SELECTED WRITINGS 
 OF WILLIAM SHARP 
 
 UNIFORM EDITION 
 ARRANGED BY 
 Mrs. WILLIAM SHARP 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME 
 
 THE COLLECTED WORKS 
 OF FIONA MACLEOD 
 
 (WILLIAM sharp) 
 
 Tn Seven Volumes. Crown 8vo. $1.50 net; by 
 post, $1.63. With Photogravure Frontis- 
 pieces from Photographs and Drawings by 
 D. A. Cameron, A.R.S.A. 
 
 I. PHARAIS : THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 LOVERS 
 II. THE SIN EATER: THE WASHER 
 OF THE FORD AND OTHER 
 LEGENDARY MORALITIES 
 
 III. THE DOMINION OF DREAMS: 
 
 UNDER THE DARK STAR 
 
 IV. THE DIVINE ADVENTURE: 
 
 lONA: STUDIES IN SPIRITUAL 
 
 HISTORY 
 V. THE WINGfiD DESTINY : 
 
 STUDIES IN THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 HISTORY OF THE GAEL 
 VI. THE SILENCE OF AMOR: 
 
 WHERE THE FOREST 
 
 MURMURS 
 VIL POEMS AND DRAMAS 
 

POEMS 
 
 BY WILLIAM SHARP 
 
 SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY 
 
 MRS. WILLIAM SHARP 
 
 WITH PORTRAIT 
 
 NEW YORK: r 
 DUFFIELD & COMPANY 
 1913' 
 
All 'rights' reserved 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The writings of William Sharp divide 
 themselves in the midway of his literary- 
 life into two distinct phases. The more 
 racially imaginative phase, put forward 
 under shelter of a pseudonym, has been 
 gathered together in the '.' Fiona Macleod " 
 Series published by Mr. Heinemann ; and 
 it seems fitting that a companion Series of 
 writings of William Sharp, signed with his 
 own name, should follow, and be as repre- 
 sentative as possible, so that the two 
 phases of his work can be compared con- 
 veniently. 
 
 As the " W. S." writings extend over a 
 period of thirty years (the " F. M." period 
 coincided with the last twelve years of the 
 author's life), and comprise a wide range 
 of subjects — poems, fiction, biographies, 
 essays critical and reminiscent, and a mass 
 of ephemeral work urged by the necessities 
 of daily life — it has been somewhat difficult 
 to determine on what basis to make a 
 selection for the present Series. Finally, I 
 decided to make choice from among the 
 
 2G2590 
 
Foreword 
 
 shorter poems, from essays and tales, to 
 the exclusion of the longer novel and 
 biography, and thus, moreover, to fulfil 
 certain of his expressed wishes. 
 
 In the arrangement of these volumes I have 
 not preserved a definite chronological order, 
 except in that of songs and poems. I have 
 preferred to group the contents according 
 to their subjects : Vol. I. Poems : Vol. II. 
 Critical Essays : Vols. III. and IV. Papers, 
 Biographic and Reminiscent : Vol. V. Short 
 Stories. With the exception of a few of 
 the poems, early experimental work is 
 unrepresented ; the earliest prose work in- 
 cluded is the essay on the sonnet written 
 in the author's thirty-first year. In accord- 
 ance with his own wishes his Life of Rossetti 
 — considered by him as youthful and un- 
 balanced — also his romance, The Children 
 of To-morrow, are not reissued. Of his later 
 novels. Wives in Exile and Silence Farm 
 (both out of print) were written during the 
 " Fiona Macleod " period out of a desire 
 to strengthen the reputation of " W. S." 
 and thus help to shield the identity of 
 " F. M." My husband considered that 
 Silence Farm contained his most successful 
 effort in characterisation. Nevertheless, in 
 it, he deliberately suppressed certain quahties 
 vi 
 
Foreword 
 
 natural to him, and emphasised others in 
 order to make the style of writing as unlike 
 that of " Fiona Macleod " as possible. Of 
 other excluded mature work, the mono- 
 graphs on Shelley, Browning, and Heine 
 are available among the publications of 
 Messrs. Walter Scott, to whom I am indebted 
 for permission to include in this volume the 
 ballads of "The Weird of Michael Scott," 
 " The Death-Child." and " The Isle of Lost 
 Dreams." The Life and Letters of Joseph 
 Severn is out of print ; and the Progress 0} 
 Art in the XIX Century is published by 
 Messrs W. and R. Chambers. 
 
 The poems in the present volume (1879- 
 1905) are selected from five volumes 
 and a number of miscellaneous poems 
 pubhshed in his own name, and not 
 from those written over the pseudonym 
 of "Fiona Macleod" (1893-1905). The 
 earliest volume, The Human Inheritance 
 (Elliot Stock, 1882) opened with a 
 long poem in four cycles descriptive of 
 Childhood, Youth, Manhood, and Old 
 Age ; and from it are taken " Childhood's 
 Inheritance," "Motherhood," &c. The 
 sonnets " Spring Wind " and " A Mid- 
 summer Hour " were included in The 
 Sonnets of this Century (Walter Scott), 
 vii 
 
Foreword 
 
 as were also those " To D. G. Rossetti," 
 to whose memory the anthology was dedi- 
 cated. Earth's Voices (Elliot Stock, 1884), 
 dedicated to Walter Pater, contained a 
 series of lyrics — voices of the forests, rivers, 
 winds, flowers, mountains, oceans — two 
 long poems, " Sospitra " and " Gaspara 
 Stampa," from which " To suffer grief is 
 to be strong " and " Sleep " are taken. 
 " The Record " is autobiographic, inasmuch 
 as it was the beginning of an endeavour 
 to relate memories of past lives that haunted 
 the author. 
 
 Romantic Ballads (Walter Scott, 1888) 
 was written under " the earnest conviction 
 that a Romantic Revival is imminent in our 
 poetic literature " ; that, as he stated in the 
 Preface, " the third great epoch of English 
 poetic literature will be an essentially 
 dramatic one : and its fruitage will neces- 
 sarily be preceded by a blossoming of the 
 genuinely romantic sentiment ... of the 
 Romantic spirit — not the formal letter of 
 Romanticism — a renascence which will be 
 as manifest in realistic as well as in more 
 directly imaginative prose and poetry. . . . 
 In ' The Weird of Michael Scott ' [of which 
 two sections are herein included] I have 
 attempted a ballad in enlarged form — that 
 viii 
 
Foreword 
 
 is, it is meant as a lyrical traged}^ of a soul 
 that finds the face of disastrous fate against 
 it whithersoever it turns in the closing 
 moment of mortal hfe." And he adds, " The 
 thrill of the supernatural is so keen because 
 it touches the most natural part of us." 
 
 The poet spent the winter and spring 
 of 1890-gi in Rome and its environ- 
 ments ; the immediate literary outcome 
 thereof was a volume of unrhymed, irregu- 
 lar metres, printed at Tivoli, published 
 privately that spring under the title of 
 Sospiri di Roma and prefaced by 'an 
 etched portrait of him by Sir Charles 
 Holroyd. Concerning his use of unrhymed 
 metre he wrote to a friend : " What can be 
 done in Greek and German can be done in 
 English. This has been proved, for some 
 of Matthew Arnold's finest work is in 
 unrhymed verse. ... I felt that there is 
 in verse, as in painting, a borderland for 
 impressionism pure and simple, for the 
 suggestion of a certain colour and emotion, 
 a vivid actuality, which are apt to be 
 dissipated by the effort and restrictions of 
 rhyme. ... In this verse you wilUfind 
 something of my passion for the Campagna, 
 and of that still deeper passion and longing 
 for the Beautiful. All that I attempt to 
 ix 
 
Foreword 
 
 do is to fashion anew something of the lovely 
 vision I have seen." 
 
 "The Coming of Love," "The Untold 
 Story," and " Dionysos in India " appeared 
 originally in The Pagan Review (1892), the 
 first and only number of a projected monthly 
 review edited by " W. H. Brooks " — of 
 which William Sharp wrote every word 
 from cover to cover, under the pseudonyms 
 of the Editor and the seven contributors. 
 
 Of the section of poems 1893-1905, " Hill 
 Water " was written for the Evergreen, 1895, 
 a quarterly issued by Patrick Geddes and 
 Colleagues, and " Spanish Roses " is taken 
 from A Fellow and His Wife, a novel 
 written in collaboration with Blanche Willis 
 Howard ; the remaining poems in the last 
 section were contributed variously to 
 Harper's Magazine, the Century, New York 
 Independent, Literature, Country Life, and 
 the Pall Mall Magazine. 
 
 The Fragment entitled " Persephoneia " 
 is the Prologue to a five-act play, begun in 
 1903 at II Castello di Maniace, on Etna ; 
 and of it the complete draft, the Prologue, 
 and half the first act only were written. 
 Elizabeth A. Sharp 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 FROM THE HUMAN INHERITANCE (1882) 
 
 PACE 
 
 First Words 
 
 3 
 
 Childhood's Inheritance 
 
 4 
 
 Young Love 
 
 14 
 
 Motherhood 
 
 16 
 
 The Redeemer 
 
 31 
 
 Lines to E. A. S. 
 
 33 
 
 SONNETS (1882-1886) 
 
 
 Spring Wind 
 
 A Midsummer Hour 
 
 37 
 38 
 
 Pain 
 
 39 
 
 Possibilities 
 
 40 
 
 To D. G. Rossetti. I. 
 
 41 
 
 To D. G. Rossetti. H. 
 
 42 
 
 FROM EARTH'S VOICES (1884) 
 
 
 Madonna Natura 
 
 45 
 
 During Music 
 Shadowed Souls 
 
 48 
 SO 
 
 Song 
 Sleep 
 Mater Dolorosa 
 
 53 
 
 54 
 55 
 
 The Song of the Thrush 
 The Song of Flowers 
 
 57 
 59 
 
 xi 
 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Song of the Cornfields 60 
 
 The Field Mouse 62 
 
 The West Wind 63 
 
 Hymn of the Forests 64 
 
 Song of the Deserts 66 
 
 A Record 6j 
 
 Moonrise from lona 79 
 
 Moonrise on the Venetian Lagoons 8 1 
 
 Moonrise on the Antarctic 82 
 
 TRANSCRIPTS FROM NATURE (iS 
 
 Wild Roses 
 
 87 
 
 The Ebbing Tide 
 
 87 
 
 Dawn amid Scotch Firs 
 
 88 
 
 A Dead Calm and Mist 
 
 88 
 
 Tangled Sunrays 
 
 89 
 
 Loch Coruisk (Skye) 
 
 89 
 
 Sunrise above broad Wheatfields 
 
 90 
 
 Phosphorescent Sea 
 
 90 
 
 A Green Wave 
 
 91 
 
 A Crystal Forest 
 
 91 
 
 The Wasp 
 
 92 
 
 An Autumnal Evening 
 
 92 
 
 A Winter Hedgerow 
 
 93 
 
 The Rookery at Sunrise 
 
 93 
 
 IMoonrise 
 
 94 
 
 Fireflies 
 
 94 
 
 The Crescent Moon 
 
 95 
 
 The Eagle 
 
 95 
 
 A Venetian Sunset 
 
 96 
 
 Empire 
 
 96 
 
 AUSTRALIAN SKETCHES 
 
 
 The Last Aboriginal 
 
 99 
 
 The Corobboree 
 
 102 
 
 Xll 
 
Contents 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 Justice 104 
 
 Noon-Silence 104 
 
 AUSTRALIAN TRANSCRIPTS 
 
 An Orange Grove 107 
 
 Black Swans on the Murray Lagoons 107 
 
 Breaking Billows at Sorrento 108 
 
 Shea-Oak Trees on a Stormy Day 108 
 
 Mid-Noon in January 109 
 
 In the Fern 109 
 
 Sunset amid the Buffalo Mountains 1 10 
 
 The Flying Mouse 1 10 
 
 The Bell-Bird 1 1 1 
 
 The Wood- Swallows 1 1 1 
 
 The Rock-Lily 1 1 2 
 
 The Flame-Tree 112 
 
 FROM ROMANTIC BALLADS (1888) 
 
 The Weird of IMichael Scott 1 1 5 
 
 The Twin-Soul 133 
 
 The Isle of Lost Dreams 135 
 
 The Death-Child 1 36 
 
 The Coves of Crail 138 
 
 FROM SOSPIRI DI ROMA (1891) 
 
 Prelude 
 
 141 
 
 Susurro 
 
 143 
 
 High Noon at Midsummer on the 
 
 
 Campagna 
 
 144 
 
 The Fountain of the Acqua Paola 
 
 146 
 
 Clouds 
 
 152 
 
 Red Poppies 
 
 154 
 
 xiii 
 
 
Contents 
 
 '*"The White Peacock 
 
 156 
 
 The Swimmer of Nemi 
 
 159 
 
 Al far della Notte 
 
 161 
 
 Thistledown 
 
 163 
 
 The Shepherd 
 
 166 
 
 The Mandolin 
 
 169 
 
 Bat-Wings 
 
 174 
 
 La Velia 
 
 175 
 
 Spuma dal Mare 
 
 177 
 
 The Bather 
 
 179 
 
 The Wild Mare 
 
 182 
 
 Scirocco 
 
 184 
 
 The Wind at Fidenae 
 
 187 
 
 Sorgendo da Luna 
 
 189 
 
 In July : Agro Romano 
 
 192 
 
 A Dream at Ardea 
 
 194 
 
 De Profundis 
 
 203 
 
 Ultimo Sospiro 
 
 205 
 
 Epilogue : 11 Bosco Sacro 
 
 207 
 
 POEMS (1889-1893) 
 
 
 Oceanus — I-IX 
 
 215 
 
 A Paris Nocturne 
 
 221 
 
 Robert Browning 
 
 224 
 
 The Man and the Centaur 
 
 231 
 
 Dionysos in India — A Fragment 
 
 233 
 
 Ballad of the Song of the Sea-Wind 
 
 241 
 
 SONNETS (1893) 
 
 
 Sonnet-Sequence — I-VIII 
 
 245 
 
 An Untold Story — I and II 
 
 253 
 
 The Veils of Silence 
 
 255 
 
 Written by the Sea 
 
 256 
 
 The Menace of Autumn 
 
 257 
 
 XIV 
 
Contents 
 
 Aftermath 
 
 PAGE 
 258 
 
 Flora in January 
 
 259 
 
 POEMS (1893-1905) 
 
 
 From Oversea 
 
 263 
 
 Song 
 
 264 
 
 The Sun Lord 
 
 265 
 
 The Summer Woman 
 
 266 
 
 Sycamores in Bloom 
 
 267 
 
 Spring's Advent 
 
 268 
 
 The Summer Wind 
 
 270 
 
 The Hill Water 
 
 271 
 
 Rainbow-Shimmer 
 
 274 
 
 The Yellowhammer's Song 
 
 276 
 
 The Song of the Sea- Wind 
 
 278 
 
 Spanish Roses 
 
 280 
 
 The Sea-bom Vine 
 
 282 
 
 Venilia 
 
 285 
 
 —On a Nightingale in April 
 
 286 
 
 The Dirge of the Republic 
 
 287 
 
 Into the Silence 
 
 290 
 
 The Hill-Road to Ardmore 
 
 291 
 
 ^^^lite Rose 
 
 292 
 
 Echoes of Joy 
 
 293 
 
 \Mien the Greenness is come again 
 
 294 
 
 It happened in May 
 
 295 
 
 Nightingale Lane 
 
 296 
 
 Blossom of Snow 
 
 297 
 
 The Dandelion 
 
 298 
 
 The Dream-Wind 
 
 300 
 
 Triad 
 
 301 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 302 
 
 PERSEPHONEIA (1903) 
 
 A Fragment 3^5 
 
 XV 
 
FROM 
 
 THE HUMAN 
 INHERITANCE 
 
 1882 
 
Praise he the fathomless universe 
 For life and joy . . . and love, 
 sweet love. 
 
FIRST WORDS 
 
 {To the one who has always first read everything 
 I have written.) 
 
 How can I tell thee, dear, what never words 
 Have fitly told ? How ope my heart to thee 
 Wherein thou mightst, as in a well, per- 
 ceive 
 Deep down but the mere shadow of my love ? 
 But as the wind sweeps from the icy north 
 To some lov'd isle in dim Pacific seas, 
 Or as the never-ceasing circling waves 
 Follow round earth the radiant orb of night, 
 So follow I with love unspeakable 
 The pathways fill'd with light which are thine 
 
 own. 
 O love, thou art the flame that burns for me, 
 My steady purpose ! That no dark can 
 
 quench ! 
 Holding thy hand I fear no more to watch 
 The shifting of the changeful lights of Fate. 
 
CHILDHOOD'S INHERITANCE 
 
 Beneath the blue vault of a summer sky, 
 Where little clouds with white wings strove 
 
 to fly 
 Far from the burning noon, leagues long 
 
 there lay 
 Wide heather moors that stretched till far 
 
 away 
 Northward faint hills arose, and southward 
 
 rolled 
 The ocean gleaming with sun-litten gold. 
 
 II 
 
 And 'mid a great swell of the purple waste 
 Close to the sea, a rock, which no hand 
 
 placed 
 Thus lonely and afar but which was hurled 
 A meteor from some ruin'd starry world. 
 Rose dark and frowning, with its hoar sides 
 
 scarred 
 By winter tempests and the tiercel}^ hard 
 
 4 
 
Childhood's Inheritance 
 
 Gripe of the death-frosts that from north- 
 land heights 
 Steal silent through grim Januar}- nights, 
 And traced with furrows by the many tears 
 Of rainy autumns thro' unnumber'd years. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The purple moorland waste alone stretched 
 
 wide 
 Beneath the sun — no thing was seen beside 
 To break the long still sweep that met the sky, 
 No mounds of rocks confusedly piled high, 
 No single tree with clear boughs limned in 
 
 black 
 Against the blue, no white and dusty track. 
 But only miles and miles and miles that swept 
 Purple to where the leagueless waters leapt. 
 The old rock stood forth like an ancient throne 
 Great tho' forgotten, where the winds alone 
 Paid homage, fair in the sunshme of the day, 
 Solemn by night with phosphorescent grey. 
 
 IV 
 
 Around, the honey-laden bees humm'd loud 
 With summer gladness ; in a mazy cloud 
 Whirling the grey gnats rose and wheeled 
 
 and spun 
 Swift golden notes within the golden sun ; 
 
 5 
 
Childhood's Inheritance 
 
 And bright with all their royal emblazonries 
 Flashed like swift darts of fire great dragon- 
 flies. 
 Away across the glowing moors there rang 
 The lapwing's wild complaint, and far off 
 
 sang 
 Hidden in blue a small rejoicing lark 
 Singing against some unseen yearn'd for 
 
 mark : 
 About the heath the 3'ellowhammer's cry 
 Piped sweet and clear, and often suddenly, 
 With joyous chirps and jerks, the stonechat 
 
 flew 
 From spray to spray, and, darting flame-like 
 
 through 
 The scented heather spires to where beneath 
 The ants had silent kingdoms in the heath. 
 The green-grey black-eyed lizard flashing shot 
 So swift the hawk on poised wings saw it not. 
 
 V 
 
 O'er all the deep skies arch'd a wondrous 
 
 space 
 Of ardent azure while the sun had place, 
 That changed to dark, deep depths when 
 
 twilight grey 
 Dreamt into night dark'ning to one vast 
 
 shade 
 
 6 
 
Childhood' s Inheritance 
 
 Of purple-black, when lamplike star by star 
 Sparkled or shone or pulsing flamed afar. 
 Silence, save for each blent and natural 
 
 sound 
 Of earth and air — ^where sea-caves made the 
 
 ground, 
 By tidal waves of ages undermined. 
 Groan as in travail — ^when the ti umpet wind 
 All uncheck'd blew — or swelled the incessant 
 
 cries 
 Of tossed waves in their breaking agonies. 
 
 VI 
 
 Upon the summit of the ancient stone 
 (Whose birth was in Time's youth), and all 
 
 alone. 
 Sat silent, tranced, and motionless a child, 
 Like some sweet flow'r chance nurtured in 
 
 the wild. 
 Sat watching seabirds, with his eager eyes 
 Full of the deep blue of the vaulted skies. 
 A child, for he indeed was little more ; 
 A child at heart, such as whom make the 
 
 door 
 Of heaven seem open'd here — ^to whom the 
 
 seas 
 Breaking in foam, and scattered spray-swept 
 
 trees 
 
 7 
 
Childhood' s Inheritance 
 
 With long arms wrestling, and the winds on 
 
 wings 
 Invisible were wondrous living things. 
 
 VII 
 
 A[^flower,[for his wind-kissed locks unshorn 
 Shone yellow as gold daffodils at morn ; 
 His eyes were blue as in the golden grain 
 Windflow'rs are blue, and soft as after rain 
 Violets that under dripping leaves have lain, 
 And tender as a dappled fawn's that yearn 
 For pity when the shrew-mice from the fern 
 Shake down the dew-drops; 'neath his sunlit 
 
 hair 
 As early morning, his sweet face was fair 
 Beneath the sun-brown — as a white bud rose 
 That flushes faintly while the June sun 
 
 glows. 
 And even as he gazed there deeper grew 
 Within his eyes a holier softer blue, 
 Where some thought brooded in their sacred 
 
 shade ; 
 It seemed almost as if some song were laid 
 Asleep upon his face that yet would find 
 Some perfect utterance for the echoing wind 
 To carry to the birds ; in reverie 
 Raptured he saw what these could never 
 
 see. 
 
Childhood's Inheritance 
 
 VIII 
 
 Oh blessed time, when all God's world is fair 
 And to the soul not foreign ! When the bare 
 Wide cruel wastes of death-encumber 'd sea 
 Seem as the voice of God that thunderingly 
 Beats round the recreant earth ; when 
 
 morning seems 
 The revelation of one's utmost dreams 
 Of beauty ; when the slow death of the day 
 Makes all the west one glorious crimson way 
 For happy souls that die ; and when the 
 
 moon, 
 Wheeling her radiant orb thro' the dark 
 
 noon 
 Of night, with conscious splendour makes the 
 
 seas 
 Unutterably solemn, and great trees 
 Lost in the shadow stand forth with huge 
 
 limbs 
 Ghostly and clear ; when bird-songs are all 
 
 hymns 
 Of joy and praise, and every wilding flower 
 Is known and loved ; and when each pent- 
 up hour 
 Seems worse than wasted to the eager 
 
 heart, 
 That fain would hear the thrush- wings strike 
 
 apart 
 
 9 
 
Childhood' s Inheritance 
 
 The beech leaves in short flight ere full and 
 
 clear 
 Burst the sweet tide of song, or watch the 
 
 deer 
 Stand with great eyes amid the fern, or 
 
 high 
 Hearken the cuckoo's music fill the sk3\ 
 
 IX 
 
 He seemed content just silentty to sit 
 
 And watch the breaking waves, the swallows 
 
 flit 
 Like arrows through the air, save when along 
 The summer wind swept bearing the sweet 
 
 song 
 Of happy larks, or the repeated cries 
 Of plovers when they caught the hawk's 
 
 keen eyes 
 Fixt on their young — and then he seem'd tobe 
 All sight and ear, as j^earning tearfully 
 To beat with spirit pinions that fine air 
 Where at the gates of heaven exceeding fair 
 The bird-songs rose and fell like silver tides, 
 Or else to be as that royal bird that prides 
 Itself on flinching not before the sun 
 But stares undaunted, so he might have spun 
 Downward with death upon the fierce pois'd 
 
 hawk, 
 
 10 
 
Childhood's Inheritance 
 
 Saving the moorland brood : not man or boy 
 Seem'd he so much as some incarnate joy 
 At one with all things fair, fiow'r o' the sod 
 And insect, to the Loveliness call'd God. 
 
 X 
 
 As a red rose that in full bloom doth spread 
 Her soft flushed bosom to the wind ere dead 
 'Mid fallen leaves her queenliness is gone, 
 So the fair westering day in glory shone 
 Heedless of coming night though night was 
 
 nigh. 
 The sunset burned afar ; the holy sk}' 
 Seem'd filled with heavenly forms mail'd in 
 
 clear gold, 
 Guiding their purple rafts through seas that 
 
 rolled 
 Immeasurably far off in crimson fire. 
 The sea lay tranced watching the da}' expire. 
 And tired waves rose and fell as though each 
 
 pray'r 
 Of rest long sought were granted. Every- 
 where 
 God's blessing brooded. And at last the day 
 With one long earthward smile, dissolved away. 
 Veiling her head in twilight robes where- 
 through 
 The palpitating stars shone faint and few. 
 II 
 
Childhood' s Inheritance 
 
 XI 
 
 From out the darkening vault where thej' 
 
 had hid 
 Through sweltering heats of noon, swiftly 
 
 there slid 
 Star after star, each swimming from the near 
 Dark blue of heaven, as from a windless mere 
 Rise in calm morning tMdlights white and 
 
 clear 
 Young lil}- buds that open golden eyes 
 Which joy makes wider when the day doth 
 
 rise. 
 
 XII 
 
 Far inland, vAih. an oft-repeated cry 
 
 The curlew wailed, and swelled mysteriously 
 
 Hoarse sounds from the dim sea. The bo37's 
 
 face grew 
 White in the dusky shade as swiftly flew 
 A great grey gull close by him, like a ghost 
 Haunting the desolate margins of the 
 
 coast : 
 Great moths came out, with myriad sharded 
 
 wings 
 Huge beetles droned, and other twilight 
 
 things 
 Hummed their dim lives away, and through 
 
 the air 
 
 12 
 
Childhood' s Inheritance 
 
 The flittermice wheeled whisthng : while the 
 
 glare 
 Of summer lightnings flashing furtively 
 Blazed for a moment o'er the sleeping sea. 
 
 XIII 
 
 At last, with a long sigh, he turn'd and sHd 
 
 From the old rock, and for a Httle hid 
 
 His face amongst the heather-spires that 
 
 shook 
 With cool sweet dews : then one last 
 
 lingering look 
 Across the twilight seas, whereo'er the moon 
 Within her crescent shallop would sail soon, 
 When with swift steps he turn'd and west- 
 ward fled 
 Across the moor by a little path that led. 
 Almost unseen save known, till suddenly, 
 Screened from the \ision of the neighbouring 
 
 sea 
 Low in a dip between two moorland mounds 
 A cottage lay ; whereto with rapid bounds 
 He sped, and, bearing with him odours of 
 
 salt foam, 
 Entered the little doorway of his home. 
 
 13 
 
YOUNG LOVE 
 
 On a flower in a forest, 
 
 A lily-bosom'd flower, 
 (Where never windy tempest 
 
 Came, nor ever any shower) — 
 A golden hour of birthtide, 
 
 (The sky was blue, so blue !) 
 Left me lying 'mid a songtide 
 
 Of birds of every hue. 
 
 Upon the white flower swaying 
 
 I laughed and sang in glee, 
 Till the thrushes long delaying 
 
 Sang back deliciously ; 
 And the dear white cloudlets sleeping 
 
 Up in the blue, blue sky, 
 Seem'd downy cherubs peeping 
 
 Between the pine boughs high. 
 
 A little wind came blowing 
 
 And sang a wild-wood song, 
 It whispered of the flowing 
 
 Of bubbling streams along ; 
 I laughed, and stood, and rising 
 
 Found I had two small wings — 
 So then I flew rejoicing 
 
 Toward the water-springs. 
 14 
 
Young Love 
 
 And ever 'mid my flying, 
 
 (A little cloud I seem'd !) 
 I heard a great deep sighing, 
 
 As earth in trouble dream'd ; 
 And when I reached the river 
 
 The sound more windlike blew : 
 The glad stream hsped " for ever, 
 
 But the sighing grew and grevv^. 
 
 And as I laughed and wonder'd 
 
 Among the flowers and grass. 
 All suddenly it thunder'd, 
 
 The sunlight seem'd to pass : 
 A great wind took and blew me 
 
 Across a grey wet sand, 
 And tho' I wept it threw me 
 
 Far from the joyous land. 
 
 And now the salt waves leaping 
 
 Pursue with hungry springs, 
 And baffled, blind, and weeping, 
 
 I beat my draggled wings : 
 This was the great deep sighing 
 
 I heard when I was 3'oung — 
 And now, wind-weary, d\ang, 
 
 My last sob-note is sung ! 
 
 15 
 
MOTHERHOOD 
 
 Beneath the awful fuU-orb'd moon 
 The silent tracts of wild-rice lay 
 
 Dumb since the fervid heat of noon 
 Beat through the burning Indian day ; 
 
 And still as some far tropic sea 
 
 Where no winds murmur, no waves be. 
 
 The bending seeded tops alone 
 Swaj^ed in the sleepy sultry wind. 
 
 Which came and went with frequent moan 
 As though some dj'ing place to find ; 
 
 While at sharp intervals there rang 
 
 The fierce cicala's piercing clang. 
 
 Deep 'mid the rice-field's green-hued gloom 
 A tigress lay with birth-throes ta'en ; 
 
 Her serpent tail swept o'er her womb 
 As if to sweep away the pain 
 
 That clutched her by the gold-barred thighs 
 
 And shook her throat with snarling cries. 
 
 Her white teeth tore the wild-rice stems ; 
 
 And as she moaned her green eyes grew 
 Lurid like shining baleful gems 
 
 With fires volcanic lighten'd through, 
 i6 
 
Motherhood 
 
 While froth fell from her churning jaws 
 Upon her skin-drawn gleaming claws. 
 
 As in a dream at some strange sound 
 The soul doth seem to freeze, so she 
 
 Lay fixed like marble on the ground, 
 Changed in a moment : suddenly, 
 
 A far-off roar of savage might 
 
 Boomed through the silent sultry night. 
 
 Her eyes grew large and flamed with fire ; 
 
 Her body seem'd to feel the sound 
 And thrill therewith, as thrills a lyre 
 
 When wild wind wakes it with a bound 
 And sweeps its string-clasp'd soul along 
 In waves of melancholy song. 
 
 Her answering howl swept back again 
 And eddied to her far mate's ear ; 
 
 Then once again the travail-pain 
 Beat at the heart that knew no fear, 
 
 But some new instinct seem'd to rise 
 
 And yearn and wonder in her eyes. 
 
 Did presage of the coming birth 
 Light up her life with mother-love, 
 
 As winds along the morning earth 
 Whisper of golden dawn above ? 
 
 Or was it but some sweet wild thought 
 
 Remember'd vaguely ere forgot ? 
 I 17 » 
 
Motherhood 
 
 Some sweet wild thought of that still night 
 When underneath the low-lying moon, 
 
 Vast, awful, in its splendour white, 
 Two tigers fought for love's last boon : 
 
 Two striped and fire-eyed terrors strove 
 
 Through blood and foam to reach her love. 
 
 Of how their fight so deathly still 
 Fill'd all her heart with savage glee ; 
 
 The lust to love, to slay, to kill, — 
 The fierce desire with him to be 
 
 Whose fangs all bloody from the fray 
 
 Should turn triumphantly away : 
 
 Of how at last with one wild cry 
 
 One gript the other's throat and breath, 
 
 And, with hell gleaming thro' each e3^e, 
 Shook the wild life to loveless death ; 
 
 Then stood with waving tail and ire 
 
 Triumphant changed to swift desire ? 
 
 But once again the bitter strife 
 
 Of wrestling sinews shook her there ; 
 
 And soon a little mewling life 
 
 Met her bewilder'd yearning stare, 
 
 Till, through her pain, the tigress strove 
 
 With licking tongue her love to prove. 
 
 No longer fearless flamed the light 
 
 Of great green eyes straight thro' the 
 gloom, 
 
 i8 
 
Motherhood 
 
 Each nerve seem'd laden with affright, 
 
 The eyes expectant of some doom ; 
 The very moonUght's steady glare 
 Beat hungrily about her lair. 
 
 A beetle rose, and hummed, and hung 
 A moment ere it fled — but great 
 In face of peril to her young 
 
 The tigress rose supreme in hate 
 And, with tail switching and lips drawn, 
 The unreal foe scowled out upon. 
 
 And when a mighty cobra, coiled 
 Amid the tangled grass-roots near, 
 
 Hissed out his hunger, her blood boiled 
 With rage that left no room for fear. 
 
 Till, with a howl that shook the dark, 
 
 She sprang and left him cold and stark. 
 
 But when a feeble hungry wail 
 Smote on her yearning ears she turn'd 
 
 With velvet paws and refluent tail 
 
 And eyes that no more flashed and burn'd 
 
 But flamed throughout the solemn night 
 
 Like lamps of soft sweet yellow light 
 
 To where her young was ; where she lay 
 Silent, and full of some strange love 
 
 Long hours. Along the star-strewn way 
 A comet flashed and flamed above, 
 19 
 
Motherhood 
 
 And where great wastes of solemn blue 
 Spread starless sailed the vast moon through, 
 
 No sound disturb'd the tigress, save 
 Stray jackals, or some wild boar's pant 
 
 Where thickest did the tall rice wave, 
 Or trump of distant elephant ; 
 
 Or, when these fill'd the night no more, 
 
 The tiger's deep tremendous roar. 
 
