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vi 
 
THE GROWTH OF LOVE 
 
 ROBERT BRIDGES 
 
Note. In issuing The Growth of Love the publisher 
 has desired to set forth the high estimate recently 
 come to be held regarding the poetry of Mr. Robert 
 Bridges. To do this effectually, no more fitting intro- 
 duction could have been given than the contribution 
 by Mr. Lionel Johnson, to be found in the Century 
 Guild Hobby Horse (October, 1891), and here reprinted 
 entire. It was and is almost as inaccessible as one 
 of Mr. Bridges' privately printed pamphlets. 
 
 It only remains to say that this reprint is made 
 direct from a copy of the original Growth of Love, 
 of which 100 copies in Fell's Old English Type (Fcap 
 4to.) were put forth from the private press of Rev, 
 H. Daniel, Oxford, 1890. The punctuation (or rather 
 the lack of it) has been literally followed. The half-title 
 immediately preceding the Sonnets is that of the origi- 
 nal title page, while the printer's device at the end of 
 the book is also reproduced in facsimile from this unique 
 edition. 
 
Only Fifty copUs of this Large Paper Edition {Post 4to.) 
 have been printed, ten of which are on Japan Vellum, 
 and forty on Van Gelder's hand-made paper. Each 
 copy numbered, and the type distributed. 
 
 No. if 
 
T 
 
 HE GROWTH OF LOVE 
 BY ROBERT BRIDGES 
 
 PRINTED FOR THOMAS B. MOSHER AND 
 PUBLISHED BY HIM AT 37 EXCHANGE 
 STREET PORTLAND MAINE MDCCCXCIV 
 
j^.,^A.^-)^^fi^-^ 
 
 GIFT 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES ; 
 A BRIEF AND GENERAL CON- 
 SIDERATION. 
 
 914 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES : 
 A BRIEF AND GENERAL CON- 
 SIDERATION. 
 
 THE supreme duties of the artist to- 
 ward his art, as of all students to- 
 ward their studies, are two in num- 
 ber, but of one kind : a duty of reverence, 
 of fidelity, of understanding, toward the old, 
 great masters ; and a duty of reverence, of 
 fidelity, of understanding, toward the living 
 age and the living artists. But that our age 
 lives well, and that our artists live well, who 
 shall assure us ? Life, its energies and its 
 activities, ourselves can recognize : but we 
 require a touchstone and a test, some im- 
 age of that perfect state, which lieth in the 
 heavens, seen there by Plato, eternal in the 
 heavens, proclaimed by Paul, before we can 
 accept with joy, and follow with readiness, 
 the ways of our living age, of our living 
 artists. Here too, we have a double duty, 
 one to the past and one to the present : if 
 we fulfil it, then we cannot lack the neces- 
 sary test or standard, whereby to assay our- 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 selves and others. In the first place : Se- 
 curus judicat orbis terrarum : sure and sound 
 is the whole world's judgment : in Sopho- 
 cles and in Virgil, in Dante and in Milton, 
 virtue and truth shine clearly. The general 
 voice of men, the more authoritative voice of 
 artists and of students, go together in praise 
 of the old, great masters. " But they lived 
 in their times, we live now; what have we 
 to do with them?" Neither did the old, 
 great masters flourish together : yet examine, 
 I pray you, the debt of Virgil to Homer, 
 the debt of Dante to Virgil, the debt of 
 Milton to Homer, to Virgil, and to Dante. 
 Do you not find it an inestimable debt of 
 reverence, of fidelity, and of understanding? 
 Or can you discover in those masters any 
 sign of a servile obedience to each other ? 
 Call it rather, not a debt due, but a grace 
 sought and received. Be we artists then, 
 or students merely, let us judge ourselves 
 and our age, let us value ourselves and our 
 age, according to the mind of the great 
 masters, and in their spirit. In the second 
 place : at one with our test by antique ex- 
 cellence, is the test by our proper conscience. 
 There are occasions in our work, when we 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 say, with a confidence beyond expression, 
 This is right: against text-book and pre- 
 cept, warning and exhortation, we know 
 our work to be true. And ; while the ped- 
 ant, with a mechanic reverence, in a blind 
 fidelity, through a dulled understanding, 
 quotes against us his Aristotle, his Vitru- 
 vius, his Pope, his Reynolds ; we know, that 
 we are their dutiful sons, not he : that what 
 we do, following our conscience and our 
 light, is in the spirit and in the truth of 
 what they did, following theirs. " And your 
 lawless profaner of art, your ignorant con- 
 temner of the past : will not he say as much ?" 
 Well ! such an one may lie, indeed : and let 
 him look to his conscience. He will find 
 there a witness to his profanity and to his 
 ignorance : he will confess, that he has not 
 meditated the great past, nor the fine tra- 
 dition ; that the old masters were loyalists, 
 himself a rebel ; they bent upon a rational 
 development, he upon a mindless innova- 
 tion ; they true to the constitutions of art, 
 he careless for their violation. As in the 
 spiritual or interior life, the Church would 
 have a man perfect himself by the help of 
 approved rules and meditations, not super- 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 seding, but directing, his conscience : so in 
 art, which also has its interior life, the gen- 
 eral wisdom of the great masters must help 
 to nourish and to strengthen that conscience, 
 which cannot thrive wholly upon the de- 
 sires and the intimations of its own genius. 
 If we regard such men, as Spenser and as 
 Sidney in Elizabethan times, or as Mr. 
 Whitman in our own, we find not their 
 greatness, nor their felicity, to lie in the 
 attempt to compose English verse in the 
 ancient metres of Greece and Rome, nor 
 in the attempt to rob English verse of all 
 metrical law. 
 
 It is upon these principles, thus briefly 
 declared, that I purpose to estimate, if 
 may be, the poems of a living poet ; one 
 standing, in point of time, between Mr. 
 Symonds and Mr. Lang, or between Mr. 
 Dobson and Mr. Gosse: one standing, in 
 place of honour, by the judgment of Mr. 
 Robinson ElHs, " second only to Mr. Swin- 
 burne ", as " an Oxford poet. " I will not 
 consider the degree of excellence indicated 
 by that position : suffice it to say, that the 
 eminent Reader in Latin at the University 
 of Oxford intended to confer upon our 
 
V 
 
 THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 poet, Mr. Bridges, a great measure of his 
 approbation and of his praise. 
 
 Were we to reckon the number of Mr. 
 Bridges' performances, by the number of 
 works, bearing his name, in an historical 
 or chronological list, we would do him a 
 wrong: he is not one of those writers, 
 whose own writings compose no small part 
 of their own libraries. Such a list would 
 give the names of some seventeen volumes, 
 including small pamphlets and the prod- 
 ucts of a private press ; the earliest volume 
 would be recorded under the year 1873, 
 the latest under the year 189 1 : but of 
 these seventeen works, published during 
 these eighteen years, many are, so to say, 
 the writer's anthologies, or deliberate col- 
 lections, chosen from the earlier volumes, 
 together with new matter. Indeed, the 
 lover of excellence in English literature 
 must often have felt a passing vexation, a 
 shade of annoyance ; so difficult has he 
 found the search for many rare, choice 
 poems, either sacrificed by Mr. Bridges' 
 careful conscience, or hidden away by him 
 in editions hard to procure. Yet it may 
 be thought, that this touch of antiquity, 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 the need for this exhilarating bibliomania, 
 add something pleasant to the study of 
 Mr. Bridges: we have so many popular 
 poets, and popular editions of their Col- 
 lected Works, that retirement, leisure, anx- 
 iety, in a living poet, are virtues the more 
 estimable and distinguished. They are 
 virtues, no less, to be emulated and re- 
 spected by a critic : and in considering Mr. 
 Bridges' poems, I shall say nothing about 
 those, which he has, in the full exercise 
 of his judgment, cast away. Litera scripta 
 majiet: they are indestructible, and cannot 
 escape the antiquary : so far as they deserve 
 to be sought out and remembered, posterity 
 will do well to annul the over-rigorous sen- 
 tence of Mr. Bridges. For the present, let 
 it stand. 
 
 The poems of Mr. Bridges are of the 
 lyrical kind, of the narrative, and of the 
 dramatic : and before examining each kind 
 apart, let me say something applicable to 
 the whole of them, in greater or less degree. 
 These poems, then, represent, with much 
 else that is admirable, the scholarship of 
 poetry; a certain erudite air of mastery 
 over the secrets of rhythm and of metre ; 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES, 
 
 , a trained skill in music, and in those deli- 
 cate devices, which give so excellent a dis- 
 tinction to the older English poets. To 
 whatever Mr. Bridges set his hand, he pre- 
 serves discretion and propriety : the schol- 
 ar's instinct, no less than the poet's, mak- 
 ing it impossible for him to outrage fine 
 taste, by the fantastic freaks of some great 
 men amongst us, " At the present time, " 
 so he tells us with lamentable truth, "men 
 seem to affect to have outgrown the rules 
 of art": but he, at least, reverencing the 
 great masters, makes an " attempt to work 
 in their manner, " Not that he is a slavish 
 follower of the great masters, their captive 
 rather than their votarist : at times, he may 
 have fallen somewhat into that attitude, 
 but not for long, it is not characteristic of 
 him. It is his characteristic virtue, that he 
 moulds his thought, guides his imagination, 
 into fresh and living forms, with a schol- 
 arly knowledge of what has been done be- 
 fore him, in like manner, though not in the 
 same : thus, some among his poems are 
 noticeable for their boldness of metrical 
 experiment and invention ; but we can 
 trust him,' who wrote those two good treat- 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 ises On the Prosody of Paradise Regained 
 and Samson Agonistes^ and On the Elements 
 oj Milton's Blank Verse in Paradise Lost. 
 The invention may displease us, the exper- 
 iment prove unhappy : yet we recognize a 
 justifiable enterprise, a scholar's venture ; 
 not the frantic impertinence of one writing, 
 in despair of nature, and in contempt of art. 
 And this learned competence, so abundant 
 in his form, is naturally abundant in his 
 matter : for matter and form, to repeat a 
 simple and neglected truth, are inseparable. 
 Mr. Bridges is not enamoured of a new 
 thing, for its novelty: his thoughts are his 
 own thoughts, but his expression of them 
 is in harmony with the matured wisdom of 
 many ages, meditating the common, human 
 things, with gravity or in gladness. That 
 is Horace, we say, or Catullus ; there is 
 Theognis or Meleager ; and here is Mar- 
 veil, here Vaughan, here Herrick ; and this 
 brings Landor to mind, Landor, or Collins, 
 or Wordsworth ; and now Shakespeare, 
 now Terence, now Fletcher comes across 
 us, with elder Athenian spirits : yet the 
 final outcome is no mere freshened mem- 
 ory of old greatness and deligHts, but a 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 recognition of the true and living poet in 
 Mr. Bridges, who thus delicately preserves 
 for modern use an antique charm. Deli- 
 cately: in a generous appreciation of an- 
 cient excellences, and with a full sense of 
 all, that they can do, to help him also on 
 the hard way to an honourable perfection. 
 So, the passion of his verse is an ardent 
 and an austere passion, filled with the ar- 
 dours and the austerities of a mind, that 
 enjoys with reverence, almost with fear 
 and trembling, the joys of art and nature, 
 the true savour of them, their decent come- 
 liness and admired grace. 
 
