend ! ' 
 Which into dull expression breaks, 
 
 Not moved are they, nor ear they lend 
 To him who from old habit speaks ; 
 
 Yet does the deep and one-toned cry 
 
 Send thrills along eternity. 
 
 xx 
 
 He gads where out-door wretches walk, 
 Where outcasts under arches creep ; 
 
 Among them holds his simple talk. 
 He lets them hear him in their sleep. 
 
 They who his name have still denied, 
 
 H% lets them see him crucified.
 
 10 OLD SOULS 
 
 XXI 
 
 On royal steps he takes a stand 
 To light the beauties to the ball ; 
 
 He holds a lantern in his hand, 
 And lets his simple saying fall. 
 
 They deem him but some sorry wit 
 
 Serving the Holy Spirit's writ. 
 
 XXII 
 
 They know not souls can rust and rot, 
 And deem him, while he says his say, 
 
 The tipsy watchman who forgot 
 
 To call out ' Carriage stops the way ! ' 
 
 They know not what it can portend, 
 
 This mocking cry, ' Old souls to mend ! ' 
 
 XXIII 
 
 While standing on the palace stone, 
 He is in workhouse, brothel, jail ; 
 
 He is to play and ball-room gone, 
 To hear again the beauties rail ; 
 
 With tender pity to behold 
 
 The dead alive in pearls and gold.
 
 OLD SOULS 11 
 
 XXIV 
 
 In meaning deep, in whispers low 
 
 As bubble bursting on the air, 
 He lets the solemn warning flow 
 
 Through jewelled ears of creatures fair, 
 Who, while they dance, their paces blend 
 With his mild words, ' Old souls to mend ! ' 
 
 XXV 
 
 And when to church their sins they take, 
 And bring them back to lunch again, 
 
 And fun of empty sermons make, 
 He whispers softly in their train ; 
 
 And sits with them if two or more 
 
 Think of a promise made of yore. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Of those who stay behind to sup, 
 And in remembrance eat the bread, 
 
 He leads the conscience to the cup, 
 His hands across the table spread. 
 
 When contrite hearts before him bend, 
 
 Glad are his words, ' Old souls to mend
 
 12 OLD SOULS 
 
 XXVII 
 
 The little ones before the font 
 
 He clasps within his arms to bless ; 
 
 For Childhood's pure and guileless front 
 Laughs back his own sweet gentleness. 
 
 ' Of such/ he says, ( my kingdom is, 
 
 For they betray not with a kiss.' 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 He goes to hear the vicars preach : 
 They do not always know his face, 
 
 Him they pretend the way to teach, 
 And, as one absent, ask his grace. 
 
 Not then his words, ' Old souls to mend ! 
 
 Their spirits pierce or bosoms rend. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 He goes to see the priests revere 
 His image as he lay in death : 
 
 They do not know that he is there ; 
 They do not feel his living breath, 
 
 Though to his secret they pretend 
 
 With incense sweet, old souls to mend.
 
 OLD SOULS 13 
 
 xxx 
 
 He goes to hear the grand debate 
 That makes his own religion law ; 
 
 But him the members, as he sate 
 Below the gangway, never saw. 
 
 They used his name to serve their end. 
 
 And others left old souls to mend. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 Before the church-exchange he stands, 
 Where those who buy and sell him, meet : 
 
 He sees his livings changing hands, 
 And shakes the dust from off his feet. 
 
 May be his weary head he bows, 
 
 While from his side fresh ichor flows. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 From mitred peers he turns his face. 
 
 Where priests convoked in session plot, 
 He would remind them of his grace 
 
 But for his now too humble lot ; 
 So his dull cry on ears devout 
 He murmurs sadly from without.
 
 14 OLD SOULS 
 
 i 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 He goes where judge the law defends, 
 And takes the life he can't bestow, 
 
 And soul of sinner recommends 
 To grace above, but not below ; 
 
 Reserving for a fresh surprise 
 
 Whom it shall meet in Paradise. 
 
 xxxiv 
 He goes to meeting, where the saint 
 
 Exempts himself from deadly ire, 
 But in a strain admired and quaint 
 
 Consigns all others to the fire, 
 While of the damned he mocks the howl, 
 And on the tinker drops his scowl. 
 
 xxxv 
 Go here, go there, they cite his word, 
 
 While he himself is nigh forgot. 
 He hears them use the name of Lord, 
 
 He present though they know him not. 
 Though he be there, they vision lack, 
 And talk of him behind his back.
 
 OLD SOULS 15 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 Such is the Church and such the State. 
 
 Both set him up and put him down, 
 Below the houses of debate, 
 
 Above the jewels of the crown. 
 But when ' Old souls to mend ! ' he says, 
 They send him off about his ways. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 He is the humble, lowly one, 
 
 In coat of rusty velveteen, 
 Who to his daily work has gone ; 
 
 In sleeves of lawn not ever seen. 
 No mitre on his forehead sticks : 
 His crown is thorny, and it pricks. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 On it the dews of mercy shine ; 
 
 From heaven at dawn of day they fell ; 
 And it he wears by right divine, 
 
 Like earthly kings, if truth they tell ; 
 And up to heaven the few to send, 
 He still cries out, ' Old souls to mend ! '
 
 VENUS URANIA 
 
 Is this thy Paphos, the devoted place 
 
 Where rests, in its own eventide, thy shrine ? 
 To thee not lone is solitude divine 
 Where love-dreams o'er thy waves each other chase 
 And melt into the passion of thy face ! 
 
 The twilight waters, dolphin-stained, are thine ; 
 The silvery depths and blue, moon-orbed, entwine, 
 And in bright films thy rosy form embrace, 
 Girdling thy loins with heaven-spun drapery 
 Wove in the looms of thy resplendent sea. 
 The columns point their shadows to the plain 
 And ancient days are dialed o'er again ; 
 The floods remember : falling at thy feet, 
 Upon the sands of time they ever beat.
 
 THE CRIPPLE 
 
 A BROOK beneath the hill-side flows 
 Amid the downs, whose chalky sweep 
 
 A scant though tender herbage grows, 
 
 Cropped close by scattered flocks of sheep. 
 
 And there a group of huts is seen 
 
 Dotted along a village green. - 
 
 Yet, buildings of a statelier look 
 That poor sequestered valley grace 
 
 An inn beside the village brook ; 
 A church beside the burial-place. 
 
 Save at the park, the trees are few ; 
 
 Still the old graveyard has its yew.
 
 18 THE CRIPPLE 
 
 in 
 Beyond the park, the ring-dove's haunt, 
 
 Red bricks insult the smokeless sky : 
 There stands the workhouse, bare and gaunt, 
 
 Like the drear soul of poverty, 
 And frowns upon a mossy fen, 
 Where willows crouch like aged men. 
 
 IV 
 
 All life surrounds the roadside inn, 
 The home of welcome and good cheer, 
 
 Where barmaid scores the gill of gin 
 And oft-repeated pot of beer : 
 
 Unlike the fashion of the town 
 
 To drink and fling the money down. 
 
 The wife, with eggs and milk for sale, 
 Wrapt in the coat of her good man, 
 
 Stops there and takes her drop of ale 
 While waiting for her empty can, 
 
 And, nodding at the landlord's sport, 
 
 Keeps for the last her smart retort.
 
 THE CRIPPLE 19 
 
 VI 
 
 The goodman, always on his mare, 
 Stops with familiar nod and wink, 
 
 And bids the landlord with him share 
 His amber draught of foamy drink ; 
 
 With chuckling joke concludes his say, 
 
 And laughs when out of hearing's way. 
 
 VII 
 
 There with his team the carter stays, 
 The water-trough his horses find ; 
 
 Worn out himself, he little says 
 No fun has he to leave behind. 
 
 Dull to the merry toper's call, 
 
 His team he follows to their stall. 
 
 VIII 
 
 The squire, addicted not to chat, 
 
 But seldom draws the rein or speaks ; 
 
 Seeing the landlord touch his hat, 
 Into a quiet trot he breaks ; 
 
 Though at election, oft he stops 
 
 To praise the children and the crops.
 
 20 THE CRIPPLE 
 
 IX 
 
 Between the horse-trough and the door 
 A widow's son was wont to stand. 
 
 He was a cripple, crvitched and poor, 
 Yet always ready with a hand, 
 
 Pleased when on trifling errands sent, 
 
 With little recompense content. 
 
 So oft a copper coin the boy 
 
 Would earn, that helped to buy him bread, 
 Too glad to get a light employ : 
 
 The parish all his mother's dread. 
 Hard had she worked to earn him food 
 Through all her weary widowhood. 
 
 XI 
 
 More did that mother love her son 
 Than had he been the fairest born ; 
 
 He was her pride to look upon, 
 
 Though shrunk of limb and feature worn : 
 
 May be she loved him all the more 
 
 For that his legs were crookt and sore.
 
 THE CRIPPLE 21 
 
 XII 
 
 As a wrecked vessel on the sand, 
 The cripple to his mother clung : 
 
 Close to the tub he took his stand 
 
 While she the linen washed and wrung ; 
 
 And when she hung it out to dry 
 
 The cripple still was standing by. 
 
 XIII 
 
 When she went out to char, he took 
 His fife, to play some simple snatch 
 
 Before the inn hard by the brook, 
 
 While for the traveller keeping watch, 
 
 Against the horse's head to stand, 
 
 Or hold its bridle in his hand, 
 
 XIV 
 
 Sometimes the squire his penny dropped 
 Upon the road for him to clutch, 
 
 Which, as it rolled, the cripple stopped, 
 Striking it nimbly with his crutch. 
 
 The groom, with leathern belt and pad, 
 
 E'en found a copper for the lad.
 
 22 THE CRIPPLE 
 
 xv 
 
 The farmer's wife her hand would dip 
 Down her deep pocket with a sigh ; 
 
 Some halfpence in his hand would slip, 
 When there was no observer nigh ; 
 
 Or give him apples for his lunch, 
 
 That he loved leisurely to munch. 
 
 XVI 
 
 But for the farmer, what he made, 
 At market table he would spend, 
 
 And boys who used not plough or spade 
 Had got the parish for their friend ; 
 
 He paid his poor rates to the day, 
 
 So let the boy ask parish-pay. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Yet would the teamster feel his fob, 
 The little cripple's heart to cheer, 
 
 Himself of penny pieces rob, 
 
 That he begrudged to spend in beer ; 
 
 His boy, too, might be sick or sore, 
 
 So gave he of his thrifty store.
 
 THE CRIPPLE 23 
 
 XVIII 
 
 A sheep-worn walk along the brook 
 The cripple loved, for there the gush 
 
 Of water thralled him as it shook 
 The ragged roots of the green rush, 
 
 Which with its triple flowers of pink 
 
 Stood ripe for gathering at the brink. 
 
 XIX 
 
 The heather bristles round the knoll, 
 Where inlaid moss and leaflets blend : 
 
 'Tis there he sits and ends his stroll, 
 His crutch beside him as his friend, 
 
 And looks upon the other bank, 
 
 Where blue forget-me-not grows rank ; 
 
 xx 
 
 Where purple loosestrife paints the sedge ; 
 
 Where bryony and yellow bine, 
 Locked in blush-bramble, climb the hedge, 
 
 And white convolvulus enshrine. 
 Nestled in leaves, they all appear 
 Each other's flowers to nurse and rear.
 
 24 THE CRIPPLE 
 
 XXI 
 
 There mused he like a child of yore 
 By Nature's simple teachings led ; 
 
 The cog and wheel of human lore 
 Not yet were stirring in his head ; 
 
 The Shaper of his destiny 
 
 He felt was smiling from the sky. 
 
 XXII 
 
 There with soft notes his fife he fills, 
 A mere tin plaything from the mart, 
 
 But his thin fingers as it thrills, 
 To that poor toy a grace impart, 
 
 While it obeys his lips' control, 
 
 And is a crutch unto his soul. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 At church he longed his fife to try, 
 Where oboe gave its doleful note, 
 
 Where fiddle scraped harsh melody, 
 Where bass the rustic vitals smote. 
 
 Such old-day music was in vogue, 
 
 And psalms were sung in village brogue.
 
 THE CRIPPLE 25 
 
 XXIV 
 
 His cheerful ways gave many cause 
 For wonder ; such ill-founded joy 
 
 To others' mirth would give a pause : 
 His soul seemed lent him for a toy, 
 
 Though on his infant face was age 
 
 To mark him for life's latter stage. 
 
 xxv 
 Dead is his crutch on moping days 
 
 'Tis so they call his sickly fits, 
 When by his side his crutch he lays, 
 
 And in the chimney-corner sits, 
 Hobbling in spirit near the yew 
 That in the village churchyard grew. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Ah ! it befell at harvest-time, 
 Such are the ways of Providence, 
 
 That the poor widow in her prime 
 Was fever-struck, and hurried hence ; 
 
 Then did he wish indeed to lie 
 
 Between her arms and with her die.
 
 26 THE CRIPPLE 
 
 XXVII 
 
 Who shall the cripple's woes beguile ? 
 
 Who earn the bread his mouth to feed ? 
 Who greet him with a mother's smile ? 
 
 Who tend him in his utter need ? 
 Who lead him to the sanded floor ? 
 Who put his crutch behind the door ? 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Who set him in his wadded chair. 
 And after supper say his grace ? 
 
 Who to invite a loving air 
 
 His fife upon the table place ? 
 
 Who, as he plays, her eyes shall lift 
 
 In wonder at a cripple's gift ? 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Who ask him all the news that chanced 
 Of farmer's wife in coat and hat, 
 
 Of squire who to the city pranced 
 To draw him out in lively chat ? 
 
 This flood of love, now but a surf 
 
 Left on a nameless mound of turf.
 
 THE CRIPPLE 27 
 
 XXX 
 
 Some it made sigh, and some made talk, 
 
 To see the guardian of the poor 
 Call for the boy to take a walk, 
 
 And lead him to the workhouse door : 
 With lifted hands and boding look 
 They watched him cross the village brook.
 