 II 
 
 Vast, solitary, gloomful, dark. 
 
 Primeval forests swept away 
 To where the gum and stringy bark 
 
 Against great granite mountains lay ; 
 And through their depths the twilight stole 
 And dusk'd still deeper each dark bole. 
 
 Deep in their pathless tracks there reared 
 A huge white gum, whose giant height 
 
 When winds infrequent blew appeared 
 To brush the stars out from the night : 
 
 A mighty column, straight and vast, 
 
 Solemn with immemorial past : 
 
 And at its base upon a bed 
 
 Of fern-tree leaves strewn o'er the ground 
 A woman lay as though lying dead — 
 
 Dark, rigid still, without one sound : 
 Her fixed eyes lifted not, nor saw 
 The great stars tremble in strange awe. 
 
 20 
 
Motherhood 
 
 Crouch'd near upon the tufted grass 
 Two wither'd, long-haired women bent 
 
 Two dusky bodies. No sign was 
 Made ever them between, nor went 
 
 From swift, slant, startled eyes a glance 
 
 To break the spell of their deep trance. 
 
 They crouch'd with heads bent down 
 between 
 Thin, black uprisen knees ; their hair 
 Hid their dark faces like a screen. 
 
 And, scored with thorns, their feet lay 
 bare : 
 Hour after hour had watched them so. 
 Three shadows fixt in sphinx-like woe. 
 
 At times some wandering parrot's voice 
 Clanged through the dusk ; from dead 
 trees nigh 
 
 A locust whirred its deafening noise 
 
 And shrilled th' opossum's frequent cry : 
 
 And hour by hour some slim snake stole 
 
 Hissing from fallen rotting bole. 
 
 At last, above the farthest range 
 
 The full vast moon sail'd o'er the trees : 
 
 The dead-like woman felt some change 
 Thrill thro' her body ; from her knees 
 
 Each shadow- watcher raised her head, 
 
 And stared with eyes of moveless dread. 
 
 21 
 
Motherhood 
 
 Beyond — within the ghastly shade 
 
 Of time-forgotten-gums aglow 
 With phosphorescent light that made 
 
 Each trunk burn taper-like — ^bent low, 
 A savage, bearded and long-haired. 
 Wild-eyed across the pale gloom stared : 
 
 And when his shifting, restless eyes 
 
 Caught the drawn woman's birthtime 
 pang, 
 
 He shrilled a wild yell to the skies 
 And high with tossing arms upsprang 
 
 Beating with eager blows a drum 
 
 And shivering with some terror dumb : 
 
 The list'ning women once again 
 
 Shudder'd and grew more chill \\ith 
 fear — 
 Not at the harsh drum's maddening strain 
 • But at the spirits that were near, 
 The awful souls of hated dead 
 That creep round each wild travail-bed ; 
 
 The white-eyed sheeted things that steal 
 Down dusky ways, and lie in wait 
 
 And from the shade their death-darts wheel 
 And wreak unseen their deathless hate : 
 
 For these the fierce drum clanged and beat 
 
 The summons of a swift retreat, 
 
 22 
 
Motherhood 
 
 What strange thoughts wander'd thro' the 
 mind 
 
 Of her who writhed in travail sore ? 
 As, bearing scents and sounds, a wind 
 
 Blows pregnant from some distant shore, 
 So may have blown some wind of thought 
 Memorioas from a past forgot. 
 
 Drifting across her yearning eyes 
 Stray visions of lost happy days. 
 
 And filling with strange vague surprise 
 The dreary sameness of her gaze — 
 
 Dim, sweet memorial hours long lost, 
 
 Scorched by long suns, numbed by long frost. 
 
 But soon the wafted breaths that blew 
 From off the deep drown'd past were 
 blown 
 
 Aside before some sharp wind new 
 Of sudden agony. A moan 
 
 Shook on her lips, and from her womb 
 
 A new life crept to outer gloom. 
 
 The watching women rose and went 
 With deft hands unto her : the man 
 
 Hush'd his tempestuous instrument. 
 And with fleet silent footsteps ran 
 
 To where, asleep in moonlight, lay 
 
 Some huts rough built from branches stray : 
 
Motherhood 
 
 And soon thereafter, in the light 
 Of the full moon, the tribe stole out 
 
 And fill'd with cries the startled night — 
 Till, with claspt hands and one wild shout, 
 
 They circled round the riven frame 
 
 Of her whose blank eyes knew no shame. 
 
 But as some feeble strength came back 
 She stretched out thin and claw-like hands, 
 
 With eyes as one who on a rack 
 Yearns for mercy, or on strange lands 
 
 Lifts outspread arms towards his own — 
 
 So yearn'd she, with a mother's moan. 
 
 Within her famish'd eyes no more 
 The hunger of the body burned, 
 
 But on the fruit her womb long bore 
 Their light unspeakable was turned : 
 
 And all the hunger of her love 
 
 Lighten'd the child's eyes from above. 
 
 Vast, solitary, gloomful, dark. 
 
 Primeval forests swept away 
 To where the gum and stringy bark 
 
 Against the granite mountains lay : 
 Till, as the great moon grew more wan, 
 Stirred the first heart-beats of the dawn. 
 
 And o'er the pathless tracks where reared 
 The huge white gum, whose boughs had 
 seen 
 
 24 
 
Motherhood 
 
 The woman's birth-throes, hght appeared 
 
 And ht its leaves with golden green, 
 And shone upon the straight trunk vast. 
 Solemn with immemorial past. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Faint scent of lilies filled the room, 
 Hush'd in sweet silence and asleep 
 
 Within the dim delicious gloom : 
 No windy lamp-flame strove to leap 
 
 Amidst the moveless shade, but faint 
 
 A soft light burned from censer quaint. 
 
 And dimly through the gloom loomed large 
 A carven bed that seem'd to sail 
 
 Like ghost of some great funeral barge 
 'Mid shadow-seas no men might hail — 
 
 Till from its depths suffused with night 
 
 The wan sheets dreamed to gleaming white. 
 
 And lo, half-hid, like some white flow'r 
 Breasting the driven snow, there lay 
 
 Expectant of the awful hour 
 A waiting girl, who, far away 
 
 Beyond where vision reacheth, gazed 
 
 With eyes by some strange glory dazed. 
 25 
 
Motherhood 
 
 Like two strange dreams they were, wherein 
 Played subtle lights of other life, 
 
 Deep depths, scarce cognisant of sin, 
 Serene, beyond all clamorous strife — 
 
 Two seas unsoundable as night 
 
 Yet lit to utmost depths with light. 
 
 Silent she lay, as one who low 
 In some dim vast deserted nave 
 
 Bends rapt in mingled love and woe 
 While the wild, passionate, sweeping wave 
 
 Of organ music sweeps and rolls — 
 
 The burden of all suffering souls. 
 
 Silent she lay, for as a palm 
 
 Within a thirsty desert feels 
 A low wind break the deathly calm 
 
 And drinks each rain-drop as it steals 
 Between its dry parch'd leaves, so she 
 Felt God's breath fill her fitfully. 
 
 The soft low wind of life divine 
 
 Entered the darkened womb, and there 
 
 It cleft the mystic bands that twine 
 The folded bud of childhood fair, 
 
 Which, as an open'd lily, fell 
 
 From death to life's strange miracle. 
 26 
 
Motherhood 
 
 O perfect bud of human flow'r 
 
 Immaculately sweet and pure, 
 Shall God's first influence in this hour 
 
 Through all thy coming life endure, 
 And thou expand to perfect bloom 
 Untouched by crash of neighbouring doom ? 
 
 Or, O sweet perfect human bud, 
 
 Shall rains thee dash, and wild winds sweep 
 Thy fair head to the mire and mud, 
 
 And, with praying hands, thy mother weep 
 Such tears of anguish as no pain 
 Shall ever wring from her again ? 
 
 Soft, soft, the wind of life doth breathe : — 
 Some angel surely fans the while 
 
 The faint new-litten spark beneath. 
 And prayeth with a piteous smile 
 
 That it may live, and living be 
 
 A victor 'midst humanity. 
 
 Silent she lay who soon should give 
 This life to life : her secret thought 
 
 Strove 'mid the happy past to live 
 Again that day she ne'er forgot, 
 
 That day when her young love took wing 
 
 From maidenhood's sweet-scented spring : 
 27 
 
Motherhood 
 
 When hand in hand she trod the ways 
 Flow'r-strewn with him, and felt his eyes 
 
 Turn'd full on her with such deep gaze 
 Of love triumphant, that the skies 
 
 Seem'd but a hollow dome where rang 
 
 Sweet tumult, as though angels sang : 
 
 How the hush'd drowsy afternoon 
 Slipt through the summertide, till low 
 
 In the dark tranquil east the moon 
 Rose vast and yellow, and more slow 
 
 The flaming star that lights the west 
 
 Lulled the sea-waters to their rest : 
 
 How in the bridal chamber shone 
 No other than the full-moon's light, 
 
 And how between the dusk and dawn 
 A wind of passion fiU'd the night 
 
 And bore resistless soul with soul 
 
 On to love's utmost crowning goal. 
 
 Silent she was, but as her mind 
 
 Made real once more that perfect day 
 
 Her body trembled, as a wind 
 
 Had blown upon her where she lay, 
 
 And in her eyes serene and deep 
 
 Joys unforgotten woke from sleep. 
 
 28 
 
Motherhood 
 
 As on a mighty midnight sea 
 
 Wind-swept, and ht by a white glare 
 
 Where intermittent hghtnings flee 
 And deafened by the thunderous air 
 
 Spht up with tumult, one great wave 
 
 Doth rise and scorn an ocean-grave, 
 
 And, gathering volume as it rolls, 
 Doth sweep triumphant till at last 
 
 It thunders up the sounding shoals 
 Of stricken promontory aghast. 
 
 And leaves its crown of foam where high 
 
 The cliffs stare seaward steadily : 
 
 So from love's throbbing pulsing sea 
 All hghtning-lit by passion, reared 
 
 A mighty wave resistlessly 
 
 Of mother-love, which as it neared 
 
 Fulfilment broke in one glad cry 
 
 Of sweet half-wond'ring ecstasy. 
 
 Hush ! the great sea is still, and low 
 The night -wind wanders ; hush, for calm 
 
 The mother waits the body's woe. 
 Silent she lay ; mayhap a psalm 
 
 Of sacred joy sang deep within 
 
 The maiden heart unstained by sin. 
 29 
 
Motherhood 
 
 Mayhap the inward vision saw 
 The unborn soul arise and stand 
 
 Great in a people's love and awe, 
 
 Crown'd not with gold by human hand 
 
 But sacred with the bays that wait 
 
 The victor in the strife of Fate : 
 
 And deeper still, beheld afar 
 The billows of the ages sweep 
 
 A mightier soul from star to star — 
 So ever upwards through the steep 
 
 Dim ways of God's unfathom'd will 
 
 But aye by fuller periods still. 
 
 So shall it be for ever : evermore 
 
 The mystic wheel of mother-love shall whirl 
 
 Around the world, and link these three again. 
 
 30 
 
THE REDEEMER 
 
 I know that my Redeemer liveth — but out 
 
 of the depths of time 
 He hath not called to me yet. But from th' 
 
 immeasurable tracts 
 That widen unending to where beginneth 
 
 eternity 
 Falleth at times a voice, heart -thrilling, 
 
 soul-piercing, life-giving ; 
 High sometimes and clear, as a lark singing 
 
 in a holy dawn, 
 Hush'd and afar off again as a dreaming 
 
 wave upon seas 
 Lit by a low vast moon, and windlessly 
 
 sleeping, but ever 
 Sweet with a human love, and full of 
 
 ineffable yearning, 
 And crying of soul unto soul from infinite 
 
 deep unto deep. 
 And sometimes I look and gaze out upon 
 
 uttermost darkness 
 And hear the wail of desolate winds moaning 
 
 around the world — 
 31 
 
The Redeemer 
 
 Till the darkness shivers to light, and 
 clashing thro' earth and heaven 
 
 I hear great wings make music, and mar- 
 vellous thunderous songs 
 
 Shout " Thy Redeemer liveth, O human 
 soul, and crieth for thee I " 
 
 32 
 
LINES TO E. A. S. 
 
 Fair in my sight as white lihes that shine in 
 
 the sunrise : 
 Sweeter than flow'rs in the meadows that 
 
 scent the mornings of spring : 
 Dearer than vision of truth, for thou art the 
 
 truth revealed, 
 Dearer than faith, for thou art the crown 
 
 of aspiration, 
 Dearer than hope, for of hope thou art the 
 
 fulfilment ! 
 O love, love, love, thou hast turned the 
 
 darkness of the world 
 Into ineffable light, and all its intricate 
 
 ways 
 To straight, clear paths that lead from the 
 
 depths to the heavens. 
 The flower of my soul sways high in the wind 
 
 of thy love, 
 Glowing with passionate fervour through 
 
 fulness of joy ; 
 Soul with soul are we wedded, beyond the 
 
 decay of the body, 
 I 33 c 
 
Lines to E. A. 5. 
 
 And spirit hath spirit touched, beyond the 
 
 confines of flesh : 
 Desire with mighty wings hath swept the 
 
 chords of our being, 
 And flesh and spirit are one in the mystic 
 
 union of love ! 
 
 34 
 
SONNETS 
 
 1882-1886 
 
SPRING WIND 
 
 O full-voiced herald of immaculate Spring, 
 With clarion gladness striking every tree 
 To answering raptures, as a resonant sea 
 Fills rock-bound shores with thunders echo- 
 ing— 
 O thou, each beat of whose tempestuous 
 wing 
 Shakes the long winter-sleep from hill and 
 
 lea, 
 And rouses with loud reckless jubilant glee 
 The birds that have not dared as yet to 
 sing: 
 
 O Wind that comest with prophetic cries. 
 Hast thou indeed beheld the face that is 
 The joy of poets and the glory of birds — 
 Spring's face itself : hast thou 'neath bluer 
 skies 
 Met the warm lips that are the gates of 
 
 bliss. 
 And heard June's leaf-like murmur of 
 sweet words ? 
 
 37 
 
A MIDSUMMER HOUR 
 
 There comes not through the o'erarching 
 cloud of green 
 A harsh, an envious sound to jar the ear : 
 But vaguely swells a hum, now far, now 
 near. 
 Where the wild honey-bee beyond the 
 
 screen 
 Of beech-leaves haunts the field of flowering 
 bean. 
 Far, far away the low voice of the weir 
 Dies into silence. Hush'd now is the clear 
 Sweet song down-circling from the lark 
 unseen. 
 
 Beyond me, where I lie, the shrew-mice run 
 A-patter where of late the streamlet's tones 
 Made music : on a branch a drowsy bird 
 Sways by the webs that midst dry pools are 
 spun — 
 Yet lives the streamlet still, for o'er flat 
 stones 
 The slow lapse of the gradual wave is 
 heard. 
 
 38 
 
PAIN 
 
 I am God's eldest : — I and Love are twin ; 
 We look for ever in the other's face ; 
 Together our flight wings throughout all 
 space — 
 Sun, Star, Man, God, alike we dwell therein ; 
 Some far-off goal together strive to win. 
 But here on earth I leave the mightier 
 
 trace. 
 Clasp hands more close with all the 
 human race. 
 And weave the shadow- webs of joy and sin. 
 
 And most I dwell in the clear skies at dawn, 
 In marvellous eves when all the stars are 
 bright, 
 In music ere the sweetest chord is gone, 
 In woman's beauty still unsoiled and 
 white. 
 In children's slumber in the morning wan. 
 And lovers' vows and yearnings in tlie 
 night. 
 
 39 
 
POSSIBILITIES 
 
 As day doth live beyond the sunset skies 
 So life may wait us at the silent grave : 
 Not windless is the sea because there rave 
 Not alwa3"s the great storm-wind's har- 
 monies. 
 There may be light too strong for earthly 
 eyes ; 
 There maj' be hands to succour and to 
 
 save 
 From Death's indifferent o'erwhelming 
 wave ; 
 Nay, Death may lift to some divine sur- 
 prise ! 
 
 There may be music beyond instruments, 
 And Spring for ev'r}' frost-nipt shapeless 
 clod, 
 There may be mightier love sacraments 
 
 Than e'er were seen on consecrated sod ; 
 A man there may be with Christ's linea- 
 ments 
 And 'mid the wheels of Fate a living God. 
 
 40 
 
TO D. G. ROSSETTI 
 
 From out the darkness cometh never a sound : 
 No voice doth reach us from the silent 
 
 place : 
 There is one goal beyond life's blindfold 
 race, 
 For victor and for victim — burial-ground. 
 O friend, revered, belov'd, mayst thou have 
 found 
 Beyond the shadowy gates a yearning face, 
 A beckoning hand to guide thee with 
 swift pace 
 From the dull wave Lethean gliding round, 
 
 Hope dwelt with thee, not Fear ; Faith, 
 not Despair : 
 But little heed thou hadst of the grave's 
 gloom. 
 What though thy body lies so deeply there 
 Where the land throbs with tidal surge 
 and boom, 
 Thy soul doth breathe some Paradisal air 
 And Rest long sought thou hast where 
 amaranths bloom. 
 
 41 
 
TO D, G. ROSSETTI 
 
 II 
 
 Yet even if Death indeed with pitiful sign 
 Bade us drink deep of some obhvious 
 
 draught, 
 Is it not well to know, ere we have 
 quaffed 
 The soul-deceiving poppied anodyne, 
 That not in vain erewhile we drink the 
 wine 
 Of life — that not all blankly or in craft 
 Of evil went the days wherein we laughed 
 And joyed i' the sun unknowing aught 
 divine ? 
 
 Not so thy doom, whatever fate betide : 
 Not so for thee, O poet-heart and true, 
 Who fearless watched, as evermore it 
 grew. 
 The shadow of Death creep closer to thy 
 side. 
 A glory with thy ebbing life withdrew 
 And we inherit now its deathless Pride. 
 42 
 
FROM 
 
 EARTH'S VO'lCES 
 
 1884 
 
MADONNA NATURA 
 
 I love and worship thee in that thy ways 
 Are fair, and that the glory of past days 
 
 Haloes thy brightness with a sacred hue. 
 Within thine eyes are dreams of mystic 
 
 things, 
 Within thy voice a subtler music rings 
 Than ever mortal from the keen reeds 
 
 drew ; 
 Thou weav'st a web which men have called 
 
 Death 
 But Life is in the magic of thy breath. 
 
 The secret things of Earth thou knowest 
 
 well ; 
 Thou seest the wild bee build his narrow cell. 
 The lonely eagle wing through lonely skies, 
 The lion on the desert roam afar, 
 The glow-worm ghtter hke a fallen star, 
 
 The hour-lived insect as it hums and flies ; 
 Thou seest men like shadows come and go. 
 And all their endless dreams drift to and 
 fro. 
 
 45 
 
Madonna Natura 
 
 In thee is strength, endurance, wisdom, 
 
 truth : 
 Thou art above all mortal joy and ruth, 
 Thou hast the calm and silence of the 
 
 night : 
 Mayhap thou seest what we cannot see, 
 Surely far off thou hear'st harmoniously 
 
 Echoes of flawless music infinite. 
 Mayhap thou feelest thrilling through each 
 
 sod 
 Beneath thy feet the very breath of God. 
 
 Monna Natura, fair and grand and great, 
 I worship thee, who art inviolate : 
 
 Through thee I reach to things beyond 
 this span 
 Of mine own puny life, through thee I learn 
 Courage and hope, and dimly can discern 
 
 The ever noble grades awaiting man : 
 Madonna, unto thee I bend and pray — 
 Saviour, Redeemer thou, whom none can 
 slay ! 
 
 No human fanes are dedicate to thee, 
 But thine the temples of each tameless sea. 
 Each mountain-height and forest-glade 
 and plain : 
 No priests with daily hymns thy praises 
 sing, 
 
 46 
 
Madonna Natura 
 
 But far and wide the wild winds chanting 
 
 sNving, 
 And dirge the sea-waves on the changeless 
 
 main, 
 While songs of birds till all the fields and 
 
 woods. 
 And cries of beasts the savage solitudes. 
 
 Hearken, Madonna, hearken to my cry ; 
 Teach me through metaphors of liberty, 
 Till strong and fearing nought in life or 
 
 death 
 I feel thy sacred freedom through me thrill, 
 Wise, and defiant, with unquenched will 
 Unyielding, though succumb the mortal 
 
 breath — 
 Then if I conquer, take me by the hand 
 And guide me onward to thy Promised 
 
 Land ! 
 
 47 
 
DURING MUSIC 
 
 tears that well up to my eyes, 
 
 And vague thoughts wandering thro' my 
 
 brain, 
 Whence come ye ? From what alien skies, 
 From what dim sorrow, what strange 
 
 pain ? 
 
 1 hear old memories astir 
 
 In dusky twilights of the past : 
 
 voices telling me of her. 
 
 My soul, whom now I know at last : 
 
 1 know her not by any name. 
 
 But she with hope or fear is pale ; 
 I see her ere this body came 
 
 From mortal womb with mortal wail. 
 
 Later and later through long years. 
 Through generations of dead men, 
 
 I see her in her mist of tears, 
 I see her in her shroud of pain. 
 
 I see her whom the aeons have raised 
 From one dim birth to endless life ; 
 
 I see her strive, regain, re-fail 
 Forever in the endless strife. 
 48 
 
During Music 
 
 1 see her, soul of man, and soul 
 Of woman, and in many lands : 
 
 Her eyes are fixt on some far goal 
 
 But she hath neither thrall nor bands. 
 
 On one da}' yet to come I see 
 
 This body pale and cold and dead : 
 
 The spirit once again made free 
 Hovers triumphant overhead. 
 
 Again, again, O endless day, 
 I see her in new forms pace on, 
 
 And ever with her on the wa}' 
 Fair kindred souls in unison. 
 
 O wandering thoughts within my brain, 
 
 O voices speaking low to me, 
 O music sweet with stingless pain, 
 
 Bring clear the vision that I see ! 
 
 O ecstasy of sound, O pain ! 
 
 Too sad my heart, too sad the tears 
 It bringeth to my eyes again. 
 
 Too strange the hopes, too strange the 
 fears. 
 
 49 
 
SHADOWED SOULS 
 
 It the soul withdraweth from the body, what profit 
 thereafter hath a man of all the days of his life ? 
 
 She died indeed, but to him her breath 
 Was more than a hght blown out by death : 
 He knew that they breathed the self-same 
 
 air, 
 That not midst the dead was her pale face 
 
 fair 
 But that she waited for him somewhere. 
 
 To some dead city, or ancient town, 
 Where the mould'ring towers were crumbling 
 
 down, 
 Or in some old mansion habited 
 By dust and silence and things long dead. 
 He knew the Shadows of Souls were led. 
 
 For years he wandered a weary way, 
 His eyes shone sadder, his hair grew grey : 
 But still he knew that she lived for whom 
 No grave lay waiting, no white carv'd tomb. 
 No earthly silence, no voiceless gloom. 
 50 
 
Shadowed Souls 
 
 But once in a bitter year he came 
 
 To an old dying town with a long dead 
 
 name : 
 That eve, as he walked thro' the dusty ways 
 And the echoes woke in the empty place, 
 He came on a Shadow face to face. 
 
 It looked, but uttered no word at all 
 Then beckoned him into an old dim hall : 
 And lo, as soon as he passed between 
 The pillars with age and damp mould green 
 His eyes were dazed by a strange wild 
 scene. 
 
 A thousand lamps fill'd the place with light, 
 And fountains glimmered faerily bright ; 
 But never a single sound was heard, 
 The dreadful silence was never stirred, 
 Not even the breath of a single word 
 
 Came from the shado\vy multitude. 
 
 More dense than leaves in a summer wood. 
 
 Than the sands where the swift tides ebb 
 
 and flow ; 
 But ever the Shades moved to and fro 
 As windless waves on the sea will go. 
 
 Then he who had come to the Shadow-land 
 Swift strode by many a group and band ; 
 51 
 
Shadowed Souls 
 
 But never a glimpse he caught of her, 
 
 In fleeting shadow or loiterer, 
 
 For whom the earth held no sepulchre. 
 
 He knew that she was not dead whom he 
 
 So loved with bitterest memory, 
 
 To whom through anguish' d years he had 
 
 prayed ; 
 Yet came she never, no sign was made, 
 No touch on his haggard frame was laid. 
 
 At last to an empty room he came, 
 And there he saw in letters of flame : 
 " This is a palace no king controls, 
 A place unwritten in human scrolls, — • 
 This is the Haunt of Shadowed Souls : 
 
 " If thy Shadow-soul be here no more, 
 Seek thine old life's deserted shore : 
 And there, mayhap, thou wilt find again, 
 Recovered now through sorrow and pain, 
 The Soul thou didst thy most to have slain." 
 
 5^ 
 
SONG 
 
 " To suffer grief is to be strong, 
 
 And to be strong is beautiful and rare ' ' — 
 'Twas in thy court, O Love, I learned it 
 there, 
 This sad sweet song ! 
 
 No one man dwells thy ways among, 
 
 Wlio shall not learn thy thousand ways 
 
 of grief 
 Or how wild fears succeed each poor 
 relief 
 In dark'ning throng : 
 
 There too a man may learn to put away 
 The crowned summit of his heart's 
 
 desire ; 
 But O, the bitter burning of love's fire — 
 Its bitterer ashes grey ! 
 
 53 
 
SLEEP 
 
 While sways the restless sea 
 
 Beyond the shore, 
 And the waves sing listlessly 
 
 Their secret lore, 
 And the soft fragrant air 
 
 From off the deep 
 Scarce stirs thine outspread hair,- 
 Sleep ! 
 
 Far up in purple skies 
 
 Great lamps hang out, 
 White flames that fall and rise 
 
 In motley rout ; 
 While fall their silvern rays 
 
 O'er crag and steep, 
 Woodlands and meadow-ways, — 
 Sleep ! 
 
 While the moon's amber gleams 
 
 Gild rock and flow'r, 
 Let no untimely dreams 
 
 Possess the hour : 
 Let no vague fears the heart 
 
 'Mid slumber keep, 
 In dreams love hath no smart, — 
 Sleep ! 
 54 
 
MATER DOLOROSA 
 
 She, brooding ever, dwells amidst the hills ; 
 Her kingdom is call'd Solitude ; her 
 
 name — 
 More terrible than desolating flame — 
 Is Silence ; and her soul is Pain. 
 Day after day some weightier sorrow fills 
 Her heart, and each new hour she knows 
 The birth of further woes. 
 And whoso, journeying, goes 
 Unto the land wherein she dwells for aye 
 Shall not come thence until have passed 
 away 
 For evermore the bright joy of his years. 
 She giveth rest, but giveth it with tears, 
 Tears that more bitter be 
 Than drops of the Dead Sea : 
 But never gives she peace to any soul 
 
 For how could she that rarest gift bestow 
 Who well doth know 
 That though in dreams she can attain the 
 goal. 
 In dreams alone her steps can thither 
 go:— 
 
 55 
 
Mater Dolorosa 
 
 Solitude, Silence, Pain, for all who live 
 Within the twilit realms that are her own. 
 And even Rest to those who seek her 
 throne. 
 But these her gifts alone : 
 Peace hath she not and therefore cannot 
 give. 
 
 56 
 
THE SONG OF THE THRUSH 
 
 When the beech-trees are green in the 
 woodlands, 
 And the thorns are whitened with may, 
 And the meadow-sweet blows and the 
 yellow gorse blooms 
 I sit on a wind- waved spray, 
 x\nd I sing through the livelong day 
 From the golden dawn till the sunset 
 comes and the shadows of gloaming 
 grey. 
 
 And I sing of the joy of the woodlands, 
 
 And the fragrance of wild-wood flowers. 
 And the song of the trees and the hum of 
 the bees 
 In the honeysuckle bowers, 
 And the rustle of showers 
 And the voice of the west wind calling as 
 through glades and green branches he 
 scours. 
 
 When the sunset glows over the woodlands 
 More sweet rings my lyrical cry, 
 57 
 
The Song of the Thrush 
 
 With the pain of my yearning to be 'mid 
 the burning 
 And beautiful colours that lie 
 'Midst the gold of the sun-down sky, 
 Where over the purple and crimson and 
 amber the rose-pink cloud-curls fly. 
 
 Sweet, sweet swells my voice thro' the 
 woodlands, 
 Repetitive, marvellous, rare : 
 And the song-birds cease singing as my 
 music goes ringing 
 And eddying echoing there, 
 Now wild and now debonair, 
 Now fill'd with a tumult of passion that 
 throbs like a pulse in the hush'd warm 
 air ! 
 
 58 
 
THE SONG OF FLOWERS 
 
 What is a bird but a living flower ? 
 A flower but the soul of some dead bird ? 
 And what is a weed but the dying breath 
 Of a perjured word ? 
 
 A flower is the soul of a singing-bird, 
 
 Its scent is the breath of an old-time song : 
 
 But a weed and a thorn spring forth each 
 
 day 
 For a new-done wrong. 
 
 Dead souls of song-birds, thro' the green 
 
 grass, 
 Or deep in the midst of the golden grain, 
 In woodland valley, where hill-streams pass. 
 We flourish again. 
 
 We flowers are the joy of the whole wide 
 
 earth, 
 Sweet nature's laughter and secret tears — 
 Whoso hearkens a bird in its spring-time 
 
 mirth 
 The song of a flow'r-soul hears ! 
 59 
 
SONG OF THE CORNFIELDS 
 
 For miles along the sunlit lands 
 We sway in waves of gold, 
 A yellow sea that past the strands 
 Has inland rolled. 
 
 The sweet dews feed us thro' the night, 
 The soft winds blow around ; 
 The dayshine gladdens us with light 
 And stores the ground. 
 
 We feed a thousand happy birds, 
 The field-mice have their share — 
 Surely to these the reaping swords 
 Some grains can spare. 
 
 The deep joy of the joyous earth, 
 We feel it throb and thrill ; 
 The sweet return of natural mirth, 
 Spring's miracle. 
 
 All lands rejoice in us, we have 
 A glory such as kings 
 Might envy — but our gold we wave 
 For humbler things. 
 60 
 
Sojig of the Cornfields 
 
 Our golden harvest is for those 
 Who strive and toil through hfe, 
 Who feel its agonies, its throes, 
 Its want, its strife. 
 
 O'er all the broad lands 'neath the sun, 
 We spring, we ripen, glow ; 
 The seasons change, the swift days run,- 
 Again we grow. 
 
 6t 
 
THE FIELD MOUSE 
 
 When the moon shines o'er the corn 
 And the beetle drones his horn, 
 And the fiittermice swift fly, 
 And the nightjars swooping cry, 
 And the young hares run and leap, 
 We waken from our sleep. 
 
 And we climb with tiny feet 
 
 And we munch the green corn sweet 
 
 With startled eyes for fear 
 
 The white owl should fly near, 
 
 Or long slim weasel spring 
 
 Upon us where we swing. 
 
 We do no hurt at all : 
 Is there not room for all 
 Within the happy world ? 
 All day we lie close curled 
 In drowsy sleep, nor rise 
 Till through the dusky skies 
 The moon shines o'er the corn, 
 And the beetle drones his horn. 
 
 62 
 
THE WEST WIND 
 
 I come from out the West, 
 And I breathe a breath of rest, 
 And the sweet birds greet me singing 
 From every tiny nest. 
 
 I am the wind of flow'rs — 
 I haunt the wild-wood bow'rs — 
 And when my song is ringing 
 Spring knows her sweetest hours. 
 
 But when the autumn days 
 Grow short, I rise and race 
 Thro' all the woodlands, flinging 
 Strewn leaves o'er every place. 
 
 When winter comes once more, 
 With deep tumultuous roar 
 I sweep o'er ocean, bringing 
 Wild tempests to each shore. 
 
 63 
 
HYMN OF THE FORESTS 
 
 We are the harps which the winds play, 
 
 A myriad tones in one vast sound 
 
 That the earth hearkens night and day — 
 
 A ceaseless music swaying round 
 
 The whole wide world, each voiceful tree 
 
 Echoing the wave-chants of the sea. 
 
 For even as inland waves that moan 
 But break not 'midst the unflowing green 
 Our trees are : and when tempests groan 
 And howl our frantic boughs between, 
 Our tumult is as when the deep 
 Struggles with winds that o'er it sweep. 
 
 'Neath bitter northern skies we stand, 
 Silent amidst the unmelting snows. 
 Gaunt warders of the desolate land : 
 Silent, save when the keen wind blows 
 The drifting wreaths about our feet. 
 Then moan we mournful music sweet. 
 
 Or in vast ancient woods of beech 
 Far south we make Spring's dearest home 
 The haunt of myriad songsters, each 
 A living fiow'r made free to roam 
 
 64 
 
Hymn of the Forests 
 
 From bough to bough, and thence we send 
 A forest -music without end. 
 
