Jlii!ffi|i-U'''it;'i!!iiySi^ 
 
 TOWN h 
 COUNTRY' 
 
 
 Y ARTHUR 
 EJ, LEGGE
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 
 / 
 
 
 /^i^it^i^x '^V ^^2i 

 
 TOWN ^ COUNTRY 
 POEMS
 
 BV THE SAME A UTHOR 
 
 SUNSHINE AND SMOKE, A Book 
 of Verse, 
 
 WIND ON THE HARPSTRINGS. 
 
 Poems.
 
 TOWN &• COUNTRY 
 
 POEMS 
 
 BY . 
 
 ARTHUR E. J. LEGGE 
 
 LONDON: DAVID NUTT 
 
 57-59 LONG ACRE 
 1900
 
 P^^02-3 
 
 -— ; u \
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 a cantata of exmoor 
 
 vagabonds 
 
 la grande dame 
 
 somnambulism . 
 
 Elijah's mantle 
 
 illumination . 
 
 the unseen singer 
 
 primrose day . 
 
 the sea-spell 
 
 in a police-court 
 
 challenge 
 
 MY DAY 
 
 THE MOORLAND AND 
 
 GIPSY SOULS 
 
 A BAD DAY 
 
 THE 
 
 •» • 
 
 • » 
 
 WOODLAND 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 i8 
 
 22 
 27 
 28 
 36 
 
 37 
 39 
 46 
 
 49 
 53 
 58 
 
 59 
 62 
 
 67
 
 VI 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 FACE 
 
 AN ENCOUNTER .... 
 
 . 68 
 
 AN AFTER-GLOW . , . , 
 
 • 75 
 
 APOLOGIA , . . , 
 
 . . 76 
 
 A PIANIST .,,... 
 
 . 80 
 
 A GHOST . , . . . 
 
 . 86 
 
 THE APPOINTED LOT 
 
 . . 87 
 
 SUBURBAN .,..., 
 
 . . 89 
 
 THE ROOK 
 
 • 90 
 
 AN OPTIMIST ..... 
 
 • 91 
 
 "NULLUM AMANS VERE " . . , . 
 
 • 94 
 
 THE SKYLARK IN FOG 
 
 • 97 
 
 THE squire's FUNERAL . 
 
 . 98 
 
 THE BORDER-LAND .... 
 
 . 102
 
 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 A CANTATA OF EXMOOR 
 
 'Tis an hour yet to noonday, and we ride 
 In a lane from pastures fenced on either side 
 By the battlements of beech, that crown the banks 
 With a wilderness of flowers on their flanks. 
 
 The morning dew lies wet upon the grass, 
 And distils from leaves above us, as we pass 
 In the shade of drooping branches that must be 
 The green banners of the Goddess Cybele. 
 
 For we seem to hear the cymbal and the drum 
 Of a corybantic chorus in the hum. 
 From a hidden stream that chatters on the stones, 
 With a wealth of tears and laughter in its tones. 
 
 A
 
 2 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 And the laughter floats around us as we climb, 
 With the hoof-beats treading out a measured rhyme, 
 As the bridles faintly chink a steely thrill, 
 And the horses heave and scramble at the hill. 
 
 And at last we reach the summit and look back, 
 At the furrows of the steep and stony track, 
 As it bends through fern and timber to the gloom 
 In the soundless, dim recesses of the combe. 
 
 From that chamber comes at night the fairy-queen, 
 And the strip of turf before us, velvet green. 
 Guides her foot-steps to the brown and purple floor 
 Of her breezy, star-lit banquet-hall, — the moor. 
 
 But the sun is holding court in her domain, 
 With a throng of earthly guests to entertain. 
 And he bathes in molten gold our horses' feet 
 For a welcome, as we canter to the meet. 
 
 On a ridge amidst the heather and the furze 
 Is a sober-coloured mass that sways and stirs 
 Like the branches in a winter-blackened glen, 
 With a gleam of scarlet berries now and then. 
 
 The moorland faintly rings with every sound 
 In a harmony of man and horse and hound, —
 
 A CANTATA OF EXMOOR 
 
 Gruff voices, silvery laughter, and the crack 
 Of a whip recalling truants to the pack. 
 
 But the greetings and the gossip and reproofs 
 Seem to founder in a wave of trampling hoofs, 
 Bearing hounds, like foam that heads a tidal flow, 
 For the Master gives the signal, — and we go. 
 
 II 
 
 They have kennelled the pack 
 
 At a lonely farm-house, girt with a belt of trees 
 
 Broken and dwarfed by so many a panting breeze 
 
 That has yelled down the naked hill at the back 
 
 In the stormy winter nights ; 
 
 A place where the cold grey walls could tell 
 
 Of humble sorrows and plain delights, 
 
 And years lived out to their utmost span 
 
 In a course of labours rude, 
 
 For here, even here in the solitude. 
 
 There are souls that must open the book and spell 
 
 The faded riddles of life, and dwell 
 
 On the mystery of man.
 
 4 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 But the riddles are all at rest, 
 
 And the line of our thought is clear of doubt, 
 
 For we know that the tufters are out, 
 
 And the huntsman is cantering over the crest 
 
 Of the rough bare hill, and evades our sight 
 
 In the depth of the combe ; we must linger here 
 
 While he toils with his deadliest craft to light 
 
 On the slot of the harboured deer. 
 
 So the mounted throng. 
 
 Like a Tartar horde on an Eastern out-post line, 
 
 Wanders vigilant along 
 
 The rounded slope, that drops a sharp incUne 
 
 To the sunken valley's head, 
 
 With coarse and withered herbage carpeted. 
 
 And broken groups, 
 
 Halted at random amid heath and ling. 
 
 Form disconnected loops 
 
 In the long, bent string 
 
 Of riders stretching for a mile or more. 
 
 Who wait and watch, like wreckers gathering 
 
 In time of tempest on a rock-bound shore. 
 
 I gain a knoll some little space apart 
 
 From the changing ranks, and there dismount and lean 
 
 My arms upon the saddle, and across 
 
 My hunter's shoulder gaze upon a scene
 
 A CANTATA OF EXMOOR 5 
 
 That wrings from certain chords within my heart 
 A faint lament for our primaeval loss. 
 For surely never out of Paradise 
 Have men for more than a brief moment been 
 In presence of such loveliness as here. 
 Draped in a thin blue veil of atmosphere, 
 Where pallid sunbeams twine like golden threads 
 Softly wrinkled and curved the moor-land lies, 
 A broad free tract of hills, whose rounded heads, 
 Fashioned with beauty simple and austere. 
 Delicate, almost unsubstantial seem, 
 A fairy landscape that our waking eyes 
 Could lose, perchance, like a dissolving dream. 
 And dream-like are the voices from below 
 ^i/here storms and riots a turbulent stream 
 P oiling down to the valley by the Doone 
 Held in his lawless freedom long ago ; — 
 Form, colour, and enchanted music blend 
 Jn airy, phantom harmonies that end 
 So soon — so soon. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Pardon us, pardon us, Badgeworthy Water ! 
 
 Who blend with thine echoes a cruder note, 
 The horn's clear voice in a cry for slaughter, 
 
 The bell-tone pealed from the hound's rough throat.
 
 6 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 A timorous rabble, the sheep are scaling 
 
 Tall, dark slopes by the sheerest path, 
 And a heron aroused from thy brink is sailing 
 
 High o'er the heather in stately wrath. 
 
 Thou art proud and petulant, Badgeworthy 
 Water ! 
 
 Thou callest thy confluent rills to thee, 
 Chiding and urging each foam-veiled daughter 
 
 To join in thy flight to the Severn Sea, 
 Wailing aloud for revenge to wreak on 
 
 The mists that should cloak thee in modest 
 gloom, 
 With a curtain draped from Dunkery Beacon 
 
 To the brine and the boulders of Ilfracombe. 
 
 Dost thou hold with Artemis Badgeworthy 
 Water, 
 
 That new Actseons should learn the price 
 Of a glance, repaid, as her anger taught her 
 
 By the hunter's appropriate sacrifice? 
 Thou wilt rather soften their doom , lor pity 
 
 Of slaves that have come, for a moment free 
 From the fettering bonds of a tyrant city. 
 
 To be soothed by thine opiate harmony.
 
 A CANTATA OF EXMOOR 7 
 
 In the throng that troubles thee, Badgeworthy Water, 
 
 There are toilers bruised by the hand of Life, 
 With a long campaign that must yet be fought ere 
 
 The shadows come down on the field of strife. 
 And to them, fair stream, wilt thou prove the giver 
 
 Of memory's balm for a soul oppressed 
 By the haunting voice of a silvery river 
 
 Down in the combes of the dreamy West. 
 
 IV 
 
 Look ! Look ! 
 
 Where a tiny branching valley has made a break 
 In the front of the wall of grass uplifted sheer 
 From the gulf beneath us, a scarcely noticed nook 
 Of the bare brown bosom of moor, — is a tumbled 
 
 bed 
 Of dark green pillows,— the top of a crust of trees ; 
 And out on the open wold from the fringe of these, 
 Patching the brown with a moving flake of red, 
 Gallop the clustered deer. 
 
 Guessers compute them at half a hundred ; 
 Eyes grow eager, and hopes are stirred 
 By the blood-beat dashed with only one dread 
 That, out of so large a herd,
 
 8 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 Ere the stag that is doomed can be forced away 
 The stars will have smiled at our hunting-day. 
 
 We watch the flake of colour float 
 
 And with the back-ground blend, remote 
 
 In the transparent mist, and fade 
 
 Upon the blurred horizon's rim, 
 
 Where moist and salted airs have made 
 
 The washed-out upland faint and dim. 
 
 A gliding spot of scarlet tells 
 
 How the distant huntsman follows 
 
 His hounds that are speeding through the hollows 
 
 Carpeted with heather-bells, 
 
 And envious fancies fly to him 
 
 Posting away for a merry run 
 
 While our share of the sport remains to be begun. 
 
 But, after long waiting 
 
 And watchful debating. 
 
 The Master comes back 
 
 With a call for a pack. 
 
 For the moment draws near, 
 
 When the stage will be clear 
 
 And voices sonorous 
 
 \Vill open the chorus 
 
 Of fervent hound-melody, rhythmic and pure, 
 
 When the tufters have finished their overture.
 
 A CANTATA OF EXMOOR 
 
 We thunder down the valley, 
 
 And wade the surging ford, 
 By which the Doone would sally 
 
 To sweep with fire and sword 
 An undefended village, 
 
 And bear away the spoil 
 Of half a season's tillage 
 
 And half a hamlet's toil. 
 We herald no disaster. 
 
 Beneath no banner ride. 
 But, racing ever faster 
 
 Along the river-side. 
 The shaggy moorland ponies 
 
 In terror wheel and turn, 
 And bound like hunted conies 
 
 Over the yellow fern. 
 Amid the stony clatter 
 
 Of hoofs that toil and strain 
 We hear a magpie chatter 
 
 And a husky crow complain. 
 And, where the shepherd's cottage 
 
 Looks on the barren moor, 
 A sheep-dog in his dotage 
 
 Defies us from the door.
 
 lo TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 Again we halt unbidden, 
 
 Again the fierce lament 
 Trembles from voices hidden 
 
 Of hounds in durance pent. 
 But brief their loud insistence 
 
 On evils hardly borne, 
 For soon in mellow distance 
 
 Echoes a fairy horn. 
 That sets the valley humming 
 
 With each long-sounded blast, 
 For the welcome word is coming 
 
 And the stag is away at last. 
 
