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POEMS. 
 
Engraved by Vincent Brooks from a 
 
 PnotocSraph taken by the London Stereoscopic Company, 
 
 Nov 1 28 th 1864. 
 
MOXON'S MINIATURE POETS. 
 
 5-5-57 
 
 ECTION 
 
 THEHORKS* 
 
 OF 
 
 ALFRED TENNYSON, D.C.L., 
 
 POET LAUREATE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 EDWARD MOXON & CO., DOVER STREET. 
 1865. 
 
PRINTED BY BRADBURY AND EVANS, WHITEFRIARS. 
 
 THE WOOD-CUTS AND COVER FROM DESIGNS BY JOHN LEIGHTON, F.S.A. 
 THE SERIES PROJECTED AND SUPERINTENDED BY 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TO THE QUEEN I 
 
 THE MAY QUEEN 3 
 
 NEW-YEAR'S EVE 7 
 
 CONCLUSION 12 
 
 THE GRANDMOTHER 17 
 
 THE EAGLE 28 
 
 GODIVA 29 
 
 MARIANA . 33 
 
 THE CAPTAIN 37 
 
 "COME NOT, WHEN I AM DEAD" 40 
 
 ST. AGNES' EVE 41 
 
 SIR GALAHAD 43 
 
 DORA 47 
 
 THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER 54 
 
 THE LORD OF BURLEIGH 65 
 
 LADY CLARE 69 
 
 THE LADY OF SHALOTT 73 
 
 THE BEGGAR MAID 8l 
 
 LADY CLARA VERB DE VERB . 82 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER ; OR, THE PICTURES . 86 
 
 LOCKSLEY HALL 97 
 
 THE BROOK 117 
 
 EDWARD GRAY 127 
 
 CENONE 129 
 
 TITHONUS 141 
 
 ULYSSES 145 
 
 THE GOLDEN YEAR 148 
 
 THE VISION OF SIN !! 
 
 MORTE D'ARTHUR 161 
 
 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON . 172 
 
 BRITAIN 184 
 
 FREEDOM l86 
 
 "COME INTO THE GARDEN, MAUD" . . . . l88 
 
 THE SAILOR BOY I9O 
 
 "MY LIFE IS FULL OF WEARY DAYS " . ... 19! 
 
 "BREAK, BREAK, BREAK" 192 
 
 THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE . . . . 193 
 
 THREE SONNETS TO A COQUETTE 196 
 
 "GO NOT, HAPPY DAY" 198 
 
 A FAREWELL 199 
 
 "AS THRO' THE LAND AT EVE WE WENT" . . . 200 
 
 "SWEET AND LOW, SWEET AND LOW" . . . 201 
 
 " THE SPLENDOUR FALLS ON CASTLE WALLS " . . . 2O2 
 
 " TEARS, IDLE TEARS, I KNOW NOT WHAT THEY MEAN " 2OJ 
 
 "O SWALLOW, SWALLOW, FLYING, FLYING SOUTH" . 205 
 
 SONG 207 
 
 SONG . . 207 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "HOME THEY BROUGHT HER WARRIOR DEAD" . . 208 
 
 " ASK ME NO MORE : THE MOON MAY DRAW THE SEA " 2OQ 
 
 " NOW SLEEPS THE CRIMSON PETAL, NOW THE WHITE 5 ' 2IO 
 " COME DOWN, O MAID, FROM YONDER MOUNTAIN 
 
 HEIGHT" 211 
 
 CRADLE SONG 213 
 
 ENID'S SONG 214 
 
 VIVIEN'S SONG 215 
 
 ELAINE'S SONG 216 
 
 THE DEPARTURE 217 
 
 WILL 219 
 
 ON A MOURNER 22O 
 
 THE SEA-FAIRIES 222 
 
 THE POET'S SONG 224 
 
 GUINEVERE 225 
 
 DEDICATION. OF THE "IDYLLS OF THE KING" . . 254 
 
TO THE QUEEN. 
 
 REVERED, beloved O you that hold 
 
 A nobler office upon earth 
 
 Than arms, or power of brain, or birth 
 Could give the warrior kings of old, 
 
 VICTORIA, since your Royal grace 
 To one of less desert allows 
 This laurel greener from the brows 
 
 Of him that utter'd nothing base; 
 
 And should your greatness, and the care 
 That yokes with empire, yield you time 
 To make demand of modern rhyme 
 
 If aught of ancient worth be there ; 
 
 Then while a sweeter music wakes, 
 And thro' wild March the throstle calls, 
 Where all about your palace-walls 
 
 The sun-lit almond-blossom shakes 
 
TO THE QUEEN. 
 
 Take, Madam, this poor book of song; 
 For tho' the faults were thick as dust 
 In vacant chambers, I could trust 
 
 Your kindness. May you rule us long, 
 
 And leave us rulers of your blood 
 
 As noble till the latest day ! 
 
 May children of our children say, 
 ' She wrought her people lasting good; 
 
 ' Her court was pure; her life serene; 
 
 God gave her peace ; her land reposed ; 
 
 A thousand claims to reverence closed 
 In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen; 
 
 ' And statesmen at her council met 
 Who knew the seasons when to take 
 Occasion by the hand, and make 
 
 The bounds of freedom wider yet 
 
 ' By shaping some august decree, 
 
 Which kept her throne unshaken still, 
 Broad-based upon her people's will, 
 
 And compass'd by the inviolate sea.' 
 
 MARCH, 1851. 
 
THE MAY QUEEN. 
 
 You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother 
 dear; 
 
 To-morrow '11 be the happiest time of all the glad New- 
 year; 
 
 Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest 
 day; 
 
 For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be 
 Queen o' the May. 
 
 There's many a black black eye, they say, but none so 
 
 bright as mine; 
 
 There's Margaret and Mary, there's Kate and Caroline : 
 But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say, 
 So I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be 
 
 Queen o' the May. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE MAY QUEEN. 
 
 I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never 
 
 wake, 
 
 If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break : 
 But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and 
 
 garlands gay, 
 For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be 
 
 Queen o' the May. 
 
 As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see, 
 But Robin leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree 1 
 He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him 
 
 yesterday, 
 But I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be 
 
 Queen o' the May. 
 
 He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white, 
 And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of 
 
 light. 
 They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they 
 
 say, 
 For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be 
 
 Queen o' the May. 
 
 They say he's dying all for love, but that can never be : 
 They say his heart is breaking, mother what is that 
 to me? 
 
THE MAY QUEEN. 5 
 
 There's many a bolder lad 'ill woo me any summer day, 
 And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be 
 Queen o' the May. 
 
 Little Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the 
 
 green, 
 And you'll be there, too, mother, to see me made the 
 
 Queen; 
 For the shepherd lads on every side 'ill come from far 
 
 away, 
 And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be 
 
 Queen o' the May. 
 
 The honeysuckle round the porch has wov'n its wavy 
 
 bowers, 
 And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet 
 
 cuckoo-flowers ; 
 And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps 
 
 and hollows gray, 
 And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be 
 
 Queen o' the May. 
 
 The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the 
 
 meadow-grass, 
 And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as 
 
 they pass; 
 
6 THE MAY QUEEN. 
 
 There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the live- 
 long day, 
 
 And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be 
 Queen o' the May. 
 
 All the valley, mother, 'ill be fresh and green and still, 
 And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill, 
 And the rivulet in the flowery dale 'ill merrily glance 
 
 and play, 
 For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be 
 
 Queen o' the May. 
 
 So you must wake and call me early, call me early, 
 
 mother dear, 
 To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad 
 
 New-year : 
 To-morrow 'ill be of all the year the maddest merriest 
 
 day, 
 For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be 
 
 Queen o' the May. 
 
NEW-YEAR'S EVE. 
 
 IF you're waking call me early, call me early, mother 
 dear, 
 
 For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New- 
 year. 
 
 It is the last New-year that I shall ever see, 
 
 Then you may lay me low i' the mould and think no 
 more of me. 
 
 To-night I saw the sun set : he set and left behind 
 The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace 
 
 of mind; 
 And the New-year's coming up, mother, but I shall 
 
 never see 
 The blossom on the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree. 
 
 Last May we made a crown of flowers: we had a 
 
 merry day; 
 Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me 
 
 Queen of May; 
 
NEW-YEARS EVE. 
 
 And we danced about the may-pole and in the hazel- 
 copse, 
 
 Till Charles's Wain came out above the tall white 
 chimney-tops. 
 
 There's not a flower on all the hills : the frost is on 
 the pane : 
 
 1 only wish to live till the snowdrops come again : 
 
 I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on 
 
 high: 
 I long to see a flower so before the day I die. 
 
 The building rook 'ill caw from the windy tall elm-tree. 
 And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea, 
 And the swallow 'ill come back again with summer o'er 
 
 the wave, 
 But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering 
 
 grave. 
 
 Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of 
 
 mine, 
 
 In the early early morning the summer sun 'ill shine. 
 Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the 
 
 hill, 
 When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all the world 
 
 is still. 
 
NEW-YEARS EVE. 9 
 
 When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the 
 
 waning light 
 You'll never see me more in the long gray fields at 
 
 night; 
 When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow 
 
 cool 
 On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush 
 
 in the pool. 
 
 You'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn 
 
 shade, 
 And you'll come sometimes and see me where I am 
 
 lowly laid. 
 I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when 
 
 you pass, 
 With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant 
 
 grass. 
 
 I have been wild and wayward, but you'll forgive me 
 
 now; 
 You'll kiss me, my own mother, and forgive me ere 
 
 I go; 
 Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be 
 
 wild, 
 You should not fret for me, mother, you have another 
 
 child. 
 
10 NEW- YEARS EVE. 
 
 If I can I'll come again, mother, from out my resting- 
 place ; 
 
 Tho' you'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon 
 your face; 
 
 Tho' I cannot speak a word, I shall harken what you 
 say, 
 
 And be often, often with you when you think I'm far 
 away. 
 
 Goodnight, goodnight, when I have said goodnight for 
 
 evermore, 
 And you see me carried out from the threshold of the 
 
 door; 
 Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave be 
 
 growing green : 
 She'll be a better child to you than ever I have 
 
 been. 
 
 She'll find my garden-tools upon the granary 
 floor: 
 
 Let her take 'em : they are hers : I shall never garden 
 more: 
 
 But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rose-bush 
 that I set 
 
 About the parlour-window and the box of migno- 
 nette. 
 
NEW-YEAR'S EVE. 
 
 ir 
 
 Good-night, sweet mother : call me before the day is 
 
 born. 
 
 All night I lay awake, but I fall asleep at morn; 
 But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year, 
 So, if you're waking, call me, call me early, mother dear. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 I THOUGHT to pass away before, and yet alive I am ; 
 And in the fields all round I hear the bleating of the 
 
 lamb. 
 
 How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year ! 
 To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet's 
 
 here. 
 
 O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the 
 
 skies, 
 And sweeter is the young lamb's voice to me that 
 
 cannot rise, 
 And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers 
 
 that blow, 
 And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go. 
 
 It seem'd so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed 
 
 sun, 
 And now it seems as hard to stay, and yet His will be 
 
 done ! 
 
CONCLUSION. 13 
 
 But still I think it can't be long before I find release ; 
 And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words 
 of peace. 
 
 O blessings on his kindly voice and on his silver 
 
 hair ! 
 And blessings on his whole life long, until he meet me 
 
 there ! 
 
 blessings on his kindly heart and on his silver 
 
 head ! 
 
 A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt beside my 
 bed. 
 
 He taught me all the mercy, for he show'd me all the sin. 
 Now, tho' my lamp was lighted late, there's One will 
 
 let me in : 
 
 Nor would I now be well, mother, again if that could be, 
 For my desire is but to pass to Him that died for me. 
 
 1 did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death- 
 
 watch beat, 
 There came a sweeter token when the night and 
 
 morning meet: 
 But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in 
 
 mine, 
 And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign. 
 
14 CONCLUSION. 
 
 All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels 
 
 call; 
 It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was 
 
 over all; 
 The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to 
 
 roll, 
 And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my 
 
 soul. 
 
 For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear; 
 I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here; 
 With all my strength I pray'd for both, and so I felt 
 
 resign'd, 
 And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind. 
 
 I thought that it was fancy, and I listen'd in my bed, 
 And then did something speak to me I know not 
 
 what was said ; 
 For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my 
 
 mind, 
 And up the valley came again the music on the wind. 
 
 But you were sleeping; and I said, "It's not for them: 
 
 it's mine." 
 And if it comes three times, I thought, I take it for 
 
 a sign. 
 
CONCLUSION. 15 
 
 And once again it came, and close beside the window- 
 bars, 
 
 Then seem'd to go right up to Heaven and die among 
 the stars. 
 
 So now I think my time is near. I trust it is. I 
 
 know 
 The blessed music went that way my soul will have 
 
 to go. 
 
 And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day. 
 But, Effie, you must comfort her when I am past 
 
 away. 
 
 And say to Robin a kind word, and tell him not to 
 
 fret; 
 There's many worthier than I, would make him happy 
 
 yet. 
 If I had lived I cannot tell I might have been his 
 
 wife; 
 But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire 
 
 of life. 
 
 look ! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a 
 
 glow; 
 He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I 
 
 know. 
 
1 6 CONCLUSION. 
 
 And there I move no longer now, and there his light 
 
 may shine 
 Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine. 
 
 O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day 
 
 is done 
 The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the 
 
 sun 
 
 For ever and for ever with those just souls and true 
 And what is life, that we should moan ? why make we 
 
 such ado 1 
 
 For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home 
 
 And there to wait a little while till you and Effie 
 
 come 
 To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your 
 
 breast 
 And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary 
 
 are at rest. 
 
THE GRANDMOTHER. 
 
 AND Willy, my eldest-born, is gone, you say, little 
 Anne? 
 
 Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like 
 a man. 
 
 And Willy's wife has written : she never was over- 
 wise, 
 
 Never the wife for Willy: he wouldn't take my 
 advice. 
 
 n. 
 
 For, Annie, you see, her father was not the man to 
 
 save 
 
 Hadn't a head to manage, and drank himself into his 
 grave. 
 
 c 
 
1 8 THE GRANDMOTHER. 
 
 Pretty enough, very pretty ! but I was against it for 
 
 one. 
 Eh ! but he wouldn't hear me and Willy, you say, 
 
 is gone. 
 
 in. 
 Willy, my beauty, my eldest-born, the flower of the 
 
 flock; 
 Never a man could fling him : for Willy stood like a 
 
 rock. 
 ' Here's a leg for a babe of a week !' says doctor; 
 
 and he would be bound, 
 There was not his like that year in twenty parishes 
 
 round. 
 
 Strong of his hands, and strong on his legs, but still of 
 
 his tongue ! 
 I ought to have gone before him: I wonder he went 
 
 so young. 
 I cannot cry for him, Annie: I have not long to 
 
 stay; 
 Perhaps I shall see him the sooner, for he lived far 
 
 away. 
 
THE GRANDMOTHER. 19 
 
 V. 
 
 Why do you look at me, Annie ? you think I am hard 
 
 and cold; 
 But all my children have gone before me, I am so 
 
 old: 
 I cannot weep for Willy, nor can I weep for the 
 
 rest; 
 Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the 
 
 best. 
 
 VI. 
 
 For I remember a quarrel I had with your father, my 
 
 dear, 
 All for a slanderous story, that cost me many a 
 
 tear. 
 I mean your grandfather, Annie : it cost me a world 
 
 of woe, 
 Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years 
 
 ago. 
 
 vn. 
 For Jenny, my cousin, had come to the place, and I 
 
 knew right well 
 
 That Jenny had tript in her time: I knew, but I 
 would not tell. 
 
 c 2 
 
THE GRANDMOTHER. 
 
 And she to be coming and slandering me, the base 
 
 little liar ! 
 But the tongue is a fire as you know, my dear, the 
 
 tongue is a fire. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And the parson made it his text that week, and he 
 
 said likewise, 
 That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of 
 
 lies, 
 That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought 
 
 with outright, 
 But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to 
 
 fight. 
 
 IX. 
 
 And Willy had not been down to the farm for a week 
 
 and a day; 
 And all things look'd half-dead, tho' it was the middle 
 
 of May. 
 Jenny, to slander me, who knew what Jenny had 
 
 been! 
 But soiling another, Annie, will never make oneself 
 
 clean. 
 
THE GRANDMOTHER. 21 
 
 And I cried myself well-nigh blind, and all of an 
 
 evening late 
 I climb'd to the top of the garth, and stood by the 
 
 road at the gate. 
 The moon like a rick on fire was rising over the 
 
 dale, 
 And whit, whit, whit, in the bush beside me, chirrupt 
 
 the nightingale. 
 
 XL 
 All of a sudden he stopt: there past by the gate of 
 
 the farm, 
 Willy, he didn't see me, and Jenny hung on his 
 
 arm. 
 Out into the road I started, and spoke I scarce knew 
 
 how; 
 Ah, there's no fool like the old one it makes me 
 
 angry now. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Willy stood up like a man, and look'd the thing that 
 
 he meant; 
 Jenny, the viper, made me a mocking courtsey and 
 
 went. 
 
22 THE GRANDMOTHER. 
 
 And I said, ' Let us part : in a hundred years it'll all 
 
 be the same, 
 You cannot love me at all, if you love not my good 
 
 name.' 
 
 XIII. 
 
 And he turn'd, and I saw his eyes all wet, in the sweet 
 
 moonshine : 
 ' Sweetheart, I love you so well that your good name 
 
 is mine. 
 And what do I care for Jane, let her speak of you well 
 
 or ill ; 
 But marry me out of hand: we two shall be happy 
 
 still.' 
 
 XIV. 
 
 ! Marry you, Willy !' said I, 'but I needs must speak 
 
 my mind, 
 And I fear you'll listen to tales, be jealous and hard 
 
 and unkind.' 
 But he turn'd and claspt me in his arms, and answer'd, 
 
 'No, love, no;' 
 Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years 
 
 ago. 
 
THE GRANDMOTHER. 23 
 
 XV. 
 
 So Willy and I were wedded : I wore a lilac 
 
 gown; 
 And the ringers rang with a will, and he gave the 
 
 ringers a crown. 
 But the first that ever I bare was dead before he was 
 
 born, 
 Shadow and shine is life, little Annie, flower and 
 
 thorn. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 That was the first time, too, that ever I thought of 
 
 death. 
 There lay the sweet little body that never had drawn 
 
 a breath. 
 I had not wept, little Anne, not since I had been a 
 
 wife; 
 But I wept like a child that day, for the babe had 
 
 fought for his life. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 His dear little face was troubled, as if with anger or 
 
 pain: 
 I look'd at the still little body his trouble had all 
 
 been in vain. 
 
24 THE GRANDMOTHER. 
 
 For Willy I cannot weep, I shall see him another 
 
 morn: 
 But I wept like a child for the child that was dead 
 
 before he was born. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 But he cheer'd me, my good man, for he seldom said 
 
 me nay: 
 Kind, like a man, was he; like a man, too, would 
 
 have his way: 
 Never jealous not he: we had many a happy 
 
 year; 
 And he died, and I could not weep my own time 
 
 seem'd so near. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 But I wish'd it had been God's will that I, too, then 
 
 could have died : 
 I began to be tired a little, and fain had slept at his 
 
 side. 
 And that was ten years back, or more, if I don't 
 
 forget : 
 But as to the children, Annie, they're all about me 
 
 yet. 
 
THE GRANDMOTHER. 25 
 
 XX. 
 
 Pattering over the boards, my Annie who left me 
 
 at two, 
 Patter she goes, my own little Annie, an Annie like 
 
 you: 
 Pattering over the boards, she comes and goes at 
 
 her will, 
 While Harry is in the five-acre and Charlie ploughing 
 
 the hill. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 And Harry and Charlie, I hear them too they sing 
 
 to their team : 
 Often they come to the door in a pleasant kind of a 
 
 dream. 
 They come and sit by my chair, -they hover about 
 
 my bed 
 I am not always certain if they be alive or 
 
 dead. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 And yet I know for a truth, there's none of them 
 left alive; 
 
 For Harry went at sixty, your father at sixty- 
 five : 
 
26 THE GRANDMOTHER. 
 
 And Willy, my eldest born, at nigh threescore and 
 
 ten; 
 I knew them all as babies, and now they're elderly 
 
 men. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 For mine is a time of peace, it is not often I 
 
 grieve; 
 I am oftener sitting at home in my father's farm 
 
 at eve: 
 And the neighbours come and laugh and gossip, and 
 
 so do I; 
 I find myself often laughing at things that have long 
 
 gone by. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 To be sure the preacher says, our sins should make 
 
 us sad: 
 But mine is a time of peace, and there is Grace to 
 
 be had; 
 And God, not man, is the Judge of us all when life 
 
 shall cease; 
 And in this Book, little Annie, the message is one of 
 
 Peace. 
 
THE GRANDMOTHER. 27 
 
 XXV. 
 
 And age is a time of peace, so it be free from 
 
 pain, 
 And happy has been my life; but I would not live 
 
 it again. 
 I seem to be tired a little, that's all, and long for 
 
 rest; 
 Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the 
 
 best. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 So Willy has gone, my beauty, my eldest-born, my 
 
 flower; 
 But how can I weep for Willy, he has but gone for 
 
 an hour, 
 Gone for a minute, my son, from this room into the 
 
 next; 
 I, too, shall go in a minute. What time have I to 
 
 be vext 1 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 And Willy's wife has written, she never was over- 
 wise. 
 
 Get me my glasses, Annie: thank God that I keep 
 my eyes. 
 
28 THE EAGLE. 
 
 There is but a trifle left you, when I shall have past 
 
 away. 
 But stay with the old woman now : you cannot have 
 
 long to stay. 
 
 THE EAGLE 
 
 HE clasps the crag with crooked hands; 
 Close to the sun in lonely lands, 
 Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. 
 
 The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; 
 He watches from his mountain walls, 
 And like a thunderbolt he falls. 
 
GOD1VA. 
 
 / waited for the train at Coventry ; 
 I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, 
 To watch the three tall spires ; and there I shaped 
 The city's ancient legend into this : 
 
 Not only we, the latest seed of Time, 
 New men, that in the flying of a wheel 
 Cry down the past, not only we, that prate 
 Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well, 
 And loathed to see them overtax'd; but she 
 Did more, and underwent, and overcame, 
 The woman of a thousand summers back, 
 Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled 
 In Coventry : for when he laid a tax 
 Upon his town, and all the mothers brought 
 Their children, clamouring, " If we pay, we starve !" 
 She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode 
 About the hall, among his dogs, alone, 
 
30 GODIVA. 
 
 His beard a foot before him, and his hair 
 
 A yard behind. She told him of their tears, 
 
 And pray'd him, " If they pay this tax, they starve." 
 
 Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed, 
 
 " You would not let your little finger ache 
 
 For such as these?" " But I would die," said she. 
 
 He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul : 
 
 Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear; 
 
 " O ay, ay, ay, you talk ! " " Alas ! " she said, 
 
 " But prove me what it is I would not do." 
 
 And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand, 
 
 He answer'd, " Ride you naked thro' the town, 
 
 And I repeal it;" and nodding, as in scorn, 
 
 He parted, with great strides among his dogs. 
 
 So left alone, the passions of her mind, 
 As winds from all the compass shift and blow, 
 Made war upon each other for an hour, 
 Till pity won. She se,_t a herald forth, 
 And bade him cry, with sound of trumpet, all 
 The hard condition; but that she would loose 
 The people : therefore, as they loved her well, 
 From then till noon no foot should pace the street, 
 No eye look down, she passing; but that all 
 Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd. 
 
 Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there 
 Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt, 
 
GOD IV A. 3 I 
 
 The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath 
 She linger'd, looking like a summer moon 
 Half-dipt in cloud : anon she shook her head, 
 And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee; 
 Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair 
 Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid 
 From pillar unto pillar, until she reach'd 
 The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt 
 In purple blazon'd with armorial gold. 
 
 Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity: 
 The deep air listen'd round her as she rode, 
 And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear. 
 The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout 
 Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur 
 Made her cheek flame : her palfrey's footfall shot 
 Light horrors thro' her pulses : the blind walls 
 Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead 
 Fantastic gables, crowding, stared : but she 
 Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw 
 The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the field 
 Gleam thro' the Gothic archways in the wall. 
 
 Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity : 
 And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, 
 The fatal byword of all years to come, 
 Boring a little augur-hole in fear, 
 Peep'd but his eyes, before they had their will, 
 
32 GODIVA. 
 
 Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head, 
 
 And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait 
 
 On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused; 
 
 And she, that knew not, pass'd : and all at once, 
 
 With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon 
 
 Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers, 
 
 One after one : but even then she gain'd 
 
 Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd. 
 
 To meet her lord, she took the tax away, 
 
 And built herself an everlasting name. 
 
MARIANA. 
 
 "Mariana in the moated grange." Measure Jar Measure. 
 
 WITH blackest moss the flower-plots 
 Were thickly crusted, one and all : 
 The rusted nails fell from the knots 
 
 That held the pear to the garden-wall. 
 The broken sheds look'd sad and strange : 
 Unlifted was the clinking latch; 
 Weeded and worn the ancient thatch 
 Upon the lonely moated grange. 
 
 She only said, " My life is dreary, 
 
 He cometh not," she said; 
 
 She said, " I am aweary, aweary, 
 
 I would that I were dead ! " 
 
 Her tears fell with the dews at even; 
 
 Her tears fell ere the dews were dried ; 
 She could not look on the sweet heaven, 
 
 Either at morn or eventide. 
 
34 MARIANA. 
 
 After the flitting of the bats, 
 
 When thickest dark did trance the sky. 
 She drew her casement-curtain by, 
 And glanced athwart the glooming flats. 
 She only said, " The night is dreary, 
 
 He cometh not," she said; 
 
 She said, " I am aweary, aweary, 
 
 I would that I were dead !" 
 
 Upon the middle of the night, 
 
 Waking she heard the night-fowl crow: 
 The cock sung out an hour ere light : 
 
 From the dark fen the oxen's low 
 Came to her : without hope of change, 
 In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn, 
 Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn 
 About the lonely moated grange. 
 
 She only said, " The day is dreary, 
 
 He cometh not," she said; 
 
 She said, " I am aweary, aweary, 
 
 I would that I were dead !" 
 
 About a stone-cast from the wall 
 A sluice with blacken'd waters slept, 
 
 And o'er it many, round and small, 
 The cluster'd marish-mosses crept. 
 
MAR1AXA. 35 
 
 Hard by a poplar shook alway, 
 All silver-green with gnarled bark : 
 For leagues no other tree did mark 
 The level waste, the rounding gray. 
 She only said, " My life is dreary, 
 
 He cometh not," she said; 
 
 She said, " I am aweary, aweary, 
 
 I would that I were dead !" 
 
