5 J 
 
 II 
 
 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 HENRY W. NEVINSON 
 
 BONI 
 
 Publishers 
 
 AND 
 
 LIVERIGHT 
 New York
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 LINES OF LIFE
 
 BY THE S*AME ^AUTHOR 
 
 NEIGHBOURS OF OURS : Scenes of 
 East End Life. 
 
 IN THE VALLEY OF TOPHET : 
 
 Scenes of Black Country Life. 
 
 THE THIRTY DAYS' WAR : Scenei 
 in the Greek and Turkish War of 1897. 
 
 LADYSMITH : A Diary of the Siege. 
 
 CLASSIC GREEK LANDSCAPE AND 
 ARCHITECTURE : Text to John Pulley- 
 love's Pictures of Greece. 
 
 THE PLEA OF PAN. 
 
 BETWEEN THE ACTS : Scenes in the 
 Author's Experience. 
 
 ON THE OLD ROAD THROUGH 
 
 FRANCE TO FLORENCE: French 
 Chapters to Hallam Murray's Pictures. 
 
 BOOKS AND PERSONALITIES : A 
 Volume of Criticism. 
 
 A MODERN SLAVERY : An Investiga- 
 tion of the Slave System in Angola and the 
 Islands of San Thome and Principe. 
 
 THE DAWN IN RUSSIA : Scenes in 
 the Revolution of 1905-1906. 
 
 THE NEW SPIRIT IN INDIA: Scene. 
 during 1 the Unrest of 1907-1908. 
 
 ESSAYS IN FREEDOM. 
 
 THE GROWTH OF FREEDOM: A 
 Summary of the History of Democracy. 
 
 ESSAYS IN REBELLION. 
 
 THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN.
 
 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY W. NEVINSON 
 
 
 BONI AND LIVERIGHT 
 PUBLISHERS 192O NEW YORK
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAOK 
 
 A JOURNEY . . . . . .9 
 
 THE ROSE . . . . . .12 
 
 VITA NUOVA XXI . . . 14 
 
 SITTING AT A PLAY . . . . I 5 
 
 A BALLADE OF PLACE . . . . 17 
 
 THE DEMONIAC . . . . . 1 8 
 
 A SHRINE . . . . . .20 
 
 TIME AND TIDE . . . . . .21 
 
 SOUTHWARD BOUND . . . . .22 
 
 AT SEA ... ... 23 
 
 ON GUARD . . . . . 24 
 
 THE COMMON ROUND . . . . 2 5 
 
 A MEETING . . . . . 25 
 
 THE HALLOWED STEPS . . . . .26 
 
 AFTER EPIPHANY . ... 27 
 
 AN EMPTY BOX . . . . . .28 
 
 DEATH IN LIFE . . . . . 2 9 
 
 SPACE . . . . . -3 
 
 AUTUMN . . . . 3O 
 
 PYTHAGORAS AT ARGOS . 3 1 
 
 MISERICORDE ... 3 2 
 
 AT THIRTY-FIVE ... -34 
 
 " OH FOR MORE WORLDS TO CONQUER ! " . . 34 
 
 AN OLD PORTRAIT . -35 
 
 GOOD-BYE . '35 
 
 CREMATION . 3^ 
 
 A FRENCH SUNDIAL . . -3^ 
 
 DIVINE FRENZY . . . . 3*> 
 
 43205;
 
 6 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SOULS . . . . . . -36 
 
 SHEEP-SHEARING ..... 37 
 
 THOMAS A KEMPIS . . . 37 
 ST. JOHN OF AMIENS . ... 39 
 
 PRAYER. . . -41 
 
 THE PICTURESQUE ... J. I 
 
 A HOLIDAY .... .42 
 
 ABROAD .... Al 
 
 IN CENTRAL AFRICA . . . . -45 
 
 A GERMAN WINTER . . . . -45 
 
 PILGRIM'S SONG . . . . 46 
 
 BLAGOVESCHENSK : igOO ... -47 
 
 HOME, SWEET HOME . . . . 48 
 
 A BALLADE OF TIME . . . . -5 
 
 THE SIREN . . 5 1 
 
 AFFATIM EDI, BIBI, LUS1 . . 5 2 
 
 THE HAUNTED SPRING: 1915 . . -53 
 
 AN ANCIENT BATTLEFIELD . . . -55 
 
 THE FOOL IN GOD . . . . 56 
 
 THE FOOL IN MAN . . . . -57 
 
 WOUNDED . . . . . -57 
 
 EPIMENIDES THE CRETAN . . . 6 1 
 
 THE RETURN OF ALCESTIS . . . 6 1 
 
 FORWARD . . . . . -7O 
 
 DEDICATA . . . . . .71 
 
 A PRAYER IN SPRING . . . . -75 
 
 SOLDIER M.P. . . . . . -78 
 
 A CABINET MINISTER . . . . -79 
 
 A VIGIL 8 I
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 14, third line from bottom, for " And with his a salutation " 
 
 read "And with his salutation." 
 Page 27, line 5 from top, for "of hallowed stones" read "of 
 
 hollowed stones." 
 Page 30, end of third line in "Autumn," for "dread" read 
 
 ' ' drear. " 
 Page 47, fourth line from bottom, for " Christians dear " read 
 
 " Russians dear." 
 Page 76, line 16 from top, for " Peace came undreamt of" read 
 
 "Joy came undreamt of."
 
 " Often in my past life the selfsame dream has come to 
 me, sometimes in one form, sometimes in another, but 
 always saying the same thing : ' Follow the Muse, Socrates ! 
 Strictly meditate the Muse.' In old days I thought the 
 dream was only encouraging and inciting me to work at the 
 very thing I was after. As spectators hound on the runners 
 in a race with their cheers, the dream, I supposed, was 
 hounding me along the course I was already following ; since 
 the pursuit of wisdom is the highest art of the Muse, and I 
 was pursuing wisdom. But when the trial was over, and the 
 festival of Apollo delayed my execution, I thought that, if 
 after all the dream was ordering me to ' cultivate the Muse ' 
 in the common meaning of the words, I ought not to disobey, 
 but to do my best in that line. For it seemed safer not to 
 depart this life before I had absolved and purified my soul by 
 making poems, in obedience to the dream." 
 
 SOCRATES, on the morning of his execution : Phaedo If.
 
 A few of these verses have already appeared 
 in my books called " Between the Acts " and 
 ''A Plea of Pan" and they are here 
 included by permission of the present 
 publishers, Messrs. Duckworth sf Co. A 
 few have appeared in "Tke Nation"
 
 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 O 
 
 A JOURNEY 
 
 H, speed ! Oh, haste ! 
 
 Plunge to the solid land, 
 Ship, having traversed the intervening waste 
 Of tedious water ! Plunge onward till you stand 
 Unmoved by baffling gales and dashing swirl 
 Of sea-foam, nor by the fog encumbered ! Drive 
 Your black prow through the successive waves that curl 
 In seething semicircles up your keel ! 
 O ship, I would your engines were alive, 
 And that your furnace-heart might feel 
 The passion blazing in your plates of steel ! 
 I would you were alive ! 
 
 Speed, every wheel 
 
 Spinning along the rails ! 
 
 Speed through the vineyards, make the white olives reel 
 Before the windows like a flashing show, 
 
 So quick that eyesight fails ! 
 
 Devour the ground, with glowing phlanges pacing 
 Mile after mile, swift as a wild star racing, 
 
 And, like a comet's hair, 
 
 Let the smoke phantom mark the course you go ! 
 Shriek through the cities of old Popes and kings, 
 
 O train, that lovers all may know 
 A love is passing by, beyond compare 
 
 With other loving things !
 
 io LINES OF LIFE 
 
 Old Popes and kings, why were you born so soon ? 
 You should have waited till it was love's noon, 
 
 And known the noontide where 
 Love climbs the zenith by a golden stair : 
 
 You should have waited, kings ! 
 
 Another city there ! 
 
 And evening falls 
 
 On quiet houses, roofs, and purple walls, 
 And streets deserted in the lamplight glare, 
 
 And lovers wandering home. 
 So evening falls to them, and so to me 
 It will fall to-morrow ! Quick let the darkness come, 
 Building her shadowy bridge between the days, 
 Brief as one stepping-stone, that I may see 
 Sunset and sunrise mingle, and the night 
 Slide like a torrent lost down hidden ways ! 
 
 O darkness, bring to all else delight, 
 Bring them the appointed lane, the orchard deep, 
 Or twilit chamber ; let the dumb midnight keep 
 Their secret in the wood or by the stream ! 
 But to me bring a nothingness of sleep 
 Oh, swift as love's unerring sight, 
 
 And deeper than a dream 
 
 A dreamless sleep ! 
 
 To-day ! 
 
 Is that a gleam 
 
 Of morning through the rain, 
 Whitening the billows of careering steam 
 And glimmering on the pane ?
 
 A JOURNEY ii 
 
 To-day to-day ! 
 
 Let me not miss one moment of its hours, 
 That march in triumph up their sacred way 
 
 Of wind and sun and showers ; 
 But swiftly they must march Oh, swiftly too ! 
 How many moments till I see again 
 The Paris streets, the bridges, and the Seine, 
 
 And cross the city through 
 To a land of streams, and poplar trees, 
 And sandy hills ? Then narrow seas 
 Dim cliffs the hedgerow squares 
 And London with her darkening towers, 
 And columned smoke, and lurid summer airs, 
 
 The platform, and the pausing train, 
 The unconscious crowd Then speed through street 
 
 and lane, 
 
 Speed to a house of consecrated stairs 
 The common, golden stairs ! 
 
 How the horizon flares 
 With flaming signals beckoning me ! 
 
 I hear the great cliffs cry, 
 
 Calling across the sea ; 
 
 Earth, sea and heaven, commingled in a rout 
 Of glory, pass, the clouds and waters flee, 
 Shouting together, and from the depth of sky 
 
 Great stars invisible shout ; 
 
 The sun and moon embrace, 
 And all the spirits of the world go shouting by. 
 O men and women, shall not you rejoice, 
 
 And the whole living race,
 
 12 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 Dwelling in wilderness and houses dear, 
 Join with the firmament's exultant voice ? 
 For I come near Oh, near ! 
 And speed along the street 
 (Make lightning slow, my feet !) 
 And reach the door, and hear 
 Behind the door, where is love's dwelling-place, 
 
 A sudden stir inside 
 A stir, a footstep ! How shall a board divide 
 
 Two souls that burn to meet 
 As meeting flames ? It opens opens wide 
 Wide as two arms ! And then a breast, a face- 
 Two arms, a breast, a face ! 
 
 THE ROSE 
 
 QTEPHEN, clerk of Oxford town, 
 w_3 Oh, the weary while he lies, 
 Wrapt in his old college gown, 
 Burning, burning, till he dies ! 
 And 'tis very surely said, 
 He shall burn when he is dead, 
 All aflame from foot to head. 
 
 Stephen said he knew a rose, 
 One and two, yea, roses three, 
 
 Lovelier far than any those 
 Which at service-time we see
 
 THE ROSE 13 
 
 Emblems of atonement done, 
 And of Christ's beloved One, 
 And of Mary's mystic Son. 
 
 Stephen said his roses grew 
 
 All upon a milk-white stem ; 
 Side by side together two, 
 One a little up from them, 
 Sweeter than the rose's breath, 
 Rosy as the sun riseth, 
 Warm beside that was his death. 
 
 Stephen swore, as God knows well, 
 
 Just to touch the topmost bud, 
 He would give his soul to hell 
 Soul and body, bones and blood ; 
 Hell has come before he dieSj 
 Burning, burning, there he lies, 
 And he neither speaks nor cries. 
 
 Oh, what might those roses be ? 
 
 Once, before the dawn was red, 
 Did he wander out to see 
 If the rose were still abed ? 
 Did he find a rose-tree tall 
 Standing by the silent wall ? 
 Did he touch the rose of all ? 
 2
 
 i 4 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 " Stephen, was it worth the pain, 
 
 Just to touch a breathing rose ? " 
 Ah, to think of it again, 
 
 See, he smiles amid his woes ! 
 Did he dream that hell would be 
 Years hereafter ? Now, you see, 
 Hell is here and where is she ? 
 
