t^^fe Wi$S$ x&**r&r?k sti ' F^Sffi? 1 §o§jp If uSSm ilfi§ isilsiil THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES jgsgflps SONGS OF THE HEIGHTS AND DEEPS. SONGS OF THE HEIGHTS AND DEEPS. BY THE HON. RODEN NOEL, AUTHOR OF 1 A LITTLE CHILD'S MONUMENT," " THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG,' " RED FLAG," " LIVINGSTONE IN AFRICA." LONDON : ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C 1885. 5"/// X6 gtbicateb TO MY SISTER. 858200 CONTENTS. PAGE A LAY OF CIVILIZATION | OR, LONDON - - I EARLY LOVE - - - - - - - 34 LOVE HIDING - - - - - - - 37 ROSE AND BUTTERFLY- - - - - - 39 SWING-SONG - - - - - - - 40 MAGIC LANTERN - - - - - - 42 THE TEMPLE OF SORROW - - - - - 44 THE GEMONIAN STAIRS - - - - - 60 SEA, LAKE, AND MOUNTAIN. THALATTA - - - - - - -65 BY THE SEA ... - - 76 TINTADGEL - - - - - - - 77 SUSPIRIA - - - - - - - 8l AUTUMN - - - - - - - 92 MONTE ROSA - - - - - - - 99 TO ERIC FROM THE ALPS ..... 104 IN THE DOLOMITES ------ 105 MELCHA ....... 106 the agnostic ------- 164 the death of livingstone- - - - - 170 bvron's grave - - - - - - 177 SNOWDROPS - - ... I 7 g viii Contents. PAGE NOCTURNE - - -' I SO BEETHOVEN - - - - - - 183 NORTHERN SPRING - - - - - 1S7 THE TWO MAGDALENES - - - - - 1 92 WINTER- ----- - 194 IN ITALY - - - - " - -I98 SONNETS. POLITICAL SONNETS ... - 201 ELY CATHEDRAL .----- 204 VERY DEATH - - - - 205 MADNESS - 206 THE SANCTUARY ....-- 207 A LAY OF CIVILIZATION : OR LONDON. PROLOGUE. CITY of light and shadow, height and deep, Yawning abysm sundering rich and poor ! One upon velvet pile or marble floor Feasts, while another starves, whom even sleep Flieth as God-abandoned ; children weep Around their mother ; at the rich man's door She cursing God and man dies : ye who keep High festival with morning, temple, tower, Broad palace, rather in congenial night Avoid ashamed the level eyes of light ! Cower hidden ! royal river in your pride, With world-wealth mantling on your stately tide, Steal muffled in deep gloom ! slow bells be tolled .' Thou on the proud dome, glistering cross of gold, Thy life is changed to hard death bought and sold. Art thou the hilt of a death-drinking sword Plunged in Earth's heart by some infernal Lord ? I 2 A Lay of Civilization. Brethren of Him who fainted on the wood, What help is found in yon devouring rood ? What help ? what hope ? a sceptred Woman bows Under a lowly lintel, and none knows ; Humbly she helpeth bitter loathly need, Beareth the burden, dons the lowly weed. Babes the high honour of their trust confer Upon this royal lady, and by her Perchance the city may be saved from fire, That lurid lurks, and threats to make it one red funeral pyre ! Under awakening woods I heard the birds With no reserve unbosom all their joy : Even as a beam reveals the limpid deep Of a pure pool, sweet song revealed their heart, A shadowless illimitable bliss Of innocent love ; the joy of wakening woods Welled over in soft frills of fairy leaves, Glossy and tender flakelets of green light, Infolded mutually ; fair forest aisles Dawn to leaf-laughter silent and serene ; One would surmise the new-born delicate leaves Thronged to the ends of all the twigs to hear Innumerable bird-song, called from sleep By many a plumed Orpheus ; their blithe notes A Lay of Civilization. 3 Weave webs of music multitudinous, Even as a leafing tracery of stems With wayward bronze embroiders the blue air. It seems afar one smoke above the silver Of birchen boles ; beneath, the English flower, The flower so dear to English hearts, nor least When we abide among the sunnier blooms Of alien lands, the pure and pale primrose, Gathers in sisterhoods upon the breast Of greening earth, her still abiding smiles, Fair with assurance of humility. And when their pale cool flame is far effused, Earth in her lowlihood may vie with Heaven, With Heaven, what time the dawning East con- ceives A half-awakened light hued like the flower. Down a green dale I heard some children roam, Merrily laughing by a rivulet ; Then a hawk hovered, and sweet songs were hushed In the grove under. All the scene grew dim, Appeared to melt before mine eyes, and change. I heard, and heard not, for the land dissolved, And clouding slowly, lo ! another sound, Akin to the sea-sound, was in mine ears, Resembling some huge roar of a far furnace, Whose sullen flare through wallowing mists impure 1 — 2 4 A Lay of Civilization. Burned like the fire-flush from those realms of Dis In that deep-mouthed verse of the Mantuan. Huge murmur from the throat of Babylon ! Illimitable leagues of piles confused, Dome, tower, and steeple, stately palaces, Islanded in a welter of dim street ; Mean habitations, warrens of dun life, Tortuous, swarming ; sullied, pale, cramped life, With, in the midst, a large imperial River, Turbid and troubled, the town's artery, Spanned by tumultuous bridges ; o'er them clang Steam-dragon, chariot, horse, and laden wain, With hurrying people of the human hive ; Whose shores are thronged with warehouse, opulent wharf, Whose turbulent tide upbuoyeth bark and barge, Throbbing, foam-trailing steamer, russet sail, And stately ships from far sea-sundered lands. But over all a brown Plutonian gloom Of murk air dismal and defiled, the breath Of our so monstrous town — her visible sin, And weight of wan woe, blotting out sweet heaven! Behold the River ! a guilt-laden ghost, How he hurries all unlingering below, Away, away, through horror of deep night, Pale with the guilty secret of the city ! A Lay of Civilization. 5 Like that sin-burdened victim, driven forth In Israel to the wilds, ashamed Thames Rolls headlong, tarries nor to look, nor listen, Hastens to hide himself in the great Deep, There to confide, unbosom, bury there, The tomb, the womb, the unfathomed other-world, Absolving and absorbing Mother Ocean, The ineffable oppression at his heart, The horror of unutterable wrong ! How changed, O Thames ! from in thine earlier hour Of child-like dallying among reeds and lilies, WhiteswanSjandflowers^ndboatsoflingeringlovers, By Marlow, Maidenhead, or Cliveden Grove ! But darkness deepens : by the parapet Of that great platform which embanks the tide, While sudden lights leap to assuage the gloom, Wavering on the water, and loud trains Turn cloudy fiery serpents on the bridge, I note the faded features of a girl, Who clasps a pining infant to her breast, And my heart, gazing into that wan face, Named her Despair; no other name she bore Surely among the angels, or the fiends, Whose hate environs earth : she mounts the wall ; Springs, and two lives have vanished in the void ! Happy birds fluting in the leafy woods, And children playing by the rivulet ! 6 A Lay of Civilization. Hard by, the glare and Babel-roar, where men With women drink fire of forgetfulness, Flying from ash-pale spectres of dim life Into the burning bosom of mad fiends — Hard by, within the gloom of the low lane, Else empty, slouches a dun-vestured form Of one who peers, like some gaunt beast of prey, Yonder upon the pavement ; for he deems He sees within the tract of lamplit stone A morsel of soiled food, fallen casually From Plenty satiated ; pouncing on it, He ravenously feeds ; but one who passed Bestows a coin within the skeleton claw Of him, who murmurs some faint sound of joy; And then, himself unseen, the benefactor Saw the man kneel bare-headed on the flags, And lift clasped hands of gratitude to God. It is not far to where the lordly street Hath wares luxuriant myriad-fold displayed Behind illumined panes ; the hurrying throngs Tramp with their broken talk ; they whirl on wheels, Soft-raimented, gems flashing from white shoulders, Or swarm from forth the stately spectacle, Embathed in yellow lustre of the lamps. It is a gala-night ; they laugh, they dance, In perfumed chamber youth low whispers love ; A Lay of Civilization. 7 At high doors lounge the sumptuous serving-men ; While glowing globes of emerald or ruby Adorn, disposed with manifold design, Each ample thoroughfare ; the crimson hangs From all high windows ; launched from every steeple Roll blazoned banners ; floods of light beneath Hail floods of sound aloft delirious, Pealed from wild reeling bells in dome and tower ; For some imperial pageantry hath passed, With blare of scarlet, festival and pomp Of martial music, horse-tramp, and clanked sabre : Our arms perchance have triumphed on far fields ; Or it may be the birthday of a king. And yet my sombre heart reverts to him Who snatched that offal from the pavement, sees White retrograded faces of the crowd, The outraged, foundered womanhood of towns ; Cold women huddling on the stately stairs, Who cower in shadow with their babes, till one Bids them begone ; there is no room for them. And who is here ? a hunger-withered girl, In grip of some black myrmidon of law. Her crime, I pray you ? She hath stolen a flower From a rich lord's immeasurable land. Her mother, poor and bedridden, so longed To see and smell a flower : " I took it for her ; 8 A Lay of Civilization. She has no friend, sir, very little food." The girl low weeps ; the mother waits her child. Then was I taken through some noisome lanes, Among ill faces bleared, unhumanized, Like hideous apparitions from the tomb, That hoarsely chaffered by lit market-stalls, Into a dwelling, meanest of the mean, Where a young child lay weeping ; crippled frame, And hopeless face told plainly of one refused Bodily sustenance, untended, maimed, Scarred with habitual blows ; while cruel cold Looks, and harsh words have laid waste her young life. A man weak-visaged cowered before a woman Inflamed with drink, and choler — father, mother, Men named the pair — and save for reeking rags Upon the floor, a broken chair, some shards Of littered food, the filthy room was bare ! But pale Death looked with pity on the child. . . . .... In a vault hard by of some deserted house There lies the body of a murdered girl, None knowing, save night-hearted murderers ; Unowned, unwept by any man, or woman In this confused, loud-battling multitude. Is there indeed no more than doth appear ? An outraged and extinguished human soul, Four blank dead walls, a silent senseless night — A Lay of Civilization. 9 Senseless and silent, save for our loud ears — Around the ruin of what seemed a child ? Foul insult hath been proffered here to Man ! In all yon vain expanse of impotent worlds, May none be found to avenge, or make amends ? Nay ! if there are no Presences unseen By mortals, unbelievable by sense, Who have the child in charge, who bore her home, Then from this dead-alive mad charnel-dance Of earth let us depart, where all most wise, Kind and heroic souls may not avail To make our life endurable, though they, With their poor lowly cups of cool clear water, In this despair, and dearth, and dissonance, Rendering fair Love palpable by loving, Be the sole salt of our dark world's corruption ! Happy birds fluting in the leafy woods, And children playing by the rivulet ! Next into neighbouring tenements I came, Where hideous Lust with venal Force conspired To outrage fair and feeble innocence, By parents sold to ruin for base coin, .... .... Then a voice spake : " Consider where you are !" And sore amazed, I found me in a church ; But the voice said : " Lo ! here they do as there !" Here well-attired smooth dames and cavaliers io A Lay of Civilization. Assisted, while bland mother and smug sire Delivered their young maiden to a lord Of broad rich acres, and deep-dyed ill-fame, Plague-dabbled ermine, and smirched coronet ; Her a demure priest, silver-syllabled, Profaning holiest word and ordinance, Offered before the altar to low gods Of Pelf, Position, Power. The sires of old, Jephthah and Agamemnon, immolated, Weeping, fair daughters for the common weal, And those pure virgins bowed the patient head, Young victims aureoled with martyr fire ; But these, degenerate, degrade their child, Starved on base offal-maxims of the world, Yea, prostitute her heart to infamy, Hunting their hollow bubbles of ill greed ! Yonder, for guerdon of a life-long toil, That heeds no hunger of the infinite soul, Faint parents watch their little ones devoured By famine ; for the scanty wage, That serves for summer shelter, fails to shield From searching winter blasts of accident, Old age, or illness ; then the poor must beg, Or steal, or starve, and watch their children die. But are not indignation, and deep ruth, Baffled recoil, loud passionate appeal A Lay of Civilization. 