THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
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 LA U R E L L A 
 
 AXD OTHER POEMS.
 
 LA URELLA 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS; 
 
 B Y 
 
 JOHN TODHUNTER. 
 
 HENRY S. KING & CO., LONDON. 
 
 1876.
 
 [ The Rights of Translation an < ■/ Reproduction are Reserved.]
 
 
 TO 
 
 K. G. T. 

 
 PREFACE. 
 
 \J\ OST of the poems in this volume were 
 
 written many years ago, and several have 
 
 already appeared in Magazines and in fcottabos 
 
 — a periodical published each term in connection 
 
 with Dublin University. 
 
 The subject of 'Laurella' is taken from Paul 
 Heyse's prose tale, La Rabbiata ; that of 'The 
 Daughter of Hippocrates' from the legend, as told 
 by Leigh Hunt in the Indicator. This latter 
 poem was originally written before the publica- 
 tion of Mr. Morris's Earthly Paradise, so that the 
 coincidence, in point of subject, between it and 
 'The Lady of the Land' is purely accidental. 
 There is no similarity in treatment, the dc'nou- 
 mcut being so different in each case as to 
 constitute a different story.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I.— TALES. 
 
 P M.1C 
 
 Laurella, — 
 
 Part First, - - 3 
 
 Part Second, - - 27 
 
 The Daughter of Hippocrates, 58 
 
 The Lost Violin-Theme, - - - - 76 
 
 II. -MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Spring Song, - - - - 89 
 
 Madrigal. ----- 90 
 
 Cacilcben at the Piano, 9 1 
 
 Hymn on a May Morning, 95 
 
 Song, — ' Hither, Love come hither '. ' - 101 
 
 A Summer Night, ... - 102 
 
 Hertha, - - io 4 
 
 Thistledown, - "6 
 
 S, ing,— ' The Hare has his Home on the Hill,' 1 1 7 
 
 In August, - - - - I lo 
 
 In a Gondola, - - - - 121 
 
 A Fruit Piece, - i-5 
 
 A Sketch from Nature, - - - 13° 
 
 To the Robin, - '33 
 
 In September, - - - *35
 
 Contents. ix 
 
 PACE 
 
 Romaunt of the Myrtle, - - - - 13S 
 
 Chorale,— ' Where shall Freedom's Banner Wave?' - 141 
 
 Anastasis, ..... 142 
 
 The Waste of Nature, - - - - 145 
 
 The Christ-Child, ... i 4 S 
 
 Ode to Dyspepsia, - - - - 149 
 
 The Sexton's Daughter, - - - - 151 
 
 How it Strikes the Culture Philosopher, - - 153 
 
 III.— THE MYSTIC. 
 
 Preface, ..... 157 
 
 A Vision of Death, - - - - 163 
 A Song of Experience — 
 
 1. Vita A T uova, ... - 1S7 
 
 2. Death in Life, - 1S9 
 Lost, ----- 193 
 Found, - - - - - 194 
 A Song of Remorse, - - 195 
 The Bottomless Pit, - - 196 
 A Song of Sustainment, ... 198 
 ' There shall come False Christs,' - - 200 
 Paradise Lost, - - - 203 
 Paradise Found, - - 205 
 A Song of Secrets, - - - 207 
 
 IV. —SONNETS. 
 
 To Mendelssohn, - - - 217 
 
 The First Spring Day, - 218 
 
 Beethoven, - - - - 219 
 
 Rosamund's Bower, - 220
 
 x Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A June Day, - - - - - 221 
 
 To Rossini, - 222 
 
 At Llanberis, ----- 223 
 
 In the Louvre, ----- 224 
 
 In the Hasli-Thal, - - 225 
 
 Psyche Paidotrophe, ... - 226 
 
 A Daigntie-Conseated Sonnet, &c., - - 227 
 
 Nessun Maggior' Dolorc, - 228 
 
 Love's Flight, - - - 229 
 
 Love's Liturgy, - - - 230 
 
 Merlin in the Toils, - - - - 231 
 
 V.— PRIMITIVE. 
 
 Scenes from the Masque of Psyche, - - 235 
 
 May Sunshine, ----- 249 
 
 A Midsummer Night's Dream, - - 257 
 
 A Moonlight Sonata, - - - - 261 
 
 Poesy: Rhapsodia, ... - 268
 
 /•—TALES.
 
 LAURELLA. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 I. 
 WAS morning in Sorrento ; voiceless lay 
 The sea, beneath the dim grey eyes of 
 
 dawn ; 
 
 Vesuvius' breath, low-looming, crept away 
 O'er town and town, to where white Naples shone ; 
 On misty peaks still wandered the young day, 
 
 Yet void was every house, the townsfolk gone ; 
 The beach was all alive, where by the cliffs 
 The fishers hauled their nets or launched their skiffs. 
 
 n. 
 
 Like gulls awaked by morning's earliest beaming 
 From ocean-haunted sleep, woke that wild clan ; 
 
 Like gulls upon the shore they clustered, screaming 
 Harshly their guttural Neapolitan. 
 
 With gull-like greed their eager eyes were gleaming 
 O'er shuddering heaps of fish • even children ran 
 
 To swell the concourse mustering there, to reap 
 
 With clamorous toil the harvest of the deep.
 
 Laurel la. 
 
 hi. 
 
 A motley throng, and not an idle hand 
 
 Able to haul a rope or grasp an oar ! 
 Stout women, brown and barelegged, on the strand 
 
 Toiled with their mates to tug the nets ashore ; 
 Young girls were sorting fish ; boys with their tanned 
 
 And weather-grizzled grandsires proudly bore 
 Their manly part — rove haulyards, mended sails, 
 Or, just afloat, shook canvas from the brails. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ' O pescator del onne, zi-ghe-zi /' 
 
 The song went quivering through the clear, cold air, 
 Shrill, yet so sweet that coy Tranquillity, 
 
 Bending to hear, flung back her dewy hair. 
 It seemed as the wild gladness of the sea 
 
 Cheerily leaped to greet the morning fair ; 
 But we must leave the ethereal fields of song 
 For the more mundane babble of the throng. 
 
 v. 
 Not a red-kerchieft crone, who, bent with age, 
 
 The twirling wool from breast-borne distaff twitched, 
 But gossiped shrill with true Calabrian rage, 
 
 News-tingling tongues disi hargi d in ears that itched. 
 Like household Fates they plied their labour sage, 
 
 Spinning the daily fleece of life, enriched
 
 Latere I la. 5 
 
 With crimson threads of scandal — bits of colour 
 In the dull yarn which without these were duller. 
 
 VI. 
 
 A conclave high of powers grandmotherly, 
 Awful as Goethe's ' Mothers ! ' and around 
 
 Their feet, like saplings round the veteran tree, 
 Were children gathered, making mirthful sound. 
 
 Here impish boys tumbled in boisterous glee, 
 And there small girls sat gravely on the ground, 
 
 Motherlike nursing their live dolls of brothers, 
 
 Or drinking wisdom from their fathers' mothers. 
 
 VII. 
 
 ' Look, granny, granny,' cried a chit of ten, 
 Sedately posed at one grey sibyl's side, 
 
 Treasuring their gossip to retail again, 
 
 While with the best her inch of spindle vied. 
 
 ' Here comes our Padre ! ' ' Drop your curtsey then.' 
 ' Your manners pazzarella I God be his guide ! 
 
 The Virgin bring him back ! ' whereon the chorus, 
 
 With shrieked-out blessings cracked their tongue 
 sonorous. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 ' He's bound for Capri — Tonio rows him there, 
 The grand Signora his confession waits ;
 
 Laurella. 
 
 She kneels to none but him, since at his prayer 
 Our Lady drove death's angel from her gates ; 
 
 Ay, though ten doctors, come from Heaven knows where, 
 Gloomy as gravestones, shook their learned pates.' 
 
 ' God bless him ! ' chimed the chorus, ' for her cure 
 
 She left a heap of ducats for the poor.' 
 
 IX. 
 
 The shoreward-moving Priest, whose cassock black 
 Clothed with heaven's grace a maccaroni-fed 
 
 Brisk little plump Curato, smiling back, 
 
 Returned the blessings rained upon his head. 
 
 A kindly man he looked, yet did not lack 
 A genial shrewdness in his visage red, 
 
 Which beamed upon his flock, as round his throat 
 
 He drew his cloak and entered Tonio's boat. 
 
 x. 
 
 This Tonio (he's our hero) was a youth, 
 A smart young fellow of the fisher kind ; 
 
 To climb, row, swim, or sail a boat, in sooth, 
 In all the coast his peer 'twere hard to find ; 
 
 His i lear, brown face, too, wore a look of truth 
 Rare in those parts ; his limbs were well designed, 
 
 At least fur Nature's handiwork ; for surely 
 
 She often moulds our human (lay but poorly.
 
 Laurella. 7 
 
 XI. 
 
 He was a sturdy, not ill-tempered fellow, 
 Deemed handy by the local cognoscenti ; 
 
 Was poor, no doubt, in metals white and yellow, 
 But all the world 's our own at three-and-twenty. 
 
 And in this sun-loved land of Masaniello 
 Mere life is joy, mere maccaroni plenty ; 
 
 And Tonio, though his life was somewhat rough, 
 
 Lived in the sun and air blithely enough. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Besides, he was not without ' expectations : ' 
 He had been left an orphan, it is true, 
 
 And poorly off; but he had snug relations, 
 Especially one thrifty uncle, who, 
 
 Wealthy by land and sea, tried Tonio's patience 
 By hinting what he would or would not ' do ' 
 
 On his behalf, when he had sunk his money 
 
 In a long-talked-of fishery for tunny. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Tonio should be Padrone, if he pleased him, 
 A prospect Tonio hailed with huge delight ; 
 
 But nothing came of it ; and then he had teased him 
 To wed some girl — a rich ill-tempered fright, 
 
 Whereat when Tonio kicked, the humour seized him 
 To keep the culprit so extremely tight,
 
 1 Laurel la. 
 
 The whole town cried out Shame ! There's not a doubt he 
 Had very crust}- ways, although not gouty. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Thus Tonio was compelled, for bare existence, 
 To scratch this dunghill of a world for bread : 
 
 He had his boat, and toiled with her assistance 
 Above the waves of life to hold his head. 
 
 By petty jobs he gained his scant subsistence, 
 Ferrying to-day, for instance, as they said, 
 
 The Priest to Capri — carrying in addition 
 
 His uncle's oranges upon commission. 
 
 xv. 
 
 ' How looks the day, Antonio ? ' quoth the Priest, 
 Casting an anxious glance upon the sky. 
 
 ' For heat, sir, — no mistral to-day at least' 
 
 ' Off, then, before the sun gets scorching high 
 
 ' What keeps you, man ?' he asked, as Tonio ceased 
 
 His off-shove in mid act, and fixed his eye 
 Where, by a path precipitous, from the height 
 A girl ran down, waving her kerchief white. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 ' See, Padre, by your leave,' he answered shyly, 
 'She wants to go — we've room, sir, and to spare, 
 
 I or three the si/.e of that '- and with a smile he 
 Jerked thumb apologetic towards this fair
 
 Laurel la. g 
 
 But extra freight. ' Oho ! ' the Priest said drily, 
 ' Laurella, eh ? To Capri ? — and why there ? ' 
 Antonio shrugged his shoulders with a sigh, 
 And murmured softly : ' That God knows, not I.' 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Meanwhile the girl came swiftly to the shore, 
 Lithe as a cat, eager as the young year ; 
 
 Her dress, though mean, was rentless, and she wore 
 All with a savage grace no court could peer. 
 
 And with a savage pride her head she bore, 
 Stepping the earth as one who knows not fear ; 
 
 You would have vowed, so queenly was her air, 
 
 She felt a crown above her crisp dark hair. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 ' Hey, la Rabbiata ! ' cried a hulking wag, 
 
 Raising rude laughter, ' how go frowns to-day ? 
 
 Heavens, what a face ! last night she met some hag, 
 And stole her malt umoril ' Her proud way, 
 
 With feet that hasted not, nor yet did lag, 
 
 Straight through the crowd she held ; nought did 
 she say, 
 
 But her brown face grew pale, and her deep eyes 
 
 Blazed like the first swift flash from thunderous skies.
 
 io Laurel la. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 ' Good-day, Laurella — are you for the sea ? 
 
 You go with us to Capri ? ' said her Pastor, 
 With his most gracious smile ; and coldly she : 
 
 'Yes, Padre, if I may.' ' We'll go the faster, 
 So Tonio thinks — step in then ; as for me, 
 
 You're welcome, child, but ask the vessel's master.' 
 She laid a half carlin where Tonio sat — 
 'There is my fare, if I may go for that.' 
 
 xx. 
 
 Her voice was cold, and from Antonio's face 
 She kept her eyes averted with a frown, 
 
 Which somehow but enhanced her savage grace. 
 And Tonio, too, sat with his eyes cast down ; 
 
 But at her words he shifted in his place, 
 
 And with an injured air he viewed the brown 
 
 And battered coin, then growled out sullenly, 
 
 ' Keep it — God knows you need it more than me.' 
 
 xxi. 
 
 ' I will not go for nothing.' ' Have your way.' 
 
 'Come, come !' the Priest said, 'step into the boat ; 
 
 I >on't let this wrangling keep us here all day. 
 He's a good lad, Antonio — see, his coat 
 
 He has spread here for your comfort — more, I'll say, 
 Than e'er he did for me. So — we're afloat.'
 
 Laurella. 1 1 
 
 Without a word she had thrust the coat aside, 
 
 And his fierce seaward shove meant, ' Curse her pride ! ' 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Thus did they leave the land, and soon their skiff 
 Danced o'er the glittering wavelets of the sea. 
 
 The oarsman, chafing inly from their tiff, 
 
 Worked off his wrath in vigorous strokes ; but she, 
 
 Frowning no more, gazed at the east, as if 
 The dawnlight lulled her to a reverie. 
 
 The Priest broke silence first : ' What have you there, 
 
 In that small bundle, child, lapped with such care ? ' 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 ' Silk, Padre, and some hanks of homespun thread, 
 And a brown loaf. The silk I hope to sell 
 
 To one in Anacapri — Nita said 
 
 She wanted silk for ribbons, thread as well, 
 
 And I spin both, you know. The loaf of bread, 
 That's for my dinner.' 'Why, you worked a spell 
 
 At ribbons once yourself?' ' Mother's so bad 
 
 I can't hire out — a loom we never had.' 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 ' Your mother worse ? When did I see her last ? 
 
 At Easter was it ? She was finely then.' 
 ' She has been failing, sir, these three years past, 
 
 And those bleak winds racked her poor bones again,
 
 1 2 Lauretta. 
 
 Just like last year, and now she's breaking fast.' 
 
 'That's sad, that's sad ! Pray, my child, pray ; for when 
 Troubles come God is nighest, and in our need 
 The Holy Mother loves to intercede.' 
 
 xxv. 
 A moment's pause, and a new question came : 
 
 ' What was that ugly word they called you, child, 
 " Good morning, la Rabbiata ? " — What a name ! 
 
 A Christian maiden should be meek and mild.' 
 The brown face flushed, again the indignant flame 
 
 Leaped from her tameless eyes in lightning wild. 
 ' They mock me so because I will not sing, 
 Chatter, and dance, like every idle thing.' 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 ' Well, well, you are no idle thing, I know, 
 
 And not much given to chattering ; but your tongue 
 
 Shoots bitter arrows sometimes — is't not so ? 
 You have your trials, hard for one so young ; 
 
 But patience is a grace. You are lonely though, 
 And poor, yet scorn to wed, they tell me.' Stung 
 
 With some fierce thought, she turned first pale, then red, 
 
 And burst out : 'They say true — whom should I wed?' 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 'There was that painter — what has come of him ? 
 Not a bad man, they say ;• and yet you lent him
 
 L awe I la. 1 3 
 
 But angry ears, and would not, through some whim, 
 Let him even paint you.' ' Would none else content 
 him ? 
 There's fifty prettier girls,' she answered grim ; 
 
 ' Why did he want my face ? What would preven* 
 him, 
 For all I know, if I had given him that, 
 Bewitching me ? I saw what he was at.' 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 She was much moved. It seemed as though a chill 
 Ran shuddering through her spirit — that cold blast 
 
 Pure natures feel when first the breath of ill, 
 Pleading from angel's tongue, they stand aghast 
 
 In a half-dazed defiance. Kindly still 
 
 The Priest went blundering on : ' My daughter, cast 
 
 Such heathenish fears aside. The Lord will keep 
 
 His faithful, as the shepherd does the sheep. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 ' And the man loved you, child, and would have raised 
 Above all want.' ' Curse on such love !' she cried ; 
 
 ' Better my want.' Her Pastor was amazed; 
 
 This wild volcanic wrath the Church must chide. 
 
 A young thing too ! perhaps the girl was crazed ? 
 ' O fie ! Laurella, fie ! what means this pride?' 
 
 ' I want no husband — no man's love ! ' she said. 
 
 ' Then would you be a nun ? ' She shook her head.
 
 1 4 LctU7'ella. 
 
 xxx. 
 
 ' Tis quite appalling, and the masculine mind, 
 Lining or coat or cassock, must perplex 
 
 After whole centuries' culture still to find 
 This wilful wild-oats in the gentler sex ; 
 
 To see (O temporal) well-tamed womankind 
 
 Turn restive, tear the yoke from their soft necks, 
 
 Kick up their heels, and, like Laurella here, 
 
 Bolt from that paddock blandly termed ' their sphere 7 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 The good man was perplexed. She would not wed, 
 Nor take the veil ! The thing was strange — what 
 notion 
 
 Had got into the little vixen's head ? 
 
 Most women have two poles — love and devotion, 
 
 But neither could be fairly credited 
 
 With this abnormal outburst of emotion ; 
 
 Yet he half guessed 'twas love; for at eighteen 
 
 What else could such preposterous conduct mean ? 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Still he was much perplexed : he rubbed his knees, 
 And then his glasses, to read clear this treason 
 
 Against the feminine proprieties, 
 
 And, in pure zeal, grown ' instant out of season,'
 
 Laurella. 1 5 
 
 For the girl's motives he began to teaze. 
 
 She writhed and cut him short : ' I have a reason — 
 For God's love, Padre, question me no more ; 
 I'll tell you all, but let us get ashore. ' 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 And surely 'twas a little indiscreet, 
 
 If one may charge a priest with indiscretion, 
 
 With Tonio not two yards from off their seat, 
 To urge the girl to such a frank confession. 
 
 She glanced at Tonio as she spoke, and sweet 
 Most certainly was not her eyes' expression ! 
 
 The Padre then was wide enough awake 
 
 To see that he had made a slight mistake. 
 
 xxxiv. 
 Poor Tonio, though, to do him justice, seemed 
 
 As deaf as he was dumb. His cap was drawn 
 Low o'er his brow : he looked as though he dreamed, 
 
 And rarely raised his eyes. Meanwhile the dawn 
 Had flown. Into the haze of heaven had steamed 
 
 The mountain mists, as day came dancing on ; 
 And, his confessional titbit awaiting, 
 The good man found the voyage quite elating. 
 
 xxxv. 
 Like a great burst of singing came the day, 
 
 After the dawn's soft prelude, from heaven's cave
 
 1 6 Laurella. 
 
 Swooping to clasp the billowy-bosomed bay 
 In his ecstatic arms, wooing each wave 
 
 To give him kiss for kiss. His glorious way 
 Was pioneered by the brisk winds, which gave 
 
 New life to the waking world, and filled each sense 
 
 With measureless desire and hopes immense. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 In short, it was a most delicious morn — 
 What clouds there were soared in the upper sky, 
 
 Or round the mountains died as they were born 
 In the bright haze that clung mysteriously 
 
 To the dim coast. An Amalthea's horn 
 
 Of rathe delight seemed emptied from on high 
 
 On all the progeny of land and sea — 
 
 Shore-maidens sang, and sea-birds shrieked for glee. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 There was a breath of fragrance in the air 
 That stole upon the spirit like young love, 
 
 An incense wafted from you knew not where — 
 From thymy dell and seaweed-scented cove. 
 
 Ocean and earth had found each other fair, 
 
 And mingled their fresh lips — the tamarisk grove 
 
 Sighed for the kiss of the wave, and waves leaped up 
 
 To yield the winds dew for the myrtle's cup.
 
 Laurella. 1 7 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 'Twas wondrous pleasant as the boat's light prow 
 Danced o'er the brine to Tonio's measured strokes, 
 
 And nearer, clearer rose the rocky brow 
 
 Of the fair Isle. The Priest, though, scarce could coax 
 
 From boy or girl a random answer now, 
 Or civil smile, even, at his little jokes, 
 
 And so grew silent, dying to discover 
 
 Who, if love ailed the minx, could be her lover. 
 
 xxxix. 
 
 Small need for talk when breathing is delight. 
 
 Before them, blind with sun, the shadowy isle 
 Grew, changing like a vision ; on the right, 
 
 Far o'er the waves, lay Naples many a mile ; 
 And off to sea the tunny-fishers' white 
 
 And gleaming sails basked in the morning's smile. 
 All owned that sunny spell, that breezy zest, 
 Claude best has caught — when Claude is at his best. 
 
 XL. 
 
 At length they touched the ground ; Antonio bore 
 The Padre from the boat, and high and dry 
 
 Set him with reverent care. A little sore 
 Perhaps he felt when past him, holding high 
 
 Bundle and boots, Laurella splashed ashore, 
 Deigning him not a look, and sulkily 
 
 c
 
 1 8 Lauretta. 
 
 Waited the Priest. To him he made his bow, 
 And turned to haul his boat up, lighter now. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 ' Don't wait for me, Antonio, I must stay 
 
 Here over-night,' the Priest said. ' O, but surely 
 
 You must go back, Laurella ? ' ' Yes, if ' ' Eh ? ' 
 
 ' If I can find a boat.' She wrung demurely 
 
 Her skirts ; but frowned when Tonio, come to lay 
 His oars upon the sand, said in a surly 
 
 And careless tone, ' I stay till Av' Man ' — 
 
 Come then ; if not, 'twill be all one to me.' 
 
 XLII. 
 
 ' Yes, yes, your mother can't be left alone,' 
 The little man broke in — ' she'll go, she'll go— 
 
 That's settled. Bless me, how the time has flown ! 
 Come, child, you want to speak to me, you know.' 
 
 He briskly led the way, and on a stone 
 Under a sheltering bush the rocks below 
 
 He took his seat. The girl before him stood, 
 
 Biting a twig in most unquiet mood. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 ' Laurella, you have something on your mind, 
 Something that, breathed in your confessor's ear,
 
 Lauretta. 
 
 19 
 
 May leave your heart the lighter. Tis unkind 
 That name they call you • but I greatly fear 
 
 You have a stubborn will. These whims, you'll find, 
 Have cost your poor sick mother many a tear. 
 
 She soon must leave you. Seems it not Heaven's plan 
 
 That you should wed ? Why scorn an honest man ? ' 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Our good Curato, be it gently said, 
 
 Had one sweet feminine idiosyncrasy. 
 Celibate himself, if other folk must wed, 
 
 His fingers itched to make their marriage-pie. 
 Some gossip, too, had put it in his head 
 
 That the girl's mother was certain (Heaven knows 
 why) 
 This painter with tall talk and big umbrella 
 Would be the very husband for Laurella. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 His ghostly words were kindly spoken. She 
 Stood moodily, with strangely-working face, 
 
 Her fingers writhing as she gazed to sea — 
 Impatience, anguish, scorn in furious chase 
 
 Wantoning through her breast. Then suddenly 
 She turned upon him with a questioning gaze, 
 
 While some wild storm of speech fought with her pride : 
 
 ' You did not know my father, sir,' she sighed.
 
 20 Laurel la. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 ' Your father ? (rest his soul in Paradise !) 
 
 Why, he's been dead these years. You can't have been 
 
 More than — not ten years told, when last your eyes 
 
 Looked on his face, — and now you're ' ? ' Just 
 
 eighteen ; 
 
 He's nine years dead.' ' A fat to ! And has this wise 
 Resolve to do with him? Saints ! how that keen 
 
 Eye in his handsome face would sometimes glow ! 
 
 You're his live image often, do you know ? ' 
 
 XLVI I. 
 
 Her irids 'gan to glow and to dilate 
 
 With some fierce, tearless passion, which scarce found 
 Way through her pale and twitching lips — some great 
 
 And life-deep woe, that laid upon each sound 
 Of her revealing voice its crushing weight, 
 
 Seeming to strangle it, and to astound 
 Her ears with alien accents : ' It was he — 
 O, he has killed my mother ! ' answered she. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 ' Killed her ! ' ' Ay, killed her — beat her.' Quick and 
 deep 
 
 Her breath came pantingly. ' They never knew— 
 I lay so still ; they thought I used to sleep. 
 
 But I saw all, heard all. What could I do,
 
 Lauretta. 2 1 
 
 Gesn-Maria / but lie still and weep, 
 
 And pray the saints that saw to make him rue ? 
 Those blows ! they broke my heart — froze me clay- 
 cold ! 
 The bedclothes weighed on me like churchyard mould. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 ' Gran ' Dio, Padre ! when you talk to me 
 Of marriage — love — you fill my eyes and ears 
 
 With horrible sights and sounds. She loved him, she 
 Was Christ-like meek — had only prayers and tears 
 
 For shield against his curses — strove to be 
 Duteous in all, like the poor dog that fears 
 
 His love may prove his fault. He beat her ! O 
 
 'Twere shame to see a dog even beaten so ! 
 
 L. 
 
 ' Then, when she fainting lay upon the floor, 
 
 His mood would change, and he would hug her 
 close 
 
 And kiss her till she screamed. His blows she bore, 
 But moaning, " Gesu .' — Gesu mio /"• — but those 
 
 False kisses, those vile claspings that made sore 
 
 Her breast with love's pretence, hurt more than 
 blows, 
 
 Murdering the holiest joys of love. And he 
 
 Laughed when she cried, " O God, you smother me !"
 
 22 Laurella. 
 
 LI. 
 
 ' Yet this she bore— forgave him everything ! 
 
 And why ? Love made her tame ; she loved him still, 
 And when his sickness came, she all that spring 
 
 Nursed him both day and night, though O so ill ! 
 And all through him. Since that vile suffering 
 
 She has never held her head up — never will. 
 He broke her heart, and before God I say 
 Tis he has killed her if she dies to-day.' 
 
 LII. 
 
 With the last words her voice grew stern and strong, 
 Like an accusing spirit's, and her eyes 
 
 Half caught that strange expression which you long 
 To fathom in the Cenci's — early wise 
 
 In horror of such God-confounding wrong, 
 
 As blots the gladness from youth's virgin skies ; 
 
 Her lips, too, half-recalled the Cenci's, wrung 
 
 With agony too deep to find a tongue. 
 
 LI 1 1. 
 
 That patience dumb of sibylline despair 
 
 Was not Lamella's, though ; fierce she defied 
 
 All tyranny, and everything would dare, 
 
 Still feeling, somehow, Heaven upon her side. 
 
 The good Curato heard her with the air 
 Of one who ventures upon ground untried,
 
 Laurella. 23 
 
 Shook his round head, then scratched his tonsure, then 
 Coughed, and began his homily again. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 ' My daughter, my dear child, your story's one 
 To wring the heart, and much I feel for you ; 
 
 But now that your poor father's dead and gone, 
 Why thus rake up his faults ? It may be true — 
 
 Is true, I fear — that this has told upon 
 
 Your mother's health. But what can rancour do ? 
 
 Let bygones then be bygones. Think no more 
 
 Of those sad times that make your spirit sore. 
 
 LV. 
 
 ' You're young, my dear, and youth is all too prone 
 To judge the sins it cannot comprehend. 
 
 Alas ! we all have sins, child, of our own, 
 Enough to sink us without Christ to friend. 
 
 Think what forgiveness God to us has shown, 
 And we the like to others should extend. 
 
 Then, O Laurella, while your mother lives, 
 
 Receive her heart — forgive as she forgives ! ' 
 
 LVI. 
 
 ' Forgive ! ' she cried, ' ay, but forget, forget ! 
 
 Never ! that horror lies upon my heart 
 Like a stone on a flower— it cannot grow. I fret 
 
 In vain against these memories. But I start
 
 24 Lauretta. 
 
 In life as no man's slave ; and durst one set 
 
 His lips or hands on me, could make him smart — 
 Not like my mother. Nothing e'er shall make 
 Me so love man, so suffer for his sake.' 
 
 LVII. 
 
 ' Tut, tut ! when love knocks at a maiden's door 
 He will not be denied. Your turn must come. 
 
 Be just, be just. Must all men pay the score 
 
 Of your poor father's faults ? There's many a home 
 
 Happier, thank God ! than yours, many a mean floor 
 Love makes a step towards Heaven ; and surely some 
 
 Such homes you must have seen. Why then suppose 
 
 Your painter friend would treat his wife to blows ? ' 
 
 LVII I. 
 
 ' Padre, I may be young, and little know 
 
 Of the great world, and you are good and wise ; 
 
 But things like these put me in such a glow, 
 I see God's blessed truth bare of all lies. 
 
 You do not know that man you fancy so — 
 
 Your goodness blinds you. Ugh! he made those eyes 
 
 I've seen my father make when bent on cheating 
 
 My mother to forget her latest beating. 
 
 I. IX. 
 
 ' I know those eyes — bright with deceitful fire, 
 And selfish, wolfish hunger. None shall dare
 
 Lauretta. 
 
 25 
 
 Insult me with such eyes. No wheedling liar 
 
 Shall make me tame with love. A man may swear 
 
 A thousand oaths, and kiss till fancy tire, 
 
 Yet kill the trustful thing that loves him. There, 
 
 I've said my say. Ere love makes me a slave, 
 
 May the sweet Virgin hide me in my grave !' 
 
 LX. 
 
 Her passion's tempest, finding vent at last, 
 
 Raged itself out ; its lightnings quenched in rain, 
 
 For in her eyes the tears were gathering fast — 
 She strove to stay them, but she strove in vain. 
 
 The Priest was mute, though through his mind there 
 past 
 A murmuring host of maxims sage and sane ; 
 
 But none seemed quite adapted to the case — 
 
 He could but sigh, ' God send you greater grace ! ' 
 
 lxi. 
 
 The girl's fierce wrath he could not but withstand, 
 Yet with a smile that left her bosom light, 
 
 He blessed her as he rose. She kissed his hand, 
 And so they parted, he going left, she right ; 
 
 He took his thoughtful way along the strand, 
 She, like a goat, began to scale the height. 
 
 Meanwhile poor Tonio watched her from his boat 
 
 More keenly than he would have watched a goat.
 
 26 Laurel la. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 She had gone, not deigning him one small good-bye, 
 One little word of thanks, and there she went 
 
 Up through the myrtles — never turned an eye, 
 Pausing not once in all that steep ascent ! 
 
 At last, when clear she stood against the sky 
 (Was it to rest, or did her heart repent ?) 
 
 She turned — their eyes met, and their faces flamed 
 
 With some fond shame, whereof each felt ashamed. 
 
 LXI1I. 
 
 Tonio fell straight to work, and roundly swore 
 That to her airs he would not dance a jig, 
 
 Hastening to heave his oranges ashore, 
 Calling himself a dolt, an ass, a pig ! 
 
 While, as she walked, Lamella's beauty wore 
 Its most gorgonian armour. Not a fig 
 
 She cared for this young fool. What did it matter 
 
 If Tonio stared his eyes out gazing at her ? 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 They went their ways — Laurella toiling on 
 By rocky paths, and sultry fields, where grilli 
 
 Chirred in the grass, and brown bees hummed upon 
 Sweet knolls of thyme and tufts of mountain-lily ; 
 
 While Tonio on his head bore, one by one, 
 His baskets to the village, chanting shrilly 
 
 A careless barcarole. And so, success 
 
 Attend their labours ! — who could wish them less ?
 
 Laurella. 2 7 
 
 LAURELLA. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 1. 
 We scarce have breathed coy morning's odorous sighs 
 
 As her young bridegroom lifts her maiden veil, 
 Ere she confounds us with her matron eyes 
 
 And buxom cheeks — no more a virgin pale ! 
 Now — full-blown afternoon, august in guise, 
 
 With vintage crowned — the morning of our tale 
 Had lulled her lord in such a close embrace, 
 Her glowing bosom hid his jovial face. 
 
 11. 
 All nature took siesta — sultry sleep, 
 
 Brooding in russet haze, had whelmed all things 
 In fiery interfusion. On the deep 
 
 The winds, like wearied gulls, with folded wings, 
 Slept with the sleeping waves, which still did keep 
 
 A breathing motion with low murmurings ; 
 Yet Tonio, broad awake, stood by his boat 
 On the slow-heaving waters half-afloat. 
 
 in. 
 Alone he kept his watch, his brow still bent 
 Upon Laurella's path, in hunter's gaze
 
 2S Laurella. 
 
 Of most impatient patience, as he leant 
 
 Against the prow, full in the blinding blaze ; 
 
 Save when at times with growing discontent 
 
 He turned to watch the southward-gathering haze, 
 
 Half angry with the ripplets, though they beat 
 
 Their grateful coolness through his naked feet. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The sea looked lovely as some siren thing, 
 Feline and feminine, whose dumb repose 
 
 Maddens to tempt its dangerous power, and cling 
 To its dread bosom passionately close. 
 
 Far off the filmed horizon's eastern ring 
 
 Shone with a bronzed purple, o'er which rose 
 
 A hot mirage of mountains, looming there 
 
 Like steadfast clouds just gathered out of air. 
 
 v. 
 
 lie felt it in his fashion ; for he spurned 
 Wave after wave, as each came fawning o'er 
 
 His ankles, like a tiger's tongue ; then turned, 
 With a grim smile, gloomily to pace the shore. 
 
 But all at once in his dark eyes there burned 
 
 The fire of triumph : there she came once more— 
 \ . though his gaze had drawn her from the abyss 
 
 Of sightless fancy, to become its bliss!
 
 Laurella. 29 
 
 VI. 
 
 Perhaps his gaze was potent to compel 
 
 From distant ways Lamella's petulant feet ; 
 
 She really moved as though some uncouth spell 
 Dragged her reluctant steps the boy to meet. 
 
 (What brought her there I never quite could tell, 
 I mean in Tonio's boat of all the fleet ; 
 
 But now being brought, and having paid her fare, 
 
 She clearly held a stake in ' cette gaZere.') 
 
 VII. 
 
 She halted by the cliff, seemed half-inclined 
 
 Again to vanish from Antonio's day — 
 Made three steps back; then doubtless changed her mind, 
 
 Walked towards the sea three-quarters of the way ; 
 Then paused again ; while Tonio, who divined 
 
 Her wavering, scarce knew what to do or say, 
 But cried : ' Come, let's get home before the storm ! 
 Unless you want to keep the fishes warm.' 
 
 VIII. 
 
 ' Have you no other passenger ? ' she said, 
 Anxiously glancing toward the little town 
 
 Some furlong o'er the sand. He shook his head. 
 'Come, come — 'tis late ! ' With an embarrassed frown 
 
 She turned away. ' Who'll make your mother's bed 
 If here you stay ? ' he cried, and flung his brown
 
 d Laurel la. 
 
 And vigorous arms around her — fairly bore 
 
 His prize aboard, and shoved in haste from shore. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Here was a situation for the pair ! 
 
