Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN THE PROPHECY OF SAINT ORAN AND OTHER POEMS. MATHILDE BLIND. LONDON : NEWMAN AND CO. 43 HART STREET, BLOOMSBURY, W.C. MDCCCLXXXI. Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury. TO A MEMORY. CONTENTS. THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN POEMS : LOVE-TRILOGY . 6 9 DEAD LOVE . 76 A DREAM . . . . 77 LOVE'S PHANTOM . . ... 79 SNOW OR SNOWDROPS ? . .' . . 80 PAUPER POET'S SONG .... . 82 SUNDERED PATHS . 84 LINES . . . ... . 86 LOVE AND THE MUSE .... . 88 SONG . 90 SONG . 91 IN SPRING . 92 RENUNCIATION . 94 THE ABANDONED 103, vi CONTENTS. SONNETS : PAGE CLEAVE THOU THE WAVES . . . .Ill MANCHESTER BY NIGHT 112 TO THE OBELISK DURING THE GREAT FROST, 1881 113 TO MEMORY 114 DESPAIR . . IIS SLEEP . .Il6 HAUNTED STREETS II? ANAFKH . . . . . '. '. .118 THE DEAD IIQ CHRISTMAS EVE I2O NEW YEAR'S EVE 121 POEMS : PERFECT UNION (w. K. c., 3rd March, 1879) I2 5 THE STREET-CHILDREN'S DANCE . . .129 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. PART I. ' Earth, earth on the mouth of Oran, that he may blab no more. " Gaelic Proverb. I. THE storm had ceased to rave: subsiding slow Lashed ocean heaved, and then lay calm and still ; From the clear North a little breeze did blow Severing the clouds : high o'er a wooded hill The slant sun hung intolerably bright, And spanned the sea with a broad bridge of light. 2 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. II. Now St. Columba rose from where he sat Among his monkish crew ; and lifting high His pale worn hands, his eagle glances met The awful glory which suffused the sky. As soars the lark, sweet singing from the sod, So prayer is wafted from his soul to God. in. For they in their rude coracle that day Shuddering had climbed the crests of moun- tainous wave, To plunge down glassy walls of shifting spray, From which death roared as from an open grave ; Till, the grim fury of the tempest o'er, Bursts on their ravished sight an azure shore. IV. Ah ! is this solid earth which meets their view, Or some still cloud-land islanded on high ? THE PROPHECY OF ST. OR AN. 3 Those crags are too aerially blue, Too soft those mountains mingling with the sky, And too ineffable their dewy gleam, For aught but fabric of a fleeting dream. V. Entranced they gaze, and o'er the glimmering track Of seething gold and foaming silver row : Now to their left tower headlands, bare and black And blasted, with grey centuries of snow, Deep in whose echoing caves, with hollow sighs, Monotonous seas for ever ebb and rise. VI. Rounding these rocks, they glide into a deep And tranquil bay, in whose translucent flood The shadows of the azure mountains sleep : High on a hill, amid green foliage, stood 4 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. A square and rough-hewn tower, whose time- bleached stone, Like some red beacon, with the sunset shone. VII. A few more vigorous strokes, and the sharp keel Grates on the beach, on which, inclining low Their tonsured heads, the monks adoring kneel ; While St. Columba, his pale face aglow With outward light and inward, lifts on high The Cross, swart outlined on the burning sky. VIII. Impassive, though in silent wonder, stood The islesmen while these worshipped, on their shore, A thorn-crowned figure nailed upon the wood, From whose pierced side the dark blood seemed to pour ; THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 5 While on the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost They loudly called as brow and breast they crost. IX. Spoke now their Master, in a voice whose ring Was like the west wind's in a twilight grove : " Glad tidings to this sea-girt isle we bring, Good tidings of our heavenly Father's love, Who sent His only Son, oh, marvellous Deep love ! to die that He might ransom us." x. " Come ! listen to the story of our Lord ! Sweet Jesus Christ, a child of lowly birth, Whom in the manger the wise kings adored, For well they knew Him Lord of Heaven and Earth, With myrrh and spice they journeyed from the far Prophetic East, led by the Pilgrim Star : 6 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. XI. "And when the star stood still, and mildly shone Above a shed where lay the new-born child, They hailed Him God's only-begotten Son, Saviour of sinners and Redeemer mild ; Eve's promised seed, when she with streaming eyes Saw the bright sword wave her from Paradise. XII. " For we are children of a fallen race, Our sins are grievous in the Father's sight, Death was our doom, but that by heavenly grace God sent His Son to be a steadfast light, Which calmly shining o'er life's troubled wave, The storm-tossed souls of erring men might save. XIII. " Go unto Him, all ye that toil and weep, Ye that are weary with the long day's load ; THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 7 He is the Shepherd watching o'er His sheep, He leads His flock along the narrow road ; And when He hears the bleating lamb's alarm He folds the weak one in His sheltering arm. XIV. " Ah, tender Shepherd, who didst love us so, Choosing to die that we Thy flock might live ; What bitter anguish, ah ! what heavy woe To think, O Lord ! that mortal hands should give This wound that cleaves Thy side, that mortal scorn In mockery crowned Thee with the barren thorn ! " xv. Sad was Columba's face, his words were slow As though reluctant to the piteous tale But now his eyes with sacred rapture glow, And his wan features kindle, like a pale 8 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAfr. Dissolving cloud through which the moon is shed: He speaks of Christ re-risen from the dead. XVI. He ceased, then cried : " Glory unto the Lord Whose mercy is as boundless as the sea ; Fruitful to-day makes He my feeble word, For with faith's eye an ancient chief I see, Whose bark o'er the blue deep is drawing nigh, He comes to be baptised before he die." XVII. Scarce had he ended when towards the land A wicker boat sped swiftly o'er the bay ; There by the Pictish chieftain, hand in hand, Her golden locks entangled with his grey, His grandchild sat, lit by the level rays; The loveliest and the last of all her race. THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. They hailed the Chief as to a sea-worn stone Two fishers bore him ; and his muffled sense Struggled with feeble eld to seize the tone Of the Saint's voice, as he in words intense Proclaimed the saving truth of gospel lore, Then with his hands baptised the Chieftain hoar. XIX. And when the holy dew had wet his brow, And his wan lips tasted the sacrament, His head against Columba's breast sank low, And o'er his face a smile of rapt content Played softly, smoothing out the lines of care Which joy and grief and toil had planted there. XX. Then on the spot where he has breathed his last They lay him, letting dust to dust return ; io THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. Then one by one, as solemnly they cast A little earth upon his grave, they turn To the benighted heathen, look above, And chaunt : " His soul is God's, and God is love." XXI. A piteous cry and terrible then rung Even like a very echo to the word Upon the startled hearers, whom it wrung With answering grief, as when along the chord Of palpitating harp the breezes sigh Each string responsive wails in sympathy. XXII. A maiden with wild eyes and streaming hair And features white with horror rose aghast, Unconscious of the pitying people's stare, And on the new-made grave herself she cast THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 11 In utter desolation, till her frame Convulsed by sobs shook like a wind-blown flame. XXIII. " Oh father, father," she at last made moan, " My father's father, last of all our race, Hast thou gone too, and left me here alone So helpless as I am, so weak to face The dreadful shifts of war with all its woes, Cold, hunger, shame, fear of insulting foes." XXIV. " Nay, child, blaspheme not in thine agony ! Art thou not in our heavenly Father's care ? He who upholds the everlasting sky Throughout the ages, suffers not a hair Of thine to fall but that it is His will ; Bless Him for joy, for sorrow bless Him still. 