1 1 From earth's confusion to a starry sphere Of holier Order, mirrored in the soul, Faint and aloof, are they not very God ? More than ill-breathing nightmares, and dull coils Of gorged contentment, or the infinite Void, Thronged with fair semblance ? Yea, by right divine, These are but slaves, and those commanding kings ; They travail till the God be formed in man ; Yea, realms of rapine, limbos, are in labour, Till very God be born within their womb. The Soul compels rude rebels of the night, Passions, Ambitions, Evil aim, Denial, To hew wood and draw water for Her need ; All kingdoms crowned Her in the Heavens of old ; Hers are the glory, and predominant power ! O'er you lemures, vampires, and grim ghouls, The tranquil Queen moves, ruling turbulent tides Of human tempest, and the outer deep Of your wild, heaving, dark dominion. Infernal empires, billowing in gloom, Altho' you rise athwart the calm pale orb, Foamingly threatening her soft sweet face, Ye feel the mild monitions of her eye ! And Faith hath power to compass her own Vision, Herself the fair fruit come to birth in us, Earliest green point of the flower to be. j 2 A Lay of Civilization. Idlers indifferent, prosperous, full-fed, On well-worn usage easefully reclined In vasty mansion ; j ostlers for more gold, Or place, or power, in senate, change, and church, Immersed in worship, sport, or spectacle, Methought I visited ; poor homeless folk Cowering unclothed by temple-porch and palace, With pining babes half-hidden in their rags, While painted harlots flaunt their own pollution, And forms more formidable prowl ; they skulk, Desperate, plotting cruel desperate deeds For private greed, or violent overthrow Of that immense, hoar, consecrated Pile, Where the jammed People standing scarce may breathe, Wide-mouthed aware of pomp of priest and king. Then I looked stifling up to the earth-pall ; A death-shroud, one contamination, wrapped Round human plague, thick-woven of sin and sorrow ! Yet there be wafts of heavenlier effluence From the ten righteous Abraham desired. For Human Love moves in the lazar-house Of our poor planet, gentle minister. The cloudy pall moves, lifting from the city ; Sun gleams through rents in it on her thronged life, On tower and temple, and the lordly river. A Lay of Civilization. 13 Lo ! little children playing on the green, Or noisome alley, changed to paradise By young enchantments of fresh fantasy ; In airy school they learn, with happy faces : There note the humanizing spectacle, Grave for life-lore, and for amusement gay : While kindly Opulence with aching Need Shares verier wealth than gold, the gentle lady, Whom we on earth name Mercy, bends to heal A mortal Pain, who turns to kiss Her shadow. And hear sweet Music hovering like a dove Over the weary ! Yet are all but gleams In lurid fume that suffocates the sun ? This huge black whirlpool of the city sucks, And swallows, and encroaches evermore On vernal field, pure air, and wholesome heaven — A vast dim province, ever under cloud, O'er whose immeasurable unloveliness His own foul breath broods sinister, like Fate. And yet what wealth of wisdom, and rich lore, Swift lightnings of keen-edged encountering wit, Fair tribute of all periods, all lands, Wide walls alive with hues of genius ! Our pale West here meets mellow Orient, Flowing with warm-hued raiment, redolent Of perfume, eyed with slow luxurious fire. All realms send sons, elect ambassadors, For interchange of many-moulded mind. 1 4 A Lay of Civilization. And rarely, deep indrawn from the mad whirl Of dissonant motion round me, face to face, 'Mid comelier architecture than our own, I find me with the venerable shades, Mankind consents to honour — legislator, Iconoclast, bard, warrior, king, queen : Richard the Lion, Alfred, the Black Prince, That armoured conqueror of Agincourt, And She who gained a nobler victory, By Calais, over a revengeful heart, True queen, true woman, Mercy's minister ; Mailed knight, with baron proud from Runnymede, Dan Chaucer, Wyclif, Cromwell, Hampden, Charles. There speeds boy Chatterton, elate with hope, There droops, pale, sullen, near the agony ! Shakespeare, the human ; Milton, ocean-toned ; Ariel Shelley ; Byron, the volcano ; Our Voice of hills and lakes ; the luminous-eyed Young Greek, astray in our dim century ! Beyond the Saxon, Norman, Roman town, (For each whelms, founds itself on what fore-ran ; So all lie deep entombed beneath the stones) Where London roars, there slept the lonely wild, Where London roars, the lonely wild will sleep. Ourselves are founded on the lives before, Founding the future ; will the world grow wise With all the long-accumulating years ? A Lay of Civilization. 1 5 A train sped on a road banked o'er the lanes, And courts ignoble of our monstrous East ; Wherefrom glad children, laden with spring flowers, Fluttered white kerchiefs cheering ; at a window Of one of those poor dwellings a pale child Waved his lean arm responsive ; his hurrah Was drowned in theirs ; they saw not the wan smile Of that seven-year- old cripple ; in a cot, That seemed an orange-case disused, he lay, Propped high for him to see the bright live trains Rush past with human freight ; an ancient dame Tended the child, his grandmother ; they two Lived ever here ; the boy knew no green fields; Through the long days, and late into the nights, (When her frail charge lay peacefully in sleep, And when to wakeful voyagers by rail The shadow of the love-invented cot On the illumined blind appeared to be That of a little coffin ; ah ! great Love ! Wilt thou soon lay the lad in such a cot ?) The old woman plied her scissors and her needle For a poor pittance ; one rich offering Of sweet burned incense, all her selfless soul Is offered up to Heaven for the child. The dame hath taught her helpless one to read, Buying him Noah's ark and picture-book, 1 6 A Lay of Civilization. And she hath helped him order on the floor A mimic park with turfs from a lark's cage, Wherein are planted perpendicular Thin sticks of deal, their foliage woolly shreds From old frayed borders of the grandame's gown ; A baking-dish contains the mimic lake, And, swimming there, a dinted bird, once white. These are unbeautiful ; the neighbouring scene Affronts our every sense ; Plague, Famine lurk With heads obscene, with sly lack-lustre eyes, Couching at every threshold motionless. Yet, here, yea, here, not where the lark pours joy, Evermore pouring ecstasies in air Of rapturous blue, nor where a throstle wafts His incense of clear notes upon the breeze, O'erquavered by soft shadows of young leaves ; Nor where, with age-long rapture, holy men Dream swooning visions in Himalayan snows — Not there, but here I find me at Heaven's gate, Open to let the eternal Sun shine through On our sad Earth ; fair angels come and go In this poor hovel, for Queen Love lives here, With dear handmaidens, Patience, Tenderness, And her fair warrior-knight, young Fortitude. Behold ! how many graceless roofs and walls Are glowing with a rarer, heavenlier grace From martyr-deaths, and lowly hero-lives ! A Lay of Civilization. 17 A boy lay suffering in hospital, His members crushed and mangled by a wain, Whose wheels passed o'er him playing in the street- Scarce can he bear the thought that he must die, His mother's darling ; she is kneeling near. Later the father came — the man well loved His little son, but he was harsh to her, Paying her patient drudgery with blows. " My lad, I cannot, will not part with thee !" By the white bed he sobbed, to whom the child : " Father, they tell me I must leave you both ; I feel it very hard, but I shall die Content, I think, if thou wilt promise me One thing before I go " — to whom the sire " Yes, if it lie within my power, lad !" " Promise thou never wilt ill-use, or strike, Or be unkind to mother when I'm gone !" The man did promise, faltering, and then Peace passing understanding, like still light, Illumined the pale face of him who died. A widow woman nursed her ingrate son In his long illness to the final hour, With inextinguishable tenderness, He little heeding, snatching as a due Love's gracious offices, a graceless churl ; She had bestowed on him from birth till now 2 1 8 A Lay of Civilization. Through all the helpless years of his great need, Freely her innermost, her sacred self, And later fair solicitudes of love Still proffered ; but, a pauper of the heart, A boor in spirit, he had thrown from him The pure celestial jewel of high heaven, Which is the substance of the throne of God. Rarely he brought his earnings home to her, Squandering them on transitory sense ; But her clear love welled on perennial, Until the man died ; then the pillow soft, Whereof she had despoiled herself for him, Was placed by her beneath the wasted corse Within the coffin, for she said to one *' I know well that he will not want it now Under his thin back, yet, sir, I shall feel it ; I could not bear to rest on it to-night, Knowing him laid upon the cold hard wood, And he so tired, worn to skin and bone !" She did not long survive the man, but when She went, her heart still turned to serving John. And surely Love will work deliverance In Love's own time, for time belongs to Love. Down-trodden woman, mother, mistress, wife, Monotonously toiling for his weal, Who slays you, swift or slowly, ye would shield Him whose vile blows deform you ; now I see A Lay of Civilization. 19 In you my God, who died upon the Cross, I hear the seraphs choiring in your heart ! Barren the bowers of Elysium ; Our very God is born from human woe ! Yea, golden fruit of the Hesperides, A hundred-headed, tumult-breathing Beast, A dragon-chaos guards ; the Hero dares ! Fearlessly storms he the fell forest-hold, Crags lapped in fire, or never might he find And kiss Brunhild in her enchanted sleep, Awakening the maid to nuptial love. Nor was the Volsung found invulnerable Until he bathed him in the monster's blood, Whom erst he braved with his good brand, and slew. Yea, Sirius, excelling our great Sun Twofold in splendour, Sirius the fair, How were his mighty drift imaginable, Or lordly functions in the hierarchy Of all Sun-gods, and their obedient worlds, Or offices for man, without the dark Stupendous Brother-orb invisible, From age to age sublime companion ? And blest are ye, dark heralds of new dawn, Rebels, who beard the tyrant, for all souls Claiming free-growth to their own height, with form Predestinated from eternity. So Pride, thrust back within the boundary, 2 — 2 20 A Lay of Civilization. May learn at length to recognise the Body, Whereof we are but functioned cells, for fear He perish isolated in the cold. So thunders Revolution ! Hail ! unnamed, 2 Unconsecrate Melchizedek, thou priest Of the Most High God, though thou know Him not, Yea, and blasphemest idols we adore, Who have usurped in Temples His great Name ; Without or sire, or mother, or descent, Never enrolled among the ranks of men, Among the living of thy land unknown, So best to serve the people of thy love, Young martyr, self-immured in a rank prison, That saps the vitals, withers the rose-bloom ! There also fade thy fellows, delicate girls, Who fondle Death with desperate white hand, And with gay smile salute Annihilation, Enamoured of one flame-eyed lover, Him They serve with indefatigable joy, Whose lofty name is Martyrdom for Man ! Howe'er insane or violent your aim, Deniers of our Lord, I worship Him Alive in you, Knights-errant of the Poor, Whom His decrepit Church adores, but dead. And yet reserve some reverence for ranks Of men, who guard with dedicated lives Our holy, our inalienable Past, A Lay of Civilization. 2 1 Their heads bowed low before that ancient throne Of long-descended hoar Authority! These have mine honour also, for I know That not one cause, but rival camps in arms Hold Sons of Belial, and true friends of God ; While from loud shocks of terrible crossed steel Leaps the live flame that ministers to man .... A stately palace, whose immense demesne Of vivid verdure is ablaze with bloom, Whose halls are animate with radiant forms Of picturing genius, luxuriant With wealth of loom, and mine, art-elevate, And sacred from the hopeless hands of toil. The windows of the lordly pile behold A silver water ; o'er wide miles of park Fair antlered deer browse in the fragrant fern, Under huge oaks, whose age-long reverie, And leafy secrecies of summer sound Hold more than meeteth mortal ear and eye. But all is hushed now, save for weird, far calls Of owls, and plashing fountain ; the lithe forms Of statues on the terrace in the moon Are not so beautiful as living maid And youth, who linger under whispering leaves And by the flowery frondage ; her light garb Seems airy foam, a woof of silken sheen, 22 A Lay of Civilization. And delicate lace about her warm white throat. Each leans to each with deep and dewy eyes : The wedding-day is near ; I hear low words : " Was ever happiness like ours ? the clock, Silverly chiming from the ivied tower, Tells how the bells will peal full soon ; come death, We shall have lived, my darling, we have lived !" Then all was blurred ; the happy vision faded, As if the potion of slow-poisoning Time Were concentrated in one murderous draught, Of power to wither suddenly ; I hear Again the troubled surge of London town. I pass the teeming dens where herds of men, Shamefully heaped promiscuous, unshamed, Are thrust by their stern gaoler, Poverty, With scorn refused the luxury of Virtue. The vision taketh small account of Time, For Time is creature of the mind that knows, Varying with it ; what was shown me now ? In a confined low garret droops a maid, Wearily sewing with red eyes, and pale, A withering flower, reft of air and light ; But she is very beautiful ; her face And form are moulded for young joy of love, Tho' the rare undulation and rich lines Be thwarted by a niggard nourishment, A Lay of Civilization. 