 THE INFANT MEDUSA 
 BY POSEIDON 
 
 I LOVED Medusa when she was a child, 
 
 Her rich brown tresses heaped in crispy curl 
 Where now those locks with reptile passion whirl, 
 
 By hate into dishevelled serpents coiled. 
 
 I loved Medusa when her eyes were mild, 
 Whose glances, narrowed now, perdition hurl, 
 As her self-tangled hairs their mass unfurl, 
 
 Bristling the way she turns with hissings wild. 
 
 Her mouth I kissed when curved with amorous spell, 
 Now shaped to the unuttered curse of hell, 
 
 Wide open for death's orbs to freeze upon ; 
 Her eyes I loved ere glazed in icy stare, 
 Ere mortals, lured into their ruthless glare, 
 
 She shrivelled in her gaze to pulseless stone.
 
 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 
 
 THERE was a wood, it does not change, 
 
 Not while the thrush pipes through its glades, 
 
 And she who did its thickets range 
 Has willed her sunbeam to its shades. 
 
 There still the lily weaves a net 
 
 With bluebell, primrose, violet. 
 
 The wood is what it was of old, 
 
 A timber-farm where wildflowers grow. 
 
 There woodman's axe is never cold, 
 That lays the oaks and beeches low. 
 
 But though the hand of man deface, 
 
 The lily ever grows in grace.
 
 30 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 
 
 Of loving natures, proudly shy, 
 
 The stock-doves sojourn in the tree, 
 
 With breasts of feathered cloud and sky, 
 And notes of soft though tuneless glee : 
 
 Hid in the leaves they take a spring, 
 
 And crush the stillness with their wing. 
 
 IV 
 
 The wood is deep-boughed, and its glade 
 Has ruts of waggon to and fro ; 
 
 Yet where the print of wheel is made 
 The bracken ventures still to grow ; 
 
 And where the foot of man may goad, 
 
 The ants are toiling with their load. 
 
 v 
 The wood, even old in olden days, 
 
 No longer alters with the year. 
 The gnarled boughs, to Nature's ways 
 
 Inured, their honours mildly bear. 
 And she who there has fixed her beam 
 Is still remembered as a dream.
 
 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 31 
 
 VI 
 
 There many a legend of the wood 
 Has hovered from the olden time, 
 
 When, with their sooths and sayings good, 
 Men told not of its youth or prime. 
 
 The hollow trunks were hollow then, 
 
 And honoured like the bones of men. 
 
 VII 
 
 There like nine brethren, Nature's own, 
 
 Nine trees within a circle stand, 
 And to a temple's shape have grown, 
 
 Each trunk a column tall and grand. 
 And, there, a raven-oak uprears 
 Its dome that whitens with the years. 
 
 VIII 
 
 'Mid these, while on the earth at play, 
 She, the true beam of living spring, 
 
 The playmate of the lily's ray, 
 
 Learnt of the piping thrush to sing. 
 
 The lily's leaves were then her nest, 
 
 Its buds half-nestled in her breast.
 
 32 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 
 
 IX 
 
 To her whose beam was lily-bright 
 
 'Neath brakes that hide the sky above, 
 
 A primrose seemed a holy sight : 
 Loveless itself, it taught her love. 
 
 It was her welcome to the bowers, 
 
 And lured her fingers to its flowers. 
 
 Not yet to her was Nature's age 
 
 In gnarled and hollow shapes revealed : 
 
 The buds and leaflets stamped her page, 
 And all that Death could say concealed. 
 
 To gnarled and hollow Nature cold, 
 
 She had not caught the sense of old. 
 
 When folk who gossiped thereabout 
 
 Asked the child's name, the child so pale,- 
 
 With looks that gave a sweetness out, 
 She answered, ' Lily of the Vale.' 
 
 Not then her eyes had dew-drops shed 
 
 In early tribute to the dead.
 
 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 33 
 
 XII 
 
 Alas ! her parents came to die ; 
 
 She was not then too young to weep. 
 Through all the wood was heard her cry ; 
 
 Till with her sobs she fell asleep, 
 And o'er her slumber shot those beams 
 That with a shiver visit dreams. 
 
 XIII 
 
 The lilies in their nest had died, 
 
 Violets were closed., their petals crushed, 
 
 The bracken-stalks were parched and dried, 
 The flowers she loved no longer blushed. 
 
 Towards sorrow did her soul ascend ; 
 
 Her dawn of joys was at an end. 
 
 XIV 
 
 The oak spread o'er her troubled sleep, 
 She sees a gnarled and hollow form 
 
 Whose riven branches seem to creep, 
 Loosed from their long-enchanted storm, 
 
 And like a phantom in the air 
 
 It sets on her its naked stare. 
 c
 
 34 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 
 
 xv 
 
 That oak she oft had seen before, 
 And in its empty cell had played, 
 
 But felt not it was bald and hoar 
 With the green ivy o'er it laid. 
 
 Now have those thoughtless moments flown 
 
 And with the oak she is alone. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Then she beheld o'ersnowed with age, 
 Her grandsire trembling in the wind, 
 
 Smiling on her, his heritage, 
 
 The child his son had left behind. 
 
 Old was she now, for she could see 
 
 Her grandsire aged like the tree. 
 
 As flowers her eager heart once fired 
 
 With love for things that came and passed, 
 
 These visions in her soul inspired 
 An awe of sadder things that last : 
 
 The sire by age and trouble bent, 
 
 The tree by storm and lightning rent.
 
 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 36 
 
 xvm 
 Sleep left her, but her startled gaze 
 
 Met not the sire beside the oak 
 There standing in its leafless maze 
 
 As in her dream, when she awoke. 
 Where was the sire ? She could not see 
 The face that smiled beside the tree. 
 
 XIX 
 
 And then she towards the cottage ran, 
 There was the sire in his retreat, 
 
 There was he still, the aged man, 
 Calm-sitting on his mossy seat, 
 
 And of her dream, as true, she spoke 
 
 While resting 'neath the raven-oak. 
 
 xx 
 
 He told her how the raven reared 
 Her young ones on the leafy crest, 
 
 And now the oak by lightning seared 
 Could give no shelter for a nest. 
 
 With this her simple thoughts he led 
 
 To how the bird the prophet fed.
 
 36 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 
 
 Then did she feel that he was poor ; 
 
 That on a scanty crust he fared. 
 She longed to see within his door 
 
 The frugal meal she oft had shared, 
 And prayed the raven in her need 
 To do for them the loving deed. 
 
 Through every grove she poured her lay, 
 This drooping Lily of the Vale ; 
 
 As through the brakes she took her way 
 She told the thrush her touching tale, 
 
 And bade it in her service press 
 
 The bird that waits on man's distress. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 So, like a creature on the wing, 
 
 She spoke her griefs to all she met. 
 
 The thrush had taught her how to sing 
 Soft notes to all things living set ; 
 
 Conies that peeped from out the grass, 
 
 They had no fear and let her pass.
 
 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 37 
 
 XXIV 
 
 She thought the thrush with mellow song 
 Would answer to her simple strain, 
 
 She thought the other birds would throng 
 To bring the raven back again, 
 
 But not to her the raven sped 
 
 Who brought from heaven the prophet's bread. 
 
 XXV 
 
 Meantime her grandsire day by day 
 
 Was hungered, hopeless though he smiled, 
 
 For he would hide his pains away 
 
 From her, the watchful, loving child. " 
 
 She saw him sink upon his bed 
 
 Not by the kindly raven fed. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Again through brake and bush she flew ; 
 
 Beyond the wood there lay the field 
 And paths unknown broke on her view ; 
 
 Must she to childish terror yield ? 
 She looked at heaven and saw its scope, 
 Taught by her mother there was hope.
 
 38 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 
 
 XXVII 
 
 And then she to her mother said, 
 
 ' Can God the prophet's raven spare ? 
 
 For grandsire lies upon his bed, 
 And cannot earn his daily fare. 
 
 All father's work he leaves undone, 
 
 And says I soon shall be alone.' 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Then she went on and seemed to tread 
 The buoyant air that past her blew, 
 
 But cast her looks about in dread, 
 As o'er the footless path she flew. 
 
 At last she stayed to breathe her fear, 
 
 All was so strange, and no one near. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 And then she to her father said, 
 
 ' Can God the prophet's raven spare ? 
 
 For grandsire lies upon his bed, 
 And cannot earn his daily fare. 
 
 He leaves the work you left undone, 
 
 And says I soon shall be alone.'
 
 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 39 
 
 XXX 
 
 Her slack'ning pace now plainly told 
 
 The way was long for timid feet. 
 She felt her heart no longer bold : 
 
 Oft she looked back her wood to greet. 
 Her wood from sight a moment gone, 
 She felt herself indeed alone. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 She stood where hills and valleys blend ; 
 
 One struggle more, and heaven seemed nigh. 
 Beyond where fields and woods ascend, 
 
 She saw a mansion towering high, 
 A noble lady's home, that seemed 
 To her the heaven of which she dreamed. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 ' Could I,' she thought, ' that hill ascend, 
 Then should I see the lady's face. 
 
 She lives above, where troubles end, 
 And I have found her heavenly place. 
 
 God gives her plenty for the poor, 
 
 Who come home laden from her door.'
 
 40 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 She looked till flashed across her dreams 
 A sight that all her spirit fired ; 
 
 A form behind the window gleams, 
 Could it be she so long desired ? 
 
 Through windows in that stately pile, 
 
 She thought she saw a human smile. 
 
 xxxiv 
 And then she to the lady said, 
 
 ' Can God the prophet's raven spare ?* 
 For grandsire lies upon his bed, 
 
 And cannot earn his daily fare. 
 All father's work he leaves undone, 
 And says I soon shall be alone.' 
 
 xxxv 
 
 The mansion stood against the sun : 
 There long she looked for her reply. 
 
 The ball of fire whose course had run, 
 Filled with its red the western sky, 
 
 'Twas awful to her childish sight : 
 
 She turned her troubled steps for flight.
 
 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 41 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 Dared she but enter at the gate 
 
 To reach that mansion vast and fair, 
 
 Then could she all her tale relate 
 To that sweet lady dwelling there. 
 
 But all her little courage fled : 
 
 With fainting steps she homeward sped. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 First slowly, then with swifter pace, 
 
 She outran terror at her heels, 
 As if to win with Death the race, 
 
 Whose shroud now brushing by she feels. 
 She starts at every rugged bank, 
 For with the sun her spirit sank. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 The orb, yet vast beyond the height, 
 Had set more early in the wood ; 
 
 But o'er the trees the lingering light 
 Spread floating in a rosy flood. 
 
 The birds sank one by one to rest, 
 
 As pale and paler grew the west.
 
 42 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 She spied her cot, O vision sweet ! 
 
 A rushlight through the lattice flamed, 
 And threw its radiance at her feet, 
 
 As it the grudging twilight shamed. 
 Through diamond panes a glimpse to catch, 
 She held her finger on the latch. 
 
 XL 
 No sound, no breath she heard above, 
 
 Where grandsire in the garret lay. 
 But one was there whose looks of love, 
 
 ' Poor little orphan/ seemed to say. 
 She knew the chaplain's kindly face ; 
 The bearer of the lady's grace. 
 
 XLI 
 
 ' Where hast thou been, my darling maid ? 
 
 Reply to one who likes thee well.' 
 ' To fetch the raven home,' she said ; 
 
 ' And him my grandsire's wants to tell. 
 I stood beneath the raven-tree 
 And found no bird to succour me.'
 
 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 43 
 
 XLII 
 
 ' Why call the raven to thy door, 
 Thy little heart's distress to share ? ' 
 
 ' Because/ said she, ' the sire is poor, 
 And has not earned his daily fare. 
 
 All father's work he leaves undone, 
 
 And says I soon shall be alone.' 
 
 XLIII 
 ' To kiss thee, child, he would have stayed, 
 
 For oft he called thee to his side. 
 Where didst thou wander, little maid ? ' 
 
 ' I went across the world so wide. 
 I looked at heaven and saw its scope, 
 Taught by my mother there was hope. 
 
 XLIV 
 ' I looked for mother in the sky : 
 
 She taught me there my wants to tell ; 
 I looked for father standing by, 
 
 For both among the happy dwell ; 
 I cried to them with heart of care, 
 Can God the prophet's raven spare ?
 
 44 THE LILY OF THE VALLEY 
 
 ' Then I came nigh a stately pile, 
 
 Where those who ask seek not in vain. 
 
 I looked, and saw a human smile, 
 And thought a lady looked again. 
 
 Through windows I beheld her face, 
 
 As she looked from her heavenly place. 
 
 ' And then I to the lady said, 
 
 " Can God the prophet's raven spare ? 
 For grandsire lies upon his bed, 
 
 And has not earned his daily fare. 
 My father's work he leaves undone, 
 And says I soon shall be alone." ' 
 
 ' Thou art not all alone, my child ; 
 
 Thy griefs that righteous lady hears : 
 She loves a spirit undefiled ; 
 
 Her heart is open to thy tears. 
 Thy father's work at last is done, 
 And thou shalt never be alone.'
 
 THE LOVER'S DAY 
 
 GORSE-PLAINS that flower their gold into the streams 
 Beneath the opal blossoms of the sky ; 
 
 Sea-floods that weave their blue and purple seams ; 
 White sails that lift the billows as they fly : 
 Not these in their abounding rapture vie 
 
 With love's diviner dreams. 
 
 Those lovers tire not when the sun is pale ; 
 No statelier awning than a bristled tree 
 
 With branches cedared by the salten gale, 
 
 Stretched back, as if with wings that cannot flee : 
 They linger, and the sun departs by sea ; 
 
 He spreads his crimson sail.
 