 Like an avalanche of Arabs on a toiling caravan, 
 
 When the riders open out across the plain 
 
 Tiil the turbans mark the desert with the pattern 
 
 a fan, 
 And the war-cry of the Prophet and the thunder 
 
 the clan 
 Rend the tomb of living silence once again.
 
 A CANTATA OF EXMOOR ii 
 
 We scatter o'er the heather-tufts, an earthquake at our 
 
 feet, 
 And sweep the bending bracken down before us as we 
 
 ride. 
 And whirl the brushing melody of wind amongst the 
 
 wheat 
 Along the narrow-bottomed combe and up the further 
 
 side. 
 The blowing horses labour on the surface of the 
 
 hill. 
 While the hounds have topped the summit and are 
 
 gone. 
 But a goat upon the mountains would be conquered 
 
 by the skill 
 That leads us to the level where we gallop as we 
 
 will, 
 And again we follow on — follow on ! 
 There's a brief ecstatic rush along the broken table- 
 land, 
 When the bridle sways and tightens to the pressure of 
 
 your hand. 
 And your horse's motion tells you of the passions that 
 
 have run 
 To a stream of subtle sympathy, and welded you in 
 
 one.
 
 12 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 The riven air whose buifet brings the moisture of a 
 
 tear 
 To your eye-Ud makes amend with an intoxicating 
 
 draught, 
 And the vague, uncanny music that it whispers in 
 
 your ear 
 Has the chime of ghostly mirth in it, as though a 
 
 spirit laughed. 
 The drunken hills are locking and the clouds in 
 
 Heaven reel ; 
 Amidst a roaring cataract of gallopers you feel 
 That you own no domination save the phrenzy of a 
 
 thirst 
 To see the chase and keep your place and ride among 
 
 the first. 
 
 But we check the lathered horses for a moment at the 
 
 brink 
 Of another yawning, wooded gulf, where trees become 
 
 as toys, 
 So distant are the depths we pause to measure ere we 
 
 sink 
 Among the matted branches, with our brains in 
 
 equipoise
 
 A CANTATA OF EXMOOR 13 
 
 On the course of Nature's cunning; but the doubt 
 
 dissolves again 
 When slanting up the further slope the foremost 
 
 hounds appear, 
 We must follow them that reckoned how the stag 
 
 would plead in vain 
 For the Dryads of the grove to give him sanctuary 
 
 here. 
 
 Eluded thus by Time, 
 
 We face the downward climb, 
 
 With feet that toil on yielding soil and lichen-coated 
 roots, 
 The horses plunge and scramble 
 Through chains of twining bramble. 
 
 And crush the seedling oaks to earth and snap the 
 elder shoots. 
 We slide upon a bed 
 Of cone and needle shed 
 
 From branches o'er a temple never open to the day, 
 In a pinewood-pillared hall 
 Where the faintest echoes fall 
 
 From the murmur of the pigeon and the shrieking of 
 the jay. 
 In the chill of vapours dank 
 Are the nettles growing rank,
 
 14 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 And we scent the mouldy fungus and the sickly, 
 mellow breath 
 
 Where moist corruption weaves 
 
 New matter from the leaves 
 On the loom that's never idle in the factories of Death. 
 
 But again the sunbeams glow 
 
 When we reach the turf below, 
 Andwe gallop by the water-way beyond the little bridge ; 
 
 As a file of ants would crawl 
 
 On a sunny garden-wall 
 We thread the narrow shelf that lifts the roadway to 
 the ridge ; 
 
 We cross the purple crown 
 
 Of highland rolling down 
 Towards a gray, mysterious blank, where nothing 
 seems to be ; 
 
 Till on the brink we halt 
 
 And view the gaping vault 
 Where depths of liquid vagueness dim the sparkle of 
 the sea. 
 
 With brains that yet are reeling we stoop to look below, 
 Where distant voices pealing suggest a mortal fray 
 For hounds we cannot reach there attempt the final 
 
 throw, 
 And down upon the beach there the stag's at bay.
 
 A CANTATA OF EXMOOR 15 
 
 I range into the hollow whose curve abruptly bends 
 The line of cliff, and follow a roadway coiling steep 
 Beneath the wooded shoulders and bosom, ere it ends 
 Smothered by massive boulders at the margin of the 
 
 deep. 
 A wave of blind compunction forbids my further 
 
 course 
 To view the tragic function inevitable now, 
 So I turn among the bushes to where some hidden 
 
 force 
 From the rock-surface pushes a rough, projecting 
 
 brow. 
 And there, with senses lazy, I let the bridle fall 
 And watch the headlands hazy beyond the shrouded 
 
 sea. 
 And listen, softly dreaming, when the grey gulls call, 
 As I watch their feathers gleaming in the void that's 
 
 under me — 
 Till, breaking through the glamour on my drowsy 
 
 spirit cast, 
 The far but cruel clamour swells skyward, and I hear 
 The whoop of triumph blending with the horn's long 
 
 blast 
 To hail the gallant ending of a warrantable deer.
 
 1 6 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 VI 
 
 Where the pale road gleams like a riband through the 
 
 heather, 
 By the dust edged white as a line of frozen foam, 
 While chance has gathered groups of two or three 
 
 together, 
 O'er the great brown vista we are riding home. 
 
 In a purple shadow are the lower summits hooded, 
 And the dusk goes down upon each solitary combe, 
 Where the vague, dark banks of a river, barely 
 
 wooded, 
 Are the curlew's haunt, as it cries amid the gloom. 
 
 Oh land that I love ! as a woman's, pure and tender, 
 Is thy grave, sweet gaze for the hearts that come 
 
 and go, 
 And wreathed in the light of her spiritual splendour 
 Are thy bare brows gleaming in the sunset glow. 
 
 Let me find thee a word of gratitude for giving 
 To a soul that has looked for a refuge unto thee, 
 The rare, glad sense of the miracle of living, 
 The leap of the blood learning what it is to be.
 
 A CANTATA OF EXMOOR 17 
 
 Mother of men ! For the children thou dost cherish, 
 For the wholesome hearts that are beating over thine, 
 For the clean, good ways thou wilt suffer not to 
 
 perish, 
 And the rustic warmth of the welcome that is mine, 
 
 For the nameless charm of thy soft bewitching beauty. 
 For the healing of the airs that o'er thy bosom roll, 
 I would gage my troth for a life of lover's duty, 
 I would crown thee a queen in the kingdom of my 
 soul. 
 
 B
 
 VAGABONDS 
 
 The roaring tide of life has tossed 
 Dim fragments of discoloured surf, 
 
 (God's image, frayed, degraded, lost,) 
 Here on the greasy trampled turf. 
 
 The sun-light of a summer day 
 
 Smiles on each piteous human heap 
 
 Of rags and foulness and decay. 
 Of bestial sloth, besotted sleep. 
 
 And all the sober, decent throng 
 Approaching turn their steps aside, 
 
 To show the watchful world how strong 
 Their self-respect, their seemly pride. 
 
 And, here and there, a roaming child 
 Is summoned by a frightened nurse 
 
 To leave the strip of grass defiled 
 
 By vagrants, beggars, thieves, or worse.
 
 VAGABONDS 19 
 
 And Nature only shows no fear 
 Of contact with the nameless clan, 
 
 Finding some bond of kinship here 
 With those that bear the scorn of man. 
 
 For human progress, growth, and gain 
 Have stripped her of her ancient dress. 
 
 And fettered with a formal chain 
 Her wild and savage loveliness. 
 
 Her faded blue, her withered green, 
 
 Her pallid shades of sickly brown, 
 Proclaim her throned, a tattered queen, 
 
 Among these out-casts of the town. 
 
 And I, who walk convention's way. 
 And rank with men of good report. 
 
 Know well that I should rightly pay 
 My homage in her lawless court. 
 
 For though I speak the shibboleth, 
 And wear the badge, and play the role^ 
 
 I fain would breathe a deeper breath, 
 And take their trappings from my soul. 
 
 Oh children of an outlawed race ! 
 
 Oh ye who spurn the social bribe 
 Of man's esteem ! I ask a place 
 
 Upon the record of your tribe.
 
 20 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 I do not shirk the sober task, 
 Nor scorn the cold, mechanic play, 
 
 And scarcely drop my rigid mask 
 Save for a fleeting holiday. 
 
 But though a forced recruit I tread 
 The barrack-yard, wild fancies fill 
 
 Most mutinous my shameful head. 
 And desecrate the solemn drill. 
 
 And all my truant thoughts escape 
 
 From toil and pleasure's laboured stress, 
 
 And pass the curtained dreams that drape 
 The fairy world of idleness. 
 
 And forth they steal, a gipsy band. 
 To learn what lies beyond the bars, 
 
 To shed their cumbrous clothes, and stand 
 In naked truth beneath the stars ; 
 
 To take the simple code and creed 
 That rules in meadow, glade, or bower. 
 
 The morals of the bursting seed. 
 The fashions of the opening flower. 
 
 To taste of all the fruits that grow. 
 To drink of every stream that runs. 
 
 To let the worldly payment go. 
 
 And own no mintage, save the sun's.
 
 VAGABONDS 21 
 
 To rove at will a wide domain 
 
 Of heath and woodland, down and lea, 
 
 The broad white road, the crumpled lane. 
 The rough bare links beside the sea. 
 
 And though the bugle calls me back 
 To starch and pipe-clay, belt and glove, 
 
 To walk once more the hardened track. 
 And keep the laws I do not love, 
 
 I earn the wage, and act the part. 
 And still pretend its falseness true, 
 
 And mortgage all, except the heart 
 
 That glides, my brothers, back to you !
 
 LA GRANDE DAME 
 
 A BLOCK in the road-way checked your wheels 
 At the pavement's edge for a passing minute, 
 And I turned for the look that an idler steals 
 When a carriage's blazoned pomp reveals 
 The power and pride of the woman in it. 
 
 By the lazy, lounging, insolent air, 
 
 And the scornful face, with its touch of passion ; 
 By the cold proud eyes, and the distant stare 
 That proclaimed you had neither thought nor care 
 
 For sojourners out of the pale of fashion ; 
 
 By the liveried slaves and the gilded crest 
 
 And coronet stamped on the painted panels, 
 Was the story told and the name confessed 
 Of a line that can trace its seal impressed 
 Far back on the world's recorded annals.
 
 LA GRANDE DAME 23 
 
 Oh deathless type of a race that sprung 
 
 From the proud and pitiless queen of Heaven ! 
 
 Semiramis spoke in your mother-tongue ; 
 
 On the walls that arose when Amphion sung 
 Your lovers withstood the besieging Seven ; 
 
 In the streets where the phrensied Jonah prayed 
 That the Lord would come with his promised 
 slaughters, 
 He passed you ;— Many a Hebrew maid 
 Softened your dreams with the notes that strayed 
 From her harp by the Babylonian waters ; 
 
 Fair Athens wove you a violet crown 
 
 When the sages joined in their strife Platonic ; 
 You basked in the warmth of some sunny town 
 Where cypress and vine went straggling down 
 To the boulders fretted by waves Ionic. 
 
 But on Tiber's shore was your happiest home, 
 And your footprints clear on a path of glory 
 May be followed through many a faded tome, 
 Where the hands by whose toil we remember 
 Rome 
 Have painted the dye of your purple story.
 
