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 NOCTURNES 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS.
 
 NOCTURNES 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. W. MOORE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 'A HARP FROM THE WILLOWS,' 'LOST CHORDS* 
 
 i 
 
 LONDON : 
 ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.G. 
 
 1898.
 
 PR 
 50 1 . 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 AN EXCURSION - - - - - I 
 
 IN THE SWIFT NIGHT OF OLD - - "19 
 
 FOUR YEARS AFTER - - - - -25 
 
 LIGHT AND DARK IN SPRING - - - " 38 
 
 NICIAS AND A SEQUEL - - - - 46 
 
 THE LIFE OF S. AUGUSTINE - - - 62 
 
 PARAPHRASE OF ISAIAH XXI. I-IO - - "77 
 
 IN THE VALLEY OF SIA - - - - 81 
 
 ' AND SO LIKE OTHERS OF OUR TIME " [T yauslation) 83 
 
 105G654
 
 An Excursion 
 
 898—1898 
 
 O VIEWLESS dove, who waftest oft 
 From all the landscape pale, 
 
 Enwrapt beneath thy pinions soft, 
 Quick tidings of the vale, 
 
 Some knell, too drowsy for alarm, 
 
 Along this summer dark, 
 Or cackle of the dreaming farm, 
 
 Or watchdog's sudden bark ; 
 
 Thou journeyest over woodlands brown 
 From all the glimmering hills ; 
 
 And there I know an ancient down 
 The southern welkin fills ; 
 
 I
 
 An Excursion 
 
 But land mists, shot with silvery beams, 
 
 And azure of the night 
 Awhile have veiled it, ere it gleams 
 
 In its own chalky white. 
 
 O breeze, that wistest living things 
 
 So swiftly and so well ! 
 Naught hast thou in thy whisperings 
 
 Of yon great hill to tell ? 
 
 When quivering died the sunset flames 
 
 Downward, thou camest so 
 To fan the rushes of the Thames 
 
 A thousand years ago. 
 
 Ah ! thou art weak, and hidden there 
 
 Lie memories of death. 
 Of beacon fires, and battle blare, 
 
 Too clamorous for thy breath. 
 
 One comes — her brows are gemmed with light- 
 
 Who is she, whose strong car 
 Shall on the storied slopes to-night 
 
 Climb where the ancients are ?
 
 An Excursion 
 
 Not History : she cannot move 
 
 A mistress on that way. 
 Not Fancy : for, content to rove, 
 
 She drives her steeds astray. 
 
 But one she is who fares full well 
 
 With second-sighted eyes ; 
 Casts on the path her rambow light, 
 
 Yet sees realities. 
 
 Men call her, if a name be aught, 
 
 Imagination now : 
 Yet once no other Pindar brought 
 
 To Castaly's green brow. 
 
 Forward o'er lea and stream and wood ! 
 
 Her lightning-paced steeds 
 Shall show where British Muses stood, 
 
 And legends turned to deeds. 
 
 Already on the darkened wold ! 
 
 Just hushed, o'er yonder plain, 
 A thousand springs now backward rolled. 
 
 The war-cry of the Dane ! 
 
 I — 2
 
 An Excursion 
 
 How thick and far the woodlands lie, 
 How their dark fringes creep, 
 
 Black-crested waves of greenery, 
 To hollows of this steep ! 
 
 Yet here and there a Saxon light 
 
 Is glimmering on the fell, 
 Where some rude-timbered tower in sight 
 
 Has stilled its vesper bell ; 
 
 There, freed at last by Alfred's bond, 
 
 The carl is on his bed ; 
 There, Alfred's holy horn-book conned, 
 
 Rests many a flaxen head. 
 
 Young spirits resolute to pore 
 
 O'er lessons on that page 
 Which deeper sink than all the lore 
 
 Taught in this newer age. 
 
 And haply, too, their sleeping sire 
 Hath hands that grasp the plough. 
 
 The scythe, the flail, with cheerier fire 
 Than hands which grasp them now.
 
 An Excursion 
 
 " Thou art not here to moraHze 
 
 On good that is or was ; 
 But turn and read, with opened eyes, 
 
 This record on the grass." 
 
 So spake my Guide, and ill restrained 
 Her steeds, impatient still : 
 
 Her sister witch had sudden rained 
 A glory o'er the hill. 
 
 And lo ! a horse, in outline pale 
 
 Against the western slope. 
 Spreads a vast flank and world of tail, 
 
 And upward to the cope 
 
 Rears an outlandish neck or mane, 
 And head of artless round ; 
 
 And prancing seems to paw the inane 
 Above a gulf profound, 
 
 Where the west sides in channels deep 
 And swathes abrupt descend. 
 
 And the green pillars of the steep 
 In clustered darkness end.
 
 An Excursion 
 
 But lo ! to northward, where it turns 
 
 A gentler slope again, 
 With hinder feet the monster spurns 
 
 A little thorn-set plain ; 
 
 And, where the bushes thickest are, 
 
 White with its chalky seams 
 And gashed with many a moonlit scar, 
 
 A hillock ghost-like gleams : 
 
 Pendragon's hill, the mound of kings ! 
 
 What bones of Britain's best, 
 What names that woke the bardic strings. 
 
 In its dim chambers rest ! 
 
 And springing from the ancient tomb 
 
 The horse yet seems to stay, 
 As angel over catacomb. 
 
 To bear some soul away. 
 
 O let not prying History come 
 
 To tear that mystic horse 
 From its own place and proper home 
 
 By Arthur's royal corse..
 
 An Excursion 
 
 Where dying in the ranks of war 
 
 He shed the Saxon blood. 
 Avalon surely is not far, 
 
 Nor far its ambient flood. 
 
 To-night at Wantage Alfred sleeps 
 
 After his long day's toil ; 
 His draughtsmen never on these steeps 
 
 For trophy trenched the soil. 
 
 His victory rang away to east, 
 
 Beyond yon hazy hill : 
 And since this giant first was cast 
 
 'Tis three fierce centuries still. 
 
 '* Wilt thou, then, measure hence," she says 
 (My Guide, who reins the car), 
 
 " One more millennial of days. 
 Now thou hast fared so far ? 
 
 " Thine ears shall drink the harpers' dirge 
 
 O'er Arthur's funeral. 
 Forward ! Four scarlet legions surge 
 
 At dawn through yonder val :
 
 An Excursion 
 
 " Their blazing camp-fires brown the sward 
 
 And solitary firs 
 Of cromlech groves, which seer nor bard, 
 
 Naught but the night breeze stirs. 
 
 " They march to the rebellious Usk, 
 
 Their moving column dread 
 Shall scare the bosky plains till dusk 
 
 With clangours of their tread. 
 
 " Forward ! For me 'tis e'er the same, 
 
 To reach the founts of time. 
 I'll show thee forms, ere Julius came, 
 
 Gay in a misty clime : 
 
 And white-robed gazers on the stars 
 
 Fix days of fight and fate ; 
 And warriors blue and scythed cars 
 
 Pour through yon grassy gate. 
 
 " Forward ; e'en yet another race, 
 
 Another garb is now : 
 Two mount, midsummer morn, to face 
 
 The orient crimson glow ;
 
 An Excursion c 
 
 " To hail their god in all his power : 
 
 They know their calendar. 
 'Tis graven on the stones which tower 
 
 On that strange plain afar 
 
 " Where flinty portals ever span 
 
 The changeless solstices, 
 And all the circling cloisters scan 
 
 Heaven's starry mysteries. 
 
 " E'en now the flame-robed priesthoods sweep 
 
 Down that well-meted way 
 Which points where on the verge shall peep 
 
 The golden eye of Day." 
 
 ** Ah, Lady ! leave me," I replied ; 
 
 " With undistracted gaze 
 Let others quickened at thy side 
 
 See sights of dateless days : 
 
 •* But let me on this hill of death. 
 
 Though sweet its dirges call, 
 Think Alfred's England lies beneath 
 
 And see that acorn fall
 
 lo An Excursion 
 
 " From his strong hand, which steadfast grew 
 
 Amidst a stormful world, 
 The oak whose leaves and giant thew 
 
 A thousand springs unfurled. 
 
 ** See ! on his woods the night-wind dies, 
 
 The tides of twilight creep, 
 And rings of curling azure rise 
 
 From all the dusky deep. 
 
 " Already o'er his Oxenford 
 
 Day in thin radiant fires 
 Is bringing heaven's revealing word 
 
 To light his five dark shires. 
 
 *)~)' 
 
 " And where to northward all the vale 
 
 To yon dark edge is rolled, 
 The beechland tops e'en now are pale, 
 
 Tipped with the herald gold : 
 
 " And from his guardian stream uplifts 
 
 The darkness fast, to tell 
 Where weirs are murmuring, and down drifts 
 
 The loaded coracle.
 