 I love all beauteous things, 
 
 I seek and adore them ; 
 God hath no better praise. 
 And man in his hasty days 
 
 Is honoured for them. 
 
 I too will something make 
 
 And joy in the making; 
 Altho' to-morrow it seem 
 Like the empty words of a dream 
 
 Remembered on waking. 
 
 Mr. Bridges published his first book of 
 poems in 1873 ; a pamphlet of verse in 1879, 
 and anothrf in 1880 ; a fourth volume i* 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 sued, in 1884, from the private press of Mr. 
 Daniel, Fellow and Bursar of Worcester Col- 
 lege, Oxford, reprinting some of the earlier 
 poems : in 1890 appeared The Shorter Poems 
 of Robert Bridges, of which the first three 
 parts are mainly reprints from the former 
 collections, whilst the last part is wholly 
 new. In 1890 also came, from Mr. Daniel's 
 excellent press, a book of sonnets, The 
 Growth of Love : some of these had already 
 been published. Apart from the lyrical 
 portions of his dramatic poems, this is the 
 sum of Mr. Bridges' lyrics : and, for our 
 present purpose, we need consider but the 
 Shorter Poems and The Growth of Love. 
 
 The Shorter Poems, the ripe harvest of 
 Mr. Bridges' labours, are seventy-eight in 
 number : to state a general truth, we may 
 determine the spirit and beauty of them to 
 be meditative, in two fashions. Either 
 these lyrics show forth the powerful charm 
 of life in its natural air, upon its natural 
 ground ; the stir and the silence, the change 
 and the endurance, of this natural world, 
 working upon the contemplative mind : or, 
 they express the contemplative mind, dwell- 
 ing upon its proper works and business, of 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 reason and of art, of thought and of aspir- 
 ation, in the light of nature and of man's 
 place in nature. The two aspects are har- 
 monious: and much extravagance of life 
 and of thought has come of ignoring their 
 harmony. Have we not wearied ourselves, 
 many a time, over the reproaches and the 
 sorrows of those, who, as it were, go up into 
 the mountain alone, but rather to weep, than 
 to pray, or to keep silence ? And there are 
 those, who weary us with the ceaseless agi- 
 tation of their active life and thoughts ; 
 crowds are round about them, noise is 
 their music : they quote us their Terence, 
 Homo sum, as though Terence would have 
 them turn the universe into a committee 
 room for universal talk. The posture of 
 Mr. Bridges' mind, displayed in these 
 poems, is rather that of those earlier poets, 
 Elizabethans and Jacobeans, to whom the 
 world looked half a court of grave observ- 
 ances, and half a cloister of delights : and 
 their service in either kind, a service of 
 solemnity and of elegance together. Only 
 by some such phrase, can I express that 
 dainty and cheerful spirit of pleasure, which 
 makes the sacred verse of Marvell or of 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 Herrick, of Ben Jonson or of Crashaw, 
 sound like the strain of rich music at a 
 feast, where all is gracious and entirely to 
 be relished. It is an excellent view of life, 
 which looks upon the world as a chamber 
 of God, where what is secular is eternal, 
 what is spiritual is ideal : and all good, fine 
 things are the ornaments and garniture of 
 an eternal spirit immanent there. I find 
 something of this view in all great poetry : 
 Lucretius cannot obscure it : 
 
 tibi suaveis daedala tellus 
 Submittit flores, tibi rident aequora ponti 
 Placatumque nitet diffuse lumine coelum. 
 
 In Pope or in Gray, an exquisite refine- 
 ment of taste and workmanship declares 
 their love of a pleasing order among things : 
 Keats, once clear from the prodigalities of 
 youth, is great in virtue of it : Wordsworth 
 is magnificent in praise of it, for what 
 does he ascribe to Duty, for an office and 
 a grace? 
 
 Flowers laugh before thee on their beds 
 And fragrance in thy footing treads ; 
 Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong ; 
 And the most ancient Heavens, through Thee, are 
 fresh and strong. 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 Arnold, by dwelling with such serenity 
 of mind upon the great things thought and 
 done in the world, and with such gladness 
 of heart upon the seemliness and the 
 strength of nature, helped us to an appre- 
 ciation of this view : Newman, in all his 
 perfect expression of life's real unity and 
 concord ; in all his lamentation, so like to 
 Milton's, over the breaking of that fair 
 music and divine concent; taught us the 
 same enduring truth. Mr. Pater, realizing 
 with so singular a delight of intellect, the 
 qualities of all admirable things and na- 
 tures, loves to call them hieratic^ or precise^ 
 or comely: he follows the ritual order of 
 human life and of human thought. Nay, 
 come to the greatest things : what is the 
 Theology of the Church Catholic, but the 
 patient and adoring Science of God, guard- 
 ed from wild dreams, grounded upon di- 
 vine sanctions ? But in our day men love 
 to think of themselves, as lost in the world, 
 homeless in the universe ; each wandering 
 fancy is fashioned into a " lyrical cry " : 
 without meditation, without reverence, with- 
 out patience, they utter, and would have us 
 hear, their disconnected and uncertain 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 thoughts. They have no habitual, nor con- 
 stant, principles of thought; no test, no 
 standard of judgment: loose sentiment 
 and lawless imagination are the signs to 
 them of free and fearless genius. So, the 
 form of poetry being inseparable from its 
 matter, this random and unconsidered mat- 
 ter is expressed in forms, devoid of all 
 scholarship and all proportion : poetry is 
 degraded to a mechanical trick of record- 
 ing immediate impressions or vagrant fan- 
 cies. It is one main source of our pleas- 
 ure in reading these Shorter Foems, that 
 not the slightest of them is thus trivial and 
 mean : modern they are, of our own day ; 
 but their romance of tone is classical, their 
 meditative quality is immemorial. As with 
 states, so it is with thoughts : the poet, too, 
 who would deal with the fresh moods and 
 influences of his day, must 
 
 Cast the kingdoms old 
 Into another mould. 
 
 Mark the word : not, cast them into orig- 
 inal chaos, the land of Dullness and of the 
 Dunces ; but into a new mould, a fresh 
 form and feature, no less precise of design 
 than were the former. For an example : 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 compare Mr. Bridges' Spring: Invitation 
 to the Country^ and his Spring: Reply, with 
 Randolph's Ode to Master Anthony Stafford, 
 and with Cotton's Retirement, Stanzes Ir- 
 reguliers : to Mr. Izaak Walton. Or go 
 farther back, into a greater antiquity : read 
 again Martial Ad Licinianum de Hispaniae 
 locis, or Horace Ad Virgilium: and see, 
 how this living poet can once more play 
 upon the old theme of life's aspect and of 
 life's virtue, in town and country, in winter 
 and in spring. Or make another compar- 
 ison : read Campion's rich and moving 
 verses : 
 
 "When thou must home to shades of underground. 
 
 And there arrived, a new admired guest, 
 
 The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round, 
 
 White lope, blithe Helen, and the rest, 
 
 To hear the stories of thy finished love 
 
 From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move; 
 
 Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights, 
 Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make, 
 Of tourneys and great challenges of knights, 
 And all those triumphs for thy beauty's sake : 
 When thou hast told these honours done to thee. 
 Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me." 
 
 The classic, romantic splendour and 
 beauty of that, so full of Propertian fire 
 
 XXV 
 
 V 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 and Spenserian solemnity, cannot escape 
 you : now read Mr, Bridges' Elegy on a Lady, 
 whom Grief for the Death of her Betrothed 
 killed: I must mutilate it, by quotation : it 
 thus concludes : 
 
 But now for many days the dewy grass 
 Has shown no markings of his feet at mom : 
 And watching she has seen no shadow pass 
 The moonlit walk, and heard no music borne 
 
 Upon her ear forlorn. 
 In vain has she looked out to greet him ; 
 He has not come, he will not come, alas ! 
 So let us bear her out where she must meet him. 
 
 Now to the river bank the priests are come : 
 The bark is ready to receive its freight : 
 Let some prepare her place therein, and some 
 Embark the litter with its slender weight : 
 
 The rest stand by in state, 
 And sing her a safe passage over; 
 While she is oared across to her new home. 
 Into the arms of her expectant lover. 
 
 And thou, O lover, that art on the watch, 
 Where, on the banks of the forgetful streams. 
 The pale indifferent ghosts wander, and snatch 
 The sweeter moments of their broken dreams, — 
 
 Thou, when the torchlight gleams. 
 When thou shalt see the slow procession, 
 And when thine ears the fitful music catch. 
 Rejoice ! for thou art near to thy possession. 
 
 y 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 Arnold, we find, is not the only poet of 
 our day, who without a specious resem- 
 blance can use the ancient symbols and 
 imageries, for the stately expression of a 
 sorrow : but this power of true assimilation 
 is rare enough, and not to be had, but by 
 patient study educating a native sense for 
 the distinctions of art. 
 
 A thorough consideration of Mr. Bridges' 
 poetry would ponder long his skill in music 
 and in metre : for in these he has some- 
 thing of the master's touch, and beyond the 
 dexterity of a novice. But so full of mi- 
 nute and of technical scholarship is he, that 
 a treatise were required for the exhibition 
 of his theoretic science and actual practice. 
 But I will say, that, if he err at all, it is in 
 a certain concision and compactness, com- 
 ing of many strong monosyllables, too little 
 tempered and relieved by words of a more 
 prolonged melody : it is an effect, something 
 between briskness and sprightliness, com- 
 mon in the less deft and versatile of Eliza- 
 bethan lyrists, and unequal to occasions of 
 great and moving beauty. Such verses are, 
 indeed, of a pleasant tone and of a just 
 economy ; their structure is neat and clean, 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 they are without waste and profusion of 
 words : but coming from Mr. Bridges, they 
 come rather as "copies of verses", done in 
 ' the scholar's humour, for the leisurely ex- 
 ercise' sake, than as the best products of 
 his imagination. When he chooses to sing 
 or to chaunt, with more of various melody 
 and concerted music, we regret, not with- 
 out some ingratitude, his less delicate or 
 lofty strain. In certain measures, devised 
 with a great subtilty of accents, equal in 
 number upon each line, but in each line 
 prevailing over various reaches, or disposed 
 at various intervals, Mr. Bridges has not 
 yet attained a perfect ease : but he contrives 
 many pleasurable eifects : witness some of 
 the lines On a Dead Child. 
 
 Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee, 
 With promise of strength and manhood full and fair ! 
 
 Though cold and stark and bare, 
 The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain 
 on thee. 
 
 And again: 
 
 So quiet! doth the change content thee? — Death, 
 
 whither hath he taken thee ? 
 To a world, do I think, that rights the disaster of 
 
 this > 
 
 The vision of which I miss, 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 Who weep for the body, and wish but to warm thee 
 and awaken thee ? 
 
 Ah ! little at best can all our hopes avail us 
 
 To lift this sorrow, or cheer us, when in the dark. 
 
 Unwilling, alone we embark, 
 And the things we have seen and have known and 
 have heard of, fail us. 
 
 But those, who wish to study the met- 
 rical achievements of Mr. Bridges, in va- 
 rious kinds, had best read his comedy, The 
 Feast of Bacchus, written in " English six- 
 stressed verse " ; his Eden, an Oratorio, set 
 to music by Mr. Villiers Stanford ; the 
 choral parts of his play, Achilles in Scyros ; 
 to name but these. 
 
 Besides the Shorter Foems, the volume of 
 seventy-nine sonnets, entitled The Growth 
 of Love, is of noticeable beauty : it may be 
 thought, in point of mental and imagin- 
 ative strength, his finest work. Unlike 
 most sonnets of our time, these sonnets are 
 weighty with close thought, and rich with 
 images, in the Shakespearian, and in Mil- 
 ton's ways : yet not obscure, nor luxuriant, 
 in the less happy manner of Rossetti. And 
 their substance is congruous with the form : 
 each grave or exulting thought finds within 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 the limits of the fourteen lines, an exact 
 place for it to fill : so Petrarch conceived 
 the sonnet, and so Sidney. I present one, 
 at random : 
 
 The dark and serious Angel, who so long 
 
 Vexed his immortal strength in charge of me, 
 
 Hath smiled for joy and fled in liberty 
 
 To take his pastime with the peerless throng. 
 
 Oft had I done his noble keeping wrong. 
 
 Wounding his heart to wonder what might be 
 
 God's purpose in a soul of such degree : 
 
 And there he had left me, but for mandate strong. 
 
 But seeing thee with me now, his task at close 
 He knoweth, and wherefore he was bid to stay 
 And work confusion of so many foes. 
 The thanks he looks to have from me I pay, 
 Yet fear some heavenly envy as he goes 
 Unto what great reward I cannot say. 
 
 The narrative poem, Eros and Psyche, 
 published in 1885, is one of those versions, 
 in which " Apuleius has been simply fol- 
 lowed. " It is written in graceful stanzas 
 of seven lines, and dedicated, in significant 
 terms, To the Celestial Spirit of Henry Pur- 
 cell by an Unworthy Lover. The poem is in 
 no sfense a translation : indeed, Mr. Bridges 
 has a note, in which he speaks of " the sub- 
 stitution of Hellenism for Latin vulgarity," 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 somewhat to the consternation of the pres- 
 ent writer, who is equally surprised at read- 
 ing of " the dull furniture of Apuleius. " 
 The poem is a felicitous piece of fancy, em- 
 bellished with many devices : but the lover 
 of Apuleius will prefer the miraculous ren- 
 dering by Mr. Pater. Nowhere in Mr. 
 Bridges' poem is there so perfect a phrase, 
 as that of " the craftsman, divine or half- 
 divine, who by the subtlety of his art had 
 breathed so wild a soul into the silver ! " 
 Qui magnce artis subtilitate tantum efferavit 
 argentum. Mr. Bridges' poem has the same 
 degree of excellence, that has Mr. Lang's 
 Helen of Troy : but it can hardly claim an 
 higher place, for all its ready invention, 
 and its grace of scholarship. 
 
 Prometheus the Firegiver : A Spectacle in 
 the Greek Manner was first printed in the 
 year 1883, by Mr. Daniel, and at a public 
 press in 1884 : Nero, The Feast of Bacchus, 
 Palicio, Return of Ulysses, The Christian 
 Captives, Achilles in Scyros, have followed 
 Prometheus. It is here, that I can best 
 dwell upon another distinction of Mr. 
 Bridges, as a poetical craftsman. That he 
 is no contemner of the past, has been said : 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 but he is also, as appears from his works, a 
 very careful searcher into the literary fash- 
 ions, tastes, habits, adventures, of the old 
 craftsmen. Men of letters, and poets above 
 all, are in these days content to know little 
 about such matters : to have a general view 
 of Sophocles and of Shakespeare, but to be 
 extremely ignorant of Calderon and of Al- 
 fieri; to know much of Milton, but nothing 
 of Vondel, much of Lessing, but nothing of 
 Opitz : to read Spenser, and Chaucer, and 
 Dryden, but not Browne, nor Gower, nor 
 Cowley. And who shall say, that to know 
 the great Masters is not the first necessity 
 of an artist ? Yet we might think, that a 
 true man of letters would eagerly explore 
 all tracts and byways of literature, all ten- 
 tative methods and forsaken aims of his 
 predecessors. In the other arts, this apathy 
 less prevails : we have with us still those, 
 who are willing to study the old " Italian 
 tractates ", to explore old music-rooms, to 
 pursue the obscure traces of all past excel- 
 lence. Mr. Bridges, whilst displaying 
 throughout his work a loving familiarity 
 with both old and foreign literature, seems, 
 if I may make the conjecture, to have stud- 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 ied with especial care the spectacular and 
 the musical history of the stage : to know, 
 wherein precisely consists the virtue of any 
 dramatic form, at a given period. Thus, in 
 \i\% Feast of Bacchus, he has done in Eng- 
 lish, what no one else has done : he has 
 given us the very soul and body of Terence, 
 with the ghost of the lost and shadowy Me- 
 nander. Such a study is, he sings, a win- 
 tertide's employment : 
 
 Then oft I turn the page 
 In which our country's name, 
 Spoiling the Greek of fame, 
 Shall sound in every age : 
 Or some Terentian play 
 Renew, whose excellent 
 Adjusted folds betray 
 How once Menander went. 
 
 In all his plays, he exhibits a just con- 
 ception of his subject and of its treatment: 
 he knows, when to catch the spirit of the 
 Italian Renaissance, or of the Spanish 
 school ; when to plan his chorus in the aus- 
 tere manner of Milton, or with something 
 of Shelley's brilliance ; when the Sophoclean 
 tone is in season, and when that of Euripi- 
 des; what degree of license is permissible, 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 in handling classic matters after the Eliza- 
 bethan way. In all that, he is never at a 
 loss : his plays are quick-witted, ingenious, 
 facile: although his dexterous craftsman- 
 ship rarely enables him to make the dra- 
 matic forrh embody the high dramatic spirit. 
 All that he writes in dramatic form, we en- 
 joy; it is infinitely skilful and attractive: 
 but for a power essentially, pre-eminently, 
 dramatic, we look to the one English dram- 
 atist of greatness, now living; to Michael 
 Field. Mr. Bridges gives us the humour 
 of the drama, its various attendant charms 
 and graces, not without a real and an origi- 
 nal force : but in his lyrics he is perfectly 
 fine. 
 
 Briefly, and generally, I have touched 
 upon the characteristic virtues, as I see 
 them, of this excellent poet : rather indica- 
 ting, than attempting to expound, his pecu- 
 liar charm. It is a limited charm : not that 
 it is one liable to decay with time, or to 
 pass with the reader's passing moods. But 
 it is limited, in the sense that this poetry in 
 all its simplicity, in all its skill, is too dainty 
 a thing for common use. Unlike the poems 
 of Arnold or of Wordsworth, of Virgil or 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 of Keats, of Milton or of Goethe, they can- 
 not be read daily and in all places. That 
 is test of great poetry : its abiding and un- 
 failing power upon us, because of its indif- 
 ference to time and place. A line of Vir- 
 gil, written by the Bay of Naples, in some 
 most private hour of meditation, all those 
 long years ago ! comes home to us, as 
 though it were our own thought : upon 
 each repetition, experience has made it 
 more true and touching. Or take some 
 verse of Arnold, written at Oxford or in 
 London, some few years past : it comes 
 home to us, as though a thousand years had 
 pondered it, and found it true. And in 
 beauty, in power of music and of phrase, 
 the great poets are all contemporaries : an 
 eternal beauty is upon the great works of 
 art, as though they were from everlasting. 
 Poets of exquisite charm, true to their art, 
 true to its traditions, full of its inner spirit, 
 may still miss that final grace and gran- 
 deur : and of these, Mr. Bridges is, in my 
 poor judgment, the most admirable in re- 
 cent times. Had a friend been reading 
 Herrick to me, or Catullus ; were I lying 
 in the gardens of New College in Oxford, 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 or in Winchester Meads ; did some one 
 play to me a fugue of Bach : I might, 
 at this hour, rate the Shorter Poems of 
 Robert Bridges far higher than my con- 
 science, unperverted by delights, will suffer 
 me. For they are poems, unaffected and 
 simple, yet with an air of dainty luxury 
 about them : free from all trivial show and 
 glitter, yet not commanding and compel- 
 ling us by their intrinsic greatness. Read 
 England ^s Helicon, or Mr. Palgrave's anth- 
 ology o£ English Lyrics : neither book con- 
 tains one page of absolutely bad work, and 
 either contains a vast deal that is very 
 good. We might with reason grow enthus- 
 iastic over these delightful pages : but 
 then, with what a sudden revulsion of feel- 
 ing we read an ode of Milton, a lyric of 
 Shakespeare ! 
 
 You meaner Beauties of the Night, 
 
 That poorly satisfie our Eies, 
 More by your number, than your light, 
 
 You Common-people of the Skies ; 
 What are you when the Sun shall rise ? 
 
 But in our zeal for the Sun, let us not shut 
 our eyes to the stars : and in the heavens 
 of Poetry, where now few stars, perchance,. 
 
THE POEMS OF MR. BRIDGES. 
 
 not a full Pleiad, are shining, none shines 
 more purely, nor more serenely, than the 
 star of our consideration, 
 
 LIONEL JOHNSON. 
 