 46 THE LOVER'S DAY 
 
 They watch him as he piles his busy deck 
 With golden treasure ; as his sail expands ; 
 
 They see him sink ; they gaze upon the wreck 
 Through the still twilight of the silvery sands. 
 One cloud is left to the deserted lands : 
 
 The blue-set moon's cold fleck. 
 
 IV 
 
 They linger though the pageant hath gone by, 
 The opal cloud is lit o'er sea and plain ; 
 
 The moon is full of one day's memory, 
 And tells the tale of Nature o'er again, 
 Its glory mingled in the soul's refrain 
 
 Under that lover's sky.
 
 THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE 
 
 THERE was a haunt, it does not change, 
 Not while the fiend its path invades ; 
 
 But he who did its alleys range 
 
 Has willed his penance to its shades. 
 
 There still the nightshade breathes its pest 
 
 On fallen spirits not at rest. 
 
 It is the haunt it was of yore, 
 
 A den where thieves and harlots creep, 
 Where Nature's voice is heard no more, 
 
 Where guilt-stained men night-vigil keep, 
 And crimes like months afresh appear, 
 Ere one runs out, another near.
 
 48 THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE 
 
 in 
 A haunt where all in common share 
 
 The sleepless hour, the murderous toil ; 
 Where Death on all has set his stare, 
 
 To drag them forth, to grasp their spoil : 
 Between their gallows and their den, 
 A hardening sight for other men. 
 
 IV 
 
 This is the charnel that doth hide 
 A frantic woman who at play 
 
 Has lost her wealth of virgin pride, 
 And reckless games her soul away ; 
 
 Whose scarlet rags, deep-dyed, replace 
 
 The blushes of her maiden face. 
 
 v 
 
 A mother's bitter hour sets in ; 
 
 Wrecked on her breast the infant lies, 
 As if to perish for its sin, 
 
 There set adrift from human ties 
 Till its ear-piercing scream prevail 
 And sullen pity hush the wail.
 
 THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE 49 
 
 VI 
 
 Where only shadows rise and set, 
 And love at morn awaketh not, 
 
 This child of woe his being met, 
 To share a loveless parent's lot, 
 
 And at his birth his sentence meet 
 
 Before a mother's judgment-seat. 
 
 VII 
 
 The mother moaning in the gloom 
 
 Laughed when a peaceful breath he drew, 
 
 Too conscious of his early doom. 
 
 On wounded wings the tidings flew, 
 
 On bosoms pitiless they fell : 
 
 ' A child of heaven was born in hell ! ' 
 
 VIII 
 
 His place of birth the skies deplored, 
 No trees, no brooks, no meadows seen ; 
 
 And still his heart those skies adored 
 Before he saw the fields were green. 
 
 Born amid broils, in squalor bred, 
 
 His soul knew not to where it sped.
 
 50 THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE 
 
 The child is taught through many a blow 
 To shed with sobs the beggar's tear, 
 
 Reared as a prodigy of woe 
 
 That gentle women pay to hear. 
 
 And many listened and bestowed ; 
 
 For younger tears had never flowed. 
 
 Held at his mother's hand, he hung 
 A broken spray with misery's drip ; 
 
 And often to the ground he clung, 
 His passion bursting at his lip. 
 
 And still she dragged him o'er the stones, 
 
 Though tender was he to the bones. 
 
 XI 
 
 Her eyes of prey like fangs were laid 
 On all who gave a hurried look. 
 
 And while she whined for kindly aid, 
 She hid away the coin she took, 
 
 When suddenly she begged no more 
 
 And rushed within a slamming door.
 
 THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE 51 
 
 XII 
 
 With nostrils spread, and eyes aflame, 
 Before the shrine of death she stands, 
 
 The infant by her, sick and lame, 
 The lava trembling in her hands. 
 
 She drinks it with a vengeful frown ; 
 
 She feels the fiend of sorrow drown. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Now in a prison left to rage, 
 
 She thirsts, she burns with vain desire 
 Her deadly sickness to assuage, 
 
 To quench its fiery pang in fire. 
 With what a mother sent to dwell, 
 This child of heaven reared up in hell ! 
 
 XIV 
 
 Not far away from infancy 
 
 Through weary time a single stage, 
 
 The livelong years had hustled by 
 But left him still of tender age, 
 
 When from his mother's reach he fled, 
 
 Outside the doors to make his bed.
 
 52 THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE 
 
 Where odours wander, dank and foul, 
 Through crowded streets and alleys lone, 
 
 By day and night his footsteps prowl ; 
 His wants, not many, asked by none : 
 
 The roads were new he hourly crossed, 
 
 Yet was his way not wholly lost. 
 
 
 
 XVI 
 
 When hunger like a conscience cries, 
 
 He asks the needy to bestow, 
 Afraid to raise his drooping eyes 
 
 Except to those who famine know ; 
 Such he believes their crust will break, 
 And share with him for pity's sake. 
 
 Hopeful, he glides into a den 
 
 Up whose dusk path a shudder flew, 
 
 And asks of sick, half-famished men 
 Whose strength no plenty could renew. 
 
 Yet with what startling oaths they rave 
 
 And bid him run his neck to save !
 
 THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE 63 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Still to the poor is his appeal, 
 
 And they his mild entreaty spurn : 
 
 Some whisper, Be a man and steal ; 
 Some bid him to the gallows turn. 
 
 Child-like he credits all he hears, 
 
 And rests his troubled heart in tears. 
 
 He rests, but oft starts up in fear ; 
 
 His mother's driving shadow breaks 
 Upon his slumber unaware, 
 
 And sleep's too light repast awakes 
 Where dreams the festive board have spread 
 And turned his sorrow into bread. 
 
 xx 
 
 Hope, 'mid those shapes of famine sent, 
 Smiles on him ; she is Childhood's bride ! 
 
 The mother's image, o'er him bent, 
 Cannot the angel wholly hide, 
 
 Not when her halo o'er him plays, 
 
 And all but hunger's pang allays.
 
 64 THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE 
 
 XXI 
 
 How did he long for once to taste 
 Of the forbidden food whose smell 
 
 From cellar gratings ran to waste ! 
 Gusts that the passing crowd repel. 
 
 As when a rose some maid regales, 
 
 The grateful vapour he inhales. 
 
 XXII 
 
 Less favoured than the dog outside, 
 He lingers by some savoury mass ; 
 
 He watches mouths that open wide, 
 
 And sees them eating through the glass. 
 
 Oft his own lips he opes and shuts, 
 
 And sympathy his fancy gluts. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 So, oft a-hungered has he stood, 
 And yarn of fasting fancy spun, 
 
 As wistfully he watched the food, 
 With one foot out prepared to run, 
 
 In vague misgiving of his right 
 
 To revel in the dainty sight.
 
 THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE 55 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Harmless, yet to the base akin, 
 He feels a blot no eye could see, 
 
 And drags his rags about his skin 
 To hide from view his pedigree. 
 
 He deems himself a thief by birth, 
 
 An alien on the teeming earth. 
 
 XXV 
 
 He begs not, but as in a trance 
 
 Admires the gay and wealthy throng ; 
 
 But if the curious on him glance, 
 He is abashed and slinks along ; 
 
 He cares no more, the spell once broke. 
 
 Scenes of false plenty to invoke. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 The man of charity beholds 
 
 His vagrant looks with pent-up grief; 
 He stops, reproves ; he gently scolds, 
 
 But fails to give the child relief; 
 ' So sad/ he says, ' to see them thrive 
 Who on another's earnings live.'
 
 56 THE DEADLY NIGHTSHADE 
 
 XXVI 1 
 
 Then comes the child, this ill-sown seed, 
 To sweep the purlieus and the wynds, 
 
 But few bethink them of his need, 
 And scanty is the help he finds. 
 
 At times he walks upon his head : 
 
 A form of prayer for daily bread. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Now seem his days for sorrow made ! 
 
 He hears that men on Sunday pray ; 
 A world's proud secret on parade 
 
 To him appears the Sabbath-day. 
 All have asked heaven to take their cares, 
 But hunger says for him his prayers. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Some words have reached him such as jar 
 On sinners' ears and seem devout ; 
 
 They are but as a light from far, 
 
 They come from heaven and soon die out, 
 
 Too weak as yet to turn a spell 
 
 Wove in the alphabet of hell.
 
 FLOWERS ON THE BANK 
 
 FLOWERS on the bank, we pass and call them gay 
 The primroses throw pictures to the mind, 
 The buttercups lag dazzlingly behind, 
 
 And daisy-friends we spy but do not say 
 
 A word of joy; thoughts of them follow not, 
 And soon are they forgot. 
 
 What care we for wildflowers except their name ? 
 
 Bright maidens at the sight in rapture start, 
 
 Which, as our smiles say, comes not from the 
 
 heart : 
 Flowers dance not, sing not, all their ways are tame ; 
 
 They love not, neither love in us inspire ; 
 
 Nor blush when we admire.
 
 58 FLOWERS ON THE BANK 
 
 in 
 Yet stay, the fingers of that panting child 
 
 Have culled for us the choice ones, many a 
 
 gem, 
 
 Have set their lovely colours stem to stem 
 In her fond hands they are not tame or wild, 
 Nestled in fringy fern so changed appears 
 The little gift she bears ! 
 
 IV 
 
 She gives herself, and she can dance and sing, 
 
 And she can love inspire and blush at praise ; 
 
 The flowers are part of her, have caught her 
 
 ways ; 
 She gives herself who gives so sweet a thing. 
 
 And she is gone, with other thoughts than ours 
 
 Gathering fresh love and flowers.
 
 THE BLIND BOY 
 
 IN dark ascent the pine-clad hills 
 Repose on heaven their rocky crest. 
 
 Lit by the flash of falling rills 
 That in the valley-shadow rest, 
 
 Chafing in rainbow-spray that finds 
 
 Its sunshine in the gusty winds. 
 
 Clouds folded round the topmost peaks 
 Shut out the gorges from the sun : 
 
 'Tis mid-day ere the early streaks 
 Of sunshine down the valley run ; 
 
 But where the opening cliffs expand, 
 
 The early sea-light breaks on land.
 
 60 THE BLIND BOY 
 
 in 
 Before the sun, like golden shields, 
 
 The clouds a lustre shed around ; 
 Wild shadows gambol o'er the fields ; 
 
 Tame shadows stretch upon the ground. 
 Towards noon the great rock-shadow moves, 
 And takes slow leave of all it loves. 
 
 IV 
 
 The beam-shot clouds dissolve apace ; 
 
 Stray shades that linger like a scroll, 
 Draw nearer to their craggy base, 
 
 And in clefts and caverns roll ; 
 The light falls down the rocky piles ; 
 The vale a lake of glory smiles. 
 
 v 
 
 There dwell two orphans : Heaven ordains 
 The sister's eyes shall live in light: 
 
 Her brother in the shade remains 
 
 When morning bursts upon her sight. 
 
 Sister and brother, far and wide 
 
 As one they wander side by side.
 
 THE BLIND BOY 61 
 
 VI 
 
 When to the shore through woods and fields 
 
 The brother has a wish to stray, 
 The sister takes the hand he yields ; 
 
 She by fond habit leads the way. 
 Skipping along, oft face to face, 
 Her hand directs his timid pace. 
 
 VII 
 
 The plains that strike the grey-white line 
 Where earth's dim curve in distance fades ; 
 
 The streams that near the dwelling shine ; 
 The quiet meads ; the rustling glades ; 
 
 The sand-dunes waiting on the shore, 
 
 The sister's eyes for him explore. 
 
 VIII 
 
 'Tis all his own, but her loved hand, 
 Her gentle voice, her sayings dear, 
 
 Are choicer gifts than all the land 
 That he inherits far and near, 
 
 For all his light is in her mind, 
 
 The path he loses she can find.
 
 62 THE BLIND BOY 
 
 At early mom, embraced by her, 
 He sits within the shadow's dip 
 
 To list to his sweet minister, 
 
 And paint his visions from her lip. 
 
 He sees the waters, earth, and skies 
 
 Only through her enchanted eyes. 
 
 x 
 
 Her eyes are bright, his now are blind ; 
 
 All he once saw has passed away, 
 But her fond visions fill his mind, 
 
 And there disclose the dawn of day. 
 Her morning breaks upon his night, 
 Enlivened by her spirit's light. 
 
 XI 
 
 She tells him how the mountains swell, 
 How rocks and forests touch the skies; 
 
 He tells her how the shadows dwell 
 In purple dimness on his eyes, 
 
 Whose tremulous orbs the while he lifts, 
 
 As round his smile their spirit drifts.
 
 THE BLIND BOY 63 
 
 XII 
 
 More close around his heart to wind, 
 She shuts her eyes in childish glee, 
 
 ' To share/ she says, ' his peace of mind ; 
 To sit beneath his shadow-tree.' 
 
 So, half in play, the sister tries 
 
 To find his soul within her eyes. 
 
 XIII 
 
 His hand in hers, she walks along 
 And leads him by the river's brink ; 
 
 She stays to catch the water's song, 
 Closing her eyes with him to think. 
 
 His ear, more watchful than her own, 
 
 Had caught the ocean's distant moan. 
 
 XIV 
 
 ' The river's flow is bright and clear,' 
 The blind boy said, 'and were it dark 
 
 We should no less its music hear : 
 Sings not at eventide the lark ? 
 
 Still when the ripples pause, they fade 
 
 Upon my spirit like a shade.'
 
 64 THE BLIND BOY 
 
 ' Yet, brother, when the river stops 
 And in the quiet bay is hushed, 
 
 E'en though its gentle murmur drops, 
 'Tis bright as when by us it rushed ; 
 
 Not like a shade, when heard no more, 
 
 Except beneath the wooded shore.' 
 
 XVI 
 
 Now the resounding beach, wave-swept, 
 Greets them ; now silence softly bears 
 
 The likeness of the wave that leapt 
 Unseen, and broke upon their ears. 
 