 And ever when the moon was low, 
 
 And the shrill winds were up and away, 
 In the white curtain, to and fro, 
 
 She saw the gusty shadow sway. 
 But when the moon was very low, 
 And wild winds bound within their cell, 
 The shadow of the poplar fell 
 Upon her bed, across her brow. 
 
 She only said, " The night is dreary, 
 
 He cometh not," she said; 
 
 She said, " I am aweary, aweary, 
 
 I would that I were dead !" 
 
 All day within the dreamy house, 
 
 The doors upon their hinges creak'd; 
 
 The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse 
 Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek' d, 
 
36 MARIANA. 
 
 Or from the crevice peer'd about. 
 Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors, 
 Old footsteps trod the upper floors, 
 Old voices called her from without. 
 She only said, " My life is dreary, 
 
 He cometh not," she said; 
 
 She said, " I am aweary, aweary, 
 
 I would that I were dead !" 
 
 The sparrow's chirrup on the roof, 
 
 The slow clock ticking, and the sound 
 Which to the wooing wind aloof 
 
 The poplar made, did all confound 
 Her sense; but most she loathed the hour 
 When the thick-moted sunbeam lay 
 Athwart the chambers, and the day 
 Was sloping toward his western bower. 
 Then, said she, " I am very dreary, 
 
 He will not come," she said; 
 
 She wept, " I am aweary, aweary, 
 
 Oh God, that I were dead !" 
 
THE CAPTAIN. 
 
 A LEGEND OF THE NAVY. 
 
 HE that only rules by terror 
 
 Doeth grievous wrong. 
 Deep as Hell I count his error. 
 
 Let him hear my song. 
 Brave the Captain was : the seamen 
 
 Made a gallant crew, 
 Gallant sons of English freemen, 
 
 Sailors bold and true. 
 But they hated his oppression, 
 
 Stern he was and rash; 
 So for every light transgression 
 
 Doom'd them to the lash. 
 Day by day more harsh and cruel 
 
 Seem'd the Captain's mood. 
 Secret wrath like smother'd fuel 
 
 Burnt in each man's blood. 
 Yet he hoped to purchase glory, 
 
 Hoped to make the name 
 Of his vessel great in story, 
 
 Wheresoe'er he came. 
 
38 THE CAPTAIN. 
 
 So they past by capes and islands, 
 
 Many a harbour-mouth, 
 Sailing under palmy highlands 
 
 Far within the South. 
 On a day when they were going 
 
 O'er the lone expanse, 
 In the north, her canvas flowing, 
 
 Rose a ship of France. 
 Then the Captain's colour heighten'd, 
 
 Joyful came his speech : 
 But a cloudy gladness lighten'd 
 
 In the eyes of each. 
 " Chase," he said: the ship flew forward, 
 
 And the wind did blow ; 
 Stately, lightly, went she Norward, 
 
 Till she near'd the foe. 
 Then they look'd at him they hated, 
 
 Had what they desired : 
 Mute with folded arms they waited 
 
 Not a gun was fired. 
 But they heard the foeman's thunder 
 
 Roaring out their doom; 
 All the air was torn in sunder, 
 
 Crashing went the boom, 
 Spars were splinter'd, decks were shatter'd, 
 
 Bullets fell like rain; 
 
THE CAPTAIN. 39 
 
 Over mast and deck were scatter'd 
 
 Blood and brains of men. 
 Spars were splinter' d; decks were broken: 
 
 Every mother's son 
 Down they dropt no word was spoken 
 
 Each beside his gun. 
 On the decks as they were lying, 
 
 Were their faces grim. 
 In their blood, as they lay dying, 
 
 Did they smile on him. 
 Those, in whom he had reliance 
 
 For his noble name, 
 With one smile of still defiance 
 
 Sold him unto shame. 
 Shame and wrath his heart confounded, 
 
 Pale he turn'd and red, 
 Till himself was deadly wounded 
 
 Falling on the dead. 
 Dismal error ! fearful slaughter ! 
 
 Years have wander'd by, 
 Side by side beneath the water 
 
 Crew and Captain lie; 
 There the sunlit ocean tosses 
 
 O'er them mouldering, 
 And the lonely seabird crosses 
 
 With one waft of the wing. 
 
COME not, when I am dead, 
 
 To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave, 
 To trample round my fallen head, 
 
 And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save. 
 There let the wind sweep and the plover cry; 
 But thou, go by. 
 
 Child, if it were thine error or thy crime 
 
 I care no longer, being all unblest : 
 Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time, 
 
 And I desire to rest. 
 
 Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie : 
 Go by, go by. 
 
ST. AGNES' EVE. 
 
 DEEP on the convent-roof the snows 
 
 Are sparkling to the moon: 
 My breath to heaven like vapour goes : 
 
 May my soul follow soon ! 
 The shadows of the convent-towers 
 
 Slant down the snowy sward, 
 Still creeping with the creeping hours 
 
 That lead me to my Lord : 
 Make Thou my spirit pure and clear 
 
 As are the frosty skies, 
 Or this first snowdrop of the year 
 
 That in my bosom lies. 
 
 As these white robes are soil'd and dark, 
 
 To yonder shining ground; 
 As this pale taper's earthly spark, 
 
 To yonder argent round ; 
 
42 ST. AGNES EVE. 
 
 i 
 
 So shows my soul before the Lamb, 
 
 My spirit before Thee; 
 So in mine earthly house I am, 
 
 To that I hope to be. 
 Break up the heavens, O Lord ! and far, 
 
 Thro' all yon starlight keen, 
 Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star, 
 
 In raiment white and clean. 
 
 He lifts me to the golden doors; 
 
 The flashes come and go; 
 All heaven bursts her starry floors, 
 
 And strows her lights below, 
 And deepens on and up ! the gates 
 
 Roll back, and far within 
 For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits, 
 
 To make me pure of sin. 
 The sabbaths of Eternity, 
 
 One sabbath deep and wide 
 A light upon the shining sea 
 
 The Bridegroom with his bride ! 
 
SIR GALAHAD. 
 
 MY good blade carves the casques of men, 
 
 My tough lance thrusteth sure, 
 My strength is as the strength of ten, 
 
 Because my heart is pure. 
 The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, 
 
 The hard brands shiver on the steel, 
 The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly, 
 
 The horse and rider reel : 
 They reel, they roll in clanging lists, 
 
 And when the tide of combat stands, 
 Perfume and flowers fall in showers, 
 
 That lightly rain from ladies' hands. 
 
 How sweet are looks that ladies bend 
 
 On whom their favours fall ! 
 For them I battle till the end, 
 
 To save from shame and thrall : 
 
44 SIR GALAHAD. 
 
 But all my heart is drawn above, 
 
 My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine : 
 I never felt the kiss of love, 
 
 Nor maiden's hand in mine. 
 More bounteous aspects on me beam, 
 
 Me mightier transports move and thrill; 
 So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer 
 
 A virgin heart in work and will. 
 
 When down the stormy crescent goes, 
 
 A light before me swims, 
 Between dark stems the forest glows, 
 
 I hear a noise of hymns : 
 Then by some secret shrine I ride; 
 
 1 hear a voice, but none are there ; 
 The stalls are void, the doors are wide, 
 
 The tapers burning fair. 
 Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, 
 
 The silver vessels sparkle clean, 
 The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, 
 
 And solemn chaunts resound between. 
 
 Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres 
 
 I find a magic bark; 
 I leap on board : no helmsman steers : 
 
 I float till all is dark. 
 
SIR GALAHAD. 45 
 
 A gentle sound, an awful light ! 
 
 Three angels bear the holy Grail : 
 With folded feet, in stoles of white, 
 
 On sleeping wings they sail. 
 Ah, blessed vision ! blood of God ! 
 
 My spirit beats her mortal bars, 
 As down dark tides the glory slides, 
 
 And star-like mingles with the stars. 
 
 When on my goodly charger borne 
 
 Thro' dreaming towns I go, 
 The cock crows ere the Christmas morn, 
 
 The streets are dumb with snow. 
 The tempest crackles on the leads, 
 
 And, ringing, springs from brand and mail; 
 But o'er the dark a glory spreads, 
 
 And gilds the driving hail. 
 I leave the plain, I climb the height; 
 
 No branchy thicket shelter yields; 
 But blessed forms in whistling storms 
 
 Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields. 
 
 A maiden knight to me is given 
 
 Such hope, I know not fear; 
 I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven 
 
 That often meet me here. 
 
46 SIR GALAHAD. 
 
 I muse on joy that will not cease, 
 
 Pure spaces clothed in living beams, 
 Pure lilies of eternal peace, 
 
 Whose odours haunt my dreams; 
 And, stricken by an angel's hand, 
 
 This mortal armour that I wear, 
 This weight and size, this heart and eyes, 
 
 Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air. 
 
 The clouds are broken in the sky, 
 
 And thro' the mountain-walls 
 A rolling organ-harmony 
 
 Swells up, and shakes and falls. 
 Then move the trees, the copses nod, 
 
 Wings flutter, voices hover clear : 
 " O just and faithful knight of God ! 
 
 Ride on ! the prize is near." 
 So pass I hostel, hall, and grange; 
 
 By bridge and ford, by park and pale, 
 All-arm'd I ride, whate'er betide, 
 
 Until I find the holy Grail. 
 
DORA. 
 
 WITH farmer Allan at the farm abode 
 William and Dora. William was his son, 
 And she his niece. He often look'd at them, 
 And often thought " I'll make them man and wife." 
 Now Dora felt her uncle's will in all, 
 And yearn'd towards William; but the youth, because 
 He had been always with her in the house, 
 Thought not of Dora. 
 
 Then there came a day 
 
 When Allan call'd his son, and said, " My son : 
 I married late, but I would wish to see 
 My grandchild on my knees before I die : 
 And I have set my heart upon a match. 
 Now therefore look to Dora; she is well 
 To look to; thrifty too beyond her age. 
 She is my brother's daughter : he and I 
 Had once hard words, and parted, and he died 
 In foreign lands; but for his sake I bred 
 His daughter Dora: take her for your wife; 
 
48 DORA. 
 
 For I have wish'd this marriage, night and day, 
 For many years." But William answer'd short; 
 "I cannot marry Dora; by my life, 
 I will not marry Dora." Then the old man 
 Was wroth, and doubled up his hands, and said : 
 " You will not, boy ! you dare to answer thus ! 
 But in my time a father's word was law, 
 And so it shall be now for me. Look to it; 
 Consider, William : take a month to think, 
 And let me have an answer to my wish; 
 Or, by the Lord that made me, you shall pack, 
 And never more darken my doors again." 
 But William answer'd madly; bit his lips, 
 And broke away. The more he look'd at her 
 The less he liked her; and his ways were harsh; 
 But Dora bore them meekly. Then before 
 The month was out he left his father's house, 
 And hired himself to work within the fields; 
 And half in love, half spite, he woo'd and wed 
 A labourer's daughter, Mary Morrison. 
 
 Then, when the bells were ringing, Allan call'd 
 His niece and said: " My girl, I love you well; 
 But if you speak with him that was my son, 
 Or change a word with her he calls his wife, 
 My home is none of yours. My will is law." 
 And Dora promised, being meek. She thought, 
 
DORA. 49 
 
 " It cannot be : my uncle's mind will change ! " 
 
 And days went on, and there was born a boy 
 To William; then distresses came on him; 
 And day by day he pass'd his father's gate, 
 Heart-broken, and his father help'd him not. 
 But Dora stored what little she could save, 
 And sent it them by stealth, nor did they know 
 Who sent it; till at last a fever seized 
 On William, and in harvest time he died. 
 
 Then Dora went to Mary. Mary sat 
 And look'd with tears upon her boy, and thought 
 Hard things of Dora, Dora came and said : 
 
 " I have obey'd my uncle until now, 
 And I have sinn'd, for it was all thro' me 
 This evil came on William at the first. 
 But, Mary, for the sake of him that's gone, 
 And for your sake, the woman that he chose, 
 And for this orphan, I am come to you : 
 You know there has not been for these five years 
 So full a harvest : let me take the boy, 
 And I will set him in my uncle's eye 
 Among the wheat; that when his heart is glad 
 Of the full harvest, he may see the boy, 
 And bless him for the sake of him that's gone." 
 
 And Dora took the child, and went her way 
 Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound 
 
50 DORA. 
 
 That was unsown, where many poppies grew. 
 Far off the farmer came into the field 
 And spied her not ; for none of all his men 
 Dare tell him Dora waited with the child ; 
 And Dora would have risen and gone to him, 
 But her heart fail'd her ; and the reapers reap'd, 
 And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. 
 
 But when the morrow came, she rose and took 
 The child once more, and sat upon the mound ; 
 And made a little wreath of all the flowers 
 That grew about, and tied it round his hat 
 To make him pleasing in her uncle's eye. 
 Then when the farmer pass'd into the field 
 He spied her, and he left his men at .work, 
 And came and said ; " Where were you yesterday ? 
 Whose child is that ! What are you doing here ? " 
 So Dora cast her eyes upon the ground, 
 And answer'd softly, " This is William's child ! " 
 " And did I not," said Allan, " did I not 
 Forbid you, Dora 1 " Dora said again ; 
 " Do with me as you will, but take the child 
 And bless him for the sake of him that's gone ! " 
 And Allan said, " I see it is a trick 
 Got up betwixt you and the woman there. 
 I must be taught my duty, and by you ! 
 You knew my word was law, and yet you dared 
 
DORA. 5 1 
 
 To slight it. Well for I will take the boy ; 
 But go you hence, and never see me more." 
 
 So saying, he took the boy, that cried aloud 
 And struggled hard. The wreath of flowers fell 
 At Dora's feet. She bow'd upon her hands, 
 And the boy's cry came to her from the field, 
 More and more distant. She bow'd down her head, 
 Remembering the day when first she came, 
 And all the things that had been. She bow'd down 
 And wept in secret ; and the reapers reap'd, 
 And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. 
 
 Then Dora went to Mary's house, and stood 
 Upon the threshold. Mary saw the boy 
 Was not with Dora. She broke out in praise 
 To God, that help'd her in her widowhood. 
 And Dora said, " My uncle took the boy; 
 But, Mary, let me live and work with you : 
 He says that he will never see me more." 
 Then answer'd Mary, " This shall never be, 
 That thou shouldst take my trouble on thyself: 
 And, now I think, he shall not have the boy, 
 For he will teach him hardness, and to slight 
 His mother ; therefore thou and I will go, 
 And I will have my boy, and bring him home j 
 And I will beg of him to take thee back : 
 But if he will not take thee back again, 
 
 E 2 
 
5 2 DORA. 
 
 Then thou and I will live within one house, 
 And work for William's child, until he grows 
 Of age to help us." 
 
 So the women kiss'd 
 
 Each other, and set out, and reach'd the farm. 
 The door was off the latch : they peep'd, and saw 
 The boy set up betwixt his grandsire's knees, 
 Who thrust him in the hollows of his arm, 
 And clapt him on the hands and on the cheeks, 
 Like one that loved him : and the lad stretch'd out 
 And babbled for the golden seal, that hung 
 From Allan's watch, and sparkled by the fire. 
 Then they came in : but when the boy beheld 
 His mother, he cried out to come to her : 
 And Allan set him down, and Mary said : 
 
 " O Father ! if you let me call you so 
 I never came a-begging for myself, 
 Or William, or this child ; but now I come 
 For Dora : take her back ; she loves you well. 
 
 Sir, when William died, he died at peace 
 With all men ; for I ask'd him, and he said, 
 He could not ever rue his marrying me 
 
 1 had been a patient wife : but, Sir, he said 
 That he was wrong to cross his father thus : 
 
 ' God bless him ! ' he said, ' and may he never know 
 The troubles I have gone thro' ! ' Then he turn'd 
 
DORA. 53 
 
 His face and pass'd unhappy that I am ! 
 But now, Sir, let me have my boy, for you 
 Will make him hard, and he will learn to slight 
 His father's memory ; and take Dora back, 
 And let all this be as it was before." 
 
 So Mary said, and Dora hid her face 
 By Mary. There was silence in the room ; 
 And all at once the old man burst in sobs : 
 
 " I have been to blame to blame. I have kill'd 
 
 my son. 
 
 I have kill'd him but I loved him my dear son. 
 May God forgive me ! I have been to blame. 
 Kiss me, my children." 
 
 Then they clung about 
 
 The old man's neck, and kiss'd him many times. 
 And all the man was broken with remorse ; 
 And all his love came back a hundredfold ; 
 And for three hours he sobb'd o'er William's child, 
 Thinking of William. 
 
 So those four abode 
 
 Within one house together ; and as years 
 Went forward, Mary took another mate ; 
 But Dora lived unmarried till her death. 
 
THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 I SEE the wealthy miller yet, 
 
 His double chin, his portly size, 
 And who that knew him could forget 
 
 The busy wrinkles round his eyes ? 
 The slow wise smile that, round about 
 
 His dusty forehead drily curl'd, 
 Seem'd half-within and half-without, 
 
 And full of dealings with the world 1 
 
 In yonder chair I see him sit, 
 
 Three ringers round the old silver cup- 
 I see his gray eyes twinkle yet 
 
 At his own jest gray eyes lit up 
 With summer lightnings of a soul 
 
 So full of summer warmth, so glad, 
 So healthy, sound, and clear and whole, 
 
 His memory scarce can make me sad. 
 
THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 55 
 
 Yet fill my glass : give me one kiss : 
 
 My own sweet Alice, we must die. 
 There's somewhat in this world amiss 
 
 Shall be unriddled by and by. 
 There's somewhat flows to us in life, 
 
 But more is taken quite away. 
 Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife, 
 
 That we may die the self-same day. 
 
 Have I not found a happy earth 1 
 
 I least should breathe a thought of pain. 
 Would God renew me from my birth 
 
 I'd almost live my life again. 
 So sweet it seems with thee to walk, 
 
 And once again to woo thee mine 
 It seems in after-dinner talk 
 
 Across the walnuts and the wine 
 
 To be the long and listless boy 
 
 Late-left an orphan of the squire, 
 Where this old mansion mounted high 
 
 Looks down upon the village spire : 
 For even here, where I and you 
 
 Have lived and loved alone so long, 
 Each morn my sleep was broken thro' 
 
 By some wild skylark's matin song. 
 
56 THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 And oft I heard the tender dove 
 
 In firry woodlands making moan ; 
 But ere I saw your eyes, my love, 
 
 I had no motion of my own. 
 For scarce my life with fancy play'd 
 
 Before I dream'd that pleasant dream- 
 Still hither thither idly sway'd 
 
 Like those long mosses in the stream. 
 
 Or from the bridge I lean'd to hear 
 
 The milldam rushing down with noise, 
 And see the minnows everywhere 
 
 In crystal eddies glance and poise, 
 The tall flag-flowers when they sprung 
 
 Below the range of stepping-stones, 
 Or those three chestnuts near, that hung 
 
 In masses thick with milky cones. 
 
 But, Alice, what an hour was that, 
 
 When after roving in the woods 
 ('Twas April then), I came and sat 
 
 Below the chestnuts, when their buds 
 Were glistening to the breezy blue ; 
 
 And on the slope, an absent fool, 
 I cast me down, nor thought of you, 
 
 But angled in the higher pool. 
 
THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 57 
 
 A love-song I had somewhere read, 
 
 An echo from a measured strain, 
 Beat time to nothing in my head 
 
 From some odd corner of the brain. 
 It haunted me, the morning long, 
 
 With weary sameness in the rhymes, 
 The phantom of a silent song, 
 
 That went and came a thousand times. 
 
 Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood 
 
 I watch'd the little circles die ; 
 They past into the level flood, 
 
 And there a vision caught my eye ; 
 The reflex of a beauteous form, 
 
 A glowing arm, a gleaming neck, 
 As when a sunbeam wavers warm 
 
 Within the dark and dimpled beck. 
 
 For you remember, you had set, 
 
 That morning, on the casement's edge 
 A long green box of mignonette, 
 
 And you were leaning from the ledge : 
 And when I raised my eyes, above 
 
 They met with two so full and bright 
 Such eyes ! I swear to you, my love, 
 
 That these have never lost their light. 
 
58 THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 I loved, and love dispell'd the fear 
 
 That I should die an early death : 
 For love possess'd the atmosphere, 
 
 And fill'd the breast with purer breath. 
 My mother thought, What ails the boy ? 
 
 For I was alter'd, and began 
 To move about the house with joy, 
 
 And with the certain step of man. 
 
 I loved the brimming wave that swam 
 
 Thro' quiet meadows round the mill, 
 The sleepy pool above the dam, 
 
 The pool beneath it never still, 
 The meal-sacks on the whiten'd floor, 
 
 The dark round of the dripping wheel, 
 The very air about the door 
 
 Made misty with the floating meal. 
 
 And oft in ramblings on the wold, 
 
 When April nights began to blow, 
 And April's crescent glimmer'd cold, 
 
 I saw the village lights below ; 
 I knew your taper far away, 
 
 And full at heart of trembling hope, 
 From off the wold I came, and lay 
 
 Upon the freshly-flower'd slope. 
 
THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 59 
 
 The deep brook groan'd beneath the mill ; 
 
 And " by that lamp," I thought, " she sits ! " 
 The white chalk-quarry from the hill 
 
 Gleam'd to the flying moon by fits. 
 " O that I were beside her now ! 
 
 O will she answer if I call 1 
 O would she give me vow for vow, 
 
 Sweet Alice, if I told her all 1 " 
 
 Sometimes I saw you sit and spin ; 
 
 And, in the pauses of the wind, 
 Sometimes I heard you sing within ; 
 
 Sometimes your shadow cross'd the blind. 
 At last you rose and moved the light, 
 
 And the long shadow of the chair 
 Flitted across into the night, 
 
 And all the casement darken'd there. 
 
 But when at last I dared to speak, 
 
 The lanes, you know, were white with may, 
 Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek 
 
 Flush'd like the coming of the day ; 
 And so it was half-sly, half-shy, 
 
 You would, and would not, little one I 
 Although I pleaded tenderly, 
 
 And you and I were all alone. 
 
60 THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 And slowly was my mother brought 
 
 To yield consent to my desire : 
 She wish'd me happy, but she thought 
 
 I might have look'd a little higher ; 
 And I was young too young to wed : 
 
 " Yet must I love her for your sake ; 
 Go fetch your Alice here," she said : 
 
 Her eyelid quiver'd as she spake. 
 
 And down I went to fetch my bride : 
 
 But, Alice, you were ill at ease ; 
 This dress and that by turns you tried, 
 
 Too fearful that you should not please. 
 I loved you better for your fears, 
 
 I knew you could not look but well ; 
 And dews, that would have fall'n in tears, 
 
 I kiss'd away before they fell. 
 
 I watch' d the little flutterings, 
 
 The doubt my mother would not see ; 
 She spoke at large of many things, 
 
 And at the last she spoke of me ; 
 And turning look'd upon your face, 
 
 As near this door you sat apart, 
 And rose, and, with a silent grace 
 
 Approaching, press'd you heart to heart. 
 
THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 61 
 
 Ah, well but sing the foolish song 
 
 I gave you, Alice, on the day 
 When, arm in arm, we went along, 
 
 A pensive pair, and you were gay 
 With bridal flowers that I may seem, 
 
 As in the nights of old, to lie 
 Beside the mill-wheel in the stream, 
 
 While those full chestnuts whisper by. 
 
 It is the miller's daughter, 
 
 And she is grown so dear, so dear, 
 That I would be the jewel 
 
 That trembles at her ear : 
 For hid in ringlets day and night, 
 I'd touch her neck so warm and white. 
 
 And I would be the girdle 
 
 About her dainty dainty waist, 
 
 And her heart would beat against me, 
 In sorrow and hi rest : 
 
 And I should know if it beat right, 
 
 I'd clasp it round so close and tight. 
 
 And I would be the necklace, 
 And all day long to fall and rise 
 
 Upon her balmy bosom, 
 
 With her laughter or her sighs, 
 
 And I would lie so light, so light, 
 
 I scarce should be unclasp'd at night 
 
62 THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 A trifle, sweet ! which true love spells 
 
 True love interprets right alone. 
 His light upon the letter dwells, 
 
 For all the spirit is his own. 
 So, if I waste words now, in truth 
 
 You must blame Love. His early rage 
 Had force to make me rhyme in youth, 
 
 And makes me talk too much in age. 
 
 And now those vivid hours are gone, 
 
 Like mine own life to me thou art, 
 Where Past and Present, wound in one, 
 
 Do make a garland for the heart : 
 So sing that other song I made, 
 
 Half-anger' d with my happy lot, 
 The day, when in the chestnut shade 
 
 I found the blue Forget-me-not. 
 
 Love that hath us in the net, 
 Can he pass, and we forget ? 
 Many suns arise and set. 
 Many a chance the years beget,- 
 Love the gift is Love the debt. 
 
 Even so. 
 
 Love is hurt with jar and fret. 
 Love is made a vague regret. 
 
THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 63 
 
 Eyes with idle tears are wet 
 Idle habit links us yet. 
 What is love ? for we forget : 
 Ah, no ! no ! 
 
 Look thro' mine eyes with thine. True wife, 
 
 Round my true heart thine arms entwine ; 
 My other dearer life in life, 
 
 Look thro' my very soul with thine ! 
 Untouch'd with any shade of years, 
 
 May those kind eyes for ever dwell ! 
 They have not shed a many tears, 
 
 Dear eyes, since first I knew them well. 
 
 Yet tears they shed : they had their part 
 
 Of sorrow : for when time was ripe, 
 The still affection of the heart 
 
 Became an outward breathing type, 
 That into stillness past again, 
 
 And left a want unknown before; 
 Although the loss that brought us pain, 
 
 That loss but made us love the more, 
 
 With farther lookings on. The kiss, 
 The woven arms, seem but to be 
 
64 THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 Weak symbols of the settled bliss, 
 The comfort, I have found in thee : 
 
 But that God bless thee, dear who wrought 
 Two spirits to one equal mind 
 
 With blessings beyond hope or thought, 
 With blessings which no words can find. 
 
 Arise, and let us wander forth, 
 
 To yon old mill across the wolds; 
 For look, the sunset, south and north, 
 
 Winds all the vale in rosy folds, 
 And fires your narrow casement glass, 
 
 Touching the sullen pool below : 
 On the chalk-hill the bearded grass 
 
 Is dry and dewless. Let us go. 
 
THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. 
 