 Laurella, flushed and angry, not subdued, 
 Though conquered, in the stern sat with an air 
 
 Of loftiest abstraction from vain feud — 
 A look like that a captive queen might wear 
 
 In the scorned presence of her captors rude ; 
 And Tonio, somehow, felt himself, for all 
 His brilliant coup de main, extremely small. 
 
 x. 
 
 Women from even defeat can forge a chain 
 To bind and captivate their vanquishers ; 
 
 For men are stupid creatures in the main, 
 
 Though strong. Laurella gagged and fettered hers 
 
 To his own oar with gyves of cold disdain — 
 lie trembled as he sat; could scarce immerse 
 
 His oar-blades in the sea ; sighed like a fool ; 
 
 And, hot and cold at once, tried to keep cool. 
 
 XI. 
 She felt the sun, and, with hands trembling too, 
 
 Kerchieft her head sedately from its shining; 
 Then, with deliberate coolness, out she drew 
 
 Her olives and brown bread, and fell to dining,
 
 Laurel la. 3 1 
 
 Slicing the loaf daintily, as though it grew 
 
 To luxury through her sharp knife's refining ; 
 While Tonio, touched to see this meagre meal, 
 Tender protecting pangs began to feel. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Rarely she raised her eyes — but to withdraw, 
 
 Gazing beyond him, into privacy ; 
 Yet he could make no movement but she saw, 
 
 Of all his moods as conscious as was he. 
 His oars she soon heard pause. He stooped to draw 
 
 From their rich nest, and offer bashfully, 
 Three splendid oranges. ' Take these,' he said ; 
 ' 'Twill be a relish for your bit of bread. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 ' Dry bread is thirsty food. Don't think I kept them, 
 Thinking of you. They're some I did not sell, 
 
 So back into the basket here I swept them. 
 
 Not bad ones though — just try- how nice they smell.' 
 
 She deigned not even to touch, much less accept them, 
 But proudly spoke her thanks. Said Tonio : ' Well, 
 
 Perhaps your mother — won't you take them to her ? 
 
 Would 'twere some greater service I could do her.' 
 
 xiv. 
 He reddened as he spoke ; his wish to please 
 Gleamed in his eyes' pathetic eagerness;
 
 32 Lauretta. 
 
 Yet their soft beams but harder seemed to freeze 
 Laurella's ice. This time she gave him less 
 
 Than coldest thanks. ' We have heaps as good as these 
 At home,' she said : ' who fancies our distress 
 
 A mark for stranger's bounties ? For my mother 
 
 / can provide, I hope, as well as another.' 
 
 xv. 
 
 ' The Virgin dry my tongue up, if I meant 
 The least offence ! — and you might take them still, 
 
 With my respects — do ; tell her they were sent 
 Just as a mark of kindness and goodwill.' 
 
 'She does not know you,' said the girl, and bent 
 Her brows more sternly. Tonio felt a thrill 
 
 Of inward rage ; yet bore it like a lamb, 
 
 And meekly said : ' You'll tell her who I am.' 
 
 XVI. 
 
 ' I do not know you either,' she replied, 
 With languid sullenness, calm as a Fate 
 
 Which, businesslike, sans triumph, haste, or pride, 
 Cries to our foolish mortal hopes Checkmate! 
 
 (This was the third time she had thus denied 
 His bare acquaintance in set terms of late ; 
 
 The first being once while still the painter haunted her, 
 
 When with poor Tonio's penchant he had taunted her.)
 
 Lauretta. ^ 
 
 XVII. 
 
 'Then you won't take them?' 'No.' This downright blow 
 Struck fire at last. ' To the devil with them then ! ' 
 
 And overboard they went, to dance and glow 
 Upon the glowing waves. Some mermaiden 
 
 Robbed the devil of his due, for all I know, 
 Ere the waves flung them to the shore again, 
 
 Tribute returned. Laurella did not stir ; 
 
 Either was welcome to them, as for her. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 So sat they in this most unblest of boats, 
 Like deadliest enemies ; but first must fight 
 
 Their hearts, which leaped like tigers at their throats, 
 As though they meant to strangle them outright : 
 
 Their traitor pulses, sounding dreadful notes, 
 Besieged their bosoms with a fond affright ; 
 
 At their lives' doors some passion knocked like death — 
 
 No wonder they felt rather out of breath. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Poor Tonio, raging like a wounded whale, 
 
 With his two oars began to lash away, 
 Blindly as that stupid monster with its tail, 
 
 Till in Lamella's eyes he sent the spray. 
 She would not heed ; but let her fingers trail 
 
 Over the side, as with the waves to play, 
 
 D
 
 34 Laurel la. 
 
 Then on her cheeks her palms all cool and wet 
 She softly laid, ignoring Tonio's pet. 
 
 xx. 
 
 Her cheeks would burn, however, spite of pride 
 And of cold water ; and — she knew not why — 
 
 She felt, though 'twould be most undignified, 
 A huge desire to have one hearty cry ; 
 
 But with ' that creature ' there she would have died 
 Rather than shed a tear. He had filled her eye 
 
 With some salt splashings of the outer ocean, 
 
 But should not stir the unsailed brine of emotion. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Meanwhile the haze grew fire. Above the pair 
 Brooded some elemental passion, pent 
 
 Like thunder in the dungeons of the air, 
 Which seemed to palpitate, as though there went 
 
 Through it an unseen lightning. Floating there, 
 They were alone with the vast discontent 
 
 Of nature's ominous calm. The sun's own heart, 
 
 Throbbing through theirs, its impulse did impart. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The sea was glassy calm — a tideless swell 
 
 And windless ripple made it gleam and glance; 
 
 But, in her dabbling, where the shadow fell 
 Her mirrored face Laurella caught by chance.
 
 Laurella. 35 
 
 Her hair was tossed, she saw ; she might as well 
 
 Just set it right — 'twere some deliverance 
 From sheer constraint to smooth it and re-coil it ; 
 And so, in Tonio's teeth, she made her toilet. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 He did not seem to heed ; but soon she heard 
 
 His irritable oar-blades pause again : 
 She felt some tempest more than common stirred 
 
 The mounting billows of his mental main. 
 He strove to speak, she knew, yet found no word ; 
 
 But something great was coming — that was plain. 
 At last between his teeth she heard him hiss : 
 ' Per Baccho, I must make an end of this ! ' 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 ' Laurella, wherefore should you use me so ? 
 
 If you have sworn to kill me, take that knife 
 And cleave my heart at once. Well you must know 
 
 I love you — love you ten times more than life. 
 I'll bear these flouts of yours no longer. O, 
 
 Are you too proud to be a poor man's wife ? 
 Give me some hope, or end me on the spot. 
 A pin might goad me now to — God knows what ! ' 
 
 XXV. 
 
 His voice bespoke his earnest, with its wail 
 Of passionate appeal. She raised her long
 
 
 
 6 Laurclla. 
 
 Lashes at last, and grew a little pale ; 
 
 For men, though foolish creatures, yet are strong, 
 And when their gusty passions mount to a gale, 
 
 Will bluster o'er all barriers, right or wrong ; 
 But for the faintest soupron of coercion 
 Laurella had the most profound aversion. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 ' I want no love of yours,' she curtly said ; 
 
 ' Mind your own business, and leave me to mine ; 
 I will not have your name, alive or dead, 
 
 Tacked to my tail by gossips o'er their wine. 
 I want no husband — have no mind to wed, 
 
 You nor no other.' ' Ay, ay, mighty fine ! 
 You think so now, ' said Tonio, ' but some day 
 You'll know the worth of what you have thrown away. 
 
 xxvi I. 
 ' O, for the love of Christ, for your own sake, 
 
 Consider what you do ; don't drive me mad ! 
 My heart's not ninth, God knows, for you to break — 
 
 Though 'tis a man's who loves you, good or bad, 
 More than his hopes of heaven ; but sour you'll make 
 
 The wine of your sweet life, your Angel sad. 
 You want no love? Altro I I say the woman 
 Who wants no love's a monster, and not human.
 
 Laurella. 3 7 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 ' Now you are young and wild, but some fine day, 
 Alone and poor, as the world wags, you'll find 
 
 Husband and home not bad things in their way.' 
 ' Then, ' said Laurella, ' I can change my mind. 
 
 What's that to you, if so ? Perhaps I may — 
 
 There are more men than you. When I'm inclined, 
 
 Heaven send me luck ! ' ' Cospetto ! ' Tonio roared, 
 
 And fiercely jerked his dripping oars aboard ; 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Clearing his decks for action, as it seemed. 
 
 Laurella wondered what was coming next — 
 His face grew pale, and in his eyes there gleamed 
 
 A dangerous fire, as past all patience vext. 
 Perhaps he thought she of some rival dreamed, 
 
 Pondering the jealous lover's favourite text. 
 ' Sanlissimo diavolo /' he broke out, 
 ' You think I'll live to bear that too, no doubt ? 
 
 xxx. 
 
 ' What's that to me, you say ? What's that to me ! 
 
 O nothing, nothing ! I must see you smile 
 In some curst fellow's face — sit still and see 
 
 Some simpering scoundrel win you with his guile ; 
 See your delusion his felicity, 
 
 And feel myself in hell — hell all the while !
 
 3 8 Laurel la. 
 
 No, by the saints ! I tell you one small earth 
 Can't hold us both — one must have narrower berth.' 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 If Tonio's blood was up, so was Lamella's. 
 
 ' How dare you talk to me like that ? For shame ! 
 What right have you, I ask you, to be jealous, 
 
 Though I should fancy the first fool that came ? 
 You show me you can stoop to threats, as well as 
 
 The rest of your brave sex. What earthly claim 
 Have you upon my life, that you should rave 
 Against me thus? Promise I never gave. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 ' Don't prate to me of love. I may be young, 
 But I can reckon, better than you think, 
 
 The worth of those sweet drops from a man's tongue, 
 Which many a woman's ears greedily drink. 
 
 You flatter fair, to trample us like dung 
 
 Once we are won. I know you — hate you — shrink 
 
 From wedlock bondage as I shrink from shame. 
 
 What claim have you to me — I say what claim ? ' 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 ' What claim ! ' he cried — ' one that is none less good 
 Because engrossed by no curst lawyer's quill, 
 
 But here by God's own hand, in my heart's blood, 
 Which aches with longings you alone can still.
 
 Laurella. 39 
 
 O, as the eye craves light, the opening bud 
 
 The dew of the morn, because 'twas God's good will 
 To make them what they are, I faint for you — 
 You are my noonday light, my morning dew. 
 
 xxxiv. 
 
 ' You are mine, I say, by that divine decree 
 
 Which for all natural wants made sweet provision — 
 
 For birds the air, sea for the fish, for me 
 You, only you, by love's supreme decision. 
 
 If any comes between us, -you shall see 
 
 My claim's no matter for the fool's derision. 
 
 Let him beware, that's all ; let him beware — 
 
 The meekest may grow dangerous in despair !' 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 From her pale face her dark eyes flamed their scorn : 
 'Yes, you're a man — your will's a law divine ; 
 
 Every man thinks so — but no man yet born 
 By coward threats shall shake resolve of mine. 
 
 I am free, and mean to keep so.' ' I'll be sworn, ' 
 Cried Tonio, fairly drunken with the wine 
 
 Of baffled passion, ' I will tame you yet — 
 
 Must two lives fail through a perverse coquette ! ' 
 
 xxxvi. 
 He leaped upon his feet and stamped with rage, 
 Making her heart bound like a startled deer.
 
 4-0 Laurella. 
 
 ' Here you shall do my bidding, I'll engage ; 
 
 You're in my power, Miss — I'm your master here. ' 
 Laurella felt like one cooped in the cage 
 
 Of some wild beast, and the cold touch of fear 
 Crept o'er her cheek ; yet with undaunted air 
 She faced him : ' You may kill me if you dare.' 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 ' Your blood be on your head,' he groaned ; ' the sea 
 Will hold us both ! None ever so loved bride ; 
 
 But now — ! O God, you have willed it — it must be ! 
 To-night we shall be lying side by side, 
 
 Cold, but together. You have maddened me, 
 And now, Christ pardon us ! ' Then at a stride 
 
 He came, as Death might — with pale, piteous face, 
 
 To clasp some loved one in his chill embrace. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 He bent to seize her, but with startled cry 
 
 Drew back. Without a word she had let him come ; 
 
 But the roused tigress does not tamely die — 
 
 She had made her sharp white teeth meet in the 
 thumb 
 
 That grasped her; then Hung off her enemy, 
 
 Scared by her fierce rebellion, deep though dumb. 
 
 ' Now am I in your power,' she cried, ' or free ? ' 
 
 And, laughing wildly, leaped into the sea.
 
 Laurella. 41 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 She sank, but rose again, and boldly spread 
 
 Her arms upon the water — her long hair 
 Loosed in the plunge, afloat behind her head, 
 
 The wavelets rippling round her bosom fair. 
 Sobered by shock, yet palsied half with dread, 
 
 With neck outcraned, Tonio could only stare, 
 As though God's blessed bread for sinners broken. 
 Between his lips, against his sins, had spoken. 
 
 XL. 
 
 Then, slapping his dank brow, he seized his oars, 
 And in her wake rowed swiftly ; though the blood 
 
 From his torn thumb came ' rushing out of doors, 
 To be resolved if gentle creature could 
 
 Inflict such wounds as that. The chase of course, 
 
 Though a stern one, was not long — flesh against wood 
 
 Had not a chance. He soon was at her side — 
 
 ' For God's sake come aboard again ! ' he cried. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 ' Laurella, hear me ! you may trust me now — 
 Come in, come in, for our dear Lady's sake — 
 
 I am mad no more, by all the saints I vow ! 
 O if you come to harm my heart will break ! 
 
 Hate me, but trust me. Come, and I'll allow 
 You tie my wrists and ankles till they ache,
 
 4 2 Laurella. 
 
 Then fling me in the sea. I will not live 
 To vex you — do not ask you to forgive.' 
 
 XLII. 
 
 She deigned no notice of this fond appeal, 
 But for the distant shore swam bravely on, 
 
 Going along easily as a little seal, 
 
 Her bare feet through the water glancing wan. 
 
 ' Think of your mother — -think what she will feel 
 If you should sink,' he said, 'and, ere you have gone 
 
 A third the distance home, you must go down — - 
 
 Yon land's two miles off yet — why will you drown ? ' 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 This was bare truth, she knew. She eyed the land 
 Wistfully once ; then, with a swelling throat, 
 
 Swam up without a word. He stretched his hand 
 To draw her in, but, clutching at the boat, 
 
 She clambered o'er the gunwale, with a grand 
 Last pride of independence. Tonio's coat 
 
 Slipped, as his craft lurched with Lamella's weight, 
 
 O'erboard, and went unrescued to its fate. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Sullen she took her former seat, and wrung 
 The water from her hair and clothing scant, 
 
 Which, like thin drapery, classically clung 
 To her lithe limbs and bosom all apant
 
 Laurella. 4 - 
 
 j 
 
 With its unwonted toil. Tonio had sprung 
 
 Back to his oars when he could fairly chant 
 His paean for her safety — though the wood, 
 Galling his hand, was crimson with his blood. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 She saw the stain, and gave a little start, 
 
 And, as when moved, (we know the habit), frowned ; 
 But some remorseful thought stirred in her heart — 
 
 Tonio was maimed if she was nearly drowned. 
 Promptly (as the French would say) she ' took her part '- 
 
 1 Shew me your hand,' she said, and deftly bound 
 The wound up with her kerchief ; took the oar, 
 And, rowing stoutly, looked at him no more. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Ah ! but his blood — there was the shaft all red — 
 She could not take her eyes off that ; in fact, 
 
 'Twas clearly on her hands, if not her head. 
 Awed by the vision of their reckless act, 
 
 They rowed home pale and silent ; neither said 
 A word in answer when the boatmen cracked 
 
 Their wanton jokes upon their strange appearance, 
 
 Disdaining with such coast-guards to make clearance. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 O'er Procida the lurid sun, just setting, 
 
 Flamed stormy portent from his blood-red eye,
 
 44 Lauretta. 
 
 As they touched land. No worse for toil or wetting, 
 Laurella found her garments nearly dry. 
 
 She leaped ashore, but paused a moment, letting 
 One little word, as Tonio passed her by 
 
 Carrying a basket, from her proud lips fall — 
 
 She merely said, ' Addio ! ' — that was all. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 And then away she ran, ere she had caught 
 
 His answering ' Buona notte /' murmured low, 
 
 With downcast eyes, and cheeks red with the thought 
 That now in his disgrace she graced him so. 
 
 Shouldering his oars, his lonely lair he sought, 
 Like a beaten hound — with heavy steps and slow 
 
 Mounting the stone stair to his little hut, 
 
 Glad in the whole world's face his door to shut. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 At home once more with soothing solitude, 
 His dingy chamber he began to pace, 
 
 But paused before his Virgin carved in wood, 
 Seven gilded stars around her smiling face. 
 
 To her divine and pitying motherhood, 
 
 Bereaved of joy, he dumbly looked for grace, 
 
 While, from his heart o'erwearied, tears would rise, 
 
 Yt iling her glory, mist-like, from his eyes.
 
 Laurclla. 45 
 
 L. 
 
 Ah, Dio, what a day ! Our lives' true rate 
 
 Not ticking clocks but beating hearts may measure, 
 
 In dreams a moment swells with centuries' fate, 
 And Love, the dreamer, in a day finds leisure 
 
 For lifelong bale or bliss. Tonio with hate 
 This long day lingering yet for his displeasure 
 
 Saw through his tears, and dashed the shutter to ; 
 
 But could not shut Laurella from his view. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Her bite, keen as remorse's, rankled still — 
 
 His wounded hand throbbed hotly in its sheath. 
 
 He loosed the bandage, and a little rill 
 
 Of dolorous blood oozed slowly from beneath 
 
 The swollen edges. With a curious thrill 
 
 He viewed the red pits of the maiden's teeth — 
 
 As lovers kiss Love's wound he kissed her bite. 
 
 ' I was a brute,' he said. ' She served me right.' 
 
 LII. 
 
 He washed the wound in water clean and cold, 
 
 And bound it up once more — that eased the pain — 
 
 Then mused awhile : To see her were too bold, 
 But she must have her handkerchief again — 
 
 Beppo should take it to her. He unrolled 
 And washed it clean from every crimson stain.
 
 46 Lauretta. 
 
 Well, she should ne'er set eyes upon him more, 
 And yet — he never loved her so before ! 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Poor lad ! slight loss of blood had left him weak 
 To all appearance ; for, his hectoring done, 
 
 His mournful spirit waxed extremely meek, 
 The stage of self-abasement now begun. 
 
 He vowed, with tender tears upon his cheek, 
 For her dear sake far from her face to run, 
 
 In that wild rapture of renunciation 
 
 For your young lover such a sweet sensation. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 He kissed the precious cloth, and reverently 
 Hung it to dry ; then on his meagre bed 
 
 Threw himself wearily with a deep-drawn sigh, 
 
 And strove to think ; but slumbered soon, instead ; — 
 
 Till some distracting noise bade slumber fly — 
 
 'Twas someone at the door ! ' Who's there? ' he said, 
 
 Then rose to open, in no friendly mood, 
 
 And — 'wildering vision — there Laurella stood ! 
 
 LV. 
 
 Yes, it was she indeed — she and the storm, 
 
 They had come together ; for the lightning's glare 
 
 Revealed against the night her slender form, 
 And the first gust of the gale was in her hair.
 
 Laurella. 47 
 
 Without a word she entered ; but the warm 
 
 Blood to her cheek, at Tonio's wondering stare, 
 Leapt, as she laid her basket down, drew breath, 
 And faced him, like a martyr facing death. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 ' You are come to fetch your handkerchief,' said he. 
 
 ' No need for that — you should have it clean, 
 By Beppo's hands to-morrow, punctually.' 
 
 ' No, 'tis not that,' she panted ; ' but — I have been 
 For herbs, to heal your hurt — up yonder — see ! ' 
 
 And off the basket's lid went. ' What do you mean ? ' 
 He asked. ' For me ! Buon Dw, you're too good ! 
 I have got no worse than 'twas most just I should. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 ' My hand's all right —if not, I earned it all, 
 And twice as much. This trouble is too kind — 
 
 I see great drops of rain upon your shawl.' 
 
 (He had lit his lamp, which nickered in the wind, 
 
 Though closed the door.) ' Why come in such a squall ? 
 At such an hour ? The neighbours are not blind, 
 
 Nor dumb, confound them ! Goodness will not balk 
 
 Their gossiping tongues— you know how they can talk.' 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 ' Who fears their tongues ? ' she sharply asked. ' Not I ! 
 I came to see your hand ; ' and she unbound
 
 48 Laurel la. 
 
 The linen swathes ; but gave a shuddering cry, 
 ' Gesu-Maria /' when she saw the wound. 
 
 ' Bah ! there's some swelling,' Tonio said, ' but why 
 Make all this work about it ? ' Yet he found 
 
 A blessed surgery in her soothing touch, 
 
 And liked the operation very much. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 She went about her business in such grave, 
 Deft, motherly fashion, that her patient smiled 
 
 For deep undreamed content ; and mutely gave 
 Himself to her tendance — like a naughty child, 
 
 Outwearied and forgiven. Ah, could she lave 
 That hand for ever thus ! He felt exiled 
 
 From new-found home, when, cooling herbs laid on, 
 
 And drest the unfevered wound, she must be gone. 
 
 LX. 
 
 ' Thank you,' he sighed, with a new rush of sadness 
 ' This favour is too great, yet makes me bold 
 
 To ask another. O forgive my madness ! 
 Forget those words of passion uncontrolled 
 
 I spoke to you to-day. Not downright badness 
 Of heart it was, I hope — the thing got hold 
 
 Of body and soul, in a shark's flash. But now 
 
 I'll never vex you more — never, I vow.'
 
 Laurella. 49 
 
 LXI. 
 
 Quite fiercely she broke out : ' The fault was mine. 
 
 Why do you beg my pardon ? I'm to blame, 
 And should beg yours. I took a wicked line, 
 
 My crossness 'twas that made your anger flame. 
 And then — that dreadful bite ! ' ' 'Twas God's design 
 
 To bring me to my mind. I bless His name, 
 And thank you for it. It did me only good — 
 Here is your handkerchief, clean of my blood.' 
 
 LXII. 
 
 He held it out to her ; yet still she lingered, 
 
 Dumb with some inward struggle. In the pause, 
 
 Tonio, without, the wild wind shrilly sing heard, 
 And grudged to trust her in the tempest's jaws. 
 
 But something in her basket still she fingered — 
 ' I want you to take this,' she said, ' because 
 
 You have lost your nice new jacket — all through me ; 
 
 Your purse as well — this is worth something — see ! ' 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 She drew a rosary forth, with silver beads 
 
 And cross. ' This was my aunt's — before she died 
 
 She gave it me — and now my foolish deeds 
 Have left me in your debt.' He shrank aside 
 
 As from a serpent. ' No, no, no ! What needs 
 This talk? My loss is nothing.' ' O,' she cried, 
 
 E
 
 50 Laurella. 
 
 ' Think of your uncle's money — all gone down, 
 Because — because you would not let me drown ! ' 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 Her earnest face flushed, and her pleading grew 
 Almost a sob. ' 'Tis not enough, I know, 
 
 But there is nothing that I would not do 
 
 To make it up ; while mother sleeps I'll sew, 
 
 Or spin, or — ' Tonio groaned. ' 'Tis but your due,' 
 The girl persisted. ' Due ! ' he cried, ' you owe 
 
 Nothing to me, and nothing I will take. 
 
 Why will you talk like that ? My heart you'll break ! ' 
 
 LXV. 
 
 ' No, no — forget me ; if we chance to meet, 
 For God's great pity look another way — 
 
 Your eyes would make drop down in the street 
 For very shame. But meet we never may — 
 
 I'll leave the place. Forget me, I entreat, 
 Or pardon me, when I am far away. 
 
 There is your cross. No more you'll see my face. 
 
 Good-night — good-bye, and thank you for your grace.' 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 Twitching the beads with fingers purposeless 
 
 She stood, her eyes cast down ; then let them drop 
 
 Back in the basket — answering his address 
 With silence ; folded neatly on the top
 
 Lauretta. 5 1 
 
 The handkerchief; then, why he coulcl not guess, 
 
 Kept fumbling with the lid ; then seemed to stop 
 Vaguely ; and then — he saw, with huge surprise, 
 That big round tears were raining from her eyes. 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 ' Madre Santissima ! are you ill ? (She'll fall !) 
 Why do you tremble so ? Here — take this chair ! ' 
 
 ' Xo, no,' she said, ' not ill — 'tis nought at all ; 
 But — I must go to mother — must have air.' 
 
 She staggered towards the door, but 'gainst the wall 
 Leant feebly, with strong sobs that seemed to tear 
 
 Her heart-strings. Then — arms out — she reeled to 
 his breast, 
 
 And weeping, blushing, close and closer prest ! 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 ' O,' she sobbed out, ' you give me good for ill — 
 I cannot bear it ! Beat me, trample me, 
 
 Curse me — or — if — if you can love me still, 
 Though why you loved me I could never see, 
 
 Take me — for yours — do with me as you will ; 
 But send me not away so patiently ! 
 
 So coldly ! ' All unused to women's ways, 
 
 Tonio beheld this change with blank amaze.
 
 ~> 
 
 D- 
 
 Laurel la. 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 He held her arms — felt her wild heart 
 
 Beat against his, and so found words at last : 
 
 ' Can love you still ! Gran' Dio ! My blood would start 
 From every vein, to wash away the past, 
 
 If I could hope — ah, you but play this part 
 To try me ; or your pity runs too fast, 
 
 And would betray your goodness ! Do not waste 
 
 Your life on me with this too generous haste.' 
 
 LXX. 
 
 But no — a woman knows her course too well 
 
 When passion fills her canvas. Where Love's feet 
 
 Touch land, she follows, be it heaven or hell, 
 And burns her boats, mad to forestall retreat. 
 
 Laurella raised her eyes, in his to dwell, 
 
 And simply said, ' Io famo ! ' Strange and sweet 
 
 That tearful look, bright with the touching splendour 
 
 Of a proud woman's perfect self-surrender. 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 He strained her to him with a choking sob, 
 
 Humbled by his great triumph. ' I'm your wife,' 
 
 She whispered ; ' take this Lamest — none shall rob 
 Your lips of this, my virgin kiss. For life — 
 
 For death !' She kissed him thrice. He felt the throb 
 Of her warm lips on his, and like a knife
 
 Laurclla. 
 
 A thrill of joy ran through him, feeling so 
 Her beauty through his being melt and glow. 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 Once won, he was not slow to take possession 
 Of his sweet prize, and slake his lifelong thirst 
 
 For love, joy, peace, now that by rich progression 
 Blind discord into harmony had burst ; 
 
 But women kiss like artists by profession — 
 Men are mere amateurs ; and so at first, 
 
 His lips untaught just failed his love to smother. 
 
 Poor girl ! — she bore it better than her mother. 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 There is a kiss of passion that would drain 
 More of the soul than in mere lips can live, 
 
 When lovers yearn for love, like babes that strain 
 The mother's breast for more than it can save ; 
 
 Which kiss, not lightly to be kissed again, 
 Soon lapsed into the kiss contemplative — 
 
 The kiss of peace ; and then Laurella's tongue 
 
 Warbled new music from her heart that sum 
 
 ig- 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 ' Tonino mio ! you love me then — can pardon 
 My nasty cross-grained ways ? O if you knew 
 
 How I have feared to love you — set a guard on 
 My thoughts, to vex you ! Yes, my love, 'tis true-
 
 54 Latirella. 
 
 I feared to love you always — strove to harden 
 My heart against you — you, you, only you ! 
 Ah that poor heart, you tugged it every way — 
 You don't know how I hated you to-day ! 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 ' But now, O now, I'll be so different ! 
 
 How could I bear to pass you, when we met, 
 Without one look ? And so you really meant 
 
 To run away, and thought I could forget 
 Your words of love ? Ah, now you must relent — 
 
 Must stay — to make me good ! I'll never fret 
 Your soul again — never ! ' ' O be my home, ' 
 He cried, ' and God forbid I e'er should roam ! ' 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 And so in deep communion, breast to breast, 
 
 They stood, their sweet love-language, like a song, 
 
 Murmuring between, while, just to mark each rest, 
 Light fluttering kisses to their lips would throng. 
 
 Laurella in his arms, her blissful nest, 
 
 Grew lovelier every moment, as more strong 
 
 The new, sweet concords through her bosom swept — 
 
 Till, for mere ecstasy, he could have wept. 
 
 LXX\ [I. 
 
 For women are like roses — love, their sun, 
 
 Awakes their hearts from some dull winter's trance,
 
 Laurella. 55 
 
 Their crimson petals opening one by one 
 
 To bounteous richness in his radiance. 
 Laurella's odorous blooming had begun — 
 
 Tonio might thank the saints ! With pleading glance 
 At last she sighed : ' Now I must go — 'tis late — - 
 Your hand needs rest — good angels on you wait ! ' 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 With one last kiss she went. Her dainty waist 
 
 Slid from his clasp. ' No, no, you must not come — 
 
 The rain's just over now. I love to taste 
 
 A night like this — the moon will see me home. 
 
 I fear no man but you.' And out she raced 
 Into the storm. He saw the billows foam 
 
 Behind her, as she turned to smile : ' Addio ! 
 
 Think of your hand, for my sake, Amor mio ! ' 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 He was alone ; but the sweet warmth of her 
 Was in his arms, and heart, and the deep wells 
 
 Of life. His blood was gay ; his pulse astir 
 With that tumultuous triumph which rebels 
 
 Against the tyrant fates, to spur, spur, spur, 
 On to the immortal victories faith foretells ! 
 
 Conflict he craved. Plague on this crib confined ! 
 
 Abroad he rushed, to buffet with the wind.
 
 56 Laurella. 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 The thunder had gone by, and growled afar 
 Among the mountains ; following in its course, 
 
 The rain rushed after ; but the wind made war 
 Upon the sea ; the sea, with rage grown hoarse, 
 
 Tore at the beach. Above, with scarce a star, 
 The moon fought with the clouds, which in mute force 
 
 Drove on her by battalions — like a bark 
 
 That rides and rives huge billows looming dark. 
 
 LXXX I. 
 
 He paced the roaring beach, with a wild bliss 
 
 To wrestle with the tempest. O to feel 
 Its might on breast and limb ; to hear the hiss 
 
 Of the salt surges, mark them rave and reel 
 Around his feet ! 'Twas grand to feel all this, 
 
 And know himself a man — to plant his heel 
 On all things base ! The world was at his feet, 
 And love had made the world so new, so sweet ! 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 But with our good Curato we began, 
 
 With him must end. He heard a strange confession 
 Some few days thence, which left the worthy man 
 
 Tapping his snuff-box with benign expression; 
 A maiden's 'twas — indeed none other than 
 
 Laurella's own, which put him in possession
 
 Laurella. 57 
 
 Of some important facts about the present 
 State of her soul, as wonderful as pleasant. 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 ' Oinie ! ' he chuckled, ' what a minx it was 
 
 To lead us such a dance ! An hour ago 
 I hoped to plead humility's mild cause 
 
 With my poor homilies ; but who may know 
 The ways of God ? Love laughs at our wise saws. 
 
 The girl's right — likely lad, this Tonio ; 
 The uncle, though, will take it much in dudgeon. 
 Well, we must reason with the old curmudgeon. 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 ' Ay, la Rabbiata, we must change your name — 
 
 We'll better it now, please God ! Well, well, how 
 soon 
 
 The Lord in wisdom has seen meet to tame 
 
 This wild and wayward bird to sing love's tune ! 
 
 Hey, la Rabbiata ? Bless me, when she came, 
 Looking as lovely as a rose in June, 
 
 I scarcely knew her ! Well, well, God knows best — 
 
 May His continual blessing on them rest ! '
 
 5§ 
 
 THE 
 
 DAUGHTER OF HIPPOCRATES. 
 
 A LEGEND OF COS. 
 
 Whilom e — when still the world's great heart was young, 
 Making wild music as the minstrel sung ; 
 When still fair creatures of the poet's dream 
 Haunted each legendary grove and stream, 
 And still the pallid shades of throneless gods 
 Lingered in wrath around their loved abodes, 
 Ere from their shrines all awe was past away — 
 In Sicily a Norman King bore sway. 
 
 And on a day from that delightful isle 
 There sailed a ship for Smyrna — many a mile 
 Of treacherous sea to compass, many a night 
 To battle with the winds, ere hove in sight 
 The snows of Tmolus, and they furled her sails 
 Securely in the gulf. Right costly bales 
 Waited her coming ; yea, a goodly prize 
 Had been that vessel with her merchandise — 
 Great pearls, and antique gems, and rare perfumes;
 
 The D aught a- of Hippocrates. 59 
 
 Tissue of silver ; webs of Indian looms 
 Or Persian, glowing like their orient skies 
 With woven gold and deep imperial dyes. 
 
 Fair blew the wind as gay they sailed for home, 
 But on the second day in sudden foam 
 Leaped the ^Egean billows to the blast 
 Of the fierce-rushing North ; whereon they cast 
 Their heaviest lading overboard, and wore 
 The shuddering ship ; and fearfully before 
 The ever-threatening surge two days they ran 
 With bare and groaning spars. Then first began 
 The storm to slacken ; but they nothing knew 
 Where they were driven, for none of all the crew 
 Could surely name the land which rose to crown 
 The sick-eyed hopes that saw the gale go down : 
 Howbeit they anchored in a quiet bay 
 At evenfall, and waited for the day. 
 
 Joy to those storm-tost mariners ! The dawn 
 Revealed a land where many a pleasant lawn 
 Sloped greenly to the white and shelving shore, 
 Where lazy breakers tumbled with a roar 
 Of bygone tempest. From the circling hills 
 The mists rose, and they saw the gleam of rills 
 Which headlong leaped in flashing waterfalls, 
 And dark yews clinging to the rocky walls, 
 And in the valleys many a stately tree, 
 And all fair things thriving deliciously.
 
 60 The Daughter of Hippocrates. 
 
 Joy to those storm-tost mariners ! O bliss, 
 To stretch their numb and wearied limbs in this 
 Undreamed-of Paradise ! They pushed ashore 
 Gleefully all, and none, I ween, forbore 
 His jest or song, as each man filled his cask 
 Or sluiced his salt-sore face. 'Twas joy to bask 
 On the white shingle ; for the brisk sea-air 
 Was filled with living sunshine, and all care 
 Was lifted from their hearts. 
 
 A wooded glen 
 Enticed them from the beach, and gently then 
 Emerged upon a lawny solitude, 
 Kept secret from the sea by sheltering wood. 
 There centuried cedars and great fig-trees made 
 In the hot noon broad tents of placid shade, 
 And vagrant vines and gourds wove pleasant bowers- 
 Lairs of cool grass, whereby sun-loving flowers 
 Breathed all around. The sultry hum of bees 
 Boomed in the dreaming air ; but in the trees 
 The birds were hushed for heat, and did not sing. 
 The languid wind that set heath-bells aswing, 
 Stirred with its wings such incense of wild thyme, 
 It seemed the wafture from a tropic clime. 
 At every step they roused some startled thing, 
 Which gazed at them a moment, wondering, 
 Then bounded from its browsing up the slopes, 
 Off to the hills — wild goats or antelopes ;
 
 The Daughter of Hippocrates. 6 1 
 
 But sign was none that ever man had come 
 To make in that sweet solitude a home. 
 
