ALFRED NOYPS 
 
OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY 
 O^ OF 
 4^P0R^ 
 
THE GOLDEN HYNDE 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NBWYORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
THE GOLDEN HYNDE 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFEED NOTES 
 
 THE FLOWEB OF 
 OLD JAPAN," ETC. 
 
 'Ntta gotit 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1914 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
CJOPTBIGHT, 1908, 
 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1908. Reprinted 
 March, 1913; August, 1914. 
 
 NortoooK 13rf8« 
 
 J. 8. Cuflhing Co. — Berwick «fc Smith Co. 
 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
MY AMERICAN WIFE 
 
 M572787 
 
 7^ 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The 'Golden Hynde' 1 
 
 At Dawn 5 
 
 A Seventieth Birthday 11 
 
 The Net of Vulcan 14 
 
 Orpheus and Eurydice 16 
 
 From the Shore 37 
 
 The Return 42 
 
 On a Railway Platform 44 
 
 An Old Song Ended 46 
 
 Love's Ghost 48 
 
 NiOBE 51 
 
 The Last of the Titans 54 
 
 The Ride of Phaethon 67 
 
 The Empire-builders 74 
 
 Nelson's Year — 1905 78 
 
 In Time of War 86 
 
 To England in 1907 103 
 
 In Cloak of Grey 107 
 
 A Ride for the Queen 109 
 
 Song — 'When that I loved a maiden* . .113 
 
 Eve's Apple 115 
 
 v 
 
VI CONTENTS 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Recollections of a Song 117 
 
 E Tenebris 119 
 
 Sonnet — ' Love, when the great hour knelled 
 
 FOR thee and me * 122 
 
 The Real Dante 124 
 
 A Prayer . 126 
 
 Old Japan at Earl's Court .... 128 
 
 Oxford Revisited 131 
 
 Earth's Immortalities 136 
 
 The Testimony of Art 138 
 
 Song — 'Nymphs and naiads, come away' . 139 
 
 Remembrance 141 
 
 Unity 143 
 
 Joy and Pain 145 
 
 In the Cool of the Evening .... 147 
 
 The Cottage of the Kindly Light . . . 150 
 
 The Three Ships 165 
 
 Slumber-songs of the Madonna . . . 168 
 
 The Call of the Spring 179 
 
 The Lights of Home 183 
 
 Credo 184 
 
THE GOLDEN HYNDE 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
THE GOLDEN HYNDE 
 
 I 
 
 With the fruit of Aladdin's Garden clustering 
 thick in her hold, 
 
 With rubies a-wash in her scuppers and her 
 bilge a-blaze with gold, 
 
 A world in arms behind her to sever her heart 
 from home. 
 
 The Golden Hynde drove onward, over the glit- 
 tering foam. 
 
 II 
 
 If we go, as we came, by the Southward, we 
 
 meet wi' the fleets of Spain! 
 'Tis a thousand to one against us; we'll turn 
 
 to the West again; 
 We have captured a China pilot, his charts and 
 
 his golden keys; 
 
2 THE GOLDEN HTNBE 
 
 We'll sail to the golden Gateway, over the 
 golden seas. 
 
 Ill 
 What shall we see as we sail there? Clusters 
 
 of coral and palm, 
 Oceans of silken slumber, measureless leagues 
 
 of calm. 
 Islands of purple story, lit with the Westering 
 
 gleam. 
 Washed by the unknown whisper, dreaming 
 
 the world-wide dream. " 
 
 IV 
 
 There will be shores of sirens, with arms that 
 
 beckon us near. 
 As they stand knee-deep in the foam-flowers, 
 
 with perilous breasts and hair; 
 Sweet is the rest they proffer; but what shall 
 
 we gain of these 
 
THE GOLDEN HTNBE 3 
 
 When we gaze on the golden Gateway that 
 shines on the golden seas? 
 
 V 
 
 Wound in their white embraces, couched in the 
 lustrous gloom, 
 
 Gazing ever to seaward thro' the broad mag- 
 nolia bloom, 
 
 We should weary of all their kisses when, under 
 the first white star, 
 
 Over the limitless ocean, the golden Gates unbar. 
 
 VI 
 
 White arms will strive to hold us; but we shall 
 
 rise and go 
 Down to the salt sea-beaches where the waves 
 
 are whispering low: 
 White arms will plead in anguish as the sails fill 
 
 out to the breeze. 
 And we turn to the golden Gateway that burns 
 
 on the golden seas! 
 
4 THE GOLDEN HYNDE 
 
 VII 
 
 We shall put out from shore then, out to the 
 
 Western skies, , 
 With the old despairing rapture and the sunset 
 
 in our eyes! 
 What shall we gain of our going, what of the 
 
 fading gleam, 
 What of the gathering darkness, what of the 
 
 dying dream? 
 
 VIII 
 
 Only the unknown glory, only the hope deferred. 
 Only the wondrous whisper, only the unknown 
 
 Word, 
 Voice of the God that gave us billow and beam 
 
 and breeze. 
 As we sail to the golden Gateway, over the 
 
 golden seas. 
 
AT DAWN 
 
 Hesper-Phosphor, far away, 
 Shining, the first, the last white star, 
 
 Hear'st thou the strange, the ghostly cry, 
 
 That moan of an ancient agony 
 
 From purple forest to golden sky 
 Shivering over the breathless bay? 
 
 It is not the wind that wakes with the day; 
 For see, the gulls that wheel and call. 
 Beyond the tumbling white-topped bar. 
 
 Catching the sun-dawn on their wings, 
 Like snow-flakes or like rose-leaves fall, 
 
 Flutter and fall in airy rings; 
 And drift, like liUes ruffling into blossom 
 Upon some golden lake's unwrinkled bosom. 
 
 Are not the forest's deep-lashed fringes wet 
 
 With tears? Is not the voice of all regret 
 5 
 
6 AT DAWN 
 
 Breaking out of the dark earth's heart? 
 She too, she too, has loved and lost ; and we — 
 We that remember our lost Arcady, 
 Have we not known, we too, 
 The primal greenwood's arch of blue. 
 The radiant clouds at sunrise curled 
 Around the brows of the golden world; 
 The marble temples, washed with dew, 
 To which with rosy limbs aflame 
 The violet-eyed Thalassian came. 
 Came, pitiless, only to display 
 How soon the youthful splendour dies away; 
 
 Came only to depart 
 Laughing across the grey-grown bitter sea; 
 For each man's life is earth's epitome. 
 And though the years bring more than aught 
 
 they take, 
 Yet might his heart and hers well break 
 Remembering how one prayer must still be vain, 
 
AT DAWN T 
 
 How one fair hope is dead, 
 One passion quenched, one glory fled 
 With those first loves that never come again. 
 
 How many years, how many generations. 
 
 Have heard that sigh in the dawn. 
 When the dark earth yearns to the unforgotten 
 nations 
 
 And the old loves withdrawn, 
 Old loves, old lovers, wonderful and unnumbered 
 
 As waves on the wine-dark sea. 
 'Neath the tall white towers of Troy and the 
 temples that slumbered 
 
 In Thessaly? 
 
 From the beautiful palaces, from the miracu- 
 lous portals, 
 The swift white feet are flown! 
 
 They were taintless of dust, the proud, the 
 peerless Immortals 
 
8 AT DAWN 
 
 As they sped to their loftier throne! 
 Perchance they are there, earth dreams, on the 
 shores of Hesper, 
 Her rosy-bosomed Hours, 
 Listening the wild fresh forest's enchanted 
 whisper, 
 Crowned with its new strange flowers; 
 Listening the great new ocean's triumphant 
 thunder 
 On the stainless unknown shore. 
 While that perilous queen of the world's delight 
 and wonder 
 Comes white from the foam once more. 
 
 When the mists divide with the dawn o'er those 
 glittering waters, 
 Do they gaze over unoared seas — 
 
 Naiad and nymph and the woodland's rose- 
 crowned daughters 
 
 \ 
 
AT DAWN 9 
 
 And the Oceanides? 
 Do they sing together, perchance, in that dia- 
 mond splendour, 
 That world of dawn and dew. 
 With eyelids twitching to tears and with eyes 
 grown tender 
 The sweet old songs they knew. 
 The songs of Greece? Ah, with harp-strings 
 mute do they falter 
 As the earth like a small star pales? 
 When the heroes launch their ship by the smok- 
 ing altar 
 Does a memory lure their sails? 
 Far, far away, do their hearts resume the story 
 
 That never on earth was told. 
 When all those urgent oars on the waste of glory 
 Cast up its gold? 
 
 Are not the forest fringes wet 
 
 With tears? Is not the voice of all regret 
 
10 AT DAWN 
 
 Breaking out of the dark earth's heart? 
 
 She too, she too, has loved and lost ; and though 
 
 She turned last night in disdain 
 
 Away from the sunset-embers, 
 From her soul she can never depart; 
 She can never depart from her pain. 
 Vainly she strives to forget; 
 Beautiful in her woe, 
 
 She awakes in the dawn and remembers. 
 
A SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY 
 
 (in honour of ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE) 
 
 (B, April 5, 1837) 
 
 I 
 
 He needs no crown of ours, whose golden heart 
 Poured out its wealth so freely in pure praise 
 Of others: him the imperishable bays 
 Crown, and on Sunium's height he sits apart: 
 He hears immortal greetings this great morn, 
 Fain would we bring, we also, all we may, 
 Some wayside flower of transitory bloom, 
 Frail tribute only born 
 To greet the gladness of this April day — 
 Then waste on Death's dark wind its faint 
 perfume. 
 
 II 
 
 Here, on this April day, the whole sweet Spring 
 
 Speaks thro' his music only, or seems to speak ; 
 11 
 
12 A SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY 
 
 And we that hear, with hearts upUft and weak, 
 What can we more than claim him for our king ? 
 Here, on this April day (and many a time 
 Shall Spring return and find him singing still) 
 He is one with the world's great heart 
 beyond the years, . 
 One with the pulsing rhyme 
 Of tides that work some heavenly rhythmic 
 will 
 And hold the secret of all human tears. 
 
 ni 
 For he, the last of that immortal race 
 Whose music like a robe of living light 
 Re-clothed each new-born age and made it 
 bright 
 As with the glory of Love's transfiguring face. 
 Reddened earth's roses, kindled the deep blue 
 Of England's radiant ever-singing sea, 
 
A SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY 13 
 
 Recalled the white Thalassian from the foam 
 Woke the dim stars anew 
 And triumphed in the triumph of Liberty, 
 We claim him; but he hath not here his 
 home. 
 
 IV 
 
 Not here ! Round him to-day the clouds divide. 
 We know what faces thro' that rose-flushed air 
 Now bend above him — Shelley's face is there, 
 And Hugo's lit with more than kingly pride; 
 Replenished there with splendour the blind eyes 
 Of Milton bend from heaven to meet his own ; 
 Sappho is there crowned with those queen- 
 lier flowers 
 Whose graft outgrew our skies, 
 His gift: Shakespeare leans earthward from 
 his throne 
 With hands outstretched. He needs no 
 crown of ours. 
 
THE NET OF VULCAN 
 
 I 
 
 From peaks that clove the heavens asunder 
 
 The hunch-back god with sooty claws 
 Loomed o'er the night, a cloud of thunder, 
 
 And hurled the net of mortal laws; 
 It flew, and all the world grew dimmer; 
 
 Its blackness blotted out the stars. 
 Then fell across the rosy glimmer 
 
 That told where Venus couched with Mars. 
 
 11 
 
 And, when the steeds that draw the morning 
 Spurned from their Orient hooves the spray. 
 
 All vainly soared the lavrock, warning 
 
 Those tangled lovers of the day: 
 
 Still with those twin white waves in blossom 
 14 
 
TBE NET OF VULCAN 15 
 
 Against the warrior's rock-broad breast, 
 The netted Hght of the foam-born bosom 
 Breathed like a sea at rest. 
 
 Ill 
 And light was all that followed after, 
 
 Light the derision of the sky, 
 Light the divine Olympian laughter 
 
 Of kindlier gods in days gone by: 
 Low to her lover whispered Venus, 
 
 'The shameless net be praised for this — 
 When night herself no more could screen us 
 
 It snared us one more hour of bliss.' 
 
ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 
 
 I 
 
 Cloud upon cloud, the purple pinewoods clung 
 to the rich Arcadian mountains, 
 Holy-sweet as a column of incense, where 
 Eurydice roamed and sung : 
 All the hues of the gates of heaven flashed from 
 The white enchanted fountains 
 Where in the flowery glades of the forest the 
 rivers that sing to Arcadia sprung. 
 
 White as a shining marble Dryad, supple and 
 
 sweet as a rose in blossom. 
 
 Fair and fleet as a fawn that shakes the dew 
 
 from the fern at break of day. 
 
 Wreathed with the clouds of her dusky hair that 
 
 V kissed and clung to her sun-bright bosom, 
 
 16 
 
OEPHEUS AND EUBTDICE 17 
 
 Down to the valley she came, and the sound 
 of her feet was the bursting of flowers in 
 May. 
 
 Down to the valley she came, for far and far be- 
 low in the dreaming meadows 
 Pleaded ever the Voice of voices, calling his 
 love by her golden name; , 
 So she arose from her home in the hills, and down 
 through the blossoms that danced with 
 their shadows, 
 Out of the blue of the dreaming distance, 
 down to the heart of her lover she came. 
 
 Red were the lips that hovered above her lips in 
 
 the flowery haze of the June-day, 
 
 Red as a rose through the perfumed mist of 
 
 passion that reeled before her eyes; 
 
 Strong the smooth young sunburnt arms that 
 c 
 
18 0BPHEU8 AND EUBTDICE 
 
 folded her heart to his heart in the noon- 
 day, 
 Strong and supple with throbbing sunshine 
 under the blinding southern skies. 
 
 Ah, the kisses, the little murmurs, mad with pain 
 for their phantom fleetness, 
 Mad with pain for the passing of love that 
 lives, they dreamed — as we dream — for 
 an hour! 
 Ah, the sudden tempest of passion, mad with 
 pain for its oversweetness. 
 As petal by petal and pang by pang their love 
 broke out into perfect flower. 
 
 Ah, the wonder as once he wakened, out of a 
 dream of remembered blisses. 
 Couched in the meadows of dreaming blossom 
 to feel, like the touch of a flower on his 
 eyes, 
 
OBPHEUS AND EUBTDICE 19 
 
 Cool and fresh with the fragrant dews of dawn 
 the touch of her hght swift kisses, 
 Shed from the shadowy rose of her face be- 
 tween his face and the warm blue skies. 
 
 II 
 
 Lost in his new desire 
 
 He dreamed away the hours; 
 
 His lyre 
 Lay buried in the flowers : 
 
 To whom the King of Heaven, 
 Apollo, lord of light 
 
 Had given 
 Such beauty, love, and might: 
 
 Might, if he would, to slay 
 All evil dreams and pierce 
 
 The grey 
 Veil of the Universe; 
 
20 ORPHEUS AND EUBYDICE 
 
 With love that holds in one 
 Sacred and ancient bond 
 
 The sun 
 And all the vast beyond; 
 
 And beauty to enthrall 
 The soul of man to heaven: 
 
 Yea, all 
 Such gifts was Orpheus given. 
 
 Yet in his dream's desire 
 He drowsed away the hours : 
 
 His lyre 
 Lay buried in the flowers. 
 
 Then in his wrath arose 
 Apollo, lord of light, 
 
 That shows 
 The wrong deed from the right; 
 
ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 21 
 
 And by what radiant laws 
 Overruling human needs 
 
 The cause 
 To consequence proceeds; 
 
 How balanced is the sway 
 He gives each mortal doom; 
 
 How day 
 Demands the atoning gloom : 
 
 How all good things await 
 The soul that pays the price 
 
 To fate 
 By equal sacrifice; 
 
 And how on him that sleeps 
 For less than labour's sake 
 
 There creeps, 
 Uncharmed, the Pythian snake. 
 