 ' Dear sister, tell me once again 
 
 The wonders of the sea's domain ! ' 
 
 XVII 
 
 Down the moist sands she guides his way, 
 And gazes on the lonesome shores, 
 
 Where desultory waves at play, 
 Enthral her looks ere she explores 
 
 The far-off deep ; ere those quick eyes 
 
 Rove o'er the waters, cliffs, and skies.
 
 THE BLIND BOY 66 
 
 XVIII 
 
 ' The farthest seas bend as a bow 
 Into the light, o'er-arching sky; 
 
 There, curdled breakers row on row 
 With scarce a motion, distant lie ; 
 
 Or if one vanish from the rest, 
 
 It shows again its snowy crest. 
 
 XIX 
 
 ' But nearer, midway toward the sands, 
 I see long lines of billows creep; 
 
 One stops and into froth expands, 
 Then fades away upon the deep ; 
 
 Close to the shore the waves contend, 
 
 And shouting reach the journey's end.' 
 
 xx 
 
 While her bright tones upon him broke 
 The curtain from his soul was drawn ; 
 
 His spirit quickened as she spoke, 
 Then flashed as at a sudden dawn, 
 
 With visions of a world once known, 
 
 That for the moment seemed his own. 
 
 E
 
 66 THE BLIND BOY 
 
 XXI 
 
 ' O tell me of the changing sky, 
 
 Sunless once more ! ' ' 'Neath lovely blue/ 
 The sister says, ' the clouds float by, 
 
 Of orange, white, and inky hue. 
 The shifting waves that cannot rest 
 Are 'neath the gusty breezes pressed. 
 
 xxn 
 ' A cloud is loosened from the sun ; 
 
 The sea's sky-blue now skims the green, 
 Chasing the billows as they run 
 
 And drip their foam in troughs between. 
 Oh, could you see them as they roar, 
 Scooping away the glistening shore ! ' 
 
 XXIII 
 
 ' The waves,' he said, ' before me fall, 
 And memories of a long-lost light 
 
 From far-off mornings on me call, 
 And what I hear comes into sight. 
 
 The beauteous skies flash back again, 
 
 But, ah ! the light will not remain ! '
 
 THE BLIND BOY 67 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Awhile he pauses ; as he stops, 
 Her little hand the sister moves 
 
 And pebbles on the water drops, 
 As it runs up the sandy grooves, 
 
 Or to her ear a shell applies, 
 
 With parted lips and dreaming eyes. 
 
 xxv 
 ' That noise ! ' said he, with lifted hand. 
 
 ' The sea-gull's scream and flapping wings, 
 Before the wind it flies to land, 
 
 And omens of a tempest brings.' 
 She tells him how the sea-bird pale 
 Whirls wildly on the coming gale. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 ' And is the sea alone ? Even now 
 
 I hear faint mutterings, not the waves'; 
 
 It seems a murmur sweeping low 
 
 And hurrying through the distant caves. 
 
 I hear again that smothered tone, 
 
 As if the sea were not alone.'
 
 68 THE BLIND BOY 
 
 XXVII 
 
 ' Heaven slopes o'er us on every side, 
 And shuts us from the distant land. 
 
 The waters only here abide, 
 And we who sit upon the sand. 
 
 A porpoise revels in the spray, 
 
 And purple vapours veil the bay. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 ' Come, hasten/ cries she, 'to the woods 
 Where twisted boughs are thickly set, 
 
 For soon the rain must fall in floods : 
 Here is no shelter from the wet. 
 
 While like a sea the sky upheaves, 
 
 We '11 watch beneath the matted leaves.' 
 
 XXIX 
 
 ' Stay, sister ! Listen to that sound ; 
 It thunders does the flash appear ? ' 
 
 ' It lightens now, and, whirling round, 
 The gull dips low, as if in fear.' 
 
 The boy now turns his floating eyes, 
 
 Though not the way the sea-bird flies.
 
 THE BLIND BOY 
 
 XXX 
 
 ' The wind is balmy on my cheek, 
 But now I feel the rain-drop plash. 
 
 Let us/ he said, ' the woodland seek, 
 And hear it on the foliage dash. 
 
 On the ground-ivy we shall tread, 
 
 And through the grove its perfume spread.' 
 
 XXXI 
 
 And so they prattle as they leave 
 The sandy beach, in pensive mood, 
 
 His ear turned to the billow's heave, 
 Her vision leaning on the wood, 
 
 While, as the honeysuckle clings, 
 
 About his neck her arm she flings. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 Better than she the blind boy hears 
 The whispers of the patient shore, 
 
 While yet the wave its crest uprears 
 To break once more, and evermore. 
 
 Better than she the blind boy feels 
 
 The simple pictures she reveals.
 
 70 THE BLIND BOY 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 Clapping her hands, she spies above 
 Rich elms, the turrets grey and old, 
 
 But love of home was only love 
 When to her darling brother told. 
 
 Thus ever to his soul replies 
 
 The infant passion of her eyes. 
 
 xxxrv 
 
 While they return, the dwelling near, 
 One word must yet the sister say. 
 
 She lifts her voice : ' O brother dear, 
 If good my eyes have been to-day, 
 
 Kiss them for every new delight 
 
 That kindles in your spirit's sight ! ' 
 
 XXXV 
 
 Deep in his eyes the love-lights strove ; 
 
 He clasped her in a close embrace : 
 With lips that shook with grateful love 
 
 He kissed her eyes he kissed her face- 
 He wept upon that tender brow ; 
 ' Dearest, the darkness leaves me now !
 
 THE BLIND BOY 71 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 ' I view all beauty through your eyes ; 
 
 I see within, you see outside. 
 Your love has raised me to the skies, 
 
 Once narrow, lofty now and wide, 
 And not, as once, of sombre hue ; 
 For I can dream the dark to blue. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 ' The upward-toiling hill ; the stream ; 
 
 The valley ; the wide ocean's sweep ; 
 All take the colours of a dream, 
 
 The glories of the land of sleep. 
 You are my soul, my eyes, my sight ; 
 'Tis dark no more, you are my light.'
 
 WHEN I THINK OF THEE, BROTHER 
 
 WHEN I think of thee, brother, 
 
 Is my heart not all thine ? 
 Yet the face of another 
 
 Seems bending o'er mine. 
 I call thee by name, yet a name not thy own 
 Has whispered already its dear undertone. 
 
 When I think thine eyes greet me, 
 
 Their sweet flash of blue 
 Brings another's to meet me 
 
 Of somberer hue ; 
 
 And ever before me they seem to remain, 
 Though my heart but repines to behold thee 
 again.
 
 WHEN I THINK OF THEE, BROTHER 73 
 
 in 
 When I list, and would hear thee 
 
 Once more in our home, 
 And thy voice appears near me, 
 
 Another's has come. 
 
 I dream of thee only, for thee only sigh, 
 Yet thy image forsakes me ; another's is nigh. 
 
 IV 
 
 When thy fond smiles come o'er me, 
 
 As in moments now flown, 
 There riseth before me 
 
 A look not thy own : 
 
 'Tis thee I recall to my mind, O my brother ! 
 Yet ever with thine comes the gaze of another.
 
 ECCE HOMO! 
 
 HE strikes his staff to find his way. 
 He feels but may not see the day. 
 The warm sun floods his sightless eyes 
 That tremble in answer to the skies : 
 Yet oft he stays as if to look 
 
 At memories of the scenes of yore, 
 The vine and fig-tree at his door, 
 The pleasant places by the brook. 
 
 The voice within him sighs aloud, 
 When murmurs of a moving crowd 
 Fall on his ear ; he breathes the dust 
 But, with a blind man's sturdy trust,
 
 ECCE HOMO ! 75 
 
 He grasps his staff, and oft he cries, 
 ' Who cometh here ? ' A voice replies, 
 ' O blind man, turn thy step aside, 
 Tis Christ ! ' 
 
 HI 
 
 The name rings in his ears : 
 With flashing hopes and ashen fears, 
 
 There stands he breathless, startling all. 
 Some stop, some into ranks divide, 
 
 Their arms outspreading lest he fall. 
 He drops his staff, throws out his hands, 
 
 His fingers are creeping like things that see 
 'Mid all the multitude he stands 
 
 And shouts, ' Have mercy, Lord, on me ! ' 
 His shaking beard, his tottering frame, 
 
 His eye-balls in their sockets turning, 
 His lips delirious with that name, 
 
 O'er his blind face a look is burning 
 Of dreadful greed, with mouth agape, 
 Crazed for some good that may escape. 
 ' Take my hand, some one ; let me feel 
 His raiment only ; it may heal.'
 
 76 ECCE HOMO ! 
 
 Christ heard the blind man's cry, and grieved 
 Because a soul in darkness heaved. 
 
 He said, ' What seekest thou of Me ? ' 
 But in that presence came a fear : 
 The man held earthly blessings dear, 
 Yet more than all was heavenly light. 
 ' Lord, that I may receive my sight, 
 
 That I may my Redeemer see ! ' 
 Christ loved him and his anguish soothed. 
 He took his hand, He gently smoothed 
 The seams upon his wrinkled brow : 
 ' Tell Me what thou beholdest now.' 
 ' Men, dim as shaking trees, I see : 
 O Lord, I crave to look on Thee ! ' 
 
 Then said the Saviour, ' Look afar.' 
 The blind man raised his dazed eyes. 
 
 ' I see, Lord, above Thee a new-risen star, 
 And beneath it a babe in a manger lies. 
 Hoary men, kneeling, their gifts prefer : 
 Frankincense, gold, and sacred myrrh.
 
 ECCE HOMO ! 77 
 
 Now a mother, a father, a babe softly sleeping 
 By waters that dream where the lotus bloom 
 
 reigns ; 
 Shadows of evening over them creeping ; 
 
 The broad moon breaking o'er palm-bearing 
 
 plains, 
 
 Where the ibis croaks and the jackal cries, 
 And pyramids point to the purpling skies.' 
 
 VI 
 
 He pauses, still he looks afar. 
 
 He still beholds the guiding star, 
 
 And dreamlight of a sacred river 
 
 O'er his lone eyes seems still to quiver. 
 Sudden, as if the distant air 
 
 Stripped the blue curtain from the skies, 
 He sees prophetic nature bare, 
 
 When, as with far-off voice, he cries 
 ' Lo ! a face to heaven in agony gleaming, 
 
 Stained of sorrow, but soil-less of sin, 
 Sweat that is blood breaking and streaming 
 
 From brows that are throbbing of anguish 
 within,
 
 78 ECCE HOMO ! 
 
 Praying for those that do strip Him and scourge 
 
 Him 
 
 As a cross on His quivering shoulders they place. 
 'Neath its burden He sinks while they mock Him, 
 
 they urge Him, 
 They crown Him with thorns, they spit in His 
 
 face. 
 They are lifting Him, bruising Him, piercing Him, 
 
 nailing Him 
 
 To the cross, that is dyed in a crimson flood. 
 See, the sun hides his head, see the vapour en- 
 veiling him, 
 Hark, the earth and the skies in the darkness 
 
 bewailing Him 
 Who dieth for those that are shedding His blood.' 
 
 VII 
 
 He starts, a hand is on his brow. 
 
 He looks at Christ in meek sm-prise, 
 
 Tears gather in his new-lit eyes ; 
 
 ''Tis He, the crucified !' he cries: 
 ' Yes, I behold the Saviour now ! ' 
 
 The adoring people kneel around ; 
 
 The healed one sinks on the hallowed ground,
 
 ECCE HOMO ! 79 
 
 Then goes his way in silence and in awe ; 
 For his unsullied eyes had seen 
 The sight that from the first had been, 
 
 The sight that nature like a prophet saw.
 
 THE SNAKE CHARMER 
 
 THE forest rears on lifted arms 
 
 Its leafy dome whence verdui-ous light 
 
 Shakes through the shady depths and warms 
 Proud trunk and stealthy parasite, 
 
 There where those cruel coils enclasp 
 
 The trees they strangle in their grasp. 
 
 An old man creeps from out the woods,, 
 Breaking the vine's entangling spell ; 
 
 He thrids the jungle's solitudes 
 
 O'er bamboos rotting where they fell ; 
 
 Slow down the tiger's path he wends 
 
 Where at the pool the jungle ends.
 
 THE SNAKE CHARMER 81 
 
 HI 
 No moss-greened alley tells the trace 
 
 Of his lone step, no sound is stirred, 
 Even when his tawny hands displace 
 
 The boughs, that backward sweep unheard : 
 His way as noiseless as the trail 
 Of the swift snake and pilgrim snail. 
 
 IV 
 
 The old snake-charmer, once he played 
 
 Soft music for the serpent's ear, 
 But now his cunning hand is stayed ; 
 
 He knows the hour of death is near. 
 And all that live in brake and bough, 
 All know the brand is on his brow. 
 
 v 
 
 Yet where his soul is he must go : 
 He crawls along from tree to tree. 
 
 The old snake-charmer, doth he know 
 If snake or beast of prey he be ? 
 
 Bewildered at the pool he lies 
 
 And sees as through a serpent's eyes.
 
 82 THE SNAKE CHARMER 
 
 VI 
 
 Weeds wove with white-flowered lily crops 
 Drink of the pool, and serpents hie 
 
 To the thin brink as noonday drops, 
 And in the froth-daubed rushes lie. 
 
 There rests he now with fastened breath 
 
 'Neath a kind sun to bask in death. 
 
 The pool is bright with glossy dyes 
 And cast-up bubbles of decay : 
 
 A green death-leaven overlies 
 
 Its mottled scum, where shadows play 
 
 As the snake's hollow coil, fresh shed, 
 
 Rolls in the wind across its bed. 
 i 
 
 VIII 
 
 No more the wily note is heard 
 From his full flute the riving air 
 
 That tames the snake, decoys the bird, 
 Worries the she-wolf from her lair. 
 
