University of California Berkeley 
 Gift of 
 
 CAREY McWILLIAMS 
 

 
 
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BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 POEMS 
 A BOOK OF BARGAINS 
 
THE HOUSES OF SIN 
 
Four hundred copies only of this book have been 
 printed, all on the same paper. 
 
 No. 
 
THE HOUSES OF SIN 
 
 BY 
 
 VINCENT O'SULLIVAN 
 
 LONDON 
 
 LEONARD SMITHERS 
 
 ROYAL ARCADE: OLD BOND STREET 
 
 1897 
 
CHISWICK PRESS : CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 THE HOUSES OF SIN n 
 
 MALARIA 14 
 
 THE HOUR OF GHOSTS 15 
 
 THE VERGE 17 
 
 DRUG 20 
 
 THREE MOMENTS 
 
 I THE LOVER 21 
 
 II HUSBAND AND WIFE 21 
 
 III THE LOVER 24 
 
 LOVE IN TEARS 26 
 
 THE DANCER AT THE OPERA 27 
 
 WOMAN OF THE MIST 3 
 
 SHADOWS 3 2 
 
 CHILDREN OF WRATH 33 
 
 FEAR AT NIGHT 35 
 
 OUR LADY OF THE FIELDS 37 
 
 FRANCIS BORGIA AT GRENADA 39 
 
 CALVARY HILL 42 
 
 HYMN IN MAY -44 
 
 AT THE GATE OF THE YEAR 46 
 
 THE FULL MOON 47 
 
 A SILKEN LADDER .' 48 
 
 OUT OF THE CLOUD 5 2 
 
 7 
 
VALE 53 
 
 THE LONELY WOMEN 54 
 
 A SLAVE OF THE STREET ....... 56 
 
 To AN ENEMY : WHEN DYING 57 
 
 A PRAYER * 5^ 
 
 THE RIVALS . . . . . . f . .60 
 THE VOICE OF THE WINDS . . ^ . .61 
 GOD'S HOUR , . . . . .63 
 
 FOR THE END .,.,,.... 65 
 
R 
 
 \EMNANTS of passion, remnants of defeat. 
 Ye rags and motley of out-worn desire, 
 Unto my hearth-rug drag your torpid feet, 
 And light a barren fire. 
 
 Bleak days of idle sin with madness shod, 
 Wishes scarce wished before they had an end, 
 The fear of Satan, and the fear of God, 
 Now with the ashes blend. 
 
 Mean hours spent mourning worthless things of earth, 
 Sorrows and loves I was too tired to spurn 
 Ye, and the weariness which gave ye birth, 
 Come hither now and burn. 
 
THE HOUSES OF SIN 
 
 THE street lay tremulous in yellow light 
 Which mingled with the blackness of the night ; 
 Soft murmured laughter sounded everywhere, 
 And sobs like laughter glided on the air ; 
 While on the steps, grouped round each open door, 
 Sweet persons stood and gazed on Heaven's floor. 
 Then, as a perfumed wind came glancing by 
 And kissed me with its melancholy sigh, 
 And wooed me to its lair 
 
 Of flower-haunted rooms : " Would you go there ? " 
 A voice said low, and charmed my willing ear. 
 " Would you take part with those who give the cheer 
 In yon gay scene, and look on those who lie 
 'Neath every incense-freighted canopy ? " 
 Ah ! well I knew 
 
 That only to escape the horrid crew 
 Of daily tiresome deeds, the noisome crowd 
 Of those who seek themselves and seek aloud, 
 Who think austerity a prick of pin, 
 And folly call, to dignify it, sin, 
 I had all-hailed the Infamous ! Then " Yes," 
 I said to him who soothed my loneliness, 
 And looked upon his face. 
 
 He was a man on whom some strange disgrace 
 
 ii 
 
Had settled in the morning of his years, 
 
 And bowed him to a life of shame and tears ; 
 
 Pride and humility mingled in his mien 
 
 The servant of the servant of a queen. 
 
 " Come, let us go ! " he cried, and passed along 
 
 With hasty steps between the mighty throng : 
 
 Onward we pressed through crowds with laughter lit, 
 
 Till at a house where Avarice was writ 
 
 In scarlet letters, he said : " Get you in ! 
 
 This is the first house in the street of Sin." 
 
 An ancient dame was sitting at a wheel 
 
 With which she spun the gold threads of her reel, 
 
 And all her threads she twined in little rolls 
 
 Around her bodkins, which were human souls. 
 
 " Here all is peace," quoth she ; " but you descry 
 
 Just opposite a house of revelry : 
 
 There doth she dwell for whom I eat the dust 
 
 My ever good and constant neighbour Lust" 
 
 " Quick ! " spoke my friend, " the revels now begin." 
 
 And lo ! we sought the second house of Sin. 
 
 Throughout that night we passed from door to door 
 And saw all men on earth, as on the shore 
 Of various lands a traveller may see 
 Wreckage cast up by one great shuddering sea. 
 Now when the moon was highest, I descried 
 The state and splendour of the house of Pride> 
 
 12 
 
And sought the gracious hostess, in whose eyes 
 A man looks once, then serves her till he dies. 
 And when the moon was waning, and the night 
 Was yielding to the day's encroaching light, 
 Haggard and bowed we dragged our way within 
 The portals of the final house of Sin. 
 Here two dark sisters did their arms entwine : 
 " My name Anger" "Jealousy is mine." 
 A banquet of strange dishes was outspread 
 A banquet served by unforgotten dead 
 With wild entreating eyes 
 Which begged a respite from men's memories. 
 