 IN her ear he whispers gaily, 
 
 " If my heart by signs can tell, 
 Maiden, I have watch'd thee daily, 
 
 And I think thou lov'st me well." 
 She replies, in accents fainter, 
 
 " There is none I love like thee." 
 He is but a landscape-painter, 
 
 And a village maiden she. 
 He to lips, that fondly falter, 
 
 Presses his without reproof: 
 Leads her to the village altar, 
 
 And they leave her father's roof. 
 "I can make no marriage present: 
 
 Little can I give my wife. 
 Love will make our cottage pleasant, 
 
 And I love thee more than life." 
 They by parks and lodges going 
 
 See the lordly castles stand : 
 Summer woods, about them blowing, 
 
 Made a murmur in the land. 
 From deep thought himself he rouses. 
 
 Says to her that loves him well, 
 
66 THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. 
 
 " Let us see these handsome houses 
 
 Where the wealthy nobles dwell." 
 So she goes by him attended, 
 
 Hears him lovingly converse, 
 Sees whatever fair and splendid 
 
 Lay betwixt his home and hers; 
 Parks with oak and chestnut shady, 
 
 Parks and order'd gardens great, 
 Ancient homes of lord and lady, 
 
 Built for pleasure and for state. 
 All he shows her makes him dearer: 
 
 Evermore she seems to gaze 
 On that cottage growing nearer, 
 
 Where they twain will spend their days. 
 O but she will love him truly ! 
 
 He shall have a cheerful home; 
 She will order all things duly, 
 
 When beneath his roof they come. 
 Thus her heart rejoices greatly, 
 
 Till a gateway she discerns 
 With armorial bearings stately, 
 
 And beneath the gate she turns; 
 Sees a mansion more majestic 
 
 Than all those she saw before : 
 Many a gallant gay domestic 
 
 Bows before him at the door. 
 
THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. 67 
 
 And they speak in gentle murmur, 
 
 When they answer to his call, 
 While he treads with footstep firmer, 
 
 Leading on from hall to hall. 
 And, while now she wonders blindly, 
 
 Nor the meaning can divine, 
 Proudly turns he round and kindly, 
 
 " All of this is mine and thine." 
 Here he lives in state and bounty, 
 
 Lord of Burleigh, fair and free, 
 Not a lord in all the county 
 
 Is so great a lord as he. 
 All at once the colour flushes 
 
 Her sweet face from brow to chin : 
 As it were with shame she blushes, 
 
 And her spirit changed within. 
 Then her countenance all over 
 
 Pale again as death did prove: 
 But he clasp'd her like a lover, 
 
 And he cheer'd her soul with love. 
 So she strove against her weakness, 
 
 Tho' at times her spirit sank : 
 Shaped her heart with woman's meekness 
 
 To all duties of her rank : 
 And a gentle consort made he, 
 
 And her gentle mind was such 
 
68 THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. 
 
 That she grew a noble lady, 
 
 And the people loved her much. 
 But a trouble weigh' d upon her, 
 
 And perplex' d her, night and morn, 
 With the burthen of an honour 
 
 Unto which she was not born. 
 Faint she grew, and ever fainter, 
 
 And she murmur'd, " Oh, that he 
 Were once more that landscape-painter, 
 
 Which did win my heart from me ! " 
 So she droop'd and droop'd before him, 
 
 Fading slowly from his side : 
 Three fair children firsjt she bore him, 
 
 Then before her time she died. 
 Weeping, weeping late and early, 
 
 Walking up and pacing down, 
 Deeply mourn'd the Lord of Burleigh, 
 
 Burleigh-house by Stamford-town. 
 And he came to look upon her, 
 
 And he look'd at her and said, 
 " Bring the dress and put it on her, 
 
 That she wore when she was wed." 
 Then her people, softly treading, 
 
 Bore to earth her body, drest 
 In the dress that she was wed in, 
 
 That her spirit might have rest. 
 
LADY CLARE. 
 
 IT was the time when lilies blow, 
 And clouds are highest up in air, 
 
 Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe 
 To give his cousin, Lady Clare. 
 
 I trow they did not part in scorn : 
 Lovers long-betroth'd were they : 
 
 They two will wed the morrow morn : 
 God's blessing on the day ! 
 
 " He does not love me for my birth, 
 Nor for my lands so broad and fair; 
 
 He loves me for my own true worth, 
 And that is well," said Lady Clare. 
 
 In there came old Alice the nurse, 
 
 Said, "Who was this that went from thee? 
 
 " It was my cousin," said Lady Clare, 
 " To-morrow he weds with me." 
 
 " O God be thank'd ! " said Alice the nurse, 
 "That all comes round so just and fair: 
 
 Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands, 
 And you are not the Lady Clare." 
 
70 LADY CLARE. 
 
 " Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse 1" 
 Said Lady Clare, "that ye speak so wild 1" 
 
 " As God's above," said Alice the nurse, 
 " I speak the truth: you are my child. 
 
 " The old Earl's daughter died at my breast; 
 
 I speak the truth, as I live by bread ! 
 I buried her like my own sweet child, 
 
 And put my child in her stead." 
 
 " Falsely, falsely have ye done, 
 
 O mother," she said, " if this be true, 
 
 To keep the best man under the sun 
 So many years from his due." 
 
 " Nay now, nay child," said Alice the nurse, 
 " But keep the secret for your life, 
 
 And all you have will be Lord Ronald's, 
 When you are man and wife." 
 
 " If I'm a beggar born," she said, 
 " I will speak out, for I dare not lie. 
 
 Pull off, pull off, the broach of gold, 
 And fling the diamond necklace by." 
 
 " Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, 
 
 " But keep the secret all ye can." 
 She said " Not so : but I will know 
 
 If there be any faith in man." 
 
LADY CLARE. 71 
 
 " Nay now, what faith ? " said Alice the nurse, 
 " The man will cleave unto his right." 
 
 " And he shall have it," the lady replied, 
 " Tho' I should die to-night." 
 
 " Yet give one kiss to your mother dear ! 
 
 Alas, my child, I sinn'd for thee." 
 " O mother, mother, mother," she said, 
 
 " So strange it seems to me. 
 
 " Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear, 
 
 My mother dear, if this be so, 
 And lay your hand upon my head, 
 
 And bless me, mother, ere I go." 
 
 She clad herself in a russet gown, 
 
 She was no longer Lady Clare: 
 She went by dale, and she went by down, 
 
 With a single rose in her hair. 
 
 The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought 
 
 Leapt up from where she lay, 
 Dropt her head in the maiden's hand, 
 
 And follow'd her all the way. 
 
 Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower: 
 " O Lady Clare, you shame your worth ! 
 
 Why come you drest like a village maid, 
 That are the flower of the earth ? " 
 
LADY CLARE. 
 
 " If I come drest like a village maid, 
 
 I am but as my fortunes are : 
 I am a beggar born," she said, 
 
 " And not the Lady Clare." 
 
 " Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, 
 " For I am yours in word and in deed. 
 
 Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, 
 " Your riddle is hard to read." 
 
 O and proudly stood she up ! 
 
 Her heart within her did not fail : 
 She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes, 
 
 And told him all her nurse's tale. 
 
 He laugh'd a laugh of merry scorn : 
 
 He turn'd and kiss'd her where she stood : 
 
 " If you are not the heiress born, 
 
 And I," said he, " the next in blood 
 
 " If you are not the heiress born, 
 And I," said he, " the lawful heir, 
 
 We two will wed to-morrow morn, 
 And you shall still be Lady Clare." 
 
THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 ON either side the river lie 
 Long fields of barley and of rye, 
 That clothe the wold and meet the sky; 
 And thro' the field the road runs by 
 
 To many-tower'd Camelot; 
 And up and down the people go, 
 Gazing where the lilies blow 
 Round an island there below, 
 
 The island of Shalott. 
 
 Willows whiten, aspens quiver, 
 Little breezes dusk and shiver 
 Thro' the wave that runs for ever 
 By the island in the river 
 
 Flowing down to Camelot. 
 
74 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 
 
 Four gray walls, and four gray towers, 
 Overlook a space of flowers, 
 And the silent isle imbowers 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 By the margin, willow-veil'd, 
 Slide the heavy barges trail'd 
 By slow horses; and unhail'd 
 The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd 
 
 Skimming down to Camelot: 
 But who hath seen her wave her hand ? 
 Or at the casement seen her stand 1 
 Or is she known in all the land, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott ? 
 
 Only reapers, reaping early 
 In among the bearded barley, 
 Hear a song that echoes cheerly 
 From the river winding clearly, 
 
 Down to tower'd Camelot: 
 And by the moon the reaper weary, 
 Piling sheaves in uplands airy, 
 Listening, whispers " 'Tis the fairy 
 
 Lady of Shalott." 
 
THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 75 
 
 PART II. 
 
 THERE she weaves by night and day 
 A magic web with colours gay. 
 She has heard a whisper say, 
 A curse is on her if she stay 
 
 To look down to Camelot. 
 She knows not what the curse may be, 
 And so she weaveth steadily, 
 And little other care hath she, 
 
 The Lady ofShalott. 
 
 And moving thro' a mirror clear 
 That hangs before her all the year, 
 Shadows of the world appear. 
 There she sees the highway near 
 
 Winding down to Camelot: 
 There the river eddy whirls, 
 And there the surly village-churls, 
 And the red cloaks of market girls, 
 
 Pass onward from Shalott. 
 
 Sometimes a troop of damsels glad, 
 An abbot on an ambling pad, 
 Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad, 
 Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad, 
 
 Goes by to tower'd Camelot: 
 
7 6 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 
 
 And sometimes thro' the mirror blue 
 The knights come riding two and two : 
 She hath no loyal knight and true, 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 But in her web she still delights 
 To weave the mirror's magic sights, 
 For often thro' the silent nights 
 A funeral, with plumes and lights, 
 
 And music, went to Camelot 
 Or when the moon was overhead, 
 Came two young lovers lately wed; 
 " I am half sick of shadows," said 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 A BOW-SHOT from her bower-eaves, 
 He rode between the barley-sheaves, 
 The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves, 
 And flamed upon the brazen greaves 
 
 Of bold Sir Lancelot. 
 A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd 
 To a lady in his shield, 
 That sparkled on the yellow field, 
 
 Beside remote Shalott. 
 
THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 77 
 
 The gemmy bridle glitter'd free, 
 Like to some branch of stars we see 
 Hung in the golden Galaxy. 
 The bridle bells rang merrily 
 
 As he rode down to Camelot : 
 And from his blazon'd baldric slung 
 A mighty silver bugle hung, 
 And as he rode his armour rung, 
 
 Beside remote Shalott. 
 
 All in the blue unclouded weather 
 Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather, 
 The helmet and the helmet-feather 
 Burn'd like one burning flame together, 
 
 As he rode down to Camelot. 
 As often thro' the purple night, 
 Below the starry clusters bright, 
 Some bearded meteor, trailing light, 
 
 Moves over still Shalott. 
 
 His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd ; 
 On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode; 
 From underneath his helmet flow'd 
 His coal-black curls as on he rode, 
 
 As he rode down to Camelot. 
 
78 THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 
 
 From the bank and from the river 
 He flash' d into the crystal mirror, 
 " Tirra lirra," by the river 
 
 Sang Sir Lancelot. 
 
 She left the web, she left the loom, 
 She made three paces thro' the room, 
 She saw the water-lily bloom, 
 She saw the helmet and the plume, 
 
 She look'd down to Camelot. 
 Out flew the web and floated wide; 
 The mirror crack'd frorn side to side ; 
 " The curse is come upon me," cried 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 IN the stormy east-wind straining, 
 The pale yellow woods were waning, 
 The broad stream in his banks complaining, 
 Heavily the low sky raining 
 
 Over tower'd Camelot; 
 Down she came and found a boat 
 Beneath a willow left afloat, 
 And round about the prow she wrote 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 79 
 
 And down the river's dim expanse 
 Like some bold seer in a trance, 
 Seeing all his own mischance 
 With a glassy countenance 
 
 Did she look to Camelot. 
 And at the closing of the day 
 She loosed the chain, and down she lay; 
 The broad stream bore her far away, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 Lying, robed in snowy white 
 That loosely flew to left and right 
 The leaves upon her falling light 
 Thro' the noises of the night 
 
 She floated down to Camelot: 
 And as the boat-head wound along 
 The willowy hills and fields among, 
 They heard her singing her last song, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 Heard a carol, mournful, holy, 
 Chanted loudly, chanted lowly, 
 Till her blood was frozen slowly, 
 And her eyes were darken'd wholly, 
 
 Turn'd to tower'd Camelot. 
 
So THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 
 
 For ere she reach'd upon the tide 
 The first house by the water-side, 
 Singing in her song she died, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 Under tower and balcony, 
 
 By garden-wall and gallery, 
 
 A gleaming shape she floated by, 
 
 Dead-pale between the houses high, 
 
 Silent into Camelot. 
 Out upon the wharfs they came, 
 Knight and burgher, lord and dame, 
 And round the prow they read her name, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 Who is this ? and what is here 1 
 And in the lighted palace near 
 Died the sound of royal cheer; 
 And they cross'd themselves for fear, 
 
 All the knights at Camelot : 
 But Lancelot mused a little space; 
 He said, " She has a lovely face; 
 God in his mercy lend her grace, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott." 
 
THE BEGGAR MAID. 
 
 HER arms across her breast she laid; 
 
 She was more fair than words can say: 
 Bare-footed came the beggar maid 
 
 Before the king Cophetua. 
 In robe and crown the king stept down, 
 
 To meet and greet her on her way; 
 " It is no wonder," said the lords, 
 
 " She is more beautiful than day." 
 
 As shines the moon in clouded skies, 
 
 She in her poor attire was seen : 
 One praised her ancles, one her eyes, 
 
 One her dark hair and lovesome mien. 
 So sweet a face, such angel grace, 
 
 In all that land had never been : 
 Cophetua sware a royal oath : 
 
 " This beggar maid shall be my queen !" 
 
LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE. 
 
 LADY Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 Of me you shall not win renown : 
 You thought to break a country heart 
 
 For pastime, ere you went to town. 
 At me you smiled, but unbeguiled 
 
 I saw the snare, and I retired : 
 The daughter of a hundred Earls, 
 
 You are not one to be desired. 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 I know you proud to bear your name, 
 Your pride is yet no mate for mine, 
 
 Too proud to care from whence I came. 
 Nor would I break for your sweet sake 
 
 A heart that doats on truer charms. 
 A simple maiden in her flower 
 
 Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. 
 
LADY CLARA VERB DE VERB. 83 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 Some meeker pupil you must find, 
 For were you queen of all that is, 
 
 I could not stoop to such a mind. 
 You sought to prove how I could love, 
 
 And rny disdain is my reply. 
 The lion on your old stone gates 
 
 Is not more cold to you than I. 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 You put strange memories in my head. 
 Not thrice your branching limes have blown 
 
 Since I beheld young Laurence dead. 
 Oh your sweet eyes, your low replies : 
 
 A great enchantress you may be; 
 But there was that across his throat 
 
 Which you had hardly cared to see. 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 When thus he met his mother's view, 
 She had the passions of her kind, 
 
 She spake some certain truths of you. 
 Indeed I heard one bitter word 
 
 That scarce is fit for you to hear; 
 Her manners had not that repose 
 
 Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. 
 
84 LADY CLARA VERB DE VERE. 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 There stands a spectre in your hall : 
 The guilt of blood is at your door : 
 
 You changed a wholesome heart to gall. 
 You held your course without remorse, 
 
 To make him trust his modest worth, 
 And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare, 
 
 And slew him with your noble birth. 
 
 Trust me, Clara Ver.e de Vere, 
 
 From yon blue heavens above us bent 
 The grand old gardener and his wife 
 
 Smile at the claims of long descent. 
 Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 
 
 'Tis only noble to be good. 
 Kind hearts are more than coronets, 
 
 And simple faith than Norman blood. 
 
 I know you, Clara Vere de Vere : 
 
 You pine among your halls and towers : 
 The languid light of your proud eyes 
 
 Is wearied of the rolling hours. 
 In glowing health, with boundless wealth, 
 
 But sickening of a vague disease, 
 You know so ill to deal with time, 
 
 You needs must play such pranks as these. 
 
LADY CLARA VERB DE VERE. 
 
 Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 If Time be heavy on your hands, 
 Are there no beggars at your gate, 
 
 N-or any poor about your lands 1 
 Oh ! teach the orphan-boy to read, 
 
 Or teach the orphan-girl to sew, 
 Pray Heaven for a human heart, 
 
 And let the foolish yeoman go. 
 
THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER; 
 OR, THE PICTURES. 
 
 THIS morning is the morning of the day, 
 When I and Eustace from the city went 
 To see the Gardener's Daughter; I and he, 
 Brothers in Art; a friendship so complete 
 Portion'd in halves between us, that we grew 
 The fable of the city where we dwelt. 
 
 My Eustace might have sat for Hercules; 
 So muscular he spread, so broad of breast. 
 He, by some law that holds in love, and draws 
 The greater to the lesser, long desired 
 A certain miracle of symmetry, 
 A miniature of loveliness, all grace 
 Summ'd up and closed in little; Juliet, she 
 So light of foot, so light of spirit oh, she 
 To me myself, for some three careless moons, 
 The summer pilot of an empty heart 
 Unto the shores of nothing ! Know you not 
 Such touches are but embassies of love, 
 To tamper with the feelings, ere he found 
 
THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER. 87 
 
 Empire for life 1 but Eustace painted her, 
 And said to me, she sitting with us then, 
 "When \n\\yoit paint like this?" and I replied, 
 (My words were half in earnest, half in jest,) 
 " 'Tis not your work, but Love s. Love, unperceived, 
 A more ideal Artist he than all, 
 Came, drew your pencil from you, made those eyes 
 Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair 
 More black than ashbuds in the front of March." 
 And Juliet answer d laughing, " Go and see 
 The Gardener's daughter: trust me, after that, 
 You scarce can fail to. match his masterpiece." 
 And up we rose, and on the spur we went. 
 Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite 
 Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love. 
 News from the humming city comes to it 
 In sound of funeral or of marriage bells; 
 And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear 
 The windy clanging of the minster dock; 
 Although between it and the garden lies 
 A league of grass, wash'd by a slow broad stream, 
 That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar, 
 Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on, 
 Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge 
 Crown'd with the minster-towers. 
 
 The fields between 
 
88 THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER; 
 
 Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-udder'd kine, 
 And all about the large lime feathers low, 
 The lime a summer home of murmurous wings. 
 
 In that still place she, hoarded in herself, 
 Grew, seldom seen : not less among us lived 
 Her fame from lip to lip. Who had not heard 
 Of Rose, the Gardener's daughter 1 Where was he, 
 So blunt in memory, so old at heart, 
 At such a distance from his youth in grief, 
 That, having seen, forgot ? The common mouth, 
 So gross to express delight, in praise of her 
 Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love, 
 And Beauty such a mistress of the world. 
 
 And if I said that Fancy, led by Love, 
 Would play with flying forms and images, 
 Yet this is also tree, that, long before 
 I loolc'd upon her, when I heard her name 
 My heart was like a prophet to my heart, 
 And told me I should love. A crowd of hopes, 
 That sought to sow themselves like winged seeds, 
 Born out of everything I heard and saw, 
 Flutter'd about my senses and my soul ; 
 And vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm 
 To one that travels quickly, made the air 
 Of Life delicious, and all kinds of thought, 
 That verged upon them, sweeter than the dream 
 
OR, THE PICTURES. 89 
 
 Dream'd by a happy man, when the dark East, 
 Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn. 
 
 And sure this orbit of the memory folds 
 For ever in itself the day we went 
 To see her. All the land in flowery squares, 
 Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind, 
 Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud 
 Drew downward : but all else of Heaven was pure 
 Up to the Sun, and May from verge to verge, 
 And May with me from head to heel. And now, 
 As tho' 'twere yesterday, as tho' it were 
 The hour just flown, that morn with all its sound, 
 (For those old Mays had thrice the life of these,) 
 Rings in mine ears. The steer forgot to graze, 
 And, where the hedge-row cuts the pathway, stood, 
 Leaning his horns into the neighbour field, 
 And lowing to his fellows. From the woods 
 Came voices of the well-contented doves. 
 The lark could scarce get out his notes for joy, 
 But shook his song together as he near'd 
 His happy home, the ground. To left and right, 
 The cuckoo told his name to all the hills; 
 The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm; 
 The redcap whistled; and the nightingale 
 Sang loud, as tho' he were the bird of day. 
 
 And Eustace turn'd, and smiling said to me, 
 
QO THE GARDENERS DAUGHTER; 
 
 " Hear how the bushes echo ! by my life, 
 
 These birds have joyful thoughts. Think you they sing 
 
 Like poets, from the vanity of song 1 
 
 Or have they any sense of why they sing ? 
 
 And would they praise the-heavens for what they have?" 
 
 And I made answer, " Were there nothing else- 
 
 For which to- praise the heavens but only love, 
 
 That only love were cause enough for praise." 
 
 Lightly he laugh' d, as one that read my thought, 
 And on we went; but ere an hour had pass'd, 
 We reach'd a meadow slanting to the North; 
 Down which a well-worn pathway courted us 
 To one green wicket in a privet hedge ; 
 This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk 
 Thro' crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned;: 
 And one- warm gust, fall-fed with perfume, blew 
 Beyond us, as we enter'd in the cool. 
 The garden stretches southward. In the midst 
 A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade. 
 The garden-glasses shone, and momently 
 The twinkling laurel scatter'd silver lights. 
 
 " Eustace," I said, " This wonder keeps the house." 
 He nodded, bat a moment afterwards 
 He eried, "Look ! look !" Before he eeased Iturn'd, 
 And, ere a star can wink, beheld her there. 
 
 For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose, 
 
OR, THE PICTURES. 91 
 
 That, flowering high, the last night's gale had caught, 
 
 And blown across the walk. One arm aloft 
 
 Gown'd in pure white, that fitted to the shape 
 
 Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood. 
 
 A single stream of all her soft brown hair 
 
 Pour'd on one side : the shadow of the flowers 
 
 Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering 
 
 Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist 
 
 Ah, happy shade and still went wavering down, 
 
 But, ere it touch'd a foot, that might have danced 
 
 The greensward into greener circles, dipt, 
 
 And mix'd with shadows of the common ground ! 
 
 But the full day dwelt on her brows, and sunn'd 
 
 Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe bloom, 
 
 And doubled his own warmth against her lips, 
 
 And on the bounteous wave of such a breast 
 
 As never pencil drew. Half light, half shade, 
 
 She stood, a sight to make an old man young. 
 
 So rapt, we near'd the house; but she, a Rose 
 In roses, mingled with her fragrant toil, 
 Nor heard us come, nor from her tendance turn'd 
 Into the world without ; till close at hand, 
 And almost ere I knew mine own intent, 
 This murmur broke the stillness of that air 
 Which brooded round about her : 
 
 " Ah, one rose, 
 
92 THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER; 
 
 One rose, but one, by those fair fingers cull'd, 
 Were worth a hundred kisses press'd on lips 
 Less exquisite than thine." 
 
 Shelook'd: but all 
 
 Suffused with blushes neither self-possess'd 
 Nor startled, but betwixt this mood and that, 
 Divided in a graceful quiet paused, 
 And dropt the branch she held, and turning, wound 
 Her looser hair in braid, and stirr'd her lips 
 For some sweet answer, tho' no answer came, 
 Nor yet refused the rose, but granted it, 
 And moved away, and left me, statue-like, 
 In act to render thanks. 
 
 I, that whole day, 
 
 Saw her no more, altho' I linger'd there 
 Till every daisy slept, and Love's white star 
 Beam'd thro' the thicken'd cedar in the dusk. . 
 
 So home we went, and all the livelong way 
 With solemn gibe did Eustace banter me. 
 " Now," said be, "will you climb the top of Art. 
 You cannot fail but work in hues to dim 
 The Titianic Flora. Will you match 
 My Juliet 1 you, not you, the Master, Love, 
 A more ideal Artist he than all." 
 
 So home I went, but could not sleep for joy, 
 Reading her perfect features in the gloom, 
 
OR, THE PICTURES. 93 
 
 Kissing the rose she gave me o'er and o'er, 
 And shaping faithful record of the glance 
 That graced the giving such a noise of life 
 Swarm'd in the golden present, such a voice 
 Call'd to me from the years to come, and such 
 A length of bright horizon rimm'd the dark. 
 And all that night I heard the watchman peal 
 The sliding season : all that night I heard 
 The heavy clocks knolling the drowsy hours. 
 The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good, 
 O'er the mute city stole with folded wings, 
 Distilling odours on me as they went 
 To greet their fairer sisters of the East. 
 
 Love at first sight, first-born, and heir to all, 
 Made this night thus. Henceforward squall nor storm 
 Could keep me from that Eden where she dwelt. 
 Light pretexts drew me : sometimes a Batch love 
 For tulips ; then for roses, moss or musk, 
 To grace my city-rooms; or fruits and cream 
 Served in the weeping elm; and more and more 
 A word could bring the colour to my cheek; 
 A thought would fill my eyes with happy dew; 
 Love trebled life Avithin nre, and with each 
 The year increased. 
 
 The daughters of the year, 
 One after one, thro' that still garden pass'd: 
 
94 THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER; 
 
 Each garlanded with her peculiar flower 
 Danced into light, and died into the shade; 
 And each in passing touch'd with some new grace 
 Or seem'd to touch her, so that day by day, 
 Like one that never can be wholly known, 
 Her beauty grew; till Autumn brought an hour 
 For Eustace, when I heard his deep " I will," 
 Breathed, like the covenant of a God, to hold 
 From thence thro' all the worlds: but I rose up 
 Full of his bliss, and following her dark eyes 
 Felt earth as air beneath me, till I reach'd 
 The wicket-gate, and found her standing there. 
 
 There sat we down upon a garden mound, 
 Two mutually enfolded; Love, the third, 
 Between us, in the circle of his arms 
 Enwound us both ; and over many a range 
 Of waning lime the gray cathedral towers, 
 Across a hazy glimmer of the west, 
 Reveal'd their shining windows : from them clash'd 
 The bells; we listen'd; with the time we play'd; 
 We spoke of other things; we coursed about 
 The subject most at heart, more near and near, 
 Like doves about a dovecote, wheeling round 
 The central wish, until we settled there. 
 
 Then, in that time and place, I spoke to her, 
 Requiring, tho' I knew it was mine own, 
 
OR, THE PICTURES. 95 
 
 Yet for the pleasure that I took to hear, 
 Requiring at her hand the greatest gift, 
 A woman's heart, the heart of her I loved; 
 And in that time and place she answer'd me, 
 And in the compass of three little words, 
 More musical than ever came in one, 
 The silver fragments of a broken voice, 
 Made me most happy, faltering " I am thine." 
 