 24 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 In the lurid lava your heart was hurled 
 Of conquest, passion, and regal pleasure ; 
 
 You governed the giants who ruled the world ; 
 
 You played with a soul, while your locks were curled, 
 And whispered its doom in your languid leisure. 
 
 In the circle that bounded the blood-stained sand. 
 Where the warm light gleamed on your jewelled 
 vesture. 
 You would gaze at the gladiatorial band, 
 Till a swordsman fell, — and you raised your hand 
 And ordered his fate with a careless gesture. 
 
 To the springs of voluptuous life you went, 
 
 And drank of the waters that daze and dull us ; 
 
 You gambled with hearts till the stock was spent. 
 
 For your smile was Ovid in banishment, 
 
 And your treacherous favours killed Catullus. 
 
 Have you greatly altered, I wonder, now 
 
 When the world seems far from its old condi- 
 tions ? 
 
 Do you deafen your ears to a lover's vow ? 
 
 Were the faint lines stamped on that stately brow 
 By different fancies, new ambitions ?
 
 LA GRANDE DAME 25 
 
 I should guess that at heart you are much the 
 same, 
 
 Though your force flows out in a modern channel ; 
 Though the lists of charity bear your name, 
 Though hospital sufferers eat your game, 
 
 And elderly paupers wear your flannel. 
 
 For your footsteps cling to a narrow line, 
 
 Whatever your bearing, — staid or sinful, — 
 On the daintiest dishes of life you dine, 
 But you shrink from a draught of its strongest wine. 
 And turn from the topers who take their skinful. 
 
 And you watch with an undiscerning gaze 
 
 The clamorous throng of your toiling neighbours, 
 And follow your fashions and end your days 
 With no thought of the riddle of Nature's ways, 
 Or the world's reward for its griefs and labours. 
 
 And yet, though you dwell in a sphere apart 
 
 Where life is a game, — and the players skilful, — 
 Though you seem but a product of finest art, 
 There is one true thing, — just a woman's heart 
 Tender and mutinous, warm and wilful.
 
 26 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 And it keeps a small spot in the desert green, 
 
 And sweetens the strength of your highest virtue,- 
 The courage that crowns you a rightful queen, 
 That has conquered the stake and the guillotine 
 And laughed at the power of death to hurt you. 
 
 Reformers would show you a frowning face, 
 
 And the envious offer reproof pedantic. 
 But I deem, if their levelling hands erase 
 From the world's wide canvas your scornful grace, 
 The picture will lose by a touch romantic. 
 
 Though my vision be far from your point of view, 
 And I look not on life as it seems to strike you. 
 
 Nor rate you, perhaps, as you think were due. 
 
 Yet I fancy your metal rings more true 
 Than much in this world of shams. — I like you.
 
 SOMNAMBULISM 
 
 Swans on the river under the brown-topped Autumn 
 
 woods, 
 Grey, moving water, calm as the sheet of an idle 
 
 mere, 
 Hills cloaked in mist like kneeling nuns with their 
 
 sombre hoods, 
 No sound but the muffled roar from the ridge of the 
 
 foaming weir. 
 
 Surely we wander now at the fringe of the veil of 
 
 sleep, 
 Nearing the shadowy zone around the world of 
 
 night ! 
 When, when shall we snap the cord that chains us 
 
 dreaming deep. 
 And break from this tardy swoon to the deathless 
 
 dome of Light ?
 
 ELIJAH'S MANTLE 
 
 There on the shelf your volumes stand 
 For unrecorded time to rust them, 
 
 Save when the housemaid's marring hand 
 Misplaces and pretends to dust them. 
 
 Yet once you freely sold your wares, 
 And ranked as an important poet, 
 
 And gave yourself the usual airs 
 To let your little circle know it. 
 
 Your Unes were quoted, even read. 
 And served to show how sages quarrel 
 
 When critics wrote, while round your head 
 A grateful ruler wreathed the laurel. 
 
 And though, like smaller men, you died. 
 It seemed that ere you passed the portal 
 
 Your hours of learned toil supplied 
 Matter to make your name immortal.
 
 ELIJAH'S MANTLE 29 
 
 Yes, it survives you — on your tomb. 
 
 The harvests of your brain encumber 
 A shelf in that deserted room 
 
 Where the world stores its mental lumber. 
 
 The fact that once you lived will be 
 
 Divulged through most unworthy media, 
 
 A page in some anthology, 
 A note in an encyclopedia. 
 
 Your vogue has passed, and younger wines 
 
 Adorn the Dilettante's table. 
 Bottled from all the choicest vines 
 
 Grown on Parnassus. (See the label !) 
 
 And new performers wake the lyre 
 
 By visionary hopes deluded. 
 Thinking to fan the sacred fire 
 
 More fervently than ever you did. 
 
 Your methods die. The later Muse 
 Bows to the judgment granted cheaply 
 
 By demi-gods, who write reviews, 
 
 And know so much, and think so deeply. 
 
 Like all around, the modern Bard 
 
 Displays the force of evolution, 
 And problems you considered hard 
 
 He reckons easy of solution.
 
 30 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 Be comforted ! He holds the stage, 
 But acts a part whose end is certain ; 
 
 While briefly now the plaudits rage, 
 Soon follow silence and the curtain. 
 
 For though with faultless art he turns 
 Sonnet and rondel, ode and ballad. 
 
 He'd use the midnight oil he burns, 
 With equal gain to dress a salad. 
 
 He cultivates a polished style 
 
 To yield his thoughts a fitting casket, 
 
 And Fame, with a sardonic smile, 
 
 Throws them in her waste-paper basket. 
 
 But sky-ward ever points his wing ; — 
 Perhaps I ought to use the plural, 
 
 For now so many poets sing 
 
 Their music may be classed as choral. 
 
 They beat upon their prison bars. 
 And burn their little waxen tapers. 
 
 Which often are accounted stars 
 By prophets of the daily papers. 
 
 And some, to catch the public ear, 
 Adopt the tone a trifle blatant 
 
 Of the commercial chanticleer 
 
 Who crows about the pill that's patent.
 
 ELIJAH'S MANTLE 31 
 
 They don whatever garb attracts 
 
 From any fool the least attention, 
 And boast of little dirty facts 
 
 That common folk would scorn to mention. 
 
 And cheapen Art's immortal name, 
 
 And posture as inspired sinners. 
 And play the old pathetic game 
 
 Where bubble crowns reward the winners. 
 
 But some are satisfied to wear 
 
 The mien of gentlemen and scholars, 
 
 To make no symphony of hair 
 No idyl of cravats and collars. 
 
 From Fancy's garden they collect 
 
 And hive within their verse the honey 
 
 Of reticence and self-respect. 
 
 That foil the lures of praise or money. 
 
 But soon or late for each and all 
 
 The Hand will press the shears within it, 
 
 And let the skeins they sunder fall, 
 A century, .in hour, a minute. 
 
 The stoutest flag by Time is furled. 
 What heart will glow with recognition 
 
 Even of Shakespeare when the world 
 Has faded to the Moon's condition ?
 
 32 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 We are some greater Poet's dream ; 
 
 The gossamer of human glory 
 Is spun for a dissolving scheme 
 
 And woven through an idle story. 
 
 Life rings the long recurring change 
 Of flower to seed and seed to flower, 
 
 And Wisdom finds no further range 
 From Solomon to Schopenhauer. 
 
 Then wherefore ask an empty name 
 Or shun the feast of loaves and fishes ? 
 
 When all the copy-books proclaim 
 The vanity of human wishes. 
 
 And watchmen self-appointed stand 
 To pour cold water pedagogic, 
 
 From pumps of learning second-hand, 
 In loosely-tinkered pails of logic. 
 
 On every lone poetic spark 
 
 That youthful passion strives to kindle, 
 Though the dim world be growing dark 
 
 And distant beacons pale and dwindle. 
 
 They vow that all the songs are sung, 
 That all the warbler's eggs are addled, 
 
 That only when the world was young 
 Could Pegasus be safely saddled.
 
 ELIJAH'S MANTLE 33 
 
 But others may presume to hold 
 
 That half the mournful things they tell us, 
 Are but the fruit of being old, 
 
 Or very dull, or rather jealous. 
 
 Over the rolling waste of years 
 
 Has Man, the hoary pilgrim, blundered. 
 
 And fought with agonies and fears, 
 
 And asked the way, and wept and wondered. 
 
 He treads an Alpine pathway veiled 
 In fogs of nescient gloom ; or paces, 
 
 By passion's burning heat assailed. 
 Into the lonely desert places. 
 
 His hair is damp with tearful rain 
 
 Or white with frozen doubt encrusted ; 
 
 On crags of grief he learns how vain 
 The hold of hope to which he trusted. 
 
 Bewildered, weary, breathless, blind. 
 He thinks each day to clutch to-morrow 
 
 That Jack-o'-lantern joy behind 
 
 The marsh-born mist of pain and sorrow. 
 
 But when he walks on higher ground, 
 Just as his threadbare faith is failing. 
 
 He hears a wild, yEolian sound 
 Of distant music o'er him wailing ; 
 
 c
 
 34 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 And for a moment he forgets 
 The bitter lot his tribe inherits, 
 
 And, turning up the mountain, sets 
 His face towards the land of Spirits, 
 
 And looks for words to fit the throng 
 Of fancies from that music flowing, 
 
 And makes a little plaintive song, 
 
 And hums the burden, hardly knowing. 
 
 And though with resolution spent. 
 And courage unconstrained to rally, 
 
 He droops upon the steep ascent 
 And falters down into the valley. 
 
 Yet through his cowed and conquered soul 
 He feels that fairy music throbbing, 
 
 And voices, half-coherent, roll 
 
 The song he made amidst their sobbing. 
 
 And lightened is the gravest load, 
 And sweetened the severest labour, 
 
 And, as the song goes down the road, 
 Each drooping heart salutes a neighbour. 
 
 So long as earthly eyes are dim 
 
 And earthly brains with anguish burning, 
 
 Voices will chant the human hymn 
 Of jaded hope and helpless yearning.
 
 ELIJAH'S MANTLE 35 
 
 Though here our ancient music dies, 
 Out of the world's forgotten places 
 
 Soon will the Interpreter arise 
 
 To mould the dream of coming races. 
 
 Till his great organ-pipe shall blow 
 We'll tune our humble penny-whistles 
 
 And hope that all the seed we sow 
 Shall not be lost among the thistles. 
 
 If Fortune, with disdainful smirk, 
 
 Amid her wards refuse to rank us, 
 We still may do some honest work. 
 
 And here and there a heart will thank us. 
 
 Voltaire provides a useful text. 
 
 Who bids you cultivate your garden 
 
 When by this foolish world perplexed ; — 
 But wherefore preach ? I beg your pardon !
 
 ILLUMINATION 
 
 Out of the sunbeams cometh a boat 
 
 Gliding down the river, 
 Like a thought that threadeth a hazy dream, 
 Or the bark of Hope on a silent stream 
 Where the froth and the bubbles of Fancy float 
 
 And the lights of Memory quiver. 
 
 The sun out-stretcheth a flaming sword 
 
 Till the pearly waters sheath it, 
 And the land withdraweth her veil of mist, 
 Baring her mouth and eyes to be kissed, 
 Aglow in the smile of her radiant Lord, 
 
 But ah ! there are tears beneath it.
 