 When I had tasted of a subtile dish 
 
 At this grave feast, behold ! I had no wish 
 
 Left in my heart, but grew as one asleep 
 
 Amongst the dead, whose passions strong and deep 
 
 Are merged in longed-for, unexpected peace, 
 
 And give them ease. 
 
 So full of joy I cried out to my friend : 
 
 " Come, join this deathly feast and so make end ! " 
 
 He wailed : " I dare not dare not gather near ! " 
 
 Then hung his head and wept : " My name is Fear" 
 
A 
 
 MALARIA 
 
 T sunset, when the shifting light 
 Fails in the marshes, what most fair 
 And sombre Spirit, robed in night, 
 Comes floating down the waves of air ? 
 
 Hot air that takes away control 
 
 From all my body's nerves, and falls 
 
 Like scented water through my soul. 
 Miasmas spread like perfumed palls. 
 
 A violet and yellow flush 
 
 Floats to intense skies like a spire : 
 It bathes my heart with secret hush 
 
 And fills my brain with dreaming fire. 
 
 Poison, dark goddess, is thy name ! 
 
 Beside the rank and stagnant pool 
 Where thou dost live, there is no shame 
 
 In thy embrace : thy bed is cool. 
 
 Come, ere appears the steadfast line 
 Of outpost stars ah ! let thy breath 
 
 Kiss me, and press thy breast to mine, 
 Thou sweet grave harbinger of Death. 
 
THE HOUR OF GHOSTS 
 
 WHEN the wind blows and stirs their earth-worn 
 faces, 
 Sometimes they wake and rise up from their 
 
 places, 
 
 Seeking each other's looks 
 In sad wise ; 
 
 Sad, sad they gaze at the buffeted elms, 
 And shew the vague dismay that overwhelms 
 (Scaring the crazy rooks) 
 Their tired eyes. 
 
 Wistfully then they strive to touch each other, 
 Yearning for life. One murmurs : " Lo ! my brother, 
 See you in yonder field 
 The red kine ? 
 
 They and that small white farm-house with the gable, 
 The garden, and the brown horse in the stable, 
 All that and all its yield 
 All was mine ! 
 
 " Now as I laboured on the brightling sward 
 I thought that life beneath the sun was hard, 
 That to lie here were peace, 
 Sleep, and death : 
 
In yon square barn I took a rope one morn 
 And hanged myself amid the amber corn, 
 And swung till came full cease 
 To my breath. 
 
 " I had a red-haired woman for my wife ; 
 A year past, when she saw me void of life, 
 Her weary strangling sobs 
 Bewildered me : 
 
 Now behind those lit windows she delights, 
 While I must lie here till the end of nights 
 Listing to the dull throbs 
 Of the sea." 
 
 Thus these old ghosts make converse in their woe, 
 
 While the day thickens and bats whir and go, 
 
 And in the twilight dream 
 
 Lad and lass : 
 
 Birds droop ; the drowsy church-bell tolls for bed ; 
 
 'Tis bed-time too for the forgotten dead, 
 
 Who in the light's last gleam 
 
 Sigh " Alas ! " 
 
 16 
 
THE VERGE 
 
 NOW midnight tolls, and up the stair 
 Creep the wild visions of despair 
 Sin and Sorrow, Sin and Sorrow, 
 Creep to meet the trembling morrow : 
 Now midnight tolls from ancient clocks 
 Whose rusty strokes, like muffled knocks, 
 Fall on the heart, and frighten it, 
 Of one who mournfully doth sit 
 In a dark chamber dimly lit, 
 Surrounded by the violet breath 
 And glamour of approaching Death. 
 
 Like a white horse, which rushes past 
 The watcher and divides the blast, 
 On a bleak night on some wild shore 
 Where the strong breakers' massive roar 
 Drowns the resounding of its feet ; 
 So terribly, so almost sweet, 
 Beside the dull and bitter sea 
 Of man's life passes silently 
 A sheeted ghost whose face is hid. 
 But never never shall man rid 
 Himself from thinking of that face 
 What its strange pallor, what its grace, 
 When the unveiling doth take place. 
 
 17 B 
 
Can Heaven lie hid in grave-cold eyes ? 
 
 Ah, at the midnight one man tries 
 To gather near, to lift the veil 
 And read upon that face its tale ; 
 To gather near that dread and holy 
 Figure, and his melancholy 
 Shatter by a wild caress 
 In the all sombre silentness. 
 
 The face of her the lately dead, 
 New wandering from her little bed 
 Shall it be as it once has been, 
 Or gray and horribly serene ? 
 The eyes which he has closed, alas ! 
 Have light, or stare like painted glass ? 
 Her hair oh ! of her wilderness 
 Of hair, shall there be left one tress ? 
 
 But lo, a hand has thrust aside 
 The veil as when the moon doth ride 
 In Heaven she parts the blinding clouds 
 And scatters them in flying shrouds. 
 A filmy figure, almost ak, 
 Bends slowly o'er the mourner's chair ; 
 A sacred figure, grave and dim, 
 Seeks for his face and kisses him : 
 18 
 
And at that kiss, from off the wall 
 
 The ghastly taunting shadows fall 
 
 Writhe and expire there as they fall. 
 
 He dreams : a hush floats down the air 
 
 Is this her mellow glorious hair ? 
 
 He dreams : then leaps from clutching years, 
 
 And sees her eyes are bright with tears. 
 
DRUG 
 
 WHEN winds scream round the corners damp 
 and chilly, 
 
 And clouds of rain blot out the gas-lamp's flare, 
 While lean-faced, pale-eyed men take stand and glare 
 Upon the sin-soiled floor of Piccadilly, 
 And harlots of the pavement fling their silly 
 Maniac laughter in their great despair 
 Sweet Drug ! 'tis thou who draw'st me thence, to where 
 Sways languidly the dew-embroidered lily. 
 