 Thereat much marvelling, they wandered on, 
 Gay as the myriad butterflies. Anon 
 They came upon a steeply-rising ground, 
 And, mounting on through laurel thickets, found 
 A broad space of rank grass, where thistles tall, 
 Brambles, and burs pushed through the ivied wall 
 Which still made crumbling shift to fence it in. 
 It seemed an ancient garden ; for some sin, 
 In ages past committed, surely curst. 
 The leprous fruit-trees knelt to quench their thirst 
 About a stagnant pool ; and nettles rank 
 And nightshade revelled o'er each mound and bank, 
 As in an ill-kept graveyard. Here and there 
 A satyr face grinned leeringly in air, 
 Fallen from its mossy pedestal ; awry 
 And totteringly still stood the Termini ; 
 And in the centre rose a marble Pan 
 From a festooning vine which overran 
 His goatish thighs, and on his lifted arm 
 Hung its deep-purpling clusters. 
 
 What grave charm 
 Locked every lip, when mid the trees a pile 
 Of melancholy marble, whose proud style 
 Made boast of bygone splendour, came in view ? 
 I know not ; but in silence paused the crew
 
 62 The Daughter of Hippocrates. 
 
 Before yon central wonder of the place, 
 Gazing on that dumb dwelling in amaze — 
 On the serene Greek sculptures of the frieze, 
 Chaste-cut entablatures, and traceries 
 Where ./Esculapian snakes gordianing twined ; 
 On mystic symbols wondrously designed, 
 Time-mouldering plinth, and ruined portico, 
 And grass-grown steps — well worn ages ago ! 
 It seemed a lonely palace of the dead 
 Guarded by silence ; and a ghostly dread 
 Fell on them, even when at times a hare 
 Took fright and scampered to its grassy lair : 
 For there were hares in legions — strangely tame, 
 They sat to watch the men, and went and came 
 Through the high classic doorway. 
 
 Suddenly 
 A sailor, pale with terror, whispered, ' See ! ' 
 And clutched his Captain's arm, and turned to go. 
 Then to their anxious question, what could so 
 Have shaken him, he only answered, ' There ! 
 That window ! Look ! 'Tis gone ; but I could swear 
 I saw the thing ! ' Each felt a secret pang 
 Shoot cold to the roots of life ; and feebly rang 
 The fear-born laugh flouting their comrade's fear ; 
 Hut, seeing naught, they mocked his altered cheer 
 With ready jest: "Fore God, it seems the place 
 Turns men to marble — look but at his face !
 
 The Daughter of Hippocrates. 6 
 
 o 
 
 What thing is this ? Hast seen a ghost ? ' But he, 
 Beckoning a youth who gazed, said tauntingly, 
 Yet with a timorous eye, which roved in vain 
 The horror it had known to meet again : 
 ' Now, Sieur Gualtier, if your heart be stout, 
 Prove it ; for here you may, past touch of doubt. 
 Here stand the lists pitched for that valorous deed 
 You oft have sighed to seek — God be your speed ! 
 And ye, who look so bold, see out the play — 
 The Devil make me an ass if here I stay ! 
 Come, come — we stand upon enchanted ground : 
 J know it now, Christ keep us ! we have found 
 That spot of Cos where dwells — what scarce I dare 
 To name — O Queen of Heaven, look there, look 
 there ! ' 
 They looked. A sudden pallor blanched each cheek, 
 And not a man had power to move or speak ; 
 For there a hideous serpent raised its head, 
 And gazed upon them keenly with its red 
 And fiery eyes, and stretched its squamous neck 
 Horribly towards them — every lustrous speck 
 And lurid circlet glittering in the sun 
 With hateful splendour. And they could not run, 
 But spell-bound stood. The monster raised its crest 
 Sharply as might a heron, eager lest 
 The prey should 'scape, with little backward jerks ; 
 And so stayed keenly gazing — all the cirques
 
 64 The Daughter of Hippocrates. 
 
 Of its tremendous length yet coiled within. 
 Then with weak knees they struggled to begin 
 Their trembling flight. 
 
 But Gualtier did not fly ; 
 The glittering mazes of the serpent's eye 
 Wrought in his brain, like some Circean wine, 
 With a delirious joy. He felt divine 
 As Adam with the juice sweet on his lips, 
 And wisdom's day new-burst from its eclipse, 
 Eve glowing at his side. All dreams he had dreamed 
 Of love and fame grew quick in him. 
 
 He seemed 
 No common sailor, by his noble air 
 And rich though sea-stained dress. A young 
 
 Trouvere 
 He was indeed, who came with them along, 
 Seeking adventures or new themes of song ; 
 And now fame hovered near. Stung to dare all, 
 He firmly turned, his comrades to recall ; 
 ' Friends, 'tis a gentle creature, as men say, 
 And these tame hares bear witness — let us stay.' 
 ' Stay then,' replied the Captain ; ' try your fate 
 With your tame snake. Come, men ! Good fortune, 
 
 mate — 
 Keep your mad bones unpicked to dream on.' 
 
 Then 
 Gualtier was left alone.
 
 The Daughter of Hippocrates. 65 
 
 He looked again — 
 The snake had vanished. Like an evil dream 
 Drawing to its final horror all did seem. 
 Irresolute he stood, in act to fly ; 
 Yet, with a fearful courage, eagerly 
 His heart leapt for the proof. There comes a time 
 For each man when his nature stands sublime 
 In one stern moment's light, when all his past 
 Blossoms in one instinctive act. At last 
 Death witnesses the bond with fortune sealed. 
 Even thus the whole man Gualtier stood revealed : 
 His life was full in blossom. There he stood, 
 The chivalrous passion tingling through his blood, 
 Yet half-faint, agonising on the tense 
 Of expectation. By all gates of sense 
 The scene infixed itself upon his soul. 
 In an eternal present glowed the whole 
 Charmed garden in the hush of high mid-noon ; 
 The feverous hum of bees and creaking tune 
 Of myriad crickets thronging through the grass 
 Boomed in his ears ; but all things seemed to pass 
 Jn the dim background of his mind. 
 
 Then came 
 A sudden rustling, and those eyes of flame 
 Burnt at his very feet. It was too late 
 For flight — he sickened in the grasp of fate; 
 And a cold shiver stirred his rising hair. 
 
 F
 
 66 The Daughter of Hippocrates. 
 
 Trembling, yet with a heart that bayed despair, 
 He gazed upon the cruel-fanged jaws 
 That fawned around him, making gentle pause 
 As though to win his pity. 
 
 Awed he spake : 
 ' In the name of God, what art thou ? ' 
 
 Then the snake 
 Answered him in a human voice — none less 
 Appalling for its feminine slenderness : 
 ' Hast thou not heard of me ? ' 
 
 He made essay, 
 With dry and tuneless tongue, to stammer, ' Yea, 
 Thou art — the fearful Tiling of Cos ! ' 
 
 Again 
 The monster spoke, writhing as if in pain, 
 And its voice shook : ' I am that loathly thing. ' 
 Then it was dumb ; but every lurid ring 
 Swelled with a passionate grief, which seemed at last 
 To tear itself a way, as fierce and fast 
 Words followed words : ' Ay, thou hast heard my tale — 
 Thy ears have heard ; but how shall I assail 
 With this chill tongue thy heart ? How shall my woe 
 Plead there in sacred human guise ? Yet O 
 Believe, believe, 1 was not always barred 
 By this dread prison from my kind's regard ! 
 Not always was I thus — a thing to flee ! — 
 Teach the clear eyes of thy just soul to see
 
 The Daughter of Hippocrates. 67 
 
 Beneath this husk of hideousness a form 
 That hath moved men to love — a bosom warm 
 With more than woman's tenderness — a heart 
 Where passions, pent for centuries, ache to start 
 Into wild life. O dost thou long for love ? 
 How I could love thee — with a strength above 
 
 All that thy dreams nay, woe is me, I rave ! — 
 
 Love hissed upon this tongue moves loathing ! Brave 
 
 As thou art proved, that were a dream too dread. 
 
 Yet mercy, mercy ! Since thou hast not fled, 
 
 Save me — be pitiful ! Ah, was ever fate 
 
 More piteous than mine, whom Dian's hate — 
 
 Think of it — tortures thus, age after age ? 
 
 That tale is true : my father was the sage 
 
 Hippocrates ! How measure you the years 
 
 That have remoulded nature since his tears 
 
 Fell, unavailing as his prayers, for me ? 
 
 Since the fierce gods, in vengeful cruelty 
 
 Cursing the issues of my mortal breath, 
 
 Bound me to hateful life ? No nearer death 
 
 For aging all the long, long century through, 
 
 I cast my slough, my hideous youth renew — 
 
 Ah, think, think, think of it, and save me ! O 
 
 Salve with a moment's pang this age-long woe ! 
 
 Cancel this curse of Dian — laid on me 
 
 Until ' Her keen eyes sparkled horribly, 
 
 Her jaws dilating as she raised her crest
 
 68 The Daughter of Hippocrates. 
 
 At once eagerly upward to his breast. 
 
 ' O gentle youth, kiss me upon the mouth ! ' 
 
 Shuddering, he started back — a deadly drouth 
 Parching his tongue, and all his flesh a-creep 
 With a damp chill. The serpent seemed to weep, 
 For twice he heard a piteous inward groan ; 
 Then down she grovelled, with a sobbing moan, 
 Upon the ground ; a wailing smote his ears, 
 As when a woman weeps, and warm large tears 
 Sprang in her eyes and bathed her loathsome cheek. 
 Gualtier was moved, and said : ' What boots to speak, 
 
 Lady — if thou lady art indeed — 
 
 Of curse of that false goddess, whom our creed 
 Holds for a devil ? 'Tis a thing of naught. 
 
 1 cannot kiss thee ! ' At the sickening thought 
 Such charnel savours to his palate rose 
 
 As presage oft a swoon, and death drew close, 
 With icy fingers clutching at his heart. 
 He shook them from him, crying, with a start 
 That caught the flying life : ' But 1 will sign 
 Thy forehead with that pledge of love divine — 
 The Cross of Christ our Lord ; and in His name 
 I bless thee ! ' 
 
 All her colours went and came 
 Marvellously, — then, pale for drearihead, 
 She turned her from him droopingly, and said : 
 ' The Cross, the Cross ! Alas ! so talk they all,
 
 The Daughter of Hippocrates. 69 
 
 Pouring its blood on the fair world in gall ; 
 
 Cold hearts to fashion's pearls turn pity's tears ; 
 
 Sweet can he sing of love divine who fears 
 
 To wear love's earthly thorns ; ease would be kind, 
 
 Ruffling no feather. Deem'st thou canst find 
 
 In holy sign quittance from holy deed ? 
 
 Can blessed names disfever wounds that bleed 
 
 For tender hands? Not so, by Him who died ! ' 
 
 Sharply in Gualtier's eyes, with wonder wide, 
 
 From her deep orbs she flashed indignant fire. 
 
 Her words stung like a scourge. Then, lifting higher 
 
 Her crested strength, she spoke again : ' This curse 
 
 A thing of naught ! O what a cloud perverse 
 
 Hangs in the heaven of thy fair sympathy ! 
 
 I tell thee 'twas my sin, though none in thee, 
 
 That I denied this goddess. I Mas made 
 
 The hated thing I am, because I paid 
 
 No worship at her altars. Hated ? Lo ! 
 
 So past all hate, that thou, who seest my woe, 
 
 In pitiless loathing wilt redungeon me 
 
 Where love and joy, like wailing spectres, flee 
 
 My passion's clasp ; where on the iron door 
 
 Wan hopes beat out their lives for evermore ! 
 
 O foulness, foulness, with what mortal blight 
 
 Thou nipp'st my womanhood's grace ! Thy gorgon 
 sight 
 
 Chills men to marble gods, whom beauty's tale
 
 "O The Daughter of Hippocrates. 
 
 Had found refreshing rivers. Hence with that pale 
 And comfortless face of thine ! — for my despair 
 Has dreadful promptings, which this moment tear 
 My breast like tigers. Hence I charge thee — fly ! 
 Fair as thou art, I would not have thee die ; 
 But misery breeds fell brood — a tyrant thought 
 Shakes all my feeble soul, long overwrought 
 AYith passion self-represt, and I could well — 
 Nay go ! I will not harm thee.' 
 
 Then she fell 
 A-weeping in contorted agony ; 
 And Gualtier, filled with wonder thus to see 
 Her sorrowing rage for cruelty confest, 
 Felt such a fascination in his breast 
 As a man feels when hideous temptings rise 
 To an abhorred sin. He kept his eyes 
 Fixed on her writhing neck, and clutched his sword, 
 Ready to strike. 
 
 But now she turned her tow'rd 
 Her palace, with a passionate shriek of: * Go !' 
 Then Gualtier spoke again : ' How can I know 
 Thou dost not lure me to some dreadful doom — 
 Death — or a death-in-life of spell-bound gloom, 
 With thee, for ages in this charmed isle ? 
 I pity thee — yet — I fear thy serpent guile.' 
 
 Thereat she slowly rose, swelling her height 
 Like a majestic wave ; serener light
 
 The Daughter of Hippocrates. 71 
 
 Gleamed in her eyes, and in her voice awoke 
 
 A grand and mournful music as she spoke : 
 
 ' O green and happy woods, breathing like sleep 
 
 In quiet sunshine ! Living things that creep, 
 
 Or run, or fly amid these glades in peace ! 
 
 O earth ! O sea ! O heavens, that never cease 
 
 Your gentle ministry, witness my truth ! 
 
 Must every word that melts man's heart to ruth, 
 
 Move grim suspicion and the fear of lies ? 
 
 O powers of nature, grand benignities 
 
 Of all this dumb creation ! must the clay 
 
 That shades our delicate lamp from the fierce day 
 
 Of boundless life, lie on us like a mound 
 
 Of graveyard earth, that shuts us from the sound 
 
 Of all the kindly world, smothers our pale 
 
 And struggling lips, and makes our feeble wail 
 
 Come strangely to men's ears, like a ghost's cry ? 
 
 My voice appals ? Alas ! 'tis one deep sigh 
 
 To be made lovely by one loving act ; 
 
 Yet he who hears leagues me in horrid pact 
 
 With nether powers of ill. Farewell, thou fair 
 
 Dream of a man, who comest, like despair, 
 
 To torture me in happy human shape. 
 
 Man's faith is not like woman's — nought can 'scape 
 
 His sceptic fears — not faith itself — farewell ! 
 
 Thy doubts did ice the tender founts that swell 
 
 Here in my breast a moment ; but once more
 
 7 2 The Daughter of Hippoc7 r ates. 
 
 They gush as warm as tears. My passion's o'er — 
 I blame thee not. Farewell, and happy be ; 
 But in thy distant world remember me ! ' 
 
 Two frisking hares just then came racing by ; 
 Starting from Gualtier, they couched timidly 
 Among her serpent coils. She bent her head 
 And licked them gently, weeping. 
 
 Gualtier's dread 
 Changing, chameleon-fashion, as her mood 
 Took tenderer lights, had grown less deadly-hued, 
 Shot through with pity's colours. All his powers, 
 Like stripling soldiers whom the first stern hours 
 Of battle veterans make, now burnt to dare 
 That final grip with danger which did scare 
 The vanward fancy ; like a captain now, 
 Who stares across the field with resolute brow, 
 He rallied them, as with a trumpet-call 
 Sounding to desperate charge. 'Stand I or fall, 
 O Christ,' he murmured, ' whom the wormy grave 
 Held three days in its womb, us men to save 
 From our corruptions, I will follow thee 
 Even to the death ! Shed now thy blood in me, 
 To save this soul and mine ! ' Aloud he spake, 
 And shuddering closed his eyes : ' I'll kiss thee, 
 
 snake ! ' 
 And held his lips out, thinking on I lis name 
 Who cast, when she besought him in her shame,
 
 The Daughter of Hippocrates. j$ 
 
 Seven devils out of Mary Magdalen ; 
 And with the cross he signed himself. 
 
 O then 
 In his blind agony he seemed to sink 
 In a cold sea of horror. He must drink 
 The cup of loathing to the very lees. 
 He felt the kiss approaching by degrees — 
 That venomous toad-mouth, with its clammy chill ; 
 Now ! — now ! — 
 
 It came at last. A sudden thrill 
 Ran through his frame. A soft mouth fast and warm 
 Was prest on his — about his neck an arm 
 Clung rapturously. He looked, and, O surprise ! 
 O transport ! gazed into the sweetest eyes 
 That ever made a heaven for mortal man. 
 It was too vast revulsion — faint and wan, 
 He sank upon the ground. 
 
 The hares had fled 
 That sudden apparition in the stead 
 Of the familiar creature of their love : 
 For there a beauteous woman bent above 
 The swooning youth, and kissed his eyes and hair, 
 And lips, and brow ; and chafed with tender care 
 His languid hands, and to her bosom prest ; 
 And, motherlike, cherished his feeble breast 
 With the glad warmth of her own ; and made ado 
 To stir his fluttering heart with pulses new
 
 74 The Daughter of Hippocrates. 
 
 From hers, which yearned to pour its blood for him. 
 
 O happy Gualtier, through whose senses, dim 
 
 And winter-chill, her glowing summer played ! 
 
 Thrice-happy Gualtier, with so sweet a maid 
 
 To kiss him back to life ! For she was fair 
 
 As virgins are ; her cheek and bounteous hair 
 
 Had drunk the sunshine from the rising day 
 
 And gave it back in beauty ; the glad play 
 
 Of youth was in her limbs ; and all her form 
 
 Kept its auroral curves, as though the storm 
 
 Of agony had never swept the shore 
 
 Of her lone life. But never virgin wore 
 
 Brows of such ripe love -wisdom ; virgin eyes 
 
 Ne'er held in their grave deeps such mysteries 
 
 Of sorrow and love ; never did virgin lips 
 
 Kindle and quiver to their tender tips 
 
 With such rare smiles, wherein transfigured pain 
 
 Grew love. Thrice-happy Gualtier, when each vein 
 
 Ached with new-flowing life, and he awoke 
 
 Nested in home-like peace ! Wondering he spoke : 
 
 ' Mother of God, do I behold thy face? 
 
 And am I snatched, through Christ's exceeding grace, 
 
 From hell to heaven ? O if it be a dream, 
 
 Let me not wake ! ' With a low tuneful scream 
 
 Of laughing joy she caught him to her breast : 
 
 ' O let me be thy heaven, thy haven of rest, 
 
 As thou art mine ! 'Tis I, thy ransomed — I
 
 The Daughter of Hippocrates. 75 
 
 Who cling so close. These lips thou wilt not fly? 
 
 O tell me I am loved — at last, at last — 
 
 And make me all thine own ! My slough is cast — 
 
 Call me Aglai'a, give me back my name — 
 
 That too ! Ah ! was this snake so hard to tame, 
 
 Who, coiling ever closer, burns to be 
 
 Thy home, thy bride, thy happy snake — by thee 
 
 Restored to love — and death ! ' 
 
 Long did they live, and long from every land 
 Thronged to them annually a pallid band 
 Of sick folk, by their hands to be made whole ; 
 For, as was blazed abroad, they had control 
 Of all diseases — skilled in secret lore 
 And occult arts ; and ever more and more 
 Their fame grew loud, and of their wondrous cures, 
 And wealth, and charities, the noise endures 
 Even to this day in Cos, their island home.
 
 76 
 
 THE LOST VIOLIN-THEME. 
 
 i. 
 
 In the waning-ti'me of the autumn 
 
 We sat in the dusk — we three ; 
 On glasses emptied of Rhine-wine, 
 
 The fire gleamed fitfully. 
 Ghostly and huge our shadows 
 
 Went wavering over the wall, 
 And hushed by the Twilight-Spirit, 
 
 Silence possessed us all. 
 
 ii. 
 We heard but the tranquil flowing 
 
 Of grand old Father-Rhine, 
 And the wailful coming and going 
 
 Of wind through the aisles of pine. 
 We sat in the dusk and pondered, 
 
 Each lone with his lonely heart, 
 Ah ! when shall we meet, we wondered, 
 
 We three, whom to-night must part ?
 
 The Lost Violin - Theme. 7 7 
 
 in. 
 At last when between the pine-trees 
 
 The moon rose large and red, 
 Up started Fritz from his musing, 
 
 But never a word he said, 
 Never a word ; but sighing 
 
 He past to his room within, 
 And a voice rang clear through the twilight, 
 
 The voice of his violin. 
 
 IV. 
 
 We knew it well : — it had thrilled us 
 
 A thousand times or more ; 
 But now ! what fine transport filled us ? 
 
 It never spake thus before ! 
 It came like a revelation, 
 
 That shrill, small, passionate voice, 
 Sublimed in its exaltation, 
 
 Wild woes — ineffable joys. 
 
 v. 
 Keen bliss ran shuddering through us, 
 
 And anguish of deep delight, 
 On wings of the great Tone- Angel 
 
 Our spirits were rapt that night. 
 No awful beauty of dawning, 
 
 No tender freshness of morn,
 
 -Q 
 
 The Lost Violin -Theme. 
 
 No solemn glory of sunset, 
 
 No sweetness of stars new-born, 
 
 Nor grandeur of calm-crowned mountains, 
 Nor river's majestic flow, 
 
 Nor balmy sadness of pine-woods, 
 Recall that adagio ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 It rose, as a quaint arch rises, 
 
 In curves of delicate strength ; 
 In languor of sweet surprises 
 
 It sighed itself out at length. 
 And then for one golden moment 
 
 The silence alone we heard, 
 And tranced in that blissful moment, 
 
 We neither spoke nor stirred. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Anon, like a sudden tempest 
 
 That swoops upon silent trees, 
 In moonless glades of the forest, 
 
 With shriek of strange agonies, 
 The wrath of his terrible bowing 
 
 Made vocal the strings within ; 
 It moved us, beyond things human, 
 
 The wail of that violin !
 
 The Lost Violin -Theme. 79 
 
 VIII. 
 
 What demon possessed its master ? 
 
 What madness wrought in his brain, 
 As, whirling faster and faster, 
 
 The senses reeled to the strain ? 
 No nightmare-ridden, who, clinging 
 
 O'er some infernal abyss, 
 Grows dizzy with deathful singing, 
 
 Half hearing the snake-fiend's hiss ; 
 No lover who stands death-stricken 
 
 At sight of his lady's death, 
 E'er felt all his soul more sicken 
 
 Than we, as we held our breath. 
 
 IX. 
 
 But ever, above the rushing 
 
 And agony of the strings, 
 There soared a strain, like the rainbow 
 
 That over a torrent springs, — 
 A strain like that transient iris 
 
 Which gleams and again grows pale, 
 But wavers not from its poising 
 
 However the hues may fail. 
 
 x. 
 
 At first it was but a yearning, 
 Half-lost in the fierce unrest,
 
 80 The Lost Violin-Theme. 
 
 Returning and still returning, 
 
 Unshattered and unreprest — 
 So pure, so ghostly, so tender, 
 
 So fraught with delicious tears, 
 So full of unearthly splendour, 
 
 'Twill live in our dying ears ; 
 Returning and still returning — 
 
 Was ever a strain like this 
 For sadness of infinite yearning, 
 
 For fervour of infinite bliss ? 
 
 XI. 
 
 At length, waxed brighter and brighter, 
 
 It filled our hearts with its light ; 
 The whirl of that terrible music 
 
 No longer could vex the night, 
 Crescendo and still crescendo, 
 
 Outraying joy through the gloom, 
 It blazed to its ultimate triumph, 
 
 Then Fritz came back from his room. 
 
 XII. 
 
 And we ? I scarce durst greet him, 
 So rapt was his face, so pale ; 
 
 But Gottfried sprang up to meet him 
 Willi ' Ruler of spirits, hail ! 
 
 Great master, come and be chidden ; 
 He merits no less, I vow,
 
 The Lost Violin-Theme. Si 
 
 Whose bushel so long has hidden 
 Such light as we wot of now ! ' 
 
 XIII. 
 
 And Fritz sat down in the moonlight : 
 
 ' To-night we three must part — 
 And a drear voice whispers, " Forever ! " 
 
 The voice of my boding heart ; 
 But ere we take leave forever, 
 
 Fill round to old Father-Rhine, 
 And list to the wonderful story 
 
 Of this wonderful theme of mine. 
 
 xiv. 
 
 ' In the Schwarzwald beside a river 
 
 A lonely cottage stood, 
 The river rolled by forever, 
 
 Above waved ever the wood ; 
 And there in the gloom of the forest 
 
 Was born a bright-haired boy, 
 Through whom, when their need was sorest, 
 
 Two hearts were made one in joy. 
 
 xv. 
 ' And there in the haunted forest 
 
 He lived and grew strong- -that child, 
 His masters the frank wood-spirits, 
 His playmates all glad things wild, 
 o
 
 82 The Lost Violin-Theme. 
 
 Self-weaned from his mother's kisses, 
 
 He roamed all day like an elf, 
 With song, and shouting, and laughter, 
 
 Or silent, lay by himself, 
 Deep-hidden beneath the pine-trees, 
 
 In trances of blissful awe 
 (Some folk say hearing and seeing 
 
 What none ever heard or saw). 
 But hugely he loved at twilight 
 
 To climb on his father's knees, 
 Or sit at his mother's footstool, 
 
 Discoursing them mysteries : 
 Then often some brave old Volkslied, 
 
 Flung free in three careless parts, 
 Would tell how throbbed in their cottage 
 
 That trio of happy hearts. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 ' But soon the kind years brought him 
 
 Their seasons of joy supreme, 
 When his sun-burnt father taught him 
 
 His wood-craft of glade and stream : 
 And down the mysterious river 
 
 They rafted it, down and down, 
 New wonders sailed by forever, 
 
 And then the long-dreamcd-of town !
 
 The Lost Violin- Theme. 83 
 
 And there, blest beyond all measure, 
 New life stirred the life within ; 
 
 There found he a fairy-treasure — 
 God gave him a violin ! 
 
 XVII. 
 
 ' Years passed — his innermost nature 
 
 Was known to those haunted trees ; 
 In rapture of earnest music 
 
 He poured his soliloquies — 
 All anguish of aspiration, 
 
 All passion of deep love-dreams, 
 All throes of the virgin spirit 
 
 Took form in fantastic themes. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 ' 'Twas autumn. At twilight falling 
 
 His hair with strange awe was stirred ; 
 Faint whispers, low voices calling, 
 
 Soft sighing of harps he heard : 
 With shuddering of heart and swelling, 
 
 He followed their ghostly guide, 
 Till far from his father's dwelling 
 
 He stood by the river-side. 
 Sullen the clouds were rolling 
 
 Away from the chilly west, 
 Nought tendering and nought consoling 
 
 Brought peace in the vague unrest ;
 
 84 The Lost Violin-Theme. 
 
 But all was pallor and bleakness — 
 A menace — a phantom dread — 
 
 A mockery of his weakness 
 Hung hatefully o'er his head. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 ' And filled with despair and yearning, 
 
 And choking with unshed tears, 
 He longed for death that might hide him 
 
 From horror of coming years ; 
 Till sternly, as in defiance, 
 
 He lifted himself from woe, 
 And poured to God in his torment 
 
 That solemn adagio. 
 
 xx. 
 
 ' Sudden the deeps of heaven 
 
 Were full of splendour and sound ; 
 Outleapt the might of the levin, 
 
 The thunders were all unbound. 
 O the fierce bliss of lightning 
 
 Which spirits heroic know ! 
 Through fingers tingling and tight'ning 
 
 It wrought in his fiddle-bow. 
 Death-pale with sublime self-scorning 
 
 And impulse of warrior-glee, 
 As Jacob wrestled till morning 
 
 For blessing, so wrestled he :
 
 The Lost Violin-Theme. 85 
 
 But none ever knew what vision 
 
 He saw in that holy place — ■ 
 Thereafter his dreams Elysian 
 
 Were filled with one woman's face. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 * Years passed. He wandered— still wandered, 
 
 But never in joy or pain, 
 For thinking, or longing, or striving, 
 
 That music would come again. 
 He wandered abroad — still wandered, 
 
 Impatient, from place to place, 
 In search of that long-lost music — 
 
 In search of that ne'er-found face. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 ' It came at last — the fruition 
 
 Of years of sorrow and toil — 
 The world had its one musician, 
 
 Too pure for the world to spoil ; — 
 It came — that face ! Its divineness 
 
 Made heaven in the concert-room ; 
 Half languid in lone benignness 
 
 Those pure deep eyes of his doom ! 
 O this fierce bliss of lightning, 
 
 How sings the blood in its glow ! 
 Thro' fingers tingling and tight'ning 
 
 It wrought in his fiddle-bow.
 
 86 The Lost Violin-Theme. 
 
 His love, at last ! He had found her ! 
 
 Outleaped that theme like a flame, 
 And fast in its love-spell bound her : 
 
 His bride was his crown of fame. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 ' That bride, O friends, was my mother, 
 
 My father that child of light, 
 That mystic theme was none other 
 
 Than that ye have heard to-night. 
 That strain was his swan-song dying 
 
 (Once more to our dear old Rhine !) 
 My father's' — he ended, sighing, — 
 
 ' Who knows but it may be mine ? ' 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 And so we took leave forever — 
 
 Fate spoke in his boding vein, 
 For never on earth, O never, 
 
 That theme shall be heard a«ain !
 
 II. -MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
 
 8 9 
 
 SPRING SONG. 
 
 Spring, Spring, sweetest Spring, 
 How shall I give thee welcoming ? 
 When thy blue eye peeps from the sky, 
 Larks must sine:, and so must I ! 
 
 *&> 
 
 Primrose-time and cowslip-time 
 
 Have had their echoes in my rhyme ; 
 
 But the first bright days that give 
 
 Frost-nipt violets leave to live, 
 
 And, the hedgerows brown between, 
 
 With seldom daisies prank the green ; 
 
 Days that set clear streamlets glittering, 
 
 And the keen-eyed sparrows twittering, 
 
 That make the grass grow in the lanes, 
 
 And breathe sweet change o'er hills and plains, 
 
 Zoning with opal the grey sea — 
 
 How full of budding bliss they be ! 
 
 But be they foul or be they fair, 
 Thy odorous breath is in the air — 
 Glad am I, ask me not why, 
 Larks must sing, and so must I !
 
 9 o 
 
 MADRIGAL. 
 
 When primroses begin to peer, 
 
 Though distant hills be capped with snow, 
 And one stray thrush will carol clear 
 To snowdrops drooping all a-row ; 
 When building rooks caw as they pass, 
 
 And the sun gleams o'er misty plains, 
 Or melts the hoar-frost from the grass, 
 The blood runs brisker in the veins. 
 
 Then hey for the spring ! when the sweet 
 
 birds sing ; 
 Both lads and lasses love the spring. 
 
 When sunshine fills the keen March air, 
 
 And rain-flaws whirl across the lea, 
 And the day veers from foul to fair, 
 And the sap runs in every tree ; 
 When clouds go floating far and near, 
 And colt's-foot buds in miry lanes, 
 And all things feel the spring o' the year, 
 The blood runs merrier in the veins. 
 
 Then hey for the spring ! when the sweet 
 
 birds sing ; 
 Both lads and lasses love the spring.
 
 9* 
 
 CACILCHEN AT THE PIANO. 
 
 ' She drew an angel down. ' 
 
 I. 
 Sat a maiden playing 
 
 In the twilight lone ; 
 Through the window straying 
 
 Went the music's tone. 
 
 ii. 
 In their gleeful labour 
 
 Fast her fingers flew 
 Through some piece of Weber, 
 
 Fiery, strange, and new ; 
 Valse, or quaint toccata, 
 
 Rondo, fantaisie, 
 Saraband, sonata — 
 
 At them all went she. 
 
 ni. 
 Spells Mozart and Haydn 
 Wrought in moods of power,
 
 92 Cdcilcken at the Piano. 
 
 Kept this pretty maiden 
 Idling for an hour ; 
 
 Themes that shook Beethoven 
 In the dusk she played, 
 
 (Which the little sloven 
 Murdered, I'm afraid). 
 
 IV. 
 
 Hark a step ! How wide her 
 
 Blues eyes open can ! 
 In three strides beside her 
 
 Stands the queerest man, 
 Silent, quaint in vesture, 
 
 (How small hearts can beat !) 
 With imperious gesture 
 
 Waving her from her seat. 
 
 v. 
 She with awed amazement 
 
 Silently obeys ; 
 Slamming to the casement, 
 
 Down he sits and plays. 
 
 VI. 
 
 What her flippant fingers 
 Dashed at anyhow,
 
 Cdcilchcn at the Piano. 93 
 
 On the ear it lingers 
 
 Ravishingly now. 
 In another fashion 
 
 Speak the rushing keys — 
 What immortal passion ! 
 
 Surging harmonies, 
 Melodies how tender, 
 
 Tones beyond all words, 
 Tempest-bursts that render 
 
 Up the ghost in chords ; 
 Music's rapturous ocean 
 
 Billowing through the room, 
 Mysteries of emotion 
 
 Sighing in the gloom. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Spell-bound sat the maiden, 
 
 Gazing o'er the sea 
 Blankly, while he played, in 
 
 Deepest reverie, 
 Till, by silence startled, 
 
 Quick she raised her eyes, 
 When no more his art held 
 
 Speechless with surprise: 
 With an eager question 
 
 Turned she. He had flown-
 
 94 Cacilchen at the Piano. 
 
 At the freak's suggestion, 
 Like a ghost was gone ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 So she sat in wonder, 
 
 Musing in the gloom, 
 When the tuneful thunder 
 
 Lone had left the room ; 
 Then her heart beat faster, 
 
 And her cheek grew hot ; 
 ' Lo, it was the Master, 
 
 And I knew him not ! '
 
 95 
 
 HYMN FOR A MAY MORNING. 
 
 i. 
 
 The awakened Earth, whom now fresh-fingered May 
 
 Chaplets with flowers and living leaves, is dancing 
 Through odorous dew, to welcome the young day 
 
 In melody from the gates of dawn advancing ; 
 Each moment, breathing rathe deliciousness, 
 
 Flies forth an airy herald, nothing coy 
 To utter its glad tiding, and possess 
 
 Things winter-pined with tale of Spring's success- 
 New victories of life and light and joy ! 
 
 n. 
 Wide are the blissful chambers of the sky, 
 
 Ranged by blithe-winged winds 
 
 The blue abyss of heaven, sweet as an eye 
 Instinct with vigilant love, tenderly binds 
 All things in the spell divine 
 
 Of its own tranquillity — 
 A spell serene, and yet intense, 
 
 Potent, I know not how or why, 
 To purge with fire each baser sense, 
 And bid all coward cares within me die.
 
 96 Hymn f 07' a May Morning. 
 
 in. 
 
 Spirit of Light ! deign thy dew-drinking steeds, 
 
 Fresh from the lucid meadows of the dawn, 
 To ravish me from these bounds ? My soul recedes, 
 Into the limitless ether far withdrawn, 
 Where sanctuaried in light, 
 Dim larks in rapturous flight 
 Make vocal the sunbeams. 
 
 I mount, I fly, 
 I tremblingly aspire, 
 On their immortal glee's wide-quivering streams, 
 
 To the dread fount of life, love, liberty ! 
 Kindler of song ! Lord of the new-born Day ! 
 