 THE UNSEEN SINGER 
 
 Crowned with a yellow cluster 
 
 Of lamps whose jewelled bars 
 Contrast their garish lustre 
 
 With the dim light of the stars, 
 The street lies choked and throbbing 
 
 In the furnace-breath that moans 
 With a wail of muffled sobbing 
 
 O'er the haunted paving-stones. 
 
 Through a hazy cloud of curtain 
 
 A pallid shaft of light 
 Threads with a gleam uncertain 
 
 The obscure and shapeless night ; 
 And, beyond, a sweet voice lingers 
 
 As it bends with liquid ease 
 To the dance of nimble fingers 
 
 Tripping light upon the keys.
 
 38 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 No great musician's magic 
 
 Adorns the humble rhyme, 
 No burden of the Tragic, 
 
 No wave of the Sublime ; 
 But a flash of human feeling 
 
 Seems to filter through the gloom, 
 In melody revealing 
 
 The load of earthly doom. 
 
 It asks the plaintive query 
 
 Of uneventful lives, 
 Of the spinsters old and weary 
 
 And the leaden-hearted wives, 
 Of voices that have spoken 
 
 And voices that are dumb. 
 Of the promise always broken. 
 
 And the days that never come.
 
 PRIMROSE DAY 
 
 Ropes of pale yellow blossom wreathed and twined 
 
 O'er the stone pedestal whereon they bind 
 
 Rich garlands of remembrance, underneath 
 
 The silent effigy that mocks at Death 
 
 With its own smile. The chiselled features wear 
 
 That grave, inscrutable, ironic air 
 
 Caught from their living model. Kindly art 
 
 Perpetuates the Actor's favourite part 
 
 Of brooding, sphynx-like dreamer. Ah, who knows 
 
 How much that graven face conceals or shows 
 
 Of what the man's true soul was ? Right or wrong 
 
 Faith finds no shadow in the pilgrim throng 
 
 Heaving and humming on the pavement here, 
 
 And brightening the hueless atmosphere 
 
 With tufts of that good flower the fresh sun makes 
 
 From fragile gossamer of his first flakes 
 
 Of pallid gold, — a chord that seems to wring 
 
 Our hearts with the faint passion of the Spring.
 
 40 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 The true believers gather at the shrine, 
 Touching exemplars of the thirst divine 
 That leads men with insatiable fire 
 To look for something they can love, admire, 
 Honour with incense-fumes or breath of flowers,. 
 Credit with sacred wisdom, god-like powers, 
 A light to flash one beam of an ideal 
 Into the turbid waters of the real. 
 
 Here for a space the apostle of Finance 
 Forgets to follow the delirious dance 
 Of names and figures, while his thought expands 
 To dream of statesmanship, and foreign lands, 
 Eruptive movements among stocks and shares, 
 And Armageddon of the Bulls and Bears. 
 The plump suburban tradesman at his side 
 Swells with a greater than parochial pride. 
 Feeling that, ere the hand of time shall rub 
 The gloss from England's fame, his local club 
 Will raise a storm whereat the world would quake 
 And even vestrymen might lie awake. 
 A brown-faced soldier comes, erect and grim, 
 To cast a stern approving look on him 
 Whose life at least was fearless. Meekly proud, 
 A country vicar elbows through the crowd,
 
 PRIMROSE DAY 41 
 
 Just from his quiet parsonage, wherein 
 Faint and few sounds are echoed of the din 
 Of party strife, and years have passed away 
 Absorbed with care of poultry, garden, hay, 
 Funerals and christenings, and friends to tea, 
 And now and then the Bishop ; — this was he 
 Whose word made Bishops ! Fashionable dames. 
 Oblivious of absorbing social claims, 
 Prattle of moments when they helped the Cause, 
 Burned with excitement, joined in the applause 
 For brilliant speeches made by nice young men 
 Who found their eyes inspiring, scarce could pen 
 The emotion wafting patriotic fumes 
 Through Paris hats and heavenly costumes. 
 Countless the types and classes, countless too 
 The opinions stirred, the changing points of view ; 
 Some hostile, some indifferent, but most 
 Breathing harmony warm ; perhaps the ghost 
 Of envious admiration flits across 
 Some youthful dreamer's brain ; if chance could toss 
 His boat in such wild waters, yet allow 
 Anchorage safe for his victorious prow 
 At last quiet in harbour, who shall say 
 That any steersman will not find the way ? 
 Flaming, perchance, the lamp of hope revives 
 Here in some few narrow, laborious lives.
 
 42 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 Oh silent figure with the moulded mask, 
 Unveil your secret ! When our children ask 
 How shall we answer, estimating you ? 
 A greasy-ringleted, bedizened Jew, 
 Wearing the brand and birth-mark of your race 
 In every line of that mysterious face, 
 Sprung from the bosom of a class that strives 
 To make its blameless vegetable lives 
 Bear interest at more than market rates 
 Here, and beyond the gulf of Heaven's gates. 
 You strode into the arena ; long and fierce 
 The cut and thrust, the nimble carte and tierce ; 
 Against you scorn, ridicule, hatred, pride, 
 Tradition, prejudice, and on your side 
 Unfailing self-reliance, self-esteem, 
 Courage and foppery intertwined to dream 
 Queer, shrewd romantic fancies, unexpressed 
 Save in wild metaphor or florid jest, 
 Yet weighted with a purpose. Friendly Time 
 Brought you your triumph ; figure half sublime. 
 Half comic, all of empire, save the crown. 
 You won to your dominion, looking down 
 With your old solemn irony when they. 
 Who knew your power, to curse or to obey, 
 Sang of your glories, shouted of your crimes, 
 Hailed you as prophet, teacher, seer, at times,
 
 PRIMROSE DAY 43 
 
 Then quickly dubbed you traitor, mountebank 
 Charlatan, God knows what, — when rose and sank 
 The fluctuating tide, you seldom spoke 
 Without the flavour of a cynic joke 
 Vaguely seasoning your words. 
 
 Who can tell 
 How far your mood was earnest ? Long and well 
 You worked for England. Would the work prove 
 
 more 
 Of value if the worker's manner wore 
 That conscious air of spiritual worth 
 With which we love to tread the ways of Earth ? 
 Or can we blame you if your Eastern wit, 
 Finding our Western broad-cloth hardly fit 
 To clothe its mockery, was so often moved 
 To wear a garb of fustian ? Is it proved 
 That when Time writes this old world's epitaph 
 The grave will bear more legend than a laugh ? 
 How test we truth ? Before your sculptured eyes 
 The fane wherein so many a statesman lies, 
 In honoured peace among our honoured dead. 
 Rears to the London gloom its lofty head, 
 A witness for the Faith your people spurned. 
 O'er the dark earth a beacon-light, has burned
 
 44 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 That Faith for centuries ; the Cross has grown 
 
 Into a watch-word ; not by priests alone, 
 
 But on the lips of almost all who lead 
 
 This modern world, the music of the creed 
 
 Owns the Rejected of your race, who taught 
 
 That earthly hopes, aims, dreams, desires are nought, 
 
 That man should scorn luxury, power, and wealth, 
 
 Count all men brothers, doing good by stealth. 
 
 Shrink from the gold with which the world allures. 
 
 Thankful for every failure he endures. 
 
 Labour and love as loves and labours — who ? 
 
 By Heaven, we scarcely need to ask of you 
 
 Why the faint, lurking irony should haunt 
 
 Yon statue's mouth ! 
 
 And yet there is no taunt, 
 No gibe at mortal weakness ambushed there ; 
 Rather, I hold, the humorous despair, 
 The mocking pity of a great wise brain 
 That pierces to the heart of human pain 
 And impotent delusion. There are tears 
 Under the laughter bred by public years 
 Of toiling Ufe. In yonder Senate-house 
 You saw the solemn throes that yield the mouse 
 From mountains in their labour ; you beheld 
 Ideals broken, youthful ardours quelled.
 
 PRIMROSE DAY 45 
 
 The windy passion of each rival school, 
 The pathos of the plodding, earnest fool, 
 The woeful skein of tangled truth and lies 
 Apparent when the cloudy conscience tries 
 To weave her shapeless thoughts upon the loom 
 Of words ; you felt the thunder-tramp of doom 
 Marching on all. 
 
 Ah me ! When Wisdom weighs 
 The fruit of diligently guarded days, 
 Watches the working of a noble brain 
 Through the long labyrinth of wasteful pain. 
 Sees how man slowly climbs towards the goal 
 Of self-accomplishment and self-control, 
 And how, the battle being almost won 
 And life — sane, reasonable life — begun, 
 Death frees the passage of a single dart 
 And there is nothing ! — Wisdom draws apart 
 From the grave council, drops the sober gown. 
 Snatches a bauble from the nearest clown, 
 Drapes a disguising domino, and slips, 
 Hooded in laughter, out of jesting lips.
 
 THE SEA-SPELL 
 
 Lave me, bathe me, and bear me on. 
 Luminous water where sunlight swims 
 
 Whenever its whitening gold has gone 
 
 Through the pale green veil to my naked limbs. 
 
 For I have embodied the sun-beams now ; 
 
 In a liquid silver my hair is wet ; 
 And each wave, as I scatter it, marks my brow 
 
 With the pearls of a foam-wreathed coronet. 
 
 I am passion and power and life and joy ; 
 
 My frame, as it fills with each long salt breath, 
 Turns spirit, escaped from the last alloy 
 
 Of the flesh that encumbered, — the garb of death. 
 
 Body and soul have been shaped anew, 
 From the kind sea born in a regal birth, 
 
 Suffused with the sky's imperial blue, 
 
 And shedding the dolour and dust of earth.
 
 THE SEA-SPELL 47 
 
 I am lord and conqueror, riding free 
 
 On the neck of the billows that shake their manes 
 As they plunge to the infinite open sea 
 
 And gallop at large o'er the blue-green plains. 
 
 I am an anchorite fondly wooed 
 
 By the charm of a stainless atmosphere, 
 
 By the voice that appeals from the solitude 
 For the brooding senses to wake and hear, 
 
 By the boundless eloquent calm of thought, 
 By the wonderful peace of a perfect trust, 
 
 By the fierce, wild freedom slowly wrought 
 
 From the clamour of pain and the load of lust. 
 
 I am a watcher who scans the night, 
 Reading the courses of moon and stars, 
 
 Till the paths of Heaven are all alight 
 
 With the old great Gods in their shining cars, 
 
 I am a scholar who climbs alone 
 
 To the peaks of a mental mountain-chain, 
 
 With vision unfoiled by the shadows thrown 
 From the crags beneath on the dusky plain,
 
 48 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 Gaining the music that no man hears, 
 
 The splendour that others have died to see, 
 
 The fiery maze of the curving spheres 
 And the hum of their crooning harmony. 
 
 I am a lover who kneels at last 
 
 In a Holy of Holies, where the flame 
 
 Of the altar burns in a furnace-blast 
 
 The poison of doubt and the dregs of shame, 
 
 Till, purged and hallowed, the flesh completes 
 The mystical rite of the melting soul. 
 
 And the throb of a purest passion beats 
 
 Like a drum for the triumph of lives made whole. 
 
 I am colour and melody, art and song ; 
 
 I cloister with knowledge and soar with truth ; 
 A glittering bubble I float along 
 
 On the seething tide of eternal youth. 
 