22 OBPHEUS AND EURTBICB 
 
 III 
 
 Lulled by the wash of the feathery grasses, a sea 
 with many a sun-swept billow, 
 Heart to heart in the heart of the summer, 
 lover by lover asleep they lay. 
 Hearing only the whirring cicala that chirruped 
 awhile at their poppied pillow 
 Faint and sweet as the murmur of men that 
 laboured in villages far away. 
 
 Was not the menace indeed more silent? Ah, 
 what care for labour and sorrow ? 
 Gods in the meadows of moly and amaranth 
 surely might envy their deep sweet bed 
 Here where the butterflies troubled the lilies of 
 peace, and took no thought for the mor- 
 row. 
 And golden-girdled bees made feast as over 
 the lotos the soft sun spread. 
 
ORPHEUS AND EUBTDICE 23 
 
 Nearer, nearer the menace glided, out of the 
 gorgeous gloom around them, 
 Out of the poppy-haunted shadows deep in 
 the heart of the purple brake; 
 Till through the hush and the heat as they lay, 
 and their own sweet listless dreams en- 
 wound them, — 
 Mailed and mottled with hues of the grape- 
 bloom suddenly, quietly, glided the snake. 
 
 Subtle as jealousy, supple as falsehood, diamond- 
 headed and cruel as pleasure. 
 Coil by coil he lengthened and glided, straight 
 to the fragrant curve of her throat : 
 There in the print of the last of the kisses that 
 still glowed red from the sweet long pres- 
 sure. 
 Fierce as famine and swift as lightning over 
 the glittering lyre he smote. 
 
24 ORPHEUS AND EURTDICE 
 
 IV 
 
 And over the cold white body of love and delight 
 Orpheus arose in the terrible storm of his 
 grief, 
 With quivering up-clutched hands, deadly and 
 white, 
 And his whole soul wavered and shook like a 
 wind-swept leaf: 
 
 As a leaf that beats on a mountain, his spirit in 
 vain 
 Assaulted his doom and beat on the Gates of 
 Death : 
 Then prone with his arms o'er the lyre he sobbed 
 out his pain. 
 And the tense chords faintly gave voice to the 
 pulse of his breath. 
 
 And he heard it and rose, once again, with the 
 lyre in his hand, 
 
OBPHEUS AND EUBTDICE 25 
 
 And smote out the cry that his white-Hpped 
 sorrow denied: 
 And the grief's mad ecstasy swept o'er the sum- 
 mer-sweet land, 
 And gathered the tears of all Time in the rush 
 of its tide. 
 
 There was never a love forsaken or faith for- 
 sworn, 
 There was never a cry for the living or moan 
 for the slain, 
 But was voiced in that great consummation of 
 song; ay, and borne 
 To storm on the Gates of the land whence none 
 Cometh again. 
 
 Transcending the barriers of earth, comprehend- 
 ing them all. 
 He followed the soul of his loss with the night 
 in his eyes; 
 
26 ORPHEUS AND EUBYDICE 
 
 And the portals lay bare to him there; and he 
 heard the faint call 
 Of his love o'er the rabble that wails by the 
 river of sighs. 
 
 Yea, there in the mountains before him he knew 
 it of old, 
 That portal enormous of gloom, he had seen it 
 in dreams, 
 When the secrets of Time and of Fate through 
 his harmonies rolled ; 
 And behind it he heard the dead moan by 
 their desolate streams. 
 
 And he passed through the Gates with the light 
 
 and the cloud of his song. 
 Dry-shod over Lethe he passed to the chasms 
 
 of Hell; 
 And the hosts of the dead made mock at him, 
 
 crying, how long 
 
ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 27 
 
 Have we dwelt in the darkness, oh fool, and 
 shall evermore dwell? 
 
 Did our lovers not love us? the grey skulls 
 hissed in his face; 
 Were our lips not red ? Were these cavernous 
 eyes not bright ? 
 Yet us, whom the soft flesh clothed with such 
 roseate grace, 
 Our lovers would loathe if we ever returned 
 to their sight ! 
 
 Oh then, through the soul of the Singer, a pity 
 so vast 
 Mixed with his anguish that, smiting anew 
 on his lyre, 
 He caught up the sorrows of hell in his utterance 
 at last. 
 Comprehending the need of them all in his 
 own great desire. 
 
28 OBPHEUS AND EURYDICE 
 
 V 
 
 And they that were dead, in his radiant music, 
 heard the moaning of doves in the olden 
 Golden-girdled purple pinewood, heard the 
 moan of the roaming sea ; 
 Heard the chant of the soft-winged songsters, 
 nesting now in the fragrant golden 
 Olden haunted blossoming bowers of lovers 
 that wandered in Arcady; < 
 
 Saw the soft blue veils of shadow floating over 
 the billowy grasses 
 Under the crisp white curling clouds that 
 sailed and trailed through the melting 
 blue ; 
 Heard once more the quarrel of lovers above 
 them pass, as a lark-song passes. 
 Light and bright, till it vanished away in 
 an eyebright heaven of silvery dew. 
 
ORPHEUS AND EUBTDICE 29 
 
 White as a dream of Aphrodite, supple and sweet 
 as a rose in blossom, 
 Fair and fleet as a fawn that shakes the dew 
 from the fern at break of day; 
 Wreathed with the clouds of her dusky hair, that 
 kissed and clung to her sun-bright bosom, 
 On through the deserts of hell she came, and 
 the brown air bloomed with the light of 
 May. 
 
 On through the deserts of hell she came; for 
 over the fierce and frozen meadows 
 Pleaded ever the Voice of voices, calling his 
 love by her golden name ; 
 So she arose from her grave in the darkness, 
 and up through the wailing fires and 
 shadows. 
 On by chasm and cliff and cavern, out of the 
 horrors of death she came. 
 
30 OBPHEUS AND EURYBICE j 
 
 Then had she followed him, then had he won her, 
 striking a chord that should echo for ever, 
 Had he been steadfast only a Httle, nor 
 paused in the great transcendent song; 
 But ere they had won to the glory of day, he 
 came to the brink of the flaming river 
 And ceased, to look on his love a moment, a 
 little moment, and over long. 
 
 O'er Phlegethon he stood: 
 Below him roared and flamed 
 
 The flood 
 For utmost anguish named. 
 
 And lo, across the night, 
 The shining form he knew 
 
 With light 
 Swift footsteps upward drew. 
 
ORPHEUS AND EURTDfCE 31 
 
 Up through the desolate lands 
 She stole, a ghostly star, 
 
 With hands 
 Outstretched to him afar. 
 
 With arms outstretched, she came 
 In yearning majesty. 
 
 The same 
 Royal Eurydice. 
 
 Up through the ghastly dead 
 She came, with shining eyes 
 
 And red 
 Sweet lips of child-surprise. 
 
 Up through the wizened crowds 
 She stole, as steals the moon 
 
 Through clouds 
 Of flowery mist in June. 
 
 He gazed : he ceased to smite 
 The golden-chorded lyre : 
 
32 OBPHEUS AND EURTJDICE 
 
 Delight 
 Consumed his heart with fire. 
 
 Though in that deadly land 
 His task was but half-done, 
 
 His hand 
 Drooped, and the fight half won. 
 
 He saw the breasts that glowed, 
 The fragrant clouds of hair ; 
 
 They flowed 
 Around him like a snare. 
 
 O^er Phlegethon he stood, 
 For utmost anguish named : 
 
 The flood 
 Below him roared and flximed 
 
 Out of his hand the lyre 
 Suddenly slipped and fell: 
 
 The fire 
 Acclaimed it into hell. 
 
ORPHEUS AND EUBTDICE 33 
 
 The night grew dark again : 
 There came a bitter cry 
 
 Of pain, 
 Oh, Love, once more I die ! 
 
 And lo, the earth-dawn broke, 
 And Hke a wraith she fled: 
 
 He woke 
 Alone: his love was dead. 
 
 He woke on earth : the day 
 Shone coldly : at his side 
 
 There lay 
 The body of his bride. 
 
 VII 
 
 Only now when the purple vintage bubbles and 
 winks in the autumn glory. 
 Only now when the great white oxen drag the 
 weight of the harvest home, 
 
 D 
 
84 ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 
 
 Sunburnt labourers, under the star of the sun- 
 set, sing as an old-world story- 
 How two pale and thwarted lovers ever 
 through Arcady still must roam. 
 
 Faint as the silvery mists of morning over the 
 peaks that the noonday parches, 
 On through the haunts of the gloaming musk- 
 rose, down to the rivers that glisten be- 
 low, 
 
 Ever they wander from meadow to pinewood, 
 under the whispering woodbine arches. 
 Faint as the mist of the dews of the dusk 
 when violets dream and the moon-winds 
 blow. 
 
 Though the golden lute of Orpheus gathered the 
 splendours of earth and heaven, 
 All the golden greenwood notes and all the 
 chimes of the changing sea, 
 
ORPHEUS AND EUETBICE 35 
 
 Old men over the fires of winter murmur again 
 that he was not given 
 The steadfast heart divine to rule that infinite 
 freedom of harmony. 
 
 Therefore he failed, say they; but we, that have 
 no wisdom, can only remember 
 How through the purple perfumed pinewoods 
 white Eurydice roamed and sung: 
 How through the whispering gold of the wheat, 
 where the poppy burned like a crimson 
 ember, 
 Down to the valley in beauty she came, and 
 under her coming the flowers up-sprung. 
 
 Down to the valley she came, for far and far 
 below in the dreaming meadows 
 Pleaded ever the Voice of voices, calUng his 
 love by her golden name; 
 
36 OBPHEUS AND EURTDICE 
 
 So she arose from her home in the hills, and 
 down through the blossoms that danced 
 with their shadows 
 Out of the blue of the dreaming distance, 
 down to the heart of her lover she came. 
 
FROM THE SHORE 
 
 I 
 
 Love, so strangely lost and found, 
 
 Love, beyond these Gates of Death, 
 Love, immortally re-crowned, 
 
 Love, who swayest this mortal breath, 
 Sweetlier to thy lover's ear 
 
 Steals the tale that ne'er was told: 
 Bright-eyes, ah, thine arms are near, 
 
 Nearer now than e'er of old. 
 
 n 
 
 When on earth thy hands were mine. 
 
 Mine to hold for evermore. 
 Oft we watched the sunset shine 
 
 Lonelier from this wave-beat shore; 
 Pent in prison-cells of clay 
 
 37 
 
38 FROM THE SHORE 
 
 Time had power on thee and me, 
 Thou and heaven are one to-day 
 One with earth and sky and sea. 
 
 Ill 
 Indivisible and one 
 
 Beauty hath unlocked the gate, 
 Oped the portals of the sun, 
 
 Burst the bars of Time and Fate: 
 Violets in the dawn of Spring 
 
 Hold the secret of thine eyes; 
 Lilies bare their breasts and fling 
 
 Scents of thee from Paradise. 
 
 IV 
 
 Brooklets have thy talk by rote, 
 Thy farewells array the West; 
 
 Fur that clasped thee round the throat 
 Leaps — a squirrel — to its nest : 
 
 Backward from a sparkling eye. 
 
FROM THE SHORE 39 
 
 Half-forgotten jests return 
 Where the rabbit lollops by- 
 Hurry-scurry through the fern. 
 
 V 
 
 ■Roses where I lonely pass, 
 
 Brush my brow and breathe thy kiss; 
 Zephyrs whispering through the grass 
 
 Lure me on from bliss to bliss; 
 Here thy robe is rustling close, 
 
 There thy fluttering lace is blown; 
 All the tide of beauty flows 
 
 Tributary to thine own. 
 
 VI 
 
 Birds that sleek their shining throats 
 
 Capture every curve from thee, 
 All their golden warbled notes — 
 
 Fragments of thy melody — 
 Crowding, clustering, one by one. 
 
40 FROM THE SHORE 
 
 Build it upward, spray by spray, 
 Till the lavrock in the sun 
 
 Pours thy rapture down the day. 
 
 VII 
 
 Silver birch and purple pine, 
 
 Crumpled fern and crimson rose 
 Flash to feel their beauty thine, 
 
 Clasp and fold thee, warm and close; 
 Every beat and gleam of wings 
 
 Holds thee in its bosom furled, 
 All that chatters, laughs and sings 
 
 Darts thy sparkle round the world. 
 
 VIII 
 
 LovBy so strangely lost and found, 
 Love, beyond these Gates of Death, 
 
 Love, immortally re-crowned, 
 
 Love, who swayest this mortal breath, 
 
FBOM THE SHOBE 41 
 
 Sweetlier to thy lover's ear 
 
 Steals the tale that ne'er was told : 
 Bright-eyes, ah, thine arms are near, 
 
 Nearer now than e'er of old. 
 
THE RETURN 
 
 I 
 
 O HEDGES white with laughing may, 
 
 O meadows where we met, 
 This heart of mine must break to-day 
 
 Unless ye, too, forget. 
 
 II 
 
 Breathe not so sweet, breathe not so sweet, 
 
 But swiftly let me pass 
 Across the fields that felt her feet 
 
 In the old time that was! 
 
 Ill 
 A year ago, but one brief year, 
 
 happy flowering land, 
 We wandered here and whispered there 
 
 And hand was warm in hand. 
 
 42 
 
THE BETUBN 43 
 
 IV 
 
 crisp white clouds beyond the hill, 
 
 lavrock in the skies, 
 Why do ye all remember still 
 
 Her bright uplifted eyes? 
 
 V 
 
 Red heather on the windy moor, 
 
 Wild thyme beside the way, 
 White jasmine by the cottage door, 
 
 Harden your hearts to-day. 
 
 VI 
 
 Smile not so kind, smile not so kind, 
 
 Thou happy, haunted place. 
 Or thou wilt strike these poor eyes blind 
 
 With her remembered face. 
 
ON A RAILWAY PLATFORM 
 
 A DRIZZLE of drifting rain 
 
 And a blurred white lamp o'er head, 
 That shines as my love will shine again, 
 
 In the world of the dead. 
 
 Round me the wet black night. 
 And, afar in the Hmitless gloom. 
 
 Crimson and green, two blossoms of light, 
 Two stars of doom. 
 
 But the night of death is a-flare 
 
 With a torch of back-blown fire 
 And the coal-black deeps of the quivering air 
 
 Rend for my soul's desire. 
 
 Leap, heart, for the pulse and the roar 
 
 And the lights of the streaming train 
 44 
 
ON A BAILWAT PLATFORM 45 
 
 That leaps with the heart of thy love once more 
 Out of the mist and the rain ; 
 
 For the thousand panes of light 
 
 And the faces pale with mist 
 Streaming out of the desolate night 
 
 In ruby and amethyst; 
 
 Out of the desolate years 
 
 The thundering pageant flows; 
 But I see no more than a window of tears 
 
 Which her face has turned to a rose. 
 
AN OLD SONG ENDED 
 
 How should I your true love know 
 
 From another one? — 
 By his cockle-hat and staff 
 
 And his sandal shoon. — 
 
 Wherefore hath he roamed so far, 
 Lady, from your hand? — 
 
 Love's a pilgrim, and he comes 
 Out of Holy Land. — 
 
 Nay; but he is dead, lady, 
 He is dead and gone : — 
 
 Seek his grave and lay your face 
 Down upon the stone. — 
 
 Shall I find him if he sleep 
 
 In a nameless grave 
 46 
 
AN OLD SONG ENDED 47 
 
 Where over many and many an one 
 The tall wet grasses wave? — 
 
 Breathe my name whereas you go. 
 
 If you hear a sound 
 Struggling like a stifled cry 
 
 Underneath the ground, 
 
 Whisper but a word to him, 
 
 Tell him my despair: 
 If he riseth from the dead, 
 
 Then my love is there. 
 