 Light up the dusky caverns of my soul, 
 
 Light up the dead oppressive days, and shine, 
 
 Miraculous life-giver ! where the scroll 
 
 Of hours is spent and charred : ah, come and twine 
 
 Thy soft arms round me ! Now let tempests roll ; 
 
 The pageant of thy spirit blends with mine. 
 
 20 
 
THREE MOMENTS 
 
 I THE LOVER 
 
 THROUGH my garden to-night she will pass, 
 The lady who perfumes my dream, 
 And her feet through the dew-heavy grass 
 Will glide like a moon-silvered stream, 
 And the roses bend down 
 To catch scents from her gown, 
 Ere her soul lights my soul with its beam. 
 
 O Night, Queen of Love, kiss the stars ! 
 
 Let nightingales lusciously sing ! 
 Come fairies in gossamer cars, 
 And strange woodland moths on the wing : 
 She will come, she will come, 
 And the hours will be dumb 
 With the passion her purities bring. 
 
 II HUSBAND AND WIFE 
 
 Kiss my hair again, love, 
 
 I forget 
 In your kiss the pain, love, 
 
 And the debt. 
 
 21 
 
Must this shameful sorrow 
 
 Now begin ? 
 Must I face to-morrow 
 
 This red sin ? 
 
 But indeed 'tis set so 
 
 Let it be ! 
 Ah my eyes will wet so, 
 
 Poor weak me. 
 
 Yes, I buy your life, dear, 
 
 And your fame, 
 Even I your wife, dear, 
 
 With my shame. 
 
 I had craved as treasure 
 
 Any power 
 Which could give you pleasure 
 
 For an hour. 
 
 Here it is at last, but 
 
 Now 'tis come, 
 Past dreams are not past but 
 
 Round me hum. 
 
 Still resolve is taken, 
 I will swerve 
 
 22 
 
No whit, nor be shaken : 
 You I serve ! 
 
 Here are all his letters : 
 
 See, he 's glad 
 Forging his own fetters 
 
 Foolish lad ! 
 
 Madman ! to be dreaming 
 
 I am true 
 Even in the seeming 
 
 Loved by you ! 
 
 Fool ! to think snares thus planned 
 
 Can entwine 
 Me who call you husband * 
 
 You are mine ! 
 
 Ha ! he 's melancholy, 
 
 For he missed 
 Touching lips all holy 
 
 Since you kissed. 
 
 O my soul, my treasure, 
 
 'Neath the sky 
 Two souls rilled God's measure 
 
 You and I. 
 
 23 
 
Whisper very low, love, 
 
 Let your breath 
 Fan me now I go, love 
 
 This is death. 
 
 Ill THE LOVER 
 
 Earth's iron jaws are bound with scarfing snow, 
 Like to a man late dead whose mouth drops low. 
 (Hush my Friend I The tempest broods behind.) 
 
 Long hours I watch a little scented glove, 
 
 And dream of noons I played and glanced with love. 
 
 ( Voices of dead children in the wind.) 
 
 Sudden I found my playing was in vain : 
 
 I scratched between her breasts a crimson stain. 
 
 (A scarlet light breaks on the purple sky.) 
 
 She wronged me and she crushed me to despair 
 That woman with the lustful raven hair ! 
 (A cold face snow-blanched by a veil doth cry.) 
 
 I seized a poisoned knife and struck her dead : 
 To-night three coffins shall inclose her head. 
 ( Wolves in the winter have a hungry growl.) 
 24 
 
To-night the glory of her magic kiss 
 
 Shall stir the damp worms as they pry and hiss. 
 
 ( Wet leaves of cypress in the henbane bowl.) 
 
 And my soul and the soul I loved so well 
 Shall mingle in the torment of God's hell. 
 (Moan, wind! above the pit where lost souls howl.) 
 
LOVE IN TEARS 
 
 SHE saw me with my melancholy head 
 Bent down among the grasses of the grave, 
 Among the long grass as the blue wind sped, 
 Where I for my dead love did sadly crave, 
 And thought : Now does her mellow hair still wave 
 And laugh and glitter like the morning sea, 
 As when in old lost days it played with me ? 
 
 She saw me with my face ground in the grass, 
 
 As through that place she went with hushed white feet, 
 
 And paused to touch my hair, and then did pass 
 
 Quickly unto the grayish lichened seat 
 
 And sat there moping : clouds were in her eyes, 
 
 As one who dreams a space or yet she dies. 
 
 O Love ! (I pondered in my aching heart) 
 
 Since you are dead quite dead, and I have stayed, 
 
 Shall I not close my mind and take my part 
 
 In the queen's mouth of yon sweet idle maid ? 
 
 Still jocund homesteads laugh, the months parade ! 
 
 You never move, dear, nor the yearning pain. 
 
 We two looked long, then passed like ghosts in rain. 
 
 26 
 
THE DANCER AT THE OPERA 
 
 THE dancer at the opera 
 Had the calm eyes and mystic grace 
 Of gray-clad holy nuns, but ah ! 
 Her soul reflected not her face. 
 
 Her soul lay drunken with the vaunts 
 She tolled, like maddened bee, from lips 
 That gave her wondrous body chaunts 
 White cloud which made her soul's eclipse. 
 
 And as one who drinks thirstily 
 Out of a cold and crystal well, 
 Is stricken at its depths to see 
 The slimy poisoned fungus dwell ; 
 
 So at rare times the youth who dies 
 Her sweets with slow kiss to explore, 
 Sees her soul weep behind her eyes, 
 Then pass and leave her as before. 
 