 At my word, through all his face 
 Flames the infernal fire within ; 
 Mary, Mary, grant me grace 
 Still to keep my soul from sin ! 
 Thanks to God, my rose is one 
 Not so sweet, but all my own, 
 Not so fair, but mine alone. 
 
 VITA NUOVA XXI 
 
 WHY seek new praises for my lady's grace, 
 When he who passed through hell to paradise, 
 And saw no sweeter shape before him rise 
 Than was his lady in her heavenly place, 
 Already sings the wonder of her face 
 Shedding a gentleness because her eyes 
 Are homes of Love himself, wherein he lies 
 And with his a salutation doth abase 
 The trembling heart that greets her. 
 
 Oh, to hear 
 Her speech conveys a sweet humility,
 
 VITA NUOVA XXI 15 
 
 And blest is who beholds her but awhile ; 
 How shall he tell, or how shall rightly bear 
 In mind such image, should he only see 
 The sudden miracle of her little smile ? 
 
 SITTING AT A PLAY 
 
 O LOVELY head, so small, so brown, 
 So neatly coiled about with hair, 
 I laugh to think as I look down 
 Upon that lower line of seats 
 And watch you lovely there 
 
 I laugh to think, as there you're set 
 So primly at another's side, 
 How queer a shock the house would get 
 If it could see what images 
 That little head can hide ! 
 
 Could they but take that pretty hair, 
 And lift the delicate bone away, 
 And strip the working cellules bare, 
 And in that dear beloved brain 
 Read what the cellules say, 
 
 That interlace and twist about 
 The tiniest fairies ever seen 
 And dance together in and out, 
 As quick and noiseless in the dance 
 As fairies on the green.
 
 1 6 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 Who watching them would ever guess 
 What picture in your mind they raise 
 That seem to dance in wantonness, 
 Pursuing as at hide-and-seek 
 Uncalculated ways ? 
 
 And yet together they compose 
 A summer scene, a moonlit night, 
 A garden, a sweet-scented rose, 
 A cottage glimmering in the moon, 
 A door not shut too tight, 
 
 And two that enter by the door, 
 And stand so close embraced they cast 
 One shadow on the moonlit floor ; 
 Ah, to be those embraced so close, 
 So lovingly, so fast ! 
 
 Joy above joy that in my brain 
 The cellules dance the selfsame way, 
 Compose the selfsame scene again, 
 Reveal the very figures there, 
 And form the words they say ! 
 
 How fortunate that hair and bone 
 Hide all those dancing cellules over, 
 And none may guess but two alone 
 The meaning of that fairy dance, 
 The scenes the two heads cover !
 
 SITTING AT A PLAY 17 
 
 O lovely head, we two sit there, 
 Conspirators as in foreign lands ; 
 What for the audience do we care ? 
 What for the play ? The curtain falls ; 
 Now we must clap our hands. 
 
 A BALLADE OF PLACE 
 
 THERE was a time I thought to travel far, 
 Beyond the village, through the garden gate, 
 Down the white road, across the harbour bar, 
 And out upon the ocean desolate ; 
 Oh, what a weariness it was to wait 
 Till I could push my little boat from shore 
 And steer, a new Columbus, round the Nore, 
 Or follow Drake all flaming to Cadiz ! 
 
 But now I dream of wandering seas no more, 
 There is no place but where my lady is. 
 
 Tell other men where other marvels are, 
 Where rites impenetrable consecrate 
 The glittering temple-domes of Candahar, 
 Or where the Pyramids, confronting fate, 
 Watch over Egypt's immemorial state ; 
 Tell them of jewelled vaults in Travancore, 
 And bid them all the haunted bays explore 
 Of Asia, slumbering on her memories ; 
 
 For me, who find what I have sought before, 
 There is no place but where my lady is.
 
 1 8 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 Let down the mainsail, loosen every spar, 
 Drop the deep anchor, disembark the freight ; 
 In all the sailor's heaven one only star 
 Lit me to port with promise passionate, 
 And all the log records one only date 
 When to her heart the ocean currents bore 
 Me toiling long at random with the oar, 
 If haply I might reach such isle as this, 
 
 Where my soul lands and heaps her magic 
 store ; 
 
 There is no place but where my lady is. 
 
 ENVOI. 
 
 Queen, to thy loveliness in love I pour 
 All love, like blood upon a temple's floor ; 
 In mercy to thy lover grant as his 
 Love's only station at thy bosom's door ; 
 There is no place but where my lady is. 
 
 THE DEMONIAC 
 
 HE knew a devil lurked within, 
 Like a shy rat it gnawed his heart, 
 Behind his breast's partition thin 
 It roamed at will from part to part ; 
 But how to coax the devil out 
 Defied the village art.
 
 THE DEMONIAC 19 
 
 They pounded spiders up with toads, 
 And mixed them in his special bread ; 
 They pricked him down the street with goads, 
 And rolled him in the nettle bed ; 
 But at the last they all agreed 
 He'd not be cured till dead. 
 
 He stared upon the unpitying sky, 
 And slunk about the lonely ways, 
 Striving to hide from every eye 
 The torment of his haunted face ; 
 He knew himself a creature loathed 
 By all the human race. 
 
 He knew the sentence on his soul, 
 From rack to rack condemned to go ; 
 Down an abyss he felt it roll 
 Of smoke and indistinguished woe ; 
 " What have I done," he asked the winds, 
 " To be confounded so ? " 
 
 Each morning, like a poisoned wine, 
 He drank the memory of his doom ; 
 All day in horror's shadowy mine 
 He dug the galleries of gloom, 
 And watched a shapeless thing in dread 
 Ever before him loom. 
 
 There came my lady Rosalie 
 Bright as a rainbow up the street ;
 
 20 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 The sun of passion's charity 
 Shone on her mouth and eyelids sweet ; 
 She was herself a bounteous sun 
 From her eyes down to her feet. 
 
 He caught the border of her dress, 
 And clinging to her knees did kneel, 
 He felt her fingers' tenderness 
 About his maddened forehead steal, 
 And the devil came sliding out of his mouth 
 As easily as an eel. 
 
 Methinks my lady Rosalie 
 Is of herself the dull earth's leaven ; 
 Methinks there keeps her company 
 A pure and healing air from heaven ; 
 One devil from the clown she cast, 
 And from her lover, seven. 
 
 A SHRINE 
 
 I TOO was born a pilgrim, and have sought 
 From land to land, by holy reverence led, 
 The relics of mankind's immortal dead 
 Resting in shrines elaborately wrought 
 By kings in adoration, and have brought 
 Unwonted gifts to many a saintly head 
 Which lay unnoticed in the common bed 
 Whose counterpane is grass ; but now as nought
 
 A SHRINE 21 
 
 I deem such pilgrimages. 
 
 Ancient stones 
 
 And mouldering sanctitudes ! what time for them 
 When morning, noon, and eve I kneel apart, 
 Turning to one within whose hallowed bones 
 Beats, warm with life, that miracle of a heart 
 Which is my Mecca and Jerusalem ? 
 
 TIME AND TIDE 
 
 WHEN life is rent, and the remorseless road 
 Shuts you from eyes that but for you are 
 
 blind, 
 
 And back I turn to that unchanged abode, 
 And close the door behind, 
 
 And feel the forsaken rooms, and wander through 
 The silent passages haunted by your feet, 
 And lie upon the bed that breathes of you 
 From pillow and from sheet, 
 
 A chilling flood creeps upward to my heart ; 
 I am the girl fast-bound by Solway side, 
 And all the gloomy crowd is ranged apart. 
 And watches for the tide, 
 
 Which shivers up her ankles to her knee, 
 And at the breast comes edging in between ; 
 And now those English hills are faint to see 
 And now the sun is green
 
 22 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 SOUTHWARD BOUND 
 
 NOW the wild-eyed Northern Star 
 Dances on the horizon's bar, 
 Dances, rises, vanishes, 
 And we break the southern seas. 
 
 Nameless constellations stand 
 White above a nameless land ; 
 London London lies to-night 
 Set with constellations white. 
 
 Murmuring to the swinging tides, 
 To and fro her river slides ; 
 Down the streams of square and street 
 Murmuring go the human feet. 
 
 Drunk with life the city reels, 
 Joy is borne on burning wheels, 
 Lovers come and lovers part, 
 Lovers waken heart on heart. 
 
 Like a flame of lonely fire 
 Stands the star of my desire : 
 Longing as I long, she stands ; 
 Empty are her amorous hands. 
 
 Both her hands uncomforted 
 She would lay around my head ; 
 She would give her being whole, 
 She would give me all her soul.
 
 SOUTHWARD BOUND 23 
 
 While the planets go their way, 
 She would hold me close till day, 
 Close to her heart she would hold me 
 And I sail a southern sea, 
 
 And the wild-eyed Northern Star 
 Dances on the horizon's bar ; 
 Lanterns at the masthead high 
 Swing across an unhallowed sky. 
 
 AT SEA 
 
 O MOUTH that clung, O little hands ! 
 They took him from my heart, 
 They stitched him up in sacking bands 
 The mouth that clung, the little hands ! 
 
 And laid him down apart ; 
 A flag was spread to hide the thing 
 
 The little thing that lived in me 
 And words were said and a bell did ring, 
 
 They pushed it off into the sea 
 
 The little thing that lived in me. 
 
 Oh, white and green and greener still, 
 
 He sank into the cold ! 
 Down the ship's side he sank, until 
 Oh, white and green and greener still ! 
 
 He vanished from my hold ;
 
 24 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 The night comes on, and mothers bear 
 The babies to their beds again, 
 
 Last night last night a babe was there 
 Who knows not hunger now nor pain, 
 And never goes to bed again. 
 
 Cold, cold, and dark, and all alone, 
 
 He neither sleeps nor cries 
 The life that was my own life's own 
 The ship moves on, and all alone 
 
 Far, far behind he lies. 
 Last night he lay against my side 
 
 The mouth that clung, the little hands !- 
 Down through the dark I see him slide, 
 
 Or tossed on cold, unpitying sands 
 
 O mouth that clung, O little hands ! 
 
 ON GUARD 
 
 LIKE a brown savage who beside the door 
 Stands with drawn sword through all the length 
 
 of night, 
 
 That death may find no entrance to the floor 
 Where, sick to death, lies all his world's delight, 
 
 Till, when the daybreak ends his silent care, 
 He enters softly with a tranquil brow, 
 And as he enters finds that death is there 
 Such were I, did you cease to love me now.
 
 THE COMMON ROUND 25 
 THE COMMON ROUND 
 
 ^IS sad enough to shut the unmoving eyes, 
 
 Fold up in sheets the darling limbs, and say 
 Farewell again, when once again she dies 
 And, where the breast is, thuds the inhuman clay 
 
 'Tis sad enough ; but what is it to move 
 Round an unchanging circle far away, 
 To work, to feed, and in the shroud of love 
 Drag out the common uses of the day ? 
 
 A MEETING 
 
 JUST where a white road leaves the northern lake 
 To slide unseen among the mountains old, 
 Even there Love met me, and with lips as cold 
 And sad as frozen harebells thus he spake : 
 " It is I, you know it well ; and will you take 
 No heed of one who in this desert wold 
 Long since came to you first, and shyly told 
 All my dear secret ? will you then forsake 
 Me in the selfsame valley ? " 
 
 And there swept 
 
 Grief like a flood upon me, and I cried : 
 4 Yes, Love, I know you well and hold you dear ; 
 You are the same, the streams and hills are here ; 
 But where is she who brought me to your side ? " 
 And suddenly he fell on my neck and wept.
 
 26 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 THE HALLOWED STEPS 
 
 noble Saint is nobly shrined," 
 The saintly bishop said, 
 " With gold and marble richly lined 
 And jewels is his bed. 
 
 " A diamond blazes on his breast, 
 
 A ruby on his hand ; 
 So let him lie and take his rest, 
 
 And save the northern land. 
 