€$e O^rotDtl) of 
 Ipolie 
 
THEY that in play can do the thing they would 
 Having an instinct throned in reason's place, 
 — And every perfect action hath the grace 
 Of indolence or thoughtless hardihood — 
 These are the best : yet be there workmen good 
 Who lose in earnestness control of face 
 Or reckon means and rapt in effort base 
 Reach to their ends by steps well understood. 
 
 Me whom thou sawst of late strive with the pains 
 Of one who spends his strength to rule his nerve — 
 Even as a painter breathlessly who strains 
 His scarcely moving hand lest it should swerve — 
 Behold me now free from the care that stains 
 And master of the art I chose to serve. 
 
II 
 
 For thou art mine. And now I am ashamed 
 To have us^d means to win so pure acquist 
 And of my trembling fear that might have missed 
 Through very care the gold at which I aimed : 
 And am as happy but to hear thee named, 
 As are those gentle souls by angels kissed 
 In pictures seen leaving their marble cist 
 To go before the throne of grace unblamed. 
 
 Nor surer am I water hath the skill 
 To quench my thirst or that my strength is freed 
 In measure, grace and motion as I will 
 Than that to be myself is all I need 
 For thee to be most mine : so I stand still 
 And save to taste my joy no more take heed. 
 
Ill 
 
 The whole world now is but the minister 
 
 Of thee to me : I see no other scheme 
 
 But universal love from timeless dream 
 
 Waking to thee his joy's interpreter. 
 
 I walk around and in the fields confer 
 
 Of love at large with tree and flower and stream 
 
 And list the lark descant upon thy theme 
 
 Heaven's musical accepted worshipper. 
 
 Thy smile outfaceth ill : and that old feud 
 'Twixt things and me is quashed in our new truce 
 And Nature now dearly with thee endued 
 No more in shame ponders her old excuse 
 But quite forgets her frowns and antics rude 
 So kindly hath she grown to her new use. 
 
IV 
 
 The very names of things we love are dear 
 And sounds will gather beauty from their sense, 
 As many a face through love's long residence 
 Groweth to fair instead of plain and sere : 
 But when I say thy name it hath no peer 
 And I suppose fortune determined thence 
 Her dower, that such beauty's excellence 
 Should have a perfect title for the ear : 
 
 For I must think the adopting Muses chose 
 
 Their sons by name, knowing none would be heard 
 
 Or writ so oft in all the world as those : 
 
 Dan Chaucer, mighty Shakespeare, then for third 
 
 The classic Milton, and to us arose 
 
 Shelley with, liquid music in the word. 
 
The poets were good teachers for they taught 
 
 Earth had this joy, but that 't would ever be 
 
 That fortune should be perfected in me 
 
 My heart of hope dared not engage the thought. 
 
 So I stood low, and now but to be caught 
 
 By any self-styled lords of the age with thee 
 
 Vexes my modesty, lest they should see 
 
 I hold them owls and peacocks, things of nought. 
 
 And when we sit alone, and as I please 
 I taste thy love's full smile and can enstate 
 The pleasure of my kingly heart at ease : 
 My thought swims like a ship, that with the weight 
 Of her rich burden sleeps on the infinite seas 
 Becalmed, and cannot stir her golden freight. 
 
VI 
 
 While yet we wait for spring and from the dry 
 
 And blackening east that so embitters March, 
 
 Well housed must watch grey fields and meadows parch 
 
 And driven dust and withering snowflake fly : 
 
 Already in glimpses of the tarnished sky 
 
 The sun is warm and beckons to the larch, 
 
 And where the covert hazels interarch 
 
 Their tasselled twigs, fair beds of primrose lie. 
 
 Beneath the crisp and wintry carpet hid 
 A million buds but stay their blossoming 
 And trustful birds have built their nests amid 
 The shuddering boughs, and only wait to sing 
 Till one soft shower from the south shall bid 
 And hither tempt the pilgrim steps of spring. 
 
VII 
 
 In thee my spring of life hath bid the while 
 A rose unfold beyond the summer's best, 
 The mystery of joy made manifest 
 In love's self-answering and awakening smile : 
 Whereby the lips in silence reconcile 
 Desire with peace, and pleading in arrest 
 Of passion, shew the beauty left unguessed 
 Of Greece to adorn at last the Tuscan style : 
 
 When first the wonder conquering faith had kenned 
 Fancy pourtrayed, above the strength of oath 
 Revealed of God or light of poem penned. 
 The countenance of ancient-plighted troth 
 'Twixt heaven and earth, that in one moment blend 
 The hope of one and happiness of both. 
 
VIII 
 
 For beauty being the best of all we know 
 Sums up the unsearchable and secret aims 
 Of nature, and on joys whose heavenly names 
 Were never told can form and sense bestow. 
 And man hath sped his instinct to outgo 
 Nature in sound and shape, and daily frames 
 Much for himself to countervail his shames, 
 Building a tower above the head of woe. 
 
 And never was there work for beauty found 
 Fairer than this, that she should make to cease 
 The jarring woes that in the world abound. 
 Nay with his sorrow may his smiles encrease, 
 If from man's greater need beauty redound 
 And claim his tears for homage of his peace. 
 
IX 
 
 Thus to thy beauty doth my fond heart look 
 That late dismayed her faithless faith forebore 
 And wins again her love lost in the lore 
 Of schools and script of many a learned book : 
 For thou what ruthless death untimely took 
 Shalt now in better brotherhood restore 
 And save my battered ship that far from shore 
 High on the dismal deep in tempest shook. 
 
 So in despite of sorrow lately learned 
 I still hold true to truth since thou art true, 
 Nor wail the woe which thou to joy hast turned 
 Nor come the heavenly sun and bathing blue 
 To my life's need more splendid and unearned 
 Than hath thy gift outmatched desire and due. 
 
X 
 
 Winter was not unkind because uncouth, 
 His prisoned time made me a closer guest 
 And gave thy graciousness a warmer zest 
 Biting all else with keen and angry tooth : 
 And bravelier the triumphant blood of youth 
 Mantling thy cheek its happy home possest 
 And sterner sport by day put strength to test 
 And custom's feast at night gave tongue to truth. 
 
 Or say hath flaunting summer a device 
 To match our midnight revelry that rang 
 With steel and flame along the snow-girt ice ? 
 Or when we harked to nightingales that sang 
 On dewy eves in spring, did they entice 
 To gentler love than winter's icy fang ? 
 
XI 
 
 There 's many a would-be poet at this hour 
 Rhymes of a love and truth he never wooed 
 And o'er his lamplit desk in solitude 
 Deems that he sitteth in the Muses' bower. 
 And while such thewless kine the fat devour 
 And ever grow the leaner for their food 
 Men look askance upon an art pursued 
 By clerks that lack the pulse and smile of power. 
 
 So none of all our company, I boast, 
 But now would mock my writing could they see 
 How down the right it maps a jagged coast : 
 Seeing they hold the manlier praise to be 
 Strong hand and will and the heart best when most 
 'T is sober, simple, true and fancy-free. 
 
XII 
 
 How could I quarrel or blame you most dear 
 Who all thy virtues gavest and kept back none : 
 Kindness and gentleness, truth without peer 
 And beauty that my fancy fed upon ? 
 
 Now not my life's contrition for my fault 
 Can blot that day nor work me recompense, 
 Though I might worthily thy worth exalt 
 Making thee long amends for short offence. 
 
 For surely nowhere, love, if not in thee 
 Are grace and truth and beauty to be found : 
 And all my praise of these can only be 
 A praise of thee, howe'er by thee disowned : 
 
 While still thou must be mine though far removed,^ 
 And I for one offence no more beloved. 
 
XIII 
 
 Now since to me although by thee refused 
 The world is left, I shall find pleasure still : 
 The art I have ever loved but little used 
 Will yield a world of fancies at my will. 
 
 And though where'er thou goest it is from me, 
 I where I go thee in my heart must bear : 
 And what thou wert that wilt thou ever be, 
 My choice, my best, my loved and only fair. 
 
 Farewell, yet think not such farewell a change 
 From tenderness, though once to meet or part 
 But on short absence so could sense derange 
 That tears have graced the greeting of my heart : 
 
 They were proud drops and had my leave to fall 
 Not on thy pity for my pain to call. 
 
XIV 
 
 When sometimes in an ancient house where state 
 From noble ancestry is handed on, 
 We see but desolation through the gate 
 And richest heirlooms all to ruin gone : 
 
 Because maybe some fancied shame or fear 
 Bred of disease or melancholy fate 
 Hath driven the owner from his rightful sphere 
 To wander nameless save to pity or hate. 
 
 What is the wreck of all he hath in fief 
 When he that hath is wrecking ? nought is fine 
 Unto the sick, nor doth it burden grief 
 That the house perish when the soul doth pine. 
 
 Thus I my state despise, slain by a sting 
 So slight 't would not have hurt a meaner thing. 
 
XV 
 
 WHO builds a ship must first lay down the keel 
 Of health, whereto the ribs of mirth are wed 
 And knit with beams and knees of strength, a bed 
 For decks of purity, her floor and ceil. 
 Upon her masts, adventure, pride and zeal, 
 To fortune's wind the sails of purpose spread : 
 And at the prow make figured maidenhead 
 O'er ride the seas and answer to the wheel. 
 
 And let him deep in memory's hold have stored 
 Water of Helicon : and let him fit 
 The needle that doth true with heaven accord : 
 Then bid her crew, love, diligence and wit 
 With justice, courage, temperance come aboard. 
 And at her helm the master reason sit. 
 
XVI 
 
 This world is unto God a work of art 
 Of which the unaccomplished heavenly plan 
 Lives in his masterpiece and grows with man 
 Unto perfection and success in part. 
 The ultimate creation stayed to start 
 From the last creature for whom all began : 
 Who child in what he is and what he can 
 Hath yet God's judgment and desire at heart. 
 
 Knowledge denied him, and his little skill 
 Cumbered by laws he never can annul, 
 Baffled by qualities adverse and ill, 
 With feeble hands, few years and senses dull, 
 His art is nature's nature, and love still 
 Makes his abode with the most beautiful. 
 
XVII 
 
 Say who be these light-bearded sunburnt faces 
 In negligent and travel-stained array- 
 That in the city of Dante come to-day 
 Haughtily visiting her holy places ? 
 O these be noble men that hide their graces, 
 True England's blood, her ancient glory's stay, 
 By tales of fame diverted on their way 
 Home from the rule of Oriental races. 
 
 Life-trifling lions these, of gentle eyes 
 And motion delicate, but swift to fire 
 For honour, passionate where duty lies, 
 Most loved and loving : and they quickly tire 
 Of Florence, that she one more day denies 
 The embrace of wife and son, of sister or sire. 
 