 Shall I cease here ? Is this enough to say 
 That my desire, like all strongest hopes, 
 By its own energy fulfill' d itself, 
 Merged in completion ? Would you learn at full 
 How passion rose thro' circumstantial grades 
 Beyond all grades develop'd 1 and indeed 
 I had not staid so long to tell you all, 
 But while I mused came Memory with sad eyes, 
 Holding the folded annals of my youth; 
 And while I mused, Love with knit brows went by, 
 And with a flying finger swept my lips, 
 And spake, " Be wise : not easily forgiven 
 Are those, who setting wide the doors, that bar 
 The secret bridal chambers of the heart, 
 Let in the day." Here, then, my words have end. 
 
 Yet might I tell of meetings, of farewells 
 Of that which came between, more sweet than each, 
 In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves 
 
96 THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 That tremble round a nightingale in sighs 
 Which perfect Joy, perplex'd for utterance, 
 Stole from her sister Sorrow. Might I not tell 
 Of difference, reconcilement, pledges given, 
 And vows, where there was never need of vows, 
 And kisses, where the heart on one wild leap 
 Hung tranced from all pulsation, as above 
 The heavens between their fairy fleeces pale 
 Sow'd all their mystic gulfs with fleeting stars; 
 Or while the balmy glooming, crescent-lit, 
 Spread the light haze along the river-shores, 
 And in the hollows; or as once we met 
 Unheedful, tho' beneath a whispering rain 
 Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind, 
 And in her bosom, bore the baby, Sleep. 
 
 But this whole hour your eyes have been intent 
 On that veil'd picture veil'd, for what it holds 
 May not be dwelt on by the common day. 
 This prelude has prepared thee. Raise thy soul; 
 Make thine heart ready with thine eyes : the time 
 Is come to raise the veil- 
 Behold her there, 
 
 As I beheld her ere she knew my heart, 
 My first, last love ; the idol of my youth, 
 The darling of my manhood, and, alas ! 
 Now the most blessed memory of mine age. 
 
LOCKSLEY HALL. 
 
 COMRADES, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis 
 
 early morn : 
 Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon 
 
 the bugle horn. 
 
 'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews 
 
 call, 
 Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley 
 
 Hall; 
 
 Locksley Hall, that half in ruin overlooks the sandy 
 
 tracts, 
 And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts. 
 
 Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went 
 
 to rest, 
 Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West. 
 
 H 
 
9 LOCKSLEY HALL. 
 
 Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow 
 
 shade, 
 Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver 
 
 braid. 
 
 Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth 
 
 sublime 
 With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of 
 
 Time; 
 
 When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land 
 
 reposed; 
 When I clung to all the present for the promise that 
 
 it closed : 
 
 When I dipt into the future far as human eye could 
 
 see; 
 Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that 
 
 would be. 
 
 In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's 
 
 breast; 
 In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another 
 
 crest; 
 
LOCKSLEY HALL. 99 
 
 In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd 
 
 dove; 
 In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to 
 
 thoughts of love. 
 
 Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be 
 
 for one so young, 
 And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance 
 
 hung. 
 
 And I said, " My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the 
 
 truth to me, 
 Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to 
 
 thee." 
 
 On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and 
 
 a light, 
 As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern 
 
 night. 
 
 And she turn'd her bosom shaken with a sudden 
 
 storm of sighs 
 All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel 
 
 eyes 
 
 H 2 
 
100 LOCKSLEY HALL. 
 
 Saying, " I have hid my feelings, fearing they should 
 
 do me wrong;" 
 Saying, " Dost thou love me, cousin ?" weeping, " I 
 
 have loved thee long." 
 
 Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his 
 
 glowing hands; 
 Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden 
 
 sands. 
 
 Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the 
 
 chords with might; 
 Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in 
 
 music out of sight. 
 
 Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the 
 
 copses ring, 
 And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fullness 
 
 of the Spring. 
 
 Many an evening by the waters did we watch the 
 
 stately ships, 
 And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the 
 
 lips. 
 
LOCKSLEY HALL. IOI 
 
 O my cousin, shallow-hearted ! O my Amy, mine no 
 
 more ! 
 O the dreary, dreary moorland ! O the barren, barren 
 
 shore ! 
 
 Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs 
 
 have sung, 
 Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish 
 
 tongue ! 
 
 Is it well to wish thee happy? having known me to 
 
 decline 
 On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than 
 
 mine ' 
 
 Yet it shall be : thou shalt lower to his level day by 
 
 day, 
 What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathise 
 
 with clay. 
 
 As the husband is, the wife is : thou art mated with a 
 
 clown, 
 And the grossness of his nature will have weight to 
 
 drag thee down. 
 
102 LOCKSLEY HALL. 
 
 He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent 
 
 its novel force, 
 Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his 
 
 horse. 
 
 What is this ? his eyes are heavy : think not they are 
 
 glazed with wine. 
 Go to him: it is thy duty: kiss him: take his hand 
 
 in thine. 
 
 It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is over- 
 wrought : 
 
 Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy 
 lighter thought. 
 
 He will answer to the purpose, easy things to under- 
 stand 
 
 Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with 
 my hand ! 
 
 Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's 
 
 disgrace, 
 Roll'd in one another's arms, and silent in a last 
 
 embrace. 
 
LOCKSLEY HALL. 1 03 
 
 Cursed be the social wants that sin against the 
 
 strength of youth ! 
 Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living 
 
 truth! 
 
 Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest 
 
 Nature's rule ! 
 Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead 
 
 of the fool ! 
 
 Well 'tis well that I should bluster ! Hadst thou 
 
 less unworthy proved 
 Would to God for I had loved thee more than ever 
 
 wife was loved. 
 
 Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but 
 
 bitter fruit 1 
 I will pluck it from my bosom, tho' my heart be at 
 
 the root. 
 
 Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of 
 
 years should come 
 As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clajiging 
 
 rookery home. 
 
104 LOCKSLEY HALL. 
 
 Where is comfort 1 in division of the records of the 
 
 mind 1 
 Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew 
 
 her, kind 1 
 
 I remember one that perish'd : sweetly did she speak 
 
 and move : 
 Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to 
 
 love. 
 
 Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love 
 she bore ? 
 
 No she never loved me truly : love is love for ever- 
 more. 
 
 Comfort 1 comfort scorn'd of devils ! this is truth the 
 
 poet sings, 
 That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering 
 
 happier things. 
 
 Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart 
 
 be put to proof, 
 In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on 
 
 the roof. 
 
LOCKSLEY HALL. 105 
 
 Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring 
 
 at the wall, 
 Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows 
 
 rise and fall. 
 
 Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his 
 
 drunken sleep, 
 To thy widow'd marriage- pillows, to the tears that 
 
 thou wilt weep. 
 
 Thou shalt hear the " Never, never," whisper'd by the 
 
 phantom years, 
 And a song from out the distance in the ringing of 
 
 thine ears ; 
 
 And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness 
 
 on thy pain. 
 Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow : get thee to thy 
 
 rest again. 
 
 Nay, but Nature brings thee solace ; for a tender 
 
 voice will cry. 
 'Tis a purer life than thine ; a lip to drain thy trouble 
 
 dry. 
 
I06 LOCKSLEY HALL, 
 
 Baby lips will laugh me down ; my latest rival brings 
 
 thee rest. 
 Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the 
 
 mother's breast. 
 
 O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness 
 
 not his due. 
 Half is thine and half is his : it will be worthy of the 
 
 two. 
 
 O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty 
 
 part, 
 With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a 
 
 daughter's heart. 
 
 " They were dangerous guides the feelings she 
 herself was not exempt 
 
 Truly, she herself had suffer d " Perish in thy self- 
 contempt ! 
 
 Overlive it lower yet be happy ! wherefore should 
 
 I care? 
 I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by 
 
 despair. 
 
LOCKSLEY HALL. 107 
 
 What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon 
 
 days like these ? 
 Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to 
 
 golden keys. 
 
 Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets 
 
 overflow. 
 I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I 
 
 should do 1 
 
 I had been content to perish, falling on the foemaivs 
 
 ground, 
 When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds 
 
 are laid with sound. 
 
 But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that 
 
 Honour feels, 
 And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each 
 
 other's heels. 
 
 Can I but relive in sadness 1 I will turn that earlier 
 
 page. 
 Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous 
 
 Mother-Age ! 
 
108 LOCKSLEY HALL. 
 
 Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the 
 
 strife, 
 When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of 
 
 my life ; 
 
 Yearning for the large excitement that the coming 
 
 years would yield, 
 Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's 
 
 field, 
 
 And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer 
 
 drawn, 
 Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary 
 
 dawn ; 
 
 And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him 
 
 then, 
 Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs 
 
 of men; 
 
 Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping 
 
 something new: 
 That which they have done but earnest of the things 
 
 that they shall do : 
 
LOCKSLEY HALL. IOQ 
 
 For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could 
 
 see, 
 Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that 
 
 would be; 
 
 Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic 
 
 sails, 
 Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly 
 
 bales; 
 
 Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd 
 
 a ghastly dew 
 From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central 
 
 blue; 
 
 Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind 
 
 rushing warm, 
 With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the 
 
 thunder-storm; 
 
 Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle- 
 flags were furl'd 
 
 In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the 
 world. 
 
110 LOCKSLEY HALL. 
 
 There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful 
 
 realm in awe, 
 And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal 
 
 law. 
 
 So I triumph'd ere my passion sweeping thro' me left 
 
 me dry, 
 Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the 
 
 jaundiced eye; 
 
 Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out 
 
 of joint: 
 Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from 
 
 point to point: 
 
 Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping 
 nigher, 
 
 Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly- 
 dying fire. 
 
 Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose 
 
 runs, 
 And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process 
 
 of the suns. 
 
LOCKSLEY HALL. Ill 
 
 What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his 
 
 youthful joys, 
 Tho' the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a 
 
 boy's 1 
 
 Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on 
 
 the shore, 
 And the individual withers, and the world is more and 
 
 more. 
 
 Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a 
 
 laden breast, 
 Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of 
 
 his rest. 
 
 Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the 
 
 bugle-horn, 
 They to whom my foolish passion were a target for 
 
 their scorn: 
 
 Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd 
 
 string 1 
 I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so 
 
 slight a thing. 
 
112 LOCKSLEY HALL. 
 
 Weakness to be wroth with weakness ! woman's 
 
 pleasure, woman's pain 
 Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a 
 
 shallower brain : 
 
 Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, 
 
 match'd with mine, 
 Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto 
 
 wine 
 
 Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for 
 
 some retreat 
 Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began 
 
 to beat; 
 
 Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil- 
 
 starr'd; 
 I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's 
 
 ward. 
 
 Or to burst all links of habit there to wander far 
 
 away, 
 On from island unto island at the gateways of the 
 
 day. 
 
LOCKSLEY HALL. 113 
 
 Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and 
 
 happy skies, 
 Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots 
 
 of Paradise, 
 
 Never comes the trader, never floats an European 
 
 flag, 
 Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the 
 
 trailer from the crag; 
 
 Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy- 
 fruited tree 
 
 Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of 
 sea. 
 
 There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this 
 
 march of mind, 
 In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that 
 
 shake mankind. 
 
 There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope 
 
 and breathing-space; 
 I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my 
 
 dusky race. 
 
114 LOCKSLEY HALL. 
 
 Iron-jointed, supple-sinew' d, they shall dive, and they 
 
 shall run, 
 Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances 
 
 in the sun; 
 
 Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows 
 
 of the brooks, 
 Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable 
 
 books 
 
 Fool, again the dream, the fancy ! but I ktiow my 
 
 words are wild, 
 But I count the gray barbarian lower than the 
 
 Christian child. 
 
 /, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious 
 
 gains, 
 Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with 
 
 lower pains ! 
 
 Mated with a squalid savage what to me were sun 
 
 or clime 1 
 I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of 
 
 time 
 
LOCKSLEY HALL. 115 
 
 I that rather held it better men should perish one by 
 
 one, 
 Than that eartli should stand at gaze like Joshua's 
 
 moon in Ajalon ! 
 
 Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward 
 
 let us range. 
 Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing 
 
 grooves of change. 
 
 Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the 
 
 younger day : 
 Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of 
 
 Cathay. 
 
 Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when 
 
 life begun: 
 Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, 
 
 weigh the Sun 
 
 O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not 
 
 set. 
 Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy 
 
 yet. 
 
 I 2 
 
Il6 LOCKSLEY HALL. 
 
 Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley 
 
 Hall! 
 Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the 
 
 roof-tree fall. 
 
 Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over 
 
 heath and holt, 
 Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a 
 
 thunderbolt. 
 
 Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire 
 
 or snow; 
 For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and 
 
 I go. 
 
THE BROOK. 
 
 ' HERE, by this brook, we parted; I to the East 
 And he for Italy too late too late : 
 One whom the strong sons of the world despise : 
 For lucky rhymes to him were scrip and share, 
 And mellow metres more than cent for cent; 
 Nor could he understand how money breeds, 
 Thought it a dead thing; yet himself could make 
 The thing that is not as the thing that is. 
 O had he lived ! In our schoolbooks we say, 
 Of those that held their heads above the crowd, 
 They flourish'd then or then; but life in him 
 Could scarce be said to flourish, only touch'd 
 On such a time as goes before the leaf, 
 When all the wood stands in a mist of green, 
 And nothing perfect: yet the brook he loved, 
 For which, in branding summers of Bengal, 
 Or ev'n the sweet half-English Neilgherry au-j 
 
IlS THE BROOK. 
 
 I panted, seems, as I re-listen to it, 
 
 Prattling the primrose fancies of the boy, 
 
 To me that loved him; for " O brook," he says, 
 
 " O babbling brook," says Edmund in his rhyme, 
 
 " Whence come you ?" and the brook, why not? replies. 
 
 I come from haunts of coot and hern, 
 
 I make a sudden sally 
 And sparkle out among the fern, 
 
 To bicker down a valley. 
 
 By thirty hills I hurry down, 
 
 Or slip between the ridges, 
 By twenty thorps, a little town, 
 
 And half a hundred bridges. 
 
 Till last by Philip's farm I flow 
 
 To join the brimming river, 
 For men may come and men may go, 
 
 But I go on for ever. 
 
 ' Poor lad, he died at Florence, quite worn out, 
 Travelling to Naples. There is Darnley bridge, 
 It has more ivy; there the river; and there 
 Stands Philip's farm where brook and river meet. 
 
 I chatter over stony ways, 
 
 In little sharps and trebles, 
 I bubble into eddying bays, 
 
 I babble on the pebbles. 
 
THE BROOK. 1 19 
 
 With many a curve my banks I fret 
 
 By many a field and fallow, 
 And many a fairy foreland set 
 
 With willow-Weed and mallow. 
 
 I chatter, chatter, as I flow 
 
 To join the brimming river, 
 For men may come and men may go, 
 
 But I go on for ever. 
 
 ' But Philip chatter'd more than brook or bird ; 
 Old Philip; all about the fields you caught 
 His weary daylong chirping, like the dry 
 High-elbow'd grigs that leap in summer grass. 
 
 I wind about, and in and out, 
 
 With here a blossom sailing, 
 And here and there a lusty trout, 
 
 And here and there a grayling, 
 
 And here and there a foamy flake 
 
 Upon me, as I travel 
 With many a silvery waterbreak 
 
 Above the golden gravel, 
 
 And draw them all along, and flow 
 
 To join the brimming river, 
 For men may come and men may go, 
 
 But I go on for ever. 
 
 ' O darling Katie Willows, his one child ! 
 A maiden of our century, yet most meek; 
 
I2O THE BROOK. 
 
 A daughter of our meadows, yet not coarse ; 
 Straight, but as, lissome as a hazel wand; 
 Her eyes a bashful azure, and her hair 
 In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell 
 Divides threefold to show the fruit within. 
 
 ' Sweet Katie, once I did her a good turn, 
 Her and her far-off cousin and betrothed, 
 James Willows, of one name and heart with her. 
 For here I came, twenty years back the week 
 Before I parted with poor Edmund; crost 
 By that old bridge which, half in ruins then, 
 Still makes a hoary eyebrow for the gleam 
 Beyond it, where the waters marry crost, 
 Whistling a random bar of Bonny Dooh, 
 And push'd at Philip's garden-gate. The gate, 
 Half-parted from a weak and scolding hinge, 
 Stuck; and he clamour'd from a casement, "run 
 To Katie somewhere in the walks below, 
 " Run, Katie ! " Katie never ran : she moved 
 To meet me, winding under woodbine bowers, 
 A little flutter'd, with her eyelids down, 
 Fresh apple-blossom, blushing for a boon. 
 
 ' What was it 1 less of sentiment than sense 
 Had Katie; not illiterate; nor of those 
 
THE BROOK. 121 
 
 Who dabbling in the fount of fictive tears, 
 And nursed by mealy-mouth'd philanthropies, 
 Divorce the Feeling from her mate the Deed. 
 
 'She told me. She and James had quarrell'd. 
 
 Why 1 
 
 What cause of quarrel] None, she said, no cause; 
 James had no cause : but when I prest the cause, 
 I learnt that James had flickering jealousies 
 Which anger'd her. Who anger'd James ? I said. 
 But Katie snatch'd her eyes at once from mine, 
 And sketching with her slender pointed foot 
 Some figure like a wizard's pentagram 
 On garden gravel, let my query pass 
 Unclaim'd, in flushing silence, till I ask'd 
 If James were coming. "Coming every day," 
 She answer' d, " ever longing to explain, 
 But evermore her father came across 
 With some long-winded tale, and broke him short; 
 And James departed vext with him and her." 
 How could I help her? "Would I was it wrong?'' 
 (Claspt hands and that petitionary grace 
 Of sweet seventeen subdued me ere she spoke) 
 " O would I take her father for one hour, 
 For one half-hour, and let him talk to me !" 
 And even while she spoke, I saw where James 
 
122 THE BROOK. 
 
 Made toward us, like a wader in the surf, 
 Beyond the brook, waist-deep in meadow-sweet. 
 
 ' O Katie, what I suffer'd for your sake ! 
 For in I went, and call'd old Philip out 
 To show the farm : full willingly he rose : 
 He led me thro' the short sweet-smelling lanes 
 Of his wheat-suburb, babbling as he went. 
 He praised his land, his horses^ his machines; 
 He praised his ploughs, his cows, his hogs, his dogs; 
 He praised his hens, his geese, his guinea-hens; 
 His pigeons, who in session on their roofs 
 Approved him, bowing at their own deserts: 
 Then from the plaintive mother's teat he took 
 Her blind and shuddering puppies, naming each, 
 And naming those, his friends, for whom they were : 
 Then crost the common into Darnley chase 
 To show Sir Arthur's deer. In copse and fern 
 Twinkled the innumerable ear and tail. 
 Then, seated on a serpent-rooted beech, 
 He pointed out a pasturing colt, and said: 
 "That was the four-year-old I sold the Squire." 
 And there he told a long long-winded tale 
 Of how the Squire had seen the colt at grass, 
 And how it was the thing his daughter wish'd, 
 And how he sent the bailiff to the farm 
 
THE BROOK. 123 
 
 To learn the price, and what the price he ask'd, 
 
 And how the bailiff, swore that he was mad, 
 
 But he stood firm; and so the matter hung; 
 
 He gave them line : and five days after that 
 
 He met the bailiff at the Golden Fleece, 
 
 Who then and there had offer'd something more, 
 
 But he stood firm; and so the matter hung; 
 
 He knew the man; the colt would fetch its price; 
 
 He gave them line : and how by chance at last 
 
 (It might be May or April, he forgot, 
 
 The last of April or the first of May) 
 
 He found the bailiff riding by the farm, 
 
 And, talking from the point, he drew him in, 
 
 And there he mellow'd all his heart with ale, 
 
 Until they closed a bargain, hand in hand. 
 
 ' Then, while I breathed in sight of haven, he, 
 Poor fellow, could he help it? recommenced, 
 And ran thro' all the coltish chronicle, 
 Wild Will, Black Bess, Tantivy, Tallyho, 
 Reform, White Rose, Bellerophon, the Jilt, 
 Arbaces, and Phenomenon, and the rest, 
 Till, not to die a listener, I arose, 
 And with me Philip, talking still; and so 
 We turn'd our foreheads from the falling sun, 
 And following our own shadows thrice as long 
 
124 THE BROOK. 
 
 As when they follow'd us from Philip's door, 
 Arrived, and found the sun of sweet content 
 Re-risen in Katie's eyes, and all things well. 
 
 I steal by lawns and grassy plots, 
 
 I slide by hazel covers ; 
 I move the sweet forget-me-nots 
 
 That grow for happy lovers. 
 
 I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, 
 Among my skimming swallows ; 
 
 I make the netted sunbeam dance 
 Against my sandy shallows. 
 
 I murmur under moon and stars 
 
 In brambly wildernesses ; 
 I linger by my shingly bars ; 
 
 I loiter round my cresses ; 
 
 And out again I curve and flow 
 
 To join the brimming river, 
 For men may come and men may go, 
 
 But I go on for ever. 
 
 Yes, men may come and go; and these are gone, 
 All gone. My dearest brother, Edmund, sleeps, 
 Not by the well-known stream and rustic spire, 
 But unfamiliar Arno, and the dome 
 Of Brunelleschi ; sleeps in peace : and he, 
 Poor Philip, of all his lavish waste of words 
 
THE BROOK. 125 
 
 Remains the lean P. W. on his tomb : 
 
 I scraped the lichen from it: Katie walks 
 
 By the long wash of Australasian seas 
 
 Far off, and holds her head to other stars, 
 
 And breathes in converse seasons. All are gone.' 
 
 So Lawrence Aylmer, seated on a style 
 In the long hedge, and rolling in his mind 
 Old waifs of rhyme, and bowing o'er the brook 
 A tonsured head in middle age forlorn, 
 Mused, and was mute. On a sudden a low breath 
 Of tender air made tremble in the hedge 
 The fragile bindweed-bells and briony rings; 
 And he look'd up. There stood a maiden near, 
 Waiting to pass. In much amaze he stared 
 On eyes a bashful azure, and on hair 
 In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell 
 Divides threefold to show the fruit within : 
 Then, wondering, ask'd her 'Are you from the farm?' 
 ' Yes ' answer'd she. ' Pray stay a little : pardon me ; 
 What do they call you V ' Katie.' ' That were strange. 
 What surname V 'Willows.' 'No!' 'That is my name.' 
 ' Indeed !' and here he look'd so self-perplext, 
 That Katie laugh'd, and laughing blush'd, till he 
 Laugh'd also, but as one before he wakes, 
 Who feels a glimmering strangeness in his dream. 
 
126 THE BROOK. 
 
 Then looking at her; ' Too happy, fresh and fair, 
 Too fresh and fair in our sad world's best bloom, 
 To be the ghost of one who bore your name 
 About these meadows, twenty years ago.' 
 
 ' Have you not heard V said Katie, ' we came back. 
 We bought the farm we tenanted before. 
 Am I so like her ? so they said on board. 
 Sir, if you knew her in her English days, 
 My mother, as it seems you did, the days 
 That most she loves to talk of, come with me. 
 My brother James is in the harvest-field : 
 But she you will be welcome O, come in ! ' 
 
EDWARD GRAY. 
 
 SWEET Emma Moreland of yonder town 
 Met me walking on yonder way, 
 
 " And have you lost your heart 1 " she said ; 
 " And are you married yet, Edward Gray 1 " 
 
 Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me : 
 
 Bitterly weeping I turn'd away : 
 " Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more 
 
 Can touch the heart of Edward Gray. 
 
 " Ellen Adair she loved me well, 
 
 Against her father's and mother's will : 
 
 To-day I sat for an hour and wept, 
 By Ellen's grave, on the windy hill. 
 
 " Shy she was, and I thought her cold ; 
 
 Thought her proud, and fled over the sea ; 
 Fill'd I was with folly and spite, 
 
 When Ellen Adair was dying for me. 
 
128 EDWARD GRAY. 
 
 " Cruel, cruel the words I said ! 
 
 Cruelly came they back to-day : 
 ' You're too slight and fickle,' I said, 
 
 ' To trouble the heart of Edward Gray.' 
 
 " There I put my face in the grass 
 Whisper'd ' Listen to my despair : 
 
 I repent me of all I did : 
 Speak a little, Ellen Adair ! ' 
 
 " Then I took a pencil, and wrote 
 On the mossy stone, as I lay, 
 
 ' Here lies the body of Ellen Adair ; 
 And here the heart of Edward Gray ! ' 
 
 " Love may come, and love may go, 
 And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree : 
 
 But I will love no more, no more, 
 Till Ellen Adair come back to me. 
 
 " Bitterly wept I over the stone : 
 Bitterly weeping I turn'd away : 
 
 There lies the body of Ellen Adair ! 
 And there the heart of Edward Gray ! " 
 
CENONE. 
 
 THERE lies a vale in Ida, lovelier 
 
 Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. 
 
 The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen, 
 
 Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine, 
 
 And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand 
 
 The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down 
 
 Hang rich in bloom, and far below them roars 
 
 The long brook falling thro' the clov'ri ravine 
 
 In cataract after cataract to the sea. 
 
 Behind the valley topmost Gargarus 
 
 Stands up and takes the morning : but in front 
 
 The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal 
 
 Troas and Ilion's column'd citadel, 
 
 The crown of Troas. 
 
 Hither came at noon 
 Mournful CEnone, wandering forlorn 
 Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills. 
 Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck 
 Floated her hair or seem'd to float in rest. 
 
130 CENONE. 
 
 She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine, 
 Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade 
 Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff 
 
 " O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, 
 Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
 For now the noonday quiet holds the hill : 
 The grasshopper is silent in the grass : 
 The lizard, with his shadow on the stone, 
 Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps. 
 The purple flowers droop : the golden bee 
 Is lily-cradled : I alone awake. 
 My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love, 
 My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim, 
 And I am all aweary of my life. 
 
 " O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, 
 Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
 Hear me O Earth, hear me O Hills, O Caves 
 That house the cold crown'd snake ! O mountain 
 
 brooks, 
 
 I am the daughter of a River-God, 
 Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all 
 My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls 
 Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed, 
 A cloud that gather'd shape : for it may be 
 
CENONE. 131 
 
 That, while I speak of it, a little while 
 My heart may wander from its deeper woe. 
 
 " O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, 
 Dear mother Ida, barken ere I die. 
 I waited underneath the dawning hills, 
 Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark, 
 And dewy-dark aloft the mountain pine : 
 Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris, 
 Leading a jet-black goat white-horn'd, white-hooved, 
 Came up from reedy Simois all alone. 
 
