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 THE 
 
 Unknown Eros.
 
 THE 
 
 Unknown Eros, 
 
 BY 
 
 COVENTRY PATMORE. 
 
 I.— XLVI, 
 
 " Deliclcs mece esse ciimfiUis hominum" — Prov. viii. 31. 
 
 LONDON : 
 GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET, 
 
 COVENT GARDEN. 
 1878.
 
 'SMC FOOT 
 
 MSB.ARY 
 
 IIALLANTYNE AND HANSON, EDINBURGH 
 CHANDOS STREET, LONDON
 
 S/V-JL , LIBRARY 
 
 7/^ UMVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 ^Jl SANTA BARBARA 
 
 cl^ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I.— PROEM. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Many speak iviseli/, some inerrably 1 
 
 II.— THE UNKNOWN EROS. 
 
 What rumour''d heavens are these . . : 8 
 
 III.— THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW. 
 Perchance she droops within the hollow gulf 13 
 
 IV.— <'LET BE!" 
 
 Ah, yes ; ive tell the good and evil trees 18 
 
 v.— THE CONTRACT. 
 Twice thirty centuries and more ago 21 
 
 VI.— PEACE. 
 
 OEngland, hoiv hast thoii forgot 27
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 VII.— A FAREWELL. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 With all my zcill, but much against my heart 34 
 
 VIII.— VICTORY IN DEFEAT. 
 Ah, God, alas 36 
 
 IX.— WIND AND WAVE. 
 The wedded light and heat 40 
 
 X.— LEGEM TUAM DILEXI. 
 The '■'■ Infinite.'''' Word horrihle ! at feud 43 
 
 XL— THE TOYS. 
 
 My little Son, ivho looFd from thoughtful eyes 50 
 
 XIL— PSYCHE. 
 Whatever thou dost thorCrt dear ! 53 
 
 XIII.— TRISTITIA. 
 Darling, with hearts conjoined in such a peace 56 
 
 XIV.— MAGNA EST VERITAS. 
 Here, in this little Bay 62
 
 CONTENTS. V 
 
 XV.— DEPAliTUEE. 
 
 FAGB 
 
 It luas not like your great and gracious xvays /..... 63 
 
 XVI.— THE STANDAEDS. 
 That last Q,<) 
 
 XVII.— '' IF I WERE DEAD." 
 
 '•^ If I loere dead, you'd sometimes say, Poor Child r ... 74 
 
 XVIII.— EURYDICE. 
 
 Is this the iwrtent of the day nigh past 76 
 
 XIX.— EEMEMBERED GRACE. 
 
 Since sxicco'ur to the feeblest of the tvise 80 
 
 XX.— SEMELE. 
 No praise to me ! 83 
 
 XXL— CREST AND GULF. 
 
 Much ivoe that man befalls 85 
 
 XXIL —PROPHETS WHO CANNOT SING. 
 Ponder, ye Just, the scoffs that freqiieid go 88
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 XXIIL— FELICIA. 
 Of infinite Heaven the rays 91 
 
 XXIV.— TIRED MEMORY. 
 The stony rock of death'' s insensibility 93 
 
 XXV.— "FAINT YET PURSUING." 
 
 Heroic Good, target for which the young 99 
 
 XXVI.— PAIN. 
 
 0, Pain, Love's mystery 102 
 
 XXVII.— THE TWO DESERTS. 
 Not greatly moved with awe am I 107 
 
 XXVIII.— DELICI^ SAPIENTI^ DE AMORE. 
 Love, light for me 110 
 
 XXIX.— DEAD LANGUAGE. 
 
 Thou dost not wisely, Bard 119 
 
 XXX.— 18G7. 
 In the year of the great crime 121
 
 CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 XXXI.— VESICA PISCIS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 In sti-ettuous hope I wrought 127 
 
 XXXII.— SING US ONE OF THE SONGS OF SIGN. 
 
 Hoio sing the Lord's Sonci in so strange a Land ! . . . .129 
 
 XXXIII.— EROS AND PSYCHE. 
 Love, I heard tell of thee so oft / 132 
 
 XXXIV.— THE CRY AT MIDNIGHT. 
 
 The nudge's wing beats to and fro 145 
 
 XXXV.— DE NATURA DEORUM. 
 Good-morroiv, Psyche ! Whafs thine errand now ? . . . 147 
 
 XXXVL— WINTER. 
 /, singularly moved 158 
 
 XXXVII.— PSYCHE'S DISCONTENT. 
 
 Wot yet, not yet ! 1C2 
 
 XXXVIII.— ARBOR YITM. 
 
 With honeysuckle, over-siceet, festoon\l IGl)
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 XXXIX.— SPONSA DEI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 What is this Maiden fair ? 172 
 
 XL.— TO THE BODY. 
 CreatioTi's and Creator'' s croivaing good 17G 
 
 XLI.— AUEAS OF DELIGHT. 
 Beautiful habitations, auras of delight ! 180 
 
 XLII.— THE AZALEA. 
 
 There, where the sun shines frst 184 
 
 XLIII.— SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY. 
 Well dost thou. Love, thy solemn Feast to hold 18G 
 
 XLIV.— ALEXANDER AND LYCON, 
 
 What, no crown ivon 190 
 
 XLV.— THE MERRY MURDER. 
 Stand by 192 
 
 XLVI. -THE CHILD'S PURCHASE. 
 
 As a 1/oung Child, whose ^f other, for a jest 201
 
 I. 
 
 PROEM. 
 
 ** Many speak wisely, some inerrably : 
 Witness the beast who talked that should have bray'd, 
 And Caiaphas that said 
 
 * Expedient 'twas for all that One should die' ; 
 But what avails 
 
 When Love's right accent from their wisdom fails, 
 And the Truth-criers know not what they cry ! 
 Say, wherefore thou.
 
 2 PROEM. 
 
 As under bondage of some bitter vow, 
 
 Warblest no word. 
 
 When all the rest are shouting to be heard ? 
 
 Why leave the fervid running just when Fame 
 
 ^Gan whispering of thy name 
 
 Amongst the hard-pleased Judges of the Course ? 
 
 Parch'd is thy crystal-flowing source ? 
 
 Pierce, then, with thought's steel probe the trodden ground 
 
 Till passion's buried floods be found ; 
 
 Intend thine eye 
 
 Into the dim and undiscover'd sky 
 
 Whose lustres are the pulsings of the heart. 
 
 And promptly, as thy trade is, watch to chart 
 
 The lonely suns, the mystic hazes and thronged sparkles 
 
 bright 
 That, named and numbered right 
 In sweet transpicuous words, shall glow alway 
 With Love's three-stranded ray.
 
 PROEM. a 
 
 Red wrath, compassion golden, lazuline delight/' 
 
 Thus, in reproof of my despondency, 
 My Mentor ; and thus I : 
 
 O, season strange for song ! 
 And yet some timely Power persuades my lips. 
 Is't England's parting soul that nerves my tongue 
 As other Kingdoms, nearing their eclipse, 
 Have, in their latest bards, uplifted strong 
 The voice that was their voice in earlier days? 
 Is it her sudden, loud and piercing cry. 
 The note which those that seem too weak to sigh 
 Will sometimes utter just before they die ? 
 Lo, weary of the greatness of her ways. 
 There lies my Land, with hasty pulse and hard, 
 Her ancient beauty marrM, 
 And, in her cold and aimless roving sight. 
 Horror of light ; 
 
 Sole vigor left in her last lethargy, 
 B 2
 
 PROEM. 
 
 Save wlien, at bidding of some dreadful breath. 
 
 The rising death 
 
 Rolls up with force ; 
 
 And then the furiously gibbering corse 
 
 Shakes, panglessly convulsed, and sightless stares, 
 
 Whilst one Physician pours in rousing wines. 
 
 One anodynes. 
 
 And one declares 
 
 That nothing ails it but the pains of growth. 
 
 My last look loth 
 Is taken; and I turn, with the relief 
 Of knowing that my life-long hope and grief 
 Are surely vain. 
 
 To that unshapen time to come, when She, 
 A dim, heroic Nation long since dead, 
 The foulness of her agony forgot. 
 Shall all benignly shed 
 Through ages vast
 
 PROEM. 5 
 
 The ghostly grace of her transfigured past 
 
 Over the present, harass'd and forlorn, 
 
 Of nations yet unborn ; 
 
 And this shall be the lot 
 
 Of those who, in the bird- voice and. the blast 
 
 Of her omniloquent tongue, 
 
 Have truly sung 
 
 Or greatly said. 
 
 To shew as one 
 
 With those who have best done. 
 
 And be as rays. 
 
 Thro* the still altering world, around her changeless head. 
 
 Therefore no 'plaint be mine 
 Of listeners none. 
 
 No hope of render'd use or proud reward, 
 In hasty times and hard ; 
 But chants as of a lonely thrush's throat 
 At latest eve,
 
 PROEM. 
 
 That does in each calm note 
 
 Both joy and grieve ; 
 
 Notes few and strong and fine. 
 
 Gilt with sweet day's decline. 
 
 And sad with promise of a different sun. 
 
 'Mid the loud concert harsh 
 Of this fog-folded marsh. 
 To me, else dumb, 
 Uranian Clearness, come ! 
 Give me to breathe in peace and in surprise 
 The light-thrill'd ether of your rarest skies, 
 Till inmost absolution start 
 The welling in the grateful eyes. 
 The heaving in the heart. 
 Winnow with sighs 
 And wash away 
 
 With tears the dust and stain of clay. 
 Till all the Song be Thine, as beautiful as Morn,
 
 PROEM. 
 
 Bedecked with shining clouds of scorn ; 
 
 And Thou, Inspirer, deign to brood 
 
 O'er the delighted words, and call them Very Good, 
 
 This grant. Clear Spirit; and grant that I remain 
 
 Content to ask unlikely gifts in vain.
 
 II. 
 
 THE UNKNOWN EROS. 
 
 What rumonr'd heavens are these 
 Which not a poet sings, 
 O, Unknown Eros? What this breeze 
 Of sudden wings 
 
 Speeding at far returns of time from interstellar space 
 To fan my very face. 
 And gone as fleet, 
 Through delicatest ether feathering soft their solitary beat.
 
 THE UNKNOWN EROS. 9 
 
 With ne'er a light plume dropp'd, nor any trace 
 
 To 8peak of whence they came, or whither they depart ? 
 
 And why this palpitating heart. 
 
 This Wind and unrelated joy. 
 
 This meaningless desire. 
 
 That moves me like the Child 
 
 Who in the flushing darkness troubled lies. 
 
 Inventing lonely prophecies, 
 
 Which even to his Mother mild 
 
 He dares not tell ; 
 
 To which himself is infidel ; 
 
 His heart not less on fire 
 
 With dreams impossible as wildest Arab Tale^ 
 
 (So thinks the boy,) 
 
 With dreams that turn him red and pale. 
 
 Yet less impossible and wild 
 
 Than those which bashful Love, in his own way and hour. 
 
 Shall duly bring to flower ?
 
 10 THE UNKNOWN EROS. 
 
 O, Unknown Eros^ sire of awful bliss. 
 
 What portent and what Delphic word. 
 
 Such as in form of snake forbodes the bird. 
 
 Is this ? 
 
 In ine life's even flood 
 
 What eddies thus ? 
 
 What in its ruddy orbit lifts the blood 
 
 Like a perturbed moon of Uranus 
 
 Reaching to some great world in un gauged darkness hid ; 
 
 And whence 
 
 This rapture of the sense 
 
 Which, by thy whisper bid. 
 
 Reveres with obscure rite and sacramental sign 
 
 A bond I know not of nor dimly can devine ; 
 
 This subject loyalty which longs 
 
 For chains and thongs 
 
 Woven of gossamer and adamant. 
 
 To bind me to my unguess'd want.
 
 THE UNKNOWN EROS. 11 
 
 And so to lie, 
 
 Between those quivering plumes that thro' fine ether 
 
 pant_, 
 For hopeless, sweet eternity ? 
 What God unhonour'd hitherto in songs. 
 Or which, that now 
 Forgettest the disguise 
 That Gods must wear who visit human eyes, 
 Art Thou ? 
 
 Thou art not Amor ; or, if so, yon pyre. 
 That waits the willing victim, flames with vestal fire; 
 Nor mooned Queen of maids ; or, if thou'rt she, 
 Ah, then, from Thee 
 
 Let Bride and Bridegroom learn what kisses be ! 
 In what veiFd hymn 
 Or mystic dance 
 
 Would he that were thy Priest advance 
 Thine earthly praise, thy glory limn ?
 
 12 THE UNKNOWN EROS. 
 
 Say, should the feet that feel thy thought 
 
 In double-center'd circuit run. 
 
 In that compulsive focus. Nought, 
 
 In this a furnace like the sun ; 
 
 And might some note of thy renown 
 
 And high behest 
 
 Thus in enigma be expressed : 
 
 " There lies the crown 
 
 " Which all thy longing cures. 
 
 " Refuse it, Mortal, that it may be your's ! 
 
 " It is a Spirit, though it seems red gold ; 
 
 " And such may no man, but by shunning, hold. 
 
 " Refuse it, though refusing be despair ; 
 
 '' And thou shalt feel the phantom in thy hair."
 
 13 
 
 III. 
 THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW. 
 
 Perchance she droops within the hollow gulf 
 Which the great wave of coming pleasure drawsj 
 Not guessing the glad cause ! 
 Ye Clouds that on your endless journey go, 
 Ye Winds that westward flow. 
 Thou heaving Sea 
 That heav^st ^twixt her and me. 
 Tell her I come ;
 
 14 THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW. 
 
 Then only sigh your pleasure^ and be dumb ; 
 
 For the sweet secret of our either self 
 
 We know. 
 
 Tell her I come, 
 
 And let her heart be stilFd. 
 
 One day^s controlled hope^ and then one more, 
 
 And on the third our lives shall be fulfilFd ! 
 
 Yet all has been before. 
 
 Palm placed in palm, twin smiles, and words astray. 
 
 What other should we say ? 
 
 But shall I not, with ne'er a sign, perceive. 
 
 Whilst her sweet hands I hold, 
 
 The myriad threads and meshes manifold 
 
 Which Love shall round her weave : 
 
 The pulse in that vein making alien pause 
 
 And varying beats from this ; 
 
 Down each long finger felt, a differing strand 
 
 Of silvery welcome bland ;
 
 THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW. 15 
 
 And in her breezy palm 
 
 And silken wrist, 
 
 Beneath the touch of my like numerous bliss 
 
 Complexly kiss'd, 
 
 A diverse and distinguishable calm ? 
 
 What should we say ! 
 
 It all has been before ; 
 
 And yet our lives shall now be first fulfilFd, 
 
 And into their summ'd sweetness fall distilFd 
 
 One sweet drop more ; 
 
 One sweet drop more, in absolute increase 
 
 Of unrelapsing peace. 
 
 O, heaving Sea 
 That heav'st as if for bliss of her and me, 
 And separatest not dear heart from heart, 
 Though each Against other beats too far apart, 
 For yet awhile 
 Let it not seem that I behold her smile.
 
 16 THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW. 
 
 O, weary Love, O, folded to her breast^ 
 
 Love in each moment years and years of rest, 
 
 Be calm, as being not. 
 
 Ye oceans of intolerable delight, 
 
 The blazing photosphere of central Night, 
 
 Be ye forgot. 
 
 Terror, thou swarthy Groom of Bride-bliss coy, 
 
 Let me not see you toy. 
 
 O, Death, too tardy with thy hope intense 
 
 Of kisses close beyond conceit of sense ; 
 
 O, Life, too liberal, while to take her hand 
 
 Is more of hope than heart can understand ; 
 
 Perturb my golden patience not with joy. 
 
 Nor, through a wish, profane 
 
 The peace that should pertain 
 
 To him who does by her attraction move. 
 
 Has all not been before? 
 
 One day^s controlled hope, and one again,
 
 THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW. 17 
 
 And then the third, and ye shall have the rein, 
 
 O Life, Death, Terror, Love ! 
 
 But soon let your unrestful rapture cease, 
 
 Ye flaming Ethers thin. 
 
 Condensing till the abiding sweetness win 
 
 One sweet drop more ; 
 
 One sweet drop more in the measureless increase 
 
 Of honied peace.
 
 18 
 
 IV. 
 
 " LET BE V 
 
 Ah, yes ; we tell the good and evil trees 
 By fruits : but how tell these ? 
 Who does not know 
 That good and ill 
 Are done in secret still, 
 And that which shews is verily but show ! 
 How high of heart is one, and one how sweet of mood 
 But not all height is holiness.
 
 "LET BEP' 19 
 
 Nor every sweetness good : 
 
 .\nd grace will sometimes lurk where who could guess 
 The Critic of his kind, 
 Dealing to each his share, 
 With easy humour, hard to bear, 
 May not impossibly have in him shrined, 
 As in a gossamer globe or thickly padded pod, 
 Some small seed dear to God. 
 Haply yon wretch, so famous for his falls. 
 Got them beneath the Devil-defended walls 
 Of some high Virtue he had vow'd to win ; 
 And that which you and I 
 Call his besetting sin 
 Is but the fume of his peculiar fire 
 Of inmost contrary desire, 
 A.nd means wild willingness for her to die, 
 Dashed with despondence of her favour sweet ; 
 He fiercer fighting, in his worst defeat, 
 c 2
 
 20 "LET BEl^' 
 
 Thau I or you. 
 
 That only courteous greet 
 
 Where he does hotly woo. 
 
 Did ever fight, in our best victory. 
 
 Another is mistook 
 
 Through his deceitful likeness to his look ! 
 
 Let be, let be : 
 
 Why should I clear myself, why answer thou for me ? 
 