12 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. XXV. " Yea ! clasp thine unused hands in prayer, and lift Thy still down-drooping eyes to Him above. Is not the giver greater than His gift ? Must not His love contain all lesser love Of father, mother, brother, husband, wife The Alpha He and Omega of life ? " XXVI. Thus spake Columba, burning to allay The pains of earthly love with saving truth ; But she, who deemed confusedly that they With their sad rites had slain her sire, forsooth, Was deaf to him, and ever made her moan, " Hast thou gone too, and left me here alone ! " XXVII. At last when all his words and prayers had failed To comfort or assuage the orphan's woe, THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 13 Who prostrate on the grave still wept and wailed, Columba muttered as he turned to go : " Nay, sooner parley with the roaring main Than with a woman maddening in her pain." XXVIII. So thus they left her, as she would not come, Left her to night and a few firstling stars That here and there from the celestial dome Peered brightly through the narrow cloudy bars, As though some great white seraph's lidless eyes Were looking down on her from Paradise. But one there was who could not rest in peace, For pity of that maiden's lonely pain ! Was there no balm in Gilead to appease Her wounded spirit ? yea, might not he gain 14 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. That soul benighted to eternal bliss, By teaching her God's love through grief like this ? Thus Oran mused, the youngest and most fair Of that devoted zealous little band That now for many a laborious year Followed Columba's lead from land to land, Daring the danger of the narrow seas To plant the Cross among the Hebrides. Young, but most fervid of their brotherhood, Fair Oran was, whose faith leaped like a sword From out the sheath, and could not be subdued When brandished in the service of the Lord, To whom as sparks leap upward from a fire His soaring thoughts incessantly aspire. THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. ' \ XXXII. Yea, he must save her soul, that like a bark Drifting without a rudder, rudely tossed On life's rough sea, might founder in the dark, In the abysm of hell engulfed and lost. Thus musing, he retraced his steps once more Towards the grave beside the sounding shore. XXXIII. " Arise, and let the dead bury their dead ! " He said to her still shedding stanchless tears. Affrighted by his voice, she raised her head With eyes dilated like a startled deer's ; With lovely, longing, melancholy eyes, She looked up at him with a dumb surprise. XXXIV. " Come unto Jesus, He will give thee rest/ Oran began, but stammered as he spoke : 1 6 THE PROPHECY OF ST. OR AN. Why throbbed his heart so loudly in his breast, As if impatient of the heavy yoke Of faith, that curbed desire as soon as born, That nipped the rose, but left its piercing thorn ? xxxv. A moment has undone the work of years ! A single glance o'erthrown an austere saint ! And the clear faith, achieved with stripes and tears And midnight fasts and vigils, now grows faint, And like a star lost in the new-born light Flickers awhile, then fades into the night. XXXVI. Still Oran wrestles with the fiend within, Striving to teach the gospel to the maid ; He tells her of man's fall through deadly sin, And of the Saviour who our ransom paid : THE PROPHECY OF ST. OX AN. 17 She, with her eyes now bent upon the ground, Listens like one by strong enchantment bound. XXXVII. It was a clear and cloudless summer night, Stars without number clustered in the blue, Some like mere sparks of evanescent light Receding infinite from mortal view, Some with a steadier lustre softly glow, Like golden flames or silver flakes of snow. XXXVIII. But lo ! like some lost soul from heaven's height Hurled headlong, shivering to its awful doom, A winged star shoots dazzling through the night, And vanishes in some stupendous gloom : Thus once the brightest of the angels fell Through yawning space into profoundest hell. 2 1 8 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORA<\. XXXIX. And trembling for his own soul, Oran prayed : " Oh blessed Virgin, whom the angelic quire Rapturous adore ! immaculate Mother-maid ! Pure Queen ! make pure my heart of every fire Which is not kindled on thy sacred shrine, Of every thought not wholly, solely thine ! " XL. Even while the suppliant's lips devoutly move, A heavenly face, though not the Virgin's, filled His eyes with beauty, and his heart with love, Till with dread rapture all his pulses thrilled : A face whose heavenly innocence might well Eradicate the very thought of hell. XLI. Perplexed, bewildered, breathless Oran stood, Torn by the passions he had still suppressed THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 19 With macerations of the flesh and blood ; But now this idol which enthralled his breast With subtle witchcraft, snake-like seemed to hiss, " Thine immortality for one long kiss ! " XLII. " Get thee behind me, Satan ! " wildly cries The monk, and flees in horror from the place. Did not the devil tempt him through those eyes Burning like two fair lights in that fair face. Till moth-like drawn in ever-narrowing rings, Towards the flame, his soul must scorch her wings ? * XLIII. Far o'er the moorland through the starlit night He rushed, like one who flies in mortal fear Of some dread enemy that dogs his flight, And who, whate'er his speed, still draweth near : 20 7HE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. Yea, though he shall outspeed the winged wind,. How fly the haunting thought of his own mind ? XLIV. At last he knelt all breathless on the sod, And gathered up his whole soul in one prayer, Yea, even as Jacob wrestled before God While angels hovered on the heavenly stair, He wrestled, loudly calling on the Lord To keep him from the sin his soul abhorred. XLV. When his long prayer was done, and the pale priest Rose cold with clinging vapour, one by one The flickering stars went out, and in the East The dim air kindled with the coming sun, While in illimitable sheer delight The holy larks rose worshipping the light. THE PROPHECY OF ST. OR AN. PART II. I. THERE was a windless mere, on whose smooth breast A little island, flushed with purple bloom, Lay gently cradled like a moorhen's nest : It glowed like some rich jewel 'mid the gloom Of sluggish leagues of peat and black morass, Without or shrub or tree or blade of grass. II. But on the isle itself the birch was seen With its ethereal foliage, like some haze Floating among the rowan's vivid green ; The ground with fern all feathered, and ablaze With heath's and harebell's hyacinthine hue, Was mirrored in the wave's intenser blue. 22 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. III. This was the immemorial isle of graves, Here, under nameless mound and dateless stone, The generations, like successive waves, Had rolled one o'er the other, and had gone As these go, indistinguishably fused Their separate lives in common death confused. IV. And here amid the dead Columba chose To found God's holy house and sow His word ; Already here and there the walls arose, Built from the stones imbedded in the sward ; These did the natives without mortar pile, As was the ancient custom of their isle. V. For many of them to the work were won By reverence for the saint, and thus apace THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. : The chapel grew which they had first begun As dedicate to God's perpetual praise ; So many of the monks again were free To give thought wholly to their ministry. VI. And ever first in hastening to his task St. Oran was, though last to seek repose; Columba's best beloved, he still would ask For heaviest share of duty, while he chose Rude penances, till shadow-like he grew With fasts and vigils that the flesh subdue. VII. Yet there was that which would not be subdued- A shape, a presence haunting every dream ; Fair as the moon that shines above a flood, And ever trembles on the trembling stream ; Sweet as some gust of fragrance, unaware Stealing upon us on the summer air. 24 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. VIII. Even so it stole upon his ravished heart, Suffusing every fibre with delight, Till from his troubled slumber he would start, And, as with ague shivering and affright, Catch broken speech low murmuring in his ears, And feel his eyelids ache with unshed tears. IX. But it befell one windy afternoon, While monks and men were busied with the roof, Laying the beams through which the sun and moon Might shed their light as yet without reproof, That there came one across the lonely waste Toward these men of God, crying in haste, X. " Ye say ye came to save us, save us then ! Save us if ye spake truth, and not a lie ! THE PROPHECY OF ST. OR AN. 25 Famine and fever stalk among us, men, Women, and children are struck down and die! For lo, the murrain smites our cowering sheep, The fishers haul no fish from out the deep. " Ye tell us that your God did multiply A few small fishes, wherewithal He fed A multitude ; in sooth, if 'tis no lie, Then come, ye holy men, and give us bread ! For they are starving by the waterside, Come then, and give us bread," he loudly cried. He was a man inspiring dread surprise, Half-naked, with long glibs of bristling hair In fiery meshes tumbling o'er his eyes, Which, like a famished wolfs from out its lair, Glanced restlessly ; his dog behind him came, Whose lolling tongue hung down like scarlet flame. 