 " O mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
 Far-off the torrent call'd me from the cleft : 
 Far up the solitary morning smote 
 The streaks of virgin snow. With down-dropt eyes 
 I sat alone : white-breasted like a star 
 Fronting the dawn he moved ; a leopard skin 
 Droop'd from his shoulder, but his sunny hair 
 Cluster'd about his temples like a God's ; 
 And his cheek brighten'd as the foam-bow brightens 
 When the wind blows the foam, and all my heart 
 Went forth to embrace him coming ere he came. 
 
 " Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
 He smiled, and opening out his milk-white palm 
 
132 CENONE. 
 
 Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold, 
 That smelt ambrosially, and while I look'd 
 And listen'd, the full-flowing river of speech 
 Came down upon my heart. 
 
 " ' My own CEnone, 
 Beautiful-brow'd CEnone, my own soul, 
 Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav'n 
 " For the most fair," would seem to award it thine, 
 As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt 
 The knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace 
 Of movement, and the charm of married brows.' 
 
 " Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
 He prest the blossom of his lips to mine, 
 And added ' This was cast upon the board, 
 When all the full-faced presence of the Gods 
 Ranged in the halls of Peleus ; whereupon 
 Rose feud, with question unto whom 'twere due : 
 But light-foot Iris brought it yester-eve, 
 Delivering, that to me, by common voice, 
 Elected umpire, Here comes to-day, 
 Pallas and Aphrodite, claiming each 
 This meed of fairest. Thou, within the cave 
 Behind yon whispering tuft of oldest pine, 
 Mayst well behold them unbeheld, unheard 
 Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods.' 
 
CENONE. 133 
 
 " Dear mother Ida, barken ere I die. 
 It was the deep midnoon : one silvery cloud 
 Had lost his way between the piney sides 
 Of this long glen. Then to the bower they came, 
 Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower, 
 And at their feet the crocus brake like fire, 
 Violet, amaracus, and asphodel, 
 Lotos and lilies : and a wind arose, 
 And overhead the wandering ivy and vine, 
 This way and that, in many a wild festoon 
 Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs 
 With bunch and berry and flower thro' and thro'. 
 
 " O mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
 On the tree-tops a crested peacock lit, 
 And o'er him flow'd a golden cloud, and lean'd 
 Upon him, slowly dropping fragrant dew. 
 Then first I heard the voice of her, to whom 
 Coming thro' Heaven, like a light that grows 
 Larger and clearer, with one mind the Gods 
 E.ise up for reverence. She to Paris made 
 Proffer of royal power, ample rule 
 Unquestion'd, overflowing revenue 
 Wherewith to embellish state, ' from many a vale 
 And river-sunder'd champaign clothed with corn, 
 Or labour'd mines undrainable of ore. 
 
134 CENONE. 
 
 Honour,' she said, ' and homage, tax and toll, 
 From many an inland town and haven large, 
 Mast-throng'd beneath her shadowing citadel 
 In glassy bays among her tallest towers.' 
 
 " O mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
 Still she spake on and still she spake of power, 
 ' Which in all action is the end of all; 
 Power fitted to the season; wisdom-bred 
 And throned of wisdom from all neighbour crowns 
 Alliance and allegiance, till thy hand 
 Fail from the sceptre-staff. Such boon from me, 
 From me, Heaven's Queen, Paris, to thee king-born, 
 A shepherd all thy life but yet king-born, 
 Should come most welcome, seeing men, in power 
 Only, are likest gods, who have attain'd 
 Rest in a happy place and quiet seats 
 Above the thunder, with undying bliss 
 In knowledge of their own supremacy.' 
 
 " Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
 She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit 
 Out at arm's-length, so much the thought of power 
 Flatter'd his spirit; but Pallas where she stood 
 Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs 
 O'erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear 
 
(ENONE. 135 
 
 Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold, 
 The while, above, her full and earnest eye 
 Over her snow-cold breast and angry cheek 
 Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply. 
 
 " ' Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, 
 These three alone lead life to sovereign power. 
 Yet not for power, (power of herself 
 Would come uncall'd for) but to live by law, 
 Acting the law we live by without fear- 
 And, because right is right, to follow right 
 Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.' 
 
 " Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
 Again she said : ' I woo thee not with gifts. 
 Sequel of guerdon could not alter me 
 To fairer. Judge thou me by what I am, 
 So shall thou find me fairest 
 
 Yet, indeed, 
 
 If gazing on divinity disrobed 
 Thy mortal eyes are frail to judge of fair, 
 Unbiass'd by self-profit, oh ! rest thee sure 
 That I shall love thee well and cleave to thee, 
 So that my vigour, wedded to thy blood, 
 Shall strike within thy pulses, like a God's, 
 To push thee forward thro' a life of shocks, 
 
136 GENONE. 
 
 Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow 
 Sinew'd with action, and the full-grown will, 
 Circled thro' all experiences, pure law, 
 Commeasure perfect freedom.' 
 
 " Here she ceased, 
 
 And Paris ponder'd, and I cried, ' O Paris, 
 Give it to Pallas ! ' but he heard me not, 
 Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me ! 
 
 " O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, 
 Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
 Idalian Aphrodite beautiful, 
 Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian wells, 
 With rosy slender fingers backward drew 
 From her warm brows and bosom her deep hair 
 Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat 
 And shoulder: from the violets her light foot 
 Shone rosy-white, and o'er her rounded form 
 Between the shadows of the vine-bunches 
 Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved. 
 
 " Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
 She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes, 
 The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh 
 Half-whisper'd in his ear, ' I promise thee 
 The fairest and most loving wife in Greece/ 
 
CENONE. 137 
 
 She spoke and laugh'd : I shut my sight for fear : 
 
 But when I look'd, Paris had raised his arm, 
 
 And I beheld great Here's angry eyes, 
 
 As she withdrew into the golden cloud, 
 
 And I was left alone within the bower; 
 
 And from that time to this I am alone, 
 
 And I shall be alone until I die. 
 
 " Yet, mother Ida, harken ere I die. 
 Fairest why fairest wife? am I not fair? 
 My love hath told me so a thousand times. 
 Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday, 
 When I past by, a wild and wanton pard, 
 Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail 
 Crouch'd fawning in the weed. Most loving is she ? 
 Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms 
 Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest 
 Close, close to thine in that quick-falling dew 
 Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains 
 Flash in the pools of whirling Simois. 
 
 " O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
 They came, they cut away my tallest pines, 
 My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge 
 High over the blue gorge, and all between 
 The snowy peak and snow-white cataract 
 
138 CENONE. 
 
 Foster'd the callow eaglet from beneath 
 Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark morn 
 The panther's roar came muffled, while I sat 
 Low in the valley. Never, never more 
 Shall lone (Enone see the morning mist 
 Sweep thro' them; never see them overlaid 
 With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud, 
 Between the loud stream and the trembling stars. 
 
 " O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
 I wish that somewhere in the ruin'd folds, 
 Among the fragments tumbled from the glens, 
 Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her, 
 The Abominable, that uninvited came 
 Into the fair Pele'ian banquet-hall, 
 And cast the golden fruit upon the board, 
 And bred this change; that I might speak my mind, 
 And tell her to her face how much I hate 
 Her presence, hated both of Gods and men. 
 
 " O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
 Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times, 
 In this green valley, under this green hill, 
 Ev'n on this hand, and sitting on this stone ? 
 Seal'd it with kisses 1 water'd it with tears ? 
 O happy tears, and how unlike to these ! 
 
CENONE. 139 
 
 O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face 1 
 O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight ? 
 
 death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud, 
 There are enough unhappy on this earth, 
 
 Pass by the happy souls, that love to live : 
 
 1 pray thee, pass before my light of life, 
 And shadow all my soul, that I may die. 
 Thou weighest heavy on the heart within, 
 Weigh heavy on my eyelids : let me die. 
 
 " O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
 I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts 
 Do shape themselves within me, more and more, 
 Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear 
 Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills, 
 Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see 
 My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother 
 Conjectures of the features of her child 
 Ere it is born : her child ! a shudder comes 
 Across me : never child be born of me, 
 Unblest, to vex me with his father's eyes ! 
 
 " O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
 Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone, 
 Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me 
 Walking the cold and starless road of Death 
 
140 
 
 OENONE. 
 
 Uncomforted, leaving my ancient love 
 With the Greek woman. I will rise and go 
 Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth 
 Talk with the wild Cassandra, for she says 
 A fire dances before her, and a sound 
 Rings ever in her ears of armed men. 
 What this may be I know not, but I know 
 That, wheresoe'er I am by night and day, 
 All earth and air seem only burning fire." 
 
TITHONUS. 
 
 THE woods decay, the woods decay and fall, 
 
 The vapours weep their burthen to the ground, 
 
 Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, 
 
 And after many a summer dies the swan. 
 
 Me only cruel immortality 
 
 Consumes : I wither slowly in thine arms, 
 
 Here at the quiet limit of the world, 
 
 A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream 
 
 The ever silent spaces of the East, 
 
 Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn, 
 
 Alas ! for this gray shadow, once a man 
 So glorious in his beauty and thy choice, 
 Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd 
 To his great heart none other than a God ! 
 I ask'd thee, ' Give me immortality.' 
 Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile, 
 Like wealthy men who care not how they give. 
 
142 TITHONUS. 
 
 But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills, 
 
 And beat me down and marr'd and wasted me, 
 
 And tho' they could not end me, left me maim'd 
 
 To dwell in presence of immortal youth, 
 
 Immortal age beside immortal youth, 
 
 And all I was, in ashes. Can thy love, 
 
 Thy beauty, make amends, tho' even now, 
 
 Close over us, the silver star, thy guide, 
 
 Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears 
 
 To hear me 1 Let me go : take back thy gift : 
 
 Why should a man desire in any way 
 
 To vary from the kindly race of men, 
 
 Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance 
 
 Where all should pause, as is most meet for all 1 
 
 A soft air fans the cloud apart ; there comes 
 A glimpse of that dark world where I was born. 
 Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals 
 From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure, 
 And bosom beating with a heart renew'd. 
 Thy cheek begins to redden thro' the gloom, 
 Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine, 
 Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team 
 Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise, 
 And shake the darkness from their loosen'd manes, 
 And beat the twilight into flakes of fire. 
 
TITHONUS. 143 
 
 Lo ! ever thus thou growest beautiful 
 In silence, then before thine answer given 
 Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek. 
 
 Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears, 
 And make me tremble lest a saying learnt, 
 In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true ? 
 ' The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.' 
 
 Ay me ! ay me ! with what another heart 
 In days far-off, and with what other eyes 
 I used to watch if I be he that watch'd 
 The lucid outline forming round thee ; saw 
 The dim curls kindle into sunny rings ; 
 Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood 
 Glow with the glow that slowly crimson'd all 
 Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay, 
 Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy-warm 
 With kisses balmier than half-opening buds 
 Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss'd 
 Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet, 
 Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing, 
 While Ilion like a mist rose into towers. 
 
 Yet hold me not for ever in thine East : 
 How can my nature longer mix with thine ? 
 
144 TITHONUS. 
 
 Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold 
 Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet 
 Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam 
 Floats up from those dim fields about the homes 
 Of happy men that have the power to die, 
 And grassy barrows of the happier dead. 
 Release me, and restore me to the ground ; 
 Thou seest all things, thou wilt see my grave : 
 Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn ; 
 I earth in earth forget these empty courts, 
 And thee returning on thy silver wheels. 
 
ULYSSES. 
 
 IT little profits that an idle king, 
 
 By this still hearth, among these barren crags, 
 
 Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole 
 
 Unequal laws unto a savage race, 
 
 That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. 
 
 I cannot rest from travel : I will drink 
 
 Life to the lees : all times I have enjoy'd 
 
 Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those 
 
 That loved me, and alone ; on shore, and when 
 
 Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 
 
 Vext the dim sea : I am become a name ; 
 
 For always roaming with a hungry heart 
 
 Much have I seen and known ; cities of men 
 
 And manners, climates, councils, governments, 
 
 Myself not least, but honour'd of them all ; 
 
 And drunk delight of battle with my peers, 
 
 Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. 
 
 I am a part of all that I have met ; 
 
 Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 
 
 L 
 
146 ULYSSES. 
 
 Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades 
 
 For ever and for ever when I move. 
 
 How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 
 
 To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use ! 
 
 As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life 
 
 Were all too little, and of one to me 
 
 Little remains : but every hour is saved 
 
 From that eternal silence, something more, 
 
 A bringer of new things ; and vile it were 
 
 For some three suns to store and hoard myself, 
 
 And this gray spirit yearning in desire 
 
 To follow knowledge like a sinking star, 
 
 Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 
 
 This is my son, mine own Telemachus, 
 To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle 
 Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil 
 This labour, by slow prudence to make mild 
 A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees 
 Subdue them to the useful and the good. 
 Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere 
 Of common duties, decent not to fail 
 In offices of tenderness, and pay 
 Meet adoration to my household gods, 
 When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. 
 
 There lies the port : the vessel puffs her sail : 
 There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, 
 
ULYSSES. 147 
 
 Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with 
 
 me 
 
 That ever with a frolic welcome took 
 The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed 
 Free hearts, free foreheads you and I are old ; 
 Old age hath yet his honour and his toil ; 
 Death closes all : but something ere the end, 
 Some work of noble note, may yet be done, 
 Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. 
 The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks : 
 The long day wanes : the slow moon climbs : the deep 
 Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 
 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. 
 Push off, and sitting well in order smite 
 The sounding furrows ; for my purpose holds 
 To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 
 Of all the western stars, until I die. 
 It may be that the gulfs will wash us down : 
 It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 
 And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 
 Tho' much is taken, much abides ; and tho' 
 We are not now that strength which in old days 
 Moved earth and heaven ; that which we are, we are ; 
 One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
 Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 
 
 L 2 
 
THE GOLDEN YEAR. 
 
 WELL, you shall have that song which Leonard wrote : 
 
 It was last summer on a tour in Wales : 
 
 Old James was with me : we that day had been 
 
 Up Snowdon; and I wish'd for Leonard there, 
 
 And found him in Llanberis : then we crost 
 
 Between the lakes, and clamber' d half way up 
 
 The counter side; and that same song of his 
 
 He told me; for I banter'd him, and swore 
 
 They said he lived shut up within himself, 
 
 A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days, 
 
 That, setting the how much before the how, 
 
 Cry, like the daughters of the horseleech, " Give, 
 
 Cram us with all," but count not me the herd ! 
 
 To which " They call me what they will," he said : 
 " But I was born too late : the fair new forms, 
 That float about the threshold of an age, 
 Like truths of Science waiting to be caught 
 Catch me who can, and make the catcher crown'd 
 Are taken by the forelock. Let it be. 
 But if you care indeed to listen, hear 
 These measured words, my work of yestermorn. 
 
 "We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move; 
 The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun ; 
 The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her ellipse; 
 And human things returning on themselves 
 
THE GOLDEN YEAR. 149 
 
 Move onward, leading up the golden year. 
 
 "Ah, tho' the times, when some new thought can bud, 
 Are but as poets' seasons when they flower, 
 Yet seas, that daily gain upon the shore, 
 Have ebb ajid flow conditioning their march, 
 And slow and sure comes up the golden year. 
 
 "When wealth no more stall rest in mounded heaps, 
 But smit with freer light shall slowly melt 
 In many streams to fatten lower lands, 
 And light shall spread, and man be liker man 
 Thro' all the season of the golden year. 
 
 " Shall eagles not be eagles 1 wrens be wrens 3 
 If all the world were falcons, what of that? 
 The wonder of the eagle were the less, 
 But he not less the eagle. Happy days 
 Roll onward, leading up the golden year. 
 
 " Fly, happy happy sails aad bear the Press; 
 Fly happy with the mission of the Cross; 
 Knit land to land, and blowing havenward 
 With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll, 
 Enrich the markets of the golden year. 
 
 " But we grow old. Ah ! when shall all men's good 
 Be each man's rule, and universal Peace 
 Lie like a shaft of light across the land, 
 And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, 
 Thro' all the circle of the golden year ? " 
 
150 THE GOLDEN YEAR. 
 
 Thus far he flow'd, and ended ; whereupon 
 " Ah, folly ! " in mimic cadence answered James 
 " Ah, folly ! for it lies so far away, 
 Not in our time, nor in our children's time, 
 'Tis like the second world to us that live; 
 'Twere all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven 
 As on this vision of the golden year." 
 
 With that he struck his staff against the rocks 
 And broke it, James, you know him, old, but full 
 Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet, 
 And like an oaken stock in winter woods, 
 O'erflourish'd with the hoary clematis: 
 Then added, all in heat : 
 
 "What stuff is this! 
 
 Old writers push'd the happy season back, 
 The more fools they, we forward : dreamers both : 
 You most, that in an age, when every hour 
 Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death, 
 Live on, God love us, as if the seedsman, rapt 
 Upon the teeming harvest, should not plunge 
 His hand into the bag: but well I know 
 That unto him who works, and feels he works, 
 This same grand year is ever at the doors." 
 
 He spoke; and, high above, I heard them blast 
 The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap 
 And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff. 
 
THE VISION OF SIN. 
 
 I HAD a vision when the night was late : 
 
 A youth came riding toward a palace-gate. 
 
 He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown, 
 
 But that his heavy rider kept him down. 
 
 And from the palace came a child of sin, 
 
 And took him by the curls, and led him in, 
 
 Where sat a company with heated eyes, 
 
 Expecting when a fountain should arise : 
 
 A sleepy light upon their brows and lips 
 
 As when the sun, a crescent of eclipse, 
 
 Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles and capes 
 
 Suffused them, sitting, lying, languid shapes, 
 
 By heaps of gourds, and skins of wine, and piles of grapes. 
 
 Then methought I heard a mellow sound, 
 Gathering up from all the lower ground; 
 Narrowing in to where they sat assembled 
 Low voluptuous music winding trembled, 
 
152 THE VISION OF SIN. 
 
 Wov'n in circles : they that heard it sigh'd, 
 
 Panted hand in hand with faces pale, 
 
 Swung themselves, and in low tones replied; 
 
 Till the fountain spouted, showering wide 
 
 Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail; 
 
 Then the music touch'd the gates and died; 
 
 Rose again from where it seem'd to fail, 
 
 Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale ; 
 
 Till thronging in and in, to where they waited, 
 
 As 'twere a hundred-throated nightingale, 
 
 The strong tempestuous treble throbb'd and palpitated ; 
 
 Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound, 
 
 Caught the sparkles, and in circles, 
 
 Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes, 
 
 Flung the torrent rainbow round : 
 
 Then they started from their places, 
 
 Moved with violence, changed in hue, 
 
 Caught each other with wild grimaces, 
 
 Half-invisible to the view, 
 
 Wheeling with precipitate paces 
 
 To the melody, till they flew, 
 
 Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces, 
 
 Twisted hard in fierce embraces, 
 
 Like to Furies, like to Graces, 
 
 Dash'd together in blinding dew : 
 
 Till, kill'd with some luxurious agony, 
 
THE VISION OF SIN. 153 
 
 The nerve-dissolving melody 
 Flutter'd headlong from the sky. 
 
 3- 
 
 And then I look'd up toward a mountain-tract, 
 That girt the region with high cliff and lawn : 
 I saw that every morning, far withdrawn 
 Beyond the darkness and the cataract, 
 God made himself an awful rose of dawn, 
 Unheeded : and detaching, fold by fold, 
 From those still heights, and, slowly drawing near, 
 A vapour heavy, hueless, formless, cold, 
 Came floating on for many a month and year, 
 Unheeded: and I thought I would have spoken, 
 And warn'd that madman ere it grew too late : 
 But, as in dreams, I could not. Mine was broken, 
 When that cold vapour touch'd the palace gate, 
 And link'd again. I saw within my head 
 A gray and gap-tooth'd man as lean as death, 
 Who slowly rode across a wither'd heath, 
 And lighted at a ruin'd inn, and said : 
 
 4- 
 " Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin ! 
 
 Here is custom come your way ; 
 Take my brute, and lead him in, 
 
 Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay. 
 
154 THE VISION OF SIN. 
 
 " Bitter barmaid, waning fast ! 
 
 See that sheets are on my bed; 
 What ! the flower of life is past: 
 
 It is long before you wed. 
 
 " Slip-shod waiter, lank and sour, 
 At the Dragon on the heath ! 
 
 Let us have a quiet hour, 
 
 Let us hob-and-nob with Death. 
 
 " I am old, but let me drink ; 
 
 Bring me spices, bring me wine ; 
 I remember, when I think, 
 
 That my youth was half divine. 
 
 " Wine is good for shrivell'd lips, 
 When a blanket wraps the day, 
 
 When the rotten woodland drips, 
 And the leaf is stamp'd in clay. 
 
 " Sit thee down, and have no shame, 
 Cheek by jowl, and knee by knee : 
 
 What care I for any name 1 
 What for order or degree ? 
 
 " Let me screw thee up a peg : 
 Let me loose thy tongue with wine 
 
 Callest thou that thing a leg 1 
 
 Which is thinnest 1 thine' or mine ? 
 
THE VISION OF SIN. 155 
 
 " Thou shalt not be saved by works : 
 
 Thou hast been a sinner too : 
 Ruin'd trunks on wither'd forks, 
 
 Empty scarecrows, I and you ! 
 
 " Fill the cup, and fill the can : 
 
 Have a rouse before the morn : 
 Every moment dies a man, 
 
 Every moment one is born. 
 
 " We are men of ruin'd blood ; 
 
 Therefore comes it we are wise. 
 Fish are we that love the mud, 
 
 Rising to no fancy-flies. 
 
 " Name and fame ! to fly sublime 
 
 Thro' the courts, the camps, the schools, 
 
 Is to be the ball of Time, 
 
 Bandied by the hands of fools. 
 
 *' Friendship ! to be two in one 
 
 Let the canting liar pack ! 
 Well I know, when I am gone, 
 
 How she mouths behind my back. 
 
 " Virtue ! to be good and just 
 
 Every- heart, when sifted well, 
 Is a clot of warmer dust, 
 
 Mix'd with cunning sparks of hell. 
 
156 THE VISION OF SIN. 
 
 " O ! we two as well can look 
 Whited thought and cleanly life 
 
 As the priest, above his book 
 Leering at his neighbour's wife. 
 
 " Fill the cup, and fill the can : 
 Have a rouse before the morn : 
 
 Every moment dies a man, 
 Every moment one is born. 
 
 " Drink, and let the parties rave : 
 They are fill'd with idle spleen ; 
 
 Rising, falling, like a wave, 
 
 For they know not what they mean. 
 
 " He that roars for liberty 
 Faster binds a tyrant's power ; 
 
 And the tyrant's cruel glee 
 Forces on the freer hour. 
 
 " Fill the can, and fill the cup : 
 All the windy ways of men 
 
 Are but dust that rises up, 
 And Is lightly laid again. 
 
 ** Greet her with applausive breath, 
 Freedom, gaily doth she tread ; 
 
 In her right a civic wreath, 
 In her left a human head. 
 
THE VISION OF SIN. 157 
 
 " No, I love not what is new ; 
 
 She is of an ancient house : 
 And I think we know the hue 
 
 Of that cap upon her brows. 
 
 ' Let her go ! her thirst she slakes 
 
 Where the bloody conduit runs : 
 Then her sweetest meal she makes 
 
 On the first-born of her sons. 
 
 " Drink to lofty hopes that cool 
 
 Visions of a perfect State : 
 Drink we, last, the public fool, 
 
 Frantic love and frantic hate. 
 
 " Chant me now some wicked stave, 
 
 Till thy drooping courage rise, 
 And the glow-worm of the grave 
 
 Glimmer in thy rheumy eyes. 
 
 " Fear not thou to loose thy tongue -; 
 
 Set thy hoary fancies free ; 
 What is loathsome to the young 
 
 Savours well to thee and me. 
 
 " Change, reverting to the years, 
 When thy nerves could understand 
 
 What there is in loving tears, 
 
 And the warmth of hand in hand. 
 
158 THE VISION OF SIN. 
 
 " Tell me tales of thy first love 
 April hopes, the fools of chance ; 
 
 Till the graves begin to move, 
 And the dead begin to dance. 
 
 " Fill the can, and fill the cup : 
 All the windy ways of men 
 
 Are but dust that rises up, 
 And is lightly laid again. 
 
 " Trooping from their mouldy dens 
 The chap-fallen circle spreads: 
 
 Welcome, fellow-citizens, 
 
 Hollow hearts and empty heads ! 
 
 " You are bones, and what of that 1 
 Every face, however full, 
 
 Padded round with flesh and fat, 
 Is but modell'd on a skull. 
 
 " Death is king, and Vivat Rex ! 
 
 Tread a measure on the stones, 
 Madam if I know your sex, 
 
 From the fashion of your bones. 
 
 " No, I cannot praise the fire 
 In your eye nor yet your lip : 
 
 All the more do I admire 
 Joints of cunning workmanship. 
 
THE VISION OF SIN. 159 
 
 " Lo ! God's likeness the ground-plan 
 Neither modell'd, glazed, or framed : 
 
 Buss me, thou rough sketch of man, 
 Far too naked to be shamed ! 
 
 " Drink to Fortune, drink to Chance, 
 
 While we keep a little breath ! 
 Drink to heavy Ignorance ! 
 
 Hob-and-nob with brother Death ! 
 
 " Thou art mazed, the night is long, 
 
 And the longer night is near: 
 What ! T am not all as wrong 
 
 As a bitter jest is dear. 
 
 " Youthful hopes, by scores, to all, 
 When the locks are crisp and curl'd ; 
 
 Unto me my maudlin gall 
 
 And my mockeries of the world. 
 
 " Fill the cup, and fill the can ! 
 
 Mingle madness, mingle scorn ! 
 Dregs of life, and lees of man : 
 
 Yet we will not die forlorn." 
 
 5- 
 
 The voice grew faint : there came a further change : 
 Once more uprose the mystic mountain-range : 
 
l6o THE VISION OF SIN. 
 
 Below were men and horses pierced with worms, 
 
 And slowly quickening into lower forms ; 
 
 By shards and scurf of salt, and scum of dross, 
 
 Old plash of rains, and refuse patch'd with moss. 
 
 Then some one spake: "Behold ! it was a crime 
 
 Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time." 
 
 Another answer'd "But a crime of sense?" 
 
 " Give him new nerves with old experience." 
 
 Another said : " The crime of sense became 
 
 The crime of malice, and is equal blame." 
 
 And one: " He had not wholly quench'd his power; 
 
 A little grain of conscience made him sour." 
 
 At last I heard a voice upon the slope 
 
 Cry to the summit, " Is there any hope ? " 
 
 To which an answer peal'd from that high land, 
 
 But in a tongue no man could understand; 
 
 And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn 
 
 God made Himself an awful rose of dawn. 
 