 Make me a winged lyre, 
 And in wild music let thy masculine fire 
 Leap from its chords, to swell the breasts of May 
 With passion infinite ; 
 That with the bards of thine ethereal choir 
 1 may outpour my song of undismayed delight, 
 Of unabashed desire ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 O that my song were like a violin's voice, 
 Soaring through life's tumultuous symphony 
 Willi weird prophetic cry ! 
 That I might feel my music-shedding wings 
 Rush in the rushing blasts of modulation,
 
 Hymn for a May Morning. 97 
 
 To thrill the world's despair with fierce vibration, 
 And work tempestuous change in mortal things ; 
 
 That from the voiceless deep my venturous voice 
 Might rend all hearts with dread Promethean cry, 
 
 Bursting in its last agony 
 The gates of hell with one strong word : ' Rejoice ! ' 
 Then should life be new-shaped, like eddying sand 
 
 In music's Orphean hand ; 
 New-born in Love's divinest chastities, 
 That kindle and not freeze. 
 
 v. 
 O that my song were like a trumpet's tone, 
 Uplifted stern in thunderous proclamation 
 
 Of glory and scathing shame — 
 A wind sublime of holiest exaltation 
 
 In spirits pure, urging the heroic flame 
 To burn into that all-transcendent zone 
 Where crowned Ambition bleeds on Love's bright 
 martyr-throne ! 
 Then should the founts of homely joy outleap 
 
 From their lethargic sleep ; 
 In poise intense of passionate self-control 
 Move the full-orbed soul. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Alas ! my song is all too weak a thing 
 For flight so wild : my soul is as a sod 
 
 H
 
 98 Hy mil for a May Morning. 
 
 Swept by a sky-fall'n lark's yet fluttering wing, 
 
 Warmed by its beating breast — the pulseless clod 
 Red with a martyr's passion ! What were I 
 
 To mount so high in grace, 
 To bear the bliss of such redeeming agony ? 
 
 Here let me find my place — 
 Where glad green buds flock out upon the boughs 
 
 To pasture on the bounties of the morn, 
 Where every turf draws strength from heaven's own face, 
 
 And, joying to be born, 
 Flowers gaze from the deep grass, lifting their brows 
 
 To her mild eyes, with eyes that fear no scorn. 
 
 VII. 
 
 O virgin-cheeked and mother-hearted May, 
 Madonna of the months ! give me to know 
 The tender founts that in thy bosom flow, 
 
 The shy, sweet dreams thou dream'st as day by day 
 Thy gleaming smiles so wistfully come and go, 
 
 The sweet heart-shudderings veiled from vulgar guess 
 In thy lyric loveliness. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Thanks ; for thy being into mine has past, 
 
 I feel, and I expand in the glad feeling, 
 Thy growth ful impulse working through the vast 
 
 Of tardy time ; as through each sense come stealing
 
 Hymn for a May Morning. 99 
 
 Yearnings wild, conceptions dim, 
 
 Bashful prophecies of June, 
 Vernal voices which forehymn 
 
 Some wondrous harvest's opulent boon. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Comfort ye, hearts that weep — be comforted ! 
 
 Have I not wept ? Take courage, ye who toil 
 In bitter fields ! Have not I toiled, and shed 
 From my enslaved soul, wingless and numb, 
 Red drops of anguish on the barren soil ? 
 
 But now my hour is come ! 
 I dare to raise the song, the song of joy — 
 
 The song of boundless hope I dare to raise — 
 Young martyr-thoughts on eager wings deploy 
 
 Through visionary ages, as I gaze ; 
 Fire in their eyes, their faces onward bent, 
 Pale to the lips as the white flowers they bear, 
 Quickening the winds with light, they singing scare 
 The dull and stagnant world from base content. 
 No, no, they are not dead, 
 
 The loves by which we live, 
 The hopes for which we have bled, 
 Oft faint, oft vanquishe'd, 
 The truths for which we toil, the light for which we strive !
 
 ioo Hymn for a May Morning. 
 
 x. 
 
 No, though the winter of the world's despair 
 
 In tomblike night have shut us from the sun's 
 All-fostering face, still in our branches runs 
 The sap of lusty life ; though sordid care 
 
 Cling round our buds like frost, 
 The blossom of delight lies nurturing there 
 
 In its cradle tempest-tost. 
 
 XI. 
 
 O by our wants, and by our winged desires, 
 And our hearts' quenchless fires, 
 
 By our wild prayers, our tears outpoured like dew 
 Upon the fields of life, and by those rare 
 
 Impulses of deep joy, which quicken us through 
 With Spring's divinest air ; 
 By each epic deed unsung, 
 By the loves that find no tongue, 
 By the faith that never dies, 
 By its wrestlings, by its cries, 
 By each meek sufferer's blood — the blood 
 Of Earth's mysterious motherhood — 
 We exorcise despair ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 Still Love shall raise and comfort wan-faced Hope, 
 
 And when Love bleeding lies, 
 Hope shall read clear her cloudy horoscope 
 With self-fulfilling prophecies.
 
 IOI 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Hither, O love ! Come hither 
 On pinions of young delight, 
 
 Ere the bloom of the morning wither, 
 While the dew lies bright ; 
 
 The meadows their balm are breathing. 
 Day bends o'er the limpid lake, 
 
 All nature her beauties wreathing 
 For thy sweet sake ! 
 
 O joy is the mate of morning, 
 
 And love is the child of light, 
 And youth is the time for scorning 
 
 The bonds of night ! 
 Then come— while the world lies jaded, 
 
 The elves of the woodland wake, 
 And dawn keeps her fields unfaded 
 For thy sweet sake !
 
 102 
 
 A SUMMER NIGHT. 
 
 It is a night too silver-sweet for sleep, 
 The stars shine softly bright, and delicate airs 
 Play through my open window languidly, 
 With summer perfume on their gentle wings, 
 Robbed from deep-bosomed roses. Yonder streak 
 Of paly gold marks where the sun went down 
 In burning glory ; and now the rising moon 
 Half hides her blood-red orb behind those elms 
 That whisper to each other. Silent it is, 
 Most silent, save when from the meadow deep 
 The corncrake calls her mate, or far away 
 A watch-dog bays ; so silent that you seem 
 To hear the growth of all things, as the dew 
 Sinks down refreshfully, and seem to feel 
 The throb of Nature's pulses, and the wings 
 Of Time stealthily waved with downy beat. 
 
 The starlight silence draws me : I must roam — 
 Past my still garden ; past the pastures low 
 Breathing of meadow-sweet ; up this dim lane; 
 Into the dewy woods, led by the light
 
 A Summer Night. io - 
 
 <5 
 
 Of the new-risen moon. A sudden joy — 
 
 A shudder of deep delight — thrills to my heart, 
 
 To be alone, hid in the nightly haunt 
 
 Of that fair Spirit whose permeant essence fills 
 
 Each tiniest leaf with living beauty. Here, 
 
 Where the wood-smells are sweetest, where the dew 
 
 Lies pearliest on the balmy eglantine, 
 
 And each clear drop a soul of fragrance takes 
 
 From curvy trumpets of the woodbine trails 
 
 Wreathing dark-glossed hollies ; where the flowers 
 
 Of maiden-pure wild roses strew the grass 
 
 With delicate petals — might one suddenly come 
 
 On some quaint scene of elfin revelry.
 
 104 
 
 H E R T H A. 
 
 I was walking alone in the heathy uplands of Sweden, 
 In a day of delight ; when the radiant Spirit of Summer 
 Wooed, in his passionate prime, the frank brave heart of 
 
 the Norland 
 To expand in his beams ; when, palpitating in sunshine, 
 Ravished of winter-woven robes, serene in her beauty, 
 Proudly her limbs Titanic she bared, and bountiful 
 
 bosom, 
 And, new clothed in delight, abandoned herself to her 
 
 lover. 
 
 O, believe me, 'tis here alone in the cloudlands of 
 
 Hertha, 
 Here alone that the heart can be filled with the joy of 
 
 their nuptial, 
 When the young Summer first kisses the Earth. A 
 
 jewelled Sultana, 
 His voluptuous East would hold him captive for ever, 
 Drugged with her spicy philtres; the bliss of meeting 
 
 and parting,
 
 Hertha. 1 05 
 
 Love's sweet rhythmical ebb and flow, the romance of 
 
 a passion 
 Wholesome with rapture and rest — an ocean that knows 
 
 not stagnation — 
 These are the North's. All nature, rejoicing, blesses 
 
 the bridal, 
 When in the odour-breathing Norland, the Spirit of 
 
 Summer 
 Wafts from his breezy wings a dewy quintessence of 
 
 sunshine, 
 And descends in a shower of delight on highland and 
 
 lowland ; 
 When the mountains grow green to their tops with 
 
 juiciest herbage; 
 And far up, with lows of content, to pasture are driven 
 Cows, deep-uddered, and milk abounds, and in opulent 
 
 dairies, 
 Maids at the foaming churn try fortunes ; when down 
 
 to the valleys 
 Comes, with his reindeer, the mild-eyed Finn, good- 
 
 humouredly singing, 
 Happy to water his herds in the reach of the glittering 
 
 river ; 
 When the pine and the birch exhale their odours balsamic ; 
 When the raspberries breathe their dim delicious aroma, 
 And, where they drink the sweets of the sun in the glades 
 
 of the woodland,
 
 1 06 Hertha. 
 
 Strawberries ripen; when fiords, bights, bays — ay, the 
 
 waves of the ocean 
 Spawn with abundance of life. O there, in happiest 
 
 season, 
 There was I walking alone — when toward me, stepping 
 
 like Hertha, 
 Came a maiden fair, a blonde Scandinavian Maiden. 
 
 Swiftly toward me she came, her well-shod feet and 
 well-stockinged 
 
 Planted clean on the turf, beneath her kirtle of home- 
 spun, 
 
 Beautiful, cowlike, august — the stern, sweet curves of her 
 figure 
 
 Clear a moment against the blue, as she crested a hillock — 
 
 Beautiful, cowlike, august, an Isis bred in the Norland ! 
 
 Swiftly toward me she came, her full yet firm-moulded 
 
 bosom 
 Drinking great lungfuls of life, as she skirted the slope of 
 
 the mountain, 
 And her clear voice rang like a silver flute thro' the 
 
 valley — 
 Chanting some quaint old lyric — some grave significant 
 
 folk-song, 
 Born from a nation's heart, and breathing its passionate 
 
 longings
 
 Hertha. 107 
 
 In the face of the firmament. Forests, rivers, and 
 
 mountains ; 
 And the wave -washed fiords ; and waterfalls thundering 
 
 ever 
 Through their foam-lighted glens ; and pastures green of 
 
 the upland — 
 Had their part in that folk-song ; the warrior-shout of 
 
 the Sea-kings ; 
 And the low of cows, and the homely mirth of the farm- 
 stead, 
 Hailing the harvest home ; life, death, and winter, and 
 
 summer, 
 Had their part in that folk-song. The frank brave heart 
 
 of the Norland 
 Breathed it out in the sun, as balm is breathed from the 
 
 pinewood. 
 It was exhaled, none made it, it never had a composer, 
 He who chanted it first lived on and sang in her spirit. 
 
 Nearer she drew, lithe-limbed, a living robust Caryatid, 
 On her head a basket of dainties fresh from the dairy, 
 Lapped in a fair white napkin, and poised with delicate 
 
 balance 
 Over her shoulders broad, which harmonised every motion 
 As in a natural dance. O did she dream of her beaut)- ? 
 Her large grace ? She felt it but ease, was but conscious 
 
 of keeping
 
 1 08 Hertha. 
 
 Poised her butter and cheeses — her rhythmic muscles 
 
 obeyed her 
 With the gladness of tune — I read no toil in her features ; 
 And she knitted the while, scarce glancing down at her 
 
 fingers ; 
 For her soul was a song, her motion a musical measure ! 
 
 Back on the wings of Time was I borne for ages and 
 
 ages, 
 Back on the wings of Time, to lands far distant, and saw 
 
 the 
 Tents of a wandering race, the tents of our Aryan fathers, 
 Pitched in primaeval pastures, their cattle lowing around 
 
 them ; 
 And their kings were shepherds, and in their primitive 
 
 language 
 Milkmaid and princess were one. Here moved an Aryan 
 
 Princess ! 
 
 Blue were her eyes, as the skies on a day of sercnest 
 weather, 
 Or forget-me-nots, gage of unchangeable, innocent, troth- 
 plight ; 
 Sweet was her face, with a grace the gift of the rain and 
 
 the sunshine, 
 And her cheeks glowed bright with blood ot healthiest 
 breeding.
 
 Hertha. 1 09 
 
 As she approached me the song on her lips died 
 
 gently, not shyly, 
 And she met my gaze unembarrassed, and greeted me 
 
 kindly, 
 Gave me a genial ' Good morrow ! ' then, pausing, spoke 
 
 in hex patois, 
 In her grave pure voice, some further words, which, alas ! 
 
 were 
 Lost on my ears. I could but smile ; and answered in 
 
 English : 
 ' Don't understand you, my girl.' But in the depths of 
 
 my bosom 
 Those strange words were singing a ' Welcome, welcome 
 
 to Sweden!' 
 
 Cowlike I called her before, but how shall I picture 
 
 the beauty 
 Latent in that rich word — the exuberant feminine beauty, 
 Seeming to gather in form supreme the teeming abundance 
 Of the mother-force of the earth ? O you comprehend 
 
 me, 
 You who have heard in the Alps the tinkling tune of the 
 
 cowbells, 
 You who have watched, some evening, a well-cared, 
 
 thorough-bred heifer, 
 Mountain-bred, mountain-miened, descending the paths 
 
 of the mountain,
 
 1 1 o Hcrtha. 
 
 Sure of foot as a Geinse — your heart has leapt to behold 
 
 her 
 Large beneficent grace, as she walked sedately and neatly 
 At the head of the herd ! But, let me ask, have you ever 
 Spoken to such a cow in your own vernacular English ? 
 Well, / have ; and I tell you that now as I spoke to the 
 
 Maiden — 
 I remember it well — that now, as I answered in English, 
 Over her face there passed a wistful puzzled expression, 
 Such as I then have observed in a cow's. 'Twas as though 
 
 she were seeking 
 Entrance to some far world, half seen in innermost 
 
 vision — 
 Strange, bewild'ring, remote from the placid fields of her 
 
 spirit. 
 But in a moment her eyes lit up with sunniest humour, 
 (Never did cow's do that ; and truly for use of her fingers 
 Never was cow came near my blonde Scandinavian 
 
 Maiden). 
 How those eyes lit up as she smiled ! ' I see you're a 
 
 stranger.' 
 So, I imagine, she said ; then bade me farewell, and we 
 
 parted ; 
 She on her way, I on mine. I gazed at the beautiful 
 
 figure 
 As it passed from my view. Then first I noted with 
 
 rapture
 
 Hertka. i 1 1 
 
 How her womanhood's strength burst forth in the glorious 
 
 profusion 
 Of her hair, thick wound in plaits— what a pad for a 
 
 basket ! 
 Wonderful hair it was, like hemp for the galleys of Odin, 
 Clean first-quality Norway hemp, with luminous surface, 
 And the gleam of straw just playing over its masses. 
 How it burst from those plaits, in its vital exuberant 
 
 beauty, 
 Burst from those careless plaits, and waved in wisps on 
 
 her shoulders, 
 Dancing warm on the wind ! 
 
 Alas ! she was gone — and the sunshine 
 Passed with her from the day. She went — I lost her for 
 
 Never again to behold her ! O fool to yield her so tamely ! 
 Fool, to let her sink back in the ocean of vague 
 
 apparition 
 Where we float immersed, like lumps of jelly Medusan ! 
 Fool, when a glance, a touch, a word, a step might have 
 
 won her ! 
 O to snatch her away, to possess her, to live in her 
 
 beauty ; 
 To awake her soul ; to thrust it forth, like an eaglet 
 Fledged, from its narrow eyrie ; to watch its pinions grow 
 
 stronger,
 
 1 1 2 Hertha. 
 
 Breasting the storms of the world, with the wisdom of 
 love to sustain them ! 
 
 O to fling my past to the winds for her, toil as a peasant, 
 
 Feel my pulses bound with the stalwart life of the Nor- 
 land ; 
 
 To grow sane in her love ; to surrender myself to her 
 keeping ; 
 
 To surround her with blessing ; to make her the beauti- 
 ful mother 
 
 Of a beautiful race, in some far Scandinavian valley ! 
 
 O to ! 
 
 ' Well I declare, what stuff the man has been writing ! 
 (Only Mary and me — you needn't look so dumbfoundered.) 
 This is some idle romance your foolish brain has been 
 
 weaving — 
 Why, you were never in Sweden : Now, were you ever in 
 
 Sweden ? ' 
 ' In the spirit, my child, I was just now, when you 
 
 thrust your 
 Dear inquisitive face between my eyes and the vision. 
 There, O long, long ago, in pre-matrimonial ages — 
 There I once saw Thekla, that blonde Scandinavian 
 
 maiden, 
 That divinest milk-maiden, before those tricks demi- 
 
 m lindane 
 We were deploring last night, as she sang at the popular 
 
 concert,
 
 Hertha. 1 1 3 
 
 Hid her goddess-ship's wholesome bloom in violet-powder. 
 That was all.' 
 
 ' Indeed ! In Sweden ? and never to tell one ? 
 Don't believe it a bit ! But really I cannot have patience 
 With the pitiful way you men get on about women. 
 You're the ungratefullest things — you never will under- 
 stand us, 
 Never will be contented, however we strive to please you. 
 Just when we've left our rustic ways, our homely 
 
 vocations, 
 Our domestic receipts, our plaisters, our wonderful 
 
 cordials, 
 All to please you, because — ' 
 
 ' We insist on having Corelli, 
 Dished us in mangled morsels by fingers that better 
 
 were sewing ? 
 Heaven forgive us our sins if we do ! ' 
 
 "Ssh, don't be provoking ! 
 Poor dear Jane, — what a shame to speak like that of her 
 
 music ! 
 No, you know very well our wise intellectual masters 
 Could not put up with such drudges — poor soulless 
 
 housekeeping creatures : 
 Wanted ' companions' forsooth, had felt themselves ' not 
 
 comprelunded ' — 
 O if you only knew, you stupid things, how we read you 
 
 1
 
 ii4 Hertha. 
 
 Through and through, like a book ' — 
 
 ' Ay, skipping all but the fiction.' 
 ' Nonsense ! I say 'tis you men who wreck your lives 
 
 upon fiction, 
 And what fictions, the most of you ! Ay, and even the 
 
 best ones, 
 How they blunder about, poor souls, with their precious 
 
 ' ideals.' 
 Thorns at last will bear grapes, they think, figs grow upon 
 
 thistles, 
 And extremes lie down, like the lion and lamb, in their 
 
 Eden. 
 We make both ends meet in a much more practical 
 
 fashion. 
 But what I say is that now, when we hens are, really and 
 
 truly, 
 Doing our painstaking best to make ourselves mates for 
 
 you eagles, 
 Fluttering after your Lordship's dreams no doubt at a 
 
 distance, 
 Off you fly in a pet, and sigh for some beautiful savage, 
 Cowlike ! with hair like hem]) ! and so forth — O when 
 
 you get her, 
 See that she washes her face and the rest of her wonder- 
 ful person — 
 Mary could tell you such things of the dirt of those 
 
 horrible Germans !
 
 Hertha. 1 1 
 
 Well, we English at least are teaching the world two great 
 
 lessons : 
 How to make drinkable tea, and the use of good soap 
 
 and cold water. 
 There, I hear your ' beautiful race ' upstairs in his cradle ; 
 Do put by those things, and go and get ready for dinner.'
 
 n6 
 
 THISTLEDOWN. 
 
 Fly, my songs, on tenderest wing, 
 Every blast your way shall speed ; 
 
 Of my heart each tiny thing 
 
 Bears the sweet and bitter seed. 
 
 Fly, till in some heart you light, 
 
 Twine your roots with its warm clay, 
 
 Pierce to death the brood of night, 
 And bring to birth the flowers of day.
 
 ii; 
 
 SONG. 
 
 The hare has his home on the hill, 
 The lark his nest in the grass ; 
 
 But I lie lonely and chill, 
 
 Mocked by the winds as they pass. 
 
 Where, ah, where ! 
 Ah, where shall I find, shall I find my rest, 
 Or hide my face from the eyes of Care ? 
 Where, but in thy dear breast !
 
 nS 
 
 IN AUGUST. 
 
 Summer declines and roses have grown rare, 
 But cottage crofts are gay with hollyhocks ; 
 And in old garden-walks you breathe an air 
 
 Fragrant of pinks and August-smelling stocks. 
 The soul of the delicious mignonette 
 
 Floats on the wind, and tempts the vagrant bees 
 From the pale purple spikes of lavender ; 
 Waking a fond regret 
 For dead July, whose children the sweet-peas 
 Are sipped by butterflies with wings astir. 
 
 Evenings are chill, though in the glowing noon 
 
 Swelled peaches bask along a sunny wall, 
 And mellowing apricots turn gold — too soon 
 For him who loves not to be near the fall 
 Of the yet deathless leaves. Pale jessamine 
 Speaks, with her lucid stars, of shortening days 
 To spreading fuchsias clad in crimson bells, 
 Lurking beneath the twine 
 Of odorous clematis, whose bowery maze 
 Of gadding flowers the same sad story tells.
 
 In August. 1 19 
 
 Now from the sky fall sudden gleams of light 
 
 Athwart the plain. Black poplars in the breeze 
 Whiten — the willows flashing silvery white 
 
 At every gust against dark rain-clouds : these 
 Glooming beneath their crowns of massy snow, 
 And soaring onward with the wind that rocks 
 The sprouted elms, and shadowing as they pass 
 Broad corn-fields ripening slow 
 In upland farms, where still the uncarted cocks 
 Stand brown amid the verdurous aftergrass. 
 
 Now scream the curlews on the wild west coast, 
 
 And sea-birds sport in the sunned ocean — blue 
 As the intense of heaven. The crested host 
 
 Of mighty billows endlessly pursue 
 Each other in their glorious lion-play ; 
 
 Surging against the cliffs with thunderous roar, 
 Till the black rocks seethe in thick-creaming 
 foam, 
 And bursts of rainbowed spray 
 Fly o'er the craggy barriers far inshore, 
 Drenching the thrift in its storm-buffeted 
 home. 
 
 Now is the season when soft melancholy 
 Broods o'er the fields at solemn evenfall ;
 
 120 In August, 
 
 & 
 
 The golden-clouded sunset dying slowly 
 
 From the clear west, ere yet the starry pall 
 Of night is silvered by the harvest moon : 
 
 When the year's blood runs rich as luscious wine 
 With honied ripeness : when the robin's song 
 Fills the grey afternoon 
 With warbled hope : and memories divine 
 Crowd to the heart, of days forgotten long.
 
 121 
 
 IN A GONDOLA. 
 
 [Suggested by Mendelssohn's Andante in G minor, Book I., Lied 6 of 
 the ' Lieder ohne Worte.'] 
 
 I. 
 In Venice ! This night so delicious — its air 
 
 Full of moonlight, and passionate snatches of song, 
 And quick cries, and perfume of romances, which throng 
 To my brain, as I steal down this marble sea-stair, 
 
 And my gondola comes : 
 And I hear the slow, rhythmical sweep of the oar 
 
 Drawing near and more near — and the noise of the prow, 
 And the sharp, sudden splash of her stoppage — and now 
 I step in ; we are off o'er the street's heaving floor, 
 
 As my gondola glides — 
 Away past these palaces silent and dark, 
 Looming ghostly and grim o'er their bases, where clings 
 Rank sea-weed which gleams, flecked with light, as it 
 swings 
 To the plash of the waves, where they reach the tide-mark 
 On the porphyry blocks — with a song full of dole, 
 A forlorn barcarole, 
 As my gondola glides.
 
 122 In a Gondola. 
 
 ii. 
 And the wind seems to sigh through that lattice rust-gnawn, 
 A low dirge for the past : the sweet past when it played 
 In the pearl-braided hair of some beauty, who stayed 
 But one shrinking half-minute — her mantle close-drawn 
 O'er the swell of her bosom and cheeks passion-pale, 
 Ere her lover came by, and they kissed. ' They are 
 
 clay, 
 Those fire-hearted men with the regal pulse-play.' 
 ' They are dust ! ' sighs the wind with its whisper of wail; 
 ' Those women snow-fair, flower-sweet, passion-pale ! ' 
 And the waves make reply with their song full of dole, 
 Their forlorn barcarole, 
 As my gondola glides. 
 
 in. 
 
 Dust — those lovers ! But love ever lives, ever new, 
 Still the same : so we shoot into bustle and light, 
 And lamps from the festal casinos stream bright 
 
 On the ripples ; and here's the Rialto in view ; 
 
 And black gondolas, spirit-like, cross or slide past, 
 And the gondoliers cry to each other : a song 
 Far away, from sweet voices in tunc, dies along 
 
 The waters moon-silvered. So on to the vast 
 
 Shadowy span of an arch where the oar-echoes leap 
 
 Through chill gloom from the marble ; then moonlight 
 once more,
 
 In a Gondola. 1 2 
 
 And laughter and strum of guitars from the shore, 
 And sonorous bass-music of bells booming deep 
 
 From St. Mark's. Still those waves with their song 
 full of dole, 
 Their forlorn barcarole, 
 As my gondola glides. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Here the night is voluptuous with odorous sighs 
 
 From verandahs o'erstarred with dim jessamine flowers, 
 Their still scent deep-stirred by the tremulous showers 
 
 Of a nightingale's notes as his song swells and dies — 
 While my gondola glides. 
 
 v. 
 Dust — those lovers ! who floated and dreamed long ago, 
 Gazed, and languished, and loved, on these waters — 
 
 where I 
 Float and dream and gaze up in the still summer sky, 
 Whence the great stars look down — as they did long ago : 
 Where the moon seems to dream with my dreaming — 
 disc-hid 
 In a gossamer veil of white cirrus — then breaks 
 The dream-spell with a pensive half-smile, as she wakes 
 To new splendour. But lo ! while I mused, we have slid 
 From the open, the stir, down a lonely lane-way, 
 Into hush and dark shadow ! fresh smells of the sea 
 Come cool from beyond ; a faint lamp mistily 
 
 3
 
 124 In a Gondola. 
 
 Hints fair shafts and quaint arches, in crumbling decay ; 
 And the waves still break in with their song full of dole, 
 Their forlorn barcarole, 
 As my gondola glides. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Then the silent lagune stretched away through the night, 
 And the stars, and the fairy-like city behind, 
 Domes and spires rising spectral and dim : till the mind 
 
 Becomes tranced in a vague, subtle maze of delight ; 
 
 And I float in a dream, lose the present — or seem 
 To have lived it before. Then a sense of deep bliss, 
 Just to breathe — to exist — in a night such as this ; 
 
 Just to feel what I feel, drowns all else. But the gleam 
 
 Of the lights, as we turn to the city once more, 
 
 And the music, and clangour of bells booming slow, 
 And this consummate vision — St. Mark's ! the star-glow 
 
 For background — crowns all. Then I step out on shore. 
 The Piazzetta ! my life-dream accomplished at last, 
 (As my gondola goes) 
 
 I am here : here alone with the ghost of the past ! 
 
 But the waves still break in with their song full of dole, 
 Their forlorn barcarole, 
 As my gondola goes ; 
 
 And the pulse of the oar swept through silvery spray 
 
 Dies away in the gloom, dies away, dies away — 
 Dies away — dies away — !
 
 12 
 
 A FRUIT PIECE. 
 
 i. 
 
 I have seen the gifts that brown Vertumnus brought 
 To coy Pomona, from the hot noontide 
 
 Sheltering within her bower ; when he sought 
 With all his wealth to win her for his bride. 
 The lusty god unawares came to her side, 
 
 And laughing as half-drowsed his love he caught, 
 Showered in her lap his pride 
 
 Of fruitage ripe from orchard boughs down-raught. 
 
 ii. 
 Upon his head he steadied a huge bowl, 
 
 Forged out of gold by Vulcan, ivory-rimmed, 
 Craftily carven with fantastic scroll 
 
 Of legends olden and devices quaint, 
 And sumptuously o'erbrimmed 
 With its heape'd load — bees humming round it stole 
 
 The hoarded sweets, and butterflies, half-faint 
 For very bliss, fed, with their gorgeous wings 
 Wide-waving to the sun with tremulous flutterings.
 
 126 A Fruit Piece. 
 
 in. 
 Thence first he flung pink, delicate-fleshed strawberries ; 
 
 And store of cool-juiced cherries 
 That freshen the parched lips of hot July ; 
 And currants red and white, 
 Flashing in silvery light 
 Like rubied carcanets in leafy canopy ; 
 "With Ethiop mulberries of giant size, 
 And musky amberous and red-blooded raspberries. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then, as she smiled for wonder, he outpoured 
 
 All fruitful Autumn's hoard : 
 Lush golden apricots that, tasted, bring 
 
 Memories of cowslipped Spring ; 
 Plump sun-split figs, shot with immingling shades — 
 
 Olive and dusky violet, cloying-sweet ; 
 The burden of white-armed Sicilian maids 
 
 In their brown baskets, where no siroc's heat 
 Can blast the succulent strength of verdurous leaves, 
 
 Five-cleft, and waving in the cool sea-wind 
 With changing shadows flung on walls and eaves 
 
 And bloomy, satin-skinned, 
 And luscious-melting plums, purple and green, 
 
 Bursting with ripeness, dropping at a touch 
 From their age-wrinkled boughs— as they had been 
 
 With their own treasures weighted overmuch.
 
 A Fi'uit Piece. 1 2 7 
 
 v. 
 And still in her o'erflowing lap he poured 
 All fruitful Autumn's hoard ; 
 
 Flushed nectarines, honey-hearted, morsels meet 
 To recompense the earth-doomed Lord of song 
 
 For lost Olympian banquets ; and with these, 
 Peaches he had watched, the sultry summer long, 
 
 Bask on hot garden walls, whereto their trees 
 Clung with their ripening load, sucking each sweet 
 
 Of the boon soil ; peaches, their downy cheeks 
 Ablush with glowing crimson — luxuries 
 Of fragrant richness, kept from prying beaks ; 
 Peaches with summer in their nectarous juice, 
 
 And stored-up sunshine, and the soul of the rose 
 In their ambrosial pulp ! In heaps profuse 
 
 He strewed anon the bower of her repose 
 With royal bunches of fresh-bloomed grapes, 
 
 Deep-purpled, luminous emerald, lustrous black, 
 Tasting of vintage where warm southern capes 
 
 Stretch with their vines to baked cliffs, hurling back 
 In creaming foam the surge of opal seas — 
 
 Full of old autumn's sunniest-hearted wine, 
 His secret-hoarded, deep deliciousness. 
 Lucid magnificent clusters huge as these 
 
 Young Bacchus crushed with infant hands divine — 
 Soft shapes of reddening vine-leaves, swayed by a breeze, 
 Down-wavering on wide lips and fingers' stress.
 
 128 A Fruit Piece. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And next he showed her, swelling in their pride, 
 Great pine-apples, with leafy diadems 
 
 Royally crowned, and clad in kingly mail 
 Of scale'd bronze ; smelling of forests wide 
 
 Where magian cedars, from their opulent stems 
 Exuding balmy gums, lend the soft gale 
 Circean incense — borne for many a mile, 
 To lure tossed sailors to some charmed isle. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Then rolled forth melons, green or ruddy-fleshed, 
 
 Cool from sunned garden corners — every rind 
 Split to display its dragon-toothe'd seeds ; 
 
 With each well-flavoured kind 
 Of fragrant apple, breezily rocked and riped, 
 
 Beneath the guard of uncouth Termini, 
 In orchards old amid the flowery meads. 
 
 The earliest rime had touched maturingly 
 The vintage of their hearts, and left them — striped 
 
 Carnation-wise, red-cheeked, or shining yellow — 
 Filled with fresh oxymel, frostily keen. 
 
 Them followed odorous pears, sere-hued and mellow, 
 Which seasoning hung, great-wombed, till they had seen 
 
 August's last sultriness beloved by bees, 
 Drinking the still delicious melancholy 
 
 Of the declining year even to the lees ;
 
 A Fruit Piece. 129 
 
 Till they might make sweet dreams not vanished wholly, 
 
 Love-cherished sorrows, and long-lost delights, 
 In seldom-opening cells of memory 
 
 Dimly to live again. What next invites ? 
 Lo ! clusters of brown filberts, snatched with glee 
 
 By truant children in the squirrel's haunt, 
 
 For their creamy kernels. On her lap fell last 
 The fruit hell-tasted of Proserpina — 
 
 Blood-stained pomegranates, plucked from boughs 
 that flaunt 
 Their scarlet flowers, though summer heats be past. 
 
 This sumptuous vision on a day I saw. 
 
 K
 
 13° 
 
 A SKETCH FROM NATURE. 
 
 [Being a Painter" s Jottings in Verse.'] 
 
 An Autumn day ! Splendour of light and shade, 
 
 Come the familiar landscape so to bless 
 Y\ "ith visitings from the sky, that, glade by glade, 
 
 The old grows new in its rich changefulness. 
 How swell the breasts of those proud cumuli, 
 Aglow with permeant light ; no mass the same 
 Even for an instant ; each still hurried on 
 By the fresh breeze, and rent — letting the sky 
 
 Gleam through : domes — chasms — you know not 
 how they came, 
 
 And even while you are gazing they are gone. 
 
 The sky ! — the blue abyss of tremulous air. 
 Alive with lines of subtlest palpitance, 
 
 Through which you gaze for ever, yet can ne'er 
 Fathom its azure, barred with many a lance 
 
 Of delicate cirrus — child of upper heaven, 
 
 Born out of mist, film-like, yet strangely still —
 
 A Sketch from Nature. 1 3 1 
 
 High-poised above the passionate unrest 
 Of the low-clouds that gather, and are driven, 
 And ruined at the wind's capricious will — 
 Vanishing into air, crest after crest. 
 
 Magnificence of change ! Upon the hill 
 
 Cloud-shadows soft with fitful sungleams play, 
 In tenderest sequence ; while the fresh west wind 
 thrills 
 The frame with joy of health. Beneath its sway 
 Yon field of ripening corn sways like a sea, 
 
 Hissing. The grove sings in the breezy stress — 
 Lithe beeches toss their boughs, and oak and elm 
 Whiten at every gust, as gloriously 
 
 They wave their deepened wealth of leafiness 
 In the mid-distance, a wide-wooded realm. 
 
 Now a cloud drives away, and warm ami bright 
 
 The sunshine smites this field. Yon cottages-eaves 
 Are loud with swallows gathering for their flight, 
 
 And now and then some restless spirit leaves 
 The crowd, to skim once more the well-known plain ; 
 
 Far overhead are battling with the wind 
 A pair of curlews — screaming as they pass; 
 Around me insect-life goes on amain, 
 
 Blithe grasshoppers with music of their kind 
 Answer each other in the sunny grass.
 
 132 A Sketch from N attire. 
 
 Magnificence of change ! On such a day- 
 Existence is a passion : not the joy 
 
 That fills the glad exuberance of May, 
 But deeper, tempered with a calm alloy 
 
 Of melancholy. When the ripening year 
 Draws to its full fruition ; when all hues 
 
 Of earth are mellowest ; when the changeful sky 
 
 Is loveliest in its changes : yet we hear 
 
 The winds begin their dirge for what we lose 
 When Autumn's purple fruitage is gone by.
 