 " And evermore the sacred sound 
 
 Of bells and melodies 
 In service due shall echo round 
 
 The chapel where he lies. 
 
 " One thing remains : this ledge of stones 
 
 Around the sculptured frieze 
 Is worn in hollows by the bones 
 
 Of twice ten thousand knees. 
 
 " Pilgrims of course must pray, but I 
 
 Will make a set of five 
 Smooth marble steps before I die 
 
 To keep my name alive." 
 
 The next year came, and down was hurled 
 
 The shrine to rot and rust ; 
 The Saint was blown about the world 
 
 Like other common dust.
 
 THE HALLOWED STEPS 27 
 
 And now upon a vacant space 
 
 Where the north wind bleakly moans, 
 
 No sign remains to mark the place 
 But just a ledge of stones, 
 
 Of hallowed stones ; the learned say, 
 
 " Here was a shrine, for these 
 Deep troughs and holes were worn away 
 
 By twice ten thousand knees. 
 
 " That was a craze of by-gone years." 
 
 But still to me the place 
 As fervid of the past appears 
 
 As some old, wrinkled face, 
 
 Whereon deep lines alone reveal 
 
 What passions there have raged, 
 What woes that weary time could heal, 
 
 What fire, by time assuaged. 
 
 And, but for these, all's dumb at last 
 
 Grief's sanctuary is rust, 
 And love is blown about the past 
 
 Like other common dust. 
 
 AFTER EPIPHANY 
 
 SHOULD I remember my departed state 
 When on the heaven love's guiding star arose 
 Love's star now vanished dreary I seem as those 
 Wise men of old who turned from Bethlehem's gate
 
 28 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 Back toward their obscure East to spell how fate 
 
 By trivial constellations threatened woes 
 
 On crumbling Babylon, or where Ganges flows 
 
 To make the dusky bathers supplicate 
 
 Quaint gods in old Benares. 
 
 Surely they 
 
 Sadly remembered oft the solemn stir 
 Of unimagined hopes that night they found 
 A star-lit manger where an infant lay 
 Beside his mother, and upon the ground 
 They poured their gold and frankincense and myrrh 
 
 AN EMPTY BOX 
 
 OURELY the woman of the sinful street 
 ^-} Who pushed her way past many a spotless guest 
 And washed with tears, and kissed the sacred feet, 
 And wiped them with her hair, and from her breast 
 
 Drew out an alabaster box, and poured 
 The precious ointment forth, making increase 
 The indignant voices, till she heard her Lord 
 Saying, " Thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace " 
 
 Surely at times, long after he was dead, 
 She took the box out from some hidden place, 
 And wept, recalling in a fragrance shed 
 About it still, the very voice and face.
 
 AN EMPTY BOX 29 
 
 So do I cherish up my heart, as it were 
 An alabaster box in secret shrine, 
 Retaining still a fragrance faint and rare 
 Of love long since poured out at feet of thine; 
 
 DEATH IN LIFE 
 
 HERE, by the lifeless wall, 
 Two souls immortal met ; 
 The sun marched over all, 
 
 We cared not when he set ; 
 Love in two souls aflame 
 
 Joined flame and flame as one ; 
 The wall is much the same, 
 And there's the marching sun. 
 
 Quick movements of her dress, 
 
 With breathings out and in ; 
 Eyes closed for lovingness, 
 
 The touch of skin on skin 
 Oh, the first touch, the first 
 
 Touch of dear passion's will ! 
 And of all griefs the worst 
 
 Is that we're living still. 
 
 Long before living ends, 
 
 Alone or on the street 
 We are like meeting friends, 
 
 And happy not to meet ; 
 
 3
 
 3 o LINES OF LIFE 
 
 But that so dear a thing 
 Should rot before we die 
 
 O Death, here is thy sting ! 
 Here, Grave, thy victory ! 
 
 SPACE 
 
 AS one who climbs again some mountain side 
 After long years of sea or prairie plain, 
 And gazes round upon the horizon wide, 
 
 Till nature reels beneath the joyous pain 
 
 Of all that gulf of 'wildering space descried, 
 
 So reels my heart at sight of you again. 
 
 AUTUMN 
 
 IS it a lark I hear ? 
 Over the firmament thin clouds are wild, 
 And autumn's afternoon on roadsides dread 
 
 Scatters the clammy leaves ; 
 Poor lark, who sang when summer was a child, 
 The fields are empty of their summer sheaves, 
 Why tell of spring to the declining year ? 
 
 Primrose and crocus blue, 
 The winter's advent finds you shining there ; 
 Old earth has lost her latest garden hue, 
 
 And all her bridal's done ; 
 You are the stars that virgin springtide bare, 
 But now the swallows gather to be gone, 
 
 Why gleam upon a heaven unmeet for you ?
 
 AUTUMN 31 
 
 What stirs so tenderly, 
 Breaking the twilit dulness of a heart 
 Where autumn whispers of a life gone by, 
 
 Dead leaves and dying song ? 
 It stirs ! It moves ! It quickens every part ! 
 I knew it once once when the world was young ! 
 
 Can it be that ? Once more ? Before I die ? 
 
 PYTHAGORAS AT ARGOS 
 
 A RRIVED from far, he trod the remembered ways 
 JL\. Of that grave town where he was wont to be 
 With heroes old of far-resounding days, 
 
 Gathered for wandering wars of land or sea. 
 
 There, crumbling o'er a sculptured tomb he found 
 The rusted armour he himself did wear, 
 
 Battling long since at Troy, and underground 
 Lay his own body, long since crumbling there. 
 
 Even so, in wandering through the haunted nave 
 Of time's old church, I saw against a stone 
 
 A panoply of love, hung o'er a grave 
 Where lay a rigid body once my own. 
 
 Why waste a thought on long-forgotten men, 
 Or spell the record of those fading lines ? 
 
 Sweet life is sweeter to me now than then, 
 And round my heart a nobler armour shines.
 
 3 2 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 MISERICORDE 
 
 HE came in tempest to a convent old, 
 High up the mountains on the Italian way, 
 Seeking a shelter from the sullen cold, 
 
 Where he might wait the dear return of day ; 
 Gold was his armour, and his hair was gold. 
 
 And as he slumbered in a chamber dim, 
 Came Misery, and she crept into the bed, 
 
 And laid one hand upon the heart of him, 
 And wound one wasted arm about his head ; 
 
 With tears her eyes were heavy to the brim. 
 
 " My hair," she said, " is wet with snow and rain, 
 My garment lets the biting weather in, 
 
 My girdle is a loop of rusty chain, 
 
 The frost and storm have crinkled all my skin, 
 
 And when I smile, half of the smile is pain. 
 
 " I stand removed from other women's grace, 
 My feet are cut with brambles and with stones, 
 
 My body shrinks into a little space, 
 
 And through my very breasts I feel the bones ; 
 
 Sorrow has graved her trade-mark on my face. 
 
 " But let me sleep beside this heart of thine ; 
 
 I eat the crusts that dogs have sorted through, 
 I drink the dregs of vinegar for wine ; 
 
 But let me sleep as other women do ; 
 No other woman has a heart like mine."
 
 MISERICORDE 33 
 
 " Then sleep," he said, " if sleep be thy desire ; 
 
 But for thy loving heart, speak not of it ; 
 I love Delight, whom love can never tire, 
 
 And Jollity, who savours love with wit, 
 And amorous Passion with the lips of fire. 
 
 " And I love Plenty's well-contented form, 
 And the shy limbs of fugitive Daintiness ; 
 
 I love the fragrant hair, the ringers warm, 
 What pleasure is there in pale-eyed distress, 
 
 Sad at the mouth and frozen with the storm ? 
 
 " But sleep, if sleep be thy desire," he said, 
 " So that thou speak of love no more again." 
 
 Thereat she rose from out the narrow bed, 
 
 And round her loins she hooked the girdle chain, 
 
 And passed into the night, nor turned her head. 
 
 When yellow sunshine touched the convent old, 
 Forthwith he fared upon his onward way, 
 
 And climbed the pass across the mountain cold, 
 Till all the sunny plain beneath him lay ; 
 
 Gold was his armour, and his hair was gold. 
 
 And there within a golden city's gate 
 
 He passed with gladness, and a palace found 
 
 High-towered and bastioned as the crown of ttate, 
 Encircling in its walls a garden round, 
 
 With many a grove to pleasure dedicate ;
 
 34 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 Where Plenty day by day her court did keep, 
 And Jollity and Delight made laughing love, 
 
 And Daintiness allowed her feet to peep 
 
 Under her broidered gown as she did move, 
 
 And Passion let him kiss her eyes to sleep 
 
 But ever came some vision of the night 
 When one besought him with petition sad, 
 
 And lay beside his face a face so white ; 
 And dreaming on the heart none other had 
 
 He found no solace in a world's delight. 
 
 AT THIRTY-FIVE 
 
 NOW in the centre of life's arch I stand, 
 And view its curve descending from to-day ; 
 How brief the road from birth's mysterious strand ! 
 
 How brief its passage till it close in grey ! 
 Yet by this bridge went all the immortal band, 
 And the world's saviour did not reach half-way. 
 
 "OH, FOR MORE WORLDS TO 
 CONQUER " 
 
 POOR Alexander ! was this earth 
 Too small in your opinion ? 
 To me was given at my birth 
 An infinite dominion.
 
 "OH, FOR MORE WORLDS" 35 
 
 I've unknown seas, and deserts wide 
 With scarcely a trace of fountain ; 
 
 And fearsome monsters peep and hide 
 Along the lengths of mountain. 
 
 And every day begins anew 
 
 A strife of cruel ravages, 
 For every day my Grecian few 
 
 Brave Oriental savages. 
 
 So has it been since I was born ; 
 
 So lasts till death or longer ; 
 More blest than monarchs, every morn 
 
 I've the same world to conquer. 
 
 AN OLD PORTRAIT 
 
 OTRANGE comfort ! yet as sweet as it is strange, 
 w_J To scan my present and my youthful brow, 
 And find, though much is changed, so small a change 
 In sin, which then was quite as black as now. 
 
 GOOD-BYE 
 
 NOT from my dearest foe I'd take farewell, 
 But ever hope to meet beneath the sky ; 
 In each adieu there sounds a passing bell, 
 And every parting is indeed to die.
 
 36 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 CREMATION 
 
 HELL scarce abolished, lo ! upsprings afresh 
 That ancient, just, insatiable desire ; 
 To purge the soul and purify the flesh 
 Man has an inward craving for the fire. 
 
 A FRENCH SUN-DIAL 
 
 WHERE the sun flashes from eternal snows, 
 And mountains have endured through years 
 
 untold, 
 A sun-dial urges, as the traveller goes, 
 
 Brief warning : " While you look, you are growing 
 old." 
 
 DIVINE FRENZY 
 
 IT was thought before, and now professors teach, 
 Genius with madness holds alliance sad : 
 " Look ! " shriek our poets, " at our life and speech, 
 Our lust, our vanity, and admit we are mad ! " 
 
 SOULS 
 
 WHEN I consider this queer soul of mine, 
 And kindred souls of all my fellows here, 
 I am like one to whom a child divine 
 Was promised by an angel-message clear,
 
 SOULS 37 
 
 But lo ! the babe bears every devil's sign ; 
 
 God ! how she yearns with sorrow, love, and fear ! 
 
 SHEEP-SHEARING 
 
 ^HE shepherd sits like death who takes his toll ; 
 
 J. The struggling sheep secure before him lies, 
 And feels the encumbering fleeces off her roll, 
 
 And naked stands at gaze with dubious eyes ; 
 Then rushes forth, like a bewildered soul 
 
 Escaping, cool and white, to Paradise. 
 
 THOMAS A KEMPIS 
 
 IT is a sound of far-off peace, 
 As from a world of quiet things 
 Where the vexed soul may find release 
 On gold and silver wings ; 
 
 So far recede the hurrying noise 
 And fretful interests of the day, 
 Discordant strife and raucous joys 
 That wear the soul away ; 
 
 And up and down the ethereal space, 
 Majestically clothed in white, 
 Pure thoughts from far are seen to pace, 
 Conversing in the light. 
 