 For strange are the dreams that mine eyes behold. 
 And magic the fancies that come to me 
 
 As I swim through the beaten belt of gold 
 
 Where the sun-light swoons on the foaming sea.
 
 IN A POLICE-COURT 
 
 Through unwashed glass within a dusty casement, 
 
 On the bare desert of discoloured walls 
 Darkened with memories of man's abasement, 
 The dim light falls. 
 
 Here is the shop where Justice, queen of tinkers, 
 
 Toils when the social harness shows a flaw, 
 Buckles the girth afresh and binds the blinkers 
 With brazen law. 
 
 Here, day by day. Propriety's defaulters 
 Offer atonement at her sacred shrine, 
 Victims on that least worshipful of altars 
 Reckoned divine. 
 
 Where is the world we lived in for a season, 
 
 That nurtured laughter, beauty, love, and hope ? 
 With the foul puzzle that befogs our reason 
 We cannot cope. 
 
 D
 
 50 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 Surely we dream ; — some night-mare phrenzy traces 
 
 These awful pictures burned upon the brain, 
 These cunning, cruel, spirit-soddened faces, 
 These masks of pain. 
 
 The savage mockery that stings and blisters 
 
 Worked on the mould from which these models 
 broke. 
 Men, see your brothers ; women, view your sisters ; — 
 Hell's playful joke ! 
 
 Subtle, indeed, the humour that selected 
 
 These paltry scapegoats from the kindred flock, 
 Standing unblamed, unbranded, unsuspected, 
 Outside the dock. 
 
 Humorous, too, the processes mechanic 
 
 Of clockwork constables, who print the scenes 
 Lurid with violence and shame and panic. 
 Like type-machines. 
 
 And, almost conscious of the jest ironic. 
 
 The suave attorney pleads a doubtful claim ; 
 With hir^d warmth and pathos histrionic 
 He plays the game.
 
 IN A POLICE-COURT 51 
 
 But first and best comedian in the drama 
 
 Figures the grave presiding potentate, — 
 A paste-board Jupiter, — a true Grand Llama, — 
 The Magistrate. 
 
 Poor man ! — Well-clothed, well-nourished, and well- 
 meaning, 
 He labours here to practise and to preach 
 The comfortable world's own gospel, leaning 
 Lame thought on speech. 
 
 Sustained by pompous phrases that he treasures. 
 He drives round pegs into the squarest holes ; 
 With pious industry he weighs and measures 
 The worth of souls. 
 
 He brands the losers and rewards the winners. 
 
 Never suspecting that his own good rules 
 Might claim himself to rank among the sinners 
 Or with the fools. 
 
 From human motives, when he plies the bellows, 
 
 Are hammered iron formulae, whose test 
 Repairs a few among his damaged fellows, 
 And spoils the rest.
 
 52 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 Oh human hearts ! — when hope has failed and 
 fainted, 
 Here is a type to raise your thoughts above ; 
 For much like him men's prophecies have painted 
 Their God of Love !
 
 CHALLENGE 
 
 Grey days of gloom, 
 
 That fold your sombre wings about my soul, 
 
 Are you the darkness of advancing doom, 
 
 The pale, sad messengers of mist that roll 
 
 O'er the mouth of the tomb, 
 
 Screening the gulf of open jaws agape 
 
 To gather in the whole 
 
 Of life and hope and happiness, 
 
 The end of the path poor human feet must press 
 
 Nor I escape ? 
 
 Even should this be so, 
 
 Here will I speak ! 
 
 I am tired of my long labour, faint and weak ; 
 
 I scarce could count it banishment to go 
 
 Into an everlasting silence, free 
 
 From work or woe,
 
 54 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 Yet scorn the coward thought that came to me ! 
 
 No pause from toil, no comfortable death. 
 
 But life and action call me ; — I am life ; 
 
 Whether or no the changing seons bring 
 
 An end to the strife, 
 
 I am going on. I shall master everything. 
 
 Ah, hostile shadows frowning in my way ! 
 
 Your purpose cannot daunt me ; when you fall 
 
 Across my path I shrink not, knowing well 
 
 That I can conquer all. 
 
 For there is nothing found in fabled Hell 
 
 So strong as is the power within me, — force 
 
 Unseen and uninterpreted, yet moving 
 
 On the appointed course, 
 
 Perpetually proving 
 
 That One Thing speaks alone, — and all obey. 
 
 I take you — care, 
 
 Pain, — sorrow, — disillusionment, — despair, — 
 
 As artists take their colours, and from you 
 
 I paint my picture. Life is what I will. 
 
 I make the legends live, the dreams come true. 
 
 AVe are ourselves a legend and a dream, 
 
 Notes of an organ touched with perfect skill 
 
 By an unknown Hand,
 
 CHALLENGE 55 
 
 And blended in a stream 
 Of harmony we may not understand, 
 Yet have to govern as it rolls along, 
 For we are both the Singer and the Song. 
 
 Slowly I toil towards the sky-topped crest 
 
 Of Understanding, and awake to see 
 
 How the dim vapours have been fooling me 
 
 With their illusions on the mountain's breast. 
 
 This poor, blind, bounded personality, 
 
 Doomed for some years to suffer, — then to die, 
 
 I thought was I ! 
 
 But now the prospect broadens ; I am learning 
 
 The genesis of my peculiar spark 
 
 Flashed out of the universal fire, burning 
 
 Through the great frame of life : and though the dark 
 
 Surround me still. 
 
 Faint gleams of light returning 
 
 Grant hopes of vision higher on the hill. 
 
 We have lost the creeds 
 
 To which men clung 
 
 With helpless anguish when all hearts were young. 
 
 Asking a balsam for their aching needs 
 
 That burned and stung, 
 
 Searching in vain for flowers amid life's weeds.
 
 56 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 With a wider hope 
 
 And a braver trust 
 
 We check the childish whimper for our Nurse 
 
 To lead us through the gloom wherein we grope, 
 
 Nor waver o'er the better and the worse, 
 
 But take with open eyes the path we must, 
 
 Knowing forsooth that this necessity, 
 
 In some mysterious way, 
 
 Is our own work ; we who perforce obey 
 
 Its iron law have made that law to be. 
 
 For through this great, sad puzzle there is throbbing 
 
 A sense of clearer thought, of growing light. 
 
 I hear the human ocean sobbing 
 
 Down on the jagged rocks beneath the night. 
 
 The note that jarred seems to have faded now. 
 
 As the symphony swells. 
 
 While the vague burden of the truth it tells 
 
 Loses that old discordant " Why ? " and " How ? " 
 
 But one recurring motive threads the strain. 
 
 Sounding a lofty mood 
 
 Far above transient throes of joy or pain, 
 
 Of virtue recompensed or guilt pursued, 
 
 And all the worthless little hopes and fears 
 
 That roused or calmed our tears.
 
 CHALLENGE 57 
 
 We are the seething bubbles of a river, 
 
 Sometimes in shade, 
 
 At others lit by the golden beams that quiver 
 
 On the giant flood wherefrom the film was made 
 
 That forms our personality ; complete 
 
 And yet not wholly severed ; always part 
 
 Of the one great stream. 
 
 When our idle dream 
 
 Ends, and the bubbles burst, no longer beat 
 
 Harsh hands at the door of the universal heart. 
 
 With our false life go 
 
 Ephemeral shapes of evil, pain, and woe. 
 
 Still does that everlasting river flow 
 
 To the distant sea 
 
 Of sole Reality, — 
 
 Love ? — Beauty ? — God ? — It lies so faint and far 
 
 We may but wonder what its waters are.
 
 MY DAY 
 
 Though your brief passion may be lulled to sleep, 
 
 Dooming my life to tread a lonely way, 
 There will be yet one memory to keep ; 
 I had my day. 
 
 Though you should sing for other ears than mine, 
 
 Still must the haunting harmonies belong 
 To him who felt them in his blood like wine ; 
 I heard your song. 
 
 Though time shall strip my heart's deserted walls, 
 
 Take, one by one, his early gifts away, 
 These will be with me when the curtain falls ; — 
 Your song, my day.
 
 THE MOORLAND AND THE 
 WOODLAND 
 
 Said the Moorland to the Woodland, " I am weary, 
 Love, without thee, 
 And I hearken for the music that is born among 
 thy boughs. 
 I ask the gentle western breeze to fold his wings 
 about thee, 
 And whisper in thy ear the burning murmur of my 
 vows. 
 But I know the gods have laid us in our solitudes 
 asunder, 
 And I fear thy thoughts are flying to a fairer, 
 dearer land, 
 And beneath my misty curtain I can only dream and 
 wonder 
 If you feel the far-off throbbing of my heart, and 
 understand."
 
 6o TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 Said the Moorland to the Woodland, " I am wild and 
 bare and barren ; 
 I have nought but heather, purple with the life- 
 blood of my breast, 
 Where the hungry foxes prowl and, here and there, 
 the rabbits warren. 
 And the lonely curlew wails and wavers homeward 
 to her nest. 
 I know that thou hast flowers to give thee perfumes 
 at thy pleasure, 
 And a store of elfin melody from bird and droning 
 bee, 
 And thy sunny life is laden with the gifts I may not 
 measure. 
 There is nothing good to gather from my poverty for 
 thee.' 
 
 Said the Moorland to the Woodland " I will wait a 
 little longer 
 Till the chestnut-shells are breaking and the frost 
 begins to bite. 
 Till the North wind growls and mutters with a note 
 that's ever stronger. 
 And the flush of summer passes in the waning of 
 the light.
 
 MOORLAND AND WOODLAND 6i 
 
 When thy ferns are old and withered and thy scented 
 flowers are dying, 
 And thy spirit droops in sorrow for the glories that 
 depart, 
 And yellow leaves and broken hopes across the world 
 are flying, 
 It may be they will come to ask a shelter of my 
 heart."
 
 GIPSY SOULS 
 
 There is a secret brotherhood, whose rules 
 
 Are never framed, whose watchword is unknown, 
 
 Whose dogmas flourish not in learned schools, 
 
 Whose creed is but a precept to disown 
 
 The wisdom of a world that names them fools ; 
 
 A band where brother scarce encounters brother 
 
 But treads the maze alone, 
 
 Doubtful of life's enrichment with another 
 
 To share his thought, bruised in the human press, 
 
 And as the roving wind companionless. 
 
 But, here and there, two kindred dreamers meet, 
 And straightway learn to talk the common tongue, 
 And wake strange fancies from their dim retreat, 
 And know the throb of hearts sublimely young 
 Moving together with responsive beat, 
 And murmur bars of old forgotten ditties 
 That all their tribe have sung 
 Since the good days before the birth of cities
 
 GIPSY SOULS 63 
 
 Had made the godly, new, commercial man, 
 And scared abroad their dwindling caravan. 
 
 For they are born the children of a race 
 Furnished on earth with no abiding home ; 
 Whose dreams fly out to ask a dwelling-place 
 Of shifting desert sands, of ocean foam ; 
 Who build up castles on a sun-beam base. 
 And gather unregarded bloom of pleasure 
 As o'er life's field they roam. 
 Rating above the hoards of valued treasure 
 That one rare thing no garnered gold has bought. 
 True freedom shrined in palaces of thought. 
 
 The wealth that others heap they seldom win ; 
 
 Titles and triumphs and the world's applause 
 
 But rarely prove their guerdon. When the din 
 
 Of battle rages round some hopeless cause 
 
 A fierce quixotic impulse sweeps them in 
 
 To fight and fail. Not theirs the prophet's thunder, 
 
 The statesman's marble laws. 
 