 1 oo 
 
 TO THE ROBIN. 
 
 Autumn is come, and through the dripping wood 
 Walks like a fate, at evenfall. The mere 
 
 Breathes but in trance, and deep the mountains brood 
 In its wan breast ; yet fitfully I hear 
 
 Through the sad leaves the wind of their decay 
 Sighing. It suits this melancholy mood, 
 
 Which, why I know not, folds my spirit all day 
 In its dull atmosphere. 
 
 Here is close covert ; yet the water's gleam 
 
 Comes flickering through the foliage, and the roar 
 
 Of a far torrent breaks the sultry dream 
 Of sunset-lighted glades, sweet to explore. 
 
 The day's farewell a few glib finches pipe \ 
 But hark ! I hail thee, chorister supreme, 
 
 Red-breasted bard, that still such lyrics ripe 
 Canst dauntlessly outpour ! 
 
 Welcome, welcome to thy gurgling song, 
 Each note a limpid drop of honey-dew
 
 134 To the Robin. 
 
 From youth's delicious fountains ! I did long 
 
 For minstrelsy thus potent to renew 
 The wells of life ; but wist not what I sought. 
 
 Now, in thy voice what quickening memories 
 throng ! 
 I weep ; but in the shadowy fields of thought 
 My heart is singing loo. 
 
 Where are the silver-throated choir of spring ? 
 
 Where is the lark ? Where is the nightingale ? 
 Do thou and I alone remain to sing 
 
 Among the flowers not yet grown winter-pale ? 
 I hear thy emulous fellows near and far 
 
 Making these alleys dun with transport ring : 
 The Spirit of Hope sings in you — where ye are 
 Her anthems never fail. 
 
 O be thou blest, brave Christmas caroller : 
 
 When the dumb snow clings where the brood of 
 May 
 Once chirped, and the icy twigs mute thrushes stir, 
 
 Still wilt thou, warbling, cheer the gloomy day 
 With music of glad-tiding ; wilt rejoice, 
 
 O bird of Christ, e'en who desponding were, 
 Bringing from heaven with reconciling voice 
 Thy God-inspired lay !
 
 JD 
 
 IN S E P T E M BER. 
 
 Where lurk the merry elves of the Autumn now, 
 
 In this bright breezy month of equinox ? 
 Among tanned bracken on the mountain's brow ? 
 
 Or deep in the heather, tufted round white rocks 
 On a wild moor, where heath-bells wither slow, 
 
 Twined with late-blooming furze — a home of grouse? 
 By river alders ? Or on stubbly plains ? 
 Bound not their kingdom so : 
 They follow Beauty's train, of all her house 
 Gay pensioners, till not one leaf remains. 
 
 The splendour of the year is not yet dead ; 
 
 After cold showers the sun shines hotly still, 
 To dry the grass and kiss the trembling head 
 
 Of each wind-shaken hairbell on the hill. 
 The spirit has room to ramble far and wide 
 Through all the breezy circles of the sky, 
 
 To shoot on silvery beams from southern clouds 
 Where sunlight loves to hide, 
 Or brood upon the vale's blue mystery, 
 
 Whence routed mists fly trooping, crowds on 
 crowds
 
 136 In September. 
 
 Heaven hath its symphonies ! What tones combine 
 
 To swell the cadenced chords of luminous grey- 
 That change upon the abysmal hyaline, 
 
 Whose glimpses sweet throb to the azure play 
 Of an ethereal melody, tender as eyes 
 
 That shine through tears of unrequited love, 
 Pure as the petals of forget-me-nots ! 
 Such unheard harmonies 
 The deaf ears of Beethoven smote from above 
 Through vision — filled with heaven his inky blots. 
 
 As Ceres, when she sought her Proserpine, 
 Slow moved, majestically sad — a wreath 
 Of funeral flowers above those eyes divine — 
 
 The widowed year draws ripely to its death. 
 The moist air swoons in stilled sultriness 
 
 Between the gales ; save when a boding sigh 
 Shivers the crisp and many-hued tree-tops, 
 Or the low wind's caress 
 Wakes the sere whispers of fall'n leaves that lie, 
 Breathing a dying odour through the copse. 
 
 A few pale flowers of Summer linger late 
 
 For languid butterflies, wind tost, that leave 
 
 Their garden asters, tempted to their fate 
 
 By the wild bees ; stray blooms of woodbine grieve 
 
 On their close-twisted stems in brambly dells—
 
 In September. 137 
 
 Haunt of the cottage-children's much delight 
 On sunny afternoons ; by hedge and stream 
 Tremble the delicate bells 
 
 Of bindweed, bride-like, with its wreath of white 
 Moving things withering of new Springs to dream. 
 
 Soon the last field is gleaned, safe harvested 
 
 The tardiest-ripening grain, and all the dale 
 Made glad with far-seen stacks ; barn floors are spread 
 
 With golden sheaves, sport of the clanging flail ; 
 In sunny orchards the mossed apple-trees 
 
 Bend with their ruddy load, and wasp-gnawn pears 
 Tumble at every gust ; the berried lanes 
 Blush with their bright increase ; 
 Brown acorns rustle down ; and in their lairs 
 
 Deft-handed squirrels hoard their daintiest gains. 
 
 So the month wanes, till the new-risen moon 
 
 Shines on chill torpor of white mist — stretched o'er 
 Low-lying pastures, like a weird lagune 
 
 In a dim land of ghosts ; and evermore 
 Through the sad wood the wind sighs wailfully, 
 And great owls hoot from boughs left desolate, 
 When first the morn finds skeleton-leaves made fair 
 With frosted tracery ; 
 And then must all things frail yield to their fate — 
 October strikes the chord of their despair !
 
 133 
 
 ROMAUNT OF THE MYRTLE. 
 
 i. 
 
 Never was song stranger than mine — 
 
 All of a falcon that flew through the brine, 
 
 All of a falcon that flew o'er the sea 
 
 To the dim Islands of Twilight ; where be 
 
 Groves of pale myrtle — where wander and wait, 
 
 Hovering and hoping, before heaven's gate, 
 
 The ghosts of sad lovers ! 
 There wait and wander, frail meteors of fire, 
 Spirits, death-snatched in their morn of desire, 
 Their April of passion — when lips, at his kiss, 
 Freeze, ere the heart be made perfect thro' bliss 
 
 To pass the glad portals. 
 There came the falcon that flew o'er the sea — 
 To the wan white bosom of Eulalie. 
 
 ii. 
 Never was song stranger than mine — 
 All of a dove that flew back through the brine,
 
 Romaiint of the Myrtle. 139 
 
 All of a dove that flew back o'er the sea, 
 With a pale myrtle-spray from the wan Eulalie, 
 
 To Mainz in the Rhineland! 
 In Mainz was high-feasting, and Berthold was there ; 
 And Frauenlob chanted the praise of the fair, 
 And eyes grew more bright, cheeks more beauteous, and 
 
 wine 
 Foamed fresh to their lips, in great flagons ashine ; 
 And the king's heart was merry, the courtiers were clad 
 In robes of rejoicing; but Berthold was sad 
 
 For the loss of his falcon. 
 To him came the dove that flew back o'er the sea, 
 With that pale sweet token from Eulalie. 
 
 in. 
 Never was song sweeter than mine — 
 All of this dove that flew back through the brine, 
 To Berthold — mute-brooding, and wroth at their glee— 
 With the flower of love-longing from wan Eulalie, 
 
 Sweet, sweet with her sighing ! 
 Sweet with her sighing, and pale with her kiss — 
 What glimpse of forgotten deep byeways of bliss 
 Grew clear to his vision — what fragrance of dreams, 
 What nightingale music by weird-flowing streams 
 Made mystic each sense — what wild glamour bid start 
 The passionate fountains long-failed in his heart, 
 
 Till he fainted for yearning !
 
 1 40 Romaunt of the Myrtle. 
 
 And the king dropped his beaker, die minstrel let fall 
 His ghittern — the music died harshly ; and all 
 Was tumult. Men rose, women shrieked, and 'twas said 
 By knots of scared whisperers : ' Berthold is dead ! 
 
 In Mainz in the Rhineland.' 
 But Berthold was speeding far, far o'er the sea, 
 To the warm breast of his own Eulalie !
 
 Hi 
 
 CHORALE 
 
 Where shall Freedom's banner wave ? 
 Where shall be the glorious grave 
 Of the world-redeeming brave ? 
 
 Not in fanes that once were holy, 
 Cities proud, or hamlets lowly ; 
 Not in plots 'mid sheltering trees, 
 Pleasant haunts of lovers' ease. 
 
 But where lightnings flash and glare, 
 
 Burning poison from the air ; 
 
 And the eagle laughs aloud 
 
 In the glooming thunder-cloud ; 
 
 Where the free winds come and go, 
 
 Where sweet waters rise and flow, 
 
 On mountain-peaks where first the day 
 
 Sets his feet that make no stay ; 
 
 There, clear-shining like a star, 
 O'er the clouds beheld from far, — 
 On her fortress, once the grave 
 Of the world-redeeming brave, 
 There shall Freedom's banner wave !
 
 142 
 
 ANASTASIS. 
 
 How sweet the mother-touch of Nature's hand 
 
 Comes cool upon the feverish brow of thought, 
 When with dimm'd eyes and sluggard brain we stand, 
 
 Athirst for some lost blessedness, unsought 
 Long years — down-trodden in the onward rush 
 
 That sunders us from our child-hearted selves ; 
 And with how glad amaze 
 We lave grown limbs where deathless founts outgush 
 
 In the fresh fields of youth, and genial elves 
 Lull us with mellower music of old days ! 
 
 New heavens, new earth ; yet with what quiet sense 
 
 Of home long-lost ; an afternoon, mayhap, 
 We wander forth in sullen impotence, 
 
 Dead, from dead labour — seeking but one sera]) 
 Of Beauty's bread of life — more sick for all 
 
 The grimy squalor of suburban things; 
 When from some lucid womb 
 Of throned cloud that holds the heavens in thrall, 
 
 Glorious o'er dusty trees, an angel springs, 
 
 Strong-wing'd, to snatch us from the dismal tomb.
 
 Anastasis. 143 
 
 And we arise new-born, as now I do, 
 
 Crown'd with yon majesty of silver snows, 
 Gathered and gleaming from the abyss of blue. 
 
 The cloudland with its infinite repose 
 Follows me moving, tempted on and on 
 
 By rural glimpses — restful peeps — that yield 
 Glad harvest for sage eye : 
 Now 'tis a lane of hedgerow elms, anon 
 
 Stray'd sheep at browse about a pleasant field, 
 Or sun-smit poplars quivering in the sky. 
 
 Subtly the changeful music of my mood 
 Deepens to riper perfectness, and fills 
 Earth and wide air with heaven. Lingering I brood 
 
 By the shrunk river's bed. Each moment thrills 
 With mystery of content, which gently blends 
 
 All in one trance — burnt stubbles bare of sheaves — 
 Glear shallows, with their cress 
 And glancing minnows — osiered river-beds 
 
 Shimmering in breeze and shine \ even yellowing 
 leaves, 
 Low whisper with suggested happiness. 
 
 Through all his ways boon Autumn seems to smile — 
 
 O for the virgin lips of Perdita, 
 To name the flowers that on this fairy isle 
 
 Cluster and crowd ! Here chaste Angelica
 
 144 Anastasis. 
 
 Queens it, in leaves superb and tufted crown, 
 O'er Michael's daises ; and the rustling wind 
 Stirs, like a rising thought, 
 Pure bindweed bells tangled o'er brambles brown, 
 With sad long-purples (by Ophelia twined) 
 Mirror'd among the lush forget-me-not. 
 
 Once more the supreme splendour of the year : 
 
 I have invoked thee, Beauty, and my face 
 Shines from thine orisons : no burdock drear 
 
 Shall be my rosary in such holy place ; 
 But coral loading of the mountain ash, 
 
 Or haws in bright profusion. Sauntering and slow 
 I move with homeward feet, 
 Glad with the village children as they splash 
 
 The sand pools. Shall I find the evening-glow 
 Warm on the starry jasmines of our street ?
 
 T 45 
 
 THE WASTE OF NATURE.* 
 
 " A fine woman ! A fair woman ! A sweet woman ! — The pity of it, 
 Iago ! — O, Iago, the pity of it, Iago ! " 
 
 The wild wind dolefully 
 
 Howls o'er the wintry plain, 
 And shrieks o'er the desolate sea, 
 
 Like a soul in pain. 
 The old house shudders and groans, 
 
 As the torrents of sleety rain 
 Bluster and moan in the chimney 
 
 And rattle the drenched pane. 
 
 I sit by a dying fire, 
 
 Watching the embers red ; 
 And the midnight is ghostly around me, 
 
 And the house abed. 
 And as gust after gust shrieks seaward, 
 
 Far off on the waves to die, 
 I seem to hear in the pauses drear, 
 
 The time throb audibly by. 
 
 * See Butler's Analogy. 
 L
 
 146 The Waste of Nature. 
 
 Why dost thou ache, poor heart ? 
 
 Eyes, why will ye not close ? 
 Must these burning lids gape ever apart, 
 
 Though I crave repose? 
 I feel the wings of the ages 
 
 Sweep over me in their course, 
 And the wheels of the universe crush me 
 
 With irresistible force. 
 
 Is this Thy work, God of Mercy ? 
 
 Thy world a yawning abyss ! 
 Didst Thou make man in Thine image — 
 
 Make woman— for this ? 
 That each should be bait for the other, 
 
 As devils haul us ashore, 
 Twice-tempted to double damnation ? 
 
 Or why did we learn this fiend-lore ? 
 
 O dreadful world, where one foolish fault- 
 One paltry mistake — 
 
 Will make such mischief as God Himself 
 Can never unmake ! 
 
 Must a woman be lost forever 
 Because she is blithe and fair? 
 
 My curse upon love and beauty ! 
 My curse on the gifts that snare !
 
 The Waste of Nature. 147 
 
 What needs the curse ? It has fallen — 
 Naught else has power to damn 
 
 To a deeper depth such a blasted 
 Lost wretch as I am. 
 
 Yes : — for this my thanks to the devil- 
 One deeper plunge I can try : 
 
 Tempt others down to perdition, 
 And curse my Maker, and die.
 
 148 
 
 THE CHRIST- CHILD. 
 
 The Christ-child came to my bed one nighty 
 
 He came in tempest and thunder ; 
 His presence woke me in sweet affright, 
 
 I trembled for joy and wonder ; 
 He bore sedately his Christmas-tree, 
 
 It shone like a silver willow, 
 His grave child's eyes looked wistfully, 
 
 As he laid a branch on my pillow. 
 
 And when he had left me alone, alone, 
 
 And all the house lay sleeping, 
 I planted it in a nook of my own, 
 
 And watered it with my weeping. 
 And there it strikes its roots in the earth, 
 
 And opens its leaves to heaven ; 
 And when its blossoms have happy birth 
 
 I shall know my sins forgiven.
 
 149 
 
 ODE TO DYSPEPSIA 
 
 i. 
 
 Accursed Hag ! Hell-conceived, fury-born, 
 
 Twin sister of the fiend Despair, avaunt ! 
 Hence with thy harpy talons, which have torn 
 
 Too long my vitals ! Down to thy damned haunt 
 Of caverned horror and heart-eating woe ! 
 
 Leave me, and plunge below 
 To that black pit, with all thy ghoulish crew 
 
 Of loathsome-visaged shapes ; 
 Nightmares that come with pallid features blue 
 
 To rack me with soul-shattering escapes 
 From grisly phantoms. Vampires, flapping wings 
 
 Obscene about my bed ; 
 Dread, formless, and abominable Things 
 
 That rise from gory pools, till o'er my head 
 The shuddering night is full of fiery eyes 
 
 And threatening fingers pointing scorn ! Ye dead. 
 Haunt me not thus ! Come not in fearful guise 
 Gibbering from bloody shrouds, or, long-engraved.
 
 150 Ode to Dyspepsia. 
 
 Rising to fear me with the abhorred sight — 
 
 What coffin-planks have saved 
 From the worm's banquet. 'Twill not bear the light, 
 
 That mass of swollen corruption — green decay 
 Makes hideous every member ! Get thee hence, 
 
 Foul incubus ! Take thy loathed weight away 
 From off my breast ! O sickening horror — ! Whence 
 
 Comes any help ? I wake, and it is day ! 
 Thank heaven that night is done ! But with the morn 
 
 Come fiendish voices whispering suicide — 
 Madness — damnation : with malignant scorn 
 My anguish they deride. 
 
 11. 
 
 Joy, for my chains are breaking ! Get thee gone, 
 Fell sorceress ! Hell ward roll thy scorpion train, 
 
 Too long its hateful coils have round me lain ; 
 But now thy reign is done. 
 
 Day breaks in gladness, and night comes to steep 
 Mine eyelids in her drowsiest honey-dew, 
 
 And folded by the downy wings of sleep, 
 Billowed secure on her maternal breast, 
 
 In happy dreams and healing slumber deep 
 I sink to balmy rest.
 
 i5i 
 
 THE SEXTON'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 O bitter, bitter was the blast, 
 
 And bitter was the sky, 
 And in the churchyard thick and fast 
 
 The rain fell drearily. 
 
 The rent clouds scudded by the moon 
 
 And smothered up the stars ; 
 The bent gate creaked a dismal tune 
 
 As the wind raved through the bars. 
 
 The gravestones glimmered clammy and cold 
 
 In the chill grass, row on row, 
 And oozings cold sank through the mould, 
 
 Till they froze the dead below. 
 
 From the grey porch came half represt 
 
 An infant's famished cry, 
 Where a young mother, babe on breast, 
 
 Had laid her down to die.
 
 i5 2 The Sextons Daughter. 
 
 There in the morning, stiff and cold, 
 Clasping her child she lay. 
 
 The sexton stumbled, I've been told, 
 Upon his daughters clay.
 
 153 
 
 HOW IT STRIKES THE CULTURE 
 PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 'Tis written : — ' If thine eye offend, 
 Pluck it out ! ' 
 
 Nay hold, my friend ! 
 Stop a moment — is it wise 
 B.ecklessly to tear out our eyes, 
 Lest they sometime may offend us ? 
 Looks the danger so tremendous, 
 When we strive to walk by sight, 
 That we should, trembling, quench our light 
 And grope along, our path to find, 
 Blind and leaders of the blind ? 
 
 Still his cry is : — ' Out, vile jelly ! ' 
 Men will go crawling on their belly, 
 Eyeless, — doing ill what dogs do well, 
 Finding their way by dint of smell ! 
 ' This way our Master's footsteps 7c>ent.' 
 What ! do you never lose the scent ? 
 ' Tis so befouled, one might suppose 
 The eyes should supplement the nose.
 
 154 Hotv it Strikes the Culture Philosopher. 
 
 And you cripples — halt and maimed ! 
 Do you never feel ashamed 
 Of limping in such sorry plight ? 
 If a limb were lost in fight, 
 Of the stump one might be proud ; 
 But to glory in avowed 
 Self-mutilation, pardon me, 
 Looks like downright insanity. 
 Prepare to run the race of life, 
 And use the amputating knife 
 On your own limbs ! Well, heaven preserve us ! 
 You christian stoics make one nervous, 
 /can't maltreat my flesh and blood, 
 As if 'twere only so much mud, 
 I must strive onward all complete — 
 Eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and hands and feet. 
 It seems to me I need them all ; 
 If for whole men your heaven's too small, 
 /can't get in — I'm satisfied, 
 Till it's enlarged, to — stand outside. 
 
 (Strange, while 1 scarce can stir a peg 
 They make such running on one leg !)
 
 III.— THE MYSTIC. 
 
 'They are full of visions, dreams, revelations, trances, mountings, 
 ecstasies. To hear them discourse is great wonder ; for common things 
 are to them mysteries. They will find whole macrocosms in the fall of a 
 sparrow.' —History of the Mystics.
 
 i57 
 
 PREFACE TO 'THE MYSTIC 
 
 IT is now many years since I first met the strange person 
 who was the Author of the following Poems. I made his 
 
 acquaintance at a soiree at the house of the late Dr. A. B •, 
 
 whose passion for collecting ' characters ' rivalled in intensity the 
 china-mania of the present day. He was not the lion of the 
 evening, having been collected some time previously ; but I at 
 once felt that he was no ordinary eccentric. His dress was shabby, 
 and, without being sordid, had a pleasant student-like slovenliness 
 about it, like the well-worn binding of some precious old volume ; 
 to which his sensitive face, with its delicate curves of suffering 
 and wrinkles of thought, formed a fitting title-page. The whole 
 man had, indeed, a Faust-like look of antiquity — an aging older 
 than his years, which had grizzled his hair and beard somewhat 
 before their time ; and, as he stood a little apart, sometimes turning 
 over the pages of a book, sometimes letting his dreamy grey eyes 
 wander absently around the room, I gazed at him with a strange 
 fascination, — 
 
 ' Like some watcher of the skies 
 When a new planet swims into his ken.' 
 
 I felt that I was in the presence of what Goethe would have called 
 a ' Nature. ' 
 
 ' Who is he ?' I asked a distinguished ' alienist,' a habitue, 
 of the Doctor's salons, who lounged near me. ' He ? ' he replied, 
 with the careless glance of a connoisseur who has already studied 
 
 a specimen. 'O, he's a crazy Atheist ; his name is M . He 
 
 keeps an old-curiosity and old-book shop not far from this. Lives
 
 158 Preface to The Mystic. 
 
 principally by making medical and scientific diagrams ; did some 
 brains once for me, and, by Jove, sir ! his colour is superb : might 
 make his fortune if he stuck to his business. Often shuts up shop 
 and goes off for weeks at a time : a species of wandering melan- 
 choly, I take it : stumbled on him once myself in a church in 
 Perugia. ' 
 
 On getting into conversation with the specimen thus neatly 
 labelled, I found him an odd mixture of shrewdness and simplicity, 
 erudition and ignorance. It was easy to perceive that his desultory 
 though extensive reading had extraordinary gaps in it ; the com- 
 monest text-books being apparently for him a terra incognita 
 into which he had seldom ventured. His memory, too, was 
 peculiar. Of some books which he professed to have read, he 
 frankly said — ' I remember only the colour of the cover.' He had 
 no half- remembrances : what was not absolutely vital for him was 
 blown, like chaff, to the winds of oblivion. 
 
 Soon after our first meeting I called on him at his shop, and after 
 repeated visits, became as intimate with him as was possible with 
 a man of his peculiar temperament. He was reserved where other 
 men are open, open where others are reserved. Of his smallest 
 actions he made a mystery, but expressed his opinions and feelings 
 with a candour which was sometimes startling. 
 
 The dingy back-parlour which served him for a study, and into 
 which the sun came like a traveller exploring some monument of 
 antiquity, exists now only in my memory, having been swept away 
 in the course of some local improvements ; but there I spent with 
 him many delightful hours. His presence filled the place with an 
 exhilarating atmosphere of genial wisdom. Each visit to him was 
 like a fresh plunge into a fountain of the waters of life. I soon 
 found that, if an atheist, he was one only in the sense in which Spin- 
 oza and Fichte can be called atheists. He was, like Spinoza, 
 ■ 'a God-intoxicated man.' God was in all his thoughts; but his 
 thoughts about God were, it must be confessed, somewhat different 
 from those of ordinary orthodoxy. 'God,' he said himself, 'is 
 not so black as He has been painted. Religion is a veil upon which
 
 Preface to The Mystic. 159 
 
 the human imagination has depicted terrible spectres. When our 
 eyes behold the Shechinah,* these vanish.' His faith was fixed. He 
 had that feeling of the perpetual presence of God and simple trust 
 in His providence which Fichte so remarkably possessed. His 
 creed was, however, in a perpetual state of growth and decay ; but 
 its development was like that of a vigorous plant which follows 
 certain well-defined lines, and its verbal expression was like a 
 sun- flower, always turning after the sun of truth. 'All creeds,' he 
 declared 'are true, — what then? They may carry us no further 
 spiritually, than walking the treadmill carries us up a mountain.' 
 On another occasion, when I met him at a ritualistic service, he 
 remarked : ' A creed should always be sung, as it is here. The 
 music raises it out of the sphere of the intellect and scepticism into 
 the sphere of emotion and faith. It ceases to be a dead dogma 
 and becomes a living symbol. Musically understood, Calvinism is 
 true, logically it is blasphemy.' 
 
 His views about the Bible were peculiar and paradoxical. ' To 
 fools only is it an ordinary book. It is more even than the litera- 
 ture of an inspired nation. It contains a real revelation as no 
 other book does.' Vet he was no Bibliolater, and gave full play 
 to his critical faculties in his reading of it. ' It is not a perfect 
 mirror reflecting the face of God. It is full of flaws ; but the best 
 we have as yet. As a final authority the Bible abrogates itself. 
 It is not that light of which it bears witness — the Logos indwelling 
 in our hearts. A church built upon its infallibility is a house built 
 on the sand ; an ark ready to go to pieces when the wind of 
 change blows roughly. Then the passengers must make shift 
 to escape, 'some on boards and some on broken pieces of the ship' — 
 as the Protestants are doing now. But it is the breath of God 
 that raises the storm. Does not the wind of a new Pentecost begin 
 to blow over this world that faints for a new revelation ?' 
 
 He frequently expressed himself in rather Antinomian 
 language : ' What is this nonsense about the Moral Law ? God is 
 not a moral being at all. The universe exists for beauty, not for 
 
 * He always pronounced this word ' She'chinah.'
 
 1 60 Preface to The Mystic. 
 
 good and evil.' Yet, like most theoretic Antinomians, he 
 acknowledged the practical necessity of morality in the finite 
 world ; and his life was, so far as my observation reaches, singu- 
 larly pure. 
 
 His opinions respecting art were no less trenchant, and I cannot 
 refrain from quoting one or two of his dicta on the subject. To 
 music he was particularly devoted. He was a tolerable pianiste, 
 and, with the aid of his well-worn instrument, managed to suck the 
 honey of his favourite composers from their scores in a very remark- 
 able manner. An air hummed over — a few chords struck here 
 and there — seemed to reveal to him the soul of a composition. 
 His musical sympathies were, I must admit, somewhat narrow. 
 Opera was for him a thing of the devil ; the stage itself being an 
 abomination of desolation, not essentially, but as it exists. The 
 traditions of the English stage he regarded as 'bad absolutely. It 
 is an appendage of frivolous society, not a thing of the people.' 
 Bach, Handel, and Beethoven were his three Titans. ' There is 
 but one oratorio,' he maintained, 'and that is the "Messiah." 
 Most of Handel's other works are sacred operas. It is epic through- 
 out. The "Elijah" is a sacred opera, and better than Handel's. 
 It is popular, because it breathes the spirit of average Protestantism. 
 It is like a good book about the Bible.' 'Bach and Beethoven are 
 Catholic in their masses. They stand under the great dome of 
 heaven, and cry to the Eternal for all mankind. Mozart and 
 Haydn smack of incense and the Roman ritual. The Church is a 
 great thing, but the world is greater.' 
 
 Even Wagner, whom he knew only through the score, and of course 
 imperfectly, stood definite ly outlined in his keen vision. ' He is 
 not a tone-poet, though a great genius, a great artificer, a tremend- 
 ous energy. He has made a man, like Prometheus; but the gods 
 have cheated him, and he has stolen the fire of Hephaistos in mis- 
 take for that of Apollo. He can weld all together with the great 
 Thor-hammer of his intellect, but the monster dies in vain for a 
 soul. He has seized music as a hunter seizes a deer that he has 
 slain, and has taken its skin to clothe his conceptions. But the
 
 Preface to The Mystic. 161 
 
 Dcemon will make use of him, and therefore what he does is of 
 supreme value.' 
 
 For Blake, as some of his poems prove, he had a profound ad- 
 miration. ' " Paradise Lost " and " Paradise Found " * are his, not 
 mine,' he declared. ' He sang them to me one night. I wrote 
 them down on the spot. ' ' As a painter Blake would have been 
 much greater, if Raffaelle had not clung round him like a serpent, 
 breathing academic poison. What had he to do with Raffaelle ? 
 When his drawing is wrong, it is wrong from academic vanity and 
 bad taste rather than ignorance and weakness. In his instinctive 
 impulses he is greater than Michael Angelo — much greater than every 
 one else.' 
 
 As I am not writing a memoir, but merely accounting for the exist- 
 ence of certain poems, I have thought it better to give some authen- 
 tic glimpses of the author's mind through these epigrammatic utter- 
 ances, than to tabulate such scanty incidents in his life as I happen 
 to be acquainted with. He was emphatically one of those who 
 manage to live a great deal with a minimum of external incident ; 
 and the most important facts of his life are still involved in mystery. 
 He'was very chary of speaking about his past life: the nearest approach 
 to any confidence on the subject that I can remember being once 
 when, in a despondent mood, he accused himself of having sinned 
 against the Holy Ghost. 'What,' I asked, 'do you call the sin 
 against the Holy Ghost ? ' 'I did not say the sin against it,' he 
 replied, rather sharply, ' that is another matter ; but all sins against 
 love are sins against the Holy Ghost.' He spoke, in another con- 
 versation, of having at one time preached and distributed tracts in 
 one of the parks. The materialism of some of the ordinary lay 
 preachers, who had been holding forth on the Second Advent, 
 offended him. ' I told them,' he said, ' that the second coming of 
 Christ would be as unlike what the orthodox imagine as the first 
 was. They told us the war then beginning (the Franco-Prussian) 
 was Armageddon. I told them Armageddon had begun before the 
 first chapter of Genesis.' Another time he said quietly : 'I was 
 
 * See pp. 203 and 205. 
 M
 
 1 62 Preface to The Mystic. 
 
 with Garibaldi in Sicily.' This surprised me, as he had a Quaker- 
 like horror of war, which he declared to be the inarticulate fury of 
 intellectual children. ' Men fight because they are too childish to 
 explain and persuade ;' but he added, ' I have no man's blood on 
 my head. I marched with the men, and did what I could for the 
 wounded. ' 
 
 At his death, which occurred rather more than a year ago, his 
 sole remaining relative, a brother, a draper in a small town in the 
 North of England, and I believe a Wesleyan, inherited his little 
 property. The brothers had not met for some thirty years, chiefly, I 
 am told, on account of religious differences ; and I had some diffi- 
 culty in securing a portion of my friend's papers from a general 
 auto-da-fe of unmarketable heretical documents. From the few who 
 met around his grave I heard many stories of his unostentatious 
 charity. His work in the hospitals brought him much in contact 
 with the sick poor ; and while he scarcely ever gave a public sub- 
 scription, he was by no means sparing of his time or money when 
 he met with a case of distress in private. His tombstone records 
 his birth on the 13th of April I822, and his death on the 8th of 
 July 1875, in his 54th year. He sleeps, by his own request, in un- 
 consecrated ground. 
 
 The ' Vision of Death,' I may mention, is the first part of a tri- 
 logy, of which the other sections remain, so far as I have been able 
 to ascertain, unfinished. The second part is a mystical cosmogony 
 of slight poetic merit ; the third, to judge by the fragments I found 
 written on scraps of waste paper, was meant as a prophecy of the 
 gradual regeneration of the world.
 
 163 
 
 A VISION OF DEATH. 
 
 On the white margin of a dim sea-beach 
 I stood. Behind me lay the mystery 
 Of an invisible ocean, roll'd in clouds 
 Upgather'd from its face in thunderous folds, 
 Whose volum'd hugeness, in grim Titan throes, 
 Contorted and convolv'd, yet seemed to hang 
 On the still'd air like a volcano's smoke ; 
 Majestical in ponderous self-restraint, 
 For all their dreadful working. Black as death, 
 Or the deep night of chaos, hung those clouds, 
 Unpierceable by the sweet morning beams 
 Of the new-risen sun, which scarce had power 
 To silver them a little on the edge. 
 
 But all along the fair line of the coast, 
 Foam-crested billows, full of lusty life, 
 Leap'd out beneath the columns of the cloud, 
 And broke upon the shore ; and caught the sun 
 In the swift eddies of their gleeful surf : 
 And dash'd the polish'd pebbles to and fro, 
 With such a fresh and shingling noise, as made
 
 1 64 The Mystic. 
 
 A gladness in my heart. Then, like a child 
 
 In a new wonder-world, I stoop'd and por'd 
 
 For hours on all the treasures of the beach — 
 
 On rainbow'd bubbles, winking quaintly out, 
 
 Left by the hissing spaces of the foam ; 
 
 On strange sea-creatures, corallines, and shells, 
 
 And fragile weeds of hues the loveliest, 
 
 All smelling of the sea ; whose ancient breath 
 
 Mov'd me to tears, and yearning, and deep love 
 
 Of that mysterious ocean. And all the while 
 
 The sound of its long thundering on the shore 
 
 Boom'd in mine ears. And suddenly a thought, 
 
 Delightful and yet dreadful, seiz'd on me 
 
 With shuddering of rapt awe : ' How came I hither? 
 
 Across yon trackless ocean from what land ? 
 
 Or was I flung from out the ocean's breast 
 
 Even as a weed ? ' Whereat I stood and gaz'd 
 
 Into the clouds ; but answer to my thought 
 
 Found nowhere none. Yet something in my heart 
 
 Whisper'd me that not many hours ago 
 
 I could have found an answer. Then those clouds 
 
 Smiled like familiar faces. Hours ago ? 
 
 Hours — hours : Or was it years ? And then I saw 
 
 My shadow, like a luminous belt upon 
 
 The blackness of the cloud. 
 
 But now the sun 
 Made pleasant all the air, and songs of birds
 
 A Vision of Death. i6- 
 
 From the unexplor'd recesses of the Isle, 
 Came with sweet inland odours on the breeze, 
 Luring me from the shore. Inward I mov'd 
 By slopes of delicate grass, which gradually 
 Broaden'd into a meadowy wilderness — 
 A paradise of flowers, where still the dew 
 Trembled in blissful tears upon the spray, 
 Diamonded blade and bud, and hung with pearls 
 The filmed gossamer. And everywhere 
 Was snow'd from lavish fruit trees in full bloom 
 A wealth of roseate petals, — blown about 
 On sunniest knolls where splendid cowslips grew, 
 And shadiest nooks belov'd of primroses ; — 
 Sent eddying into nests of violets ; 
 And shed beside soft crimson daisy-buds. 
 There the sweet air was loud with utter joy 
 Of birds, and bees, and grasshoppers that sang 
 Shrilly as birds. The very flies humm'd loud 
 Above the warmth of basking beds of thyme. 
 The butterflies were giddy with delight 
 And flutter'd up and down beneath the blue, 
 In wavering glimpses of pale colour. All 
 Was morning, and rathe Spring, and festal life ! 
 But I rush'd on half-blindly, like a child 
 Drunk with the mere excitement of the Spring, — 
 On through the verdurous freshness of a wood ; 
 Trampling the hyacinths with my careless feet,
 
 1 66 The Mystic. 
 
 And the frail pasque-flower, ruthlessly, and scarce 
 Pausing to pluck a stray forget-me-not 
 From out a stream, before I left the wood, 
 And mounted blindly up a steep of rocks, 
 Clinging and clambering, till with wearied limbs, 
 Bruis'd in the toil, I found myself at last 
 Safe-landed on the summit. 
 