 Fain would he bid its parting breath 
 
 Drown in his ears the voice of death.
 
 THE SNAKE CHARMER 83 
 
 IX 
 
 Still doth his soul's vague longing skim 
 The pool beloved : he hears the hiss 
 
 That siffles at the sedgy rim, 
 Recalling days of former bliss, 
 
 And the death-drops, that fall in showers, 
 
 Seem honied dews from shady flowers. 
 
 x 
 
 There is a rustle of the breeze 
 
 And twitter of the singing bird ; 
 He snatches at the melodies 
 
 And his faint lips again are stirred : 
 The olden sounds are in his ears ; 
 But still the snake its crest uprears. 
 
 XI 
 
 His eyes are swimming in the mist 
 
 That films the earth like serpent's breath ; 
 
 And now as if a serpent hissed 
 The husky whisperings of Death 
 
 Fill ear and brain he looks around 
 
 Serpents seem matted o'er the ground.
 
 84 THE SNAKE CHARMER 
 
 Soon visions of past joys bewitch 
 
 His crafty soul ; his hands would set 
 
 Death's snare, while now his fingers twitch 
 At tasselled reed as 'twere his net. 
 
 But his thin lips no longer fill 
 
 The woods with song ; his flute is still. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Those lips still quaver to the flute, 
 But fast the life-tide ebbs away ; 
 
 Those lips now quaver and are mute, 
 But nature throbs in breathless play : 
 
 Birds are in open song, the snakes 
 
 Are watching in the silent brakes. 
 
 XIV 
 
 In sudden fear of snares unseen 
 
 The birds like crimson sunset swarm, 
 
 All gold and purple, red and green, 
 And seek each other for the charm. 
 
 Lizards dart up the feathery trees 
 
 Like shadows of a rainbow breeze.
 
 THE SNAKE CHARMER 85 
 
 xv 
 
 The wildered birds again have rushed 
 Into the charm, it is the hour 
 
 When the shrill forest-note is hushed, 
 And they obey the serpent's power, 
 
 Drawn to its gaze with troubled whirr, 
 
 As by the thread of falconer. 
 
 XVI 
 
 As 'twere to feed, on slanting wings 
 They drop within the serpent's glare : 
 
 Eyes flashing fire in burning rings 
 Which spread into the dazzled air ; 
 
 They flutter in the glittering coils ; 
 
 The charmer dreads the serpent's toils. 
 
 XVII 
 
 While Music swims away in death 
 Man's spell is passing to his slaves : 
 
 The snake feeds on the charmer's breath, 
 The vulture screams, the parrot raves, 
 
 The lone hyena laughs and howls, 
 
 The tiger from the jungle growls.
 
 86 THE SNAKE CHARMER 
 
 Then mounts the eagle flame-flecked folds 
 Belt its proud plumes ; a feather falls : 
 
 He hears the death-cry, he beholds 
 The king-bird in the serpent's thralls, 
 
 He looks with terror on the feud, 
 
 And the sun shines through dripping blood. 
 
 XIX 
 
 The deadly spell a moment gone 
 
 Birds, from a distant Paradise, 
 Strike the winged signal and have flown, 
 
 Trailing rich hues through azure skies : 
 The serpent falls ; like demon wings 
 The far-out branching cedar swings. 
 
 The wood swims round ; the pool and skies 
 Have met ; the death-drops down that cheek 
 
 Fall faster ; for the serpent's eyes 
 
 Grow human, and the charmer's seek. 
 
 A gaze like man's directs the dart 
 
 Which now is buried at his heart.
 
 THE SNAKE CHARMER 87 
 
 XXI 
 
 The monarch of the world is cold : 
 The charm he bore has passed away : 
 
 The serpent gathers up its fold 
 To wind about its human prey. 
 
 The red mouth darts a dizzy sting, 
 
 And clenches the eternal ring.
 
 PYTHAGORAS 
 
 'TWAS not the hour of death the Master feared : 
 He oft had died before, his soul had passed 
 
 Through many moulds, as each new cycle neared 
 Hoping the Golden Day had come at last. 
 
 ii 
 
 But like a giant 'neath the weight of age 
 
 Hope was bowed down, and oft had ceased to see 
 
 Among the spheres the looked for heritage 
 
 Where rest the pure from earth's illusions free. 
 
 Whither doth this metempsychosis tend ? 
 
 Doubt stirs the heavy question in his breast. 
 All that begins is toiling towards its end ; 
 
 Oblivion hath for all its day of rest.
 
 PYTHAGORAS 89 
 
 IV 
 
 And when a universe of death absorbs 
 
 Into its hungry vortex all that is : 
 The compact colonies of settled orbs, 
 
 The untamed meteors of the free abyss ; 
 
 v 
 
 And when, at length, the lamp of day is spent, 
 And the charred air of night supplants the skies, 
 
 What were the soul without its tenement, 
 
 Without these feeling hands, these seeing eyes ? 
 
 VI 
 
 Even the blest dawn he once had hoped to find 
 May rise while he in darkness dwells below ; 
 
 Yes, all may fail him now ; the troubled mind 
 May end at last, and not its ending know. 
 
 VII 
 
 Such were his thoughts, and while his death hour 
 grew 
 
 They pressed into his heart such poignant pangs 
 As even the lordliest intellect subdue 
 
 When life, yet wavering, in the balance hangs.
 
 90 PYTHAGORAS 
 
 VIII 
 
 "Tis past : A cycle's lustres have run out, 
 And his unquickened soul in ashes sleeps, 
 
 Perturbed no longer by the wasting doubt, 
 Weak as a babe ere in the womb it leaps ; 
 
 IX 
 
 Still as a vessel stranded by the tide 
 In shallows whereunto no waters drift, 
 
 Looming at anchor on its mouldering side 
 That neither winds disturb nor billows lift. 
 
 Yet throes half-stir the drowsings of the grave, 
 As when one turns in sleep with heavy sense 
 
 That what suspended being he may have 
 Is better, yet awhile, with Providence. 
 
 XI 
 
 But all is like the passing of a breath. 
 
 No eager promptings snatch the loosened thread 
 Wherein is meshed the memory of death : 
 
 He knows himself, but not that he is dead.
 
 PYTHAGORAS 91 
 
 XII 
 
 Another cycle bears the cumbrous night 
 Unbroken, save as funeral clouds may roll 
 
 And for a moment cross the path of light : 
 So shines the ethereal darkness of his soul. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Still through these mists of death the cycles shone, 
 His soul benumbed, in utter silence hushed, 
 
 Advancing time-like through oblivion, 
 
 And pace for pace with all that o'er him rushed, 
 
 XIV 
 
 When to his grave a sense of nature came, 
 But with no conscious meaning or surprise : 
 
 'Twas the old flutter of the dying flame, 
 Tremulousness of being without eyes. 
 
 xv 
 
 At last a voice, familiar as to seem 
 
 His own, heard in his sleep and heeded not, 
 
 Broke through the patient whisper of his dream, 
 Remembered but to be as soon forgot.
 
 92 PYTHAGORAS 
 
 XVI 
 
 It presages some mighty morrow near 
 
 When his long baffled soul once more shall rise 
 
 The muffled cycles fall upon his ear, 
 
 And his dust flutters with the centuries. 
 
 Awake, Pythagoras, it seems to say, 
 
 The looked-for morn is breaking o'er the earth : 
 
 It grows, it brightens to the perfect day ; 
 Behold man's resurrectionary birth ! 
 
 His thoughts take shape, his pent-up senses move, 
 His soul looks out from that abysmal sleep. 
 
 Lo ! shadows of the living world above 
 Before his eyes in dreamy pageant sweep. 
 
 XIX 
 
 And in the midst there shone a god-like youth, 
 Who on his brow the Crown of Sorrow wore, 
 
 And there was meekness, innocence, and truth ; 
 Eidolon of his highest hope of yore.
 
 PYTHAGORAS 93 
 
 xx 
 
 Hath it then come at last, the world of peace ? 
 
 Hath he awakened to that ampler life 
 Where hate and lust of blood shall ever cease, 
 
 And all the bitter days of human strife ? 
 
 XXI 
 
 The world is hushed : must then the cycles end 
 That ever deepen his immortal tomb ? 
 
 The wondrous ladder must he re-ascend 
 To truths revolving round a virgin womb ? 
 
 XXII 
 
 Even so it seems when, hark ! the upper air 
 Rings to the battle's rage the soldier's tread 
 
 Echoes above his tomb ! In dark despair 
 He turns his face unto the silent dead. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 The Master sleeps the ages onward roll 
 O twice nine stormy cycles since o'erpast ! 
 
 Bore they through eddying lives and deaths a soul 
 Still dreaming towards its Golden Day at last ?
 
 94 PYTHAGORAS 
 
 XXIV 
 
 The heavens are as they were, the sun, unworn, 
 Seems on the blue of yesterday to rest, 
 
 And drops below ; but when shall come the morn 
 He dreamt of, when shall break that morrow 
 blest ?
 
 THE FIRST SAVED 
 
 LUCILLA lives in yon half-hidden star 
 
 Bowered in a dreamy, soft-skied, watery vale, 
 
 Where angels gather from bright worlds afar, 
 To see her face, and listen to her tale. 
 
 ii 
 
 As if all sunset revelled in the air, 
 
 The rosy clouds float o'er her paradise, 
 
 Home of the once lone daughter of despair 
 
 Who prayed through tears with ever downcast 
 eyes. 
 
 in 
 
 The lucent hills pant in the azure beams, 
 Behind empurpled steeps that blend below 
 
 With trembling woods and crystal-bearing streams, 
 And in the sky-paved water-mirrors glow.
 
 96 THE FIRST SAVED 
 
 IV 
 
 As rising stars entangle in their spheres 
 
 All the blue ether round, her look of thought 
 
 Hangs in heaven's light, where her sad life appears 
 A sunless vision in new sunshine wrought. 
 
 v 
 
 There doth she stand, bliss-stricken as by fear. 
 
 On one soft hand she rests her chin and cheek, 
 Paling with rapture ere the blush appear ; 
 
 And lips in tremors whisper that would speak. 
 
 VI 
 
 ' Yes, I am here, and Heaven is undefined ! 
 
 This sinless face and these all-loving eyes 
 God gave me when I was a little child, 
 
 Because I was to be in Paradise. 
 
 vn 
 ' I heard a voice and slavery's loosened bond 
 
 Fell from my soul, awaking me to die ; 
 I looked into death's mirror and beyond 
 
 I saw these halls of immortality.
 
 THE FIRST SAVED 97 
 
 VIII 
 
 ' My wounded heart lay in this bosom dead 
 Ere it had loved yet oft as I did pray 
 
 That these wan hands might labour for their bread, 
 Hope only came to prayer but did not stay. 
 
 IX 
 
 ' Sin compassed me, it was my deadly fate ; 
 
 Yet lovely visions in the darkness came, 
 And I fled trembling to the Temple's gate 
 
 But durst not cross the threshold for my shame. 
 
 1 While on the Temple's steps I sat in tears, 
 One came and spoke : I gazed and I adored ! 
 
 Then did a voice that only woman hears 
 Whisper within : I listened, self-abhorred. 
 
 XI 
 
 4 'Twas He whose image visited my sleep. 
 
 But still He spake to me in words that gave 
 A world, and had soul-echoes clear and deep 
 
 Which widened ever like the circling wave. 
 G
 
 98 THE FIRST SAVED 
 
 XII 
 
 ' His image grew before my wondering mind 
 His, 'mid whose many griefs my life began. 
 
 Enrapt I gazed, until my eyes were blind, 
 On Him who in His pity dies for man. 
 
 XIII 
 
 ' When the blest vision ceased, my eyes would droop 
 And in great dreams that holy Being meet ; 
 
 Then would He clothe me, lowly would He stoop, 
 And with His hands anoint my weary feet. 
 
 XIV 
 
 ' Thenceforth He was the rock that safely drew 
 My heart to shelter, as the gentle shore 
 
 Receives the broken wave : to Him it flew 
 And the lulled sorrow beat on me no more. 
 
 xv 
 ' Then o'er me flowed that stream of heavenly grace 
 
 Which all my infant innocence restored : 
 From that glad hour has rested on my face 
 
 This happy gaze of one who has adored.
 
 THE FIRST SAVED 99 
 
 XVI 
 
 ' The living Saviour had my heart enthralled ! 
 
 I saw His face, in His blessed footsteps moved ; 
 And in my dreams His holy word recalled ; 
 
 I knew not who He was : I only loved. 
 
 XVII 
 
 ' Then did I but remember things to come, 
 
 The reveries of pure delights above ; 
 Yes, to this blissful height my passion clomb, 
 
 And sin was silenced in the hush of love. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 ' In that o'ershadowing trance till death I lay : 
 Peace weighed upon me like the Saviour's kiss. 
 
 Towards the beloved my eyes would fondly stray 
 In sleeping rapture and awaking bliss. 
 
 ' Death with dis-shadowed hand had come betimes, 
 And bore my grave into the open skies. 
 
 And then I hearkened to the heavenly chimes 
 That cheered my soul's ascent to Paradise.
 
 100 THE FIRST SAVED 
 
 xx 
 
 ' My end seemed consummated in the clouds : 
 There with the purple morn my slumber broke ; 
 
 But tempting spirits hovered round in crowds 
 And gathered like a storm as I awoke. 
 
 XXI 
 
 ' Upon the Temple's highest pinnacle 
 The Saviour stood in glory like the sun. 
 
 The rapture of my soul was at the full : 
 Eternal life had unawares begun. 
 
 XXII 
 
 ' He from that holy height upon me gazed ; 
 
 The angels in His glorious presence trod : 
 With outstretched wings I rushed to them amazed 
 
 And flew into the open arms of God/
 
 REMINISCENCE 
 
 i 
 So you would leave me, little Rose ? 
 