 'Neath tropic suns and ceaseless glow 
 With orient splendours we are filled : 
 'Midst Austral solitudes we grow, 
 Where seldom human voice has thrilled : 
 And ever and where'er we rise 
 We chant our ancient harmonies. 
 
 For aye the sea sings loud and long 
 
 In strange and solemn mystery 
 
 A wonderful transmitted song — 
 
 The echo of all history — 
 
 This song o'er all earth's lands we sing 
 
 While round the circling seasons swing. 
 
 65 
 
SONG OF THE DESERTS 
 
 Wide, open, free, unbounded, vast. 
 We leagueless stretch the wide world o'er : 
 Above us sweeps the desert blast, 
 Or booms the lion's reverberate roar 
 Or the long howl of wolves that race 
 Like shadows o'er the moonlit space 
 In tireless, swift, relentless chase. 
 
 We are the haunt of all the winds, 
 O'er us as o'er the sea they sweep 
 In boundless freedom : each blast finds 
 A leagueless waste whereo'er to leap 
 And race unchecked, — and day and night 
 We hear the wild rush of their flight, 
 A desert-music infinite. 
 
 Ten thousand leagues of grassy plain 
 We stretch, or trackless wastes of sand : 
 O'er us no mortal king doth reign, 
 But Bedouin or savage band 
 And wild-eyed beasts of prey alone 
 Wander about our tameless zone ; 
 That bondage never yet hath known. 
 66 
 
A RECORD 
 {A Fragment) 
 
 For, God wot, not the less a thing is trite 
 Though every wight may not it chance to see. 
 
 Chaucer. 
 
 I hear the dark tempestuous sea 
 Boom through the night monotonously, 
 The hoarse faint cry of breaking waves 
 Lashed by the wind that moans and raves 
 Upon the deep — I hear them fall 
 Against cliff-bases smooth and tall, 
 A music wild, funereal. 
 
 I seem to listen to a sound 
 That circles earth for ever round, 
 The dirge of an eternal song, 
 A dull deep music swept along 
 The listening coasts of many lands, 
 Sighed mournfully o'er level sands, 
 Or thunder'd amidst rocky strands. 
 
 I sit within my lonely room 
 Where the lamp's flame just breaks the 
 gloom, 
 
 67 
 
A Record 
 
 And thro' the darkness of the night 
 I see far down a starry Hght 
 Where nestled safely in the chine 
 The village street in one long line 
 Doth like a glittering serpent shine. 
 
 The keen wind blows through the dark 
 
 skies, 
 The stars look down like countless eyes 
 That see and know, and therefore stare 
 Unmoved 'midst their serene high air : 
 And life seems but a dream, a shade 
 Which fleeting Time o'er space hath laid, 
 But which with Time shall one day fade. 
 
 Old memories are mine once more, 
 I see strange lives I lived of yore ; 
 With dimmed sight see I far-off things, 
 I feel the breath of bygone springs, 
 And ringing strangely in mine ears 
 I hear old laughter, ahen tears 
 Slow falling, voices of past years. 
 
 Far back the soul can never see — 
 But dreams restore mysteriously 
 Dim visions of a possible past, 
 A time ere the last bond was cast 
 Aside that bound the struggling soul 
 Unto the brute, and first some goal 
 Loomed dimly over Life's vast shoal. 
 68 
 
A Record 
 
 And dreaming so I live my dream : 
 
 I see a yellow turbid stream 
 
 Heavily flowing through clustered weeds 
 
 Of tropic growth, and 'midst the reeds 
 
 Of tall green rice upon its bank 
 
 A crouching tiger, long and lank, 
 
 With slow tail swaying from flank to flank. 
 
 Its eyes are yellow flames, and burn 
 Upon a man who dips an urn 
 Into the Ganges' sacred wave, 
 Unknowing he has reached his grave — 
 A short, hoarse roar, a scream, a blow ! 
 And even as I shudder, lo, 
 My tiger-selt I seem to know. 
 
 And dreaming so I live my dream : 
 
 I see a sunrise glory gleam 
 
 Against vast mountain-heights, and there 
 
 Upon a peak precipitous, bare, 
 
 I see an eagle scan the plain 
 
 Immeasurable of his domain. 
 
 With fierce untamable disdain : 
 
 When first the stars wax pale his eyes 
 Front the wide east where day doth rise. 
 And with unflinching gaze look straight 
 Against the sun, then proud, elate. 
 On tireless wings he swoops on high 
 69 
 
A Record 
 
 O'er coimtless leagues, and thro' the sky 
 Drifts Uke a dark cloud ominously : 
 
 Then as day dies and swift night springs, 
 
 I hear the sudden rush of wings 
 
 And see the eagle from the plain 
 
 Sweep to his eyrie once again 
 
 With fierce keen dauntless eyes aglow — 
 
 And even as I watch them, lo, 
 
 Mine eagle-self I seem to know. 
 
 And dreaming so I live my dream : 
 
 I hear a savage voice, a scream 
 
 Scarcely articulate, and far 
 
 I see a red light like a star 
 
 Flashed 'neath old trees, and the first fire 
 
 Made by the brutish tribe burn higher 
 
 Until unfed its flames expire : 
 
 I see the savage whose hand drew 
 
 The fire from wood, whose swift breath blew 
 
 The flame until it gained new strength, — 
 
 I see him stand supreme at length. 
 
 And pointing to the burning flame 
 
 Bend low his swart and trembling frame 
 
 And cry aloud a guttural name : 
 
 A god at last the tribe hath found, 
 A god at whose strange crackhng sound 
 70 
 
A Record 
 
 Each man must bend in dread until 
 
 This strange new god hath worked his will 
 
 But lo, one day the fire spread fast, 
 
 And ere its fury is o'erpast 
 
 The tribe within its furnace-blast 
 
 Hath perish'd, save one man alone 
 Who far in sudden fear hath flown : 
 But with a gleam of new-born thought 
 A second flame he soon hath wrought 
 Only to tramp it down, aware 
 At last that no dead god lies there. 
 Or one for whom no man need care. 
 
 He looks around to see some god, 
 And far upon the fire-scorch'd sod 
 He sees his brown-burnt tribesmen lie, 
 And thinks their voices fill the sky, 
 And dreads some unseen sudden blow — 
 And even as I watch him, lo, 
 My savage -self I seem to know. 
 
 And dreaming so I live my dream '. 
 I see a flood of moonlight gleam 
 Between vast ancient oaks, and round 
 A rough-hewn altar on the ground 
 Weird Druid priests are gathered 
 While through their midst a man is led 
 With face that is already dead : 
 71 
 
A Record 
 
 A low chant swells throughout the wood, 
 
 Then comes a solemn interlude 
 
 Ere loudlier rings dim aisles along 
 
 Some ancient sacrificial song ; 
 
 Before the fane the victim kneels 
 
 And without sound he forward reels 
 
 When the priest's knife the death-blow deals : 
 
 The moonlight falls upon his face, 
 
 His blood is spatter'd o'er the place. 
 
 But now he is ev'n as a fiow'r 
 
 Uprooted in some tempest hour. 
 
 Dead, but whose seed shall elsewhere grow : 
 
 And as I look upon him, lo, 
 
 Some old ancestral-self I know. 
 
 Thus far dreams bring mysteriously 
 Visions of past lives back to me ; 
 Visions alone perhaps they are, 
 Each one a wandering futile star 
 Flash'd o'er the mental firmament, — 
 Yet may be thus in past times went 
 My soul in gradual ascent. 
 
 None sees the slow sure upward sweep 
 By which the soul from life-depths deep 
 Ascends — unless, mayhap, when free 
 With each new death we backward see 
 72 
 
A Record 
 
 The long perspective of our race, 
 
 Our multitudinous past lives trace 
 
 Since first as breath of God through space 
 
 Each came, and filled the lowest thing 
 
 With life's faint pulse scarce quivering ; 
 
 So ever onward upward grew, 
 
 And ever with each death-birth knew 
 
 An old sphere left, a mystic change — 
 
 A sense of exaltation strange 
 
 Thus through a myriad lives to range. 
 
 But even in our mortal lives 
 At times the eager spirit strives 
 To gain through subtle memories 
 Some hint of life's past mysteries — 
 Brief moments they, that flash before 
 Bewilder'd eyes some scene of yore, 
 Some vivid hour returned once more. 
 
 Swift through the darken'd clouds of 
 
 sense 
 A sudden lightning-gleam intense 
 Reveals some glimpse of the long past. 
 Some memory comes back at last — 
 And yet 'twas but a sudden strain 
 Of song — a scent — a sound of rain — 
 Some trifle — made all clear again. 
 73 
 
A Record 
 
 With a swift glance such ghmpses come 
 And go — but there are times for some 
 When keen the vision is, so keen 
 That thenceforth the indehble scene 
 Remains within the mind for aye, 
 Some reminiscence sad or gay, 
 Some action of a bygone day. 
 
 Thus came to me memorious gleams 
 
 From the closed past, no sleep -brought 
 
 dreams 
 But revelations flashed out swift 
 Upon the mind : a sudden lift 
 Of the dense cloud of all past years, — 
 A moment when the thrilling ears 
 Heard, or the eyes slow filled with tears. 
 
 Thus has there flashed across my sight 
 
 A desert in a blinding light 
 
 Of scorching sun, a dreary waste 
 
 Of burning sand where seldom paced 
 
 The swift, gaunt camels with their freight 
 
 Of merchandise, but where the weight 
 
 Of silence lay inviolate. 
 
 There a few sterile rocks lay white 
 In the sun's glare, a band by might 
 Of old convulsions thither hurl'd 
 In the far days of the young world : 
 74 
 
A Record 
 
 And in their midst a hollow cave 
 Was cleft, where dwelt, as in a grave, 
 One who came thence his soul to save. 
 
 Young, and from out the joyous strife 
 
 Of men he came to this drear life : 
 
 No more for him the wine's swift spell, 
 
 No more for him love's miracle — 
 
 But bitter as the dead sea's dust 
 
 Seem'd all past joys — dread things to thrust 
 
 Aside, all equally accursed. 
 
 In "fervid prayer all day he sought 
 God's grace : in dreams at night he fought 
 The fierce temptations born of youth. 
 Awake, he strove to reach God's truth — 
 Asleep, he felt his passions rise 
 And darken all the heav'nly skies 
 With dread deceitful lovely lies. 
 
 Thus year by year he fell and rose 
 In endless conflict, till his woes 
 Fill'd all his days with burning tears 
 And dreadful never-ending fears : 
 Haggard he grew from scanty food. 
 With sun and blast and shelter rude 
 And terrors of his lonelihood. 
 
 With long hair streaming out behind 
 He raced before the burning wind. 
 With wild insane strained eyes alert 
 75 
 
A Record 
 
 For demons lurking to his hurt— 
 And though the sun beat fiercely hot 
 Upon the sands, he heeded not 
 But like a wand'ring shadow shot 
 
 Across the burning level waste, 
 
 Oft shouting as he wildly raced 
 
 " My body is in hell, but L 
 
 Its soul, thus hither speed and cry 
 
 To God to blow me as a leaf 
 
 From out this agony of grief, 
 
 To slay, and give me death's relief ! " 
 
 Oft as he fled, with from his mouth 
 
 The white froth blown thro' maddening 
 
 drought. 
 He pass'd the crouching lion's lair — 
 But when his shrill laugh fill'd the air 
 The desert monarch shrank, as though 
 He feared this raving shadow's woe, 
 This haggard wretch with eyes aglow. 
 
 But when the sun sank past the west 
 The hermit fled the desert, lest 
 God's eyes should lose him in the night. 
 And foes Satanic guide his flight 
 Till soul and body once again 
 Made one should with the pangs of twain, 
 In hell for ever writhe in pain. 
 76 
 
A Record 
 
 But when sleep came to him he lay 
 In peace, and oft a smile would play 
 Upon his face as though once more 
 In dreams he lived his life of yore, — 
 The life he did himself dismiss, 
 The old sweet time of joy and bliss, — 
 Heard laughter, or felt some loved kiss. 
 
 Thus have I seen, and seeing known 
 
 That he who lived afar alone, 
 
 A hermit on a dreary waste. 
 
 Was even that soul mine eyes have traced 
 
 Through brute and savage steadily, 
 
 That he even now is part of me 
 
 Just as a wave is of the sea. 
 
 Far out across the deep doth swell 
 
 The hoarse boom of the Black- Rock bell, 
 
 A heavy moan monotonous, 
 
 An inner sea-sound ominous. 
 
 As though throughout the ocean there 
 
 Relentless Conscience aye did bear 
 
 A bitter message of despair. 
 
 Still sweeps the old impetuous sea 
 Around the green earth ceaselessly — 
 Changeless, yet full of change, it seems 
 The very mirror of those dreams 
 77 
 
A Record 
 
 We call men's lives — for are not they 
 Like life-sea waves Fate's winds doth sway 
 And break, yet which pass not away 
 
 Through depth of silent air, but blend 
 Once more with the deep and lend 
 Their never dying music sweet 
 To the great choral song complete ; 
 Each death is but a birth, a change — 
 Each soul through myriad by-ways strange, 
 Through birth and death, doth upward 
 range. 
 
 78 
 
MOONRISE FROM lONA 
 
 Here, where in dim forgotten daj's 
 A savage people chanted lays 
 To long since perished gods, I stand : 
 The sea breaks in, runs up the sand, 
 Retreats as with a long-drawn sigh, 
 Sweeps in again ; again leaves dr}^ 
 The ancient beach, so old and yet 
 So new that as the strong tides fret 
 The island barriers in their flow 
 The ebb-hours of each day can know 
 A surface change. The day is dead. 
 The sun is set, and overhead 
 The white north stars shine keen and bright 
 The wind upon the sea is light 
 And just enough to stir the deep 
 With phosphorescent gleams and sweep 
 The spray from salt waves as they rise : 
 And yonder light — ^is't from the skies 
 Some meteor strange, a burning star — 
 Or a lamp hung upon a spar 
 Of vessel undescribed ? It gleams 
 And rise?, slowl}^ till it seems 
 79 
 
Moonrise from lona 
 
 A burning isle, an angel-throne 
 Reset on earth, a mountain-cone 
 Of gold new-risen from sea-caves — ■ 
 Until at last abo\'e the waves, 
 Salt with Atlantic brine, it swims 
 A silver crescent. Now no hymns 
 In the wild Runic speech are heard. 
 No chant, no sacrificial word : 
 But only moans the weary sea. 
 And only the cold wind sings free, 
 And where the Runic temples stood 
 The bat flies and the owl doth brood. 
 
 80 
 
MOONRISE ON THE VENETIAN 
 LAGOONS 
 
 A more than twilight darkness dwells 
 Upon the long lagoons : the bells 
 Of distant Venice come and go 
 Like sounds in dreams ; the tide's soft flow 
 Sweeps onward, and a wandering gull 
 Flits o'er the track of yon black hull 
 Just fading in the gloom — ^no more 
 I see or hear 'tween shore and shore : 
 But as I lie and dreamily 
 Watch the dark water from the sea 
 Slip past the boat, in its blurred sky 
 I see the crescent moon on high 
 Casting curv'd golden flakes far down 
 Amidst the calm lagoon — a crown 
 Broken innumerabl}' up, 
 The gold bands of a broken cup. 
 I take an oar and make a rift 
 In the soft tide of the lagoons, — 
 And lo, the blade itself doth lift 
 A score of quivering crescent moons. 
 And as they flash I seem to see 
 Each droplet with a small moon flee. 
 I 8i F 
 
MOONRISE ON THE ANTARCTIC 
 
 The huge white icebergs silently 
 Voyage with us through this lonely sea, 
 Noiseless and lifeless, yet they seem 
 Like haunted islands in a dream 
 Holding strange secrets that no one 
 May know and live. In the bright sun 
 They shine immeasurably fair, 
 Bluer than bluest summer air, 
 Or clear to the very heart with green 
 Pure light, or amethyst as seen 
 'Mid sunset-clouds — ^but now they shine 
 With a cold gleam and have no sign 
 Of loveliness. The ship swings on, 
 Plunging 'mid surging seas whereon 
 Few vessels ever sail, and as 
 Slowly the long hours come and pass 
 The late moon rises cold and white, 
 And sends a flood of wintry light 
 Along the sweeping waves and round 
 Our black and sea- worn hull. A sound 
 Far off dies while it grows — some seal 
 Long-drifted, frozen, waking but to feel 
 Death's grip. And now the spectral isles 
 82 
 
Moonrise on the Antarctic 
 
 Grow whiter, icier still, and seem 
 More hollow, with a strange weird gleam 
 As though some pale unreal fires 
 Consumed them to their utmost spires 
 Yet without flame or heat. And still 
 The moon doth rise, and seems to fill 
 Each berg anew with life : we sail 
 Upon a strange sad sea, where pale 
 And moonshine isles float all around, 
 Voyaging onward without sound. 
 
 ^i 
 
TRANSCRIPTS 
 FROM NATURE 
 
 (From "The Human Inheritance 
 AND t' Earth's Voices ") 
 
 1882-1 
 
WILD ROSES 
 
 Against the dim hot summer blue 
 Yon wave of white wild-roses lies, 
 Watching with listless golden eyes 
 
 The green leaves shutting out their view. 
 The tiny leaves whose motions bright 
 Are like small wings of emerald light : 
 
 Wliite butterflies like snow-flakes fall 
 And brown bees drone their honey-call. 
 
 THE EBBING TIDE 
 
 A long low gurgle down the strand, 
 The sputtering of the drj'ing wrack ! 
 The tide is slowly ebbing back 
 
 With listless murmuring from the land, 
 And the small waves reluctant flow 
 Where the broad-bosomed currents go. 
 
 The sea has fall'n asleep, and lies 
 Dense blue beneath the dense blue skies. 
 87 
 
DAWN AMID SCOTCH FIRS 
 
 The furtive lights that herald dawn 
 
 Are shimmering 'mid the steel-blue firs ; 
 A slow awakening wind half stirs 
 
 And the long branches breathe upon ; 
 The east grows clearer — clearer — lo, 
 The day is born ! A refluent flow 
 
 Of silver waves along each tree 
 For one brief moment dazzlingty. 
 
 A DEAD CALM AND MIST 
 
 {Towards evening) 
 
 The slow heave of the sleeping sea 
 
 With pulse-like motion swells and falls, 
 And drowsily a stray gull calls 
 
 The very wail of melancholy ; 
 
 All day the moveless mist has slept 
 On the same bosom east winds swept : 
 
 No breath of change in the gre}^ mist, 
 Save just a dream of amethyst. 
 
TANGLED SUNRAYS 
 
 Aslant from yonder sunlit hill 
 The lance-like sunrays stream across 
 The meadows where the king-cups toss 
 
 r the wind, and where the beech-leaves thrill 
 With flooding light they twist and turn 
 And seem to interlace and burn, 
 
 Until at last in tangle spun 
 
 'Mid the damp grass their race is run. 
 
 LOCH CORUISK (SKYE) 
 
 The bleak and barren mountains keep 
 A never-ending gloom around 
 The lonely loch ; the winds resound, 
 
 The rains beat down, the tempests sweep. 
 The days are calm and dark and still, — 
 No other changes Coruisk fill. 
 
 Scarce living sound is heard, save high 
 The eagle's scream or wild swan's cry. 
 
 89 
 
SUNRISE ABOVE BROAD WHEAT- 
 FIELDS 
 
 The pale tints of the twiHght fields 
 Have turned into burnished gold, 
 For waves of yellow light have rolled 
 
 From the open'd east across the wealds ; 
 While 'mid the wheat spires far behind 
 Stirs lazily the awaken'd wind. 
 
 A skylark high (a song-made bird) 
 Sings as though God his singing heard. 
 
 PHOSPHORESCENT SEA 
 
 The sea scarce heaves in its calm sleep. 
 The wind has not awakened yet 
 Tho' in its dreams it seems to fret ; 
 
 For, ever and again, the deep 
 Hearkens a sigh that steals along 
 As might some echo of sad song : 
 
 Ah, there the wind stirs ! Lo, the dark 
 Dim sea's on fire around our barque. 
 90 
 
A GREEN WAVE 
 
 Between the salt sea -send before 
 And all the flowing gulfs behind, 
 Half lifted by the rising wind, 
 
 Half eager for the ungain'd shore, 
 A great green wave of shining light 
 Sweeps onward crowned with dazzling 
 white : 
 
 Above, the east wind shreds the sky 
 With plumes from the grey clouds that fly. 
 
 A CRYSTAL FOREST 
 
 The air is blue and keen and cold, 
 
 With snow the roads and fields are white ; 
 
 But here the forest's clothed with light 
 And in a shining sheath enrolled. 
 
 Each branch, each twig, each blade of 
 grass. 
 
 Seems clad miraculously with glass : 
 
 Above the ice-bound streamlet bends 
 Each frozen fern with crystal ends. 
 91 
 
THE WASP 
 
 Where the ripe pears droop heavily 
 The yellow wasp hums loud and long 
 His hot and drowsy autumn song : 
 
 A yellow flame he seems to be, 
 When darting suddenly from high 
 He lights where fallen peaches lie : 
 
 Yellow and black, this tiny thing's 
 A tiger-soul on elfin wings. 
 
 AN AUTUMNAL EVENING 
 
 Deep black against the dying glow 
 The tall elms stand ; the rooks are still ; 
 No windbreath makes the faintest thrill 
 
 Amongst the leaves ; the fields below 
 Are vague and dim in twilight shades — 
 Only the bats wheel in their raids 
 
 On the grey flies, and silently 
 Great dusky moths go flitting by. 
 92 
 
A WINTER HEDGEROW 
 
 The wintry wolds are white ; the wind 
 Seems frozen ; in the shelter'd nooks 
 The sparrows shiver ; the black rooks 
 
 WTieel homeward where the elms behind 
 The manor stand ; at the field's edge 
 The redbreasts in the blackthorn hedge 
 
 Sit close and under snowy eaves 
 
 The shrewmice sleep 'mid nested leaves. 
 
 THE ROOKERY AT SUNRISE 
 
 The lofty elm-trees darkly dream 
 Against the steel-blue sky ; till far 
 r the twilit east a golden star 
 
 O'erbrims the dusk in one vast stream 
 Of yellow light, and lo ! a cry 
 Breaks from the windy nest — the sky 
 
 Is filled \nth wheeling rooks — ^they sway 
 In one black phalanx towards the day. 
 93 
 
MOONRISE 
 
 The first snows of the year lie white 
 Upon the branches bending low ; 
 A surging wind the flakes doth blow 
 
 Before the coming feet of Night — 
 Half dusk, half day, betwixt the pines 
 Green -yellow the full moon reclines : 
 
 Green-yellow, and now wholly green, 
 While faint the windy stars are seen. 
 
 FIREFLIES 
 
 Softly sailing emerald lights 
 
 Above the cornfields come and go, 
 Listlessly wandering to and fro : 
 
 The magic of these July nights 
 
 Has surely even pierced down deep 
 Where the earth's jewels unharmed sleep, 
 
 And filled with fire the emeralds there 
 And raised them thus to the outer air. 
 94 
 
THE CRESCENT MOON 
 
 As though the Power that made the nautilus 
 
 A living glory o'er seas perilous 
 
 Scathless to roam, had from the utmost 
 
 deep 
 
 Called a vast flawless pearl from out its sleep 
 
 And carv'd it crescent-wise, exceeding 
 
 fair, — • 
 So seems the crescent moon that thro' the 
 air 
 
 With motionless motion glides from out the 
 
 west, 
 And sailing onward ever seems at rest. 
 
 THE EAGLE 
 
 Between two mighty hills a sheer 
 Abyss — ^far down in the ravine 
 A thread-hke torrent and a screen 
 
 Of oaks like shrubs — and one doth rear 
 A dry scarp'd peak above all sound 
 Save windy voices wailing round : 
 
 At sunrise here, in proud disdain 
 The eagle scans his vast domain. 
 95 
 
A VENETIAN SUNSET : BEFORE A 
 CHANGE 
 
 {Returning from Torcello) 
 
 In violet hues each dome and spire 
 Stands outhned against flawless rose ; 
 O'er this a carmine ocean flows 
 
 Streak'd with pm'e gold and amber fire, 
 And through the sea of sundown mist 
 Float isles of melted amethyst : 
 
 Storm-portents, saffron streamers rise, 
 Fan-like, from Venice to the skies. 
 
 EMPIRE (PERSEPOLIS) 
 
 The yellow waste of yellow sands, 
 The bronze haze of a scorching sky ! 
 Lo, what are these that broken lie ; 
 
 Were these once temples made with hands ? 
 Once towers and palaces that knew 
 No hint of that which one da}- threw 
 
 Their greatness to the winds — made this 
 The memory of Persepolis ? 
 
 96 
 
AUSTRALIAN SKETCHES 
 
THE LAST ABORIGINAL 
 
 I see him sit, wild-eyed, alone, 
 Amidst gaunt, spectral, moonlit gums — 
 He waits for death : not once a moan 
 From out his rigid fixt lips comes ; 
 His lank hair falls adown a face 
 Haggard as any wave-worn stone, 
 And in his eyes I dimly trace 
 The memory of a vanished race. 
 
 The lofty ancient gum-trees stand. 
 Each grey and ghostly in the moon, 
 The giants of an old strange land 
 That was exultant in its noon 
 When all our Europe was o'erturned 
 With deluge and with shifting sand. 
 With earthquakes that the hills inurned 
 And central fires that fused and burned. 
 
 The moon moves slowly through the vast 
 And solemn skies ; the night is still, 
 Save when a warrigal springs past 
 With dismal howl, or when the shrill 
 99 
 
The last Aboriginal 
 
 Scream of a parrot rings which feels 
 A twining serpent's fangs fixt fast, 
 Or when a grey opossum squeals. 
 Or long iguana, as it steals 
 
 From bole to bole disturbs the leaves : 
 But hush'd and still he sits — who knows 
 That all is o'er for him who weaves 
 With inner speech, malign, morose, 
 A curse upon the whites who came 
 And gather'd up his race like sheaves 
 Of thin wheat, fit but for the flame — 
 ^^'ho shot or spurned them without shame. 
 
 He knows he shall not see again 
 
 The creeks whereby the lyre-birds sing — 
 
 He shall no more upon the plain. 
 
 Sun scorch'd, and void of water-spring, 
 
 Watch the dark cassowaries sweep 
 
 In startled flight, or, with spear lain 
 
 In ready poise, glide, twist, and creep 
 
 Where the bro^vn kangaroo doth leap. 
 
 No more in silent dawns he'll wait 
 
 By still lagoons, and mark the flight 
 
 Of black swans near : no more elate 
 
 Whirl high the boomerang aright 
 
 Upon some foe : he knows that now 
 
 He too must share his race's night — 
 
 He scarce can know the white man's plough 
 
 Will one day pass above his brow. 
 
 100 
 
The last Aboriginal 
 
 Last remnant of the Austral race 
 
 He sits and stares, with faihng breath : 
 
 The shadow deepens on his face, 
 
 For 'midst the spectral gums waits death. 
 
 A dingo's sudden howl swells near — 
 
 He stares once with a startled gaze, 
 
 As half in wonder, half in fear, 
 
 Then sinks back on his unknown bier. 
 
 lOI 
 
THE COROBBOREE 
 
 {Midnight) 
 
 Deep in the forest-depths the tribe 
 A mighty blazing fire have made : 
 Round this they spring with frantic yells 
 In hideous pigments all arrayed — 
 
 One barred with yellow ochre, one 
 A skeleton in startling white, 
 There one who dances furiously 
 Blood-red against the great fire's light, — 
 
 With death's insignia on his breast, 
 In rude design, the swart chief springs ; 
 And loud and long each echoes back 
 The savage war-cry that he sings. 
 
 Within the forest dark and dim 
 The startled cockatoos like ghosts 
 Flit to and fro, the mopokes scream. 
 And parrots rise in chattering hosts ; 
 
 102 
 
The Corobboree 
 
 The gins and lubras crouch and watch 
 With eager shining brute-Hke eves, 
 And ever and again shrill back 
 Wild echoes of the frantic cries : — 
 
 Like some infernal scene it is — 
 The forest dark, the blazing lire, 
 The ghostly birds, the dancing fiends, 
 Whose savage chant swells ever higher. 
 
 Afar away gaunt wild-dogs howl. 
 And strange cries vaguely call : but white 
 The placid moon sails on, and flame 
 The silent stars above the night. 
 
 103 
 
JUSTICE 
 
 [Uncivilised and Civilised) 
 
 Ling-Tso Ah Sin, on Murderer's Flat 
 One morning caught an old grey rat : 
 " Ah, white man, I have got you now 
 But no — dust be upon my brow 
 If needless blood I cause to fall — • 
 So go, there's world-room for us all ! " 
 
 That night Ah Sin was somehow shot- 
 By accident ! For he had got 
 From earth a little gold — black sin 
 For thee, though not for us, Ah Sin ! 
 
 Murderer's Flat, February 1878. 
 
 NOON-SILENCE 
 
 {Anstralian Forest) 
 
 A lyre-bird sings a low melodious song — 
 Then all is still : a soft wind breathes along 
 The lofty gums and faintly dies away : 
 And Silence wakes and knows her dream is 
 day. 
 
 104 
 
AUSTRALIAN 
 TRANSCRIPTS 
 
I. AN ORANGE GROVE 
 
 {Victoria) 
 
 The short sweet purple twilight dreams 
 Of vanish'd day, of coming night ; 
 And like gold moons in the soft light 
 Each scented drooping orange gleams 
 From out the glossy leaves black-green 
 That make through noon a cool dark screen. 
 The dusk is silence, save the thrill 
 That stirs it from cicalas shrill. 
 
 II. BLACK SWANS ON THE 
 MURRAY LAGOONS 
 
 The long lagoons lie white and still 
 Beneath the great round Austral moon : 
 The sudden dawn will waken soon 
 With many a delicious thrill : 
 Between this death and life the cries 
 Of black swans ring through silent skies- 
 And the long wash of the slow stream 
 Moves as in sleep some bodeful dream. 
 107 
 
III. BREAKING BILLOWS AT 
 SORRENTO 
 
 ( Victoria) 
 
 A skj^ of whirling flakes of foam, 
 A rushing world of dazzling blue 
 One moment, the sky looms in view — 
 The next, a crash in its curved dome, 
 A tumult indescribable. 
 And eyes dazed with the miracle. 
 
 Here breaks by circling day and night 
 In thunder the sea's boundless might. 
 
 IV. SHEA-OAK TREES ON A 
 STORMY DAY 
 
 {S.E. Victoria) 
 
 O'er sandy tracts the shea-oak trees 
 Droop their long wavy grey-green trails : 
 And inland wandering moans and wails 
 The long blast of the ocean-breeze : 
 Like loose strings of a viol or harp 
 These answering sound — ^now low, now sharp 
 And keen, a melancholy strain : 
 A death song o'er the mournful plain. 
 io8 
 
V. MID-NOON IN JANUARY 
 
 Upon a libry fern-tree bough 
 
 A huge iguana lies alow, 
 
 Bright yellow in the noonday glow 
 
 With bars of black, — it watcheth now 
 
 A gorgeous insect hover high 
 
 Till suddenl}' its lance doth fly 
 
 And catch the prey — but still no sound 
 Breathes 'mid the green fern-spaces round. 
 
 VI. IN THE FERN 
 
 {Gippsland) 
 
 The feathery fern-trees make a screen 
 Wherethrough the sunglare cannot pass — 
 Fern, gum, and lofty sassafras : 
 The fronds sweep over, palely green, 
 And underneath are orchids curl'd 
 Adream through this cool shadow-world ; 
 A fragrant greenness — like the noon 
 Of lime-tree in an English June. 
 
 109 
 
VII. SUNSET AMID THE BUFFALO 
 MOUNTAINS 
 
 {N.E. Victoria) 
 
 Across the boulder 'd majesty 
 Of the great hills the passing day 
 Drifts like a wind-borne cloud away 
 Far off beyond the western sky : 
 And while a purple glor\^ spreads, 
 With straits of gold and brilliant reds, 
 An azure veil, translucent, strange, 
 Dreamlike steals over each dim range. 
 
 VIII. THE FLYING MOUSE 
 
 {New South Wales — Moonlight) 
 
 The eucalyptus-blooms are sweet 
 With honey, and the birds all day 
 Sip the clear juices forth : brown-grey, 
 A bird-like thing with tiny feet 
 Cleaves to the boughs, or with small wings 
 Amidst the leafy spaces springs. 
 And in the moonshine with shrill cries 
 Flits bat-like where the white gums rise. 
 no 
 
IX. THE BELL-BIRD 
 
 The stillness of the Austral noon 
 Is broken by no single sound — 
 No lizards even on the ground 
 Rustle amongst dry leaves — no tune 
 The lyre-bird sings — yet hush ! I hear 
 A soft bell tolling, silvery clear ! 
 Low soft aerial chimes, unknown 
 Save 'mid these silences alone. 
 