23 And the worn faded raiment be no mate For her moon-fair imperial loveliness. Deftly her needle plies ; the long night wears ; Orion solemn passeth, and hath rest ; The weary girl may sleep not : lo ! she holds A delicate sheeny fabric as of foam, A virginal rich raiment ; surely this Should be the very garment I beheld Enhance the beauty of the soft betrothed That summer evening in the calm domain, And easeful pleasaunce of prosperity. Whose feet are on the stair ? she starts ; she quivers, Rose-colouring ; the dewy, lustrous eyes Flash luminous, the while she mutters low, " He comes : I can no more : I wrestled long ! Why doom my prisoned youth to wither here, Shut from all sweet fruition of my years ? How have I earned this ? Honourable toil Is ever paid here with a long dull death ; And I will live ! I will be rich like her ! And wear fine jewelled clothing, aye, be loved, Adpred, enjoy my life before I die ! Ah ! mother, pardon ! if thou wert but here !" A knock : one enters : he displays rare gems, Whose lustre blinds the miserable den : He wraps her round with passionate fierce fire ; 24 A Lay of Civilization. Delicious flame consumes her ; eagerly, Headlong she plunges down the abyss of ruin. Sisters, and brothers, ye who name the Christ, How may ye suffer such foul shame to be ? We would be leisured, good, accomplished, wise, Charming, and charitable ; the rank soil That breeds the exotic is a brother's blood ! Inevitable ills arraign the Heavens : Some wrongs accuse mankind ; we challenge them. From where our patriot sailor on his column Stands, with the lion of England at his feet, Among the fountains, looking toward the towers, The banded towers of Westminster, beyond Green trees, by Thames, to Lambeth, London roars Eastward, loud leagues of palaces for men Who toil to accumulate, around the dome, Where warrjor Wellington by Nelson sleeps, Flows to four towers, phantoms of the past, In whose dread dungeons linger shadowy sighs From ruined lives of all the slow sad years ; On, where the navies largesse of world-wealth Lavish on quays vociferous (yet we Pine ever ailing, surfeited, unfed), By that great arsenal of war-weapons, Forged with tremendous clangour, to God's sea. And westward, London roars round congregated Palaces, where men squander. Of the crowds A Lay of Civilization. 25 Our eyes encounter, some are sorrowful, Long uncompanioned of sweet Hope, the bride, Withering mournful ; some are jubilant, Sunny and strong with youth, or strenuous, Of glad demeanour ; listless, languid these ; But most are weary in this Babylon, Whether men idle, or contend for bubbles ; The happiest are they who minister. Beyond these regions, reaches of dim street, A sullen labyrinth of ill-omened hovels : Ah ! dull, grey, grovelling populations, ye That are rank human soil, wherein we force Our poor pale virtues, and our venomous sins Of gorgeous growth, our proxy-piety, Official food, that yields no sustenance, But chokes with outworn fantasy free life, What hope, O people ? Red convulsive strife With those whom circumstance made masters, then Brief moaning silence under other lords ? And yet what ask ye ? Sick men from a feast Rise loathing ; health can relish his poor crust. The pure soul hath her panoply of light, In direst dungeon radiating heaven ; Ensphered in her own atmosphere of joy Sees no deformity ; while tyrants tread Their marble halls, to find them torture-chambers ; A graceless prison all his fair demesne 26 A Lay of Civilization. To some illiberal, illustrious fool. Perchance ye, ground to powder in God's mill, May serve more than who sleep in delicate death, With rarest incense in the mummy-fold. O whirling wheels ! O throngs of murmuring men ! Where is the goal of infinite endeavour ? And where your haven, O ye fleeting faces ? High Westminster, like some tall ghostly father Of olden time, stands wildered, while for crowds Of modern men, swift eddying at his feet, His reverend grandeur void of consolation Broods ; for no warriors, consecrated kings, Kings who were crowned here through the centuries, Nor bard, nor saint, emblazoned on the pane, Canopied under marble in the aisle, Whose shadowy memories haunt his heart, may help. These are unsceptred ; time trends otherwhere ; Their slumber is by channels long deserted ! His hoary towers, with melancholy eyes, Dream in their own world, impotent for ours ; Or if he speak, who may interpret now ? He wakes in vain, who slept for centuries, For he awakens in some alien world. Doth Hope inhabit, then, the sister-pile, Whose stately height hath grown to overshadow That hoary minster ? This in sooth avails. A Lay of Civilization. 2j And yet methinks more health is in the old, Renewing youth from fountains of the new, Than in rash overthrow of all men built, With salt of insolence sown in holy places. Therefore, O secular, and sacred towers, Confound your glories by the river-shore, And marry mighty tones in ordering time ! Cathedral organ, roll insurgent sound, As though the archangel would arouse the dead ! Our firm foundations on the invisible, Build we the ever ampler, loftier state, Till unaware we walk the City of God ! Yea, for I deem the fathers we revere, Shrined in cathedral glooms, embolden us With eyes of silent counsel, and dumb power, Approving backs turned on their empty tomb. But who may slay the irrevocable Past ? The Past, our venerable Sire, that girds Bright armour round us, like some grand old knight, With benediction sending forth fair youth To battle, crowning what himself began ! When England bathes in shadow, the tall tower Of that great palace of the people shines, Shines to the midnight like a midnight sun. While crowned inherited incompetence, And while law-making men laborious Through long night-watches, in their golden chamber, 28 A Lay of Civilization. Wage wordy wars of faction, help the State, The dreadful river rolls in darkness under, Whirling our human lights to wild witch-gleam ! See yellow lamps in formidable gloom Of both the shores, night-hearted haunts of men ; Terrible water heaped about great piers Of arches, gliding, gurgling, ominous ! But on the vasty parapet above Those Titan tunnels, ghastlier for the glare Of our electric mockery of moons, Appears a moment a fate-hunted face — Wan Desolation, plunging to the Void. Then swirls a form dishonoured among gleams, Which eddy as light-headed ; what was man, With other offal flotsam, flounders, rolls. But now for one who mused upon the bridge, Of pier and arch tremendous, the huge reek, And sin-breathed exhalations of the city, Transfigured by an alchemy of power, Burned with all colour ; the broad river rose Aslant horizonward, and heavenward, One calm aerial glory of still dream ; Thronged habitations on the shadowy shore Blend solemn, disembodied to a bloom Ethereal, bathed in evening ; fair enchased, Or diapered upon the delicate air, A Lay of Civilization. 29 Hull, mast, sail, tiny bark, or barge, or steamer, Poised darkly in mid primrose of the tide, Like carven fretwork on a golden shrine. All monstrous hostels, with interminable Glazed bulks that over-roof the clanging train, And all our builded chaos doth repent, Converting into beauty ; while I muse, The mild, and modulated cadences Of lemon fruit, shy violet, dove-down, Deepen to very pomp and festival Of dyes magnificent ; one diapason Of hues resplendent, crimson, gold, and green, And purple gorgeous, like robes of kings, Or caves of sun-illumined sea-treasure, Or glories blazoned in Cathedral aisle, Heart of white lily, fruit of passion-flower, Or fervid eagle-eyes ; a parable, One nuptial-feast of marrying glow and gloom, A wondrous parable of life through death ! While yonder haughty heights of Westminster, Where once fierce feuds of our illustrious dead Sleep reconciled in monumental calm, Mary reposing by Elizabeth, And where with throes of living loud debate Are brought to birth the still behests of Heaven ; With ancient consecrated privilege Of lordly Lambeth on his stately sward ; 30 A Lay of Civilization. These, and the grand dome, and the four grim towers, Haunted by phantoms of long-wandering crime, And harbours thronged with navies of the world, Glow fair a moment with supernal fire. I am on the country-side again ; but ah ! Nor here may I escape the treacherous Flat viper-head that lurks behind all joy. The World god-fronted hath a dragon-train, Long loathsome coil, gold-cinctured, with a heart, Now hot with love or hate, and now dead-cold. Yea, under budding pear and cherry tree, Preluding silent anthems of white bloom, Under a nest of mellow-throated thrush, Who warbles out his soul to a soft mate, Her own warmth luring life from the frail egg ; Here one deemed woman drowns a trustful child, Pleading in vain, for she is all one stone To his close-clinging, wild, appealing woe. Where did she drown him ? Whence the bubbling cry? In a pure lingering stream, that mirrors well Fresh grass and flowers, whose home is on his bank; He takes them to his heart, he shrines them there ! Nor ever bolt leaps shattering from the blue ; A plumy pomp of cloud in azure air Sails undismayed ; Earth shudders not for shame ; Nor yawns to engulph her — gulphs the innocent. A Lay of Civilization. 3 1 Only a zephyr dimples with young joy Yon vivid verdure overstarred with gold ! Poor paralytic human Pity ! what Canst thou in this confusion ? Wring thy hands, And weep, like Rachel, for thy little ones, Or fumble thy conjectural remedies, That may be poisons, and experiment ! A human sire, on whom a child relies, Asleep in perfect trust upon his heart — Would he not give his body to be burned, And all his soul to Satan for the child ? Death shall devour it, even in his arms, Or Ruin rend, he lying impotent ! But Thou, O Father, if these are thy Sons, Canst Thou behold them prostrate in such plight Unmoved ? nor rend the heavens and come down ? Or art Thou sleeping, on a journey, or Hast Thou deserted these thine orphans, Lord ? Nay, who but Heaven commissioneth dim Plague, Death, Sorrow, Madness, dire ancestral Sin, Cancer, long torments unimaginable, And all the brood of ever-ravening ills, That devastate mankind ? No bribe can tame them, Unguessed, innumerous, invincible. So clings some awful beast to a faint fawn, Galloping maddened o'er the indifferent wild. By wells, and pleasant pasturage the Doom 32 A Lay of Civilization. Cowers in his ambush, springs from the blue air, Falls like a thunderbolt ; O men, can ye Rival your Mother in accomplished crime ? Who perpetrates what freezes the warm blood, Masked in light laughter, kissing while she stabs I And yet, because the still small voice within Reveals God more than storm, or earthquake, we, Bettering Her rude ways, give sense the lie, Nor will believe Her what she only seems. O Thou dread Silence, dumbly do we bow ; In silence we commend Thy world to Thee. Most awful Spirit of the Universe ! Kneeling before Thy throne we grovel low, Yea, wrestle with Thee through the long night hours, Unknowing Thy dread Name ; we will not let Thee go until Thou loose the cloudy fold From that veiled countenance ! Hath Love, or Hate, Or dead Indifference his temple there ? Now sweet, now bitter waters, night and day, Anguish and joy, strong radiant righteousness, With sin malformed, and folly, motley crew, Stream from Thy bosom all impartially ! We know not; but of old a Man who bore Upon His shoulder the world's weight of woe, Whom men name wisest, He announced Thee Father, A Lay of Civilization. 3? j Praying, " Not My will, but Thine own be done !" Yea, and through mystic change, or swift or slow, Within the general bosom, and in ours, Faith's inarticulate reason may grow clear Fair utterable vision : the wild dance, The strange phantasmagory of ill-dream, Named sin and sorrow, may appear birth-pangs Of life consummate, else impossible ! Therefore, dear birds, in leafy woods ye warble, And you, my children, by the rivulet Play, laughing merrily, because the world Is sound at heart, howe'er it seems to ail. God-fronted, dragon -trained, 'tis but a marred Image in souls, who travail yet ungrown, Who, ruffled, slowly waver into rest. And why we arise or fall, no mortal knows, Save that by change alone the unchanged abides ; Love breathes amid the ruin of red wrong. For a moment only of our infinite life With one wild wing-pulse cleaving earth's rent air, Oh ! lift we one another from this hell Of blindly-battling ignorance to God ! EARLY LOVE. Our early love was only dream ! Still a dream too fair for earth, Hallowed in a faint far gleam, Where the fairest flowers have birth, Let it rest ! no stain e'er trouble Magic murmur, limpid bubble ! There two spirits in the calm Of moonlight memory may go, Finding pure refreshing balm, When life traileth wounded, slow Along dim ways of common dust, As dull lives of mortals must. Early love, fair fount of waters, Ever by enchantment flowing, Where two snakes, her innocent daughters, Were wont to swim among the blowing, Wilding flowers thou knowest well, In the wood of our sweet spell ! Early Love. 35 Never Fear found out the place, Never eyes nor feet profane ! Of our innocent youth and grace Love was born ; if born to wane, We will keep remembrance holy From the soil of care and folly. No weariness of life made wise, No canker in the youngling bud, No lustre failing from our eyes, Nor ardour paling in the blood ! Neither ever seemed less fair To the other playing there. Still asleep, we drift asunder, Who met and loved but in a dream ; Nor kissing closely, woke to wonder Why we are not what we seem ! Fairy bloom dies when we press Wings young zephyr may caress. Fare you well ! more might have been ! Nay, we know more might not be ! A moment only I may lean O.i your bosom, ere you flee, Ere the weary sultry day Hi\ e my morning and my May ! 