MORTE D' ARTHUR. 
 
 So all day long the noise of battle roll'd 
 
 Among the mountains by the winter sea; 
 
 Until King Arthur's table, man by man, 
 
 Had fall'n in Lyonness about their Lord, 
 
 King Arthur : then, because his wound was deep, 
 
 The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, 
 
 Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights, 
 
 And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, 
 
 A broken chancel with a broken cross, 
 
 That stood on a dark strait of barren land. 
 
 On one side lay the Ocean, and on one 
 
 Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 
 
 Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
 " The sequel of to-day unsolders all 
 The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 
 Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep 
 They sleep the men I loved. I think that we 
 Shall never more, at any future time, 
 Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, 
 
1 62 MORTE D' ARTHUR. 
 
 Walking about the gardens and the halls 
 Of Camelot, as in the days that were. 
 I perish by this people which I made, 
 Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again 
 To rule once more but let what will be, be, 
 I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm 
 That without help I cannot last till morn. 
 Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, 
 Which was my pride : for thou rememberest how 
 In those old days, one summer noon, an arm 
 Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, 
 Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
 Holding the sword and how I row'd across 
 And took it, and have worn it, like a king : 
 And, wheresoever I am sung or told 
 In aftertime, this also shall be known : 
 But now delay not : take Excalibur, 
 And fling him far into the middle mere : 
 Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word. 
 
 To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere : 
 " It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, 
 Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm. 
 A little thing may harm a wounded man. 
 Yet I thy hest will all perform at full, 
 Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word." 
 
 So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept 
 
MORTE D' ARTHUR. 163 
 
 And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, 
 Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, 
 Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang 
 Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down 
 By zig-zag paths, and juts of pointed rock, 
 Came on the shining levels of the lake. 
 
 There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, 
 And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, 
 Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth 
 And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: 
 For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, 
 Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work 
 Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long 
 That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood, 
 This way and that dividing the swift mind, 
 In act to throw : but at the last it seem'd 
 Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd 
 There in the many-knotted waterflags, 
 That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. 
 So strode he back slow to the wounded King. 
 
 Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
 " Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave? 
 What is it thou hast seen ? or what hast heard 1" 
 
 And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
 " I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 
 And the wild water lapping on the crag." 
 
 M 2 
 
164 MORTE D'ARTHUR. 
 
 To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale : 
 " Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name, 
 Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd 
 Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight : 
 For surer sign had follow'd, either hand, 
 Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. 
 This is a shameful thing for men to lie. 
 Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again 
 As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing 
 I bad thee, watch, and lightly bring me word." 
 
 Then went Sir Bedivere the second time 
 Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, 
 Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought; 
 But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, 
 How curiously and strangely chased, he smote 
 His palms together, and he cried aloud. 
 
 " And if indeed I cast the brand away, 
 Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, 
 Should thus be lost for ever from the earth, 
 Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. 
 What good should follow this, if this were done ? 
 What harm, undone 1 deep harm to disobey, 
 Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 
 Were it well to obey then, if a king demand 
 An act unprofitable, against himself? 
 The King is sick, and knows not what he does. 
 
MORTE D' ARTHUR. 165 
 
 What record, or what relic of my lord 
 
 Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 
 
 And rumours of a doubt 1 but were this kept, 
 
 Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, 
 
 Some one might show it at a joust of arms, 
 
 Saying, ' King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, 
 
 Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. 
 
 Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 
 
 Upon the hidden bases of the hills.' 
 
 So might some old man speak in the aftertime 
 
 To all the people, winning reverence. 
 
 But now much honour and much fame were lost" 
 
 So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, 
 And hid Excalibur the second time, 
 And so strode back slow to the wounded King. 
 
 Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily: 
 "What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?" 
 
 And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
 " I heard the water lapping on the crag, 
 And the long ripple washing in the reeds." 
 
 To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath : 
 " Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, 
 Unknightly, traitor-hearted ! Woe is me ! 
 Authority forgets a dying king, 
 Laid widow'd of the power in his eye 
 That bow'd the will I see thee what thou art, 
 
1 66 MORTE D' ARTHUR. 
 
 For thou, the latest-left of all my knights, 
 
 In whom should meet the offices of all, 
 
 Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt; 
 
 Either from lust of gold, or like a girl 
 
 Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. 
 
 Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, 
 
 And the third time may prosper, get thee hence : 
 
 But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, 
 
 I will arise and slay thee with my hands." 
 
 Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, 
 And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged 
 Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch'd the sword, 
 And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand 
 Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon, 
 And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch, 
 Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, 
 Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 
 By night, with noises of the northern sea. 
 So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur : 
 But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm 
 Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
 And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 
 Three times, and drew him under in the mere. 
 And lightly went the other to the King. 
 
 Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath : 
 " Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. 
 
MORTE D' ARTHUR. 167 
 
 Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?" 
 
 And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
 " Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems 
 Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, 
 Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, 
 Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men, 
 So great a miracle as yonder hilt. 
 Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him; 
 But when I look'd again, behold an arm, 
 Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
 That caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 
 Three times, and drew him under in the mere." 
 
 And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard : 
 " My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone. 
 Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, 
 And bear me to the margin ; yet I fear 
 My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." 
 So saying, from the pavement he half rose, 
 Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, 
 And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 
 As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 
 Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears, 
 And would have spoken, but he found not words, 
 Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee, 
 O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands, 
 And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs. 
 
1 68 MORTE D' ARTHUR. 
 
 But, as he walk'd, King Arthur panted hard, 
 Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed 
 When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King, 
 Muttering and murmuring at his ear "Quick, quick ! 
 I fear it is too late, and I shall die." 
 But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, 
 Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd, 
 Larger than human on the frozen hills. 
 He heard the deep behind him, and a cry 
 Before. His own thought drove him like a goad. 
 Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves 
 And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
 The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based 
 His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 
 Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels 
 And on a sudden, lo ! the level lake, 
 And the long glories of the winter moon. 
 
 Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, 
 Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, 
 Beneath them; and descending they were ware 
 That all the decks were dense with stately forms 
 Black-stoled, .black-hooded, like a dream by these 
 Three Queens with crowns of gold and from them rose 
 A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars, 
 And, as it were one voice, an agony 
 Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills 
 
MORTE D' ARTHUR. 169 
 
 All night in a waste land, where no one comes, 
 Or hath come, since the making of the world. 
 
 Then murmur'd Arthur, " Place me in the barge," 
 And to the barge they came. There those three Queens 
 Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept 
 But she, that rose the tallest of them all 
 And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, 
 And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands, 
 And call'd him by his name, complaining loud, 
 And dropping bitter tears against his brow 
 Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white 
 And colourless, and like the wither'd moon 
 Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east; 
 And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops 
 Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls 
 That made his forehead like a rising sun 
 High from the dais-throne were parch'd with dust; 
 Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, 
 Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. 
 So like a shatter'd column lay the King; 
 Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, 
 From spur to plume a star of tournament, 
 Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged 
 Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. 
 
 Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere, 
 " Ah ! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go ? 
 
I7O MORTE D' ARTHUR. 
 
 Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes ? 
 
 For now I see the true old times are dead, 
 
 When every morning brought a noble chance, 
 
 And every chance brought out a noble knight. 
 
 Such times have been not since the light that led 
 
 The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
 
 But now the whole ROUND TABLE is dissolved 
 
 Which was an image of the mighty world ; 
 
 And I, the last, go forth companionless, 
 
 And the days darken round me, and the years, 
 
 Among new men, strange faces, other minds." 
 
 And slowly answered Arthur from the barge : 
 " The old order change th, yielding place to new, 
 And God fulfils himself in many ways, 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 
 Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me ? 
 I have lived my life, and that which I have done 
 May He within himself make pure ! but thou, 
 If thou shouldst never see my face again, 
 Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 
 Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice 
 Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
 For what are men better than sheep or goats 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
 If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
 Both for themselves and those who call them friend ? 
 
MORTE D ARTHUR. 171 
 
 For so the whole round earth is every way 
 Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 
 But now farewell. I am going a long way 
 With these thou seest if indeed I go 
 (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) 
 To the island- valley of Avilion ; 
 Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
 Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies 
 Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns 
 And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, 
 Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." 
 So said he, and the barge with oar and sail 
 Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan 
 That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 
 Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 
 With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere 
 Revolving many memories, till the hull 
 Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, 
 And on the mere the wailing died away. 
 
ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE 
 OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 1852. 
 
 i. 
 
 BURY the Great Duke 
 
 With an empire's lamentation, 
 Let us bury the Great Duke 
 
 To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation, 
 Mourning when their leaders fall, 
 Warriors carry the warrior's pall, 
 And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall. 
 
 2. 
 
 Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore 1 
 Here, in streaming London's central roar. 
 Let the sound of those he wrought for, 
 And the feet of those he fought for, 
 Echo round his bones for evermore. 
 
 3- 
 
 Lead out the pageant : sad and slow, 
 As fits an universal woe, 
 
ODE ON THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 173 
 
 Let the long long procession go, 
 And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, 
 And let the mournful martial music blow ; 
 The last great Englishman is low. 
 
 4- 
 
 Mourn, for to us he seems the last, 
 Remembering all his greatness in the Past. 
 No more in soldier fashion will he greet 
 With lifted hand the gazer in the street. 
 O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute : 
 Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, 
 The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, 
 Whole in himself, a common good. 
 Mourn for the man of amplest influence, 
 Yet clearest of ambitious crime, 
 Our greatest yet with least pretence, 
 Great in council and great in war, 
 Foremost captain of his time, 
 Rich in saving common-sense, 
 And, as the greatest only are, 
 In his simplicity sublime. 
 O good gray head which all men knew, 
 O voice from which their omens all men drew, 
 O iron nerve to true occasion true, 
 O fall'n at length that tower of strength 
 
174 ODE ON THE DEATH OF 
 
 Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew ! 
 
 Such was he whom we deplore. 
 
 The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er. 
 
 The great World-victor's victor will be seen no more. 
 
 5- 
 
 All is over and done : 
 Render thanks to the Giver, 
 England, for thy son. 
 Let the bell be toll'd. 
 Render thanks to the Giver, 
 And render him to the mould. 
 Under the cross of gold 
 That shines over city and river, 
 There he shall rest for ever 
 Among the wise and the bold. 
 Let the bell be toll'd : 
 And a reverent people behold 
 The towering car, the sable steeds : 
 Bright let it be with its blazon'd deeds, 
 Dark in its funeral fold. 
 Let the bell be toll'd : 
 And a deeper knell in the heart be knoll'd ; 
 And the sound of the sorrowing anthem roll'd 
 Thro' the dome of the golden cross ; 
 And the volleying cannon thunder his loss ; 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 175 
 
 He knew their voices of old. 
 
 For many a time in many a clime 
 
 His captain's-ear has heard them boom 
 
 Bellowing victory, bellowing doom : 
 
 When he with those deep voices wrought, 
 
 Guarding realms and kings from shame ; 
 
 With those deep voices our dead captain taught 
 
 The tyrant, and asserts his claim 
 
 In that dread sound to the great name, 
 
 Which he has worn so pure of blame, 
 
 In praise and in dispraise the same, 
 
 A man of well-attemper'd frame. 
 
 O civic muse, to such a name, 
 
 To such a name for ages long, 
 
 To such a name, 
 
 Preserve a broad approach of fame, 
 
 And ever-echoing avenues of song. 
 
 6. 
 
 Who is he that cometh, like an honour'd guest, 
 With banner and with music, with soldier and with 
 
 priest, 
 
 With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest ? 
 Mighty Seaman, this is he 
 Was great by land as thou by sea. 
 Thy country loves thee well, thou famous man, 
 
176 ODE ON THE DEATH OF 
 
 The greatest sailor since our world began. 
 
 Now, to the roll of muffled drums, 
 
 To thee the greatest soldier comes ; 
 
 For this is he, 
 
 Was great by land as thou by sea ; 
 
 His foes were thine ; he kept us free ; 
 
 O give him welcome, this is he 
 
 Worthy of our gorgeous rites, 
 
 And worthy to be laid by thee ; 
 
 For this is England's greatest son, 
 
 He that gain'd a hundred fights, 
 
 Nor ever lost an English gun ; 
 
 This is he that far away 
 
 Against the myriads of Assaye 
 
 Clash'd with his fiery few and won ; 
 
 And underneath another sun, 
 
 Warring on a later day, 
 
 Round affrighted Lisbon drew 
 
 The treble works, the vast designs 
 
 Of his labour'd rampart-lines, 
 
 Where he greatly stood at bay, 
 
 Whence he issued forth anew, 
 
 And ever great and greater grew, 
 
 Beating from the wasted vines 
 
 Back to France her banded swarms, 
 
 Back to France with countless blows, 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 177 
 
 Till o'er the hills her eagles flew 
 
 Beyond the Pyrenean pines, 
 
 Follow'd up in valley and glen 
 
 With blare of bugle, clamour of men, 
 
 Roll of cannon and clash of arms, 
 
 And England pouring on her foes. 
 
 Such a war had such a close. 
 
 Again their ravening eagle rose 
 
 In anger, wheel'd on Europe-shadowing wings, 
 
 And barking for the thrones of kings ; 
 
 Till one that sought but Duty's iron crown 
 
 On that loud sabbath shook the spoiler down ; 
 
 A day of onsets of despair ! 
 
 Dash'd on every rocky square 
 
 Their surging charges foam'd themselves away : 
 
 Last, the Prussian trumpet blew; 
 
 Thro' the long-tormented air 
 
 Heaven flash'd a sudden jubilant ray, 
 
 And down. we swept and charged and overthrew. 
 
 So great a soldier taught us there, 
 
 What long-enduring hearts could do 
 
 In that world' s-earthquake, Waterloo ! 
 
 Mighty Seaman, tender and true, 
 
 And pure as he from taint of craven guile, 
 
 O saviour of the silver-coasted isle, 
 
 O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile, 
 
178 ODE ON THE DEATH OF 
 
 If aught of things that here befall 
 
 Touch a spirit among things divine, 
 
 If love of country move thee there at all, 
 
 Be glad, because his bones are laid by thine ! 
 
 And thro' the centuries let a people's voice 
 
 In full acclaim, 
 
 A people's voice, 
 
 The proof and echo of all human fame, 
 
 A people's voice, when they rejoice 
 
 At civic revel and pomp and game, 
 
 Attest their great commander's claim 
 
 With honour, honour, honour, honour to him, 
 
 Eternal honour to his name. 
 
 7- 
 
 A people's voice ! we are a people yet 
 Tho' all men else their nobler dreams forget, 
 Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Powers; 
 Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set 
 His Briton in blown seas and storming showers, 
 We have a voice, with which to pay the debt 
 Of boundless love and reverence and regret 
 To those great men who fought, and kept it ours. 
 And keep it ours, O God, from brute control; 
 O Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul 
 Of Europe, keep our noble England whole, 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 179 
 
 And save the one true seed of freedom sown 
 
 Betwixt a people and their ancient throne, 
 
 That sober freedom out of which there springs 
 
 Our loyal passion for our temperate kings; 
 
 For, saving that, ye help to save mankind 
 
 Till public wrong be crumbled into dust, 
 
 And drill the raw world for the march of mind, 
 
 Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just 
 
 But wink no more in slothful overtrust. 
 
 Remember him who led your hosts; 
 
 He bad you guard the sacred coasts. 
 
 Your cannons moulder on the seaward wall; 
 
 His voice is silent in your council-hall 
 
 For ever; and whatever tempests lour 
 
 For ever silent ; even if they broke 
 
 In thunder, silent; yet remember all 
 
 He spoke among you, and the Man who spoke ; 
 
 Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, 
 
 Nor palter'd with Eternal God for power; 
 
 Who let the turbid streams of rumour flow 
 
 Thro' either babbling world of high and low; 
 
 Whose life was work, whose language rife 
 
 W T ith rugged maxims hewn from life; 
 
 Who never spoke against a foe; 
 
 Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke 
 
 All great self-seekers trampling on the right : 
 
 N 2 
 
I So ODE ON THE DEATH OF 
 
 Truth-teller was our England's Alfred named; 
 Truth-lover was our English Duke ; 
 Whatever record leap to light 
 He never shall be shamed. 
 
 Lo, the leader in these glorious wars 
 Now to glorious burial slowly borne, 
 Follow'd by the brave of other lands, 
 He, on whom from both her open hands 
 Lavish Honour shower'd all her stars, 
 And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn. 
 Yea, let all good things await 
 Him who cares not to be great, 
 But as he saves or serves the state. 
 Not once or twice in our rough island-story, 
 The path of duty was the way to glory : 
 He that walks it, only thirsting 
 For the right, and learns to deaden 
 Love of self, before his journey closes, 
 He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 
 Into glossy purples, which outredden 
 All voluptuous garden-roses. 
 Not once or twice in our fair island-story, 
 The path of duty was the way to glory : 
 He, that ever following her commands, 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. l8l 
 
 On with toil of heart and knees and hands, 
 
 Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won 
 
 His path upward, and prevail'd, 
 
 Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 
 
 Are close upon the shining table-lands 
 
 To which our God Himself is moon and sun. 
 
 Such was he : his work is done, 
 
 But while the races of mankind endure, 
 
 Let his great example stand 
 
 Colossal, seen of every land, 
 
 And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure> 
 
 Till in all lands and thro' all human story 
 
 The path of duty be the way to glory: 
 
 And let the land whose hearths he saved from shame 
 
 For many and many an age proclaim 
 
 At civic revel and pomp and game, 
 
 And when the long-illumined cities flame, 
 
 Their ever-loyal iron leader's fame, 
 
 With honour, honour, honour, honour to him, 
 
 Eternal honour to his name. 
 
 9- 
 
 Peace, his triumph will be sung 
 By some yet unmoulded tongue 
 Far on in summers that we shall not see; 
 Peace, it is a day of pain 
 
1 82 ODE ON THE DEATH OF 
 
 For one about whose patriarchal knee 
 
 Late the little children clung: 
 
 O peace, it is a day of pain 
 
 For one, upon whose hand and heart and brain 
 
 Once the weight and fate of Europe hung. 
 
 Ours the pain, be his the gain ! 
 
 More than is of man's degree 
 
 Must be with us, watching here 
 
 At this, our great solemnity. 
 
 Whom we see not we revere ; 
 
 We revere, and we refrain 
 
 From talk of battles loud and vain, 
 
 And brawling memories all too free 
 
 For such a wise humility 
 
 As befits a solemn fane: 
 
 We revere, and while we hear 
 
 The tides of Music's golden sea 
 
 Setting toward eternity, 
 
 Uplifted high in heart and hope are we, 
 
 Until we doubt not that for one so true 
 
 There must be other nobler work to do 
 
 Than when he fought at Waterloo, 
 
 And Victor he must ever be. 
 
 For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill 
 
 And break the shore, and evermore 
 
 Make and break, and work their will- 
 
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 183 
 
 Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll 
 
 Round us, each with different powers, 
 
 And other forms of life than ours, 
 
 What know we greater than the soul ? 
 
 On God and Godlike men we build our trust 
 
 Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears : 
 
 The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears : 
 
 The black earth yawns: the mortal disappears; 
 
 Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; 
 
 He is gone who seem'd so great. 
 
 Gone; but nothing can bereave him 
 
 Of the force he made his own 
 
 Being here, and we believe him 
 
 Something far advanced in State, 
 
 And that he wears a truer crown 
 
 Than any wreath that man can weave him. 
 
 Speak no more of his renown, 
 
 Lay your earthly fancies down, 
 
 And in the vast cathedral leave him. 
 
 God accept him, Christ receive him. 
 
BRITAIN. 
 
 You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease, 
 Within this region I subsist, 
 Whose spirits falter in the mist, 
 
 And languish for the purple seas? 
 
 It is the land that freemen till, 
 
 That sober-suited Freedom chose, 
 
 The land, where girt with friends or foes 
 
 A man may speak the thing he will; 
 
 A land of settled government, 
 
 A land of just and old renown, 
 Where Freedom broadens slowly down 
 
 From precedent to precedent : 
 
 Where faction seldom gathers head, 
 
 But by degrees to fullness wrought, 
 The strength of some diffusive thought 
 
 Hath time and space to work and spread. 
 
BRITAIN. 185 
 
 Should banded unions persecute 
 Opinion, and induce a time 
 When single thought is civil crime, 
 
 And individual freedom mute; 
 
 Tho' Power should make from land to land 
 The name of Britain trebly great 
 Tho' every channel of the State 
 
 Should fill and choke with golden sand 
 
 Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth, 
 Wild wind ! I seek a warmer sky, 
 And I will see before I die 
 
 The palms and temples of the South. 
 
FREEDOM. 
 
 OF old sat Freedom on the heights, 
 The thunders breaking at her feet : 
 
 Above her shook the starry lights : 
 She heard the torrents meet. 
 
 There in her place she did rejoice, 
 Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind, 
 
 But fragments of her mighty voice 
 Came rolling on the wind. 
 
 Then stept she down thro' town and field 
 To mingle with the human race, 
 
 And part by part to men reveal'd 
 The fullness of her face 
 
 Grave mother of majestic works, 
 
 From her isle-altar gazing down, 
 
 Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks, 
 And, King-like, wears the crown : 
 
FREEDOM. 187 
 
 Her open eyes desire the truth. 
 
 The wisdom of a thousand years 
 Is in them. May perpetual youth 
 
 Keep dry their light from tears; 
 
 That her fair form may stand and shine, 
 
 Make bright our days and light our dreams, 
 
 Turning to scorn with lips divine 
 The falsehood of extremes ! 
 
FROM "MAUD." 
 
 COME into the garden, Maud, 
 
 For the black bat, night, has flown, 
 
 Come into the garden, Maud, 
 I am here at the gate alone ; 
 
 And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, 
 And the musk of the roses blown. 
 
 2. 
 
 For a breeze of morning moves, 
 And the planet of Love is on high, 
 
 Beginning to faint in the light that she loves 
 On a bed of daffodil sky, 
 
 To faint in the light of the sun she loves, 
 To faint in his light, and to die. 
 
 10, 
 There has fallen a splendid tear 
 
 From the passion-flower at the gate. 
 She is coming, my dove, my dear ; 
 
 She is coming, my life, my fate ; 
 
189 
 
 The red rose cries, ' She is near, she is near ; ' 
 And the white rose weeps, ' She is late ; ' 
 
 The larkspur listens, ' I hear, I hear ; ' 
 And the lily whispers, ' I wait.' 
 
 u. 
 She is coming, my own, my sweet ; 
 
 Were it ever so airy a tread, 
 My heart would hear her and beat, 
 
 Were it earth in an earthy bed ; 
 My dust would hear her and beat, 
 
 Had I lain for a century dead ; 
 Would start and tremble under her feet, 
 
 And blossom in purple and red. 
 
THE SAILOR BOY. 
 
 HE rose at dawn and, fired with hope, 
 Shot o'er the seething harbour-bar, 
 
 And reach'd the ship and caught the rope, 
 And whistled to the morning star. 
 
 And while he whistled long and loud 
 He heard a fierce mermaiden cry, 
 
 ' O boy, tho' thou art young and proud, 
 I see the place where thou wilt lie. 
 
 ' The sands and yeasty surges mix 
 In caves about the dreary bay, 
 
 And on thy ribs the limpet sticks, 
 
 And in thy heart the scrawl shall play.' 
 
 ' Fool,' he answer'd, ' death is sure 
 
 To those that stay and those that roam, 
 
 But I will nevermore endure 
 To sit with empty hands at home. 
 
THE SAILOR BOY. 19 1 
 
 ' My mother clings about my neck, 
 My sisters crying " stay for shame;" 
 
 My father raves of death and wreck, 
 They are all to blame, they are all to blame. 
 
 ' God help me ! save I take my part 
 
 Of danger on the roaring sea, 
 A devil rises in my heart, 
 
 Far worse than any death to me.' 
 
 MY life is full of weary days, 
 
 But good things have not kept aloof, 
 Nor wandered into other ways: 
 
 I have not lack'd thy mild reproof, 
 Nor golden largess of thy praise. 
 
 And now shake hands across the brink 
 Of that deep grave to which I go : 
 
 Shake hands once more : I cannot sink 
 So far far down, but I shall know 
 Thy voice, and answer from below. 
 
BREAK, break, break, 
 
 On thy cold gray stones, O Sea ! 
 And I would that my tongue could utter 
 
 The thoughts that arise in me. 
 
 O well for the fisherman's boy, 
 
 That he shouts with his sister at play ! 
 
 O well for the sailor lad, 
 
 That he sings in his boat on the bay ! 
 
 And the stately ships go on 
 To their haven under the hill ; 
 
 But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, 
 And the sound of a voice that is still ! 
 
 Break, break, break, 
 
 At the foot of thy crags, O Sea ! 
 But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
 
 Will never come back to me. 
 
THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 
 
 OCX 25, 1854. 
 
 HALF a league, half a league, 
 
 Half a league onward, 
 All in the valley of Death 
 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 " Forward, the Light Brigade ! 
 "Charge for the guns !" he said: 
 Into the valley of Death 
 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 
 "Forward, the Light Brigade !" 
 Was there a man dismay'd? 
 Not tho' the soldier knew 
 
 Some one had blunder'd: 
 Their's not to make reply, 
 Their's not to reason why, 
 Their's but to do and die: 
 Into the valley of Death 
 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 
194 THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 
 
 3- 
 
 Cannon to right of them, 
 Cannon to left of them, 
 Cannon in front of them 
 
 Volley'd and thunder'd; 
 Storm'd at with shot and shell, 
 Boldly they rode and well, 
 Into the jaws of Death, 
 Into the mouth of Hell 
 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 
 4- 
 
 Flash'd all their sabres bare, 
 Flash'd as they turn'd in air, 
 Sabring the gunners there, 
 Charging an army, while 
 
 All the world wonder'd : 
 Plunged in the battery-smoke 
 Right thro' the line they broke; 
 Cossack and Russian 
 Reel'd from the sabre-stroke 
 
 Shatter'd and sunder'd. 
 Then they rode back, but not 
 
 Not the six hundred. 
 
THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 195 
 
 5- 
 
 Cannon to right of them, 
 Cannon to left of them, 
 Cannon behind them 
 
 Volley'd and thunder'd; 
 Storrn'd at with shot and shell, 
 While horse and hero fell, 
 They that had fought so well 
 Came thro' the jaws of Death 
 Back from the mouth of Hell, 
 All that was left of them, 
 
 Left of six hundred. 
 
 6. 
 
 When can their glory fade 1 
 O the wild charge they made ! 
 
 All the world wonder'd. 
 Honour the charge they made ! 
 Honour the Light Brigade, 
 
 Noble six hundred ! 
 
THREE SONNETS TO A COQUETTE. 
 