 II 
 
 One night the dancer was elate, 
 
 A night when stars made cold their beams, 
 
 27 
 
A monarch was to hear in state 
 The best of Wagner's music dreams. 
 
 Before her mirror she prepared 
 (The thought just added to her bloom) 
 To win a triumph no one shared. 
 Her loveliness filled all the room. 
 
 The church-bells spoke the clock at six, 
 When throughout Paris at the tolls 
 Folk kneel before the crucifix, 
 And say " Hail Mary " for their souls 
 
 Wrapped in her furs she seeks the stairs, 
 And then descending gay of heart, 
 Humming light operatic airs 
 Why does she pause and wildly start ? 
 
 Four men of grave and sombre mien, 
 Four men in funeral array 
 Bearing a coffin in between, 
 Are coming up and bar her way. 
 
 Imperiously her questions ring : 
 " What messenger for you has sped ? 
 For whom do you this coffin bring ? 
 Who in this house is lying dead ? 
 28 
 
" Answer ! " One hastens to obey : 
 " We bring this coffin here for a 
 Mademoiselle who died to-day : 
 The dancer at the opera." 
 
 " Liars ! " She springs from where she stands, 
 With face of ice and breast in flame, 
 To drag away the sable bands : 
 Upon the lid she reads her name. 
 
 She gains the street in blinding woe : 
 Think you she seeks the garish hall 
 Where the lights vie with gems ? ah no ! 
 She kneels at a confessional. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Where the king sits the music sobs 
 With passion too acute for tears, 
 Then bursts forth in triumphant throbs 
 Till the stars tremble in their spheres. 
 
 He, listening to the mighty surge 
 Of sound, hears strangely mingling in 
 Some wild harp-notes : The devil's dirge 
 For sinners who have ceased to sin. 
 29 
 
WOMAN OF THE MIST 
 
 TARRY yet a little while, 
 Woman of the mist ! 
 I am lonely in the rain, 
 Of your dream-hands I am fain, 
 
 Pure cold amethyst ! 
 Dear love, hear the thudding drums 
 Heralding the Death that comes 
 To entreat me with his smile : 
 Stay, oh stay this little while 
 Woman of the mist ! 
 
 Will you leave me all alone, 
 
 Woman of the mist ? 
 One winged moment clothed in joy 
 Left me, as a child the toy 
 
 That he erstwhile kist. 
 Ah ! the night is thick and sore 
 And my soul weeps on its floor ; 
 Whisper, dear, you have not flown 
 Pity ! I am all alone, 
 
 Woman of the mist. 
 
 Your voice shall soothe my life no more, 
 
 Woman of the mist ; 
 You light the stars, and cannot know 
 30 
 
How all the stabbing winds that blow 
 
 Wound me as they list : 
 With empty eyes and vacancy 
 I watch the dull and crying sea, 
 And linger on the hard wild shore 
 For one who comes no more no more 
 
 Spirit of the mist. 
 
 3 T 
 
SHADOWS 
 
 THE passionate flowers with their wild surrender 
 Of colours and sweets they garbed at dawn, 
 The tumbling bees, and oh, the tender 
 Shadows of birds all over the lawn. 
 
 Often at night I see fair old places 
 Where linger the ghosts I would fain forget 
 Ah, they sleep a sleep, those white dead faces 
 Too sound for dreaming as I dream yet. 
 
L 
 
 CHILDREN OF WRATH 
 
 AST night I wandered in the Devil's close, 
 Crushed by the aching agony of those 
 Who know strange secrets which they must dis- 
 close. 
 
 I found him seated in a herbless plain 
 
 On two large stones, nor with him any train 
 
 Of courtiers, or throng of souls in pain. 
 
 Across the muffled sky wild lightning broke, 
 And ever through the air the acrid croak 
 Of ravens fell : then drawing near I spoke. 
 
 " Almighty Master, thou whose name is feared 
 Throughout the sick world, and whose heart is cheered 
 By suitors, why alone ? " The Devil leered. 
 
 " Look round this land ! " he cried ; "let your eyes scan 
 Till they go blind this desert in its span 
 You shall not find the footprint of a man." 
 
 I answered : " There is one. Behold ! I kneel 
 To whisper shameful things, that I may feel 
 Thy dread praise for the horror I reveal." 
 
 33 c 
 
Then Satan : " Rise I If you would serve me, keep 
 Your sins locked in your heart as herds fold sheep 
 At fall of night : sin silently and deep ! 
 
 \ 
 " Walk armoured as a saint in open day ; 
 
 Blaspheme me, and the Sacred Office say : 
 My servitors to God the loudest pray. 
 
 " I love the virtue of the fools who lie 
 
 Besotted with celestial vanity 
 
 Who think they cannot sin, and shall not die. 
 
 " To them I ever murmur : ' You do well ; 
 The Holy Spirit in your soul doth dwell ! ' 
 For them I keep alight the fire of Hell." 
 
 I wailed : " O Master, thou whose name is feared 
 Throughout the sick world, and whose heart is cheered 
 By suitors, spare the people scorched and seared ! " 
 
 34 
 
FEAR AT NIGHT 
 
 BESIDE the crying river 
 Where night is cold and pale, 
 And gaunt trees groan and shiver 
 In the shrewd autumn gale, 
 I ever hear it wail. 
 
 It pauses when I pause, 
 
 Then moves distraught and wild ; 
 
 I follow it because 
 
 It cries like a sick child 
 
 Whose soul is good and mild. 
 
 Its hands explore the ground 
 All night while dark winds rave, 
 And heap a little mound. 
 It has a corpse to save : 
 It digs a shallow grave. 
 