LOVE'S GHOST 
 
 I 
 
 Thy house is dark and still : I stand once more 
 
 Beside the marble door. 
 It opens as of old ! Thy pale, pale face 
 
 Peers thro' the narrow space. 
 Thy hands are mine, thy hands are mine to hold, 
 
 Just as of old. 
 
 II 
 ' Hush ! hush ! or God will hear us ! Ah, speak 
 
 low 
 
 As Love spake long ago.* 
 
 'Sweet, sweet, are these thine arms, thy breast, 
 
 thy hair 
 
 Assuaging my despair. 
 
 Assuaging the long thirst, quenching the tears 
 
 Of all these years? 
 48 
 
love's ghost 49 
 
 III 
 
 ^Thy house is deep and still: God cannot hear; 
 
 Sweet, have no fear ! 
 Are not thy cold lips crushed against my kiss? 
 
 Love gives us this. 
 Not God' ; but 'Ah/ she moans, 'God hears us ! 
 Speak, 
 
 Speak low, hide cheek on cheek/ 
 
 IV 
 
 0, then what eager whisperings, hoarded long, 
 
 Too sweet for any song. 
 What treasured news to tell, what hopes, what 
 fears. 
 
 Gleaned from the barren years. 
 What raptures wrung from out the heart of pain, 
 
 What wild farewells again. 
 
 V 
 
 Whose pity is this? Ah, quick, one kiss! 
 Once more 
 
60 love's ghost 
 
 Closes the marble door ! 
 I grope here in the darkness all alone ! 
 
 Across the cold white stone, 
 Over thy tomb, a sudden starlight gleams: 
 
 Death gave me this — in dreams. 
 
NIOBE 
 
 I 
 
 How like the sky she bends above her child, 
 One with the great horizon of her pain! 
 No sob from our low seas where woe runs wild, 
 
 No weeping cloud, no momentary rain, 
 Can mar the heaven-high visage of her grief. 
 That frozen anguish, proud, majestic, dumb ! 
 She stoops in pity above the labouring earth. 
 Knowing how fond, how brief 
 Is all its hope, past, present and to come. 
 She stoops in pity, and yearns to assuage 
 its dearth. 
 
 n 
 
 Through that fair face the whole dark universe 
 
 Speaks, as a thorn-tree speaks thro' one white 
 
 flower; 
 
 51 
 
52 NIOBE 
 
 And all those wrenched Promethean souls that 
 curse 
 The gods, but cannot die before their hour, 
 Find utterance in her beauty. That fair head 
 Bows over all earth's graves. It was her cry 
 Men heard in Rama when the twisted ways 
 With children's blood ran red ! 
 Her silence utters all the sea would sigh; 
 And, in her face, the whole earth's anguish 
 prays. 
 
 Ill 
 It is the pity, the pity of human love 
 That strains her face, upturned to meet the 
 doom. 
 And her deep bosom, like a snow-white dove 
 
 Frozen upon its nest, ne'er to resume 
 Its happy breathing o'er the golden brace 
 Whose fostering was her death. Ay, death 
 alone 
 
NIOBE 53 
 
 Can break the anguished horror of that 
 spell ! 
 The sorrow on her face 
 Is sealed ; the living flesh is turned to stone : 
 She knows all, all that Life and Time can 
 tell. 
 
 IV 
 
 Ah, yet, her woman's love, so vast, so tender; 
 
 Her woman's body, hurt by every dart; 
 Braving the thunder, still, still hide the slender 
 Soft frightened child beneath her mighty 
 heart ! 
 She is all one mute immortal cry, one brief 
 Infinite pang of such victorious pain 
 That she transcends the heavens and bows 
 them down ! 
 The majesty of grief 
 Is hers, and her dominion must remain 
 Eternal. God nor man usurps that crown. 
 
THE LAST OF THE TITANS 
 
 Over what seemed a gulf of glimmering sea, 
 
 Huger than hugest Himalay arose 
 
 Atlas, on weary shoulders heaving dark 
 
 The burden of the heavens, the heavy broad 
 
 Empurpled floors o' the roseate golden realm 
 
 Unseen, where gods like living light in light 
 
 Flowed and forgot the sorrows of the world. 
 
 And his drooped head was bowed into the gloom, 
 
 Bowed like a mountain, crushing on his breast 
 
 A clotted beard of many pinewoods. Dark, 
 
 Immeasurably dark his body's bulk 
 
 Sank through the gulfs of Space; but pale as 
 
 death 
 
 His face gleamed over Africa, his face, 
 
 A mask of living marble, bending down 
 
 Eyes like deep wells of soft compassionate gloom. 
 54 
 
THE LAST OF TEE TITANS 55 
 
 His cheeks were furrowed and writhen like 
 
 rain-washed crags 
 With fierce ravines of long and age-long tears 
 Whereon the pale procession of the stars 
 That round him moved in mockery sometimes cast 
 A dreary light of anguish; but sometimes 
 The white clouds glimmering crept to comfort 
 
 him, 
 And to be comforted, by shutting out 
 The keen oppression of those ghttering ranks 
 And dread eternities. They crept hke sheep 
 Round some Titanic shepherd. In his breast 
 They nestled; but whene'er his mighty hands 
 In love would draw them closer, they escaped, 
 Eluded the fond clasp. 
 And, ever drawing nigh him all night long, 
 Wandered away for ever as they came. 
 Beneath him, like a tawny panther-skin 
 The great Sahara slept: beyond it lay, 
 
56 THE LAST OF THE TITANS 
 
 Parcelled and plotted out like tiny fields, 
 The princedoms and the kingdoms of this earth, 
 Mountains like frozen wrinkles on a sea, 
 And seas like rain-pools in a rutted road 
 Dwindling beneath his loneliness. Above 
 The chariots of ten thousand thousand suns 
 Conspired to make him lonelier and rolled 
 Their flaming wheels remote, so that they seemed, 
 E'en AUoth and Fomalhaut, no more 
 Than dust of diamonds in the abysmal gloom. 
 So from a huger lonehness he gazed 
 Over the world where, faint as morning mists 
 Drifting thro' shadowy battles on the hills. 
 Drifting thro' many a pageant touched with red, 
 Cities of men and nations passed away. 
 
 But once, from out a crimson-glooming dawn, 
 A light appeared as of a distant star 
 Flying towards him, growing as it came; 
 
THE LAST OF THE TITANS 57 
 
 Till now it seemed a naked youth up-borne 
 On silver dove-winged sandals, like a god. 
 Then, then as moans the thunder through the 
 
 night, 
 The heart of Atlas moaned — 'Why art thou 
 
 come 
 To look upon my sorrow? Nay, I know, 
 Perseus, thou son of the everlasting gods, 
 I know thee who thou art ! Why comest thou 
 
 thus 
 To mock me with the sight of that high hope 
 Which Atlas never knew? Why comest thou 
 
 thus 
 In youth and beauty through the crimson dawn V 
 And Perseus answered gently as a man 
 Speaking to one in pain: 'I did not come 
 To mock thee, lord: I come to seek and pluck 
 The heart from out the land without a name. 
 The land without any order, where the hght 
 
58 THE LAST OF THE TITANS 
 
 Is even as darkness. I would seek and slay 
 Medusa — her whose foul enchantments draw 
 Man's heart into the abominable pit 
 Strangled and' . . .then that other — 'Many 
 
 a man, 
 Yea, many a hero have I seen go by 
 The glory of whose face was like a god's 
 Upon that quest; but I have never seen 
 The face of one returning. Knowest thou not 
 So terrible is the tempest of her beauty 
 That if thine eyes but look upon her face 
 Thy flesh and soul shall stiffen into stone. 
 Her breasts are girt about with triple brass 
 Against all mortal steel.' And Perseus — 'Yea, 
 I know; but she — the brightest queen of 
 
 heaven — 
 Athena, gave me mine immortal sword. 
 The sword of knowledge that can shear through 
 
 brass 
 
THE LAST OF THE TITANS 59 
 
 And triple steel as lightning cleaves the night. 
 
 Athena gave me mine immortal shield, 
 
 The shield of truth : and, mirrored in that gleam, 
 
 The face of even Medusa hath no power 
 
 To hurt me. I will look not on her face 
 
 Save in the shield of truth : I shall not smite her 
 
 Save with the sword of knowledge, bathed in 
 
 heaven. 
 I pray thee show me now that bitter road. 
 My death-road as thou sayest; for I will go 
 And triumph and return.^ And Atlas said 
 ^Yea; if I show thee, Perseus, wilt thou give 
 One grace if thou return, one gift of grace 
 To me, world- wearied : I desire to rest. 
 I am weary of bearing this exceeding weight 
 Of gloom eternal, weary of searching heaven 
 With prayers for pity, weary of knowledge, 
 
 weary 
 Of watching little men a little hour 
 
60 THE LAST OF THE TITANS 
 
 Beneath the pondering of prodigious heavens 
 Contend Hke ants for little mole-hill realms 
 And glow-worm glories, crowns contemptible ; 
 But thou can'st give me peace, if thou return. 
 Nay, Perseus, I will tell thee when thou comest ; 
 But swear as thou dost love thy fatherland 
 Thou'lt not deny me this if thou return.' 
 And Perseus swore that oath with steadfast eyes, 
 And Atlas pointed out the baleful road 
 Across the shapeless land without a name. 
 
 White as a snow-flake on the weird black wings 
 Of many a wind fulfilled with hideous dreams. 
 Misshapen horrors of the ultimate gloom,. 
 He flew, till as they gaped with threatening jaws 
 Of flame around his path he donned the helm 
 Wrung from the realms of Pluto, the dark helm 
 Wrought in the lands of death, which whoso 
 wears 
 
THE LAST OF THE TITANS 61 
 
 Is bodiless and invisible as the soul 
 
 That hath gone over Lethe. Him no more 
 
 Can death affright nor mortal doom affray. 
 
 League after league he sped till from the depths, 
 Up through the darkness came a great soft sound 
 Of breathing, like the breathing of the sea; 
 And, shuddering, he upheld the polished shield 
 And gazed on it as on some magic moon 
 Wherein he saw the glimmering world below 
 Mirrored; beheld what none hath ever seen 
 And lived, since the beginning of the world. 
 ^0, horrible,' he moaned, '0, beautiful. 
 Beautiful hell'; for in the shield he saw 
 Upon what seemed a plain of steaming filth 
 A Titan woman, lying supine and white; 
 White as a fallen column of some huge 
 Temple of Ombos, hugest City of earth. 
 Her body a field of lilies and her breasts 
 
62 THE LAST OF THE TITANS 
 
 Two snowy hillocks tipt with crimson dawn; 
 Her flank a marble buttress beautiful 
 Couched in the foul abyss; her regal face 
 Calm with the leonine languor of the Sphinx. 
 On either side, close huddled to her flank 
 And in the steam through which she glimmered 
 
 pale 
 A dark shape, indistinguishable bulk 
 Of horror, couched with laps and folds of skin 
 Like those that wrap Behemoth ; and sometimes, 
 Like the fierce flashing of a wrecker's fire, 
 There came a glint of brazen claws and wings. 
 All round them like a forest swept the deep 
 Empurpled masses of her tangled hair. 
 Anon with slow and sleepy crimson lips. 
 Bright as with blood of heroes, her face turned 
 Smiling to greet each horror with a kiss; 
 And, as she turned, her beauty's palace heaved 
 One rosy marble buttress from the filth 
 
THE LAST OF THE TITANS 63 
 
 Luxuriously a little, the other sank 
 And wallowed deeper. Suddenly her eyes 
 Opened in childhke innocence. The dark 
 Mass of her hair shook round her like a sea. 
 Its purple clouds all clotted and congealed ! 
 And lo, the primal serpents of the slime 
 Huger than Python, hissing, upward curled 
 And floated round her, coil on heavy coil, 
 Beautiful in their horror as they cast 
 Shadows like grape-bloom o'er her breasts' white 
 
 snow 
 And swayed their bloated throats : and then a 
 
 voice 
 From distances beyond the abode of gods 
 Cried, This is She, the Ahominahle, the Queen 
 Of dissolute chaos, knowing not evil or good, 
 Queen of all dark adulteries. Mother of shame. 
 Mother of falsehood, Mother of treachery. 
 Mother of jealousy. Mother of blood and tears, 
 
64 THE LAST OF THE TITANS 
 
 Queen of the ultimate darkness. At that voice 
 Young Perseus gripped the bright immortal 
 
 sword 
 Which grave grey-eyed Athena gave him, gazed 
 Steadfastly on the shield and floated down 
 Quietly as a star-beam into hell. 
 Then, with one prayer to the everlasting gods, 
 Across the roseate hollow of her throat 
 He smote ! The immortal blade like hght thro' 
 
 darkness 
 Flashed, and the blood rolled hissing o'er the 
 
 filth; 
 And wheresoe'er it curled a serpent rose 
 Hissing a-gape; then with one hideous clap 
 Of thunder those two monstrous bulks arose, 
 Mountainous, like two foul prodigious swine 
 From out their wallowing beds i' the clinging 
 
 mire; 
 And from what seemed their eyes a ruddy light 
 
THE LAST OF THE TITANS 65 
 
 Of vengeance flashed, as of wild crimson torches 
 Far-sunken in a thick and savage wood, 
 Yet imminent; but Perseus, with one hand 
 Clutching the tangled gloom of that dire head 
 Soared upward and the silver sandals bore 
 The hero and his burden far away. 
 And though with heavy clang of brazen wings 
 The Gorgons followed, soon they dropped 
 
 behind 
 And loomed no larger than two carrion flies 
 Against the red horizon; and at last 
 Decayed from sight. And onward Perseus came 
 Triumphantly, a light upon his face 
 As of a god returning, till he saw 
 The mighty shoulders of the world-worn king 
 Atlas, above what seemed a glimmering sea. 
 And up to the grim worn face, furrowed with 
 
 tears 
 He sped, according to his vow; and Atlas 
 
66 THE LAST OF THE TITANS 
 
 Moaned like a distant thunder, ^Art thou come, 
 Perseus, thou son of the everlasting gods? 
 Lift up the head and let me look upon it; 
 For I desire to rest.' And Perseus raised 
 The cold head of Medusa, which no man 
 Had seen and hved; and Atlas looked 
 With weary hungering eyes upon her face. 
 And lo, a sleep of stone, an iron rest 
 And everlasting quiet sealed his eyes. 
 His cheeks were furrowed and writhen rain- 
 washed crags. 
 And his drooped head was bowed into the gloom, 
 A granite mountain, crushing on its breast 
 A clotted beard of many pinewoods. Still 
 Round him the clouds like wandering flocks of 
 
 sheep 
 Around some mighty shepherd creeping close 
 Nestled against his breast ; and all was peace. 
 
THE RIDE OF PHAETHON 
 
 I 
 Forth, from the portals, flow the four immortal 
 steeds 
 Tossing the splendour of their manes. 
 While the dazzled Phaethon reels o'er the flash- 
 ing golden wheels 
 Grasping the fourfold reins. 
 
 II 
 
 Ah, beneath the burning hooves how the dark- 
 ness cowers down 
 As the great steeds mount and soar; 
 How the twilight springs away from the wheels 
 like spray 
 And the night like a battle-broken host is 
 driven before. 
 
 67 
 
68 THE BIBE OF PHAETHON 
 
 III 
 
 And swifter now, ah, swift, as the eight great 
 shoulders hft 
 And leap up the rolling sky, 
 And the steeds in whitest glory ramp and trample 
 on the night 
 And the quivering haunches thrust, they 
 mount and fly. 
 
 IV 
 
 Ah, the beauty of their scorn ! How the blood- 
 red nostrils burn. 
 Breathing out the dawn and the day; 
 How the long cloud ranks foam in fury from 
 their flanks 
 And the heavens for their hooves make way. 
 