 That shaft of slander shot 
 
 Missed only the right blot. 
 
 I see the shame 
 
 They cannot see : 
 
 'Tis very just they blame 
 
 The thing that's not.
 
 21 
 
 THE CONTRACT. 
 
 Twice thirty centuries and more ago. 
 All in a heavenly Abyssinian vale^ 
 Man first met woman ; and the ruddy snow 
 On many-ridged Abora turn'd pale, 
 And the song choked within the nightingale. 
 A mild white furnace in the thorough blast 
 Of purest spirit seemed She as she passM ; 
 And of the Man enough that this be said. 
 He looVd her Head.
 
 22 THE CONTRACT. 
 
 Towards their bower 
 Together as they went. 
 With hearts conceiving torrents of content. 
 And lingered prologue fit for Paradise, 
 He, gathering power 
 
 Prom dear persuasion of the dim-lit hour 
 And doubted sanction of her sparkling eyes, 
 Thus supplicates her conjugal assent. 
 And thus she makes replies : 
 
 " Lo, Eve, the Day burns on the snowy height, 
 But here is mellow night !" 
 
 " Here let us rest. The languor of the light 
 Is in my feet. 
 
 It is thy strength, my Love, that makes me weak ; 
 Thy strength it is that makes my weakness sweet. 
 What would thy kissed lipa speak ?" 
 
 " See, what a world of roses I have spread 
 To make the bridal bed.
 
 THE CONTRACT. 23 
 
 Come, Beauty's self and Love's, thus to thy throne be led!" 
 
 " My Lord, my Wisdom, nay ! 
 Does not yon love-delighted Planet run, 
 (Haply against her heart,) 
 A space apart 
 
 For ever from her strong-persuadiug Sun ? 
 O say, 
 
 Shall we no voluntary bars 
 Set to our drift ? I, Sister of the Stars, 
 And Thou, my glorious, course-compelling Day \" 
 
 " Yea, yea ! 
 Was it an echo of her coming word 
 Which, ere she spake, I heard ? 
 Or through what strange distrust was I, her Head, 
 Not first this thing to have said ? 
 Alway 
 
 Speaks not within my breast 
 The uncompulsive, great and sweet behest
 
 24 THE CONTRACT. 
 
 Of something bright, 
 
 Not named, not known, and yet more manifest 
 
 Than is the morn, 
 
 The sun being just at point then to be born ? 
 
 O, Eve, take back thy ' Nay/ 
 
 Trust me, Belov'd, ever in all to mean 
 
 Thy blissful service, sacrificial, keen ; 
 
 But bondless be that service, and let speak — " 
 
 " This other world of roses in my cheek. 
 Which hide them in thy breast, and deepening seek 
 That thou decree if they mean Yea or Nay." 
 
 " Did e'er so sweet a word such sweet gainsay \" 
 
 " And when I lean. Love, on you, thus, and smile 
 So that my Nay seems Yea, 
 You must the while 
 Thence be confirmed that I deny you still." 
 
 « I will, I will \" 
 
 " And when my arms are round your neck, like this,
 
 THE CONTRACT. 25 
 
 And 1, as uowj 
 
 Melt like a golden ingot in your kiss, 
 
 Then, more than ever, shall your splendid word 
 
 Be as Archangel Michael's severing sword ? 
 
 Speak, speak ! 
 
 Your might. Love, makes me weak, 
 
 Your might it is that makes my weakness sweet/' 
 
 " I vow, I vow !" 
 
 " And are you happy, O, my Hero and Lord ; 
 And is your joy complete ?'' 
 
 " Yea, with my joyful heart ray body rocks. 
 And joy comes down from heaven iu floods and shocks. 
 As from Mount Abora comes the avalanche." 
 
 " My Law, my Light ! 
 Then am I yours as your high mind may list. 
 No wile shall lure you, none can I resist !" 
 
 Thus the first Eve 
 With much enamour'd Adam did enact
 
 26 THE CONTRACT. 
 
 Their mutual free contract 
 
 Of virgin spousals, blissful beyond flight 
 
 Of modern thought, with great intention staunch, 
 
 Though unobliged until that binding pact. 
 
 Whether She kept her word, or He the mind 
 
 To hold her, wavering, to his own restraint. 
 
 Answer, ye pleasures faint. 
 
 Ye fiery throes, and upturned eyeballs blind 
 
 Of sick-at-heart Mankind, 
 
 Whom nothing succour can, 
 
 Until a heaven-caress'd and happier Eve 
 
 Be joinM with some glad Saint 
 
 In like espousals, blessed upon Earth, 
 
 And She her Fruit forth bring ; 
 
 No numb, chill-hearted, shaken-witted thing, 
 
 'Plaining his little span. 
 
 But of proud virgin joy the appropriate birth. 
 
 The Son of God and Man.
 
 27 
 
 VI. 
 PEACE. 
 
 O England, how hast thou forgot, 
 In dullard care for undisturbed increase 
 Of gold, which profits not. 
 
 The gain which once thou knew'st was for thy peace ! 
 Honour is peace, the peace which does accord 
 Alone with God^s glad word : 
 " My peace I send you, and I send a sword." 
 O England, how hast thou forgot.
 
 28 PEACE. 
 
 How fear'st the tilings which make for joy^ not fear, 
 
 Confronted near. 
 
 Hard days ? ^Tis what the pamper'd seek to buy 
 
 With their most willing gold in weary lands. 
 
 Loss and pain risked ? What sport but understands 
 
 These for incitements ! Suddenly to die, 
 
 With conscience a blurrM scroll ? 
 
 The sunshine dreaming upon Salmon's height 
 
 Is not so sweet and white 
 
 As the most heretofore sin-spotted soul 
 
 That darts to its delight 
 
 Straight from the absolution of a faithful fight. 
 
 Myriads of homes unloosened of home's bond, 
 
 And filFd with helpless babes and harmless women fond ? 
 
 Let those whose pleasant chance 
 
 Took them, like me, among the German towns. 
 
 After the war that pluck'd the fangs from France, 
 
 With me pronounce
 
 PEACE. 29 
 
 Whether the frequent black, which then array'd 
 
 Child, wife, and maid. 
 
 Did most to magnify the sombreness of grief, 
 
 Or add the beauty of a staid relief 
 
 And freshening foil 
 
 To cheerful-hearted Honour's ready smile ! 
 
 Beneath the heroic sun 
 Is there then none 
 
 Whose sinewy wings by choice do fly 
 In the tine mountain-air of public obloquy, 
 To tell the sleepy mongers of false ease 
 That war's the ordained way of all alivcj 
 And therein with goodwill to dare and thrive 
 Is profit and heart's peace ? 
 
 But in his heart the fool now saith : 
 " The thoughts of Heaven were past all finding out. 
 Indeed, if it should rain 
 Intolerable woes upon our land again,
 
 30 PEACE. 
 
 After so long a drought \" 
 
 " Will a kind Providence our vessel whelm ^ 
 With such a pleasant pilot at the helm ?'' 
 
 " Or let the throats be cut of pretty sheep 
 That care for nought but pasture rich and deep V 
 
 " Were 't Evangelical of God to deal so foul a blow 
 At people who hate Papists so?" 
 
 " What, make or keep 
 A tax for ship and gun, 
 When ^tis full three to one 
 Yon bully but intends 
 To beat our friends ?" 
 
 " Let's put aside 
 Our costly pride. 
 Our appetite's not gone 
 Because we've learn'd to doff 
 Our caps, where we were used to keep them on." 
 
 " If times get worse.
 
 PEACE. 31 
 
 We've money in our purse, 
 
 And patriots that know how, let who will scoff, 
 
 To buy our perils off. 
 
 Yea, blessed in our midst 
 
 Art thou who lately didst. 
 
 So cheap, 
 
 The old bargain of the Saxon with the Dane." 
 
 Thus in his heart the fool now saith ; 
 And, lo, our trusted leaders trust fool's luck, 
 Which, like the whale's 'mazed chine, 
 When they thereon were mulling of their wine, 
 Will some day duck. 
 
 Remnant of Honour, brooding in the dark 
 Over your bitter cark. 
 
 Staring, as Rispah stared, astonied seven days. 
 Upon the corpses of so many sons. 
 Who loved her once. 
 Dead in the dim and lion-haunted ways.
 
 32 PEACE. 
 
 Who could have dreamt 
 
 That times should come like these ! 
 
 Prophets, indeed, taught lies when we were young, 
 
 And people loved to have it so ; 
 
 For they teach well who teach their scholars' tongue ! 
 
 But that the foolish both should gaze, 
 
 With feeble, fascinated face, 
 
 Upon the wan crest of the coming woe. 
 
 The billow of earthquake underneath the seas. 
 
 And sit at ease. 
 
 Or stand agape, 
 
 Without so much as stepping back to ■'scape, 
 
 Mumbling, " Perchance we perish if we stay : 
 
 'Tis certain wear of shoes to stir away V 
 
 Who could have dreamt 
 
 That times should come like these ! 
 
 Remnant of Honour, tongue-tied with contempt. 
 
 Consider ; you are strong yet, if you please.
 
 PEACE. 83 
 
 A hundred just men up, and arm'd but with a frown, 
 
 May hoot a hundred thousand false loons down, 
 
 Or drive them any way like geese. 
 
 But to sit silent now is to suborn 
 
 The common villany you scorn. 
 
 In the dark hour 
 
 When phrases are in power. 
 
 And nought^s to choose between 
 
 The thing which is not and which is not seen, 
 
 One fool, with lusty lungs. 
 
 Does what a hundred wise, who hate and hold tluir 
 
 tongues. 
 Shall ne'er undo. 
 In such an hour. 
 
 When eager hands are fetter'd and too few. 
 And hearts alone have leave to bleed. 
 Speak ; for a good word then is a good deed.
 
 34 
 
 VII. 
 A FAREWELL. 
 
 With all my will, but much against my heart, 
 We two now part. , 
 
 My Very Dear, 
 
 Our solace is, the sad road lies so clear. 
 It needs no art. 
 With faint, averted feet 
 And many a tear. 
 In our opposed paths to persevere. 
 
 I
 
 A FAUEWELL. 35 
 
 Go thou to East, I West. 
 
 We will not say 
 
 There's any hope, it is so far away. 
 
 But, O, my Best, 
 
 When the one darling of our widowhcad, 
 
 The nursling Grief, 
 
 Is dead, 
 
 And no dews blur our eyes 
 
 To see the peach-bloom come in evening skies, 
 
 Perchance we may. 
 
 Where now this night is day. 
 
 And even through faith of still averted feet, 
 
 Making full circle of our banishment, 
 
 Amazed meet; 
 
 The bitter journey to the bourne so sweet 
 
 Seasoning the termless feast of our content 
 
 With tears of recognition never dry. 
 
 i> 2
 
 30 
 
 VIIT. 
 
 VICTORY IN DEFEAT, 
 
 Ah, God, alas, 
 How soon it came to pass 
 The sweetness melted from thy barbed hook 
 "Which I so simply took ; 
 And I lay bleeding on the bitter land, 
 Afraid to stir against thy least command, 
 But losing all my pleasant life-blood, whence 
 Force should have been heart's frailty to withstand. 
 Life is not life at all without delight.
 
 VICTORY IN defp:at. 37 
 
 Nor has it any might ; 
 
 And better thau the insentient heart and brain 
 
 Is sharpest pain ; 
 
 And better for the moment seems it to rebels 
 
 If the great Master, from his lifted seat. 
 
 Ne'er whispers to the wearied servant " Well \" 
 
 Yet what returns of love did I endure, 
 
 When to be pardoned seem'd almost more sweet 
 
 Than aye to have been pure ! 
 
 But day still faded to disastrous night. 
 
 And thicker darkness changed to feebler light, 
 
 Until forgiveness, without stint renewed. 
 
 Was now no more with loving tears imbued, 
 
 Vowing no more offence. 
 
 Not less to thine Unfaithful didst thou cry, 
 
 " Come back, poor Child ; be all as 'twas before." 
 
 But I, 
 
 '' No, no ; I will not promise any more !
 
 33 VICTORY IN DEFEAT. 
 
 Yet, when I feel my hour is come to die. 
 
 And so I am secured of continence. 
 
 Then may I say, though haply then in vain, 
 
 ' My only, only Love, O, take me back again '/ " 
 
 Thereafter didst thou smite 
 
 So hard that, for a space, 
 
 Uplifted seem'd Heav'n's everlasting door. 
 
 And I indeed the darling of thy grace. 
 
 But, in some dozen changes of the moon, 
 
 A bitter mockery seem'd thy bitter boon. 
 
 The broken pinion was no longer sore. 
 
 Again, indeed, I woke 
 
 Under so dread a stroke 
 
 That all the strength it left within my heart 
 
 Was just to ache and turn, and then to turn and ache. 
 
 And some weak sign of war unceasingly to make. 
 
 And here I lie. 
 
 With no one near to mark.
 
 VICTORY IN DEFEAT. 39 
 
 Thrusting Hell's phantoms feebly in the dark, 
 
 And still at point more utterly to die. 
 
 O, God, how long ! 
 
 Put forth indeed thy powerful right hand. 
 
 While time is yet, 
 
 Or never shall I see the blissful land !" 
 
 Thus I : then God, in pleasant speech and strong, 
 (Which soon I shall forget) : 
 " The man who, though his fights be all defeats. 
 Still fights. 
 Enters at last 
 
 The heavenly Jerusalem's rejoicing streets 
 With glory more, and more triumphant rites 
 Than always-conquering Joshua's, when his blast 
 The frighted walls of Jericho down cast ; 
 And, lo, the glad surprise 
 Of peace beyond surmise. 
 More than in common Saints, for ever in his eyes."
 
 40 
 
 IX. 
 WIND AND WAVE. 
 
 The wedded light and heat. 
 Winnowing the witless space. 
 Without a let, 
 
 What are they till they beat 
 Against the sleepy sod, and there beget 
 Perchance the violet ! 
 Is the One found. 
 Amongst a wilderness of as happy grace.
 
 WIND AND WAVE. 41 
 
 To make Heaven's bound ; 
 
 So that in Her 
 
 All which it hath of sensitively good 
 
 Is sought and understood 
 
 After the narrow mode the mighty Heavens prefer ? 
 
 She, as a little breeze 
 
 Following still Night, 
 
 Ripples the spirit's cold, deep seas 
 
 Into delight; 
 
 But, in a while. 
 
 The immeasurable smile 
 
 Is broke by fresher airs to flashes blent 
 
 With darkling discontent ; 
 
 And aU the subtle zephyr hurries gay. 
 
 And all the heaving ocean heaves one way, 
 
 'Tward the void sky-line and an unguess'd weal ; 
 
 Until the vanward billows feci 
 
 The agitating shallows, and devine the goal.
 
 42 "WIND AND WAVE. 
 
 And to foam roU^ 
 
 And spread and stray 
 
 And traverse midly, like delighted hands. 
 
 The fair and fleckless sands ; 
 
 And so the whole 
 
 Unfathomable and immense 
 
 Triumphing tide comes at the last to reach 
 
 And burst in wind-kiss'd splendours on the deafning 
 
 beach, 
 "Where forms of children in first innocence 
 Laugh and fling pebbles on the rainbow'd crest 
 Of its untired unrest.
 
 43 
 
 X. 
 
 LEGEM TUAM DILEXI. 
 
 The '' Infinite/' Word horrible ! at feud 
 With life, and the braced mood 
 Of power and joy and love ; 
 Forbidden, by wise heathen ev'n, to be 
 Spoken of Deity, 
 
 Whose Name, on popular altars, was " The Unknown,' 
 Because, or ere It was reveal'd as One 
 Confined in Three,
 
 44 LEGEM TUAM I'lLEXI. 
 
 The people fear'd that it might prove 
 
 Infinity, 
 
 The blazon which the devils desired to gain ; 
 
 And God, for their confusion, laughed consent; 
 
 Yet did so far relent. 
 
 That they might seek relief, and not in vain. 
 
 In dashing of themselves against the shores of pain. 
 
 Nor bides alone in hell 
 
 The bond-disdaining spirit boiling to rebel. 
 
 But for compulsion of strong grace. 
 
 The pebble in the road 
 
 Would straight explode. 
 
 And fill the ghastly boundlessness of space. 
 
 The furious power, 
 
 To soft growth twice constrained in leaf and flower, 
 
 Protests, and longs to flash its faint self far 
 
 Beyond the dimmest star. 
 
 The same
 
 LEGEM TUAM DILEXI. 45 
 
 Seditious flame, 
 
 Beat backward with reduplicated might, 
 
 Struggles alive witliiu its stricter term, 
 
 And is the worm. 
 
 And the just Man does on himself affirm 
 
 God's limits, and is conscious of delight. 
 
 Freedom and right. 
 
 And so His Semblance is, Who, every hour. 
 
 By day and night, 
 
 Buildeth new bulwarks Against the Infinite. 
 
 For, all, who can express 
 
 How full of bonds and simpleness 
 
 Is God, 
 
 How narrow is He, 
 
 And how the wide waste field of possibility 
 
 Is only trod 
 
 Straight to His homestead in the human heart. 
 
 And all His art
 
 46 LEGEM TUAM DILEXI. 
 
 Is as the babe's, that wins his Mother to repeat 
 
 Her little song so sweet ! 
 
 What is the chief news of the Night ? 
 
 Lo, iron and salt, heat, weight and light 
 
 In every star that drifts on the great breeze ! 
 
 And these 
 
 Mean Man, 
 
 Darling of God, Whose thoughts but live and move 
 
 Round him ; Who woos his will 
 
 To wedlock with His own, and does distil 
 
 To that drop's span 
 
 The attar of all rose-fields of all love ! 
 