 O God, let me awaken 
 If this Thing is a dream ; 
 Or let yon soul be shaken 
 Into the shadowy stream, 
 And hush its boding scream. 
 35 
 
Or on this foul alarm 
 I'll steal with stealthy pace, 
 And hold it in my arm, 
 And feel its breath a space 
 Then see it face to face ! 
 
OUR LADY OF THE FIELDS 
 
 WHEN night wraps in velvet fold 
 All the gracious land and still, 
 And the hour for sleep has tolled 
 In the village on the hill, 
 
 Mary my mother, 
 
 Thou movest through the flocks of sheep 
 Where white tired lambs are fast asleep, 
 Mary my mother. 
 
 The grasses touch thy dove-gray dress, 
 And thy feathery small feet press 
 The pretty daisies, which are sore 
 Thy pensive passing to adore ; 
 While from thy silver rosary 
 Falls, dreamily and silently, 
 The holy dew upon the fields 
 To bless the pleasant harvest yields. 
 
 By the church where sleep the dead 
 Thou dost watch a strange blue bird, 
 Who beside each weary bed 
 Singeth low thy soothing word, 
 
 Mary my mother ; 
 
 Then from that place with eyes full mild 
 Thou leadest forth a good dead child, 
 
 Mary my mother. 
 37 
 
Blessed Virgin, see me too, 
 Ere thou lookest on thy Son ; 
 Make me leap to thee anew ! 
 Proud sins have my life undone 
 Forcing me thy grace to shun, 
 
 Mary my mother 
 
 Please cure me of the Old Man's spell, 
 Which leads me down the road to Hell 
 
 O Mary mother ! 
 
FRANCIS BORGIA AT GRENADA 
 
 IS this the Queen this thing with fastened eyes 
 And face where foul corruption has its seat 
 Is this the Queen ? The erewhile gracious form, 
 Struck with a great paralysis, is left 
 A thrall to those who but a week ago 
 Kissed the poor earth she walked and deemed their 
 
 lips 
 
 The purer for that sacramental touch ! 
 And now she cannot seek her resting-place, 
 But to the piety of slaves 'tis left 
 To bear her corpse (her corpse !) within the church, 
 Where its strange grin and ghastliness affright 
 Majestic monuments and graven stones. 
 Her crowned hair has dwindled into dross ; 
 Her hand, which if a man kissed only once 
 He became sacred in the realm of Spain, 
 Has turned to that no lozel dog would lick ; 
 Her cheeks, which striving roses sought to vie, 
 Are stiff and hard as clay becomes with cold. 
 She who swayed cities and the lives of men, 
 Governor of Arragon and Castile, 
 And ruler in the half-spheres of the world, 
 Rules not this box which I am set to guard. 
 Kind God, is this the Queen ? 
 
 Thought she of God? 
 39 
 
I knew at Seville once an aged man 
 Who like a comely mantle wore his age : 
 His eye had light, his manner suavity, 
 The pressing years had fallen on him soft 
 As rain-drops fall on little children's graves. 
 Now, when he came to die, I was of those 
 Who knelt about his pallet watching him ; 
 And as the vesper-bell from sun-red towers 
 Just floated through the dim and hushing air 
 He stirred, and " I believe in God ! " he said, 
 And pressed the crucifix against his breast 
 And died. Then being dead he lay at smile, 
 Like one who dreams a pleasant easy dream 
 And would be sorry if he were to wake. 
 Did she believe in God ? 
 
 I seem to feel 
 
 That this enchaunting earthly potentate 
 (More horrid now than spectres from old tombs) 
 Did in the glare and circumstance of court, 
 The perfumed lie, the murmured compliment, 
 Forget that being ruler of this earth 
 She held her crown in fief to Heaven's King. 
 And lo ! to-night her visage irks the space 
 And dusty firmament of wheeling worlds, 
 While through yon old man's grave-grass soft winds 
 
 weep. 
 
 No monarch claims our loyalty but God. 
 
 40 
 
We play our parts upon His outstretched hand, 
 And with our metaphysic subtileties 
 Make shift to prove our own magnificence, 
 And flaunt Him throning it among the stars. 
 
 To-morrow, haply, God will close His hand. 
 
CALVARY HILL 
 
 To Stuart Merrill 
 
 WHEN Christ our Lord up Calvary Hill 
 Went stumbling on that dark Friday, 
 A crowd, with horrid taunts and shrill 
 Did follow all the grievous way : 
 Poor Simon followed with the rood, 
 And vain high-priests from west and south, 
 And pagan slaves, and traitor Jude, 
 And Saul of the gibing mouth. 
 
 Ah, well I wot that mild Mary, 
 When in a shed one starry night 
 She watched a crib with holy glee, 
 Had moaned and died then utterly, 
 Could she have seen this blinding sight ! 
 Not one in all that screaming crowd 
 Took thought to pity His sore drouth : 
 He paused ; and then His bruised head bowed 
 To Saul of the gibing mouth. 
 
 As through the ruck a woman slips 
 To cleanse Christ's face with napery, 
 Knave Saul doth place his finger-tips 
 Within his mouth and pulls his lips 
 42 
 
Apart, with visage foul to see 1 
 Then as he blabbed and wagged his head, 
 And spat his curse with mien uncouth, 
 An angel came and struck him dead 
 Struck Saul of the gibing mouth. 
 
 Now, Blessed Lord, this bleak Yule night 
 When Thou dost look on small tired sheep, 
 Be good to us, keep from our sight 
 The elf-man and each evil wight 
 Who prowls about us while we sleep. 
 Keep us, dear God, from wily ruse 
 Of ghosts who bring the mists from south, 
 From spectres of the meanly Jews, 
 And Saul of the gibing mouth. 
 