 CARESS'D or chidden by the dainty hand, 
 
 And singing airy trifles this or that, 
 Light Hope at Beauty's call would perch and stand, 
 
 And run thro' every change of sharp and flat; 
 
 And Fancy came and at her pillow sat, 
 When sleep had bound her in his rosy band, 
 
 And chased away the still-recurring gnat, 
 And woke her with a lay from fairy land. 
 But now they live with Beauty less and less, 
 
 For Hope is other Hope and wanders far, 
 
 Nor cares to lisp in love's delicious creeds; 
 And Fancy watches in the wilderness, 
 
 Poor Fancy sadder than a single star, 
 That sets at twilight in a land of reeds. 
 
 The form, the form alone is eloquent ! 
 A nobler yearning never broke her rest 
 Than but to dance and sing, be gaily drest, 
 
 And win all eyes with all accomplishment : 
 
THREE SONNETS TO A COQUETTE. 197 
 
 Yet in the waltzing-circle as we went, 
 My fancy made me for a moment blest 
 To find my heart so near the beauteous breast 
 
 That once had power to rob it of content 
 
 A moment came the tenderness of tears, 
 
 The phantom of a wish that once could move, 
 A ghost of passion that no smiles restore 
 For ah ! the slight coquette, she cannot love, 
 
 And if you kiss'd her feet a thousand years, 
 
 She still would take the praise, and care no more. 
 
 3- 
 
 Wan Sculptor weepest thou to take the cast 
 Of those dead lineaments that near thee lie ? 
 
 sorrowest thou, pale Painter, for the past, 
 In painting some dead friend from memory ? 
 
 Weep on: beyond his object Love can last: 
 His object lives: more cause to weep have I: 
 
 My tears, no tears of love, are flowing fast, 
 No tears of love, but tears that Love can die. 
 
 1 pledge her not in any cheerful cup, 
 
 Nor care to sit beside her where she sits 
 
 Ah pity hint it not in human tones, 
 But breathe it into earth and close it up 
 With secret death for ever, in the pits 
 
 Which some green Christmas crams with weary 
 bones. 
 
FROM "MAUD? 
 
 Go not, happy day, 
 
 From the shining fields, 
 Go not, happy day, 
 
 Till the maiden yields. 
 Rosy is the West, 
 
 Rosy is the South, 
 Roses are her cheeks, 
 
 And a rose her mouth. 
 When the happy Yes 
 
 Falters from her lips, 
 Pass and blush the news 
 
 Over glowing ships; 
 Over blowing seas, 
 
 Over seas at rest, 
 Pass the happy news, 
 
 Blush it thro' the West; 
 Blush from West to East, 
 
 Blush from East to West, 
 Till the West is East, 
 
 Blush it thro' the West. 
 Rosy is the West, 
 
 Rosy is the South, 
 Roses are her cheeks, 
 
 And a rose her mouth. 
 
A FAREWELL. 
 
 FLOW down, cold rivulet, to the sea, 
 Thy tribute wave deliver: 
 
 No more by thee my steps shall be, 
 For ever and for ever. 
 
 Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, 
 
 A rivulet then a river : 
 No where by thee my steps shall be, 
 
 For ever and for ever. 
 
 But here will sigh thine alder tree, 
 And here thine aspen shiver; 
 
 And here by thee will hum the bee, 
 For ever and for ever. 
 
 A thousand suns will stream on thee, 
 A thousand moons will quiver; 
 
 But not by thee my steps shall be, 
 For ever and for ever. 
 
FROM THE "P&INCESS." 
 
 As thro' the land at eve we went, 
 And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, 
 
 We fell out, my wife and I, 
 
 We fell out I know not why, 
 And kiss'd again with tears. 
 
 And blessings on the falling out 
 
 That all the more endears, 
 When we fall out with those we love 
 
 And kiss again with tears ! 
 
 For when we came where lies the child 
 
 We lost in other years, 
 There above the little grave, 
 O there above the little grave, 
 
 We kiss'd again with tears. 
 
FROM THE SAME. 
 
 SWEET and low, sweet and low, 
 
 Wind of the western sea, 
 Low, low, breathe and blow, 
 
 Wind of the western sea ! 
 Over the rolling waters go, 
 Come from the dying moon, and blow, 
 
 Blow him again to me; 
 While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 
 
 Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, 
 
 Father will come to thee soon; 
 Rest, rest, on mother's breast, 
 
 Father will come to thee soon ; 
 Father will come to his babe in the nest, 
 Silver sails all out of the west 
 
 Under the silver moon : 
 Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. 
 
FROM THE SAME. 
 
 THE splendour falls on castle walls 
 And snowy summits old in story: 
 The long light shakes across the lakes, 
 And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
 Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 O hark, O hear ! how thin and clear, 
 And thinner, clearer, farther going ! 
 O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
 
 The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! 
 Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying : 
 Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 O love, they die in yon rich sky, 
 
 They faint on hill or field or river : 
 Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 
 And grow for ever and for ever. 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
 And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. 
 
FROM THE SAME. 
 
 "TEARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 
 Tears from the depth of some divine despair 
 Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, 
 In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, 
 And thinking of the days that are no more. 
 
 "Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, 
 That brings our friends up from the underworld, 
 Sad as the last which reddens over one 
 That sinks with all we love below the verge; 
 So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 
 
 " Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
 The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
 To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
 The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; 
 So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 
 
2O4 
 
 " Dear as remember'd kisses after death, 
 And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd 
 On lips that are for others; deep as love, 
 Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; 
 O Death in Life, the days that are no more." 
 
FROM THE SAME. 
 
 1 O SWALLOW, Swallow, flying, flying South, 
 Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, 
 And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee. 
 
 ' O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, 
 That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, 
 And dark and true and tender is the North. 
 
 ' O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light 
 Upon her lattice, I Would pipe and trill, 
 And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. 
 
 ' O were I thou that she might take me in, 
 And lay me on her bosom, and her heart 
 Would rock the snowy cradle till I died. 
 
 ' Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, 
 Delaying as the tender ash delays 
 To clothe herself, when all the woods are green ? 
 
2O6 
 
 ' O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown : 
 Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, 
 But in the North long since my nest is made. 
 
 ' O tell her, brief is life but love is long, 
 And brief the sun of summer in the North, 
 And brief the moon of beauty in the South. 
 
 ' O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, 
 Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, 
 And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.' 
 
SONG. 
 
 LADY, let the rolling drums 
 Beat to battle where thy warrior stands : 
 Now thy face across his fancy comes, 
 
 And gives the battle to his hands. 
 
 Lady, let the trumpets blow, 
 Clasp thy little babes about thy knee: 
 Now their warrior father meets the foe, 
 
 And strikes him dead for thine and thee. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 HOME they brought him slain with spears. 
 
 They brought him home at even-fall : 
 All alone she sits and hears 
 
 Echoes in his empty hall, 
 
 Sounding on the morrow. 
 
 The Sun peep'd in from open field, 
 The boy began to leap and prance, 
 Rode upon his father's lance, 
 
 Beat upon his father's shield 
 
 "O hush, my joy, my sorrow." 
 
FROM THE "PRINCESS? 
 
 * HOME they brought her warrior dead : 
 
 She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry : 
 All her maidens, watching, said, 
 ' She must weep or she will die.' 
 
 Then they praised him, soft and low, 
 Call'd him worthy to be loved, 
 
 Truest friend and noblest foe ; 
 Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 
 
 Stole a maiden from her place, 
 Lightly to the warrior stept, 
 
 Took the face-cloth from the face ; 
 Yet she neither moved nor wept. 
 
 Rose a nurse of ninety years, 
 
 And set his child upon her knee 
 
 Like summer tempest came her tears 
 ' O my child, I live for thee.' 
 
FROM THE SAME. 
 
 ASK me no more : the moon may draw the sea ; 
 The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the 
 
 shape, 
 
 With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape ; 
 But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee 1 
 Ask me no more. 
 
 Ask me no more : what answer should I give ? 
 I love not hollow cheek or faded eye : 
 Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die ! 
 
 Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live ; 
 Ask me no more. 
 
 Ask me no more : thy fate and mine are seal'd : 
 I strove against the stream and all in vain : 
 Let the great river take me to the main : 
 
 No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield ; 
 Ask me no more. 
 
FROM THE SAME. 
 
 ' Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white ; 
 Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk ; 
 Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font : 
 The fire-fly wakens : waken thou with me. 
 
 Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, 
 And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. 
 
 Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars, 
 And all thy heart lies open unto me. 
 
 Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves 
 A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. 
 
 Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, 
 And slips into the bosom of the lake : 
 So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip 
 Into my bosom and be lost in me.' 
 
FROM THE SAME. 
 
 ' COME down, O maid, from yonder mountain 
 
 height : 
 
 What pleasure lives in height (the Shepherd sang) 
 In height and cold, the splendour of the hills 1 
 But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease 
 To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, 
 To sit a star upon the sparkling spire ; 
 And come, for Love is of the valley, come, 
 For Love is of the valley, come thou down 
 And find him ; by the happy threshold, he, 
 Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, 
 Or red with spirted purple of the vats, 
 Or foxlike in the vine ; nor cares to walk 
 With Death and Morning on the silver horns, 
 Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, 
 Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice, 
 That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls 
 To roll the torrent out of dusky doors : 
 But follow ; let the torrent dance thee down 
 To find him in the valley ; let the wild 
 
Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave 
 The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill 
 Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, 
 That like a broken purpose waste in air : 
 So waste not thou ; but come ; for all the vales 
 Await thee ; azure pillars of the hearth 
 Arise to thee ; the children call, and I 
 Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, 
 Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet ; 
 Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, 
 The moan of doves in immemorial elms, 
 And murmuring of innumerable bees.' 
 
CRADLE SONG. 
 
 WHAT does little birdie say 
 In her nest at peep of day ? 
 Let me fly, says little birdie, 
 Mother, let me fly away. 
 Birdie, rest a little longer, 
 Till the little wings are stronger. 
 So she rests a little longer, 
 Then she flies away. 
 
 What does little baby say, 
 In her bed at peep of day ? 
 Baby says, like little birdie, 
 Let me rise and fly away. 
 Baby, sleep a little longer, 
 Till the little limbs are stronger. 
 If she sleeps a little longer, 
 Baby too shall fly away. 
 
FROM THE "IDYLLS OF THE KING." 
 
 ENID'S SONG. 
 
 ' TURN, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud ; 
 Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and cloud ; 
 Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate. 
 
 ' Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown ; 
 With that wild wheel we go not up or down ; 
 Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great. 
 
 ' Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands; 
 Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands ; 
 For man is man and master of his fate. 
 
 ' Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd ; 
 Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud ; 
 Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.' 
 
FROM THE SAME. 
 
 VIVIEN'S SONG. 
 
 " IN Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours, 
 Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers : 
 Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all. 
 
 " It is the little rift within the lute, 
 That by and by will make the music mute, 
 And ever widening slowly silence all. 
 
 " The little rift within the lover's lute, 
 Or little pitted speck in garner'd fruit, 
 That rotting inward slowly moulders all. 
 
 "It is not worth the keeping: let it go: 
 But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no. 
 And trust me not at all or all in all." 
 
FROM THE SAME. 
 
 ELAINE'S SONG. 
 
 " SWEET is true love tho' given in vain, in vain ; 
 And sweet is death who puts an end to pain : 
 I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 
 
 " Love, art thou sweet ? then bitter death must be : 
 Love, thou art bitter; sweet is death to me. 
 
 Love, if death be sweeter, let me die. 
 
 " Sweet love, that seems not made to fade away, 
 Sweet death, that seems to make us loveless clay, 
 
 1 know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 
 
 " I fain would follow love, if that could be; 
 I needs must follow death, who calls for me; 
 Call and I follow, I follow ! let me die." 
 
FROM THE "DAY DREAM." 
 
 THE DEPARTURE. 
 
 i. 
 
 AND on her lover's arm she leant, 
 
 And round her waist she felt it fold, 
 And far across the hills they went 
 
 In that new world which is the old : 
 Across the hills, and far away 
 
 Beyond their utmost purple rim, 
 And deep into the dying day 
 
 The happy princess follow'd him. 
 
 2. 
 " I'd sleep another hundred years, 
 
 O love, for such another kiss;" 
 " O wake for ever, love," she hears, 
 
 " O love, 'twas such as this and this." 
 
2l8 THE DEPARTURE. 
 
 And o'er them many a sliding star, 
 And many a merry wind was borne, 
 
 And, stream'd thro' many a golden bar, 
 The twilight melted into morn. 
 
 3- 
 " O eyes long laid in happy sleep !" 
 
 " O happy sleep, that lightly fled !" 
 " O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep !" 
 
 " O love, thy kiss would wake the dead !" 
 And o'er them many a flowing range 
 
 Of vapour buoy'd the crescent-bark, 
 And, rapt thro' many a rosy change, 
 
 The twilight died into the dark. 
 
 4- 
 "A hundred summers ! can it be? 
 
 And whither goest thou, tell me where ?" 
 " O seek my father's court with me, 
 
 For there are greater wonders there." 
 And o'er the hills, and far away 
 
 Beyond their utmost purple rim, 
 Beyond the night, across the day, 
 
 Thro' all the world she follow'd him. 
 
WILL. 
 
 i. 
 
 O WELL for him whose will is strong ! 
 He suffers, but he will not suffer long; 
 He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong: 
 For him nor moves the loud world's random mock, 
 Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound, 
 Who seems a promontory of rock, 
 That, compass'd round with turbulent sound, 
 In middle ocean meets the surging shock, 
 Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown'd. 
 
 But ill for him who, bettering not with time, 
 
 Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will, 
 
 And ever weaker grows thro' acted crime, 
 
 Or seeming-genial venial fault, 
 
 Recurring and suggesting still ! 
 
 He seems as one whose footsteps halt, 
 
 Toiling in immeasurable sand, 
 
 And o'er a weary sultry land, 
 
 Far beneath a blazing vault, 
 
 Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill, 
 
 The city sparkles like a grain of salt. 
 
ON A MOURNER. 
 
 NATURE, so far as in her lies, 
 Imitates God, and turns her face 
 
 To every land beneath the skies, 
 
 Counts nothing that she meets with base, 
 But lives and loves in every place ; 
 
 Fills out the homely quickset-screens, 
 And makes the purple lilac ripe, 
 
 Steps from her airy hill, and greens 
 
 The swamp, where hums the dropping snipe, 
 With moss and braided marish-pipe; 
 
 3- 
 
 And on thy heart a finger lays, 
 Saying, ' beat quicker, for the time 
 
 Is pleasant, and the woods and ways 
 Are pleasant, and the beech and lime 
 Put forth and feel a gladder clime.' 
 
ON A MOURNER. 221 
 
 4- 
 
 And murmurs of a deeper voice, 
 Going before to some far shrine, 
 
 Teach that sick heart the stronger choice, 
 Till all thy life one way incline 
 With one wide will that closes thine. 
 
 5- 
 
 And when the zoning eve has died 
 Where yon dark valleys wind forlorn, 
 
 Come Hope and Memory, spouse and bride, 
 From out the borders of the morn, 
 With that fair child betwixt them born. 
 
 6. 
 
 And when no mortal motion jars 
 
 The blackness round the tombing sod, 
 
 Thro' silence and the trembling stars 
 
 Comes Faith from tracts no feet have trod, 
 And Virtue, like a household god 
 
 7- 
 Promising empire; such as those 
 
 That once at dead of night did greet 
 Troy's wandering prince, so that he rose 
 
 With sacrifice, while all the fleet 
 
 Had rest by stony hills of Crete. 
 
THE SEA-FAIRIES. 
 
 SLOW sail'd the weary mariners and saw, 
 Betwixt the green brink and the running foam, 
 Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest 
 To little harps of gold ; and while they mused, 
 Whispering to each other half in fear, 
 Shrill music reach'd them on the middle sea. 
 
 Whither away, whither away, whither away? fly no 
 
 more. 
 Whither away from the high green field, and the happy 
 
 blossoming shore 1 
 
 Day and night to the billow the fountain calls; 
 Down shower the gambolling waterfalls 
 From wandering over the lea : 
 Out of the live-green heart of the dells 
 They freshen the silvery-crimson shells, 
 And thick with white bells the clover-hill swells 
 High over the full-toned sea : 
 O hither, come hither and furl your sails, 
 Come hither to me and to me : 
 
THE SEA-FAIRIES. 223 
 
 Hither, come hither and frolic and play; 
 Here it is only the mew that wails; 
 We will sing to you all the day: 
 Mariner, mariner, furl your sails, 
 For here are the blissful downs and dales, 
 And merrily merrily carol the gales, 
 And the spangle dances in bight and bay, 
 And the rainbow forms and flies on the land 
 Over the islands free; 
 
 And the rainbow lives in the curve of the sand ; 
 Hither, come hither and see; 
 And the rainbow hangs on the poising wave, 
 And sweet is the colour of cove and cave, 
 And sweet shall your welcome be : 
 O hither, come hither, and be our lords, 
 For merry brides are we : 
 
 We will kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet words : 
 O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten 
 With pleasure and love and jubilee : 
 O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten 
 When the sharp clear twang of the golden chords 
 Runs up the ridged sea. 
 Who can light on as happy a shore 
 All the world o'er, all the world o'er? 
 Whither away? listen and stay: mariner, mariner, fly 
 no more. 
 
THE POET'S SONG. 
 
 THE rain had fallen, the Poet arose, 
 
 He pass'd by the town and out of the street, 
 A light wind blew from the gates of the sun, 
 
 And waves of shadow went over the wheat, 
 And he sat him down in a lonely place, 
 
 And chanted a melody loud and sweet, 
 That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud, 
 
 And the lark drop down at his feet. 
 
 The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee, 
 
 The snake slipt under a spray, 
 The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak, 
 
 And stared, with his foot on the prey, 
 And the nightingale thought, "I have sung many songs, 
 
 But never a one so gay, 
 For he sings of what the world will be 
 
 When the years have died away." 
 
FROM THE "IDYLLS OF THE KING." 
 
 GUINEVERE. 
 
 QUEEN GUINEVERE had fled the court, and sat 
 There in the holy house at Almesbury 
 Weeping, none with her save a little maid, 
 A novice : one low light betwixt them burn'd 
 Blurr'd by the creeping mist, for all abroad, 
 Beneath a moon unseen albeit at full, 
 The white mist, like a face-cloth to the face, 
 Clung to the dead earth, and the land was still. 
 
 For hither had she fled, her cause of flight 
 Sir Modred; he the nearest to the King, 
 His nephew, ever like a subtle beast 
 Lay couchant with his eyes upon the throne, 
 Ready to spring, waiting a chance : for this, 
 He chill'd the popular praises of the King 
 With silent smiles of slow disparagement; 
 And tamper'd with the Lords of the White Horse, 
 Heathen, the brood by Hengist left; and sought 
 
 Q 
 
226 GUINEVERE. 
 
 To make disruption in the Table Round 
 Of Arthur, and to splinter it into feuds 
 Serving his traitorous end; and all his aims 
 Were sharpen'd by strong hate for Lancelot. 
 
 For thus it chanced one morn when all the court, 
 Green-suited, but with plumes that mock'd the may, 
 Had been, their wont, a-maying and return'd, 
 That Modred still in green, all ear and eye, 
 Climb'd to the high top of the garden-wall 
 To spy some secret scandal if he might, 
 And saw the Queen who sat betwixt her best 
 Enid, and lissome Vivien, of her court 
 The wiliest and the worst; and more than this 
 He saw not, for Sir Lancelot passing by 
 Spied where he couch'd, and as the gardener's hand 
 Picks from the colewort a green caterpillar, 
 So from the high wall and the flowering grove 
 Of grasses Lancelot pluck'd him by the heel, 
 And cast him as a worm upon the way; 
 But when he knew the Prince tho' marr'd with dust, 
 He, reverencing king's blood in a bad man, 
 Made such excuses as he might, and these 
 Full knightly without scorn; for in those days 
 No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in scorn; 
 But, if a man were halt or hunch'd, in him 
 
GUINEVERE. 227 
 
 By those whom God had made full-limb'd and tall, 
 
 Scorn was allow'd as part of his defect, 
 
 And he was answer'd softly by the King 
 
 And all his Table. So Sir Lancelot holp 
 
 To raise the Prince, who rising twice or thrice 
 
 Full sharply smote his knees, and smiled, and went : 
 
 But, ever after, the small violence done 
 
 Rankled in him and ruffled all his heart, 
 
 As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long 
 
 A little bitter pool about a stone 
 
 On the bare coast. 
 
 But when Sir Lancelot told 
 This matter to the Queen, at first she laugh'd 
 Lightly, to think of Modred's dusty fall, 
 Then shudder'd, as the village wife who cries 
 ' I shudder, some one steps across my grave;' 
 Then laugh'd again, but faintlier, for indeed 
 She half-foresaw that he, the subtle beast, 
 Would track her guilt until he found, and hers 
 Would be for evermore a name of scorn. 
 Henceforward rarely could she front in Hall, 
 Or elsewhere, Modred's narrow foxy face, 
 Heart-hiding smile, and gray persistent eye : 
 Henceforward too, the Powers that tend the soul, 
 To help it from the death that cannot die, 
 And save it even in extremes, began 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 GUINEVERE. 
 
 To vex and plague her. Many a time for hours, 
 
 Beside the placid breathings of the King, 
 
 In the dead night, grim faces came and went 
 
 Before her, or a vague spiritual fear 
 
 Like to some doubtful noise of creaking doors, 
 
 Heard by the watcher in a haunted house, 
 
 That keeps the rust of murder on the walls 
 
 Held her awake : or if she slept, she dream'd 
 
 An awful dream; for then she seem'd to stand 
 
 On some vast plain before a setting sun, 
 
 And from the sun there swiftly made at her 
 
 A .ghastly something, and its shadow flew 
 
 Before it, till it touch'd her, and she turn'd 
 
 When lo ! her own, that broadening from her feet, 
 
 And blackening, swallow'd all the land, and in it 
 
 Far -cities burnt, and with a cry she woke. 
 
 And all this trouble did not pass but grew; 
 
 Till ev'n the clear face of the guileless King, 
 
 And trustful courtesies of household life, 
 
 Became her bane; and at the last she said, 
 
 ' O Lancelot, get thee hence to thine own land, 
 
 For if thou tarry we shall meet again, 
 
 And if we meet again, some evil chance 
 
 Will make the smouldering scandal break and blaze 
 
 Before the people, and our lord the King.' 
 
 And Lancelot ever promised, but remain'd, 
 
GUINEVERE. 229 
 
 And still they met and met. Again she said, 
 
 ' O Lancelot, if thou love me get thee hence.' 
 
 And then they were agreed upon a night 
 
 (When the good King should not be there) to meet 
 
 And part for ever. Passion-pale they met 
 
 And greeted : hands in hands, and eye to eye, 
 
 Low on the border of her couch they sat 
 
 Stammering and staring : it was their last hour, 
 
 A madness of farewells. And Modred brought 
 
 His creatures to the basement of the tower 
 
 For testimony; and crying with full voice 
 
 ' Traitor, come out, ye are trapt at last,' aroused 
 
 Lancelot, who rushing outward lionlike 
 
 Leapt on him, and hurl'd him headlong, and he fell 
 
 Stunn'd, and his creatures took and bare him off 
 
 And all was still : then she, ' the end is come 
 
 And I am shamed for ever; ' and he said 
 
 ' Mine be the shame ; mine was the sin : but rise, 
 
 And fly to my strong castle overseas : 
 
 There will I hide thee, till my life shall end, 
 
 There hold thee with my life against the world.' 
 
 She answer'd ' Lancelot, wilt thou hold me so ? 
 
 Nay friend, for we have taken our farewells. 
 
 Would God, that thou could'st hide me from myself ! 
 
 Mine is the shame, for I was wife, and thou 
 
 Unwedded : yet rise now, and let us fly, 
 
230 GUINEVERE. 
 
 For I will draw me into sanctuary, 
 
 And bide my doom.' So Lancelot got her horse, 
 
 Set her thereon, and mounted on his own, 
 
 And then they rode to the divided way, 
 
 There kiss'd, and parted weeping : for he past, 
 
 Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen, 
 
 Back to his land; but she to Almesbury 
 
 Fled all night long by glimmering waste and weald, 
 
 And heard the Spirits of the waste and weald 
 
 Moan as she fled, or thought she heard them moan : 
 
 And in herself she moan'd ' too late, too late ! ' 
 
 Till in the cold wind that foreruns the morn, 
 
 A blot in heaven, the Raven, flying high, 
 
 Croak'd, and she thought ' he spies a field of death ; 
 
 For now the Heathen of the Northern Sea, 
 
 Lured by the crimes and frailties of the court, 
 
 Begin to slay the folk, and spoil the land.' 
 
 And when she came to Almesbury she spake 
 There to the nuns, and said, ' mine enemies 
 Pursue me, but, O peaceful Sisterhood, 
 Receive, and yield me sanctuary, nor ask 
 Her name, to whom ye yield it, till her time 
 To tell you : ' and her beauty, grace and power, 
 Wrought as a charm upon them, and they spared 
 To ask it. 
 
GUINEVERE. 2J4 
 
 So the stately Queen abode 
 For many a week, unknown, among the nuns; 
 Nor with them mix'd, nor told her name, nor sought, 
 Wrapt in her grief, for housel or for shrift, 
 But communed only with the little maid, 
 Who pleased her with a babbling heedlessness 
 Which often lured her from herself; but now, 
 This night, a rumour wildly blown about 
 Came, that Sir Modred had usurped the realm, 
 And leagued him with the heathen, while the King 
 Was waging war on Lancelot : then she thought, 
 ' With what a hate the people and the King 
 Must hate me,' and bow'd down upon her hands 
 Silent, until the little maid, who brook'd 
 No silence, brake it, uttering ' late ! so late ! 
 What hour, I wonder, now 1 ?' and when she drew 
 No answer, by and by began to hum 
 An air the nuns had taught her; 'late, so late !' 
 Which when she heard, the Queen look'd up, and said, 
 ' O maiden, if indeed you list to sing, 
 Sing, and unbind my heart that I may weep.' 
 Whereat full willingly sang the little maid. 
 
 "Late, late, so late ! and dark the night and chill! 
 Late, late, so late ! but we can enter still. 
 Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now. 
 
232 GUINEVERE. 
 
 " No light had we: for that we do repent; 
 And learning this, the bridegroom will relent. 
 Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now. 
 
 " No light : so late ! and dark and chill the night I 
 O let us in, that we may find the light ! 
 Too late, too late : ye cannot enter now. 
 
 " Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet ? 
 O kt us in, tho' late, to kiss his feet ! 
 No, no, too late ! ye cannot enter now." 
 