 Therefore the soul select assumes the stress 
 
 Of bonds unbid, which God's own style express 
 
 Better than well. 
 
 And aye hath borne. 
 
 To the Clown's scorn. 
 
 The fetters of the threefold golden chain : 
 
 I
 
 LEGEM TUAM DILEXT. 47 
 
 Narrowing to nothing all his worldly gain ; 
 
 (Howbeit in vain ; 
 
 For to have nought 
 
 Is to have all things without care or thought !) 
 
 Surrendering, abject, to his equal's rule, 
 
 As though he were a fool, 
 
 The free wings of the will ; 
 
 (More vainly still ; 
 
 For none knows rightly what 'tis to be free 
 
 But only he 
 
 Who, vow'd against all choice, and filFd with awe 
 
 Of the ofttimes dumb or clouded Oracle, 
 
 Does wiser than to spell, 
 
 In his own suit, the least word of the Law !) 
 
 And lastly bartering life's dear bliss for pain ; 
 
 But evermore in vain ; 
 
 For joy (rejoice ye Few that tasted have !) 
 
 Is Love's obedience
 
 48 LEGEM TUAM DILEXI. 
 
 Against the genial laws of natural sense. 
 
 Whose wide, self-dissipating wave, 
 
 Prisoned in artful dykes. 
 
 Trembling returns and strikes 
 
 Thence to its source again. 
 
 In backward billows fleet, 
 
 Crest crossing crest ecstatic as they greet ; 
 
 Thrilling each vein, 
 
 Exploring every chasm and cove 
 
 Of the full heart with floods of honied love, 
 
 And every principal street 
 
 And obscure alley and lane 
 
 Of the intricate brain 
 
 With brimming rivers of light and breezes sweet 
 
 Of the primordial heat ; 
 
 Till, unto view of me and thee. 
 
 Lost the intense life be. 
 
 Or ludicrously display^, by force
 
 LEGEM TUAM DILEXI. 49 
 
 Of distance, as a soaring eagle, or a horse 
 
 On far-off hillside shewn, 
 
 May seem a gust-driv'n rag or a dead stone. 
 
 Nor by such bonds alone — 
 
 But more I leave to say, 
 
 Fitly revering the Wild Ass's bray 
 
 Also his hoof. 
 
 Of which, go where you will, the marks remain 
 
 Where the religious walls have hid the bright reproof.
 
 50 
 
 XI. 
 
 THE TOYS. 
 
 My little Son^ who look'd from thoughtful eyes, 
 And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, 
 Having my law the seventh time disobey'd, 
 I struck him^ and dismissed 
 With hard words and unkissM^ 
 His Mother, who was patient,, being dead. 
 Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep, 
 I visited his bed.
 
 THE TOYS. 51 
 
 But found him slumbering deep, 
 
 With darkened eyelids, and their lashes yet 
 
 From his late sobbing wet. 
 
 And I, with moan, 
 
 Kissing away his tears, left others of my own ; 
 
 For, on a table drawn beside his head. 
 
 He had put, within his reach, 
 
 A box of counters and a red-veiu'd stone, 
 
 A piece of glass abraded by the beach 
 
 And six or seven shells, 
 
 A bottle with bluebells 
 
 And two French copper coins, ranged there with earcfi 
 
 art. 
 To comfort his sad heart. 
 So when that night I prayed 
 To God, I wept, and said : 
 Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath. 
 Not vexing Thee in death, 
 
 £ 2
 
 52 THE TOYS. 
 
 And Thou rememberest of what toys 
 
 We made our joys. 
 
 How weakly understood, 
 
 Thy great commanded good^ 
 
 Then, fatherly not less 
 
 Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, 
 
 Thou^lt leave Thy wrath, and say, 
 
 " I will be sorry for their childishness."
 
 53 
 
 XII. 
 
 PSYCHE. 
 
 Whate'er thou dost tliou'rt dear ! 
 Uncertain troubles sanctify 
 That magic well-spring of the willing tear, 
 Thine eye. 
 Thy jealous fear, 
 
 With not the rustle of a rival near ; 
 Thy careless disregard of all 
 My tenderest care;
 
 54 PSYCHE. 
 
 Thy dumb despair 
 
 When thy keen wit my worship may construe 
 
 Into contempt of thy divinity ; 
 
 They please me too ! 
 
 But should it once befall 
 
 These accidental charms to disappear. 
 
 Leaving withal 
 
 Thy sometime self the same throughout the year. 
 
 So glowing, grave and shy. 
 
 Kind, talkative and dear. 
 
 As now thou sitt'st to ply 
 
 The fireside tune 
 
 Of that neat engine deft at which thou sew'st 
 
 With fingers mild and foot like the new moon, 
 
 O, in what speech of honey, milk and gold, 
 
 Could my content be told ! 
 
 Forget, then, (but I know 
 
 Thou canst not so,)
 
 rsYCiiE. 55 
 
 Thy customs of some prsediluvian state. 
 
 I am uo Bullfincli, fair my Butterfly, 
 
 That thou should^st try 
 
 Those zigzag courses^ in the welkin clear; 
 
 Nor cruel Boy that, fledd'st thou straight 
 
 Or paused, mayhap 
 
 Might catch thee, for thy colours, with his cap.
 
 56 
 
 XIII. 
 TRISTITIA. 
 
 Darling, with hearts conjoined in such a peace 
 That Hope, so not to cease, 
 Must still gaze back. 
 
 And count, along^ our lovers most happy track. 
 The landmarks of like inconceiv'd increase. 
 Promise me this : 
 If thou alone should'st win 
 God^s perfect bliss,
 
 TKISTITIA. 57 
 
 And 1, beguiled by gracious-seeming sin, 
 
 Say, loving too much thee. 
 
 Love's last goal miss, 
 
 And any vows may then have memory, 
 
 Never, by grief for what I bear or lack, 
 
 To mar thy joyance of heav'n's jubilee. 
 
 Promise me this ; 
 
 For else I should be ImrFd, 
 
 Beyond just doom 
 
 And by thy deed, to Death's interior gloom. 
 
 From the mild borders of the banish'd world 
 
 Wherein they dwell 
 
 Who builded not unalterable fate 
 
 On pride, fraud, envy, cruel lust or hate ; 
 
 Yet loved too laxly sweetness and heart's ease. 
 
 And strove the creature more than God to please. 
 
 For such as these 
 Loss without measure, sadness without end !
 
 58 TRTSTITIA. 
 
 Yet not for this do thou disheaven^d be 
 
 With thinking upon me. 
 
 Though black, when scanned from heaven^s surpassing 
 
 bright, 
 This might mean light, 
 FoiFd with the dim days of mortality. 
 For God is everywhere. 
 Go down to deepest Hell, and He is there. 
 And, as a true but quite estranged Friend, 
 He works, Against gnashing teeth of devilish ire, 
 With love deep hidden lest it be blasphemed. 
 If possible, to blend 
 
 Ease vrith the pangs of its inveterate fire ; 
 Yea, in the worst 
 
 And from His Face most wilfully accurst 
 Of souls in vain redeem^. 
 He does with potions of oblivion kill 
 Remorse of the lost Love that helps them still.
 
 TRISTITIA. 59 
 
 Apart from these, 
 Near the sky-borders of tliat baiiish^l worhl, 
 "Wander pale spirits among willow'd leas. 
 Lost beyond measure, saddened without end, 
 But since, while erring most, retaining yet 
 Some ineffectual fervour of regret. 
 Retaining still such weal 
 As spurned Lovers feel. 
 Preferring far to all the workVs delight 
 Their loss so infinite. 
 Or Poets, when they mark 
 In the clouds dun 
 
 A loitering flush of the long sunken sun. 
 And turn away with tears into the dark. 
 
 Know, Dear, these are not mine 
 But Wisdom's words, confirmed by divine 
 Doctors and Saints, though fitly seldom heard 
 Save in their own prepense-occulted word,
 
 60 TRISTITIA. 
 
 Lest fools be fooFd the further by false hope, 
 And wrest sweet knowledge to their own decline ; 
 And (to approve I speak within my scope) 
 The Mistress of that dateless exile grey 
 Is named in surpliced Schools Tristitia. 
 
 But, O, my Darling, look in thy heart and see 
 How unto me, 
 
 Secured of my prime care, thy happy state. 
 In the most unclean cell 
 Of sordid HeU, 
 
 And worried by the most ingenious hate, 
 It never could be anything but well. 
 Nor from my soul, full of thy sanctity, 
 Such pleasure die 
 
 As the poor harlot^s, in whose body stirs 
 The innocent life that is and is not hers : 
 Unless, alas, this fount of my relief 
 By thy unheavenly grief
 
 TRISTITIA. 61 
 
 Were closed. 
 
 So, witli a consecrating kiss, 
 
 And hearts made one in past all previous peace, 
 
 And bosoms thus opposed, 
 
 Promise me this !
 
 62 
 
 XIV. 
 MAGNA EST VERITAS. 
 
 Here, in this little Bay, 
 Full of tumultuous life and great repose, 
 Where, twice a day, 
 
 The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes, 
 Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town, 
 I sit me down. 
 
 For want of me the world^s course will not fail 
 When all its work is done, the lie shall rot ; 
 The truth is great, and shall prevail. 
 When none cares whether it prevail or not.
 
 03 
 
 XV. 
 
 DEPARTURE. 
 
 It was not like your great and gracious ways ! 
 Do you, that have nought other to lament, 
 Never, my Love, repent 
 Of how, that July afternoon. 
 You went, 
 
 With sudden, unintelligible phrase, 
 And frighten^ eye, 
 Upon your journey of so many days,
 
 64 DEPARTURE. 
 
 Without a single kiss or a good-bye ? 
 
 I knew^ indeed, that you were parting soon ; 
 
 And so we sate, within the low sun's rays, 
 
 You whispering to me, for your voice was weak. 
 
 Your harrowing praise. 
 
 "Well, it was well, my Wife, 
 
 To hear you such things speak. 
 
 And see your love 
 
 Make of your eyes a growing gloom of life. 
 
 As a warm South-wind sombres a March grove. 
 
 And it was like your great and gracious ways 
 
 To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear, 
 
 Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash 
 
 To let the laughter flash. 
 
 Whilst I drew near. 
 
 Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear. 
 
 But all at once to leave me at the last. 
 
 More at the wonder than the loss aghast.
 
 DEPARTURE. 65 
 
 With huddled, unintelligible phrase. 
 
 And frighten'd eye, 
 
 And go your journey of all days 
 
 With not one kiss or a good-bye. 
 
 And the only loveless look the look with wliich you 
 
 passM, 
 'Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.
 
 66 
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE STANDARDS. 
 
 That last, 
 Blown from our Zion of the Seven Hills, 
 Was no uncertain blast ! 
 Listen : the warning all the champaign fills. 
 And minatory murmurs, answering, mar 
 The Night, both near and far. 
 Perplexing many a drowsy citadel 
 Beneath whose ill-watchM walls the Powers of Hell,
 
 THE STANDARDS. 07 
 
 With armed jar 
 
 And angry threat, surcease 
 
 Their long-kept compact of contemptuous peace ! 
 
 Lo, yonder, where our little English band, 
 
 With peace in heart and wrath in hand, 
 
 Have dimly ta'en their stand. 
 
 Sweetly the light 
 
 Shines from the solitary peak at Edgbaston, 
 
 Whence, o'er the dawning Land, 
 
 Gleam the gold blazonries of Love irate 
 
 'Gainst the black flag of Hate."^ 
 
 Envy not, little band, 
 
 Your brothers, under the HohenzoUern hoof 
 
 Put to the splendid proof. 
 
 Your hour is near ! 
 
 The spectre-haunted time of idle Night, 
 
 * This Ode was written in the year 1874, soon after the puhlication 
 of an incendiary pamphlet against the English Catholics. 
 
 F 'A
 
 68 THE STANDARDS. 
 
 Your only fear. 
 
 Thank God, is done, 
 
 And Day and War, Man^s work-time and delight, 
 
 Begun. 
 
 Ho, ye of the van there, veterans great of cheer, 
 Look to your footing, -when, from yonder verge, 
 The wishM Sun shall emerge ; 
 Lest once again the Flower of Sharon bloom 
 After a way the Stalk call heresy. 
 Strange splendour and strange gloom 
 Alike confuse the path 
 Of customary faith ; 
 
 And when the dim-seen mountains turn to flame 
 And every roadside atom is a spark. 
 The dazzled sense, that used was to the dark, 
 May well doubt, " Is't the safe way and the same 
 By which we came 
 From Egypt, and to Canaan mean to go V
 
 THE STANDARDS. 69 
 
 But know. 
 
 The clearness then so marvellously increased. 
 
 The light'uing shiuiug through the West and East, 
 
 Is the great promised sign 
 
 Of His victorious and divine 
 
 Approach, whose coming in the clouds shall be, 
 
 As erst was His humility, 
 
 A stumbling unto some, the first-bid to the Feast, 
 
 Cry, Ho ! 
 Good speed to them that come and them that go 
 From either gathering host. 
 
 And, after feeble, false allegiance, now first know 
 Their post. 
 Ho, ye 
 
 W ho loved our Flag 
 
 Only because there flapp'd none other rag 
 Which gentlemen might doff to, and such be, 
 'Save your gentility !
 
 70 THE STANDARDS. 
 
 For leagued, alas, are we 
 
 With many a faithful rogue 
 
 Discrediting bright Truth with dirt and brogue ; 
 
 And flatterers, too. 
 
 That still would sniff the grass 
 
 After the ^broiderM shoe. 
 
 And swear it smelt like musk where He did pass, 
 
 Though he were Borgia or Caiaphas. 
 
 Ho, ye 
 
 Who dread the bondage of the boundless fields 
 
 Which Heaven^s allegiance yields. 
 
 And, like to house-hatch'd finches, hop not free 
 
 Unless 'tween walls of wire, 
 
 Look, there be many cages : choose to your desire ! 
 
 Ho, ye. 
 
 Of God the least beloved, of Man the most. 
 
 That like not leaguing with the lesser host, 
 
 Behold the invested Mount,
 
 THE STANDARDS. 71 
 
 And that assaiJting Sea with ne'er a coast. 
 You need not stop to count ! 
 
 But come up, ye 
 Who adore, in any way. 
 Our God by His wide-honour'd Name of Yea. 
 Come up ; for where ye stand ye cannot stay. 
 Come all 
 
 That either mood of heavenly joyance know, 
 And, on the ladder hierarchical, 
 Have seen the order'd Angels to and fro 
 Descending, with the pride of service sweet. 
 Ascending, with the rapture of receipt ! 
 Come who have felt, in soul and heart and sense. 
 The entire obedience 
 
 Which opes the bosom, like a blissful wife. 
 To the Husband of aU life ! 
 Come ye that find contentment^s very core 
 In the light store
 
 72 THE STANDARDS. 
 
 And daisied path 
 
 Of Poverty, 
 
 And know how more 
 
 A small thing that the righteous hath 
 
 Availeth than the ungodly's riches great. 
 
 Come likewise ye 
 
 Which do not yet disown as out of date 
 
 That brightest third of the dead Virtues three, 
 
 Of Love the crown elate 
 
 And daintiest glee I 
 
 Come up, come up, and join our little band. 
 
 Our time is near at hand. 
 
 The sanction of the world^s undying hate 
 
 Means more than flaunted flags in windy air. 
 
 Be ye of gathering fate 
 
 Now gladly ware. 
 
 Now from the matrix, by God's grinding wrought, 
 
 The brilliant shall be brought ;
 
 THE STANDARDS. 73 
 
 The white stone mystic set between the eyes 
 
 Of them that get the prize ; 
 
 Yea, part and parcel of that mighty Stone 
 
 Which shall be thrown 
 
 Into the Sea, and Sea shall be no more.
 
 74 
 
 XVII. 
 IF I WERE DEAD." 
 
 *^ If I were dead, youM sometimes say, Poor Child V 
 The dear lips quiver'd as they spake. 
 And the tears brake 
 
 From eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled. 
 Poor Child, poor Child ! 
 
 I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song. 
 It is not true that Love will do no wrong. 
 Poor Child 1
 
 "IF I WERE DEAD." 75 
 
 And did you think, when so you cried and smiled, 
 How I, in lonely nights, should lie awake. 
 And of those words your fidl avengers make ? 
 Poor Child, poor Child ! 
 And now, unless it be 
 
 That sweet amends thrice told are come to thee, 
 O, God, have thou no mercy upon me ! 
 Poor Child !
 
 76 
 
 XVIII. 
 EURYDICE. 
 
 Is this the portent of the day nigh past, 
 And of a restless grave 
 
 O'er which the eternal sadness gathers fast ? 
 Or but the heaped wave 
 Of some chance, wandering tide. 
 Such as that world of awe 
 Whose circuit, listening to a foreign law. 
 Conjunctures ours at uuguess'd dates and wide.
 
 EURYDICE. 77 
 
 Does in the Spirit's tremulous ocean draw, 
 
 To pass unfateful on, and so subside ? 
 
 Thee, whom ev'n more than Heaven loved I have, 
 
 And yet have not been true 
 
 Even to thee, 
 
 I, dreaming, night by night seek now to see, 
 
 And, in a mortal sorrow, still pursue 
 
 Thro' sordid streets and lanes 
 
 And houses brown and bare 
 
 And many a haggard stair 
 
 Ochrous with ancient stains. 
 
 And infamous doors, opening on hapless rooms, 
 
 In whose unhaunted glooms 
 
 Dead pauper generations, witless of the sun. 
 