 432052
 
 3 8 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 So when at times the hills and sea 
 Are silent in the Sabbath air, 
 And the Welsh fisher dreamily 
 Lets down the baited snare, 
 
 And watches how the bubble wells 
 Up from the depth of Penmaen bay, 
 He seems to hear a sound of bells 
 From very far away. 
 
 They are no echoings that float 
 From his own village on the sands ; 
 Ten fathom deep beneath his boat 
 That ghostly belfry stands ; 
 
 And well he knows, if he looked down, 
 He still might see revealed again 
 Dim churches of a ghostly town, 
 
 And walls, and homes, and men. 
 
 He listens till the noon is passed ; 
 Then dreamily draws in the lines, 
 And, as the south wind slopes the mast, 
 Steers where his cottage shines. 
 
 But all the week on Penmaen bay 
 For him the music does not cease, 
 And in his heart he bears all day 
 That sound of far-off peace.
 
 ST. JOHN OF AMIENS 39 
 
 ST. JOHN OF AMIENS 
 
 IN the fair church of Amiens 
 There lies the relic of St. John ; 
 Some say it is the skull of him 
 Beheaded, as the Gospels tell, 
 By Herod for a woman's whim, 
 What time her daughter danced so well. 
 (St. John the Baptist, ever blest, 
 Bring me to his eternal rest.) 
 
 But some adore it as the head 
 Of John Divine, the same who said, 
 " My little children, love each other," 
 And lay upon Lord Jesu's heart, 
 And took in trust the Blessed Mother, 
 Till she in glory did depart. 
 
 (St. John Divine, the son of love, 
 Preserve me to his peace above.) 
 
 For John the Baptist's head, they say, 
 Was broken up in Julian's day ; 
 One bit is in Samaria's town, 
 And two beneath Byzantium's dome, 
 And Genoa has half the crown, 
 The nose and forehead rest in Rome. 
 (St. John the Baptist's scattered dust 
 Bring me to kingdoms of the just.)
 
 40 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 And there are others say again 
 St. John Divine escaped the pain 
 Of death's last conflict, for he lies 
 Still sleeping in his bishopric 
 Of Ephesus, until his eyes 
 Shall ope to judgment with the quick. 
 (St. John Divine, who sleeps so fast, 
 Wake me to paradise at last.) 
 
 For me, a poor unwitting man, 
 I pray and worship all I can ; 
 Sure that the blessed souls in heaven 
 Will not be jealous of each other, 
 And the mistake will be forgiven 
 If for one saint I love his brother. 
 (St. John Divine and Baptist too 
 Stand at each side whate'er I do. 
 
 And so that dubious mystery 
 Which of the twain those relics be, 
 I leave to God ; He knows, I wis ; 
 How should a thing like me decide ? 
 And whosesoever skull it is, 
 St. John, I trow, is satisfied. 
 
 (May God, who reads all hearts aright, 
 Admit my blindness to his sight.)
 
 PRAYER 
 PRAYER 
 
 WHAT profit in a prayer for grace 
 From such a heart as mine 
 A prayer for you, who in your place 
 Are like a star divine : 
 
 Are like a star that ever moves 
 Mid choiring spheres of light, 
 
 And I the obscure bird that loves 
 The star-illumined night ? 
 
 Yet once I watched, where in the hade 
 
 Of a dim church she stole, 
 A drunken prostitute who prayed, 
 
 And prayed for Newman's soul. 
 
 THE PICTURESQUE 
 
 THE Abbey Hall is fair to see, 
 With lawns the smoothest ever trod, 
 And many a quaint exotic tree 
 Encompassing the house of God. 
 
 A few old arches, open still 
 
 At certain hours throughout the week, 
 Where antiquaries gaze their fill, 
 
 And amorous pairs play hide-and-seek.
 
 42 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 At luncheon in the aisle they sit, 
 The painter sets his painting desk ; 
 
 No place in all the shire so fit 
 For picnics and the picturesque. 
 
 O home of God, of God bereft 
 O modern virtue's counterpart 
 
 Sleek ruins of a conscience left 
 
 To grace the pleasaunce of a heart. 
 
 A HOLIDAY 
 
 UP from a radiant valley went the way 
 Running between the vines and walnut trees, 
 And crossed low Alps where peasants raked the hay, 
 And cow-bells tinkled on the laughing breeze, 
 
 And joyful children shouted as they sped 
 Grass-laden sledges down, till all the air 
 Resounded joy, and mountains overhead 
 Seemed in our human mirthfulness to share. 
 
 But suddenly I climbed whence I could see 
 
 An ocean haze revealing tremulously 
 
 Where lies the path to England. Then for me 
 
 It seemed as when, submerged in common life, 
 Some man goes cheerily on from year to year, 
 Peace in his breast unsanctified by strife, 
 And placid ease unchastened by a fear ;
 
 A HOLIDAY 43 
 
 Till as he passes down a village street, 
 
 A Sabbath bell tolls with persistence dim, 
 
 He hears the shuffle of church-going feet, 
 
 And from the door drones out the dismal hymn ; 
 
 Where then is peace ? The dull repeated strain 
 Wakes the old serpent of a nobler pain, 
 And stirs a trouble at the heart again. 
 
 ABROAD 
 
 IT'S beautiful, no doubt : the blue 
 Hangs arched in one unchanging hue 
 Above the whitewashed little town 
 Through which the glacier stream pours down 
 One turbid gush of white and green 
 In savage eagerness, between 
 Those black, undeviating lines 
 Of precipice and fringing pines 
 Mute as a funeral ; and the land 
 Flings out, like some too careless hand, 
 Fat gourds, and solemn shafts of maize, 
 And vines about the garden ways, 
 Where sit, along the shady side, 
 Tall, dusky women, onyx-eyed, 
 Each like her neighbour, with a look 
 Unvaried, just as though they took 
 Their nature from the constant stare
 
 44 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 Of brazen mid-day and the glare 
 Of the snow-peaks above them. 
 
 Where 
 
 May be the vision delicate 
 Which with remembrance passionate 
 Hangs like a phantom in between, 
 And blurs with mist that sunlit scene ? 
 It is a mountain none so high 
 But the sheep love it, and the sky 
 Comes down to it in tender cloud 
 Almost too fugitive to shroud 
 The changeful pools and boulders grey 
 Scattered beside the untrammeled way 
 Which, like the smile upon a face, 
 Moves in and out the mountain's base 
 From wooded lowlands come, to guide 
 Dwellers upon the forest side 
 From village heart to heart, across 
 That windy moor of soaking moss 
 And heather, where the curlews cry, 
 And plovers at the passer-by 
 Hum with strained wings, or when the fox 
 Steals like a ghost between the rocks 
 Along the shadowy watershed, 
 Whence flow the diverse murmurings, fed 
 By tendril streams of peaty brown ; 
 As when the wilding hair drops down 
 About those changeful pools, the eyes 
 Which take the moods of northern skies, 
 Sweet with the promise of surprise.
 
 IN CENTRAL AFRICA 45 
 
 IN CENTRAL AFRICA 
 
 DARK in its channel which the grasses hide, 
 With living speed through marsh and desert 
 
 flowing, 
 
 Thirty feet deep its waters curl and slide, 
 Almost without a whisper going. 
 
 Quiet things come and lap it with soft tongue, 
 Footstep by footstep through the silence creeping, 
 
 And starry leopards shine its reeds among, 
 When all but they and stars are sleeping. 
 
 It has no name among the streams of earth, 
 No proud explorer has its bearings given ; 
 
 Only the sun and moon watched at its birth, 
 And it has sucked the breasts of heaven. 
 
 In peace assured, these perilous lands between, 
 It will its waters to some deep deliver ; 
 
 And had I been what I too might have been, 
 Then had my peace been like a river. 
 
 A GERMAN WINTER 
 
 ON leagues of solid land the snow lies deep, 
 The snow falls crumbling from the leaden sky ; 
 All but the fir is white ; with timorous eye 
 Strange little birds in at the window peep, 
 
 4
 
 46 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 From frozen forests come ; black rivers creep, 
 Shrunk with the cold till half their bed is dry, 
 Along the ice-hung ozier reeds, and by 
 The wooden villages with gables steep, 
 Huddled around their spires. 
 
 Oh, far away 
 
 A purple mountain rises from the sand, 
 The golden sand beneath the golden day ; 
 Down the bright steep the waterfall plunges free 
 From ledge to radiant ledge, and on the strand 
 Sounds the long murmur of the eternal sea ! 
 
 PILGRIM'S SONG 
 
 IN days when old Crusaders 
 Rode to the Holy War, 
 For every pilgrim sinner 
 
 They counted one saint more ; 
 They counted one saint more, 
 
 For they wrapped his body round 
 In the shirt that went to Zion 
 When they laid him under ground. 
 
 I too have been a pilgrim 
 
 Beneath a holy sky, 
 And that's how I'll be buried 
 
 Whene'er I come to die ;
 
 PILGRIM'S SONG 47 
 
 Whene'er I come to die 
 
 And pilgrimages cease, 
 Oh, bury my pilgrim body 
 
 In the shirt that went to Greece ! 
 
 I stood beside the columns 
 
 Of Athene's ruined shrine ; 
 And looked from far at Sparta, 
 
 And drank the resined wine ; 
 And drank the resined wine, 
 
 And heard the Goat-god speak, 
 Where the asphodel was growing 
 
 And the mother-tongue was Greek. 
 
 Dear land, my more than mother, 
 
 Receive me to my home ! 
 Count me among thy children, 
 
 Though late in time I come ; 
 Though late in time I come, 
 
 Give me thy children's peace 
 When like a saint I'm buried 
 
 In the shirt that went to Greece. 
 
 BLAGOVESCHENSK : 1900 
 
 H, do not slay us, Christians dear ! 
 
 What evil have we done ? 
 Poor Chinamen ! In mercy hear ! " 
 They drove them on.
 
 48 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 " Listen in pity ! Let us be 
 
 Friends as we were before ! 
 You ate our rice, you drank our tea ! " 
 
 They reached the shore. 
 
 " Oh, swift the river runs ! Oh, deep ! 
 
 See where the whirlpools spin ! 
 The bank how slippery, and how steep ! " 
 
 They drove them in. 
 
 " For all our lives we'll be your slaves 
 
 To toil in field and town. 
 Ourselves, our all to the man who saves ! " 
 
 They flung them down. 
 
 " A boat ! a thousand boats ! a boat ! 
 
 Six thousand souls are we ! 
 Look where the drowning women float ! " 
 
 They stood to see. 
 
 "We'll worship Christ, and Jesus too, 
 
 And upon Mary call ! 
 We'll all be Christians just like you ! " 
 
 They drowned them all. 
 
 HOME, SWEET HOME 
 
 SWIFTLY in Africa the twilight came 
 To rocks and wildernesses lone, 
 Grey mists from lakes without a name 
 Crept over hills unknown.
 
 HOME, SWEET HOME 49 
 
 The march was done, the camp was set, 
 The fire was blazing from the ground, 
 
 The slaver and the merchant met 
 Among the goods around. 
 
 They bargained with adjustment nice, 
 
 Holding commercial balance true ; 
 A man or woman ? what the price 
 
 Gave each the profit due ? 
 
 They shared their bread and wine and meat, 
 They smoked their Portuguese cigars, 
 
 And opposite, with feet to feet, 
 They sang to the gay guitars. 
 
 They sang of a city far away, 
 
 A river port, a castled wall, 
 A crowded square at the cool of day 
 
 Ah, that was in Portugal ! 
 
 They sang of the dance in a summer night, 
 And marble courts, and acacia trees ; 
 
 They yearned in singing with sad delight 
 For a city beyond the seas. 
 
 They ended, and through the forest wide 
 The music passed in lessening waves ; 
 
 Rousing himself, the slaver cried, 
 " Here ! shackle up the slaves !
 