3—2 36 Early Love. Yet a fairy fountain glistens Under soft moon-lighted leaves, And my wistful spirit listens For a voice that glows and grieves, Breathing, when my heart would fail, Youth from yonder fairy vale, Where sings a nightingale. LOVE HIDING. LOVE was playing hide and seek, And we deemed that he was gone, Tears were on my withered cheek For the setting of our sun ; Dark it was around, above, But he came again, my love! Chill and drear in wan November, We recall the happy spring, While bewildered we remember When the woods began to sing, All alive with leaf and wing, Leafless lay the silent grove ; But He came again, my love ! And our melancholy frost Woke to radiance in His rays, Who wore the look of one we lost In the faraway dim clays ; No prayer, we sighed, the dead may move, Yet he came again, my love ! 38 Love Hiding. Love went to sleep, but not for ever, And we deemed that he was dead ; Nay, shall aught avail to sever Hearts who once indeed were wed ? Garlands for his grave we wove, But he came again, my love ! ROSE AND BUTTERFLY. A butterfly flew to the heart of a rose, Ah ! more than he longed for the flower will yield ! Soft fans of Ariel close, unclose, Unknowing how long he may dwell in our field. He is here ! he is yonder ! the rose will weep, 1 If you may not abide with us, child of air, For ever enfolded in memory sleep, Here in the heart of me, oh my fair !' Chill wind breathes, with a mist and a rain, Shedding the sweet petal, every one ; Now where is the heart of the flower so fain, And the winged blue summer elf, where is he gone ? Rose-lover, remember, though delicate wings, Deep-dyed in a wonderful azure of heaven, Be turned into dust of inanimate things, Very soon from your own life you will be for- given ! SWING-SONG. Swing ! swing ! Birds in the budding wood, birds on the wing Fill sweet soft air with carolling ; The woods no more contain their glee, Joy brims over on every tree In a flutter of leaves hilariously, Swing ! swing ! Early primroses awake from sleep, In many a dewy dale they peep ; Lo ! populous land, far field and grove, Aerial as clouds that move In labyrinthine drifts above ! Swing ! swing ! Anemone-flakes of a veined snow Lie over the sunny herbs below, Lie over brown bents, woven and wet, Where yellow-eyed white violet With moss and strawberry hath met, Swing ! swing ! Swing-Song. 4 * Spring waves her youngling leaves for token Dark winter's deadlier spells are broken ; The firry roofs, with low sea-sound, Welcome to their calm profound The dove's long call in a love-swound, Swing ! swing ! Baby-boy lies on a sisterly arm Of little maid Mary, safe from harm, Little boy Willy will push the pair, Hark ! how they laugh as they rush through the air! All the young world laughs, oh, how fair ! Swing ! swing ! MAGIC-LANTERN. I WAS within a darkened chamber, Full of children small ; Upon my knees I felt him clamber, One of the least of all, Answering my call. He was a baby of the people, Nor aught of him I knew j Only the shadow of one steeple Abode upon us two ; His arms around me grew. Quaint figure, battle, bark, snow-mountain, The lantern-wizardry, Arouse joy's hidden silver fountain To pretty wondering glee, Plashing full merrily. Magic-Lantern. Albeit nor now, before, nor after, Mine eyes beheld the boy, When he so pealed with innocent laughter, Methought my own, my joy, Awhile with me did toy. Athwart the drear unwarmed abysses Of all the later years, He leaned awhile from angel blisses, To calm my foolish fears, To kiss away my tears. THE TEMPLE OF SORROW. 3 The Minster glory lies engulphed in gloom, With mournful music throbbing deep and low, And all the jewelled joy within Her eyes Slumbers suffused ; the saint, the warrior, On tomb recumbent, kneeling panoplied, Blend far-away mysterious presences With a wide-seething multitude, alive Through all the pillared grandeur of the nave, A human sea ; the gorgeous full pomp Of civil, militant, imperial pride, And sacerdotal splendour, cloth of gold, Chalice bejewelled, silks imbued with morn, Flows in blue twilight of a perfumed air, Flows, flashing into momentary gleam By altar and shrine, for lustre of the lamps, Silver and gold suspended, or mild shine Of tall white wax around a central Night In the mid-transept ; there the Catafalque, The Shadow dominates, reigns paramount O'er all the temple ; 'tis the hollow heart, The Temple of Sorrow. 45 Dispensing Darkness through the frame supine Of that colossal Cross, which is the Fane. The huge vault under yavvneth, a deep wound, Filled full with Horror ; Death abideth there : Aye, with our lost Ideals, our lost Loves, Baffled Aim, palsied Faith, Hope atrophied ! All the circumfluent glory-glow of Life Mere tributary to the awful throne Of this dread Power ; all cast their crowns before It Yea, as blithe waters from the abysmal womb Of caverned Earth dance buoyant into Day, So here from fountains of primeval Night In very deed Life seemeth effluent. And some there be most honoured in the crowd, From whom illustrious prince, with emperor And noble stand obeisantly aside. Who are they ? for they wear no bravery, Nor badge of high estate within the realm, Whose garb uncourtly sombre shows and mean. No confident bearing, claiming deference, As of right full-conceded, suns itself Proudly on these ; we judge them of the herd Of rugged toilers, whom the stroke of Fate Despoils of floral honours and green leaves, Fells for rough use, not leaves for leisured grace, 46 The Temple of Sorrow. Or putting forth the loveliest that is theirs. Lowly their port, whose dull and earthward eyes, Heavy with weeping, droop beneath rude brows, Whose light is with their heart, quenched in the abyss That holds their best beloved, torn from them In fierce embraces of devouring fire ; Whose souls were so inextricably involved With these that perished, in the ghastly fall They too were wrenched low from the living light Of placid, self-possessed familiar day Down to a desolate disconsolate wild, Haunt of grim Madness, hollow Doubt, Despair : Only the dead, more happy, seem to glide Lower to nether caverns of cool sleep. Grief is their patent of nobility ; Sorrow the charter of their right to honour. Smitten to earth, behold them cowering, Mocked, buffeted, spurned, spat upon, effaced Under the blood-red executioner, Whom some name Nature, and some God, the Lord. These do but threaten feebly with a mouth Or hand, more feeble than a delicate beast, Lashed for hell-torment by a learned man, Lashed for hell-torment in the torture-trough ; The Temple of Sorrow. 47 The unregarded Sudras of the world, Bleeding to slow death from an inward wound, Deep and immedicable evermore. To these the proud and prosperous of earth Pay reverent homage ! it is marvellous ! And yet no marvel ! such fate-stricken men Are armed, and robed imperially with awe ! Who flame sublime to momentary wrath, Peal with mad mirth, then grovel impotent ; Who affirm not their own selves, who falter lost, Like foam blown inland on the whirlwind's wing From ocean, there dissolving tremulous Where kindred foam evanished only now, So they in the lapsed being of their dead. They are one with these they cherished and adored, Not separate, individual any more : Lieges are they of Sorrow, pale crowned Queen Over man's miserable mad universe. What might have been fair Body grows to Soul : From false-appearing palace halls of sense They are delivered, into mournful worlds Of Peradventures all unfathomable, Forebodings infinite, wild hope, surmise, Faith, love, sweet longing ; yea, they are disturbed 48 The Temple of Sorrow. From dull content with earth's inanities By revelation of what hollow hearts, And loathly shapes they hide ; afire with thirst, Now will they sound the eternal deeps within For living water, clouded and disused, Cumbered with ruin ; their dull eyes are roused From low rank plains to interrogate the height Of perilous attainment or endeavour, Where snows hold high communion with stars, Where from aerial eyrie sails the eagle, Calm in clear air, familiar with Heaven. They are made free of God's eternal spirit, Ever abounding, inexhaustible ; Consumed, that they themselves may truly be. Behold ! the Minster cruciform and grand, Grows human, more than human, as I muse, The Holy House of Life, the Crucified ! What seems the World, the Body of the Lord ! Expanded arms, and frame pulsate with blood, Close-thronging individual lives ; His Heart, Death, haloed with pale anguish and desire. Even so the Sun eclipsed, a sable sphere, Is ringed around with his corona flame, Wherein appear weird members of red fire. But as the Sun behind this ominous orb, That is the spectral shadow of our moon, The Temple of Sorrow. 49 • Smiles evermore beneficent, so Love Veils Him in gloom sepulchral for awhile, That we who sound the abysses of Despair May weave pure pearls, Her awful bosom hides, Into a coronal for our pale brows, And He Himself, descending to the deep, Bearing our burden, may win lovelier grace Of Love's own tears, which are the gems of God. Ever the plangent ocean of low sound Fills all with midnight, overwhelms my heart. Lit tapers faint around the Catafalque, And fair-wrought lamp in sanctuary and shrine. The wan expanse seems labouring confused With what feels like some glutinous chill mist, Close cobweb-woof; the great Cathedral quakes, As from sick earthquake throes ; the pillars tall Heave, like huge forest-peers, that agonize In tides of roaring tempest : will the pile Vanish anon to assume an alien form ? For all the pillars hurtle aloft to flame Flamboyant, cloven, pallid, while the roof Reels riven ; yet there is not any sound. Lo ! every Christ on every crucifix Glares with the swordblade glare of Antichrist ! While on the immense-hewn flanking masonry, Scrawled, as by finger supernatural, 4 50 The Temple of Sorrow. As in Belshazzar's banquet-hall of old, Behold the " Mene ! menc /" but the realm Divided is the royal realm, the soul ! The guilty soul, ingorged by the dim fiend Of loathsome, limbless bulk, Insanity ! In dusk recesses how the shadows wax Palpable, till they palpitate obscene, Clinging, half-severed ; our sick souls are ware Of some live Leprosy, that heaves and breathes Audibly in the impenetrable gloom. Hear ye the moans of muffled agony By yonder altars of the infernal aisle ? Marmoreal pavements slippery with blood ! While all the ghastly-lit ensanguined space Quickening teems with foul abnormal births ; Corpse faces scowling, wound about with shrouds, Sniffing thick orgy fumes of cruelty, Steal out, or slink behind in the shamed air. Vast arteries of the dilating pile Pulsate with ever denser atom-lives Unhappy ; do mine eyes indeed behold Those holy innocents, whom she of yore, The Voice in Ramah, wept so bitterly, Rachel, sweet spirit-mother of their race ? They are holy innocents of many a clime, And many a time, some murdered yesterday, The Temple of Sorrow. 5 1 And some still languishing in present pain : Dumb women, with marred faces eloquent, Hold their wan hands ; while all around, beneath Among their feet, what seems a harried crowd Of gentle beings, who are man's meek friends. They in the reeking shadow yonder fawn Upon dyed knees of things in human shape, All hell's heat smouldering in lurid eyes, And Cain's ensanguined brand upon their brow, Who on Christ-altars, prostitute to sin, Offer these innocents to fiends whose names, Obsequious to the inconstant moods of man, Vary elusive, and deluding ; now They are called Moloch, Baal, Ashtaroth, Hatred, Revenge, War, Lust, Greed, Might-is-Right, Now Church, the Truth, the Virgin, or the Christ, But in a later time Expediency, Weal of Man, Nature, Lust of Curious Lore. The accurst oblation of fair alien lives, None of their own, they pour to satiate The hydra-headed, demon brood obscene. These are devoured with ever subtler pangs Cunningly heightened, fuelled, nursed, prolonged By cold, harsh hearts, one adamant to woe, Or cruel, infamous appetite for pain. Ay, and of horrors loathlier than these The verse dares name not, thrust on beautiful 4—2 52 The Temple of Sorrow. Maidens and babes defenceless, of such feasts The God-deserted souls are gluttonous — All Nature pales at Satan's carnival ! Who are the lost souls ? Legion is their name. Noble, pope, cardinal, king, refuse vile Of crime-infested cities. I behold Borgia, Caligula, Napoleon, Marat, De Retz, and he that did to death The royal child, who heard the angels call Him home, soft singing, dying, ere he died. And some are here who cumber earth to-day Flesh-girt ; their name shall not profane the page. There go seducers, they who lightly break Warm simple hearts who trust them : there are some Who wither women slowly with harsh looks, 111 words, or blows, inflamed, obsessed by fiends, Wearing the semblance of a flask of fire. Yonder fair dames white-bodied, and dark-souled ! Mothers we find, who can withhold unshamed The high and holy dues, that all beside Of animated nature punctually, With rapturous devotion, consecrates, The dear debt to the fruit of our own womb, What strength owes to dependent feebleness, Reason full-orbed to shyly-opening sense, The Temple of Sorrow. 