 X. THE WOOD-SWALLOWS * 
 
 [Sunrise) 
 
 The lightning-stricken giant gum 
 Stands leafless, dead — a giant still 
 But heedless of this sunrise-thrill : 
 What stir is this where all was dumb ? — 
 What seem like old dead leaves break swift. 
 And lo, a hundred wings uplift 
 A cloud of birds that to and fro 
 Dart joyous midst the sunrise-glow. 
 
 * The wood-swallows of Australia have the singular 
 habit of clustering like bees or bats on the boughs of 
 a dead tree. 
 
 Ill 
 
XI. THE ROCK-LILY 
 
 {New South Wales) 
 
 The amber-tinted level sands 
 Unbroken stretch for leagues away 
 Beyond these granite slabs, dull grey 
 And lifeless, herbless — save where stands 
 The mighty rock-fiow'r towering high, 
 With carmine blooms crowned gloriously 
 A giant amongst flowers it reigns, 
 The glory of these Austral plains. 
 
 XII. THE FLAME-TREE 
 
 [New South Wales) 
 
 For miles the Illawarra range 
 Runs level with Pacific seas : 
 What glory when the morning breeze 
 Upon its slopes doth shift and change 
 Deep pink and crimson hues, till all 
 The leagues-long distance seems a wall 
 Of swift uncurhng flames of fire 
 That wander not nor reach up higher. 
 
 112 
 
FROM 
 
 ROMANTIC BALLAD! 
 
THE WEIRD OF MICHAEL SCOTT 
 
 The wild wind moaned : fast waned the 
 
 light : 
 Dense cloud-wrack gloomed the front of 
 night : 
 The moorland cries were cries of pain : 
 Green, red, or broad and glaring white 
 The lightnings flashed athwart the main. 
 
 The sound and fury of the waves, 
 Upon the rocks, among the caves, 
 
 Boomed inland from the thunderous 
 strand : 
 Mayhap the dead heard in their graves 
 
 The tumult fill the hollow land. 
 
 With savage pebbly rush and roar 
 The billows swept the echoing shore 
 
 In clouds of spume and swirling spray : 
 The wild wings of the tempest bore 
 
 The salt rheum to the Haunted Brae. 
 115 
 
The Weird of Michael Scott 
 
 Upon the Haunted Brae (where none 
 Would linger in the noontide sun) 
 
 Michael the Wizard rode apace : 
 Wildly he rode where all men shun. 
 
 With madness gleaming on his face. 
 
 Loud, loud he laugh'd whene'er he saw 
 The lightnings split on Lammer-Law, 
 
 " Blood, bride, and bier the auld rune saith 
 Heirs wind tae me ae nicht sail blaw. 
 
 The nicht I ride unto my death ! " 
 
 Across the Haunted Brae he fled, 
 
 And mock'd and jeer'd the shuddering pead ; 
 
 Wan white the horse that he bestrode, 
 The fire-flaughts stricken as it sped 
 
 Flashed thro' the black mirk of the road. 
 
 And even as his race he ran, 
 
 A shade pursued the fleeing man, 
 
 A white and ghastly shade it was ; 
 " Like saut sea-spray across wet san' 
 
 Or wind abune the moonlit grass ! — 
 
 " Like saut sea-spray it follows me. 
 Or wind o'er grass — so fast's I flee : 
 
 In vain I shout, and laugh, and call — 
 The thing betwixt me and the sea 
 
 God kens it is my ain lost saul ! " 
 ii6 
 
The Weird oj Michael Scott 
 
 Down, down the Haunted Brae, and past 
 The verge of precipices vast 
 
 And eyries where the eagles screech ; 
 By great pines swaying in the blast, 
 
 Through woods of moaning larch and 
 beech ; 
 
 On, on by moorland glen and stream, 
 Past lonely lochs where ospreys scream, 
 
 Past marsh-lands where no sound is 
 heard. 
 The rider and his white horse gleam, 
 
 And, aye behind, that dreadful third. 
 
 Wild and more wild the wild wind blew, 
 But Michael Scott the rein ne'er drew : 
 
 Loud and more loud his laughter shrill, 
 His wild and mocking laughter, grew, 
 
 In dreadful cries 'twixt hill and hill. 
 
 At last the great high road he gained, 
 And now with whip and voice he strained 
 
 To swifter flight the gleaming mare ; 
 Afar ahead the fierce sleet rained 
 
 Upon the ruin'd House of Stair. 
 
 Then Michael Scott laughed long and loud : 
 " Whan shone the mune ahint yon cloud 
 
 I kent the Towers that saw my birth — 
 Lang, lang, sail wait my cauld grey shroud, 
 
 Lang cauld and weet my bed o' earth ! " 
 117 
 
The Weird of Michael Scott 
 
 But as by Stair he rode full speed 
 His horse began to pant and bleed : 
 
 " Win hame, win hame, my bonnie mare, 
 Win hame if thou would'st rest and feed, 
 
 Win hame, we're nigh the House of Stair ! " 
 
 But with a shrill heart-bursten yell 
 
 The white horse stumbled, plunged, and fell, 
 
 And loud a summoning voice arose, 
 " Is't White-Horse Death that rides frae 
 Hell, 
 
 Or Michael Scott that hereby goes ? " 
 
 "Ah, Lord of Stair, I ken ye weel ! 
 A vaunt, or I your saul sail steal, 
 
 An' send ye howling through the wood 
 A wild man- wolf — aye, ye maun reel 
 
 An' cry upon your Holy Rood ! " 
 
 Swift swept the sword within the shade. 
 Swift was the flash the blue steel made. 
 
 Swift was the downward stroke and rash— • 
 But, as though leven-struck, the blade 
 
 Fell splintered earthward with a crash. 
 
 With frantic eyes Lord Stair out -peered 
 When Michael Scott laughed loud and 
 jeered : — 
 " Forth fare ye now, ye'vegat lang room ! 
 ii8 
 
The Weird of Michael Scott 
 
 Ah, by my saul thou'lt dree thy weird ! 
 Begone, were-wolf, till the day o' doom ! " 
 
 A shrill scream pierced the lonely place ; 
 A dreadful change came o'er the face ; 
 
 The head, with bristled hair, swung low ; 
 Michael the Wizard turned and fled 
 
 And laughed a mocking laugh of woe. 
 
 And through the wood there stole and crept, 
 And through the wood there raced and leapt, 
 
 A thing in semblance of a man ; 
 An awful look its wild eyes kept 
 
 As howling through the night it ran. 
 
 Part II 
 
 Athwart the wan bleak moonlit waste, 
 With staring eyes, in frantic haste, 
 With thin locks back-blown by the wind, 
 A grey gaunt haggard figure raced 
 And moaned the thing that sped behind. 
 
 It followed him, afar or near : 
 In wrath he curs'd ; he shrieked in fear ; 
 But ever more it followed him : 
 Eftsoons he'd stop, and turn, and peer 
 To front the following phantom grim. 
 119 
 
The Weird of Michael Scott 
 
 Naught would he see ; in vain would list 
 For wing-like sound or feet that hissed 
 Like wind-blown snow upon the ice ; 
 The grey thing vanished like a mist, 
 Or like the smoke of sacrifice : 
 
 " Come forth frae out the mirk," his cry, 
 " For I maun live or I maun die, 
 But na, nae mair I'll suffer baith ! " 
 Then, with a shriek, would onward fly 
 And, swift behind, his following wraith. 
 
 Michael the Wizard sped across 
 The peat and bracken o' the moss : 
 He heard the muir-wind rise and fall, 
 And laughed to see the birk-boughs toss 
 An' the stealthy shadows leap or crawl. 
 
 When white St. Monan's Water streamed 
 For leagues athwart the muir, and gleamed 
 With phosphorescent marish-fires, 
 With wild and sudden joy he screamed, 
 For scarce a mile was Ke van- Byres — 
 
 Sweet Kevan-Byres, dear Kevan-Byres, 
 That oft of old was thronged with squires 
 And joyous damsels blithe and gay : 
 Alas, alas for Kevan-Byres 
 That now is cold and grey. 
 
 120 
 
The Weird of Michael Scott 
 
 There in bed on linen sheet 
 With white soft limbs and love-dreams sweet 
 Fair Margaret o' the Byres would be : 
 (Ah, when he'd lain and kissed her feet 
 Had she not laughed in mockery !) 
 
 Aye she had laughed, for what reck'd she 
 
 O' a' the powers of Wizardie ! 
 
 " Win up, win up, guid Michael Scott, 
 
 For ye sail ne'er win boon o' me. 
 
 By plea, or sword, or spell, God wot ! " 
 
 Aye, these the words that she had said : 
 These were the words that as he fled 
 Michael the Wizard muttered o'er — 
 " My Margaret, bow your bonnie head, 
 For ye sail never flout me more ! " 
 
 Swiftly he raced, with gleaming eyes, 
 And wild, strange, sobbing, panting cries. 
 Dire, dire, and fell his frantic mood ; 
 Until he gained St. Monan's Rise 
 Whereon the House of Kevan stood. 
 
 There looked he long and fixed his gaze 
 Upon a room where in past days 
 His very soul had pled love's boon : 
 Lit was it now with the wan rays 
 Flick-flickering from the cloud-girt moon. 
 
 121 
 
The Weird of Michael Scott 
 
 " Come forth, May Margaret, come, my 
 
 heart ! 
 For thou and I nae mair sail part — 
 Come forth, I bid, though Christ himsel' 
 My bitter love should strive to thwart, 
 For I have a' the powers o' hell ! " 
 
 What was the white wan thing that came 
 And lean'd from out the window-frame, 
 And waved wild arms against the sky ? 
 What was the hollow echoing name. 
 What was the thin despairing cry ? 
 
 Adown the long and dusky stair, 
 
 And through the courtyard bleak and bare. 
 
 And past the gate, and out upon 
 
 The whistling, moaning, midnight air — 
 
 What is't that Michael Scott has won ! 
 
 Across the moat it seems to flee. 
 It speeds across the windy lea, 
 And through the ruin'd abbey-arch ; 
 Now like a mist all waveringly 
 It stands beneath a lonely larch. 
 
 " Come Margaret, my Margaret, 
 Thou see'st my vows I ne'er forget : 
 Come win wi' me across the waste — 
 Lang lang I've wandered cauld and wet, 
 An' now thy sweet warm lips would taste ! " 
 
 122 
 
The Weird oj Michael Scott 
 
 But as a whirling drift of snow, 
 
 Or flying foam the sea -winds blow, 
 
 Or smoke swept thin before a gale 
 
 It flew across the waste — and oh 
 
 'Twas Margaret's voice in that long wail ! 
 
 Swift as the hound upon the deer. 
 Swift as the stag when nigh the mere, 
 Michael the Wizard followed fast — 
 What though May Margaret fled in fear, 
 She should be his, be his, at last ! — 
 
 O'er broom and whin and bracken high, 
 Where the peat bog lay gloomily, 
 Where sullenly the bittern boomed 
 And startled curlews swept the sky, 
 Until St. Monan's Water loomed ! 
 
 " The cauld wet water sail na be 
 
 The bride-bed for my love and me — 
 
 For now upon St. Monan's shore 
 
 May ]\Iargaret her love sail gie 
 
 To him she mocked and jeered of yore ! " 
 
 Was that a heron in its flight ? 
 Was that a mere-mist wan and white ? 
 What thing from lonely kirkyard grave ? 
 Forlorn it trails athwart the night 
 With arms that writhe and wring and wave ! 
 123 
 
The Weird of Michael Scott 
 
 Deep down within the mere it sank, 
 Among the slimy reeds and rank, 
 And all the leagues -long loch was bare — 
 One vast, grey, moonlit, lifeless blank 
 Beneath a silent waste of air. 
 
 " O God, O God ! her soul it is ! 
 Christ's saved her frae my blasting kiss ! 
 Her soul frae out her body drawn, 
 The body I maun have for bliss ! 
 body dead and spirit gaun ! " 
 
 Hours long o'er Monan's wave he stared ; 
 The fire-flaughts flashed and gleamed and 
 
 glared. 
 The death-lights o' the lonely place : 
 And aye, dead still, he watch'd, till flared 
 The sunrise on his haggard face. 
 
 Full well he knew that with its fires 
 Loud was the tumult 'mong the squires, 
 And fierce the bitter pain of all 
 Where stark and stift in Kevan-Byres 
 May Margaret lay beneath her pall. 
 
 Then once he laughed, and twice, and thrice, 
 Though deep within his hollow eyes 
 Dull-gleamed a light of fell despair. 
 Around, Earth grew a Paradise 
 In the sweet golden morning air. 
 124 
 
The Weird of Michael Scott 
 
 Slowly he rose at last, and swift 
 One gaunt and frantic arm did lift 
 And curs'd God in his heav'n o'erhead 
 Then, like a lonely cloud adrift, 
 Far from St. Monan's wave he fled. 
 
 Part III 
 
 All day the curlew wailed and screamed. 
 All day the cushat crooned and dreamed, 
 kW day the sweet muir-wind blew free : 
 Beyond the grass}^ knowes far gleamed 
 The splendour of the singing sea. 
 
 Above the myriad gorse and broom 
 And miles of golden kingcup -bloom 
 The larks and 3'ellowhammers sang : 
 Where the scaur cast an hour-long 
 
 gloom 
 The lintie's liquid notes out-rang. 
 
 Oft as he wandered to and fro — 
 As idly as the foam-bells flow 
 Hither and thither on the deep — 
 Michael the Wizard's face would grow 
 From death to life, and he would 
 weep— 
 
 125 
 
The Weird of Michael Scott 
 
 Weep, weep wild tears of bitter pain 
 For what might never be again : 
 Yet even as he wept his face 
 Would gleam with mockery insane 
 And with fierce laughter on he'd race. 
 
 At times he watched the white clouds sail 
 Across the wastes of azure pale ; 
 Or oft would haunt some moorland pool 
 Fringed round with thyme and fragrant gale 
 And canna-tufts of snow-white wool. 
 
 Long in its depths would Michael stare, 
 As though some secret thing lay there : 
 Mayhap the moving water made 
 A gloom where crouched a Kelpie fair 
 With death-eyes gleaming through the shade. 
 
 Then on with weary listless feet 
 
 He fared afar, until the sweet 
 
 Cool sound of mountain brooks drew nigh, 
 
 And loud he heard the strayed lambs bleat 
 
 And the white ewes responsive cry. 
 
 High up among the hills full clear 
 He heard the belling of the deer 
 Amid the corries where they browsed, 
 And, where the peaks rose gaunt and sheer. 
 Fierce swirling echoes eagle-roused. 
 T26 
 
The Weird of Michael Scott 
 
 He watched the kestrel wheel and sweep, 
 He watched the dun fox glide and creep, 
 He heard the whaup's long-echoing call, 
 Watched in the stream the brown trout leap 
 And the grilse spring the waterfall. 
 
 Along the slopes the grouse-cock whirred ; 
 The grey -blue heron scarcely stirred 
 Amid the mossed grey tarn-side stones : 
 The burns gurg-gurgled through the yird 
 Their sweet clear bubbling undertones. 
 
 Above the tarn the dragon-fly 
 
 Shot like a flashing arrow by ; 
 
 And in a moving shifting haze 
 
 The gnat -clouds sank or soared on high 
 
 And danced their wild atrial maze. 
 
 As the day waned he heard afar 
 The hawking fern-owl's dissonant jar 
 Disturb the silence of the hill : 
 The gloaming came : star after star 
 He watched the skiey spaces fill. 
 
 But as the darkness grew and made 
 Forest and mountain one vast shade, 
 ^Michael the Wizard moaned in dread — 
 A long white moonbeam like a blade 
 Swept after him where'er he fled. 
 127 
 
The Weird of Michael Scott 
 
 Swiftly he leapt o'er rock and root, 
 Swift o'er the fern his flying foot, 
 But swifter still the white moonbeam : 
 Wild was the grey-owl's dismal hoot, 
 But wilder still his maniac scream. 
 
 Once in his flight he paused to hear 
 A hollow shriek that echoed near : — 
 The louder were his dreadful cries, 
 The louder rang adown the sheer 
 Gaunt cliffs the echoing replies. 
 
 As though a hunted wolf, he raced 
 To the lone woods across the waste 
 Steep granite slopes of Crammond-Low- 
 The haunted forest where none faced 
 The terror that no man might know. 
 
 Betwixt the mountains and the sea 
 Dark leagues of pine stood solemnly, 
 Voiceful with grim and hollow song, 
 Save when each tempest -stricken tree 
 A savage tumult would prolong. 
 
 Beneath the dark funereal plumes, 
 Slow waving to and fro — death-blooms 
 Within the void dim wood of death — 
 Oft shuddering at the fearful glooms 
 Sped Michael Scott with failing breath. 
 128 
 
The Weird of Michael Scott 
 
 Once, as he passed a dreary place, 
 Between two trees he saw a face — 
 x\ white face staring at his own : 
 A weird strange cry he gave for grace, 
 And heard an echoing moan. 
 
 " Whate'er ye be, thing that bides 
 Among the trees — O thing that hides 
 In yonder moving mass o' shade 
 Come forth tae me ! "—wan Michael glides 
 Swift, as he speaks, athrough the glade : 
 
 " Whate'er ye be, I fear ye nought ! 
 Michael the Wizard has na fought 
 Wi' men and demons 3'ear by year 
 To shirk ae thing he has na sought 
 Or blanch wi' any mortal fear ! " 
 
 But not a sound thrilled thro' the air — 
 Not even a she-fox in her lair 
 Or brooding bird made any stir — 
 All was as still and blank and bare 
 As is a vaulted sepulchre. 
 
 Then awe, and fear, and wild dismay 
 O'ercame mad Michael, ashy grey. 
 With eyes as of one newly dead : 
 " If wi' my sword I canna slay, 
 Ye'll dree my weird when it is said ! " 
 I 129 I 
 
The Weird of Michael Scott 
 
 " Whate'er ye be, man, beast, or sprite, 
 I wind ye round wi' a sheet o' light — 
 Aye, round and round your burning frame 
 I cast by spell o' wizard might 
 A fierce undying sheet of flame ! " 
 
 Swift as he spoke a thing sprang out, 
 
 A man -like thing, all hemmed about 
 
 With blazing blasting burning fire ! 
 
 The wind swoop'd wi' a demon-shout 
 
 And whirled the red flame higher and higher ! 
 
 And as, appalled, wan Michael stood 
 The flying flaughts swift fired the wood ; 
 And even as he shook and stared 
 The gaunt pines turned the hue of blood 
 And all the waving branches flared. 
 
 Then with wild leaps the accursed thing 
 Drew nigh and nigher : with a spring 
 Michael escaped its fiery clasp. 
 Although he felt the fierce flame sting 
 And all the horror of its grasp. 
 
 Swift as an arrow far he fled, 
 But swifter still the flames o'erhead 
 Rushed o'er the waving sea of pines. 
 And hollow noises crashed and sped 
 Like splitting blasts in ruin'd mines. 
 130 
 
The Weird of Michael Scott 
 
 A burning league — leagues, leagues of fire 
 
 Arose behind, and ever higher 
 
 The flying semi-circle came : 
 
 And aye beyond this dreadful pyre 
 
 There leapt a man-like thing in flame. 
 
 With awful scream doom'd Michael saw 
 The flying furnace reach Black-Law : 
 " Blood, bride, and bier, the auld rune saith 
 Heirs wind tae me ae nicht sail blaw, 
 The nicht I ride unto my death ! " 
 
 " The blood of Stair is round me now : 
 My bride can laugh to scorn my vow : 
 My bier, my bier, ah sail it be 
 Wi' a crown o' fire around my brow 
 Or deep within the cauld saut sea ! " 
 
 Like lightning, over Black-Law's slope 
 Michael fled swift with sudden hope : 
 What though the forest roared behind — 
 He yet might gain the cliff and grope 
 For where the sheep-paths twist and wind. 
 
 The air was like a furnace-blast 
 And all the dome of heaven one vast 
 Expanse of flame and fiery wings : 
 To the cliff's edge, ere all be past, 
 With shriek on shriek lost Michael springs. 
 131 
 
The Weird of Michael Scott 
 
 But none can hear his bitter call, 
 None, none can see him sway and fall — 
 Yea, one there is that shrills his name ! 
 " God, it is my ain lost saul 
 That I hae girt wV deathless flame ! " 
 
 With waving arms and dreadful cries 
 He cowers beneath those glaring eyes — 
 But all in vain — in vain — in vain ! 
 His own soul clasps him as its prize 
 And scorches death upon his brain. 
 
 Body and soul together swing 
 Adown the night until they fling 
 The hissing sea-spray far and wide : 
 At morn the fresh sea-wind will bring 
 A black corpse tossing on the tide. 
 
 132 
 
THE TWIN-SOUL 
 
 In the dead of the night a spirit came : 
 H«r moon-white face and her eyes of flame 
 Were known to me : — I called her name — 
 The name that shall not be spoken at all 
 Till Death hath this body of mine in thrall ! 
 
 And she laughed to see me lying there, 
 Wrapped in the living-corpse bloody and fair, 
 And my soul 'mid its thin films shining bare — 
 And I rose and followed her glance so 
 
 sweet 
 And passed from the house with noiseless 
 feet. 
 
 I know not myself what I knew, what I saw ! 
 
 I know that it filled me with trouble and awe, 
 
 With pain that still at my heart doth gnaw : 
 
 That she with her wild eyes witched my 
 
 soul 
 And whispered the name of the Unknown 
 Goal. 
 
 133 
 
The Twin-Soul 
 
 O, wild was her laugh, and wild was my cry 
 When with one long flash and a weary sigh 
 awoke as from sleep bewilderingly : 
 Her voice, her eyes, they are with me still, 
 O Spirit-Enchantress, O Demon-Will ! 
 
 134 
 
THE ISLE OF LOST DREAMS 
 
 There is an isle beyond our ken, 
 Haunted by Dreams of weary men. 
 Grey Hopes enshadow it with wings 
 Weary with burdens of old things : 
 There the insatiate water-springs 
 Rise with the tears of all who weep : 
 And deep within it, deep, oh deep 
 The furtive voice of Sorrow sings. 
 
 There evermore, 
 
 Till Time be o'er, 
 Sad, oh so sad, the Dreams of men 
 Drift through the isle beyond our ken. 
 
 135 
 
THE DEATH-CHILD 
 
 She sits beneath the elder-tree 
 
 And sings her song so sweet, 
 And dreams o'er the burn that darksomely 
 
 Runs by her moon-white feet. 
 
 Her hair is dark as starless night, 
 Her flower-crown'd face is pale, 
 
 But oh, her eyes are lit with light 
 Of dread ancestral bale. 
 
 She sings an eerie song, so wild 
 
 With immemorial dule — 
 Though young and fair Death's mortal child 
 
 That sits by that dark pool. 
 
 And oft she cries an eldritch scream 
 
 When red with human blood 
 The burn becomes a crimson stream, 
 
 A wild, red, surging flood : 
 
 Or shrinks, when some swift tide of tears — 
 
 The weeping of the world — 
 Dark eddying 'neath man's phantom -fears, 
 
 Is o'er the red stream hurl'd. 
 136 
 
The Death-Child 
 
 For hours beneath the elder-tree 
 She broods beside the stream ; 
 
 Her dark eyes filled with mystery. 
 Her dark soul rapt in dream. 
 
 The lapsing flow she heedeth not 
 Though deepest depths she scans : 
 
 Life is the shade that clouds her thought, 
 As Death's the eclipse of man's. 
 
 Time seems but as a bitter thing 
 
 Remember'd from of yore : 
 Yet ah (she thinks) her song she'll sing 
 
 When Time's long reign is o'er. 
 
 Erstwhiles she bends alow to hear 
 
 What the swift water sings, 
 The torrent running darkly clear 
 
 With secrets of all things. 
 
 x\nd then she smiles a strange sad smile, 
 
 And lets her harp lie long ; 
 The death-waves oft may rise the while, 
 
 She greets them with no song. 
 
 Few ever cross that dreary moor. 
 Few see that flower-crown'd head ; 
 
 But whoso knows that wild song's lure 
 Knoweth that he is dead. 
 
 137 
 
THE COVES OF CRAlL 
 
 The moon-white waters wash and leap, 
 The dark tide floods the Coves of Crail 
 
 Sound, sound he lies in dreamless sleep, 
 Nor hears the sea-wind wail. 
 
 The pale gold of his oozy locks, 
 
 Doth hither drift and thither wave ; 
 
 His thin hands plash against the rocks, 
 His white lips nothing crave. 
 
 Afar away she laughs and sings — 
 A song he loved, a wild sea-strain — 
 
 Of how the mermen weave their rings 
 Upon the reef -set main. 
 
 Sound, sound he lies in dreamless sleep, 
 Nor hears the sea-wind wail, 
 
 Tho' with the tide his white hands creep 
 Amid the Coves of Crail. 
 
 138 
 
FROM 
 
 SOSPIRI DI ROMA 
 
PRELUDE 
 
 Supra un munti sparman stu bellu ciuri 
 Chistu e lu ciuri di la to billizza ! 
 
 Sicilian Camnno 
 
 In a grove of ilex 
 Of oak and of chestnut, 
 Far on the sunswept 
 Heights of Tusculum, 
 There groweth a blossom, 
 A snow-white bloom, 
 Which many have heard of, 
 But few have seen. 
 Oft bright as the morning. 
 Oft pale as moonlight, 
 There in the greenness. 
 In shadow and sunshine 
 It grows, awaiting 
 The hand that shall pluck it : 
 For this blossom springeth 
 From the heart of a poet 
 And of her who loved him 
 In the long ago. 
 Here on the sunswept 
 141 
 
Prelude 
 
 Heights of Tusculum. 
 
 And them it awaiteth, 
 
 Deep lovers only, 
 
 Kindred of those 
 
 Who loved and passioned 
 
 There, and whose heart 's-blood 
 
 Wrought from the Earth 
 
 This marvellous blossom, 
 
 The Shadow-Lily, 
 
 The Flower of Dream. 
 
 Few that shall see it. 
 
 Fewer still 
 
 Those that shall pluck it : 
 
 But whoso gathers 
 
 That snow-white blossom 
 
 Shall love for ever. 
 
 For the passionate breath 
 
 Of the Shadow-Lily 
 
 Is Deathless Joy : 
 
 And whoso plucks it, keeps it, treasures it, 
 
 Has sunshine ever 
 
 About the heart, 
 
 Deep in the heart immortal sunshine : 
 
 For this is the gift of the snow-white 
 
 blossom. 
 This is the gift of the Flower of Dream. 
 
 142 
 
SUSURRO 
 
 Breath o' the grass, 
 Ripple of wandering wind. 
 Murmur of tremulous leaves : 
 A moonbeam moving white 
 Like a ghost across the plain : 
 A shadow on the road : 
 And high up, high, 
 From the cypress-bough, 
 A long sweet melancholy note. 
 Silence. 
 
 And the topmost spray 
 Of the cypress-bough is still 
 As a wavelet in a pool : 
 The road lies duskily bare : 
 The plain is a misty gloom : 
 Still are the tremulous leaves ; 
 Scarce a last ripple of wind. 
 Scarce a breath i' the grass. 
 Hush : the tired wind sleeps 
 Is it the wind's breath, or 
 Breath o' the grass. 
 
 143 
 
HIGH NOON AT MIDSUMMER 
 ON THE CAMPAGNA 
 
 High noon, 
 
 And from the purple-veiled hills 
 
 To where Rome lies in azure mist, 
 
 Scarce any breath of wind 
 
 Upon this vast and solitary waste, 
 
 These leagues of sunscorch'd grass 
 
 Where i' the dawn the scrambling goats 
 
 maintain 
 A hardy feast. 
 
 And where, when the warm yellow moon- 
 light floods the flats. 
 Gaunt laggard sheep browse spectrally for 
 
 hours 
 While not less gaunt and spectral shepherds 
 
 stand 
 Brooding, or with hollow vacant eyes 
 Stare down the long perspectives of the 
 
 dusk. 
 Now not a breath : 
 No sound ; 
 
 144 
 
High Noon at Midsummer on the Campagna 
 
 No living thing, 
 
 Save where the beetle jars his crackling 
 
 shards, 
 Or where the hoarse cicala fills 
 The heavy heated hour with palpitant whirr. 
 Yet hark ! 
 Comes not a low deep whisper from the 
 
 ground, 
 A sigh as though the immemorial past 
 Breathed here a long, slow, breath ? 
 Hush'd nations sleep below ; lost empires 
 
 here 
 Are dust ; and deeper still, 
 Dim shadowy peoples are the mould that 
 
 warms 
 The roots of even,- flower tliat blooms and 
 
 blows : 
 Even as we, too, bloom and fade, 
 Who are so fain 
 
 To be as the Night that dies not, but forever 
 Weaves her immortal web of starry fires ; 
 To be as Time itself, 
 Time, whose vast holocausts 
 Lie here, deep buried from the ken of men, 
 Here, where no breath of wind 
 Ruffles the brooding heat. 
 The breathless blazing heat 
 Of Noon. 
 
 I 145 K 
 
THE FOUNTAIN OF THE 
 ACQUA PAOLA 
 
 Not where thy turbid wave 
 
 Flowing Maremma-ward, 
 
 Moves heavily, Tiber, 
 
 Through Rome the Eternal, 
 
 Not there her music, not there her joy is : 
 
 But where on Janiculum 
 
 The tall pines 
 
 Sing their high song, with deeper therein, 
 
 like an echo 
 Heard in a mountain-hollow where cataracts 
 
 break, 
 A sound as of surge and of foaming : 
 Yes, there where the echoing pines 
 Whisper to high wandering winds 
 The rush and the surge and the splendour 
 Where the Acqua Paola thunders 
 Into its fount gigantic. 
 With noise like a tempest cleaving 
 With mighty wings 
 The norland forests. 
 
 146 
 
The Fountain of the Acqtia Paola 
 
 From dayspring, yellow and green 
 
 And grey as a swan's breastfeather, 
 
 To sunset 's amber and gold 
 
 And the white star of dusk, 
 
 And through the moon-white hours 
 
 Till only Hesperus hangs 
 
 His quivering tremulous disc 
 
 O'er the faint -flushed forehead of Dawn- 
 
 All hours, all days, forever 
 
 Surgeth the singing flood, 
 
 With chant and paean glorious, 
 
 With foam and splash and splendour, 
 
 A music wild, barbaric. 
 
 That calleth loud over Rome, 
 
 Laughing, mocking, rejoicing : 
 
 The sound of the waves when Ocean 
 
 Laughs at the vanishing land 
 
 And, fronting her shoreless leagues, 
 
 Remembers the ruined empires 
 
 That now are the drift and shingle 
 
 In cavernous hollows under 
 
 Her zone of Oblivion, 
 
 Silence that nought shall break. 
 
 Eternal calm. 
 
 Foam, spray and splendour 
 Of rushing waters. 
 Grey-blue as the pale blue dome 
 That circleth the morning star 
 147 
 
The Fountain of the Acqua Paola 
 
 While still his fires are brighter 
 Than the wanwhite fire of the moon. 
 Foam, spray, and surge 
 Of rushing waters ! 
 O the hot flood of sunshine 
 Yellowly pouring 
 
 Over and into thee, jubilant Fountain : 
 Thy cataracts filled 
 With vanishing rainbows, 
 Shimmering lights 
 As though the Aurora's 
 Wild polar fires 
 
 Flashed in thy happy bubbles, died in thy 
 foam. 
 
 Ever in joyous laughter 
 Thy wavelets are dancing. 
 Little waves with crests bright with sun- 
 light 
 Tossing their foamy arms, 
 Laughing and leaping. 
 Whirling, inweaving, 
 Rippling at last and sleepily laving 
 The mossed stone -barriers 
 That clasp them round. 
 Bright too and joyous. 
 They, in the moonshine. 
 When the falling waters 
 Are as wreaths of snow 
 148 
 
The Fountain of the Acqua Paola 
 
 Falling for ever 
 Down mountain-flanks, 
 Like melting snows 
 In the high hill-hollows 
 Seen from the valleys 
 And seeming to fall, 
 To fall forever 
 A flower of water, 
 Silent, and stirred not 
 By any wind. 
 
 Bright too and joyous 
 In darkling nights, 
 When the moon shroudeth 
 Her face in a veil 
 Of cloudy vapours, 
 Or, like a flower 
 I' the wane of its beauty, 
 Droopeth and falleth 
 Till lost to sight, 
 Stoopeth and fadeth 
 Into the dark — 
 Or when like a sickle 
 Thin and silvern 
 She moveth slowly 
 Through the starry fields, 
 Moveth slowly 
 'Mid the flowers of the stars 
 In the harvest-fields 
 149 
 
The Fountain of the Acqua Paola 
 
 Of Eternity : 
 Bright too and joyous, 
 For then the shadows 
 Play with the foam-hghts, 
 With the flying whiteness, 
 And snowy surging. 
 But brighter, more joyous. 
 Save when the moon-flower 
 In ah her splendour 
 Floats on thy bosom. 
 Or, rather, dreameth 
 Deep in the heart of thee 
 O happy Fountain : 
 Brighter, more joyous. 
 Thee, when amidst thee, 
 Strewn through thy waters. 
 The stars are sown 
 As seed multitudinous. 
 As silvern seed 
 In thy shadow3/-furrows : 
 Seed of the skiey flowers 
 That in the heavens 
 Bloom forever. 
 Blossoms and blooms of 
 Eternal splendour. 
 Then is thy joy most, 
 O jubilant Fountain, 
 Then are thy waters 
 Sweetest of song, 
 150 
 
The Fountain of the Acqua Paola 
 
 Then do thy waters 
 
 Surge, leap, rejoicing, 
 
 Lave, and lapse slowly 
 
 To haunted stillness 
 
 And darkling dreams : 
 
 Then is thy music rarest. 
 