 Dear child, with all your mother's ways ; 
 
 That look she had in girlish days, 
 The look that with your beauty grows. 
 
 H 
 
 Oft when you bring her to my mind, 
 Before my heart has time for pain, 
 In you she seems to live again, 
 
 As though no sorrow were behind. 
 
 And when that happy, trustful gaze 
 Meets him you love, yet more I see 
 Your mother as she looked at me : 
 
 It is her own dear, watchful face.
 
 102 REMINISCENCE 
 
 IV 
 
 And when he takes your hand in his, 
 There flits across your lips and eyes 
 Her own pleased smile of half surprise 
 
 It seems not like departed bliss. 
 
 Ah ! what a heart-locked memory stirs 
 I look, 'tis she, and you are gone ! 
 Yes, though so many springs have flown, 
 
 Her peace remains, our love is hers. 
 
 She sees your arms my neck enclose ; 
 
 She sees your lips upon my brow. 
 
 No truer hour of love than now 
 Awaits your heart, my happy Rose ! 
 
 VII 
 
 How they come back those days of old ! 
 And now that 'tis your wedding-eve, 
 Now that for other scenes you leave, 
 
 One happy legend shall be told,
 
 REMINISCENCE 103 
 
 VIII 
 
 Told in this home, this sunny vale 
 
 That for long years has been our own, 
 Sacred in days that long have gone 
 
 To many another lover's tale. 
 
 IX 
 
 It was an hour like this, the sun 
 
 Was sinking, yet had far to go : 
 
 The richness of his overflow 
 Down river, wood, and pasture shone. 
 
 x 
 
 Two lovers in this porch had met 
 Where often they had met in play : 
 'Twas on this memorable day 
 
 As though that sun had never set. 
 
 XI 
 
 These grey-mossed tiles still 'neath it scorch ; 
 The glare and shade still side by side 
 Aslant the mullioned casements glide 
 
 From yon old gable to the porch.
 
 104 REMINISCENCE 
 
 XII 
 
 A youth has hurried from these walls 
 He stops, as in a day-dream stands : 
 His shadow with fast-folded hands 
 
 As from yon stone sun-dial falls. 
 
 XIII 
 
 His eyes are full of one loved face 
 Sunk pallid in her fingers cleft ; 
 The long-loved one who just had left 
 
 In timid haste his wild embrace. 
 
 XIV 
 
 The love that with her childhood grew 
 Had still to her unruffled clung ; 
 Engaging, playful, ever young, 
 
 And without change was ever new. 
 
 xv 
 Not its glad pastimes she disowns ; 
 
 He drew her to a higher love ; 
 
 But while the pale emotion strove 
 She fled from his impassioned tones.
 
 REMINISCENCE 105 
 
 XVI 
 
 Transparent isles of rushes bind 
 The rivers light with bars of green 
 That catch the water's blue between, 
 
 To where it darkens in the wind. 
 
 XVII 
 
 There lies his boat, and now the sun, 
 Still going westward with the stream, 
 Appears to tow him on his dream 
 
 As they advance in unison. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Along the white and yellow meads, 
 Which buttercup and daisy share, 
 The crowding cattle idly stare 
 
 As he winds through the matted reeds. 
 
 XIX 
 
 But her loved image fills his mind, 
 And, ever gazing at him, screens 
 His eyes from those long-happy scenes, 
 
 As he drifts by them, nature- blind.
 
 106 REMINISCENCE 
 
 xx 
 
 The white-flowered weed whose tresses float, 
 Combed by the stream and water-waved, 
 Seems her bright hair in crystal laved, 
 
 Struggling to overtake his boat. 
 
 His sculls drip o'er the glossy wash : 
 The ripple of the mellow tide 
 He scarce feels o'er their edges glide ; 
 
 He lists not for the thrilling plash, 
 
 But thinks, when last the tide he clove, 
 How bank-side elms before him flew, 
 And quiet lay the distant view 
 
 Of woodland hill where dwelt his love. 
 
 xxin 
 
 His memory holds it as the stream 
 Holds all the shining summer round : 
 The sky, the woods, the very sound 
 
 Of cuckoos chanting in a dream.
 
 REMINISCENCE 107 
 
 XXIV 
 
 And how she loved the grey old bridge ! 
 Those arches mirrored deep below, 
 That meet the pillars row to row, 
 
 Quivering from their ruffled ridge 
 
 XXV 
 
 Three tunnels open to the skies ! 
 The tasselled mosses as they float, 
 Now still, now heaving with the boat 
 
 That passes while the vision flies. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 As melt, with all the watery heaven, 
 Those arches hanging o'er a sky 
 So in the quiet of a sigh 
 
 The yearaings of his soul seemed riven. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 The far-off boom of yonder weir 
 
 Now rushes down the narrowed day : 
 Like sirens battling with the spray, 
 
 Once came its music to her ear.
 
 108 REMINISCENCE 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 The sun now trembles like a ball 
 
 Heaven-forged and glittering in its blast ; 
 A pale green halo round him cast 
 
 Half quenched behind the waterfall. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 White streaks are creeping through the shade ; 
 The moon climbs up the poplar trees : 
 But a loved form of light he sees, 
 
 As if her spirit walked the glade. 
 
 xxx 
 
 Well might it be, as since hath seemed, 
 
 So holy are the vanished years. 
 
 But then her cheeks were under tears : 
 It was on them the moonlight gleamed. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 Her sobbings at his bosom fall ; 
 
 Fonder than words can tell, they say 
 Her heart was his, half love, half play, 
 
 But now all love she gives it all.
 
 REMINISCENCE 109 
 
 XXXII 
 
 'Twas she, your mother ! While she hung 
 Her head, and hid her tears, and crept 
 To me, as one who, erring, wept ; 
 
 Wept more the closer that she clung ; 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 She seemed an infant in my arms 
 Kissed me as would a child bereaved : 
 And then, as 'twere for joy, she grieved 
 
 Her heart released from its alarms. 
 
 xxxiv 
 
 God bless you, Rose ! That loving face 
 Could she but see it ! Well I knew 
 Her thoughts when last she looked at you, 
 
 Who now have grown up in her place. 
 
 xxxv 
 
 Ah, leave me, Rose ! these memories stir 
 Depths that you may not dream of, child ! 
 These tears till now your love has wiled ; 
 
 Leave me, that I may think of her.
 
 THE SHEPHERDESS 
 
 BY one whose heart kept watch was heard the fame 
 Of a bright world that, like a ship of war, 
 
 Was launched in heaven beside the last that came 
 O'er the sky's outer bar : 
 
 Her land Chaldea, she that blessed name 
 Gave to the coming star. 
 
 Child of a lord, they called on her to reign 
 
 O'er that old story-land whose shepherds deem 
 
 The stars a flock that studs a holy plain ; 
 And she had learned in dream 
 
 That her loved land, through her, that star should 
 
 gain 
 And with its blessings teem.
 
 THE SHEPHERDESS 111 
 
 HI 
 
 But heartless deeds were of her father told 
 
 Who the fair daughters, in the mountains born, 
 
 Had captured and to days of slavery sold 
 Where bends the Golden Horn : 
 
 A shepherd chief, who robbed his neighbour's fold, 
 And took the lamb unshorn. 
 
 IV 
 
 She bears her crook o'er living plains, her way 
 Through tents in which the thoughtful shepherds 
 
 dwell 
 Who watch the heavens where the bright grazers 
 
 stray 
 
 And think they hear the bell 
 Whose holy tinklings, as they softly play, 
 The fates of men foretell. 
 
 So doth she haste to meet her shepherd-seers, 
 And see the promised star that shall eclipse 
 
 The one which filled her father's land with tears, 
 And learn from their own lips 
 
 The happy portents that to man it bears 
 From the new heaven it skips.
 
 112 THE SHEPHERDESS 
 
 VI 
 
 While Tigris and Euphrates still o'erleap 
 Their shallow bounds her camel slowly goes, 
 
 When nigh her tent, on vengeful errand, creep 
 Her father's olden foes, 
 
 And seize her, helpless, in her noon-day sleep 
 While all her tribes repose. 
 
 VII 
 
 In a barred chamber, and in chains, a slave, 
 She weeps with eyes upon the Golden Horn, 
 
 And thinks of far-off waters as they lave 
 Blest homes in Capricorn, 
 
 Where happy beings find the Heaven that gave 
 To her the star new-born. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Strangers have come and through her prison-gate 
 They count her price and would her love allure ; 
 
 But her eyes restless watch and wide dilate ; 
 Their look can none endure, 
 
 So wild in sorrow and so mild in hate, 
 In majesty so pure.
 
 THE SHEPHERDESS 113 
 
 IX 
 
 One comes towards whom the look of prayer she bends 
 That seems to utter ' Thou, my star, arise ! ' 
 
 And while that heaven-adoring thought ascends 
 New sorrows fill her eyes, 
 
 That tell how Love is dead and beauty ends 
 When human pity dies ! 
 
 x 
 
 All that he has, the mystic life he bears, 
 What is their worth, her soul in slavery ? 
 
 He pays the ransom, breaks the chain she wears, 
 As though some god were he : 
 
 Voiceless, she offers up to him the tears 
 Her anguish has set free. 
 
 XI 
 
 
 
 Handmaids and armed protectors are at hand, 
 All that to queenly power and pomp pertains, 
 
 And, passing waters from the stranger-land, 
 Her star-roofed home she gains, 
 
 Where her sleek camels, crimson-girded, stand 
 To bear her o'er the plains. 
 H
 
 114 THE SHEPHERDESS 
 
 In her slow path the faithful seers arrive 
 And with prophetic tidings bid her cheer : 
 
 That night, they tell, the older worlds shall strive, 
 As the new star comes near, 
 
 And into depths of unknown darkness dive 
 And find no other sphere. 
 
 XIII 
 
 But little heed gives she to their appeals : 
 The coming star, alas ! not yet is found ; 
 
 Deep-sighing in her silence, she reveals 
 A heart in slavery bound : 
 
 Her bonds are there, and there it is she feels 
 The chain about her wound. 
 
 'Mid joyous shouts she sees her open gates, 
 But enters not, up-gazing in the thought 
 
 That never sleeps or in her breast abates, 
 Where is the star she sought ! 
 
 But now a greater seer her advent waits ; 
 He hath the tidings brought.
 
 THE SHEPHERDESS 115 
 
 xv 
 ' The hour is come, the star is now in sight ; 
 
 Portents of blessed change the heavens bestrew : 
 The shepherds upward gaze, the air is bright, 
 
 The sky is gold and blue, 
 The ancient stars are on their downward flight 
 
 And others come anew. 
 
 XVI 
 
 ' And in the shower of burning worlds, self-hurled 
 From heaven to heaven, a lord is on his way 
 
 Around whose hosts the golden dust is whirled, 
 While, in divine array, 
 
 Green floats his shepherd-banner, wide-unfurled, 
 With flocks thereon at play.' 
 t 
 
 XVII 
 
 The hour has come in clouds that hurry o'er 
 Her palace towers, and scatter while the rays 
 
 Of new-made light upon the valleys pour ; 
 While flocks awake and graze, 
 
 And shepherds sing and the new star adore : 
 But she, beholding, prays.
 
 116 THE SHEPHERDESS 
 
 The seer of seers stands forth, he takes her hands ; 
 
 He cries, ' Thy star is come ! Be it to thee 
 A rich reward and to these teeming lands ; 
 
 The lord, who made thee free, 
 Now in his earthly place before thee stands, 
 
 Thy guiding-star to be.' 
 
 XIX 
 
 She looks at heaven ; afar the cloud-vane drifts ; 
 
 Her face is pale, he comes, the lord is found : 
 She kneels, once more his slave ; the stranger lifts 
 
 The virgin from the ground, 
 And offers up for sacred wedding gifts 
 
 The chains her heart had bound.
 
 FAREWELL TO NATURE 
 
 VAIN love for Nature ! How these heartaches rust 
 
 Into the soul as we return to dust ! 
 
 Hope's shadow only masks our eventide, 
 
 Feigning to lead us to its brighter side, 
 
 While yet the mellowing skies that wondrous grow, 
 
 Seem left in waiting for the dead below. 
 
 But those tranced sunsets, little they avail, 
 
 None travel hence in their allui'ing trail ; 
 
 All is a dream, an ancient dream, the same 
 
 From the first mortal to the last that came. 
 
 Yet could we but for once our eyes unclose 
 
 When through the distant days the pageant goes ! 
 
 Familiar vision, and so soon to be 
 
 Entombed within the dead eternity. 
 
 Doth Nature know our dream, or is the mind 
 A passing breath her beauty leaves behind ?
 
 118 FAREWELL TO NATURE 
 
 Ah ! not for this our grateful souls have wrought 
 Around her sphere a universe of thought. 
 "Pis she inspires our dreams, but no reply 
 Vouchsafes the loving hearts that for her die, 
 Who only pray, when life's surprise is o'er, 
 They may partake a glimpse of her once more. 
 Is it too late ? She sees not to the end ; 
 What she hath done she never can amend : 
 Yet once by us beloved, once only known, 
 
 She seems from all the past to be our own. 
 
 \ 
 
 Last wish of age ! How sweet one glance would be 
 
 Even from the sod the olden haunts to see ; 
 
 To watch the long-drawn wavelets as they reach 
 
 The silent plains of the deserted beach ; 
 
 To look where light once was, if but to know 
 
 Of its faint struggle through the winnowed snow. 
 
 Ah ! whence this dream that like the cuckoo-guest 
 
 Pleads in such winning accents for a nest, 
 
 And with its cloud-note ever on us calls, 
 
 And though it passes the fond heart enthralls ? 
 