 Pantingly 
 I stood and gaz'd around. Before me lay 
 A region sloping to a mountain-side, 
 Like a rich valley lifted on the flank 
 Of some majestic Alp — the soft green grass 
 Undulant about the giant stems of oak, 
 Walnut, and beech, and chesnut, emerald gleam'd 
 Where the sun smote it. But beyond, the clouds 
 Hung low upon the forest, and conceal'd 
 The mountain from my view. A single peak 
 Volcanic sprang to assert itself above, 
 Cutting the blue with its pure crown of snow, 
 And stood there still and stern. Out of the clouds 
 Came ever and anon a sullen roll 
 Of thunder, like the voice of the Beyond ; 
 And all around me I heard near and far 
 A noise of rushing torrents. 
 
 On the brink 
 Of that sheer wall of rock so rashly scal'd, 
 I lay to rest, couch'd upon spring)' heath,
 
 A Vision of Death. 167 
 
 Among the myrtles that grew everywhere 
 About the upjutting crags, mingling their flowers 
 With rhododendrons and pale cistus blooms. 
 And now that sole spray of forget-me-not, 
 Flung from my careless hand upon the sod, 
 Seem'd to look up with blue upbraiding eyes — 
 Most homelike, sisterlike. I know not why 
 It fill'd me with such passion of regret 
 For all the Paradise left far behind, 
 For evermore behind — and weigh'd upon me 
 With fateful bodings of the drear To-come ! 
 Soon, as I lay, the fragrance rich and dim 
 Breath'd from those myrtle's mystic chalices, 
 Wherein the Angel of Delight had once 
 Whisper'd the orient secret of the moon, 
 With blissful spells and ancient wizardry 
 Of love, was wafted o'er me, and combin'd 
 Lullingly with the cool and silverous sound 
 Of waters in mine ears. My soul was fill'd 
 With a voluptuous splendour of romance 
 And pomp of dreams chivalric, and my heart 
 Throbb'd high, as in its golden prime of love, 
 With secret and ineffable exstasy, 
 Serene and sweet — until there came again 
 The yearning of the sea. Swift to my feet 
 I sprang, and earnestly gaz'd back. I saw 
 Far off the mighty columns of the cloud
 
 1 68 The Mystic. 
 
 Black as at first. But, all at once, behold ! 
 
 Even as I gaz'd, terrible brightness shone 
 
 Through their abysses, blaz'd to heaven, and died 
 
 In tenfold darkness — silent and sublime, 
 
 As Autumn lightnings palpitant through all 
 
 The spaces of the night. Again, again, 
 
 And yet again, it leap'd against the sun 
 
 And dimm'd it. Like the brandish'd sword of God 
 
 It lighten'd through the abysses of the cloud — 
 
 Apocalyptic splendour ! Yet withal 
 
 It was, methought, a pure and living light, 
 
 That hurt not for its excellent brightness. Prone 
 
 I flung myself when its last pulse had ceas'd, 
 
 And hid my eyes and peer'd into the dark 
 
 To see what I had seen. In second sight 
 
 I read the hidden vision. I beheld 
 
 The billows of the illimitable main — 
 
 The mystery of their eternal change. 
 
 And lo ! a floating island mov'd upon them, 
 
 Full of dim shapes ; and creatures like to Gods 
 
 Wander'd through lucid labyrinths in and out ; 
 
 And semblance of angelic multitudes 
 
 Stream'd up and down amid the radiance 
 
 Upstreaming from the isle. And where the light 
 
 Fell on the waves I saw how all the sea 
 
 Was full of life. But evermore the peak 
 
 Of the volcano with its muffling clouds,
 
 A Vision of Death. 169 
 
 Dwelt like a deepening shadow in mine eyes, 
 And blurr'd the vision. 
 
 But now the sun grew hot ; 
 And the low-lying mists were lifted from 
 The shoulders of the mountain, where the pines 
 Hung sombre like a garment. 
 
 Only around 
 The central peak clung a mysterious veil, 
 Gathering and waning changefully in the wind, 
 Impenetrable ever. Then my heart 
 Was fill'd with irresistible desire 
 And fiery impulse toward the frozen fields 
 That slept in cloud. I hurried on my path 
 Upward, still upward, through the pleasant slopes; 
 Leaving the gracious chesnut shades — the oaks, 
 Great-hearted in their strength — the walnut trees, 
 Magnificent as oaks, which wav'd to me 
 From their dusk leaves a perfume as I pass'd ; 
 Till, toiling up the heathy crags, I gain'd 
 The skirts of the pine-forest. A cool of awe 
 Fell on me as I enter'd, such as falls 
 Upon one entering from the sunny street 
 Some dim cathedral's vastness hush'd and still. 
 The mountain rose between me and the sun, 
 Impending o'er me its gigantic bulk, 
 Dreadful as death ; and all the twilight gloom 
 Was full of strange forebodings. Fitfully
 
 1 yo The Mystic. 
 
 There swept throughout the melancholy aisles 
 A soughing wind that rose, and sighing died 
 In solemn and sonorous cadences, 
 Mysteriously. A ghost of forest balm 
 Haunted the air, like incense shaken still 
 Day after day from the obsequious hands 
 Of mournful Dryads, in the sacred groves 
 Of their forgotten Pan. And all around 
 I saw the mighty stems of ancient pines 
 Shot stern and straight into the sky. No note 
 Of bird reliev'd the utter loneliness. 
 Wearily I clamber'd on from tree to tree, 
 From crag to crag, through the deep forest-dells 
 Where all the ground was hoar with knee-deep moss- 
 Wandering and lost, until there boom'd a sound 
 Of waters in mine ears. I was athirst, 
 And made toward its cool murmuring. Louder grew 
 The deep and sullen roar, and louder still ; 
 And suddenly I came upon a gorge, 
 Where pent between the bleak precipitous rocks, 
 Below me far, I saw the torrent rush, 
 Boiling and bellowing in the drear abyss, 
 Its lurid surges raging into foam 
 Around the tumbled boulders. And above 
 Its highest cataract, where the gorge was cleft, 
 Between the parted pines I mark'd the gleam 
 Of a great glacier.
 
 A Vision of Death. 1 7 1 
 
 Pushing boldly on, 
 I found a path which wound along the marge 
 Of the abyss, and lo ! a crystal stream 
 Well'd up beside it, gushing out beneath 
 A giant rock, which sprang across the way 
 Threateningly. There I drank, and felt new life 
 In all my wearied limbs. Around the face 
 Of that huge rock I crept half-trembling— slow — 
 Clinging with feet and hands in dizzy fear. 
 Then, climbing on and leaping chamois-like 
 From block to block, and labouring upward still, 
 At length I stood upon the glacier's brink 
 And saw its frozen cataracts coil'd about 
 The broad base of the peak, whose lonely snows 
 Were lost in muffling cloud. I stood and view'd 
 The silent surging of yon flood of ice, 
 Which heav'd into ten thousand ridgy crests 
 And pinnacles grotesque — phantasmal shapes, 
 White formless forms, like Styx-bound multitudes 
 Of ghosts, down-thronging, eager through despair, 
 Rank after rank — the foremost urged along 
 Inexorably by the resistless weight 
 Of the still-crowding myriads. All between 
 The lucid rifts gleam'd with ethereal hues 
 Of purest azure. Silence awfully 
 Possess'd the clarid spaces of the air 
 Like a living spirit — unarous'd from sleep
 
 172 The Mystic. 
 
 By the chill tinkling of the glacier-streams, 
 
 Or crack of ice, or moan of avalanche. 
 
 On the far shore an ancient lava-flood 
 
 Came sternly down to where the keen bright waves 
 
 Of the ice-river had cut their pauseless way 
 
 Through it and over it ; till both huge tides, 
 
 Turning, flow'd down together to the vale, 
 
 Ice over lava. The swart lava-flood 
 
 Led up to the recesses of the peak, 
 
 Like a broad causeway : and on either hand 
 
 Was pour'd a loose shingle of stony waste — 
 
 Pumice and scorise, pil'd in pyramids 
 
 Against the bases of black barren cliff. 
 
 There on the brink I stood, and shudder'd, faint, 
 
 Dwarf d into nothingness. I seem'd to look 
 
 Into the eyes of death. Was it despair, 
 
 Rapture of daring, madness, that prevailed 
 
 To urge me on ? For almost ere I knew 
 
 That will had grown to action, I was there, 
 
 Upon the glacier, battling with the ice, 
 
 Struggling from certain death to certain death, 
 
 From ridge to ridge ; crevass upon crevass, 
 
 Yawning to gulf me, pass'd I knew not how, 
 
 Until I paused high on the farther shore, 
 
 Escap'd from all the the perils of the way. 
 
 Then, mounting on the mighty lava-blocks, 
 
 The first grim steps of that tremendous stair
 
 A Vision of Death. 1 73 
 
 Which led I knew not whither, I stood still 
 
 And turn'd to gaze. There lay the mountain side 
 
 O'ergloom'd with pines ; far off the verdurous glades 
 
 And breadths of sloping woodland ; further yet 
 
 My wilderness of flowers ; beyond, the clouds 
 
 Still brooding o'er the ocean. And behold ! 
 
 The wide delight of mountain, glade, and plain 
 
 Slept in the sunset. Sweeter than a dream, 
 
 All rested silent in the sacred light ! 
 
 Then, as the sun slow sank into the sea, 
 
 His golden face began to glow blood-red, 
 
 And the low clouds flush'd luridly. The gloom 
 
 Of gathering rain had roll'd upon the west 
 
 From mountain glens far inland. Fold on fold 
 
 Of sluggish nimbus sullenly seem'd to grow 
 
 Great-womb'd with blood and pregnant with despair 
 
 Like battle-smoke, lit by the flames of war 
 
 By night upon a field of slaughter. Soon 
 
 The conflagration paled as suddenly, 
 
 And ashen hues of death dwelt in the cloud, 
 
 And would not pass away. But through the rifts 
 
 And at the ragged skirts of rain, I saw 
 
 Glimpses of tenderest azure, vistas dim 
 
 Of spiritual ether, and far away 
 
 The spaces of the unstained hyaline. 
 
 Sighing, I turn'd again. The lava-flood 
 Grim in its terrible reality,
 
 1 74 The Mystic. 
 
 Led up to the recesses of the mount, 
 Like a portentous flight of giant stairs, 
 Such as might give meet adit to the porch 
 Of some hypsethral temple — rear'd by hands 
 Of a Titanic race, ere wind of change 
 Had breath'd on the Saturnian dynasty. 
 Night fell ; yet calm and passionless I stood, 
 With freezing limbs ; my numb and palsied soul 
 Losing all certitude of self. / was not, 
 Only the vision was. Unterrified, 
 Listless of joy or grief, I stood. At last, 
 Rousing myself, I cried aloud ; and straight 
 Scar'd at the human sound, over my head 
 Seven ravens started from a scaur, and flew 
 Screaming away. At that ill-boding scream 
 The livid lightnings blaz'd from out the peak-- 
 Pale arrowy tongues of blue and sulphurous fire 
 Hissing from rock to rock. And awfully 
 The instantaneous thunder crash'd around, 
 Stunning the gloom with spasm and quake of air 
 At every detonation, and peal'd on 
 Reverberant through the mountain — seven times 
 Re-echoed and re-bellow'd — ere it died 
 In solemn and sonorous cadences. 
 And in the vivid-quivering flash, methought 
 I read the hieroglyph of some strange tongue, 
 Egyptian or Chaldce ; and in the roll
 
 A Vision of Death. 175 
 
 And metrical pause of the fierce thunder, heard 
 The dreadful scansion of some mighty line 
 Of unintelligible power. 
 
 The veil 
 Was rent before me, and on either hand, 
 And overhead, the massive clouds were pil'd, 
 Arching above the ascending lava-stair 
 Wondrously. 
 
 Then I saw no more the shape 
 Of anything distinctly, nor could feel 
 Motion of limb ; nor know I if my soul 
 Were parted from the body, and borne on 
 Rushingly through the cloudy corridor. 
 For even as in a dream we feel ourselves 
 Wafted about in infinite ether, so 
 Mov'd without motion I was wafted on, 
 With a dim sense of mysteries seen and heard — 
 Gleaming of phantom fires that glar'd at me 
 With horrible features pale ; and spectral limbs 
 Red with great gouts of blood ; and ghastly eyes ; 
 Voices, and shrieks, and thunderings of the mount. 
 Methought one cried : ' Beware the second death ! ' 
 And one : ' The Anguish ! Let him enter in ! 
 The kingdoms of the Anguish ! ' And a third : 
 ' Igdrasil shall be blasted to the root ! 
 Woe to the nations ! Woe ! ' 
 
 But suddenly all
 
 1 76 The Mystic. 
 
 Was as a thing long past. I saw the moon 
 
 Full in the sky, above the jagged rim 
 
 Of circling cliffs that wall'd with adamant 
 
 A vast and desolate crater, paven all 
 
 With tumbled crags, high pil'd, or toss'd about, 
 
 Like dismal billows on a frozen sea, 
 
 Or strewn in waste confusion. Fire, and frost, 
 
 And water, each had had its will of them. 
 
 And in the unsunn'd crannies lay the snow 
 
 Cold to the moon. Barren, and grim, and bleak, 
 
 That desert lay, unblest by touch of life. 
 
 Then, while my soul stood still, the central plain 
 
 Was toward me shifted slow. A charnel steam 
 
 Rose from the face of an unhallow'd mere, 
 
 Whose restless waves boil'd up with horrible gurge 
 
 And moan'd upon the shore. The stones around 
 
 Were stained with gory scurf. Anon there loom'd . 
 
 Into my field of view the mighty mass 
 
 Of a tremendous castle, bas'd upon 
 
 The mere's marge. Nightmare-like it rose, and 
 
 grew 
 Huger in its inevitable approach ; 
 And as it came, damp horror worse than death 
 Fell on me, powerless even to move or shriek. 
 Slowly it drew nigh, and those abhorred doors 
 Gap'd for me like damnation. Over me 
 It swoop'd at last, extinguishing the stars ;
 
 A Vision of Death. 177 
 
 And I was ware how at the portal sat, 
 Muffled in gloomy garments of the night, 
 Abominable forms, unnamable 
 In any mortal tongue. 
 
 A sudden glare 
 Blinded me, and a sudden hateful din 
 Deafen'd my ears. The splendour of a dome 
 Shone overhead an inner temple court, 
 To whose vast brilliance and luxurious pomp 
 Of dreams unclean, a hundred brazen doors 
 Gave access. And a countless multitude 
 Of peoples, kindreds, tongues, and languages, 
 Throng'd in thereby unceasingly, and plung'd 
 Into the maelstrom of a devilish dance, 
 Surging around in ever-narrowing waves 
 Of filthier frenzy. Rang'd about the walls 
 The calm cold marble faces of the gods 
 Look'd down in scorn. I saw Apollo stand, 
 Beautiful as the dawn, instinct with light 
 And majesty of quenchless power, — the wrath 
 Of his victorious arrows yet unlaunch'd. 
 I saw the august Divinities of Nile, 
 Sphynx-like, from their eternal stillnesses 
 Gaze far beyond the Paphian revelry, 
 Away into the abysmal deeps of time, 
 With awful, earnest eyes — silent. They seem'd 
 
 N
 
 i ~8 The Mystic. 
 
 To wait the apparition of some orb 
 Of glory in the East. 
 
 Beneath the dome, 
 High in the midst, was rear'd an altar-throne 
 Of burnish'd gold, whereto a marble stair, 
 Seven-sided, easily led up. Thereon 
 I saw One sitting, with a jewell'd crown 
 And royal-seeming robe, dy'd as with blood 
 Of slaughter'd thousands, stiff with woven gold, 
 And all ablaze with gems : a monstrous form, 
 Gigantic, bestial, bloated. From his face, 
 Jaundic'd with sloth and coarse with cruelty, 
 The stony eyes dull glar'd in idiot pride 
 And deathful apathy of cold-blooded sin. 
 And on his lap sat, circled round with one 
 Luxurious arm, reclin'd against his breast, 
 The likeness of a woman, meteor-ey'd, 
 To blind with snakish fascination all 
 Who breath'd her baleful influence, — lithe of limb 
 And wanton as a tigress, and more fell. 
 There nestled she against the monster's breast 
 Her head thrown back, and all her lustrous hair 
 Shower'd down upon his shoulder as she lay, 
 Her splendid throat and bosom gleaming fair 
 As poisonous Datura-flowers ; one arm 
 I'lung round his neck, and one, uplifted high, 
 Holding a rubied chalice, whence she pour'd
 
 A Vision of Death. 179 
 
 Upon the surging circles of the crowd 
 The blood of her accursed eucharist — 
 Her wine of fornication. Such a weird 
 And devilish beauty cloth'd her luridly, 
 As tempted once the father of mankind 
 In Lilith, and prevaiPd^till his ill dreams 
 Peopled the world with demons. But between 
 Her Venus breasts, upon the flower-soft skin, 
 I saw a thing : and at the abhorred sight 
 My soul froze in despairful agony — 
 The brand of the unutterable woe ! 
 The Anguish was reveal'd ! 
 
 About the throne 
 Lay couch'd a hideous dragon, on whose crest, 
 Horribly ridg'd, the Anguish based a foot 
 For ease, as on a footstool. 
 
 From the dome 
 Incessant radiance stream'd, and I beheld 
 How all the vault was ceil'd with living snakes 
 Of gold, whose coils writhingly intertwin'd 
 In convolutions intricate, shook fire 
 From the attrition of their scales. Seven heads 
 Darted about the centre hissingly, 
 At venomous contention each with each — 
 A rain of death swift-dropping from their fangs 
 And vibrant tongues. 
 
 The reckless multitude
 
 1 8o The Mystic. 
 
 Still reel'd around in the infernal chain 
 Of that unending can-can, to the sound 
 Of a demoniac orchestra — the shrill 
 Inciting scream of fifes libidinous, 
 And languid rapture-sighs of sensual strings, 
 And maddening clangour of blaspheming brass : 
 While evermore the whirling feet beat time 
 To the loud hell-drum and fierce clashing din 
 Of Bacchanal cymbals, — faster and more fast 
 As wax'd the rhythm more furious. Laughter dread, 
 And sharp accursed cries, and maniac yells 
 Burst forth appallingly — and songs obscene. 
 The air was hot with shame — sick with the reek 
 Of incense mingling with the sweats of hell. 
 Then I beheld how each successive whorl 
 Of frantic dancers, as they rag'd around, 
 Nearing the centre spirally, was fill'd 
 With keener cunning of impurity, 
 And huger ingenuity of lust, 
 And fiercer impetus of lecherous glee, 
 And inspiration of lasciviousness, 
 And epileptic fury, than the last. 
 There I saw eyes of unalloy'd despair, 
 And faces pale with anguish of desire, 
 And panting bosoms and contorted limbs, 
 And writhing arms — they whirl'd perpetually 
 In undistinguishable surf upon
 
 A Vision of Death. 1 8 1 
 
 The billowing vortex. And on all there fell, 
 
 In horrible rain, great drops of poisonous blood, 
 
 The baptism of the Anguish ; and on all 
 
 The fiery venom of the serpents fell. 
 
 And where these fell the leprosy of lust 
 
 Burst forth on scalp and limb ; and bestial hearts 
 
 Were given them, and great wisdom to work out 
 
 Their own damnation. Ring by ring the leaven 
 
 Of hell wrought in them more and more, and chang'd 
 
 Their human frames to likeness of vile things 
 
 More brutal than the brutes, self-gender'd still 
 
 In hideous and unnatural mingling — down 
 
 Through lower forms and lower modes of death, 
 
 In retrograde progression. And at last, 
 
 With cursing and hyena-laughter, all 
 
 Were swallowed in the smoke of sacrifice 
 
 That rose around the throne. 
 
 Sickly I gaz'd 
 In shuddering fascination, half-compell'd 
 By some strong diabolic spell to plunge 
 Into the outmost eddies, loathing much 
 The felt tempation, — well-nigh swept away 
 By the swift whirlwind of the motion. So 
 I agoniz'd, resisting to the death ; 
 My will, at dreadful tension, almost drows'd 
 By the persuasive atmosphere of sin. 
 Then in my agony I strove to call
 
 1 82 The Mystic. 
 
 On God, if haply God were not a name : 
 
 But I was dumb. Yet on the moment came 
 
 A feeble sound of voices in the air, 
 
 Crying, as it seem'd : ' How long, O Lord ? How long ? 
 
 Wilt thou not come and save us ? When will dawn 
 
 The day of our deliverance ? ' Then methought 
 
 I could have wept for very sympathy. 
 
 And lo ! there fell from heaven a blessed cool 
 Of silence on my soul. The hellish din 
 Smote my ears faintly as from far away ; 
 As one caught up from out a city's midst 
 A mile in air, might faintly hear the streets 
 Roar with a tidal murmur, so I heard 
 Sounding far off the surges of that crowd. 
 And in me, or around — I know not where, 
 I know not how — were born new sympathies 
 Outreaching in blind ecstasy of life 
 Toward some dim vast of Love. An inner sense 
 Woke with strange revelations of a world 
 New, yet familiar as a childhood's home 
 Long raz'd from face of earth, but evermore 
 Calm-standing in fresh fields of memory. 
 
 Then through the walls of adamant I saw 
 A dim gleaming of dawn. Silent it spread 
 Through their dissolving bulk as through a cloud, 
 Gradually, awfully, till all was lost 
 In ether of auroral distances ;
 
 A Vision of Death. 183 
 
 And the hot snake-light sickened in the pure 
 
 Of heaven. And holy breathings of the morn — 
 
 Wafture of dewy woods, impulses deep 
 
 From the rejoicing mountains, voices glad 
 
 Of cataracts leaping in their strength, and sighs 
 
 Of happy awaking from child-hearted flowers, 
 
 Came to me. And the sun's disc shone reveal'd 
 
 Over the misty meadows of the dawn, 
 
 A visible Shechinah : — above that crowd 
 
 Which saw not how the i\nguish pal'd for fear, 
 
 Nor all the empyreal mystery of the East 
 
 Far-flooded with the glory of the Lord. 
 
 Then, while in tremulous hope I marvell'd much 
 
 What this might harbinger, a burst of song 
 
 Shook in an instant earth and kindled sky, 
 
 And all the castle shudder'd, as the walls 
 
 Of Jericho at the victorious trump, 
 
 With its vibrating ecstasy. The bliss 
 
 Of inmost harmony wide-echoing rang 
 
 Through dumbest things, and made them orchestral. 
 
 ' Christ is arisen ! ' I heard the antheming 
 
 Of the bright company of the morning stars ; 
 
 I heard the voices of the Seraphim 
 
 Go forth sublime to the utmost ends of heaven, 
 
 Which seem'd to lighten music, and proclaim : 
 
 ' Christ is arisen ! ' I heard the Cherubim 
 
 Cry to each other, golden-voiced, proclaiming :
 
 184 The Mystic. 
 
 ' Christ is arisen ! arisen ! ' and veil'd my eyes 
 In the stupendous hush of deepest awe 
 That follow'd on that cry. 
 
 I look'd, and lo ! 
 I saw One standing, like the Son of Man, 
 Strong as the dreadful firmament, and pure 
 As virginal crystal ; and I saw his face 
 Glorious with infinite brightness, as of fire 
 Quickening the universe. Upon his head 
 The crown of thorns was budded marvellously, 
 For every thorn a flower of joy, snow-white, 
 And vermeil-ting'd, and ey'd with burning gold — 
 Sweeter than roses planted by still streams 
 In the blest fields of Sharon, holier 
 Than marriage lilies of St. Katharine : 
 The fragrance of them fill'd the abhorre'd place 
 With sanctity. Snow-white his vesture shone ; 
 But on his kingly shoulders glow'd the robe 
 Of supreme purple, and in his firm right-hand 
 The sceptral reed was grown an Aaron's rod, 
 And shepherded the nations. Out of him 
 Came majesty and might, and love divine, 
 And blessedness, and rest for evermore. 
 And all the gods bow'd down and worshipp'd him. 
 
 The sunshine of his terrible purity 
 Shone on the infernal revel like a curse, 
 And shrieks of fear and noise of cursing rose
 
 A Vision of Death. 185 
 
 Against him from the multitude, and loud 
 Their orchestra bray'd forth its blasphemies, 
 Eager to drown the choiring of the stars ; 
 And all the brutish drove of human swine 
 Rag'd in their maniac lusts before his face, 
 Gnashing their teeth and crying : ' Let us alone, 
 Thou Christ ! Torment us not ; for what have we 
 To do with thee ? Pass by and vex us not ! ' 
 And clouds of smoke went up to cover them, 
 With stench of incense. 
 
 And I saw no more 
 A human form ; but a dread sea of death 
 Engulf 'd them, capable no more of will, 
 Pleasure or pain : a frozen sea of ice 
 Mingled with lava. 
 
 Horror on me fell. 
 ' Is there no hope, O Lord ! ' I cried ; ' no hope ? ' 
 And Christ look'd up to heaven with tearful eyes 
 Of infinite tenderness ; but stern his voice 
 Rang like the judgment trumpet as he spake : 
 ' Who knows the mystery of iniquity ? 
 God is Love.' 
 
 Lo, I stood beside the Seine 
 By night, and saw Parisian streets, ablaze 
 With splendours of Imperial festival, 
 And throng'd with moving thousands — eager all
 
 1 86 The Mystic. 
 
 To sate their eyes on the spectacular pomp 
 Of gorgeous lights, gay lanterns, wildering spires 
 Of jetted flame, and lamps in labyrinths, 
 Which everywhere among the spectral trees 
 Glar'd on the heated gloom. Sheaf after sheaf 
 The dazzling rockets rush'd against the sky, 
 And shook their vivid jewels to the stars, 
 And pal'd and fell. 
 
 But far away the East 
 Was fill'd with glory. Silently, awfully 
 Titanic forms would half reveal themselves 
 An instant — huge on thrones of luminous cloud, 
 With Autumn lightnings palpitant through all 
 The spaces of the night. The crest of fire 
 That crown'd old Notre Dame wax'd pale thereat, 
 And the bright Pandemonian pomp of gas 
 Tawdry and sick in its intensity. 
 And my whole heart exulted. I beheld 
 How at his times God lets us gaze through Hell 
 Into the deeps of Heaven that lie beyond.
 
 i8 7 
 
 A SONG OF EXPERIENCE. 
 
 I.— VITA NUOVA. 
 
 All a dismal winter's day 
 
 I wandered in a forest grey, 
 
 Whose branches made a sullen sound ; 
 
 Where, weeping as I went, I found 
 
 A lily-bud divinely fair 
 
 Shivering in the frosted air. 
 
 I blessed and kissed the virgin bud, 
 
 And with three drops of my heart's blood, 
 
 I warmed her heart and made her mine : 
 
 And an awful joy did shine 
 
 Through the woodland mazes frore ; 
 
 And where the scoffing wind before 
 
 Blasphemed among the naked boughs, 
 
 A gentle air flattered my brows 
 
 With whispers of some wondrous thing. 
 
 And suddenly meseemed that spring, 
 
 With her host of glad green leaves, 
 
 And fragrance dim of clustering threaves
 
 i S3 The Mystic. 
 
 Of flowers among the pleasant grass, 
 
 Was come. And shadowy wings would pass 
 
 Of clouds over the tree-tops, stirr'd 
 
 With the voice of every bird 
 
 That makes the vernal branches loud. 
 
 I saw them in a gleeful crowd, 
 
 Mad with the rapture of the spring, 
 
 I heard the incessant jargoning 
 
 Forth-pour'd from each love-throbbing throat, 
 
 I felt the bliss of every note 
 
 Half-strangled of its amorous glee ; 
 
 I felt the boundless ecstasy 
 
 Of every warm, fast- fluttering wing. — 
 
 God knows I blest each tender thing, 
 
 Blest them with tears from my full heart, 
 
 Where I was kneeling all apart 
 
 Beside my marvellous lily-bud, 
 
 Bought with three drops of my heart's blood ; 
 
 Divinely sweet, divinely fair, 
 
 Sanctifying all the air 
 
 With her pureness and her love. 
 
 Did I not bless thee, God above, 
 
 Deep-nested in that blissful place ? 
 
 Did I not thank thee for thy grace, 
 
 That thou hadst given me then to know 
 
 Such recompense of passed woe ?
 
 A Song of Experience. 189 
 
 II.— DEATH IN II FE. 
 
 A long delightful summer's day 
 Amid deep forest-dells I lay, 
 Lulled with a far-off sound of flies ; 
 The luminous haze of summer skies 
 Gleamed grey and sultry overhead, 
 Tall pines nodded and whispered 
 Still secrets in a gentle air. 
 Lazily from my pleasant lair 
 I marked their shadowy tops ashine 
 Sway through the dreamy azuhne — 
 Lazily in my pleasant lair 
 I hugged my heart, forgetting care. 
 
 Whose was the fault ? How entered in 
 The dream of sloth — the sleep of sin — 
 The lethargy of self? O Christ ! 
 Could no mere anguish have sufficed ? 
 No less tremendous doom than this 
 Death of the heart to pain or bliss ? 
 What curse fell on me as I woke 
 When the accusing thunder broke, 
 With scourge of lightning and of hail 
 Making the shattered woods to quail ? 
 What curse more than the curse of Cain, 
 When I found my lily slain —
 
 1 90 The Mystic. 
 
 Withered and blasted on her stem, 
 
 Her angel-tended diadem 
 
 Pashed by the dint of pitiless hail ? 
 
 O God, that then my heart should fail ! 
 
 That I should rend my breast in vain ! 
 
 That no sweet blood-drop should remain — 
 
 No wholesome drop in all my heart 
 
 That was not frozen ! 
 
 Where's the art 
 That my blood can uncongeal ? 
 Where is the pain can make me feel ? 
 My tears are frozen at their source, 
 No drop of life renewed can course 
 Through all my numb and pulseless limbs ; 
 The dull cloud of my breathing dims 
 The cruel firmament of ice 
 Moving between me and the skies, 
 Wherein my white reflected face 
 Scowls me from love, shuts me from grace, 
 From which my prayers rebound like hail ; 
 Where'er I gaze nature turns pale, 
 Where'er I move there falls a blight 
 Of frost on all things. Day and night 
 My melancholy footsteps sound — 
 They clank upon the frozen ground ; 
 They echo through the dismal glades, 
 Where, as I move, the charm invades ;
 
 A So Jig of Experience. 1 9 1 
 
 They ice with horror every tree, 
 The stark leaves tinkle shudderingly ; 
 They freeze the joy in every throat, 
 They curdle every gleeful note ; 
 Into the stiff and quaking grass 
 Down drop the birds — slain, as I pass, 
 Pacing this desolate wood. 
 
 How long, 
 O Lord ! how long must I endure 
 This my sole hell? Is there no cure ? 
 No keen Promethean flame of pain 
 That can make me live again ? 
 Sometimes a blessed pang will start 
 Suddenly out from my heart, 
 Sometimes the firmament of ice 
 Between me and the sunny skies, 
 Leaving its horrible repose, 
 Will heave and stir with wondrous throes, 
 Wherein my figure seems to shine 
 
 Transfigured in a light divine 
 
 Of spiritual sunshine. O then, 
 
 Methinks I almost feel again 
 
 The pulse of Spring ! I am not mad— 
 
 I ask no longer to be glad ; 
 
 I crave to feel but human woe 
 
 Setting my blood and tears aflow, — 
 
 But blessed anguish of remorse,
 
 192 The Mystic. 
 
 That I may be no more a corse 
 
 Walking the world. Grant Lord but this ! 
 
 Let memories of lapse'd bliss 
 
 With quickening sorrow thrill me through, 
 
 With flame of pain my soul endue 
 
 As with a garment ; fuse my frost 
 
 With tingling shame for senses lost, 
 
 That stings like purgatorial fire : 
 
 This is the end of my desire. 
 
 Pass on your way, ye living men ! 
 I wait some dawn of change. Till then 
 Pity me in your silent thought, 
 But with your comfort vex me not.
 
 193 
 
 LOST. 
 
 I wandered from my mother's side 
 In the fragrant paths of morn ; 
 Naked, weary, and forlorn, 
 
 I fainted in the hot noon-tide. 
 
 For I had met a maiden wild, 
 
 Singing of love and love's delight ; 
 
 And with her song she me beguiled, 
 x\nd her soft arms and bosom white. 
 
 I followed fast, I followed far, 
 
 And ever her song flowed blithe and free ; 
 ' Where Love's own flowery meadows are, 
 There shall our golden dwelling be ! ' 
 
 I followed far, I followed fast, 
 
 And oft she paused, and cried, ' O here ! ' 
 But where I came no flower would last, 
 
 And Joy lay cold upon his bier. 
 
 I wandered on, I wandered wide, 
 Alas ! she fleeted with the morn ; 
 Weary, weeping, and forlorn, 
 
 She left me in the fierce noontide, 
 o
 
 194 
 
 FOUND. 
 
 Naked, bleeding, and forlorn, 
 
 I wandered on the mountain side ; 
 
 To hide my wounds from shame and scorn, 
 I made a garment of my pride. 
 
 Till there came a tyrant grey, 
 
 He stript and chained me with disgrace, 
 He led me by the public way, 
 
 And sold me in the market-place. 
 
 To many masters was I bound, 
 And many a grievous load I bore ; 
 
 But in the toil my flesh grew sound, 
 And from my limbs the chains I tore. 
 
 I ran to seek my mother's cot, 
 And I found Love singing there, 
 
 And round it many a pleasant plot, 
 
 And shadowy streams and gardens fair. 
 
 Like virgin gold the thatch I see, 
 Like virgin gold the doorway sweet ; 
 
 And in the blissful noon each tree 
 A ladder for the angel's feet.
 
 195 
 
 A SONG OF REMORSE. 
 
 I had a friend oi my own, 
 The truest that e'er was known ; 
 But the spiders of secrecy 
 With jealousy wove the sky, 
 And poisoned the wings of trust 
 With a bloodless thrust. 
 
 The freezing of love untold 
 Made love in our bosoms cold, 
 And the cuckoo-wings of pride 
 Pushed its bashful brood aside. 
 
 The angels of pain and care 
 Made in his heart their lair, 
 And the demon of despair 
 Was my comrade everywhere. 
 
 Now the angels of remorse 
 Whip me away from his corse, 
 And one kiss I dare not crave 
 From the jealous grave.
 
 iq6 
 
 THE BOTTOMLESS PIT. 
 
 I floundered in a pit of sin, 
 Full of weakness, full of care, 
 
 And on the brink one sang, to win 
 My footsteps to his heavenly air. 
 
 I turned in wrath against his song, 
 And made a tempest of my rage, 
 
 And blew tempestuous notes along 
 The echoing iron of my cage. 
 
 He bade me find a golden door, 
 Opened by a golden key : 
 
 Iron roof, and walls, and floor, 
 Were all that ever I could see. 
 
 I turned in wrath against his song, 
 And made a tempest of my rage, 
 
 And rushed in burning zeal along 
 To the black bottom of my cage.
 
 The Bottomless Pit. 197 
 
 But bottomless it was, in sooth, 
 
 And through the world it did extend ; 
 
 Folded in my wings of truth, 
 I crept out at the further end. 
 
 And there again the sun I found, 
 And there I found a garden bright ; 
 
 And while he deems me blindly bound 
 I weave the flowers of his delight.
 
 198 
 
 A SONG OF SUSTAINMENT. 
 
 1. 
 