26 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. XIII. " Let me arise, and go to them withal ! " Cried Oran, flinging down his implement : " This heavy tribulation is a call From the Most High ; a blessed instrument To compass their salvation : let me go Teach them what mercy worketh in their woe.' XIV. " Go then, my son, and God go with thee still, While I abide to speed His temple here," Said St. Columba ; " and thy basket fill With herhs and cordials, also wine to cheer And bread to feed the poor, so that their days May still endure to God's eternal praise." Then Oran and that wild man forth did fare, And o'er the little lake they rowed in haste, THE PROPHECY OF ST. OR AN. 27 And mounting each a small and shaggy mare, They ambled o'er that solitary waste, Then through a sterile glen their road did lie Whose shrouded peaks loomed awfully on high. When for a mile or two they thus had gone, The mountains opened wide on either hand, And lo, amid those labyrinths of stone The sea had got entangled in the land, And turned and twisted, struggling to get free, And be once more the immeasurable sea. XVII. It was a sorcerous, elemental place, O'er which there now came rushing from the plain Like some dark host whom yelling victors chase A moving pillar of resistless rain 28 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. Shivering the gleaming lances in its flight Against the bastions of each monstrous height. Fast, fast it raced before the roaring gale, With shrieks and frenzied howlings that did shake The very stones with long-resounding wail, And in outlying gorges would it wake The startled echo's sympathetic scream, Then whirling on would vanish like a dream, Would vanish dream-like, whither no man knows, Fading afar in vaporous gulfs of light, While the wet mountain-tops flushed like a rose, And following the spent tempest in its flight Its hues ethereal mantling o'er the gloom, There glowed the rainbow's evanescent bloom. THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 29 XX. And while that rain still drenched him to the skin, St. Oran, unappalled, intoned a psalm, And lifting up his voice amidst the din, He sang, "We laud Thee, Lord, through storm and calm, In the revolving stars we see Thine hand, The sun and moon rise as Thou dost com- mand. XXL " We laud Thee for the evening and the morn, And the prolific seasons' changing boon, For singing-birds, and flowers, and ripening corn, For tides that rise and fall beneath the moon ; As in a mirror darkling do we see The shadow that Thou castest on the sea." 30 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. XXII. Up many a wild ascent, down many a steep Clothed with scant herbage, rode that battered pair, Where lay the bleaching bones of mangled sheep, And carrion crows wheeled hoarsely in the air ; At last through mist and darkness they espied Small lights that twinkled by the waterside. XXIII. There in dark turf-built hovels close to earth Lay the poor sufferers on their beds of heath, Gnawed to the very bone by cruel dearth, Cold to the marrow with approaching death ; Thither came Oran like some vision bright, And ministered to each one through the night. XXIV. And so dispensing alms he went and came, Stooping to enter the last house of all ; THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAA. 31 There, by the peat-fire's orange-coloured flame, Whose flashes fitfully did rise and fall On the smoke-blackened rafters sat a crone Ancient it might be as the lichened stone. XXV. Fast through her bony fingers flies the thread, And as her foot still turns the whirring wheel, She seems to spin the yarn of quick and dead ! But oh, what makes St. Oran's senses reel ? Whose is the shape clad in its golden hair That turns and tosses on the pallet there ? XXVI. Like some wan water lily veiled in mist When puffs of wind its tender petals shake, Whose chalice by the shining moonbeams kissed Sways to and fro upon the swelling lake, 32 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. So white so wan so wonderfully fair, Showed Mona tossing mid her golden hair. XXVII. What should he do ? Ah, whither should he turn ? Why had God let this trial come again ? Her beauty, half-revealed, did straightly burn Through his hot eyeballs to his kindling brain. Was it his duty to go hence or stay ? He wavered gazed on her then turned away. XXVIII. But that old woman tottered to the door And clutched his cassock with a shaking hand, And mumbled, " Priest, ah ! dost thou shun the poor ? They say that ye go bragging through the land Of some new God called Christian Charity ; But in our need ye turn from us and fly." THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 33 XXIX. So spake the crone, but Oran bowed his head And murmured, " If thou bid'st me,! abide." With downcast eyes he turned towards the bed In fervent prayer low kneeling by its side : At last he rose, pale, cold, and deadly still, With heart subdued to his stern Maker's will. XXX. Thus through her fever did he tend the maid, Who babbled wildly in delirious trance Of her lost home, and her loved kindred laid In alien earth and of a countenance Fair as a spirit's comforting her pain, But soon withdrawn to its own heaven again. XXXI. All this unflinching would the monk endure, And having cured her body's sickness, strove 3 34 THE PROPHECY OF ST. 'OR AN. With double zeal her sicker soul to cure : But when he told her of. the Saviour's love, Of sin, and its atonement, and free grace, She looked in puzzled wonder on his face. XXXII. She could not understand his mournful creed, Nor knew, poor child, of what she should repent, Nor why her heart was wicked, and had need That some poor pitying God should once have spent His blood for her five hundred years ago Ancestral voices never told her so ! XXXIII. She could not understand, but she could feel ! And while she sat before him by the flame The pathos of his pleading voice would steal Sweeter than sweetest music through her frame, THE PROPHECY OF ST. OR AN. 3$ And as the ocean murmur in a shell Through her dim soul his solemn accents swell. xxxiv. He was the air she breathed all living things Were pale reflections of him as the hart In desert places thirsts for water-springs, Even thus for him she thirsted in her heart ; To her it seemed as if life's aim and end Were just to lay her hand within his hand. xxxv. Her eyes were full of love as stars of light, And pierced the cold obstructive atmosphere Of his joy-killing creed, and did ignite His inmost spirit of sense with fire as clear And radiant as their own their beaming looks Mingled as flames of fire or meeting brooks. 36 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. XXXVI. Was he not young and beautiful ? in face Like to that radiant god whose flame divine The Druid worshipped in those younger days Ere sin had stamped the green earth with its sign, Had made the loveliness of flowers a snare, And bid frail man of woman's love beware. XXXVII. Oh, not for him, through all the lonely years Never for him a woman's love might bloom ; Her smiles would never cheer him, nor her tears Fall softly on his unlamented tomb ; Never till quenched in death's supreme eclipse His lips would know the sweetness of her lips. XXXVIII. Oh God ! would nothing quench that secret fire, Nor yet assuage that hunger of the heart ? THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 37 To feel this flagellation of desire, To be so near, yet evermore apart, Never to clasp this woman as a wife This was the crowning penance of his life. xxxix. But lo ! one day at dusk they were alone, The rain was beating down on roof and wall, The round of earth with solid rock and stone Had turned phantasmal in its misty pall : They were alone, but neither spake a word Only their hearts in throbbing might be heard. XL. Whose is that low involuntary cry That like a flash of lightning shook each frame With thrill electric ? Simultaneously Their yearning lips had sobbed each other's name ! With swift instinctive dread they move apart While magnet-like each draws the other's heart. 38 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. XLI. What boots it thus to struggle with his sin, So much more sweet than all his virtues were ? Like a great flood let all her love roll in And his soul stifle mid her golden hair ! And so he barters his eternal bliss For the divine delirium of her kiss ! XLII. What cares he for his soul's salvation now ? Let it go to perdition evermore For breaking that accursed monastic vow Which cankers a man's nature to the core ; For he had striven as never mortal strove, But than his Lord a mightier lord was Love. THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 39 PART III. I. " A CURSE is on this work ! " Columba cried ; And with their dark robes flapping in the gale, The frightened monks came hurrying to his side, And looked at one another turning pale ; For every night the work done in the day Strewn on the ground in wild confusion lay. II. " A curse is on this work ! " he cried again As his keen glances swept each face in turn : " Behold, God smites us in the hurricane, And in the lightning doth His anger burn. Brethren, some secret deadly sin there is Known to the Lord for which we suffer this. 40 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. III. " Why is it that the elements combine Against us, raging in relentless ire Against our humble wave-encircled shrine ? That air, that water, that consuming fire Inveterately war against this fane Which we would build, but ever build in vain ? IV. " Why is it that the billows of the deep Rise in revolt against the rock-bound shore, Lashing themselves to fury on each steep, Till inland lakes, awakening at the roar, Now roar in mad response, and swell amain, Till broadening waters hide the drowning plain ? v. " One night, ye know, from out the imminent gloom, Shrouding the firmament as in a pall, THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 41 The levin, like a spirit from the tomb, Leaped with a ghastly glare, and in its fall Struck the new roof-tree with reverberate crash, And left a little heap of shrivelled ash. VI. " Another night why need I tell the tale ? The winds in legions thundered through the air, Battering the walls with sudden gusts of hail, They rushed with piercing shrieks and strident blare Athwart the cloisters and the roofless hall, Till stone by stone fell from the rocking wall. VII. " And then the very water turned our foe, For in the dead of night it slowly crept, Soft wave on wave, till in its overflow It deluged all the basement while we slept ; 42 THE PROPHECY OF ST. OR AN. And where the convent yesterday did stand, There spreads the lake as level as my hand. VIII. " And then, when slowly after many days The waters had subsided to the main, And through the toilsome hours we sought to raise Our ever-shattered structure once again, Behold ! the earth herself with stone and block Shudders convulsive