 43 
 
HYMN IN MAY 
 
 I WHO have sung of Thee, 
 Mother of Grace ! 
 On this night think of me 
 Give me a place, 
 O Mother of Grace ! 
 'Mid the souls that throng to Thy face. 
 
 For what I have done, 
 
 For what I have sung of Thee, 
 
 Mother, bring grace to me 
 
 Plead with Thy Son, 
 
 That I may be one 
 With Him, my race run. 
 
 In this soft month of May, 
 
 Thou, little Queen Mary, 
 
 Dost pass in the prairie 
 
 And rub Thy white feet 
 
 In the rain-grass, which fleet 
 
 Springs Thine odour to greet. 
 
 And Thy skirts hang in view, 
 So that the poor souls, 
 Crowding round with their bowls, 
 May catch the light dew 
 44 
 
Which falls from Thy hair 
 On the folk, here and there, 
 In the hot pleasant air. 
 
 And here let me be ! 
 
 Of Thy hand I am fain, 
 
 That I may complain 
 
 Of my illness to Thee 
 
 Of the illness which mocks, 
 Which gibes with town-clocks, 
 
 Till Death the gate locks. 
 
 Here, crying aloud, 
 
 With dolour and sweat 
 
 Let me cleanse me my debt, 
 
 That when in a cloud 
 
 Comes Thy Son, of souls bowed 
 
 I be one of the crowd. 
 
 45 
 
AT THE GATE OF THE YEAR 
 
 PLUNGING through on a funeral gale 
 The year sweeps out to die at sea, 
 Under the mournful stars and pale 
 The gray thing hurries away from me. 
 Why do I stretch out anguished hands, 
 Why am I worn and dull with pain ? 
 Sweet friend of friends, in the next year's bands 
 Will your face look on mine again ? 
 
 The year sweeps o'er the wailing brood 
 Of breakers to his place of death ; 
 While on the heights, where erst he stood, 
 The new year draws generic breath : 
 He flies, he flies through blinding sleet ! 
 His form is wrapped in shrouding rain : 
 Heart of my heart, shall we two meet 
 And watch a year pass e'er again ? 
 
 On the sea's margin breaks the light 
 And colour of the new year's dawn, 
 Thoughtful of spring-tide it takes flight 
 And lingers over wood and lawn. 
 Ab* weep not so ! incline your head 
 Upon my breast, as you are fain : 
 Soul of my life, shall I be dead 
 Ere you will kiss mine eyes again ? 
 46 
 
THE FULL MOON 
 
 A BITING wind and harsh 
 Doth wail a sobbing tune, 
 And now glooms o'er the marsh, 
 A wet and angry moon. 
 
 She shines upon the waste 
 Low-seated in the sky ; 
 I cross myself in haste 
 For fear of her red eye. 
 
 On moor-lands and on streams 
 She rolls an eye blood-red, 
 And in her sluggish beams 
 Dance the unhappy dead. 
 
 Then from the buried sands, 
 Through sad waves chauntirtg low, 
 The drowned stretch up their hands 
 And toss them to and fro. 
 
 O moon, the lost souls keep 
 Their Sabbath 'neath thy stare, 
 And my lost soul doth weep 
 In passionless despair. 
 
 47 
 
A SILKEN LADDER 
 
 THE lights within the little distant town 
 Come out like evening plants at eventide, 
 And struggle with the dusk, as from the side 
 Of starry Heaven God lets the darkness down ; 
 The moist breath of the sweet drenched earth is blown 
 Across my face, and oh, to-night I ride 
 Upon that breath, and watch, when day has died, 
 The darkness add a glory to your crown. 
 
 O Love, these first steps in the drowsy lane, 
 These magic moments whither do they tend ? 
 To-morrow shall the morn be gray with rain, 
 Or sunlight with the fragrant pathway blend ? 
 You leave me half in gladness, half in pain, 
 Like weary pilgrims at their journey's end. 
 
 II 
 
 I sometimes have this fancy in the rain : 
 I think the soothing rain those poignant tears 
 Wept silently beside the troubled biers 
 Of strange dead hopes, which, flying in their pain 
 
 48 
 
Skyward, drop gloomily to earth again, 
 And, like forgotten words of flouted seers, 
 Bring back the buried terror of old fears, 
 And rust a cherished treasure with their stain. 
 
 Still, when on dreary days I see you part 
 
 From sheltering house, and leave the dainty trace 
 
 Of your thin foot in muddy lanes, and dart 
 
 Laughing through showers with mountain-maiden's grace, 
 
 I, looking from the prison of my heart, 
 
 Rejoice to know my tears shall kiss your face. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Methought I was a prisoner lying dead 
 In a close room of some grave citadel, 
 Where no white gleam did penetrate to tell 
 Of day outside and sunny hours that sped ; 
 But horrid dark was there, and round my head 
 Strange vermin crawled : when sudden in the cell 
 A warm light broke ; the damp walls shook and fell ; 
 Around my feet the hushed grass carpet spread. 
 
 My fantasy was mated in this wise : 
 Sullen I paced the noisome yelping street 
 Hating its breath, when for a dear surprise 
 You, wrapped in gracious musing, I did meet ! 
 
 49 D 
 
I met you and looked deeply in your eyes, 
 And lo ! I felt the town was strangely sweet. 
 
 IV 
 
 Like the assaulting sea with fury shod 
 
 Hurling gray breakers on an iron coast, 
 
 Or like the passionate music of the host 
 
 Of large-eyed youths who stand on Heaven's sod 
 
 Chaunting before the bannered towers of God 
 
 To these I liken the strange power of lost 
 
 Delicious memories, and stronger boast 
 
 Than these the strength of love's all-touching rod. 
 