 50 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 " Turn out the dogs, watch all the hills, 
 Have whips and rifles ready ! Come, 
 
 Ten dollars to the man who kills 
 A slave that runs for home ! " 
 
 A BALLADE OF TIME 
 
 " Where is the Life that late I led r " 
 
 Henry IV, Part II, Act V, Scene 3. 
 
 THEY come not now that came before 
 Evening of spring, and blossom white, 
 The footstep hushed, the whispering door, 
 
 The thin form glimmering into sight, 
 The moon half-seen in clouded night, 
 
 One star, and wind, and passing rain, 
 The smell of lilacs in the lane ; 
 
 Where is the foot, the lovely head, 
 My moon that never was to wane ? 
 
 Where is the life that late I led ? 
 
 Tossed by the sea from shore to shore, 
 
 Wheeled to the battle's left and right ; 
 In wreck of storm, in wreck of war, 
 
 In tides that clashed, and clashing fight, 
 When the deep guns out-boomed the might 
 
 Of the deep-booming hurricane, 
 And like the shriek of ropes astrain, 
 
 The wind wailed with the death that sped 
 Sheer through the battery's galloping train 
 
 Where is the life that late I led ?
 
 A BALLADE OF TIME 51 
 
 They come not now, they come no more, 
 
 The thoughts that sprang with daily light, 
 As gems upon an enchanted floor, 
 
 Matching the sun in promise bright ; 
 Even sorrow, too, has taken flight 
 
 Sorrow and consecrating pain 
 And rage comes never here again, 
 
 Pleasure and grief alike are dead ; 
 What fear can move ? What hopes remain ? 
 
 Where is the life that late I led ? 
 
 ENVOI. 
 
 So should a man recall in vain 
 
 The dreams of a scarce-wakened brain, 
 
 Forgotten e'er the sleep is fled, 
 
 And buried down in Time's inane, 
 
 Where is the life that late I led. 
 
 THE SIREN 
 
 ACROSS the fog, across the rain, 
 On glimmering London pavements falling, 
 I hear the voice, again, again 
 A voice that is calling, calling. 
 
 It calls me where the rivers run 
 
 Through forest gloom unbroken ever ; 
 
 And the steamer's mast to the mid-day sun 
 Is shadowless on the river.
 
 52 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 " You know," it cries, " how mornings rise 
 In smoke from untrodden islands streaming, 
 
 And long waves roll from a southern pole, 
 And southern stars are gleaming. 
 
 " Remember where the desert lay- 
 Purple desert beside the sea 
 
 And barren mountains round a bay, 
 And a storm-crowned promontory ; 
 
 " And how the midnight draws her breath 
 As the sleeping sun returns on high, 
 
 And pallid water sleeps beneath 
 A pallid dome of sky. 
 
 "Ah ! leave the crowd that howls below 
 Crowding houses on either hand. 
 
 The streets are wide by which I go 
 To a wide and silent land ; 
 
 " By a silent road I'll bear you home." 
 
 From London dock the siren's calling, 
 " Come to the seas, to the desert come ! " 
 And I lie enchained in a London room 
 And the rain is falling, falling. 
 
 AFFATIM EDI, BIBI, LUSI 
 
 I DO not greatly care what may befall 
 My soul when it shall fade in air ; 
 Whether it live, or live no more at all, 
 I do not care.
 
 AFFATIM EDI, BIBI, LUSI 53 
 
 Poor, pallid, gentle, wandering, bloodless thing, 
 
 That shivers naked out of sight ! 
 A moth, a lonely seabird on the wing 
 Has more delight. 
 
 But for my body, what shall come of it 
 
 Dear host and comrade of the soul 
 I do deplore the destiny unfit, 
 That graveyard hole. 
 
 Oh, the broad chest that broke the swollen wave, 
 
 The feet that were so swift to run, 
 The eyes that threw a light so glad and brave 
 Back to the sun, 
 
 And limbs that learnt of love his utmost worth, 
 
 And burning heart that loved so true ! 
 Sweet earth, have pity on a little earth 
 That pitied you ! 
 
 THE HAUNTED SPRING: 1915 
 
 A TROUBLE shakes the rays of dying light, 
 The troubled earth, tremulous between her poles, 
 Like a lost angel through the forsaken height 
 Of heaven calling, down her sad orbit rolls, 
 And human hearts, unresting day or night, 
 Vibrate to passing souls ;
 
 54 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 To dying souls, to souls that pass in pain, 
 Or with one crash are scattered on the air 
 
 To souls that, lightening over hill and plain, 
 Strike at our spirit's portal unaware, 
 
 And, crying for response, again, again, 
 Hold dim communion there. 
 
 Vainly we seek the life that once we led, 
 Pursue the toil, walk the familiar street ; 
 
 A ghostly movement stirs around our head, 
 And in our blood those failing pulses beat ; 
 
 Hid in the covert of the accustomed bed, 
 We hear the noiseless feet. 
 
 Could but a mountain wilderness provide 
 Some silent cavern of tranquillity ! 
 
 Could but an undiscovered ocean's tide 
 Murmur of peace to such as thither flee ! 
 
 No silence comforts now the mountain side, 
 No peace the untravelled sea. 
 
 No peace, no silence, no delight of spring, 
 
 No joy supportable, even if it came ! 
 Flesh of our flesh, their souls go wandering 
 
 Young souls, who took death's hazard as a game, 
 Our common men, like us in everything, 
 
 In sin, in hope, the same.
 
 THE HAUNTED SPRING: 1915 55 
 
 Winds of the sky upon their faces blew, 
 
 They heard the voice of spring across the guns, 
 
 They touched the emerging stream, but never knew 
 How in full strength dear life's great river runs : 
 
 Would God, would God that we had died for you, 
 Our sons, our lovely sons ! 
 
 AN ANCIENT BATTLEFIELD 
 
 ONCE more the cricket wakes to sing, 
 And bats come fluttering out, 
 The owl upon a noiseless wing 
 Like a shadow swoops about, 
 And the late shepherd guides his flock 
 With slowly dying shout. 
 
 The withered branch is black and still 
 
 Against the sunset light ; 
 Only the road from hill to hill 
 
 Runs as a line of white ; 
 Far off a solitary bell 
 
 Hallows the coming night. 
 
 The night which brings the evening star, 
 
 And puts the world to bed, 
 Indifferently as when the war 
 
 Ceased at her ghostly tread, 
 And dying soldiers watched the moon 
 
 Shining upon the dead.
 
 56 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 Who piled together now are laid 
 Where earth and crumbling stone 
 
 Fill up the piteous mouths that made 
 To the sweet night their moan ; 
 
 And uniforms hang loose around 
 Their shrunken lengths of bone. 
 
 Oh, rest at last like soldiers brave 
 
 In the forgotten past ! 
 A soldier marches o'er your grave 
 
 Under the stars so fast ; 
 A soldier marches through the night, 
 
 And he shall rest at last. 
 
 THE FOOL IN GOD 
 
 I LIKE the world when God goes mad, 
 And splashes paint about the sky 
 
 In some wild sunset foolery ; 
 Or has a sudden silly fad 
 In spring, and takes a grassy bank 
 
 And scatters primroses, and plays 
 
 Once more at making Milky Ways 
 With grass for sky ; or for a prank 
 Builds a great castle out of cloud, 
 
 And smashes it before it's done 
 I'm glad he's not too old and' proud 
 
 For toys and games and foolish fun ; 
 I like him best for his immense 
 And total lack of common-sense. 
 (" The Nation," Sept. i, 1917.) W. N. EWER.
 
 THE FOOL IN MAN 57 
 
 THE FOOL IN MAN 
 
 (With apologies tt the foregoing.) 
 
 I HATE the world when man goes mad, 
 And splashes blood on earth and sky 
 
 In some crazed battle's devilry ; 
 Or has a sudden silly fad 
 In spring, and takes a grassy bank, 
 
 And scatters corpses there, and plays 
 
 Once more in foul, barbaric ways 
 With lives for sport ; or for a prank 
 Builds gorgeous cities by the crowd, 
 
 And smashes them before they're done 
 I hate to think he's not too proud 
 
 For murderous toys of sword and gun : 
 I hate him most for his immense 
 And total lack of common-sense. 
 
 ("The Natitn," Sept. 8, 1917.) 
 
 WOUNDED 
 
 MY shirt is warm with blood warm, brown, 
 and red ; 
 
 Here at the pocket hangs a pinkish gout 
 Shaking like jelly ; from my battered head 
 The sticky stream drips to my very eyes, 
 And with each drop my life is running out ; 
 My life, my only life is shed 
 With every drop, and gradually dies ! 
 But one touch more, one little touch no doubt 
 I'd be already dead.
 
 58 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 I should lie dead upon the ground, and be 
 Stinking and withering to the sun and rain, 
 All common functions of my body still 
 As engines silted in the depth of sea ; 
 No sleep, no waking, neither ease nor pain, 
 Hunger nor food, nor thirst nor splendid wine ; 
 But quick corruption shrinking me up, until 
 This moving heart should in the dust combine 
 With thighs and feet and finger-bones to fill 
 Scarcely a bulge in the uniform again. 
 
 What if I never see a summer sun 
 
 Rise slowly glimmering on the empurpled night, 
 
 And glory through the heaven's wide marching-ground, 
 
 Till all the golden hours are done, 
 And o'er the empurpled hills one star stands white 
 In a green sky, and then all other stars 
 Leap singly from their homes, above a sea 
 Which heaves in white and purple lines around 
 Great ships with furling sails and the entanglement of 
 spars ! 
 
 Shall I not sail a ship again, nor feel 
 
 The rudder leaping in my hand 
 Like a big fish, nor hear deep waters slide 
 Hissing in foam against the slanted keel, 
 Nor watch the jagged horizon show a land 
 
 Grey with the rain and cloud, 
 Nor when the moaning winds are loud,
 
 WOUNDED 
 
 Up through the storm exultant ride, 
 
 Bearing great orders, climb the mountain side, 
 
 Cross the dim watershed of plunging snow, 
 
 And see an army's braziers sparkling far below ? 
 
 Bleeding I lie, but all myself is whole ; 
 These interwoven threads of heart and brain, 
 All vital apparatus of the soul, 
 Electric nerves and thought-secreting stuff, 
 Visible chords charged with invisible life 
 All would fulfil their purpose, and again 
 Pursue the wonted ways of peace or strife ; 
 They would proceed ; they rest complete enough 
 To labour daily, converse with a friend, 
 Hate the dull enemy, suffer all the pain 
 Of old creation travailing for an unknown end, 
 Face crowding fools, and stand untouched by awe 
 For all the threatening powers of mortal law, 
 Big with established vengeance ; so to stand 
 At perilous crossways for dear honour's sake, 
 Unwilling and unfrighted ; so to take 
 Life and possessions, each in either hand, 
 And both hands open. 
 
 All those instruments, 
 Framed for activities, will wait a day 
 Two or three days expectant ; like the men 
 Marshalled for service in well-ordered tents, 
 Who wait to hear their leader's voice again, 
 But he comes not, being killed upon the way. 
 
 59
 
 60 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 Oh, powers unknown, untested, unfulfilled ! 
 
 I could have led the assault o'er open ground, 
 
 Held the platoon unflinching ; could have drilled 
 
 Battalions up to sharp perfection's edge 
 
 For a soldier's triumph ; wandering could have found 
 
 Strange lands untraversed, crawled on the icy ledge 
 
 Of undiscovered mountains, hewn the ways 
 
 Through swamps of steaming, twilit forest, deep 
 
 In black ooze to my middle ; could have known 
 
 Causes of things, the measured laws which keep 
 
 All stars in station, why solemn music sways 
 
 Hearts like a lake of osiers, why alone 
 
 Mankind of all his kindred beasts desip 
 
 To pierce beyond the world's encircling fires, 
 
 Far out to unimagined regions sweep, 
 
 And on the beatific vision gaze 
 
 Where dwells a Presence on a great white throne. 
 
 My shirt is warm with blood warm, brown, and red 
 My life, my only life is shed 
 With every drop, and gradually dies. 
 
 Oh not to die, not die before I see 
 Once more that lovely, fearless head, 
 And feel the rebellious heart confronting me, 
 And know the miracle of the sudden smile, 
 And live the immortal life of moments, while 
 I learn the revelation of the ethereal eyes !
 