 V 
 
 And higher now and higher, thro' a sea of cloudy 
 fire 
 The chariot sways and swings, 
 
THE RIDE OF PHAETHON 69 
 
 And the heart of Phaethon leaps, as up the 
 radiant steeps 
 They surge, and drunk with triumph, he lifts 
 his head and sings. 
 
 VI 
 
 He sings, he sways and reels o'er the flashing 
 golden wheels. 
 For he sees far, far below, 
 The little dwindling earth and the land that gave 
 him birth 
 And the Northlands white with snow. 
 
 VII 
 
 And he shakes the maddened reins o'er the 
 gleaming seas and plains 
 And the chariot swings and sways. 
 Swifter, swifter he would fly than the Master of 
 the sky. 
 The Lord of the sunbeams and bays. 
 
70 THE BIDE OF PHAETHON 
 
 VIII 
 
 And each high immortal steed that had never 
 known the need 
 Of Apollo's lash or goad, 
 Tossed the cataract of its mane o'er its quivering 
 croup again ' ' % 
 And ramped on the sun-bright road. 
 
 IX 
 
 Beautiful, insolent, fierce. 
 
 For an instant, a whirlwind of radiance, 
 Tossing their manes. 
 
 Rampant over the dazzled universe 
 They struggled, while Phaethon, Phaethon tugged 
 at the reins. 
 
 X 
 
 Then, like a torrent, a tempest of splendour, a 
 hurricane rapture of wrath and derision 
 Down they galloped, a great white thunder of 
 glory, down the terrible sky; 
 
THE BIDE OF PHAETHON 71 
 
 Till earth with her rivers and seas and meadows 
 
 broadened, and filled up the field of their 
 
 vision 
 
 And mountains leapt from the plains to meet 
 
 them, and all the forests and fields drew nigh. 
 
 XI 
 
 All the bracken and grass of the mountains 
 flamed and the valleys of corn were wasted, 
 All the blossoming forests of Africa withered 
 and shrivelled beneath their flight; 
 Then, then first, those ambrosial Edens of old by 
 the wheels of the Sun were blasted, 
 Leaving a dread Sahara, lonely, burnt and 
 blackened to greet the night. 
 
 XII 
 
 Upward they swerved and swooped once more, 
 the great white steeds, outstretched at the 
 gallop. 
 
72 THE RIDE OF PHAETHON 
 
 The round earth dwindled beneath their 
 flight, the mighty chariot swayed and 
 swung 
 Under the feet of the charioteer, it swung and 
 swayed as a storm-swept shallop 
 Tosses and leaps in the seas, and Phaethon, 
 cowering, close to the sides of it clung. 
 
 XIII 
 
 For now to the stars, to the stars, they surged, 
 and the earth was a dwindling gleam there- 
 under. 
 Yea, now to the home of the Father of gods, 
 and he rose in the wrath that none can quell, 
 
 Beholding the mortal charioteer, and the rolling 
 heavens were rent with his thunder. 
 And Phaethon, smitten, reeled from the 
 chariot ! Backward and out of it, headlong 
 he fell. 
 
THE BIDE OF PHAETHON 73 
 
 XIV 
 
 Down, down, down, down from the glittering 
 heights of the firmament hurled 
 Like a falling star, in a circle of fire, down the 
 sheer abysm of doom, 
 Down to the hiss and the heave of the seas far 
 out on the ultimate verge of the world. 
 That leapt with a roar to meet him, he fell, 
 and they covered him o'er with their glori- 
 ous gloom. 
 Covered him deep with their rolling gloom, 
 Their depths of pitiful gloom. 
 
THE EMPIRE-BUILDERS 
 
 Who are the Empire-builders? They 
 
 Whose desperate arrogance demands 
 A self-reflecting power to sway 
 
 A hundred little selfless lands ? 
 Lord God of battles, ere we bow 
 
 To these and to their soulless lust, 
 Let fall thy thunders on us now 
 
 And strike us equal to the dust. 
 
 Before the stars in heaven were made 
 Our great Commander led us forth ; 
 
 And now the embattled lines are laid 
 To East; to West, to South, to North; 
 
 According as of old He planned 
 
 We take our station in the field, 
 74 
 
THE EMPIRE-BUILDERS 75 
 
 Nor dare to dream we understand 
 The splendour of the swords we wield. 
 
 We know not what the Soul intends 
 
 That lives and moves behind our deeds; 
 We wheel and march to glorious ends 
 
 Beyond the common soldier's needs: 
 And some are raised to high rewards, 
 
 And some by regiments are hurled 
 To die upon the opposing swords 
 
 And sleep — forgotten by the world. 
 
 And not where navies churn the foam, 
 
 Nor called to fields of fierce emprise, 
 In many a country cottage-home. 
 
 The Empire-builder lives and dies: 
 Or through the roaring street he goes • 
 
 A lean and weary City slave 
 The conqueror of a thousand foes 
 
 Who walks, unheeded, to his grave. 
 
76 THE EMPIRE-BUILDEB8 
 
 Leaders unknown of hopes forlorn 
 
 Go past us in the daily mart, 
 With many a shadowy crown of thorn 
 
 And many a kingly broken heart: 
 Though England's banner overhead 
 
 Ever the secret signal flew, 
 We only see its Cross is red 
 
 As children see the skies are blue. 
 
 For all are Empire-builders here. 
 
 Whose hearts are true to heaven and home 
 And, year by slow revolving year. 
 
 Fulfil the duties as they come; 
 So simple seems the task, and yet 
 
 Many for this are crucified; 
 Ay, and their brother-men forget 
 
 The simple wounds in palm and side. 
 
 For hearts that to their home are true 
 Where'er the tides of power may flow, 
 
THE EMPIRE-BUILDEB8 77 
 
 Have built a kingdom great and new 
 Which Time nor Fate shall overthrow; 
 
 These are the Empire-builders, these 
 Annex where none shall say them nay, 
 
 Beyond the world's uncharted seas, 
 Realms that can never pass away. 
 
NELSON'S YEAR — 1905 
 
 I 
 
 'New Year, be good to England !' 
 This year, a hundred years ago, 
 The world attended, breathless, on the gathermg 
 pomp of war. 
 While England and her deathless dead, 
 with all their mighty hearts aglow, 
 Swept onward like the dawn of doom to triumph 
 at Trafalgar; 
 Then the world was hushed to wonder 
 As the cannon's dying thunder 
 Broke out again in muffled peals across the 
 heaving sea, 
 And home the Victor came at last. 
 Home, home, with England's flag half- 
 mast, 
 
 78 
 
NELSON'S TEAR — 1905 79 
 
 That never dipped to foe before, on Nelson's 
 Victory. 
 
 II 
 
 God gave this year to England ; 
 
 And what God gives He takes again ; 
 God gives us Hfe, God gives us death: our 
 victories have wings. 
 He gives us love and in its heart He hides 
 the whole world's heart of pain I 
 We gain by loss : impartially the eternal balance 
 swings ! 
 Ay ; in the fire we cherish 
 Our thoughts and dreams may perish; 
 Yet shall it bum for England's sake triumphant 
 as of old ! 
 What sacrifice could gain for her 
 Our own shall still maintain for her 
 And hold the gates of freedom wide that take no 
 keys of gold. 
 
80 nelson's tear — 1905 
 
 III 
 God gave this year to England; 
 Her eyes are far too bright for tears 
 Of sorrow; by her silent dead she kneels, too 
 proud for pride; 
 Their blood, their love, have bought her 
 right to claim the new imperial years 
 In England's name for Freedom, in whose love 
 her children died; 
 In whose love, though hope may dwindle, 
 Love and brotherhood shall kindle 
 Between the striving nations as a choral song 
 takes fire. 
 Till new hope, new faith, new wonder 
 Cleave the clouds of doubt asunder. 
 And speed the union of mankind in one divine 
 desire. 
 
 IV 
 
 Hasten the Kingdom, England ; 
 This year across the listening world 
 
nelson's tear — 1905 81 
 
 There came a sound of mingled tears where 
 victory and defeat 
 Clasped hands; and Peace — among the 
 dead — stood wistfully, with white 
 wings furled, 
 Knowing the strife was idle; for the night and 
 morning meet, 
 Yet there is no disunion 
 In heaven's divine communion 
 As through the gates of twilight the harmonious 
 morning pours ; 
 Ah, God speed that grander morrow 
 When the world's divinest sorrow 
 Shall show how Love stands knocking at the 
 world's unopened doors. 
 
 V 
 
 Hasten the Kingdom, England ! . • 
 
 Look up across the narrow seas, 
 
 G 
 
82 nelson's YEAB — 1905 
 
 Across the great white nations to thy dark 
 imperial throne 
 Where now three hundred million souls 
 attend on thine august decrees 
 Ah, bow thine head in humbleness, the Kingdom 
 is thine own: 
 Not for the pride or power 
 God gave thee this in dower; 
 But, now the West and East have met and wept 
 their mortal loss. 
 Now that their tears have spoken 
 And the long dumb spell is broken. 
 Is it nothing that thy banner bears the red 
 eternal cross ? 
 
 VI 
 
 Ay ! Lift the flag of England ; 
 And lo, that Eastern cross is there. 
 Veiled with a hundred meanings as our English 
 eyes are veiled; 
 
nelson's tear — 1905 83 
 
 Yet to the grander dawn we move oblivi- 
 ous of the sign we bear, 
 Oblivious of the heights we climb until the last 
 is scaled ; 
 Then with all the earth before us 
 And the great cross floating o'er us 
 We shall break the sword we forged of old, so 
 weak we were and blind; 
 While the inviolate heaven discloses 
 England's Rose of all the roses 
 Dawning wide and ever wider o'er the kingdom 
 of mankind. 
 
 VII 
 
 Hasten the Kingdom, England; 
 For then all nations shall be one; 
 One as the ordered stars are one that sing upon 
 their way. 
 One with the rhythmic glories of the swing- 
 ing sea and the rolling sun. 
 
84 nelson's teab — wos 
 
 One with the flow of life and death, the tides of 
 night and day; 
 One with all dreams of beauty, 
 One with all laws of duty ; 
 One with the weak and helpless while the one 
 sky burns above; 
 Till eyes by tears made glorious 
 Look up at last victorious 
 And lips that starved break open in one song of 
 life and love. 
 
 VIII 
 
 'New Year, be good to England;' 
 And when the Spring returns again 
 Rekindle in our English hearts the universal 
 Spring, 
 That we may wait in faith upon the former 
 and the latter rain, 
 Till all waste places burgeon and the wildernesses 
 sing; 
 
nelson's tear — 1905 85 
 
 Pour the glory of thy pity 
 Through the dark and troubled city; 
 Pour the splendour of thy beauty over wood and 
 meadow fair ; 
 May the God of battles guide thee 
 And the Christ-child walk beside thee 
 With a word of peace for England in the dawn 
 of Nelson's Year. 
 
IN TIME OF WAR 
 
 I 
 
 To-night o'er Bagshot heath the purple heather 
 Rolls like dumb thunder to the splendid West ; 
 
 And mighty ragged clouds are massed together 
 Above the scarred old common's broken 
 breast; 
 
 And there are hints of blood between the 
 boulders, 
 Red glints of fiercer blossom, bright and bold; 
 And round the shaggy mounds and sullen shoul- 
 ders 
 The gorse repays the sun with savage gold. 
 
 And now, as in the West the light grows holy. 
 And all the hollows of the heath grow dim, 
 
 86 
 
IN TIME OF WAR 87 
 
 Far off, a sulky rumble rolls up slowly 
 Where guns at practice growl their evening 
 hymn. 
 
 And here and there in bare clean yellow spaces 
 The print of horse-hoofs Hke an answering cry 
 
 Strikes strangely on the sense from lonely places 
 Where there is nought but empty heath and 
 sky. 
 
 The print of warlike hoofs, where now no figure 
 Of horse or man along the sky's red rim 
 
 Breaks on the low horizon's rough black rigour 
 To make the gorgeous waste less wild and 
 grim; 
 
 Strangely the hoof-prints strike, a Crusoe's 
 wonder, 
 Framed with sharp furze amongst the footless 
 fells 
 
88 IN TIME OF WAR 
 
 A menace and a mystery, rapt asunder, 
 As if the whole wide world contained nought 
 else, — 
 
 Nought but the grand despair of desolation 
 
 Between us and that wild, how far, how near, 
 Where, clothed with thunder, nation grapples 
 nation, 
 And Slaughter grips the clay-cold hand of 
 Fear. 
 
 II 
 
 And far above the purple heath the sunset stars 
 awaken. 
 And ghostly hosts of cloud across the West 
 begin to stream. 
 And all the low soft winds with muffled cannon- 
 ades are shaken. 
 And all the blood-red blossom draws aloof 
 into a dream: 
 
IN TIME OF WAR 89 
 
 A dream — no more — and round the dream the 
 clouds are curled together; 
 A dream of two great stormy hosts embat- 
 tled in the sky; 
 For there against the low red heavens each 
 purple clump of heather 
 Becomes a serried host of spears around a 
 battle-cry; 
 
 Becomes the distant battle-field or brings the 
 dream so near it 
 That, almost, as the purple smoke around 
 them reels and swims, 
 A thousand grey-Hpped faces flash — ah, hark, 
 - the heart can hear it — 
 The sharp command, the clash of steel, the 
 sudden sough of limbs. 
 
 And through the purple thunders there are silent 
 shadows creeping 
 
90 IJSr TIME OF WAR 
 
 With murderous gleams of light, and then — 
 
 a mighty leaping roar 
 Where foe and foe are met ; and then — a long 
 
 low sound of weeping 
 As Death laughs out from sea to sea, another 
 
 fight is o'er. 
 
 Another fight — but ah, how much is over ? 
 Night descending 
 Draws o'er the scene her ghastly moon-shot 
 veil with piteous hands; 
 But all around the bivouac-glare the shadowy 
 pickets wending 
 See sights, hear sounds that only war's own 
 madness understands. 
 
 No circle of the accursed dead where dreaming 
 Dante wandered. 
 No city of death's eternal dole could match 
 this mortal world 
 
IN TIME OF WAR 91 
 
 Where men, before the living soul and quivering 
 flesh are sundered, 
 Through all the bestial shapes of pain to one 
 wide grave are hurled. 
 
 But in the midst for those who dare beyond the 
 fringe to enter 
 Be sure one kingly figure lies with pale and 
 blood-soiled face, 
 And round his brows a ragged crown of thorns; 
 and in the centre 
 Of those pale folded hands and feet the sigil 
 of his grace. 
 
 See, how the pale limbs, marred and scarred in 
 
 love's lost battle, languish; 
 See how the splendid passion still smiles 
 
 quietly from his eyes; 
 Come, come and see a king indeed, who triumphs 
 
 in his anguish, 
 
92 IN TIME OF WAR 
 
 Who conquers here in utter loss beneath the 
 eternal skies. 
 
 For unto lips so deadly calm what answer shall 
 be given? 
 Oh pale, pale king so deadly still beneath the 
 unshaken stars, 
 Who shall deny thy kingdom here, though 
 heaven and earth were riven 
 With the last roar of onset in the world's 
 intestine wars ? 
 
 All round him reeks the obscene red hell — the 
 scream of haggled horses. 
 The curse, the moan, the tossing arms, the 
 hideous twisted forms. 
 Where, as the surgeons call up life's last pitiful 
 resources. 
 The darkness heaves around them like a mass 
 of mangled worms. 
 
m TIME OF WAB 93 
 
 ^Life, doctor, life!' ^Be wise; you'd better 
 die : 'twill soon be over/ — 
 The blackened trunk drops guttering back, the 
 mouth is dumb again: 
 * What use were life to you, my lad ? she wouldn't 
 know her lover. 
 And cruelty here is pity's best — to put you 
 out of pain.' 
 
 And far away in lonely homes the lamp of hope 
 
 is burning. 
 All night the white-faced women wait with 
 
 aching eyes of prayer. 
 All night the little children dream of father's 
 
 glad returning; 
 
 All night he lies beneath the stars and — 
 dreams no more out there. 
 