 So sang the novice, while full passionately, 
 Her head upon her hands, remembering 
 Her thought when first she came, wept the sad Queen. 
 Then said the little novice prattling to her. 
 
 ' O pray you, noble lady, weep no more; 
 But let my words, the words of one so small, 
 \Vho knowing nothing knows but to obey, 
 And if I do not there is penance given 
 Comfort your sorrows; for they do not flow 
 From evil done ; right sure am I of that, 
 Who see your tender grace and stateliness. 
 But weigh your sorrows with our lord the King's, 
 And weighing find them less; for gone is he 
 
GUINEVERE. 233 
 
 To wage grim war against Sir Lancelot there, 
 
 Round that strong castle where he holds the Queen; 
 
 And Modred whom he left in charge of all, 
 
 The traitor Ah sweet lady, the King's grief 
 
 For his own self, and his own Queen, and realm, 
 
 Must needs be thrice as great as any of ours. 
 
 For me, I thank the saints, I am not great. 
 
 For if there ever come a grief to me 
 
 I cry my cry in silence, and have done: 
 
 None knows it, and my tears have brought me good : 
 
 But even were the griefs of little ones 
 
 As great as those of great ones, yet this grief 
 
 Is added to the griefs the great must bear, 
 
 That howsoever much they may desire 
 
 Silence, they cannot weep behind a cloud : 
 
 As even here they talk at Almesbury 
 
 About the good King and his wicked Queen, 
 
 And were I such a King with such a Queen, 
 
 Well might I wish to veil her wickedness, 
 
 But were I such a King, it could not be.' 
 
 Then to her own sad heart mutter'd the Queen. 
 ' Will the child kill me with her innocent talk ? ' 
 But openly she answer'd ' must not I, 
 If this false traitor have displaced his lord, 
 Grieve with the common grief of all the realm ] ' 
 
234 GUINEVERE. 
 
 ' Yea,' said the maid, ' this is all woman's grief, 
 That she is woman, whose disloyal life 
 Hath wrought confusion in the Table Round 
 Which good King Arthur founded, years ago, 
 With signs and miracles and wonders, there 
 At Camelot, ere the coming of the Queen.' 
 
 Then thought the Queen within herself again ; 
 ' Will the child kill me with her foolish prate 1 ' 
 But openly she spake and said to her; 
 ' O little maid, shut in by nunnery walls, 
 What canst thou know of Kings and Tables Round, 
 Or what of signs and wonders, but the signs 
 And simple miracles of thy nunnery 1 ' 
 
 To whom the little novice garrulously. 
 ' Yea, but I know : the land was full of signs 
 And wonders ere the coming of the Queen. 
 So said my father, and himself was knight 
 Of the great Table at the founding of it ; 
 And rode thereto from Lyonnesse, and he said 
 That as he rode, an hour or maybe twain 
 After the sunset, down the coast, he heard 
 Strange music, and he paused and turning there 
 All down the lonely coast of Lyonnesse, 
 Each with a beacon-star upon his head, 
 
GUINEVERE. 235 
 
 And with a wild sea-light about his feet, 
 
 He saw them headland after headland flame 
 
 Far on into the rich heart of the west: 
 
 And in the light the white mermaiden swam, 
 
 And strong man-breasted things stood from the sea, 
 
 And sent a deep sea-voice thro' all the land, 
 
 To which the little elves of chasm and cleft 
 
 Made answer, sounding like a distant horn. 
 
 So said my father yea, and furthermore, 
 
 Next morning, while he past the dim-lit woods, 
 
 Himself beheld three spirits mad with joy 
 
 Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower, 
 
 That shook beneath them, as the thistle shakes 
 
 When three gray linnets wrangle for the seed: 
 
 And still at evenings on before his horse 
 
 The flickering fairy-circle wheel'd and broke 
 
 Flying, and link'd again, and wheel'd and broke 
 
 Flying, for all the land was full of life. 
 
 And when at last he came to Camelot, 
 
 A wreath of airy dancers hand-in-hand 
 
 Swung round the lighted lantern of the hall ; 
 
 And in the hall itself was such a feast 
 
 As never man had dream'd ; for every knight 
 
 Had whatsoever meat he long'd for served 
 
 By hands unseen ; and even as he said 
 
 Down in the cellars merry bloated things 
 
236 GUINEVERE. 
 
 Shoulder'd the spigot, straddling on the butts 
 While the wine ran : so glad were spirits and men 
 Before the coming of the sinful Queen.' 
 
 Then spake the Queen and somewhat bitterly. 
 ' Were they so glad ? ill prophets were they all, 
 Spirits and men : could none of them foresee, 
 Not even thy wise father with his signs 
 And wonders, what has fall'n upon the realm 1 ' 
 
 To whom the novice garrulously again. 
 ' Yea, one, a bard ; of whom my father said, 
 Full many a noble war-song had he sung, 
 Ev'n in the presence of an enemy's fleet, 
 Between the steep cliff and the coming wave ; 
 And many a mystic lay of life and death 
 Had chanted on the smoky mountain-tops, 
 When round him bent the spirits of the hills 
 With all their dewy hair blown back like flame : 
 So said my father and that night the bard 
 Sang Arthur's glorious wars, and sang the King 
 As well-nigh more than man, and rail'd at those 
 Who call'd him the false son of Gorlo'is : 
 For there was no man knew from whence he came ; 
 But after tempest, when the long wave broke 
 All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos, 
 
GUINEVERE. 237 
 
 There came a day as still as heaven, and then 
 
 They found a naked child upon the sands 
 
 Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea ; 
 
 And that was Arthur ; and they foster'd him 
 
 Till he by miracle was approven king : 
 
 And that his grave should be a mystery 
 
 From all men, like his birth ; and could he find 
 
 A woman in her womanhood as great 
 
 As he was in his manhood, then, he sang, 
 
 The twain together well might change the world. 
 
 But even in the middle of his song 
 
 He falter'd, and his hand fell from the harp, 
 
 And pale he turn'd, and reel'd, and would have fall'n, 
 
 But that they stay'd him up ; nor would he tell 
 
 His vision ; but what doubt that he foresaw 
 
 This evil work of Lancelot and the Queen 1 ' 
 
 Then thought the Queen ' lo ! they have set her on, 
 Our simple-seeming Abbess and her nuns, 
 To play upon me,' and bow'd her head nor spake. 
 Whereat the novice crying, with clasp'd hands, 
 Shame on her own garrulity garrulously, 
 Said the good nuns would check her gadding tongue 
 Full often, ' and, sweet lady, if I seem 
 To vex an ear too sad to listen to me, 
 Unmannerly, with prattling and the tales 
 
238 GUINEVERE. 
 
 Which my good father told, check me too : 
 
 Nor let me shame my father's memory, one 
 
 Of noblest manners, tho' himself would say 
 
 Sir Lancelot had the noblest ; and he died, 
 
 Kill'd in a tilt, come next, five summers back, 
 
 And left me ; but of others who remain, 
 
 And of the two first-famed for courtesy 
 
 And pray you check me if I ask amiss 
 
 But pray you, which had noblest, while you moved 
 
 Among them, Lancelot or our lord the King 1 ' 
 
 Then the pale Queen look'd up and answer'd her. 
 ' Sir Lancelot, as became a noble knight, 
 Was gracious to all ladies, and the same 
 In open battle or the tilting-field 
 Forbore his own advantage, and the King 
 In open battle or the tilting-field 
 Forbore his own advantage, and these two 
 Were the most nobly-mannered men of all ; 
 For manners are not idle, but the fruit 
 Of loyal nature, and of noble mind.' 
 
 ' Yea,' said the maid, ' be manners such fair fruit 1 
 Then Lancelot's needs must be a thousand-fold 
 Less noble, being, as all rumour runs, 
 The most disloyal friend in all the world.' 
 
GUINEVERE. 239 
 
 To which a mournful answer made the Queen. 
 ' O closed about by narrowing nunnery-walls, 
 What knowest thou of the world, and all its lights 
 And shadows, all the wealth and all the woe ? 
 If ever Lancelot, that most noble knight, 
 Were for one hour less noble than himself, 
 Pray for him that he scape the doom of fire, 
 And weep for her, who drew him to his doom.' 
 
 ' Yea,' said the little novice, ' I pray for both ; 
 But I should all as soon believe that his, 
 Sir Lancelot's, were as noble as the King's, 
 As I could think, sweet lady, yours would be 
 Such as they are, were you the sinful Queen.' 
 
 So she, like many another babbler, hurt 
 Whom she would soothe, and harm'd where she would 
 
 heal; 
 
 For here a sudden flush of wrathful heat 
 Fired all the pale face of the Queen, who cried, 
 ' Such as thou art be never maiden more 
 For ever ! thou their tool, set on to plague 
 And play upon, and harry me, petty spy 
 And traitress.' When that storm of anger brake 
 From Guinevere, aghast the maiden rose, 
 White as her veil, and stood before the Queen 
 
240 GUINEVERE. 
 
 As tremulously as foam upon the beach 
 Stands in a wind, ready to break and fly, 
 And when the Queen had added ' get thee hence ' 
 Fled frighted. Then that other left alone 
 Sigh'd, and began to gather heart again, 
 Saying in herself ' the simple, fearful child 
 Meant nothing, but my own too-fearful guilt 
 Simpler than any child, betrays itself. 
 But help me, heaven, for surely I repent. 
 For what is true repentance but in thought 
 Not ev'n in inmost thought to think again 
 The sins that made the past so pleasant to us : 
 And I have sworn never to see him more, 
 To see him more.' 
 
 And ev'n in saying this, 
 Her memory from old habit of the mind 
 Went slipping back upon the golden days 
 In which she saw him first, when Lancelot came, 
 Reputed the best knight and goodliest man, 
 Ambassador, to lead her to his lord 
 Arthur, and led her forth, and far ahead 
 Of his and her retinue moving, they, 
 Rapt in sweet talk or lively, all on love 
 And sport and tilts and pleasure, (for the time 
 Was maytime, and as yet no sin was dream'd,) 
 Rode under groves that look'd a paradise 
 
GUINEVERE. 241 
 
 Of blossom, over sheets of hyacinth 
 
 That seem'd the heavens upbreaking thro' the earth, 
 
 And on from hill to hill, and every day 
 
 Beheld at noon in some delicious dale 
 
 The silk pavilions of King Arthur raised 
 
 For brief repast or afternoon repose 
 
 By couriers gone before; and on again, 
 
 Till yet once more ere set of sun they saw 
 
 The Dragon of the great Pendragonship, 
 
 That crown'd the state pavilion of the King, 
 
 Blaze by the rushing brook or silent well. 
 
 But when the Queen immersed in such a trance, 
 And moving thro' the past unconsciously, 
 Came to that point, when first she saw the King 
 Ride toward her from the city, sigh'd to find 
 Her journey done, glanced at him, thought him cold, 
 High, self-contain'd, and passionless, not like him, 
 ' Not like my Lancelot ' while she brooded thus 
 And grew half-guilty in her thoughts again, 
 There rode an armed warrior to the doors. 
 A murmuring whisper thro' the nunnery ran, 
 Then on a sudden a cry, ' the King.' She sat 
 Stiff-stricken, listening; but when armed feet 
 Thro' the long gallery from the outer doors 
 Rang coming, prone from off her seat she fell, 
 
242 GUINEVERE. 
 
 And grovell'd with her face against the floor: 
 There with her milkwhite arms and shadowy hair 
 She made her face a darkness from the King: 
 And in the darkness heard his armed feet 
 Pause by her; then came silence, then a voice, 
 Monotonous and hollow like a Ghost's 
 Denouncing judgment, but tlio' changed the King's. 
 
 ' Liest thoii here so low, the child of one 
 I honour d, happy, dead before thy shame ] 
 Well is it that no child is born of thee. 
 The children born of thee are sword and fire, 
 Red ruin, and the breaking up of laws, 
 The craft of kindred and the Godless hosts 
 Of heathen swarming o'er the Northern Sea. 
 Whom I, while yet Sir Lancelot, my right arm, 
 The mightiest of my knights, abode with me, 
 Have everywhere about this land of Christ 
 In twelve great battles ruining overthrown. 
 And knowest thou now from whence I come from him, 
 From waging bitter war with him : and he, 
 That did not shun to smite me in worse way, 
 Had yet that grace of courtesy in him left, 
 He spared to lift his hand against the King 
 Who made him knight : but many a knight was slain ; 
 And many more, and all his kith and kin 
 
GUINEVERE. 243 
 
 Clave to him, and abode in his own land. 
 And many more when Modred raised revolt, 
 Forgetful of their troth and fealty, clave 
 To Modred, and a remnant stays with me. 
 And of this remnant will I leave a part, 
 True men who love me still, for whom I live, 
 To guard thee in the wild hour coming on, 
 Lest but a hair of this low head be harm'd. 
 Fear not : thou shalt be guarded till my death. 
 Howbeit I know, if ancient prophecies 
 Have err'd not, that I march to meet my doom. 
 Thou hast not made my life so sweet to me, 
 That I the King should greatly care to live; 
 For thou hast spoilt the purpose of my life. 
 Bear with me for the last time while I show, 
 Ev'n for thy sake, the sin which thou hast sinn'd. 
 For when the Roman left us, and their law 
 Relax'd its hold upon us, and the ways 
 Were fill'd with rapine, here and there a deed 
 Of prowess done redress'd a random wrong. 
 But I was first of all the kings who drew 
 The knighthood-errant of this realm and all 
 The realms together under me, their Head, 
 In that fair order of my Table Round, 
 A glorious company, the flower of men, 
 To serve as model for the mighty world, 
 
244 GUINEVERE. 
 
 And be the fair beginning of a time. 
 
 I made them lay their hands in mine and swear 
 
 To reverence the King, as if he were 
 
 Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, 
 
 To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 
 
 To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 
 
 To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 
 
 To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, 
 
 To love one maiden only, cleave to her, 
 
 And worship her by years of noble deeds, 
 
 Until they won her; for indeed I knew 
 
 Of no more subtle master under heaven 
 
 Than is the maiden passion for a maid, 
 
 Not only to keep down the base in man, 
 
 But teach high thought, and amiable words 
 
 And courtliness, and the desire of fame, 
 
 And love of truth, and all that makes a man. 
 
 And all this throve until I wedded thee ! 
 
 Believing " lo mine helpmate, one to feel 
 
 My purpose and rejoicing in my joy." 
 
 Then came thy shameful sin with Lancelot; 
 
 Then catne the sin of Tristram and Isolt; 
 
 Then others, following these my mightiest knights, 
 
 And drawing foul ensample from fair names, 
 
 Sinn'd also, till the loathsome opposite 
 
 Of all my heart had destined did obtain, 
 
GUINEVERE. 245 
 
 And all thro' thee ! so that this life of mine 
 
 I guard as God's high gift from scathe and wrong, 
 
 Not greatly care to lose; but rather think 
 
 How sad it were for Arthur, should he live, 
 
 To sit once more within his lonely hall, 
 
 And miss the wonted number of my knights, 
 
 And miss to hear high talk of noble deeds 
 
 As in the golden days before thy sin. 
 
 For which of us, who might be left, could speak 
 
 Of the pure heart, nor seem to glance at thee ? 
 
 And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Usk 
 
 Thy shadow still would glide from room to room, 
 
 And I should evermore be vext with thee 
 
 In hanging robe or vacant ornament, 
 
 Or ghostly footfall echoing on the stair. 
 
 For think not, tho' thou would'st not love thy lord, 
 
 Thy lord has wholly lost his love for thee. 
 
 I am not made of so slight elements. 
 
 Yet must I leave thee, woman, to thy shame. 
 
 I hold that man the worst of public foes 
 
 Who either for his own or children's sake, 
 
 To save his blood from scandal, lets the wife 
 
 Whom he knows false, abide and rule the house : 
 
 For being thro' his cowardice allow'd 
 
 Her station, taken everywhere for pure, 
 
 She like a new disease, Unknown to men, 
 
246 GUINEVERE. 
 
 Creeps, no precaution used, among the crowd, 
 Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes, and saps 
 The fealty of our friends, and stirs the pulse 
 With devil's leaps, and poisons half the young. 
 Worst of the worst were that man he that reigns ! 
 Better the King's waste hearth and aching heart 
 Than thou reseated in thy place of light, 
 The mockery of my people, and their bane.' 
 
 He paused, and in the pause she crept an inch 
 Nearer, and laid her hands about his feet. 
 Far off a solitary trumpet blew. 
 Then waiting by the doors the warhorse neigh'd 
 As at a friend's voice, and he spake again. 
 
 ' Yet think not that I come to urge thy crimes, 
 I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere, 
 I, whose vast pity almost makes me die 
 To see thee, laying there thy golden head, 
 My pride in happier summers, at my feet. 
 The wrath which forced my thoughts on that fierce law, 
 The doom of treason and the flaming death, 
 (When first I learnt thee hidden here) is past. 
 The pang which while I weigh'd thy heart with one 
 Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee, 
 Made my tears burn is also past, in part. 
 
GUINEVERE. 247 
 
 And all is past, the sin is sinn'd, and I, 
 Lo ! I forgive thee, as Eternal God 
 Forgives : do thou for thine own soul the rest. 
 But how to take last leave of all I loved ? 
 
 golden hair, with which I used to play 
 Not knowing ! O imperial-moulded form, 
 And beauty such as never woman wore, 
 Until it came a kingdom's curse with thee 
 
 1 cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine, 
 
 But Lancelot's : nay, they never were the- King's. 
 
 I cannot take thy hand ; that too is flesh, 
 
 And in the flesh thou hast sinn'd; and mine own flesh, 
 
 Here looking down on thine polluted, cries 
 
 " I loathe thee : " yet not less, O Guinevere, 
 
 For I was ever virgin save for thee, 
 
 My love thro' flesh hath wrought into my life 
 
 So far, that my doom is, I love thee still. 
 
 Let no man dream but that I love thee still. 
 
 Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul, 
 
 And so thou lean on our fair father Christ, 
 
 Hereafter in that world where all are pure 
 
 We two may meet before high God, and thou 
 
 Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine, and know 
 
 I am thine husband not a smaller soul, 
 
 Nor Lancelot, nor another. Leave me that, 
 
 I charge thee, my last hope. Now must I hence. 
 
248 GUINEVERE. 
 
 Thro' the thick night I hear the trumpet blow : 
 They summon me their King to lead mine hosts 
 Far down to that great battle in the west, 
 Where I must strike against my sister's son, 
 Leagued with the lords of the White Horse and knights 
 Once mine, and strike him dead, and meet myself 
 Death, or I know not what mysterious doom. 
 And thou remaining here wilt learn the event ; 
 But hither shall I never come again, 
 Never lie by thy side, see thee no more, 
 Farewell ! ' 
 
 And while she grovell'd at his feet, 
 She felt the King's breath wander o'er her neck, 
 And, in the darkness o'er her fallen head, 
 Perceived the waving of his hands that blest. 
 
 Then, listening till those armed steps were gone, 
 Rose the pale Queen, and in her anguish found 
 The casement : ' perad venture ' so she thought, 
 ' If I might see his face, and not be seen.' 
 And lo, he sat on horseback at the door ! 
 And near him the sad nuns with each a light 
 Stood, and he gave them charge about the Queen, 
 To guard and foster her for evermore. 
 And while he spake to these his helm was lower'd, 
 To which for crest the golden dragon clung 
 
GUINEVERE. 249 
 
 Of Britain ; so she did not see the face, 
 Which then was as an angel's, but she saw, 
 Wet with the mists and smitten by the lights, 
 The Dragon of the great Pendragonship 
 Blaze, making all the night a steam of fire. 
 And even then he turn'd ; and more and more 
 The moony vapour rolling round the King, 
 Who seem'd the phantom of a Giant in it, 
 Enwound him fold by fold, and made him gray 
 And grayer, till himself became as mist 
 Before her, moving ghostlike to his doom. 
 
 Then she stretch'd out her arms and cried aloud 
 ' Oh Arthur ! ' there her voice brake suddenly, 
 Then as a stream that spouting from a cliff 
 Fails in mid air, but gathering at the base 
 Re-makes itself, and flashes down the vale 
 Went on in passionate utterance. 
 
 ' Gone my lord ! 
 
 Gone thro' my sin to slay and to be slain ! 
 And he forgave me, and I could not speak. 
 Farewell ? I should have answer'd his farewell. 
 His mercy choked me. Gone, my lord the King, 
 My own true lord ! how dare I call him mine ? 
 The shadow of another cleaves to me, 
 And makes me one pollution : he, the King, 
 
250 GUINEVERE. 
 
 Call'd me polluted : shall I kill myself? 
 What help in that ? I cannot kill my sin, 
 If soul be soul ; nor can I kill my shame ; 
 No, nor by living can I live it down. 
 The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to months, 
 The months will add themselves and make the years, 
 The years will roll into the centuries, 
 And mine will ever be a name of scorn. 
 I must not dwell on that defeat of fame. 
 Let the world be ; that is but of the world. 
 What else ? what hope 1 I think there was a hope, 
 Except he mock'd me when he spake of hope ; 
 His hope he call'd it ; but he never mocks, 
 For mockery is the fume of little hearts. 
 And blessed be the King, who hath forgiven 
 My wickedness to him, and left me hope 
 That in mine own heart I can live down sin 
 And be his mate hereafter in the heavens 
 Before high God. Ah great and gentle lord, 
 Who wast, as is the conscience of a saint 
 Among his warring senses, to thy knights 
 To whom my false voluptuous pride, that took 
 Full easily all impressions from below, 
 Would not look up, or half-despised the height 
 To which I would not or I could not climb 
 I thought I could not breathe in that fine air 
 
GUINEVERE. 251 
 
 That pure severity of perfect light 
 I wanted warmth and colour which I found 
 In Lancelot now I see thee what thou art, 
 Thou art the highest and most human too, 
 Not Lancelot, nor another. Is there none 
 Will tell the King I love him tho' so late ? 
 Now ere he goes to the great Battle ? none : 
 Myself must tell him in that purer life, 
 But now it were too daring. Ah my God, 
 What might I not have made of thy fair world, 
 Had I but loved thy highest creature here ? 
 It was my duty to have loved the highest : 
 It surely was my profit had I known : 
 It would have been my pleasure had I seen. 
 We needs must love the highest when we see it, 
 Not Lancelot, nor another.' 
 
 Here her hand 
 
 Grasp'd, made her vail her eyes : she look'd and saw 
 The novice, weeping, suppliant, and said to her 
 ' Yea, little maid, for am / not forgiven 1 ' 
 Then glancing up beheld the holy nuns 
 All round her, weeping ; and her heart was loosed 
 Within her, and she wept with these and said. 
 
 ' Ye know me then, that wicked one, who broke 
 The vast design and purpose of the King. 
 
252 GUINEVERE. 
 
 shut me round with narrowing nunnery-walls, 
 Meek maidens, from the voices crying " shame." 
 
 1 must not scorn myself: he loves me still. 
 Let no one dream but that he loves me still. 
 So let me, if you do not shudder at me 
 Nor shun to call me sister, dwell with you ; 
 Wear black and white, and be a nun like you ; 
 Fast with your fasts, not feasting with your feasts ; 
 Grieve with your griefs, not grieving at your joys, 
 But not rejoicing ; mingle with your rites ; 
 
 Pray and be pray'd for ; lie before your shrines ; 
 
 Do each low office of your holy house ; 
 
 Walk your dim cloister, and distribute dole 
 
 To poor sick people, richer in his eyes 
 
 Who ransom'd us, and haler too than I ; 
 
 And treat their loathsome hurts and heal mine own ; 
 
 And so wear out in almsdeed and in prayer 
 
 The sombre close of that voluptuous day, 
 
 Which wrought the ruin of my lord the King.' 
 
 She said : they took her to themselves ; and she 
 Still hoping, fearing ' is it yet too late ? ' 
 Dwelt with them, till in time their Abbess died. 
 Then she, for her good deeds and her pure life, 
 And for the power of ministration in her, 
 And likewise for the high rank she had borne, 
 
GUINEVERE. 
 
 253 
 
 Was chosen Abbess, there, an Abbess, lived 
 For three brief years, and there, an Abbess, past 
 To where beyond these voices there is peace. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 OF THE "IDYLLS OF THE KING." 
 
 THESE to His Memory since he held them dear, 
 Perchance as finding there unconsciously 
 Some image of himself I dedicate, 
 I dedicate, I consecrate with tears 
 These Idylls. 
 
 And indeed He seems to me 
 Scarce other than my own ideal knight, 
 ' Who reverenced his conscience as his king ; 
 Whose glory was, redressing human wrong ; 
 Who spake no slander, no, nor listened to it ; 
 Who loved one only and who clave to her 
 Her over all whose realms to their last isle, 
 Commingled with the gloom of imminent war, 
 The shadow of His loss drew like eclipse, 
 
DEDICATION. 255 
 
 Darkening the world. We have lost him : he is gone : 
 We know him now : all narrow jealousies 
 Are silent ; and we see him as he moved, 
 How modest, kindly, all-accomplish'd, wise, 
 With what sublime repression of himself, 
 And in what limits, and how tenderly ; 
 Not swaying to this faction or to that ; 
 Not making his high place the lawless perch 
 Of wing'd ambitions, nor a vantage-ground 
 For pleasure; but thro' all this tract of years 
 Wearing the white flower of a blameless life, 
 Before a thousand peering littlenesses, 
 In that fierce light which beats upon a throne, 
 And blackens every blot : for where is he 
 Who dares foreshadow for an only son 
 A lovelier life, a more unstain'd, than his? 
 Or how should England dreaming of his sons 
 Hope more for these than some inheritance 
 Of such a life, a heart, a mind as thine, 
 Thou noble Father of her Kings to be, 
 Laborious for her people and her poor- 
 Voice in the rich dawn of an ampler day 
 Far-sighted summoner of War and Waste 
 To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace 
 Sweet nature gilded by the gracious gleam 
 Of letters, dear to Science, dear to Art, 
 
256 DEDICATION. 
 
 Dear to thy land and ours, a Prince indeed, 
 Beyond all titles, and a household name, 
 Hereafter, thro' all times, Albert the Good. 
 
 Break not, O woman's-heart, but still endure ; 
 Break not, for thou art Royal, but endure, 
 Remembering all the beauty of that star 
 Which shone so close beside Thee, that ye made 
 One light together, but has past and leaves 
 The Crown a lonely splendour. 
 
 May all love, 
 
 His love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow Thee, 
 The love of all Thy sons encompass Thee, 
 The love of all Thy daughters cherish Thee, 
 The love of all Thy people comfort Thee, 
 Till God's love set Thee at his side again ! 
 
 BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 
 
 
OCT 8 1985 
 
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