 When the riddle of thy life darkest seems ; 
 
 When no beams 
 Pierce thy soul, of heavenly light, 
 And thou dreamest in the night 
 
 Evil dreams : 
 Truly love the True, and truth shalt thou find ; 
 
 Thy vext mind 
 Shall attain a golden shore 
 Which thou sawest not before, 
 
 Being blind. 
 
 II. 
 
 When the darkness as of Egypt round thee clings; 
 
 When the wings 
 Of vampyrcs foul flap near, 
 And fiend-voices in thine ear 
 
 Whisper things 
 Obscene and horror-fraught, to drag thee down ; 
 
 When God's frown
 
 A Song of Sustaimncnt. 199 
 
 Seems in anger o'er thee bent, 
 Heaven shut, and Christ content 
 
 Thou shouldst drown : 
 Doubt all else, if in thine anguish doubt thou must, 
 
 Only trust 
 That, though thou be tempest-tost, 
 Rudder gone and compass lost, 
 
 God is just. 
 
 ill. 
 
 Faint and weary, wait on God patiently : 
 
 It may be 
 He would have thee stand and wait, 
 Till He ope for thee a gate 
 
 Meet for thee. 
 Being strong, strive ever upward like a fire ; 
 
 Still aspire 
 Toward the Perfect and the Pure — 
 God appoints thy life, be sure, 
 
 Never tire. 
 Trust that all things well-ordered from above 
 
 Rightly move. 
 God is just — hold fast that creed, 
 It will serve thee in thy need, 
 Till thou come to know indeed 
 
 God is love.
 
 !00 
 
 THERE SHALL COME FALSE 
 CHRISTS. 
 
 I dreamed of a phantom Christ 
 That fleeted athwart the sky, 
 
 Fleeted and flicker'd across, and enticed 
 
 After it, smiling, a smiling throng, 
 
 Whose hymns were loud as they hurried along, 
 
 Crowned with flowers and proudly elate, 
 Jauntily blowing the trump of fate 
 In the ears of the sorrow-stricken, 
 Leaving the fainting world to sicken 
 In the smoke of hell, and to die. 
 
 I dreamed of a spectre Christ 
 That wandered o'er all the earth ; 
 
 On its altars were sacrificed 
 
 Sacred pledges and solemn vows ; 
 
 Sin built temples, with shameless brows, 
 
 Virtue-whitewashed renewed her youth, 
 Lying her lies in the cause of truth,
 
 There shall come False Christs. 201 
 
 Handing tracts to the sinners around — 
 All that grace might the more abound. 
 She had experienced a true new-birth. 
 
 I dreamed of a demon Christ 
 That glared upon land and sea, 
 
 Throned like Juggernaut, coldly iced 
 
 In the frozen armour of creed ; 
 
 Nerves must quiver and hearts must bleed 
 
 For its worship where'er it came, — 
 
 Fair limbs writhe in the scorching flame, 
 Torments, famine, and plague, and wars, 
 Made men mad under sun and stars, 
 To prove its dreadful divinity. 
 
 I dreamed of a suffering Christ, 
 
 A sorrowful Son of Man, 
 Clad like a beggar — a stone sufficed 
 For his pillow, his home the street, 
 Rest was none for his lonely feet, 
 Faint he was, and none brought him wine : 
 
 But who gazed in those eyes divine 
 
 Straight grew wise in life-mysteries, 
 
 Wise in all human sympathies, 
 Read in the world its inner plan. 
 
 I dreamed of an awful Christ, 
 The terrible Son of God :
 
 202 The Mystic. 
 
 Him, the blood of whose eucharist 
 Works, like leaven, in wine and bread, 
 Life in the living, death in the dead. 
 Where the gleam of his sun-crown fell, 
 
 Earth, self-judged, became heaven or hell : 
 Plunged in God, like a lake of fire, 
 Each drank deep of his heart's desire, 
 Love or hate — waxed or waned in God. 
 
 When things that be are as things that seem, 
 Then all the world will have dreamed this dream.
 
 203 
 
 PARADISE LOST. 
 
 In the woodlands wild 
 I was once a child, 
 Singing, free fiom care, 
 Wandering everywhere. 
 
 Angels went and came, 
 Like spires of blissful flame ; 
 All among the flowers, 
 Fed with virgin showers, 
 Angels went and came, 
 Called me by my name. 
 
 But a serpent crept 
 On me as I slept, 
 Stung me on the eyes ; 
 Woke with sick surprise. 
 
 And a demon came 
 With a face of shame, 
 Spoke my sudden doom, 
 Naked in the gloom.
 
 204 The Mystic. 
 
 Then a dreadful sound 
 
 Pealed through heaven's profound ; 
 
 All my lonesome places 
 
 Were filled with dreadful faces 
 
 Everywhere a face 
 
 Full of my disgrace,
 
 20 : 
 
 PARADISE FOUND. 
 
 Naked, in despair, 
 Ashes on my hair, 
 Menace everywhere, 
 I fled from pallid Care. 
 
 Weak as lamb new-yean'd, 
 Followed by the fiend, 
 With his whip of wires 
 Red with my desires. 
 
 Soon a sage drew near, 
 Clad my stripes in fear, 
 Bade me weep and wait, 
 At a temple gate. 
 
 Rut a maiden came 
 With tender hands of flame, 
 And by secret ways 
 She led me many days.
 
 206 The Mystic. 
 
 In the woodlands wild, 
 Now no more a child, 
 Among seraphs bright 
 I clothe my limbs in light. 
 
 Where the children sleep, 
 Like a snake I creep ; 
 Kiss them on the face 
 For their greater grace.
 
 207 
 
 A SONG OF SECRETS. 
 
 ' Who doth ambition shun, 
 And loves to lie i' the sun, 
 Come hither, come hither, come hither ! ' 
 
 I. 
 
 There is a land of woods and streams 
 I know alway in my dreams, 
 Full of sunshine and sweet air, 
 And wafted fragrance everywhere — 
 A land of birds, a land of bees, 
 A land of oaks and almond-trees, 
 Where nibbling lambs and children stray 
 All the livelong summer's day 
 Through flowery meadows of delight. 
 A land far seen in coolest light, 
 With its slumbrous woods and streams 
 Widening round the Mere of Dreams ; 
 Of deep rest and happy shades, 
 Daisied lawns and solemn glades, 
 And twilight haunts for lovers' meet,
 
 208 The Mystic. 
 
 Where the mystic meadow-sweet, 
 
 While Hesper cold sheds influence holy. 
 
 Breathes luxurious melancholy. 
 
 A land of infinite repose, 
 
 Girdled about with wizard snows 
 
 And fastnesses of ancient ice, 
 
 Where the enchanted mountains rise, 
 
 And far, sunlit glaciers shine 
 
 Through visionary glooms of pine. 
 
 There spirits of thunder make their home, 
 
 And cloud-wraiths brooding go and come. 
 
 And blithe winds renew their wings 
 
 To bring health to all fair things — 
 
 And mighty voices oft are heard 
 
 Uttering some mysterious word 
 
 Of potent tempting. Then, too fond ! 
 
 Passion of the land beyond 
 
 With strange awe confounds my wits, 
 
 Shaking my soul with ague-fits — 
 
 Agonies — energies divine, 
 
 That chill like ice and warm like wine. 
 
 All the gladness of that land 
 
 Such wild spell cannot withstand ; 
 
 I must leave its lawns behind 
 
 To wrestle with the eager wind, 
 
 Grip the rocks in stern embrace, 
 
 And inert the lightning face to face.
 
 A Song of Secrets. 209 
 
 O bitter doom ! O trance of pain ! 
 My gentle love, wandering in vain, 
 Forsaken, by the Mere of Dreams, 
 Through the land of woods and streams 
 Seeks me with solitary feet 
 Then no more we twain may meet 
 In angel-guarded solitudes 
 Where no thing accurst intrudes, 
 But the seraphim aspire 
 Bearing their censers of sweet fire, 
 And the seraphim descend 
 In showers of blessing — each a friend, 
 Closer and secreter to keep 
 Holiest secrets than the deep 
 Nuptial darkness of the night 
 That hid her love from Psyche's sight. 
 O bitter doom ! O trance of pain ! 
 O love of lovers, loved in vain ! 
 Beneath a blissful almond tree 
 My sad love sits and wails for me. 
 
 11. 
 Under the pleasant fields of sleep 
 There deepens down a sunless deep, 
 Under the placid Mere of Dreams, 
 Which floats with all its woods and streams 
 Above tne abysses, where I know 
 p
 
 2 1 o The Mystic. 
 
 Every cavern of deep woe, 
 
 Each unfathomed pit of fear 
 
 That those dismal bounds insphere. 
 
 Many and many a time my soul 
 Has felt the clutch of him who stole 
 Sad Demeter's Zeus-born child, 
 Ravished to hell even while she smiled 
 Girlishly among her flowers ; 
 Many a time his hideous powers 
 On a sudden have made quake 
 The glad waters of that lake — 
 Slain my birds and slain my bees, 
 Blasted my tender almond-trees 
 In youngest blooming, and low-laid 
 My oak's centuries of shade. 
 Many and many a time have I — 
 When my heart beat tranquilly, 
 In some green secluded dell 
 With my sweet love nested well ; 
 Or leapt in a more lone delight, 
 Straining up some Alpine height — 
 Heard those demon steeds, hell-black, 
 Ramp up, snorting, at my back, 
 Felt the unhallowed might of Dis 
 Ravish me at a touch from bliss, 
 As darkness gulft me ! 
 
 What strange doom
 
 A Song of Secrets. 2 1 1 
 
 Waits me in that fiery gloom ? 
 How may I reveal the terror 
 Of the cavern's mazy error 
 Where I sink with gloomy Dis ? 
 
 In my ears I hear the hiss 
 Of the snake-fiends, as they fold 
 My heart in Gorgon coilings cold. 
 Shudderingly I name each name, 
 Known too well : Despair and Shame, 
 Whispering madness at each ear, 
 Horror, and Jealousy, and Fear, 
 Remorse, and Envy, and Desire, 
 With clammy eyes of chilling fire, 
 Of the hell-brood nine there be, 
 And the last is Apathy. 
 
 Oft when in their ghastly chain, 
 Tired with struggling, I have lain, 
 Long-captive in the tangling toils, 
 Wound about with loathsome coils, 
 A dread voice, of melody 
 Keen as pain, hath cried to me : 
 ' Look on me, thou son of man ! ' 
 And lo ! through the twilight wan 
 Of drear hell, mine eyes have seen 
 The still face of hell's pale Queen : 
 She, even she — Persephone — 
 With her glance hath set me free !
 
 2 1 2 The Mystic. 
 
 Tremblingly before her throne 
 
 I have stood, and I have known 
 
 All the sadness of those eyes, 
 
 Sad with love's last mysteries. 
 
 In her caverns of deep woe 
 
 Where no tears of passion flow, 
 
 I have seen the germs of things, 
 
 Bathed me in the secret springs 
 
 That feed the tranquil Mere of Dreams ; 
 
 I have watched the mystic streams 
 
 Of motherhood, like blood that run, 
 
 Warm with kisses of the sun. 
 
 All my oaks and almond-trees 
 
 Bathe their hidden roots in these ; 
 
 Through every tender blade of grass 
 
 And every tiniest flow'ret pass 
 
 Their influent drops, like wine of blood, 
 
 Moulding featly every bud 
 
 And every leaf on every tree ; 
 
 The fairy dews, refreshfully 
 
 Shed by night on every lawn, 
 
 From their cisterns deep are drawn. 
 
 This, the cavern of despair, 
 
 The dark grave of all things fair, 
 
 Joy's decay and beauty's tomb, 
 
 Is but Nature's teeming womb, 
 
 Where she fashions new things fair
 
 A Song of Secrets. 2 1 3 
 
 In their season meet ; for there 
 
 The wind of change blows without end, 
 
 Into the abyss the hours descend — 
 
 Virgin shadows, casting down 
 
 Every one her fragrant crown : 
 
 The wind of change blows without end, 
 
 Out of the abyss the hours ascend, 
 
 Each one freighted matronly 
 
 With fruitage — to the minstrelsy 
 
 Of planetary spirits of love 
 
 In the crystal heaven above. 
 
 Lo ! the secrets of my dream 
 Of that land of vale and stream, 
 And of that unfathomed den, 
 Dreadful to the sons of men. 
 How many happy days and nights 
 I dwell among those dear delights, 
 Ten times as many must I dwell 
 With pale Persephone in hell, 
 While beneath her almond-tree 
 My sad love sits and wails for me, 
 Sick, till Orpheus-like I bring 
 From the under world the Spring.
 
 / V.—SO N N E TS.
 
 2 1 7 
 
 TO MENDELSSOHN. 
 
 [On hearing one of his Concertos. ] 
 
 O for a spell-built palace, by the craft 
 
 Of Afreets reared, with sumptuous chambers high, 
 
 Upheld on many a quaintly-carven shaft, 
 
 And arabesqued with cunningest tracery ; 
 
 Where tempered sunshine should fall dreamily, 
 
 Charming a crystal fountain to repose, 
 
 And the celestial fragrance of the rose 
 
 Should wafted come from shadowy courts hard by. 
 
 There let thy music wake with fervid flow 
 
 Of rhythmic undulations — like the sweep 
 
 Of wind through midnight tree-tops, — murmuring 
 
 low, 
 In tenderest melancholy, or trances deep 
 Of utterless joy ; sweet songs of long ago, 
 Sealing the eyes in happy-visioned sleep.
 
 2l8 
 
 THE FIRST SPRING DAY. 
 
 But one short week ago the trees were bare, 
 And winds were keen, and violets pinched with frost ; 
 Winter was with us ; but the larches tost 
 Lightly their crimson buds, and here and there 
 Rooks cawed. To-day the Spring is in the air 
 And in the blood : sweet sun-gleams come and go 
 Upon the hills, in lanes the wild-flowers blow, 
 And tender leaves are bursting everywhere. 
 About the hedge the small birds peer and dart, 
 Each bush is full of amorous flutterings 
 And little rapturous cries. The thrush apart 
 Sits throned, and loud his ripe contralto rings. 
 Music is on the wind, and in my heart 
 Infinite love for all created things.
 
 19 
 
 BEETHOVEN. 
 
 Music as of the winds when they awake, 
 
 Wailing, in the mid forest ; music that raves 
 
 Like moonless tides about forlorn sea-caves 
 
 On desolate shores, where swell weird songs, and break 
 
 In peals of demon laughter ; chords athirst 
 
 With restless anguish of divine desires — 
 
 The voice of a vexed soul ere it aspires 
 
 With a great cry for light ; anon a burst 
 
 Of passionate joy — fierce joy of conscious might, 
 
 Down-sinking in voluptuous luxury ; 
 
 Rich harmonies full-pulsed with deep delight, 
 
 And melodies dying deliciously 
 
 As odorous sighs breathed through the quiet night 
 
 By violets. Thus Beethoven speaks for me.
 
 220 
 
 ROSAMUND'S BOWER. 
 
 Deep in my soul there is a region sweet, 
 
 Untraversed of life's dusty carriage-wheels, 
 
 Wherein my heart hath her divinest seat 
 
 In tranced quiet. There Time's shadow steals 
 
 No sunshine from the summer ; but great trees 
 
 Bask in fair lawns and brood o'er haunted streams 
 
 With restful shade, and music of happy dreams 
 
 Is blown about the fragrant pleasaunces 
 
 Where all pure thoughts find pasture. Never blight 
 
 Falls from the azure heaven, whose dewy spell 
 
 Keeps fresh the meadow-glades. There among 
 
 flowers, 
 Safe-nested in my inmost of delight, 
 Hid from the world, as queen my Love doth dwell, 
 Tended by blissful hands of virgin hours.
 
 221 
 
 A JUNE DAY. 
 
 The very spirit of summer breathes to-day, 
 
 Here where I sun me in a dreamy mood, 
 
 And laps the sultry leas, and seems to brood 
 
 Tenderly o'er those hazed hills far away. 
 
 The murmurous air, fragrant of new-mown hay, 
 
 Drowses ; save when martins at gleeful feud, 
 
 Gleam past in undulant flight. Yon hillside wood 
 
 Is drowned in sunshine, till its green looks grey. 
 
 No scrap of cloud is in the still blue sky, 
 
 Vaporous with heat, from which the fore-ground trees 
 
 Stand out, each leaf cut sharp. A whetted scythe 
 
 Makes rustic music for me as I lie, 
 
 Glad in the mirth of distant children blithe, 
 
 Drinking the season's sweetness to the lees.
 
 TO ROSSINI. 
 
 The ghostly wind of Weber's northern pines, 
 
 With its luxurious dread, ne'er haunted thee ; 
 
 Maddening the heart like bright Circean wines, 
 
 Thy siren songs float o'er the sunlit sea; 
 
 Thy Faun-like childhood caught a Pagan glee 
 
 From mellow clusters, bending trellised vines 
 
 In some warm Tuscan vale, where sunset shines 
 
 On vintage dance and jocund minstrelsy. 
 
 If life were but a Bacchanal procession 
 
 Of sensuous joys, thou wert its great high-priest, 
 
 Old Pan of music, who, half-god, half-beast, 
 
 On the shy nymph of tears mak'st bold aggression 
 
 Yet in thy bowers we sit at endless feast, 
 
 And of thy gorgeous realm take rich possession.
 
 22 ^ 
 
 AT LLANBERIS. 
 
 Sunshine and mist strive for the mastery 
 In yon wild gorge, this fresh delicious morn : 
 Bright gleams, that die as fast as they are born, 
 Light up the scarred grey crags, bare of a tree ; 
 Then mists roll down, pile themselves sullenly, 
 Melt into air, — and all at once there breaks 
 Out of the gloom a vision of sunlit peaks 
 And mountain-glimpses wonderful to see. 
 Change after change ! till swoop the clouds upon 
 This legendary tower, and quick drops warn 
 To shelter from the beauty-blotting rain. 
 Anon 'tis past : the crags shine out each one, 
 Sunshine, and driving mist, and mountain-chain, 
 Harmonized by the black sleep of the tarn.
 
 224 
 
 IN THE LOUVRE. 
 
 A dingy picture : others passed it by 
 Without a second glance. To me it seemed 
 Mine somehow, yet I knew not how, nor why : 
 It hid some mystic thing I once had dreamed, 
 As I suppose. A palace-porch there stood, 
 With massy pillars and long front, where gleamed 
 Most precious sculptures; but all scarred and seamed 
 By ruining Time. There, in a sullen mood, 
 A man was pacing o'er the desolate floor 
 Of weedy marble ; and the bitter waves 
 Of the encroaching sea crawled to his feet, 
 Gushing round tumbled blocks. I conned it o'er. 
 'Age -mouldering creeds ! ' said I. 'A dread sea ra\ es 
 To whelm the temples of our fond conceit.'
 
 IN THE HASLI-THAL. 
 
 Wearied in spirit, jaded and opprest 
 
 With splendour of too huge sublimity, 
 
 By a clear streamlet I was fain to lie, 
 
 Under the shadowy spruces ; lulled to rest 
 
 By the leaves' murmurous melodies, and possest 
 
 With still, reflected glimpses of grey sky. 
 
 Upon my soul there fell refreshfully 
 
 A dew of the woods, till, with a childish zest, 
 
 I filled my hands with loveliest Alpine flowers, 
 
 And flung them to the stream. Then forth I went, 
 
 And met the crowned mountains face to face — 
 
 Strong to aspire with their exultant powers, 
 
 Able to worship in that holy place 
 
 In rapture of an infinite content.
 
 226 
 
 PSYCHE PAIDOTROPHE. 
 
 The poet's soul is as a maid that pines 
 For a long dreamed-of God ; till on a day 
 His kiss thrills all her frame, and she resigns 
 Her ravished self, meek in love's tenderest May ; 
 And keeps her blissful secret afterward — 
 Knows her old life but death — panting for wings 
 To flee the sick jarring of untuned strings 
 In her lorn lute, as aye with restful sward 
 Some visioned Delos mocks her. Sweet to feel 
 The life divine astir, to feed her blood 
 With health, to muse upon her motherhood, 
 And walk in trembling, till the Gods reveal 
 Her bower of refuge. Then lone throes of birth, 
 And a new Python-slayer breathes on earth.
 
 227 
 
 A DAIGNTIE-CONSEATED SONNET. 
 
 [To his Friend, Master E. D., upon occasion of his en- 
 riching him with some honey'd posies of his most sweetlie-flow'ring 
 Phansie, sendeth his lovg. Friend and indebted Servt.] 
 
 Like as an oyster, when some secret wound, 
 
 Smarting, his tender jellies doth amate, 
 
 All pretiousnesse, the close-shut grief around, 
 
 From forth the wealthful ooze will segregate : 
 
 So thou, fair casket of conceale'd grace, 
 
 Strivest thy pearls, like blusht-for tears, to hide, 
 
 And dark-engulft from bright Apollo's face 
 
 Dost in thy shell too proudlie close abide. 
 
 But I, a diver in the unruffled deep, 
 
 Where thy shut shell doth covetise invite, 
 
 Ponder what glorious harvest I shall reap, 
 
 Bringing thy hidden threasures to the light. 
 
 Dost fear my hands' rude grasp, sweet oister? Well, 
 
 Give me thy pearls, He let thee keep thy shell.
 
 228 
 
 NESSUN MAGGIOR' DOLORE 
 
 No greater grief! Is it then always grief 
 Remembering happier times in times of sorrow ? 
 Does one day of delight ne'er bring relief 
 To the sick soul on a despairful morrow ? 
 Past joys are a possession. Oft we borrow 
 Strength for our present pain from out the brief 
 "Bright moments garnered long in memory's sheaf — 
 August's rich grains make glad December's furrow. 
 Have once mine eyes beheld in vision blest 
 Beauty's dread form, or Love's death-conquering face, 
 My heart leaped up transfigured, as she sung, 
 Who raised to life my life, whose gentle breast 
 From the world's rush was my one resting-place, — 
 Blind, deaf, and old — I see, hear, still am young.
 
 229 
 
 LOVE'S FLIGHT. 
 
 Not doves but eagles be our birds of love ! 
 Shall we not, dearest, bid the world good-night, 
 And soar to meet the sunrise where no dove 
 E'er ventured pinion ? In our perilous flight 
 The austere winds shall welcome us ; the bright 
 Lightnings of dawn weave guardian tents above 
 Our nuptial solitude ; and round us move 
 Auroral clouds, glad heralds of the light. 
 Then, when earth fades, and all its foolish noise 
 Ceases from our forgotten way, perchance 
 Our wings shall fold in rapturous descent 
 At Love's clear call. O then, to homely joys, 
 Stooping our sunbathed plumes, down we shall glance, 
 Perch in his lowliest vale, and be content !
 
 230 
 
 L O V E'S LITURGY. 
 
 The little tender rites that lovers use, 
 
 Daily to calendar their love confest, 
 
 Are Love's own liturgy, which he endues 
 
 With grace to compass his eternal rest. 
 
 This rose, she gave me once, warm from her breast, 
 
 Kissing in smiling pity the sweet bruise 
 
 Of our close first embrace, with its dim hues, 
 
 Bids tender thoughts leap singing from their nest. 
 
 A touch can troth-plight for eternity ; 
 
 A kiss build there a home ; in pure delight 
 
 God spreads the sacramental bread and wine, 
 
 Wherein Love grows incarnate. Curst is he 
 
 Whose swinish thoughts, breeding pollution's blight, 
 
 Trample to filth those elements divine.
 
 231 
 
 MERLIN IN THE TOILS. 
 
 The silver-sounding trumpets of my heart 
 
 Made glad acclaim when thou didst enter there, 
 
 Like an expected Queen. No holiest part 
 
 Of my most hidden life, but thou didst share — 
 
 Nay, it was twice thine own. Thou, as the air 
 
 Unto my blood, wast vital to my art ; 
 
 Till, traitress, thou didst trade in Folly's mart 
 
 To sell me for a gaud, clipping the hair 
 
 Of my ambition's might ! Thou hast thy will : 
 
 My gods abandon me, and thine idols stand 
 
 In my soul's sanctuary, denied and cold. 
 
 Yet what is left me but to love thee still, 
 
 Though thou hast made Love wingless, and my hand 
 
 A bloodless tool, and I in bonds grow old ?
 
 V.—PRIMITIs£.
 
 235 
 
 SCENES FROM THE MASQUE OF 
 
 PSYCHE. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 [A woodland glade. Morning. A group of youths and 
 maidens gathering flowers and twining garlands for a 
 festival. Euphorion as Chor&gus.~\ 
 
 CHORAL HYMN, 
 i. 
 
 Ye bashful nymphs, coy-footed, that in woods 
 
 Do hide your sunny faces, 
 Sleeping long summer days in shady places, 
 
 Or laving your white limbs in secret floods ! 
 Ye Dryads, which do nightly leave your bowers, 
 
 To foster the wild flowers, 
 And swell the myriad buds of pleasant J une 
 
 Beneath the moon : 
 Suffer us that we sully once again, 
 
 With mortal steps profane, 
 Your verdurous wildernesses ; 
 We come to twine once more our festal wreaths,
 
 236 Primiticz. 
 
 Here where dim jasmine breathes, 
 Shaking the dew-drops from her starry tresses. 
 
 11. 
 O dainty-handed Dryads, be not chary 
 
 Of any flowery treasure ; grudge us not 
 Briar-roses pink, or freckled fritillary ; 
 
 Or pale wood-lilies, filling many a plot 
 With innocence and light ; shy violets, 
 
 Peeping about grey roots of aged trees ; 
 Or meshed in leafy nets, 
 The purple glory of great passion-flowers ; 
 
 Ope the intricacies 
 Of tangled clematis and woodbine bowers : 
 
 Deny us no frail branch of eglantine ; 
 No myrtle-rods, odorous with silver blooms ; 
 
 No cassia-buds, nurturing in their white wombs 
 Unravished spice ; no clump of columbine, 
 
 To grace the wreaths we twine ! 
 
 Euphorion. — Cease, gentle friends, your several industry, 
 Hot-handed day drives out the meek-eyed morn, 
 Whose dewy fingers touched the sleeping lawns 
 With freshness, and awoke each herb and flower, 
 In wold or lea, by lake or woodland stream, 
 To tell its dream of fragrance. Now all winds 
 Roused by the dawn, their wanton gambols done,
 
 Scenes from the Masque of Psyche. 237 
 
 Fly forth to bear into the haunts of men 
 
 The greeting of the woods ; blithe-noted birds 
 
 Have sung their earliest anthem, and begin 
 
 Their foraging ; through all their leaves the trees 
 
 Stir with the new life of the coming day. 
 
 Phoebus rides high, and sheds from sunny skies 
 
 Our noon of festival ; the hour draws on 
 
 When, with deft rhythm of foot and cunning of voice, 
 
 We celebrate the beauteous majesty 
 
 Of fairest Psyche — many-altared Psyche — 
 
 That mortal goddess for whose maiden shrine 
 
 These garlands chaste we wreathe. Away, sweet friends, 
 
 And as we hasten on our path, bid stir 
 
 The mirth and melancholy of the strings, 
 
 And let our wedded voices tunefully 
 
 Vie with sky-searching pipe and amorous flute 
 
 In free lark-hearted music. Come, sweet friends ! 
 
 CHORAL HYMN. 
 
 1. 
 
 For her ! For her ! 
 The song, the dance, the pomp, the flower-decked 
 shrine, 
 The Orphic and the Bacchic din, the stir 
 Of wind in sacred shells — our half-divine 
 Psyche — for her, to worship whom the stars 
 Pause in their golden cars !
 
 238 PrimiticB. 
 
 11. 
 Tell us, ye Muses, was there ever any 
 
 Of mortal strain before, 
 So proudly throned above the beauteous many 
 
 Whom Gods and men adore ? 
 Stooping from out the silence where ye dwell, 
 
 Tell us, ye Muses, tell ! 
 
 in. 
 None, none : not she, even she 
 Who glowed her life out in the Thunderer's arms, — 
 
 Great-hearted Semele ; 
 Not she, to drain the ocean of whose charms 
 Three nights he held the sun at dreadful pause ; 
 Not Delian Leto, rescued from the jaws 
 Of the pursuing Python ; nor not any 
 
 Of all that beauteous many 
 Who stirred Apollo to celestial heat ; 
 Nor she whom fear made fleet — 
 That coy Arcadian nymph beloved of Pan, 
 Transfigured as she ran : 
 None is her compeer, none, 
 Rivalling with her, durst face the eye of the sun ! 
 
 [Zi.vw/;//.]
 
 Scenes from the Masque of Psyche. 239 
 
 [An enchanted Palace full of all manner of deliciousness. 
 Psyche asleep. Voices of invisible spirit si\ 
 
 CHORUS OF SPIRITS. 
 
 (Rising and falling- like gnats on the wing.) 
 
 Spirits of air ! 
 
 Spirits of earth ! 
 Spirits of water ! 
 Spirits of fire ! 
 
 Hither, hither, 
 We flock together, 
 Gathering, hovering everywhere. 
 
 Spirits of beauty, of death and birth, 
 Strengthening our adopted daughter 
 For the shock of her heart's desire. 
 Fondly above her 
 We gather and hover ; 
 Sad thoughts that cling to her 
 Fly as we sing to her, 
 Murmuring cooingly, 
 Tenderly, wooingly — 
 Wake from thy dreaming ! 
 Psyche, sweet Psyche, awake to reality, 
 Snatched from the mansions of yearning mortality, 
 
 Shows of false-seeming ! 
 Pysche (awaking) — Wake I, or sleep ? Or have the 
 wings of Death
 
 240 Primitice. 
 
 Ravished me hither ? O, methought but now, 
 
 My mother's tears undried upon my cheek, 
 
 My father's kiss warm on my lips, I stood 
 
 In victim splendour on the dreadful mount, 
 
 Alone with terror ! Yet were Death my bridegroom, 
 
 These roses would have paled at his cold kiss, 
 
 These limbs chilled at his touch. This is the robe, 
 
 These are the very jewels I put on 
 
 To face the worshipping crowd who lackeyed me 
 
 To heaven-ordained abandonment. The pulse 
 
 Of comfortable life throbs in this frame, 
 
 Not unsubstantial like a meagre ghost's, 
 
 But warm with flesh and blood. O Love, Love, Love, 
 
 Why leaps thy name to my tongue? Delight and 
 
 dread 
 Take each a hand, and lift me to my feet. 
 Trembling I breathe Elysian atmosphere, 
 Instinct with mystic odours, and alive 
 With tenderest-whispered sounds. What sings in 
 my ear ? 
 
 ■ 
 
 CHORUS OF INVISIBLE SPIRITS. 
 
 (Preceding Psyche as she moves. ) 
 To the palace of our king 
 
 We welcome sing ; 
 In these realms of light serene, 
 
 Hail Psyche ! Thou art Queen !
 
 Scenes from the Masque of Psyche. 241 
 
 Hungerest thou for mortal bread ? 
 Thou shalt have thy hunger fed 
 With store of fruits of honied juices, 
 Riped for the immortals' uses ; 
 They shall make thy languid flesh 
 Like Hera's fair, like Hebe's fresh. 
 Eat and fear not ; only so 
 Thou shalt see, and thou shalt know ! 
 
 (She plucks and eats of the enchanted fruit. ) 
 Dost thou thirst as mortals thirst ? 
 Lo ! this fountain's vintage nursed 
 Infant Bacchus royally, 
 Skin-couched beneath a sunny sky, 
 Whoso drinketh straightway glows 
 With the rich life of the rose. 
 Drink, and thou shalt feel to-night, 
 As the immortals feel, delight ! 
 
 (She drinks from a fountain.) 
 Wilt thou bathe thy wearied limbs ? 
 See no speck of soilure dims 
 This laver's brink of amethyst. 
 Water not so pure hath kissed 
 The breasts of Dian timorously. 
 Fear not lest aught impure may spy 
 Thy maiden bosom's snowy charms, 
 When soft-dropping from thy arms 
 Falls thy vesture to thy feet, 
 
 R
 
 242 Primitice. 
 
 And revealed thou standest, sweet 
 As a lily-bud new blown, 
 Shrinkingly on the glowing stone. 
 Bathe, and feel through every pore, 
 Love's radiance tingling more and more ! 
 
 (She bathes, and is, after bathing, by invisible hands apparelled 
 in wliite and glistering raiment. Then the heavy ear- 
 tains of a sumptuous pavilion are drawn aside, disclosing 
 the marriage-chamber; the mighty columns of the aisles 
 exhaling a solemn music, sonorous and sweet. ) 
 
 FIRST SEMI-CHORUS OF SPIRITS. 
 
 Now the vast of night grows warm 
 With the purposes of Fate ! 
 
 SECOND SEMI-CHORUS. 
 
 Of the Essence and the Form 
 The marriage shall be consummate ! 
 
 [Psyche enters the marriage-chamber.) 
 
 FULL CHORUS. 
 
 Hush ! dare not to breathe his name, 
 Written first in tongues of flame 
 On the black Chaotic deep, 
 At which Earth's great heart did leap. 
 By the yearning that upsprings,
 
 Scenes from the Masque of Psyche. 243 
 
 By the fear this yearning brings, 
 By the bliss that swallows fear, 
 
 We own his presence ! He is here ! 
 ( The whole place becomes suddenly darkened as Eros enters; a 
 tempest of triumphal music shaking the adamantine walls 
 at his approach. He embraces Psyche, 7vho shrieks with 
 mingled joy and terror at his touch.) 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 [Paphos — the Bower of Aphrodeite ^\ 
 
 Aphrodeite (entering) — Deceived ! betrayed ! O vengeance, 
 vengeance, vengeance ! 
 Who is this mortal whose accursed charms 
 Have robbed my altars of their worshippers, 
 Me of my son's allegiance ? ' Let but Psyche 
 Be true to me, and, by the waves of Styx, 
 She may defy the thunderbolts of Zeus ! ' 
 He takes the style of a primaeval God, 
 So bold he grows ! I tremble at his frown. 
 Speaks he the truth, as partly I conceive 
 That truth it is, this wayward son of mine 
 Is of the mighty race who lorded it 
 Before the birth of Chronos. Be it so ! 
 ' Let her be true ! ' But how if she be false ? —
 
 244 PrimilicE. 
 
 As false she shall be, if my tongue can teach 
 
 Her siren sisters aptly how to sing : 
 
 Already she begins to pine for them, 
 
 To awe them with the splendour of her state. 
 
 They are my votaries — they shall snare me yet 
 
 Her unweaned soul, half-trustful of her lord, 
 
 Unseen of her in those sweet hours of love 
 
 Stolen in the secret midnight. They shall move 
 
 To dark suspicion her still mortal heart, 
 
 Till, fearful of some monster in her bed, 
 
 She seek to gaze upon the naked limbs 
 
 Of Eros as he sleeps, and, prying fool, 
 
 Perish in fact of sacrilege. Away ! 
 
 Swift to my brooded vengeance, ere her womb, 
 
 Quickening with fruit celestial, may atone 
 
 The trespass of her eyes. Thus sealed her fate, 
 
 Eros shines self-revealed — I strike too late ! 
 
 [Exit.] 
 
 [T/ie enchanted Palace of Eros, before the closed curtains of the 
 Pavilion. Midnight. Enter Psyche with a torch. She 
 pauses before the curtain.] 
 