 Only the senseless clay-cold hand may clasp 
 some crumpled letter, — 
 
94 IN TIME OF WAB 
 
 A lantern — see — the big round scrawl, the 
 
 child's long-studied phrase' 
 ' When Dadda comes again ... his girl will try 
 
 so much much better : 
 She'll be much taller, too; and much more 
 
 grown up in her ways.' 
 
 The laugh is Death's; he laughs as erst o'er 
 hours that England cherished, 
 ^ Count up, count up the stricken homes that 
 wail the first-born son. 
 Count by your starved and fatherless the tale 
 of what hath perished ; 
 Then gather with your foes and ask if you — 
 or I — have won.' 
 
 Ill 
 
 O'er Bagshot heath it rolls, the old old story, — 
 The great moon dawns; the sunset dies 
 away; 
 
IN TIME OF WAR 95 
 
 Year strengthens year as glory kindles glory 
 From its own sad procession of decay. 
 
 When shall the sun-dawn of the perfect nation, 
 Rise pure and white above the blood-red sea; 
 
 When shall war die and by death's new creation 
 Begin the long-sought world-wide harmony? 
 
 Nearer, still nearer creeps the light we hope for, 
 Yet still eludes our war-worn aching eyes : 
 
 Nearer, still nearer, steals the truth we grope for, 
 Yet, as we think to grasp it, fades and flies. 
 
 The world rolls on; and love and peace are mated: 
 Still on the breast of England, like a star, 
 
 The blood-red lonely heath blows, consecrated, 
 A brooding practice-ground for blood-red war. 
 
 Yet is there nothing out of tune with Nature 
 There, where the skylark showers his earliest 
 song, 
 
96 IN TIME OF WAR 
 
 Where sun and wind have moulded every feature, 
 And one world-music bears each note along. 
 
 There many a brown-winged kestrel swoops or 
 hovers 
 
 In poised and patient quest of his own prey; 
 And there are fern-clad glens where happy lovers 
 
 May kiss the murmuring summer noon away. 
 
 There, as the primal earth was — all is glorious 
 
 Perfect and wise and wonderful in view 
 Of that great heaven through which we rise 
 victorious 
 O'er all that strife and change and death can 
 do. 
 No nation yet has risen o'er earth's first nature ; 
 
 Though love illumed each individual mind, 
 Still, like some dark half-formed primeval 
 creature 
 The fierce mob crawled a thousand years be- 
 hind. 
 
m TIME OF WAR 97 
 
 Still on the standards of the great World-Powers 
 Lion and bear and eagle sullenly brood, 
 
 Whether the slow folds flap o'er halcyon hours 
 Or stream tempestuously o'er fields of blood. 
 
 By war's red evolution we have risen 
 Far, since fierce Erda chose her conquering 
 few, 
 And out of Death's red gates and Time's grey 
 prison 
 They burst, elect from battle, tried and true, 
 
 Tempered like sword-blades; but life's vast 
 procession 
 Has passed beyond the help of war's wild day. 
 The day where now a world in retrogression 
 Goes hurrying down the broad and hopeless 
 way. 
 
 For now Death mocks at youth and love and 
 glory, 
 
 H 
 
98 IN TIME OF WAR 
 
 Chivalry slinks behind his loaded mines, 
 
 With meaner murderous lips War tells her story, 
 And round her cunning brows no laurel shines. 
 
 And here to us the eternal charge is given 
 To rise and make our low world touch God's 
 high: 
 To hasten God's own kingdom, Man's own 
 heaven, 
 And teach Love's grander army how to die. 
 
 No kingdom then, no long-continuing city 
 Shall e'er again be stablished by the sword; 
 
 No blood-bought throne defy the powers of pity. 
 No despot's crown outweigh one helot's word. 
 
 Imperial England, breathe thy marching orders : 
 The great host waits ; the end, the end is close. 
 
 When earth shall know thy peace in all her 
 borders. 
 And all her deserts blossom with thy Rose. 
 
IN TIME OF WAR 99 
 
 Princedoms and peoples rise and flash and perish 
 
 As the dew passes from the flowering thorn ; 
 Yet the one Kingdom that our dreams still 
 cherish 
 Lives in a light that blinds the world's red 
 morn. 
 
 Hasten the Kingdom, England, the days darken; 
 We would not have thee slacken watch or 
 ward, 
 Nor doff thine armour till the whole world 
 hearken. 
 Nor till Time bid thee lay aside the sword. 
 
 Hasten the Kingdom; hamlet, heath, and city. 
 We are all at war, one bleeding bulk of pain ; 
 
 Little we know; but one thing — by God's pity — 
 We know, and know all else on earth is vain. 
 
 We know not yet how much we dare, how little ; 
 We dare not dream of peace ; yet, as at need. 
 
100 IN TIME OF WAR 
 
 England, God help thee, let no jot or tittle 
 Of Love's last law go past thee without heed. 
 
 Who saves his life shall lose it ! The great ages 
 Bear witness — Rome and Babylon and Tyre 
 
 Cry from the dust-stopped lips of all their sages, 
 There is no hope if man can climb no higher. 
 
 England, by God's grace set apart to ponder 
 
 A little while from battle, ah, take heed. 
 Keep watch, keep watch, beside thy sleeping 
 thunder; 
 Call down Christ's pity while those others 
 bleed; 
 
 Waken the God within thee, while the sorrow 
 Of battle surges round a distant shore, 
 
 While Time is thine, lest on some deadly mor- 
 row 
 The moving finger write — hut thine no more. 
 
IN TIME OF WAR 101 
 
 Little we know — but though the advancing 
 aeons 
 Win every painful step by blood and fire, 
 Though tortured mouths must chant the world^s 
 great paeans, 
 And martyred souls proclaim the world's de- 
 sire; 
 
 Though war be nature's engine of rejection, 
 Soon, soon, across her universal verge 
 
 The great surviving host of Time's election 
 Shall into God's diviner light emerge. 
 
 Hasten the Kingdom, England, queen and 
 
 mother; 
 
 Little we know of all Time's works and ways ; 
 
 Yet this, this, this is sure: we need none 
 
 other 
 
 Knowledge or wisdom, hope or aim or praise, 
 
102 IN TIME OF WAB 
 
 But to keep this one stormy banner flying 
 In this one faith that none shall e'er dis- 
 prove, 
 Then drive the embattled world before thee, 
 crying, 
 There is one Emperor, whose name is Love. 
 
TO ENGLAND IN 1907 
 
 (a prayer that she might speak for peace) 
 
 I 
 Now is thy foot set on the splendid wayl 
 Hold this hour fast, though yet the skies be grey: 
 Lift up thy voice to greet the perfect day, 
 Speak, England, speak across the trembling 
 sea. 
 
 E'en now the grandest dawn that ever rose 
 Is flooding heaven with glory: the light grows 
 White as a star where thy keen helmet glows 
 Fronting the morn that sets all nations free. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Speak, from thine island throne ! Here, in thy 
 
 Gate, 
 
 Now, for thy voice alone, the nations wait: 
 103 
 
104 TO ENGLAND IN 1907 
 
 Speak, with the heart that made and keeps thee 
 great, 
 Speak the great word of peace from sea to sea. 
 
 IV 
 
 The nations wait, scarce knowing what they 
 
 need: 
 Cold cunning claims their ears for lust and greed ! 
 The poor and weak, with struggling hands that 
 
 bleed 
 Pray to thee now that thou wilt set them free. 
 
 V 
 
 Thou that hast dared so many a thunder-blast 
 Is all thy vaunted empery so soon past? 
 First of the first, art thou afraid at last 
 To hold thy hands out first across the sea? 
 
 VI 
 
 Not for such fears God gave thee thy rich dower, 
 The sea-wrought sceptre and the imperial power ! 
 
TO ENGLAND IN 1907 105 
 
 Ages have poured their blood for this one hour 
 That thou might'st speak and set the whole 
 world free. 
 
 VII 
 
 The poor and weak uplift their manacled hands 
 To thee, our Mother, our Lady and Queen of 
 
 lands : 
 Anguished in prayer before thy footstool stands 
 Peace, with her white wings glimmering o'er 
 
 the sea. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Others may shrink whose naked frontiers face 
 A million foemen of an alien race; 
 But thou. Imperial, by thy pride of place, 
 0, canst thou falter or fear to set them free? 
 
 IX 
 
 Thou, thou alone canst speak ; thou, thou alone, 
 From the sure citadel of thy rock-bound throne : 
 
106 TO ENGLAND IN 1907 
 
 Trust thy strong heart ; thine island is thine own, 
 Girt with the thunder and lightning of the sea. 
 
 X 
 
 Fools prate of pride where butchered legions fall; 
 Peace has one battle sterner than them all, 
 (England, on thee our ringing trumpets call !) 
 One battle that shall set the whole world free. 
 
 XI 
 
 Speak, speak and act ! The sceptre is in thine 
 
 hand ; 
 Proclaim the reign of love from land to land ; 
 Then, come the world against thee, thou shalt 
 
 stand ! 
 Speak, with the world-wide voice of thine own 
 
 sea. 
 
IN CLOAK OF GREY 
 
 I 
 
 Love's a pilgrim, cloaked in grey, 
 And his feet are pierced and bleeding; 
 
 Have ye seen him pass this way 
 Sorrowfully pleading? 
 
 Ye that weep the world away 
 
 Have ye seen King Love to-day? 
 
 II 
 
 Yea, we saw him; but he came 
 Poppy-crowned and white of limb, 
 
 Song had touched his lips to flame. 
 And his eyes were drowsed and dim; 
 
 And we kissed the hours away 
 
 Till night grew rosier than the day. 
 107 
 
108 IN CLOAK OF GREY 
 
 III 
 
 Hath he left you ? — Yea, he left us 
 
 A little while ago; 
 Of his laughter quite bereft us 
 
 And his limbs of snow: 
 We know not why he went away, 
 Who ruled our revels yesterday ! — 
 
 IV 
 
 Because ye did not understand 
 
 Love Cometh from afar, 
 A pilgrim out of Holy Land, 
 
 Guided by a star; 
 Last night he came in cloak of grey 
 Begging ! Ye knew him not ! He went his way. 
 
A RIDE FOR THE QUEEN 
 
 Queen of queens, oh lady mine, 
 
 You who say you love me, 
 Here's a cup of crimson wine 
 
 To the stars above me; 
 Here's a cup of blood and gall 
 
 For a soldier's quaffing ! 
 What's the prize to crown it all? 
 
 Death? I'll take it laughing! 
 I ride for the Queen to-night! 
 
 Though I find no knightly fee 
 
 Waiting on my lealty, 
 High upon the gallows-tree 
 
 Faithful to my fealty, 
 What had I but love and youth, 
 
 Hope and fame in season? 
 
 109 
 
110 A RIDE FOR THE QUEEN 
 
 She has proved that more than truth 
 Glorifies her treason! 
 
 Would that other do as much? 
 
 Ah, but if in sorrow 
 Some forgotten look or touch 
 
 Pierce her heart to-morrow, 
 She might love me yet, I think; 
 
 So her lie befriends me, 
 Though I know there's darker drink 
 
 Down the road she sends me. 
 
 Ay, one more great chance is mine ! 
 
 (Can I faint or falter?) 
 She shall pour my blood like wine, 
 
 Make my heart her altar. 
 Burn it to the dust ! For, there, 
 
 What if o'er the embers 
 She should stoop and — I should hear - 
 
 'Hush! Thy love remembers!' 
 
A RIDE FOR THE QUEEN 111 
 
 One more chance for every word 
 
 Whispered to betray me, 
 While she buckled on my sword, 
 
 Smiling to allay me; 
 One more chance; ah, let me not 
 
 Mar her perfect pleasure; 
 Love shall pay me, jot by jot, 
 
 Measure for her measure. 
 
 Faith shall think I never knew, 
 
 I will be so fervent ! 
 Doubt shall dream I dreamed her true, 
 
 As her war-worn servant ! 
 Whoso flouts her spotless name 
 
 (Love, I wear thy token !) 
 He shall face one sword of flame 
 
 Ere the lie be spoken ! 
 
 God, the world is white with May, 
 (Fragrant as her bosom !) 
 
112 A RIDE FOR THE QUEEN 
 
 Could I find a sweeter way 
 Through the year's young blossom, 
 
 Where her warm red mouth on mine 
 Woke my soul's desire? 
 
 Hey ! The cup of crimson wine, 
 Blood and gall and fire ! 
 
 Castle Doom or Gates of Death? 
 
 (Smile again for pity !) 
 'Boot and horse/ my lady saith, 
 
 'Spur against the City, 
 Bear this message!' God and she 
 
 Still forget the guerdon; 
 Nay, the rope is on the tree! 
 
 That shall bear the burden ! 
 I ride for the Queen to-night! 
 
SONG 
 
 I 
 
 When that I loved a maiden 
 
 My heaven was in her eyes, 
 And when they bent above me 
 
 I knew no deeper skies; 
 But when her heart forsook me, 
 
 My spirit broke its bars, 
 For grief beyond the sunset 
 
 And love beyond the stars. 
 
 n 
 
 When that I loved a maiden, 
 She seemed the world to me: 
 
 Now is my soul the universe, 
 My dreams — the sky and sea ! 
 
 I . 113 
 
114 SONG 
 
 There bends no heaven above me, 
 
 No glory binds or bars 
 My grief beyond the sunset, 
 
 My love beyond the stars. 
 
 Ill 
 When that I loved a maiden, 
 
 I worshipped where she trod; 
 But, when she clove my heart, the cleft 
 
 Set free the imprisoned god; 
 Then was I King of all the world ! 
 
 My soul had burst its bars 
 For grief beyond the sunset 
 
 And love beyond the stars. 
 
EVE'S APPLE 
 
 I 
 
 When you leant thro' the leaves with your slow 
 
 red smile and your ivory body bare, 
 Ah, what was the fruit you gathered that day, 
 
 white Eve with the dusky hair? 
 For we took it and ate it together and laughed ! 
 
 Your white teeth bit to the core. 
 There was little to leave for the doves to peck, 
 
 when our delicate feast was o'er. 
 
 n 
 
 The ripe fruit breathed of kisses, you said, as 
 
 your breasts' white apples may; 
 
 But your body was cold from the coils of the 
 
 snake when you came to my arms that day : 
 115 
 
116 eve's apple 
 
 There was blood, red blood on our lips, white 
 Eve, as we nibbled away in the sun; 
 
 But I knew that the fruit was my heart, white 
 Eve, 
 
 The red rent core of my heart, white Eve, 
 
 Which we gnawed and left for the rats, white 
 Eve, when our delicate feast was done. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A SONG 
 
 I 
 
 ^Gome to me in my dreams V — how oft 
 With eyes how kind and voice how soft, 
 I heard thee sing, at fall of day, 
 The scholar poet's tenderest lay. 
 ******* 
 
 II 
 But oh, come not to me; for then 
 The dear dead love will stir again; 
 And when the cold light bids me wake 
 With each new day my heart will break. 
 
 ni 
 
 Come not in dreams; how could I bear 
 
 Once more to feel thy love so near, 
 
 And dream it true, yet inly know 
 
 What bitter treachery lurked below? 
 117 
 
118 BECOLLECTIONS OF A SONG 
 
 IV 
 
 Come not, as thou vnlt come, despite 
 
 All prayers, in watches of the night. 
 With eyes made bright by foolish tears 
 And fleeting gleams of happier years. 
 
 V 
 
 Come not, as thou hast come of old, 
 To flood a sunless world with gold. 
 Or, with the mockery of a smile. 
 Cheat me to dream thee kind awhile. 
 
 VI 
 
 Come not, as thou so oft didst come. 
 When sorrow made me blind and dumb, 
 To lay false lips on mine and say 
 ^ Sweet love can never pass away.' 
 