 Wildest and sweetest 
 
 Music of Rome — 
 
 Rome the Eternal, 
 
 Through whose heart of shadow 
 
 Moveth slowly 
 
 Flowing Maremma-ward 
 
 Thy murmur, Tiber, 
 
 Thy muffled voice, 
 
 Whom none intcrpreteth 
 
 But boding, ominous, 
 
 Is as the sound of 
 
 Murmurous seas 
 
 Heard afar inland — 
 
 There, where Maremma-ward 
 
 Flowing heavily, 
 
 Moveth, Tiber, 
 
 Thy turbid wave. 
 
 151 
 
CLOUDS 
 
 {Agfo Romano) 
 
 As though the dead cities 
 
 Of the ancient time 
 
 Were builded again 
 
 In the heights of heaven, 
 
 With spires of amber 
 
 And golden domes, 
 
 Wide streets of topaz and amethyst ways ; 
 
 Far o'er the pale blue waste, 
 
 Oft purple-shadowed, 
 
 Of the Agro Romano, 
 
 Rises the splendid 
 
 City of Cloud. 
 
 There must the winds be soft as the twilight 
 
 Invisibly falling when the day-star has 
 
 wester'd ; 
 There must the rainbows trail up through 
 
 the sunlight, 
 So fair are the hues on those white snowy 
 
 masses. 
 Mountainous glories, 
 
 152 
 
Clouds 
 
 They move superbly ; 
 
 Crumbling so slowly, 
 
 That none perceives when 
 
 The golden domes 
 
 Are sunk in the valleys 
 
 Of fathomless snow, 
 
 Or when, in silence, 
 
 The loftiest spires 
 
 Fade into smoke, or as vapour that passeth 
 
 When the hot breath of noon 
 
 Thirsts through the firmament. 
 
 Beautiful, beautiful. 
 
 The City of Cloud, 
 
 In splendour ruinous. 
 
 With golden domes, 
 
 And spires of amber, 
 
 Builded superbly 
 
 In the heights of heaven. 
 
 153 
 
RED POPPIES 
 
 {In the Sabine valleys near Rome) 
 
 Through the seeding grass, 
 
 And the tall corn, 
 
 The wind goes : 
 
 With nimble feet, 
 
 And blithe voice, 
 
 Calling, calling, 
 
 The wind goes 
 
 Through the seeding grass, 
 
 And the tall corn. 
 
 What calleth the wind, 
 Passing by — 
 The shepherd-wind ? 
 Far and near 
 He laugheth low 
 And the red poppies 
 Lift their heads 
 And toss i' the sun. 
 A thousand thousand blooms 
 Tost i' the air, 
 154 
 
Red Poppies 
 
 Banners of joy. 
 
 For 'tis the shepherd-wind 
 
 Passing by, 
 
 Singing and laughing low 
 
 Through the seeding grass 
 
 And the tall corn. 
 
 155 
 
THE WHITE PEACOCK 
 
 Here where the sunlight 
 
 Floodeth the garden, 
 
 Where the pomegranate 
 
 Reareth its glory 
 
 Of gorgeous blossom ; 
 
 Where the oleanders 
 
 Dream through the noontides ; 
 
 And, like surf o' the sea 
 
 Round chffs of basalt, 
 
 The thick magnolias 
 
 In billowy masses 
 
 Front the sombre green of the ilexes 
 
 Here where the heat lies 
 
 Pale blue in the hollows. 
 
 Where blue are the shadows 
 
 On the fronds of the cactus. 
 
 Where pale blue the gleaming 
 
 Of fir and cypress. 
 
 With the cones upon them 
 
 Amber or glowing 
 
 With virgin gold : 
 
 156 
 
The White Peacock 
 
 Here where the honey-flower 
 
 Makes the heat fragrant, 
 
 As though from the gardens 
 
 Of Gulistan, 
 
 Where the bulbul singeth 
 
 Through a mist of roses 
 
 A breath were borne : 
 
 Here where the dream-flowers. 
 
 The cream-white poppies 
 
 Silently waver, 
 
 And where the Scirocco, 
 
 Faint in the hollows, 
 
 Foldeth his soft white wings in the sunlight. 
 
 And lieth sleeping 
 
 Deep in the heart of 
 
 A sea of white violets : 
 
 Here,. _as the breath, as the soul of this 
 beauty 
 
 Moveth in silence, and dreamlike, and slowly, 
 
 White as a snow-drift in mountain-valleys 
 
 When softly upon it the gold light lingers : 
 
 White as the foam o' the sea that is driven 
 
 O'er billows of azure agleam with sun- 
 yellow : 
 
 Cream-white and soft as the breasts of a girl, 
 
 Moves the White Peacock, as though 
 through the noontide 
 
 A dream of the moonlight were real for a 
 moment . 
 
 157 
 
The White Peacock 
 
 Dim on the beautiful fan that he spreadeth, 
 
 Foldeth and spreadeth abroad in the sun- 
 light, 
 
 Dim on the cream-white are bhie adum- 
 brations, 
 
 Shadows so pale in their delicate blucness 
 
 That visions they seem as of vanishing 
 violets. 
 
 The fragrant white violets veined with 
 azure, 
 
 Pale, pale as tlie breath of blue smoke in far 
 woodlands. 
 
 Here, as the breath, as the soul of this 
 beauty, 
 
 White as a cloud tlirough the heats of the 
 noontide 
 
 Moves the White Peacock. 
 
 158 
 
THE SWIMMER OF NEIVII 
 
 [The Lake of Nemi : September) 
 
 White through the azure, 
 
 The purple blueness, 
 
 Of Xemi's waters 
 
 The swimmer goeth. 
 
 Ivory-white, or wan white as roses 
 
 Yellowed and tanned by the suns of the 
 
 Orient, 
 His strong limbs sever the violet hollows ; 
 A shimmer of white fantastic motions 
 ^^'avering deep through the lake as he 
 
 swimmeth. 
 Like gorse in the sunlight the gold of his 
 
 yellow hair, 
 Yellow with sunshine and bright as with 
 
 dew-drops, 
 Spray of the waters flung back as he tosseth 
 His head i' the sunlight in the midst of his 
 
 laughter : 
 Red o'er his body, blossom-white 'mid the 
 
 blueness, 
 
 I5Q 
 
The Swimmer of Nemi 
 
 And trailing behind him in glory of scarlet, 
 A branch of the red-berried ash of the 
 
 mountains. 
 White as a moonbeam 
 Drifting athwart 
 The purple twilight, 
 The swimmer goeth — ■ 
 Joyously laughing, 
 With o'er his shoulders, 
 Agleam in the sunshine 
 The trailing branch 
 With the scarlet berries. 
 Green are the leaves, and scarlet the berries. 
 White are the limbs of the swimmer beyond 
 
 them, 
 Blue the deep heart of the still, brooding 
 
 lakelet. 
 Pale-blue the hills in the haze of September, 
 The high Alban hills in their silence and 
 
 beauty. 
 Purple the depths of the windless heaven 
 Curv'd like a flower o'er the waters of Nemi. 
 
 i6o 
 
AL FAR DELLA NOTTE 
 
 Hark! 
 
 As a bubbling fount 
 
 That suddenly wells 
 
 And rises in tall spiral waves and flj^ing 
 
 spray, 
 The high, sweet, quavering, throbbing voice 
 Of the nightingale ! 
 
 Not 3^et the purple veil of dusk has fallen, 
 But o'er the yellow band 
 That binds the west 
 The vesper star beats like the pulse of 
 
 heaven. 
 
 Up from the fields 
 
 The peasants troop 
 
 Singing their songs of love : 
 
 And oft the twang of thin string'd music 
 
 breaks 
 High o'er the welcoming shouts, 
 The homing laughter. 
 The whirling bats are out, 
 And to and fro 
 
 I i6i L 
 
Al Far della NoUe 
 
 The blue swifts wheel 
 
 Where, i' the shallows of the dusk, 
 
 The grey moths flutter 
 
 Over the pale blooms 
 
 Of the night -flowering bay. 
 
 Softly adown the slopes, 
 
 And o'er the plain, 
 
 Ave Maria 
 
 Solemnly soundeth. 
 
 The long day is over. 
 
 Dusk, and silence now : 
 
 And Night, that is as dew 
 
 On the Flower of the World. 
 
 162 
 
THISTLEDOWN 
 
 [Spring on the Canipagna) 
 
 Bloweth like snow 
 From the grey thistles 
 The thistledown : 
 And the fairy-feathers 
 O' the dandelion 
 Are tossed by the breeze 
 Hither and thither : 
 Over the grasses. 
 The seeding grasses 
 Where the poppies shake 
 And the campions waver, 
 And where the clover. 
 Purple and white, 
 Fills leagues with the fragrance 
 Of sunsweet honey ; 
 Hither and thither 
 The fairy-feathers 
 O' the dandelion, 
 And white puff-balls 
 O' the thistledown, 
 Merrily dancing. 
 Light on the breeze, 
 163 
 
Thistledown 
 
 Wheeling and sailing. 
 And laughing to scorn 
 The butterflies 
 And the moths of azure ; 
 Blowing like snow 
 Or foam o' the sea. 
 Hither and thither 
 Upward and downward. 
 
 Now for a moment 
 A thistledown 
 On a white ball resteth, 
 Sunbleached and hollow ; 
 A human skull 
 Of the ancient days. 
 When Sabines and Latins 
 Made all the land here 
 As red with blood 
 As it now is scarlet 
 With flaming poppies. 
 Now the feathers, 
 O' the dandelion, 
 Like sunlit swan's-down 
 Long tost by the wind 
 O'er the laughter of waters. 
 Are blown like surf 
 On a hidden rock — 
 A broken arch 
 Of a Roman temple, 
 164 
 
Thistledown 
 
 Where long, long ago, 
 
 The swarthy priests 
 
 Worshipped their Gods, 
 
 The Gods now less than 
 
 The very dust 
 
 Whence the green grass springeth ! 
 
 But for a moment, then the wind takes 
 
 them. 
 Blows them, plays with them, 
 Tosses them high through the gold of the 
 sunshine. 
 
 Wavers them upward, wavers them down- 
 ward. 
 
 Hither and thither among the white butter- 
 flies, 
 
 Over and under the blue-moths and honey- 
 bees, 
 
 Over the leagues of blossoming clover. 
 
 Purple and white, the sweet -smelling clover. 
 
 Far o'er the grasses. 
 
 And grey hanging thistles. 
 
 Hither and thither 
 
 Are floating and sailing 
 
 The fairy-feathers 
 
 O' the dandelion, 
 
 Bloweth hke snow 
 
 The joy o' the meadows. 
 
 The thistledown. 
 
 165 
 
THE SHEPHERD 
 
 {Near the Theatre of Marcellus : 
 Piazza Montanara) 
 
 Solitary he stands, 
 Clad in his goat -skins, 
 Though all about him 
 The busy throng 
 Cometh and goeth. 
 Overhead, the vast ruin. 
 Wind-worn, time-wrought, 
 Gloomily rises. 
 Scarce doth he note it. 
 Yet doth it give him 
 The touch of nearness, 
 Which the soul craves for 
 In alien places : 
 As the strayed mariner. 
 Yearning, far inland. 
 For sight of the sea. 
 Smiles when he fingers a rope, or 
 Heareth the wind 
 Surge round the hedgerows 
 i66 
 
The Shepherd 
 
 As erst through the cordage ; 
 
 Or, on the endless, dusty, white high-road 
 
 Puts his ear to the pole 
 
 Vibrating with song, as the mast 
 
 Ere while rang with the hum 
 
 Of the hurricane. 
 
 What doth he here, 
 Away from the pastures 
 On the desolate Campagna ? 
 From his haggard face 
 Sorrowfully his wild black eyes 
 Stare on the weariness. 
 The noise, and hurry. 
 And surge of the traffic. 
 Sometimes, a faint smile 
 Flitteth athwart his face, 
 When a woman, from the well, 
 Passeth by with a conca 
 Poised on her head : 
 Thus oft hath he seen 
 The peasant girls 
 In the little hamlets 
 Far out on the plain : 
 Or when a wine-cart 
 With its tall cappoto 
 
 A-swing like a high tent windswayed sidewise, 
 Rattles in from the Appian highway. 
 White with the dust of the Alban hills. 
 167 
 
The Shepherd 
 
 What doth he here, 
 He in whose eyes are 
 The passion of the desert : 
 He in whose ears rings 
 The free music 
 Of the winds that wander 
 Through the desert -ruins ? 
 Not here, O Shepherd, 
 Wouldst thou fain dwell, 
 Though in the Holy City 
 God's Regent lives : 
 Better the desolate waste, 
 Better the free lone life. 
 For there thou canst breathe. 
 There silence abideth. 
 There, not the Regent, 
 But God himself 
 Dwelleth and speaketh. 
 
 i68 
 
THE MANDOLIN 
 
 Tinklc-trink, tinklc-trink, trinklc-trinklc, 
 
 trink ! 
 Hark, the mandolin ! 
 Through the dusk the merry music falleth 
 
 sweet . 
 Where the fountain falls, 
 Where the fountain falls all shimmering in 
 
 the moonshine white, 
 Tinkle-trink, tinkle-trink, trinklc-trinkle, 
 
 trink ! 
 Where the wind-stirred olives quiver. 
 Quiver, quiver, leaves a-quiver. 
 White as silver in the moonlight but like 
 
 bat -wings in the dusk. 
 Where the great grey moths sail slowly 
 Slowly, slowly, like faint dreams 
 In the wildering woods of Sleep, 
 Where no night or day is. 
 But only, in dim twilights, the wan sheen 
 Of the Moon of Sleep. 
 
 Hark, the mandolin ! 
 Where the dark-coned cypress rises, 
 169 
 
The Mandolin 
 
 Thin, more thin, till threadlike, wavering 
 
 The last spray soars up as smoke, 
 
 As a vanishing breath of incense. 
 
 To the silent stars that glimmer 
 
 In the veil of purple darkness. 
 
 The deep vault of heaven that seemeth 
 
 As a veil that falleth, 
 
 A dark veil that foldeth gently 
 
 The tired day-worn world, breathing stilly 
 
 as a sleeping child. 
 Hark, the mandolin : 
 And a soft low sound of laughter ! 
 Tinkle-trink, tinkle-trink, trinkle-tr inkle, 
 
 trink ! 
 
 Hush : from out the cypress standing 
 
 Black against the yellow moonlight 
 
 What a thrill, what a sob, what a sudden 
 
 rapture flung 
 Athwart the dark ! 
 Passion of song ! 
 Silence again, save 'mid the whispering 
 
 leaves 
 The unquiet wind, that as the tide 
 Cometh and goeth. 
 Now one long thrilling note, prolonged and 
 
 sweet , 
 And then a low swift stir, 
 A whirr of fluttering wings, 
 170 
 
The Mandolin 
 
 And, in the laurels near, two nested nightin- 
 gales ! 
 
 Loud, loud, the mandolin, 
 
 Tinkle-trink, tinkle-trink, trinklc-tr inkle, 
 trink, 
 
 Trink, trink, trinkle-trink ! 
 
 Through the fragrant silent night it draweth 
 near, 
 
 Ah, the low cry, the little laugh, the rustle : 
 
 Tinkle-trink — hush, a kiss — tinkle-trink — 
 hush — hush — 
 
 Tinkle-trink, tinkle-trink, tr inkle-tr inkle ^ 
 trink ! 
 
 Where the shadows massed together 
 
 Make a hollow darkness, girt 
 
 By the yellow flood of moonshine floating 
 
 by, 
 
 Where the groves of ilex whisper 
 In the silence, fragrant, sweet. 
 Where the ilexes are dreaming 
 In their depths of darkest shadow, 
 Move the fireflies slowly, 
 Mazily inweaving, 
 Interweaving, interflowing ; 
 Wandering fires, like little lanterns 
 Borne by souls of birds and flowers 
 Seeking ever resurrection 
 In the gladsome world of sunshme ; 
 171 
 
The Mandolin 
 
 Seekly vainly through the darkness 
 
 In beneath the ilex-branches 
 
 Where the very moonshine faileth. 
 
 And the dark grey moths wave wanly 
 
 Flitting from the outer gloaming. 
 
 Oh, the fragrance, and the mystery, and the 
 
 silence ! 
 Where the fireflies, 'mid the ilex. 
 Rise and fall, recross, inweave 
 In an endless wavy motion, 
 In a slow aerial dancing 
 In a maze of little flames 
 In and out the ilex-branches : 
 Hush ! the mandolin ! 
 Louder still, and louder, louder : 
 Ah, the happy laugh, and rustle. 
 Rustle, rustle. 
 
 Ah, the kiss, the cry, the rapture. 
 Silence, where the ilex-branches 
 Loom out faintly from their darkness 
 Where, slow- wandering flames, the fireflies 
 Rise and fall, recross, inweave 
 In an endless wavy motion. 
 In a slow aerial dancing. 
 
 Silence : not a breath is stirring : 
 Not a leaflet quivers faintly. 
 Silence : even the bats are silent 
 Wheeling swiftly through the upper air, 
 172 
 
The Mandolin 
 
 Where the gnat's thin shrilHng music 
 Fades into the flooding moonhght : 
 Hush, low whispered words and kisses, 
 Hush, a cry of pain, of rapture. 
 Not a sound, a sound thereafter, 
 But a low sweet sigh of breathing. 
 And, from out the flowering laurel, 
 Just a twittering breath of music. 
 Just a long-drawn pulsing note 
 Of a sweet and passionate answer. 
 Silence : hark, a stir — low laughter — 
 Whispered words — and rustle — rustle — 
 Trink — trink — the mandolin ! 
 Hark, it trinkles down the valley, 
 Trink-trink, trinkle-trink, trinkle-trink ! 
 Past the cistus, blooming whitely, 
 Past the oleander-bushes. 
 Past the ilexes and olives. 
 Where the two tall pines are whispering 
 With the sleepy wind that foldeth 
 His tired pinions ere he sleepeth 
 On the flood of amber moonlight. 
 Wind o' the night, tired wind o' night — 
 Tinkle-trink, trink, trinkle-trink, 
 Trink, trinkle-trink, 
 Trink I 
 
 173 
 
BAT-WINGS 
 
 Flitter, flitter, through the twilight, 
 
 Pipistrello : 
 
 Where the moonshine glitters 
 
 Waver thy swart wings, 
 
 Darting hither, thither, 
 
 Swift as wheeling swallow. 
 
 Where the shadows gather 
 
 In and out thou flittest, 
 
 Flitter, flitter, 
 
 Waver, waver, 
 
 Pipistrello. 
 
 Thin thy faint aerial song is. 
 
 Thin and fainter than the shrilling 
 
 Of the gnats thou chasest wildly, 
 
 But how delicately dainty — 
 
 Thin and faint and wavering also. 
 
 In the high sweet upper air. 
 
 Where the gnats weave endless mazes 
 
 In their pyramidal dances — 
 
 And thy dusky wings go flutter. 
 
 Flutter, flutter, 
 
 Waver, waver. 
 
 But without a sound or rustle 
 
 Through the purple air of twilight. 
 
 Flitter, flitter, flutter, flitter, 
 
 Pipistrello. 
 
 174 
 
LA VELIA 
 
 {The Sea-Gull : Pontine Marshes) 
 
 Here where the marsh 
 Waves white with ranunculus. 
 Where the yellow daffodil 
 Flieth his banner 
 In the fetid air, 
 And oft 'mid the bulrushes 
 Rustleth the porcupine 
 Or surgeth the boar — 
 Though bloweth rarely 
 The fresh wind, 
 The Tramontana, 
 And only Scirocco 
 Heavily lifts 
 
 The feathery plumes the tall canes carry 
 What dost thou here, 
 O bird of the ocean ? 
 Here, where the marshes 
 Are never stirred 
 By the pulse of the tides ; 
 Here where the white mists 
 175 
 
La Velia 
 
 Crawl on the swamp, 
 
 But never the rush and the surge of the 
 
 billows ? 
 White as a snowflake thou gleamest, and 
 
 passest : 
 Drearier now the chill waste of the Stagno, 
 Wearier now the dull silence and boding. 
 Would that again 
 Thy glad presence were gleaming 
 Here where the marsh 
 Steams white in the sunshine ; 
 For swift on my sight, 
 As thy white wings wavered. 
 Broke the sea in its beauty, 
 With foam, and splendour 
 Of rolling waves : 
 And loud on my ears (O the longing, the 
 
 yearning) 
 When thy cry filled the silence. 
 Came the surge of the sea 
 And the tumult of waters. 
 
 176 
 
SPUMA DAL MARE 
 {On the Latin Coast) 
 
 Flower o' the wave, 
 
 WTiite foam of the waters, 
 
 The many-coloured : 
 
 Here blue as a hare-bell, 
 
 Here pale as the turquoise ; 
 
 Here green as the grasses 
 
 Of mountain hollows, 
 
 Here lucent as jade when wet in the sun- 
 shine, 
 
 Here paler than apples ere ruddied by 
 autumn. 
 
 Depths o' the purple ! 
 
 Amethyst yonder, 
 
 Yonder as ling on the hills of October, 
 
 With shadows as deep, 
 
 Where islets of sea-wrack 
 
 Wave in the shallows, 
 
 As the sheen of the feathers 
 
 On the blue-green breast 
 
 Of the bird of the Orient, 
 
 The splendid peacock. 
 
 I 177 M 
 
Spuma dal Mare 
 
 Foam o' the waves, 
 
 White crests ashine 
 
 With a dazzle of sunlight ! 
 
 Here the low breakers are rolling through 
 
 shallows, 
 Yellow and muddied, the hue of the topaz 
 Ere cut from the boulder ; 
 Save when the sunlight swims through them 
 
 slantwise, 
 When inward they roll 
 Long billows of amber. 
 Crowned with pale yellow 
 And grey-green spume. 
 Here wan grey their slopes 
 Where the broken lights reach them, 
 Dull grey of pearl, and dappled, and 
 
 darkling, 
 As when 'mid the high 
 Northward drift of the clouds, 
 Scirocco bloweth 
 With soft fanning breath. 
 
 Foam o' the waves. 
 Blown blossoms of ocean, 
 White flowers of the waters. 
 The many-coloured. 
 
 178 
 
THE BATHER 
 
 Where the sea- wind ruffles 
 
 The pale pink blooms 
 
 Of the fragrant Daphne, 
 
 And passeth softly 
 
 Over the sward 
 
 Of the cyclamen-blossoms, 
 
 The Bather stands. 
 
 Rosy white, as a cloud at the dawning, 
 
 Silent she stands, 
 
 And looks far seaward. 
 
 As a seabird, dreaming 
 
 On some lone rock, 
 
 Poiseth his pinions 
 
 Ere over the waters 
 
 He moves like a vision 
 
 On motionless wings. 
 
 Beautiful, beautiful, 
 The sunlit gleam 
 Of her naked body. 
 
 Ivory-white 'mid the cyclamen-blossoms 
 179 
 
The Bather 
 
 A wave o' the sea 'mid the blooms of the 
 
 Daphne. 
 Blue as the innermost heart of the ocean 
 The arch of the sky where the wood runneth 
 
 seaward, 
 Blue as the depths of the innermost heaven 
 The vast heaving breast of the slow-moving 
 
 waters : 
 Green the thick grasses that run from the 
 
 woodland, 
 Green as the heart of the foam-crested 
 
 billows 
 Curving a moment ere washing far inland 
 Up the long reach of the sands gleaming 
 
 golden. 
 The land-breath beareth 
 Afar the fragrance 
 Of thyme and basil 
 And clustered rosemary ; 
 And o'er the fennel, 
 And through the broom, 
 It floateth softly, 
 As the wind of noon 
 That Cometh and goeth 
 Though none hearkens 
 Its downy wings. 
 And keen, the sea wind 
 Bears up the odours 
 Of blossoming pinks 
 
 i8o 
 
The Bather 
 
 And salt rock-grasses, 
 Of rustling seaweed 
 And mosses of pools 
 Where the rosy blooms 
 Of the sea-fiowers open 
 'Mid stranded waves. 
 As a water-lil}' 
 Touched by the breath 
 Of sunrise-glory, 
 ]\Ioveth and swayeth 
 With tremulous joy, 
 So o'er the sunlit 
 White gleaming body 
 Of the beautiful bather 
 Passeth a quiver 
 
 Rosy-white, as a cloud at the dawning. 
 Poised like a swallow that meeteth the wind. 
 For a moment she standeth 
 Where the sea-wind softly 
 Mo vet h over 
 
 The thick pink sward of the cyclamen- 
 blossoms. 
 Mo vet h and rust let h 
 With faint susurrus 
 The pale pink blooms 
 Of the fragrant Daphne. 
 
 I5l 
 
THE WILD MARE 
 
 Like a breath that comes and goes 
 
 O'er the waveless waste 
 
 Of sleeping Ocean, 
 
 So sweeps across the plain -; 
 
 The herd of wild horses. 
 
 Like banners in the wind 
 
 Their flying tails, 
 
 Their streaming manes : 
 
 And like spume of the sea 
 
 Fang'd by breakers, 
 
 The white froth tossed from their blood-red 
 
 nostrils. 
 Out from the midst of them 
 Dasheth a white mare, 
 White as a swan in the pride of her beauty : 
 And, like the whirlwind, 
 Following after, 
 A snorting stallion. 
 Swart as an Indian 
 Diver of coral ! 
 Wild the gyrations, 
 The rush and the whirl ; 
 182 
 
The Wild Mare 
 
 Loud the hot panting 
 
 Of the snow-white mare, 
 
 As swift upon her 
 
 The stalHon gaineth : 
 
 Fierce the proud snorting 
 
 Of him, victorious : 
 
 And loud, sweUing loud on the wind from 
 
 the mountains. 
 The hoarse savage tumult of neighing and 
 
 stamping 
 Where, wheeling, the herd of wild horses 
 
 await eth — 
 Ears thrown back, tails thrashing their 
 
 flanks or swept under — 
 The challenging scream of the conqueror- 
 
 stallion. 
 
 183 
 
SCIROCCO 
 
 [June] 
 
 Softly as feathers 
 
 That fall through the twilight 
 
 When wild swans are winging 
 
 Back to the northward : 
 
 Softly as waters, 
 
 Unruffled, and tideless. 
 
 Laving the mosses 
 
 Of inland seas : 
 
 Soft through the forest, 
 
 And down through the valley, 
 
 Light as a breath o'er the pools of the 
 
 marish. 
 Still as a moonbeam over the pastures, 
 Goeth Scirocco. 
 
 Warm his breath : 
 The night-flowers know it, 
 Love it, and open ^ 
 
 Their blooms for its sweetness : 
 Warm the tender low wind of his pinions 
 184 
 
Scirocco 
 
 Scarce brushing together the spires of the 
 
 grasses : 
 Ah, how they whisper, the little green leaflets 
 Black in the dusk or grey in the moonlight : 
 Ah, how they whisper and shiver, the 
 
 tremulous 
 Leaves of the poplar, and shimmer and rustle 
 When soft as a vapour that steals from the 
 
 marshes 
 The wings of Scirocco fan silently through 
 
 them. 
 
 Oft-times he lingers 
 
 By ruined nests 
 
 Deep in the hedgerows. 
 
 And bloweth a feather 
 
 In little eddies, 
 
 A yellow feather 
 
 That once had fluttered 
 
 On a breast alive with 
 
 A rapture of song : 
 
 But slowly ceaseth. 
 
 And passeth sadly. 
 
 Oft-times he riseth 
 
 Up through the branches 
 
 Where the fireflies wander 
 
 Up through the branches 
 
 Of oak and chestnut. 
 
 And stirs so gently 
 
 185 
 
Scirocco 
 
 With sway of his wings 
 
 That the leaves, dreaming, 
 
 Think that a moonbeam 
 
 Only, or moonshine, 
 
 Moves through the heart of them. 
 
 Upward he soareth 
 
 Oft, silently floating 
 
 Through the purple aether. 
 
 Still as the fern-owl over the covert, 
 
 Or as allocco haunting the woodland, 
 
 Up to the soft curded foam of the cloudlets, 
 
 The white dappled cloudlets the south- 
 wind bringeth. 
 
 There, dreaming, he moveth 
 
 Or sails through the moonlight. 
 
 Till chill in the high upper air and the 
 silence. 
 
 Slowly he sinketh 
 
 Earthward again. 
 
 Silently fioateth 
 
 Down o'er the woodlands : 
 
 Foldeth his wings and slow through the 
 branches 
 
 Drifts, scarcely breathing. 
 
 Till tired, 'mid the flowers or the hedgerows 
 he creepeth, 
 
 Whispers alow 'mid the spires of the grasses. 
 
 Or swooning at last to motionless slumber 
 
 Floats like a shadow adrift on the pastures. 
 i86 
 
THE WIND AT FIDENAE 
 
 Fresh from the Sabines, 
 
 The Beautiful Hills, 
 
 The wind bloweth. 
 
 Down o'er the slopes, 
 
 Where the olives whiten 
 
 As though the feet 
 
 Of the wind were snow-clad : 
 
 Out o'er the plain 
 
 Where a paradise 
 
 Of wild blooms waveth, 
 
 And where, in the suns wept 
 
 Leagues of azure, 
 
 A thousand larks are 
 
 As a thousand founts 
 
 'Mid the perfect joy of 
 
 The depth of heaven. 
 
 Swift o'er the heights, 
 
 And over the valleys 
 
 Where the grey oxen sleepily stand, 
 
 Down, like a wild hawk swooping earthward, 
 
 Over the winding reaches of Tiber, 
 
 Bloweth the wind ! 
 
 187 
 
The Wind at Fidenae 
 
 How the wind bio wet h, 
 
 Here on the steeps of 
 
 Ancient Fidenae, 
 
 Where no voice soimdeth 
 
 Now, save the shepherd 
 
 Calhng his sheep ; 
 
 And where none wander 
 
 But only the cloud-shadows. 
 
 Vague ghosts of the past. 
 
 Sweet and fresh from the Sabines, 
 
 Now as of yore. 
 
 When Etruscan maidens 
 
 Laughed as their lovers 
 
 Mocked the damsels 
 
 Of alien Rome, 
 
 Sweet with the same young breath o' the 
 
 world 
 Bio wet h the wind. 
 
 i88 
 
SORGENDO DA LUNA 
 
 No sound, 
 
 Save the hush'd breath, 
 
 The slowl}' flowing, 
 
 The long and low withdrawing breath of 
 
 Rome. 
 Not a leaf quivers, where the dark, 
 With eyes of rayless shadow and moonht 
 
 hair, 
 Dreams in the black 
 
 And hollow cavernous depth of the ilex- 
 trees. 
 No sound, 
 
 Save the hush'd breath of Rome, 
 And sweet and fresh and clear 
 The bubbling, swaying, ever quavering jet 
 Of water fill'd with pale nocturnal gleams, 
 That, in the broad low fount. 
 Pallet h. 
 
 Pallet h and riseth, 
 Riseth and falleth, swayeth and surgeth, 
 
 ever 
 A spring of life and joy where ceaselessly 
 189 
 
Sorgendo da Luna 
 
 The shadow of two sovran powers make 
 A terror without fear, a night that hath no 
 
 dark, 
 Time, with his sunht wings. 
 Death, with his pinions vast and duskily 
 
 dim : 
 Time, breathing vanishing hfe : 
 Death, breathing low 
 From twilights of Oblivion whence Time 
 
 rose 
 A wild and wandering star forlornly whirled, 
 Seen for a moment, ere for ever lost. 
 Up from the marble fount 
 The water leaps, 
 Sways in the moonshine, springeth, 
 
 springeth, 
 Falleth and riseth. 
 Like sweet faint lapping music, 
 Soft gurgling notes of woodland brooks that 
 
 wander 
 Low laughing where the hollowed stones are 
 
 green 
 With slippery moss that hath a trickling 
 
 sound : 
 Leapeth and springeth, 
 Singing forever 
 A wayward song. 
 While the vast wings of Time and Death 
 
 drift slowly, 
 
 190 
 
Sorgendo da Luna 
 
 While, faint and far, the tides of life 
 
 Sigh in a long scarce audible breath from 
 
 Rome, 
 Or faintlier still withdraw down shores of 
 
 dusk ; 
 For ever singing 
 It leapeth and falleth : 
 Pallet h and leapeth, 
 Falleth, 
 And falleth. 
 