 Psyche. — One moment let me check my venturous hand, 
 Trembling upon the deed, to still this heart 
 Which makes a coward of me. Dost thou beat 
 Thus audibly to warn me of some ill,
 
 Scenes from the Masque of Psyche. 245 
 
 In whose black train the Stygian multitude 
 
 Of vampyre woes throng to lay waste the world ? 
 
 Is this the burden of thy fluttering song ? 
 
 (She draws a dagger.) 
 Let me be firm. Thou deathful instrument, 
 Gift of my sister's counsel — ah ! 
 
 (She lets it fall.) 
 
 My bosom 
 Is not so barren-grown of tenderness 
 As to achieve my sad deliverance 
 From this too sweet enchantment murderously. 
 Can happiness, with evil mated, live 
 In such unhallowed bridal ? Do they know 
 That I am thus most monstrously abused, 
 Clasping some loathed nightmare to my breast 
 In foulest love embraces nightly ? Nay — 
 They mock me in their envy — they have lied ! 
 Yet, O just Gods, how can I face their tongues, 
 And say : Ye lie ! What proven mail of truth 
 Have I to fence me from their poisonous words ? 
 Doubt, like a hag, in her accursed stream 
 Has dipt my love and made it vulnerable. 
 Then knowledge be my aid — for thus I solve, 
 Daring the worst, all grim uncertainties, 
 With eyes, not hands. 
 
 (She draws the curtain, and discovers Eros asleep.) 
 O Zeus ! I faint for bliss !
 
 2 4 6 Prim it ice. 
 
 (She bends over him in a rapture. A spark fails on his limbs. 
 He starts up and rises into the air, casting Psyche from 
 him as he rises. She screams and extends her arms to- 
 wards him imploringly. He pauses for a moment in his 
 flight, and speaks.) 
 
 Eros.— Traitress ! but one sweet night of trial more, 
 And I was thine for ever — thou hadst soared, 
 Twinned with me in one fiery cloud of love, 
 Straight to the empyrean. O farewell ! 
 Eros has lost his bride. Ah ! Psyche, Psyche ! 
 Farewell, farewell ! 
 
 (He disappears. Psyche falls senseless. The whole palace 
 dissolves into black clouds, which overwhelm her.) 
 
 • • • • 
 
 • ■ • i • 
 
 [Sunset An open country. Enter Psyche with an ebon box 
 containing the Beauty of Persephone.] 
 
 Psyche. — Once more the gladness of the open heaven, 
 And the soft fragrance of the evening breeze ! 
 How beautiful is this world ! There Hesperus 
 Looks from his lucid eyes tranquillity, 
 Charming the plains to silence. All is peace — 
 I breathe but peace ; and yet how keenly all things 
 Invade each delicate sense with a delight 
 I never felt before. So breathed, so felt, 
 Upon the bounds of day, Eurydice, 
 And cried too soon : ' I live again ! ' Ye gods,
 
 Scenes from the Masque of Psyche. 247 
 
 Who! have bid gape the adamantine doors 
 Of Dis's realm to my weak siege, and led me — 
 A new Eurydice — with trembling feet, 
 From the sad Stygian coast ; making my wreck 
 My triumph, take, in this deep ecstasy, 
 My thanks for all ! Here, here, I have the casket, 
 Fetched through the groaning labyrinths of hell, 
 Through the Cimmerian darkness. I have stood 
 By hell's all-dreaded Queen, even as a child 
 Beside its mother ; I have dared to gaze 
 Into her awful eyes ; and here I bring 
 Her beauty for my dower, bestowed as freely 
 As mothers give the jewels of their prime 
 To a dear daughter ! Cruel Aphrodeite ! 
 Thy hate drove me to seek a precious pearl 
 In a most dangerous sea. From such a plunge 
 Few divers have come back. I rise at last ; 
 But, tyrant Queen, thou shalt not have my pearl : 
 Mine was the toil — be mine the gain. O Eros ! 
 Wilt thou not love me now, made beautiful 
 With such tremendous charms ? 
 (She opens the casket; a vapour rises from it. She swoons. 
 Enter Aphrodeite. ) 
 Aphrodeite. — Lie there for ever, 
 
 Alive in loveless, hopeless death for ever ! 
 Is this the goddess that insulted me? 
 This the great bride of Eros ? Here, thou clod,
 
 248 Primitice. 
 
 Be this thy dower — thus, thus, I trample thee ! 
 {Spurns her with her foot. Enter Eros.) 
 Eros. — Away, tempt not my wrath ! Off instantly, 
 
 Killer of love, joy-hating Aphrodeite ! 
 
 Away, I scorn thee to the depths of hell ! 
 Aph. — Eros ! (She has vanished.) 
 
 Eros. — Awake ! arise ! Now dawns our Spring of love, 
 
 The crocus flowers of joy break out like fire 
 
 O'er the fresh fields of life. My love, my bride ; 
 
 Much-suffering Psyche, wake ! I breathe on thee. 
 (She rises.) 
 Psyche. — Eros !— 'Tis thou ? 
 Eros. — 'Tis I — thine, thine forever — 
 
 Forever I am thine, and thou art mine ! 
 
 O, we will fly through all the realms of space, 
 
 Blessing and blest ; each moment of our flight 
 
 Fraught with its new eternity of love ! 
 Psyche. — O make me strong to bear this transport ! 
 Eros, — Come, 
 
 Enter the seven-fold citadel of my love, 
 
 In which I close thee — thus ! 
 
 (She throws herself into his arms.) 
 My long-tried Pysche ! 
 
 Not all the treacheries of old Night again 
 
 Shall tear thee from me ! 
 Psyche. — Utter rest of bliss ! 
 
 Eros. — All is accomplished. (They ascend.)
 
 249 
 
 MAY SUNSHINE. 
 
 pure delight, to wander forth to-day ! 
 
 It is the very depth of the mid-May, 
 
 When, call it the late spring or early summer, 
 
 The season is sweet. Of birds the latest comer 
 
 Has ended the glad trouble of its nest : 
 
 Blue eggs are warm beneath the thrush's breast, 
 
 And in the hedges you may hear the cheep 
 
 Of new fledged wrens — prey for the stealthy creep 
 
 Of prowling puss. 
 
 Sweet violets all are past ; 
 A month ago we plucked the very last 
 That hid themselves among their long-drawn leaves: 
 But while the haunter of the garden grieves 
 For them and all those other tender things 
 Which blossomed lavishly in earliest Spring's 
 Yet virgin coronal, there comes a puff 
 Of sun-begotten fragrance — just enough 
 To speak a bed of wall-flowers, where great bees 
 Revel, and butterflies by twos and threes
 
 250 Primitice. 
 
 Giddily whirl and sun their damp white wings. 
 
 And here chaste lily-of-the-valley rings 
 
 Faint perfume from her delicate bells. Queen roses 
 
 Begin to ope. One languidly discloses 
 
 The crimson richness of her bosom's bloom. 
 
 What summer odours sleep within the womb 
 
 Of these unopened buds clustering near ! 
 
 What splendid promise for the coming year 
 
 In yonder snow of blossomed apple-trees, 
 
 Where finches peck and twitter at their ease. 
 
 Balanced on swaying boughs. One whets his beak 
 
 Against the bark, then with a sudden tweak, 
 
 Plucks at the very bosom of a flower, 
 
 Scattering the petals in a rosy shower ; 
 
 But lo ! a fat green grub is in his bill, 
 
 So the wise gardener lets him peck his fill 
 
 Unmurdered. 
 
 1 to-day keep holiday, 
 In honour of this ' merrie month of May,' 
 And mean to grasp all natural delights, 
 And store them up in verse for winter nights ; 
 As bees store honey. Not a thing too mean 
 For these my rhymes — too ' common or unclean ; ' 
 For all things ope their hearts to him who loves 
 The fresh leaf-language of the fields and groves, 
 The mere delight of breathing the soft air 
 Of meadowy lawns ; who can find 'scape from care
 
 May Sunshine. 2 5 1 
 
 In a wood's innocent haunts of healthful ease, 
 Respite from heart-ache in a mountain breeze, 
 And then return refreshed, strung to his best, 
 And nobler for his little space of rest. 
 
 A meadow with its wealth of deepening grass, 
 Which the cloud-shadows lazily overpass, 
 Receives me from the garden — every blade 
 Drinking the sunshine. Taller heads are swayed 
 Noddingly o'er the sprouted green below, 
 By little puffs of gusty wind, which blow 
 The ruffling surface into silvery flaws. 
 Above my head a rook pompously caws 
 To two black friends, who pompously reply, 
 As home to yonder noisy elms they fly, 
 Where swings their stick-built city. 
 
 All around 
 Among the dandelions, golden-crowned 
 Or silken-plumed, and in the daisied grass, 
 Small birds, with impudent eyes like beads of glass, 
 Flutter, bob up, and flutter down again, 
 With busy chirpings — hunting, not in vain, 
 For moths and insects which most harbour there ; 
 And one for wantonness chases through the air 
 A butterfly, which scarcely seems to shun 
 The rapid pounces of his foe ; and one 
 Is angered at the buzzing of a bee, 
 And snaps at her right viciously ; but she
 
 252 Primitice. 
 
 Booms off unhurt upon her task. In glee 
 The swifts are shrieking, high in air, and wheeling 
 On arrowy wings. My heart swells with a feeling 
 Of most exuberant life — life, far and wide 
 Diffused, and throbbing deep. 
 
 The sunny side 
 Of all this ancient, unshorn hawthorn hedge 
 Whereby I skirt along the meadow's edge, 
 Is bursting into flower. A wasp, in quest 
 Of rotten wood to temper for her nest, 
 Explores each cranny of the gnarled hedge-foot, 
 Where faded violets clasp each knotted root, 
 And ashen trunks shoot up with leaves unborn 
 And clustered blossoms. 
 
 In the sprouted corn 
 Patrician rooks strut and talk politics 
 To chattering daws and magpies, proud to mix 
 In such august society. 
 
 Yon slope 
 Of pasture, where the daisies have full scope 
 With buttercups and cowslips to prepare 
 A path for June, is shadowed here and there 
 With grand horse-chestnuts, holding high their thyrses 
 Of pale magnificent blooms. The sunlight pierces 
 Quite through those queenlike limes, charming their 
 
 green 
 Fresh foliage into depths of emerald sheen ;
 
 May Sunshine. 253 
 
 And golden gleams fall slanting on the cows, 
 Study for Cuyp or Cooper, as they browse 
 The juicy verdure. In the illumined sky, 
 Where the white-piled clouds float softly by, 
 A lark is somewhere singing, as if huge gladness 
 Had filled his heart with an ethereal madness. 
 
 Here in the cool of this sequestered lane 
 The early spring seems half revived again, 
 For violets linger late by the path-side, 
 And tufted primroses, serenely-eyed, 
 Peep up from mossy banks, where sunshine plays 
 Fitfully with tree-shadows — slanting rays 
 Strike through the beech-tops, tempered as they pass 
 To a tenderer leafy light. This craggy mass 
 Of upthrust rock is wreathed with delicate bells 
 Of meek wood-sorrel, which in secret dells 
 Spring fairies hang with dew. O it is sweet, 
 This quiet spot where I have bent my feet ! 
 Sweet with faint vernal smells — sweet with Maydight, 
 Sweet with a sound of water out of sight, 
 Filtering through roots of fern, with fairy fronds 
 Quaintly uncurling — into little ponds 
 Hidden in moss ; or somewhere underground, 
 Lullingly murmuring to the flowers around. 
 
 Fresh is the beauty of this woodland glade, 
 'Where mid-leg deep among the whorts I wade, 
 Startling wood-butterflies and new-born moths
 
 254 PrimiticB. 
 
 From every bush ; or where the streamlet froths 
 O'er an abrupt cascade, and gurgles down 
 With bells of foam upon its waters — brown 
 And clear as mighty ale by Odin quaffed 
 In Walhalla, sunshine in every draught. 
 The air is full of the loud song of thrushes 
 And blackbirds. Unawares my footstep crushes 
 Clumps of moist-rooted blue-bells, as I listen. 
 The varnished leaves of the dark hollies glisten 
 Among the light green of the underwood, 
 Tangled round veteran oaks, whose trunks have stood 
 Since Shakspeare's May-time. Hark ! the cuckoos' 
 
 note 
 Swells afar through the grove, and seems to float 
 To me from out the dreamland of the past. 
 Ay me ! the present fleets away too fast 
 For one who all day long would love to lie 
 Gazing in the sweet glimpses of the sky, 
 Caught through the tree-tops — soothed by the soft 
 
 cooing 
 
 Of wood-quests, and the velvet bees pursuing 
 
 Their flowery task. But soon the air grows chill, 
 
 And I have yet to climb a stretch of hill 
 
 Ere I can strike for home across the plain 
 
 With easy conscience. 
 
 , . . . 
 
 In this old churchyard,
 
 M&y Sunshine. 255 
 
 Where the unsparing hand of Time has marred 
 The rude inscription on each fall'n headstone, 
 Yet gently. touched the spot — that it has grown 
 The solemner for it, I could grow one with rest. 
 The sun has crowned the silence of the west 
 With a pale glory — like the aureole 
 Round a saint's forehead, when the parting soul 
 Stands tiptoe for its flight. The wan light falls 
 Upon the grey church porch, and ivied walls, 
 And time-worn tower — transfiguring the place 
 To something mystic in its dreamlike grace. 
 The very nettles give a sense of peace ; 
 The simple weeds that feel the day's increase 
 Through all their blood, upsprouting lush and rank 
 Under the hedge — or crown yon brambly bank 
 With branching umbels ; the meek celandine ; 
 Ivy, whose leaves and clustered berries shine 
 In the grave light ; this speedwell at my feet, 
 Seem all parts of a vision strange and sweet : 
 Seen once and since forgotten — ages past, 
 Now dimly understood. 
 
 It could not last, 
 That dreamy mood : the gleam has died away, 
 The air grows cooler as the broadening grey 
 Swallows the sunset ; and the noisy caw
 
 256 PrimiticE. 
 
 Of homeward-flying rooks breaks through the awe 
 That held my spirit — and now the earth appears 
 Nought but the work-day world of smiles and tears. 
 My day is ended !
 
 257 
 
 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. 
 
 Titania. — Late, as his wont, to tryst comes Oberon, 
 Tarrying till one sweet moon6d hour is gone, 
 And lazy-rising stars are mounted high 
 To gaze on our belated revelry. 
 
 Oberon. — Reason the greater now being blithely met, 
 We waste no moment more in vain regret. 
 Place, my Titania, for thy tardy lord, 
 And peace between us happily be restored. 
 Sing, fairies, warblingly and soft ; beguile 
 From my love's lips one welcome-beaming smile. 
 
 FAIRY SONG. 
 
 Queen of all our elfin powers, 
 Starlight mistress of the sprites 
 
 Who tend the leaves and feed the flowers, 
 And close day-wearied lids o' nights ! 
 
 Sovran lady of sweet sound, 
 Born amid the crystal spheres, 
 s
 
 258 Primitia. 
 
 And hidden long deep underground, 
 To rise and ravish mortal ears ! 
 
 Smile ; our harps wake but for thee ! 
 Smile upon our melody ! 
 
 11. 
 Speak, and at the word shall rise 
 
 On the smooth sward fresh and green, 
 In pomp of moonbright fantasies, 
 
 The palace of our Fairy Queen. 
 Opal lamps shall light thy throne, 
 
 Rich with treasures of the sea, 
 Great moths' gorgeous wings each zone 
 
 Shall send to make thy canopy ; 
 And our native woods shall yield 
 Their most luscious hoards, concealed 
 From unhallowed mortal eyne. 
 Wilt thou that we bring thee wine 
 From spring-born cowslips thrice-distilled ? 
 Or heath-bells to the brim up-filled 
 With sweetness guarded from the bee 
 Through long summer days for thee ? 
 Or the honey-dew that lies 
 Deep in the woodbine's nectaries ? 
 Or the blush of musk rose buds 
 Opening secretly in woods ? 
 Or the wild-thyme's spiced perfume,
 
 A Mid-Summer Night's Dream. 259 
 
 Robbed from sun-loved flowers, whose bloom 
 Carpets for fairies many a sod, 
 Where foot of man hath never trod ? 
 Smile upon us as we sing 
 Merrily in our gambolling 
 Tripping featly in a ring. 
 
 Oberon. — Enough ! we build no bower for ourselves. 
 To-night we fly to meet the merry elves 
 Who dance upon the ripples of the stream, 
 And in great water-lilies sway and dream, 
 Lulled by the song of spirits in the moon ; 
 For on this night the festival of June 
 Is holden where old Nilus swells the seas, 
 And gracious shapes of gone mythologies 
 Mingle in mystic measures on the strand, 
 And all the kindly powers of the land 
 Meet Ocean's huge, foam-nurtured progeny ; 
 And now at last the time is come, and we, 
 The greenwood troops of Western Faerie, 
 Neglected long, are summoned — 
 
 Titania. — Not a foot 
 
 Stir I on such summons ! / sit mute 
 Before these Ancient Ones, who claim as due 
 Reverence from all whom they style parvenue ! 
 
 Oberon. — Titania, cease ! The river sprites await 
 Our coming, robed and ready in their state,
 
 260 Prim it ice. 
 
 To speed us on our airy way ; for know 
 That one more cycle dread, ages ago 
 Appointed, is fulfilled ; and now at last 
 Our golden Summer, whose hope hath filled the 
 
 past 
 With Spring, flies hither with the morning star ! 
 To-night the spirits gather from afar, 
 Where sits the Mother-Sphynx, whose awful eyes 
 Look through the past to dim futurities, 
 To hail his orbed rising. When his beams' 
 First silver trembles o'er the ocean streams, 
 The winds of dawn shall breathe some wondrous 
 
 change, 
 And we no more, slaves of the moon, shall range. 
 Up and away, Titania ! Quit your rings, 
 Ye jocund loiterers ! Fairies, to your wings !
 
 26l 
 
 A MOONLIGHT SONATA. 
 
 I. 
 ADAGIO. 
 
 Calm deeps of beauty all this night of June 
 Speak to the soul in music — mystic bars 
 Of peace float downward from the clear-voiced stars, 
 
 Among whom proudly walks the vestal moon : 
 
 A spheric chorus crystalline — in tune 
 With the fervid symphony, 
 Half delight, half agony, 
 
 That ever riseth up to heaven from earth and sea. 
 
 Hark ! to the cadenced murmur of the waves, 
 Where kissed by loveliest light they ebb and flow 
 
 Upon this pebbly strand, old Ocean laves, 
 With music weird and low ; 
 
 Or rolled around their echoing caves, 
 
 Send far into the night their deep adagio. 
 
 Thus Ocean, in his passionate loneliness, 
 Utters to wandering winds mysterious things,
 
 262 Primitice. 
 
 Unheeded as the poet when he sings 
 Of dreams beyond his cunning to express. 
 Prometheus-like, to him the fire from heaven 
 
 Brings vulture yearnings : till he feels at length 
 His wrestlings with despair, to whom is given 
 
 A god's ambition with a mortal's strength. 
 
 II. 
 
 ALLEGRETTO. 
 
 But where the moonbeams fall 
 
 O'er the far-silvered sea, 
 With a motion musical 
 
 Dance the ripples restlessly, 
 
 Like such a tremulous theme for chiming strings, 
 As a mighty master flings 
 Over the rolling chords that chase 
 
 Each other through the tempest of his bass ; 
 
 A theme swept onward with divinest sleight, 
 Weaving a tissue of delight, 
 Quaint as the weft of some wild dream 
 
 Where transient splendours blend in fitful gleam, 
 Yet tender as the last faint light that lies 
 Upon a western cloud, before it dies 
 
 Into the mellow calm of Autumn's evening skies.
 
 A Moonlight Sonata. 26^ 
 
 III. 
 
 MINOR E. 
 
 Now the gale is in the trees 
 And stirs amid their boughs wild gusty melodies, 
 
 Rising in passion by abrupt degrees — 
 Dying, as of despair, in ghostly cadences ; 
 In cadences of sorrowing tenderness, 
 
 (Like sighs from tearless hearts — to break at last) 
 Seeminsr to mourn dead love with fond distress ; 
 Low requiems for the past, 
 Suggesting thoughts, too sweet to be denied, 
 And inward longings — never satisfied — 
 Deep-cherished dreams divine, by friendship undes- 
 cried ; 
 Opening to memory 
 Still palaces, in whose dim-vista'd halls, 
 
 Phantoms of childhood's joys float lingeringly, 
 And childhood's laughter faintly echoing falls 
 Softly, how softly, on the dreamer's ears, 
 Till the full heart expands ineffably, 
 Thrilled with strange hopes and vague foreboding 
 fears, 
 In a solemn ecstasy.
 
 264 Pr unities. 
 
 IV. 
 
 SCHERZO. 
 
 Anon the freaksome wind hath gentler grown, 
 And seeks the dale, his roughness all o'erblown : 
 Lithe stems of earing wheat he whispers through, 
 Or sports o'er moonlit meads begemmed with dew, 
 Kissing the wild-flower on her trembling stalk ; 
 Then, stealing sly along a trellised walk, 
 With blowing roses arched, he fans the beds 
 Where summer lilies hang their dainty heads, 
 And many a blossomed vase the lawn bestuds, 
 There woos their odours from the chaliced buds, 
 Filling with dim perfumes the garden's bounds, 
 Perfumes that float like tender-breathed sounds — 
 Sweet as the pleading tones of love-lorn lutes, 
 Soft as the mellow harmony of flutes : 
 Now through the woven clematis he climbs, 
 
 O 7 
 
 Or hides himself among the leafiest limes ; 
 
 Now with a pink he pauses to coquette, 
 
 Or hovers o'er a plot of mignonette ; 
 
 Now wantons with a fountain's dancing spray 
 
 Ere to fresh fields of joy he hastes away, 
 
 To chase the clouds with many an airy prank, 
 
 Or sigh himself to sleep upon a thymy bank.
 
 A Moonlight Sonata. 265 
 
 V. 
 
 ANDANTE TRANQUILLO. 
 
 Here in this peaceful glade, 
 Sweet tryst for lovers 'scaped from envious walls, 
 
 Where chastened light gleams through the trem- 
 bling shade, 
 There comes a soothing sound of waterfalls ; 
 And half you hope — so lovely looks the spot — 
 
 To come on Oberon and his chivalry, 
 Holding their revels in some quiet plot 
 
 With bannered pomp of elfin pageantry; 
 Or fair Titania laid in smiling sleep 
 
 On mossy couch beneath her loved woodbine, 
 
 Whose honied blossoms bend in fragrant twine 
 Over their Queen • while quaint-clad courtiers keep 
 
 Armed watch around her rest, and countless elves, 
 
 In bells of foxglove merrily swing themselves, 
 Or serenade some rose-rocked beauty near, 
 With silvery harps and voices icy-clear. 
 
 But now no fairy pomp is seen, 
 No fairy music heard — 
 Nought breaks upon the balmy night serene, 
 
 Save that the glimmering leaves are gently stirred, 
 Save that the brooklet murmurs through the dale : 
 When on a sudden, hark ! the nightingale
 
 266 Primitue. 
 
 Begins his song with soft melodious trill, 
 Tender as moonlight, passionate as love — 
 As though some spirit hidden in the grove 
 
 Poured forth his soul with more than mortal skill. 
 How plaintively it gushes from his throat, 
 
 Blent with the water's dreamy undertone, 
 Till with one liquid, long, delicious note 
 It ceases — he has flown ! 
 
 VI. 
 ANDANTE CON AW TO. 
 
 A stonecast farther on 
 The shadowy path winds slowly to a hill, 
 
 And lo ! a lake — the starbeams shimmer wan 
 O'er all its bosom still ; 
 And through the throbbings of the dewy night 
 
 A sound of city bells comes fitfully 
 From yonder haze of labyrinthine light 
 
 Seen dim against the sky. 
 O there are mingled in fantastic strife 
 
 All hopes, all passions — shaped by circumstance ; 
 This grim farce-tragedy of human life, 
 Strange as a masquer's dance !
 
 A Moonlight Sonata. 267 
 
 VII. 
 ADAGIO MISTERIOSO. 
 
 These are the mystic voices of the earth 
 
 Heard faintly in the night's sweet silence — these 
 Her solemn utterance, rising since her birth 
 
 In wild crescendos swept through minor keys ; 
 
 The music of her forests and her seas, 
 As of a mighty organ loud and deep, 
 
 Rolls up in full majestic harmonies, 
 Blent with the tones of men who toil and weep : 
 
 An awful strain, big with the agonies 
 Of a sin-wasted world : but through it peal 
 Strong chords of aspiration, which reveal 
 
 Undaunted wrestlings — quenchless energies. 
 Thus earth's grave song, unmarked by mortal ears, 
 Swells the grand chorus of the sister spheres.
 
 268 
 
 POESY; RHAPSODIA. 
 
 Spirit of beauty, hail ! 
 Thou that dost haunt still glen or sunny lea, 
 
 Or in the forest, Dryad-like, dost dwell, 
 That coniest in the whisperings of the gale 
 Or 'mid the thunder-music of the sea, 
 Or with the fragrance of the thymy dell : 
 O Spirit, which art one with Nature all, 
 On thee I call ! 
 By the unfathomed mysteries 
 Hid in thine ethereal eyes ; 
 By their serene, heart-healing spell, 
 Dowered with virtue to make well 
 The wounds of life, to banish sadness, 
 And fill the breast with tremulous gladness ; 
 By thy sceptic that can raise 
 Solemn pageants of old days ;
 
 Poesy ; Rhapsodia. 269 
 
 And scare the ghosts of our dull night 
 With glimpses of to-morrow's light, 
 I do conjure thee, stoop to me, 
 Daughter of heaven and earth, flute-voice'd Poesy ! 
 
 11. 
 
 Come, waft me with thee in thy dreamy car, 
 
 Far from this mental treadmill of the desk, 
 And from the babbling, bustling world afar, 
 
 To where the oak flings wide his boughs grotesque 
 Over some lonely stream : 
 Some quiet stream, some lilied woodland stream, 
 
 Warbling strange wood-songs o'er its pebbly bed, 
 Its waters, glad with many an amber gleam, 
 
 By sunshine mellowing through the boughs o'cr- 
 head 
 To nectar turned. Here let me lie 'mid fern 
 
 And balmy grass, breathing the fresh wood-smells, 
 And over-waved by woodbine, while I learn 
 The fairy lore rung out from foxglove bells. 
 Here let me drink the silent utterings 
 Of the beautiful wild things 
 That round me peer and climb, buzzed o'er by bees 
 Which singing labour ; ere I pass from these, 
 Over all space and time to fly with thee, 
 Joy-giving Poesy ! 
 Ere from out the golden chalice,
 
 2 ;o Primitice. 
 
 At the pearl gates of thy palace, 
 I quaff the rich, fire-hearted wine, 
 That makes mortals half-divine, 
 And inherit uncontrolled 
 All the godlike bards of old 
 Ever sung or ever told. 
 
 in. 
 First let me range that mythic world 
 Of phantasy, when smoke upcurled 
 From many an altar reared to Jove, 
 And haunted was each stream and grove 
 With shapes of beauty of immortal mould : 
 In that unfabled age of gold 
 When the poet's heart was young, 
 And all men poets, and there clung 
 Round visible things a mystery 
 Of unperturbed infinity. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Suddenly I am rapt from out the real, 
 
 To the crystal sphere of the ideal ! 
 
 Flark ! 'tis the golden lyre of young Apollo, 
 
 Whom in a mystic dance the Muses follow ; 
 
 Or Artemis, her huntress Oreads 
 
 Rousing the echoes of the still wood-glades, 
 
 Under a crescent moon ; or wine-flushed Bacchus, 
 
 1 )r;uvn royally by his leopards — conquering Bacchus,
 
 Poesy ; Rhapsodia. 271 
 
 With all his rout of followers, ivy-crowned, 
 And wild Bacchantes — leaping to the sound 
 Of clashing cymbals, tossing cups of gold 
 And waving thyrses. Then, deep in some old 
 And sacred forest, wakes a silver din 
 Of shalms and shrill sweet pipes, and out and in 
 Among the tree-boles dart a merry clan— 
 
 The train of Pan ! 
 And white-limbed wood-nymphs shriek among the 
 
 boughs, 
 Pursued by lusty satyrs, till the brows, 
 The rugged brows, of Pan himself appear ; 
 And forth the pageant issues, and such a clear 
 And jubilant shout goes up of ' Pan ! Pan ! Pan ! ' 
 
 As was ne'er heard by man. 
 Anon the car of foam-born Aphrodeite 
 Comes surging through the spume, urged by the mighty 
 Arms of a triton throng— a pearly car 
 Of opal hues, wherein glows like a star 
 The goddess in her new-born nakedness 
 Of rose-flushed beauty — to the silver stress 
 Of Nereid harps, and deep sea-sounding horns 
 By sea-gods blown— such as on summer morns 
 Boom landward with the tide. And round her throng, 
 Sporting amid the spray, and oared along 
 By their white-ankled feet with gleeful ease, 
 
 The Oceanides :
 
 272 Primiticu. 
 
 The snowy tossing of their gleaming arms, 
 And multitudinous, billowy bosoms, charms 
 The ruffled waves to rest. Green-eyed sea-snakes, 
 With diamond coils that leave far-flashing wakes, 
 Follow behind. 
 
 But hark ! the whelming thunder 
 Crashes above. Black storm-clouds, rent asunder 
 By angry lightnings, swallow up the scene. 
 The deep moans to the tempest. Icy keen 
 Fierce north-winds rushing down with frost and snow 
 Rave through the shrieking forest. In their woe 
 The gentle spirits of the earth cry out ; 
 Aloft upon the blast a demon rout 
 Ruffians it through the spaces of the sky, 
 And from the deep shudders an awful cry : 
 ' The throne of Zeus is fallen ! ' 
 
 v. 
 Fled are those visions. O ye woods, no more 
 
 The abode of Dryads ! O ye woodland streams 
 No more nymph-haunted ! O thou ancient shore, 
 
 No longer peopled by the poet's dreams, 
 Farewell ! Yet hast thou larger joys for me 
 Star-crowned Poesy ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 The golden gates are oped — I see 
 
 Bright shapes of Gothic chivalry ;
 
 Poesy ; Rhapsodia. 273 
 
 Hear afar weird trumpets blown, 
 Catch the minstrel's wizard tone, 
 In lofty words of glad acclaim 
 Resounding each heroic name, 
 And I breathe a dim perfume 
 Of old romances. Grandly loom 
 Sunned spaces of enchanted land, 
 With misty peaks on either hand, 
 Full of dreadful sounds and voices 
 When the fiend-raised storm rejoices ; 
 Castles and palaces and towers 
 Of another world than ours, 
 Such as happy dreamers spy 
 At sunset in the western sky ; 
 And stretched away, the cliffs between, 
 Forests dark and meadows green, 
 Where flowers that medicine lovers' woe, 
 And herbs of stellar virtue grow \ 
 Magic meres and haunted lakes, 
 And rivers where a dragon slakes 
 His hissing thirst ; and everywhere 
 Gallant knights and ladies fair, — 
 Waving plumes and pawing steeds, 
 Lovely words and doughty deeds. 
 
 Now slow pass before mine eyes 
 Long pomps and gorgeous pageantries, 
 With standards royally unrolled, — 
 
 T
 
 2 74 Primitice. 
 
 Flash of jewels, blaze of gold, 
 Purple and crimson blazonry ; 
 But o'er the silken sheen I see 
 Still stern faces of great kings, 
 And the keen steel music rings 
 Through the gleaming play of pearls 
 On the round white arms of girls — 
 Each, her champion's throned queen, 
 On the tourney gazing keen, 
 While below, 'mid shivering lances. 
 Lovers strive for gentle glances. 
 
 Then the sunshine waxeth dim, 
 And a deep sonorous hymn 
 Peals through a cathedral's aisles, 
 Where the Virgin-Mother smiles 
 Placidly on the blessed Babe ; 
 And, each cross-legged on his slab, 
 Lie the calm cold effigies ; 
 And on quaint-wrought traceries, 
 Pillared niche, and blazoned wall, 
 Rich melodies of colour fall 
 From the splendours of the pane 
 Where crowned saints and martyrs reign 
 In sacred pomp and high romance ; 
 And cowering devils peep askance 
 From carven phantasies of stone ; 
 And long candle-flames are blown
 
 Posey ; Rhapsodia. 275 
 
 Flaringly by the balm-sick air, 
 Which makes the banners pendant there, 
 Faded memories of the brave, 
 Warm with perfume as they wave, 
 While the censer smokes and swings ; 
 And a mystic sweetness clings 
 To robes of prostrate worshippers, 
 Prince and peasant ; and none stirs, 
 For the Host is held on high ; 
 But round the hallowed place a sigh 
 Of dumb adoration steals. 
 Low before the altar kneels 
 A mailed and purpled Emperor ; 
 All the thunderbolts of war 
 Vailed — a shadowy pretence, 
 Before the Church's dread magnificence. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Fled, they too fled, fond shapes of youth's delight, 
 Their glamour faded from the workday world ! 
 
 What lamp of joy shall glorify the night 
 
 Wherein they sink ? O yet, thy wings unfurled 
 
 For mightier flights, thy stern eyes comfort me, 
 Strength-bringing Poesy !
 
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 DR. JOHN TO 
 
 UIALU1U X <11 IV. 
 
 The death of Dr. John % 
 Wednesday at his residence „. 
 
 He was born in Dublin in 1839, his father being a 
 merchant of English origin and Quaker ancestry. 
 He was educated at York School and at Trinity 
 College, Dublin, where he won the Vice-Chancellor's 
 prize for English verse^ three times. He took his 
 M.D. in Dublin and practised medicine for a couple 
 of vears, but gave it up for travel, study, and literary 
 wofk. He was Professor of English Literature at 
 Alexandra College, Dublin, from 1870 to 1874. He 
 then made his permanent home in London, where 
 his house became a resort for artists and men of 
 letters. During recent years informal " symposia " 
 were held there »b<aut once a fortnight, when friends 
 gathered at his fireside to discuss poetry and 
 philosophy. 
 
 Todhunter's first volume was a collection of 
 narrative and lyrical poems entitled " Laurella " 
 (1876). Grace, tenderness, and melody marked 
 these poems ; in later years he did much stronger 
 work under the influence of ancient Celtic litera- 
 ture, to the study of which he was led by the memor- 
 able rendering of the Cuchullin legend published in 
 187S bv Standish O'Grady. The " Banshee" (1888) 
 and "Three Bardic Tales" (1896) contain the best 
 of Todhunter's work in poetry. Three plays of his 
 have been acted with success ; one of them, The 
 Black Cat, produced by the Independent Theatre in 
 1893, was a factor in the revival of the literary 
 drama. His translation of Heine's " Buch der 
 Lieder " is perhaps the best complete English version 
 of a work than which none more irresistibly attracts 
 or more cruelly eludes the art of the translator. 
 i He was also author of a few brief prose works, in- 
 |l eluding a " Life of Sarsfield " and a " Study of 
 
 Shellev." 
 
 At one time be was a familiar figure at the Savile 
 Club, but for some years his delicate health and his 
 constitutional hatred of noise and bustle kept him 
 far from town life. He was a man of striking appear- 
 ance, and the sweetness, unselfishness, and loyalty 
 of his character gave tap intimacy with him a charm 
 and fragrance which his friends will sot easily 
 forget. 
 
 AA 000 372 625 4
 
 SSSJWSSSSSSSSS^^ 
 
 IMmS^m^^SS^^^^S 
 
 .