 VII 
 
 Come not in dreams to me; for then 
 The dear dead love will stir again; 
 And, when the cold light bids me wake. 
 With each new day my heart will break. 
 
E TENEBRIS 
 
 I 
 
 Into the keeping of death 
 
 I commend my love, 
 Into the gloom of the grave 
 
 And the lasting sleep! 
 Yet there is hope, one saith, 
 
 In some glory above, 
 For the broken, the broken wave 
 
 That is lost in the deep. 
 
 n 
 
 O, I know not their meaning at all. 
 
 They speak idly to me, 
 
 Who say that the lost things return 
 
 As day foUoweth night ! 
 119 
 
120 E TENEBBI8 
 
 I watch the leaves fall 
 And waves break on the sea, 
 
 And the strange skies that burn 
 With the stranger day's light. 
 
 Ill 
 Shall I care if another day greet me 
 
 In crimson and gold, 
 Though the skies be still blue 
 
 When the eyes that were kind 
 Flash no longer to meet me 
 
 As of old, as of old, 
 With a love that was true. 
 
 Or a dream that was blind? 
 
 IV 
 
 I have no hope, no faith. 
 
 No desire any more. 
 That the last year's flower 
 
 Should return to the spray: 
 
E TENEBBIS 121 
 
 ^Spring Cometh, spring cometh/ one saith; 
 
 But who shall restore 
 Just the one perished hour 
 
 Of that one perished May? 
 
SONNET 
 
 Love, when the great hour knelled for thee and 
 
 me, 
 
 The great hour that should prove thee false 
 
 or true, 
 
 When life surged round us like a wintry sea 
 
 And thy heart feared to say what both hearts 
 
 knew; 
 
 When all thy vows and honeyed words were 
 
 proven 
 
 False to the core of thy poor treacherous heart ; 
 
 When by God's fire my heart's false heaven was 
 
 cloven 
 
 And, white and dumb, our torn souls turned 
 
 to part; 
 
 0, never think — for all the flash and thunder 
 
 That showed us the dead body at our feet, 
 122 
 
SONNET 123 
 
 Though heaven and hell conspired our souls to 
 
 sunder 
 And though we twain in hell nor heaven shall 
 
 meet, 
 Think not, where'er Love's clay-wrought idols 
 
 lie. 
 The Love to which I prayed through these can 
 
 die. 
 
THE REAL DANTE 
 
 I 
 
 Love, Love, Love, Death robbed me unaware, 
 Undreaming that we ne'er should meet again, 
 Else had one soul's infinity of pain 
 
 Moated thee round with waves for Hell to dare. 
 
 Yea, in that fight, even now, might I but share. 
 Poor craven I, who yet on earth remain, 
 Heaven, heaven itself should menace us in vain. 
 
 Thy heart on mine, my lips upon thine hair. 
 
 I have lost courage. Love, in losing thee. 
 Courage to bear this wonder of the sky, 
 
 Courage to front that dark Eternity, 
 Courage to brook life's pitiful riddle — Why, 
 Why hath God hurt us thus? Poor broken cry 
 
 Quivering, unanswered, o'er the world's wide 
 sea! 
 
 124 
 
THE MEAL DANTE 125 
 
 II 
 
 And thou art sleeping on that silent shore ! 
 
 And thou can'st never, never, once return ! 
 
 Not though the starved heart strain to thee 
 and yearn, 
 And the lame hands reach upward and implore, 
 And the wrenched lips reiterate, o'er and o'er. 
 
 One thought wherewith the pitiless planets 
 burn. 
 
 One lesson life is all too short to learn. 
 One simple sob of the soul — No more, no more ! 
 
 My life shall never learn it ! Come thou back, 
 0, give the lie to all this dust hath said ! 
 
 Come, let the stars retrace their shining track, 
 Steal from that solemn midnight of the dead ! 
 
 Though as a dream thou canst but pass me by. 
 
 Come, give my heart the strength to break and 
 die. 
 
A PRAYER 
 
 Only a little, Father, only to rest 
 Or ever the night come and the Eternal sleep, 
 Only to rest for a little, a little to weep 
 
 In the dead love's pitiful arms, on the dead 
 love's breast, 
 
 A little to loosen the frozen fountains, to free 
 Rivers of blood and tears that should slacken 
 
 the pulse 
 Of this pitiless heart and appease these pangs 
 that convulse 
 Body and soul ! 0, out of Eternity, 
 
 A moment to whisper, only a moment to tell 
 My dead, my dead, what words are so helpless 
 to say — 
 
 126 
 
A PRATER 127 
 
 The dreams unuttered, the prayers no passion 
 could pray — 
 And then, the eternal sleep or the pains of hell, 
 
 I could welcome them. Father, gladly as ever 
 a child 
 Laying his head on the pillow might turn to 
 
 his rest 
 And remember in dreams, as the hand of the 
 mother is prest 
 On his hair, how the Pitiful blessed him of old 
 and smiled. 
 
OLD JAPAN AT EARL'S COURT 
 
 I 
 
 Of old Japan — how far away ! — 
 
 We dreamed — how long ago ! — 
 We saw by twisted creek and bay 
 
 The blue plum-blossoms blow, 
 And dragons coiling down below 
 
 Like dragons on a fan, 
 And pig-tailed sailors lurching slow 
 
 Thro' streets of old Japan. 
 
 II 
 
 Who knows that land — that dim blue day 
 
 Where white tea-roses grow? 
 
 Only a penny all the way 
 
 They cry in Pimhco: 
 128 
 
OLD JAPAN AT EARL'S COURT 129 
 
 The busses rumble to and fro, 
 
 Ah, catch one if you can. 
 And see the paper-lanterns glow 
 
 Thro' streets of old Japan. 
 
 Ill 
 What need we more than youth and May 
 
 To make our Miyako ? 
 A chuckle from the cherry spray 
 
 A cherub's mocking crow, 
 A sudden twang, a sweet swift throe 
 
 As Daisy trips by Dan, 
 And careless Cupid drops his bow 
 
 And laughs — from old Japan. 
 
 IV 
 
 And there the cherry hough shall sway 
 The peach-bloom shed its snow, 
 
 With scents and petals strewn astray 
 Till night he sweet enow: 
 
 K 
 
130 OLD JAPAN AT EABL'S COUBT 
 Then lovers wander, whispering low 
 
 As lovers only can 
 Where rosy paper lanterns glow 
 
 Through streets of old Japan. 
 
OXFORD REVISITED 
 
 Timid and strange, like a ghost, I pass the famil- 
 iar portals, 
 Echoing now like a tomb, they accept me no 
 more as of old; 
 Yet I go wistfully onward, a shade thro' a king- 
 dom of mortals 
 Wanting a face to greet me, a hand to grasp 
 and to hold. 
 
 Hardly I know as I go if the beautiful City is only 
 Mocking me under the moon, with its streams 
 and its willows agleam, 
 Whether the City of friends or I that am friend- 
 less and lonely, 
 Whether the boys that go by or the time-worn 
 towers be the dream ; 
 
 131 
 
132 OXFORD REVISITED 
 
 Whether the walls that I know, or the unknown 
 fugitive faces, 
 Faces like those that I loved, faces that haunt 
 and waylay, 
 Faces so like and unlike, in the dim unforgettable 
 places, 
 Startling the heart into sickness that aches 
 with the sweet of the May, — 
 
 Whether all these or the world with its wars be 
 the wandering shadows ! 
 Ah, sweet over green-gloomed waters the may 
 hangs, crimson and white; 
 And quiet canoes creep down by the warm gold 
 dusk of the meadows 
 Lapping with little splashes and ripples of 
 silvery light. 
 
 Others like me have returned : I shall see the old 
 faces to-morrow. 
 
OXFORD REVISITED 133 
 
 Down by the gay-coloured barges, alert for 
 the throb of the oars, 
 Wanting to row once again, or tenderly jesting 
 with sorrow 
 Up the old stairways and noting the strange 
 new names on the doors. 
 
 Is it a dream ? And I know not nor care if there 
 be an awaking 
 Ever at all any more, for the years that have 
 torn us apart, 
 Few, so few as they are, will ever be rending and 
 breaking : 
 Sooner by far than I knew have they wrought 
 this change for my heart ! 
 
 Well ; I grow used to it now ! Could the dream 
 but remain and for ever, 
 With the flowers round the grey quadrangle 
 laughing as time grows old ! 
 
134 OXFORD BEVISITED 
 
 For the waters go down to the sea, but the sky 
 still gleams on the river ! 
 We plucked them — but there shall be lilies, 
 ivory lilies and gold. 
 
 And still, in the beautiful City, the river of life is 
 no duller, 
 Only a little strange as the eighth hour dreamily 
 chimes. 
 In the City of friends and echoes, ribbons and 
 music and colour, 
 Lilac and blossoming chestnut, willows and 
 whispering limes. 
 
 Over the Radcliffe Dome the moon as the ghost 
 
 of a flower 
 Weary and white awakes in the phantom fields 
 
 of the sky : 
 The trustful shepherded clouds are asleep over 
 
 steeple and tower, 
 
OXFOBD BEVISITEB 135 
 
 Dark under Magdalen walls the Cher like a 
 dream goes by. 
 
 Back, we come wandering back, poor ghosts, to 
 the home that one misses 
 Out in the shelterless world, the world that 
 was heaven to us then. 
 Back from the coil and the vastness, the stars 
 and the boundless abysses. 
 Like monks from a pilgrimage stealing in bliss 
 to their cloisters again. 
 
 City of dreams that we lost, accept now the gift 
 we inherit — 
 Love, such a love as we knew not of old in the 
 blaze of our noon. 
 We that have found thee at last, half City, half 
 heavenly Spirit, 
 While over a mist of spires the sunset mellows 
 the moon. 
 
EARTH'S IMMORTALITIES 
 
 I 
 
 No more, proud singers, boast no more ! 
 
 Your high immortal throne 
 
 Will scarce outlast a king's! 
 Time is a sea that hath no shore 
 
 Wherein Death idly flings 
 
 Your fame like some small pebble-stone 
 That sinks to rise no more. 
 
 Then hoast no more, "proud singers. 
 Your high immortal throne! 
 
 II 
 
 This earth, this Httle grain of dust, 
 
 Drifting among the stars. 
 
 With her invisible wars, 
 
 Her love, her hate, her lust, 
 136 
 
EABTH'S IMMORTALITIES 137 
 
 This microscopic ball 
 Whereof you scan a part so small 
 Outlasts but little even your own poor dust. 
 
 Then boast no more, provd singers, 
 Your high immortal throne! 
 
 Ill 
 That golden spark of light must die, 
 
 Which now you call your sun, 
 
 Soon will its race be run 
 Around its trivial sky: 
 
 What hand shall then unroll 
 
 Dead Maro's little golden scroll 
 When earth and sun in one wide charnel lie ? 
 
 Boast no more, proud singers! 
 Your high immortal throne 
 Will scarce outlast a king's. 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF ART 
 
 As earth, sad earth, thrusts many a gloomy cape 
 Into the sea's bright colour and living glee, 
 So do we strive to embay that mystery 
 
 Which earthly hands must ever let escape; 
 
 The Word we seek for is the golden shape 
 That shall express the Soul we cannot see, 
 A temporal chalice of Eternity 
 
 Purple with beating blood of the hallowed grape. 
 
 Once was it wine and sacramental bread 
 
 Whereby we knew the power that through 
 
 Him smiled 
 
 When, in one still small utterance. He hurled 
 
 The Eternities beneath his feet and said 
 
 With lips, meek as any little child. 
 
 Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world, 
 138 
 
SONG 
 
 I 
 
 Nymphs and naiads, come away, 
 
 Love lies dead ! 
 Cover the cast-back golden head, 
 Cover the lovely limbs with may. 
 
 And with fairest boughs of green 
 And many a rose-wreathed brier spray; 
 
 But let no hateful yew be seen 
 Where Love lies dead. 
 
 n 
 
 Let not the quean that would not hear 
 
 (Love lies dead !) 
 
 Or beauty that refused to save 
 
 Exult in one dejected tear; 
 139 
 
140 80NG 
 
 But gather the glory of the year, 
 The pomp and glory of the year, 
 The triumphing glory of the year. 
 
 And softly, softly, softly shed 
 Its light and fragrance round the grave 
 
 Where Love lies dead. 
 
REMEMBRANCE 
 
 UNFORGOTTEN lips, grey haunting eyes, 
 Soft curving cheeks and heart-remembered 
 brow, 
 
 It is all true, the old love never dies. 
 And — parted — we must meet for ever now. 
 
 We did not think it true ! We did not think 
 Love meant this universal cry of pain. 
 
 This crown of thorn, this vinegar to drink. 
 This lonely crucifixion o'er again. 
 
 Yet, through the darkness of the sleepless night. 
 
 Your tortured face comes meekly answering 
 
 mine ; 
 
 Dumb, but I know why those mute lips are 
 
 white, 
 
 141 
 
142 BEMEMBBANCE 
 
 Dark, but I know why those dark lashes 
 shine. 
 
 Love, Love, Love, and what if this should 
 
 be 
 For ever now, through God's Eternity? 
 
UNITY 
 
 I 
 
 Heart of my heart, the world is young; 
 
 Love lies hidden in every rose ! 
 Every song that the skylark sung 
 
 Once, we thought, must come to a close: 
 Now we know the spirit of song, 
 
 Song that is merged in the chant of the whole, 
 Hand in hand as we wander along. 
 
 What should we doubt of the years that roll ? 
 
 n 
 
 Heart of my heart, we cannot die ! 
 
 Lcve triumphant in flower and tree, 
 
 Every life that laughs at the sky 
 
 Tells us nothing can cease to be: 
 143 
 
144 UNITY 
 
 One, we are one with a song to-day, 
 One with the clover that scents the wold. 
 
 One with the Unknown, far away, 
 One with the stars, when earth grows old. 
 
 ra 
 
 Heart of my heart, we are one with the wind, 
 
 One with the clouds that are whirled o'er the 
 lea. 
 One in many, broken and blind. 
 
 One as the waves are at one with the sea ! 
 Ay ! when life seems scattered apart. 
 
 Darkens, ends as a tale that is told. 
 One, we are one, heart of my heart. 
 
 One still one, while the world grows old. 
 
JOY AND PAIN 
 
 Beloved, I could not tame thy wild bright 
 
 wings ! 
 
 Thy flight was like a seabird's down the skies : 
 
 I could but catch the brightness of thine 
 
 eyes; 
 
 And then — the wind that buffets, the spray 
 
 that stings 
 And lashes and blinds a shore that only rings 
 With the elemental storms bore down my 
 
 cries, 
 And where the clotted foam in fury flies 
 Thou hadst flown rejoicing in all cruel things. 
 
 I know thee now, Beloved, for thou art come 
 
 With blood-stained breast into my fostering 
 
 hand ! 
 L 145 
 
146 JOT AND PAIN 
 
 weary wings that have come home again, 
 beating heart where every song lies dumb, 
 
 wounded bird, at last I understand, 
 
 1 understand those wild bright eyes of pain. 
 
IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING 
 
 I 
 In the cool of the evening, when the low sweet 
 whispers waken, 
 When the labourers turn them homeward, 
 and the weary have their will. 
 When the censers of the roses o'er the forest- 
 aisles are shaken 
 Is it but the wind that cometh o'er the far 
 green hill? 
 
 II 
 
 For they say 'tis but the sunset winds that 
 
 wander thro' the heather, 
 
 Rustle all the meadow-grass and bend the 
 
 dewy fern: 
 
 147 
 
148 IN THE COOL OF TEE EVENING 
 
 They say 'tis but the winds that bow the reeds 
 in prayer together, 
 And fill the shaken pools with fire along the 
 shadowy burn. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In the beauty of the twilight, in the Garden 
 that He loveth, 
 They have veiled his lovely vesture with the 
 darkness of a name ! 
 Thro' His Garden, thro' His Garden, it is but the 
 wind that moveth, 
 No more ! But the miracle, the miracle is 
 the same. 
 