XVIII 
 
 Where San Miniatos convent from the sun 
 At forenoon overlooks the city of flowers 
 I sat, and gazing on her domes and towers 
 Called up her famous children one by one : 
 And three who all the rest had far outdone, 
 Mild Giotto first, who stole the morning hours, 
 I saw, and god-like Buonarroti's powers, 
 And Dante, gravest poet, her much wronged son. 
 
 Is all this glory, I said, another's praise ? 
 Are these heroic triumphs things of old 
 And do I dead upon the living gaze ? 
 Or rather doth the mind that can behold 
 The wondrous beauty of the works and days 
 Create the image that her thoughts enfold. 
 
XIX 
 
 Rejoice ye dead, where'er your spirits dwell, 
 Rejoice that yet on earth your fame is bright 
 And that your names remembered day and night 
 Live on the lips of those that love you well. 
 Rejoice ye living ye that now excel 
 And guard in nameless homes the sacred light : 
 Rejoice, though prosperous folly in her spite 
 Banish all them that from her rule rebel. 
 
 For Ihe world's exile hath a richer meed 
 Than a king's favourite : he shall arrive 
 With the like triumph and return decreed 
 To him who ne'er revisited alive 
 His home but sang, — Doubt not I shall succeed 
 For all the hindrance they within contrive. 
 
XX 
 
 Who praiseth ? If the poet have not known 
 
 His work is beautiful, none can persuade : 
 
 Nor doth our time that so wrongs Handel's shade 
 
 Contrive his condemnation but its own. 
 
 The comment writ on Shakespeare hath not shown 
 
 The perfect judgment that alive he laid 
 
 On his own work, which taketh since 't was made 
 
 Grace nor disgrace save but of love alone. 
 
 And love in loving nothing that is vile 
 Knows not the error of the mind, nor fears 
 To set his seal in secret with a smile : 
 But O could one as Purcell win the tears 
 Of love, such praise were more than to beguile 
 The learned fancies of a thousand years. 
 
XXI 
 
 The world still goeth about to shew and hide, 
 Befooled of all opinion, fond of fame : 
 But he that can do well taketh no pride 
 And seeth his error, undisturbed by shame : 
 
 So poor's the best our longest days can do. 
 The most so little, diligently done. 
 So mighty is the beauty that doth woo, 
 So vast the joy that love from love hath won. 
 
 God's love to win is easy, for He loveth 
 Desires fair attitude, nor strictly weighs 
 The broken thing, but all alike approveth 
 Which love hath aimed at Him : that is heaven's praise 
 
 And if we look for any praise on earth 
 'T is in man's love : all else is nothing worth. 
 
XXII 
 
 O FLESH and blood, comrade to tragic pain 
 
 And clownish merriment : whose sense could wake 
 
 Sermons in stones, and count death but an ache, 
 
 All things as vanity, yet nothing vain : 
 
 The world set in thy heart thy passionate strain 
 
 Revealed anew : but thou for man didst make 
 
 Nature twice natural, only to shake 
 
 Her kingdom with the creatures of thy brain. 
 
 Lo Shakespeare, since thy time nature is loth 
 To yield to art her fair supremacy : 
 In conquering one thou hast so enrichdd both. 
 What shall I say } for God — whose wise decree 
 Confirmeth all He did by all He doth — 
 Doubled His whole creation making thee. 
 
XXIII 
 
 I WOULD be a bird, and straight on wings I arise 
 And carry purpose up to the ends of the air : 
 In calm and storm my sails I feather and where 
 By freezing cliflFs the unransomed wreckage lies : 
 Or strutting on hot meridian banks surprise 
 The silence : over plains in the moonlight bare 
 I chase my shadow and perch where no bird dare 
 In treetops torn by fiercest winds of the skies. 
 
 Poor simple birds, foolish birds, then I cry, 
 Ye pretty pictures of delight, unstirred 
 By the only joy of knowing that ye fly : 
 Ye are not what ye are, but rather, summed in a word. 
 The alphabet of a god's idea, and I 
 Who master it, I am the only bird. 
 
XXIV 
 
 WEARY pilgrims chaunting of your woe 
 That turn your eyes to all the peaks that shine, 
 Hailing in each the citadel divine 
 
 The which ye thought to have entered long ago 
 Until at length your feeble steps and slow 
 Falter upon the threshold of the shrine, 
 And your hearts overburdened doubt in fine 
 Whether it be Jerusalem or no : 
 
 Disheartened pilgrims, I am one of you, 
 For having worshipped many a barren face 
 
 1 scarce now greet the goal I journeyed to : 
 I stand a pagan in the heavenly place. 
 Beneath the lamp of truth I am found untrue 
 And question with the glory I embrace. 
 
XXV 
 
 Spring hath her own bright days of calm and peace 
 Her melting air, at every breath we draw, 
 Floods heart with love to praise God's gracious law : 
 But suddenly — so short is pleasure's lease — 
 The cold returns, the buds from growing cease 
 And nature's conquered face is full of awe : 
 As now the traitrous north with icy flaw 
 Freezes the dew upon the sick lamb's fleece. 
 
 And 'neath the mock sun searching everywhere 
 Rattles the crispdd leaves with shivering din : 
 So that the birds are silent with despair 
 Within the thickets, nor their armour thin 
 Will gaudy flies adventure in the air 
 Nor any lizard sun his spotted skin. 
 
XXVI 
 
 Nothing is joy without thee : I can find 
 No rapture in the first relays of spring, 
 In songs of birds, in young buds opening, 
 Nothing inspiriting and nothing kind : 
 For lack of thee who once wert throned behind 
 All beauty, like a strength where graces cling : 
 The jewel and heart of light which everything 
 Wrestled in rivalry to hold enshrined. 
 
 Ah, since thou 'rt fled and I in each fair sight 
 The sweet occasion of my joy deplore, 
 Where shall I seek thee best or whom invite 
 Within thy sacred temples and adore ? 
 Who shall fill thought and truth with old delight 
 And lead my soul in life as heretofore ? 
 
XXVII 
 
 The work is done and from the fingers fall 
 
 The bloodwarm tools that brought the labor through 
 
 The tasking eye that overrunneth all 
 
 Rests, and affirms there is no more to do. 
 
 Now the third joy of making, the sweet flower 
 Of blessed work bloometh in godlike spirit : 
 Which whoso plucketh holdeth for an hour 
 The shrivelling vanity of mortal merit. 
 
 And thou, my perfect work, thou 'rt of to-day : 
 To-morrow a poor and alien thing wilt be, 
 True only should the swift life stand at stay : 
 Therefore farewell nor look to bide with me. 
 
 Go find thy friends if there be one to love thee : 
 Casting thee forth, ray child, I rise above thee. 
 
XXVIII 
 
 The fabled sea-snake, old Leviathan, 
 
 Or else what grisly beast of scaly chine 
 
 That champed the oceanwrack, and swashed the brine 
 
 Before the new and milder days of man, 
 
 Had never rib nor bray nor swindging fan 
 
 Like his iron swimmer of the Clyde or Tyne, 
 
 Late born of golden seed to breed a line 
 
 Of offspring swifter and more huge of plan. 
 
 Straight is her going, for upon the sun 
 When once she hath looked, her path and place are plain 
 With tireless speed she smiteth one by one 
 The shuddering seas and foams along the main : 
 And her eased breath when her wild race is run 
 Roars through her nostrils like a hurricane. 
 
XXIX 
 
 A THOUSAND times hath in my heart's behoof 
 My tongue been set his passion to impart : 
 A thousand times hath my too coward heart 
 My mouth reclosed and fixed it to the roof : 
 Then with such cunning hath it held aloof, 
 A thousand times kept silence with such art 
 That words could do no more : yet on thy part 
 Hath silence given a thousand times reproof. 
 
 I should be bolder, seeing I commend 
 Love that my dilatory purpose primes, 
 But fear lest with my fears my hope should end. 
 Nay I would truth deny and bum my rhymes, 
 Renew my sorrows rather than offend, 
 A thousand times and yet a thousand times. 
 
XXX 
 
 I TRAVEL to thee with the sun's first rays 
 That lift the dark west and unwrap the night : 
 I dwell beside thee when he walks the height 
 And fondly toward thee at his setting gaze. 
 I wait upon thy coming, but always — 
 Dancing to meet my thoughts if they invite — 
 Thou hast outrun their longing with delight 
 And in my solitude dost mock my praise. 
 
 I well might say 't were better not to have been 
 Than such I am to be for such as thou : 
 And couldst thou love me more my heart I 'd wean 
 And win a claim that none could disallow : 
 But since that cannot be, O love, I lean 
 Upon thy strength and ne'er was strong till now. 
 
XXXI 
 
 My lady pleases me and I please her, 
 
 This know we both and I besides know well 
 
 Wherefore I love her and I love to tell '^^ 
 
 My love as all my loving songs aver. 
 
 But what on her part could the passion stir 
 
 Though 't is more difficult for love to spell 
 
 Yet can I dare divine how this befel ~ 
 
 Nor will her lips deny it if I err. 
 
 She loves me first because I love her, then 
 Loves me for knowing why she should be loved, 
 And that I love to praise her, loves again. 
 So from her beauty both our loves are moved 
 And by her beauty are sustained, nor when 
 The earth falls from the sun is this disproved. 
 
XXXII 
 
 In all things beautiful I cannot see 
 
 Her sit or stand, but love is stirred anew : 
 
 'T is joy to watch the folds fall as they do, 
 
 And all that comes is past expectancy. 
 
 If she be silent, silence let it be : 
 
 He who would bid her speak might sit and sue 
 
 The deep-browed Phidian Jove to be untrue 
 
 To his two thousand years' solemnity. 
 
 Ah but her launched passion when she sings 
 Wins on the hearing like a shapen prow 
 Borne by the mastery of its urgent wings : 
 Or if she deign her wisdom, she doth show 
 She hath the intelligence of heavenly things 
 Unsullied by man's mortal overthrow. 
 
Cjiep t]^at in plap can bo t^t tjjiing tlie^ tDoulb 
 f$Mng minftintt tfytmtt in reafong place/ 
 — j^nb eberp perfect action jiatj tje grace 
 |3Df indolence or tj^ougj^tleC^ $a|bi]^mb— 
 ir$efe are t!ie belt : ?et be tjiere tno^kmen gmb 
 ilKMJo lofe in eajnethtef0 control of face 
 ^r ^ecl^on mean^ anb rapt in effort bafe 
 Eeaci) to tjieir mH b^ ft^$ loefi unbe^llmb* 
 
 ^e tobom t$ou fatoit of late ftribe Mt^ tbe pain? 
 flDf onetojo fpenb? Jijj ff^engtb to rule Jiis nerbe— 
 (Eben a^ a painter b^eatbleMp tD|io Urainis 
 !^ijf fcarcel? mobing Janb lett it fjoulb ftoerbe— 
 15ebolb me nob) Ub from tbe care tbar ftain? 
 Hnb maHer of tjie art 3 c!iofe to ferbe* 
 
 FACSIMILE PAGE OF THE ORIGINAL EDITION, " THE GROWTH OF LOVE. 
 