53 Confided and confiding : even now Their mothers gave themselves for these, and God Bestows Himself on every living thing For ever : these will starve, or drown their babes, Enthral them to a ghastlier than death, That he may work on them his loathly will, Corrupting soul and body. Drop the veil ! All here, foul traitors ! all betrayed the trust Nature imposed, while only dyed less deep, Who, passing, drawled, "Am I my brother's keeper ?" White victims, immolated for the world ! Ye tyrants, ye alone are miserable ! For whom Hate hath left loving, though a beast, Is nearer God than you, removed from Him By all the hierarchies of all worlds ! But these have fallen to abysms of pain, And you to sloughs of inmost infamy, That all the spheres may learn for evermore The treachery of sweet ways that are not Love. Yet if some God be lingering in you, Your own eternal selves consenting not, (Which are by lapse, and by recovery) Touching the lowest deep ye shall recoil ! When in the furnace heated sevenfold More than the wont, fierce furnace of God's wrath, 54 The Temple of Sorrow. Blasted, ye shrivel, your inhuman pride Stern, stubborn metal swooning to weak air In the white heat of Love's intolerable, Ah ! then will not the innocence ye wronged, Leaving her own bliss for you, fly from heaven To heal you by forgiveness ? May it be ! Yea, there are fleeting gleams from the All-fair, Playing of children, larks, and lovers gay, Beautiful image, grand heroic deed, Cheery content ; but ah ! the grim World-woe Absorbs all vision, overwhelms the heart ! A few, with seraph pity in clear eyes, And flashing swords retributive unsheathed, Sore-pressed and wounded, wrestle with the foe, Defeated, slain, delivering ; while aloft We seize anon some glimpses of august, Benignant countenances, with white wings, As of Heaven's host invisible drawn up For battle ; but I know not who prevail. A few pale stars in chasms of wild storm ! Aliens, alas ! no potentates of ours. We are in the power of Darkness and Dismay, Anguishing God-forsaken on the cross ! Yea, sons of Belial with jaunty jeer Ask where thou hidest, Lord ! the Avenger ! God ! Devils a priestly scare to them, who know not The Temple of Sorrow. 55 Devils allure them blind into the pit. Could they but hear low ghastly mirth convulse Shadowy flanks of these live Plagues in air ! Mine eyeballs seared with horror, and my heart One writhing flame, I prayed that I might die, And lay me down to sleep with him for ever ! A sevenfold darkness weighs upon my soul : I hear no groans, no music ; all is still, Even as the grave : one whispers of the Dawn : Once I surmised the morning gray, not now : Nor in the chancel, whose wide wakeful orb, Solemnly waiting, ever fronts the East, Nor in the cold clerestories of the nave. One whispers of the lark j I hear no bird. And yet I know the seraph eyes of Dawn Find in her last, lone hollow the veiled Night. Hearken ! a long, low toll appals the gloom ! Like a slow welling blood from a death-wound In the world's heart, that never will be staunched, Crimsoning the void with waste expense of pain ! Another, and another, vibrating ! A phantom bell tolls in the abysmal dark The funeral of all living things that be. I, turning toward the Catafalque, desire, Plunging within the gulf, to be no more. . . . 56 The Temple of Sorrow. When, lo ! some touch as of a healing hand. For while I knew the mourners only saw Flowers on fair corses and closed coffin-lid, I grew aware of souls regenerate 1 Afar, sweet spirits raimented in white, Who leaned above the Terror with calm eyes ; And for a moment their purged vision cleared Earth-humours from mine own, till I beheld No deadly Dark — a lake of living Light, A mystic sphere, the Apocalyptic main ! Heaving with happiness that breathes, a home For all dear spirits of the faded flowers Outrageous men have pulled and thrown away ; Clouds in blue air reflected in a mere, Or roseflush in rose-opal, a shy dawn In lakes at morning, so the souls appeared. My little children, do I find you here ? All here ! Among you smiles our very own. Each little one hath, nestled in his bosom, A delicate bird, or elfin animal. White-clustered lilies, beautiful as morn, In wayward luxury of love's own light Eddying, abandoned to love-liberty ! Joy-pulses of young hearts unsulliable Weave warbling music, a low lullaby. I fancy they have syllabled a song : The Temple of Sorrow. 57 We are fain, are fain, Of mortal pain, We are fain of heavenly sorrow, As a gentle rain, She will sustain, Wait only till to-morrow ! Among death-pearls Of dewy curls, O little ones in anguish ! The Lord hath kissed, I would ye wist For all the world ye languish ! The loveless world Lies love-impearled From innocency weeping ; Wan wings be furled, And you lie curled In Love's warm haven sleeping. For when ye know What glories flow For all from childly sorrow, A flower will blow From your wan woe Within the wounded furrow. 5§ The Temple of Sorrow. We are fain, are fain Of mortal pain, We are fain of heavenly sorrow ; As a gentle rain She will sustain, Wait only till to-morrow ! So pure, pellucid fays enjoy the calm Of summer seas, and woven waterlights In faery cavern, where the emerald heart Lies heaving, or blue sheen on a warm wave. And ye are fair-surrounded with lost Love, Celestial Vision, vanished Hope, Desire, Lovelier recovered, gloriously fulfilled With a Divine fulfilment; more than ours. There, in the midst, the likeness of a Lamb, That had been slain, whose passion heals our hurt, Wearing a thorn crown, breathing into bloom ! Lo ! if ye listen intently by the light, Ye hear a winnowing of angel wings, N earing, or waning : while from far away, I'the Heart of all, what revelation falls ? . . . . A sound, oh marvel ! like a sound of tears ! Pain ever deepens with the deepening life, Though fair Love modulate the whole to joy. The Temple of Sorrow. 5 9 A myriad darkling points of dolorous gloom Startle to live light ; subtle infinite veins Of world-wide Anguish glow, a noonlit leaf. All vanish : there is dawn within the fane ; Born slowly from the wan reluctant gloom Conquering emerges a grand Cross of Gold, And all the nations range around serene. THE GEMONIAN STAIRS. 4 Only a slave in Rome of old, A slave for whom none cares ! Slaughtered in dungeon-deeps, and rolled Down the Gemonian stairs ; Insulted, marred, exposed to view, With other human lumber, There in the Forum, where the Roman concourse grew Around his mortal slumber. There in the Forum, by the mighty walls, And columns hero-crowned, Whose mourning voice upon the slumberer calls ? The whine of a poor hound ! He will not leave the swarthy clay, He licks the rigid face ; Harsh-laughing, stern men in long-robed array Gather about the place : One pitying hath offered bread ; The dog but lays it down The Gemonian Stairs. 61 Before the dumb mouth of the master dead ; Whose body later thrown In turbid Tiber's flood he follows, Borne headlong by the river, To lift it from the strong, loud gulf that swallows, Struggling, till both have sunk for ever. A gleam is for a moment cast Over oblivion : The dead slave, whose dog holds him fast, Drifts, passes, — all are gone .... Behold ! yon broken-hearted hare, With hounds and hunters after her ! And sweet, shy poet-birds of air, Startling from man the murderer ! And seals we flay for their sleek fur ! Ah ! what a wail of agony is torn From all these innocent martyr-races, Writhing beneath man's cruel scorn, Whose tyrannous hell distorts their faces ! A cloud of shame clothes earth forlorn, Shrouds her among the starry spaces. SEA. LAKE, AND MOUNTAIN. THALATTA. WHEN Love is fading from thy path, a faint re- membered gleam, Whose wond'rous glory crowned thy crest in youth's triumphal morn, When Friendship yields a willow-wand, once in Love's generous dream, Leaned on with all thy weight of soul, defying doubt and scorn, Once deemed inviolable, divine, an oaken staff, a stay, Never to fail thee at thy need in all the perilous way ; When thou art tossed from surge to surge, a help- less waif of ocean, While hell-born lusts and base-born gusts befool thee with vain motion ; When foolish wants and angers in ignoble eddies whirl A human spirit, formed to front God's glory un- ashamed ; 5 66 Thalatta. Nor any Cause colossal, like a catapult, may hurl To splendid goals all powerful souls, chafing, un- loved, unnamed : Then, poet, seek alone resounding hollows of the sea, And plunge thy sullen soul in ocean's grand im- mensity ! Dare to scale the water mountains ! let them topple in loud ruin O'er thee, lusty swimming from clifi-harboured sandy coves ; Though stress of tides impetuous threaten thine undoing, Or violent swirl of undertow, where seething emerald moves Around rude reefs and promontories, menace with swift death, Confront the glorious wild Power, who plays with human breath ! Yea, let thy reckless shallop dare seas rushing round the caves, Smite with straining oar the kindling heavy night of waves ! Climb the sea-crag, hand and foot, little careful of a fall ! Storm shall be thy requiem, fairy foam thy pall. Ah ! mighty boisterous blown breath, your siren song for me ! Thalatta. 67 I quaff exhilarating draughts of wine from forth the sea, Soft seething masses of fair froth luring deliciously ! Vaporous blast ! voice of vast long sibilant sea- thunder ! Bellowing explosions in abysmal cavern-halls ! Storm my sense with sound imperial, with a joy sublime and wonder ! Throned aloft in perilous places unto me the Mother calls. Hear Her ! tremble not ! but echo to the glowing spirit's core ; It is Her voice ; Her sons rejoice ; they shout to Her again : By sacred river-fountains, in the desert blast, and roar Of bounding cataracts, in forest, by foam-moun- tains of the main, In the grand Atlantic chaos, in his elemental war, She converses; I have heard Her; I would hearken evermore ! Ye, my brothers, loved and worshipped ; all your music rolls with hers ! Human sounds inform the wind that like a trumpet stirs ! .... Verily I deem I hear above the tumult of the blast, 5—2 68 Thalatta. That takes my breath, and dashes all the salt spray- over me, Not the sea-mew's cry, nor wind's wail, eerie tones of some who passed, Wailing in the wind's wail, shadows drifting deso- lately ! For they say the drowned must wander on the cliffs or on the wave, Where the fatal moment plunged them in their " wandering grave." Travelling mountain range, following moun- tain range ! Now the foremost wavering green crest begins to smoke ; Breaks at one place, and suffers dark precipitous change, Arching slowly, solemnly ; under where it broke A heavy shadow haunteth the grim wall ; till emerald, All the cliff falls over, tumbles a dead weight Of crushed and crashing water .... yonder unenthralled, A monstrous buffalo in headlong strong tumul- tuous hate, Plunging wild hatred upon the rock! immense white tongues of fire Thalatta. 69 Are hurled around, enshroud, envelope with a cloud ; Lo ! where springs to Heaven a fairy fretted spire ! Or is it a wan warrior's arms thrown up in death's despair ? Death-white, baffled in grey air ! ... . Shattered upon his iron Doom in armoured onset there ! Niagaras upthundering, foamy avalanches, Beetling, flickering huge crags of seething snowy spume, Wherein are caverns of green tint among pale coral branches, And white comets thwart more shadowy froth-pre- cipice's gloom ! Dark founded isles evanish in the flying mountain tomb ; Albeit their wave-sculptured forms defiantly abide Under grey vapours hurrying o'er the sombre tide : Torn from parent shores, around their pillowed isolation Ocean revelling roars with terrible elation ! Afar, in the dull offing of a furrowed sullen sea, O'er yon rock-rooted Pharos rises awfully, Like a Phantom, rises slowly a white cloud, 70 Thalatta. Scales the lofty lanthorn where three human hearts are bowed, Bowed awhile, involved within the Sea-Plume that ascends, Swallowing a hundred feet of granite ere it bends. Behold ! the sweep of mighty crags, whose league-long fortress front, Whose frowning granite arc defies with stature tall and steep Ocean's embattled billows : these have borne the brunt Of terrible assaults ! the cannon thunders, and a leap Of smoke ascends the ramparts of a breached and broken keep, At each discharge : The Titan targe hath pinnacle and tower : Or is the whole an organ for the surge to smite with power, That hath the turbulent storm-music for everlasting dower ? Cathedral Heights of Titans, hewn by colossal Hands, Millennial ministers of flood and frost, wild earth- quake and fierce fire ! Lo ! where a porphyry portal of the mountain heart expands, Thalatta. 