 IV 
 
 In the cool of the evening, when the sky is an 
 old story. 
 Slowly dying, but remembered, ay, and loved 
 with passion still . . . 
 
IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING 149 
 
 Hush! . . . the fringes of His garment, in the 
 fading golden glory 
 Softly rustling as He cometh o'er the far 
 green hill. 
 
THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 
 
 There is a valley of fir-woods in the West 
 That slopes between great mountains to the sea. 
 Once, at the valley's mouth, a cottage stood: 
 Its ruins remain, like boulders of a rock, 
 High on the hill, whose base is white with foam. 
 To its forsaken garden sometimes come 
 Lovers, who lean upon its grass-grown gate 
 And listen to the sea-song far below; 
 Or little children, with their baskets, trip 
 Merrily through the fir-woods and the fern, 
 And climb the crumbling thistle-empurpled wall 
 Around the tangled copse, and laugh to find 
 The hardy straggling raspberries all their own. 
 
 Round it the curlews wheel and cry all night ; 
 
 And, with no other comfort than the stars 
 150 
 
THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 151 
 
 Can faintly shed from their familiar heights 
 It has been patient, while the world below 
 Has hidden itself in darkness and in clouds 
 Of terror from the landward-rushing storm. 
 Like a small gleam of quartz in a great rock, 
 A tiny beacon in the whirling gloom, 
 It stood and gathered sorrow from the world. 
 
 There, many years ago, a woman dwelt, 
 A sailor's widow with her only son; 
 And ever as she hugged him to her heart 
 In those glad days when he was but a child. 
 Her memories of one black eternal night 
 When she had watched and waited for the sail 
 That nevermore returned, filled her with one 
 Supreme, almost unbreathable, desire 
 That this her little one, her living bliss. 
 The last caress incarnate of her love. 
 Should never leave her side; or, if he left. 
 
152 TEE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 
 
 Never set forth upon the sea : her flesh 
 Shuddered as the sea shuddered in the sun 
 Over the cold grave of her first last love 
 Even to dream of it ; yet she remained 
 Silent and passive on her sea-washed hill, 
 Facing the sunset, in that lonely home, 
 Where everything bore witness to the sea, — 
 The shells her love had brought from foreign 
 
 lands, 
 The model ship he built; yet she remained. 
 For her first kisses lingered in the scent 
 Of those rough wallflowers round the white- 
 washed walls, 
 And the first flush of love that touched her cheek 
 Lingered and lived and died and lived again 
 In the pink thrift that nodded by the gate. 
 As if these and her outlook o'er the sea 
 Were nought else but her soul's one atmosphere. 
 Wherein alone she lived and moved and breathed, 
 
THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 153 
 
 Having no other thought but This is home, 
 
 My part in God's eternity, she still 
 
 Remained. The lad grew; yet her fear was dumb. 
 
 The lad grew, and the white foam kissed his feet 
 Sporting upon the verge: the green waves 
 
 laughed 
 And smote their hard bright kisses on his lips 
 As he swam out to meet them : the whole sea, 
 Like some strange symbol of the spiritual deeps 
 That hourly lure the soul of man in quest 
 Of beauty, pleasure, knowledge, summoned him 
 
 out, 
 Out from the old faiths, the old fostering arms 
 
 of home. 
 Called him with strange new voices evermore. 
 Called him with ringing names of high renown, 
 With white-armed sirens in its blossoming waves, 
 And heavenly cities in its westering suns; 
 
154 THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 
 
 Called him; and old adventures filled his heart, 
 
 And he forgot, as all of us forget. 
 
 The imperishable and infinite desire 
 
 Of the vacant arms and bosom that still yearn 
 
 For the little vanished children, still, still ache 
 
 To keep their children little ! He grew wroth 
 
 At aught that savoured of such fostering care 
 
 As mothers long to lavish, aught that seemed 
 
 To rob him of his manhood, his free-will : 
 
 And she — she understood and she was dumb. 
 
 And so the lad grew up ; and he was tall, 
 Supple, and sunburnt, and a flower of men. 
 His eyes had caught the blue of sea-washed skies, 
 And deepened with strange manhood, till, at last, 
 One eve in May his mother wandered down 
 The hill to await his coming, wistfully 
 Wandered, touching with vague and dreaming 
 hands 
 
THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 155 
 
 The uncrumpling fronds of fern and budding 
 
 roses 
 As if she thought them but the ghosts of spring. 
 From far below the golden breezes brought 
 A mellow music from the village church, 
 Which o'er the fragrant fir-wood she could see 
 Pointing a sky-blue spire to heaven : she knew 
 That music, her most heart-remembered song — 
 
 ^^Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear, 
 It is not night if Thou be near!'^ 
 
 And as the music made her one with all 
 That soft transfigured world of eventide, 
 One with the flame that sanctified the West, 
 One with the golden sabbath of the sea, 
 One with the sweet responses of the woods. 
 One with the kneeling mountains, there she saw 
 In a tangle of ferns and roses and wild light 
 Shot from the sunset through a glade of fir. 
 
156 THE COTTAGE OF TEE KINDLY LIGHT 
 
 Her boy and some young rival in his arms, 
 A girl of seventeen summers, dusky-haired, 
 Grey-eyed, and breasted like a crescent moon. 
 Lifting her red lips in a dream of love 
 Up to the red lips of her only son. 
 Jealousy numbed the mother's lonely soul, 
 And, sickening at the heart, she stole away. 
 
 Yet she said nothing when her boy returned; 
 And, after supper, she took down the Book, 
 Her own dead grandsire's massive wedding-gift. 
 The large-print Bible, like a corner-stone 
 Hewn from the solemn fabric of his life — 
 An heirloom for the guidance of his sons 
 And their sons' sons; and every night her boy 
 Read it aloud to her — a last fond link 
 Frayed and nigh snapt already, for she knew 
 It irked him. And he read. Abide with m, 
 For the day is far spent; and she looked at him 
 
THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 157 
 
 Shyly, furtively. With great tears she gazed 
 As on a stranger in her child's new face. 
 
 At last he told her all — told of his love, 
 And how he must grow wealthy now and make 
 A home for his young sweetheart, how he meant 
 To work upon a neighbour's fishing-boat 
 Till he could buy one for himself. He ceased ; 
 Far off the sea sighed and a curlew wailed; 
 A soft breeze brought a puff of wallflower scent 
 Warm through the casement. He looked up and 
 
 smiled 
 Into his mother's face, and saw the tears 
 Creep through the gnarled old hands that hid 
 
 her eyes. 
 He saw the star-light glisten on her tears ! 
 He could not understand : her lips were dumb. 
 
 Oh, dumb and patient as our Mother Earth 
 Watching from age to age the silent, swift, 
 
158 THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 
 
 Light-hearted progress of her careless sons 
 By new-old ways to one unaltering doom, 
 Through the long nights she waited as of old 
 Till in the dawn — and coloured like the dawn — 
 The tawny sails came home across the bar. 
 And every night she placed a little lamp 
 In the cottage window, that if e'er he gazed 
 Homeward by night across the heaving sea 
 He might be touched to memory. But she said 
 Nothing. The lamp was like the liquid light 
 In some dumb creature's eyes, that can but wait 
 Until its master chance to see its love 
 And deign to touch its brow. 
 
 Now in those days 
 There went a preacher through the country-side 
 Filling men's hearts with fire; and out at sea 
 The sailors sang great hymns to God ; and one 
 Stood up one night, among the gleaming nets 
 A-stream with silver herring in the moon. 
 
THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 159 
 And pointed to the lamp that burned afar 
 And said, ^ Such is that Kindly Light we sing ! ' 
 And ever afterwards the widow's house 
 Was called The Cottage of the Kindly Light 
 
 One night there came a storm up from the wild 
 Atlantic, and a cry of fierce despair 
 Rang through the fishing village ; and brave men 
 Launched the frail lifeboat through a shawl-clad 
 
 crowd 
 Of weeping women. But, high o'er the storm. 
 High on the hill one lonely woman stood, 
 Amongst the thunders and the driving clouds. 
 Searching, at every world-wide lightning glare. 
 The sudden miles of white stampeding sea; 
 Searching for what she knew was lost, ay lost 
 For ever now; but some strange inward pride 
 Forbade her to go down and mix with those 
 Who could cry out their loss upon the quays. 
 
160 THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 
 High on the hill she stood and watched alone, 
 Confessing nothing, acknowledging nothing. 
 Without one moan, without one outward prayer, 
 Buffeted by the scornful universe, 
 Over the crash of seas that shook the world 
 She stood, one steadfast fragment of the night ; 
 And the wind kissed her and the weeping rain. 
 
 ******* 
 But braver men than those who fought the sea 
 At dawn tramped up the hill, with aching hearts. 
 To break her loss to her who knew it all 
 Far better than the best of them. She stood 
 Still at her gate and watched them as they came, 
 Curiously noting in a strange dull dream 
 The gleaming colours, the little rainbow pools 
 The dawn made in their rough wet oilskin hats 
 And wrinkled coats, like patches of the sea. 
 
 'Lost? My boy lost?' she smiled. 'Nay, he 
 will come ! 
 
TBE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 161 
 
 To-morrow, or the next day, or the next 
 The Kindly Light will bring him home again.' 
 And so, whatever they answered, she would 
 
 say — 
 ' The Kindly Light will bring him home again ; ' 
 Until, at last, thinking her dazed with grief. 
 They gently turned and went. 
 
 She had not wept. 
 
 And ere that week was over, came the girl 
 Her boy had loved. With tears and a white 
 
 face 
 And garbed in black she came; and when she 
 
 neared 
 The gate, his mother, proud and white with scorn, 
 Bade her return and put away that garb 
 Of mourning : and the girl saw, shrinking back. 
 The boy's own mother wore no sign of grief, 
 But all in white she stood ; and like a flash 
 
162 THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 
 
 The girl thought; ' God, she wears her wedding- 
 dress ! 
 Her grief has driven her mad !' 
 
 And all that year 
 The widow lit the little Kindly Light 
 And placed it in the window. All that year 
 She watched and waited for her boy's return 
 At dawn from the high hill-top : all that year 
 She went in white, though through the village 
 
 streets 
 Far, far below, the women went in black; 
 For all had lost some man; but all that year 
 She said to her friends and neighbours, ' He will 
 
 come ; 
 He is delayed; some ship has picked him up 
 And borne him out to some far-distant land ! 
 Why should I mourn the living?' And, at 
 
 dusk, 
 
THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 163 
 
 As if it were indeed the Kindly Light 
 
 Of faith and hope and love, she lit the lamp 
 
 And placed it in the window. 
 
 The year passed ; 
 And on an eve in May her boy's love climbed 
 The hill once more, and as the stars came out 
 And the dusk gathered round her tenderly, 
 And the last boats came stealing o'er the bar, 
 And the immeasurable sea lay bright and bare 
 And beautiful to all infinity 
 Beneath the last faint colours of the sun 
 And the increasing kisses of the moon, 
 A hymn came on a waft of evening wind 
 Along the valley from the village church 
 And thrilled her with a new significance 
 Unfelt before. It was the hymn they heard 
 On that sweet night among the rose-lit fern — 
 Sun of my soul; and, as she climbed the hill. 
 She wondered, for she saw no Kindly Light 
 
164 THE COTTAGE OF THE KINDLY LIGHT 
 
 Glimmering from the window; and she thought, 
 * Perhaps the madness leaves her/ There the 
 
 hymn, 
 Like one great upward flight of angels, rose 
 All round her, mingling with the sea's own 
 
 voice — 
 
 ' Gome near and hless us when we wake, 
 Ere through the world our way we take, — 
 Till, in the ocean of Thy love, 
 We lose ourselves in heaven above.' 
 
 And when she passed the pink thrift by the gate. 
 And the rough wallflowers by the whitewashed 
 
 wall, 
 And entered, she beheld the widow kneeling. 
 In black, beside the unlit Kindly Light; 
 And near her dead cold hand upon the floor 
 A fallen taper, for with her last strength 
 She had striven to light it and, so failing, died. 
 
THE THREE SHIPS 
 (To an old tune.) 
 
 I 
 
 As I went up the mountain side, 
 The sea below me glittered wide, 
 And, Eastward, far away, I spied 
 
 On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, 
 The three great ships that take the tide 
 
 On Christmas Day in the morning. 
 
 n 
 
 Ye have heard the song, how these must ply 
 
 From the harbours of home to the ports o' the 
 
 sky! 
 
 Do ye dream none knoweth the whither and why 
 
 On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, 
 
 The three great ships go sailing by 
 
 On Christmas Day in the morning? 
 165 
 
166 THE THREE SHIPS 
 
 III 
 
 Yet, as I live, I never knew 
 
 That ever a song could ring so true, 
 
 Till I saw them break thro' a haze of blue 
 
 On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day; 
 And the marvellous ancient flags they flew 
 
 On Christmas Day in the morning ! 
 
 IV 
 
 From heights above the belfried town 
 
 I saw the sails were patched and brown. 
 
 But the flags were aflame with a great renown 
 
 On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, 
 And on every mast was a golden crown 
 
 On Christmas Day in the morning. 
 
 v 
 
 Most marvellous ancient ships were these! 
 Were their prows a-plunge to the Chersonese 
 For the pomp of Rome or the glory of Greece 
 
THE THBEE SHIPS 167 
 
 On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day? 
 Were they out on a quest for the Golden Fleece 
 On Christmas Day in the morning? 
 
 VI 
 
 And the sun and the wind they told me there 
 
 How goodly a load the three ships bear, 
 
 For the first is gold and the second is myrrh 
 
 On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day; 
 And the third is frankincense most rare 
 
 On Christmas Day in the morning. 
 
 VII 
 
 They have mixed their shrouds with the golden 
 
 sky, 
 They have faded away where the last dreams 
 
 die . . . 
 Ah yet, will ye watch, when the mist lifts high 
 
 On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day? 
 Will ye see three ships come sailing by 
 On Christmas Day in the morning? 
 
SLUMBER-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 
 
 PRELUDE 
 
 Dante saw the great white Rose 
 
 Half unclose; 
 Dante saw the golden bees 
 
 Gathering from its heart of gold 
 
 Sweets untold, 
 Love's most honeyed harmonies. 
 
 Dante saw the threefold bow 
 
 Strangely glow, 
 
 Saw the Rainbow Vision rise, 
 
 And the Flame that wore the crown 
 
 Bending down 
 
 O'er the flowers of Paradise. 
 168 
 
SLUMBEB-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 169 
 
 Something yet remained, it seems ; 
 
 In his dreams 
 Dante missed — as angels may 
 In their white and burning bhss — 
 
 Some small kiss 
 Mortals meet with every day. 
 
 Italy in splendour faints 
 
 'Neath her saints ! 
 0, her great Madonnas, too, 
 Faces calm as any moon 
 
 Glows in June, 
 Hooded with the night's deep blue ! 
 
 What remains ? I pass and hear 
 
 Everywhere, 
 Ay, or see in silent eyes 
 
 Just the song she still would sing 
 
 Thus — a-swing 
 O'er the cradle where He lies. 
 
170 SLUMBER-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 
 
 I 
 
 Sleep, little baby, I love thee; 
 
 Sleep, little king, I am bending above thee ! 
 
 How should I know what to sing 
 Here in my arms as I swing thee to sleep ? 
 Hushaby low, 
 Rockaby so. 
 Kings may have wonderful jewels to bring. 
 Mother has only a kiss for her king ! 
 Why should my singing so make me to weep ? 
 Only I know that I love thee, I love thee, 
 
 Love thee, my little one, sleep. 
 
 II 
 
 Is it a dream? Ah yet, it seems 
 Not the same as other dreams ! 
 