and begins to rock. IX. " For lo, the fiends let loose at God's command Burrow and delve in subterranean gloom, Till like the troubled ocean all the land Heaves to and fro as tottering to its doom : The quiet graves themselves now bursting yawn, God's holy house once more lies overthrown ! THE PROPHECY OF ST. OR AN. 43 X. " And now hath come the hour of darkest need The people have abandoned us ! They wail That their dead fathers rage against our creed, That in dark rushing cloud and roaring gale The houseless spirits ride and fill the air With lamentations for the gods that were ! XI. " The Lord rebukes us in His wrath ! I ask, Again I ask, what man among you all Living in deadly sin, yet wears the mask Of sanctity ? Yea, let him cleanse his soul, Confessing all the crying guilt of it, Or go for ever to the burning pit ! " XII. Again his eagle glances swept each face, While the assembled monks, with anxious sigh, 44 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. Asked with a thrill of horror and amaze, " Was it indeed a judgment from on high ? " As with one voice then cried the saintly throng, " Not I not I know of that hidden wrong." XIII. And with uplifted arms they loudly prayed, " Oh Lord, if in our midst the traitor bides Who breaks the sacramental vow he made, And takes Thy name in vain, and basely hides His wicked ways from every eye save Thine Let his dark sin stand forth, and make a sign." XIV. All day expectant, waiting on His will, The monks in reverential silence stand Beneath the rustling pine-trees of the hill, Whence their eyes sweep across the level land : Lo, from afar the vision of a maid Comes o'er the shining pools the flood has made. THE PROPHECY OF ST. OR AN. 45 XV. Swiftly she came across the devious track, With glimmering waterways on either hand ; Against the luminous vapour at her back Her dusky form looms mystically grand ; While in the liquid crystal by her side The phantom of herself seems still to glide. XVI. Was she a spirit risen from the grave When its foul depths lay open to the sky, Or ghost of Druid priestess wont to rave Her blasphemous oracles in times gone by, Who ventured thus upon the sacred isle For ever barred against a woman's wile ? XVII. But no ! as nearer and more near she draws, They see a maiden with the wild deer's grace 46 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN, Bounding from stone to stone, whose beauty awes These Christian fathers, riveting their gaze ; For like the full moon framed in amber air Her face shone mid the glory of her hair. XVIII. Then in their midst all breathless did she stand, But paused bewildered and as one affrayed, Even as a swift wave making for the strand With all its waters gathering to a head Delays, suspended with back-fluttering locks, Then breaks in showers of brine upon the rocks. XIX. So for a moment motionless she stood, From monk to monk her wildered glances stray ; Immovable, like figures carved in wood, These waited what their master's lips would say, But ever and anon, in mute appeal, Her piteous eyes to Oran's face would steal. THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 47 XX. Only for one brief moment she delayed, Struck speechless at his cold averted mien, Then with a long low moan she blindly swayed With her fair arms towards him, and in keen Unutterable anguish cried aghast " Is this a dream, or am I mad at last ? XXI. " Dost thou not know me, Oran Oran mine ? Look on me ; I am Mona, I am she For whom thy soul so thirstily did pine ! Nay, turn not from me ! Say, art thou not he Whose mouth to my mouth yearningly was . pressed, Whose dearest head lay pillowed on my breast ? XXII. " Dear, be not wroth with me in that I came ; For our love's sake look not so stern and grave ; 48 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. Ah, surely thou wilt think me free from blame For having dared to break the word I gave, When I have told thee what has brought me here, How sore distraught I was with grief and fear. XXIII. Oh love, when night came swooping o'er the sea, And on the poor folk's tired eyelids sleep Fell like a seabird's feather, stealthily I climbed the jagged overhanging steep Whose giddy summit looks towards thy home, Wondering if haply I might see thee come. XXIV. When, lo ! the solid cliff began to shake As in an ague fit, and while I stood Trembling, methought the maddening sea would break Its everlasting limits, for the flood THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 49 Came crashing in loud thunder o'er the land, And swept our huts like seaweed from the sand. xxv. Then a great horror seized me, and I reeled And fell upon my face, and knew no more. When from that trance I woke, the sun had wheeled Far up the sky and shone upon the shore, And there beneath the bright and cloudless sky I saw a heap of mangled corpses lie. XXVI. Shrieking I fled, and paused not in my fright Fleeing I knew not whither, but my feet Flew swift as ever arrow in its flight To thee, my love ! Hast thou no smile to greet Thy Mona with, no kiss ? For pity's sake, Speak to me, Oran, or my heart will break." 4 50 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. XXVII. All held their breath when she had made her moan : All eyes were fixed on that pale monk, who stood Unnaturally quiet like a stone Whose flinty sides are fretted by the flood When St. Columba turned on him, and said, " I bid thee speak, man, knowest thou this maid ? " XXVIII. Then answered him the other, but his words Rang hollow like the toll of funeral bell, And on his humid brows like knotted cords The livid veins and arteries seemed to swell, Facing the accusation of his eyes, " Master, I know her not the woman lies ! " THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 51 XXIX. A hum of indignation, doubt, alarm, Ran through their circle, but none durst to speak Before the Master, who with lifted arm And eyes whence fiery flashes seemed to break, Cried very loudly, " Is it even so, Then help me God but I will rout this foe ! XXX. " Look, brethren, on this lovely maiden, fair As virginal white lilies newly blown, Fresh as the first breath of the vernal air, Pure as an incarnation of the dawn ; Look on that golden glory of her hair, It is a man-trap, Satan's deadliest snare. XXXI. " Brethren, let the two eldest of you seize This fiend in angel's garb, this beast of prey 52 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. Which lies in wait behind that snowy fleece Lusting to take our brother's name away, And blast his fame for purest sanctity With lies forged by our common enemy ! xxxii: " Seize her, and bear her to that frightful steep Where, bristling with huge pier and jagged spire, The spectre rock which overhangs the deep Pierces the ghastly clouds like frozen fire ; There standing, fling her from its giddiest cone Into the ocean fling her, like a stone." XXXIII. The sentence had gone forth ; the monks obeyed ; Two venerable brothers, deep in years, First crossed themselves, then seized the strug- gling maid In their stout arms ; despite her prayers and tears, THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 53 And wild appeals on him she called her love, They with their burden now began to move. But he, whose human flesh seemed petrified To marble, started from that rigid mood, And blindly running after them, he cried, " Hold ! hold ! stain not your hands with inno- cent blood ; I broke my vow, I am the sinner, I Seduced the maid, spare her, and let me die." xxxv. They halted midway, marvelling, aghast, When St. Columba thundered to them " Stay ! " His voice was like a dreadful battle-blast, And startled coveys rose and whirred away : " He broke his vow, he is the sinner ; aye Do as he says spare her, and let him die ! 54 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. " Yea, well I saw the gnawing worm within, But wished to tear the mask from off his soul, That in the naked hideousness of sin He might stand pilloried before you all : This is a judgment on me from above For loving him with more than woman's love." XXXVII. His voice here failed him and he hid his face ; And as before some imminent storm all sound In earth, air, ocean ceases for a space, There fell a breathless silence on that mound ; But when Columba raised his voice once more, It seemed the muffled thunder's boding roar. XXXVIII. " Oh perjured one ! oh breaker of thy vow ! Oh base, apostate monk, whose guilt abhorred THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 55 Weighed down our walls and laid our chapel low ! Thy life shall be an offering to the Lord, And with thy blood we will cement the fane Which for thy sin's sake still was built in vain. xxxix. " Seize him, and bear him to that dolorous site Where mid our ruined cells the chapel stands Whose holy walls and columns every night Have fallen beneath the blow of daemon hands ; There, living, bury him beneath its sod, And so propitiate the Lord our God." 56 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. PART IV. IT is the night : across the starless waste Of silent heaven the solitary moon Flits like a frightened maid who flies in haste, And wild with terror seems to reel and swoon, As in her rear the multitudinous clouds Follow like spectral huntsmen in their shrouds. II. And sometimes the wild rout o'ertakes its prey, And holds her captive in the lowering sky, But ever and anon she bursts away, And her white orb floats lustrously on high, And with its lambent flame transmutes the haze Into a living halo for her face. THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 57 III. And far o'er black morass and barren moor The fitful splendour of the moonlight falls, Its broken eddies sweep across the floor, And dance in chequered silver on the walls, And flood the chapel's grave-encircled site With sudden flashes of unearthly light. IV. And as the unquiet moonlight comes and flies Athwart the little roofless house of prayer, Like some lost spirit strayed from Paradise Or daemon-angel of the realms of air, A pallid shape flits through the open door And flings itself, low wailing, on the floor ; V. And wailing, wailing, lay there in its pain, When suddenly it snatched from out the sod 5 8 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. Some late-forgotten spade, while tears like rain Poured from its eyes, enough to melt the clod, And digging hard the small breach grew apace, Till the soil lay like molehills round the place. VI. But through the silence suddenly there swells Along the gusty breaths of midnight air The mellow tinkling sound of magic bells, Such as the pious brethren love to wear, To keep the fiends and goblins off that prowl For ever near to catch a tripping soul. VII. And as the monks, chanting a solemn hymn, Draw nigh the chapel to perform their rite, That wailing shape flies far into the dim Recess behind the altar full of night ; While they with burning torches move in file To consecrate afresh their sacred pile. THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 59 VIII. Three days, three nights have fled since in that spot, Where fiends and daemons revelled unforbid, They buried that false monk who was a blot Upon their rule : but since the earth has hid His bones accursed, God's sun has shone again, Nor has fresh ill assailed their prospering fane IX. Which now they enter, singing hymns of praise, Columba at their head when lo, behold The grave yawns open and a bloodless face, The face of him they knew, rose from the mould : Slowly he rose from the incumbent clay Lifting the white shroud in the moonlight grey. x. Slowly his arm beneath the winding-sheet He waved three times, as though to bid them hear; 60 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. Then in the moonlight rose he to his feet Showing his shrunken body, and his sere Discoloured hair, and smouldering eyes that lie Sunk in their sockets, glaring hot and dry. XI. Slowly he raised his voice once rich in tone Like sweetest music, now a mournful knell With dull sepulchral sounds, as of a stone Cast down into a black unfathomed well And murmured, " Lo, I come back from the grave, Behold, there is no God to smite or save. XII. " Poor fools ! wild dreamers ! No, there is no God; Yon heaven is deaf and dumb to prayer and praise ; THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 61 Lo, no almighty tyrant wields the rod For evermore above our hapless race ; Nor fashioned us, frail creatures that we be, To bear the burden of eternity. XIII. " Hear it, self-torturing monks, and cease to wage Your mad, delirious, suicidal war ; There is no devil who from age to age Waylays and tempts all souls of men that are ; For ever seeking whom he may devour, And damn with wine and woman, gold and power. XIV. " Deluded priests, ye think the world a snare, Denouncing every tender human tie I Behold, your heaven is unsubstantial air, Your future bliss a sick brain's phantasy ; There is no room amid the stars which gem The firmament for your Jerusalem. 62 THE PROPHECY OF ST. OR AN. XV. " Rejoice, poor sinners, for I come to tell To you who hardly dare to live for fright ; There is no burning everlasting hell Where souls shall be tormented day and night : The fever ye call life ends with your breath ; All weary souls set in the night of death. XVI. " Then let your life on earth be life indeed ! Nor drop the substance, snatching at a shade ! Ye can have Eden here ! ye bear the seed Of all the hells and heavens and gods ye made Within that mighty world-transforming thought Which permeates the universe it wrought XVII. "Wrought out of stones and plants and birds and beasts, To flower in man, and know itself at last : THE PROPHECY OF ST. OR AN. 64 Around, about you, see what endless feasts The spring and summer bountifully cast ! " A vale of tears," ye cry " if ye were wise, The earth itself would change to Paradise. XVIII. " The earth itself the old despised earth, Would render back your love a thousandfold, Nor yet afflict the sons of men with dearth, Disease, and misery, and drought and cold ; If you would seek a blessing in her sod, Instead of crying vainly on your God. 1 XIX. " Cast down the crucifix, take up the plough ! Nor waste your breath which is the life in prayer ! Dare to be men, and break your impious vow, Nor fly from woman as the devil's snare ! 64 THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. For if within, around, beneath, above There is a living God, that God is Love." xx. " The fool says in his heart, There is no God," Cried St. Columba, white with Christian ire " Seize Oran, re-inter him in the sod And may his soul awake in endless fire : Earth on his mouth the earth he would adore, That his blaspheming tongue may blab no more," XXI. Then like swart ravens swooping on their prey These monks rushed upon Oran ; when there came One gliding towards them in wild disarray With hair that streamed behind her like a flame And face dazed with the moon, who shrilly cried, " Let not death part the bridegroom from his bride." THE PROPHECY OF ST. ORAN. 65 But deeming her some fiend in female guise, They drive her forth with threats, till, crazed with fear, Across the stones and mounded graves she flies Towards that lapping, moon-illumined mere ; And like a child seeking its mother's breast She casts her life thereon, and is at rest. XXIII. And while the waves close gurgling o'er her head, A grave is dug whence he may never stray, Or come back prophesying from the dead, All shouting as they stifle him with clay : " Earth on his mou'th the earth he would adore, That his blaspheming tongue may blab no more." POEMS. LOVE-TRILOGY. 69 LOVE-TRILOGY. I. SHE stood against the Orient sun, Her face inscrutable for light ; A myriad larks in unison Sang o'er her, soaring out of sight. A myriad flowers around her feet Burst flame-like from the yielding sod, Till all the wandering airs were sweet With incense mounting up to God. A mighty rainbow shook, inclined Towards her, from the Occident, Girdling the cloud-wrack which enshrined Half the light-bearing firmament. 70 LOVE-TRILOGY. Lit showers flashed golden o'er the hills, And trees flung silver to the breeze, And, scattering diamonds, fleet-foot rills Fled laughingly across the leas. Yea Love, the skylarks laud but thee, And writ in flowers thine awful name ; Spring is thy shade, dread Ecstasy, And life a brand which feeds thy flame. LOVE-TRILOGY. 71 II. WINDING all my life about thee, Let me lay my lips on thine ; What is all the world without thee, Mine oh mine ! Let me press my heart out on thee, Crush it like a fiery vine, Spilling sacramental on thee Love's red wine. Let thy strong eyes yearning o'er me Draw me with their force divine ; All my soul has gone before me Clasping thine. 72 LOVE-TRILOGY. Irresistibly I follow, As wherever we may run Runs our shadow, as the swallow Seeks the sun. Yea, I tremble, swoon, surrender All my spirit to thy sway, As a star is drowned in splendour Of the day. LOVE-TRILOGY. 73 III. I CHARGE you, O winds of the West, O winds with the wings of the dove, That ye blow o'er the brows of my Love, breath- ing low that I sicken for love. I charge you, O dews of the Dawn, O tears of the star of the morn, That ye fall at the feet of my love with the sound of one weeping forlorn. I charge you, O birds of the Air, O birds flying home to your nest, That ye sing in his ears of the joy that for ever has fled from my breast. 74 LOVE-TRILOGY. I charge you, O flowers of the Earth, O frailest of things, and most fair, That ye droop in his path as the life in me shrivels consumed by despair. Moon, when he lifts up his face, when he seeth the waning of thee, A memory of her who lies wan on the limits of life let it be. Many tears cannot quench, nor my sighs extin- guish, the flames of love's fire, Which lifteth my heart like a wave, and smites it, and breaks its desire. 1 rise like one in a dream when I see the red sun flaring low, That drags me back shuddering from sleep each morning to life with its woe. LOVE-TRILOGY. 75 I go like one in a dream, unbidden my feet know the way To that garden where love stood in blossom with the red and white hawthorn of May. The song of the throstle is hushed, and the fountain is dry to its core, The moon cometh up as of old ; she seeks, but she finds him no more. The pale-faced, pitiful moon shines down on the grass where I weep, My face to the earth, and my breast in an anguish ne'er soothed into sleep. The moon returns, and the spring, birds warble, trees burst into leaf, But Love once gone, goes for ever, and all that endures is the grief. 76 DEAD LOVE. DEAD LOVE. MOTHER of the unfortunate, mystic form, Who calm, immutable, like oldest fate, Sittest, where through the sombre swinging gate Moans immemorial life's encircling storm. My heart, sore stricken by grief's leaden arm, Lags like a weary pilgrim knocking late. And sigheth toward thee staggering with its weight Behold Love conquered by thy son, the worm ! He stung him mid the roses' purple bloom, The Rose of roses, yea, a thing so sweet, Haply to stay blind Change's flying feet, And stir with pity the unpitying tomb. Here, take him, cold, cold, heavy and void of breath ! Nor me refuse, O Mother almighty, death. A DREAM. 