XXXIII 
 
 Thus to be humbled : 't is that ranging pride 
 
 No refuge hath : that in his castle strong 
 
 Brave reason sits beleaguered who so long 
 
 Kept field but now must starve where he doth hide 
 
 That industry who once the foe defied 
 
 Lies slaughtered in the trenches : that the throng 
 
 Of idle fancies pipe their foolish song 
 
 Where late the puissant captains fought and died. 
 
 Thus to be humbled : 't is to be undone, 
 A forest felled, a city razed to ground, 
 A cloak unsewn, unwoven and unspun 
 Till not a thread remains that can be wound. 
 And yet, O lover, thee the ruined one 
 Love who hath humbled thus hath also crowned. 
 
XXXIV 
 
 I CARE not if I live, though life and breath 
 Have never been to me so dear and sweet, 
 I care not if I die, for I could meet — 
 Being so happy — happily my death. 
 I care not if I love : to-day she saith 
 She loveth, and love's history is complete. 
 Nor care I if she love me : at her feet 
 My spirit bows entranced and worshippeth. 
 
 I have no care for what was most my care 
 But all around me see fresh beauty born 
 And common sights grown lovelier than they were : 
 I dream of love, and in the light of morn 
 Tremble beholding all things very fair 
 And strong with strength that puts my strength to scorn. 
 
XXXV 
 
 MY goddess divine, — sometimes I say : 
 Now let this word for ever and all suffice : 
 Thou art insatiable, and yet not twice 
 Can even thy lover give his soul away : 
 And for my acts, that at thy feet I lay, 
 For never any other by device 
 
 Of wisdom love or beauty could entice 
 My homage to the measure of this day. 
 
 I have no more to give thee : lo, I have sold 
 My life, have emptied out my heart and spent 
 Whate'er I had : till like a beggar, bold 
 With nought to lose, I laugh and am content. 
 A beggar kisses thee, nay love, behold, 
 
 1 fear not : thou too art in beggarment. 
 
XXXVI 
 
 All earthly beauty hath one cause and proof, 
 To lead the pilgrim soul to beauty above : 
 Yet lieth the greater bliss so far aloof 
 That few there be are weaned from earthly love. 
 
 Joy's ladder it is, reaching from home to home. 
 The best of all the work that all was good : 
 Whereof 't was writ the angels aye upclomb, 
 Down sped, and at the top the Lord God stood. 
 
 But I my time abuse, my eyes by day 
 Centered on thee, by night my heart on fire — 
 Letting my numbered moments run away — 
 Nor e'en 'twixt night and day to heaven aspire. 
 
 So true it is that what the eye seeth not 
 But slow is loved and loved is soon forgot. 
 
XXXVII 
 
 Already far have we sailed out to sea, 
 
 Enough have proved our bark and hear the roar 
 
 Of tempest ovemigh that more and more 
 
 Rages and lightens on the whitened lea. 
 
 See how with naked masts the tall ships flee 
 
 Like frighted phantoms from the dangerous shore, 
 
 And not a boat contrives with sail or oar 
 
 To stem the foundering waves : how then shall we ? 
 
 Now time it is to make for port and haste 
 In safety with the joy our perils earn : 
 But let us bow that first the shrine be graced 
 Of him who moves and draws all souls that yearn, 
 With fair memorials of devotion placed 
 For venturous voyage and for safe return. 
 
xxxviri 
 
 THE bliss that Adam lost — eating in haste — 
 He lost not all, for what he had he had : 
 And still his sons are born as pure and glad 
 As he when first by God in Eden placed. 
 But what he took for them — daring to taste — 
 He won outright, whether for good or bad : 
 And in his footsteps all must issue sad 
 Out of their garden, exiled and disgraced. 
 
 And therefore knowledge hath two hands : with one 
 Pressed to her prisoned heart that mourns and yearns 
 She guards her firstborn joy and shares with none : 
 But with her busy right she moves and turns 
 All tangible things, or gazing on the sun 
 Shades her adventurous eye and ever learns. 
 
XXXIX 
 
 O MY life's mischief, once my love's delight, 
 That drewst a mortgage on my heart's estate, 
 Whose baneful clause is never out of date, 
 Nor can avenging time restore my right : 
 Whom first to lose sounded that note of spite 
 Whereto my doleful days were tuned by fate : 
 That art the well-loved cause of all my hate, 
 The sun whose wandering makes my hopeless night 
 
 Thou being in all my lacking all I lack. 
 It is thy goodness turns my grace to crime, 
 Thy fleetness from my goal which holds me back : 
 Wherefore my feet go out of step with time. 
 My very grasp of life is old and slack 
 And even my passion falters in my rhyme. 
 
XL 
 
 At times with hurried hoofs and scattering dust 
 I race by field or highway, and my horse 
 Spare not but urge direct in headlong course 
 Unto some fair far hill that gain I must : 
 But near arrived the vision soon mistrust, 
 Rein in and stand as one who sees the source 
 Of strong illusion, shaming thought to force 
 From off his mind the soil of passion's gust. 
 
 My brow I bare then and with slackened speed 
 Can view the country pleasant on all sides 
 And to kind salutation give good heed. 
 I ride as one who for his pleasure rides 
 And stroke the neck of my delighted steed 
 And seek what cheer the village inn provides. 
 
XLI 
 
 An idle June day on the sunny Thames, 
 Floating or rowing as our fancy led, 
 Now listening to sweet things the young birds said 
 And choosing now a nosegay from the gems 
 That star the embroidery of the bank that hems 
 The current that our skiff from Henley sped 
 To where the Cliefden woods o'er Maidenhead 
 Bar its still surface with their mirrored stems. 
 
 I would have life — thou saidst — all as this day, 
 Simple enjoyment calm in its excess, 
 With not a grief to cloud and not a ray 
 Of passion overhot my peace to oppress : 
 With no ambition to reproach delay. 
 Nor rapture to disturb its happiness. 
 
XLII 
 
 Whether it be happiness to have enough 
 And fear no want while most are poorly fed, 
 To bring untired limbs to an easy bed 
 While any workman's couch is cold and rough : 
 And whether honour be of such dull stuff 
 As likes the peace for which a brother bled, 
 And virtue yet untried in comfort bred 
 Can know her name and feel no self-rebuff : 
 
 Or if to yield themselves to worse and worse 
 Were truly solace for the hearts that chafe — 
 Since their nobility would choose the curse 
 Rather to be than once deride the waif. 
 Or hear the laugh — O blame not my poor verse 
 That it is sad while comfort still is safe. 
 
XLIII 
 
 A MAN that sees by chance his picture, made 
 As once a child he was, handling some toy, 
 Will gaze to find his spirit within the boy. 
 Yet hath no secret with the soul pourtrayed : 
 He cannot think the simple thought which played 
 Upon those features then so frank and coy : 
 'T is his, yet oh, not his : and o'er the joy 
 His fatherly pity bends in tears dismayed. 
 
 Proud of his prime maybe he stand at best 
 And lightly wear his strength or aim it high, 
 Most master now of all he e'er possest : 
 Yet in the pictured face a charm doth lie, 
 The one thing lost more worth than all the 'rest, 
 Which seeing he fears to say — This child was I. 
 
XLIV 
 
 Tears of love, tears of joy and tears of care, 
 Comforting tears that fell uncomforted, 
 Tears o'er the new-born, tears beside the dead. 
 Tears of hope, pride and pity, trust and prayer : 
 Tears of contrition, all tears whatso'er, 
 Of tenderness or kindness had she shed 
 Who here is pictured, ere upon her head 
 The fine gold might be turned to silver there. 
 
 The smile that charmed the father hath given place 
 Unto the furrowed care wrought, by the son : 
 But virtue hath transformed all change to grace. 
 So that I praise the artist who hath done 
 A portrait for my worship of the face 
 Won by the heart my father's heart that won. 
 
XLV 
 
 If I could but forget and not recall 
 
 So well my time of pleasure and of play 
 
 When ancient nature was all new and gay 
 
 Light as the fashion that doth last enthrall : 
 
 Ah mighty nature, when my heart was small 
 
 Nor dreamed what fearful searchings underlay 
 
 The flowers and leafy ecstasy of may, 
 
 The breathing summer sloth, the scented fall. 
 
 Could I forget, then were the fight not hard, 
 Pressed in the melee of accursed things, 
 Having such help in love and such reward : 
 But that 't is I who once — 't is this that stings 
 Once dwelt within the gate that angels guard. 
 Where yet I 'd be had I but heavenly wings. 
 
XLVI 
 
 When I see childhood on the threshold seize 
 
 The prize of life from age and likelihood, 
 
 I mourn time's change that will not be withstood, 
 
 Thinking how Christ said — Be like one of these : 
 
 For in the forest among many trees 
 
 Scarce one in all is found that hath made good 
 
 The virgin pattern of its slender wood 
 
 That courtesied in joy to every breeze : 
 
 But scathed, but knotted trunks that raise on high 
 Their arms in stiff contortion, strained and bare : 
 Whose crowns in patriarchal sorrow sigh. 
 So little children ye — nay nay, ye ne'er 
 From me shall learn how sure the change and nigh 
 When ye shall share our strength and mourn to share. 
 
XLVII 
 
 WHEN parched with thirst, astray on sultry sands 
 The traveller faints, upon his closing ear 
 Steals a fantastic music : he may hear 
 The babbling fountain of his native land. 
 Before his eyes the vision seems to stand 
 Where at its terraced brink the maids appear 
 Who fill their deep urns at its waters clear 
 And not refuse the help of lover's hand. 
 
 O cruel jest — he cries, as some one flings 
 The sparkling drops in sport or shew of ire — 
 O shameless, O contempt of holy things. 
 But never of their wanton play they tire 
 As not athirst they sit beside the springs 
 While he must quench in death his lost desire. 
 
XLVIII 
 
 The image of thy love, rising on dark 
 And desperate days above my sullen sea 
 Wakens again fresh hope and peace in me, 
 Gleaming above upon my groaning bark. 
 Whate'er my sorrow be I then may hark 
 A loving voice : whate'er my terror be 
 This heavenly comfort still I win from thee 
 To shine my lodestar that wert once my mark. 
 