 EPIMENIDES THE CRETAN 61 
 EPIMENIDES THE CRETAN 
 
 THERE was a city once as sick as ours ; 
 Restless she lay upon her sea- washed throne, 
 Surmising evils ; for the gods were gone, 
 Their white homes shut ; no victim gay with flowers 
 Gladdened her altars, but on all the towers 
 Vague terror sat, and women made their moan 
 From street to street, foreboding ; save alone 
 Where he who knew the mind of heavenly powers 
 Implored Apollo. 
 
 But what Cretan old 
 Shall teach the lustral rite, and purify 
 Our city's slough, where pleasure coils with hate 
 And hunger watches ? Who shall be so bold 
 As raise the healing prayer before she die ? 
 And to what god shall she be dedicate ? 
 
 THE RETURN OF ALCESTIS 
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONS: 
 
 KING ADMETUS (to whom Apollo had granted the unusual 
 privilege of escaping death if he could find some one to 
 die for him. Whereupon he went round to all his 
 friends and relations, requesting this personal favour 
 from each in turn, but found no one willing to consider 
 the proposal except his wife, from whom he gratefully 
 accepted the required exchange.) 
 
 PHERES, father of Admetus. 
 
 ALCESTIS, wife of Admetus (rescued by Heracles from death, 
 and brought back disguised as a woman he had won in a 
 boxing-match together with a herd of oxen). 
 
 5
 
 62 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 HERACLES (who, having saved Alccstis in passing, is now 
 continuing his journey to capture the man-eating 
 horses of the Thracian monster, Diomede). 
 
 CHORUS (elderly gentlemen, representing the public opinion of 
 Phera:). 
 
 SCENE, the terrace berore the palace at Pherse in Thessaly. 
 Admetus sits at one end of a breakfast table, with 
 Heracles and Pheres on either hand. Alcestis with her 
 two children sits at the other end. The Chorus stands 
 on the palace steps, contemplating the family circle 
 with benevolent satisfaction. 
 
 TIME, early morning on the fourth day after the rescue of 
 Alcestis, whom divine decree had forbidden to speak for 
 three days since her death and resurrection. 
 
 A DMETUS. O men of Pherae, in good hour 
 -1\. you come, 
 
 And with good cheer I welcome to my home 
 Such friends and subjects now a home indeed ! 
 For to perfect a home what greater need 
 Than the loved presence of a loving wife ? 
 And what more loving than to give one's life 
 For him one loves to adoration ? Pray 
 You join with us to celebrate this day 
 With wine and feasting, since 'tis far from common 
 For mortal man to own the Perfect Woman. 
 
 (He raises his glass as for a toast, looking fondly 
 across the table at Alcestis.} 
 
 CHORUS (raising their right arms in acclamation) 
 The Perfect Woman, paragon of her sex ! 
 The Perfect Wife, whom wifely virtue decks ! 
 In this her deed let all our womankind 
 Behold the model for the female mind !
 
 THE RETURN OF ALCESTIS 63 
 
 PHERES. My son, a single word I first must say 
 To smooth our difference of that other day : 
 'Tis true, I would not die for you, although 
 Short is the course my life has yet to flow ; 
 But in old age life craves the greater care, 
 Just as we treasure gold the more 'tis rare ; 
 For aged eyes 'tis sweet to see the light 
 Faint glimmering still before 'tis whelmed in night : 
 Whom the gods love die young ; so let them die, 
 Leaving to elders risk of gods' enmity. 
 Fate bade you die, and there is no denying 
 'Twas best for you yourself to do your dying ; 
 I never heard that civil law demands 
 Old men be slain, save in barbaric lands. 
 Yet was Alcestis' act a great relief 
 To me and to your mother. So, in brief, 
 Let bygones be. Long may Admetus reign ! 
 Long live his queen, to die for him again ! 
 
 CHORUS. No more of dying ! Her example lives, 
 A duteous lesson for all future wives. 
 Timorous is woman, yet at need she can 
 Assume the fearless attributes of man. 
 But now to fearless man and god in one 
 We turn our praises great Alcmena's son, 
 Who from the clutch of Death himself could save, 
 And snatched the exception from the common grave ! 
 
 HERACLES. Oh well ! I'm grateful for a jolly time, 
 Plenty to eat and drink. My word ! It's prime
 
 64 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 To sleep at peace in bedclothes, then to wake 
 
 With joints and roots just tempting you to take 
 
 Your bellyful at leisure ! Sweet to drain 
 
 Long cups and know they'll fill themselves again ! 
 
 For this I thank Admetus, courteous host, 
 
 Who put me up, nor told about the ghost 
 
 Still lingering close upon the threshold here, 
 
 Turning a mother's eyes to the children dear. 
 
 Lucky I caught old Death upon the road, 
 
 And gave him one, the melancholy toad, 
 
 That spun him round ! Then, Oh, the sport to see 
 
 Admetus jump as the lady's veil fell free ! 
 
 But now a labour knocks upon my heart, 
 
 And before pleasure ends, I had best depart. 
 
 Farewell, domestic joys ! I seek my way 
 
 To bridle horses, champing men for hay. 
 
 CHORUS. What is more soothing than to sit at ease 
 And hear resounding deeds on distant seas 
 Or distant lands, and picture, were we there, 
 Ourselves engaged upon adventures rare ? 
 
 ADMETUS. Beneficent guest, one further moment 
 
 stay, 
 
 Await the consummation of a day 
 Bright through your presence. Now that three nights 
 
 are passed, 
 Alcestis from her silence speaks at last.
 
 THE RETURN OF ALCESTIS 65 
 
 CHORUS. O silent lady, it is hard to teach 
 A woman silence, but from you 'tis speech 
 That's now demanded, nor can you speak too long 
 In demonstrating wifely virtue strong. 
 
 ALCESTIS. Admetus, Heracles, and you, my friends, 
 New life begins each day, and daily ends, 
 For mortal things are mortal, even love. 
 But now to-day, all common days above, 
 I feel new life beginning. It were strange 
 If otherwise, for great must be the change 
 From death to living when a woman dies 
 And next returns with bullocks as a prize 
 So thought my husband won in a boxing bout. 
 And there is much that dying searches out, 
 Since death exposes many depths of heart, 
 And fear of death plays well the explorer's part. 
 For me and that my so-called sacrifice, 
 Waste not excessive praise upon the price 
 I gave in thus exchanging life for life, 
 Nor hail me model of devoted wife. 
 To leave this house, was that so great a thing 
 When he whom once I loved would always cling 
 About my knees, imploring me to die 
 And spare his dying ? Was it so much that I 
 Should sicken of the world when even he 
 Who is mingled in my children, knelt to me 
 And poured his whining supplications out ? 
 Oh, when at last I yielded, then, no doubt, 
 He called the gods to witness how he'd give
 
 66 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 His life and welcome, so that I should live ! 
 He feared no Hell ! He feared no Pluto's hound ! 
 Kissing my feet, he squirmed upon the ground, 
 With tears entreating I should not desert 
 Him and his household, for he hated dirt 
 And dust upon the floors and furniture ! 
 Aye, and he took an oath in compact sure 
 Oath hard indeed for mortal man to keep ! 
 He'd love no second in my bed, but sleep 
 Beside my statue, wrought by a sculptor's skill 
 Cold comfort ! But the grave is colder still. 
 
 CHORUS. Cease from reproaches, lady, lest you break 
 The peace of happy circles ! For our sake, 
 Cast not on one the common fault of man ! 
 A mortal being does what mortals can. 
 Noblest of womankind in you we praise ; 
 Forsake not, then, the grace of woman's ways. 
 
 ALCESTIS. 'Tis true 'tis common, nor has a woman 
 
 right 
 
 To hope for husband raised above the height 
 Of commonplaces. Hardly was I dead, 
 He set about the mourning, shaved each head, 
 Had manes of horses clipt the accustomed show 
 Of outward grief, that citizens might know 
 How he lamented for his victim's dear 
 Vicarious sacrifice, hoping thus to clear 
 His own repute, lest in the gossiping town
 
 THE RETURN OF ALCESTIS 67 
 
 Some whisper ran, contrasting up and down 
 This woman's courage with their King's escape. 
 
 CHORUS. Your fancy, queen, assumes a monstrous 
 
 shape ! 
 
 No citizen could dream so vile a thing 
 As hint an error in our gracious King. 
 
 ALCESTIS. Had it been mine alas, I see it now ! 
 Had it been mine to fulfil the appointed vow 
 Unasked, to cling about his neck, and cry, 
 " Dear love, I love you so, what is it to die 
 For my beloved ? What grief can touch my mind 
 But that to die means leaving you behind ? " 
 Had it been mine, unasked, to tread the way, 
 Love's fire at heart, Oh, I had gone as gay, 
 My hand in Death's, as when I first was wed, 
 And dreamed that Courage took me to his bed ! 
 Too late I learn how better it had been 
 Better for him as well had I never seen 
 That chilling duteous path, but ere I died, 
 Had caught him by the throat, had boldly cried, 
 " Die for yourself, my friend, since some one must, 
 And, dying, learn a decency in dust ! " 
 
 CHORUS. Some cloud seems gathering in a peaceful 
 
 sky, 
 
 Heavy with disappointment. There's no high 
 Example of domestic virtue left ; 
 Of royal guidance womanhood's bereft.
 
 68 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 ALCESTIS. My strong deliverer, much-enduring 
 
 heart, 
 
 Much-labouring Heracles, resume thy part ; 
 Once more deliver. Frequent is the death 
 Thy soul has ventured, drawing perilous breath 
 On the sharp edge of fear, nor sought exchange 
 Of doom with others. Let it not, then, be strange 
 If I, a widowed woman, offer here 
 Myself to thee, myself and the children dear, 
 To do thee service in whatever land 
 Thy labour visits dwell beneath thy hand, 
 Doing and suffering with my natural mate 
 Amid the toil and storm of restless fate. 
 
 CHORUS. By shameless lips let shameful words be 
 
 spoken, 
 
 Not by our worshipped queen ! Alas, how broken 
 Now lies the established bond, the charming tie, 
 Of man and wife united till they die ! 
 
 PHERES. My son, you'll have to seek another wife 
 To die next time, methinks, or yield your life. 
 
 HERACLES. Dear woman, not ungrateful would I 
 
 seem, 
 
 For gift so precious. Far above price I deem 
 The love of women, and I speak who know. 
 But in the savage realms whereto I go, 
 How would you follow, with these twain beside ? 
 How 'scape carnivorous horses when they tried
 
 THE RETURN OF ALCESTIS 69 
 
 To gobble up your darlings ? Lonely live 
 
 The enduring hearts, and lonely must they strive. 
 
 ALCESTIS. There is a temple looks upon the sea 
 Where Pelion's cliff is battered ; thither we 
 Will climb the heights, there set a pleasing shrine, 
 With solid food and shelter, plenteous wine, 
 And balm for pilgrims seeking Heracles, 
 In spirit or in person, as he please 
 To hearten up those hesitating souls 
 Who would and would not. There by the pilgrim 
 
 doles 
 
 Myself shall live as priestess, serving thee, 
 With these unfathered orphans servants three. 
 So then, farewell, Admetus ! From the vow 
 'Gainst second marriage God absolves you now, 
 And may some happier, if a duller, bride, 
 Witless of truth, inhabit at your side. 
 Farewell, dear servants, farewell, all my friends ! 
 'Tis now the interment of Alcestis ends. 
 
 (She and her children go out, followed by Herac/es, 
 who wards off the indignant citizens.) 
 
 ADMETUS (standing with his father at the deserted 
 breakfast table). My friends, 'tis grievous in a 
 single week, 
 
 To mourn one's helpmate twice ; nor may I seek 
 Second redemption for a second loss. 
 My sun is darkened, gold reduced to dross. 
 Unwived, unchilded, thus alone I stand,
 
 7 o LINES OF LIFE 
 
 A mark for pointing mockery in my land : 
 " Behold the King who won a duteous wife 
 To die in his place, so much he cherished life ; 
 But all his eloquence was vain to move 
 That steadfast soul to yield the Craven love." 
 Henceforth in every household through the State, 
 Let verses twain stand carved above the gate : 
 '* A woman's heart confronted Death to save ; 
 A woman's scorn stings sharper than the grave." 
 