 Little it seems, this wish, when oft our sight 
 Tires of the world, yet what a fresh delight
 
 FAREWELL TO NATURE 119 
 
 Were it sometimes in death those scenes to view, 
 The olden scenes that to our youth were new, 
 To linger o'er a sound whose murmurs swell 
 Upon the heart, the tinkling village bell, 
 To find that all was safe, all gliding on 
 In beauty's leisure ways though we were gone; 
 To see brave Nature in her perilous scheme 
 Advance without our help, without our dream. 
 At least 'twould hold ajar death's open door 
 To think our love was honoured evermore, 
 In dying, on the forward thought to dwell 
 That it was not our very last farewell. 
 
 Could hope unveil and not its mystic fire 
 
 Be lost among the embers of desire ! 
 
 Ill though desponding hearts their burden bear, 
 
 Is not the soul the master of despair ? 
 
 Is this great life, hard won, achieved in vain, 
 
 Is good once found to never be again ? 
 
 Ask of the worlds if they their path forget, 
 
 Ask hope that never ends, its time to set. 
 
 One deep desire throughout all being cries, 
 
 And this is hope, our future in disguise.
 
 120 FAREWELL TO NATURE 
 
 O living lamp, O Hope, the only Seer ; 
 Of Nature's after-time the pioneer, 
 Keep in advance across our starless way, 
 Be the new morrow of our orphan day !
 
 THE POET'S FEAST 
 
 THE golden feast for jovial souls prepare 
 
 Whose wants the wants of nature far exceed ; 
 
 The nectar of the sun such palates need ; 
 To them the fatted calf is vulgar fare. 
 Earth's dripping fruits may wandering Arabs share 
 
 Pleased with the pulp and juice whereon they 
 feed; 
 
 And bread alone is still the poor man's meed, 
 Though milk abound and honey be to spare. 
 So dreams the Poet, with his crust content : 
 
 The crumbs that from the rich man's table fall 
 To him are sorry signs of merriment 
 
 To show the world has food enough for all. 
 At festive boards he has but little part 
 To him 'twas given to feed on his own heart.
 
 THE EXILE 
 
 THEY bore her to the northern snows 
 
 Whose floods down ice-domed caverns run, 
 
 From lands where that calm river flows 
 Whose depths decoy the vagrant sun, 
 
 Where palms o'er latticed shadows rise 
 
 With boughs that web the sultry skies. 
 
 Where roses climb the scent-steeped hills 
 And channelled leaves with dew-drops flash, 
 
 Bending beneath the trickled rills 
 
 That fall and the pink clusters splash ; 
 
 Where aloe-flowers, all flaming red, 
 
 Like watch-fires o'er the summit spread.
 
 THE EXILE 123 
 
 HI 
 
 They bore her to a desert plain 
 
 Where the dry, creviced mosses cling, 
 
 Sand-sprinkled as by drizzling rain ; 
 
 Where dark and ragged pine-boughs swing, 
 
 And the free cygnet in its flight 
 
 Darts with a meteor's winged light. 
 
 IV 
 
 Her father, last of mighty lords 
 Whose deeds the war-like peasants tell, 
 
 Fearless had met the northern hordes 
 And in the battle's frenzy fell. 
 
 Full-armed he sleeps, and still the brave 
 
 Salute him as they pass his grave. 
 
 v 
 
 Now young, she thinks not of her race 
 
 But feels its glory and its pride. 
 She still recalls her mother's face 
 
 Who in her stately sorrow died, 
 And those large eyes her image keep, 
 And dream beside it in love's sleep.
 
 124 THE EXILE 
 
 VI 
 
 Eyes that are of the sultry zone 
 That ofttimes in their musing moods 
 
 See rosy banks that seem their own 
 
 Where lies the waste : her olive-woods, 
 
 Her sky with cypress-skirted folds, 
 
 All that she loves, her heart remoulds. 
 
 VII 
 
 As in a desert one red rose 
 
 Seems like a garden full of bloom, 
 
 She charms the wilderness, and throws 
 Her own bright colours o'er its gloom ; 
 
 Then at the falling cone's rebound 
 
 Pomegranates gild the enchanted ground. 
 
 VIII 
 
 And lest when dear illusions come 
 
 They melt o'er-fast, she hides her eyes, 
 
 And feigns to see her native home, 
 And shouts in play her soul's surprise. 
 
 So while the southern glory burns 
 
 The haunting vision still returns.
 
 THE EXILE 125 
 
 IX 
 
 When spring bursts o'er the wintry plain 
 And violet skies dissolve in spray, 
 
 And marsh-pools echo drops of rain 
 That o'er the bud's new secret play, 
 
 Her soul seems darting from her eyes 
 
 To snatch at nature's rhapsodies. 
 
 x 
 
 The serf who toils upon the road 
 
 From waste to waste with back that bears 
 
 Across the steppes another's load, 
 
 With eyes that homeward gaze in tears, 
 
 Chills not for long a heart that glows 
 
 In its own fire 'mid northern snows. 
 
 XI 
 
 Where plough may delve or harrow graze, 
 She tramps beside the sluggish team 
 
 As fain to urge its tardy pace : 
 
 And when she drifts into some dream 
 
 Her laugh, her look of childish glee, 
 
 Is still the joy of memory.
 
 126 THE EXILE 
 
 XII 
 
 But fears flash o'er her mellow eyes 
 
 When gaunt sand-fountains, side by side, 
 
 Like giants in the distance rise, 
 Pass slowly by and onward glide, 
 
 Like shadows from her father's land 
 
 That seek some rumoured icy strand. 
 
 xni 
 Then day breaks through a sullen sky ; 
 
 The keen air shivers ; doth she know 
 The blackened clouds now sailing by 
 
 Are freighted with the virgin snow ? 
 Dark ships of winter that unload 
 The widespread famine they forbode. 
 
 The snow-flakes build a prison-wall 
 That slants high o'er her window sill ; 
 
 She watches while they slowly fall, 
 Till heaven appears a sinking hill, 
 
 And darkness gathers o'er her mind : 
 
 Home is too far for hope to find.
 
 THE EXILE 127 
 
 xv 
 In new despair she sees heaven's sand 
 
 Has drifted o'er her cottage gate ! 
 She fears that now her native land 
 
 Is like the desert desolate. 
 The snow still falls and still it clings, 
 Soft dropped like insects' broken wings. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Through the strange dusk she hears the shriek 
 Of trees snapped by the dreaded wind ; 
 
 The casements shake, the rafters creak ; 
 Ah ! could she now her mother find ! 
 
 With timid wings too weak for flight 
 
 She hangs upon the edge of night. 
 
 xvir 
 A wind's moan utters, ' Stir and go ' : 
 
 Upon its gust she seems to glide 
 Towards lands beyond the falling snow 
 
 But reaches not its further side. 
 She drops on the cold hilly steeps 
 And in her distant reverie sleeps.
 
 128 THE EXILE 
 
 XVIII 
 
 No longer now the large-eyed child, 
 
 Who draws her charm so fresh from heaven, 
 
 Gives up its beauty to the wild ; 
 The spell of infant faith is riven : 
 
 Where the sun's tender rays were sown 
 
 Stones have sprung up and ice-fields grown. 
 
 XIX 
 
 The spring still comes, when shallow snows 
 Melt o'er a crisping flame of green 
 
 Wherein the nestled herbage glows 
 
 Through its white shell, but there is seen 
 
 A heart that still unthawed remains ; 
 
 An exile of the loveless plains. 
 
 When winter's sun through summer shines, 
 The joys are banished that she brought : 
 
 For home, not dreams of home, she pines ; 
 Thought is the food of famished thought. 
 
 It is her heart-corroding hour : 
 
 The rose-tree is without a flower.
 
 THE EXILE 129 
 
 XXI 
 
 She feeds in broken reveries 
 
 On her chilled soul : within the light 
 
 Of those black lashes, those dark eyes, 
 The paling cheek seems over-bright, 
 
 With lips, like hanging fruit, whose hue 
 
 Is ruby 'neath a bloom of blue. 
 
 XXII 
 
 The friends who love her as their own 
 Stir self-upbraidings in her breast, 
 
 For in their midst she is alone 
 
 And in their peace is without rest. 
 
 Is there some home by them forgot ? 
 
 Exiles they seem and suffer not. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 Their native games to her impart 
 
 A fitful joy, that sad appears, 
 Only because her eyes and heart 
 
 Are vacant, and have room for tears. 
 She knows not yet 'tis love's first throe : 
 The snowdrop breaking through the snow.
 
 130 THE EXILE 
 
 XXIV 
 
 At length comes one whose love ere told 
 Seems wafted o'er a flowery plain, 
 
 And brings her back that charm of old : 
 The days of childhood live again ; 
 
 Griefs softened into joys return ; 
 
 In love's new-kindled incense burn. 
 
 xxv 
 
 In silver-crimson trappings gay, 
 
 His tinkling barbs with billowy manes 
 
 Toss their strong necks before his sleigh 
 And he has crossed the snowy plains. 
 
 She hails him, and, with heart aflame, 
 
 She wonders how such passion came. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Beauty and man's strong soul are his. 
 
 Be the earth bare, paved o'er with ice, 
 'Tis full even to its dome in bliss : 
 
 The desert is her paradise, 
 Where -now the hourly deepening sky 
 Rains down on her love's mystery.
 
 THE EXILE 131 
 
 XXVII 
 
 She hears his love and hears no more. 
 
 As waves might cease to beat, as winds 
 Might drop away on some charmed shore, 
 
 The word a soul-deep echo finds 
 All her fond life is without breath, 
 And sinks away in rapturous death. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 New paths to home are overlaid 
 
 With such deep sunshine, not a tree 
 
 In densest woods can cast a shade. 
 Her glorious soul again is free, 
 
 Free in those bonds of love that wind 
 
 In bliss about the heart they bind. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Warmer than in its childhood's flush 
 Her cheek in this new passion glows ; 
 
 Not softer is the fitful blush 
 
 Of lily 'neath the swaying rose. 
 
 Her head droops not as when she pined. 
 
 Now bowed in love's own southern wind.
 
 132 THE EXILE 
 
 XXX 
 
 A sun of passion is above ; 
 
 Her home is here, in cloudless eyes 
 She sees the birth-place of her love, 
 
 And snows dissolve in burning skies. 
 Palm-leaves above her seem to bow 
 When bridal roses wreathe her brow.
 
 THE SIBYL 
 
 A MAID who mindful of her playful time 
 Steps to her summer, bearing childhood on 
 
 To woman's beauty, heedless of her prime : 
 The early day but not the pastime gone : 
 
 She is the Sibyl, uttering a doom 
 
 Out of her spotless bloom. 
 
 She is the Sibyl ; seek not, then, her voice : 
 A laugh, a song, a sorrow, but thy share, 
 
 With woes at hand for many who rejoice 
 That she shall utter ; that shall many hear ; 
 
 That warn all hearts who seek of her their fates, 
 
 Her love but one awaits.
 
 134 THE SIBYL 
 
 in 
 She is the Sibyl ; days that distant lie 
 
 Bend to the promise that her word shall give ; 
 Already hath she eyes that prophesy, 
 
 For of her beauty shall all beauty live : 
 Unknown to her, in her slow opening bloom, 
 She turns the leaves of doom.
 
 THE PAINTER 
 
 i 
 ' SUMMER has done her work/ the painter cries, 
 
 And saunters down his garden by the shore. 
 ' The fig is cracked and dry ; upon it lies, 
 
 In crystals, the sweet oozing of its core. 
 The peach melts in its dusk and yellow bloom, 
 
 Grapes cluster to the earth in diadems 
 
 Of dripping purple ; from their slender stems, 
 'Mid paler leaves, the dark -green citrons loom. 
 
 ii 
 ' Summer has done her work ; she, lingering, sees 
 
 Her shady places glare : yet cooler grow 
 The breezes as they stir the sunny trees 
 
 Whose shaking twigs their ruby berries sow. 
 Ripe is the fairy-grass, we breathe its seeds, 
 
 But, hanging o'er the rocks that belt the shore, 
 
 Safe from the sea, above its bustling roar, 
 Here ripen, still, the blossom-swinging weeds.
 
 136 THE PAINTER 
 
 in 
 ' Pale cressets on the summer waters shine, 
 
 No ripple there but flings its jet of fire. 
 Rich amber wrack still bronzing in the brine 
 
 Is tossed ashore in daylight to expire. 
 Here wallowing waves the rocky shoal enwreathe, 
 
 And in loose spray, cascades of bubbles fall, 
 
 And steeps of watery, coral-mantled wall 
 Drink of the billow, and the sunshine breathe. 
 
 IV 
 
 ' Summer has done her work, but mine remains. 
 
 How shall I shape these ever-murmuring waves, 
 How interweave these rumours and refrains, 
 
 These wind-tossed echoes of the listening caves ? 
 The restless rocky roar, the billow's splash, 
 
 And the all-hushing shingle hark ! it blends, 
 
 In open melody that never ends, 
 The drone, the cavern-whisper, and the clash. 
 
 v 
 
 ' And this wide ruin of a once new shore 
 
 Scooped by new waves to waves of solid rock, 
 
 Dark-shelving, white-veined, as if marbled o'er 
 By the fresh surf still trickling block to block !
 
 THE PAINTER 137 
 
 O worn-out waves of night, long set aside 
 
 The moulded storm in dead, contending rage, 
 Like monster-breakers of a by-gone age ! 
 
 And now the gentle waters o'er you ride. 
 
 VI 
 
 ' Can my hand darken in swift rings of flight 
 The air-path cut by the black sea-bird's wings, 
 
 Then fill the dubious track with influent light, 
 While to my eyes the vanished vision clings ? 
 
 While at their sudden whirr the billows start, 
 Can my hand hush the cymbal-sounding sea, 
 That breaks with louder roar its reverie 
 
 As those fast pinions into silence dart ? 
 
 VII 
 
 ' Press on, ye summer waves, still gently swell, 
 The rainbow's parent-waters overrun ! 
 
 Can my poor brush your snaky greenness tell, 
 Raising your sidelong bellies to the sun ? 
 