 Prodigal nature makes us but to taste 
 One perfect joy, which given she niggard grows 
 And lest her precious gift should run to waste 
 Adds to its loss a thousand lesser woes : 
 So to the memory of the gift that graced 
 Her hand, her graceless hand more grace bestows. 
 
XLIX 
 
 I WILL not marry thee, sweet Hope — I said — 
 For all thy beauty nor thy promise sworn : 
 Though thou the dayspring pledge, and rosy morn 
 Already captive in thy train hast led. 
 No clouded terror o'er the sun is spread, 
 No noonday darkness like of love outworn : 
 The cold star on his shining orbit borne 
 With all his valleys dry, his verdure dead. 
 
 Nor hast thou any power to thrust aside 
 Fate's cruel hand, nor any refuge shewn 
 Where comfortless my widowed shame could hide. 
 For me — in my cold sepulchre I'd groan 
 Hearing men say, — See Hope, so late love's bride. 
 Whom now this vain Ambition has made his own. 
 
In this neglected, ruined edifice 
 Of works unperfected and broken schemes, 
 Where is the promise of my early dreams, 
 The smile of beauty and the pearl of price ? 
 No charm is left now that could once entice 
 Wind-wavering fortune from her golden streams, 
 And full in flight decrepit purpose seems 
 Trailing the banner of his old device. 
 
 Within the house a frore and numbing air 
 Has chilled endeavour : sickly memories reign 
 In every room and ghosts are on the stair : 
 And hope behind the dusty window-pane 
 Watches the days go by, and half aware 
 Forecasts her last reproach and mortal stain. 
 
LI 
 
 Once I would say, before thy vision came, 
 My joy, my life, my love, and with some kind 
 Of knowledge speak and think I knew my mind 
 Of heaven and hope, and each word hit its aim. 
 Whate'er their sounds be, now all mean the same. 
 Denoting each the fair I cannot find : 
 Or if I say them 't is as one long blind 
 Forgets what sights they were he used to name. 
 
 Now if men speak of love 't is not my love 
 Nor are their hopes nor joys mine, nor the life 
 They choose for praise the life I reckon of : 
 Nay though they turn from house and child and wife 
 And self, and in the thought of heaven above 
 Hold, as do I, all mortal things at strife. 
 
 V 
 
LII 
 
 Since then 't is only pity looking back, 
 Fear looking forward, and the busy mind 
 Will in one woeful moment more upwind 
 Than lifelong years unroll of bitter or black : 
 What is man's privilege, his hoarding knack 
 Of memory with foreboding so combined, 
 Whereby he comes to dream he hath of kind 
 The perpetuity which all things lack ? 
 
 Which but to hope is doubtful joy, to have 
 Being a continuance of what, alas, 
 We mourn and scarcely bear with to the grave : 
 Or something so unknown that it o'erpass 
 The thought of comfort : and the sense that gave 
 Cannot consider it through any glass. 
 
LIII 
 
 Come gentle sleep, I woo thee : come and take 
 Not now the child into thine arms, from fright 
 Composed by drowsy tune and shaded light, 
 Whom ignorant of thee thou didst nurse and make 
 Nor now the boy who scorned thee for the sake 
 Of growing knowledge or mysterious night, 
 Though with fatigue thou didst his limbs invite 
 And heavily weigh the eyes he strove to wake : 
 
 No, nor the man severe who from his best 
 Failing, alert fled to thee, that his breath, 
 Blood, force and fire should come at morn redrest : 
 But me, from whom thy comfort tarrieth, 
 For all my wakeful prayer sent without rest 
 To thee, O shew and shadow of my death. 
 
LIV 
 
 LET man lament his lot and then lament 
 That he must so lament and then complain 
 That all his lamentations are in vain : 
 His tears betray his true affections bent. 
 For liefest love first falls to discontent : 
 As they who best know health will rage at pain 
 And pine beyond their sickness to regain 
 Their treasure treasured most when lost or spent : 
 
 Which being in them a dolour, none the less 
 Inspires the cries of prime. The truly sad 
 Are dumb : and they but honour happiness 
 Who hanker after joys that once they had : 
 Or surfeited of sweets turn and confess 
 Their pleasure is to be no longer glad. 
 
LV 
 
 The spirit's eager sense for sad or gay 
 Filleth with what he will our vessel full : 
 Be joy his bent, he waiteth not joy's day 
 But like a child at any toy will pull : 
 
 If sorrow, he will mourn for fancy's sake 
 And spoil heaven's plenty with forbidden care. 
 What fortune most denies we slave to take : 
 Nor can fate load us more than we can bear. 
 
 And since in having, pleasure disappeareth, 
 He who hath least in hand hath most at heart 
 While he can hope : as he who always feareth 
 A grief that never comes hath still the smart : 
 
 And worse than true is such unreal distress 
 For when God sendeth sorrow, it doth bless. 
 
LVI 
 
 The world comes not to an end : her city-hives 
 Swarm with the tokens of a changeless trade, 
 With rolling wheel, driver and flagging jade, 
 Rich men and beggars, children, priests and wives. 
 New homes on old are set as lives on lives, 
 Invention with invention overlaid : 
 But still or tool or toy or book or blade 
 Shaped for the hand that holds and toils and strives. 
 
 The men I meet work as their fathers wrought 
 With little bettered means : for works depend 
 On works and overlap, and thought on thought. 
 And through all change the smiles of hope amend 
 The weariest face, the same love changed in nought : 
 In this thing too the world comes not to an end. 
 
LVII 
 
 Since in the love of Christ my enterprise 
 To do thee honour groweth day by day, 
 And with the growth of love the words I say 
 Are daily worthier of thee and more wise : 
 Like a rich Jew I book my merchandise 
 In fairest hand and hoard my gains away, 
 Counting the hours ere I shall quite repay 
 More than the full account against me lies : 
 
 But not the joy : alas I in my grave 
 Shall be and thou in thine ere this befal : 
 'T is but a memory my verse can save. 
 Of this my wealth too if I give thee all 
 Sorrow for pleasure pay I, and I crave 
 A loan of time that flies beyond recall. 
 
LVIII 
 
 MY uncared-for songs what are ye worth, 
 That in my secret book with so much care 
 
 1 write you, this one here and that one there, 
 Marking the time and order of your birth ? 
 Now, with a fancy so unkind to mirth, 
 
 A sense so hard, a style so worn and bare, 
 
 Look ye for any welcome anywhere 
 
 From any shelf or heart-home on the earth ? 
 
 Should others ask you this, say then I yearned 
 To write you such as once, when I was young. 
 Finding I should have loved and thereto turned. 
 'T were something yet to live again among 
 The gentle youth beloved and where I learned 
 My art be there remembered for my song. 
 
LIX 
 
 Who takes the census of the living dead, 
 Ere the day come when memory shall o'ercrowd 
 The kingdom of their fame, and for that proud 
 And airy people find no room nor stead ? 
 
 Ere hoarding Time, that ever thrusteth back 
 The fairest treasures of his ancient store, 
 Better with best confound, so he may pack 
 His greedy gatherings closer, more and more ? 
 
 Let the true Muse rewrite her sullied page 
 And purge her story of the men of hate. 
 That they go dirgeless down to Satan's rage 
 With all else foul deformed and miscreate : 
 
 She hath full toil to keep the names we love 
 Honoured on earth as they are bright above. 
 
• LX 
 
 I HEARD great Hector sounding war's alarms 
 Where through the listless ghosts chiding he strode, 
 As though the Greeks besieged his last abode, 
 And he his Troy's hope still, her king at arms. 
 But on those gentle meads where nothing harms 
 And purpose perishes, his passion glowed 
 Like the cold nightworm's candle nor scarce shewed 
 The heart death kills not quite nor Lethe charms. 
 
 'T was plain to read even by those shadows quaint 
 How rude catastrophe had dimmed his day 
 And blighted all his cheer with stern complaint. 
 To arms, to arms, — what more the voice would say 
 Was swallowed in the valleys and grew faint 
 Upon the thin air as he passed away. 
 
LXI 
 
 SINCE peace came down to me, I well know whence, 
 O perfected and happy spirit, 't was sped : 
 And who did lead me whither I was led, 
 Drawn by sweet airs and plaintive innocence. 
 So lost when thou didst seem departing hence, 
 I too enrolled myself among the dead 
 And left my home of homes unvisited. 
 Exiled from memory for my woe's defence. 
 
 But see the doors fast shut by grief and pride, 
 Reopened : see kind peace returned in spite 
 Of this sad heart which thee so long denied : 
 For thou my joy, whate'er, or day or night, 
 I think or do, again art by my side, 
 My lost and won, my treasure and life's delight. 
 
Lxir 
 
 Sweet sleep, dear unadorned bride of toil, 
 Whom in the dusk of night men's bodies low 
 Lie to receive, and thy loved coming know, 
 Closing the cloudy gate on day's turmoil : 
 Thou through the soft ways enterest to despoil 
 The ready spirit and on worn flesh bestow 
 Such comfort as through trembling souls will flow 
 When God's Welldone doth all their sins assoil. 
 
 Thought looseth at thy touch her troubled hold. 
 Hand, eye and ear fail, and the world's fair show 
 Is blotted clean : or then thou mayst unfold — 
 Brightening the hours of sure renewal slow — 
 Thy careless pageantries, pictures untold, 
 Joys which the tasking sun melteth like snow. 
 
LXIII 
 
 Since not the enamoured sun with glance more fond 
 
 Kisses the foliage of his sacred tree. 
 
 Than doth my waking thought arise on thee, 
 
 Loving none near thee, like thee nor beyond : 
 
 Nay since I am sworn thy slave and in the bond 
 
 Is writ my promise of eternity : 
 
 Since to such high hope thou'st encouraged me 
 
 That if thou look but from me I despond : 
 
 Since thou 'rt my all in all, O think of this : 
 Think of the dedication of my youth : 
 Think of my loyalty, my joy, my bliss : 
 Think of my sorrow, my despair and ruth, 
 My sheer annihilation if I miss : 
 Think — if thou shouldst be false — think of thy truth. 
 
LXIV 
 
 These meagre rhymes which a returning mood 
 Sometimes o'errateth, I as oft despise : 
 And knowing them illnatured, stiff and rude, 
 See them as others with contemptuous eyes. 
 
 Nay and I wonder less at God's respect 
 For man, a minim jot in time and space, 
 Than at the soaring faith of His elect, 
 That gift of gifts, the comfort of His grace. 
 
 O work unsearchable, O heavenly love. 
 Most infinitely tender, so to touch 
 The work that we can meanly reckon of : 
 Surely — I say — we are favoured overmuch. 
 