 The zealot's power to tear old faiths asunder 
 
 And Hash new altar-flames, nor theirs to tell 
 
 The meaning of our life, its Heaven and Hell.
 
 64 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 They make no organ-music, yet they sing 
 
 Sweet, haunting songs that simple hearts will 
 
 hear, 
 Like the faint bells whose lonely voices ring 
 Through dusk-veiled silence o'er a frozen mere, 
 Unheeded, save by children wandering 
 In leafless lanes, or homeward-faring peasants. 
 Or large-eyed, anxious deer, 
 That watch beneath gaunt branches, where the 
 
 pheasants, 
 Curtained by mists aflush with frosty light. 
 Crow their last challenge to the winter night. 
 
 The strange and subtle magic charms a few 
 
 That plumb their meaning, though the rest be 
 
 blind, 
 That own the spell, mysterious, vital, new, 
 Of Nature's elemental voice behind 
 Their work, whate'er its shape. For, as the dew 
 Distils, a virgin essence, from the sources 
 Obscure and undefined 
 That feed the rolling flood of cosmic forces, 
 They draw their power direct, and in the flow 
 Of universal ether come and go.
 
 GIPSY SOULS 65 
 
 Knights errant, looking for a lost crusade, 
 
 Toilers that weave the moonshine of Romance, 
 
 They sow for other's harvesting, repaid 
 
 With flowers and wreaths and ribands, or a glance 
 
 From eyes that fling the laughter of a maid. 
 
 Nor are they deaf to any music wooing 
 
 Their feet towards the dance ; 
 
 And all they do is for the sake of doing ; 
 
 And all they hope, to taste one brimming glass 
 
 Beside life's board before the bottle pass. 
 
 And though the tragic irony, that reigns 
 
 O'er this grim world, too often lays its hand 
 
 To bind their souls in uncongenial chains. 
 
 With herded serfs, who may not understand 
 
 Their lightest thought, blood flows within their veins, 
 
 A stream no drought can dry, no frost can harden, 
 
 And flowers from fairy-land 
 
 Make their cold prison like a perfumed garden. 
 
 And soft, salt winds from moaning seas caress 
 
 The unchanging children of the wilderness. 
 
 They glide like shadows through the trailing years, 
 Their voice a cry from an eternal Past. 
 Their laughter floats across a wave of tears ; 
 They play with all the passions, and are cast 
 
 £
 
 66 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 Into Love's furnace of delights and fears ; 
 
 But Hope's brave banner, on the tide of Sorrow, 
 
 Floats proudly from their mast. 
 
 They lose not Yesterday, yet win To-morrow ; 
 
 And, where the golden sunset flames afar, 
 
 They seek their haven in an unborn star.
 
 A BAD DAY 
 
 Sorrow ! I would that thou and I might part ; 
 
 But, since this may not be, 
 At least there is one fortress in my heart 
 
 That shall not fall to thee. 
 For there the host of my beleaguered Dreams 
 
 Guard with their dented swords 
 The flag that o'er the gateway floats and gleams 
 
 To mock thy brooding hordes. 
 
 Fancy, that no enfeeblement dismays ; 
 
 Thought, that no wound can kill ; 
 Old, armoured Memories of cloudless days, 
 
 And stern, unyielding Will ; — 
 Though I must bend before thy poisoned breath, 
 
 These will surmount the strife. 
 And hold, until the last assault of Death, 
 
 The sacred joy of Life.
 
 AN ENCOUNTER 
 
 The soft, warm dusk was full of whispered sounds ; 
 Grasshoppers chirped unseen ; on lonely peaks 
 The rose of sun-light turned to purple ; gloom, 
 Kind, griefless gloom blotted the drowsy trees 
 And cloaked the valley's slumber-laden face. 
 Alone upon the climbing, rock-strewn path 
 That scarred the mountain's bosom, till it lost 
 Its coiling length among the stunted firs, 
 Massed, like the squadrons of a waiting host, 
 Beneath the sheltering crags, I bathed my soul 
 In scented, dream-like stillness ; and I heard 
 Only far village-voices murmuring, 
 The clang of muffled cow-bells, and the roar 
 Of the white, weary water-fall that hung 
 Suspended like Prometheus on his rock. 
 
 Gliding across the wavelets of the wind 
 Was breathed the phantom of a human sigh. 
 The semblance of a sob ; and, vaguely girt 
 With shadowy, floating draperies of mist,
 
 AN ENCOUNTER 69 
 
 Swam to me through the darkness a pale form 
 
 Whose feet would scarce have echoed o'er the sound 
 
 Of snow-flakes in the night. A woman's face 
 
 Flickered a mournful glance to meet my look 
 
 Of startled questioning, I have not known 
 
 Such a strange woman, with her weird, wild eyes, 
 
 Like burnt-out hearths, where the last glow of hope 
 
 Fitfully gleamed. Mysterious lines of thought 
 
 Were as the foot-prints of remembered tears. 
 
 Scars of a fiery past. No mortal life 
 
 Could hold the tale of passion printed there. 
 
 For not one brief existence, but the course 
 
 Of ancient races through long tracts of time 
 
 Were compass wide enough for all the load 
 
 Of aspirations, agonies, desires, 
 
 Torn dreams, and withered visions, that had made, 
 
 Within the framework of encircling hair, 
 
 A haunted walk for the anguish of the world. 
 
 The dark mouih moved ; like the low, hopeless notes 
 
 Monotonously murmured to the hush 
 
 Of straining hearts, when some musician draws 
 
 His bow in brooding slowness o'er the strings 
 
 That ache with melody, her voice began 
 
 Listless, half-chanted, unpreluded speech, 
 
 " You know me, wandering stranger. You are one
 
 70 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 Whose heart has felt the fire I kindled. Here 
 
 The child of mountain-hopes, of stern rock-dreams, 
 
 Cradled among the crags of Dauphine 
 
 And nursed in Alpine breezes, was I born. 
 
 I am the spirit that opened Heaven and Hell. 
 
 I am the Revolution. Ah ! how bright 
 
 Those first young hours, with their deHrious thoughts 
 
 Dancing up to the world of white and blue, 
 
 The virgin snow beneath the virgin sky. 
 
 Where only monitory evening gave. 
 
 From time to time, the sun's foreboding flush, — 
 
 Passionate, blood-steeped red. Along the land, 
 
 The dark, sad suffering land, enslaved and chained, 
 
 My message leaped like yonder torrent, fed 
 
 From slowly-moving glaciers of despair, 
 
 Till the sound grew to thunder, wakening 
 
 Exhausted, swooning Hope. And, fortified 
 
 By her long sleep, Hope sprang into the day, — 
 
 Hope, such as never thrilled your loftiest dreams ; 
 
 Not the poor, patient spirit whose rushlight serves 
 
 To darken Fortune's darkness, but a God, 
 
 Turbulent, jubilant, painting all gold 
 
 The world's dull copper, seen through sun-lit waves. 
 
 How my heart sang when drooping nations woke 
 
 To hear my voice of freedom. First the cry 
 
 Quivered through France ; but soon the burden surged
 
 AN ENCOUNTER 71 
 
 Beyond her borders, like a trumpet-call 
 
 Blown from a mountain-fortress to be tossed 
 
 From crag to crag, and linger faint and long 
 
 In far-off dreaming valleys. Europe rose. 
 
 And felt the throb of fever move her blood, 
 
 And looked towards the stars with frightened eyes 
 
 And loose-lipped, anxious mouth. She caught my 
 
 hands 
 Held out to her in blessing, for a sign 
 Of love, joy, peace, I purposed to impart, 
 And drew me to her bosom till our lips 
 Met burning. And the fever leaped and raged 
 Like fire from vein to vein ; and we were mad. 
 When the delirium passed, pale, breathless, dazed, 
 I looked, half- conscious, at my once white hands, 
 And woke, — and woke — and saw them — oh ! my 
 
 God!— 
 The stain is on them yet." 
 
 Her lifeless voice 
 Flashed up with over-mastering agony 
 And, wailing, died into the whispered moan 
 Of hard-drawn breath. She cowered upon her knees 
 With suppliant arms, whose shaded pallor gleamed 
 Under the cloud of dark and copious locks 
 From the head sunk there for refuge. Though the gloom
 
 72 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 Veiled her dim hands, yet lingered light enough 
 To show them in their coated varnish damned, — 
 The accusing rust of blood. There was a pause, 
 A living silence, shaken with the throb 
 Of passionate pulses that beat in the waves 
 Of lukewarm air, and quivering with the sigh 
 Breathed by voluptuous night. The phantom raised 
 At last her bending head. With eyes where woke 
 The interrogating anguish that would seek 
 Something unfound, she mutely scanned the void 
 Skyward, oblivious of my presence. Soon 
 The murmured, pleading accents droned anew. 
 
 " What scented flower survives from all the seed 
 
 I cast abroad ? What hope that has not failed ? 
 
 What misery from the universal weight 
 
 Of sorrow dies ? Inevitable doom 
 
 Darkens the world-wide prospect. Now as then 
 
 Man is enslaved by man, and human hearts 
 
 Are fettered to the turning chariot-wheels 
 
 Of brutish toil and poverty and despair ; 
 
 Still live the lies of fashion, the false creed 
 
 Of cramped convention, the benumbing power 
 
 Of social prostitution, and the lust, 
 
 The fetish of the golden idol. Men 
 
 Fear freedom with its price of glorious grief
 
 AN ENCOUNTER 73 
 
 More than the slow corruption and decay 
 
 Of vulgar aspirations, dwarfed ideals, 
 
 Comfort, and cowardice, and servility. 
 
 My light is darkened, and my burning dreams 
 
 Grow pale in the dominion of the sun. 
 
 I have no answer from the blinded stars, 
 
 The cold and cruel beauty of the moon. 
 
 The sob of egoist ocean, or the sigh 
 
 Of fancied sorrow from the sensuous wind. 
 
 I thought the world was wakened, and it growled 
 
 One drunken curse, and whispered in its sleep." 
 
 Again was silence. Then her upturned gaze 
 
 Drooped from the infinite vastness, till it touched 
 
 The mountain-racked horizon, and, drawn down, 
 
 Hovered upon the waning patch of gold 
 
 Behind the purple crest that cloaked the path 
 
 Of fiery coursers, with the car of day 
 
 Bearing the new white dawn. The fading blue 
 
 Blended with fading yellow and turned to green, 
 
 A mystic veil transparent to the light 
 
 Of one majestic, solitary star. 
 
 There radiant, a jewel seen through gauze. 
 
 She swept the tumbled tresses from her brow ; 
 
 And, with clasped hands and quivering eye-lids, flung 
 
 Her voice across the shrouded valley, fierce
 
 74 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 In agonised intensity of pain. 
 
 " Oh western star, dear emblem of all peace I 
 
 Like the white soul of a world-weary nun, 
 
 Serene, aloof, in the sequestered calm 
 
 Of hoary cloisters, where the throb of life 
 
 Fades without echo, thou dost symbolise 
 
 A pure and passionless hope. At last I hear 
 
 Harmony where was discord. Peace and death 
 
 Must walk the human labyrinth hand in hand. 
 
 Comrades inseparable. While the world lasts 
 
 No one shall read its riddle, and they who hope 
 
 To salve its wounds with comfortable words, 
 
 To frame the final and millennial code. 
 
