'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