 But of this wonder, what doth most* amaze 
 Is that we know our love is held for praise . 
 
LXV 
 
 Beauty sat with me all the summer day, 
 Awaiting the sure triumph of her eye : 
 Nor marked I till we parted how, hard by. 
 Love in her train stood ready for his prey. 
 She as too pr6ud to join herself the fray, 
 Trusting too much to her divine ally, 
 When she saw victory tarry chid him — Why 
 Dost thou not at one stroke this rebel slay ? 
 
 Then generous Love who holds my heart in fee 
 Told of our ancient truce : so from the fight 
 We straight withdrew our forces, all the three. 
 Baffled but not disheartened she took flight, 
 Scheming new tactics : Love came home with me 
 And prompts my measured verses as I write. 
 
LXVI 
 
 In autumn moonlight when the white air wan 
 Is fragrant in the wake of summer hence 
 'T is sweet to sit entranced and muse thereon 
 In melancholy and godlike indolence : 
 
 When the proud spirit lulled by mortal prime 
 To fond pretence of immortality 
 Vieweth all moments from the birth of time, 
 All things whate'er have been or yet shall be. 
 
 And like the garden where the year is spent, 
 The ruin of old life is full of yearning. 
 Mingling poetic rapture of lament 
 With flowers and sunshine of spring's sure returning 
 
 Only in visions of the white air wan 
 By godlike fancy seized and dwelt upon. 
 
LXVII 
 
 When first I saw thee, dearest, if I say 
 
 The spells that conjure back the hour and place, 
 
 And evermore I look upon thy face, 
 
 As in the spring of years long passed away : 
 
 No fading of thy beauty's rich array, 
 
 No detriment of age on thee I trace, 
 
 But time's defeat written in spoils of grace, 
 
 Robbed from the rivals thou didst pity and slay. 
 
 So hath thy growth been, thus thy faith is true, 
 Unchanged in change, still to my growing sense. 
 To life's desire the same, and nothing new : 
 But as thou wert in dream and prescience 
 At love's arising, now thou standst to view 
 In the broad noon of his magnificence. 
 
LXVIII 
 
 9'^ 1 ^ WAS on the very day winter took leave 
 
 I Of those fair fields I love, when to the skies 
 
 The fragrant Earth was smiling in surprise 
 At that her heaven-descended quick reprieve, 
 I wandered forth my sorrow to relieve. 
 Yet walked amid sweet pleasure in such wise 
 As Adam went alone in Paradise, 
 Before God of His pity fashioned Eve. 
 
 And out of tune with all the joy around 
 I laid me down beneath a flowering tree 
 And o'er my senses crept a sleep profound : 
 In which it seemed that thou wert given to me. 
 Rending my body where with hurried sound 
 I feel my heart beat when I think of thee. 
 
LXIX 
 
 Love that I know, love I am wise in, love 
 
 My strength, my pride, my grace, my skill untaught, 
 
 My faith here upon earth, my hope above. 
 
 My contemplation and perpetual thought : 
 
 The pleasure of my fancy, my heart's fire, 
 My joy, my peace, my praise, my happy theme, 
 The aim of all my doing, my desire 
 Of being, my life by day, by night my dream : 
 
 Love, my sweet melancholy, my distress. 
 My pain, my doubt, my trouble, my despair, 
 My only folly and unhappiness, 
 And in my careless moments still my care : 
 
 O love, sweet love, earthly love, love divine, 
 Sayst thou to-day, O love, that thou art mine ? 
 
LXX 
 
 The dark and serious angel who so long 
 
 Vexed his immortal strength in charge of me 
 
 Hath smiled for joy and fled in liberty 
 
 To take his pastime with the peerless throng. 
 
 Oft had I done his noble keeping wrong, 
 
 Wounding his heart to wonder what might be 
 
 God's purpose in a soul of such degree : 
 
 And there he had left me but for mandate strong. 
 
 But seeing thee with me now, his task at close 
 He knoweth, and wherefore he was bid to stay 
 And work confusion of so many foes. 
 The thanks he looks to have from me I pay, 
 Yet fear some heavenly envy as he goes 
 Unto what great reward I cannot say. 
 
LXXI 
 
 Though others love Thee less I will stand true, 
 
 Nor can it be that I should ever leave Thee : 
 
 Thou knowest my heart and if it could deceive Thee 
 
 It would not wrong Thee thus as others do. 
 
 I spend the day telling my vows anew, 
 
 And hold my courage ready lest I grieve Thee, 
 
 And count my words lest chance oflfence bereave Thee 
 
 Of one poor sheep out of Thy flock so few : 
 
 And call on Thee my Lord, my Strength, my Stay, 
 That if I faint or fall Thou wilt restore me 
 And feed me with fresh comfort day by day. 
 Nay though it be Thy terrors all pass o'er me 
 Lo, I will fear no evil, for I say, 
 Surely Thy grace will be sufficient for me. 
 
LXXII 
 
 I WILL be what God made me, nor protest 
 Against the bent of genius in my time : 
 That science of my friends robs all the best, 
 While I love beauty and was born to rhyme. 
 Be they our mighty men and let me dwell 
 In shadow among the mighty shades of old, 
 With love's forsaken palace for my cell : 
 Whence I look forth and all the world behold : 
 
 And say, — These better days, in best things worse. 
 This bastardy of time's magnificence. 
 Will mend in fashion and throw off the curse. 
 To crown new love with higher excellence. 
 
 Cursed though I be to live my life alone. 
 My toil is for man's joy, his joy my own. 
 
LXXIII 
 
 I LIVE on hope and that I think do all 
 Who come into this world, and since I see 
 Myself in swim with such good company 
 I take my comfort whatsoe'er befall. 
 I abide and abide, as if more stout and tall 
 My spirit would grow by waiting like a tree : 
 And clear of others' toil it pleaseth me 
 In dreams their quick ambition to forestall. 
 
 And if through careless eagerness I slide 
 To some accomplishment, I give my voice 
 Still to desire and in desire abide. 
 I have no stake abroad : if I rejoice 
 In what is done or doing, I confide 
 Neither to friend nor foe my secret choice. 
 
LXXIV 
 
 Ye blessed saints that now in heaven enjoy 
 The purchase of those tears the world's disdain, 
 Doth love still with his war your peace annoy, 
 Or hath Death freed you from his ancient pain ? 
 
 Have ye no springtide and no burst of May 
 In flowers and leafy trees, when solemn night 
 Pants with love music, and the holy day 
 Breaks on the ear with songs of heavenly light ? 
 
 What make ye and what strive for ? keep ye thought 
 Of us, or in new excellence divine 
 Is old forgot : or do ye count for naught 
 What the Greek did and what the Florentine ? 
 
 We keep your memories well : O in your store 
 Live not our best joys treasured evermore ? 
 
LXXV 
 
 Ah heavenly joy ! But who hath ever heard, 
 Who hath seen joy, or who shall ever find 
 Joy's language ? There is neither speech nor word : 
 Nought but itself to teach it to mankind. 
 
 Scarce in our twenty thousand painful days 
 We may touch something : but there lives — beyond 
 The best of art, or nature's kindest phase — 
 The hope whereof our spirit is fain and fond : 
 
 The cause of beauty given to man's desires, 
 Writ in the expectancy of starry skies, 
 The faith which gloweth in our fleeting fires, 
 The aim of all the excellence we prize : 
 
 Which but to love, pursue and pray for well 
 Maketh earth heaven, and to forget it, hell. 
 
LXXVI 
 
 My wearied heart, whenever, after all, 
 Its loves and yearnings shall be told complete, 
 When gentle death shall bid it cease to beat. 
 And from all dear illusions disenthrall : 
 However then thou shalt appear to call 
 My fearful heart, since down at others' feet 
 It bade me kneel so oft, I'll not retreat 
 From thee nor fear before thy feet to fall. 
 
 And I shall say, — Receive this loving heart 
 Which erred in sorrow only : and in sin 
 Took no delight : but being forced apart 
 From thee, without thee hoping thee to win. 
 Most prized what most thou madest as thou art 
 On earth, till heaven were open to enter in. 
 
LXXVII 
 
 Dreary was winter, wet with changeful sting 
 Of clinging snowfall and fast-flying frost : 
 And bitterer northwinds then withheld the spring 
 That dallied with her promise till 't was lost. 
 
 A sunless and half-hearted summer drowned 
 The flowers in needful and unwelcomed rain : 
 And Autumn with a sad smile fled uncrowned 
 From fruitless orchards and unripened grain. 
 
 But could the skies of this most desolate year 
 In its last month learn with our love to glow, 
 Men yet should rank its cloudless atmosphere 
 Above the sunsets of five years ago : 
 
 Of my great praise too part should be its own, 
 Now reckoned peerless for thy love alone. 
 
LXXVIII 
 
 Away now, lovely Muse, roam and be free : 
 Our commerce ends for aye, thy task is done : 
 Though to win thee I left all else unwon, 
 Thou whom I most have won art not for me. 
 My first desire, thou too forgone must be, 
 Thou too O much lamented now though none 
 Will turn to pity thy forsaken son. 
 Nor the divine sisters will weep for thee. 
 
 None will weep for thee : thou return, O Muse, 
 To thy Sicilian fields : I once have been 
 On thy loved hills, and where thou first didst use 
 Thy sweetly balanced rhyme, unthankful queen, 
 Have plucked and wreathed thy flowers : but do thou choose 
 Some happier brow to wear thy garlands green. 
 
LXXIX 
 
 Eternal Father who didst all create, 
 In whom we live and to whose bosom move, 
 To all men be Thy name known which is Love, 
 Till its loud praises sound at heaven's high gate. 
 Perfect Thy kingdom in our passing state, 
 That here on earth Thou mayst as well approve 
 Our service as Thou ownest theirs above 
 Whose joy we echo and in pain await. 
 
 Grant body and soul each day their daily bread 
 And should in spite of grace fresh woe begin, 
 Even as our anger soon is past and dead 
 Be Thy remembrance mortal of our sin : 
 
 By Thee in paths of peace Thy sheep be led, 
 And in the vale of terror comforted. 
 
^ 
 
NOTE. 
 
 Sonnet xxxvi. The argument is partly from Michael Angelo : 
 
 Madrigal xix. 
 Sonnet xxxvii. From Boccaccio. 
 Sonnet lxxiii. Partly from the anonymous Sonnet No, 3,793, in 
 
 the Libro Reale " lo vivo di speranza." 
 Sonnet lxxiv. The first four lines translated from Michael An- 
 
 gelo's Madrigal " Beati voi." 
 
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GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY 
 
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