 An Excursion 1 1 
 
 " 'Tis morn." Nor blanched she at the sight, 
 
 Nor hailed her inward eye 
 That broad sun less than mystic night 
 
 And moon's soft witchery. 
 
 And now she showed, as something loved, 
 
 All the long Saxon day 
 And toil which the slow oxen moved, 
 
 Or in the woodland lay. 
 
 But chiefly beyond Cumnor hirst, 
 Where Frideswide's belfries ring 
 
 And some meek scholars quench their thirst 
 At learning's baby spring ; 
 
 Where Ina's code, and lore of Bede 
 
 Light up their later age ; 
 And all the former things they read 
 
 On God's more cherished page ; 
 
 And still for them fierce echoes come 
 From Mercia's conscious hills ; 
 
 And sainted Edmund's martyrdom 
 The living memory fills ;
 
 12 An Excursion 
 
 How heathen captors bent their bow, 
 
 Their arrows ready made 
 In heathen quivers, to lay low 
 
 That kingly perfect head. 
 
 Ah ! better bitter herbs and crust 
 Of lore, with love's sweet smile, 
 
 Than, with faith's heart all turned to dust, 
 Stalled ox and sugar'd pile. 
 
 Better their oaken chantries dim, 
 With storm-stained horny pane. 
 
 Than spires and pictured seraphim 
 In creedless college fane. 
 
 Then, as to pluck some pearl again 
 From Time's far ocean deep. 
 
 Her wand swept o'er the Benoc's plain, 
 And woke from secular sleep 
 
 Some day of glory — not that rang 
 
 (I asked her not for these) 
 With deeds of battle ; but that sang 
 
 The ancient Pascal peace,
 
 An Excursion 1 3 
 
 When all the dark fritillaries flash 
 
 On Isis' breathing sides 
 In balmier light : and where the ash 
 
 And mossy copse-floor hides 
 
 The tormentil's rathe tiny head, 
 
 Creeps Heaven's unstinted gold : 
 " So on the poor God's wage," she said, 
 
 " Pours after Winter's cold." 
 
 "Their wage!" I said. "Yes! thou couldst draw, 
 
 And, Lady, thou alone. 
 Their annals thence : though never law, 
 
 Nor e'er one carven stone, 
 
 " Nor tomb, nor rude memorial 
 
 Knew them, nor civic change 
 Writ on the hall or castle wall, 
 
 Or keep or moated grange, 
 
 " Their wages still the tale could tell. 
 
 And figures touched by thee 
 Would make no barren chronicle, 
 
 But living pageant be.
 
 14 An Excursion 
 
 " Oh, show how slaved, how fared those hands 
 Which lopped each ashen glade ; 
 
 Or tamed yon ragwort-breeding lands, 
 And all an Eden made." 
 
 " Alas ! thou askest to thy grief," 
 
 She said ; " I should reveal 
 Dire Winter after Summer brief, 
 
 And still for them to feel. 
 
 " Yet list awhile : from that strange lore 
 
 Four pictures shall display 
 The long declension of the poor 
 
 E'en to their modern day. 
 
 " The barons' battles flash afar, 
 
 And Severn runs with blood : 
 Yet ne'er did that familiar war 
 
 Make scarce the poor man's food. 
 
 " Ah ! Plenty's smile ! Ah ! Summer days ! 
 
 The mendicants of God 
 Cried, as their Francis, on yon ways 
 
 And wastes they barefoot trod :
 
 An Excursion 15 
 
 " * Give all, who can : to give is heaven :' 
 
 Rich, then, were all the pence ; 
 And freely, hourly, boon was given 
 
 From hospital and spence. 
 
 ** Next comes Reform, like Autumn frost ; 
 
 The poor man's friends are gone ; 
 His very guild lands all are lost ; 
 
 For eggs they give a stone : 
 
 " For Law, with the collection plate, 
 
 And priests may beat the doors 
 Of hearts of lords now satiate 
 
 With all the convent stores. 
 
 " But, when they wrench the niggard dole, 
 
 'Tis silver's base alloy ; 
 Base as the plunderer and his soul, 
 
 That, giving, knows no joy. 
 
 " Next Newbury sees leal Falkland fall ; 
 
 Cromwellian pikes are strong : 
 But did trained bands and yeomen all 
 
 Avenge one rural wrong ?
 
 1 6 An Excursion 
 
 " Was Oxford leaguered to restore 
 
 To his lost green again, 
 To common land or fuel store, 
 
 One peasant of yon plain ? 
 
 " Rather they ride from shop, from farm 
 
 To mar the sanctuary 
 Of her who still could pour the balm 
 
 On voiceless poverty. 
 
 " And last, when France, by hunger-pain. 
 
 Infuriate, shook the yoke. 
 And most on yonder very plain, 
 
 The grim starvation spoke, 
 
 " Not with her nameless butcheries. 
 With words farouche and wild 
 
 Only in sad and famished eyes 
 Of paling, phthisic child. 
 
 " The justice (God the title save !) 
 Fixed down meek Labour's wage : 
 
 But not the price of Life's poor stave — 
 That 'scaped his iron gauge.
 
 An Excursion 17 
 
 " And then came war's fierce cup to drink, 
 
 And flood of twelvemonth rains, 
 But sacred land rents must not shrink, 
 
 Nor eke the farmer's gains. 
 
 " So, landlord, look ! Thine acres feed 
 
 Still one superfluous slave : 
 Ah ! send him, as a useless weed, 
 
 To the Union's living grave. 
 
 '* Yes ! From the fields his grandsires tilled. 
 
 And made so rich for thee, 
 Drive him. By others be fulfilled 
 
 The debt to misery." 
 
 " And now," I cried, " how ends this plight, 
 
 And what to-morrow's chance ?" 
 (But she had vanished with the light 
 
 Of her fair countenance.) 
 
 " But not for thee so ends the tale. 
 
 Hill ! that hast roused to arms 
 With beacon-fires the slumbering Vale 
 
 Oft against heathen swarms.
 
 1 8 An Excursion 
 
 " Let others, round thy viewless hearth 
 
 Rallying for refuge, seek, 
 Amidst Time's heathenish wrongs, the earth 
 
 Which still awaits the meek. 
 
 " Let oft in summer toiling wight 
 
 Descry thine outline dim 
 High floating in the liquid light 
 
 And whispering joy to him ; 
 
 " Then, as the thronging breezes bring 
 
 Thy memories of the brave, 
 He'll bless afar a patriot king. 
 
 He'll hail a hero's grave."
 
 In the Swift Night of Old 
 
 Her towers are bright beneath the moon ; 
 
 High fleecy clouds seem stretched upon 
 
 The pinnacles, or torn and rent 
 
 To creep through one arched battlement, 
 
 Lacing its gray with silver thread. 
 
 The golden stars are overhead, 
 
 Their eyes on murmuring Itchen, save 
 
 Where bending laurels quaff the wave. 
 
 Many a night serene as this 
 
 Hath poured the balm of midnight bliss 
 
 On Wykeham's towers ; e'en such a night 
 
 Bathed walls new-chiselled in the light, 
 
 2 — 2
 
 20 In the Swift Night of Old 
 
 Ending that day when busier halls 
 From idlesse of proud castle walls 
 Gathered the best of Albion 
 In Learning's newer race to run. 
 
 Night loses not : through flowers of fire 
 Her dusky coursers never tire 
 To strain the fresh aerial thew 
 Up all the slopes of misted blue. 
 And, as she mounts, her starlit eyes 
 Gaze on the youngest galaxies, 
 On orbs, far-flaming, infinite. 
 Sown in the immeasurable height ; 
 And life is in that dust of gold 
 Glittering untarnished as of old. 
 And then she bends to look below. 
 The streams by darkened chambers flow. 
 Here, too, she finds the gift is given, 
 The gift not alien from her heaven ; 
 Here, too, there sleeps eternal youth 
 Amidst firm bulwarks of the truth :
 
 In the Swift Night of Old 21 
 
 Sleeps but to wake these courts among, 
 To sport, to labour, and to song, 
 Each morn renewing every bliss : 
 And now upon these walls her kiss, 
 Serenest, closest, warmest, clings : 
 For here, amongst all lower things, 
 An endless line, replenished ever, 
 As fountains feed a rushing river, 
 Lives on with youth's bright energies 
 Most like her own. It never dies, 
 The scholar line, the hero brood, 
 Close linked in holy brotherhood. 
 
 Hark ! from her car the Genius falls 
 On carven roofs and shadowy walls. 
 His wings, as of an angel, over 
 The courts, the sealed gardens, hover. 
 He sings a past and future story. 
 But mortal yet ne'er knew the glory 
 Of all the record : for he tells 
 Things written in no chronicles
 
 2 2 In the Swift Nieht of Old 
 
 t?' 
 