7 l Portentous shadowy buttress, weather-goldened spire ; There multitudinous waters wander greyly in the gloom ; Within the high sea-sanctuary a god dispenses doom ; In and out they wander, sombre courtiers by the gate, Where a dim Sea-Presence broodeth in solemn sullen state — Where no mortal breath dare whisper, only hollow sounding surges, A welter of wild waters with their melancholy dirges. Behold they rave in echoing cave their wrath rent long ago, Rent for a lair, where grim Despair rolls shoulder- ing to and fro ; To and fro they furious roll prodigious boulders, Rounding them like pebbles with huge Atlantean shoulders. Beyond one vast rock-sentinel guarding the awful court, Surrounded and o'ershadowed by walls perpendi- cular, Before those palace-portals foamy serpents huge resort, 7 2 Thalatta. Wallowing upon the wilderness, grey and cold afar; While among the tumbled boulders, before the giant cave, Robed in royal purple, royal raiment of the wave, Lie crunched and shattered timbers, ribs of mighty ships ; Yea, and limbs of some who, craving one more kiss of loving lips, Were stifled in the violent froth, jammed beneath black stones, Whose glossy weed may dally with their coral- crusted bones. Tall, gaunt Phantom yonder, warding portals of the night, With silent, sweeping stature growing from the eastern wall, Lank long arms upraised, and curving with the vasty cavern's height, A beaked monster face between them, looking downward to appal ! Art thou stone, or art thou spirit, fearful Shadow weird and grey, Daring mortals to advance beyond their precincts of the day ? All the cliffs are shrouded to the waist, or only loom Head and shoulders through a death-mist, but where the rollers boom Thalatta. 73 Their feet are bare and stern : pale sand I discern Near their ruined grandeur ; a chrysoprase pale green Narrow water isles it, with a restless flow ; The tidal heave advances ; cormorants of swarthy mien Squat on rocks about the cave, or dive in deeps below. While sweet samphire, with tufted thrift, glows in clefts above, Ever and anon a sound, with ominous power to move, Wanders from the wilderness, a very mournful spell : Through the wind and wave embroilment ever tolls a passing bell. Whence the warning ? what imports it ? When I clamber, when I rest, It seems to breathe foreboding in a fading air. Is it from the sombre church in lonely glen de- prest ? There, by old cross and coffin-stone, on immemorial chair Of rude grey granite, hoary ghosts in dark conclave may brood : Nay! but the tolling tolleth from the turbulent flood 74 Thalatta. Not from where the giants hewed them vasty seats of solid rock, Or Druid with poured human blood adored the Logan block : Not from where the Cromlech ponderous, and hoary cirque remain, Though we know no more who reared them, Celt or Dane, or Athelstane ; Nor whose the mouldered dust in yonder urns of perished prime, Bard's, or warrior's, who flared a moment in the hollow Night of Time ! — There on dreary moorland haunteth owl and raven ; There at moonrise hoots the rocky earn, to con- found the craven, While fiends are hunting dark lost souls who are shut out from Heaven — The knell is knolled by wild white arms of surges ramping round The fatal reef, where mariners are drifted to be drowned ! It is the Rundlestone! He knolls for passing human souls : It is the voice of Doom from forth profound Eternity ! Weird dragon forms, roughened in storms, a foamy beryl rolls Thalatta. 75 Ever around you, dumb and blind stones, who con- front the sky ! I feel that in your soul there slumbers a dim Deity. .... Were it not better to dissolve this chaos of the mind, And in the twilight of your world long consolation find, Restoring the proud Spirit to your elemental Powers, Dying into cliff, and cloud, and snowdrift of sea flowers ? . . ■ . Vanishes the storm-rack in the gleaming West : A long wide chasm, glowing like a World of Rest, O'er the dusk horizon opens, whereinto Visionary domes arise, and towers of tender hue ! A holy realm of Silence, a city of deep Peace, Where Death leads all poor prisoners who have won release ! Long ranks of high surges, heaving dark against the bright Heaven, fall illumed 'thwart iron crags, whose frown relents to Light. Land's End, 1875. BY THE SEA. Ah ! wherefore do I haunt the shadowy tomb, My joyless days and nights among the dead ? Know you not He, my radiant Sun, who fled With hope uncertain soothes yon awful gloom Afar, upon the weltering sea's wan lead ? Behold ! faint, tremulous, ghostly gleam illume The unrevealing mystery of Doom, Ashpale dumb wastes, impenetrable, dread, O'erwhelming purple incumbent o'er the coast. Into the Presence-Chamber of dim Death He hath been summoned ! and I hold my post Here on the threshold, thirsty for one breath Released from yonder ! Leave me ! I love my night, More than abounding pulses of your light ! TINTADGEL. TlNTADGEL, from thy precipice of rock Thou frownest back the vast Atlantic shock ! Yet purple twilight in cathedral caves, Moulded to the similitude of waves Tempestuous by awful hands of storm, Along whose height the formidable form Of some tall phantom stands on guard ; huge boulders From iron crags reft, toys of ocean shoulders, And thine own venerable keep that yields To slow persuasion ancient Nature wields, Inevitably sure, forbode thy fall : For she compels the individual To merge in the full manifold of Her His cherished privacy of character : And therefore Arthur's ancient ramparts range From human fellowship to nature, change To semblance of the fretted weathered stone, Upreared by mystic elements alone. 78 Tintadgel. That old grey church upon the sheer black crag, Where generations under the worn flag, Or in God's acre sleep ! There one dark morn I worshipped — heights of heaven all forlorn With drift confused, wild wind, and the blown rain — I mused of those who in the lonely fane Halted world-weary through the centuries ; Kelt, Saxon, Norman, English ; on their eyes The dust of Death ; Oblivion holds the psalms, Where now in turn we celebrate the calms, The Sabbath calms with hymns, and chanted prayer. But what indignant wail of wild despair Storms at the doors and windows, shakes the walls ? Before the void unsouled sound that appals, Our human hymns in that dim sheltered place Seem to fall low, to cower, and hide the face. Awhile faint praise wins victory ; uproars On overshadowing vans without the doors Whirlwind insurgent, as in awful scorn, To be controlled no longer, nor forborne, Of poor brief fluttering human hopes and breath, Played with a moment by the winds of death, Ere dissolution and dismemberment In the undivine, dim void where all lie shent ; A shivering foam-flake, or a timid light Spat upon by the rains, extinguished quite ! We laughin fair pavilions of light Love, Or worship in the solemn, sacred Grove, TintadgeL 79 We rest in warm Affection built to last : And all will leave us naked to the blast ! What means the wind ? Yon ruin's proud decay — We know not who in far off years did lay The strong foundations : Arthur, Guinevere, And Lancelot, were they indeed once here ? Are all fair shadows of a poet's dream, Or did they ride in the early morning beam, Armed, and resplendent, radiant within, Champion redressors, quelling tyrant Sin, Slaying grim dragon Wrongs, who held in ward The maiden Innocence ; from Joyous-Guard, Camelot, or Tintadgel, brave and glad, Did they indeed ride, Lancelot, Galahad ? Have lawless love, and Modred swept to ground That glorious order of the Table Round ? Who knows ? they are but creatures of the brain ; Or if they were, behold our mightiest wane, With all their sounding praise, like dream- shadows, Storm-rack that drifts, or billowy foam ! none knows Whether they were, or were not ; sombre keep, And chapel crown twin crags, one ruin-heap, While the sea thunders under, and between, And cliffs no hand hewed mimic what hath been 80 Tintadgel. In weathered buttress, pinnacle, and tower' Where now the prancing steed, the lady's bower ? No clang of arms, no battle bugle blown, Only in sounding cave the wild sea clarion ! But then my heart responded to the blast, I deem that in those clouds of the dim past Tall god-like forms loom verily ; with us Dwell souls who are not less magnanimous. They pass, yet only to be self-fulfilled ; They pass, yet only as the All hath willed, To enter on their full-earned heritage, More righteous, and momentous wars to wage ; And if those heroes were not, then the mind That holds high visions of our human kind Is mightier than mighty winds and waves, And lovelier than emerald floors of caves. Nature Herself is the high utterance Of holy gods ; we, half awake in trance, Hear it confused ; through some half-open door We hear an awful murmur, and no more : We are under some enchantment ; lift the spell, What mortal then the wondrous tale may tell ? Tintadgel, 1884. SUSPIRIA. 5 Li?ies addressed to H. F. B. Do you remember the billowy roar of tumultuous ocean, Darkling, emerald, eager under vaults of the cave, Shattered to simmer of foam on a boulder of delicate lilac, Disenchantless youth of the clear, immortal wave ? Labyrinths begemmed with fairy lives of the water, Sea-sounding palace halls far statelier than a King's, Seethe of illumined floor with a never-wearying motion, Oozy enchased live walls, where a seamusic rings? Do you remember the battle our brown- winged arrowy vessel Waged with wind and tide, a foaming billowy night, To a sound as of minute guns, when gloomy hearts of the hollows With sullen pride rebuffed invading Ocean's might ? 82 Suspiria. Do you remember the Altarlet towers that front the cathedral, Dark and scarred sheer crag, flashed o'er by the wild sea-mews ? How they wheel aloft lamenting, souls of the ululant tempest ! And the lightning billows clash in the welter Odin brews ! A sinister livid glare from under brows of the Storm-Sun ! Brows of piled-up cloud, threatening grim Bre- chou, Bleaching to ghastly pale the turbulent trouble of water, While the ineffable burden of grey world o'er me grew ! Yea, all the weary waste of cloud confused with the ocean Fell full-charged with Doom on a foundering human heart : Our souls were moved asunder, away to an infinite distance, While all the love that warmed me waned, and will depart. Fiends of the whirlwind howl for a wild carousal of slaughter Suspiria. 83 Of all that is holy and fair, so shrills the demon wail ; Ruin of love and youth, with all we have deemed immortal ! My child lies dead in the dark, and I begin to fail! Wonderful visions wane, tall towers of phantasy tumble; I shrink from the frown without me, there is no smile within ; I cower by the tireless hearth of an uninhabited chamber, Alone with Desolation, and the dumb ghost of my sin. I have conversed with the aged ; once their souls were a furnace ; Now they are gleams in mouldered vaults of the memory : All the long sound of the Human wanes to wails of a shipwreck, Drowned in the terrible roar of violent sons of the sea ! In the immense storm-chaunt of winds and waves of the sea ! And if we have won some way in our weary toil to the summit, 6-2 84 Suspiria. Do we not slidder ever back to the mouth of the pit ? When I behold the random doom that engulphs the creature, I wonder, is the irony of God perchance in it ? Tis a hideous spectacle to shake the sides of fiends with laughter, Where in the amphitheatre of our red world they sit ! Yea, and the rosiest Love in a songful heart of a lover, Child of Affinity, Joy, Occasion, beautiful May, May sour to a wrinkled Hate, may wear and wane to Indifference, Ah ! Love an' thou be mortal, all will soon go grey! O when our all on earth is wrecked on reefs of disaster, May the loud Night that whelms be found indeed God's Day ! Our aims but half our own, we are drifted hither and thither ; The quarry so fiercely hunted rests unheeded now ; And if we seized our bauble, it is fallen to ashes, But a fresh illusion haunts the ever-aching brow. Suspiria. 85 Is the world a welter of dream, with ne'er an end, nor an issue, Or doth One weave Dark Night, with Morning's golden strand, To a Harmony with sure hand ? Ah ! for a vision of God ! for a mighty grasp of the real, Feet firm based on granite in place of crumbling sand ! O to be face to face, and heart to heart with our dearest, Lost in mortal mists of the unrevealing land ! Oh ! were we disenthralled from casual moods of the outward, Slaves to the smile or frown of tyrant, mutable Time ! Might we abide unmoved in central deeps of the Spirit, Where the mystic jewel Calm glows evermore sublime ! The dizzying shows of the world, that fall and tumble to chaos, Dwell irradiate there in everlasting prime. But the innermost spirit of man, who is one with the Universal, Yearns to exhaust, to prove, the Immense of Experience, 86 Suspiria. Explores, recedes, makes way, distils a food from a poison, From strife with Death wrings power, and sea- soned confidence. : er the awakening infant, drowsing eld, and the mindless, Their individual Spirit glows enthroned in Heaven, Albeit at dawn, or even, or from confusion of cloudland, Earth of their full radiance may remain bereaven : Yea, under God's grand eyes all souls lie pure and shriven. Nay ! friend beloved ! remember purple robes of the cavern, And all the wonderful dyes in dusky halls of the sea, When a lucid lapse of the water lent thrills of exquisite pleasure, A tangle of Hying lights all over us tenderly, When our stilly bark lay floating, or we were lipping the water, Breast to breast with the glowing, ardent heart of the deep ! That was a lovelier hour, whispering hope to the spirit, Suspiria. Sy Breathing a halcyon calm, that lulled despair to sleep ; Fairy flowers of the ocean, opening innermost wonder, Kindle a rosy morn impearled in the waterways, A myriad tiny diamond founts arise in the coralline, Anemones love to be laved in the life of the chrysoprase : The happy heart of the water in many unknown recesses Childly babbled, and freely to glad companions : We will be patient, friend, through all the moods of the terror, Waiting in solemn hope resurrection of our suns ! Cherish loves that are left, pathetic stars in the gloaming ; Howe'er they may wax and wane, they are with us to the end ; The Past is all secure, the happy hours and the mournful Involved i' the very truth of God Himself, my friend ! It is well to wait in the darkness for the Deliverer's moment, With a hand in the hand of God, strong Sire of the universe ; 88 Suspiria. It is well to work our work, with cheering tones for a brother, Whose poor bowed soul, like ours, the horrible gulfs immerse ; Then dare all gods to the battle ! Who of them all may shame us? The very shows of the world have fleeting form from thee : Discover but thy task, embrace it firm with a purpose ; Find, and hold by Love, for Love is Eternity. Sark, 1 88 1. O to be sure for ever ! weary of hopes and guesses, I would the film might fall that veils our orbs in night ! At eve grey phantom armies guard the mighty mountain, Denying free approach to wistful wondering sight : A Presence dim divined through blind impalpable motion, An awful formless Form, i' the core of change unmoved, Suspiria. 