 191 
 
IN JULY 
 
 [South of Rome) 
 
 Pale-rose the dust lying thick upon the 
 
 road : 
 Grey-green the thirsty grasses by the way. 
 The long flat silvery sheen of the vast 
 
 champaign 
 Shimmers beneath the blazing tide of noon. 
 The blood-red poppies flame 
 Like furnace-breaths : 
 Like wan vague dreams the misty lavender 
 Drifts greyly through the quivering maze; 
 
 or seems 
 Thus through the visionary glow to drift. 
 On the far slope, beyond the ruin'd arch, 
 A grey-white cloudlet rests, 
 The cluster'd sheep alow : close, moveless 
 
 all, 
 And silent, save when faintly from their 
 
 midst 
 A slumberous tinkle comes, 
 Cometh, and goeth. 
 
 192 
 
Ill July 
 
 Low-stretch'd in the blue shade. 
 
 Beneath the ruin 
 
 The shepherd sleeps. 
 
 Nought stirs. 
 
 The wind moves not, nor with the faintest 
 
 breath 
 Toucheth the half-fallen blooms of the 
 
 asphodels. 
 Here only, where the pale pink ash 
 Of the long road doth slowly flush to rose, 
 A bronze-wing 'd beetle mo vet h low. 
 And sends one tiny puff of smoke-like dust 
 Faint through the golden glimmer of the 
 
 heat. 
 
 193 
 
A DREAM AT ARDEA 
 
 {Maremma) 
 
 Where Ardea, the cliff -girt, 
 Looks to the Sea, 
 Dreaming forever 
 In her desert place 
 Of her vanished glory — 
 There too in the tall grass, 
 Starred with narcissus 
 And the flaming poppy, 
 I dreamed a dream. 
 
 Not of the days when 
 The fierce trumpeting 
 Of the Asian elephants 
 Made the wild horses 
 Snort in new terror. 
 Snort and wheel wildly, 
 Till o'er the Campagna 
 They passed like a trail 
 Of vanishing smoke. 
 No, nor when 
 194 
 
A Dream at Anica 
 
 The brazen clarions 
 
 Of the Roman legion 
 
 Sammoned the hill-folk 
 
 To the Punic War : 
 
 Nor yet when the shadow 
 
 Of the falling star 
 
 Of the House of Tarquin 
 
 Swept unseen o'er the banquet, 
 
 And none, foreseeing, 
 
 Drew forth the pure sword 
 
 For the foul heart of Scxtus, 
 
 Nor yet of the ancient days 
 
 When the fierce Rutuli 
 
 Laughed at the boasting of 
 
 The seven-hilled city, 
 
 And when on rude altars 
 
 White victims lay. 
 
 To appease the anger 
 
 Of barbarian Gods — 
 
 Nay, not of these, not even the far-off. 
 
 The ancient time, when the mother of 
 
 Perseus, 
 Danae the beautiful, came hither and 
 
 buildcd 
 Close to the sea the hill-town which standeth 
 Now amid leagues of the inland grasses. 
 White with the surf of the blossoming 
 ^^ asphodels — 
 Nay, but only 
 
 195 
 
A Dream at Ardea 
 
 Of the shrine of her, 
 
 Venus, the Beautiful One, 
 
 The Well-Beloved. 
 
 Lost, it lieth 
 
 Deep 'mid the tangle, 
 
 Deep 'neath the roots of the flowers and the 
 grasses 
 
 Drawn like a veil o'er 
 
 The face of Maremma. 
 
 Only the brown lark 
 
 Singing above it, 
 
 Only the grey hare 
 
 Beneath the wild olive. 
 
 Only the linnet aflit in the myrtle. 
 
 Only the spotted snake 
 
 Writhing swiftly 
 
 O'er the thyme and the spikenard. 
 
 Only the falcon 
 
 Dusking a moment the gold of the yellow 
 broom, 
 
 Only the things of the air and the desert. 
 
 Know where deep in the maze of the under- 
 growth 
 
 Lieth the shrine of the sacred Goddess, 
 
 The shrine of Venus, 
 
 Up through the dark blue mist of the hare- 
 bells- 
 All the wild glory, with trailing convolvulus, 
 
 Lenten lilies asway in the sunlight, 
 196 
 
A Dream at Ardea 
 
 Wine-dark anemones, pasque-flowers of 
 
 ruby, 
 Iris and daffodil and sweet -smelling violet. 
 And high over all the white and gold 
 
 shining 
 Where the wind raced o'er the asphodel 
 
 meadows : 
 All the flower-glory of Spring in Maremm.a. 
 But here, just here, a mist of the harebells — 
 Up through the dark blue mist of the hare- 
 bells 
 Rose like a white smoke hovering gently 
 Over the windless woodlands of Ostia 
 Where the charcoal-burners wander like 
 
 shadows. 
 Rose a white vapour, stealthily, slowly. 
 
 Ah, but the wonder ! the wan ghost of 
 
 Venus 
 Rose slowly before me : 
 Dark, deep, and awful the eyes of the vision, 
 Sad beyond words that wraith of dead 
 
 beauty. 
 Chill now and solemn 
 Austere as the grave, 
 The face that had blanched 
 The high gods of old, 
 The face that had led 
 The heroes of men 
 
 197 
 
A D yearn at Ardea 
 
 From the heights of Caucasus 
 
 To the uttermost ends 
 
 Of Earth, as leadeth nightly 
 
 The Moon, her cohorts 
 
 Of perishing billows. 
 
 " I am she whom thou lovest : " 
 
 " Nay, whom I worship, Goddess and Queen ! " 
 
 " I am she whom thou worshippest : " 
 
 " For thou art Beauty, and Beauty I worship, 
 
 And thou art Love, and Love — " 
 
 " Love is Beauty. They love not nor 
 
 worship, 
 They who dissever the one from the 
 
 other." 
 " Hearken, Goddess ! " 
 " Nay, shadow of shadows, why callest me 
 
 Goddess ! 
 Far from thy world ' the Goddess ' is 
 
 banished. 
 Ye have chosen the dark : the dark be 
 
 with you ! 
 Ye have chosen sorrow : and sorrow is 
 
 yours : 
 O fools that worship vain Gods, and know not 
 That life is the breath but of perishing dust — 
 They onty live in whose hearts there hath 
 
 fallen 
 The breath of my passion — " 
 " Goddess, fade not ! " 
 198 
 
A D yearn at Ardea 
 
 " I pass, and behold. 
 With my passing goeth 
 The joy of the world ! " 
 
 Darkly austere 
 
 The face of the Goddess. 
 
 Then like a flame 
 
 That groweth wan 
 
 And flickereth forth from the reach of vision, 
 
 The face of Venus 
 
 Was seen no more, 
 
 Though through the mist 
 
 Her eyes gleamed darkly, 
 
 Great fires of joy — 
 
 Of joy disherited. 
 
 But glorious ever 
 
 In their lordly scorn, 
 
 Their high disdain. 
 
 Not till the purple-hue d 
 Wings of the twilight 
 Waved softly downward 
 From the Alban hills. 
 And moved stilly 
 
 Over the vast dim leagues of Maremma, 
 Tamed I backward 
 My wandering steps. 
 Far o'er the white-glimmering 
 Breast of the Tyrrhene Sea 
 (Laid as in sleep at the feet of the hills) 
 199 
 
A Dream at Ardea 
 
 Rose, dropping liquid fires 
 
 Into the wine-dark vault of the heaven, 
 
 The Star of Evening, 
 
 Venus, the Evening Star : 
 
 Eternal, serene. 
 
 In deathless beauty 
 
 Revolving ever 
 
 Through th^ stellar spheres ! 
 
 High o'er the shadowy heights 
 Of the Volscian summits 
 The full moon soared : 
 Soared slowly upward 
 Like a golden nenuphar 
 In a vaster Nilus 
 Than that which floweth 
 Through the heart of Egypt. 
 The moon that maketh 
 The world so beautiful, 
 That moveth so tenderly 
 Over desolate things, 
 The moon that giveth 
 The amber light. 
 Wherein best blossom 
 The mystic flowers 
 Of human love. 
 
 Through the darkness 
 WTielming the waste. 
 And, like a stealthy tide 
 
 200 
 
A Dream at Ardea 
 
 Rising around 
 
 Ardea, the cliff -girt, 
 
 Wavered the sound of joyous laughter. 
 
 Sweet words and sweeter 
 
 Fell where the lentisc 
 
 Bloomed, and the rosemary : 
 
 Loving caresses 
 
 Lost in a rustle 
 
 Where the hawthorn-bushes 
 
 Loomed large in the twilight 
 
 Of the fireflies' lanterns. 
 
 Deep in the heart of 
 
 A myrtle-thicket 
 
 A nightingale stirred : 
 
 With low sweet note, 
 
 Thrilling strangely, 
 
 And as though moving 
 
 With the breath of it-, passion 
 
 The midmost leaves. 
 
 But once her plaint : — 
 
 Then wild and glad. 
 
 In a free ecstasy. 
 
 In utter bliss, 
 
 In one high whirl of rapture, sang 
 
 His answering song 
 
 Her mate, low swaying upon a bough, 
 
 With throat full-strained, and quivering wings 
 
 Beating with tremulous whirr. 
 
 201 
 
A Dream at Ardea 
 
 Then I was glad, 
 
 For surely I knew 
 
 I had dreamed a dream 'neath the spell of 
 
 Maremma. 
 Not sunk in the drift 
 Of antique dust, 
 Lost from the ken of Eartn 
 Within her shrine, 
 Venus, the Beautiful, 
 The Oueen of Love ! 
 But though no longer 
 Beheld of man. 
 Still living and breathing 
 Through the heart of the world — 
 Whether in the song, 
 Passionate, beautiful. 
 Of the nightingale ; 
 Or in the glad rapture 
 Of lovers meeting, 
 With soft caresses 
 Hid in the dusk ; 
 
 In the fair flower of the vast field of heaven ; 
 Or in the glow. 
 The pulsing splendour, 
 Of the white star of joy, 
 The Star of Eve. 
 
 202 
 
DE PROFUNDIS 
 
 Whence hast thou gone, 
 vision beloved ? 
 There is silence now 
 In thy groves, and never 
 A voice proclaimeth 
 Thy glory come. 
 Thy joy rearisen ! 
 
 O passion of beauty, 
 Forsake not thus 
 Those who have worshipped thee, 
 Body and soul ! 
 Come to us, come to us. 
 Inviolate, Beautiful, 
 Thou whose breath 
 Is as Spring o'er the world, 
 Whose smile is the flowering 
 Of the wide green Earth ! 
 Deep in the heart of thee. 
 Like a moonbeam moving 
 Through the heart of a hill-lake 
 Moveth Compassion : 
 203 
 
De Profundis 
 
 O Beloved, 
 Be with us ever, 
 Thou, the Beautiful, 
 Passion of Beauty, 
 Alma Victrix ! 
 
 204 
 
ULTIMO SOSPIRO 
 
 O dolce primavera pien' di olezzo e amor! 
 Che fai tu . . . che fai fra tanti fior ? 
 
 Colgo le rose amabili dei piu soavi odori ; 
 Colgo le rose affabili e i lunghi gelsomini, 
 Nei olenti miei giardini io vi tengo al cor. 
 
 Roman Folksong. 
 
 Joy of the world, 
 
 O flower-crown 'd Spring, 
 
 With thine odorous breath and thy heart of 
 love, 
 
 Breathe through this verse thy sweet mes- 
 sage of longing. 
 
 Lo, in the gardens of Alma, whose lovers 
 
 Die gladly in worship, but fail not ever. 
 
 Oft have I strayed, 
 
 Oft have I lingered 
 
 When high through the noon the lost lark 
 has been singing, 
 
 Or when in the moonlight 
 
 Soft through the silence has whispered the 
 ocean, 
 
 Or when, in the dark 
 
 205 
 
Ultimo Sospiro 
 
 Of the ilex-woods, 
 
 Where the fireflies wavered 
 
 Frail wandering stars, 
 
 Not a sound has been heard 
 
 But Scirocco rustling 
 
 The midmost leaves 
 
 Of the trees where he sleepeth. 
 
 Roses of love, 
 
 White lilies of dream, 
 
 Frail blooms that have blossom 'd 
 
 Into life with thy breathing : 
 
 Blow them, O wind, 
 
 West wind of the Spring, 
 
 Lift them and take tJiem where gardens 
 
 await them, 
 Lift them and take them to those who 
 
 hearken, 
 Facing the dawn, for the sounds of the 
 
 morning, 
 With wide eyes glad with the beautiful 
 
 vision, 
 O whispers of joy, 
 O breaths of passion, 
 O sighs of longing. 
 
 ?o6 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
 II Bosco Sacro 
 
 Ah, the sweet silence : 
 Not a breath stirreth : 
 Scarce a leaf moveth. 
 
 The Dusk, as a dream. 
 Steals slowly, slowly. 
 With shadowy feet 
 Under the branches 
 Here, in the woodland, 
 Hushfully seeking 
 The Night, her lover. 
 
 Sweet are the odours 
 Breath'd through the twilight, 
 Lovely spirits 
 Of lovely things. 
 One by one 
 
 Forth-shimmer white stars 
 Beyond the skiey 
 Boughs of chestnuts, 
 207 
 
Pale Phosphorescence 
 Gleaming and glancing 
 As in the wake 
 Of a windspent vessel 
 That, moonlike, drifts 
 With motionless motion. 
 
 Peace : utter peace. 
 
 Not a sound riseth 
 
 From where in the hollow 
 
 The town lies dreaming : 
 
 Not a cry from the pastures 
 
 That far below 
 
 Are drowsed in the shadows. 
 
 Only afar, 
 
 On the dim Campagna, 
 
 Peace, utter peace : 
 
 On the pastures, peace 
 
 Low in the hollows. 
 
 Deep in the woodlands. 
 
 High on the hill-slopes, 
 
 Rest, utter rest. 
 
 Utter peace. 
 
 Suddenly . . . thrilling 
 Long-drawn vibrations ! 
 Passionate preludes 
 Of passionate song 
 O the wild music 
 208 
 
Epilogue • 
 
 Tost through the silence, 
 As a swaying fountain 
 Is swept by the wind's wings 
 Far through the sunshine, 
 A mist of flashing 
 And fahing spray. 
 How the hush of the stillness 
 Deepeneth slowly. . . . 
 Till never, never 
 Can pain and rapture 
 So wild a music, 
 So sweet a song. 
 List in the moonlight- 
 Listen again 
 O never, never ! 
 
 O heart still thy beating : 
 O bird, thy song ! 
 Too deep the rapture 
 Of this new sorrow. 
 White falls the moonshine 
 Here, where we gather'd 
 The snow-pure blossoms. 
 The Flowers of Dream : 
 Here, when the sunlight 
 On that glad day 
 Flooded the mosses 
 With golden wine, 
 And deep in the forest, 
 209 
 
 o 
 
Epilogue 
 
 Joy passed us, laughing. 
 Laughing low. 
 While ever behind her 
 Rose lovely, delicate. 
 Beautiful, beautiful. 
 The fadeless blossoms, 
 The Flowers of Dream. 
 Be still, O beating, 
 O yearning heart ! 
 Here there is silence . . . 
 Silence . . . Silence . . . 
 O beating heart ! 
 
 Here, in the sunshine, 
 Together we gather'd 
 The perfect blooms : 
 And now in the gloaming, 
 Here, where the moonlight. 
 Lies like white foam on 
 The dark tides of night, 
 Here is one only. 
 Longing forever. 
 Longing, longing 
 With passion and pain. 
 
 Come, O Beloved ! 
 O heart, be still ! 
 Nay, through the silence 
 Cometh uo answer, 
 
 210 
 
Epilogue 
 
 But only, only 
 The sweet subsiding 
 Of this wild strain 
 Now lost in the thickets 
 Down in the hollows. 
 
 Hark . . . rapture outwelling 
 
 O song of joy ! 
 
 Glad voice of my passion 
 
 Singing there 
 
 Out of the heart of 
 
 The fragrant darkness ! 
 
 O flowers at my feet. 
 
 White beautiful flowers, 
 
 That whisper, whisper 
 
 My soul's desire ! 
 
 O never, never 
 
 Lost though afar, 
 
 My Joy, my Dream 
 
 Too deep the rapture 
 Of this sweet sorrow, 
 Of this glad pain : 
 O heart, still thy beating, 
 bird, thy song ! 
 
 211 
 
POEiMS 
 
 1889-1893 
 
OCEANUS 
 
 I 
 
 While still the dusk impends above the 
 glimmering waste 
 A tremor comes : wave after wave turns 
 silver}' bright : 
 A sudden yellow gleam athwart the east is 
 traced : 
 The waning stars fade forth, swift perish- 
 ing pyres. 
 The moon lies pearly-wan upon the front 
 
 of Night, 
 Then all at once upwells a flood of golden 
 
 light 
 And a myriad waves flash forth a myriad 
 fires : 
 Now is the hour the amplest glory of life to 
 
 taste, 
 Out swimming towards the sun upon the 
 billowy waste. 
 
 II 
 
 The pure green waves ! with crests of 
 dazzling foam ashine, 
 Onward they roll : innumerably grand, 
 they beat 
 
 215 
 
Oceanus 
 
 A wild and jubilant triumph-music all 
 divine ! 
 The sea-fowl, their white kindred of the 
 
 spray-swept air. 
 Scream joyous echoes as with wave- 
 dipped pinions fleet 
 They whirl before the blast or vanish 
 
 'mid blown sleet. 
 In loud-resounding, strenuous, conquering 
 play they fare, 
 Like clouds, high over head, forgotten lands 
 
 i' the brine — 
 Great combing deep-sea waves with sunlit 
 foam ashine. 
 
 Ill 
 
 On the wide wastes she lives her lawless, 
 
 passionate life : 
 
 Enslaved of none, the imperious mighty 
 
 Sea ! 
 
 How glorious the music of her waves at strife 
 
 With all the winds of heaven that, fiercely 
 
 wooing, blow ! 
 On high she ever chants her psalm of 
 
 Victory ; 
 Afar her turbulent pjean tells that she is 
 
 free ; 
 The tireless albatross with wings like 
 foam or snow 
 
 216 
 
Oceanus 
 
 Flies leagues on leagues for days, and yet 
 
 the world seems rife 
 With nought save windy waves and the Sea's 
 
 wild free life ! 
 
 IV 
 
 How oft the strange, wild, haunting glamour 
 of the Sea, 
 The strange, compelling magic of her 
 thrilhng Voice, 
 Have won me, when, 'mid lonely places, wild 
 and free 
 As any wand 'ring wind, I have heard 
 
 along the shore 
 The wondrous ever-varying Sea-song loud 
 
 rejoice. 
 I have seen a sno^vy petrel, arising, poise 
 Above the green-sloped wave, then pass 
 for evermore 
 From keenest sight, and I have thought that 
 
 I might be 
 Thus also deathward lured by glamour of the 
 Sea. 
 
 V 
 
 Hark to the long resilient surge o' the 
 - ebbing tide ; 
 With shingly rush and roar it foams adown 
 the strand : 
 
 217 
 
Oceanus 
 
 The great Sea heaves her restless bosom far 
 and wide — 
 Heedless she seems of winds and all the 
 
 forceful laws 
 That bar her empire over the usurping 
 
 Land : 
 Enough, she dreams, is her imperial 
 
 command 
 To make the very torrents, waveward 
 falling, pause : 
 She scorns the Bridegroom-Land, yet is a 
 
 subject Bride 
 For she must come and go with each re- 
 current tide. 
 
 VI 
 
 On moonless nights, when winds are still, 
 
 her stealthy waves 
 Creep towards the listening land ; with 
 
 voices soft and low 
 They whisper strange sea-secrets 'mid the 
 
 hollow caves : 
 A wondrous song it is that rises then and 
 
 falls ! 
 Deep-buried memories of the ancient long- 
 ago. 
 Confused strange echoes of some vanished 
 
 old world woe, 
 Weird prophecies reverberant round those 
 
 wave-worn walls : 
 218 
 
Occanus 
 
 When loud the wrathful billows roar and the 
 
 Sea runes 
 Her deepest mourning broods beneath the 
 
 foaming waves. 
 
 VII 
 
 As some aerial spirit weaves a rainbow-veil 
 Of mist, his high immortal loveliness to 
 hide ; 
 So too thy palpitant waters, duskily pale. 
 Oft-times take on a sudden splendour wild. 
 Then thy sea-horses rise, fierce prancing 
 
 side by side. 
 And — like the host of the dead-arisen — ride 
 Ghastly afar to bournes where all the dead 
 lie piled ! . . . 
 Superb, fantastic, cro\vn'd with flying splen- 
 dours frail. 
 Thou, when in dreams, thou weav'st thy 
 phosphorescent veil ! 
 
 VIII 
 
 Vast, vast, immeasurably vast, thy dreadful 
 peace 
 When heaving with slow mighty breath 
 thou liest 
 In utter rest, and dost thy ministering winds 
 release 
 
 219 
 
Oceanus 
 
 So that with folded wings they too subside, 
 Floating through hollow spaces, though 
 
 the highest 
 Stirs his long tremulous pinions when thou 
 
 sighest ! 
 Then in thy soul, that doth in fathomless 
 
 depths abide; 
 All wild desires and turbulent longings cease — 
 Profound, immeasurable then, thy dreadful 
 
 peace ! 
 
 IX 
 
 But in thy noon of night, serene as death, 
 when under 
 The terrible silence of that arched dome 
 Not a lost whisper ev'n of thy wandering 
 thunder 
 Ascends like the spiral smoke of perishing 
 
 flame. 
 Nor dying wave on thy swart bosom sinks 
 
 in foam — 
 Then, then the world is thine, thy heri- 
 tage, thy home ! 
 What then for thee, O Sea, thou Terror ! 
 or what name 
 To call thee by, thou Sphinx, thou Mystery, 
 
 thou Wonder — ■ 
 Above thou art Living Death, Oblivion 
 under ! 
 
 220 
 
A PARIS NOCTURNE 
 
 Over the lonesome hollows 
 And secret haunts of the river, 
 Past fields and homestead and village. 
 Past the grey wharves and the piers 
 The darkness moves like a veil, 
 Save when obscure, vast, nigrescent 
 Flakes from the travelling gloom 
 Slant westward great fans of blackness. 
 
 Then a mist of radiance, 
 Lamps with red lights and yellow, 
 Foam-white, and blue as an ice-floe. 
 Lamps intermingling with gas-light, 
 Leagues of wind-wavered gas-light. 
 Lamps on the masts of barges, 
 Lamps upon sloops and on steamers, 
 Lamps below quays and dark bridges. 
 Yellow and red and green, 
 Like a myriad growths phosphorescent 
 When a swamp, erewhile flooded with 
 waters, 
 
 ■221 
 
A Pans Nocturne 
 
 Lies low to the stare of the moon 
 
 And the stealthy white breath of the wind. 
 
 And, over all, one light 
 
 Palpitant, circular, wide. 
 
 Sweeping the city vast — 
 
 Yonder, beyond where in shadow 
 
 The thronged Champs-Elysees are filling 
 
 With echoes of human voices. 
 
 With shadows of human lives. 
 
 With phantoms of vampyre-vices — 
 
 Beyond where the serpentine river 
 
 Curves in a coil gigantic. 
 
 And straight, a thin shaft, through the 
 
 vagueness 
 Soars the high lighthouse of Paris, 
 Soars o'er the sea of the city 
 With all its shoals and its terrors. 
 Its perilous straits and its breakers, 
 High o'er the brightness and splendour 
 Of shores where the sirens sing ever. 
 
 Then, shadows enmassed once again : 
 
 And the river moving slowly, 
 
 And the hills making darkness deeper. 
 
 The lamps now fewer and fewer — 
 
 Fewer the red lights and yellow. 
 
 Till only a dusky barge 
 
 Moves like a water-snake 
 
 222 
 
A Paris Noctunw 
 
 On the face of a dark lagoon, 
 A stealthy fire 'mid the stillness ; 
 While from a weir in the distance 
 Comes a sound like the cry of waters 
 When the tides and the sea-winds gather 
 And the sands of the dunes are scattered 
 In the scud of the spray. 
 
 223 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 One who never turned his back but marched breast 
 forward, 
 Never doubted clouds would break, 
 Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong 
 
 would triumph : 
 Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better. 
 Sleep to wake. 
 
 (Died at the Palazzo Rezzonico, Venice, December 12, 
 
 1889.) 
 
 So, it is well : what need is there to mourn ? 
 What of the darkness was there, of the 
 dread, 
 Of all the pity of old age forlorn 
 
 When the swift mind and hand are 
 though as dead ? 
 Nothing : the change was his that comes to 
 days 
 When, after long, rich, restful afternoons, 
 A sudden flush of glory fills the skies : 
 Thereafter is the peace of dream-fraught 
 moons, 
 And then, oh ! then for sure, in the eastern 
 ways 
 At morn, once more Life's golden floods 
 arise. 
 
 224 
 
Robert Broivning 
 
 Ay, it is well : what better fate were his ? 
 Why wish for him the twilight-greyncss 
 drear ? 
 He hath not known the bitter thing it is 
 To halt, and doubt, grope blindly, tremble, 
 fear : 
 The reverend snows above his forehead 
 brought 
 No ominous hints of that which might not 
 be. 
 No chill suggestion of the ephemeral soul : 
 Unto the very end 'twas his to see 
 Failure no drear climacteric, but wrought 
 To nobler issues, a victorious goal. 
 
 There, where the long lagoons by day and 
 night 
 Feel the swift journeying tides, in ebb and 
 flow. 
 Move inward from the deep with sound and 
 light 
 And splendour of the seas, or outward go 
 Resurgent from the city that doth rest 
 Upon the flood even as a swan asleep. 
 Or as a lily 'mid encircling streams. 
 Or as a flower a dusky maid doth keep, 
 An orient maid, upon her love-warm breast. 
 Thrilled with its inspiration through her 
 dreams — 
 I 225 P 
 
Robert Browning 
 
 There, in the city that he loved so well, 
 And with the sea-sound in his ears, the 
 sound 
 Of healing waters in their miracle 
 
 Of changeless and regenerative round. 
 The strange and solemn silence that is 
 death 
 Came o'er him. 'Mid the loved ones near 
 The deep suspense of the last torturing 
 hope 
 Hung like a wounded bird, ere swift and 
 sheer 
 It fall with the last frail exhausted breath 
 And feeble fluttering wings that cannot 
 ope. 
 
 There death was his : within his golden 
 prime. 
 Painless, serene, unvanquished, undis- 
 mayed. 
 He fronted the dark lapse of mortal time 
 With eyes alit, through all the gathering 
 shade, 
 With the strange light that clothes immortal 
 things — 
 Beauty, and Truth, Faith, Hope, and Joy 
 and Peace, 
 The garnished harvest of our human 
 years, 
 
 226 
 
Robert Browning 
 
 Fair dreams and hopes that triumphed o'er 
 surcease, 
 The immaculate sweetness of all bygone 
 Springs, 
 The rainbow-glory of transfigured tears. 
 
 Over him went the Powers, the Dreams, the 
 Graces, 
 The invisible Dominations that we know 
 Despite the mystic veil that hides their 
 faces, 
 The immortal faces that divinely glow : 
 Fair Hope was there to take him by the 
 hand ; 
 White Aspirations smiled about his bed ; 
 Desires and Dreams moved gently by 
 his side ; 
 Beauty stooped low, and shone upon the 
 dead ; 
 Joy spake not, for, from out the Deathless 
 land, 
 She led God's loveliest gift, his long-lost 
 Bride. 
 
 Oh, what a trivial mockery then was this, 
 The change we so involve with alien 
 terror : 
 How lorn in light of that supernal bliss 
 The ruinous wrecking folly of our error ! 
 227 
 
Robert Broimting 
 
 Sweet beyond words the meeting that was 
 there, 
 Sweet beyond words the deep-set yearning 
 gaze, 
 Sweet, sweet the voice that long had 
 silent been ! 
 Ah, how his soul, beleagurcd by no maze, 
 No glooms of Deatli, i' that Paradisal air 
 Knew all was well, since She was there, 
 his Queen. 
 
 They are not gone, those Dreams, Fair 
 Hopes, and Graces, 
 Those Powers and Dominations and 
 Desires, 
 They are not passed, though veiled the 
 immortal faces. 
 Though dimmed meanwhile their eyes' 
 wild starry fires. 
 Meanwhile, it may be, on wan wings and 
 slender 
 Invisible to mortal gaze, they gleam 
 In solemn, sad, processional array 
 There where the sunshafts through stained 
 windows stream, 
 And flood the gioomful majesty with 
 splendour, 
 And charm the aisles from out their 
 brooding grey. 
 
 228 
 
Robert Browning 
 
 They are not gone : nor shall they ever 
 vanish, 
 Those precious ministers of him, our Poet : 
 WTiat madness would it be for one to banish. 
 
 To barter his inheritance, forego it, 
 For some phantasmal gift, some transient 
 boon ! 
 Thus would it be vsith us were we to turn 
 Indifferently aside, when iliey draw 
 nigh. 
 To look with callous gaze, nor once discern 
 How swift they come and go, how all too 
 soon 
 They evade for ever the unheeding eye. 
 
 They are not gone : for wheresoe'er there 
 liveth 
 One hope his song inspired — whom they 
 inspired — 
 Yea, wheresoever in one heart there breatheth 
 
 An aspiration by his ardour fired : 
 Where'er through him are souls made serfs 
 to Beauty, 
 Where'er through him hearts stir with 
 lofty aim, 
 Where'er through him men thrill with 
 high endeavour, 
 There shall these ministers breathe low his 
 name, 
 
 229 
 
Robert Browning 
 
 Linked to ideals of Love and Truth and 
 Duty. 
 And all high things of mind and soul, 
 for ever. 
 
 No carven stone, no monumental fane. 
 
 Can equal this : that he hath builded deep 
 A cenotaph beyond the assoiling reign 
 Of Her whose eyes are dusk with Night 
 and Sleep, 
 Queenly Oblivion : no Pyramid, 
 
 No vast, gigantic Tomb, no Sepulchre 
 Made awful with imag'ries of doom. 
 Evade her hand who one day shall inter 
 Man's proudest monuments, as she hath hid 
 The immemorial past within her womb. 
 
 For he hath built his lasting monument 
 
 Within the hearts and in the minds of men : 
 The Powers of Life around its base have bent 
 The Stream of Memory ; our furthest ken 
 Beholds no reach, no hmit to its rise ; 
 It hath foundations sure ; it shall not 
 pass ; 
 The ruin of Time upon it none shall see. 
 Till the last wind shall wither the last 
 grass, 
 Nay, while man's Hopes, Fears, Dreams, and 
 Agonies 
 Uplift his soul to Immortality. 
 230 
 
THE MAN AND THE CENTAUR 
 
 The ]\Ian 
 
 Upon the mountain-heights thou goest; 
 
 As swift as some fierce wind-swept flame ; 
 Thy doom thou scornest while thou knowest 
 
 Men mock thy name. 
 
 But thou — thou hast the mountain-splen- 
 dour, 
 
 The lonely streams, blue lakes serene, 
 Wouldst thou these virgin haunts surrender 
 
 For man's demesne ? 
 
 Wouldst thou, for peaks where eagles gather, 
 Where moon-white skies slow flush with 
 dawn. 
 Where, drenched with dew thy chieftain- 
 father 
 Is far withdrawn — 
 
 Wouldst thou all these exchange, give over 
 Thy wild free joys and all delights, 
 
 Thy proud and passionate mountain-lover, 
 Thy starry nights, 
 
 231 
 
The Man and the Centaur 
 
 For that drear life in huddled places 
 Where men like ants move to and fro 
 
 Tired men, with ever on their faces 
 The shadow of woe ? 
 
 The Centaur 
 
 I would not change — did not the waters 
 Did not the winds, all living things 
 
 Proclaim that we, the sons and daughters 
 Of Time's first kings. 
 
 That we must change and pass and perish 
 Even as autumnal leaves that fall ; 
 
 Even as the wind the hill-flowers cherish, 
 At Winter's call : 
 
 That we, even wc, should know no morrow, 
 
 For as our body, so our soul : 
 O human, fair thy life of sorrow, 
 
 Thou hast a Goal ! 
 
 232 
 
DIONYSOS IN INDIA 
 
 {Ope?iing Fragment of a Lyrical Drama) 
 
 Opening Scene : 
 
 Verge of an upland glade among the Hima- 
 layas. 
 
 Ti)ne : Sunrise 
 
 First Faux 
 
 . . . Hark ! I hear 
 Aerial voices — 
 
 Second Faun 
 Whist ! 
 
 First Faun 
 
 It is the wind 
 Leaping against the sunrise, on the heights. 
 
 Second Faun 
 No, no, yon mountain-springs — 
 
 First Faun 
 
 Hark, hark, oh, hark ! — 
 233 
 
Dionysos in India 
 
 Second Faun 
 
 Are budding into foam-flowers : see, they 
 
 fall 
 Laughing before the dawn — 
 
 First Faun 
 
 Oh, the sweet music ! 
 