 By human hands on parchment dim ; 
 
 For sun ne'er rose unwatched by him : 
 
 He heard, as oft the crimson ra}-, 
 
 Bright usher of some festal day, 
 
 Melted the dense unfolding cloud 
 
 On Catherine's mountain, from the crowd 
 
 In silver peals the clarions fling 
 
 Their welcome to a youthful king. 
 
 Fair Richard, or that holier head 
 
 Back to his nursing mother led 
 
 From HHcd Tamise. He doth know 
 
 All the still nights in chambers low ; 
 
 How oft the quivering moonbeams played 
 
 On oaken floors, and boyhood laid 
 
 In slumber. On the novice' sight 
 
 He spread that dream where falcons bright 
 
 No more should mount in storm-swift flight 
 
 O'er forest glades, nor cherished steed 
 
 Should turn, beseeching to be fed : 
 
 Nor Summer from the well-known hills 
 
 Toss all his garden daffodils.
 
 In the Swift Night of Old 23 
 
 Another spell is on him now : 
 
 The gleaming of a mitred brow, 
 
 The silver of a vesper bell, 
 
 The shrines ablaze, the organ's swell : 
 
 And daily in a grander hall 
 
 Full many a gray-haired seneschal 
 
 Marshals the equal feast, and he, 
 
 Heir of a new nobility, 
 
 Sits at the board, in sable fold 
 
 Of robe that never shall grow old. 
 
 The scholar's gown : no more a page 
 
 Mocking the gaudy thriftless age 
 
 In sammit. Then new voices seem 
 
 To change the glory of his dream : 
 
 And call him to the new crusades 
 
 Where young knights grasp new battle-blades, 
 
 The spirit's sword — and still they cry 
 
 " Down with the feudal tyranny ! 
 
 Be thou not slack. Abundant now 
 
 For thee the hving fountains flow 
 
 Where kings and prelates guard thee round 
 
 As nursing sires." The Ave's sound
 
 24 In the Swift Night of Old 
 
 Is mingled with the notes of morn. 
 He wakes, and on the gates of horn 
 The Genius turns his shadowy key : 
 The rest to come he mav not see.
 
 Four Years After 
 
 I. 
 
 Down the hillside to the Abbey forest leaves are 
 
 falling now ; 
 But like yellow domes of foHage elms unruined tower 
 
 below. 
 
 Round them, rolling from the valley, vapour of late 
 
 autumn creeps, 
 Ghost of breezes that in May-time thrilled them to 
 
 their greenest deeps ; 
 
 Rolling, show the peopled background, all the flooded 
 
 waste along ; 
 Spires and cupolas and turrets, fanes and halls, a 
 
 mystic throng.
 
 26 Four Years After 
 
 Ah ! the leaves of love and leisure, faith and hope, 
 
 are yellow there : 
 Or tljese eyes see all things fading, jaundiced with 
 
 a quick despair. 
 
 Four years since upon this upland with a new-found 
 
 friend I stood : 
 Such a misty eve of autumn gloomed the city, 
 
 drenched the wood. 
 
 Yet for us hope's magic rainbow all a glittering 
 landscape spanned ; 
 
 We were standing on our Pisgah, gazing on a pro- 
 mised land. 
 
 Every spire now pointing yonder pointed to a vault 
 
 divine ; 
 Every garden was an Eden, every cloister was a 
 
 shrine. 
 
 Paths and avenues long trodden by pale masters of 
 
 the soul 
 Still must lead, who loyal follow, to the self-same 
 
 golden goal.
 
 Four Years After 27 
 
 Sophia beckoned with no seeming treachery in her 
 
 lovely smile ; 
 Coral bells of baby Science, could they e'er to ill 
 
 beguile ? 
 
 Yes, the ribbons flutter gaily, sunlit, on the raw 
 
 recruits ; 
 Gay their banner floats above them, waving o'er 
 
 their joyous flutes ! 
 
 But 'tis sombre, rent and riddled, on the smoking 
 
 battleground ; 
 When the sod is stained around it ; stained from 
 
 many a mortal wound. 
 
 Oxford calls the flower of England, all she wants of 
 
 heart and brain ; 
 Banners of her past and present yearly herald her 
 
 campaign. 
 
 Then the drill, the drum, the muster; — but, behold, 
 
 an ambuscade ! 
 Now to eyes of hundreds dying all the flaunting 
 
 glories fade !
 
 28 Four Years After 
 
 II. 
 
 Ah, they say, speak not for others : thou art a 
 
 degenerate son ; 
 Worse than useless th}' complaining : see, thy 
 
 Mother marches on. 
 
 Well, then, only for one wounded will I here con- 
 fession make ; 
 
 Here where mournful tears of evening trickle from 
 the darkening brake ; 
 
 One pale golden gleam of sunset, lamplike on the 
 
 wooded hill. 
 Guards the cloud-enwoven curtain, where One ear is 
 
 listening still : 
 
 Not as where all ears are listening for some new 
 
 thing to be told ; 
 And the temptress tongue is bid for, and in yonder 
 
 Athens sold.
 
 Four Years After 29 
 
 Search, Diogenes, the gardens, search the book- 
 
 Hned chambers all : 
 Is there one shall speak God's comfort in a true 
 
 confessional ? 
 
 No, belated little robin, warbling in the oaken 
 
 grove, 
 Thou art better sign of comfort, holier teacher of 
 
 God's love. 
 
 But alas ! long since they called us from the Father's 
 
 birds and flowers ; 
 " Seek true loveliness with Plato, seek it in eternal 
 
 bowers." 
 
 There around their Things all real, Beauty, Good- 
 ness, Truth, we trod ; 
 
 Wandering waited, waited wondering, where amongst 
 them all was God. 
 
 Sudden cried from dark abysses voices of another 
 
 crew :* 
 "Fancies these! Avaunt ! let logic lead you to a 
 
 Substance true." 
 
 * Spinoza's followers.
 
 3© Four Years After 
 
 " Forward to a goal receding ! forward to the 
 
 Infinite!"— 
 Though the heart and soul be outraged, starved, 
 
 and deadened in the flight. 
 
 Soul ! long since the Stagyrite robbed her of her 
 
 grace in life or death ; 
 Function doomed of dying body, as in broken flutes 
 
 the breath. 
 
 On with mind to grasp the utmost; — though creation 
 
 lie between ; 
 And revealing words long spoken, and revealing 
 
 deeds have been. 
 
 Doubt, the darkened heart's blank twilight, all that 
 central prospect mars ; 
 
 Dims the spirit's sweetest colours, takes their bright- 
 ness from her stars. 
 
 " What !" they cry, "no wings to follow, old-world 
 
 moorings cast away ! 
 P'all, then, fall, thou less than Phaethon, ere thou 
 
 seest the coming day !"
 
 Four Years After 31 
 
 III. 
 
 So once more earth's green things round us : but 
 
 that fire has singed the hair, 
 Furnace fire has passed upon us : One to quench it 
 
 was not there. 
 
 For such souls to earth returning, to its scenes and 
 
 duties clear, 
 Find them other than they loved them ere they went 
 
 their mad career. 
 
 With faith waning, wanes the Conscience ; garbling 
 
 all her simple rule, 
 Still utility will oust her, echo of a creedless school. 
 
 City, to whose fanes are wending they who own no 
 
 Saviour's name, 
 They whose Law, long work of Reason, never from 
 
 the Mountain came ;
 
 32 Four Years After 
 
 In whose halls are many merchants trafficking in all 
 
 things fair, 
 Slaves, and souls of men, and gold-set gems of 
 
 thought, delicious ware ; 
 
 Babylon, mystery, art thou fallen ? yet I will not 
 
 wish thee woe. 
 Not for all the hopes thou killest, cherished fifty 
 
 months ago. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Rather let a modern snow melt into some former 
 
 joy: 
 Pearl of pearls thou wast, for all his student days, to 
 
 many a boy. 
 
 Often, on this happy hilltop, sons of prophets stood 
 
 to gaze ; 
 Often on a morn of summer thou wert glorious in 
 
 the haze ;
 
 Four Years After 33 
 
 When its mists like waves of silver into coasts of 
 
 purple rolled, 
 Eastwards in thy guardian uplands drenching many 
 
 a wooded fold, 
 
 And along the verdant valley, as to throned queen 
 
 her slaves, 
 Streams in sunlight ran to meet thee, rivers reached 
 
 their vassal waves, 
 
 Down to belfries, oriel chambers, havens in a realm's 
 
 distress, 
 Vaulted vistas, sealed gardens, nooks of peace and 
 
 plenteousness. 
 
 But in all those happy mornings, whose have been 
 
 the happiest eyes, 
 Hailing hence thy truest grandeur, counting best thy 
 
 destinies ? 
 
 Looked they when the child of Gerald* wandered to 
 
 thy halls, and went. 
 
 Leaving lamps of wisdom lit in many a long-locked 
 
 muniment ; 
 
 * Erasmus.
 