 The last Utopian creed, are doomed to win 
 
 Failure, that thorny crown of all great souls. 
 
 But the world gains with every broken heart 
 
 A further step. Till the untameable brood 
 
 Of him who ravished from the guardian gods 
 
 The fire of aspiration and revolt 
 
 Are blotted from Ufe's book, humanity 
 
 Will yet be marching with tumultuous strength 
 
 Towards the elusive, legendary land 
 
 Where the great answer lies — " 
 
 Her low voice broke. 
 She sighed one wordless message to the star, 
 Then passed into the curtained hall of Night.
 
 AN AFTER-GLOW 
 
 Thus to meet 
 
 In the noisy street, 
 To pass in silence with a furtive glance ! 
 Autumn is early on the town ; her breath"! 
 These poor smoke-blackened branches withereth ; 
 Ah me ! and the dead leaves dance. 
 
 Once afar 
 
 The flame of a star 
 Wooed us to voyage on a doubtful sea. 
 We gained the sheltered garden on the shore, 
 And plucked Love's inmost fruit. There was no 
 
 more 
 Untasted by you and me. 
 
 Clouds of wrath 
 
 Have hidden the path 
 Where then we wandered to our lost delight. 
 Whose was that mocking laughter over-head ? 
 Are we not even faithful to the dead ? 
 How blurred are the lamps to-night !
 
 APOLOGIA 
 
 Do you complain of the torrent of rhyme 
 
 Set to the tune of so mournful a measure, 
 Ask for a bard who will quicken the time, 
 
 Warble of sunlight and laughter and leisure, 
 Sharpen his pen for impersonal themes — 
 
 Plenty, you hold, may be had for the choosing- 
 Cease to interpret lugubrious dreams 
 
 Ugly as Sin, and not half so amusing ? 
 
 Well, you have reason. But, just for a space, 
 
 Let us endow, ere I answer your question, 
 You with the part of a poet — disgrace 
 
 Hardly can follow so mild a suggestion. 
 Turn from your sacred, ennobling pursuits, 
 
 Luxury, wealth, notoriety, fashion, 
 Fall to the level of folly that shoots 
 
 Arrows of song at a target of passion.
 
 APOLOGIA 77 
 
 Picture yourself as a person who rakes 
 
 Dust-bins of life for a possible jewel : 
 Forges the metal of moonshine, and takes 
 
 Anguish and fancy and hope for his fuel : 
 Strains to a load of unresting desires, 
 
 Nerves that are tortured and pulses that tingle 
 Bleeds and is buffeted, labours, aspires : 
 
 Reaps what he sowed, in this harvest of jingle. 
 
 Then would you find in the waters of song 
 
 More than an image, a ghost, a reflection, 
 Shade of the passions whose turbulent throng 
 
 Calls for an outlet in colour and action ? 
 Ah ! if the temporal world could supply 
 
 Answers complete for the questions eternal ! 
 Song is the thwarted idealist's cry, 
 
 Art is the nutshell, but Life is the kernel. 
 
 Would you be moved to the stringing of rhymes. 
 
 Cage your poetical gas in a metre. 
 During those rare, unforgettable times 
 
 When the mere art of existence is sweeter ? 
 Where does the volume repose on your shelves 
 
 Half so absorbing as joys we have tasted, 
 Definite, perfect, complete in themselves, 
 
 Hours of delight when no moment was wasted ?
 
 78 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 Music of hounds in the green of the gorse ; 
 
 Dance of a boat on the jubilant billows ; 
 Long, easy stride of your favourite horse ; 
 
 Splash of the trout feeding under the willows ; 
 Throb of a valse in a ball-room at night ; 
 
 Hush of a woodland in hot summer day-time ; — 
 These are the ballads no pen can indite, 
 
 Always unwritten, the poems of play-time, 
 
 Wordless that wonderful lyric you know ; 
 
 Tremble of stars in the silence above you, 
 Eyes through the curtain of darkness aglow, 
 
 Lips faintly breathing the whisper, " I love you " ; 
 Tumult of blood in the warmth of a face 
 
 Kissed through a net-work of locks that are 
 straying. 
 Bosoms enfolded and arms that enlace ; 
 
 Risky the game ? Well, the better worth playing ! 
 
 No ; when these golden phenomena fade, 
 
 Epilogue ended and company flitting. 
 Tragical, comical puppets that played. 
 
 Hoarse and begrimed, in the gloom we are sitting. 
 Dead are the fleeting impressions that own 
 
 Gas-hght and paint fundamental as factors, 
 Leaving us stripped, unromantic, alone, 
 
 Merely a troupe of impoverished actors.
 
 APOLOGIA 79 
 
 Then an unsatisfied spirit awakes, 
 
 Racked with the old indefinable yearning, 
 Parched with a thirst no philosophy slakes, 
 
 Tries, in the language that passion is learning, 
 All its importunate wants to explain, 
 
 All its vague dreams and illusions to capture, 
 Marvel you much if the burden of pain 
 
 Slightly predominates over the rapture ? 
 
 Now you are answered. Go back to your life. 
 
 Gain, if you can, from it perfect contentment. 
 Roll up your money. Make love to your wife. 
 
 March under Fate without fear or resentment. 
 Waste not your humorous pity on those 
 
 Poor slighted poets who earned your derision. 
 You have prosperity, plumpness, and prose ; 
 
 They their ridiculous songs, — and the Vision.
 
 A PIANIST 
 
 Flabby, effeminate, sensual face ; 
 
 Horrible hair 
 
 Tossed and disordered with negligent care 
 
 That cannot attain to the crowning grace 
 
 Of a comb, or the self-respect of soap ; 
 
 Eyes that swim in 
 
 A watery ocean 
 
 Of nerveless, fibreless, flaccid emotion. 
 
 Where weak thought-tentacles grope. 
 
 Look at the crowd of hysterical women ! 
 
 Surely Nature, evolving her plan. 
 
 Yearned for a joke when she drafted him in ! 
 
 Call such a creature a man ! 
 
 Was the Sculptor weary who modelled his clay ? 
 
 Hush ! he begins to play. 
 
 Ah ! those old passionate strains, 
 
 That plead and cry 
 
 From the throbbing heart of a time-worn, mystic land 
 
 Out there in the great grim plains;
 
 A PIANIST 8i 
 
 Whose haunting sigh 
 Floats to the reticent mountain-chains 
 On either hand, 
 
 Guarding their secret from the tortured race 
 That moan their piteous prayers to the stony face. 
 Then pass and die. 
 Now is the panting music flooded 
 With all the harmonies of human life 
 And all the discords of terrestrial death. 
 Veins full-blooded, 
 And worn-out, flickering breath, 
 Hope, sorrow, sensuality, and strife. 
 All the countless currents run 
 To meet and mingle and roll, 
 Voices transformed to the universal one 
 By the mood of a Master's soul. 
 The lights grow faint in the dusky hall, 
 And shadowy folds of gloom 
 On the silent faces fall. 
 While, out of their earthly tomb, 
 Wrapt, ghostly souls to each other call. 
 Feeling their way by the threads of sound 
 Through blended chords to the common 
 
 ground 
 Of strange communion, 
 And fade into one mysterious union, 
 
 F
 
 82 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 Super-sensual, transcendental, 
 
 Rite whose corporeal Pontifex 
 
 On earth is that impulse elemental 
 
 Forged on the anvil of sex. 
 
 With interchange of sorrow and joy, 
 
 With equal memories, equal hopes. 
 
 We shake off the personal alloy 
 
 And melt into the Soul that gropes 
 
 For a way on the misty slopes, 
 
 In an airy kingdom of wordless thought, 
 
 Where the definite dreams of the mortal mind 
 
 Are sparks, through our various senses caught 
 
 From the unknown Flame behind. 
 
 And now that our waves have flooded beyond the 
 
 fence 
 Of the region thought can conquer or words explore. 
 We strike on the note of each separate carnal sense 
 Taking its place u the huge orchestral roar. 
 For the seeming ocean of billowy, confluent sound 
 Changes and passes and fades like a stormy sky, 
 Till we wake in a dumb, dark land enfolded and 
 
 bound 
 By a network of woven scents ; and the wondrous 
 
 cry 
 Of harmony calls in the fragrance of dewy flowers,
 
 A PIANIST 83 
 
 Wafting unseen their odours across the hush 
 
 Of airless, infinite space and eternal hours, 
 
 Breathing the burden of garden-beds aflush 
 
 With all the blossoms, and more, that ever were 
 
 known. 
 Each one filling a place on the perfect scale, 
 Each one yielding exact the requisite tone 
 Till the voice is again complete. And the endless 
 
 tale 
 Is touched by the change of an organ-stop, and runs 
 Away to the language caught from eloquent suns 
 On a sounding-board prismatic, and soon we float 
 In a symphony drugged with colour, where every note 
 Swells the luminous octave of haunting hues, 
 Magical fusions of yellows and reds and blues 
 In a warm diaphanous haze, whose quivering chords 
 Flash like the sun-dyed sparkle of jewelled swords. 
 
 But the threads unite at an open door • 
 And we pass to the Temple's inmost shrine. 
 With a golden pavement of stars for a floor, 
 And a roof where the tangled lightnings twine, 
 And all that we ever have known or felt, 
 That the mind can pierce or the fancy dream. 
 Grows paler and frailer than mist, to melt 
 In the solvent fervour of Light supreme.
 
 84 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 For scent and colour and sound and taste 
 
 Blurr no longer the crystal plane 
 
 Where diamond points of fire have traced 
 
 Figures worked out in the over-brain, 
 
 Lore of the mystical secrets taught 
 
 In lines symbolic that bend and swerve 
 
 Through a winding coil of the purest thought, 
 
 Circle and pyramid, cone and curve, 
 
 Pattern and proof of the cosmic heart. 
 
 Calculus-print of the final scroll, 
 
 Sum of all science and worship and art, 
 
 Infinite, perfect, eternal whole. 
 
 Awake ? 
 Are we only htre ? 
 
 The floor seems rocking, the windows shake 
 In the hurricane-clatter these madmen make. 
 As they thump ^nd thunder and cheer. 
 My brain still clangs like a bell. 
 Who was the conjuror wove the spell ? 
 That grotesque little mannikin facing 
 The flushed, convulsed, tempestuous hall, 
 Jerking his pantomine bows, grimacing. 
 Peacock-strutting at every call, 
 Can he have bewitched us all ?
 
 A PIANIST 85 
 
 Well, it is something gained to know 
 That the pitiless bars of this earthly school 
 Will open at times for a holiday, 
 Where the long-pent dreams of a fool 
 May gush from the fountain and over-flow. 
 Ah. I must carry my thoughts away 
 Into the dark and the cool. 
 Let me go !
 
 A GHOST 
 
 The gas-lamp drives a toil-worn gleam 
 Through the clouded window-pane ; 
 
 Like a mouse that gnaws on an oaken beam 
 Is the dull, dead drip of the rain ; 
 
 And into the hush'of my darkened dream 
 Echoes your voice again. 
 
 The fire leaps up, and the fancy dies, 
 
 And the secret, unconfessed, 
 Passes away with your burning eyes, 
 
 And your mouth, and your stormy breast. 
 Now we are sober and cold and wise ; — 
 
 But the fooUsh days were the best.
 