 Child-Faun 
 {Timidly peeping over a cistus, uncurling 
 
 into blooms.) 
 Dear brother, say, oh say, what fills the air ? 
 The leaves whisper, yet is not any wind : 
 I am afraid. 
 
 First Faun 
 
 Be not afraid, dear child : 
 There is no gloom. 
 
 Child-Faun 
 But silence : and — and — then. 
 
 The birds have suddenly ceased : and see, 
 alow 
 
 The gossamer quivers where my startled 
 hare — 
 
 Slipt from my leash — cow'rs 'mid the fox- 
 glove-bells. 
 
 His eyes like pansies in a lonely wood ! 
 
 Oh, I am afraid — afraid — ^though glad : — 
 
 234 
 
Dionysos in India 
 
 Second Faux 
 
 Why glad ? 
 Child-Faun 
 I know not. 
 
 First Faun 
 Never yet an evil god 
 Forsook the dusk. Lo ! all our vales are 
 
 mied 
 With light : the darkest shimmers in pale 
 
 blue : 
 Nought is forlorn : no evil thing goeth by. 
 
 Second Faun 
 They say — 
 
 First Faun 
 What ? who ? 
 
 Second Faun 
 They of the hills : they say 
 That a lost god — 
 
 First Faun 
 
 Hush, hush : beware ! 
 
 Second Faun 
 
 And why ? 
 There is no god in the blue empty air ? 
 Where else ? 
 
 235 
 
Dionysos in India 
 
 First Faun 
 There is a lifting up of joy : 
 The morning moves in ecstasy. Never ! 
 Oh, never fairer morning dawned than this. 
 Somewhat is nigh ! 
 
 Second Faun 
 
 Maybe : and yet I hear 
 Nought, save day's famihar sounds, nought 
 
 see 
 But the sweet concourse of famihar things. 
 
 First Faun 
 
 Speak on, though never a single leaf but 
 
 hears. 
 And, like the hollow shells o' the twisted nuts 
 That fall in autumn, aye murmuringly holds 
 The breath of bygone sound. We know not 
 
 when — 
 To whom — these little wavering tongues 
 
 betray 
 Our heedless words, wild wanderers though 
 
 we be. 
 What say the mountain-lords ? 
 
 Second Faun 
 
 That a lost god 
 Fares hither through the dark, ever the dark. 
 236 
 
Dioiivsos in India 
 
 First Faun 
 What dark ? 
 
 Second Faun 
 Not the blank hollows of the night : 
 Blind is he though a god : forgotten graves 
 The cavernous depths of his oblivious eyes. 
 His face is as the desert, blanched with ruins. 
 His voice none ever heard, though whispers 
 
 say 
 That in the dead of icy winters far 
 Beyond the utmost peaks we ever clomb 
 It hath gone forth — a deep, an awful woe. 
 
 First Faun 
 What seeks he ? 
 
 Second Faun 
 
 No one knoweth. 
 
 First Faun 
 
 Yet a god, 
 And blind ! 
 
 Second Faun 
 
 Ay so : and I have heard beside 
 That he is not as other gods ; but from vast 
 
 age- 
 So vast, that in his youth those hills were wet 
 With the tossed spume of each returning tide — 
 237 
 
Dionysos in India 
 
 He hath lost knowledge of the things that 
 
 are, 
 All memory of what was, in that dim Past 
 Which was old time for him ; and knoweth 
 
 nought, 
 Nought feels, but inextinguishable pain. 
 Titanic woe and burden of long aeons 
 Of unrequited quest. 
 
 First Faun 
 
 But if he be 
 Of the Immortal Brotherhood, though blind, 
 How lost to them ? 
 
 Second Faun 
 
 I know not, I. 'Tis said — 
 Lython the Centaur told me in those days 
 When he had pity on me in his cave 
 Far up among the hills — that the lost god 
 Is curs'd of all his kin, and that his curse 
 Lies like a cloud about their golden home : 
 So evermore he goeth to and fro — 
 The shadow of their glory . . . 
 
 Ay, he knows 
 The lost beginnings of the things that are : 
 We are but morning-dreams to him, and 
 
 Man 
 But a fantastic shadow of the dawn : 
 The very Gods seem children to his age, 
 238 
 
Dionysos in India 
 
 Who reigned before their birth-throes filled 
 
 the sky 
 With the myriad shattered lights that are the 
 
 stars. 
 
 First Faun 
 Where reigned this ancient God ? 
 
 Second Faun 
 
 Old Lython said 
 
 His kingdom was the Void, where evermore 
 Silence sits throned upon Oblivion. 
 
 First Faun 
 \Miat wants he here ? 
 
 Second Faun 
 
 He hateth Hehos, 
 And dogs his steps. None knoweth more. 
 
 First Faun 
 
 Aha! 
 I heed no dotard god ! Behold, behold. 
 My ears betrayed me not : Oh, hearken now ! 
 
 Child-Faun 
 Brother, O brother, all the birds are wild 
 With song, and through the sun-splashed 
 
 wood there goes 
 A*sound as of a multitude of wings. 
 239 
 
Dionysos in India 
 
 Second Faun 
 The sun, the sun ! the flowers in the grass ! 
 Oh, the white glory ! 
 
 First Faun 
 
 'Tis the Virgin God ! 
 Hark, hear the hymns that thrill the winds 
 
 of morn, 
 Wild paeans to the light ! The white 
 
 processionals ! 
 They come ! They come ! . . . 
 
 240 
 
BALLAD OF THE SONG OF THE 
 SEA-WIND 
 
 What is the song the sea-wind sings — 
 The old, old song it singeth for aye ? 
 
 When abroad it stretches its mighty wings 
 And drivcth the white clouds far away, — 
 What is the song it sings to-day ? 
 
 From fire and tmnuU the white world came, 
 When all was a mist of driven spray 
 
 And the whirling fragments of a frame ! 
 
 What is the song the sea- wind sings — 
 The old, old song it singeth for aye ? 
 
 It seems to breathe a thousand things 
 Ere the world grew sad and old and grey — 
 Of the dear gods banished far astray — 
 
 Of strange wild rumours of joy and shame ! 
 The Earth is old, so old, To-day — 
 
 Blind and halt and weary and lame. 
 
 What is the song the sea-wind sings — 
 The old, old song it singeth for aye ? 
 
 Like a trumpet blast its voice out-rings, 
 The world spins down the darksome way ! 
 It crieth aloud in wild dismay, 
 
 I 241 Q 
 
Ballad of the Song of the Sea-Wind 
 
 The Earth that from fire and iuinidt came 
 Draws swift to her weary eml To-day, 
 Her fires are fusing for that last Flame ! 
 
 Envoy 
 
 What singcth the sea-wind thus for aye, 
 From fire and tumult the white world came ! 
 
 What is the sea-wind's cry To-day— 
 Her central fires make one vast flame ! 
 
 242 
 
SONNETS 
 
 1S93 
 
SONNET-SEOUENCE 
 
 Wliere have I known thee, dear, in what 
 
 strange place, 
 Midst what caprices of our ahen fate. 
 Where have I bowed, worshipping this thy 
 
 face, 
 And hunger'd for thee, as now, insatiate ? 
 Tell me, white soul, that through those 
 
 starry veils 
 Keep'st steadfast vigil o'er my wavering 
 
 spirit. 
 On what far sea trimm'd we our darkling 
 
 sails 
 WTien fell the shadow o'er that we now 
 
 inherit ? 
 Two tempest-driven souls were we, or glad 
 With the young joy that recks of no to- 
 morrow : 
 Or were we as now inexplicably sad 
 Before the coming twilight of new Sorrow ? 
 Did our flesh quail as now this poor flesh 
 
 quails. 
 Our faces blanch, as mine, as thine that 
 
 pales ! 
 
 245 
 
Sonnet-Sequence 
 
 II 
 
 Out of the valley of the Shadow of Death 
 Who Cometh, through the haunted Hollow 
 
 Land ? 
 On those tired lips of mine whose quickening 
 
 breath, 
 In this long yearning clasp whose tremulous 
 
 hand ? 
 O, is it death or dream, madness, or what 
 Fantastic torture of the chemic brain. 
 That brings thee here, as thus, when all 
 
 forgot. 
 Thy body sleeps, as mine doth, free from 
 
 pain ? 
 What is the brooding word upon thy lips 
 O beautiful image of my heart's desire ? 
 What is the ominous shadow of eclipse 
 That dusks those veiled eyes' redeeming 
 
 fire? 
 O soul whom I from life to life have sought. 
 What menace haunteth joy so dearly bought ? 
 
 246 
 
Sonnet-Sequence 
 
 III 
 
 This menace : — of remembrance that must 
 
 come : 
 This menace : — of the waking that must be. 
 O soul, let the rhj'thm of life itself grow 
 
 dumb 
 And be the song of death our litany : 
 Let the world perish as a perishing fire, 
 For us be less than ashes without flame, 
 So that we twain our last breath here 
 
 suspire, 
 Here where none uttereth word, none callcth 
 
 name. 
 For in the Hollow Land is utter peace, 
 The magic spell which hath no first or last, 
 But all that never ceaseth here doth cease 
 And what would know no death is long 
 
 since past : 
 Only one thing endures where all expire — 
 The inviolate rapture of fulfilled desire. 
 
 247 
 
Sonnet-Sequence 
 
 IV 
 
 Wliere art thou, Love ! Lo, I am crucified 
 Here on the bitter tree of my suspense. 
 And my soul travails in my quivering side 
 Wild with the passionate longing to go 
 
 hence. 
 Where would it voyage, lost, bewildered 
 
 soul 
 If from the body's warm white home it 
 
 strayed : 
 Even as the wild-fox would it find its hole, 
 Even as the fowls of the air would it find 
 
 shade ? 
 Yea, dear, with winnowing wings there 
 
 would it fly 
 To fold them on the whiteness of thy breast, 
 And all its passion breathe into thy sigh. 
 Fulfil the uttermost peace of perfect rest : 
 And passing into thee as its last goal 
 Should know no more this bitter-sweet 
 
 control. 
 
 248 
 
Sonnet -Sequence 
 
 Dear, through the silence comes a vibrant 
 
 call, 
 Thy voice, thy very voice it is, Sweet ! 
 Yet who shall scale the dread invisible wall 
 That guards the Eden where our souls 
 
 would meet ? 
 O veil of flesh, O dull mortality. 
 Is there no vision for the enfranchised eyes : 
 Must we stoop low thro' Death's green- 
 glooms to see 
 Tlic immaculate light known of our winged 
 
 sighs ? 
 Nay, Love, of body or soul no shadow or 
 
 gloom 
 Can always, always, thee and me dispart ; 
 Soul of my soul, thro' the very gates of 
 
 Doom 
 Even as deep to deep, heart crieth to 
 
 heart — 
 Yea, as two moving waves on Life's wild 
 
 sea. 
 We meet, we merge, we are one, I thou, 
 
 thou me ! 
 
 249 
 
Sonnet-Sequence 
 
 VI 
 
 " And dost thou love me not a whit the 
 
 less : 
 And is thy heart as tremulous as of yore, 
 And do thine eyes mirror the wonderful- 
 
 ness, 
 And do thy lips retain their magic lore ? " 
 What, Sweet, can these things be, ev'n in 
 
 thy thought, 
 And I so briefly gone, so swiftly come ? 
 Nay, if the pulse of life its beat forgot 
 This speaking heart would not thereby be 
 
 dumb. 
 I love thee, love thee so, O beautiful Hell 
 That dost consume heart, brain, nerves, 
 
 body, soul 
 That even my immortal birthright I \\'ould 
 
 sell 
 Were Heaven to choose, or Thee, as my one 
 
 goal. 
 Sweet love fulfilled, they sa}', the common 
 
 lot ! 
 He who speaks thus, of real love knoweth 
 
 not. 
 
 250 
 
Sonnet-Sequence 
 
 VII 
 
 The dull day darkens to its close. The 
 
 sheen 
 Of a myriad gas-jets lights the squalid night. 
 There is no joy, it seems, but what hath 
 
 been : 
 There is nought left but semblance of 
 
 delight. 
 Nay, is it so ? Down this long darkling 
 
 way 
 What surety is there for the hungry- heart, 
 What ^'istas of white peace, rapt holiday 
 Of the tired soul forlorn, thus kept apart ? 
 Oh, hearken, hearken, love ! I cannot 
 
 wait : 
 Drear is the night without, the night within ; 
 I am so tired, so tired, so baffled of our 
 
 fate. 
 The very sport it seems of our sweet sin : 
 Oh, open, open now, and bid me stay, 
 Who almost am too tired, too weak, to 
 
 pray. 
 
 251 
 
Sonnet-Sequence 
 
 VIII 
 
 And so, is it so ? the long sweet pain is 
 
 over ? 
 The dear familiar love must know a change ? 
 No more am I, no more, to be your lover, 
 But life be cold once more, and drear, and 
 
 strange. 
 We have sinned, you say, and sorrow must 
 
 redeem 
 All the cruel largess of our passionate love, 
 And we, at the last, content us with a 
 
 dream 
 Who have known a hell below, a heaven 
 
 above ! 
 Well, be it so : thy life I shall not darken : 
 Thy dream, for me, shall be disturbed no 
 
 more : 
 Thine ears, by day or night, shall never 
 
 hearken 
 The coming of the steps thou lovedst of 
 
 yore : 
 And if, afar, a lost wild soul blaspheme. 
 Thou shalt not know it in thy peace supreme. 
 
 252 
 
AN UNTOLD STORY 
 
 I 
 
 When the dark falls, and as a single star 
 The orient planets blend in one bright ray 
 A-quiver through the violet shadows far 
 WTiere the rose-rod still lingers 'mid the 
 grey: 
 
 And when the moon, half-cirque around her 
 
 hollow, 
 Casts on the upland pastures shimmer of 
 
 green : 
 And tlie marsh-meteors the frail lightnings 
 
 follow, 
 And wave lapse into wave with amber 
 
 sheen — 
 
 O then my heart is full of thee, who never 
 From out thy beautiful mysterious eyes 
 Givest one glance at this my wild endeavour, 
 Who hast no heed, no heed, of all my sighs : 
 Is it so well with thee in thy high place 
 That thou canst mock me thus even to my 
 face ? 
 
 253 
 
An Untold Story 
 
 II 
 
 Dull ash-grey irost upon the black-grey lields: 
 Thick wreaths of tortured smoke above the 
 
 town : 
 The chill impervious fog no foothold yields, 
 But onward draws its shroud of yellow 
 
 brown. 
 
 No star can pierce the gloom, no moon 
 
 dispart : 
 And I am lonely here, and scarcely know 
 What mockery is " death from a broken 
 
 heart," 
 What tragic pity in the one word : Woe. 
 
 But I am free of thee, at least, yea free ! 
 
 No more thy bondager 'twixt heaven and 
 hell ! 
 
 No more there numbs, no more there 
 shroudeth me 
 
 The paralysing horror of thy spell : 
 
 No more win'st thou this last frail wor- 
 shipping breath. 
 
 For twice dead he who dies this second 
 death. 
 
 254 
 
THE VEILS OF SILENCE 
 
 Three veils of Silence, Summer draws 
 apace. 
 
 The noon-tide Peace that broods on hill and 
 dale, 
 
 That passes o'er the sea and leaves no trace, 
 
 That sleeps in the moveless clouds' move- 
 less trail : 
 
 The wave of colour deepening day by day, 
 The yellow grown to purple on the leas, 
 Blue within there beyond the dusky wa}s ; 
 A green-gloom dusk within the grass-green 
 trees. 
 
 The third ^•eil no man sees. She weaves it 
 
 where 
 Beneath the fret and fume tired hearts 
 
 aspire 
 And long for some divine impossible air. 
 Out of Man's heart she weaves this veil of 
 
 Rest— 
 Sweet anod^mc for all the feverish quest 
 And ache of inarticulate Desire. 
 255 
 
WRITTEN BY THE SEA 
 
 Sweet are white dreams i' the dusk, yet 
 
 sweeter far 
 When the sea-music fills those haunting 
 
 dreams : 
 When light survives alone in each white star 
 And in the far white shine of a myriad 
 
 gleams : 
 When from white flowers, that through the 
 
 violet gloom 
 Shine faintly phosphorescent, strange 
 
 breaths steal 
 And in the lamp-lit silence of the room 
 The longing, yearning soul makes mute 
 
 appeal : 
 When nought is heard, and yet the tired 
 
 hands stray 
 To meet white dream-like hands soft floating 
 
 by: 
 When the disanchor'd mind sails far away 
 'Mid the suspense of an imagined sigh — 
 'Tis thee, 'tis thee, O dear white soul, 'tis 
 
 thee, 
 White Joy, white Peace, white Balm that 
 
 healcth me ! 
 
 256 
 
THE MENACE OF AUTUMN 
 
 Amber and yellow and russet, gold and red, 
 The autumnal leaves dream they are summer 
 
 flowers : 
 Day after day the windless sunny hours 
 With feet of flame pass softly overhead : 
 
 Day after day over each perishing leaf 
 
 The windless hours pass with slow-fading 
 
 flame : 
 No song is heard where floods of music 
 
 came ; 
 Long garner'd on the fields the final sheaf. 
 
 One day a wild and ravishing wind will rise. 
 One day a paralysing frost will come, 
 And all this glory be taken unaware : 
 Dark branches then will lean against the 
 
 skies, 
 Sear leaves will drift the forest-pathways 
 
 dumb, 
 And wold and woodland lie, austere and 
 
 bare. 
 
 257 R 
 
AFTERMATH 
 
 The herald redbreast sings his winter lays. 
 The fieldfares drift in flocks ado"wn the 
 
 weald : 
 The turbulent rooks gather on every field. 
 And clamorous starlings dare our garden- 
 ways : 
 
 O beautiful garden-ways, not gro^^'n less 
 
 dear 
 Because the rose has gone, and briony waves 
 Where lil}^ and purple iris have their graves, 
 Or that, where violets were, the asters rear. 
 
 Lo, what a sheen of colour lingers still, 
 Though the autumnal rains and frost be 
 
 come : 
 The tall dishevelled simflowers, stooping, 
 
 spill 
 Lost rays of sunshine o'er the tangled 
 
 mould, 
 \Miile everywhere, touched with a glory of 
 
 gold, 
 Flaunts the imperial chrysanthemum. 
 
 25S 
 
FLORA IN JANUARY 
 
 The goddess slept. About her where she lay 
 Dead pansies, fragrant still, and the myriad 
 
 rose : 
 Adream 'mid the fallen drift, she woke one 
 
 day, 
 And the blooms stirred, seeing her eyes 
 
 unclose. 
 
 The oaks and beeches stood in disarray. 
 Gaunt, spectral, dark, in dismal phantom 
 
 rows ; 
 She smiled, and there was a shimmer 'mid 
 
 the grey 
 And sudden fall of the first winter-snows. 
 
 But when, tired with the icy blossoms of the 
 
 air. 
 She slept once more, and all the snow was 
 
 over, 
 She dreamed of Spring and saw his sunlit 
 
 hair. 
 And heard the whisper of her laughing 
 
 lover : 
 But while she dreamed, the dead blooms 
 
 had grown fair 
 And Christmas-roses made a veil above her. 
 259 
 
POEMS 
 
 1893-1905 
 
FROM OVERSEA 
 
 From oversea — 
 
 Violets for memories, 
 I send to thee ; 
 
 Let them bear thoughts of me. 
 With pleasant memories 
 
 To touch the heart of thee, 
 Far oversea. 
 
 A little way it is for love to flee, 
 
 Love wing'd with memories, 
 Hither to thither oversea. 
 
 26- 
 
SONG 
 
 Love in my heart : oh, heart of me, heart 
 of me ! 
 Love is my tyrant, Love is supreme. 
 What if he passeth, oh, heart of me, heart 
 of me ! 
 Love is a phantom, and Life is a dream ! 
 
 What if he changeth, oh, heart of me, heart 
 of me ! 
 
 Oh, can the waters be void of the wind ? 
 What if he wendeth afar and apart from me. 
 
 What if he leave me to perish behind ? 
 
 \Miat if he passeth, oh, heart of me, heart 
 of me ! 
 A flame i' the dusk, a breath of Desire ? 
 Nay, my sweet Love is the heart and the 
 soul of me 
 And I am the innermost heart of his 
 fire ! 
 
 Love in my heart : oh, heart of me, heart 
 of me ! 
 Love is my tyrant, Love is supreme. 
 What if he passeth, oh, heart of me, heart 
 of me ! 
 Love is a phantom, and Life is a dream ! 
 264 
 
THE SUN LORD 
 
 Low laughing, blithely scorning— 
 Beware, beware, of flaming wings, 
 Love hunts thee do\\Ti the morning ! 
 
 His white feet dip i' the hillside springs, 
 He mocks thy flying terror ! 
 The woodland with his laughter rings ! 
 
 He'll make thee his slave to follow, 
 Nor shall he forgive thee, maid, thine error. 
 Who spied thee hid in the hollow. 
 
 Too late, too late the warning ! 
 Behold the flash of flaming wings- 
 Love hath thee now i' the morning ! 
 
 205 
 
THE SUMMER WO:\IAN 
 
 O wild bee humming in the gorse, 
 O wild dove croodling in the woods, 
 
 Know ye not she is false as fair, 
 A sweet Caprice with bitter moods ? 
 
 For bitter-sweet her wild kiss is, 
 
 And bitter-sweet her haunting voice : 
 
 How oft my eyes have filled with tears 
 When she hath bid me to rejoice ! 
 
 loved Caprice, is thine the fault 
 Or is the bitterness all mine ! 
 
 Art thou the quenchless Thirst of Joy 
 And I the lees of thy spilt wine ? 
 
 Oh, greenness, greenness everywhere. 
 Oh, whisper of green leaves, green grass, 
 
 Surely the glory is not gone. 
 Surely the glory shall not pass ? 
 
 1 long for some lost magic thing, 
 A voice, a gleam, a joy, a pain : 
 
 Wild doves, your old-time strain once more. 
 Wild bees, wild bees, come back again ! 
 
 266 
 
SYCAMORES IN BLOOM 
 
 Like flame-wing'd harps the seed blooms lit 
 
 Amid the shadowy sycamores. 
 The music of each leaflet's sigh 
 Thrills them continually, 
 
 The small harps of the sycamores. 
 
 Small birds innumerable find rest 
 And shelter 'midst the sycamores. 
 
 Their songs (of love in a warm soft nest) 
 
 Are faintly echoed east and west 
 By the red harps o' the sycamores. 
 
 The dewfall and the starshine make 
 Amidst the shadowy sycamores 
 
 Sweet delicate strains ; the gold beams 
 shake 
 
 The leaves at morn, and swift awake 
 The small harps of the sycamores. 
 
 O sweet Earth's music everywhere. 
 Though faint as in the sycamores : 
 
 Sweet when buds burst, birds pair ; 
 
 Sweet when as thus there wave in the air 
 The red harps of the sycamores. 
 
 267 
 
SPRING'S ADVENT 
 
 The Spirit of Spring is in the air ; 
 
 The daffodils wave bhthe and free 
 
 To the wind's minstrelsy, 
 And everywhere 
 A green rebirth involves each branchlet bare. 
 
 Already from the elm-tree boughs 
 The jubilant thrush doth cry aloud ; 
 From fallow fields new ploughed 
 The plovers rouse ; 
 In hollow boles no more the squirrels 
 drowse. 
 
 The blackbird calls his thrilling note ; 
 And by each field, and copse, and glade 
 The leverets race, the rabbits raid ; 
 Where gorse-blooms float 
 
 The yellow-yite pipes o'er and o'er by rote. 
 
 In the blue arch of sky, cloud-swept, 
 The unseen larks are singing ; 
 The green grass is springing : 
 While nature slept, 
 Leaf-crown'd, bird-liaunted Spring hath 
 hither leapt. 
 
 268 
 
spring's Advent 
 
 O joy of winds, and birds, and flowers, 
 Of growing grass, of budding leaves, 
 Of green and sappy sheaves, 
 Of rustling showers, 
 Sunshine, and plenitude of marvellous 
 hours. 
 
 Thrilled Earth beholds her golden prime 
 Returned again ; her heart beats swift. 
 Low-laughing, as the spring winds lift 
 Their songs sublime, 
 Mocking, she dares the circling Shadow of 
 Time. 
 
 269 
 
THE SUMMER WIND 
 
 The bugling of the summer wind 
 
 Is sweet upon the hill : 
 I love to hear its eddies 
 
 The heather-crannies fill. 
 
 It plays upon the bracken 
 
 A blithe fanfarronade : 
 And thro' the moss-cups whistleth 
 
 " The Fairy Raid." 
 
 It leaps from birch to rowan, 
 And laugheth long and loud, 
 
 Then with a spring is vanished, 
 And rideth on a cloud ! 
 
 270 
 
THE HILL WATER 
 
 There is a little brook, 
 
 I love it well : 
 
 It hath so sweet a sound 
 
 That even in dreams my ears could tell 
 
 Its music anywhere. 
 
 Often I wander there, 
 
 And leave my book 
 
 Unread upon the ground, 
 
 Eager to quell 
 
 In the hush'd air 
 
 That haunts its flowing forehead fair 
 
 All that about my heart hath wound 
 
 A trouble of care : 
 
 Or, it may be, idly to spell 
 
 Its runic music rare 
 
 And with its singing soul to share 
 
 Its ancient lore profound : 
 
 For sweet it is to be the echoing shell 
 
 That lists and inly keeps that murmurous 
 
 miracle. 
 About it all day long 
 In this June-tide 
 
 271 
 
The Hill Wattr 
 
 There is a myriad song« 
 
 From every side 
 
 There comes a breath, a hum, a voice : 
 
 The hill-wind fans it with a pleasant noise 
 
 As of sweet rustling things 
 
 That move on unseen wings, 
 
 And from the pinewood near 
 
 A floating whisper oftentimes I hear. 
 
 As when, o'er pastoral meadows wide; 
 
 Stealeth the drowsy music of a weir. 
 
 The green reeds bend above it. 
 
 The soft green grasses stoop and trail 
 
 therein : 
 The minnows dart and spin : 
 The purple-gleaming swallows lo\'e it : 
 And, hush, its innermost depth within. 
 The vague prophetic murmur of the linn. 
 
 But not in summer-tide alone 
 I love to look 
 
 Upon this rippling water in my glen : 
 Most sweet, most dear, my brook, 
 And most my own, 
 
 When the grey mists shroud every ben. 
 And in its quiet place 
 The stream doth bare her face. 
 And lets me pore deep down into her eyes, 
 Her eyes of shadowy grey. 
 Wherein from day to day 
 272 
 
The Hill Water 
 
 My soul is startled with a new surmise, 
 Or doth some subtler meaning trace 
 Reflected from unseen invisible skies. 
 
 Dear mountain-solitary, dear lonely brook, 
 Of hillside rains and dews the vagrant 
 
 daughter, 
 Sweet, sweet, thy music when I bend above 
 
 thee, 
 When in thy fugitive face I look ; 
 Yet not the less I love thee, 
 When, far away, and absent from thee long, 
 I yearn, my dark hill-water, 
 I yearn, I strain to hear thy song, 
 Bro\^Ti, wandering water, 
 Dear, murmuring water ! 
 
 273 
 
RAINBOW-SHIMMER 
 
 To-day upon the hillside 
 
 I saw a golden fairy ; 
 Her name is Rainbow-Shimmer, 
 
 But for you and me she's Mary 
 
 For Mary is the mother 
 Of all sweet souls that be, 
 
 From the angels in heaven 
 To the best fish in the sea. 
 
 And of all sweet souls that are, 
 
 Fairies are the rarest. 
 And Mary was a star 
 
 Among the fairest. 
 
 She had a golden kingcup 
 
 Her little golden head. 
 For dress she had a daisy white 
 
 Just tipped with red. 
 
 She danced upon a clover leaf 
 
 Still ashine with dew 
 And the blue sky above was not 
 
 As her blue eyes so blue. 
 
 274 
 
Rainbow-Shimmer 
 
 Her partner was a sunbeam, 
 A partner wild and wary, 
 
 Whose reel might even tire 
 The patience of a fair3^ 
 
 Ah, how the two went dancing 
 Among the dewy clover ; 
 
 I would that you were Mary 
 And I your sunbeam lover ! 
 
 " Stop, Mary, stop," I whispered? 
 
 " Be not so \vild and wary, 
 I know a little lassie 
 
 Who'd dearly love a fairy ! " 
 
 But in a twink she vanished, 
 The dewshine dance was over I 
 
 Ah, her twinkling laughter 
 With her sunbeam lover ! 
 
 But, hush ! Her hiding-place 
 
 Is not so far apart : 
 I'll tell you where it is, dear, 
 
 It's deep in Mother's heart. 
 
 275 
 
THE YELLOWHAMMER'S SONG 
 
 Out on the waste, a little lonely bird, I flit 
 
 and I sing ; 
 My breast is yellow as sunshine, and light 
 
 as the wind my wing. 
 
 The golden gorse me shelters, in the tufted 
 
 grass is my nest, 
 And Sweet, sweet, sweet the world, though 
 
 the wind blow east or west. 
 
 The harebells chime their music, the canna 
 
 floats white in the breeze : 
 But as for me, I flit to and fro and I sing at 
 
 my ease. 
 
 When the thyme is dripping with dew, and 
 
 the hill-wind beareth along 
 The pungent scent of the gale, loudly I sing 
 
 my morning song. 
 
 When the sun beats on the gorse, the broom, 
 
 and the budding heather, 
 I flit from spray to spray, and my song is of 
 
 the golden weather. 
 276 
 
The Y ellowhammc/ s Song 
 
 When the moor-fowl sink to their rest, and 
 
 the sky is soft rose-red, 
 I sing of the crescent moon and the single 
 
 star overhead. 
 
 Out on the waste, out on the waste, I flit 
 
 all day as I sing, 
 Sweet, sweet, sweet is the world — dear world — 
 
 how beautiful everything ! 
 
 Only a little lonely bird that loveth the 
 
 moorland w^aste, 
 And little perhaps of the joy of the world 
 
 is that which I taste ; 
 
 But out on the wild, free moorlands or the 
 
 gold gorse-boughs I swing, 
 And Sweet, sweet, sweet the world ; oh, sweet ! 
 
 ah, sweet ! the song that I sing. 
 
 277 
 
THE SONG OF THE SEA- WIND 
 
 King of the winds, O Wind of the Sea, 
 When thou sweepest abroad thy voice 
 
 crieth; 
 Crieth the anguish of hving souls 
 As with the wild storm-rapt soughing of the 
 
 oaks. 
 
 Breath of the world , hitter breath, 
 King of the winds, Wind of the Sea ! 
 
 King of the winds, Wind of the Sea, 
 Hitherward blow, by our doors, through 
 
 our souls. 
 Blow, blow, Euroclydon . . . and as dead 
 
 leaves 
 Whirl seaward vain hopes and perishing 
 
 dreams. 
 
 Breath of the world, hitter breath. 
 King of the winds, Wind of the Sea ! 
 
 King of the winds, Wind of the Sea, 
 Uplift us, resurge us out with thy waves, 
 278 
 
The Song of the Sea-Wind 
 
 Out on thine infinite heaving breast 
 Where not a wave breaks but is higher than 
 hope. 
 
 Breath of the world, hitter breath, 
 King of the winds, Wind of the Sea ! 
 
 King of the winds, O Wind of the Sea, 
 In the sweep and shadow of mighty wings 
 \N\m\ far this Dream that is Hfe, afar 
 To the Shores of Joy or the Coasts of Night. 
 
 Breath of the world, hitter breath, 
 King of the winds, Wind of the Sea ! 
 
 King of the winds, Wind of the Sea, 
 Before thee my heart bows, for it may be 
 
 that God — 
 Yea, that it. is Thee, O God, who passeth by. 
 Voicing Thy Word to our souls out of 
 
 infinite space — 
 
 Eternal Breath, hitter-sweet Breath, 
 Lord of all winds, Wind of the Sea ! 
 
 279 
 
SPANISH ROSES 
 
 Roses, roses, 
 Yellow and red ; 
 A rose for the living, 
 A rose for the dead ! 
 Who'll sip their dew ? 
 There are only a few 
 Of the yellow and red : 
 Youth sells its roses 
 Ere youth is sped. 
 
 Roses, roses. 
 
 All for delignt ; 
 
 What of the night ? 
 
 Hark, the tramp, tramp. 
 
 The scabbard's clamp, 
 
 The flaring lamp ! 
 
 Wliere is the morning dew ? 
 
 Ah, only a few 
 
 Drank ere the yellow and red 
 
 Lay shrivelled, shrivelled. 
 
 Over the dead. 
 
 280 
 
Spanish Roses 
 
 Roses, roses, 
 
 Buy, oh buy. 
 
 The years fly; 
 
 'Tis the time of roses. 
 
 Here are posies 
 
 For one and all. 
 
 For lovers that sigh 
 
 And for lovers that die : 
 
 And for Love's pall 
 
 And burial ! 
 