 34 Four Years After 
 
 Left a radiance on dim pages giant libraries among, 
 Left his golden key that opens all the founts of 
 Grecia's song ? 
 
 Rather, when from chairs and pulpits loud the white 
 
 Dominican 
 Christward bent all heathen thinking, every treasured 
 
 thought of man ; 
 
 When in humbler cell or hostel voiceless hearts to 
 
 heaven aspired, 
 Meek as Origen, yet with ardours wiser than of 
 
 Plato fired ; 
 
 When from yonder ivied Abbey matin chants awoke 
 the birds. 
 
 When the vesper call of Godstow floated Thames- 
 ward to the herds. 
 
 Better that than modern comforts, hushed the 
 
 orison, fallen the bell ; 
 Unctions to souls unbelieving, how we know, we 
 
 reason well !
 
 Four Years After 35 
 
 V. 
 
 Scorner of the hands that built thee, where are 
 
 Faith's entrusted flowers ? 
 Pining for the air that oped them ! Stamped to clay 
 
 beneath thy towers ! 
 
 Yet farewell ; I will not curse thee. One nobility 
 
 is thine, 
 One coal living from the altar, one ray stolen from 
 
 the shrine. 
 
 Over flesh thou hast dominion ; on the adder thou 
 
 dost go ; 
 Though thy heaven is cold and Christless, thy 
 
 regards are not below. 
 
 So beneath the stars of Egypt, zeal, for which 
 
 Hypatia died, 
 By one holy cord of continence to the Nazarene's 
 
 was allied. 
 
 3—2
 
 36 Four Years After 
 
 Nor shall e'er thy lodger Science, with her gases 
 
 and her knife, 
 Teach thee shifting sands of senses build man's 
 
 intellectual life. 
 
 Thus austere, thy poet loved once : in his faultless 
 
 singing meet- 
 All the rigours of thy thinking, all that chasteness 
 
 gives of sweet. 
 
 Loved he too thy wolds and rivers ; and to the 
 
 olden watershed 
 Came one moonlit eve of autumn — came to mourn 
 
 his Thyrsis dead. 
 
 And the magic of thy copses, listing thy eternal 
 
 chimes, 
 And thy swain,* on slopes of summer clearly fluting, 
 
 filled her rhymes. 
 
 But the dirge of Dorian waters closes the enchanting 
 
 song; 
 
 Nevermore his brother singeth who to Nature must 
 
 belong. 
 
 * A. H. Clough.
 
 Four Years After 37 
 
 VI. 
 
 So by pagan paths thou leadest to thy double goals 
 
 on high ! 
 Light, that oft must turn to darkness ; sweetness, 
 
 into apathy ; 
 
 So on virgin snows of Reason, and along her 
 
 dazzling horns, 
 Fare thy gifted ones : but sudden Doubt's sheer gulf 
 
 before them yawns. 
 
 While beneath them in her valley Faith still keeps 
 
 the scorned hearth ; 
 And her gaze can fix still heavenward, though her 
 
 steps are on the earth.
 
 Light and Dark in Spring 
 
 I. 
 
 'Tis vain a sorrow here to find, 
 Or sighing in this balmy wind 
 O'er Nature rising fresh and kind. 
 
 With all her eyes she is awake : 
 Anemones their whiteness make 
 Beneath the purple-budding brake : 
 
 And, like a vein of bounding blood, 
 Her brooklet at its tiny flood, 
 Threading lush mazes of the wood, 
 
 Wends out to meadow waterways 
 Amidst her hyacinths' blue haze 
 And all the marigolds ablaze.
 
 Light and Dark in Spring 39 
 
 II. 
 
 No darkness comes upon the noon, 
 Such as in lost Judaea's swoon 
 And Satan's hour was poured upon 
 
 The shimmering oHves on the hill, 
 And gloomed the foaming of the rill. 
 And made each plumaged warbler still. 
 
 But in yon copse each tufted tree 
 Like green crest on a sunlit sea 
 Joins the gay tumult, blest and free. 
 
 No symbol sad of sin and care, 
 No crosses three are outlined there 
 Athwart the boon unclouded air. 
 
 The golden catkins are aglow : 
 But will their rifled tassels show 
 That scene of triumph changed to woe 
 
 When waving palms by palms were met, 
 And all the singers' tide was set 
 Down the strewn slope of Olivet ?
 
 40 Light and Dark in Spring 
 
 Bright on yon spire shines chanticleer : 
 Strange emblem of a dawning drear 
 And clangour mocking Peter's fear. 
 
 I hear the lark's wild ecstasy 
 Lost in high azures of the sky : 
 But no exceeding bitter cry. 
 
 Nor e'en yon robin's russet breast 
 To Calvary's tree was ever prest ; 
 For Nature's festival he's drest. 
 
 III. 
 
 Ah, fields ! ah, seas of bursting green ! 
 Have ye forgotten what hath been 
 To win your joyous look serene ? 
 
 Or is it that Man's heart hath found 
 
 Oblivion in this splendour round, 
 
 And in your peace all remorse drowned ? 
 
 This Love transfusing wintry gleams, 
 Which on the bush an incense seems 
 And living breath upon the streams.
 
 Light and Dark in Spring 41 
 
 Can it portray the Love that wore 
 Our flesh and every burden bore, 
 Till iron and the death-swoon tore 
 
 Body from soul ; and downward bent 
 Blenched lips which to the firmament 
 Their cry of dereliction sent ? 
 
 Doth Man still recreant grasp the bliss 
 Which wooes him on a morn like this, 
 And yet the Son doth never kiss ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 Wherefore rejoice ? Yon spire doth rise, 
 But pagan manner hardly dies ; 
 The little world in bondage lies. 
 
 The farmer strides the laughing lea 
 Unshriven as the innocent tree ; 
 In sooth he is no Pharisee. 
 
 Or if to him aught mystic come, 
 'Tis some dim touch of heathendom ; 
 It chases far the Gospel gloom.
 
 42 Light and Dark in Spring 
 
 The April sun has dashed the tears 
 
 From Ostria's cheek : and why should fears 
 
 Or sorrow mar the look she wears ? 
 
 Balder was dead : but now in white 
 He lives again in floods of light : 
 And Odin gladdens at the sight. 
 
 These hearts are fat as brawn within ; 
 And who shall there an entrance win 
 With any whispers of earth's sin ? 
 
 For them no change their Easter brings 
 Save the brute movement of the springs : 
 The oak is cased with annual rings 
 
 On growths of comfortable years ; 
 And knells of Passiontide fall on ears 
 Quite void of mediaeval fears ; 
 
 Nor wake within a noble pain 
 
 Midst darling hates, and thoughts that stain, 
 
 And thick thorns choking unseen grain
 
 Light and Dark in Spring 43 
 
 While earth's increase they mark so well, 
 And all her greening blades can tell 
 And how her fifty-folds will sell, 
 
 While their strong hind the harrow lifts, 
 And all the gathered grossness sifts 
 To fuse it on his smoking drifts. 
 
 But sordid aims shall never tire : 
 And sturdy sins to son from sire 
 Live on beneath the rural spire. 
 
 And souls are burdened still, and bound 
 
 In Nature's simple painless round 
 
 Still balmless for their cancerous wound. 
 
 V. 
 
 Yet see, one crawls afield : no gains 
 Hath Earth for him : but onl}' pains. 
 The heritage of winter rains. 
 
 Away the veteran hand they fling ; 
 Without him from the genial spring 
 Their cautious profits now they wring.
 
 44 Light and Dark in Spring 
 
 And all the almoners of the poor 
 
 Have fled yon Priory : now Christ's store 
 
 Is locked behind the Union door. 
 
 And so he locks his heart to love 
 And God's own dying to remove 
 A long-stored vengeance from above. 
 
 He hears not in the Passion song 
 A vengeance on one rural wrong : 
 It doth the suffering still prolong ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 Yes ! yes ! an evil festers still ; 
 For all the living airs that fill 
 Yon copses on the morning hill. 
 
 And yet up Golgotha's dark stair 
 A breeze most magic, yet most fair, 
 Shall meet each mourner mounting there ; 
 
 And flood him, as with cleansing tide, 
 Wafted from where Apollyon died 
 Beneath a Saviour's wounded side ;
 
 Light and Dark in Spring 45 
 
 Where flashed in gloom the avenging knife 
 
 And cut the canker eating hfe, 
 
 The greed, the pride, the sin, the strife. 
 
 And once again man's hfe-blood gushed, 
 And all his soul with health was flushed. 
 And all his heart in love was hushed.
 