 I can but think that angels sang. 
 
 When thou wast born, in the starry sky. 
 
SLUMBEB-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 171 
 
 And that their golden harps out-rang 
 While the silver clouds went by ! 
 
 The morning sun shuts out the stars, 
 
 Which are much loftier than the sun; 
 But, could we burst our prison-bars 
 
 And find the Light whence light begun, 
 The dreams that heralded thy birth 
 Were truer than the truths of earth; 
 And, by that far immortal Gleam, 
 Soul of my soul, I still would dream ! 
 
 A ring of light was round thy head, 
 The great-eyed oxen nigh thy bed 
 Their cold and innocent noses bowed ! 
 Their sweet breath rose like an incense cloud 
 In the blurred and mystic lanthorn light ! 
 
 About the middle of the night 
 
 The black door blazed Uke some great star 
 
 With a glory from afar. 
 
172 SLUMBER-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 
 Or like some mighty chrysolite 
 Wherein an angel stood with white 
 Blinding arrowy bladed wings 
 Before the throne of the King of kings; 
 And, through it, I could dimly see 
 A great steed tethered to a tree. 
 
 Then, with crimson gems aflame 
 Through the door the three kings came. 
 And the black Ethiop unrolled 
 The richly broidered cloth of gold, 
 And poured forth before thee there 
 Gold and frankincense and myrrh ! 
 
 Ill 
 
 See, what a wonderful smile ! Does it mean 
 That my little one knows of my love? 
 
 Was it meant for an angel that passed unseen, 
 And smiled at us both from above ? 
 
SLUMBER-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 173 
 
 Does it mean that he knows of the birds and the 
 
 flowers 
 That are waiting to sweeten his childhood's hours, 
 And the tales I shall tell and the games he will 
 
 play, 
 And the songs we shall sing and the prayers we 
 shall pray 
 
 In his boyhood's May, 
 He and I, one day ? 
 
 IV 
 
 All in the warm blue summer weather 
 We shall laugh and love together: 
 
 I shall watch my baby growing, 
 I shall guide his feet, 
 
 When the orange trees are blowing 
 And the winds are heavy and sweet ! 
 
 When the orange orchards whiten 
 
 I shall see his great eyes brighten 
 
174 SLUMBER-SOJ^GS OF THE MADONNA 
 
 To watch the long-legged camels going 
 
 Up the twisted street, 
 When the orange trees are blowing 
 
 And the winds are sweet. 
 
 What does it mean? Indeed, it seems 
 A dream! Yet not like other dreams! 
 
 We shall walk in pleasant vales, 
 Listening to the shepherd's song 
 
 I shall tell him lovely tales 
 All day long : 
 
 He shall laugh while mother sings 
 
 Tales of fishermen and kings. 
 
 He shall see them come and go 
 
 O'er the wistful sea, 
 Where rosy oleanders blow 
 
 Round blue Lake Galilee, 
 Kings with fishers' ragged coats 
 And silver nets across their boats, 
 
SLUMBEB-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 175 
 Dipping through the starry glow, 
 With crowns for him and me! 
 
 Ah, no; 
 Crowns for him, not me! 
 
 Rockaby so! Indeed, it seems 
 
 A dream! yet not like other dreams! 
 
 V 
 
 Ah, see what a wonderful smile again ! 
 
 Shall I hide it away in my heart, 
 To remember one day in a world of pain 
 
 When the years have torn us apart, 
 Ijittle babe, 
 
 When the years have torn us apart ? 
 
 Sleep, my little one, sleep, 
 Child with the wonderful eyes. 
 Wild miraculous eyes. 
 
 Deep as the skies are deep! 
 
 What star-bright glory of tears 
 
176 SLUMBEB-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 
 Waits in you now for the years 
 That shall bid you waken and weep? 
 Ah, in that day, could I kiss you to sleep 
 Then, little lips, little eyes, 
 Little lips that are lovely and wise. 
 Little lips that are dreadful and wise ! 
 
 VI 
 
 Clenched little hands like crumpled roses 
 
 Dimpled and dear, 
 Feet like flowers that the dawn uncloses, 
 
 What do I fear? 
 Little hands, will you ever be clenched in anguish? 
 White little limbs, will you droop and languish? 
 
 Nay, what do I hear? 
 I hear a shouting, far away, 
 You shall ride on a kingly palm-strewn way 
 
 Some day ! 
 
 But when you are crowned with a golden crown 
 
SLUMBER-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 177 
 
 And throned on a golden throne, 
 You'll forget the manger of Bethlehem town 
 
 And your mother that sits alone 
 Wondering whether the mighty king 
 Remembers a song she used to sing, 
 Long ago, 
 " Rockahy so, 
 Kings may have wonderful jewels to bring, 
 Mother has only a kiss for her king!^^ . . . 
 
 Ah, see what a wonderful smile, once more ! 
 
 He opens his great dark eyes ! 
 Little child, little king, nay, hush, it is o'er, 
 
 My fear of those deep twin skies, — 
 Little child, 
 
 You are all too dreadful and wise ! 
 
 VII 
 
 But now you are mine, all mine. 
 
 And your feet can lie in my hand so small, 
 
178 SLUMBER-SONGS OF THE MADONNA 
 
 And your tiny hands in my heart can twine, 
 And you cannot walk, so you never shall fall. 
 
 Or be pierced by the thorns beside the door. 
 
 Or the nails that lie upon Joseph's floor; 
 
 Through sun and rain, through shadow and shine, 
 You are mine, all mine ! 
 
THE CALL OF THE SPRING 
 
 Come, choose your road and away, my lad, 
 Come, choose your road and away! 
 
 We'll out of the town by the road's bright crown 
 As it dips to the dazzling day. 
 
 It's a long white road for the weary ; 
 But it rolls through the heart of the May. 
 
 Though many a road would merrily ring 
 To the tramp of your marching feet, 
 
 All roads are one from the day that's done, 
 And the miles are swift and sweet. 
 
 And the graves of your friends are the mile-stones 
 To the land where all roads meet. 
 
 But the call that you hear this day, my lad, 
 
 Is the Spring's old bugle of mirth 
 179 
 
180 THE CALL OF THE SPRING 
 
 When the year's green fire in a soul's desire 
 Is brought like a rose to the birth; 
 
 And knights ride out to adventure 
 As the flowers break out of the earth. 
 
 Over the sweet-smelling mountain-passes 
 
 The clouds lie brightly curled; 
 The wild-flowers cling to the crags and swing 
 
 With cataract-dews impearled ; 
 And the way, the way that you choose this day 
 
 Is the way to the end of the world. 
 
 It rolls from the golden long ago " 
 To the land that we ne'er shall find; 
 
 And it's uphill here, but it's downhill there, 
 For the road is wise and kind. 
 
 And all rough places and cheerless faces 
 Will soon be left behind. 
 
 Come, choose your road and away, away, 
 We'll follow the gypsy sun; 
 
THE CALL OF THE SPRING 181 
 
 For it's soon, too soon to the end of the day, 
 
 And the day is well begun; 
 And the road rolls on through the heart of the 
 May 
 
 And there's never a May but one. 
 
 There's a fir-wood here, and a dog-rose there, 
 
 And a note of the mating dove; 
 And a glimpse, maybe, of the warm blue sea, 
 
 And the warm white clouds above; 
 And warm to your breast in a tenderer nest 
 
 Your sweetheart's little glove. 
 
 There's not much better to win, my lad, 
 
 There's not much better to win! 
 You have lived, you have loved, you have fought, 
 you have proved 
 
 The worth of folly and sin; 
 So now come out of the City's rout. 
 
 Come out of the dust and the din. 
 
182 THE CALL OF THE SPBING 
 
 Come out, — a bundle and stick is all 
 
 You'll need to carry along, 
 If your heart can carry a kindly word, 
 
 And your lips can carry a song; 
 You may leave the lave to the keep o' the grave, 
 
 If your lips can carry a song ! 
 
 Come, choose your road and away, my lad, 
 
 Come, choose your road and away! 
 Well out of the town by the road's bright crovm, 
 
 As it dips to the sapphire day ! 
 All roads may meet at the world's end, 
 
 But, hey for the heart of the May ! 
 Come, choose your road and away, dear lad, 
 
 Come choose your road and away. 
 
THE LIGHTS OF HOME 
 
 I 
 
 Pilot, how far from home ? — 
 
 Not far, not far to-night, 
 A flight of spray, a sea-bird's flight, 
 A flight of tossing foam. 
 
 And then the lights of home ! — 
 
 II 
 And, yet again, how far ? 
 
 Seems you the way so brief ? 
 
 Those lights beyond the roaring reef 
 
 Were Ughts of moon and star. 
 
 Far, far, none knows how far ! 
 
 Ill 
 Pilot, how far from home ? — 
 
 The great stars pass away 
 
 Before Him as a flight of spray, 
 
 Moons as a flight of foam ! 
 
 I see the lights of home. 
 183 
 
CREDO 
 
 I 
 
 Thou that art throned so far above 
 All earthly names, e'en those we deem 
 
 Eternal, e'en that name of Love 
 Which — as one speaketh in a dream — 
 
 We whisper, ere the morning break 
 
 And the hands yearn and the heart ache, 
 
 n 
 
 Thou that reignest, whom of old 
 Men sought to appease by praise or prayer; 
 
 The spirit^s little gifts of gold, 
 The heart's faint frankincense and myrrh, 
 
 Though we — the sons of deeper days — 
 
 Can bring Thee neither prayer nor praise, 
 184 
 
CBEDO 185 
 
 III 
 We have not turned in doubt aside, 
 
 Nor mocked with our ephemeral breath 
 The httle creeds that man's poor pride 
 Still fashions in these gulfs of death, 
 The little creeds that only prove 
 Thou art so far, so far above, 
 
 rv 
 So far beyond all Space and Time, 
 
 So infinitely far that none, 
 Though by ten thousand heavens he climb 
 
 Higher, shall yet be higher by one; 
 So far that — whelmed with light — we dare. 
 Father, to know that Thou art here. 
 
By ALFRED NOYES 
 
 Poems 
 
 With an Introduction by Hamilton W. Mabie 
 
 Cloth J i2mo, $ 1.25 net 
 
 " Imagination, the capacity to perceive vividly and 
 feel sincerely, and the gift of fit and beautiful expres- 
 sion in verse-form — if these may be taken as the 
 equipment of a poet, nearly all of this volume is 
 poetry. And if to the sum of these be added the 
 indescribable increment of charm which comes occa- 
 sionally to the work of some poet, quite unearned by 
 any of these catalogued qualities of his, you have a 
 fair measure of Mr. Noyes at his best. . . . Two 
 considerations render Mr. Noyes interesting above 
 most poets : the wonderful degree in which the per- 
 sonal charm illumines what he has already written, 
 and the surprises which one feels may be in store in 
 his future work. His feelings have already so much 
 variety and so much apparent sincerity that it is im- 
 possible to tell in what direction his genius will de- 
 velop. In whatever style he writes, — the mystical, 
 the historical-dramatic, the impassioned description 
 of natural beauty, the ballad, the love lyric, — he has 
 the peculiarity of seeming in each style to have found 
 the truest expression of himself." — Louisville Courier- 
 JournaL 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE. NEW YORK 
 
Mr. ALFRED NOYES'S POEMS 
 
 The Flower of Old Japan 
 
 Contains also " Forest of Wild Thyme," of which the Argonaut 
 says : " It is not only an exquisite piece of work, but it is a psychologi- 
 cal analysis of the child-mind so daring and yet so convincing as to 
 lift it to the plane where the masterpieces of literature dwell. It can 
 be read with delight by a child of ten. It is put into the mouth of a 
 child of about that age, but the adult must be strangely constituted 
 who can remain indifferent to its haunting spell or who can resist the 
 fascination which lies in its every page." 
 
 "We are reminded both of Stevenson — to whom Mr. Noyes pays a 
 glowing tribute — and Lewis Carroll; yet there is no imitation; Mr. 
 Noyes has a distinct poetic style of his own. ... In a matter-of-fact 
 age such verse as this is an oasis in a desert land. " — Providence 
 Journal. 
 
 " It has seemed to us from the first that Noyes has been one of the 
 most hope-inspiring figures in our latter-day poetry. He, almost alone, 
 of the younger men seems to have the true singing voice, the gift of 
 uttering in authentic lyric cry some fresh, unspoiled emotion." — Post. 
 
 Mr. Richard Le Gallienne in the North A?nerican Review pointed 
 out recently " their spontaneous power and freshness, their imaginative 
 vision, their lyrical magic." He adds : " Mr. Noyes is surprisingly 
 various. I have seldom read one book, particularly by so young a 
 writer, in which so many different things are done, and all done so 
 well. . . . But that for which one is most grateful to Mr. Noyes in his 
 strong and brilliant treatment of all his rich material, is the gift by 
 which, in my opinion, he stands alone anaong the younger poets of the 
 day, his lyrical gift." 
 
 Clothy i2mo, $ I.2S net 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOEK 
 
Lyrical and Dramatic Poems 
 
 By W. B. YEATS 
 
 In two volumes; each, $ i.y^ net 
 
 The two-volume edition of the Irish poet's works includes 
 everything he has done in verse up to the present time. 
 The first volume contains his lyrics ; the second includes 
 all of his five dramas in verse : "The Countess Cathleen," 
 "The Land of Heart's Desire," "The King's Threshold," 
 "On Baile's Strand," and "The Shadowy Waters." 
 
 William Butler Yeats stands among the few men to be 
 reckoned with in modern poetry, especially of a dramatic 
 character. The JVew York Sun, for example, refers to him 
 as "an important factor in English literature," and con- 
 tinues : — 
 
 "* Cathleen ni Hoolihan' is a perfect piece of artistic 
 work, poetic and wonderfully dramatic to read, and, we 
 should imagine, far more dramatic in the acting. Maeter- 
 linck has never done anything so true or effective as this 
 short prose drama of Mr. Yeats's. There is not a super- 
 fluous word in the play and no word that does not tell. It 
 must be dangerous to represent it in Ireland, for it is an 
 Irish Marseillaise. ... In * The Hour Glass ' a noble and 
 poetic idea is carried out effectively, while * A Pot of Broth ' 
 is merely a dramatized humorous anecdote. But ' Cathleen 
 ni HooHhan ' stirs the blood, and in itself establishes Mr. 
 Yeats's reputation for good." 
 
 The Neiv York Herald remarks : — 
 
 " Mr. Yeats is probably the most important as well as the 
 most widely known of the men concerned directly in the so- 
 called Celtic renaissance. More than this, he stands among 
 the few men to be reckoned with in modern poetry." 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOEK 
 
A History of English Poetry 
 
 By W. J. CouRTHOPE, C.B., D.Litt., LL.D. 
 
 Late Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford 
 
 Cloth, 8vo, $ j.2j net per volume 
 
 VOLUME L The Middle Ages — Influence of the Ro- 
 man Empire — The Encyclopaedic Education of the 
 Church — The Feudal System. 
 
 VOLUME IL The Renaissance and the Reformation— 
 Influence of the Court and the Universities. 
 
 VOLUME III. English Poetry in the Seventeenth Cen- 
 tury — Decadent Influence of the Feudal Monarchy — 
 Growth of the National Genius. 
 
 VOLUME IV. Development and Decline of the Poetic 
 Drama — Influence of the Court and the People. 
 
 VOLUME V. The Constitutional Compromise of the 
 Eighteenth Century — Effects of the Classical Renais- 
 sance — Its Zenith and Decline — The Early Romantic 
 Renaissance. 
 
 "It is his privilege to have made a contribution of great 
 value and signal importance to the history of English Litera- 
 ture." —/•«// Mall Gazette. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YOEK 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 6Feb52.. 
 
 28Jan5 2LLI 
 
 
 r- 
 
 LD 21-95m-ll,'50 (2877816)476 
 
J-