 CHORUS. Many the forms of holy revelation ; 
 Unlooked-for are the ways devised by God ; 
 Who knows how fate will find its consummation, 
 Or by what labyrinth life will seek a road ? 
 The dawn is bright, the tempest comes at even, 
 And with the night, stars reappear in heaven ; 
 
 So is man's pathway trod. 
 
 FORWARD 
 
 WHAT choice for souls defeated ? Shall they 
 turn 
 
 Back to the past along familiar roads, 
 Retracing outward footsteps, so to learn 
 Fate's clenching limits drawn around them tight, 
 And sit hope-haunted in repatched abodes ? 
 Like those Helvetians who, one autumn night, 
 Reached the lone valley of their ancient home, 
 And from their wagons took the diminished loads 
 With wives and little ones, and laid them down
 
 FORWARD 71 
 
 Poor savings from the sovereign might of Rome 
 
 Amid the windy ruins charred and brown 
 
 Of those same thresholds they had left erewhile 
 
 Exulting to behold the exultant flame 
 
 Themselves had kindled, light for many a mile 
 
 Their way to westward, as it took its fill 
 
 On homestead, croft, and barn ; which now, the same 
 
 But fragments now, received them wailing deep 
 
 For sons and fathers lost by Jura's hill, 
 
 Or at Bibracte slain, or such as sleep 
 
 Where sluggish Arar moves his tide so still 
 
 That scarcely eye perceives it. 
 
 Rather we 
 
 Smitten and shattered, all our ensigns gone, 
 Not one poor hope remaining, swear to keep 
 An ever-onward course, though one by one 
 Death strike us, or as slaves we bend the knee 
 At alien footstools. Haply some may reach 
 The furthest limits of the unconquered realm, 
 Our once imagined empire, and may see 
 New peaks arise, as out they turn the helm 
 Beyond the salt wave roaring on the beach. 
 
 DEDICATA 
 
 FIRE in the splendid soul indignant burning, 
 Her eyes ablaze with purifying flame, 
 Steadfast she trod a road that has no turning 
 And leads to no reward of love or fame,
 
 72 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 But sorrow only, and the conspicuous height 
 Of isolating peril and naked shame, 
 Where cruelty stands and gazes ; not a light 
 To mark her footsteps in the uncertain storm, 
 But the storm's anger quivering through the night, 
 And that deep rage consuming her own heart 
 With fire that dims the lightning. 
 
 Exquisite form, 
 
 Incarnate semblance of an exquisite soul 
 Therein prefigured for its counterpart ! 
 O body dedicate, splendour-breathing life, 
 Onward you moved to what invisible goal, 
 Alone, unsheltered, climbing without chart 
 Through haunted darkness, where dim shapes at strife 
 Forebode obscurely ? God-devoted mind, 
 Self-banished exile, purposely desolate, 
 To sacrifice self-condemned, so you might find 
 Some dubious path, some narrowly opening gate, 
 Whence gleamed a fitful hope for human kind, 
 Onward you moved, doomed to the nobler fate, 
 While we to common uses of the day are left behind. 
 
 There is a village and a plain, 
 
 Deep in jute and shimmering rice, 
 Where the golden sun and golden rain 
 
 Nurture a peopled paradise ; 
 Dust of buffaloes trailing home 
 
 Tells that sleepy evening's come ; 
 Over the roofs the cloudy spires 
 
 Spring from bowls upon the fires ;
 
 DEDICATA 73 
 
 And beneath the sacred tree, 
 
 Guarding men and beasts and lands, 
 Hung with flowers for sanctity, 
 
 Smeared with scarlet the idol stands, 
 Who carries life and death in multifarious hands. 
 
 Moth-like figures gather round 
 
 One who makes his darkening way 
 Upward to the enchanted ground 
 
 Past the rainbow gates of day ; 
 Wrapt in the saffron robe, he goes 
 
 To heights of Himalayan snows, 
 There, alone with stars and sky, 
 
 To stare on God's immensity ; 
 But they return to the cattle-fold, 
 
 Boil the pots and lay the bed, 
 Hang the garland of marigold 
 
 Round the vermilion idol's head, 
 Who gives the living life, and sleep to all the dead. 
 
 Like them we turn from her and go 
 Our comfortable ways. Ah, worse than so ! 
 
 Rather we seem like one 
 Who in old times lay crouching far apart, 
 And watched the slowly-mounting sun 
 
 And waited with sick heart, 
 Till from the prison gates he heard 
 The expected shout break on the morning glare 
 And crash from shouting street to street, 
 
 Striking one hideous word,
 
 74 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 That drowned the clang of soldiers' feet, 
 And howled above the great cathedral square 
 In triumph of execration. 
 
 Then there fell 
 
 On silence the slow service for the dying, 
 And the death-tolling bell. 
 
 How small and white she stands ! 
 
 So white a thing among the staring eyes, 
 
 And small ! 
 
 But now they are tying 
 
 Cords on her feet, cords on her sacred hands. 
 They strain a biting rope around her thighs ; 
 Below the tender rising of her breast 
 A belt of iron is clamped, and at her throat 
 A twisted steel ; and for a parting jest 
 Across her mouth they knot two lengths of hair. 
 
 Oh, see ! What vapours float ? 
 What filmy creature crawls into the air ? 
 Smoke, threads of smoke ! And now a worm of fire ! 
 Great globes of smoke ! Crackling of firewood ! Flame 
 Flame of devouring serpents leaping higher ! 
 And then a cry a cry ! In mercy's name ! 
 The vesture's gone. Let fire and smoke in haste 
 Conceal. God strike all gazers blind ! 
 A whiteness darkens ; forward falls her head ; 
 God's temple crumbles ; beauty all effaced ; 
 Flakes of her body swim upon the wind, 
 And on the wind her passionate soul is sped.
 
 DEDICATA 75 
 
 So as the last flame, pale in the sunshine, burned, 
 He who had loved her from the market turned, 
 And saw the shops reopening, pavements cleared, 
 And merry tables set for dinner-time, 
 While from the great cathedral's choir he heard 
 Old priests concluding mass on stroke of the noonday 
 chime. 
 
 A PRAYER IN SPRING 
 
 IF prayer fulfil itself as a fateful dream, 
 What should I pray this turbulent eve of March, 
 While the last hurricane whirls along the hills, 
 
 With snowy streamers grey, 
 And clouds in echelon traverse the radiant arch 
 Whence an invisible sun shoots forth a beam 
 Singly through some translucent edge, and fills 
 With sudden glory amid the extended plain 
 A village and its fields, or on her way 
 Lights the wild river to one silver gleam 
 At the foot of cloud-swept mountains, and again 
 Withdraws his light invisible ? Oh, but hark ! 
 There's the unchanging lark 
 
 Greeting the centuries of spring, 
 And from a leafless ash the thrushes sing ! 
 So Nature labours at her ancient play, 
 Groping with song and radiance through the ethereal 
 
 dark ; 
 And while old Earth awaits her Easter Day, 
 
 What should I pray ?
 
 y6 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 Not long, not long is left ; I have laboured long, 
 And much enjoyed, much suffered, wandering far 
 In unknown wilds and cities of old fame, 
 Through a darkness groping pierced with lights and song ; 
 And secret strife have shared, and open 'war 
 Where the lost battle shook intolerable wrong ; 
 Love open, too, I have shared, and love that came 
 With secret fragrance of a midnight rose, 
 And silent arms ; and after Wisdom's flame 
 As a wild hunter sought 
 
 In life and record, following where she goes 
 
 Down the pale glens of thought ; 
 Much have I striven, like the old Greek who chose 
 Service to war and the Muses each a strife ; 
 But in the dusk and storm that battle wrought 
 Peace came undreamt of, as a miraculous flower 
 
 Sprung from a harsh and thorny stick, 
 And rapturous for an hour 
 
 Two things repent me now in that vanished life : 
 
 First, that, when joy or conflict sped 
 In streaming hurricane past, I was not quick 
 Not always quick to clutch one by the throat, 
 Or strain by her tangled beams that other's head 
 Laughing against me ; but as I sprang, they had fled 
 Far down irrevocable time, with a crying note 
 Of mockery on the whirlwind ; still the more 
 I do repent in conflict to have shown 
 A coward's complaisance to the established foe, 
 Entrenched in custom and with dulness blown ;
 
 A PRAYER IN SPRING 77 
 
 Them I have greeted, entered the same door, 
 
 Joined in their boasted, smug amenities 
 
 Of life political, gone where opponents go 
 
 For foul communion o'er their bread and wine, 
 
 Concealing hate where none is to conceal, 
 
 And for sham fights devising strategies ; 
 
 Yes, and have listened, yielded them the floor, 
 
 Assumed a suavity such as flunkeys feel, 
 
 Polite and three-parts coward, when 'twas mine 
 
 To have smote them grovelling by one passionate blow, 
 
 Amazed at wrath's revelation. 
 
 Wherefore now, 
 
 On these old downs awakening to the spring, 
 That will not often wake me, penitent 
 For those my sins, I consecrate a vow 
 Ever to watch alert for the angel wing 
 Of chance escaping covert, all intent 
 With straining limbs to leap on her flight and cling 
 Unshamed, without reserve, against her heart 
 Whether for love or battle. And here I pray, 
 If prayer fulfil itself as a fateful dream, 
 For obdurate steel to encompass every part 
 Of coward in my soul, that so I may 
 Admit no courtesy luring me to abate 
 Enmity's due for sweetness, never deem 
 Tolerance else than treason's utmost crime, 
 Swim not with specious foes in the yielding stream, 
 But stand unmoved by compromise as fate, 
 Turn from the forward course no more than time, 
 Speak at sword's point with the enemy at the gate, 
 And with a perfect hatred hate. 
 6
 
 78 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 SOLDIER M.P. 
 
 TO me one moment in this filthy war 
 Glows with unparalleled delight : 
 We had been planted out, three weeks or more, 
 To hold some inconspicuous height 
 A nameless, vital height ; 
 
 Heavy with muck of mingled blood and clay, 
 Down long communication trenches, 
 
 We stumbled back to where the rest-camp lay, 
 And sank secure upon the benches 
 The quiet, cleanly benches. 
 
 We flung aside the kit with all its dirt, 
 The tunic stiff with freezing weather, 
 
 Peeled off the louse-infested drawers and shirt, 
 And plunged into the bath together 
 A dozen men together. 
 
 Oh, the grand joy to feel hot water swirling 
 Round grimy thighs and shoulders bare ! 
 
 To watch the clotted dust in eddies whirling 
 From hairy chest and close-cut hair 
 The mousy, close-cut hair ! 
 
 Then to arise and stand in nakedness, 
 Drawing life up with newborn breath, 
 
 And in new-issued uniform to dress, 
 Clean as a soul renewed by death- 
 By body-purging death !
 
 SOLDIER M.P. 79 
 
 And now, returned to London, invalided, 
 
 I'm back again in politics, 
 Holding a height where reinforcement's needed 
 
 To frustrate certain knavish tricks 
 Those unconfounded tricks. 
 
 So here we cling to freedom's ancient right, 
 Hard-won of old for England's kind ; 
 
 But nowhere is a rest-camp now in sight, 
 Nor bath to purge the encumbered mind 
 The talk-encrusted mind. 
 
 Oh but to see constituents washed away, 
 To win from mouldy meetings peace, 
 
 Feel resolutions crumble like the clay, 
 And clotted controversy cease 
 Dissolve to dust, and cease ! 
 
 To pick the crawling catchwords from the brain, 
 
 To shed intriguing tactics whole, 
 To hear committees gurgling down the drain, 
 
 And rise a heaven-enfranchised soul 
 A clean, transfigured soul ! 
 