 Nicias and a Sequel 
 
 O'er Athens' columned citadels 
 
 And green Arcadia's shepherd dells, 
 
 O'er Sparta's rock-encircled valley, 
 
 And white sails of the bounding galley 
 
 That slowly breaks the Ionian foam, 
 
 Straining for Hellas and for home, 
 
 The Dawn is coming : on the flow 
 
 Of Western waves she reddens now, 
 
 And bursting upon Sicily; 
 
 Her trembling purple floods the sky : 
 
 But, untouched by her rosy fingers, 
 
 On each dark hill the night-cloud lingers ; 
 
 Nor yet the rocks, where dews are streaming, 
 
 Upon the precipice are gleaming ;
 
 Nicias and a Sequel 47 
 
 Nor yet the pines — with sombre dress 
 
 Covering the craggy wilderness, 
 
 Where never climber dare intrude 
 
 On yEtna's fiery solitude — 
 
 Pierce through the mist's enfolding cloud 
 
 With one spire of their tufted crowd : 
 
 Only from out the gray profound 
 
 Is heard afar the cataract's sound, 
 
 As rushing from its airy steep 
 
 Onward it dashes to the deep. 
 
 But, see ! before advancing Day 
 
 The morning mists have rolled away ; 
 
 And colours from that magic beam 
 
 Flash out upon the winding stream. 
 
 And woods in untamed majesty 
 
 Toss their bright foliage to the sky, 
 
 Where, clear above the unnumbered throng. 
 
 Sweet Philomel begins her song. 
 
 But can the light on wood and river 
 Rekindle hopes now quenched for ever ?
 
 48 Nicias and a Sequel 
 
 The tears that blind the Athenian's eye — 
 
 Can they take pleasure from yon sky ? 
 
 Or loves he now the sparkling wave 
 
 That rolls above his comrade's grave, 
 
 And drifts toward the death-strewn shore 
 
 Each shattered trireme, mast, and oar, 
 
 And bursts in idly-foaming spray 
 
 Far at the entrance to the bay. 
 
 Where the chained galleys, firm and high. 
 
 Deny him flight and liberty ? 
 
 From Syracuse a sound is sent, 
 
 And turret, dome, and battlement, 
 
 Are ringing with the exulting cry 
 
 Of paean-chanting victory : 
 
 And beacon-fires are smouldering still 
 
 On Euryalus' castled hill. 
 
 And high upon Plemmyrium 
 
 Bid the Sicilian armies come, 
 
 To view the last expiring throe 
 
 Of their thrice-baffled captive foe ; 
 
 And from each inward-gazing glen 
 
 The dread alarm of coming men
 
 Nicias and a Sequel 49 
 
 Sounds o'er the marsh, where, silently, 
 Anapus wanders to the sea ; 
 Or seems to sound : each airy breath 
 To that doomed army whispers death. 
 
 Despair has hushed the piercing cry 
 That rose from thousands to the sky, 
 When Syracuse, but yesterday, 
 With one clear paean swept the bay, 
 And forward o'er the drowned and dying 
 Pressed on their ranks in panic flying 
 As leaves of Autumn, pale and sere, 
 Are crowded on the wind-swept mere. 
 And he stands there whom Athens sent 
 To be the unwilling instrument 
 Of her ambition's wildest deed : 
 Whose warning voice she would not heed. 
 But what if years of fight and storm 
 And pain have marred his wasted form. 
 Pain that his country, heeding not. 
 Still bound him to the soldier's lot ? 
 
 4
 
 50 Nicias and a Sequel 
 
 And what if power and fame be fled ? 
 High Duty's laws are never dead. 
 Lit by a flame within the heart, 
 They brighten, never to depart. 
 'Tis Athens still that fills his sight, 
 And breathes within the undaunted might 
 To save the remnant of her host : 
 While life remains, not all is lost. 
 
 And now another morning shines 
 
 Upon their long retreating lines, 
 
 And loud the wail is heard again 
 
 From the death-cumbered shore and plain. 
 
 Onward, with unaverted eyes, 
 
 They pass, where in the gateway lies 
 
 The abandoned crowd : they must not see 
 
 That last despairing agony ; 
 
 Though oft a son's or father's groan 
 
 Is heard in answer to their own. 
 
 But others, with last hope still strong, 
 
 Are following wistfully along ;
 
 Nicias and a Sequel 51 
 
 Some to their once-loved comrade clinging, 
 
 Round his dear neck their arms are flinging, 
 
 And wildly calling on their love 
 
 With cries and tears that may not move, 
 
 Till, feebly sinking in despair, 
 
 They pour to heaven their latest prayer. 
 
 The last farewell is over now. 
 
 And they move forward, mute and slow. 
 
 But ever memory recalls 
 
 That voyage from Athens' clamorous walls. 
 
 And hopes that grasped in victory 
 
 All treasures of the Western sea ; 
 
 And then the days which cast their brave 
 
 To welter on the harbour wave ; 
 
 Or, slain in fight, no burial given, 
 
 To lie beneath the unpitying heaven. 
 
 And last, the flight from that dread shore 
 
 To ills perhaps unknown before, 
 
 O'erpowers them : and the starting tear 
 
 Speaks of the woes too hard to bear.
 
 Nicias and a Sequel 
 
 But Nicias' voice is ever by 
 
 To cheer their deep despondency. 
 
 " For ills ye cannot now retrieve, 
 
 Forbear, my countrymen, to grieve ! 
 
 Forbear the unavailing tear 
 
 For those beyond the reach of fear ! 
 
 The wings of Nemesis, which over 
 
 The invading squadron darkly hover. 
 
 Are soaring now, for she has spent 
 
 Her last wrath on our armament, 
 
 And bears to the Olympian king 
 
 The tribute of long suffering ; 
 
 Nor can the offended Power deny 
 
 To humbled hearts security. 
 
 Look on yourselves ; and chase Despair 
 
 From out those ranks still firm and fair 
 
 With discipline ; where'er ye go, 
 
 A city terrifies the foe. 
 
 Which towers can never fortify 
 
 As the brave soul and spirit high. 
 
 E'en now from off her unmanned walls 
 
 Your own Athene loudly calls
 
 Nicias and a Sequel 53 
 
 Across the intervening main 
 Her sons and city back again. 
 Her breathing sons ! her own dear band, 
 She calls, the active heart and hand — 
 And not the hulks that strew yon strand ! 
 Oh ! live to join her choral throng; 
 Strike for the sunny land of song. 
 Some eve on well-remembered wave 
 Mute for their welcome, shall our brave 
 See sunset from Cithseron glance 
 In glory on Our Lady's lance ?" 
 
 ^ ¥^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 Who stifled that heroic breath ? 
 Whose hand did mix that cup of death, 
 Drained in the dungeon-house, to sate 
 Sicilia's triumphant hate ? 
 'Twas Syracuse that bid him die, 
 Where oft for highest minstrelsy 
 His laureate harp had Pindar strung. 
 And oft the banquet-halls had rung 
 Loud with the song-inspired grace 
 That told of Hiero's swift race,
 
 54 Nicias and a Sequel 
 
 And welcomed in the enduring lay 
 The victor of the bloodless bay. 
 But none of Hellas' bards e'er shed 
 The light of song on Nicias' head, 
 Or let one tuneful teardrop fall 
 Upon his nameless funeral. 
 To captive wretch what song is meet ? 
 Who sings to chronicle defeat ? 
 Enough for him unknown to lie, 
 And silence hymn his victory. 
 
 So, not upon the curtained scene, 
 Melpomene, tear-compelling queen. 
 Not only on thine Attic board 
 Is terror woke, and pity poured. 
 While there thy mimics wear the mask 
 Of greatness, and the hero's task. 
 Thou treadest then on purple seas, 
 Thou showest fate on asphodel leas ; 
 Thou teachest e'en amidst the smile 
 Of some wave-kissed Levantine isle
 
 Nicias and a Sequel ^^ 
 
 How o'er a nation broods the storm, 
 And the bolt scathes one innocent form. 
 
 But waft me back thy rocks among, 
 The bulwarks of thy land of song ; 
 Though now for all its chivalry 
 It feeds alone the wandering bee ; 
 Though now alone the nibbling sheep 
 Hang o'er its white and marble steep. 
 And wide and far proud Sparta rides 
 On all the blue ^Egean tides. 
 Yonder by Argolis' twinkling strand 
 Her triremes move. Ah, wave thy wand ! 
 And blot them in thy shifting scene ; 
 Let modern wonders come between — 
 Already ! all the banks of oars 
 Melt to a mass of moving towers, 
 The flashes of the hoplites' glaive 
 To mouths that menace all the wave 
 Opening from monstrous glittering throats 
 On giant decks. Ah ! whither floats
 
 56 Nicias and a Sequel 
 
 Yon squadron, leaving vapours black 
 O'er the white whirlpools of its track ? 
 
 Again for Athens ! ruthless queen ! 
 
 Again for Athens, what hath been ! 
 
 Nay, forces of a fiercer age 
 
 Thou gatherest on the watery stage. 
 
 Is this thy newest tragedy 
 
 Amidst the islands of the sea. 
 
 For her who, since her brave went down 
 
 Around the bitter Dorian town, 
 
 E'en when a sterner storm of fate 
 
 Her docks, her streets, made desolate, 
 
 The Crescent hovering o'er the blue, 
 
 Never, to Wisdom being true. 
 
 Suffered that earth-born withering glow 
 
 Her mind and spirit to lay low ? 
 
 For she had passed with smile divine 
 
 From Plato's walk to Christ's own shrine. 
 
 In vain — when the overwhelming hoard 
 
 Their false book brandished and a sword
 
 Nicias and a Sequel 57 
 
 Blood-purpled from Byzantium 
 
 And many a violated home, 
 
 And thundered round her convent walls, 
 
 And with their jargon filled her halls — 
 
 In vain their horned symbol shone 
 
 Upon her matchless Parthenon. 
 
 Again that front of marble pale 
 
 Has felt the kiss of Freedom's gale. 
 
 And never in morn's crimson flush 
 
 That snow seemed melted to a blush 
 
 More lovely, than on that bright day 
 
 When to the quays, the docks, the bay, 
 
 From every hill a nation sped 
 
 To see its chosen legions tread 
 
 On gallant transports, ere they loose 
 
 The hawsers for no Syracuse, 
 
 But where the heights of Candia mourn 
 
 For saints that bleed and shrines that burn. 
 
 Hark ! how along each high-hung shroud 
 
 The Britons cheer : their pasan loud
 
 58 Nicias and a Sequel 
 
 Is answered by Italia's sons 
 From all their steel-clad galleons : 
 A prince upon the gangway goes ; 
 The sword is bared on Europe's foes. 
 
 So hopes are high, and hearts are light ; 
 Thy preludes ever end aright. 
 Still on thy ringing plains of Troy 
 Thou show'st the brief delirious joy : 
 But then thou callest men to list 
 Thy fallen great protagonist, 
 Him who from Salamis came in ships, 
 In accents taught by thy pale lips. 
 Ere from his side the bursting shower 
 Shall feed the purple-blooming flower, 
 Upon the grassy stage complain 
 That the fast friend doth not remain. 
 Yes, pennons there, once friendly, fly 
 Of England and of Italy. 
 They speed to join the stern conclave 
 Stretched many a league along the wave;
 
 Nicias and a Sequel 59 
 
 To threat with iron panoply 
 
 The peasant struggling to be free ; 
 
 And Greece is landing on that shore 
 
 Gifts to a modern Minotaur, 
 
 Till she, to fate no longer blind, 
 
 But waking from her dream, shall find 
 
 A prison or a nameless grave 
 
 In that sad isle she came to save. 
 
 But hark ! a fiercer tumult drowns 
 
 The bitter cry of Candia's towns. 
 
 From lands late won from Anarchy's curse 
 
 The messengers of new reverse 
 
 Tell where a spreading panic fills 
 
 The folds of all the slanting hills. 
 
 Methinks 'twas there one pipe could tame 
 
 The dappled lynxes ; and they came 
 
 And couched with lambkins : and from dens 
 
 Far in the green Othrysian glens 
 
 A tawny squadron leonine 
 
 Marched — for the lilting was divine ;
 
 6o Nicias and a Sequel 
 
 And from the cone-strewn coverts drawn 
 
 E'en the li^ht ankles of the fawn 
 
 Bold on the sunny slopes advance 
 
 To join the rapturous jocund dance. 
 
 Now pealing through a lurid night 
 
 The trumpets urge to wilder flight 
 
 Steeds riderless, and the human stream, 
 
 Oft lit with sudden sulphur gleam, 
 
 The routed men, the women weeping : 
 
 While o'er the harvests ripe are sweeping 
 
 The turbaned foe, a myriad hoofs ; 
 
 Afar abandoned burning roofs 
 
 Fringe the dark plain with tongues of flame ; 
 
 With quivering tongues that tell the shame 
 
 How Hellas never kept the gate 
 
 That stemmed right well the flood of fate. 
 
 Ah ! vantage ground divine was hers 
 
 O'er Tempe's rocks, in Pelion's firs : 
 
 And oft had she amidst the shade 
 
 Of all those giant gorges made 
 
 Full on the foe her lightnings flash, 
 
 And by the stream her thunders crash :
 
 Nicias and a Sequel 6i 
 
 And from her fastnesses rushing down 
 Confusion on the invader thrown. 
 Wherefore that sudden panic flight 
 When stars were conscious, till morn's light 
 Blushed on a scene of camp-fires dead, 
 Dismantled hold, and warrior fled ? 
 Now in this silence of sheathed swords 
 What strain can fit, what choric words ? 
 Ah ! better end thy tragedy 
 Amidst those islands of the sea.
 
 The Life of S. Augustine 
 
 The keels that broke all day the Tuscan foam 
 This eve pass swiftly to their glassy home ; 
 There in their forests on old Tiber's tide 
 The merchant masts of many a kingdom ride ; 
 And pennons fluttering in the golden skies 
 Tell what fair climes have sent those argosies : 
 While on the quays a thousand traders pour 
 Their sunny wines, their harvests, and their ore. 
 
 Here laurelled leaders oft, here seamen stood 
 By Glory hailed from some far scene of blood. 
 And yet to-night beyond yon garden wall 
 Two victors sit more noble than them all ; 
 Two brows now brightening with a triumph given. 
 Two souls now anchored in the port of heaven :
 
 The Life of S. Augustine 63 
 
 Although no curious crowd might choose to come 
 Beneath their casement in the gathering gloom ; 
 Nor speech, nor language in the listening air 
 Tells of the joy that brings and binds them there. 
 
 Soon shall be writ for ever, but not now, 
 
 The story of his early-furrowed brow : 
 
 His eyes now chastened with a new-found grace 
 
 That tames the eagle contour of his face : 
 
 His lips now parted in expectancy 
 
 Of some dim answer from beyond the sky : 
 
 And the dark ardours of his cheek, whose blood 
 
 Beats to new touches of infinitude. 
 
 Her story, too, who here, hand clasped in hand. 
 
 Mounts with his spirit to a heavenly land ; 
 
 Companion pure, who aids him in his flight ; 
 
 Soars, as he soars, towards the eternal light. 
 
 With the pale glory of her patient eyes 
 
 Lit with the fire of love's long sacrifice : 
 
 Fire that on lips of her who never faints 
 
 Wreathes incense given to the prayers of saints.
 
 64 The Life of S. Augustine 
 
 So he is saved at last : but oft she wept, 
 E'en when this darhng in his cradle slept ; 
 In that wild land would yet a pagan's smile 
 From the straight narrow way his faith beguile ? 
 Or Pride deflower him when he wore the gown 
 In the gay license of some Christless town ; 
 Nor yet the washing of the heavenly dew 
 On that young soul might come to make it new, 
 Lest the blest seal, by some dark sin effaced. 
 On branded brow might never be replaced ? 
 
 Or when his boyhood, as a flower in light. 
 Oped blooms beyond thine expectation bright, 
 Was it all joy, blest soul, or was it fear, 
 That sent to thy pure eyes the sudden tear ? 
 Then, when thou saw'st him playing in the ring, 
 He would be first of all, he would be king, 
 To lash the whirling boxwood in thy hall, 
 From boyish throng to snatch the bounding ball. 
 Or snare the fluttering sparrows. When he spoke. 
 How sweetly on his lips the Latin broke !
 
 The Life of S. Augustine 65 
 
 How clear the thought ; how vivid was the wit 
 
 Kindhng the fuel memory lent to it, 
 
 E'en in his playful words ; and what a flame 
 
 Of passion when they called him to declaim ! 
 
 Most he of all within the vestibule, 
 
 The solemn awning, and the clamorous school, 
 
 Brings treasures back which parents' cost repay 
 
 And spur him fast and faster on the way. 
 
 What if, a fierier Tully, from the bar 
 
 He mount some day the throne proconsular ? 
 
 So, for one moment, spoke a mother's pride. 
 But how shall these with holier hopes abide ? 
 Within that very schoolroom, thou couldst know 
 Half the dark secret of thy coming woe. 
 These rhapsodies unlocked with toilsome art 
 Polish the tongue, but poison all the heart. 
 The ferule for the laggard to explore 
 The sinful meanings of their mythic lore. 
 Where taste, pronouncing all without a flaw. 
 Guards grammar rules, not Sinai's broken law ! 
 
 5
 
 66 The Life of S. Augustine 
 
 Yes ; listen there, and thou wouldst wonder less 
 That vain thy pleadings were for soberness ; 
 To him, though God was speaking in thee then, 
 They seemed the words of women, not of men : 
 Seemed,* with the spice and cinnamon at hand, 
 Fantastic echoes from a shadowy land. 
 
 Three years are gone : and what hath Carthage 
 
 done 
 For that bright being given thee for a son ? 
 Long hast thou prayed and hoped ; thou hadst the 
 
 dream 
 Of all the choicest flowers of academe 
 Showered on the loved one, which doth still deceive 
 The Christian mothers ; still they wake to grieve 
 E'en in a land where each time-beaten stone 
 For ages breathes of Christ, and Christ alone. 
 But did no Baal haunt the tawny light 
 Of columns basking on huge Bursa's height ? 
 On the hushed sand did then no scenic sin 
 From youth transported daily plaudits win ? 
 
 * " Confessions," ii. 3.
 
 The Life of S. Augustine 67 
 
 Away ! he'll find to righteousness the call 
 
 Where the rolled purple on the stage shall fall, 
 
 Where with heart melting and with streaming eye 
 
 He learns the love that bade Elissa die. 
 
 Shame, Active tears ! are ye than hate more kind ? 
 
 Ye drain the succouring forces of the mind ; 
 
 Fit lesson here in pity more divine, 
 
 As One did pity in far Palestine : 
 
 Fit moments, in this caldron of desire, 
 
 To tread Christ's path, and trim the vestal fire. 
 
 And rhetoric lends her deadliest weapons now, 
 And all her guerdon garlands crown his brow. 
 And still, to flatter all his proudest hope. 
 Star-gazers spell his manhood's horoscope : 
 Or, from the embraces of an earthly love, 
 If once with longing true he looks above, 
 He sees in thought's subhmest solitude 
 Only its mirage of the Chiefest Good. 
 
 How to that sophist mind, those dazzled eyes. 
 Dimmed are the Scripture's sober mysteries ! 
 
 5—2
 
 68 The Life of S. Augustine 
 
 The outlines of the God-Man melt and part 
 In the false splendours taken to his heart. 
 Ill brooks he now that tenderness should fill 
 The hour he gazes on a sunset hill, 
 And thinks, beyond it, of one shrine of prayer, 
 With one meek form for ever prostrate there, 
 On sand besprinkled with her constant tears ; 
 And of a Master, too, who daily hears. 
 
 He cannot take that Master ; cannot be 
 
 The slave of one who wore humanity. 
 
 Hark ! what new jargon, and what haughty tones 
 
 Come to confuse Thagaste's simple ones : 
 
 " Our soul, which seems to sin, is still a spark 
 
 From God's own fire entangled in the dark ; 
 
 The hosts of evil in the eternal fray 
 
 Have trapped it in foul tenements of clay ; 
 
 But his corporeal brightness cannot sin. 
 
 While all those evil agents live within ; 
 
 Fated to fly, and in the elect most soon, 
 
 Back to its central source in sun and moon.
 
 The Life of S. Augustine 69 
 
 No, this ye find not in your garbled word ; 
 
 Ye know not yet the Spirit of the Lord. 
 
 Were all His gifts at Pentecost to end ? 
 
 Lo ! on the Persian they e'en now descend!" 
 
 The youth he loved is on the bed of death, 
 
 But words are weak against Faith's parting breath. 
 
 He starts amazed ; Augustine shall not scorn 
 
 The dew that glistens on a soul new-born ; 
 
 But learn, amidst his grief's wild luxury. 
 
 His Jonathan doth live, himself doth die. 
 
 Back to the world, Augustine ; it is thine ; 
 
 For twelve more brilliant years thou there shalt 
 
 shine. 
 Take there thy powers, thine understanding heart 
 Which grasps each science, and wins every art : 
 Take all the treasures of thy Father's store ; 
 Spend all on Fame, till thou shalt hunger sore ; 
 But leave, ah ! leave Christ's little ones to rest 
 By temptress tongue unharassed in their nest ; 
 For there a food divine lends love's strong wings, 
 Which lift not thee in all thy wanderings.
 
 JO The Life of S. Augustine 
 
 And now fair Milan's palaces among 
 
 He walks where statesmen meet, and soldiers throng. 
 
 Down each proud street the patriot eye may see 
 
 All the green ocean of her plains still free ; 
 
 Still with their cloudlike lines of lifted snow 
 
 The aerial Alpine ramparts stop the foe. 
 
 But whispers from another world are there 
 
 When blessed Ambrose fills the Christian chair. 
 
 From clamorous tasks to please an emperor's ear 
 
 The Afric catechumen steals to hear : 
 
 And now how grandly after Arian storm 
 
 The Faith he once maligned is gathering form ! 
 
 How the faint outlines which Plotinus drew 
 
 In John's great gospel glow with colours true ! 
 
 " The Word descending to its fleshly screen 
 
 Sinks wounded on the way of life's dark scene ; 
 
 And the proud pilgrims of eternity, 
 
 Ceasing to trace their lineage in the sky, 
 
 Must lower their eyes where He is at their feet. 
 
 Must kneel abased and there a brother greet ; 
 
 And uncomplaining take his proffered cup : 
 
 Then, and then only, will He lift them up."
 
 The Life of S. Augustine 71 
 
 His proffered cup ? What measure then for him ? 
 
 How deep must be his draught below the brim ? 
 
 To sell no more this power of life and death 
 
 That hangs in listening courts on pleaders' breath ; 
 
 To guide no longer to earth's dazzling goals 
 
 All the best powers of young impassioned souls ; 
 
 To lie no longer by a leman's side ; 
 
 To pass his coming wealth, and noble bride ? 
 
 Ah, strange to hear Faith's morning clarions sound, 
 
 Yet still in old sweet slumbers to be drowned. 
 
 Meanwhile in all earth's angels shall be seen 
 
 The rival sweetness of the Nazarene. 
 
 Yes, late and soon, O mother, seek the shrine ; 
 
 Still ever hunger for the food divine : 
 
 Let Music gushing from her freshest wells 
 
 Commend the truth in heavenly canticles ; 
 
 Let Continence usher through the awestruck crowd 
 
 Her lovely pomp of youth to Jesus vowed : 
 
 Let Antony, from Libyan solitudes, 
 
 Call in the hush of voiceless brotherhoods ;
 
 72 The Lite of S. Augustine 
 
 And Victorine, the precious pearl to win, 
 Renounce his tongue's long triumph and its sin ; 
 Speak all ! Like arrows from the eternal bow 
 Ye lay in his pierced heart loose custom low. 
 Oh, when shall God's last winged word be spoken. 
 And the deep fountains of that heart be broken ? 
 
 It comes — the pathos of Pontinian's tale. 
 This giant wrestles with the heaven-sent gale. 
 See, with eyes flashing and with cheek aflame. 
 Deep in the garden glooms he hides his shame. 
 " And we, the wise, the learned, cannot prove. 
 As these have done, the violence of love ! 
 Our brilliant wit this kingdom cannot win ; 
 And we stand still, while these arc entering in !" 
 Ah ! follow not, Alypius : wait the end : 
 For heaven's own sign alone shall calm thy friend ; 
 Hark ! in a child's small voice he hears God speak, 
 And bid, on the dropped scroll. His answer seek ; 
 "Take up and read;" oft through the whispering 
 
 trees 
 Those words arc wafted : and he hastes and sees :
 
 The Life of S. Augustine 73 
 
 Then peace, like ocean's floodtide, comes to fill 
 This halting purpose, and divided will : 
 No more from doubt can any anguish come ; 
 His soul is anchored in a new-found home. 
 
 No need for vision now, or sign from heaven ; 
 For in one moment every gift is given : 
 Sweetness, than pleasure sweeter comes ; a light 
 Beats back the darkness of his mortal sight ; 
 And love, still trembling with the loved One near. 
 Utters its joy untouched by any fear ; 
 Yet, lest men's eyes should scan it, wills to wait ; 
 Nor by one hour its freedom antedate. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The tapers blaze around the laver's gloom. 
 Mute yet life-breathing as the Saviour's tomb ; 
 And ere they pale before the paschal morn. 
 Deeds must be done, three Afric souls be born : 
 His, given by God, to God now given, the son ; 
 His, friend of exile, dear companion ; 
 His, who Truth's every treasure strong to seek. 
 By Ambrose waits now infinitely meek.
 
 74 The Life of S. Augustine 
 
 And Monica is there ; her waking eyes 
 The dream of yore this night shall realize : 
 And that bright youth who smiled upon her tears 
 Stand on her Rule, and banish all her fears. 
 And, as he stands, what voices in the air 
 Climb and descend on Music's new-built stair ? 
 Whose triumph-tones alternately prolong 
 Through the long aisles that ecstasy of song ? 
 It matters not : but sure each singer caught 
 Notes that for aye to angel harps are taught. 
 
 Now, where they sit, his soul in equal flight 
 Can soar with hers beyond the star-sown height ; 
 Thence, where love's flames serene for ever burn, 
 Hers but for one brief durance shall return : 
 Her ministries to husband, saint, and son 
 At Ostia end ; her pilgrimage is done. 
 But thou, that graspest arms for earth's campaign, 
 Back to thy cities and thy sands again : 
 Soon shall yon vestal lires be burning low, 
 And Goths along the great Flaminian flow.
 
 The Life of S. Augustine j^ 
 
 To climb with fire to Jove Capitoline : 
 Oh, then God's grander empire shall be thine ; 
 And thou shalt see, thy measuring reed shall trace. 
 Its laws, its bounds, its majesty of grace. 
 For grace redeeming only shall avail, 
 And all men's powers, by birth-sin tainted, fail. 
 Free and resistless as God's orient beams 
 Through His appointed sacraments it streams ; 
 And e'en from priestly hands that could betray 
 To His choice vessels wins an instant way, 
 And, whispering peace in hearts predestinate, 
 Yet awes them with His mysteries of fate. 
 Whose arm eternal still shall sift the crowd, 
 Lift up the humble, and abash the proud. 
 
 Yes ! thou shalt build new heavenly homes of rest 
 Amidst the smoking ruins of the West : 
 And thou shalt teach men for a thousand years 
 Truths told to thee amidst relentless tears ; 
 Thy heart's sad secret Heaven forbade thee keep, 
 And prodigals for aye shall read and weep.
 
 76 The Life of S. Augustine 
 
 So let the Vandal come ; his Arian horde 
 Shall never wrest from thee the Spirit's sword. 
 Thy dying hand shall wield it in the room 
 E'en where the tales of all his havoc come : 
 And while thy bishops gaze their mournful fill 
 On lips w'hose lifelong eloquence is still ; 
 Thine eyes are fixed where crimsoning sunset falls 
 On seven sad Psalms, thine armour on the walls ; 
 Where to the last their accents shall prolong 
 The godly sorrow which has made thee strong ; 
 In plight of friends thine efficacious prayer, 
 Thy safety sure, and victory, are there.
 
 Paraphrase of Isaiah xxi. 
 
 I-IO 
 
 A VOICE from the terrible land, 
 
 As sweeps o'er the burning sand 
 A whirlwind, and gathers the dust of the desert 
 plains ! 
 
 I see ! but grievous 'tis to tell 
 
 The accents of a nation's knell ; 
 " Barbarians come ! the spoilers come ! captivity 
 and chains ! 
 
 Lo ! Maday is round her, 
 
 And Elam hath found her, 
 
 There his armies are wending, 
 And all sighs have an ending."
 
 78 Paraphrase of Isaiah xxi. i-io 
 
 What words are those ? What rumours rang ? 
 They pierce me as a woman's pang ; 
 
 My loins are filled with woe : 
 Mine ears are stunned with wild amaze; 
 And Fear drifts darkness, as I gaze : 
 
 My heart is panting low : 
 No more for me eve's lovely calm ! nought but a 
 prophet's pains. 
 
 " For feasting open all the doors, 
 With carpets cover all the floors :" 
 
 'Tis Babel's revelry. 
 But hark again ! " Arise, yc Lords ! 
 Oil for the shield-belts ! whet the swords ! 
 
 Let battle end the day !" 
 
 For on the towers a watchman is set, on Zion's 
 
 hill, 
 And by the Lord I ask, " What vision now is thine ? 
 Thine eyes are strained, they're drinking some wonder 
 
 to the fill!" 
 " I see the conqueror come : I see the lengthening line.
 
 Paraphrase of Isaiah xxl. i-io 79 
 
 From desert gloom 
 The asses come, 
 And camels there 
 Step pair by pair, 
 And side by side 
 The horsemen ride." 
 
 Sharply he listens, but in vain 
 They vanish on the hazy plain. 
 From his high station on the walls 
 His groan, as baffled lion's, falls ; 
 '* I stand in the morning, 
 
 I outstay the daylight, 
 Beneath the stars burning 
 
 I watch out the night. 
 But hold ! again — 'tis a cloud of men : I see them 
 shine; 
 
 In line unending, 
 
 Pairs of horsemen are wending.
 
 8o Paraphrase of Isaiah xxi. i-io 
 
 " They shout of victory : they are calling, 
 * Babylon in the dust is falling, 
 Her graven gods are low. 
 The sculptured forms of her high gods are prostrate 
 
 now!'" 
 
 Ah, for the flail that works the world ! and thee, my 
 
 wheat, 
 Child that wast cradled on that floor, and livest yet, 
 I tell thee now this vision from the Lord. 
 Who rules those moving hosts, hath sent this Word.
 
 In the Valley of Sia 
 
 Upward still the pines are marching, 
 Sombre round their snow-piled lawns ; 
 
 Mounting where the eagle screeches, 
 Climbing still the silver horns ; 
 
 Leaving many a cow-bell calling 
 On the velvet slopes beneath, 
 
 And the noontide cloud-rifts dropping 
 Golden gleams on purple heath ; 
 
 Leaving men and grass and cattle ; 
 
 Kindred in a darkling throng, 
 Sons of other ages, singing 
 
 All unheard eolian song ; 
 
 6
 
 82 111 the Valley of Sia 
 
 Where shall never shipmcn's axes 
 Lay their crests in ruin low ; 
 
 Never hunter tread their countless 
 Needles on the virgin snow. 
 
 Nicolas ! see along the edges 
 How they fringe the steep abyss 
 
 Spiring, some, for ever skyward, 
 E'en upon the precipice. 
 
 Nurslings fallen in strangest cradles 
 Well they knew, those seeds of fire, 
 
 Breeze may woo them, storms may buffet. 
 Only sunward to aspire. 
 
 Nicolas! Exile! may such soaring 
 To thy ardent soul be given ! 
 
 Dare it droop in stony places ? 
 
 Look it must still straight to heaven.
 
 In the Valley of Sia 83 
 
 Take this memory of a noontide 
 
 In the Pyrenean glen ; 
 Take it to thy Dacian cities, 
 
 Bear it in the throng of men. 
 
 6-2
 
 'To H.R.H. The 
 
 'December 14, 1891.' 
 
 And so, like others of our time — 
 
 Those good, glad days, eight years ago, 
 With manhood's dawning light aglow, 
 
 And loud with careless laughter's chime — 
 
 You, sir, have found your heart's desire ; 
 And now, with eager step elate, 
 You enter through Love's palace-gate, 
 
 To tend his sacred altar-fire. 
 
 England rejoices ! Not alone 
 
 In this bleak isle, mid northern seas, 
 But wheresoe'er by vagrant breeze 
 
 The rumour of your spousal blown 
 
 Beyond our narrow, home-bound ken. 
 O'er lonely lands 'neath ahen stars. 
 And late discovered harbour-bars. 
 
 Visits the hearths of Englishmen ! 
 
 Henry Francis Wilson. 
 
 (Late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.) 
 Copyright.
 
 Duke of Clarence.' 
 
 A. d. xix. Kal. Jan. mdcccxcii. 
 
 Olim cohorti care sodalium, 
 Queis annus almos ille dabat dies 
 Octavus abhinc et juventam 
 Purpuream facilesque risus, 
 
 Tu nunc, quod istis cessit amantibus, 
 Voto potitus, limina trans dei 
 Haud segnis incedes, beatasque 
 Igne fovens adolebis aras. 
 
 Te prosequuntur cordibus Angliae ; 
 Et ipsa nostrum cui gelidis agri 
 Undis inhorrescunt, et arctam 
 Hancce supra levis aura si quam 
 
 Jam nuptiarum nuntia viserit, 
 Vastis relictas sideribus plagas, 
 Portusque jam sero reclusos 
 Sicubi deveniunt carinae.
 
 In foolscap 8vo., cloth, bevelled boards, price 3s. 
 
 A HARP FROM THE WILLOWS. 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. W. MOORE. 
 
 Extracts from reviews on "A Harp from the Willows." 
 
 " A poem of much interest . . . pleasant to read. The author, 
 in spite of his Hmited sympathies, wins respect by his sincerity 
 and fervour." — Saturday Review. 
 
 " Mr. Moore has something to say and knows how to say it, 
 though his force of expression varies. ' Modern Oxford,' in 
 three cantos, is his chief effort in this volume, and it is a really 
 eloquent utterance of the conflict between doubt and faith." — 
 Spectator, 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 In foolscap 8vo., cloth, gilt edges, bevelled boards, 
 price 3s. 
 
 LOST CHORDS. 
 
 Extracts from reviews on " Lost Chords." 
 
 " ' Sulamith,' which is a ' lyrical reproduction ' of the ' Song of 
 Solomon,' was suggested by a translation, with comments made 
 on it, by the Rev. Henry Deane. Mr. Moore has rendered it 
 into verse with some dramatic effect. ' On the Upper Thames ' 
 is written in an entirely different style, possessing a pleasant 
 metre, and showing an intimate knowledge of the beauties of 
 Nature." — Morning Post. 
 
 " There are some fine poems and sonnets scattered through 
 the work." — Graphic.
 
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