89 No more was ours, until the grand invincible Angel, The clear-eyed North blew bare Heaven's azure heights, and proved Hope's heavenliest flight weak-winged ; his breath with clangorous challenge Dissolved the cloud-battalions, withering shamed away : Behold, in sunrise dyed, a wondrous vision of high crag, Spires of leaping flame arrested in mid-play ; Peak, rock-tower, and dome ; huge peals of an ocean of thunder Assumed a bodily form in yonder wild array ! And the long continuous roll of cloudy storm subsiding Was tranced to awful slopes of smooth grey precipice, While over all up-soared, retiring into the heavens, Ever higher and higher, snows and gleaming ice! Plain beyond plain, the strophes of a glorious poem, Voyaging stately and calm to heights of the argument .... How to be sure for ever ? deepening all our being, And emptying self of self, with Truth we shall be blent. 90 Suspiria. Yon hierarchy sublime of calm ethereal mountain Was born of earth's fierce passion, world-con- founding throes, Fire, and battle, and gloom ; the livid demon of lightning Flashed his zigzag blaze to be a norm for those ; Birth and death, monotonous toil in deeps of the ocean, Co-operant blind to fashion a far-off repose. Whose brief earth-hour may taste ripe future fruit of the ages ? Gauge with a life's one pace the march of the armies of God ? Forestall results of time, flash all the sun from a dew-drop ? But where the Sire hath willed, there every foot- step trod. Tis only a little we know ; but ah ! the Saviour knoweth ; I will lay the head of a passionate child on His gentle breast, I poured out with the wave, He founded firm with the mountain ; In the calm of His infinite eyes I have sought and found my rest. Suspiria. 9 1 O to be still on the heart of the God we know in the Saviour, Feeling Him more than all the noblest gifts He gave ! To be is more than to know ; we near the Holy of Holies In coming home to Love; we shall know beyond the grave. Ah ! the peace of the beautiful realm, like dew, sinks into my spirit ; True and tender friend, I love to be here with thee. The pines, tall fragrant columns of a magnificent temple, Are ranged before the ethereal mountain majesty: While a dove-coloured lapse of the water merrily murmurs a confidence Into a quiet ear of twilit beautiful bowers ; Sweet breath of the pyrola woos us, white waxen elf of the woodland, And two tired hearts may play awhile with the innocent flowers. San Martina, 1882. AUTUMN. I. — ALONE. Leaves from lofty elms on high In pale air swim shadowy ; Fall, Till, level with a weathered wall, Glow their autumn colours all ; Faintly rustle, touching earth ; Where, in mimicry of mirth, With a crisper rustle dance, When the viewless winds advance, Driven leaves, decayed and brown, Eddying as they are blown. Dear illusions perish so, Summer nurslings, ere the snow ; Loosen from a fading youth, Leave us barren to the truth. Nay, they blossom forth again ! Spring from winter, joy from pain, Again ! Autumn. 9; How yon leaflet floats, returning To the tree where leaves are burning ! Or is it a small dark bird Nestling in the boughs unheard ? Lo ! a latticed height of planes, Green athwart blue skyey lanes, Blue laving continents of cloud, Violet vapour thunder-browed : Yellowing foliage is fair, Gold-green as an evening air, Thronged upon a deep dove-grey; Higher up the halls of day, Light darkens, yet doth not consume Boughs waving in a fiery tomb, In a gash of brazen fire, Early sunset's ruddy pyre. II. — LOVERS ON THE RIVER. Floating on a slender river, A pale violet flame, Windless air, a violet flame, Clear reflections only quiver, Flickering with margin blurred ! Whisper, bird, A word ! 94 Autumn. Through a mossy arch impearled, Rounded in the water-world, Love ! behold a little boat, With a white sail, stilly float Far off, even In Heaven; For the river-reach appears To mount a violet air ; A spirit's wings in violet air, Free from human woes and fears, In our dreams It seems ! While yon kine upon the marge, On the meadowy marge, Greenly-glowing pasture large, Send their gleam of coloured shadow Beyond a green bank from the meadow, Where rushes are, Afar! Perished all sweet summer posies ; Yet a radiant air Lavishes more fair Roseflush from windwoven roses Rich and rare. Now we float in orchard closes, Darkly, magically green, Ne'er an apple seen : Till the water winds between Autumn. 95 Beechen hills, And leaf-fed rills, Whose rich furnace chestnut-gold Dowers the wave with wealth untold ; Flakes of burning gold Lying on the vivid grass Gorgeous, while we softly pass. Lo ! slim aspens yellow-pale, Inlaying far mist while we sail : Whisper, bird, A word ! Whisper, murmur, never move From thy pillow, love ! From my bosom, tender dove ! Lying quiet, hand in hand, We will dream we need not land Upon the shore, Where evermore Love, a rainbow, dear illusion, Melts into the world's confusion ! We will dream no chance may sever Two fond hearts upon the river Of their own felicity ! We will dream Love need not die ; Only fly, In the even, To Heaven ! 96 Autumn. III.— IN THE GLENS. Upon the huge rock-rooted elm we stood, That hangs and murmurs o'er a shadowy deep, Where a dim glen lies silently in sleep. There one tall ash, crowned queen of all the wood Rises above a labyrinthine brood, Verdurous underglooms, adown the steep Riverward falling : nightdews well and weep In their rich bowers of odorous solitude. Boulders block leafy cataracts, that brave With rebel surge the crag's commanding wall : Beeches burn brilliant against a grave Mist-sombred russet foliage, that all Seems, like a surf, to mount the steep, nor fall ; Climbs the high cliffs, a never-refluent wave. We swung beneath the rugged antlered form ; Clambering, plunged into a green profound, Ash-pale rent vapours gathering around Those vast elm-arms upvvrithen to the storm ; Till we beheld a cliff's grey bulk enorm, Crimson beyond the woodland where we wound, Whose boughs half veiled the grandeur sunset- warm ; High cliff that doth the tidal Avon bound. Autumn. 97 Here, where steep rocks are riven abrupt and gory, Where leans, weird thyrsus, a thin branchless tree, Ivied, discrowned, athwart their promontory, Midmost all rank and fleshy growths that be, Nightshade, worn tumbled stones, and trunks mist- hoary, Satyrs and fauns may hold strange revelry ! Then we emerged upon a slumbering tide, Where sounding fire-ships to the populous port Draw vessels laden ; there white birds resort, Whom light discovers, or hill-shadows hide, While slowly in aerial maze they glide. Gorgeous Autumn holds her stately court, A solemn queen, like Tragedy; gold-wrought, Her train fills all the glens ; she is Death's bride ; For soon she shall be robed in a white shroud. But we, fond friends, we dared to breathe aloud Vows of a love undying ; though a cloud Gathered, passed over, melted in the blue ; Though withering worlds, like leaves, around us flew ; And all the abysses yawned upon us two. All awful Forces of the Universe, Within, beneath, around us, and above, Dark armoured Phantoms, frowned upon our love, 7 98 Atttumti. Breathing cold scorn thereover, for a curse. Behold ! how blind wild hurricanes disperse A foam-flake, inland blown from a sea-cove ; So man's fair hopes inviolable prove. Cling, hearts, a moment ere the gulfs immerse ! For Self, and Sin, with all that sundereth, Mad Chance, and Change, faint Absence, and dim Death, A ghostly army, leagued against Love's breath, Have sworn to annihilate ; life's shadows close : But Love, whose blossom fleeteth as it blows, Rests in the heart of a Divine repose. MONTE ROSA. ROSA ! thy battlement of beaming ice Burns, like the battlement of Paradise ! One block of long white light unsulliable Glows in deep azure, Heaven's cathedral wall, Gleams, a pure loveliness of angel thought, With Heaven's inviolable ardour fraught. A myriad flowers play fearless at thy feet, And many a flying fairy sips their sweet, While with the Sun of souls, the Paraclete, Thou communest up yonder, rapt from earth, Robed in the evening-gold, or morning-mirth. One cloudy surge from thy tremendous steep Recoils, and hangs a warder o'er thy sleep, Whose awful spirit in deep reverie Above the world abides eternally : While seraphs roam around thy silver slope, Nestle in thy hollows, and. with fair-flying hope Temper the intolerable severity Of holiest Purpose ; many a floweret blows In the unearthly Honour of thy snows, 7—2 ioo Monte Rosa. Like innocent loves in souls erect, sublime, Who breathe above the tainted air of time : While many a falling water kisses Tinkling emerald abysses Of shadowy cavern with cool rain, Clear gliding rills in polished porcelain Channels descending o'er a crystal plain From the Frost-Spirit's palace bowers Of sea-green pinnacles, and toppling towers, And grim white bastion defiled With rocky ruin of the wild : While over all thy luminous pure ice Rears the stupendous radiant precipice, High terraces the seraphim have trod, Stairs dwindling fainter, as they near the abode, Where in light unimaginable dwells God. But now around thee sullen, murmuring Storm Flings his dark mantle ; such around the form Of awful Samuel, summoned from the tomb, At Endor rose : then all is rayless gloom About thy Presence for a little while ; Until God draws in His cathedral aisle The folding shroud from thy dread countenance. Behold ! above the storm, as in a trance, Thy grand, pale Face abides, regarding us, As from Death's realm afar, like risen Lazarus ! Monte Rosa. 101 Isled in dusk blue, one star thrills faintly shining Over thy crest in mournful day's declining : Far away glens deep solitary blanch With snow fresh fallen of the avalanche ; Forested prowls the haggard wolf, the craven, While o'er me croaking weirdly wheels the raven ; Yonder in twilight, fretted with fierce fire, Lower vast vans of hungering lammergeyer ! Dark vassal crags, who guard thine awful throne, Wearing dim forests for a sounding zone, Divide to let thy torrent coursers flee With thunderous embassage to the great Sea. Behold ! on grand long summits bowed A huge ghost-cataract of cloud ! Niagara motionless, unvoiced, In dim rapt air portentous poised ! But ruffled plumes of Tempest lower Where the giant cliffs uptower, While their impregnable fort frowns Defiant, and their haughty crowns Their vapoury veils, Livid ice-ribs, and wolf-fanged teeth Threaten implacable with death Rash mortal who assails ! Beneath them the heart fails. One rayless wilderness of stone Upreared, they warn from their bleak throne ; 102 Monte Rosa. Ruined halls of lonely storms, Whose are weird dishevelled forms, Dark as eerie crags that loom, Brooding haggard in the gloom, Assuming semblance of rent thunder, While they wait expectant under. Lo ! one wide ocean of tumultuous sound Terrific bursts ! flooding Heaven's profound, Shatters the concave ! hark ! how, one by one, Each monarch mountain on his far white throne, Shocked, buffeted by that infernal word, His own portentous utterance hath roared, Tearing night, startled with flame-sweep of sword, And bellowing fierce frantic wrath Into the steam of that hell-broth Around : white fires flash swift unfurled Over dim ruin of a watery world ! Hark ! huge war-standards ponderous unrolling Over wild surges of tempestuous blast ! While storm-stifled bells are tolling For souls of pilgrims who have passed Home at last ! But here amid earthquaking shocks, Whirlwinds rave around the rocks : Great pines, agonizing horrent O'er the white terror of the torrent, 1^ Monte Rosa. 103 In wild lightning-fits leap out From death's womb, a ghostly rout, And all wild demon-chariots roll, Hurtling, chaotic, blind, reft from control ; Until the elemental rage subsides ; Ebbs the fell fury of ethereal tides ; Atlantic billows of slow sullen sound Subsiding wander o'er the immeasurable Profound. .... Rosa ! the Moon soothes thine unearthly rest, And Peace pervades the snows upon thy breast ! Val Anzasca. TO ERIC FROM THE ALPS. THE fragrant pines are green, love, The pines are fair and tall, Dear is the Alpine scene, love, Peak, flower, and waterfall ; But my heart's tendrils favour Humbler pines at home, For there the weak feet waver, That never learned to roam. One day about the wood, dear, Thy steps began to go, And all my stony mood, dear, Was moved to happy flow ; But when they ceased from pleasure Upon the woodland floor, Silence in deeper measure Than e'er was known before Returned for evermore, dear, Returned for evermore. IN THE DOLOMITES. One haughty, precipitous peak, enveloped, em- braced in a white cloud, Hath freed himself from the clasp, and flung the cloud into space ; A woman, I deem, once loved ! now all uncrowned and degraded, She lies a white heap dishevelled, not too far from his face. Later I looked, and lo ! at his iron feet she hath grovelled, The cloud-bride cannot believe she is thrown for ever away ! Hath she not lain in his bosom ? all for the fault of a moment ! The stern crag heeds her not, relentless facing the day. MELCHA. 