77 A DREAM. IN dreams I met my Love : he stood alone, A sadness like pale mist lay on his face ; His eyes met mine, then as with anguish prone, Or yet in shame he turned away his gaze. I made no moan, but even as one in sleep Helplessly murmurs, murmuring fell his name, Like tears which tremulous eyelids may not keep, Or flicker of involuntary flame. Sharply he turned : I neither moved nor spoke, But all life's pent-up passion gathered form, Till on our eyes the full-orbed lovelight broke, Even as the sun will break upon a storm, 78 A DREAM. And opening wide his arms, he stood ! But I, Like a pale wave with backward fluttering crest, Wavered awhile, then with a rapturous cry, Shivering in ecstasy, fell on his breast. LOVE'S PHANTOM. 79 LOVE'S PHANTOM. SHUT out day's wintry beams ! Sleep, brood upon my brain ! For sweet sleep bringeth dreams And love again ! Love cold and wan and sere Heaped over with tears and snows ; Lo, born within its bier, Blooms like a rose ! Its fragrance fills each vein, Its fervour flushes my heart, I feel through breast and brain Its rapturous smart ; The look, the tone, the deep Supreme smile of delight : Ah, fickle as love, false sleep, Why take thy flight ? 8o SNOW OR SNOWDROPS? SNOW OR SNOWDROPS ? Is it snow or snowdrops' shimmer Whitens thus the bladed grass, With a faint aerial glimmer, Spring or winter, which did pass ? For the sky is dim and tender With the evanescent light, And the fading fields are white, White with snow or snowdrops, under The fair firstling stars of night. Little robin, softly, cheerly Piping on yon wintry bough, Why have all the fields that pearly Iridescence, knowest thou ? SNOW OR SNOWDROPS? 81 Did old Winter, grim and hoary, Aim a parting dart at Spring As she fled on azure wing, Or did she with rainbow glory In his face her snowdrops fling ? 82 PAUPER POETS SONG. PAUPER POET'S SONG. SUN, moon, and stars, the ample air, The birds shrill whistling everywhere, Fields white with lambs and daisies ; The pearls of eve, the jewelled morn, The rose rich blowing on the thorn, The glow of blush-rose faces ; The silver glint of sun-smit rain, The shattered sun-gold of the main, And heaven's sweet breath that moves it The earth, our myriad-bosomed nurse, This whole miraculous universe Belongs to him who loves it ! Why fret then for the gold of this, The fame of that man, or the bliss, Or such another's graces ? PAUPER POET'S SONG. 83 Oh heart that chim'st with golden verse, My heart, thou art the magic purse Which all dull trouble chases ; Thine too fruition of all fame When the live soul, as flame with flame, Weds the dead soul that moves it ; Then sing for aye, and aye rehearse, This whole miraculous universe Belongs to him who loves it ! 84 SUNDERED PATHS. SUNDERED PATHS. Two travellers, worn with sun and rain And gropings o'er dim paths unknown, Meet where long separate ways have grown To one, and then diverge again. They halt anigh the green wayside, Where groves pant with the impassioned song Of nightingales ; wild roses throng There round them leaning side by side. As close and still more close they cling, Like some weird tale once more in dreams Lived through with ghastlier horror seems That old, cold, lonely wayfaring. SUNDERED PATHS. 85 Oh close sweet clasp of hands ! oh sweet Close beat of heart on happy heart ; Beating as though no more apart Their pulses ever again should beat ! One look of love ! one long embrace ! One kiss that welds two lives in one ! And lo, the sudden lifted sun Lights their slow feet on separate ways. Fledged by strong love, their winged speech Is borne awhile from soul to soul, Then ever-widening waters roll And drown their voices each from each. 86 LINES. LINES. THOU earnest with the coming Spring ! With swallows, and the murmuring Of unloosed waters, with the birth Of daisies dimpling the green earth. And when the perfect rose of June Responded to the golden noon, My heart's deep core, suffused with bliss, Broke into flower benoath thy kiss. But now the swallows seaward fly, The winds in chorus wail, " Good-bye ! " The dead leaves whirl, and like a leaf My heart shakes on the gusts of grief. LINES. 8? And yet awhile earth's flowerless breast In lethal folds of snow will rest ; On thee too heart, with all thy woe, Death falls one day like falling snow. 88 LOVE AND THE MUSE. LOVE AND THE MUSE. STRUCK down by Love in cruel mood, That ever I met Love I rued, Bleeding and bruised I lay, Wet was my face as with the salt sea spray. A lovely Muse on sparkling wing A painless elemental thing, Free as bird did float, Swift flames of song light leaping from her throat. And being more pitiful than Love Stooped glowing from her path above, And an unearthly kiss Laid on my lips : Muse, answer, what is this ? LOVE AND THE MUSE. In dreams or drunkenness divine My life is all transfused with thine ; Like bubbles swept along, My tears dissolve on cataracts of song. 90 SONG. SONG. OH haste while roses bloom below, Oh haste while pale and bright above The sun and moon alternate glow, To pluck the rose of love. Yea, give the morning to the lark, The nightingale its glimmering grove, Give moonlight to the hungry dark, But to man's heart give love ! Then haste while still the roses blow, And pale and bright in heaven above The sun and moon alternate glow, Pluck, pluck the rose of love. SONG. 91 SONG. ALL my heart is stirring lightly Like dim violets winter-bound, Quickening as they feel the brightly Glowing sunlight underground. Yea, this drear and silent bosom, Hushed as snow-hid grove but now, Breaketh into leaf and blossom Like a gleaming vernal bough. Oh the singing, singing, singing ! Callow hopes that thrill my breast ! Can the lark of love be winging Back to its abandoned nest ? 92 IN SPRING. IN SPRING. THE young birds shy twitter In hedges and bowers, Fields brighten and glitter With dewdrops and flowers. Over flood, over fallow, Impelled by old yearning, The nest-building swallow Exults at returning ; For dark days and hoary Are routed and over, Dark Winter is gone ; Resplendent in glory, The earth meets her lover, Her bridegroom the Sun. Must I alone sorrow, Despairingly languish, IN SPRING. 93 Breaks never a morrow On the night of my anguish ? The jubilant gladness In bird, beam, and blossom, But deepens the sadness That weighs on my bosom. Oh, Spring, in whose azure Wake follow the starling, The daisy, the dove ; Sweet spendthrift of pleasure, Bring also my darling, Oh bring me my love ! 94 RENUNCIATION, RENUNCIA TION. Wenn ich Dich Hebe was geht es Dich an ? I. THE air is full of the peal of bells, The rhythmical pealing of marriage bells But athwart and above their ringing Throbbing clear like the light of a star Lost in the sunrise I hear afar The skylark's jubilant singing. II. The clouds all woollen and white on high, Like flocks of heavenly sheep go by, Go through heaven's sapphire meadows; RENUNCIATION. 95 While here on the earth's green meadows, deep In sapphire flowers, our earthly sheep Loll in their loitering shadows. III. Come, we will sit by the wayside here, They must cross this field to the chapel, dear, The loved by the side for her lover. Grey, through the glimmer of vernal green, Its time-worn tower may just be seen Through the yews which curtain it over. Nay, little brother, why should I pine ? Dare a violet ask that the sun should shine, The shining sun shine for it solely ? Lowly it lifteth its meek blue eye, And yields up its soul to the sun on high, Nor asks for love, loving so wholly. 96 RENUNCIATION. He passed by the garden where, snbw-white and red, I tended the flowers which give us our bread, And watered my lilies and roses ; He passed and repassed both early and late, And lingering, often would lean on the gate While I tied for him one of my posies. VI. Day after day would he pass this way, And his smiling was sweet as the flowers of May, Or the scent of the bee-haunted clover ; And a softer flame seemed to light up his eye Than the lily-white moon's in the rose-hued sky, Ere the blush of the May-day is over. VII. Aye, day after day he would stop on his way, While the trees were in leaf and the meadows were gay, And the curled little lambs were grazing ; RENUNCIATION. 97 As he went, or returned in the waning light From the smoke-capped city whose lamps by night Turn the black clouds red with their blazing. VIII. It's a year to-day when the young sun sets Since I gave him that first bunch of violets From the root on the grave of our mother. Though thou seest them not with the bodily eye, The language of flowers much better than I I know that thou knowest, my brother. IX. Violets then golden daffodils Which the light of the sun like a wine-cup fills Tall tulips like flames upspringing Golden-brown wallflowers bright as his locks Marigolds balsams and perfumed stocks Whose scent's like a blackbird's singing. 7 98 RENUNCIATION. X. You see, my darling, I never forget ! Aye, those were your own very words ere yet Our father lost his all in yon city, Where the people, they say, in their struggle for gold, Become like wild beasts, and the feeble and old Are trampled upon without pity. XI. Poor father was better to-day : for the smile Of the sun seemed to gladden him too for awhile As he sat by the bright little casement, With buttercups heaped on his knees without stint, Which, deeming them childishly fresh from the mint, He counted in chuckling amazement. RENUNCIATION. 