 A CABINET MINISTER 
 
 SOME years ago he started on his course, 
 Equipt and emulous for the nobler fame ; 
 Aspiring principle, intellectual force, 
 
 And conscience pledged the promise of his name ;
 
 8o LINES OF LIFE 
 
 Proud was the allegiance that his speeches gave 
 To freedom in historic contests won ; 
 
 But now his soul lies mouldering in the grave, 
 And his body goes marching on. 
 
 His democratic Party feared his zeal, 
 
 Too grand in aim, in method too benign ; 
 His bosom cherished every mortal's weal, 
 
 Proclaiming peace and charity divine ; 
 Out of the abyss he called on God to save 
 
 Wrecks of the world from wrongs the world had 
 
 done ; 
 But now his soul lies mouldering in the grave, 
 
 And his body goes marching on. 
 
 Behold him soon, live mummy of his past, 
 
 Adept for honours, deaf to honour's call, 
 To Ministerial seats descending fast, 
 
 While conscious Ministers applaud his fall ; 
 Alas for resolutions doomed to pave 
 
 The infernal surface that he treads upon ! 
 For now his soul lies mouldering in the grave 
 
 And his body goes marching on. 
 
 Colleague of cruelty, mouthing mercy still, 
 
 Coercion's helpmate, to coerce afraid, 
 He murdered freedom half against his will, 
 
 And kissed the holiness he had just betrayed ;
 
 A CABINET MINISTER 81 
 
 Endearing enemy, half-reluctant knave, 
 
 A cross-bred hypocrite, Peckniff's bastard son ; 
 
 For now his soul lies mouldering in the grave, 
 And his body goes marching on. 
 
 Last stage of all : he shares the tyrant's fate, 
 
 Sees honour from afar, and knows it lost, 
 Knocks at the golden door, and knocks too late, 
 
 Expelled from glory where he sought it most ; 
 Peace, mercy, justice, resolutions brave, 
 
 Love for mankind and freedom all are gone, 
 For now his soul lies mouldering in the grave, 
 
 And his body goes marching on. 
 
 A VIGIL 
 
 THE summer day is closing like a flower 
 That has drunk long of sunshine and will sleep 
 Till dawn renews her splendour. It is the hour 
 When half the implacably revolving star 
 Sleeps to recover life. And here I keep 
 A vigil faithful to one soul afar, 
 For whom night brings no life-renewing peace, 
 But while I breathe in vigil, every breath 
 Hastens the moment when his breath shall cease 
 In unimaginable death. 
 
 Across the street some one, reprieved to pleasure 
 From labour's prison-house, with windows wide
 
 82 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 Diffuses music solemn music, such 
 
 As gods might move to when they move in measure 
 
 Through heaven's eternal fields. Hark, at the touch 
 
 How themes with themes embracing intertwine 
 
 And sweep aloft to soar and march and ride 
 
 On wings beyond the storm-clouds, and dispart 
 
 To summon new companions and combine 
 
 In figures fixed by some eternal art 
 
 Before creation ! It is the selfsame song 
 
 The morning stars sang when they sang together 
 
 And shouts of joy harmonious rose among 
 
 The eternal sons of God ; 
 But to the exultant strains that last for ever 
 Unchanged, unfailing, still the moments run, 
 Like ghosts of soldiers filing down a road 
 
 To vanish one by one, 
 
 Returning never. 
 
 Now in his cell they kindle up a light, 
 
 The privilege due to one so soon to die, 
 
 That he may sanctify his final night, 
 
 Having a lamp to read the Bible by, 
 
 God's word eternal, passing not away. 
 
 Oh, what has he to learn from God's own book ? 
 
 Wide as the sunlit heaven his spirit lay 
 
 A sunlit sky through which tumultuous wind 
 
 Sweeps the black thunder-cloud and leaves behind 
 
 A wide and sunlit sky. For still he took 
 
 Into his heart the sorrows of mankind 
 
 And heard the silent crying of a wrong
 
 A VIGIL 83 
 
 Crying in lonely darkness for the day 
 
 His coming heralded. Was any wrath, 
 
 Was any angry, and he burned not with flame 
 
 Devouring as the sudden lightning's path, 
 
 And as the wind which drives the tempest strong ? 
 
 But from the storm emerging still the same, 
 
 Glows the big sun, rejoicing in the race 
 
 Among his equal stars, 
 And on the mountains bends a joyful face 
 To light the dewdrops of the misty glen 
 With radiance. Radiant was that spirit born 
 Which now they cage behind the prison bars 
 As showmen cage some lion in a den 
 Far from the forest. 
 
 And to-morrow morn 
 Along this very street newsboys will cry, 
 " Last moments and death scenes ! " for common scorn 
 To snatch and read and pass. O Thou Most High, 
 Where is that holiness eternal now 
 When the last night's quick fingers have begun 
 To close around that spirit ? Thou dost Thou 
 Dost Thou continue holy, O Thou Holy One ? 
 
 There is a land too dear for a lover's words 
 
 Lying beyond the sunset like a dream 
 
 In magic slumber, and around her shore 
 
 Of cloudy promontories the wandering birds 
 
 As spirits of her lovers calling seem 
 
 To hang about her still, and evermore 
 
 The big waves surge and gulp and surge again
 
 84 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 Below the sea-cliffs ; changeful mountains run 
 Encompassing the wilderness of her heart 
 With purple jewelry and with silver rain, 
 Whence fan-like rays pour from the hidden sun 
 To light the rainbow's unexpected gleam 
 On flying clouds far distant. 
 
 Counterpart 
 
 Of that enchanted country people find 
 In all her children, but in him was found 
 Unchanging passion for her, constant faith, 
 Unswerving love for all her holy ground, 
 And steadfastness of the undeviating mind 
 That leads him now to death. 
 
 Darkness and deeper darkness, short-lived night, 
 Revealing stars and stars and further stars 
 Beyond capacity of thought or sight, 
 Innumerable, multitudinous, 
 Crowded in swarms, and separate by the bars 
 Of million uncrossed miles, each star a sun 
 Bursting with huge volcanoes thunderous, 
 And girt by spinning fragments, like the dust 
 Flung from a chariot's wheel, and one by one 
 Moving in isolation with its planets, just 
 As our own sun, a child among the stars, 
 Moves with the dust-speck of our troublous earth, 
 Sliding through infinite darkness, none knows where, 
 Nor knows if all the suns of the visible sky 
 Light but one little hall in starry space
 
 A VIGIL 85 
 
 Of universe after universe. 
 
 Oh, what worth 
 
 Is man or life one little life ? What care 
 In all that firmament whether he live or die ? 
 What hope, what love avails before the face 
 Of burning worlds in station ? Or what prayer ? 
 
 Quick blood is moving in the brave heart still ; 
 It throbs in pulses to the hands and feet, 
 Ceaselessly leaping in live jets that fill 
 With life the muslin network of the flesh, 
 The sacred web where soul and substance meet, 
 Mysterious, passing knowledge, with a mesh 
 Of wonder interwoven till it works 
 In perfect function ; limbs obey the call 
 Of lightning riders racing to and fro, 
 Silent, invisible, carrying the commands 
 Of a dominant thing unknown, that somewhere lurks 
 Silent, invisible, hidden apart from all, 
 But interfused and intermingled so 
 That while they live secure, secure it stands, 
 And if they suffer, suffering too it lies, 
 And if they die, it dies. 
 
 How many beats has now that heart to make r 
 They might be counted so many to go 
 To every minute of the shortening hours. 
 Few the commands those riders now will take
 
 86 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 Till their last order bids the feet to tread 
 Slowly behind in that procession slow 
 A priest leads thither where the infernal powers 
 Will stop the blood from running, stop the heart, 
 Quench lighted eyes, shut the ears' listening, 
 Silence the voice, break short the woven thread, 
 Chill the warm limbs, strike rigid every part, 
 Slay all that miracle of a living thing, 
 
 Till that itself is dead 
 
 Which dwelt in secret, but in flesh revealed, 
 A furnace blazing with an unseen flame, 
 Lighting the world, and in itself concealed, 
 Known among men, itself without a name, 
 Sleepless by day, sleepless in dreams by night, 
 So endless seeming, and yet thus to end, 
 That secret thing, that fire, that life, that light, 
 My friend ! 
 
 The chamber walls around me stealthily 
 
 Glimmer like ghosts in grey ; 
 Bookshelves and tables slowly re-appear, 
 Like ghosts emerging, and the northern sky 
 Turns pale in darkness ; streets and houses near 
 Show brown already ; for the dawn is here, 
 
 And it is now to-day. 
 
 They set about it now. Like ghosts they creep 
 From court to court inside the prison gate 
 To boil the coffee, make the breakfast ready,
 
 A VIGIL 87 
 
 Knock up the drowsy hangman from his sleep ; 
 He sees the rope is right, the scaffold steady, 
 Drives in a nail and rectifies a plank, 
 Grumbling he's up too soon and has to wait. 
 But in the cell lies one who needs no waking ; 
 He watches too the walls grow white and blank ; 
 The final light, the light of death is breaking ; 
 Never again shall he behold the day 
 Steal through the sightless window, nor again 
 Hear the familiar jangle of the keys 
 As warders tramp those metal passages 
 Which he shall tread fast bound as with a chain 
 Pinioned they call it, like a wild bird trapped 
 And wild wings mutilated. 
 
 Far away 
 
 This very dawn steals down a mountain side 
 Below the summit sleeping still enwrapped 
 In unmoved clouds of quietude and night, 
 And brings a cool grey back to lichened rocks, 
 And brown to the sodden turf, and to each 
 
 flower 
 
 Yellow for scented broom, and a ruddy glow 
 For heather, where the bees are now awake ; 
 Now on the shore the slow-descending light 
 Touches the whitening ripples as they break 
 In bubbles against the sand with the flowing tide, 
 And rouses wild birds up in whitening flocks 
 Of crying terns and Solan geese that go 
 Through the clear air of this same morning hour 
 Swooping and plunging.
 
 88 LINES OF LIFE 
 
 In the whitewashed cell 
 Does any vision of that distant home, 
 Abiding constant there, unchanging, rise 
 As, living still, with death close to his eyes, 
 He hears the lawful instruments of hell 
 Approaching, for the end has come ? 
 
 And now remains the unconquerable will, 
 The soul untamed, defiant to the death, 
 The life's example, calling to us still 
 To stand untamed, unconquered, and defy 
 Legalized murderers, spewing poisonous breath, 
 Successful ghouls of purchased infamy, 
 Life's prostitutes, suckers of noble blood, 
 And freedom's hypocrites whose zeal is spent 
 In praising distant freedom ; cultured minds 
 Of careful ease that pass and wag the head ; 
 The impenetrable shoals of dull content 
 Entombed in custom as blind eels in mud ; 
 Habituated sluggards, torpid kinds 
 Of worm in their own torpor comforted ; 
 And all the Might, Dominion, Majesty, 
 Thrones, Principalities, and Kingly Powers, 
 Rejoicing now he is dead. 
 
 That still remains, and this beside is ours : 
 To covet no reward of worldly state ; 
 To live indifferent to the public hate ; 
 Nor drink the alluring opiate of a home ; 
 Yield to no love, consort with never a friend
 
 A VIGIL 89 
 
 Save only such as will espouse for fate 
 The losing battle and the inglorious end, 
 Or with insatiable desire will roam 
 Ever confronting wave beyond the wave 
 Recurrent o'er the wastes of trackless foam ; 
 Like those hard mariners who, rejecting ease 
 With wives and goatherds in the sheltered peace 
 Of long-sought Ithaca, conspired to save 
 From brute extinction that eternal spark 
 Which burned for action's knowledge, and beheld 
 Strange stars above a world where no man dwelled, 
 And beat the encircling ocean till they found 
 One great brown mountain, where the lonely bark, 
 Struck by an evil wind, turned three times round, 
 And at the fourth plunged to her lonely grave, 
 Untraced, unfathomable, dark, 
 
 Upon the abysmal ground 
 
 Printed in Great Britain by 
 UNWW BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRBSHAM PRESS, WOKJNQ AND LONDON
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES 
 
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