 A wondrous night still holds me with its spell ! 
 Alone you walked the garden, the hot air 
 Hung heavily : enchaunted by the smell 
 Of witching flowers, you dipped your fair 
 And star-bathed bosom in their dewy well, 
 While the fond lilies kissed your gloomy hair. 
 
 As youthful playmates gambolling in joy 
 Spring suddenly from rapture to dull hate, 
 And glaring madly snap the bond of fate, 
 Not knowing man is fashioned by the boy, 
 
And toss their passion like a broken toy, 
 (Each striving fierce with his afflicted mate,) 
 Bite hard and gibe, until they find too late 
 That stings which come in hours, for years annoy 
 
 So all the holidays we once thought sweet, 
 And all the festivals we once held dear, 
 Are mowed by grief as fields the reapers mow ; 
 And when I hail your shadow glinting fleet, 
 We touch hands for a breath in icy fear 
 Two passing phantoms trembling in the snow. 
 
OUT OF THE CLOUD 
 
 THAT fiend who tricked out like a saint 
 Did haunt a most unhappy youth, 
 And wall it in, and coarsely taint 
 Its whiteness with the lees of truth, 
 
 And choose for instruments the fools 
 Who prate of duty to themselves, 
 
 Who fish for virtue in cess-pools, 
 And line with lies their mental shelves, 
 
 He is not dead, though Youth is dead, 
 And Age, Youth's weary son, has smashed 
 
 The walls which held his sire and fled ! 
 He hunts the thing he erewhile lashed. 
 
 A scowling ghost with scorching breath 
 He follows hard, and shall not cease 
 
 Till God speaks through the mouth of Death 
 And smites the sombre silences. 
 
VALE 
 
 A SWORD has come between us : let us part 
 While yet our eyes in some vague way entreat 
 Each other ; and a something near the heart 
 Makes me linger at your feet. 
 
 Oh, what to me the Love whom men call Lord ! 
 The maddened moments which ere long estrange ; 
 The fashioned smile ; the evil poisoned word ; 
 The subtile dexterous change ? 
 
 Yea ! though our listeners are but the flowers, 
 And soft winds be the bonds which us enchain, 
 And sweet the passing of the shining hours, 
 Comes soon the ultimate pain. 
 
 The soft impassioned summer-time is over, 
 The fragrance of its coloured dreams is past ; 
 Here in its place is winter's blanching cover 
 Here comely peace at last. 
 
 53 
 
THE LONELY WOMEN 
 
 THE lonely women wist not of the hours 
 Which make the burthen of their dim despair, 
 Nor know they if the years bring sweets or sours : 
 As Sorrow's path grows broader in their hair 
 The lonely women wist not of the hours. 
 
 The lonely women twist and twine a wreath 
 
 Of blood-stained flowers which decked them in their 
 
 youth, 
 
 And see not Terror with his gleaming teeth, 
 And never see the pearl-eyed face of Truth. 
 The lonely women twist and twine a wreath. 
 
 Around them move the phantoms of the dead 
 Who close their ears to words, and in the street 
 Tis not the crowd they gaze at, but the head 
 Of one to whom their lips were erstwhile sweet : 
 Around them move the phantoms of the dead. 
 
 And bitter pleasures which they never share 
 Press tepid kisses odourous of the tomb ; 
 For on their gray, cold feast-days they prepare 
 A welcome for the ghosts that throng the gloom, 
 And bitter pleasures which they never share. 
 
 54 
 
No wine-soaked sponge your constant torture lulls 
 Ye martyrs ! as through life you bear your cross, 
 And reel beneath it to a place of skulls ; 
 And there, when on a grievous bed you toss, 
 No wine-soaked sponge your constant torture lulls. 
 
 O lonely women, I have looked on you 
 And seen the pain of your unheeded sighs, 
 And marked the grief you struggled to subdue ; 
 Yea, when forgotten tears were in your eyes 
 O lonely women, I have looked on you ! 
 
 55 
 
A SLAVE OF THE STREET 
 
 STANDING at draughty corners she will mutter 
 Hoarse snatches of old songs with vague regret ; 
 And then, remembering the erstwhile coquette, 
 With mincing walk and sodden smile and flutter 
 Hasten to greet the sweetheart, who with stutter 
 And heavy drunken feet is left her yet : 
 Till she, becoming drunk too in his debt, 
 Feels the earth rise and tumbles in the gutter. 
 
 Waked roughly from sweet dreams of country lawn, 
 
 She gathers up her coil of muddy hair, 
 
 Adjusts it gingerly, and tries to fawn 
 
 On cabmen to accept her charms for fare : 
 
 But when the saving lamps go blind at dawn, 
 
 She laughs her curses in the vacant air. 
 
TO AN ENEMY: WHEN DYING 
 
 YES ; you have won ! and so you linger there 
 While the lights wander from my windowed eyes, 
 And words I would have spoken, trail off sighs, 
 That you may gloat upon my last despair, 
 And hear me shout when to the soul God cries 
 The soul, which but for you, He had found fair. 
 
 Are you content ? Then hearken to my curse : 
 For every good you taught my soul to shun, 
 May your hard fingers rot off one by one, 
 And all diseased, in you, find something worse ; 
 Yea ! as you smile, and turn my corpse to fun, 
 May your lips shrivel when you pass my hearse. 
 
 Ah peace ! The words I stammered are unsaid : 
 Your fleering laugh is token that I rave : 
 The hungry worms are crawling from the grave, 
 And you are stooping low across my bed : 
 But O mine enemy ! a boon I crave : 
 Fold down your eyes ere you behold me dead. 
 