99 XII. The air is full of the peal of bells The rhythmical pealing of marriage bells ! And there floats o'er the fields, o'er the fallows, Borne on the wind with the wind-blown chimes, From the old house hidden in older limes, A chatter of maidens and swallows. XIII. Ah, give me the flowers ! the last year was all In tune with the flowers from the spring to the fall, And with singing of birds in the bowers ; And once ah, look not so angry, dear ! He whispered so softly I scarce could hear, " You yourself are the flower of all flowers ! " XIV. But oh, when the wind was loud in the trees, When the fluttering petals snowed down on the leas, ioo RENUNCIATION. And the dim sun went out like an ember, He stood by the gate all drenched with the mist, And I gave him my last Christmas rose, which he kissed For the last time that last of November. xv. Say, could he help if a hope as sweet As the wild thyme had sprouted under his feet ? If his face in my heart is enfolden, As the sun-smit globes of the summer rain Reflect and hold and refract again The sun, the eternally golden. XVI. He cometh, he cometh, oh brother, there ! Ah would that you saw the glint of his hair, For he looks like that saint in the story Whom you loved so to hear of in days of old, . RENUNCIATION. 101 Till he lit up your dreams with his curls of gold. Exhaling a mystical glory. XVII. The unseen wings of the morning air Fan his brow and ruffle his hair As he steps with a stately measure ; White daisies under his feet are spread, White butterflies hover above his head, White clouds high up in the azure : XVIII. Pelt him with sunlit April rain, Rain which ripens the earth-hid grain, Which brings up the grass and the heather ! Hark at the peal of the bridal bells, How their musical chiming swells and swells As they enter the church door together. 102 RENUNCIATION. XIX. Let us go hence now 'tis over the twain One will they be when they pass here again : All my flowers in their pathway I scatter ; Though he forget me as yesterday's rose, My heart with a sweet tender feeling o'erflows : If I love him, to whom can it matter ? xx. Yea, let us go now ; the stile, love, is here : Henceforth I live but for thee. What ! a tear Splashed on thy hand ? Nay, a drop from the shower That has passed over, for yon, on that dark Ominous cloud, dearest brother, the arc Of the Lord's bow now breaks into flower. THE ABANDONED, 103 THE ABANDONED. SHE sat by the wayside and wept, where roses, red roses and white, Lay wasted and withered and sere, like her life and its ruined delight ; Like chaff blown about in the wind whirled roses, white roses and red, And pale, on night's threshold, the moon bent over the day that was dead. She sat by the wayside and wept ; far over the desolate plain A noise as of one that is weeping re-echoed in wind and in rain, And the long dim line of the spectral poplars with dolorous wail Nodded their bald-headed tops as they chattered with cold in the gale. 104 THE ABANDONED. She sat by the wayside and wept in a passion of vain desire, And her weak heart fluttered and failed like the flame of a faltering fire, Fluttered and failed in her breast like the broken wing of a bird When its feathers are dabbled with gore, and the low last gurgle is heard. And behold, like balm on her soul, while she sat by the wayside and wept, There came a forgetting of sorrow, a lulling of grief, and she slept ; Yea, like the wings of a dove when cooing it broods on the nest, So the wings of slumber about her assuaged and filled her with rest. And a light that was not the sun's nor the moon's light illumined her brain ; THE ABANDONED. 105 From afar in the country of dreams three maidens stole over the plain, Three loveliest maidens they were, like roses, red roses and white ; And behold the earth and the heavens were glorified in their light. And the first of the maidens was fair, as fair as the blue-kirtled Spring, When she comes with a snowfall of blossoms and a rustling of birds on the wing, When a glimmer of green like a tide rolls over the woodland and vales, And odours are blown on the winds with the song of the nightingales. The second was loftier of stature, a huntress of grief; The wilderness glowed as she passed and broke into blossom and leaf; io6 THE ABANDONED. Yea, it seemed that her upturned eyes, with their fathomless gaze, Could pierce to the shining stars through the veil of the noonday blaze. But the third was a splendour incarnate, a luminous form, Thrilling with raptures that keep the heart of the cold earth warm, Who hidden far in the mystical glory of quivering rays Sets the whole world on fire for an absolute sight of her face. But darkling ever they see her, and ever as through a veil, For if naked she lightens upon them, their lives must shrivel and fail, Must fail and shrivel consumed by that burst of insufferable light, THE ABANDONED. 107 As a tree set on fire by lightning which burns to the ground in a night. The first one she kissed her cheek, her cheek grew pallid and wan : " Goodbye," she cried, " we must part ; I am Youth, and I follow the sun ; I am Youth, and I love to build in the heart that is buoyant and gay ; Goodbye, we shall meet not again," she cried, as she fluttered away. The second she kissed her eyes, then the glamour went out of their gaze, Through the magical show she beheld life staring her straight in the face ; With a terrible Gorgon stare that turned her heart into stone " Adieu," she sighed, " I am Hope, all is over between us and done." io8 THE ABANDONED. The third one she kissed her lips, and the kiss was a quenchless fire, It burned up her life like a victim's in the flames of a funeral pyre " Farewell," she wailed, " I am Love," and her wings were spread as for flight It seemed like the wail of the wind as they left her alone with the night. SONNETS. CLEAVE THOU THE WAVES. CLEAVE THOU THE WAVES. CLEAVE thou the waves that weltering to and fro Surge multitudinous. The eternal Powers Of sun, moon, stars, the air, the hurrying hours, The winged winds, the still dissolving show Of clouds in calm or storm, for ever flow Above thee ; while the abysmal sea devours The untold dead insatiate, where it lowers O'er glooms unfathomed, limitless, below. No longer on the golden-fretted sands, Where many a shallow tide abortive chafes, Mayst thou delay ; life onward sweeping blends With far-off heaven : the dauntless one who braves The perilous flood with calm unswerving hands, The elements sustain : cleave thou the waves. MANCHESTER BY NIGHT. MANCHESTER BY NIGHT. O'ER this huge town, rife with intestine wars, Whence as from monstrous sacrificial shrines Pillars of smoke climb heavenward, Night inclines Black brows majestical with glimmering stars. Her dewy silence soothes life's angry jars : And like a mother's wan white face, who pines Above her children's turbulent ways, so shines The moon athwart the narrow cloudy bars. Now toiling multitudes that hustling crush Each other in the fateful strife for breath, And, hounded on by diverse hungers, rush Across the prostrate ones that groan beneath, Are swathed within the universal hush, As life exchanges semblances with death. THE ^OBELISK AND THE GREAT FROST. 113 TO THE OBELISK DURING THE GREAT FROST, 1881. THOU sign-post of the Desert ! Obelisk, Once fronting in thy monumental pride Egypt's fierce sun, that blazing far and wide, Sheared her of tree and herb, till like a disk Her waste stretched shadowless, and fraught with risk To those who with their beasts of burden hied Across the seas of sand until they spied Thy pillar, and their flagging hearts grew brisk : Now reared beside our Thames so wintry gray, Where blocks of ice drift with the drifting stream, Thou risest o'er the alien prospect ! Say, Yon dull, blear, rayless orb whose lurid gleam Tinges the snow-draped ships and writhing steam, Is this the sun which fired thine orient day ? H4 TO MEMORY. TO MEMORY. OH in this dearth and winter of the soul, When even Hope, still wont to soar and sing, Droopeth, a starveling bird whose downy wing Stiffens ere dead through the dank drift it fall Yea, ere Hope perish utterly, I call On thee, fond Memory, that thou haste and bring One leaf, one blossom from that far-off spring When love's auroral light lay over all. Bring but one pansy : haply so the thrill Of poignant yearning for those glad dead years May, like the gusty south, breathe o'er the chill Of frozen grief, dissolving it in tears, Till numb Hope, stirred by that warm dropping rain, Will deem, perchance, Love's springtide come again. DESPAIR. 115 DESPAIR. THY wings swoop darkening round my soul, Despair ! And on my brain thy shadow seems to brood And hem me round with stifling solitude, With chasms of vacuous gloom which are thy lair. No light of human joy, no song or prayer, Breaks ever on this chaos, all imbrued With heart's-blood trickling from the multitude Of sweet hopes slain, or agonizing there. Lo, wilt thou yield thyself to grief, and roll Vanquished from thy high seat, imperial brain ; And abdicating turbulent life's control, Be dragged a captive bound in sorrow's chain ? Nay ! though my heart is breaking with its pain, No pain on earth has power to crush my soul. n 6 SLEEP. SLEEP. LOVE-CRADLING Night, lit by the lucent moon, Most pitiful and mother-hearted Night ! Blest armistice in life's tumultuous fight, Resolving discords to a spheral tune ! When tired with heat and strenuous toil of noon, With ceaseless conflict betwixt might and right, With ebb and flow of sorrow and delight, Our panting hearts beneath their burdens swoon, To thee, O star-eyed comforter, we creep, Earth's ill-used step-children to thee make moan, As hiding in thy dark skirts' ample sweep ; Poor debtors whose brief life is not their own ; For dunned by Death, to whom we owe its loan, Give us, O Night, the interest paid in sleep. HAUNTED STREETS. 