 Roses, roses, roses, buy, buy, oh buy ! 
 Why delay, why delay, roses also die. 
 Pink and yellow, blood-red, snow-white, 
 Roses for dayspring, roses for night ! 
 
 Buy, buy, oh my roses buy ! 
 
 A kiss for a kiss, and a sigh for a sigh ! 
 
 281 
 
THE SEA-BORN VINE 
 
 (A Dionysiac Legend) 
 
 The sun leapt up the rose-flushed sky 
 And yellowed all the sea's pale blue ; 
 The Tyrrhene crew 
 Uprose and hailed the God on high. 
 
 But Dionysos made no sign : 
 
 The shipmen hailed their Lord again, 
 Acclaimed His reign, 
 Then stared upon their guest divine, 
 
 " The deep shall swallow thee, fair sir : 
 The sea-things shall make thee their 
 prey— 
 The God obey 
 Or meet swift death ere thou canst stir ! " 
 
 " Ere ye arose, my spirit lowed 
 To the Great God unrisen then : — 
 Take heed, men, 
 Your clamour grow not overloud." 
 282 
 
The Sca-Born Vine 
 
 " A priest of Bacchus thou ! Behold : 
 On sea-wave here could whelm thy God — 
 His mystic rod 
 Would float foam-crown'd 'mid this wave- 
 gold. 
 
 *' Ai Evoe ! Thy voice might fill 
 The waste of sea, the waste of sky, 
 Yet thou wouldst die. 
 Thy god supine on some green hill ! " 
 
 Ai Evoe ! The cry thrilled wide : 
 The startled rowers shrank — they saw 
 With trembling awe 
 The conscious waters surge aside. 
 
 Ai Evoe ! The waves turn green ; 
 In tendril masses twist and twine 
 A mighty vine 
 Uprises and o'erhead doth lean : 
 
 Ai Evoe ! The tendrils chng 
 About the shipmen as they swim 
 The Bacchic hymn 
 The waves chant and the wild winds sing. 
 
 Evoe ! Dionysos cries. 
 
 The seamen and the boat no more 
 The shingly shore 
 Shall feel 'neath known or alien skies. 
 283 
 
The Sea-Born Vine 
 
 Blue dolphins guide the wave-born vine 
 To caves near mystic Ind : 
 Only the wind 
 Murmurs for aye the tale divine. 
 
 Ye who deride the gods, beware : 
 They are with us evermore ; they brook 
 No scornful look ; 
 Their vengeance fills our mortal air. 
 
 Yea, of the jealous gods, take heed : 
 One day the earth or sea shall ope 
 And vanquish hope — 
 A i Evoe be vain indeed ! 
 
 284 
 
VENILIA 
 
 Exspirarc rosas, dccresccre lilia vidi . . . 
 
 Claudian. 
 
 Along the faint shores of the foamless gulf 
 I see pale lilies droop, wan roses fall, 
 And Silence stilling the uplifted wave. 
 
 And in the movement of the uplifted wave. 
 And ere the rose fall, or the lily breathe, 
 Silence becomes a lonely voice, like hers, 
 Venilia's, who when love was given wings 
 And far off flight, mourned ceaseless as a 
 
 dove, 
 Till bitter Circe made her but a voice 
 Still lingering as a fragrance in dim woods 
 When on the gay wind swims the yellow 
 
 leaf. 
 
 285 
 
ON A NIGHTINGALE IN APRIL 
 
 The yellow moon is a dancing phantom 
 
 Down secret ways of the flowing shade ; 
 And the waveless stream has a murmuring 
 whisper 
 Where the alders wave. 
 
 Not a breath, not a sigh, save the slow 
 stream's whisper : 
 Only the moon is a dancing blade 
 That leads a host of the Crescent warriors 
 To a phantom raid. 
 
 Out of the Lands of Faerie a summons, 
 A long, strange cry that thrills through 
 the glade : — 
 The grey-green glooms of the elm are 
 stirring, 
 Newly afraid. 
 
 Last heard, white music, under the olives 
 
 WTiere once Theocritus sang and plaj^ed — 
 Thy Thracian song is the old new wonder 
 O moon-white maid ! 
 286 
 
THE DIRGE OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 {In Memoriam. — E. Z.) 
 
 In the great days men heard afar the clarions 
 
 of Hope rejoice : 
 The hearts of men were shaken as reeds by 
 
 the wind of a Voice. 
 But now the roll of muffled drums drowns 
 
 'mid the last Retreat 
 The wild fanfare of perishing hopes, the 
 
 tramp of passing feet. 
 
 The winds of heaven are banners lost, are 
 
 pennons of dismay ; 
 The innumerous legion of the sun toils on 
 
 in disarray ; 
 The moon that carries freight of gold to 
 
 ransom forth the mom 
 Sails desolate beneath a myriad starry eyes 
 
 of scorn. 
 
 Wild rhetoric, yes : but who shall say what 
 
 metaphors of pain 
 Are fit for the funeral dirge of a Republic 
 
 slain ? 
 
 287 
 
The Dirge of the RepuUic 
 
 High hopes, faiths, dreams, great passions, 
 
 aspirations. 
 Prove but the trodden, useless, bitter dust of 
 
 weary nations ! 
 
 That which was great is fallen, that which 
 
 was high is low : 
 The rising star has sunk again, but in a 
 
 blood-red glow : 
 The hundred thousand souls that died before 
 
 the golden prime 
 Did well, for it is well to miss the Ironies of 
 
 Time. 
 
 Faith, Honour, Love, the Noble and the 
 
 True, 
 These lofty words are pawns of an ignoble 
 
 crew : 
 How better far to light the Torch with 
 
 flames of cheap desire 
 Than thus to mock the eyes of man with 
 
 stolen fire ! 
 
 There is no State broad-based enough upon 
 
 the People's heart 
 That some day may not hunted be by the 
 
 People's dart : 
 
 288 
 
The Dirge of the Republic 
 
 The rebel nerves, the rebel lusts, the rebel 
 
 hounds of life — 
 If these be loosened from the whip they 
 
 turn to fratricidal strife. 
 
 Is this the end of all high dreams above 
 
 thrones trampled under ? 
 Is this the tinsel chorus left after the noble 
 
 thunder ? 
 'Twere better, then, than thus to live, thus 
 
 forfeit high renown, 
 To be true men, and free, " beneath the 
 
 shadow of a Crown " ! 
 
 289 
 
INTO THE SILENCE 
 
 {A Death in the West Highlands) 
 
 Ungather'd lie the peats upon the moss ; 
 No more is heard the shaggy pony's hoof ; 
 The thin smoke curls no more above the 
 roof ; 
 Unused the brown-sailed boat doth idly 
 
 toss 
 At anchor in the Kyle ; and all across 
 The strath the collie scours without 
 
 reproof ; 
 The gat her 'd sheep stand wonderingly 
 aloof ; 
 And everywhere there is a sense of loss. 
 " Has Sheumais left for over sea ? Nay, 
 sir, 
 A se'nnight since a gloom came over him ; 
 He sicken 'd, and his gaze grew vague and 
 dim ; 
 Three days ago we found he did not stir. 
 He has gone into the Silence. 'Neath yon 
 fir 
 He lies, and waits the Lord in darkness 
 grim." 
 
 290 
 
THE HILL-ROAD TO ARDMORE 
 
 There's the hill-road to Ardmore, Mar}', 
 Here's the glen-road to Ardstrae : 
 
 Your home is younder, Mary, 
 And mine lies this way. 
 
 Will you come by the glen, Mary, 
 Or go the hill-road to Ardmore ? 
 
 It is now and as you wdll, Mary, 
 For I will ask no more. 
 
 'Tis but a score years, Mary, 
 Since I bade you to Ardstrae ; 
 
 And now you are not there, Mary 
 Nor walk the hill-side way. 
 
 Is it only a score years, Mary, 
 Since we parted by the shore, 
 
 And I watched you go, Mary, 
 By the hill-road to Ardmore ? 
 
 291 
 
WHITE ROSE 
 
 Far in the inland valleys 
 The Spring her secret tells ; 
 
 The roses lift on the bushes, 
 The lilies shake their bells. 
 
 To a lily of the valley 
 
 A white rose leans from above : 
 " Little white flower o' the valley, 
 
 Come up and be my love." 
 
 To the lily of the valley 
 
 A speedwell whispers, " No ! 
 
 Where the roses live are thorns, 
 'Tis safe below." 
 
 The lily clomb to the rose-bush, 
 
 A thorn in her side : 
 The white rose has wedded a red rose. 
 
 And the lily died. 
 
 292 
 
ECHOES OF JOY 
 
 Only a song of jo}^ 
 
 Wind-blown over the heather, 
 Somewhere two little hearts 
 
 Thrill and throb together. 
 
 Ah, far 'mid the nethermost spheres 
 
 Life and Death live together ; 
 And deep is their love, without tears, 
 For they laugh at the shadows of years- 
 And yet there rings in my ears 
 Only a song of joy 
 Wind-blown over the heather. 
 
 293 
 
WHEN THE GREENNESS IS COME 
 AGAIN 
 
 The west wind lifts the plumes of the fir, 
 
 The west wind swings on the pine ; 
 In the sun-and-shadow the cushats stir ; 
 For the breath of Spring is a wine 
 That fills the wood, 
 That thrills the blood, 
 When the glad March sun doth shine, 
 
 Once more. 
 When the glad March sun doth shine. 
 
 When the strong May sun is a song, a song, 
 
 A song in the good green world, 
 Then the little green leaves wax long 
 
 And the little fern-fronds are uncurl'd ; 
 
 The banners of green are all unfurl 'd, 
 And the wind goes marching along, along, 
 The wind goes marching along 
 
 The good green world. 
 
 294 
 
IT HAPPENED IN MAY 
 
 A maid forsaken 
 
 A white prayer offered 
 Under the snow of the apple-blossom : 
 
 To whom was it proffered ? 
 By whom was it taken ? 
 Well, I suppose 
 Nobody knows. 
 
 But somehow, the snows 
 Of the apple-blossom 
 
 Were changed one day. 
 A kiss was offered, 
 
 A kiss was taken : 
 And lo ! when the maiden looked shyly 
 away, 
 Of bloom of the apple the boughs were 
 forsaken ! 
 But whiter and sweeter grew orange- 
 blossom ! 
 Now this is quite true, I say. 
 And it happened in May. 
 
 295 
 
NIGHTINGALE LANE 
 
 Down through the thicket, out of the 
 hedges, 
 A ripple of music singeth a tune . . . 
 Like water that falls 
 From mossy ledges 
 With a soft low croon : 
 Soon 
 It will cease ! 
 No, it falls but to rise — but to rise — but 
 to rise ! 
 It is over the thickets, it leaps in the trees, 
 It swims like a star in the purple-black 
 skies ! 
 Ah, once again, 
 With its rapture and pain. 
 The nightingale singeth under the moon ! 
 
 296 
 
BLOSSOM OF SNOW 
 
 " Sing a song of blossom," 
 Said little Marjory Brown : 
 " Why won't it come down, 
 Here in the town. 
 Please ? " 
 Said little Marjory Brown. 
 
 " Please, 
 Wind, blow just a breath, for me 
 To see 
 The great white apple-blossoms blow 
 Just like snow- 
 Just like snow in our garden before we 
 Came back to town," 
 Said little Marjory Brown. 
 
 All day and all night 
 A wind did blow, 
 
 Marjory laughed at the flying snow 
 And its whirling riot : 
 But at dawn she grew wan and white, 
 
 And was quiet. 
 And the doctor said, 
 With his hand on a bowed sobbing head, 
 " Too late you came up to town 
 With little Marjory Brown." 
 297 
 
THE DANDELION 
 
 A thousand poets have sung the Rose, 
 The daisy white, the heather, 
 The green grass we he on 
 In summer weather . . . 
 Of almost every flower that grows, 
 
 But never of the Dandehon, 
 That the winds of Spring have scattered 
 hither and thither ! 
 
 Is there any more fair to see 
 Than this bright fellow 
 
 Who, also, " takes the winds of March 
 with beauty " ? 
 True his coat in a vulgar yellow. 
 And his is a very humble duty . . . 
 Merely to be 
 As joyous as a wave on the sea, 
 A wave dancing on the great sea, — 
 Merely to be bright, sunshiny, glad, strong, 
 and free, 
 As free as a beggar, as proud as a king ! 
 298 
 
The Dandelion 
 
 And so, quite as good as the Rose, 
 The daisy white, the heather, 
 
 The green grass we lie on 
 In summer weather, 
 Is that flame of the feet of Spring, 
 The Dandehon ! 
 
 299 
 
THE DREAM-WIND 
 
 {Written for Music) 
 
 When, like a sleeping child 
 
 Or a bird in the nest, 
 The day is gathered 
 
 To the earth's breast . . , 
 Hush ! . . . 'tis the Dream- Wind, 
 Breathing peace, 
 Breathing rest. 
 Out of the Gardens of Sleep in the West. 
 
 Oh, come to me, wandering 
 
 Wind of the West ! 
 Grey doves of slumber 
 
 Come hither to rest ! . . . 
 Hush / . . . now the wings cease 
 Below the dim trees . . . 
 And the White Rose of Rest 
 Breathes low in the Gardens of Sleep in the 
 West. 
 
 300 
 
TRIAD 
 
 From the Silence of Time, Time's Silence 
 borrow. 
 
 In the heart of To-day is the word of To- 
 morrow. 
 
 The Builders of Joy are the Children of 
 Soirow. 
 
 301 
 
IN MEMORIAM 
 
 He laughed at Life's Sunset Gates 
 With vanishing breath : 
 
 Glad soul, who went with the Sun 
 To the Sunrise of Death. 
 
 302 
 
PERSEPHONEIA 
 
 A FRAGMENT 
 1903 
 
PROLOGUE 
 
 An ancient solitary temple of Persephoncia by 
 the sea. A dull sunset, burning slowly 
 over Hybla. Melkos, an old blind priest, 
 attended by a boy. A brazen glow rests 
 on Etna, whence issues a thin column of 
 dusky smoke filled at times with a tongue 
 of red flame. 
 
 Melkos 
 
 The old dull whisper of the unceasing wave. 
 
 [Sighing.l The slow sound of the unceasing 
 wave. 
 
 [Displaces a stone with his foot. 
 
 Out of these shadowy hollows of the ocean 
 
 Troop the grey dreams that plague the 
 minds of men. 
 
 Far off Hadranos hears : Enkelados 
 
 Puts forth his hands and shapes the sound 
 to thought : 
 
 And on her lonely Mount where the sunset 
 bums 
 
 Hybla remoulds in pale invisible flame. 
 
 [The boy idly plays a note or two. 
 I- 305 u 
 
Persephoneia 
 
 I am too old to fear these Holy Ones. 
 Hybla Beneficent, why should one fear 
 The Twilight Goddess, born where the 
 
 Evening star 
 Hangs o'er the abyss where swims the 
 
 unrisen moon. 
 Hadranos loves us not, but hates us not : 
 Though dreadful to men's ears the baying 
 
 of the hounds 
 That night and day, a thousandfold, 
 
 engird 
 His sacred temple with a surge of sound. 
 Rather the man I fear, the Titan-slave, 
 Who hates the sovran powers who hold him 
 
 thrall, 
 And hugs a secret that no god doth know, 
 Save only her, Demeter, when the frenzy 
 Terribly moves her calm to dreadful storm — 
 And him, Poseidon, when in his shell-strewn 
 
 sleep 
 Deep in the dim green silences he moans 
 Remembering . . . him rather do I fear, 
 Enkelados, the Helot of the Gods. 
 
 \The hoy half raises himself, looks 
 toward the ancient temple. 
 
 Melkos 
 
 Why do you stir, Neanthes ? Does the light 
 
 From off Hyblaean hill draw near the roof ? 
 
 306 
 
Persephoneia 
 
 Neanthes 
 The she-goat browsing 'mid the yellow 
 
 spurge 
 Yonder, where the lava crouches like a 
 
 lizard 
 Nailed to a thorn, looked suddenly up and 
 
 whinnied, 
 Her ears swung like figs in the wind, and her 
 
 knees 
 Bent, and she shrank shivering to the 
 ground. 
 
 [He sinks again, and flays a few notes 
 on his reed pipe. 
 
 Melkos 
 That slow sound of the unceasing wave. 
 
 For ages 
 These watery fangs have gnawed and torn 
 
 the shore. 
 
 [Again displaces a stone with his foot. 
 When I was young I sailed three days and 
 
 nights, 
 Southward three days when the great God 
 
 drowned in fire, 
 Southward three nights when lost amid pale 
 
 stars 
 The half-moon waned, and never land I saw, 
 Nor living thing, save a shadow in the 
 
 calms 
 
 ao7 
 
Persephoneia 
 
 Where overhead a white-winged sea-hawk 
 
 flew. 
 And on the morrow of the fourth I heard 
 The stifled laughters of a hidden folk, 
 Hoarse murmurings, a dull tumultuous haste, 
 With sad sea-voices full of lamentation. 
 And a single voice that knew not any peace. 
 
 Neanthes 
 [Listlessly, without looking up. 
 Who were these creatures of the salt south 
 sea ? 
 
 Melkos 
 Out of the depths they came, I know not 
 
 whence. 
 Or what. Poseidon's offspring, they, who 
 
 made 
 A green and dreadful rumour through the 
 wave. 
 
 Neanthes 
 
 [Singing. 
 Fair is the jailing wave, and fair 
 The paven green sea-halls, 
 And one who sleepeth sound is sleeping there. 
 
 Melkos 
 And as m some old dream that swims un- 
 sought 
 Into the unwilling mind, I know once more 
 308 
 
Persephoneia 
 
 The old fear I felt, and all the horror of 
 
 fear, 
 When out of the foam and the seas and the 
 
 wind 
 I heard a voice of vengeance and of wrath 
 And heard Poseidon calling on the shade 
 Of that most sacred, dread, and nameless 
 
 god 
 Who lives below the root of ancient slime 
 Left by forgotten seas and the most deepset 
 
 fires 
 Enkelados hath watched, Hadranos seen. 
 Leaning o'er midnight chasms fill'd wit! 
 
 flame. 
 Loudly he called, and billow on biHow leapt ; 
 Louder, and seas rose, and fell upon seas ; 
 Loudlier, till the shaken watery domes 
 That moved as a falling city on Etna moves, 
 Crag-shpt to gulfs of fathomless abyss, 
 I saw far-off steadfast stars involved. 
 Spun round like dust about a chariot wheel. 
 And all the anguish of his cry was filled 
 With one name only — hers, whom he begat 
 A thousand thousand years ago, on her 
 The stern implacable guardian of mankind 
 Demeter-Erinnys, on whose name be peace. 
 That name alone I heard. . . Persephoneia. 
 [Neanthes again raises himself, looking 
 towards the ancient temple. 
 309 
 
Persephoneia 
 
 Melkos 
 Does the light fall from oft the Hyblsean 
 hill, Neanthes ? 
 
 Neanthes 
 Three sea-birds dripping from the foam 
 Wheeled inland, yonder where the spotted 
 
 snake 
 Has made her lair under the asphodels. 
 And one by one withered in fright, and flung 
 Heavily downward, and all three lie dead. 
 
 Melkos 
 [Again to himself, unheeding the boy. 
 And when like a snowflake blindly up- 
 whirled and borne 
 My frail boat sung from one gulf to another, 
 And I lay breathless, dead, as one long dead, 
 Blind, deaf, dumb, senseless, without hope 
 
 or fear. 
 Who ploughed the furrow of my flying keel ? 
 That thing I do not know, nor how I escaped 
 A peril more dire than that which waits for 
 
 ships 
 For Cumae bound when Zankle sinks behind. 
 But on one desolate morrow my grey lips 
 Knew rain, and all my weary flesh was healed 
 With warmth and peace, at the coming of a 
 calm 
 
 310 
 
Persephoneia 
 
 Leaning from heaven on the lapping waters, 
 And from the violet hollows heavenward 
 
 risen. 
 And that day, in the hush of afternoon, 
 I heard a shoreward sighing of the sea 
 And in my nostrils was the blessed smell 
 Of grass and earth and trees : so lifting me, 
 And having made my prayer of thankfulness 
 To him, the lord Poseidon of the Deep, 
 I looked . . . and saw a melancholy shore, 
 A long low lifeless melancholy shore, 
 Wherefrom, an infinite way, the world 
 
 uprose. 
 Leaning gigantic . . . the vast womb of her, 
 The Mother Mountain, and, purpling in the 
 
 west , 
 Hybla I saw, the Holy Hill : and else. 
 No single home wherefrom the blue smoke 
 
 toiled. 
 But this I saw with dread, that ancient 
 
 homes 
 Hearthless and faded stood among grey 
 
 trees, 
 And a gaunt bridge hung broken o'er the bed 
 Of a great river where no water ran. 
 And old-time gardens all unwall'd, un- 
 kempt. 
 Were green with noisome growth, and fruit- 
 less, drear. 
 
 311 
 
Persephoneia 
 
 Some fallen columns lay upon the sand 
 Whereon the lizards fled, and in one place 
 I saw the image of an unknown God 
 Within whose cavernous ruin the adder 
 
 curled. 
 Near by, erect, unshaken, stood a fane 
 Even that by which this solitary eve 
 I stand in these my blind and listless years — 
 Fearing so little, with so little hope. 
 Yet dimly seeing in the far-off law 
 The shaping of divine perfected things. 
 Most drear and solitar}^ it rose thereby. 
 The columns held the vast grey slab of roof 
 That still they hold, in whose wind-haunted 
 
 places 
 The sea-crows built, with melancholy cries 
 Lifting black wings at sundown and at dawn. 
 But on that dayset, from the midmost rose 
 A thin and wavering column of spiced smoke 
 Such as from altars rise, fragrant with gums, 
 With wine and frankincense, where gods are 
 
 known ; 
 And even as I watched, the purple bloom 
 That Hybla wore, as a priestess wears a robe, 
 So that the woman and the robe are one. 
 Took fire : or rather, far below, a sea of 
 
 flame 
 Swung from its ebb, and with a mighty sigh 
 From dim abysms reached a fiery crest, 
 312 
 
Persefhoneia 
 
 The conflagration of whose soundless hfe 
 Changed Hybla to a molten brazen mass. 
 Therefrom a concentrated stream of light 
 Poured near the desolate fane ; but as the 
 
 God 
 Sank sighing to the underworld his hand 
 Lingered a brief while here : and the pale 
 
 smoke 
 Spired suddenly like the crimson breath of 
 
 roses. 
 
 [The hoy again raises himself, looking 
 towards the ancient temple. 
 Does the light fall from off the Hyblsean 
 
 hill, Neanthes ? 
 
 Neanthes 
 
 A little breath of smoke 
 Rose from the broken terrace near the 
 
 fane, 
 No more than from the white ox idly 
 
 breathes 
 When with wet lips he tastes the morning 
 grass. 
 
 Melkos 
 And then ? 
 
 Neanthes 
 A sudden noisy whirl of sparrows 
 Scattered like leaves around the seaward 
 columns : 
 
 313 
 
Persephoneia 
 
 And even as I looked, like leaves they 
 
 fluttered, 
 Falling and fallen, and now strewn deep they 
 
 lie. 
 
 Melkos 
 [Turning his face seaward again. 
 And even as the curling breath of roses 
 Wavered again to pale aerial smoke, 
 Even in that moment I beheld a woman 
 Standing in silence on the ruin'd terrace 
 That downward reaches to the lifting wave 
 Oozy with slimy frondage of the sea. 
 So tall she was, so noble of mien, so great 
 In the perfected beauty of repose, 
 That for a moment all my thoughts beheld 
 A flawless statue simulating life. 
 Most pale, most terrible her awful face. 
 The dark hair lay adown it in great clusters, 
 Like to the wild vine on the ashy cliff 
 That on ^Etnean Inessa bears the grape 
 Wherefrom the grey priests of Demeter brew 
 A fatal juice. The sadness of the hills 
 Crowned the sheer lonely height that was 
 
 her forehead. 
 The immemorial whisper of the sea 
 Inhabited the silence of her face :] 
 And in the flamelit darkness of her eyes 
 The melancholy of forgotten things 
 Was like a rainy dusk in the inlands drear. 
 314 
 
Persephoneia 
 
 In stillness she stood there, immovable, 
 As Twilight stands in the passes of the hills 
 When the Noon lifts her blazing wing and 
 
 sheers 
 Behind the incurring, blank, precipitous 
 
 walls. 
 Then well I knew a goddess I beheld. 
 
 A Voice 
 O bitter and terrible love of the wave for 
 the wind, 
 Of the north for the flame. 
 And the love and the joy and the glory half 
 left behind 
 For the mockery of a name. 
 
 Melkos 
 What words were these : what bitter song 
 
 from the sea, 
 Out of the hills, or lifted from the slain ? 
 
 Neaxthes 
 
 Only the wind I heard, and a sigh from the 
 
 sea. 
 It is gone now, and the far-off sea is still. 
 
 Melkos 
 [Again turning his face to the sea. 
 Then I knew a goddess I beheld. 
 
 [A pause. 
 315 
 
Persefhoneia 
 
 But sad she was, more sad than I had 
 
 dreamed 
 The high immortal ones could ever be. 
 And while I looked I saw that in one hand 
 A cluster of flowers she held, anemones 
 Wine-dark in hue, the sunbright celandine 
 And poppies heavy in a downward flame, 
 With pale green blossoms of the yellow 
 
 spurge. 
 But even as I looked a withering came 
 Like a grey bloom upon them, and that 
 
 bloom 
 Dusked into ash, and in grey ash they fell 
 Making an eddy of dust before her feet. 
 Then a wild dove with sudden clamorous 
 
 wing 
 Batted the still air of the dreadful peace ; 
 Circling about her, come I know not whence ; 
 But even as I looked the grey wing sank 
 And as a falling dust the cushat fell. 
 
 \A pause. 
 Then all my soul rose up in me, and knew 
 Persephoneia. \A pause. 
 
 And at that dreadful name, 
 Bom on my lips as dawn on a moving wave, 
 The dark gulfs of her dreadful beautiful 
 
 eyes 
 Turned slowly upon mine, wherefrom the 
 
 light, 
 
 316 
 
Persephoneia 
 
 Ebbed, as the withdrawing gleam ebbs from 
 
 a pool 
 On sundown sands when the seas grow 
 
 suddenly pale. 
 From that day unto this I have not seen 
 Goddess nor mortal, maid nor mortal man : 
 No, nor the grey stairs of Poseidon's home. 
 Nor Helios lighting torches on the hills. 
 Nor any queen hour laughing on the slopes 
 WTiere the watercourses are, nor almond 
 
 blossom 
 Foaming the pools where purple iris grow. 
 No, never once have I beheld my kind ; 
 Never the goatherd fluting to his flock 
 Black-feeted kids amid the lava blocks 
 Stained with old lichen, yellow with flower- 
 ing spurge ; 
 Nor the white train of sacred maids down- 
 wending 
 By the fig-bordered ways of holy Inessa, 
 Nor the gold filleted ancient men who bow 
 At Hybla, nor the blue-robed youths who 
 
 stand 
 Watching the thousand hounds of Hadranon. 
 Yea, all these weary years I have not seen. 
 In gracious places I have never heard 
 The chorus rave, nor the solitary hymn 
 Peal from the heights of Enna when the 
 doves 
 
 317 
 
Persephoneia 
 
 Gather like flames before the Kore's fane : 
 Nor laughter in the nightingale-haunted 
 
 woods 
 When the moon lifts the silver from the 
 
 pools 
 And ripples it lightly through the rippling 
 
 boughs ; 
 Never for me the chariot-race, the games. 
 The sounds of down-falling cars in gladsome 
 
 havens, 
 The kiss of wife or child, the choric song 
 Of kings and wars and mighty kings of old, 
 The bubble from the wine-skin, the gay jibe 
 And all familiar things of the old-time day. 
 For I am old and blind : for years on years, 
 How many years I know not, have been 
 
 blind. 
 That sorrow came to me because I saw 
 Divinity unveiled, and for a moment knew 
 The terrible life of immortality. 
 The high gods rule us hardly. If we fail 
 To seek them in their shrines and holy places 
 Sorrows are laid on us, and many plagues. 
 And the awful weight of the superhuman 
 
 frown. 
 And, if unseen we come upon these folk, 
 Star-tramplers, sea-shod, kindred of the 
 
 powers 
 That are the Eternal balance of the world, 
 318 
 
Persephoneia 
 
 Pitiless are they, or full of dreadful scorn, 
 Or mockery worse than flushing of thelevin. 
 But I have ser\'ed her faithfully , Aweful 
 
 One. . . . 
 Yea, all these years in blindness and in pain. 
 In sorrow, loneliness and grievous days 
 I have not strayed an hour long from her 
 
 shrine. 
 Few men come here, to this deserted land : 
 These haste away, so dreadful is the air 
 Of deathless immemorial decays, 
 Cities that were, dis-peopled villages. 
 Gardens, with barren founts and fruitless 
 
 trees, 
 Old roadways gathered to the prickly-pear. 
 Dry watercourses where the lizards run 
 With withered tongues seeking forbidden dew. 
 And this gaunt solitary ruined fane 
 WTiereon is Silence, terrible and alone. 
 Yea, I have kept the sacred fire alit 
 From dusk till dawn, and quenched it at the 
 
 dawn, 
 And every noon have gathered up the ashes 
 And thrown them in the grey receding wave. 
 Yet never has the goddess deigned to me . . . 
 No, not a word, no, not a little word, 
 Nor even guerdon given, albeit ease 
 Or dreamless sleep, or food, or shade, or 
 
 warmth, 
 
 319 
 
Persephoneia 
 
 The visitation of unblended hours. 
 The gifts of song, of prophecy, of dream. 
 But, when I die, the crow will pick mine eyes. 
 And if the crawling wave discrown my tomb 
 The clammy fins of fish will touch my bones. 
 {Raising his arms in supplication. 
 O thou who in thy unknown secret power 
 Descendeth hither, coming as a wind 
 That eddies in the grass, and as an eddy 
 Returning when it wills, in a secret way, 
 O thou, Persephoneia, whom men worship 
 High in the holy fane of the sacred Kore 
 Where Enna rears her consecrated steep 
 In frowning flanks of basalt from the wilds 
 Hearken, have pity, give at least a sign. . . . 
 For I have served thee well, who am broken, 
 
 and blind, 
 And now am old, and soon shall know no more. 
 But be a thing that was not, unrecalled. 
 
 [The hoy suddenly gives three sharp 
 calls on his reed. 
 
 Melkos 
 
 Neanthes . . . what ? 
 
 Neanthes 
 
 A shadow suddenly falls 
 Which nothing casts, where no one is ! . . . 
 yonder 
 
 320 
 
Persephoneia 
 
 Betwixt the columns where the sea gleams 
 
 red, 
 As a pomegranate on a dark blue leaf. 
 
 Melkos 
 Quick, boy ! . . . Neanthes . . . does the 
 
 beam of light 
 From off the Hyblasan hill yet reach the 
 roof ? 
 
 [Neanthes, leaping to his feet, covers his 
 face, and turns and bounds swiftly 
 away. 
 
 Neanthes 
 It comes ! It comes ! 
 
 Melkos 
 
 [Slowly advancing. 
 Hail to the Kore of Enna, hail ! 
 
 [A pause. 
 Persephoneia ! Mother of Life and Death ! 
 
 Hail! 
 Hail, Unbegotten but by the dreams of the 
 
 gods 
 Foreshaped by him, Poseidon-Hippios, 
 Forekno\\'ii of her, Demeter, the veiled 
 
 Queen ! 
 Hail to the Kore ! Hail, Persephoneia ! 
 
 [A pause, 
 I 321 X 
 
Persephoneia 
 
 Though many days have sunk and dark 
 
 nights risen, 
 Yea, many moons have waxt and waned in 
 
 vain, 
 And thou hast not revisited this place. 
 Yet art thou come again, O Holy One ! 
 I know well by the portents, and the awe 
 That lies on all this breath-suspended shore. 
 
 [A pause. 
 A sign, a sign, O thou whom I have served 
 In silent adoration all these years ! 
 
 A Voice 
 Go down to the dim waves and bathe thine 
 
 eyes. 
 Maybe other gods may serve thee there : 
 Or sleep, or dream. I knew not thou wert 
 
 blind. 
 Who have never known nor seen that 
 
 worshipper 
 Save as a shadow flickering in the silence. 
 Go up to the hill-encircled mountain fane 
 That frowns on Enna, and then lay thee 
 
 down 
 On the altar-step, that so, perchance, my 
 
 foot 
 May for less than a moment burn thy lips. 
 Then may thy blindness quicken ... or 
 
 the dark 
 
 322 
 
Persephoneia 
 
 Drown in upon thee with a deeper night. 
 
 But trouble me no more with faithful 
 service. 
 
 That, or unfaithful. Here I dwell alone. 
 
 [Melkos stands in silence, then slowly 
 moves towards the sea. As in a 
 dream he walks slowly, through 
 lentisk and tamarisk, often look- 
 ing hack, half in dread, half in 
 expectation. 
 
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