 57 
 
A PRAYER 
 
 THE God who sends the stricken 
 Winds, fever-fed, to quicken 
 The glooms that round them thicken 
 
 Who pray to Him at night, 
 On Judgment Day shall sunder 
 His toys, and crush them under, 
 And stab them with His thunder, 
 And with His lightning smite. 
 
 From morning till the even, 
 
 By seven and by seven, 
 
 The stars shall fall from Heaven 
 
 To scourge the groaning earth ; 
 And winter pinch in May-time, 
 And weeping fill love's play-time, 
 And ghosts appear in day-time 
 
 To strike the lips of mirth. 
 
 The God who stamps and places 
 
 Sin's wounds on aching faces, 
 
 And with His finger traces 
 The lines of tears and sweat, 
 
 Heeds not the wretches crying : 
 
 " A Hell here full of sighing, 
 
 And Hell, O God, at dying- 
 Is this a righteous debt ? 
 
" Strike down with Thy great sabre 
 My kindred and my neighbour, 
 The mothers in their labour, 
 
 The children in the womb ; 
 Ah, drive us from our sadness 
 To welcome lust with gladness 
 To rapine and to madness, 
 
 So we forget our doom." 
 
 59 
 
THE RIVALS 
 
 WHEN Death drawn near felt warm the breal 
 of Life 
 Her arms withdrew ; for she was weakene 
 
 sore : 
 
 And " You can be my lover-friend no more ; " 
 (She said to him hot panting through his strife) 
 " I should have held you closer than a wife, 
 And pressed you warmer to my bosom's core, 
 But Life's gray dogs came barking at you rife, 
 And held poor you and all the grace you wore." 
 " But Death " (he cried), " my fair and dreaming girl, 
 I did not mean to live when you came calling ; 
 'Tis thus by chance one oft the great love misses ! 
 Ah ! draw to me, and soft my life-wings furl, 
 For even now the hands of Life are falling, 
 And I am yearning for your cold white kisses ! " 
 
 60 
 
THE VOICE OF THE WINDS 
 
 WARM wind, whispering high and low, 
 Tell me which way did my lost love go. 
 (Hear the south wind sighing far out to sea /) 
 " Oh, I passed o'er a land where soft voices say 
 A sad * Dona Pacem ' for dead folk alway : 
 'Mid a countless host thy lost love was there, 
 With pure white stars in her shining hair ; 
 And she smiled at me, 
 As one who is free 
 From grief and strife and all misery." 
 (So the south wind sighed from the sotmding sea.) 
 
 Warm wind, whispering high and low, 
 Tell me which way did my lost love go. 
 (Hear the west wind wailing far out to sea /) 
 " I come from the court of a glorious king, 
 Where a choir of maidens doth sweetly sing : 
 Amongst the brightest she brightest shone, 
 But eyes were sad, and she seemed alone : 
 
 Then she looked at me 
 
 And she bent her knee, 
 And I heard her prayer and it was for thee." 
 (So the west wind wailed from the restless sea.) 
 
 Wild wind wandering to and fro, 
 Tell me which way did my lost love go. 
 61 
 
(Hear the east wind shrieking far out to sea /) 
 " I come from a region deserted and drear, 
 Where spectres shudder in frenzied fear : 
 'Mid those phantom forms thy love in the frost 
 Wrung her hands and wept like a soul that is lost, 
 While she cried to me, 
 
 * O wind, that we 
 
 Might be as free as the wind is free ! ' " 
 
 (So the east wind shrieked from the cruel sea.) 
 
 Wild wind, wandering to and fro, 
 
 Shew me how I to my love can go. 
 
 (Ho, the north wind howlethfar out to sea /) 
 
 " In cheerless churchyard by crumbling tomb 
 
 Dank and heavy and fraught with gloom 
 
 She stands, and knows that when life is sped, 
 
 With its flame and fever, all hope is dead. 
 
 * Hope not for me 
 I shall never be free,' 
 
 Is the message she charged me to bring to thee." 
 (So the north wind howled from the sobbing sea.) 
 
 62 
 
GOD'S HOUR 
 
 IN the hot fading light 
 I see, I see, 
 The Spirit of God 
 Move down over me ; 
 An odour of flowers in His wings, 
 And sweetly He sings He sings 
 To me, to me, a poor clod. 
 
 In flaming battle rack, 
 
 And give and smite, 
 I look in God's eyes, 
 
 And the eyes are full bright 
 With light, leaping fire, 
 While He says : " My desire ! " 
 
 And grasps by the hand 
 Me, halting and failing, 
 A wild sinner haling 
 
 Up to His white Throne ; 
 
 While the scent of His hands 
 
 Works off my drear bands, 
 And old sins go wailing. 
 
 He leans from His throne, 
 
 And His lips touched with lilies 
 63 
 
Murmur : " Listen ! My will is 
 That you be Mine own : 
 
 And the soft gray-eyed moon 
 Shall kiss you white soon." 
 
 And the angels with faces 
 Tinged red from the sun, 
 Bow down, one by one ; 
 
 For a sinner craves graces : 
 Well they know that our power 
 Is God's breath in God's hour. 
 
 64 
 
FOR THE END 
 
 S sweetly comes to those this world calls mad 
 The thought of calm worlds without scream or 
 
 cry, 
 
 So is it unto man when he is sad 
 Pleasant to think that he shall surely die. 
 
 A 
 
 The sick and throbbing child upon its bed 
 Murmurs of streams, and for the sea doth rave ; 
 So, on this fevered earth, my thoughts are led 
 To dwell upon the coolness of the grave. 
 
CHISWICK PRESS : CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.