 THE APPOINTED LOT 
 
 Her face might well have stirred the gossip town, 
 Gaining their idle verdict whose report 
 Is beauty's palm and patent : while the crown 
 Of art imperial, and the rich renown 
 Of poet, painter, scholar, might have been 
 Hers, had Fate suflFered her to act the queen 
 And granted her a court. 
 
 But, where the brown and ragged up-land shields 
 A lonely village-folk, her fortune shares 
 The life of them that labour in the fields. 
 The simple stage a cramped horizon yields, 
 Whose drama seldom varies, but employs 
 Her brain with humble duties, hopes, and joys, 
 And trivial household cares.
 
 88 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 She needs no world of culture to explain 
 
 The shallow rule by which it loves or loathes, — 
 
 Her music is the murmur of the rain, 
 
 Her pictures are in plough-land, copse, or lane, 
 
 And, hearing through her haunted soul the cry 
 
 Of genius, with a smile — and half a sigh. 
 
 She mends her children's clothes.
 
 SUBURBAN 
 
 A LANDSCAPE blistered with villas ; a frozen road 
 Smooth, respectable, dreary, with asphalte edges 
 
 Like mourning borders, — the touch perfunctory owed 
 By the shameless town, as it tramples on fields and 
 hedges. 
 
 Flicker of cyclists, crouched in a shape grotesque, 
 Through black fog stained with the grime of the 
 crusted city ; 
 
 Beggars, by no tradition made picturesque, 
 Pass out for a pirate cruise on the sea of pity. 
 
 Our old sweet pastoral dies in caricature. 
 
 And yet even here, may the brooding soul discover 
 Beauty, — romance, — eternal, passionate, pure 
 
 As a maiden blush and the first long kiss of a 
 lover.
 
 THE ROOK 
 
 Skirting the woodland brown, 
 
 Where hangs the chill 
 Of the mists that flush to a fiery crown 
 
 A-flame on the western hill, 
 Over the oozing fields of clay, 
 
 Whose turf is sodden and soft, you fly. 
 Casting afar to the winter day 
 Your raucous cry. 
 
 Are you a mortal bark 
 
 {./ On life's grim sea, 
 
 Whose captain soul looks out through the dark 
 
 To gauge what the night may be ? 
 Tempest-buffeted, learning nought 
 
 Of a kindred craft, where the squall has blown ; 
 Alone on the rough, gray waste of thought, — 
 Alone, — alone.
 
 AN OPTIMIST 
 
 His old blue jersey, darned and patched: 
 
 The boots that he scarce could lace 
 For the yawning rifts in their leather, matched 
 
 The lines on his wrinkled face. 
 Though he hauled the sheet with a strong, brown 
 hand, 
 
 And steered with a careful eye. 
 He was surely drifting on to the land 
 
 Where the hulks and the wreckage lie. 
 
 Down the tidal river ran the long sea-wall ; 
 
 Beyond it, from the marshes, came the plaintive 
 note 
 Of the wild-fowl, mingled with the rook's hoarse call, 
 Through the shadows and the silence to our lonely 
 boat
 
 92 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 In idle converse wrapped, the tale 
 
 Of his varied life was told, 
 Picturing one foredoomed to fail. 
 
 Who might gather, but could not hold. 
 But under the thin grey locks his cheek 
 
 Had the radiant bloom of a child. 
 His past was barren, his future bleak ; 
 
 Yet he talked of his hopes and smiled. 
 
 Oyster-catchers orange-billed went screaming by. 
 Plovers wailed and fluted o'er the darkening 
 land, 
 Breezy whispers reached us, like a mourner's sigh, 
 Rustling through the reeds and sedge that crowned 
 the sand. 
 
 For him the dream that never dies 
 
 Loomed vague in the mist afar. 
 As he searched the world with sanguine eyes 
 
 For the flare of a faded star. 
 Though withering frost had bowed his head, 
 
 There was one clear thought in his brain ; 
 " I have had some luck in my time," he said, 
 
 " And perhaps it will come again."
 
 AN OPTIMIST 93 
 
 Moaning on the shingle now we heard the sea. 
 
 Grim the landscape lay below the sun-set aft. 
 Smiling still, he talked of golden days to be ; 
 
 And weirdly through the gloom above a great gull 
 laughed.
 
 "NULLUM AMANS VERE " 
 
 I TAKE no solemn tone. The light diffused 
 
 Through the flushed dimness of your dainty room, 
 
 Shows me your eyes now mournful, yet amused, 
 And, curled as if in mockery of our doom. 
 
 Your dark mouth touched with the faint droop of 
 sadness ; — 
 
 Mouth that has moved so many hearts to madness. 
 
 Nothing is wholly serious where you dwell. 
 
 Yet vague and mystic sorrow seems to float 
 Through the low voice that like a silver bell 
 
 Rings plaintive, muffled music in you throat. 
 You sound a deep luxurious sea, whose waters 
 Flow from the tears of Life's more tragic daughters. 
 
 Grim Fate was tender, contemplating you. 
 
 And fairies brought their offerings at your birth ; 
 
 You take the rose-leaf pathway as your due, 
 Your rightful meed the choicest gifts of earth.
 
 "NULLUM AMANS VERB" 95 
 
 On Fortune's placid pool is there one bubble 
 To blot your crystal with this flake of trouble ? 
 
 Wealth, beauty, and the warmth of loving hearts. 
 
 You have them to satiety, and repay 
 The sunshine with its own reflected darts : 
 
 For bitter thoughts grow best where hopes decay. 
 And all the genial sweetness of a winner 
 Colours your course in life, dear gentle sinner ! 
 
 Are you half conscious of some pale regret 
 Haunting your soul, a baffled fugitive ? 
 
 Under the opulent stream of all you get 
 
 Lurks there a sigh for something more to give ? 
 
 Love's wealth is loving, as your heart discovers, 
 
 A little lonely 'mid the crowd of lovers. 
 
 For love to you has been a wasteful fire, 
 
 Not the slow, smouldering furnace that endures ; 
 
 Each new great passion dies on its own pyre, 
 Opening afresh the burning wound it cures. 
 
 Your resolution, faithful for a season. 
 
 Tenderly yields to the familiar treason. 
 
 In sun-burnt lands where weary exiles roam. 
 
 Hearts worn with travail dream of English skies. 
 
 And, through their moon-beam memories of home, 
 They hear your voice and see your radiant eyes.
 
 96 TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 A burden for their days, an anguish nightly, 
 This old lost comradeship you shed so lightly. 
 
 And husbands, sharing with their lawful wives 
 The neutral tint of calm domestic ways. 
 
 Will turn a backward look to their past lives. 
 Missing the dead romance of other days. 
 
 Safe in their promised land they will regret you. 
 
 Men have not found it easy to forget you. 
 
 But are you yearning for a light above 
 
 The gas-fed flame of conquest, power, success ? 
 
 Here in the sumptuous banquet-room of love 
 Does your heart ache for its own emptiness ? 
 
 You have gained all except the one thing wanted — 
 
 The loss of all. Sweet friend, will that be granted ?
 
 THE SKY-LARK IN FOG 
 
 Imprisoned soul, look up ! The shrill, tumultuous 
 sound 
 Whirling, aspiring 
 Strangely through these dark folds wherein all eyes 
 are bound, 
 Thy hope is firing. 
 
 Darkened as ours, the sight of such brave songster 
 halts. 
 
 With no discerning 
 Of that transparent dome for whose illumined vaults 
 
 Veiled hearts are yearning. 
 
 He, poet, fool, who leaves the path of cautious birds, 
 
 Lost in the dun light, 
 Chasing a phantom thought through the vague mist 
 of words. 
 
 Soars for the sunlight.
 
 THE SQUIRE'S FUNERAL 
 
 Near the old stone church, 'mid the mounds where 
 his forefathers sleep, 
 By the gates of his own green park, 
 Whither the soft air wafts the quavering voice of the 
 sheep. 
 And the song of the thrush and the lark. 
 While warm spring sunlight glows on the bare, 
 stooped circle of heads, 
 Through a flushed, hazy shroud in the west. 
 And eyes are dim with the tears that each artless 
 mourner sheds, 
 They have laid him down to his rest. 
 
 Simple enough to sneer at notes by no sentiment 
 wrought 
 To the new diapason and pitch, 
 At feudal power dethroned by the century's eager 
 thought, 
 And the burial pomp of the rich.
 
 THE SQUIRE'S FUNERAL 99 
 
 Perhaps o'er the costly pall the shade of a contrast 
 comes 
 With a chill and a catch of the breath, — 
 His long easy life — and the Hell over there in the 
 slums ! — 
 But both are the same to Death. 
 
 Now do we frown at all that fans the dead ember of 
 caste, 
 The birthright of race or of clan. 
 The makeshift code that ruled for evil and good in 
 the past 
 Through the toy-shop kingdom of man. 
 Time's rust corrodes the tools that have served us 
 well for a day 
 And, vain though it be to regret 
 The crude, faulty joy of the life that is passing away, 
 Shall our hearts not warm to it yet ? 
 
 For you may not cast it out, if the fire is in your 
 blood 
 That is born of the wind and the sun, 
 Of the blue-veined river, with the wildfowl haunting 
 its flood, — 
 Dominion of trout-rod or gun.
 
 loo TOWN AND COUNTRY POEMS 
 
 Of the brown hunting-days, and the dreamy mid- 
 summer nights, 
 And seasons of harvest and hay. 
 Of red, frosty sunsets, and the flickering northern 
 lights. 
 And the woods where the fox-cubs play. 
 
 Through the change and stir of life a brooding 
 memory calls 
 For the hush of ancestral homes, 
 With old oil-pictures of sportsmen lining the panelled 
 walls, 
 And an army of calf-bound tomes, 
 And curious drowsy odours afloat in the perfumed 
 air, 
 That carry your thoughts through the gloom 
 Back to a ghostly world you have known in your 
 dreams, and share 
 With your kindred dust in the tomb. 
 
 Your roots are plunged in it all where'er your exile 
 
 may be, — 
 The throb of your blood will reply 
 To crisp, rustling corn-fields, and surge of the sap in 
 
 the tree, 
 ^_ And the plaintive waterfowl's cry ;
 
 THE SQUIRE'S FUNERAL loi 
 
 You are one with these whose lives grow forth from 
 the parent soil, 
 To the bars of a rustic strain, 
 A slow Virgilian measure of laughter and tears and 
 toil, 
 Till they end in the earth again.
 
 THE BORDER-LAND 
 
 Suburban heath and timbered gardens crown 
 This outpost hill ; behind me looms the town ; 
 Before me spreads the country, veiled and brown. 
 
 Drifted and yellow, last year's leaves decay ; 
 Stout buds announce new verdure on the way ; — 
 To-morrow reproduces Yesterday. 
 
 What woven gold in yonder city's girth. 
 
 What short-lived joy on Nature's dreaming earth 
 
 Give to this border-world of ours a worth ? 
 
 Only the beat of human hearts ; the bond 
 
 Of Love ; the chords that question and respond ; 
 
 The wide horizon ; — and the Hope beyond.
 
 Printed by Bai.i.antyne, Hanson <&-■ Co. 
 
 London 6r' Edinburgh
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAYLORD 
 
 
 
 PAINTED IN U.S.A .
 
 AA 000 642 525 
 
 JNIVEBSITY^OF CA RIVS 
 
 DE yea/vBY 
 
 ■ 
 
 3 "1216 01276 6125