 Their course have run ; 
 
 And ofttimes my pursuit 
 
 Is checked of its dear fruit 
 
 By things brimful of hate, my kith and kin,
 
 78 EURYDICE. 
 
 Furious that I should keep 
 
 Their forfeit power to weep, 
 
 And mockj with living fear^ their mournful malice 
 
 thin. 
 But ever, at the last, my way I win 
 To where, with perfectly sad patience, nurst 
 By sorry comfort of assured worst, 
 IngrainM in fretted cheek and lips that pine. 
 On pallet poor 
 Thou lyest, stricken sick. 
 Beyond love's cure, 
 
 By all the world's neglect, but chiefly mine. 
 Then sweetness, sweeter than my tongue can tell. 
 Does in my bosom well, 
 And tears come free and quick 
 And more and more abound 
 For piteous passion keen at having found, 
 After exceeding ill, a little good ;
 
 EURYDICE. 79 
 
 A little good 
 
 Which, for the while, 
 
 Fleets with the current sorrow of the blood, 
 
 Though no good here has heart enough to smile.
 
 i 
 
 80 
 
 XIX. 
 KEMEMBERED GRACE. 
 
 Since succour to the feeblest of the wise 
 Is charge of nobler weight 
 Thau the security 
 
 Of mauy and many a foolish soul's estate, 
 This I affirm, 
 
 Though fools will fools more confidently be : 
 Whom God does once with heart to heart befriend, 
 He does so till the end ;
 
 REMEMBERED GRACE. 81 
 
 And having planted life's miraculous germ, 
 
 One sweet pulsation of responsive love. 
 
 He sets him sheer above, 
 
 Not sin and bitter shame 
 
 And wreck of fame, 
 
 But Hell's insidious and more black attempt, 
 
 The envy, malice and pride, 
 
 "Which men who share so easily condone 
 
 That few ev'n list such ills as these to hide. 
 
 From these unalterably exempt 
 
 Through the remember'd grace 
 
 Of that divine embrace. 
 
 Of his sad errors none. 
 
 Though gross to blame. 
 
 Shall cast him lower than the cleansing flame. 
 
 Nor make him quite depart 
 
 From the small flock named " after God's own heart," 
 
 And to themselves unknown.
 
 82 REMEMBERED GRACE. 
 
 Nor can he quail 
 
 In faith, nor flush nor pale 
 
 When all the other idiot people spell 
 
 How this or that new prophet's word belies 
 
 Their last high oracle ; 
 
 But constantly his soul 
 
 Points to its pole 
 
 Ev'n as the needle points, and knows not why ; 
 
 And, under the ever-changing clouds of doubt, 
 
 When others cry, 
 
 " The stars, if stars there were, 
 
 " Are quenched and out !" 
 
 To him, uplooking tVard the hills for aid, 
 
 Appear, at need display'd, 
 
 Gaps in the low-hung gloom, and, bright in air, 
 
 Orion or the Bear.
 
 83 
 
 XX. 
 
 SEMELE. 
 
 No praise to me ! 
 My joy 'twas to be nothing but the glass 
 Thro' which the general boon of Heaven should pass, 
 To focus upon thee. 
 Nor is't thy blame 
 
 Thou first should'st glow, and, after, fade i' the flame. 
 It takes more might 
 
 Than God has given thee. Dear, so long to feel delight. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 SEMELE. 
 
 Shall I, alas, 
 
 Reproach thee with thy change and my regret ? 
 
 Blind fumblers that we be 
 
 About the portals of felicity ! 
 
 The wind of words would scatter, tears would wash 
 
 Quite out the little heat 
 
 Beneath the silent aud chill seeming ash. 
 
 Perchance, still slumbering sweet.
 
 85 
 
 XXI. 
 
 CREST AND GULF. 
 
 Much woe that man befalls 
 Who does not run when sent, nor come when Heaven calls ; 
 But whether he serve God, or his own whim. 
 Not matters, in the end, to any one but him; 
 And he as soon 
 
 Shall map the other side of the Moon, 
 As trace what his own deed. 
 In the next chop of the chance gale, shall breed.
 
 SG CREST AND GULF. 
 
 This he may know : 
 
 His good or evil seed 
 
 Is like to grow. 
 
 For its first harvest^ quite to contraries : 
 
 The father wise 
 
 Has still the hare-brainM brood; 
 
 ^Gainst evil^ ill example better works than good ; 
 
 The poet, fanning his mild flight 
 
 At a most keen and arduous height. 
 
 Unveils the tender heavens to horny human eyes 
 
 Amidst ingenious blasphemies, 
 
 Wouldst raise the poor, in Capuan luxury sunk ? 
 
 The Nation lives but while its Lords are drunk ! 
 
 Or spread Heav'n's partial gifts o'er all, like dew? 
 
 The Many's weedy growth withers the gracious Few ! 
 
 Strange opposites, from those, again, shall rise. 
 
 Join, then, if thee it please, the bitter jest 
 
 Of mankind's progress ; all its spectral race
 
 CHEST AND GULF. 87 
 
 Mere impotence of rest. 
 
 The heaving vain of life which cannot cease from self, 
 
 Crest altering still to gulf 
 
 And gulf to crest 
 
 In endless chace 
 
 That leaves the tossing water anchored in its place ! 
 
 Ah^ well does he who does but stand aside. 
 
 Sans hope or fear. 
 
 And marks the crest and gulf in station sink and rear, 
 
 And prophesies Against trust in such a tide : 
 
 For he sometimes is prophet, heavenly taught. 
 
 Whose message is that he sees only nought ! 
 
 Nathless, disceru'd may be. 
 
 By listeners at the doors of destiny. 
 
 The fly-wheel swift and still 
 
 Of God^s incessant will. 
 
 Mighty to keep in bound, tho^ powerless to quell. 
 
 The amorous and vehement drift of man's herd to hell.
 
 88 
 
 XXII. 
 PROPHETS WHO CANNOT SING. 
 
 Ponder, ye Just, the scoffs that frequent go 
 From forth the foe : 
 
 " The holders of the Truth in Verity 
 Are people of a harsh and stammering tongue ! 
 The hedge-flower hath its song ; 
 Meadow and tree 
 Water and wandering cloud 
 Find Seers who see,
 
 PROPHETS WHO CANNOT SING. 89 
 
 And, with convincing music clear and loud. 
 
 Startle the adder-deafness of the crowd 
 
 By tones, O Love, from thee. 
 
 Views of the unveiled heavens alone forth bring 
 
 Prophets who cannot sing, 
 
 Praise that in chiming numbers will not run ; 
 
 At least, from David until Dante, none, 
 
 And none since him. 
 
 Fish, and not swim? 
 
 They think they somehow should, and so they try ; 
 
 But (haply 'tis they screw the pitch too high) 
 
 'Tis still their fates 
 
 To warble tunes that nails might draw from slates. 
 
 Poor Seraphim ! 
 
 They mean to spoil our sleep, and do, but all their 
 
 gains 
 Are curses for their pains V 
 Now who but knows
 
 90 PROPHETS WHO CANNOT SING. 
 
 That truth to learn from foes 
 
 Is wisdom ripe ? 
 
 Therefore no longer let us stretch our throats 
 
 Till hoarse as frogs 
 
 With straining after notes 
 
 Which but to touch would burst an organ-pipe. 
 
 Far better be dumb dogs.
 
 01 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 FELICIA. 
 
 Of infinite Heaven the rays^ 
 Piercing some eyelet in our cavern black_, 
 Ended their viewless track 
 On thee to smite 
 
 Solely, as on a diamond stalactite. 
 And in mid-darkness lit a raiubow^s blaze. 
 Wherein the absolute Reason, Power, and Love, 
 That erst could move
 
 92 FELICIA. 
 
 Mainly in me but toil and weariness, 
 Renounced their deadening might. 
 Renounced their undistinguishable stress 
 Of withering white, 
 
 And did with gladdest hues my spirit caress, 
 Nothing of Heaven in thee showing infinite, 
 Save the delight.
 
 93 
 
 XXIV. 
 TIRED MEMORY. 
 
 The stony rock of deatli^s insensibility 
 WelFd yet awhile with honey of thy love, 
 And then was dry ; 
 
 Nor could thy picture, nor thine empty glove, 
 Nor aU thy kind, long letters, nor the band 
 Which really spanned 
 Thy body chaste and warm 
 Henceforward move
 
 94 TIRED ]\1 EMORY. 
 
 Upon the stony rock their wearied charm. 
 
 At lastj then, thou wast dead. 
 
 Yet would I not despair, 
 
 But wrought my daily task, and daily said 
 
 Many and many a fond, unfeeling prayer, 
 
 To keep my vows of faith to thee from harm. 
 
 In vain. 
 
 " For 'tis,'' I said, '' all one, 
 
 " The wilful faith, which has no joy or pain, 
 
 " As if 'twere none." 
 
 Then look'd I miserably round 
 
 If aught of duteous love were left undone, 
 
 And nothing found. 
 
 But, kneeling in a Church, one Easter-Day, 
 
 It came to me to say : 
 
 " Though there is no intelligible rest, 
 
 " In Earth or Heaven, 
 
 " For me, but on her breast,
 
 TIRED MEMORY. 95 
 
 " I yield her up, again to have licr given, 
 
 " Or not, as, Lord, thou wilt, and that for aye." 
 
 And the same night, in slumber lying, 
 
 I, who had drcam'd of thee as sad and sick and dying. 
 
 And only so, nightly for all one year, 
 
 Did thee, my own most Dear, 
 
 Possess 
 
 In gay, celestial beauty nothing coy, 
 
 And felt thy soft caress 
 
 With heretofore unknown reality of joy. 
 
 But, in our mortal air. 
 
 None thrives for long upon the happiest dream, 
 
 And fresh despair 
 
 Bade me seek round afresh for some extreme 
 
 Of unconceiv'd, interior sacrifice 
 
 Whereof the smoke mij^ht rise 
 
 To God, and 'mind him that one pray'd below. 
 
 And so.
 
 96 TIRED MEMORY. 
 
 In agony, I cried : 
 
 " My Lord, if thy strange will be this, 
 
 " That I should crucify my heart, 
 
 " Because my love has also been my pride, 
 
 " I do submit, if I saw how, to bliss 
 
 " Wherein She has no part/' 
 
 And I was heard. 
 
 And taken at my own remorseless word. 
 
 O, my most Dear, 
 
 Was't treason, as I fear? 
 
 'Twere that, and worse, to plead thy veiled mind. 
 
 Kissing thy babes, and murmuring in mine ear, 
 
 " Thou canst not be 
 
 " Faithful to God, and faithless unto me \" 
 
 Ah, prophet kind ! 
 
 I heard, all dumb and blind 
 
 With tears of protest ; and I cannot see 
 
 But faith was broken. Yet, as I have said.
 
 TIRED MEMORY. 97 
 
 My heart was dead. 
 
 Dead of devotion and tired memory, 
 
 When a strange grace of thee 
 
 In a fair stranger, as I take it, bred 
 
 To her some tender heed. 
 
 Most innocent 
 
 Of purpose therewith blent, 
 
 And pure of faith, I think, to thee ; yet such 
 
 That the pale reflex of an alien love. 
 
 So vaguely, sadly shown. 
 
 Did her heart touch 
 
 Above 
 
 All that, till then, had woo^d her for its own. 
 
 And so the fear, which is love's chilly dawn, 
 
 Flush'd faintly upon lids that droopM like thine, 
 
 And made me weak. 
 
 By thy delusive likeness doubly drawn. 
 
 And Nature's long suspended breath of flame 
 
 H
 
 98 TIRED MEMORY. 
 
 Persuading soft^ and whispering Duty's name. 
 
 Awhile to smile and speak 
 
 With this thy Sister sweet, and therefore mine; 
 
 Thy Sister sweet. 
 
 Who bade the wheels to stir 
 
 Of sensitive delight in the poor brain. 
 
 Dead of devotion and tired memory. 
 
 So that I lived again. 
 
 And, strange to aver, 
 
 With no relapse into the void inane. 
 
 For thee ; 
 
 But (treason was't ?) for thee and also her.
 
 99 
 
 XXV. 
 "FAINT YET PURSUING. 
 
 Heroic Good, target for which the young 
 Dream in their dreams that every bow is strung, 
 And, missing, sigh 
 Unfruitful, or as disbelievers die. 
 Thee having missM, I will not so revolt, 
 But lowlier shoot my bolt, 
 And lowlier still, if still I may not reach, 
 And my proud stomach teach 
 H 2
 
 100 "FAINT YET PURSUING." 
 
 That less than highest is good, and may be high. 
 
 An even walk in lifers uneven way, 
 
 Though to have dreamt of flight and not to fly 
 
 Be strange and sad. 
 
 Is not a boon that's given to all who pray. 
 
 If this I had 
 
 IM envy none ! 
 
 Nay, trod I straight for one 
 
 Year, month or week, 
 
 Should Heaven withdraw, and Satan me amerce 
 
 Of power and joy, still would I seek 
 
 Another victory with a like reverse ; 
 
 Because the good of victory does not die. 
 
 As dies the failure's curse, 
 
 And what we have to gain 
 
 Is, not one battle, but a weary life's campaign. 
 
 Yet meaner lot being sent 
 
 Should more than me content ;
 
 "FAINT YET PURSUING." 101 
 
 Yea, if I lie 
 
 Among vile shards^ though born for silver wings, 
 
 In the strong flight and feathers gold 
 
 Of whatsoever heavenward mounts and sings 
 
 I must by admiration so comply 
 
 That there I should my own delight behold. 
 
 Yea, though I sin each day times seven, 
 
 And dare not lift the fearfullest eyes to Heaven, 
 
 Thanks must I give 
 
 Because that seven times are not eight or nine. 
 
 And that my darkness is all mine. 
 
 And that I live 
 
 "Within this oak-shade one more minute even. 
 
 Hearing the winds their Maker magnify.
 
 102 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 PAIN. 
 
 O, Pain, Love's mystery. 
 Close next of kin 
 To joy and hearths delight. 
 Low Pleasure's opposite. 
 Choice food of sanctity 
 And medicine of sin, 
 Angel, whom even they that will pursue 
 Pleasure with helFs whole gust
 
 PAIX. 103 
 
 Find that they must 
 
 Perversely woo, 
 
 My lips, thy live coal touching, speak thee true. 
 
 Thou sear'st my flesh, O Pain, 
 
 But brand'st for arduous peace my languid brain, 
 
 And bright^nest my dull view. 
 
 Till I, for blessing, blessing give again. 
 
 And my roused spirit is 
 
 Another lire of bliss, 
 
 Wherein I learn 
 
 Feelingly how the pangful purging fire 
 
 Shall furiously burn 
 
 With joy, not only of assured desire. 
 
 But also present joy 
 
 Of seeing the lifers corruption, stain by stain. 
 
 Vanish in the clear heat of Love irate. 
 
 And, fume by fume, the sick alloy 
 
 Of luxury, sloth and hate
 
 104 PAIN. 
 
 Evaporate ; 
 
 Leaving the man, so dark erewhile, 
 
 The mirror merely of God^s smile. 
 
 Herein, O Pain, abides the praise 
 
 For which my song I raise ; 
 
 But even the bastard good of intermittent ease 
 
 How greatly doth it please ! 
 
 With what repose 
 
 The being from its bright exertion glows 
 
 When from thy strenuous storm the senses sweep 
 
 Into a little harbour deep 
 
 Of rest ; 
 
 When thou, O Pain, 
 
 Having devour'd the nerves that thee sustain, 
 
 Sleep'st, till thy tender food be somewhat grown again ; 
 
 And how the lull 
 
 With tear-blind love is full ! 
 
 What mockery of a man am I expressed
 
 PAIN. 105 
 
 That I should wait for thee 
 
 To woo ! 
 
 Nor even dare 1o love, till Lhou lov'st me. 
 
 How shameful, too, 
 
 Is this : 
 
 That, when thou lov^st, I am at first afraid 
 
 Of thy fierce kiss. 
 
 Like a youug maid ; 
 
 And only trust thy charms 
 
 And get my courage in thy throbbing arms. 
 
 And, when thou partest, what a fickle mind 
 
 Thou leav'st behind. 
 
 That, being a little absent from mine eye, 
 
 It straight forgets thee what thou art. 
 
 And ofttimes my adulterate heart 
 
 Dallies with Pleasure, thy pale enemy. 
 
 O, for the learned spirit without attaint 
 
 That docs not faint.
 
 106 PAIN. 
 
 But knows both how to have thee and to lack, 
 And ventures many a spell^ 
 Unlawful but for them that love so well, 
 To call thee back.
 
 107 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 THE TWO DESARTS. 
 
 Not greatly moved with awe am I 
 To learn that we may spy 
 Five thousand firmaments beyond our own. 
 The best that^s known 
 
 Of the heavenly bodies does them credit small. 
 Viewed close^ the Moon's fair ball 
 Is of ill objects worst, 
 
 A corpse in Night's highway, naked, fire-scarr'd, 
 accurst ;
 
 108 THE TWO DESARTS. 
 
 And now they tell 
 
 That the Sun is plainly seen to boil and burst 
 
 Too horribly for hell. 
 
 So, judging from these tT>o, 
 
 As we must do, 
 
 The Universe, outside our living Earth, 
 
 Was all conceiv'd in the Creator^s mirth, 
 
 Forecasting at the time Man's spirit deep. 
 
 To make dirt cheap. 
 
 Put by the Telescope ! 
 
 Better without it man may see, 
 
 Stretched awful in the hush'd midnight. 
 
 The ghost of his eternity. 
 
 Give me the nobler glass that swells to the eye 
 
 The things which near us lie. 
 
 Till Science rapturously hails, 
 
 In the minutest water-drop, 
 
 A torment of innumerable tails.
 
 THE TWO DESARTS. 109 
 
 These at the least do live. 
 
 But rather give 
 
 A mind not much to pry 
 
 Beyond our royal-fair estate 
 
 Betwixt these desarts blank of small and great. 
 
 Wonder and beauty our own courtiers arc, 
 
 Pressing to catch our gaze, 
 
 And out of obvious ways 
 
 Ne'er wandering far.
 
 110 
 
 XXVIII. 
 DELICIiE SAPIENTIJi: DE AMORE. 
 
 Love, light for me 
 Thy ruddiest blazing torch, 
 That I, albeit a beggar by the Porch 
 Of the glad Palace of Virginity, 
 May gaze within, and sing the pomp I see ; 
 For, crowned with roses all, 
 ^Tis there, O Love, they keep thy festival ! 
 But first warn off the beatific spot
 
 DELICIiE SAPIENTIiE DE AMORE. Ill 
 
 Those wretched who have not 
 
 Even afar beheld the shining wall, 
 
 And those who, once beholding, have forgot, 
 
 And those, most vile, who dress 
 
 The charnel spectre drear 
 
 Of utterly dishallowM nothingness 
 
 In that refulgent fame. 
 
 And cry, Lo, here ! 
 
 And name 
 
 The Lady whose smiles inflame 
 
 The sphere. 
 
 Bring, Love, anear. 
 
 And bid be not afraid 
 
 Young Lover true, and love-forebodiiig Maid, 
 
 And wedded Spouse, if virginal of thought ; 
 
 For I will sing of nought 
 
 Less sweet to hear 
 
 Than seems
 
 112 DELICI^ SAPIENTliE DE AMORE. 
 
 A music iu their half-remember'd dreams. 
 
 The magnet calls the steel : 
 Answers the iron to the magnet's breath ; 
 What do they feel 
 But death ! 
 
 The clouds of summer kiss in flame and rain, 
 And are not found again ; 
 
 But the heavens themselves eternal are with fire 
 Of unapproach'd desire, 
 
 By the aching heart of Love, which cannot rest, 
 In blissfullest pathos so indeed possess^. 
 O, spousals high ; 
 O, doctrine blest, 
 
 Unutterable in even the happiest sigh ; 
 This know ye all 
 Who can recall 
 
 With what a welling of indignant tears 
 Love's simpleness first hears
 
 DELICLE SAPIENTL^ DE AMORE. 113 
 
 The meaning of his mortal covenant. 
 And from what pride comes down 
 To wear the crown 
 
 Of which 'twas very heaven to feel the want. 
 How envies he the ways 
 Of yonder hopeless star, 
 And so would laugh and yearn 
 With trembling lids eterne. 
 Ineffably content from infinitely far 
 Only to gaze 
 
 On his bright Mistress's responding rays, 
 That never know eclipse ; 
 And, once in his long year. 
 With praeternuptial ecstacy and fear. 
 By the delicious law of that ellipse 
 Wherein all citizens of ether move. 
 With hastening pace to come 
 Nearer, though never near, 
 I
 
 114 DELICIiE SAPIENTLE DE AMORE. 
 
 His Love 
 
 And always inaccessible sweet Home ; 
 
 There on Lis path donbly to burn. 
 
 Kissed by her doubled light 
 
 That whispers of its source, 
 
 The ardent secret ever clothed with Niglit, 
 
 Then go forth in new force 
 
 Towards a new return, 
 
 Rejoicing as a Bridegroom on his course ! 
 
 This know ye all ; 
 
 Therefore gaze bold, 
 
 That so in you be joyful hope increasM, 
 
 Thorough the Palace poi'tals, and behold 
 
 The dainty and unsating Marriage-Feast. 
 
 O, hear 
 
 Them singing clear 
 
 " Cor meum et caro mea^' round the " I am,-" 
 
 The Husband of the Heavens, and the Lamb
 
 DELICTI SAPIENTI^E DE AMORE. 115 
 
 Whom they for ever follow there that kept^ 
 
 Or^ losing, never slept 
 
 Till they reconqucr\l had in mortal fight 
 
 The standard white. 
 
 O, hear 
 
 From the harps they bore from Earth, five-strung, what 
 
 music springs, 
 While the glad Spirits chide 
 The wondering strings ! 
 And how the shining sacrificial Choirs, 
 Ofl'ering for aye their dearest hearts' desires, 
 Which to their hearts come back beatified. 
 Hymn, the bright aisles along. 
 The nuptial song, 
 
 Song ever new to us and them, that saith, 
 " Hail Virgin in Virginity a Spouse I" 
 Heard first below 
 Vt'^ithin the little house 
 
 I 2
 
 116 DELICLE SAPIENFLE DE AMORE. 
 
 At Nazareth ; 
 
 Heard yet in many a cell where Brides of Christ 
 
 Lie hid, emparadised, 
 
 And where, although 
 
 By the hour ^tis night, 
 
 There's light. 
 
 The Day still lingering in the lap of snow. 
 
 Gaze and be not afraid 
 
 Ye wedded few that honour, in sweet thought 
 
 And glittering will, 
 
 So freshly from the garden gather still 
 
 The lily sacrificed ; 
 
 For ye, though self-suspected here for nought. 
 
 Are highly styled 
 
 With the thousands twelve times twelve of undefiled. 
 
 Gaze and be not afraid 
 
 Young Lover true and love-foreboding Maid. 
 
 The full noon of deific vision brierht
 
 DELICIiE SAriENTIiE DE AMORH. 117 
 
 Abashes nor abates 
 
 No spark minute of Naturc^s keen delight. 
 
 ^Tis there your Hymen waits ! 
 
 There where in courts afar all unconfused they erowd, 
 
 As fumes the starlight soft 
 
 In gulfs of cloud. 
 
 And each to the other, well-content. 
 
 Sighs oft, 
 
 " 'Twas this we meant \" 
 
 Gaze without blame 
 
 Ye in whom living Love yet blushes for dead shame. 
 
 There of pure Virgins none 
 
 Is fairer seen. 
 
 Save One, 
 
 Than Mary Magdalene. 
 
 Gaze Mithout doubt or fear 
 
 Ye to whom generous Love, by any name, is dear. 
 
 Love makes the life to be
 
 118 DELICI^ SAPIENTI^ DE AMORE. 
 
 A fount perpetual of virginity ; 
 
 For, lo, the Elect 
 
 Of generous Love, how named soe'er, affect 
 
 Nothing but God, 
 
 Or mediate or direct. 
 
 Nothing but God, 
 
 The Husband of the Heavens : 
 
 And who Him love, in potence great or small. 
 
 Are, one and all. 
 
 Heirs of the Palace glad 
 
 And inly clad 
 
 With the bridal robes of ardour virginal.
 
 119 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 DEAD LANGUAGE. 
 
 "Thou dost not wisely, Bard, 
 A double voice is Truth^s, to use at will : 
 One, with the abysmal scorn of good for ill, 
 Smiting the brutish ear with doctrine hard, 
 AVhcroin She strives to look as near a lie 
 As can comport with her divinity ; 
 The other tender- soft as seem 
 The embraces of a dead Love in a dream.
 
 120 DEAD LANGUAGE. 
 
 These thoughts, which you have sung 
 
 In the vernacular, 
 
 Should be, as others of the Church's are, 
 
 Decently cloak'd in the Imperial Tongue. 
 
 Have you no fears 
 
 Lest, as Lord Jesus bids your sort to dread. 
 
 You acorn-munchers rend you limb from limb, 
 
 You, with Heaven's liberty aflFronting theirs!" 
 
 So spoke my monitor ; but I to him, 
 
 " Alas, and is not mine a language dead ?"
 
 121 
 
 XXX. 
 
 1867. 
 
 In the year of the great crime, 
 When the false English Nobles and their Jew, 
 By God demented, slew 
 
 The Trust they stood twice pledged to keep from wroDg, 
 One said, Take up thy Song, 
 That breathes the mild and almost mythic time 
 Of England's prime ! 
 But I, Ah, me.
 
 122 1867. 
 
 The freedom of the few 
 
 That, in our free Land, were indeed the free, 
 
 Can song renew ? 
 
 Ill singing 'tis with blotting prison-bars, 
 
 How high soever, betwixt us and the stars ; 
 
 III singing 'tis when there are none to hear ; 
 
 And days are near 
 
 When England shall forget 
 
 The fading glow which, for a little while, 
 
 Illumes her yet, 
 
 The lovely smile 
 
 That grows so faint and wan, 
 
 Her people shouting in her dying ear. 
 
 Are not daws twain worth two of any swan ! 
 
 Ye outlaw 'd Best, who yet are bright 
 With the sunken light. 
 Whose common style 
 Is Virtue at her gracious case.
 
 18G7. 123 
 
 The flower of olden sanctities, 
 
 Ye haply trust, by lovers benignant guile, 
 
 To lure the dark and selfish brood 
 
 To their own hated good ; 
 
 Ye haply dream 
 
 Your lives shall still tlieir charmful sway sustain, 
 
 Unstifled by the fever^l steam 
 
 That rises from the plain. 
 
 Know, "'twas the force of function high, 
 
 In corporate exercise, and public awe 
 
 Of Nature's, Heaven's, and England^s Law 
 
 That Best, though mixM with Bad, should reign. 
 
 Which kept you in your sky ! 
 
 But, when the sordid Trader caught 
 
 The loose-held sceptre from your hands distraught. 
 
 And soon, to the Mechanic vain. 
 
 Sold the proud toy for nought, 
 
 Your charm was broke, your task was sped.
 
 124 1S67. 
 
 Your beautV; with your honour, dead, 
 
 And though you still are dreaming sweet 
 
 Of being even now not less 
 
 Than Gods and Goddesses, ye shall not long so cheat 
 
 Your hearts of their due heaviness. 
 
 Go, get you for your evil watching shriven ! 
 
 Leave to your lawful Master's itching hands 
 
 Your unkinged lands, 
 
 But keep, at least, the dignity 
 
 Of deigning not, for his smooth use, to he. 
 
 Voteless, the voted delegates 
 
 Of his strange interests, loves and hates. 
 
 In sackcloth, or in private strife 
 
 With private ill, ye may please Heaver, 
 
 And soothe the coming pangs of sinking life ; 
 
 And prayer perchance may win 
 
 A term to God's indignant mood 
 
 And the orgies of the multitude,
 
 18f)7. 125 
 
 Which now begin ; 
 
 But do not hope to wave the silken rag 
 
 Of your unsanction^ flag, 
 
 And so to guide 
 
 The great ship, helmless on the swelling tide 
 
 Of that presumptuous Sea, 
 
 Unlit by sun or moon, yet inly bright 
 
 With lights innumerable that give no light. 
 
 Flames of corrupted will and scorn of right 
 
 Rejoicing to be free. 
 
 And now, because the dark comes on apace 
 When none can work for fear, 
 And Liberty in every Land lies slain. 
 And the two Tyrannies unchallenged reign, 
 And heavy prophecies, suspended long 
 At supplication of the righteous few 
 And so discredited, to fulfilment throng 
 Restrain 'd no more by faithful prayer or tear.
 
 126 1867. 
 
 And the dread baptism of blood seems near 
 
 That brings to tiie humbled Earth the Time of Grace, 
 
 Hush\l be all song, 
 
 And let Christ's own look through 
 
 The darkness, suddenly increased, 
 
 To the grey secret lingering in the East.
 
 127 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 VESICA PISCIS. 
 
 In strenuous hope I wrought. 
 And hope seem'd still betrayed ; 
 Lastly I said, 
 
 " I have labour'd through the Night, nor yet 
 '' Have taken aught ; 
 
 " But at Thy word I will again cast forth the net !^* 
 And, lo, I caught 
 
 (Oh, quite unlike and quite beyond my thought,) 
 I 3
 
 I 
 
 128 VESICA PISCIS. 
 
 Not the quick, shining harvest of the Sea, 
 For food, my wish. 
 But Thee 
 
 Then, hiding even in me. 
 As hid Avas Simon's coin within the fish, 
 Thou sighM'st, with joy, " Be dumb, 
 " Or speak but of forgotten things to far-off times 
 to come/^
 
 1-29 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 SING US ONE OF THE SONGS OF SION. 
 
 How siug the Lord's Song in so strange a Laud ? 
 A torrid waste of water-mocking sand ; 
 Oases of wild grapes ; 
 A dullj malodorous fog 
 
 O'er a once Sacred River's wandering strand. 
 Its ancient tillage all gone back to bog ; 
 A busy synod of blest cats, and apes 
 Exposing the poor trick of earth and star 
 With worshipp'd snouts oracular ;
 
 130 SING US ONE OF THE SONGS OF SION. 
 
 Prophets to whose blind stare 
 
 The heaveus the glory of God do uot declare, 
 
 SkilVd in such question nice 
 
 As why one conjures toads who fails with lice, 
 
 And hatching snakes from sticks in such a swarm 
 
 As quite to surfeit Aaron's bigger worm ; 
 
 A nation which has got 
 
 A lie in her right hand^ 
 
 And knows it not ; 
 
 With Pharaohs to her mind, each drifting as a log 
 
 Which way the foul stream flows. 
 
 More hardened the more plagued with fly and frog ! 
 
 How should sad Exile sing in such a Land ? 
 
 How should ye understand ? 
 
 What could he win but jeers, 
 
 Or howls, such as sweet music draws from dog, 
 
 Who told of marriage-feasting to the man 
 
 That nothing knows of food but bread of bran V
 
 SING US ONE OF THE SOXGS OF SIOX. 131 
 
 Besides, if aught such ears 
 
 Might e'er uiiclog, 
 
 There lives but one, 
 
 ( Hear not this praise, meek walls of Edgbastou !) 
 
 With tones for Sion meet. 
 
 Behoveful, zealous, beautiful, elect, 
 
 JNIild, firm, judicious, loving, bold, discreet, 
 
 Without superfluousuess, without defect, 
 
 Few are his words, and find but scant respect. 
 
 Nay, scorn from some, for God's good cause agog. 
 
 Silence in such a Land is oftenest such men's speech. 
 
 O, that I might his holy secret reach ; 
 
 O, might I catch his mantle when he goes; 
 
 O, that I were so gentle and so sweet, 
 
 So I might deal fair Sion's foolish foes 
 
 Such blows !
 
 132 
 
 XXXIII. 
 EROS AND PSYCHE. 
 
 " Love, I heard tell of thee so oft ! 
 Yea, thrice ray face and bosom flushM with heat 
 Of sudden wings. 
 
 Through delicatest ether feathering soft 
 Their solitary beat. 
 
 Long did I muse what service or what charms 
 Might lure thee, blissful Bird, into mine arms ; 
 And nets I made,
 
 EROS AND PSYCHE. 133 
 
 But not of the fit strings. 
 
 At last, of endless failure much afraid. 
 
 To-night I would do nothing but lie still. 
 
 And promise, wert thou once within my window-sill, 
 
 Thine unknown will. 
 
 In nets^ default. 
 
 Finch-like meseemM thou might'st be ta*en with salt ; 
 
 And here — and how thou mad'st me start ! — 
 
 Thou art.'' 
 
 " O Mortal, by Immortals' cunning led. 
 Who shew'd thee how for Gods to bait thy bed ? 
 
 Ah, Psyche, guessed you nought 
 
 I craved but to be caught ? 
 
 Wanton, it was not you, 
 
 But I that did so passionately sue ; 
 
 And for your beauty, not unscathM, I fought 
 
 With Hades, ere I ownM in you a thought \" 
 " O, heavenly Lover true, 
 K 2
 
 134 EROS AND PSYCHE. 
 
 Is this your mouth upon my forehead pressM ? 
 
 Are these your arras about my bosom link'd ? 
 
 Are these your hands that tremble near my heart, 
 
 Where join two hearts^ for juncture more distinct? 
 
 By thee and by my maiden zone caress\l, 
 
 What dim, waste tracts of life shine sudden, like moonbeams 
 
 On windless ocean, shaken by sweet dreams ! 
 
 Ah, stir not to depart ! 
 
 Kiss me again, your Wife and Virgin too ! 
 
 O Love, that, like a rose, 
 
 Deckest my breast with beautiful repose. 
 
 Kiss me again, and clasp me round the heart. 
 
 Till fill'd with thee am I 
 
 As the cocoon is with the butterfly ! 
 
 — Yet how 'scape quite 
 
 Nor pluck pure pleasure with profane delight ? 
 
 How know I that my Love is what he seems ! 
 
 Give me a sign
 
 EROS AND PSYCHE. 135 
 
 That, in the pitchy night, 
 
 Comes to ray pillow au immortal Spouse, 
 
 And not a ftend, hiding with happy boughs 
 
 Of palm and asphodel 
 
 The pits of hell V* 
 
 " 'Tis this : 
 I make the childless to keep joyful house. 
 Below thy bosom, mortal Mistress mine. 
 Immortal by my kiss, 
 Leaps what sweet pain ? 
 A fiend, my Psyche, comes with barren bliss, 
 A God^s embraces never are in vaiu.^' 
 
 " I own 
 A life not mine within my golden zone. 
 Yea, how 
 'Tis easier grown 
 Thine arduous rule to don 
 Than for a Bride to put her bride-dress on !
 
 130 EROS AND PSYCHE. 
 
 Nay, rather, now 
 
 'Tis no more service to be borne serene, 
 
 Whither thou wilt, thy stormful wings between. 
 
 But, Oh, 
 
 Can I endure 
 
 This flame, yet live for what thou lov'st me, pure ?" 
 
 " Himself the God let blame 
 If all about him bursts to quenchless flame ! 
 My Darling, know 
 
 Thy spotless fairness is not matched in snow. 
 But in the integrity of fire. 
 Whate'er thou art, Sweet, I require. 
 A sorry God were he 
 
 That fewer claimM than all Love's mighty kingdoms 
 three !" 
 " Much marvel I 
 That thou, the greatest of the Powers above. 
 Me visitest with such exceeding love.
 
 EROS AND PSYCHE. 137 
 
 What thing is this ? 
 
 A God to make me, nothing, needful to his bliss, 
 
 And humbly wait my favour for a kiss ! 
 
 Yea, all thy legions of liege deity 
 
 To look into this mystery desire/' 
 
 " Content thee. Dear, with them, this marvel to admire. 
 And lay thy foolish little head to rest 
 On my familiar breast. 
 
 Should a high King, leaving his arduous throne. 
 Sue from her hedge a little Gipsy Maid, 
 For far-off royal ancestry bewrayM 
 By some wild beauties, to herself unknown ; 
 Some voidness of herself in her strange ways 
 Which to his bounteous fulness promised dainty praise; 
 Some power, by all but him unguessM, 
 Of growing king-like were she king-caressM ; 
 And should he bid his dames of loftiest grade 
 Put off her rags and make her lowlihead
 
 13S EROS AND PSYCHE. 
 
 Pure for the soft midst of his perfumecJ becl^ 
 
 So to forget, kinrl-couch'd with her alone. 
 
 His empire, in her winsome joyance free ; 
 
 What would he do, if SQch a fool were she 
 
 As at his grandeur there to gape and qnake. 
 
 Mindless of love*s supreme equality. 
 
 And of his heart, so simple for her sake 
 
 That all he ask'd, for making her all-blest. 
 
 Was that her nothingness alway 
 
 Should yield such easy fee as frank to play 
 
 Or sleep delighted in her Monarch's breast. 
 
 Feeling her nothingness her giddiest boast. 
 
 As being the charm for which he loved her most ? 
 
 What if this reed. 
 
 Through which the King thought love-tunes to have blown. 
 
 Should shriek, ' Indeed, 
 
 ' I am too base to trill so blest a tone !^ 
 
 Would not the Kiny; allege
 
 ^ 
 
 EROS AND rSYCIIE. 130 
 
 Defaulted consummation of the marriage-pledge. 
 And hie the Gipsy to her native hedge V 
 
 " O, too mueh joy ; O, touch of airy fire ; 
 O, turmoil of content ; O, unperturb'd desire. 
 From founts of spirit impelFd through brain and blood ! 
 I'll not call ill what, since ^tis thine, is good, 
 Nor best what is but second best or third ; 
 Still my heart fails, 
 
 And, unaccustomed and astonished, quails. 
 And blames me, though I think I have not errM. 
 'Tis hard for fly, in such a honied flood. 
 To use his eyes, far less his wings or feet. 
 Bitter be thy behests ! 
 
 Lie like a bunch of myrrh between my aching breasts. 
 Some greatly pangful penance would I brave. 
 Sharpness me save 
 From being slain by sweet !" 
 
 " In thy deird bosom^s double peace
 
 140 EROS AND PSYCHE. 
 
 Let all care cease ! 
 
 Custom^s joy-killing breath 
 
 Shall bid thee sue full soon for custom-killing death. 
 
 So clasp thy childish arms again around my heart : 
 
 'Tis but in such captivity 
 
 The unbounded Heav^is know what they be ! 
 
 And lie thou there, 
 
 Till the dawn, threat'ning to declare 
 
 My beauty, which thou canst not bear, 
 
 Bid me depart. 
 
 Suffer thy soul's delight, 
 
 Lest that which is to come wither thee quite : 
 
 For these are only thine espousals ; yes, 
 
 More intimate and fruitfuller far 
 
 Than aptest mortal nuptials are ; 
 
 But nuptials wait thee such as now thou darest not guess." 
 
 " In all I thee obey ! And thus I know 
 That all is well :
 
 EROS AND PSYCHE. 141 
 
 Should'st thou me tell 
 
 Out of thy warm caress to go 
 
 And roll my body in the biting snow. 
 
 My very body^s joy were but increased ; 
 
 More pleasant 'tis to please thee than be pleased. 
 
 Thy love has conquer'd rae ; do with me as thou wilt, 
 
 And use me as a chattel that is thine ! 
 
 Kiss, tread me under foot, cherish or beat, 
 
 Sheathe in my heart sharp pain up to the hilt. 
 
 Invent what else were most perversely sweet ; 
 
 Nay, let the Fiend drag me througli dens of guilt ; 
 
 Let Earth, Heav'n, Hell 
 
 'Gainst my content combine ; 
 
 What could make nought the touch that made thee mine ! 
 
 Ah, say not yet, farewell V 
 
 "Nay, that's the Blackbird's note, the sweet Night's 
 knell. 
 Behold, Belov'd, the penance thou would'st brave !"
 
 142 EROS AND PSYCHE. 
 
 " Cursed, when it comes, the bitter thing we crave ! 
 Thou leav'st me now, like to the moon at dawn, 
 A little, vacuous world alone in air. 
 I will not care ! 
 
 When dark comes back my dark shall be withdrawn ! 
 Go free ; 
 For ^tis with me 
 
 As when the cup the Child scoops in the sand 
 Fills, and is part and parcel of the Sea. 
 I'll say it to myself and understand. 
 Farewell ! 
 
 Go as thou wilt and come ! Lover divine. 
 Thou still art jealously and wholly mine; 
 And this thy kiss 
 
 A separate secret by none other scann'd ; 
 Though well I wis 
 
 The whole of life is womanhood to thee, 
 Momently wedded with enormous bliss.
 
 EROS AND rSYCIIK. 143 
 
 Rainbow^ that hast my heaven sudden spanned, 
 
 I am the apple of tliy glorious gaze, 
 
 Eaeh else life centering to a different blaze ; 
 
 And, nothing though I be 
 
 But now a no more void capacity for thee, 
 
 ■'Tis all to know there's not in air or land 
 
 Another for thy Darling quite like me ! 
 
 ]\Iine arms no more thy restless plumes compel ! 
 
 Farewell ! 
 
 "Whilst thou art gone, I'll search the weary meads 
 
 To deck my bed with lilies of fair deeds ! 
 
 And, if thou choose to come this eventide, 
 
 A touch, my Love, will set my casement wide. 
 
 Farewell, farewell ! 
 
 Be my dull days 
 
 Music, at least, with thy remember'd praise \" 
 
 " Bitter, sweet, few and veil'd let be 
 Thy songs of me.
 
 144 EROS AND FSYCHE. 
 
 Preserving bitter, very sweet, 
 
 Few, that so all may be discreet, 
 
 And veird, that, seeing, none may see.''
 
 145 
 
 XXXIV. 
 THE CRY AT MIDNIGHT. 
 
 The Midge's wing beats to and fro 
 A thousand times ere one can utter " O !" 
 And Sirius' ball 
 Does on his business run 
 As many times immenser than the Sun. 
 Why should things not be great as well as small. 
 Or move like light as well as move at all ? 
 St. Michael fills his place, I mine, and, if you please.
 
 14G THE CRY AT MIDNIGHT. 
 
 We will respect each other's provinces, 
 I marv^llino^ not at him, nor he at me. 
 Butj if thou must go gaping, let it be 
 That One who could make Michael should make thee. 
 O, foolish Man, meting things low and high 
 By self, that accidental quantity ! 
 With this conceit, Philosophy stalks frail 
 As peacock staggering underneath his tail. 
 Who judge of Plays from their own penny gaff, 
 At (jiod's great theatre will hiss and laugh; 
 For what's a Saint to them 
 Brought up in modern virtues brummagem ? 
 With garments grimed and lamps gone all to snuflF, 
 And counting others for like Virgins queer. 
 To list those others cry, '' Our Bridegroom's near !" 
 Meaning their God, is surely quite enough 
 To make them rend their clothes and bawl out 
 " Blasphemy !"
 
 147 
 
 XXXV. 
 DE NATURA DEORUM. 
 
 " Good-morrow^ Psyche ! What's thine errand now ? 
 What awful pleasure do thine eyes bespeak, 
 What shame is in thy baby cheek, 
 What terror on thy brow ? 
 Is this my Psyche, once so pale and meek ? 
 Thy body's sudden beauty my sight old 
 Stings, like an agile bead of boiling gold. 
 And all thy life looks troubled like a tree's 
 
 L
 
 148 DE NATURA DEORUM. 
 
 Whose bouglis wave many ways in one great breeze.** 
 
 " O Pythoness, to strangest story hark : 
 A dreadful God was with me in the dark — " 
 
 " How many a Maid — 
 Has never told me that ! And thou'rt afraid — ** 
 
 " He'll come no more, 
 Or come but twice, 
 Or thrice. 
 Or only thrice teu thousand times thrice o*er \" 
 
 " For want of wishing thou mean'st not to miss. 
 We know the Lover, Psyche, by the kiss V 
 
 " If speech of honey could impart the sweet. 
 The world were all in tears and at his feet ! 
 But not to tell of that in tears come I, but this : 
 I'm foolish, weak, and small. 
 And fear to fall. 
 
 If long he stay away, O, frightful dream, wise Mother, 
 What keeps me but that I, gone crazy, kiss some other \"
 
 DE NATURA DEORUM. 149 
 
 *' The fault were his ! But, know, 
 Sweet little Daughter sad. 
 He did but feign to go, 
 And never more 
 Shall cross thy window-sill. 
 Or pass beyond thy door. 
 Save by thy will. 
 
 He's present now in some dim place apart 
 Of the ivory house wherewith thou raad'st him glad. 
 Nay, this I whisper thee. 
 Since none is near, 
 
 Or, if one were, since only thou could'st hear, 
 That happy thing which makes thee flush and start, 
 Like infant lips in contact with thy heart. 
 Is He V 
 
 " Yea, this I know, but never can believe ! 
 O, hateful light ! when shall mine own eyes mark 
 My beauty, which this victory did achieve ?" 
 L 2
 
 150 DE NATURA DEORUM. 
 
 " When thou, like Gods and owls, canst see by dark." 
 " In vain I cleanse me from all blurring error — '' 
 " ^Tis the last rub that polishes the mirror/^ 
 " It takes fresh blurr each breath which I respire." 
 " Poor Child, don^t cry so ! Hold it to the fire.^' 
 " Ah, nought these dints can e^er do out again V 
 " Love is not love which does not sweeter live 
 
 For having something dreadful to forgive." 
 " Sadness and change and pain 
 
 Shall me for ever stain ; 
 
 For, though my blissful fate 
 
 Be for a billion years. 
 
 How shall I stop my tears 
 
 That life was once so low and Love arrived so late I" 
 " Sadness is beauty's savour, and pain is 
 
 The exceedingly keen edge of bliss, 
 
 Nor, without swift mutation, would the heav'ns be aught/^ 
 " How to behave with him I'd fain be taught.
 
 DE NATCTRA DEORUM. 151 
 
 A Maid, meseeras, within a God's embrace, 
 
 Should bear her like a Goddess, or, at least, a Grace." 
 
 " When Gods, to Man or Maid below. 
 As men or birds appear, 
 A kind 'tis of incognito. 
 And that, not them, is what they choose we should revere." 
 
 " Advise me what oblation vast to bring, 
 Some least part of my worship to confess I" 
 
 " A woman is a little thing, 
 And in things little lies her comeliness." 
 
 '* Must he not soon with mortal tire to toy ?" 
 
 "The bashful meeting of strange Depth and Height 
 Breeds the forever new-born babe, Delight ; 
 And, as thy God is more than mortal boy, 
 So bashful more the meeting, and so more the joy." 
 
 " He loves me dearly, but he shakes a whip 
 Of deathless scorpions at my slightest slip. 
 Mother, last night he call'd me 'Gipsy,' so
 
 152 DE NATURA DEORUM. 
 
 Eoiighly it smote me like a blow ? 
 Yet, oh, 
 
 I love him, as none surely e'er could love 
 Our People^s pompous but good-natured Jove. 
 He used to send me stately overture ; 
 But marriage-bonds, till now, I never could endure \" 
 " How should great Jove himself do else than miss 
 To win the woman he forgets to kiss ; 
 Or, won, to keep his favour in her eyes. 
 If he's too soft or sleepy to chastise \ 
 By Eros, her twain claims are ne^er forgot ; 
 Her wedlock's marr'd when cither's miss'd : 
 Or when she's kiss'd, but beaten not. 
 Or duly beaten, but not kiss'd. 
 Ah, Child, the sweet 
 
 Content, when we're both kiss'd and beat ! 
 — But whence these wounds? What Demon thee enjoins 
 To scourge thy shoulders white
 
 DE NATURA DEORUM. 153 
 
 And tender loins \" 
 
 " ^Tis nothing, Mother. Happiness at play, 
 And speech of tenderness no speech can say !" 
 
 '' How learned thou art ! 
 Twelve honeymoons profane had taught thy docile heart 
 Less than thine Eros, in a summer night \" 
 
 " Nay, do not jeer, but help my puzzled plight : 
 Because he loves so marvellously me, 
 And I with all he loves in love must be. 
 How to except myself I do not see. 
 Yea, now that other vanities are vain, 
 Vm. vain, since him it likes, of being withal 
 Weak, foolish, small V* 
 
 " How can a Maid forget her ornaments ! 
 The Powers, that hopeless doom the proud to die. 
 Unasked smile pardon upon vanity. 
 Nay, praise it, when themselves are praised thereby." 
 
 " Ill-matchM I am for a God's blandishments !
 
 154 DE NATURA DEORUM. 
 
 So greatj so wise — " 
 
 " Gods, in the abstract, are, no doubt, most wise ; 
 But, in the concrete, well, they^re mysteries ! 
 He's not with thee. 
 At all less wise nor more 
 
 Than human Lover is with her he deigns to adore. 
 He finds a fair capacity. 
 And fills it with himself, and glad would die 
 For that sole She/' 
 
 " Know'st thou some potion me awake to keep. 
 Lest, to the grief of that ne'er-slumbering Bliss, 
 Disgraced I sleep. 
 Wearied in soul by his bewildering kiss ?'* 
 
 " The Immortals, Psyche, moulded men from sods 
 That Maids from them might learn the ways of Gods. 
 Think, would a wakeful Youth his hard fate weep, 
 Lock'd to the tired breast of a Bride asleep ?" 
 
 " Ah, me, I do not dream.
 
 DE NATURA DEORUM. 155 
 
 Yet all this does some heathen fable seem V 
 
 " Overmuch thou mind'st the throne he leaves above ! 
 
 Between unequals sweet is equal love/' 
 
 '' Nay, Mother, iu his breast^ when darkness blinds, 
 
 I cannot for my life but talk and laugh 
 
 With the large impudence of little minds \" 
 " Respectful to the Gods and meek, 
 
 According to one's lights, I grant 
 
 'Twere well to be ; 
 
 But, on my word, 
 
 Child, any one, to hear you speak, 
 
 Would take you for a Protestant, 
 
 (Such fish I do foresee 
 
 When the charm'd fume comes strong on me,) 
 
 Or powder'd lackey, by some great man's board, 
 
 A deal more solemn than his Lord ! 
 
 Know'st thou not, Girl, thine Eros loves to laugh? 
 
 And shall a God do anything by half?
 
 156 DE NATURA DEORUM. 
 
 He foreknew and predestinated all 
 
 The Great must pay for kissing things so small, 
 
 And ever loves his little Maid the more 
 
 The more she makes him laugh/' 
 
 '' O, Mother, are you sure?" 
 
 " Gaze steady where yon starless deep the gaze revolts. 
 And say, 
 
 Seest thou a Titan forging thunderbolts. 
 Or three fair butterflies at lovesome play ? 
 And this FU add, for succour of thy soul : 
 Lines parallel meet sooner than some think ; 
 The least part oft is greater than the whole ; 
 And, when you're thirsty, that's the time to drink." 
 
 " Thy sacred words I ponder and revere, 
 And thank thee heartily that some are clear." 
 
 " Clear speech to men is mostly speech in vain. 
 Their wit is by themselves so justly scann'd, 
 They still despise the things they understand ;
 
 DE NATURA DEORUM. 157 
 
 But, to a pretty Maid like thee, I don^t mind speaking 
 plain /^ 
 
 '^ Then one boon more to her whom strange Fate mocks 
 With a wife's duty but no wife's sweet right : 
 Could I at will but summon my Delight — " 
 
 '' Thou of thy Jewel art the dainty box ; 
 Thine is the charm which, any time, unlocks ; 
 And this, it seems, thou hitt'st upon last night. 
 Now go. Child ! For thy sake 
 I've talk'd till this stiff tripod makes my old limbs ache."
 
 158 
 
 XXXVI. 
 WINTER. 
 
 1, SINGULARLY moved 
 
 To love the lovely that are not beloved. 
 
 Of all the Seasons, most 
 
 Love Winter, and to trace 
 
 The sense of the Trophonian pallor on her face. 
 
 It is not death, but plenitude of peace ; 
 
 And the dim cloud that does the world enfold 
 
 Hath less the characters of dark and cold
 
 WINTER. 159 
 
 Than warmth and light asleep ; 
 
 And correspondent breathing seems to keep 
 
 With the infant harvest, breathing soft below 
 
 Its eider coverlet of snow. 
 
 Nor is in field or garden anything 
 
 But, duly lookM into, contains serene 
 
 The substance of things hoped for, in the Spring, 
 
 And evidence of Summer not yet seen. 
 
 On every chance-mild day 
 
 That visits the moist shaw. 
 
 The honeysuckle, ^sdaining to be crost 
 
 In urgeuce of sweet life by sleet or frost, 
 
 ^Voids the timers law 
 
 With stiU increase 
 
 Of leaflet new, and little, wandering spray ; 
 
 Often, in sheltering brakes. 
 
 As one from rest disturbed in the first hour. 
 
 Primrose or violet bewildered wakes.
 
 160 WINTER. 
 
 And deems ^tis time to flower ; 
 
 Though not a whisper of her voice he hear. 
 
 The buried bulb does know 
 
 The signals of the year. 
 
 And hails far Summer with his lifted spear ; 
 
 The gorse-field dark, by sudden, gold caprice. 
 
 Turns, here and there, into a Jason's fleece ; 
 
 Lilies that, soon in Autumn, slipped their gowns of green 
 
 And vanished into earth. 
 
 And came again, ere Autumn died, to birth. 
 
 Stand full-arrayM amidst the wavering shower. 
 
 And perfect for the Summer, less the flower ; 
 
 In nook of pale or crevice of crude bark, 
 
 Thou canst not miss, 
 
 If close thou spy, to mark 
 
 The ghostly chrysalis. 
 
 That, if thou touch it, stirs in its dream dark ; 
 
 And the flushed Robin, in the evenings hoar,
 
 WINTLR. 161 
 
 Does of Love's Day, as if he saw it, sing ; 
 
 But sweeter yet than dream or song of Summer or Spring 
 
 Are Winter's sometime smiles, that seem to well 
 
 From infancy ineffable ; 
 
 Her wandering, languorous gaze. 
 
 So unfamiliar, so without amaze. 
 
 On the elemental, chill adversity, 
 
 The uncomprehended rudeness ; and her sigh 
 
 And solemn, gathering tear, 
 
 And look of exile from some great repose, the sphere 
 
 Of ether, moved by ether only, or 
 
 By something still more tranquil. —
 
 162 
 
 XXXVII. 
 PSYCHE^S DISCONTENT. 
 
 '' Not yet, not yet ! 
 ^Tis still high day, and half my toiFs to do. 
 How can I toil, if thus thou dost renew 
 Toil's guerdon, which the daytime should forget ? 
 The long, long night, when none can work for fear. 
 Sweet fear incessantly consummated, 
 My most divinely Dear, 
 My Joy, my Dread,
 
 PSYCHE'S DISCONTENT. 163 
 
 Will soon be here ! 
 Not, EroSj yet ! 
 
 I ask^ for Day, the use which is the Wife's : 
 To bear, apart from thy delight and thee, 
 The fardel coarse of customary lifers 
 Exceeding injucundity. 
 
 Leave me awhile, that I may shew thee clear 
 How Goddess-like thy love has lifted me ; 
 How, seeming lone upon the gaunt, lone shore, 
 I'll trust thee near. 
 
 When thou'rt, to knowledge of my heart, no more 
 Than a dream's heed 
 
 Of lost joy track'd in scent of the sea-weed ! 
 Leave me to pluck the incomparable flower 
 Of frailty lion-like fighting in thy name and power : 
 To make thee laugh, in thy safe heaven, to see 
 With what grip fell 
 
 111 cling to hope when life draws hard to hell, 
 M
 
 104 PSYCHE'S DISCONTENT. 
 
 Yca^ cleave to thee when me thou seem^st to slay, 
 
 Haply, at close of some most cruel day, 
 
 To find myself in thy reveaFd arms claspM, 
 
 Just when I say. 
 
 My feet have slipp'd at last ! 
 
 But, lo, while thus I store toil's slow increase. 
 
 To be my dower, in patience and in peace. 
 Thou com'st, like bolt from blue, invisibly. 
 With premonition none nor any sign. 
 And, at a gasp, no choice nor fault of mine, 
 Possess'd I am with thee 
 Ev'n as a sponge is by a surge of the sea !" 
 
 " Thus irresistibly by Love embraced 
 Is she who boasts her more than mortal chaste V 
 
 " Count'st thou me worthy, then, by day and night. 
 But of this fond indignity, delight 1^' 
 
 " Little, bold Feminility, 
 That darest blame Heaven, what would'st thou have or be ?
 
 PSYCHE'S DISCONTENT. 165 
 
 " Shall I, the gnat which dances in thy ray, 
 Dare to be reverent ? Therefore dare I say, 
 I cannot guess the good that I desire, 
 But this I know, I spurn the gifts which Hell 
 Can mock till which is which 'tis hard to tell. 
 I love thee, God ; yea, and 'twas such assault 
 As this which made me thine ; if that be fault ; 
 But I, thy Mistress, merit should thine ire 
 If aught so little, transitory and low 
 As this which made me thine 
 Should hold me so." 
 
 "Little to thee, my Psyche, is this, but much to me !" 
 
 « Ah, if, my God, that be !" 
 
 " Yea, Palate fine. 
 That claim'st for thy proud cup the pearl of price. 
 And scorn'st the wine, 
 Accept the sweet, and say 'tis sacrifice ! 
 Sleep, Centre to the tempest of my love, 
 
 M 2
 
 166 psyche's discontent. 
 
 And dream thereof, 
 
 And keep the smile which sleeps within thy face 
 
 Like sunny eve in some forgotten place '/' 
 
 " Enough, enough, ambrosial plumed Boy ! 
 My bosom is aweary of thy breath. 
 Thou kissest joy 
 To death. 
 
 Have pity of my clay-conceived birth 
 And maiden^s simple mood. 
 Which longs for ether and infinitude, 
 As thou, being God, crav^st littleness and earth ! 
 Thou art immortal, thou canst ever toy. 
 Nor savour less 
 
 The sweets of thine eternal childishness. 
 And hold thy godhead bright in far employ. 
 Me, to quite other custom life-inured, 
 Ah, loose from thy caress. 
 ■'Tis not to be endured !
 
 PSYCHE'S DISCONTENT. 1()7 
 
 Uudo thine arms and let luc see the sky, 
 
 By this infatuating flame obscured. 
 
 O, I should feel thee nearer to my heart 
 
 If thou and 1 
 
 Shone eaeh to each respondently apart. 
 
 Like stars which one the other trembling spy, 
 
 Distinct and lucid in extremes of air. 
 
 O, hear me pray " 
 
 " Be prudent in thy prayer ! 
 A God is bond to her who is wholly his, 
 And may not her beseeched harm deny/' 
 
 " Nay, hear me not amiss. 
 I could not mean that thou should'st ne'er me kiss ; 
 But, since thou count'st me all too mean to share 
 The sorrows of a God, which are, as well 
 As his felicities, inefi'able. 
 Ah, let these accidents of love go by, 
 These eddies of thy bliss ;
 
 168 PSYCHE'S DISCONTENT. 
 
 Let them rush by^ 
 
 And leave i* the flood some turfy islet calm, 
 
 Where we two, all the day, 
 
 May sing without annoy 
 
 Under the fragrant bay 
 
 Or fanning palm ; 
 
 Or nurse the sigh-reciprocated joy 
 
 Of iucommunicable moods 
 
 With lonesome odours of the lonelv woods ; 
 
 Or watch, in star-sweet dark, the boreal chase, 
 
 The electric, swift desire. 
 
 Making glad conquest of obstructing space 
 
 In streams of bashful light and free, ethereal fire. 
 
 With ^twixt us peace, like peace of Babe and Mother, 
 
 One lunocency feeding from itself the other."
 
 169 
 
 XXXYIII. 
 ARBOR VITiE. 
 
 With honeysuckle, over-sweet, festoon^ ; 
 With bitter ivy bound ; 
 Terraced with funguses unsound ; 
 Deform'd with many a boss 
 And closed scar, o'ercushionM deep with moss ; 
 BunchM all about with pagan mistletoe ; 
 And thick with nests of the hoarse bird 
 That talks, but understands not his own word ;
 
 170 ARBOR VIT^. 
 
 Stands, and so stood a thousand years ago, 
 
 A single tree. 
 
 Thunder has done its worst among its twigs. 
 
 Where the great crest yet blackens, never pruned, 
 
 But in its heart, alway 
 
 Ready to push new verdurous boughs, whenever 
 
 The rotting saplings near it fall and leave it air. 
 
 Is all antiquity and no decay. 
 
 Rich, though rejected by the forest-pigs. 
 
 Its fruit, beneath whose rough, concealing rind 
 
 They that will break it find 
 
 Heart-succouring savour of each several meat. 
 
 And kerneird drink of brain-renewing power, 
 
 "With bitter condiment and sour. 
 
 And sweet economy of sweet. 
 
 And odours that remind 
 
 Of haunts of childhood and a different day. 
 
 Beside this tree.
 
 ARBOR VIT^. 171 
 
 Praising no Gods nor blaming, sans a wish. 
 Sits, Tartar-like, the Time's civility. 
 And eats its dead-dog off a golden dish.
 
 172 
 
 XXXIX. 
 SPONSA DEI. 
 
 What is this Maiden fair 
 The laughing of whose eye 
 Is in man's heart renewed virginity ; 
 Who yet sick longing breeds 
 For marriage which exceeds 
 The inventive guess of Love to satisfy 
 With hope of utter binding, and of loosing endless 
 dear despair ?
 
 SPONSA DEI. 173 
 
 What gleams about her shine. 
 
 More trausieut than delight and more divine ! 
 
 If she does something but a little sweet. 
 
 As gaze towards the glass to set her hair. 
 
 See how his soul falls humbled at her feet ! 
 
 Her gentle step, to go or come. 
 
 Gains her more merit than a martyrdom ; 
 
 And, if she dance, it doth such grace confer 
 
 As opes the heaven of heavens to more than her. 
 
 And makes a rival of her worshipper. 
 
 To die unknown for her were little cost ! 
 
 So is she without guile. 
 
 Her mere refused smile 
 
 Makes up the sum of that which may be lost ! 
 
 Who is this Fair 
 
 Whom each hath seen. 
 
 The darkest once in this bewailed dell. 
 
 Be he not destined for the glooms of hell?
 
 174 SPONSA DEL 
 
 Whom each hath seen 
 
 And knownj with sharp remorse and sweet, as Queen 
 
 And tear-glad Mistress of his hopes of bliss, 
 
 Too fair for man to kiss ? 
 
 Who is this only happy She, 
 
 Whom, by a frantic flight of courtesy. 
 
 Born of despair 
 
 Of better lodging for his Spirit fair, 
 
 He adores as Margaret, Maude, or Cecily ? 
 
 And what this sigh. 
 
 That each one heaves for earth's last lowlihead 
 
 And the Heaven high 
 
 Ineffably locked in dateless bridal-bed ? 
 
 Are all, then, mad, or is it prophecy ? 
 
 '' Sons now we are of God,'' as we have heard, 
 
 " But what we shall be hath not yet appear'd." 
 
 O, Heart, remember thee 
 
 That Man is none.
 
 SPONSA DEI. 175 
 
 Save One. 
 
 What if this Lady be thyself, aud He 
 
 Who claims to enjoy her sacred beauty be. 
 
 Not thou, but God ; and thy sick fire 
 
 A female vanity, 
 
 Such as a Bride, viewing her mirror'd charms. 
 
 Feels when she sighs, " All these are for his arms !" 
 
 A reflex heat 
 
 FlasVd on thy cheek from His immense desire, 
 
 Which waits to crown, beyond thy braiu^s conceit. 
 
 Thy nameless, secret, hopeless longing sweet. 
 
 Not by-and-bye, but now, 
 
 Unless deny Him thou !
 
 176 
 
 XL. 
 TO THE BODY. 
 
 Cueation's and Creator's crowning good ; 
 Wall of infinitude ; 
 Foundation of the sky, 
 In Heaven forecast 
 And long'd for from eternity, 
 Though laid the last ; 
 Reverberating dome, 
 Of music cunningly built home
 
 TO THE BODY. 177 
 
 Against the void and indolent disgrace 
 
 Of unresponsive space ; 
 
 Little, sequestcr'd pleasure-house 
 
 For God and for his Spouse ; 
 
 Elaborately^ yea, past conceiving, fair. 
 
 Since, from the graced decorum of the hair, 
 
 Ev'n to the tingling, sweet 
 
 Soles of the simple, earth-confiding feet. 
 
 And from the inmost heart 
 
 Outwards unto the thin 
 
 Silk curtains of the skin, 
 
 Every least part 
 
 Astonish'd hears 
 
 And sweet replies to some like region of the spheres ; 
 
 Formed for a dignity prophets but darkly name. 
 
 Lest shameless men cry '' Shame \" 
 
 So lich with wealth conceaFd 
 
 That Heaven and Hell fight chiefly for this field ;
 
 178 TO THE BODY. 
 
 Clinging to everytliing that pleases thee 
 
 With indefectible fidelity ; 
 
 Alas, so true 
 
 To all thy friendships that no grace 
 
 Thee from thy sin can wholly disembrace ; 
 
 Which thus 'bides with thee as the Jebusite, 
 
 That, maugre all God's promises could do, 
 
 The chosen People never conquered quite ; 
 
 Who therefore lived with them, 
 
 And that by formal truce and as of right. 
 
 In metropolitan Jerusalem. 
 
 For which false fealty 
 
 Thou needs must, for a season, lie 
 
 In the grave's arms, foul and unshriven, 
 
 Albeit, in Heaven, 
 
 Thy crimson-throbbing Glow 
 
 Into its old abode aye pants to go, 
 
 And does with envy see
 
 TO THE BODY. 179 
 
 Enochs Elijah, and the Lady, she 
 Who left the lilies in her body's lieu. 
 O, if the pleasures I have known in thee 
 But my poor faith's poor first-fruits be, 
 "What quintessential, keen, ethereal bliss 
 Then shall be his 
 
 Who has thy birth-time's consecrating dew 
 For death's sweet chrism retain' d, 
 Quick^ tender, virginal, and unprofaned ! 
 
 N
 
 ;80 
 
 XLI. 
 AURAS OF DELIGHT. 
 
 Beautiful habitations, auras of delight ! 
 Who shall bewail the crags and bitter foam 
 And angry sword-blades flashing left and right 
 Which guard your glittering height. 
 That none thereby may come ! 
 The vision which we have 
 Revere we so, 
 That yet we crave
 
 AURAS OF DELIGHT. 181 
 
 To foot those fields of ne'er-profaned snow '' 
 
 I, witli heart-quake, 
 Dreaming or thinking of that realm of Love, 
 See, oft, a dove 
 
 Tangled in frightful nuptials with a snake. 
 The tortured knot, 
 
 Now, like a kite scant-weighted, flung bewitched 
 Sunwards, now pitch' d. 
 Tail over head, down, but with no taste got 
 Eternally 
 
 Of rest in either ruin or the sky, 
 But bird and vermin each incessant strives. 
 With vain dilaceration of both lives, 
 'Gainst its abhorred bond insoluble, 
 Coveting fiercer any separate hell 
 Than the most weary Soul in Purgatory 
 On God's sweet breast to lie. 
 And, in this sign, I con 
 N 2
 
 182 AURAS OF DELIGHT. 
 
 The guerdon of that golden Cup, fulfilFd 
 
 With fornications foul of Babylon, 
 
 The heart where good is well-perceived and known. 
 
 Yet is not wilFd ; 
 
 And Him I thank, who can make live again 
 
 The dust, but not the joy we once profane. 
 
 That I, of ye, 
 
 Beautiful habitations, auras of delight. 
 
 In childish years, and since had sometime sense and sight, 
 
 But that ye vanished quite. 
 
 Even from memory. 
 
 Ere I could get my breath, and whisper " See \" 
 
 But did for me 
 They altogether die, 
 
 Those trackless glories glimps'd in upper sky ? 
 Were they of chance, or vain, 
 Nor good at all again 
 For curb of heart or fret ?
 
 AURAS OF DELIGHT. 183 
 
 Nay, though, by grace, 
 
 Lest, haply, I refuse God to his face. 
 
 Their likeness wholly I forget. 
 
 Ah, yet. 
 
 Often in straits which else for roe were ill, 
 
 I mind me still 
 
 I did respire the lonely auras sweet, 
 
 Idid the blest abodes behold, and, at the mountains' feet, 
 
 Bathed in the holy Stream by Hermon's thymy hill.
 
 184 
 
 XLII. 
 THE AZALEA. 
 
 There, where tlie sun shines first 
 Against our room. 
 
 She train'd the gold Azalea, whose perfume 
 She, Spring-like, from her breathing grace dispersed. 
 Last night the delicate crests of saffron bloom. 
 For that their dainty likeness watch'd and nurst, 
 Were just at point to burst. 
 At dawn I dreamed, O God, that she was dead,
 
 THE AZALEA. 185 
 
 And groaned aloud upon my wretched bed. 
 
 And waked, ah, God, and did not waken her. 
 
 But lay, with eyes still closed. 
 
 Perfectly bless'd in the delicious sphere 
 
 By which I knew so well that she was near. 
 
 My heart to speechless thankfulness composed. 
 
 Till 'gan to stir 
 
 A dizzy somewhat in my troubled head — 
 
 It was the azalea's breath, and she was dead ! 
 
 The warm night had the lingering buds disclosed ; 
 
 And I had falFn asleep with to my breast 
 
 A chance-found letter press'd 
 
 In which she said, 
 
 " So, till to-morrow eve, my Own, adieu ! 
 
 " Parting's well-paid with soon again to meet, 
 " Soon in your arms to feel so small and sweet, 
 " Sweet to myself that am so sweet to you V
 
 186 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 SAINT VALENTINE^S DAY. 
 
 Well dost thou. Love, thy solemn Feast to hold 
 In vestal February, 
 
 Not rather choosing out some rosy day 
 From the rich coronet of the coming May, 
 When all things meet to marry ! 
 
 O, quick, prsevernal Power 
 That signalFst punctual through the sleepy mould 
 The Snowdrop's time to flower
 
 SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY. 187 
 
 Fair as the rash oath of virginity 
 
 Which is first-love's first cry ; 
 
 O, Baby Spring, 
 
 That flutter'st sudden ^neath the breast of Earth 
 
 A month before the birth ; 
 
 Whence is the peaceful poignancy, 
 
 The joy contrite. 
 
 Sadder than sorrow, sweeter than delight, 
 
 That burthens now the breath of everything. 
 
 Though each one sighs as if to each alone 
 
 The cherished pang were known ? 
 
 At dusk of dawn, on his dark spray apart. 
 
 With it the Blackbird breaks the young Day^s heart ; 
 
 In evening's hush 
 
 About it talks the heavenly-minded Thrush ; 
 
 The hill with like remorse 
 
 Smiles to the Sun's smile in his westering course ; 
 
 The fisher's drooping skiff
 
 188 SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY. 
 
 In yonder sheltering bay ; 
 
 The choughs that call about the shining cliff; 
 
 The children, noisy in the setting ray, 
 
 Own the sweet season, each thing as it may ; 
 
 Thoughts of strange kindness and forgotten peace 
 
 In me increase ; 
 
 And tears arise 
 
 Within my happy, happy Mistress' eyes. 
 
 And, lo, her lips, averted from my kiss, 
 
 Ask from Love's bounty much, much more than bliss. 
 
 Is't the sequester'd and exceeding sweet 
 Of dear Desire electing his defeat ? 
 Is't the waked Earth now to yon purpling cope 
 Uttering first-love's first cry. 
 Vainly renouncing, with a Seraph's sigh, 
 Love's natural hope ? 
 
 Fair-meaning Earth, foredoom'd to perjury ! 
 Behold, all-amorous May,
 
 SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY. 189 
 
 With roses heaped upon her laughing brows. 
 
 Avoids thee of thy vows ! 
 
 Were it for thee, with her warm bosom near, 
 
 To abide the sharpness of the Seraph's sphere ? 
 
 Forget thy foolish words ; 
 
 Go to her summons gay. 
 
 Thy heart with dead, wing'd Innocencies fillM, 
 
 Ev'n as a nest with birds 
 
 After the old ones by the hawk are killM. 
 
 Well dost thou, Love, to celebrate 
 The noon of thy soft ecstasy 
 Or e^er it be too late. 
 Or e'er the Snowdrop die !
 
 190 
 
 XLIV. 
 ALEXANDER AND LYCON. 
 
 '* What, no crown won, 
 These two whole years, 
 By man of fortitude beyond his peers, 
 In Thrace or Macedon ?'' 
 
 " No, none. 
 But what deep trouble does my Lycon feel. 
 And hide ^neath chat about the commonweal V 
 
 " Glaucd but now the third time did again
 
 ALEXANDER AND LYCON, 191 
 
 The thing which I forbade. I had to box her ears. 
 
 ■'Twas ill to see her both blue eyes 
 
 Settled in tears 
 
 Despairing on the skies. 
 
 And the poor lip all pucker'd into pain ; 
 
 Yet, for her sake, from kisses to refrain \" 
 
 " Ho, Timocles, take down 
 That crown. 
 No, not that common one for blood with extreme valour 
 
 spilt. 
 But yonder, with the berries gilt. 
 'Tis, Lycon, thy just meed. 
 To inflict unmoved 
 
 And firm to bear the woes of the Beloved 
 Is fortitude indeed.^'
 
 192 
 
 XLV. 
 
 THE MERRY MURDER. 
 
 Stand by, 
 Ye Wise^ by whom Heaven rules ! 
 Your kingly bands suit not the hangman's tools. 
 When God has doom'd a glorious Past to die. 
 Are there no knaves and fools ? 
 Content ye for a space to count for nought. 
 Smoke of the strife of other Powers 
 Than ours 
 
 And tongues inscrutable with fury fraught 
 'Wilder the sky.
 
 THE MERRY MURDER. 193 
 
 Till the new thing we know not how to ask be wrought. 
 
 Stand by ! 
 
 Since tears are vain, here let us look and laugh. 
 
 But not too loudly; for the brave timers come, 
 
 The establish'd sanctity of slop and slum, 
 
 When Best may not blaspheme the Bigger Half, 
 
 And freedom for our sort means freedom to be dumb. 
 
 Lo, how the dross and draff 
 Grin up at us, and shout, 
 " The Morning^s ours, the Night is theirs !" 
 And urge their rout 
 
 Where the wild dawn of rising Tartarus flares. 
 Yon strives a Leader, lusting to be seen. 
 His leprosy's so perfect that men call him clean ! 
 Listen the long, sincere, and liberal bray 
 Of the earnest Puller at another's hay 
 'Gainst aught that dares to tug the other way. 
 Quite void of fears
 
 194 THE MERRY MURDER. 
 
 With all that noise of ruin round his ears ! 
 
 There goes another of a different feather ; 
 
 Hut, where two rogues are, two still run together ; 
 
 And the fresh Dame^ whose pleasures they purvey, 
 
 Though shock'd by Turk, likes reasonable range, 
 
 Chadband her choice, with Chiffinch for a change I 
 
 Yonder a prophet casts his cap overhead, 
 
 And swears the threatened doom is ne'er to dread 
 
 That's come, though not yet past. 
 
 All front the horror and are none aghast ; 
 
 Brag of their full-blown rights and liberties. 
 
 Nor once surmise 
 
 When each man gets his due the Nation dies ; 
 
 Nay, still shout " Progress !" as if seven plagues 
 
 Should take the man who stopp'd to stretch his legs. 
 
 At last, indeed, 
 We, too, can bid the merry race " God speed \" 
 How pleasant 'tis when brethren are agreed !
 
 THE MERRY MURDER. 195 
 
 Hurrah ! bad corpses turn into good dung, 
 
 To feed strange futures beautiful and young. 
 
 Hurrah ! behold the progress of the waves 
 
 That mount to Vhelra the freedom which enslaves. 
 
 Progress be praised ! for, though the inspired swine 
 
 Hai^e won the hill-crest, there's, beyond, the brine ! 
 
 See, too, that other herd, which hurries the same way, 
 Bewitched, tails forward, faintly squeaking, " Stay \" 
 These, for the love of pence and places, slew 
 
 And to the common gutter cast 
 
 The corpse of Kingship, pleading, false, if they 
 
 Not did this, others would this do ; 
 
 Mark, others those, 
 
 For planning this, their late-supplanted foes ! 
 
 Now, when they thought to boast their betterM lot. 
 
 Their plagues wax hot. 
 
 See how they mildly court, 'mid bully and drab, 
 
 The stupid Csesar they were sworn to stab ! 
 
 o
 
 195 THE MERRY MURDER. 
 
 The Northern Bog, too, now is on the slide."^ 
 
 With a flung sod they late might bid it bide. 
 
 But not the whole world's force shall bid it back. 
 
 Because the Land it once crawls o'er 
 
 Is land no more ; 
 
 And yet their arms hung marrowless and slack. 
 
 An Owl, when they would lift them, cried, " Tu-whoo V 
 
 They fled, as Murder flees when none pursue ; 
 
 The doom that faced their fleeing scared them not. 
 
 — I only meant to jeer ; 
 But wrath breaks down and blows away the crust 
 That caked mine eyes from scanning what is just, 
 And I see clear, 
 What better Bard hath seen 
 And sung 'mid pious hoots from all the unclean, 
 
 * This poem was written the year before the conclusion of Mr. 
 Gladstone's Peace at Berlin.
 
 THE MERRY MURDER. 197 
 
 That Heaven's smile 
 
 Sweetens to view the guerdon of the vile. 
 Not without frightful joy I watch the fate that's near ; 
 For love of Land, which never cools. 
 Changes to love of vengeance, when the people change to 
 fools. 
 Now look no more ! Enough of scorn ! 
 Better relief from vainest tears is born. 
 Dear Land, that seem'd too sweetly wise. 
 
 Too sternly fair for aught that dies. 
 
 Past is thy proud and pleasant state. 
 
 That recent date 
 
 When, strong and single, in thy sovereign heart, 
 
 The thrones of thinking, hearing, sight, 
 
 The cunning hand, the knotted thew 
 
 Of lesser powers that heave and hew. 
 
 And each the smallest beneficial part. 
 
 And merest pore of breathing, beat, 
 
 o2
 
 198 THE MERRY MURDER. 
 
 Full and complete^ 
 
 The great pulse of thy generous might, 
 
 Equal in inequality, 
 
 That soul of joy in low and high; 
 
 When not a churl but felt the Giant^s heat. 
 
 Albeit he simply calVd it his, 
 
 Flush in his common labour with delight. 
 
 And not a village-Maiden^s kiss 
 
 But was for this 
 
 More sweet. 
 
 And not a sorrow but did lightlier sigh, 
 
 And for its private self less greet. 
 
 The whilst that other so majestic self stood by ! 
 
 Integrity so vast could well afford 
 
 To wear in working many a stain, 
 
 To pillory the cobbler vain 
 
 And license madness in a lord. 
 
 On that were all men well agreed ;
 
 THE MERRY MURDER. 199 
 
 And, if they did a thing, 
 
 Their strength was with them in their deed, 
 
 And from amongst them came the shout of a kiug ! 
 
 But, once let traitor coward meet. 
 Not Heaven itself can keep its feet. 
 Came knave who said to dastard, " Lo, 
 " The Deluge V which but needed, " No !" 
 For all the Atlantic's threatening roar. 
 If men would bravely understand. 
 Is softly check' d for evermore 
 By a firm bar of sand. 
 But, dastard listening knave, who said, 
 " 'Twere juster were the Giant dead, 
 " That so yon bawlers may not miss 
 " To vote their own pot-belly'd bliss," 
 All that is past ! 
 
 We saw the slaying, and were not aghast. 
 But ne'er a sun, on village Groom and Bride,
 
 200 THE MERRY MURDER. 
 
 Albeit they guess not how it is^ 
 At Easter or at Whitsuntide, 
 But shines less gay for this !
 
 201 
 
 XLVI. 
 THE CHILD'S PURCHASE. 
 
 A PROLOGUE. 
 
 As a young Child, whose Mother, for a jest, 
 To his own use a golden coin flings down, 
 Devises blythe how he may spend it best, 
 Or on a horse, a bride- cake, or a crown. 
 Till, wearied with his quest, 
 Nor liking altogether that nor this. 
 He gives it back for nothing but a kiss, 
 Endow'd so I 
 "With golden speech, my choice of toys to buy.
 
 202 THE CHILD'S PURCHASE. 
 
 And scanning power and pleasure and renown. 
 Till each in turn, with looking at, looks vain^ 
 For her mouth^s bliss. 
 To her who gave it give I it again. 
 
 Ah, Lady elect. 
 Whom the Timers scorn has saved from its respect. 
 Would I had art 
 
 For uttering this which sings within my heart ! 
 But, lo. 
 
 Thee to admire is all the art I know. 
 My Mother and God's ; Fountain of miracle ! 
 Give me thereby some praise of thee to tell 
 In such a Song 
 
 As may my Guide severe and glad not wrong 
 Who never spake till thouMst on him conferr'd 
 The right, convincing word ! 
 Grant me the steady heat 
 Of thought wise, splendid, sweet.
 
 THE CHILD'S PURCHASE. 203 
 
 Urged by the greats rejoicing wind that rings 
 
 With draft of unseen wings, 
 
 Making each phrase, for love and for delight, 
 
 Twinkle like Sirius on a frosty night ! 
 
 Aid thou thine own dear fame, thou only Fair, 
 
 At whose petition meek 
 
 The Heavens themselves decree that, as it were. 
 
 They will be weak ! 
 
 Thou Speaker of all wisdom in a Word, 
 Thy Lord ! 
 
 Speaker who thus could^st well afford 
 Thence to be silent ; — ah, what silence that 
 Which had for prologue thy '' Magnificat ?" — 
 O, Silence full of wonders 
 More than by Moses in the iMount were heard. 
 More than were utter'd by the Seven Thunders ; 
 Silence that crowns, unnoted, like the voiceless blue, 
 The loud world^s varying view,
 
 204 THE CHILD'S PURCHASE. 
 
 And iu its holy heart the sense of all things ponders ! 
 That acceptably I may speak of thee, 
 Or a pro me ! 
 
 Key-note and stop 
 Of the thunder-going chorus of sky-Powers ; 
 Essential drop 
 
 DistilFd from worlds of sweetest-savourM flowers 
 To anoint with nuptial praise 
 The Head which for thy Beauty dofl^M its rays. 
 And thee, in His exceeding glad descending, meant. 
 And Man^s new days 
 Made of His deed the adorning accident ! 
 Vast Nothingness of Self, fair female twin 
 Of Fulness, sucking all God's glory in ! 
 (Ah, Mistress mine. 
 To nothing 1 have added only sin. 
 And yet would shine !) 
 Ora pro me !
 
 THE CHILD'S PURCHASE. 205 
 
 Life's cradle and death's tomb ! 
 To lie within whose womb. 
 There, with divine self-will infatuate. 
 Love-captive to the thing He did create. 
 Thy God did not abhor. 
 No more 
 
 Than Man, in Youth's high spousal-tide, 
 Abhors at last to touch 
 
 The strange lips of his long-procrastinating Bride; 
 Nay, not the least imagined part as much ! 
 Ora pro me ! 
 
 My Lady, yea, the Lady of my Lord, 
 Who didst the first descry 
 The burning secret of virginity. 
 We know with what reward ! 
 Prism whereby 
 Alone we see 
 Heav'n's light in its triplicity ;
 
 206 THE child's purchase. 
 
 Rainbow complex, 
 
 In bright distinction, of all beams of sex. 
 
 Shining for aye 
 
 In the simultaneous sky, 
 
 To One, thy Husband, Father, Son, and Brother, 
 
 Spouse blissful. Daughter, Sister, milk-sweet Mother ; 
 
 Ora pro me ! 
 
 Mildness, whom God obeys, obeying thyself 
 Him in thy joyful Saint, nigh lost to sight 
 In the great gulf 
 
 Of his own glory and thy neighbour light ; 
 With whom thou wast as else with husband none 
 For perfect fruit of inmost amity ; 
 "Who felt for thee 
 
 Such rapture of refusal that no kiss 
 Ever seaFd wedlock so conjoint with bliss ; 
 And whose good singular eternally 
 'Tis now, with nameless peace and vehemence.
 
 THE child's purchase. 207 
 
 To enjoy thy married smile. 
 That mystery of innocence ; 
 Or a pro me ! 
 
 Sweet Girlhood without guile. 
 The extreme of God's creative energy ; 
 Sunshiny Peak of human personality ; 
 The world's sad aspirations' one Success j 
 Bright Blush, that sav'st our shame from shamelessness ; 
 Chief Stone of stumbling ; Sign built in the way 
 To set the foolish everywhere a-bray ; 
 Hem of God's robe, which ail who touch arc heal'd ; 
 To which the outside Many honour yield 
 "With a reward and grace 
 Unguess'd by the unwash'd boor that hails Him to His 
 
 face, 
 Spurning the safe, ingratiant courtesy 
 Of suing Him by thee ; 
 Ora pro me !
 
 208 THE child's purchase. 
 
 Creature of God rather the sole than first ; 
 Knot of the cord 
 
 Which binds together all and all unto their Lord ; 
 Suppliant Omnipotence ; best to the worst ; 
 Our only Saviour from an abstract Christ 
 And Egypt's brick-kilns, -where the lost crowd plods, 
 Blaspheming its false Gods ; 
 Peace-beaming Star, by which shall come enticed. 
 Though nought thereof as yet they weet, 
 TInto thy Babe's small feet. 
 The Mighty, wand'ring disemparadised. 
 Like Lucifer, because to thee 
 They will not bend the knee ; 
 Ora pro me ! 
 
 Desire of Him whom all things else desire ! 
 Bush aye with Him as He with thee on fire ! 
 Neither in His great Deed nor on His throne — 
 O, folly of Love, the intense
 
 THE child's purchase. 209 
 
 Last culmination of Intelligence, — 
 
 Him seemed it good that God should be alone ! 
 
 Basking in unborn laughter of thy lips, 
 
 Ere the world was, with absolute delight 
 
 His Infinite reposed in thy Finite ; 
 
 Well-match'd : He, universal being's Spring, 
 
 And thou, in whom are gather'd up the ends of everything ! 
 
 Ora pro me ! 
 
 In season due, on His sweet-fearful bed. 
 Rocked by an earthquake, curtained with eclipse, 
 Thou shar'd'st the spousal rapture of the sharp spear's head. 
 And thy bliss pale 
 
 "Wrought for our boon what Eve's did for our bale ; 
 Thereafter, holding a little thy soft breath. 
 Thou underwent'st the ceremony of death ; 
 And, now, Queen-Wife, 
 Sitt'st at the right hand of the Lord of Life, 
 Who, of all bounty, craves for only fee
 
 210 THE CHILD'S PURCHASE. 
 
 The glory of hearing it besought with smiles by thee 
 Ora joro one ! 
 
 Mother, who lead'st me still by unknown ways, 
 Giving the gifts I know not how to ask, 
 Bless thou the work 
 
 Which, done, redeems my many wasted days. 
 Makes white the murk, 
 
 And crowns the few which thou wilt not dispraise, 
 When clear my Songs of Lady's graces rang, 
 And little guess'd I 'twas of thee I sang ! 
 
 Vainly, till now, my pray'rs would thee compel 
 To fire my verse with thy shy fame, too long 
 Shunning world-blazon of well-ponder'd song ; 
 But doubtful smiles, at last, 'mid thy denials lurk ; 
 From which I spell, 
 
 " Humility and greatness grace the task 
 " Which he who does it deems impossible !"
 
 PR 
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