117 HAUNTED STREETS. Lo, haply walking in some clattering street Where throngs of men and women dumbly pass, Like shifting pictures seen within a glass Which leave no trace behind one seems to meet, In roads once trodden by our mutual feet, A face projected from that shadowy mass Of faces, quite familiar as it was, Which beaming on us stands out clear and sweet. The face of faces we again behold That lit our life when life was very fair, And leaps our heart toward eyes and mouth and hair: Oblivious of the undying love grown cold, Or body sheeted in the churchyard mould, We stretch out yearning hands and grasp the air. ANAPKH. ANATKH. LIKE a great rock which looming o'er the deep Casts his eternal shadow on the strands, And veiled in cloud inexorably stands, While vaulting round his adamantine steep Embattled breakers clamorously leap, Sun-garlanded and hope-uplifted bands, But soon with waters shattered in the sands Slowly recoiling back to ocean creep : So sternly dost thou tower above us, Fate ! For still our eager hearts exultant beat, Borne in the hurrying tide of life elate, And dashing break against thy marble feet. But would Hope's rainbow aureole round us fleet, Without these hurtling shocks of man's estate ? THE ^ DEAD. 119 THE DEAD. THE dead abide with us ! Though stark and cold Earth seems to grip them, they are with us still : They have forged our chains of being for good or ill ; And their invisible hands these hands yet hold. Our perishable bodies are the mould In which their strong imperishable will Mortality's deep yearning to fulfil Hath grown incorporate through dim time untold. Vibrations infinite of life in death, As a star's travelling light survives its star ! So may we hold our lives, that when we are The fate of those who then will draw this breath, They shall not drag us to their judgment bar, And curse the heritage which we bequeath. CHRISTMAS EVE. CHRISTMAS EVE. ALONE with one fair star for company, The loveliest star among the hosts of night, While the grey tide ebbs with the ebbing light I pace along the darkening wintry sea. Now round the yule-log and the glittering tree Twinkling with festive tapers, eyes as bright Sparkle with Christmas joys and young delight, As each one gathers to his family. But I a waif on earth where'er I roam Uprooted with life's bleeding hopes and fears From that one heart that was my heart's sole home, Feel the old pang pierce through the severing years, And as I think upon the years to come That fair star trembles through my falling tears. NEW YEARS EVE. NEW YEAR'S EVE. ANOTHER full-orbed year hath waned to-day, And set in the irrevocable past, And headlong whirled along Time's winged blast My fluttering rose of youth is borne away : Ah rose once crimson with the blood of May, A honeyed haunt where bees would break their fast, I watch thy scattering petals flee aghast, And all the flickering rose-lights turning grey. Poor fool of life ! plagued ever with thy vain Regrets and futile longings ! were the years Not cups o'erbrimming still with gall and tears ? Let go thy puny personal joy and pain ! If youth with all its brief hope disappears, To deathless hope we must be born again. POEMS. PERFECT UNION. 125 PERFECT UNION. W. K. C 3RD MARCH, 1879. "A free man thinks of nothing so little as of death ; and his wisdom is a meditation, not of death, but of life." SPINOZA. " DRAW back the curtain, wife," he said ; And, dying, raised his feeble head, As all his gathered soul leaped sheer Into his waning eyes, and yearned After the journeying sun which turned Towards that other hemisphere. Then, as its incandescent bulk Sank slowly, like the foundering hulk Of some lone burning ship at sea, His life set with it bright as brief In that invincible belief Of Man's august supremacy. 126 PERFECT UNION. Truth's vanward hero ! Calmly brave Fronting the dumb unfathomed grave With unintimidated eyes ; Though not for him, beyond its night, Resuscitated Hope alight Prescient, on peaks of Paradise. And like some solemn parting word From one beloved friend on board Bound for some undiscovered shore, To one who stands with straining gaze To catch the last look of a face Which he may see, ah never more So, ere he drifted to the deep Unknowable, the utter sleep, Out, out beyond life's harbour bar, He whispered, " Perfect ! no one knows How perfect ! " and his eyes did close Even like a sun-extinguished star. PERFECT UNION. 127 His eyes did close : I held his hand : I loved, so came to understand The inmost working of his mind ; Yea, in that clasp, I know not how, Did not his life of life then flow Through mine, while mine was left behind ? I know not how, and yet it seems As in some prank of shifting dreams, That it was I who died, not he : And then again, I know not how, I feel new powers upheave and glow, And all his life that stirs in me. I am no longer what I was ; My nature is the pictured glass, Where he who lived lives on and on ; All ye who loved him, ye may see His spirit still investing me, As moonlight but reflects the sun. 128 PERFECT UNION. For ever deepening grows his sway : A voice cries in me night and day : " He'll never die to me, his wife ; In our strong love death hath no part ; I hold and fold him in my heart There he shall live while I have life.' THE STREET-CHILDREN'S DANCE. 129 THE STREET-CHILDREN'S DANCE. Now the earth, in fields and hills Stirs with pulses of the Spring, Nest-embowering hedges ring With interminable trills ; Sunlight runs a race with rain, All the world grows young again. Young as at the hour of birth : From the grass the daisies rise With the dew upon their eyes, Sun-awakened eyes of earth ; Fields are set with cups of gold ; Can this budding world grow old ? Can the world grow old and sere, Now when ruddy-tasselled trees 9 130 THE STREET-CHILDREN S DANCE. Stoop to every passing breeze, Rustling in their silken gear ; Now when blossoms pink and white Have' their own terrestrial light ? Brooding light falls soft and warm, Where in many a wind-rocked nest, Curled up 'neath the she-bird's breast, Clustering eggs are hid from harm ; While the mellow-throated thrush Warbles in the purpling bush. Misty purple bathes the Spring : Swallows flashing here and there Float and dive on waves of air, And make love upon the wing ; Crocus-buds in sheaths of gold Burst like sunbeams from the mould. -Chesnut leaflets burst their buds, Perching tiptoe on each spray, THE STREET-CHILDREN'S DANCE. 131 Springing toward the radiant day, As the bland, pacific floods Of the generative sun All the teeming earth o'errun. Can this earth run o'er with beauty, Laugh through leaf and flower and grain, While in close-pent court and lane, In the air so thick and sooty, Little ones pace to and fro, Weighted with their parents' woe ? Woe-predestined little ones ! Putting forth their buds of life In an atmosphere of strife, And crime breeding ignorance ; Where the bitter surge of care Freezes to a dull despair. Dull despair and misery Lie about them from their birth ; 132 THE STREET-CHILDREN'S DANCE. Ugly curses, uglier mirth, Are their earliest lullaby ; , Fathers have they without name, Mothers crushed by want and shame. Brutish, overburthened mothers, With their hungry children cast Half-nude to the nipping blast; Little sisters with their brothers Dragging in their arms all day Children nigh as big as they. Children mothered by the street : Shouting, flouting, roaring after Passers-by with gibes and laughter, Diving between horses' feet, In and out of drays and barrows, Recklessly, like London sparrows. Mudlarks of our slums and alleys, All unconscious of the blooming THE STREET-CHILDREN'S DANCE. 133 World behind those housetops looming, Of the happy fields and valleys, Of the miracle of Spring With its boundless blossoming. Blossoms of humanity ! Poor soiled blossoms in the dust ! Through the thick defiling crust Of soul-stifling poverty, In your features may be traced Childhood's beauty half effaced Childhood, stunted in the shadow Of the light-debarring walls : Not for you the cuckoo calls O'er the silver-threaded meadow ; Not for you the lark on high Pours his music from the sky. Ah ! you have your music too ! And come flocking round that player 134 THE STREET-CHILDREN'S DANCE. Grinding at his organ there, Summer-eyed and swart of hue, Rattling off his well-worn tune On this April afternoon. Lovely April lights of pleasure Flit o'er want-beclouded features Of these little outcast creatures, As they swing with rhythmic measure, In the courage of their rags, Lightly o'er the slippery flags. Little footfalls, lightly glancing In a luxury of motion, Supple as the waves of ocean In your elemental dancing, How you fly, and wheel, and spin, For your hearts too dance within. Dance along with mirth and laughter, Buoyant, fearless, and elate, THE STREET-CHILDREN 'S DANCE. 135 Dancing in the teeth of fate, Ignorant of your hereafter That with all its tragic glooms Blindly on your future looms. Past and future, hence away ! Joy, diffused throughout the earth, Centre in this moment's mirth Of ecstatic holiday : Once in all their lives' dark story, Touch them, Fate ! with April glory. Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury.