'gems of Life
by Two Brothers
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
Aug
PREFACE.
In this small volume we offer for the pleasure
or censure of the reader our first essays in
verse.
••The youngest were born of boy's pastime,
The eldest are young."
CONTENTS.
PAGl
An Apolog)
i
Loss and ( lain
4
Fame
S
The Coliseum
[O
The Mind's Awakening
14
The Penal Settlement
[6
The Multan Bar ..
[g
Evening on the Jumna
23
Mid-day in the Himalaya
Mountains
27
The Cholera Camp
33
Ex Exsilio
48
Eheu !
50
A 1 'arable
52
The Blood Maniac
53
Ecce Virgo
60
The Seal of 1 >oubt
64
Beauty
7i
Venus Vera
71
Shame
77
La Malheureuse
79
Lines
Si
A Parting
83
A Wild Soul
85
Ariadne
88
The Field of Senlac
•
Sonnet
105
CONTENTS.
A ( Contrast
Branksome Chine'
Imitation of Thomas Moore
To Miss M. M
Beauty and the Beast
The Old Man's Story
The Prodigal
The Dream Palace
Free Translation In mi ( ioethe
AGE
ion
io 7
iog
I I 2
"5
uS
125
t3i
Mi
AN APOLOGY.
Is it folly in moments of leisure
To yield to the charm of the rhyme ?
Ah well ! 'tis an innocent pleasure
Howe'er it may miss the sublime.
A vice ? Well, we all have our vices,
Bad music is none of the worst,
We aye take the road that entices,
And drink if we happen to thirst.
Time wasted ? Oh, excellent creature,
Who'd always be striving in vain,
Whose days are as dull as thy feature,
Life never grows younger again.
B
AN APOLOGY.
And what if your labours all fail you,
And leave you a-lurch at the last,
Will remorse with your grey hairs assail you
In thinking in vain of the past ?
Then labour in vain for the laurels
On ashes of life to be laid,
And turn from the sweets to the sorrels,
Drive on at vour pleasureless trade !
Who eschews all romance ere the vernal
Young blood has had season to cool,
At the cost of a crown that's eternal
Escapes being classed as a fool —
Take home these wise words to your bosom,
Ye colourless, passionless school !
Let them smile who have never a notion
Of half of the beauties we know,
AN APOLOGY.
To whom the high hills and the ocean
Are measures of water and snow.
But those who would smile at the straining
Of weakness to march with the strong,
May know that the prospect of gaining
High-failure will charm them along
Who, strung with the hope of endeavour
Look up to the heights of the Song.
B 2
LOSS AND GAIN.
It seems to me no longer now
The numbers of creation sweep,
Less music in the winds that blow
At twilight o'er the river's deep,
When summer skies at evening glow
And Venus doth her vigil keep.
Then tell me what has wrought this change
On life's content and careless dream ;
Why halteth now the heedless range
Of life's broad stream ?
Do suns that now at dawn arise
Strike lower on a duller dew ;
LOSS AND GAIN.
Do rosy beams o'erspread the skies
Transformed no more in lucent blue ?—
Nay, 'tis the clouds of heavier eyes
That once a clearer vision knew.
Ay, that it is ; for suns decline
No splendour as the ages roll;
It is the lesser lights that shine
Across the soul.
And has the high-in-heaven noon,
With nature dreaming overhead,
Lost glamour now ? and does the moon
Less equal beams of lustre shed ?
And is the sun-set but the swoon
That tells another day is dead ?
Ay, youth, and suns and skies obtain
An union age can never know,
He squanders not so proud a reign
Upon the snow.
LOSS AND GAIX.
And lias the merry laughter died
When Reason fell and Fancy reigned,
When close with fellowship beside
The loving-cup of mirth was drained ?
And yawns there now a chasm wide
'Twixt kingdom's ne'er to be regained ?
The lips may still of nectar sup,
W T ine's flavour still must be the same ;
'Tis not the flaw within the cup
But lips to blame.
Is she who in the gleaming dawn,
Aurora's self in rose arrayed,
Walked goddess of the crystal morn
And glorified each sparkling glade,
Of all celestial graces shorn
Down-humbled to a simple maid ?
Nay, on her lovely forehead shines
The light that never yet was dead,
LOSS AND GAIN.
Still can I sec the sunlit pines
Around her head.
But what is life, if life has lost
All raptures and the race is run,
If now the stream of knowledge crossed
We wander on through shadows dun,
Where every vision seems a ghost
Of what was once a lovelier one ?
Nay, wisdom can a vision show
Denied to all of younger age ;
Lay down the myrtles from your brow
And turn the page.
FAME.
Though the deeds of the famous life's volumes
endow
With pages full oft to be read,
The laurels of fame are dead leaves on his brow
When the soul of the famous is fled,
It can never avail him what living men do —
Though his name ma}' resound the world's history
through
It is little of help to the dead.
Does Cicero lie in his coffin more eased
Because we are stirred by his name ?
Do Caesar's lips move and turn smilingly, pleased
To blow his own trumpet of fame ?
FAME.
Is Napoleon's heart with an ice-coldness seized
When famed as a god or a devil released ?
He sleeps in a land where all glory has ceased,
And on his dead head is the blame.
Who challenges Glory dies heavy and sore
If he never a blast does win
From the hardly-won trumpet or ever the door
Of Darkness shall shut him in ;
He then lies lone, though his skull or his bone
Be honoured by emperors' hands,
With a glorious tomb, when he wants no room
More than a chink in the earth till his doom
Is pronounced in far different lands.
Name immemorial, fame never-dying,
Are only but words we know,
As spurs for the living, past white tombs flying
Like shafts from a random bow ;
They have little of worth for the dead men lying
Deep-hidden in earth long ago.
10
THE COLISEUM.
Gigantic ruin of the pride of man !
Stone piled on stone until a city stood
Bound in a circle — a stupendous plan
Whereby a nation might be glut with blood —
Such was the after-birth of Nero's mood,
When drunk with wine across his lyre he sung
What time he doomed all Rome as fire's food,
And sowed the promise whence this fabric sprung,
Worthy of him whose hand his mother's death-
knell rung.
It rose when he was dead, but o'er the lake
Within his garden ; did he laugh when dead
To hear the theatres' loud applauses shake
As from the jaws of death the virgin fled,
THE COLISEUM. ei
When the wild beast laid low man's glorious head,
Or brute and brute rolled fighting in the dust
Till lacked not streams to turn his lake one red ?
Or when through quivering hearts the pike was
thrust
To feast an emperor's eye, to ease a city's lust ?
One hundred days of festival and fight
Did usher to the world this strange new birth,
Were brought to feed man's savager appetite
Beasts from all quarters of discovered earth :
The miracle Rome's teeming brain brought forth
Was a vast shambles in whose ravenous bound
The blood of fellow-men was held less worth
E'en than the clay that weld the great w T alls round,
For here the cry of death alone made cheering
sound.
Though the strong hand of Time may ne'er efface
Such Titan piles that boldly front the sun,
There lives the record of the worst disgrace
When thousands gloated on the death of one ;
12 THE COLISEUM.
The Christian cross now stamped those stones
upon
Is Memory's hand that in compassion falls
On those by savage pride and lust undone,
Who in imperial processionals
Were dragged to meet their death within those
barbarous walls.
The brain that schemed to prop a sinking state
By any wondrous walls so stained as these,
Knew that Rome's glory was commensurate
With the grown madness of a deep disease :
Out from her lessening cup he tossed the lees.
And when the stately sin mocked heaven's dome,
A herald hurrying o'er her lands and seas
Cried the first presage of her doom was come
When stranger hordes should hunt the rugged
wolf of Rome.
The symbol of her glory is her shame
To reasoning nations of the new-taught world ;
THE COLISEUM. 13
Though o'er the waves of time sounds Caesar's
name
To dust his empire and his fane are hurled ;
A re'-born kingdom's standard now unfurled
Points to the soil's true sons the patriot's aim,
Teaching, however glory's dust be whirled
Before men's eyes, cast back from whence they
came
Go all who stain with blood the spotless crown of
Fame.
Rome, Oct., 1890.
14
THE MIND'S AWAKENING.
From first commotion there arises calm,
From formless chaos was the round world born,
First notes of music swell into the psalm,
And misty dawnings bring the glad bright morn :
The waving leaves of wheat at last bear ripe red
corn.
So is it with the mind : it turns and sways
This way and that when it is young : it seems
Most unaccountable : delights, dismays
Follow each other through the changing dreams
It sifts and fathoms; — so the sunlight plays
Upon the diamond — but through the fear
THE MIND'S AWAKENING. 15
Of many tortuous thoughts and devious ways,
Through light and darkness of misdoubting days
That seem for ever some new dress to wear,
It sheds around at last a steady light and clear.
i6
THE PENAL SETTLEMENT.
Where is Beaut)'? will you find it
In the sky's perennial blue ?
Lift your eye — the sun will blind it ;
Let it roam the sordid view —
Naked villages that cluster
Like mud-hives upon the sand,
All the charm the land can foster
Is the wheat by breezes fanned,
Or a stunted bare acacia
Like a log upon a strand.
Where is gone the peepul's 1 flashing
High in air above the shrine ?
1 The sacred fig tree usually planted so as to over-shadow a shrine.
THE PENAL SETTLE ME XT. 17
Where the grass bound runlets plashing
Like the sound of pouring wine ?
Where the stately crests, and pendant
Clusters that the bamboos made ?
Where the palms, with sun resplendent
Shining on each burnished blade ?
Where the dove's low croon and murmur.
And the mango's orb of shade ?
Here no azure waters dreaming
Midst the marshes' spreading gold
Match the plumed grass silver-gleaming,
Sets no sun on shade-swept wold.—
Who can live with heart uplifted
In this weary, broken plain ?
Yellow sands by breezes sifted,
Sand-hills scarred by useless rain
Bind and blind the eye and spirit
Turning in disgust and pain.
Spring's young season fails to quicken.
Autumn, summer change no hue ;
c
THE PENAL SETTLEMENT.
O'er this soulless sod sun -stricken
Seasons scarce a change bestrew ;—
When are crushed the cotton's seedlings
Or the pulses under feet
It is autumn ; signs of spring-tide
Rise alone in fields of wheat—
Where is Nature's crown and glory,
All that others find so sweet ?
Who has lived where trees embower
Every house however mean,
Where the fruit trees white blooms shower,
Where each hedge and ditch between
Grows the scarce regarded flower,
He may know what dole and teen
Grows in lands where ne'er a flower
Nor green grass is ever seen !
Death seems better than to linger
There, with youth unpleased, unspent,—
This is Beauty as we sing her
In our penal settlement.
19
THE MULT AN BAR}
It is a weary land and desolate ;
I rode one night-fall from the city gate
Into the very arid heart of it.
The road ran through the bush in one long strip,
Gloomily void, but in that lonely trip
There was no other sign of fellowship.
A moon worn down by trails of misty cloud
That shined as mournfully as through a shroud,
A dismal scene of desolation showed.
A flat horizon, featureless and vast — -
One giant circle cursed by elfin blast—
And down its centre on my horse I passed.
1 The Bar Country of the northernmost province of India is a barren
desolate bush country with little rain or water.
C 2
jo THE MULT AN BAR.
From where I rode to where a vault of stone
Met the horizon that it frowned upon
'Twas only bush on bush the moon shone on :
From north to south, and from the east to west,
Bush after bush reared up its formless crest —
A wave-swung sea cursed into ghostly rest.
Each spectral bush of all the host I passed,
Shadowy, motionless, each like the last,
Across a ring of sand its shadow cast ;
By each wan circle one more mesh was traced
Till winding hopelessly and interlaced
Was wove the network of the dreary waste.
Dreary, unending, glimmering defiles
Leading to nowhere but to lonely miles,
A maze of useless paths and senseless wiles.
I cried aloud " What demon was it planned
This flat unfavoured miserable land,
A labyrinth of bushes set in sand ? '
THE MULTAN BAR. 21
My horse, with drooping head that sought the
ground,
Mouthing his bit, awoke the only sound-
There was no other one for miles around—
His hoofs were muffled in the powdered road :
A listening fox, abroad for nothing good,
Eyed me and slunk across the road I trode.
And when a jackal yell awoke the sky,
And all the flying pack took up the cry,
Their hateful paean seemed a melody :
And once through hollow air came down the groan,
Long winding sighs that ended in a moan,
Of a wheel-well within a village lone.
To hear the hum of Sirinagar steal
Down o'er the Jhelum, ne'er did boatman feel
More charmed than I to hear that magic wheel :
Yet never did its strains flow mellowly,
The sad, uncertain, long-drawn monody
Seemed plaining hopelessly for sympathy.
THE MILT AS TAR.
I met a single shape, in robes of white,
That glimmered fearfully beneath the light ;
It seemed a sheeted ghost that walked the night :
And then I wandered on alone, alone,
Hoping again to hear that distant moan —
Give ear to something even if a groan.
The long white road stretched onward lone and
drear,
While silence weighed like lead upon the ear.
The realms of Dis could not be deathlier.
I could but cry, " What demon was it planned
This weary, dreary, execrable land,
Where human vision can alone command
A bush, a shadow, and a plain of sand ? ''
23
EVENING ON THE JUMNA.
Here where the river bends with noiseless sweep,
All tired Nature lulls itself to sleep :
Day's glowing tints are smouldering and tame,
Though in the west there flickers still a flame
Of molten amber and of violet :
And few small stars shine in the heavens yet.
Now all along the banks, the bed, the stream,
An Indian day begins to doze and dream.
Through hollow gloaming ne'er a zephyr heaves.
The towering peepul 1 hangs her burnished leaves
That blazed like shields within the sun and soon
Will glitter slumbering beneath the moon :
The rank-grown millet rocks itself to rest,
The hoopoe folds his all-day-restless crest,
1 Peepul : a spreading tree of the fig species.
24 EVENING UN THE JUMNA.
The striped-back squirrel scuttles to his nest,
And in the long field by the river bed
The full jawdr ] hangs down its heavy head.
The kites no longer woven circles ply,
On broad-flung pinions sailing straight and high ;
Home sweeps the vulture vaunting to the sky,
Where eagles are not, his supremacy.
The tufted grasses now no longer sway
Their purpled-silver plumes, grown ashy grey,
That lately brandished in the glaring day ;
And low r the ring-dove's croon throbs out from
far away.
Where the long tendrils of the burghut* weep,
The emerald-pigeons 3 are all fast asleep,
The black king-crow ' alone doth vigil keep,
Till in the mango-grove along the shore
The finches their shrill chattering give o'er—
Then giving his forked tail one fillip more,
To let the devil in his spirits cool,
ljavvar: a species of millet. - Burghut : the banian tree.
3 Emerald-pigeons: the green pigeons.
* King-crow: a slender coal-black quarrelsome bird.
EVENING ON THE JUMNA. 25
He flits to slumber in the slim babool, 1
Whose yellow stars on thorny branches bare
Breathe stealing fragrance on the sleeping air.
Before him, with low chuck, his last "Good-night,"
With rain-bow wings but heavy dropping flight,
The blue-jay rose a dainty perch to find
'Midst the sweet leaflets of the tamarind.
Long shrieked the parrots home in noisy schools,
And motionless the lapwings haunt the pools,
And where by long grey sands the deep stream
flows,
The black-buck wanders with his tawny does.
Up from young wheat fields with a rattling cry,
In trailing long array the coolan' 1 fly
To line the sands : and sweeping from on high
With whistling pinions cleaving through the sky
The wild geese strike for where their loved pools
lie,
And folding weary wings with drowsy call,
The water washes from their pitch and fall.
1 Babool: a species of acacia.
- Coolan : a species of crane.
26 EVENING ON THE JUMNA,
The darkness falls like dew, deep shadows grow,
The mohwa l merges into indigo,
And trees and shore and sky and sands and stream
Melt as the visions of a formless dream.
Through chill and holy silence wakes no sound
Save late geese clanging from their feeding ground,
Or ever and anon the jackal calk
Or the long lapping as the sand shelves fall.
Now from the nullah- by the river bed
The waiting wolf thrusts out his shaggy head,
He turns his low-hung glances left and right,
Then slinks upon the sands — and it is night.
l Mohwa: a large tree whose fruit produces an intoxicating liquor.
1 Nullah : a creek or chine.
27
MID-DAY IN THE HIMALAYA
MOUNTAINS.
We saw the winding Ravi 1 darkly rolling
Through the shades of the chasm's wooded deep,
P'ar below we saw his waters over-scrolling
The plains where eternal summers sleep ;
And we saw the old-world castles 2 vainly frowning
From the crags of the battlemented steep.
We saw the bright blue heavens like a glory
Spread over stedfast peaks of virgin snow,
All around us Nature wove a splendid story
As we listened to the Ravi's distant flow,
Sky and forest, sun and river, wove a story
We may ponder, we may love, but never know.
1 One of the five rivers of the Punjab.
2 Old dismantled forts built by Sikhs and others.
28 MID-DAY IX THE
The palm and the pine-tree reign together,—
Such a sun on such an union seldom shines ;
We could watch the fleecy flocks behind their
wether
Fleck the hill-sides grazing in amongst the pines,
And we heard a cow-boy glad and loudly trolling
Threading brakes of bramble broidered with wild
vines.
The pine-trees climbed the hill-sides like an army
And triumphed standing lonely in the blue,
Every breeze that fanned our foreheads was as
balmy
As the scent of sweet may-blossom that it drew,
Bridal wreaths were brightly braided in the
thickets,
Rosy May a veil across her blushes threw.
We saw the blaze of gold laburnums burning
Where acanthuses their emerald tangle spun,
And a white cloud to a silver mountain turning
Till they melted far in heaven into one,
HIMALAYA MOUNTAINS. 29
And the ruby chaliced flowers of the shimbal '
Held up like cups of red wine to the sun.
From a depth of tossed and tangled cover crowing
A jungle-cock's shrill challenge sharply rung ;
With the sun upon his burnished plumage glowing,
And his peerless train of beauty backward flung,
Rose a pea-cock, sliding slowly down the mountain
O'er the copses where the creepers climbed and
hung.
Like ourselves in balmy trance with shut eyes
lying,
'Neath the high-in-heaven sunny-hearted noon
All Nature seemed contented to be dying
In a heavy-perfumed long-breathed throbbing
swoon ;
Through the bamboo crests there rose a tired
sighing
As a breeze woke to the dove's eternal croon.
1 A flowering forest tree,
3 o MID-DAY IN THE
The partridges awoke to sudden calling
Which echoed through the forest and the glade ;
Soberly with silent footsteps softly falling
Stole a musk-deer through the sun-shine to the
shade ;
Swept an osprey, wheeling down the Ravi's chasm
Where the kingfisher below him poised and
preyed.
We lay beside a temple built in ages
When Sikh and when the Mogul were not known,
'Neath a tree 1 at which the oldest village sages
Might bow the hoary head of childhood down,
Whose parent-stem time-honoured but by legend
Bare offspring who should wear its ancient crown.
Such a tree resembles most our British islands
E^er-green and ever-growing greater size-
By her sons that through the lowlands and through
highlands
Tread her paths and raise her flag in foreign skies.
1 The banian tree which spreads by stem-reproduction.
HIMALAYA MOUNTAINS. 31
May Britain's heart-of-oak remain eternal,
Root and stem in which the vigour never dies.
And ever was the Ravi darkly rolling
Till the sun shone long and lowly in decline,
And we heard the priestly bells a vesper tolling
Deep within the dark recesses of the shrine ;
In my heart the molten mystic pagan music
Rang an echo that resembled the divine.
I know that, by life's teachings and life's phases,
Of heaven not of earth it was for me,
I know it as a mariner who gazes
As a tempest spreads its wings upon the sea,
Where once he sailed through smiling happy
waters
When heaven breathed her spirit on the sea.
Where I still within those tree-embowered moun-
tains,
What magic had their gardens for me now ?
32 MID-DAY IN THE HIMALAYA MTS.
Would the music of their stream-begotten foun-
tains
Take the trouble or the furrow from my brow ?
Set its seal upon my spirit as of old time,
Lying lone amid their wildernesses now ?
Is it sin, or is it sorrow, is it passion
Makes only gods amongst us who are young ?
All I know is in a surer purer fashion
The spirit of the heavens o'er me hung,
When I heard the living river deeply rolling
And the pagan vesper bells at evening rung.
THE CHOLERA CAMP.
The stones were hot as molten lead,
The skies were pale with heat,
The baking land was white with dust
That scorched the" blistered feet ;
Each door was shut, each window shut,
And every room was dark,
Each single chink was shut as close
As in the ancient ark.
The punkah fringes swept the room,
But could not cool the air,
The blasted fields were famine-struck,
And all the land was bare ;
D
34 THE CHOLERA CAMP.
The fiery sun had scorched the trees
And every blade of grass,
His rays were as the staring blaze
Upon the amaltas.'
The realms of air were pale and still,
We thirsted for a breeze,
The grey-necked crows with beaks agape
Grouped gasping in the trees ;
The sun rose up and sank again,
But whether day was bright
Or night was dark, 'twas stifling hot
The live-long day and night.
'Tis true we had enough to do
To draw our laboured breath,
But soon we heard a story weird
Of pestilence and death ;
An angry Death had broken loose
Abroad within the town,
l A specirs of laburnum.
THE CHOLERA CAMP. 35
And through the land there stretched a hand
To drag the strongest down.
From whence that gloomy Death-king comes
No living man can trace,
He laughs at colour, caste, or creed,
Respecting neither race;
He turns the black a livid hue
And chars the paler face,
But be his victims white or black
He gives them little grace.
He wanders here, he wanders there,
His motions know no law,
In every place with a silent j^race
He knocks at any door ;
He stalks abroad in open streets
And slums by filth defiled,
And snatches here a stalwart man,
And here a puling child.
D 2
36 THE CHOLERA CAMP.
He little quails at mothers' wails —
But most he loves a crowd,
He creeps unseen and in between
And where the heads are bowed,
And cramped knees fail, and faces pale,
'Tis there his path he treads, —
That path is long, and just as long
The trail of fallen heads.
Some miles away the city teemed
Most like a swarm of bees —
Dead men were carried through the crowds
On simple beds in simple shrouds,
Till fear begat disease —
The crowded doors by tens and scores
Men's souls to God did yield,
Like flame through grass the plague did pass,
Like blight through a fruitful field.
We read each day how passed away
Strong men like flowers shorn,
THE CHOLERA CAM!'. 37
I guess that there were fifty deaths
For every infant born ;
For Hindu and Mahomedan
Were falling side by side,
The ghats l burned bright and every night
The corpses strewed the tide.
We waited as when men expect
A sudden unseen blow,
It came full soon one sultry noon
Through heat like a furnace glow ;
One sickened first, and the plague accursed
Through all the barracks spread,
In that one day ere man could pray
That the hand of death might turn away,
A score of men lay dead.
Death dwelt as swift as a man may sift
The sand through the hour-glass thrice,
Seemed fabulous as legends old
1 River landing stages, where Hindu bodies are also burned
38 THE CHOLERA CAME.
Of arid plains with white bones scrolled
Where men fell dead who met the cold
Glance of the cockatrice :
But at the eve, we might believe
When to the bugle's call
We massed did go to a dead-march slow
Down to the funeral.
Who sees a soldier's funeral
And would not well be laid
Within the earth that gave him birth
With such a grand parade !
If war and death with iatal breath
Surround the coats of red,
The hand that slays for ever pays
High honour to its dead.
If aught could cheer that the dead might hear
'Twere, though they could not save,
Brave men and strong march hushed along
Down to their comrade's grave,
THE CHOLERA CAM!'. 39
Crowned is his death with a living wreath
Of valour without stain,
And long tradition's trembling chords
Re-echo in his train.
Each high respect for Death's elect
Atones the few words said —
The charger he no more may ride-
ls trampling led by the dead man's side,
War's haughty pomps in a humble pride
Bow to his fallen head,
His sword at rest and his helm and crest
High on his coffin lie,
A car of war is his chariot
Rolled on in panoply.
All arms reverse before his hearse,
Hushed is all martial sound,
He goes to rest and o'er his breast
His country's flag is wound,
40 THE CHOLERA CAMP.
Down the long line where helmets shine
Flows streaming o'er the pall
In heavenly strains for his mortal pains
The dread lament of Saul.
Spoke of a truth did sound the words
' Man hath short time to live '
As leaning o'er our mourning swords
We dust to dust did give—
Neath the rising moon the loud platoon
Proclaimed Earth claimed her own.
And the band did play as we marched away
From the doors of the great Unknown.
Next day the ground was heaped all round
With cuts and tents and packs,
With fume and sweat in the burning heat
We loaded, while the drums loud beat,
The groaning camels' backs ;
Each bullock-wain piled high did strain.
And ere the day was done,
THE CHOLERA CAM!'.
With empty doors and naked floors
Onr barracks faced the sun.
We stood to arms, our useless arms
Of bayonet and ball,
The drums that beat now beat ' retreat,'
We answered to the call.
The corps that never yet had turned
Its back on friend or foe
Now turned its back, but in its track
The Death-king answered too.
We marched down south and all the drouth
Over the land we saw,
A land of clay, it seemed each way
Nigh naked as a floor ;
We halted near no house nor man,
And in a brazen plain
We pitched onr camp, next day we struck,
And marched and pitched again.
42 THE CHOLERA CAMP
The stakes were plain — if he should gain
So many deaths a day,
The men that died the earth should hide,
The living marched away :
If we had luck no tents were struck,
We rallied to a stand,
J kit not for long, for he was strong
And chased us o'er the land.
Men rush to war on sea or shore
Midst guns and battle-cry,
And shot for shot fight fierce and hot,
Nor murmur if they die,
But passing strange comes such a change
When in a silent land
Each man does know where'er he go
Without a sign an unseen foe
May close upon his hand.
Midst short sharp words and Hashing swords,
Mid the rain of shot and shell,
THE CHOLERA CAMP. 43
Though flesh may feel the hard cold steel
Men die both hard and well —
But in this rout nor shot and shout,
No airs more still could be,
'Twas just as though a sharp sword blow
Were given a man by a mocking foe
He could not smite nor see.
There was one man who shouting ran
Over the plain so bare,
Three times he knelt in the open veldt
And fired at empty air,
It struck us dumb when he cried "They come"
To the foes of his sun-struck brain-
But soon 'twas so no more real foe
Did put him from his pain.
O'er Israel's homesteads harmless passed
God's angel sword in hand,
When the dread tenth plague its terror cast
At midnight through the land,
44 THE CHOLERA CAMP.
When not one house but owned one dead
In all the land of Ham —
But the passage of death we could not stay
With the blood of a paschal lamb.
From tent to tent the strange death went,
Men laughed aloud from fear ;
One sick man cried " For God's sake hide
Those graveyards standing near,"
And another cried " I see my bride
White in the sunlight's glare,
She walks to me now o'er the bare plain wide
But a skull in her hand does bear."
Some men died wild and some resigned :
One never I'll forget —
With black brows bending in his throes
And his hairy chest in sweat,
Aloud did cry " I care not, I,
If I die by land or sea,
1 care for none in the living world
And no one cares for me.
THE CHOLERA CAMP. 45
Tell my father this, tell my mother this.
The life they cursed is trod,
I've feared no man and feared no sin.
Nor will I fear a God."-
His arms fell slack and his head turned round
Round to the canvass wall,
Scarce had he spoke ere his spirit went
To the Father who judges all.
Oh ye who live where the ocean breeze
Blows over your home-steads fair.
Can you see a land without grass or trees
In a pestilential air ?
Can you pity those whose eyelids close
Upon that hateful sod ?
With kind hearts pray some future day
Their souls may meet their God.
There still be some who memories keep
In dear old England now
Of many a man we laid to rest
By the hand of the plague laid low ;
46 THE CHOLERA CAMP.
Weep, women, weep for the men who sleep
Under that burning plain,
They had been glad if ere they died
They'd sat but once by the fireside
With a homely face again.
We made their graveyards by poor trees
Setting them walls around,
Above their bones lie heaped up stones
And crosses mark the ground :
May they lie there and know no care
Until the trumpets blow
That bring to life each man and wife,
The souls of all who e'er had life
However long ago.
At last, at last, the plague was past,
The plains begun to cool,
And we marched back o'er our camp's marked
track —
The grass and the rain-washed pool
THE CHOLERA CAMP. 47
Now marked the land with a gentler hand—
And verily we did come
Without a death back to the place
Where the plains first heard our drum.
We camped that night, and ere 'twas light
Formed into marching train,
To our barracks close by the city's walls
We turned to march again,
And as we marched we passed by those
That ne'er would march again.
But it seemed a sign of a hope divine
When we saw the daylight born —
As if by a wand in an angel's hand
A sudden splendour smote the land,
And we saw the graves and crosses stand
Lit up in a glorious dawn.
48
EX EXSILIO.
Ye plains, ye rivers, and ye glowing suns,
Farewell I bid you, for my time is done,
A hope of welcome far before me runs
Within a home beside the Western Sun :
In all this land there is no goodlier one,—
Not where the kingly mountains look so high
On plains that glow beneath them to the seas ;
Not where the cedar in his majesty
Stands lord-ofdiosts of light-anointed trees ;
Not where the sunshine spreads upon the snow
In realms where deities might find a home,
Not where the brotherhood 1 of rivers flow
Unnumbered miles beneath a purple dome;
i The Punjab, the land of the five waters.
EX EXSILIO. 49
Not in the cities where the mosque and shrine
Flash gold, and palaces their pride upraise :
Not though the prospect rivalled the divine
And life were bounded by celestial days.
No home is here : not when the red sun sinks
At evening, and the purple shadows close,
Nor when his diadem of jasper links
Around the mountains in the morning's rose.
There is no home in wandering unrest
From plain to plain of never-ending range.
Not though the regions ranked among " the blest"
And hearts delighted in perpetual change ;
There is no home in never-ending toil
'Midst comrades alien of caste and creed,—
But there is home within a British soil
As hearts the hardest in remembering bleed ;
Beyond the murmur of these languorous seas
It lies encircled by our own salt foam.
Then roll ye billows to a spreading breeze
For homely voices have besought us " Come."
EHEU !
I think one living is the happiest man
That ever Hymen's luckv number took —
Who could not, heart and soul, Love's pages scan
With such a fair companion by the book ?
Why miss his nights' and days' long glad delight ?
Perhaps possession makes us wondrous calm-
But not so I — who, mute, with envious sight
Edge the chaste circle of her hallowed charm.
I will not trespass in its bounds indeed,
Not even venture near with rapturous note—
For fear that in disdain her ears would heed
No praises uttered by a stranger throat,
EHEU! 51
Yet ma)' I say that she is beautiful—
Her looking-glass at least has so much grace-
Yes, perfect to its heart, no fairer soul
Was ever furnished with so fair a face.
In tuned acclaim with many a mellow tale
Could I endye her cheek, with throat dilate
Inspired by one, as is the nightingale,
By her and her alone — were I her mate.
Since Love and Cupid took her shape in hand
They never Beauty's coin more true did strike,
For though I wander far in many a land
My disenchanted eyes ne'er see her like.
E 2
D-
A PARABLE.
" I will be governed by no hand but Love's" —
Thus spoke the stripling as lie burst his bonds,
All amorous airs, the wooing of the doves,
The murmuring kiss by moon-lit shadowy ponds
Seemed more than all things near, and all beyonds,
As through his glittering hair Love's fingers moved
like wands.
" I am a hated man by misused love "
Said a grey locked old man as lone he sate,
" Still hums the woodland to the crooning dove,
But I of all alive may find no mate,
Had I kept Love's young heart inviolate
Upon my silver locks Love's fingers still might
wait."
53
THE BLOOD MANIAC.
[The following lines are intended to be the utterance of
a certain French Marquis of history, whose desires, after a
life spent in debauchery, licentiousness and utter sensuality,
were only to be satisfied by blood. Vice had made him a
maniac, and blood was his mania. He was found to have
indulged, during the space of some years, in a course of
secret murder, chiefly in the killing of babes and children.]
What is my life ? a disease that has tightened its
hold as a pest
Speckles the body of one and leaps from that one
on the rest.
The pest has a small beginning ; the disease of
my life was small
When its leprous taint began on the flush of my
manhood to fall.
54 THE BLOOD MA. MAC.
But the spot of pollution unchecked became a
corroding disease,
As a plague in a city the flesh of the innermost
hidden will seize.
My body, my mind are diseased, and mad with
disease my brain,
My heart is an ulcer that burns and consumes
with insatiable pain.
I am full of gaping wounds and sores that no
salves assuage.
The tale of my life is writ on a black and in-
carnadine page.
The sins of my life are fiends, companions of all
my hours :
I have walked arm in arm with them ever, in
culling life's venomous flowers.
THE BLOOD MA. MAC. 55
And now I am shattered and old, though not
through the weight of years;
They follow my tottering steps with their hellish
grinnings and jeers.
They burst on the visions of dreams, appearing in
different shapes,
As bloodhounds with gnarling fangs, and serpents,
and mimicking apes.
I toss on my feverish pillow, leap up in the
watches of night,
And rave as I see their eyeballs with the glare of
a fiery light.
And, if I eat, they snatch with their teeth at the
meat of mine :
And, if I drink, I hear the hiss of their lips in the
wine.
5 6 THE BLOOD MAM AC.
" Where is the lustre," they taunt me, " the lurid
lustre of old,
The passions of life, the desires, and the rap-
turous pleasures untold ?
" Where is thy motto engraven in letters of licking
fire,
' My Sense is my Life ' wound round the figure
of red Desire ?
"The laughing face of Lust, who stood on thy
blazing shield
With his foot on a fair white neck forced down
on the ground to yield ?
" Where is the Centaur supporting, strong brutal
unnatural weird ?
The Satyr that grinned with a cup to his lips
and wine on his beard ?
THE BLOOD MAM AC. 57
" That was thy heraldry once. The letters dim
faded grow.
That was the voice of boast, the boaster is voice-
less now.
" Is it they abhor thee and spurn thee, the women
and friends of the bowl,
The sapless, spiritless wretch ? " — and thus is the
taunt of their howl.
They throng around me and press in the unhealed
hollows of sores
Their fingers, and wounds rebleed, flesh jaggedly
torn by their claws.
Their jeerings ring in my ears, and I'm raving
delirious mad.
They are savorless now the nights and the cups
and the pleasures I've had.
58 THE BLOOD MAM AC.
They lie in the past's rotting heaps, but the furies
they leave behind.
The fiends of the plague of red Death have caught
at my unhinged mind.
I am mad, I am raving, ha ! ha ! there's a lust has
not yet lost its zest,
The mouth of the Plague drinks life, but the cup
that I drink is the best.
I drink of the blood of life, my lips are unslaked
with blood,
And the joy of my one desire is to pitch in a
purple flood
The souls of my innocent victims, babes torn
from their mother's breast,
And women, ah ! give me their throats, and I will
forego all the rest.
THE DLOUD MAS I AC. 59
I am mad for a draught of blood, and I thank the
Lord for his art
In supplying a cup for wine to the lust of a wine-
tired heart.
I stood in the Valley of Vice where I poured a
thick red flood,
And naked I plunged, and I'll wade till I drown in
my fellows' blood.
Cursed be the man that such pages of the book of
his life can tell :
Drag down his soul, ye devils, to burn in your
uttermost hell !
He is one of your own : such fiends in human clay
Press back the fulness of time and the world's
" diviner dav."
[Written at the time of the Whitechapel murders.]
6o
ECCE VIRGO.
Of all fair dames in state arrayed,
Or maids of season green,
I set aloft a single maid
Just turning seventeen ;
She is as fair as maids can be,
And from her eyes serene
There shines a light which read aright
Means perfect seventeen.
Such faces only wear the good :
Unable to demean,
And proud of budding womanhood
She walks as any queen :
ECCE VIRGO. 61
The God who made all maids and men
Is proud of some I ween,
Why should she be a-humbled then.
This queen of seventeen ?
She is so young, and yet so old
In all that's best to glean,
And though so warm, yet is she cold
As ice to careless mien :
She is sedate, and yet as gay
A girl as ever seen,
And she can work as well as play,
This maid of seventeen.
When she will laugh, the gravest know
A cause of mirth has been,
Her laugh is not the silver flow
Of gushing seventeen ;
6 2 ECCE VIRGO.
And when she smiles, no pretty guile
Lies eyes or lips between,
The heart lights up beneath the smile
Of hers, of seventeen.
Though proud as pride, more fairly meek
Than Mary Magdalene,
To strength that venerates the weak
She leans and loves to lean ;
Her manner has a dainty grace,
And yet a stately mien,
Well worthy of the form and face
Of matchless seventeen.
Her simple sense experience
Can only serve to wean,
Ne'er shone such eyes so passing wise
From youth and beauty's sheen :
ECCE VIRGO. 63
Her humour sees all subtleties,
And oh ! her wit is keen,
There's scarce a brain <an throw a main
With hers of seventeen.
She has not loved, nor will she love
Until her eyes have seen
One worth as soft a heart to move
As e'er beat breasts between :
She will be wooed, she will be won,
And bloom of wives the queen-
Then let the earth demand in birth
Such maids of seventeen.
64
THE SEAL OF DOUBT.
Tell me, my God, what I should do to-night.
I love him with a love that sears my heart,
And yet, 1 am afraid. Love, fear, and doubt
Tear at my bosom, and more strong is love.
Wilt thou not speak, God, to thy doubting child ?
They say thou art all seeing and all kind.
If seest all and yet art kind withal,
Why see thy child in darkness grope and dash
Her poor weak head against a hidden rock,
And hang with bleeding hands upon a point
That crumbles, and yet will not break and let
The clinging sufferer fall and end the strain,
And never say a word or give thine aid ?
How can I wrestle with the fiends of doubt
THE SEAL OF DOUBT. 65
That come at me to wrench away the book
Of Law and Life my fathers gave to me ?
If 'tis thy Law, if 'tis thy Look, if thou
Indeed exist, why wilt thou never speak,
Nor throw a gleam of light, a single gleam,
Into the dungeon of this blindfold world ?
Error on error's heels, creed upon creed,
Law following law, and right in tracks of right
Are flecks that stick in fellow-creatures' blood
Awhile upon the world's revolving wheel,
But soon are worn and blown away and tall
Into the dust that sepulchres the past.
And blind Humanity stumbles along
In its own circle, and looks to thee for help
And guidance, saying " This is right," and " That
Thou shalt eschew," and " This was writ for them
" And not for thee," and " This thy fathers did,
" And thou shalt never do." One general code
Thou hast not fixed for time perpetual ?
For world gives place to world, and change to
change.
66 THE SEAL OF DOUBT.
God, give me aid in this my hour of need.
Lend me thine hand to help me o'er this crag
That lilts me from the past, but underneath
Is black abyss and death, and once beyond
1 stand upon the hill of knowledge, where
The daisies grow of confidence and faith.
1 love him with a love that sears my heart
And yet I am afraid, and him 1 fear.
He asked me to give all 1 had to give.
1 gave my heart. He asked me to do all
That I could do and knit the bond of love
I spake of marriage and the altar vow,
And all the rites my fathers told to me.
He laughed and said, " We have no need of law
" To tighten round our hearts the strands of love.
" Our love is in ourselves, we are apart
" From all the world and separate from all.
" Why should we shout of one another's love
" Into the careless ear of the bus)- world ?
" Thou lovest me, and thou dost know full well
" That I love thee, and what is it to them,
THE SEAL OF DOUBT. 67
" The unimpassioned misers, cloaked in self,
" Coldblooded, colourless, and thin and keen,
" With hunger sitting in the sallow cheek,
" Hunger of gold, that, solitary, love
" Themselves alone, knowing not the soul of love
" That dies unmatched ; and to the prayer-machine
" The white-robed hypocrite that coldly joins
" Uncaring and unfeeling our two hands,
"Chilling the warmth of them ? No, dearest love,
" I'm one with thee in life, in death, and joy
" To slip the chains of the enslaving law."
Thus spake he and much more. And I, beguiled
By the warm breath of his persuading speech,
Did throw mine arms about his head, drew it
to me
And kissed his inside lip, murmuring " Love,
" Do with me what thou wilt," and bade farewell.
But when the breath of his hot words had cooled
About my maddened head, the fearful thought
Of what I said dashed strong into my heart,
And 1 was torn by thinking, and at last
f 2
68 THE SEAL OF DOUBT.
»
Wearied, I fell asleep. A vision came
Upon me, and I saw a pale bent form
In robes of spotless white, and on her brow
A band of white. Her snowy arms were stretched
And seemed to be imploring me. I knew
'Twas Honor stood before me, praying me
To raise her from her bended knee, and make
Her bowed brow erect and kiss her there.
And then meheard a voice, I know not whence,
Whisper, " Is this thy fathers taught to thee ?
" Wilt thou disturb their rest so that their bones
" Will call forth from the grave in curse of thee,
" Or bring a dear one's spirit to this world
" Of tears again in sorrow sad of thee ?
" Wilt thou have children in the years that come
" Hurl curses at thee rotting in thy tomb
" And spurn the grass above thy head with feet
"Trampling it scornful, till they make it bare?"
And then methought I saw the shapes arise
In tombs of buried fathers, hollow orbs
Of glaring skulls and clattering teeth and bones,
THE SEAL OF DOUBT. 69
*
And fleshless arms in execration stretched.
And then again I was within a grave
And heard the heels of kindred overhead,
Voices that pierced the wormy pile of earth,
And said, " We have her blood in us, the blood
" Of the accursed " — and shrieking I awoke.
The fearful vision of that yesternight
Is still before mine eyes, the fearful words
Still echo in mine ears, the thought of it
Brings beads upon my brow, and drains my blood
With shuddering chill. I call, my God, on thee.
No dearest love, though I do love thee so,
I long to, yet I cannot do this thing.
My fathers' statutes are too strong for me.
But thus my life is death, death without thee.
But rather than a living death, a half
Of death in life, not having thee, for, love,
I am resolved to this, come, coldest death,
That freezeth up the liquid breath of life,
Come, death, I am thy minister, with this steel
I strike and make the blood seal of my love.
7"
THE SEAL OF DOUBT.
Poor girlj had fate hut destined thee to live
In years that are to come, nor very long,
Thou needest not have slain thy doubting heart.
Thou well wert glad of life — for who can say ?
7i
BEA UTY.
" The beautiful is more than the good, for it includes the
good."
Tell me not the face proclaims
Nothing of the mind within,
Hate and envy, sins and shames,
Leave their mark as burning flames
O'er the souls they win.
Each man's soul is in his face,
Every face and soul reflects,
Inward health gives outward grace,
Beaut)' knows no hiding place —
Hear no idle texts.
-i BEAUTY.
Beauty never was skin deep,
Beauty where the heart is frail
Ne'er can adoration reap,
She o'er Nature's ocean-deep
Moves a flimsy sail.
When her mind is dull, her charms
Are but baubles weak to please,
Held but once within the arms
They are left to baser palms,
Touched — and they decrease.
When a liar woos a maid,
Did not weakness dim her sight,
She could see the liar's trade
Plainly writ in brows that shade
Eyes however light.
Watch the eyes and watch the lips,
Every man and maid that lives !
BEAUTY.
Through the mien the spirit slips,
Ne'er can faces souls eclipse,
Faces are but sieves.
Never yet did Beauty hide
Ugly spirits, dismal, dark,
Such show signs that ill betide
Just as on the ocean wide
When the coming tempest sighed
Sailors moor their bark.
73
74
VENUS VERA,
There stands the fairest woman in the world,
Whose face has made the sighing nations ache ;
Charmed by her beauty, as with coils upcurled
Is held by amorous airs the listening snake;
This the true fount of Love at which all lips would
slake.
This smileless woman is the World's desire,
Like fluttering birds men beat against her bars,
She draws on men to death as moths to fire,
She reigns above them silent as the stars,
Over their worshipping heads reel her triumphal
cars.
VENUS VERA. 75
Some seek her in hot haste by devious ways
Through all the beauteous paths the crude world
lends, ,
But raise up lips at last unfit to praise
Her beauty that them trapped to bestial ends ;
For her still head so fair in pit)' never bends.
She stands alone, unmated, but adored
By hopes that rush from manhood's inmost core,
Her look alone unsheathes the unreasoning sword,
Her white feet stand upon the world's red floor
Stained by the by-gone dead each moment num-
bering more.
She is the emblen of the living God,
That carnal men shall only kiss through death,
'Tis chastity that arms her pitiless rod,
And fierceness masks the mercy of her breath ;
Though her clear marble limbs deal deadly wounds
to faith.
76 VENUS VERA.
The spirit of mankind towards her veers
As turns the needle to the pathless pole,
Eve's daughters thrown aside with sighs and tears
Do union seek with her of soul to soul ;
To gain whose hallowed peace pure heaven is the
goal.
Thus round her lie the frames of fallen men
Who resolute to win her smiles have dared,
More happy than the weak who turned again
And nuptial-wreaths with baser consorts shared ;
For from her ravishing face God's glory shines
declared.
Thus stands she motionless, unwon, unwed,
And from her glorious eyes shine lights sublime,
A halo of the future crowns her head,—
Thus will she ever stand through realms of time
Until the way-worn sun in darkness ends his climb.
Rome, October, 1890.
77
SHAME.
Get thee to rest, and think no more of me—
I am not worthy of thy holy love,
I move not with thee in pure air above,
I have no part in thee.
Get thee to rest, and think no more of me—
And what am I to bring my lips so near
And whisper love into thy heeding ear,
Having no part in thee ?
Get thee to rest and think no more of me—
Traitor am I the virgin kiss to lure
On my foul lips — from lips as Mary's pure.
For what am I to thee ?
7 <S SHAME.
Get thee to rest and think no more of me.—
How dare I look nor, unshamed, turn away
In thy soft eyes more clearer than the day ?
'Tis with such eyes did the God's mother pray,
And / beg look of thee ?
Get thee to rest, and think no more of me. —
Cursed be these impious lips and eyes of mine.
I am a devil tempting the divine.
Bid me to go by uttering curse of thine
Oi die, accursed of -thee.
7Q
LA MALHEU REUSE.
Bitter the hour in which, clear boy, 1 saw thee,
More bitter for the sweetness that it gave,
A brief day's sweetness fled, and from before me
My joy shall fade in sorrow dark and grave.
Why did I see thee ? why were thine eyes nearest
To take my gaze from others standing there ?
Thine eyes were torches — didst thou feel it ?—
dearest,
That lit my heart's dead ashes cold and bare.
And speaking thou didst capture my whole being,
I longed to call thee body, soul, mine own,
1 was distraught from all around thee, seeing
That I could live and love in thee alone.
80 LA MALHEUREUSE.
I scarce have known thee. Wilt thou then bereave
me
Of all 1 have to see thee, dear, no more ?
O stay awhile — I love thee, Jo not leave me,
One kiss — my heart is bleeding to the core.
8 1
LINES.
Thou didst not come, love, and I asked of thee
To come and say " good-night ; "
Thou didst not come, and I awaited thee
Longwhile right into night.
I sat in dreamy waking by the fire, love,
And I awaited thee,
I gazed all sadly in the fire-flame, love,
Musing my love for thee.
I listened for thy coming footstep, love,
The step that would not come ;
I know so well the dear familiar step, love,
That night it would not come.
I went to rest all very weary, love,
Weary of watch for thee,
G
82 LINES.
I could not sleep, though I was weary, love,
I listened still for thee.
I closed mine eyes, my heavy eyelids, love,
Heavy for wish of thee ;
Sleep would not come upon mine eyelids, love,
All for my thoughts of thee.
At last I slept a sleep so very sweet, love,
For then thou cams't to me,
In dream I heard thy step, and lips, my sweet love,
Bid "good-night," kissing me.
83
A PARTING.
The sun was caught in clouds of ruddy gold.
And ere he sank he kissed her on her hair,
A parting kiss that shot across the wold,
Gold unto gold, and I thought hers more fair :
Like unto like, for she stood 'gainst the night
E'en as a sunset fronts advancing shade,
Only methought she threw a softer light
Into the darkness of the evening glade.
A sweeter light than ever sunbeam shed
Wove with the shadows circling round her there,
Her golden hair a diadem for her head,
Her neck and bosom naked to the air.
G 2
84 A PARTING.
And she is mine — nay, fancy vain, away ;
'Tis some one angel straying at her will,
Some queen-spirit beside the dying day,
Or fairy habitant of wooded hill.
On her no hand the darkness of the wold
Durst lay nor mist that threw a veil from earth-
To her how could an human love be told
To her, a being of immortal birth ?
Nav, but I hear her voice, she calls to me
And breaks mine idle dream, my trance is o'er-
In one long kiss' rapturous agony,
The tale was told of love oft told before.
Night took her from me, and my love was gone,
And till I live once more in her sweet smile-
Was that her hair that through the dark veil
shone ? —
Night's blackness, compass me about the while.
85
A WILD SOUL.
"And woman wailing for her demon lover." — Kubla Khan.
Not where the moon sheds down her chastened
ray
O'er land and sea in quivering sheen to lie,
Not where the stars veiled by the milky way
In brightness multitudinously vie ;
Not where the zephyr whispers tales of peace
From pine to pine, from forest lair to lair,—
Not where night birds in loves that never cease
Wake with quick melody the slumbering air.
Not where the scent of flowers upgathered steals,
Where through the group of leaves the blossoms
peep,—
86 A WILD SOUL.
Not where the chime of village chapel peals
Its tones of comfort to the souls that weep.
Ah me! 'tis not in places such as these
Of God's fair earth that I do love to be ;
Not there, not there my troubled spirit flees,
Such peace, such innocence remove from me —
But where the storm peals crashing through the
trees,
Where heaven's black face is all distort with
wrath,
Where mighty windblasts lift with dire increase
And rend the foliage and drive it forth ;
Where thunders crashing in the awful sky
And roar and madden in their dire embrace,
And savage shafts of lightning blaze on high
And smite asunder clouds that roll apace.
\\ here all the elements have joined amain,
In fearful concert to show forth their powers,
And strike the mortal heart with trembling pain
And taunt us with the little that is ours.
And all afeard the sheep together piled
In shuddering mass the while forget to graze,
A WILD SOUL. 87
And cries in agony the village child
That's wandered haply in the country ways,
And howls of watchdog rending through the air,
Baring in piteous wise the knotted throat,
Cry to the gales without : and huddled there
The family group sit shivering and immote.
Give me, ye powers, O give me such a day,
When peace 'twixt earth and heaven the while
is over,
And let black night enwrap me while I stay,
" A woman wailing for her demon lover."
88
ARIADNE.
And lo ! Apollo brake the mists of morn
And looked in his young strength upon the shore,
And seeing Ariadne King there
Asleep in charms of naked loveliness
He dwelt upon her eyelids and her mouth
With all the fervour of a lover's kiss.
The maiden woke, and from her opening lips
The breath of morning caught the murmured name
Of him who was the image of her dream,
And gave it to the unresponsive air.
Her voice soft sounded, scarcely did she know
If she yet dreamed, and all the warmth of sleep
Was still about her. But at last her eyes
Wide opened, and she knew she was awake.
ARIADNE. 89
Once more "Theseus" she murmured, and once
more
Her voice was scattered on the senseless air.
Whereat she marvelled that he heard her not,
Or if he heard her lingered to reply
Or take her in his arms or kiss her lips.
Then rose she on her elbow, looked and saw
He was not at her side, where he had been,
Nor near, nor far, and loud she called again
And only Echo answered her appeal.
Wondering she gazed around her hastily-
All, all was still ; there was no sound, no life,
No living trace of man ; only the lark
Shot upward in glad flight to greet the sun.
No sound of man ; only the morning song
Of choirs of birds in answering melodies.
Long while she looked and gradually a grief
Of sad desertion crept upon her heart,
And made a blank where while before was love.
Was she an outcast on a desert shore
Alone of friends, of him ? " O cruel thought !
" No, not alone, it cannot be," she said ;
go ARIADNE.
" It is to make but trial of my love
" He hides till that he sees me seek with tears."
(So fed she on false hope, hope that beguiled
Her wakening sense of utter loneliness).
" So I must seek him where he waits for me."
Along the shore she roamed and sought her love :
In bays and nooks she peered and sought her love.
No vision dear met her expecting eyes,
No lover's twining arms impeded her —
The sharp flints cut her unaccustomed feet
And blood sand-mingled tainted their bare snow
And left a pleading witness of her steps.
She brake the air with sudden bitter cry
" Hast played me false, my love, O hast thou
left me
" Forlorn, untended on a barren shore ? "
Her eyes were dim with tears, and she was weary
And drooping, very weary — " Ah, could he see,
" But see my tears, then would he come to me,
" And I would hold him in these longing arms
" And ne'er release him till we reached his home."
She looked above — the white cliff's rising wall
ARIADNE. 91
Bared its cold front to take the morning sun.
She shuddered at the cold white desert, turned
And gazed upon the bosom of the sea
That heaved its blue expanse beside her feet.
And the waves laughed in rippling mockery,
" Where is he gone, fair girl ? " they seemed to say,
While that she strained her sorrow-clouded eye
To catch the coming passage of a sail.
But he unmindful sped on the wings of wind
Home to his Athens in his black-sailed ship.
Was that a sail ? — she plashed into the sea
And stretched her arms and all her robe fell down
Baring her breasts and the waves washed it there ;
Knee-deep she stood — was it a black sail far
That smaller grew ? — she could not see for tears,
And looked and thought she saw not what she saw.
But then she knew that he indeed was gone,
Gone, and had left her cruelly alone,
And spake in tearful voice that seemed to still
The laughing ripple of the callous wave : —
" Was it for this I saved thee from thy death,
" And youths and maidens with thee, in the jaws
9 2 ARIADNE.
' Of that fell monster who devoured the flower
' Of Athens' sons and daughters ? Was it for this
' To take me from my home, my father's face,
' My sister's kiss and from my mother's arms,
' To love and cast me like a thing away ?
' All these I tearless left for love of thee—
' For I did love thee when I saw thee come
' From out my father's presence, who did bid
' Them take the madman to the Minotaur.
' I loved thee for thy courage and thy strength,
' For thy bold brow unblanched to face thy foe.
' And then I pondered how to rescue thee
' From such a death, and seeking thee I found
' Thee in the prison, and did tell my whole
' Heart unto thee and bade thee flee with me
' Ere dawn should ope the slumbering watch-
inens' eyes.
' And thou saidst ' Nay, I will not fly. I came
' ' To see the monster face to face, and fight,
' ' And wreak a vengeance for the many dead
4 ' Of Athens' youth." And I loved thee the more
' For those bold w r ords, and gave thee clue of thread
ARIADNE. 93
" To trace the labyrinth, and sword to kill.
" And thou didst swear to me and answer ' yea '
" When I said 'Take me with thee to thy Greece.'
" Thou answeredst ' Yea,' kissing my hands and
feet,
" And I wept over thee, and we did mix
" Our tears for thought of the dread coming hour.
" And then I left thee. In the early dawn,
" Before the tell-tale sun leapt in the sky,
" I saw thee by the mouth of the black labyrinth
" Tracking thy way by aid of thread. I knew
"That thou hadst fought and won, and sealed
" The thirsty lips set in with lion's teeth
" In blood for ever. Tears of joy for thee
" And love of thee did surge into mine eyes.
" I took thee by the hand and led the way,
" With fingers interlaced, to where thy friends
" Imprisoned lay. We oped the doors and fled
" Unto thy ship, and set the sail, and thou
" Didst sit with me and whisper words of love.
" O happy hours, why were ye given to me,
" In which we drank our very fill of love ?
94 ARIADNE.
" () shameless man, to trample through the vows
" United that we asked the almighty gods
" To register ! all scattered on the wind
"Thy promises! Am I a plaything, man,
" To be thus cast away when thou art tired,
" And set at naught, as not a thing of life ?
" And I may live or die for all thy care,
" Food for wild beasts and birds, — and if I die
" No one will close mine eyes, none will cast earth
" Upon me. Cruel perjurer! and I
" Did love thee so, and in mv madness thought
" Thou gavest me love for love. How could I
hope
" To win a hero's love so soon for ever ?
" Why didst thou tell me I would see thy Greece,
" And welcome live within thy father's halls—
" And all the while didst take my first young love
" To crown the joy of one mere passing hour ?
" Why didst thou promise me that I should sit
" At thy right hand a wife in sight of all ?
" Wouldst thou not this ? — yet gladly would I
dwell
ARIADNE. 95
" A slave under thy roof in toil well-loved,
" Pouring the limpid water in thy bath,
" Spreading thy couch with purple — only so
" That I had sight of thee, was near to thee.
" I loved thee and I love thee — let me see
" Thy face once more with one warm smile of
love
" And hear thee say ' I do not hate thee, girl,'
" And I would die content. For I did all
" And gave thee all I could in love. But why
" Do I complain to winds that hear me not
" And take and give no voice ? O cruel heaven !
" Come to me, dearest heart — " She spake and
swooned.
The breezes heard her as she wailed her tale,
And bore the full sad words of mortal grief
Up to the woeless homes above the air
To win her pity from immortal hearts.
And one there was in heaven, called by the gods
Dionysus, and the voice that came from earth
Smote in his heart with pity's sudden thrill,
Pity of her, and he looked down and saw
9 6 ARIADNE.
That she was beautiful, and love thrust out
The pity from his heart, and he came down
On sudden wing, kissed her, and took her with
him,
And gave her home with the everlasting gods.
97
THE FIELD OF SENLAC.
If words could pierce the sodden wall of earth
That keeps the silent bones of men long dead,
What word could trouble thee more in thy grave,
And make thee turn, as men in dreams do turn
And writhe, and shriek, and trembling sleep again
Than Senlac, Harold, very lake of blood ?
I see thee, Harold, in the book of years,
Encamped on the chalk ridge of Sanguelac.
I hear the shouts of revelry that smite
The ear of night, the laughter and the song
And clash of goblet in thy midnight camp-
While in the plain beneath, on bended knee,
The Norman gives the vesper hours to God.
At dawn I see thee marshalling thy men
In shielddocked lines behind the stakes with rods
h
98 THE FIELD OF SEX LAC.
Of osier intertwined, the men of Kent
Holding their right and vaunted privilege
Of framing England's front, and overhead
The royal standard with its warrior sign
In blazon work of glittering gold and gems
Swing heavify in air. I see thee there
With brothers twain, bulwarks of England stand,
With death or victory blazing from the eye
All hot for fight. I hear the bugle sound
And Norman Tailfer raise his merry song
Of Charlemagne ! and Roland ! and Ha Ron !
To which the Saxon throats thundering reply,
Holy Rood ! and Might}- God ! and Harold !
1 see the waves of Norman horsemen dash
Against the mighty rock of English shields,
Recoil and gather for a second hurl
And break in splintered spray ; and many chiefs
Are felled, and twice the bastard Norman's horse
Is killed beneath, and Norman hearts are choked
Tn wavering dread, and Norman cheeks are
blanched.
But that clear head, the bastard Norman's head
THE FIELD OF SEN LAC. gg
Fails not the battered host, and bids retreat
But to make better spring. The snare is laid,
And down from their impenetrable wall
The heedless Saxon flushed with victory
In mad intoxication make pursuit
And rush in the arms of death upon the plain,
Right in the mouth of the entrammeling net.
The Norman turns and throws his host around, —
The reckless handful fight with wild despair
And murdered make the double of their deaths.
I see thee, Harold, hot with battle's rage,
And hot with anger at this mad pursuit ;
" Ye fools," thou criest, " and are ye mad to quit
" The wall I built 'twixt us and Normandy !
" Could ye not see the bastard Norman's trick
" To make a gap to reach at us, and pull
" Old Saxon England down ! And she is down
" And we must die, and cursed be who lives
" To see the warrior standard torn to shreds
" By Norman hands, and tramped by Norman
feet ! "
The Norman slowly now ascends the hill,
H 2
ioo THE FIELD OF SEN LAC.
Clambering o'er mangled heads of friend and foe,
And stays awhile before the unmanned wall ;
Then bids his men shoot arrows in the air
The better clear the few that intervene
'Twixt him and England's standard and a crown.
Shoot arrows in the air, arrow and Sanguelac !
How chill the words smite on thy maddened blood
As thou recallest the then unheeded voice
Of visions in thy dream of yesternight.
The arrow ! Harold, arrow ! Sanguelac !
The arrow ! Harold, and the lake of blood !
I see the arrows darkening the air
In hissing flight, and God ! thine upturned eye,
All glowing with the Saxon battle fire,
Pierced by a quivering shaft. I see thee reel ;
I hear thee whisper, " Gurth, stand by the flag :
" O tell them not that I am wounded, Gurth,
" 'Tis but a passing smart and I'll— " and then
Great God ! the Normans leap the osier wall
And fall upon the few. I see thee not ;
Thy brother is cut down, his giant arm
Fast on the standard's staff: they tear it down
THE FIELD OF SEN LAC. 101
And leap upon the trailing Saxon pride,
Reddened in pool of bravest Saxon blood.
Their breasts are filled with speechless wondering
awe
As they behold the mightiest, fallen, dead,
In heaps around the banner that they loved.
The sun is set in blood that tinged the clouds
Of the October night, and only Normans now
Havoc and blood, and darkness over all-
There is a banquet in Death's halls to-night.
Whom seek ye ? Harold ? Ye'll not find him
here.
Go where the shred of England's draggled flag
Flutterring in wind points out the grave of those
Who side by side found victory in death.
Go, ye'll not find him. Turn the mangled heads
And peer in faces of the many dead.
Seek, ye'll not find him. Stay your fruitless
search.
See ye that slender form in white arrayed
102 THE FIELD OF SEX LAC.
With breast and hair given to winds of night
As a weird spirit wandering the plain of dead ?
She's seeking too the Harold that ye seek,
And she alone will know him where he lies
In heaps of undistinguishable slain.
She knows the head that on her breast hath
lain,
She knows the hair that she hath toyed so oft,
She knows the lips that she hath kissed so oft,
She knows the eyes in which she's gazed so
oft,
She knows the hand where her own hand hath
slept.
Take her to where the draggled standard lies
And she will tell you which her Harold is.
What seek ye, girl ? I seek my Harold here.
Come to the standard, here perchance he lies.
She goes all weary and peers into the slain,
And with a shriek falls on a shapeless corse,
Hacked by French knights and Eustace of Bou-
logne,
Mighty in death she knows it is her lord.
THE FIELD OF SENLAC. 103
Fair swan-necked Edith, see that is the hand
That played so oft with that swan neck of thine.
" Life was not happy, Harold, now in death
" That shuts its gates upon this madding world,
" We will be happy, Harold, I with thee.
" Harold, thy ring" — and, saying that, she dies,
Clasping the corse with lips pressed unto lips.
William of Normandy, tear them not apart,
Hack not those pretty arms that stiff and cold
Tightly entwine the body that they love.
Bare Harold's breast : see, he has written here
Above his heart — wipe off the smirching blood-
England and Edith. England he has lost.
He'has his Edith. O then let them lie
Together in the grave on England's shore
Loving in life and interlocked in death.
And, Harold, thou art dead. The Holy Rood,
That bent o'er thee at Waltham, told its tale
And thou would'st not believe it. With thee fell
The house of Saxon kings and Saxon England,
Though great thy fight and mighty was thine
arm
io4 THE FIELD OF SEN LAC.
That struck for these at Senlace. Hapless Harold !
Great was thy death and turbulent as thy life,
Only thou wast unhappy in thy life,
More happy in thy death, great Woden's son !
I( »5
SONNET.
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
Imprudent mortal, wouldst thou dash aside
The curtain that shuts off the dark todie ?
Wouldst tear from out the written book of thee
The after pages, and in reckless pride
Of thy full strength, oft vaunted but untried,
Cry, "Sibyl, I fear not. I must know and see"?
Wouldst rush life's mountain up mad hastily
And peer into the crater's scoriae tide ?
Rash fool ! Is not the evil of to-day
Sufficient ? Are thine eyes yet dried for care
And woe that is or scarcely has been ? Nay,
Think of the past and gird thy loins. Beware !
Or if thou wilt, read what the pages say,
And cheat thy Fate in madness or despair !
I of)
A CONTRAST.
(Of the respective pictures of Shelley and Byron.)
Shelley, thy soul dwells in thy open face ;
Byron, through eyes and lips doth speak thy heart
And tell the world what thou hast been and art ;
Thy brother Shelley soars above a space
From the world's ken and that it would embrace :
It only knows he stayed unreconciled
A while with us, misunderstood, reviled,
Ere long fled back to spirits' dwelling-place.
Thou,. that lived with him once in Italy,
Wast man of man, wast clay of earthliest clay,
Towering by brute force over such as he,
His aerial sheen paled by thy lurid ray,
And self thy sphere, his sphere humanity :
His star shines still: thy meteor's passed
away.
i<>7
BRANKSOME CHINE.
Aug., '8c
Divine repose, if canst be anywhere,
Sure here thou art,
Where fills the breath of solitude the air
In whispers to the heart.
Here sorrow ceases ; the world's stormy cry
Cannot break through the wall
Of trees, that lock their leafy arms on high,
To guard their silent hall.
Below a pool, on whose translucent bed
The water-lilies rest,
Streaked by the birds that raise a downy head
And dip a downy breast.
Amid, an isle, where bending willows weep
Languidly o'er the stream ;
io8 BRANKSOME CHINE.
Behind, the ruder trees, in shadows deep,
Lull all in sombre dream.
Beyond, an opening in a bank of stone,
Clear cut amid the grass ;
The portal o'er, a head-bowed statue lone
Sleeps mirrored in the glass.
And in the varying hues of darker trees
A velvet carpet spread,
All waving to the kisses of the breeze,
Where the wood fairies tread.
In noontide heat from oaken home they trip
Across the cushioned way,
And in the limpid water sport and dip
Till night embraces day.
Aerial temple built by Grecian hand—
That mortals see not — for the gods apart,
Must be the spell divine that charms this land
And awes the intruder's heart.
Living and dead — here would I set my home,
My lasting habitation would 'twere here !
Would ye receive a child beneath your dome,
A priest, ye trees — a silent worshipper ?
ioq
IN HUMBLE IMITATION OF
AND INSPIRED BY CERTAIN PATRIOTIC
MELODIES OF THOMAS MOORE.
I too 'midst the children of Erin may number
Who read how your melodies murmur and weep,
But my sympathy flies from the time-honoured
lumber
You drag from the crypts where past miseries
heap.
The Scot has long grappled such thorns as an-
noyed him,
And peaceful by England he lies side by side,
But the Celt must still mourn till his plainings
have cloyed him,
Unstable as water, and coy as a bride !
no IN HUMBLE IMITATION &c.
It is time that the myths of the old world should
perish,
The patriot now knows the scheme of the world,
Enrolled with Great Britain high aims he may
cherish,
Not ever be mourning his green flag unfurled.
Divided ye sleep, hut united aspirant
In Britain's broad empire ye equal may share,
Gone by are child's-tales of the " Saxon " and
" tyrant,"
Strong men standing up give such words to the
air.
Each land has old fables of kings or of glory,
We all knew of Wallace or Brien Borii —
In England we too have our legends as hoary
When Alfred burnt cakes from the cooking-
stove drew.
Can Ireland never take heart in fresh labour
But still of her past be lamenting the urn,
Be aye reaching up for her primaeval sabre
Till obsolete woes into ridicule turn.
IN HUMBLE IMITATION &c. in
Take heart and be friends — though I speak in
bold fashion —
Ye are but as children that work not and whine.
Ye are led by the nose by your whims and your
passion,
And I speak not less truth though your land
once was mine.
The rose and the shamrock and thistle all danger
May face, and together may grow round the
world,
And "the emerald gem in the crown of a stranger"
May shine till that throne to confusion is hurled.
112
TO MISS M. M.
(After Lord Byron's " Hours of Idleness.")
Ah tell me, where's joy ; for to-day and to-morrow
The world ever seeks it and seeks it in vain ;
There's not a glad hour unattended with sorrow,
There's not a brief pleasure untainted with pain.
The young mother's love for her infant's first
laughter
Is drowned it may be in full cup of tears,
When that voice is a curse in the years that come
after,
And the grave calls " Thou wearied, come bury
thy cares."
TO MISS M. M. 113
O drain Pleasure's goblet, but gall you will find it ;
And the mortal cries : " Whither, my God, shall
I turn ? "
O touch that fair grass, there's an adder behind it;
And never you'll have though for ever you
yearn.
And yet for a moment methinks 'tis a gladness
To feel the dark charm of two dark laughing
eyes,
To let their sweet magic dispel all the sadness,
To gaze in the lash-fringed depth that there
lies ;
And think, while you're gazing, to see the tears
flowing,
And lave those long lashes with glistening dew.
And kiss the fair cheek with a sweet wonder
glowing
Were a rapture indeed that is granted to few.
1
U4 TO MISS M. M.
'Twere a pleasure methinks there to gaze up en-
chanted,
And feel on your face the soft play of her breath
And cry : "O this flower that heaven has planted,
Will it ever be plucked by the cold hand of
Death ! "
'Twere a pleasure, alas, but denied is the pleasure,
To feel that for you is the love you there read,
To tease her dark tresses with wantonly leisure,
And die on her kisses were rapture indeed.
But the maiden has left you, and sad is the
morrow
And woe is more dark for the light that is fled ;
And the heart cries aloud in its solitary sorrow :
" I would I had died in the glamour she shed."
II ;
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.
" What is the greatest pleasure ? " asked the Mind ;
The Body laughed and muttered " Meat and drink.
How Reason tortures you poor moles so blind ;
You were well happy if you could not think.
Come, give these silly vapours to the wind,
Let every sense to its own level sink ;
Why war against the instincts of your kind,
And why from pleasures most befitting shrink?" —
Thus spake the Body as he lay reclined—
" Why sour the wine-cup at the very brink ?
" I pray you render me at least my meed
Of these same pleasures that you hold aloof ;
It is a very dog's life that I lead,
I 2
n6 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.
Frowned down for ever by some chill reproof ;
Give me some space to show my cloven hoof—
Aha ! the days— —but now you chide again—
I tell you you will live your life in vain ! "
The Body turned his head in sullen guise-
Uprose the Spirit tremulous and lean ;
The pleading sorrow of her tearful eyes
Implored a refuge from the tangled skein
Of pain and doubting that her life had wrought—
Now Hope uplighting at some fancy caught ;
But Doubt swooped down its feeble prey to
rob —
She tried a smile that ended in a sob.
Thou fool ! Can Beaut)' and the Beast agree
Together ? You must take or leave the one.
Raise that sad maiden up upon your knee
And soothe her, or with that misguided son
Go herd! — who sullenly reclines his head,
Hatching your downfall on a silken bed.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAS1 117
The greatest pleasure ! — It were hard to show
Your claim to any, either small or great ;
There was no covenant when you lay low
A babe, that pleasure on your beck should wait ;
You took your life alone, and with it fate.
Think not of pleasure as your right of birth,
And rest contented with your mother Earth.
nS
THE OLD MAN'S STORY.
It is now an ancient story
Of the days when I was young,
Yet I well recall their glory
Like a halo round them flung.
Warm earth's glorious suns shone on me,
And I flung all fetters free
When my manhood burst upon me
Like a tempest on the sea.
My one creed was easy learning,
Plain and simple — live, enjoy :
Prudence with derision spurning,
Cling to pleasure till she cloy !
THE OLD MAN'S STORY. nq
And I cried, " No God regards us;
All the world is at our feet ;
Instant life and love rewards us,
Rob life's lips of every sweet ! "
What is God ? — one God I follow,
She is Pleasure — she will win :
Chase like hounds before the holloa !
For uncaught she turns to Sin,
Ever fleeting like a strumpet
Wooing sweet with backward breath,
Or the craven from the trumpet
Heralding menacing death.
Fill the cup, ah iill it fully,
Drain the heaven-born nectar down.
Let your hearts and spirits wholly
In its golden glamours drown.
i 2l , THE OLD MAX'S STORY.
Ah we worship Goddess Beauty,
Bend our kness but in her shrine ;
Prate not of your bug- bear Duty
Whilst her heavenly smiles are mine.
Little wine we need to quicken
In our veins the coursing blood,
Gushing, as when snows sun-stricken
Lash the hills with sounding flood.
See her glorious bright eye glistens
And her drooping eyelids shine,
While the bending pearl ear listens
To the words that glow as wine.
See the Goddess Revel filling
Her deep wine-bowl till it runs
Largess all, and overspilling,
For the thirstiest of her sons.
THE OLD MAX'S STORY. 121
Oh the merry life, the laughter,
Blinding love and hot desire :
What care we for what comes after,
Dread who may eternal fire.
What is virtue ? What is sinning ?
But the choice of idle words,
Credulence from weak sons winning
W T e are of ourselves the lords.
So my youth in wild carousing
Like a whirlwind swept away,
Reckless morn mad night arousing-
Till it chanced upon a day-
That I met a maiden lowly,
Of the thousands I had seen
She was meet and fitted wholly
To be crowned a maiden-queen.
122 THE OLD MAN'S STORY.
Well I mind the blithe " Good morning "
From my lips that roundly came.
Then I stayed, for dimly dawning
Lit within my heart a flame,
Flame so pure, so strange, so tender,
One it never yet had known,
And I cried, " Oh God defend her,
Keep her close amongst thine own ! "
Prayer from me ! — first then I pondered
On the path 1 wildly trod ;
Looking in her eyes I wondered,
For 1 knew there was a God.
Many years ago that day is :
'Tis a light within my life
As the verdant month of May is
After winter's yesty strife.
THE OLD MAWS STORY. 123
Playing one high stake undoubting
I flung down the fateful die —
It was as a senseless shouting
On the deaf god Destiny.
I was as a brute before her,
Like a devil in bright dawn ;
Though I prayed, no urgence wore her,
But 'twas pity, never scorn.
Then my heart crushed low with longing
Fretful of its novel pain,
All my lighted nature wronging,
Turned it to the mire again.
I lived fiercely, without measure,
Drained the wine-bowl without gain,
Well I knew my vaunted Pleasure
Was a mask for dreary Pain.
12 4 THE OLD MASS STORY.
I knew then though Beauty paleth.
And all other pleasures pall,
There is one that never faileth—
One that turned my life to gall ;
That once known, all others vanish.
Such as 1 may call it Curse ;
For it's very name we banish
Mocking at the Universe.
Well, 'tis over now ; no pleasure
Lights my eye nor may it weep :
I have missed this world's one treasure-
All I wish for now is Sleep.
125
THE PRODIGAL.
Give me no peace until I see my God
Ye haunting devils that divide my skin ;
Give me no peace, God's heavy-handed rod
Lies lighter than the scorpion scourge of Sin ;
Give me no peace until my soul come in.
Give me no peace, fill all my mouth with gall,
Sting me to madness as with swarms of flies,
Let me know Sin's supremest heaviest thrall,
Tramp one by one on all her brood of lies—
'Tis only thus some souls shall reach to Paradise.
Give me no peace, lead on vour devils' way,
Make sick my heart and cut my feet with stones,
i26 THE PRODIGAL.
Let me have womens' mockery for pay,
Let all my flesh ache on my feverish bones,
Let all my mid-nights howl with melancholy tones.
Make me more fearful than a ship-wrecked man
Who battles mid-night deeps to grasp a spar,
More hopeless than the way-worn caravan
That in the desert loses guiding-star —
Let me know all the shames and all despairs that
are.
Let all my pleasures be a load of pain
A poignant mocking of the crown I miss,
Let me survey a manhood spent in vain,
My birth-right bartered for a wanton's kiss-
Is there disgrace more deep of all disgrace than
this?
Let there be none to love me on the earth,
Let me be friendless as a hunted beast.
Let my sick lips be set as far from mirth
THE PRODIGAL. 127
As far my night of life from godly East,
Let none save Sorrow come whene'er I bid the
feast.
Let me in waking nights think mournful things,
Let all my slumbers be a troubled gloom,
And let me far above hear Angel's wings
Fly high as heaven past my tainted room,
Let me abhor my life and dread the silent tomb.
Let me feel anguish at what might have been
Whene'er I see a holy woman's face ;
Let no wife's hand come Sorrow's face between,
Let never son of mine beget my race,
Let Pity shed no tear above my resting-place.
I have dreamed dreams, but all those dreams are
o'er,
Such dreams lead down the dreary slope to death,
Midst deserts mirrored is the shining shore
128 THE PRODIGAL.
The syrens wooed to with their laughing breath-
There Youth binds round Ids brow a heavy
cypress- wreath.
I dreamed wild dreams when first with glorious
head
Desire rose white-footed from the foam,
When first she kissed my mouth with lips of red,
When to my neck her snowy arms first clomb
And round me all her hair fell from her loosened
comb.
Her presence made me music like the waves
Far down where opal water sways and wells,
Where strange bright seadights tremble in the
caves,
And pass like dreams through wondrous coral cells,
Where washed from sea-swung harps love's hidden
cadence swells.
I saw clear visions of white sea-nymphs' hair
Dashed back in lucent deeps from face and head.
THE PRODI GAL. 129
Strange paths of beauty in high forests rare
Standing remote within the sea's green bed
And smoothy stretching meads with sinning sea-
shells spread.
I saw all visions that enchant, but now
The very heart of life within me dies.
I see no beauty but a sin-stained brow
In those that chide my penitential eyes ;
Instead of songs I hear what melancholy cries!
I find no peace, and well I wish no peace ;
I will turn back upon the road I came ;
What fool should think to set his soul at ease
By passing singing down the paths of shame ?
Give me no peace nor rest, in every devil's name-
So make me turn, for all my load of sin,
My sin and shame with terror and disgust
Bears down upon me, I will turn to win
K
130 THE PRODIGAL.
Compassion from a God in whom I'll trust ;
And holy Love shall loose these heavy bonds of
lust.
The hateful satellites my pride has nursed
Cling to me parting from them, staggering, blind ;
But through the cloudy skies a light has burst —
Aye let them goad me till that light I find :
I hear a whisper in a distant wind
That tells to even me my God shall yet be kind.
i3i
THE DREAM PALACE.
I saw a magnificent palace
Of story on story uphurled,
Built of porphyry, agate, crystallus,
Veined pillars with vine-creepers curled :
From turretted roof to the basement
Imperial banners unfurled:
And from each open window and casement
Delirious melody swirled,
And flashing on high from the basement
The pearl-drift of fountains was whirled.
There were perfumed red-rose laden bowers,
Stained windows of various hue.
Bright balconies, porches, and towers
That strained to the ultimate blue:
k 2
132 THE DREAM 1'AEACE.
And a wealth of vine-clusters and flowers
Rose upwards and clambering grew
To terrace and tier, and the showers
Of fountains like diamond dew
Laced the trees that bowed high to the towers
And girdled the sovereign view.
And in canopied couches low-lolling
Fair women with lily-white arms
At each window, enticing, enthralling,
Were spreading voluptuous charms ;
Melodious voices were calling
On Venus in passionate psalms,
And their languishing glances were falling
As with balmy and roseate palms
They were spreading, seductive, enthralling
The nets of their glorious charms.
One nymph from a balcony leaning,
Self-glorving she was so fair,
Her hyacine beauties was preening
As she sunned in the orient air,
THE DREAM PALACE. 133
Curved tresses her shoulders were screening,
Her white shoulders gleaming and bare,
And back from her neck she was gleaning
The gold-fountain-flow of her hair ;
With lithe arms was toyingly gleaning
The marvellous wave of her hair.
Another was smilingly dreaming
A ravishing beauty and bright,
For the sun on her figure was streaming
Rose-warm in the glittering light,
In her hair it was gossamer sheeming—
All wonderful, worshipful, white—
The sun in her eyelids was gleaming
As she dreamed in his amorous light,
The sun on her bosom was streaming
As it heaved in his passionate light.
Another her finger uplifting
"With winsome and mischievous smile,
With lissom white fingers was sifting
The threads of her tresses the while,
134 THE DREAM PALACE.
With exquisite grace she was bending
From a lattice that shone in the pile,
To beauties untold, never-ending,
She added soft arts to beguile,
To her face such wild witchery lending
She had but to look to beguile.
Another was naked or nearly
But clasping a robe to her form,
Shone her shoulders resplendent and pearl)'
And her shapely white bosom all warm,
The hot sun his essence out-pouring
Was taking her beauty by storm :
With a smile that was wildly alluring
She held the robe close to her form,
With a motion most madly alluring
She plucked at the robe on her form.
Another right merrily laughing
With abandoned provocative air,
Recumbent, red grape-juice was quaffing
Midst others all gay, debonnaire ;
77/ A' DREAM PALACE. 135
And all their star-faces were off'ring
Their treasures and laying them hare
And a thousand bright glances of proff'ring
Shone down through the glittering air,
Their eyes laughing promise were off'ring
Looking down through the luminous air.
And ever the sunlight was slanting
On the windows, the women, the wine,
And all was enticing, enchanting,
Seductive, ecstatic, divine.
And the beautiful eyes that were smiling
Whilst music thrilled fiercely and fast,
Entreating, entrancing, beguiling,
Were turned on all strangers that passed,
All the eyes in the myriad windows
Enchanted each stranger that passed.
I murmured " Lo, this is the fashion
Of a palace once seen in my dreams,
And I styled it the Palace of Passion,
Yet fair and most lovely it seems,
136 THE DREAM 1' A LACE.
In jealousy guarding its treasure
The sun sheds here holier beams,
My senses are lulled by the measure
Of music and murmuring streams,
I know now a fullness of pleasure
Known never before but in dreams.
" Light laugh and live softly these women
With braided locks diamond-dressed ;
I see nothing here of ill-omen
But all of life's-longing and rest ;
1 know naught so fair as their faces
From the ruddy bright dawn to the west,
Bound fast in such glamourous traces
It seems there must surely be rest,
Emmeshed in such exquisite traces
It seems there must truly be rest.
" Of beauties, Old Earth, great thy store is,
Warm sunshine, cool forests, and shade,
But I see now the crown of these glories
In the breasts of the nymphs in the glade ;
THE DREAM PALACE. 137
Though fair be the bud or the blossom
That flower on bower or tree,
What bud can compare with one bosom
What bud of all flowers that be ?
Head-pillowed on one such a bosom
What else might the world hold for me ? '
Thus I stood in a burning amazement,
Desire never dreaming of fear,
For the glorious eyes in each casement
Drew up my whole soul through the air ;
But I halted. in doubting abasement
As a voice sounded low in my ear —
" Go round to the back of the palace
Its future is parabled there,
Then drink of its poisonous chalice
If still you would enter in here ;
Think well of the dregs of the chalice
All ye who would enter in here."
I turned to the back of the palace-
It was worm-eaten, mottled and scarred—
ij8 THE DREAM PALACE.
Though a demon opposed me with malice
Who guarded a gloomy court-yard :
And I saw all the porphyry broken
With weeds and rank grasses between,
The grimy dim walls gave no token
Of what once the palace had been,
The banners all rent gave no token
Of what once its lustre had been.
No foliage now shone the trees on,
They were sere as the faces were sere
At the windows, and dead was the season
Dim month in a desolate year :
The clouds they were pendant and scowling
In musty and sulphurous gloom,
And a sad wind was winding and howling
In every wide window and room,
Demoniac dirges was hov/ling
In every dull comfortless room.
The fountains were broken and sprayless,
And stains of old wine as of blood
THE DREAM PALACE. 139
Marked runlet and basin, and ravless
Were glades that the naiads had trod :
And sounds as the sounds of low crying
Came sad from an innermost shade,
And sighs like the sighs of the dying
Made dreary the once-happy glade,
There were women there bitterly crying
In the depths of the sorrowful glade.
The nymph from the balcony leaning—
With a smile a lost angel might wear,
So young she could scarce know the meaning,
The death-in-life doom of despair-
Like a child was still sobbingly gleaning
From wet eyes her showering hair ;
Of her beauties so proud overweening
This was all that the Furies would spare
One vain-glory Nemesis screening,
Had touched not her beautiful hair.
And she who the wine-juice was quaffing
From her pillows was trying to rise,
i 4 o THE DREAM PALACE.
Xo longer her white lips were laughing,
And misery stared in her eyes :
To past charms who should now pay the duty ?
On her forehead lay heavy despair ;
Yet she still had the saturnine beaut\
Of a leopard aroused from her lair,
She still bore the traces of beauty
But never a claim to be fair.
And she who was naked or nearly
Still held the robe close to her form,
It was cold, and she dreaded the surly
And virulent gusts of the storm ;
But the robe was bedraggled in tatters,
And she huddled to keep herself warm
From the wind that the high palace shatters
Coming cold from the pitiless storm,
In the wind that incessantly shatters
She shivered and sighed in the storm.
And she who was dreaming was waking,
She rose with a terrible scream,
THE DREAM I'M. ACE. 141
And cried, with her bod}' all shaking,
" Ah no, 'tis a horrible dream !
But an echo her rhapsody breaking
Cried back " It is never a dream ! "
She listened in agonised quaking
It cried again " Never a dream."
And another re-echo awaking
Replied " It is worse than a dream ! "
And she who was lifting her finger
Was withered, repulsive, and old,
Not a trace of her beauty did linger,
Her bosom was sunken and cold.
Her memories no comfort could bring her
Of the charms that she bartered and sold ;
She was pondering whether to fling her-
Self down in the rain and the cold,
Irresolute whether to fling her-
Self down to her death in the cold.
I turned from the palace so smitten
With ruin, dismantled and bare—
142 THE DREAM PALACE.
In all the hot eyeballs was written
From garret to basement — despair :
I turned from the harrowing features,
And saw in an iron-walled den
Lying everywhere grovelling creatures
1 hat bore the resemblance of men,
Lying motionless dissolute creatures
The remnants of what had been men.
There hopeless through torturing ages
They shrink in the squalor and rain,
And taste of their wisdom the wages,
The gall of incurable pain.
In darkness remorse and repenting
They moan with an uselessness sore,
And the bitter blight blast unrelenting
Drives shattering window and door,
Its malice remorselessly venting
Cries past to them, " Hope never more ; "
The elements never relenting
Howl back to them, " Hope never more."
143
FREE TRANSLATION OF GOETHE'S
FAUST, SCENE XXIV.
PRISON.
Faust (with a bunch of keys and a /amp, before a
small iron door).
The time has gone by long for me to fear,
Yet dread, unknown
Of all mankind, doth seize upon me. Here
Dwells she alone,
Here, neath this damp foul wall,
Shut off from the heaven above,
Thrust in a dungeon, and all
Her crime a delusion of love.
Dost tremble, poor fool, dost fear
To meet the reproach of her eyes ?
Dost linger a while on the threshold near ?
On, enter, thy loved one dies.
(He seizes the lock. Singing from within.)
i 4 4 FAUST
She killed me, my mother, the whore,
For my father a meal to prepare,
But my sister upgathered the bones from the
floor,
And placed them out in the cool air.
I woke in the morn a bird fair.
Fly away, fly away, as the fresh wind free,
Fly away from the grave neath the almond tree.
Faust (opening the door). She feels not she sings
in her lover's ear,
She feels not, poor girl, that her lover is near,
The clank of her chains and the straw to hear.
(He enters. )
Margaret (hiding Iter face on her pallet of straw).
Thev come ! ah, bitter death ! ah, woe!
Fai'st (gently). 1 come, my love, to free thee.
Margaret (throwing herself before him). No —
Thou art a man : seeing me, can'st thou not
weep ?
Faust (in a low voice ). Hush, hush ; these screams
will break the watchman's sleep.
(He seizes the chains to undo them.)
FAUST. 145
Marg. {on Iter knees). Away, thou hangman ! who
did give thee power
( )ver poor me ?
Thou com'st, 'tis but the midnight hour.
O pity me ;
Is not the morning soon enough ? — away,
O come at dawn, let me outlive my daw
( She rises. )
And I am yet so young, so young,
O 'tis soon to die !
And I was fair — that was my curse
Undid me in God's eye.
Near was my love in the days gone by,
My head on his bosom la)',
Torn do my wreath and flowers lie,
And he is far away.
seize me not, sir, with a grasp so strong.
What harm have I e'er done thee ?
1 have never seen thee my whole days long,
C) pity me, sir, I have done thee no wrong,
O pity my tears and me.
146 FAUST.
Faust. Can I live through the strain of this sad
hour ?
Marg. Ah me, thou hast me wholly in thy power.
But let me first, sir, give my breast
To lull my hapless babe to rest.
The whole night long I hugged it to my heart.
They took it from me to increase my woe,
And then they say 1 killed it. Poor, poor
heart.
Ne'er shall 1 know
A day of joy again.
Dost hear the strain
The song of insult that they sing of me ?
Evil the sin, ill done —
For so doth the old ballad run.
But who said the words were pointed at me ?
Faust (throwing himself on his knees). A lover to
thy feet hath come
To loose thy fetters and to take thee home.
Marg. [throwing herself to him). Yes, let us kneel
and call on the saints on high.
See under here, 'neath the steps of my cell,
FAUST. 147
Under the threshold seething is hell,
And the devil is raging with hideous cry.
Faust (loud). Margaret, Margaret.
Margaret (eagerly ). 1 hear my love,
That was the voice of my dearest love.
f She springs up. Her chains fall off. )
Where is he ? that was my lover's call :
Did it come from heaven above?
I am free, I am free, and my irons fall,
And no one shall hold me now ;
I will fly to my love and throw
Myself on his neck and his breast,
The breast of my love and rest.
Margaret, Margaret, I heard him sav,
Ay, Margaret, he called to me :
He's here on the threshold to take me away.
'Mid the hurtling and howling and clapping
of hell
And the taunting and scorn and the devilish
yell
Is wafted the voice that I know so well,
L 2
r 4 8 FAUST.
The sweet voice of my lover to me.
Faust. 'Tis I, thy love.
Marg. 0, tell me so again.
'Tis he, 'tis he. Where now is all the pain
And anguish of this lone cell ?
Where is my dragging iron chain
And the torments that are of hell ?
'Tis thou, my love, with arm to save,
And snatch me from my bloody grave.
(), saved I am. Again I see the street
In which I first saw thee,
Again I see the garden, flowers sweet,
Where I and Martha bade thee meet,
Waiting impatiently.
Faust (eagerly). O come, O come with me.
Marg. O, stay awhile;
I love to have thee near me, stay awhile.
(Caresses him.)
Faust. With me my love what more hast thou
to fear ?
Come, haste thee, haste, thy lingering costs us
dear.
I A I ST. 149
Marg. Canst thou not kiss me, love,
Not kiss me more ?
'Tis but a short short while,
And hast forgot to kiss ? A time before,
With thy sweet words and with thy smile
Burst o'er my heart a paradise, and ardently
Didst thou then kiss as if to stifle me,
Bruising my poor glad lips unceasingly,
While I was with thee — all the while.
But now I tremble as I clasp thy breast ;
O kiss me, wilt thou not kiss me ?
O take thy Margaret to thee to rest ;
If wilt not, I'll kiss thee.
(She embraces him.)
But ! how cold thy lips, how cold,
How dead and unreturning ;
Where is the love thou hadst of old,
Fiercely once burning ?
Who took it from me, that love of old,
And I for that love am yearning ?
(She turns from him.)
Faust. Come with me, love, 1 entreat,
150 FAUST.
come away ;
I cherish thee love, my sweet,
For love guided hither my rescuing feet.
O come, I pray.
Marg. (turning to him again).
And is it thou, thyself ? O tell it me.
Faust. It is. O come !
Marg. Then are my fetters free !
Take me, O take me to thy breast once more.
But Henry, stay — how dost thou not abhor
Such as poor me, and shudder and repel ?
Dost know whom thou deliverest from this
cell ?
Falsi. O come, (J come, the shades of night fast
pale.
Marg. To my mother old, infirm and frail,
Death did I bring.
1 buried my babe 'neath the river wave,
I buried him, I, in a watery grave,
Poor little thing.
To me was this gift that heaven gave,
To me and to thee, thee too.
FAUST. 151
Thou here ! is it true ?
Give me thy hand — reality !
Methought I dreamed, and lo, 'tis thee !
Thy hand my love, sweet hand — but
God ! 'tis wet,
O God, there's blood upon.
Tell me what hast thou done ?
Sheathe me that blood-stained sword,
Listen, I beg, to my word.
Faust. O let the past be past and gone :
Love, thou wilt kill me soon.
Marg. No, thou must live and have a care
For what I say.
Three graves must thou dig in the open air,
Us four to lay.
My mother put in the better grave,
My brother place just at her side.
And a little way off, but not too far, 1 crave,
Just a little way further thou'lt dig a third
grave,
For me my shame to hide.
And on my right breast let my little one rest—
152 FA LSI.
No other shall sleep by my side.
To nestle my love on thy heart,
To sleep on thy breast for e'er,
To cradle my babe where thou too art,
Were a joy too sweet, too fair.
And I, poor girl, alone must slumber there —
Meseems as 'twere 1 forced myself on thee,
And back from thy bosom back thou hurlest
me,
Repelling my love's embrace.
Yet kind is thy face,
And sweet as I knew it ever to be.
Faust. If kind then I am. O come.
Marg. What, out there ?
Faust. Yes, my love, come, I entreat thee, home,
Out into the open air.
Marg. The grave is gaping there,
Death has his lair
In the open air,
I come.
Away from the dungeon walls to rest
In an everlasting home.
FAUST. 153
In the grave will 1 stay,
No further away,
Beyond, not a step will I roam.
Art going Henry ? Wilt not take me too ?
Fain would I go with thee.
Favst. Thou canst, my love,
If thou but wilt ; the door stands open
wide.
Marg I dare not go abroad. What can betide
Poor helpless me but woe ?
What use that I should go ?
They're waiting for me that is all outside,
Ready to pounce upon me.
And then it is such misery
To go a beggar in the streets forlorn.
And too by pangs of evil conscience torn.
It is such misery
To wander outcast in an unknown land,
Stranger mid strangers, ever seeking pity
And finding none. And then their cruel hand
Will drag me hither — that full well I know.
Faust. I'll stay with thee for ever, never go.
154 FAUST.
Marg. Oh no, away,
Rescue, I pray,
Thy hapless child.
Up the path straight,
Leap over the gate,
Plunge in the forest wild.
Left, to the bank-
Where there's a plank-
Crossing the wave.
seize my darling with a speedy grasp,
1 see it struggling, hapless babe, and gasp,
It's breathing still, (). it will rise once more,
Seize on it, Henry, ere it's stifled o'er,
Save it, O save.
Faust. One step, O do bethink thee, Margaret,
One step and thou art free.
Marg. Have we not passed the hill side yet ?
What's that just there that I see.
There sits my mother on a cold bare stone,
I shiver, O God, as I gaze,
There sits my mother on a stone alone,
To and fro with her head she sways,
FAUST. 155
She beckons not, nods not, poor heavy head,
So long she has slept, she will wake no
more,
She slept for the bliss of our sinful bed.
O, sweet were those days before.
Faust. No tales, no tears avail me. Margaret,
hence
Must I thus drag thee.
Marg. Leave me. Violence
Shall not compel unwilling Margaret.
Off with thy murderous hand and wet
With the blood of a victim still :
All that I did was done for thee,
All that I could I gave to thee,
I loved thee to the fill.
Faust. The dawn is breaking., loved one, come
away.
Marg. Yes, it is dawning. 'Tis the last, last day
That sheds its dawn on me.
This very day, did we not say
My wedding day should be ?
Tell no one, love, thou hast already been
156 FAUST.
With Margaret.
Tell no one, love, that thou hast seen
The poor girl yet.
It is all over now, the past is o'er,
And we'll meet again, but never more
At the dance, my love, on the polished floor.
The crowd is pressing noiselessly along,
The streets cannot contain the swelling
throng.
List to the bell
As it tolls my knell,
See the staff broken,
The criminal's token,
The token of death to me.
How they seize me and bind me violently.
They push me away to the scaffold now,
And tingling on every neck is the blow,
The blow of the steel my neck that clave.
Still lies the world as the grave.
Faust. O that I ne'er was born
Mephistopheles (appearing without).
Up and away ! thou best were gone,
FA ('ST. 157
( )r thou art lost.
What boots, ye fools, this idle chattering,
Lingering and loitering and maudlin prattling
In the grey morning my horses are shivering,
In the wind's frost.
Marg. O God ! what form uprises from the
ground ?
Tis he, 'tis he, O send him, love, away—
What will he here where sanctity is found ?
What will he here where angels breathe
around ?
He comes for me ; O Henry, say him nay.
Faust. Thou shalt have life, my love.
Marg. To God's tribunal high above,
And the justice of God and embracing love
I surrender myself this day.
Meph. (to Faust). Come, or I'll leave thee in
the lurch. Wouldst stay ?
Marg. Thine am I, Father, save me, Father,
save.
Ye Hosts of heaven, ye sainted Hosts on high
Be ye my sentinels until I die,
158 FAUST.
Encamp around me, take me when I die,
Guard me, I crave.
Henry, I shudder when I look on thee.
Me ph. She's judged.
Voice {from above). Is saved —
Meph. {to Faust). Come hither thou to me
(Disappears with Faust.
Voice [echoing from within). —
Henry ! Henry !
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