 What touch can pour you in yon pool of blue 
 Circled with surging froth of liquid snow, 
 Which now dissolves to emerald, now below 
 
 Glazes the sunken rocks with umber hue ?
 
 138 THE PAINTER 
 
 VIII 
 
 ' Summer has done her work ; dare I begin 
 
 Painting a desert, though my pencil craves 
 To intertwine all tints with heaven akin ? 
 
 Nature has flung her palette to the waves ! 
 Then bid my eyes on cloudy landscape dwell, 
 
 Not revel in thy blaze, O beauteous scene ! 
 
 Between thy art and mine is nature's screen, 
 Transparent only to the soul, farewell ! 
 
 IX 
 
 ' Oh ! could I paint thee with these ravished eyes,- 
 Catch in my hollow palm thy overflow, 
 
 Who broadcast fling'st away thy witcheries ! 
 Yet would I not desponding turn and go. 
 
 Be it a feeble hand to thee I raise, 
 
 'Tis still the worship of the soul within : 
 Summer has done her work, let mine begin, 
 
 Though as the grass it wither in thy blaze.'
 
 THE SUN-WORSHIPPER 
 
 As a wild comet through the night she hies, 
 Her face bent towards the temple of the sun, 
 
 With golden hair that on the darkness lies 
 
 Like break of dawn when daylight, scarce begun, 
 Meanders into flame whose flashes run 
 
 Along the lower skies. 
 
 ii 
 Soon as the sun lifts up the morning haze 
 
 She rushes towards him ; sinks unto the ground 
 And, clasping the all-shining Presence, prays 
 
 In his first beams : again her god is found ; 
 
 The startled shadows that her heart surround 
 Are dizzy in his rays.
 
 140 THE SUN-WORSHIPPER 
 
 ' Thee I adore, O Sun ! this heart is thine ! 
 The youth who blindly claims its ecstasy 
 
 Seeks not thy temple, honours not thy shrine ; 
 He kneels not, utters not his vows to thee, 
 Who all the worlds beyond this world canst see, 
 
 And rnak'st all things divine.' 
 
 IV 
 
 The sunflowers turn to heaven as still she kneels ; 
 Shall then her heart its coming vow deplore ? 
 
 Not uttered yet, all utterance it reveals, 
 And she restrains her ecstasy no more : 
 Her burning lips the hasty vow outpour 
 
 Which her heart-trouble seals. 
 
 * Never, O Sun ! till sinking in the west 
 
 Thou risest where thy wondrous setting spreads, 
 
 While all who love thee slumber in thy rest, 
 Shall he, who proudly in thy presence treads, 
 Enthrall me in the light his beauty sheds, 
 
 Or wed me to his breast ! '
 
 THE SUN-WORSHIPPER 141 
 
 VI 
 
 Silence has tongues ; she hears a sister say, 
 ' List to the voice of thy companion-mind ! 
 
 Thy love is still the same as yesterday ; 
 It has not passed, it only lags behind, 
 And thou art lonely as the wistful wind 
 
 Thou meet'st upon the way.' 
 
 VII 
 
 Yet she repeats her vow, her heart in pain, 
 
 To draw some love from heaven, as from the well 
 
 Whose radiant springs she once craved not in vain : 
 But ebbing hope allures her by its spell 
 To past despair, on other days to dwell, 
 
 And suffer them again. 
 
 Across the hills of heliotrope she creeps, 
 Or winds within the many-shadowed wolds, 
 
 Till once again the sun her pathway sweeps, 
 And from her weary feet the way withholds ; 
 The sacred flowers embrace her in their folds ; 
 
 From dawn to dawn she sleeps.
 
 142 THE SUN-WORSHIPPER 
 
 IX 
 
 She sleeps ; so still, not even her shadow veers, 
 Save when from side to side the moonflood roves ; 
 
 But in sky-dreams the sun to her appears, 
 Yet with the visage of the one she loves ; 
 All through her sleep in phantom light he moves, 
 
 And still that face he bears. 
 
 x 
 
 She sleeps, and with the beaming of a bride 
 Beholds that face ; ah ! never to be wed ! 
 
 Yet why a tear, no sorrow shall betide : 
 
 Though distant borne, his rays on her are shed ; 
 Her soul, along his way of glory sped, 
 
 Shall in his light abide. 
 
 XI 
 
 She wakes up with the sun, but in his rise 
 
 Sees the rich twilight of her love-dream wane : 
 
 Day seems to sink in the deserted skies, 
 
 Whose broken, many-coloured beams remain 
 As of her dream whose night comes back again ; 
 
 'Twas dawn had closed her eyes.
 
 THE SUN-WORSHIPPER 143 
 
 XII 
 
 The cloud-slopes blossom still, but cold and lone ; 
 
 Down them she floated in those heavenly dreams, 
 And still the veil that o'er her slumbers shone 
 
 Hangs gold- wrought in the fervour of those beams. 
 
 She kneels while watching the last fading gleams 
 O'er the grey twilight thrown. 
 
 XIII 
 
 With speechless lips she questions the chill blaze : 
 Behold the sun returns ; that brighter flush 
 
 Were surely day ? Yet she mistrusts her gaze 
 Though the light widens and with lordly rush 
 The sun bursts forth in morning's youthful blush 
 
 And floods the heaven with rays. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Trembling she sees the paleness of her face 
 
 In those white clouds which now the sun surround, 
 
 Who doth in heaven his spectral way retrace. 
 
 Behold, the days brought back, the hours unwound, 
 The angry sun unto the zenith bound 
 
 And the pale moon replace !
 
 144 THE SUN-WORSHIPPER 
 
 xv 
 
 Perplexed, all lost, she staggers to the height 
 Where the twelve pillars in their beauty shine, 
 
 The temple circling in the blessed light ; 
 
 There prostrate doth she o'er her vow repine ; 
 But fears to meet the arbiter divine 
 
 Who banishes the night. 
 
 XVI 
 
 From the lone steps at length she looks above : 
 Behold, the face is there that filled her dreams ; 
 
 The youth adored, triumphant o'er her love, 
 There radiant shines amid descending beams ; 
 His lustrous hair in the rich sunshine streams, 
 
 With golden lights inwove. 
 
 XVII 
 
 She lifts her arms, she falls upon the face 
 
 She loved in heaven ; her yearning heart, too 
 blest, 
 
 Doth in deep sobs its erring way retrace. 
 
 All passion weeps, while gathers in her breast 
 A bliss that bears her spirit to its rest 
 
 In that divine embrace.
 
 THE INSCRUTABLE 
 
 r 
 
 DREAD under-life whose dreams 
 
 Along the midnight rush, 
 Poured out like cavern-streams 
 
 That from the darkness gush, 
 A murderous thought has issued forth to flood 
 A maiden's sleep in blood. 
 
 He that hath swum the heaven 
 
 Of woman's loving eyes 
 To him a dream is. given, 
 
 As helplessly he lies, 
 
 A dream that never nigh his thought had passed, 
 Till in that slumber cast. 
 K
 
 146 THE INSCRUTABLE 
 
 in 
 He loves her and she loves, 
 
 But stern her father's heart 
 That every passion moves 
 
 Their holy hope to thwart. 
 Can they, meek sleepers, on dream-demons call 
 To burst the iron thrall ? 
 
 IV 
 
 That night in dreams that sway 
 
 The soul to shedding blood, 
 One hears his own voice say 
 
 In sleep's half-weary mood, 
 
 'Take down your father's sword and quickly slide 
 The blade into his side. 
 
 v 
 
 ' Disguise the seeming guilt, 
 
 And bend his fingers round, 
 And put them on the hilt, 
 
 And leave him to his wound.' 
 In that strange dream until the break of day, 
 Asleep the lover lay.
 
 THE INSCRUTABLE 147 
 
 VI 
 
 He wakes, aghast ; he strives 
 
 To get the vision hence 
 That into morning lives, 
 
 And fastens on his sense. 
 'Tis but a dream, but should her hand fulfil 
 His will within her will ! 
 
 VII 
 
 She comes up wild and pale, 
 
 She wrings her hands in pain, 
 She utters with a wail 
 
 ' Who hath my father slain ! 
 My anguished heart sobbed all night in its sleep ; 
 I felt it sob and weep. 
 
 VIII 
 
 ' I saw you while I slept, 
 
 And to my dream you spoke ; 
 All night your words I kept, 
 
 I heard them when I woke : 
 
 " Take down your father's sword and quickly slide 
 The blade into his side.
 
 148 THE INSCRUTABLE 
 
 IX 
 
 ' " Disguise the seeming guilt, 
 
 And bend his fingers round, 
 And put them on the hilt, 
 
 And leave him to his wound." 
 
 the false voice, that it so true should seem 
 In that unthought-of dream ! 
 
 x 
 
 ' I hurried to the bed, 
 I saw that he was slain, 
 
 1 saw the blood was shed, 
 
 I saw the deep, deep stain. 
 His sword was in his side, thrust, to the hilt,- 
 His fingers took the guilt/
 
 THE WEDDING RING 
 
 LADY 
 
 'GivE me a ring, good jeweller, 
 
 By no one worn before, 
 And you shall boast you gave it her 
 
 Who wears it evermore.' 
 
 JEWELLER 
 
 1 Then it shall be a ruby ring, 
 With hoop of richest gold. 
 
 And it shall be my offering 
 For benefits of old.' 
 
 LADY 
 
 ' A ruby ring it must not be, 
 Which is a thing to shine ; 
 
 An iron ring is best for me, 
 No other can be mine.' 
 
 K2
 
 150 THE WEDDING RING 
 
 JEWELLER 
 
 ' But surely such a ring 'twere sad 
 
 To see a lady wear 
 Among her guests in jewels clad, 
 
 And she so young and fair.' 
 
 LADV 
 
 ' An iron ring is all I crave 
 Upon my wedding night, 
 
 For I must wear it in the grave, 
 Where it is out of sight.' 
 
 JEWELLER 
 
 ' Is it to be a ring to bind 
 
 Your heart in wedlock's bond, 
 
 Or but to link the day behind 
 And days that are beyond ? ' 
 
 LADY 
 
 ' It is to link me to his peace 
 
 Who is not far away ; 
 And when her lonely term may cease, 
 
 The bride shall with him stay.'
 
 THE WEDDING RING 151 
 
 JEWELLER 
 
 ' Who is this bridegroom you would wed, 
 
 And yet for ever mourn, 
 As though you would espouse the dead, 
 
 Who never can return ? ' 
 
 ' It is the dead I would espouse, 
 With him lie side by side ; 
 
 There is a chamber in his house 
 He furnished for his bride.'
 
 LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR DEAD 
 LUKE ix. 60 
 
 WHERE marshes venom-steeped the life-breeze taint 
 And fitful meteors lap the watery wild, 
 
 A moon sinks in the cloud-mire, dazed and faint, 
 Its pearly flush defiled, 
 
 Halo'd in sallow vapours like a saint 
 Through paths impure beguiled. 
 
 But worse the gloom within the castle walls 
 
 Where moans the lord whom pestilence devours : 
 
 The serfs awe-stricken flee his festering halls, 
 The plague-star o'er him lowers, 
 
 On his glazed eyes the fatal glimmer falls 
 While night weighs down his towers. 
 
 A crescent moon whose advent stays the pest 
 Embalms the dead with heavenly obsequies, 
 
 But there are none to bear him to his rest, 
 His body shroudless lies ; 
 
 Anointed not, by pious rites unblest, 
 Unto the grave he cries.
 
 LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR DEAD 153 
 
 A great half-moon now dominates the dome, 
 With stern upbraidings yet not less benign : 
 
 But the blank gazers to his final home 
 The dead dare not consign, 
 
 Lured on by sullen spectres of the gloam 
 Who their own dead enshrine. 
 
 Again the drowsy marshes pillow night 
 And darkness severs sky and earth in two. 
 
 But with a rush of cloud dispersing might 
 A full moon hurries through ; 
 
 The corpse is shrouded as in living light, 
 The castle walls look new. 
 
 The heaven is one blue wave ; it seems to break 
 While lucid spray with dreamlight floods the air : 
 
 The coffins in the quickened graveyards quake, 
 The bones know they are there, 
 
 And ghostly shades their buried depths forsake 
 To gather in the glare. 
 
 As dusk descends, by its scared rays illumed, 
 A soul-procession dense and denser grows : 
 
 Hearse after hearse night-horsed and sable-plumed 
 A mirage heavenward throws : 
 
 The newly dead is by the dead entombed 
 And nature has repose.
 
 THE GOLDEN WEDDING 
 
 THE day but not the bride is come, 
 
 As in her blossom-time ; 
 But golden lights sustain the home 
 
 She cherished in her prime. 
 
 May we not call upon the band ? 
 
 May we not ask the priest ? 
 Our golden wedding is at hand, 
 
 And we shall hold a feast. 
 
 But where is he in snow-white stole 
 
 Who the old service read, 
 That made us one in heart and soul ? 
 
 Long, long has he been dead. 
 
 The bridesmaids clad in silken fold 
 
 Who waited on the bride, 
 Where are they now ? Their tale is told 
 
 Long, long ago they died.
 
 THE GOLDEN WEDDING 155 
 
 Where is the groomsman, chosen friend, 
 
 The true, the well-beloved ; 
 His term, alas ! is at an end ; 
 
 Too soon was he removed. 
 
 Where is the bride, ah ! such a bride 
 
 As every joy foretells ? 
 I see her walking by my side, 
 
 I hear the wedding-bells. 
 
 Where is she now ? That we should say 
 
 She did not live to know 
 How passed her silver wedding-day, 
 
 So many years ago ! 
 
 But come, and for your mother's sake, 
 
 Though vain it were to weep, 
 Let us the silent feast partake, 
 
 Her golden wedding keep. 
 
 Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty, 
 at the Edinburgh University Press.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000 784 535 7