6 I. MANY have longed for a maiden fair, Who still is free as summer air : Longing youths are strong and bright ; She is free as summer light. " Melcha, Melcha," parents say, " Time flies, my child ! no more delay ! Young Geraldine would lead thee home ; Worthier wooer will not come." Half her young heart may playful lean To the love of the love of Geraldine ; But little she cares for rout or ball, With flushing face and soft footfall ; She plies her needle, churns her cream, Milks a heifer of snowy gleam, And more than all the pensive child Loves to wander alone and wild, With her own kindred bee or bird, Far from all the human herd, Over heather, over hill, By the torrent, by the still Melcha. 107 Lake-margin, in a noonday trance, Brooding over old romance. Melcha favours with her love Every flowery nook and cove ; Floats upon the placid stream, Silvern as a silver bream, Flying from a common life All too full of soil and strife ; Till once her shallop drifted to a cave That looks upon Lough Lean's cool whis- pering wave, Where silent water-light for loving eyes Weaves mazy melodies Over pellucid filmy fern, Whose is many a fairy urn, Festooning fair the rocky cavern-wall, And glowing in a trickling waterfall, Among sweet closely-woven mosses, Where a rainbow globelet crosses Ever to supply the losses, Growing from long ferny nerves, Like a meteor, Startling merrily upon a flowery floor A blue-eyed blossom, till it thrills and swerves'! Ruddied with the fiery globe, Autumn's gorgeous golden robe 1 08 Melcha. Involves majestic mountain forms, Crags familiar with storms, Grandly towering a-glow, Burning tranquil waves below, Purpled here with miles of heather, Shadowed often altogether. Yonder shines the Eagle's Nest In a glorious verdure-vest : She hath climbed his rocky crest ; Seen the stately eagle hover, Imperial-poised, a thunder -cloud above her, Whom a pearly sunbeam found Luminous-brown, with all around Opal air, and o'er the glens Under, and o'er all the fens. It eagles are monarchs of air, Red deer are lords of the glen ! Behold ! a stag over there, Defiant of hounds and men, In a lair of tall Osmunda, Antlered, large-eyed, a wonder. She looked upon the luminous lake, Seeing tufts of bilberry shake In a wandering breeze O'er their images ; Red-boled luxuriant arbute-trees, Melcha. 1 09 With white flower and crimson fruit, Glossy-leaved lave their root, Darkening all the glass ; Saw the languid lake-lives waver Below in a luminous water-quaver, Where shadowy fishes pass ; Heard the lapping wavelets kiss, While she dreamed of that or this — Dreamed of old romance, While light elf-like droppings dance, Twinkling play In a fairy spray. " I would fly the vulgar toil ; I would fly the strife and soil ; I would slumber, and awake In the bosom of the lake !" She is lulled to sweet repose By a far-off mellow chime, By the water's murmured rhyme, By the wild bee in the thyme, Till her eye-lids close. Hark ! a long sweet note resounding, From the mountain clear rebounding ! Hills are all alive with voices, With soft spirit noises. Naiads of the shadowy water, Every gentle woodland daughter, no Melcha. All ye lovely fays who are In the valleys of Glenaa ! All who haunt the Purple Mountain, Souls of many a far-off fountain, All in air, or underground, Or in hollow cliff spellbound, Breathe your delicate spirit-voices ! Eagle's Nest is all alive, As though he were a fairies' hive ; Musically ruffled he rejoices ; Hurrying notes in sweet confusion, Marrying with soft collusion ; Awful, solemn-toned, and loud ; Low as from beneath a shroud ; Pausing now for a reply From far crags and cliffs that lie Underneath another sky ! Now they fall to slumber, murmuring un- quietly. High Carantuohil is the last to hear, Murmuring from his cloud, and solitary sphere. What is the mild mystic trouble, Where in the lake Sun floats, a flashing double ? Maiden, awake ! Melcha. 1 1 1 One emerges from the flood, A snowy steed and rider, with pure radiance imbued ! He doth not seem of mortal mould, Whose lineaments, how grave and pale ! Beam from a raised visor of gold, Whose silver dripping mail, And lofty plume him tall reveal More than all sons of mortals ; his white steed Stately paces the blue mead. Slowly toward fair Melcha's nook His majestic course he took : Delighted wonder made her start ; Fearless flutters her young heart. " So my long-fondled tales are true : Here is Lord O'Donoghue !" He, swift leaping from his horse, Seized her hand with gentle force : She, gazing in the awful eyes, Found them full of loving light ; Lovely seemed to her the knight ; Then she veiled her maiden eyes ; And her tender heart was taken, Taken ere she was aware, By the spirit tall and white, Ere he spake, " O maiden fair !" Spake with accent soft and rare, 1 1 2 Melcha. " Wilt thou wed the waters blue ? Wilt thou love O'Donoghue ? Wilt thou love me, maiden mild ? Fair my dwelling, gentle child ! Under the blue water ! Yet, 'tis weird, and vast, and cold ; I desire a mortal daughter To enfold ! But I know not if the wave Unto thee would prove a grave : . . . . .... All those wonders shall be thine, If thou wilt be mine !" "Thine!" So the little Melcha breathed ; And the spirit's arms enwreathed Her a moment, as he won her : " Darling, meet me when May morning, Earth with bridal wreaths adorning, Opens earliest eyes upon her ! Wait /me on the tufted rock : Well thou knowest I will not mock .... .... From your white bosom give me yon silk scarf like flame !" He stole it, she allowing, and he vanished as he came. Melcha. 1 1 3 O ! how poor is our dull earth, Till the happy morn have birth. And Melcha's father's bitter wife Doth not sweeten Melcha's life ! With such unearthly eyes she moved, it roused a dark derision ; She stumbled o'er her daily tasks i' the glamour of her vision. She moved as one who is amazed, With a sudden splendour dazed: " Dare I with a spirit go To the crystal realms below ? And will he keep faith with me, Far lowlier than he ? I deem he was a monarch mild ; And yet a Paynim, I a Christian child ! May I wed a fairy undefiled ? But he is glorious and true ! I told the priest of our sweet interview, Under close confession-seal : He deemed it some hallucination ; ' Our Lady hover over thee, and heal ! Flee very verges of damnation ! I know thou dost prefer thy nook By yonder lake to holy book, Or holy ordinance ; be wary ! Dally not with Paynim fairy !' 8 1 14 Melcha. Nay, my love's a holy feast ! He but dotes, our aged priest : And since I know he must be good, I will tell him of the rood ! What a noble conquest this ! He shall taste eternal bliss, By his love for little me ; And, for reward, what wonders he Will reveal to my glad mind, By the many undivined ! Yet do I sleep, or do I wake ? Shall I live beneath the lake? . . . He told me 'twas like Heaven there . . . With him I will fly anywhere !" But Melcha had a younger sister, Whom she cherished ; and she kissed her With strange tenderness that night Of April, ere the eventful light. Misting tears are in her eyes, Looking on her ere she flies ; Looking in toward the bed, Where a fair and dreamless head Slumbers on without a sorrow, Blithe to-day, and blithe to-morrow. Little Melcha cannot sleep. Shall she laugh, or shall she weep ? Melcha. She must leave her virgin chamber, Where she taught a rose to clamber ; She must leave her little bird, Who in a sweet May dawn is stirred, And the snowy folds of fume, That curtain frail her beamy room, Yea, and leave the mother's grave, Her young grief was wont to lave. Ere the sun she flies away : Is it not the first of May ? But she hath a favourite fawn Silver-clear as a May dawn ; Tho' he must leave her at the lake, Till the last he'll not forsake ! Still a silver twinkling star Laughs over woodlands of Glenaa ; Yet the merry bird hath warbled O'er his five eggs wine-immarbled, Notes that fall a rich perfume Over orchards in white bloom ; These festoon a violet air, As she looks among the boughs, In her bridal gossamer, Where no costly jewel glows, Save some dews that fall on her From young foliage and fir. 8—2 115 1 1 6 Melcha. Now a rosy gleam hath tinged Waters fair, and forest-fringed ; Far away tall Carantuohil Glows in Heaven, a lonely jewel ! There a moment let her falter, There before the woodland altar, Where a lamp for ever burns In a chapel among the ferns, Asking of the carven Christ : " Do I well to keep the tryst ?" She is at the tufted rock, Hearing gentle water shock Clear beneath her ; a careering hawk Hangs o'er abrupt dark-wooded heights of Tore ! At whose rich feet tall ash, hawthorn, and holly, Hang shadowy bowers over waters melancholy. Dinis isle, and many an isle, Fair await the morning smile ; Between the hills a purple light fills heavenly chalices ; Till lo ! the Sun Himself enthroned in mountain palaces ! And when He touched the flashing flood, Music welled from wave and wood ; ^ =^H^M^i^*« Melcha. 1 1 7 A celestial harmony- Floated over earth and sky. . . . While from burning waves of blue Burst the spirit O'Donoghue ! Beautiful youths and maidens, lovely water- powers, All envvreathed with heavenly flowers, Like airy fancies from a poet's bowers, Undulating o'er the gay Crystal glory, many a fay, Follow the war-horse as he prances, Foam dancing all around him as he dances ! She beholds her crimson scarf In the beams of morning laugh, Bound about her stately charmer, Bound about his radiant armour — Now they are near the trysting-place ; Melcha' s heart is like a leaf ; But when her lover looks into her face, Those glorious amorous eyes are her relief. He opens wide his arms to take her ! She will dare the fatal leap ! From his alluring nought shall shake her. . . She hath plunged into the deep ! . . . And the fairy fawn must weep. Held to his heart she dares the dive ; Explores a waterworld alive ! ! 1 1 8 Melcha. Only a vapour seems to glide, Where O'Donoghue won his bride II. How shall a mortal dare to tell What there the little maid befell ? Nought she knows within the grasp, Save that it is her lover's clasp. . . . Released, she finds herself in wondrous columned halls, Whose grand infinitude her slender soul appals. Many a water-green, self-luminous column Stupendous rises in dim heights and solemn. Their labyrinths for evermore extend In hollow-echoing chambers with no end. Self-luminous are they, and yet very dim : She turns, and hides her timid face in him. " Is it not splendid, love, my water-dwelling ? With spheral music all around thee welling ? My rainbow pillars, glowing with soft light, Soaring till lost in Heaven's infinite ?" " Alas !" she said," I hear low sounds unlinked ; Nor seem your columns with blithe colours tinct. Melcha. 1 1 9 For all is sombre-hued, though beautiful. Alas ! my hearing and mine eyes are dull !" "Nay, come, for thou art dazzled !" he replied, In gentle tones of love to his young bride ; Then bore her over the dim-shining floor To where climbed, like a giant conqueror, One of the columns, faintly tinged with rose. " Melcha ! behold ! how glorious it glows! Here, with the rose-hue, hues of the young apple, And of young pear leaves, blend, as by the chapel Near your sweet home, my love ; and violet, With many other flower souls, have met, Soft interchanging delicate qualities, Alliance and imminglement of dyes. They ever move with music from beneath, Flower souls to bloom in many a fragrant wreath Up yonder, in your visible world of light ; But here in mine they are married ere the flight. Ever the Life from caverned gloom swift flushes, Mantling, as though through stalks of water-rushes, Here through these columnsinyourworldtoblossom, Innumerably fair from Night's own bosom. Now these have changed to a wave of breezy ocean, Now to a river of full mazy motion ; Here clouds arise, their hearts relieved in rain ; Here two young forms, ere beauty's blossom wane Clasp one another in pure loveliness ; 1 20 Melcha. Here treachery murders, feigning a caress : All genders a confused, life-labouring sound, As Vulcan wrought in stithys underground. Here element to element fond hies, Or with a hatred of repulsion flies, Each following his own affinities. The rhythmic molecule, that only moves, Foreknows blithe genius, who sings and loves; Crystal snowfiower, albumen ocean-floor, Are faint foreshadowing of cells, and more, Hold in their womb alcyon, moss, or rose ; Yea, rosier virgins lovelier than those ! There yawns no blank unfathomable abysm Between the man, the sunbeam, and the prism ! Heaving impartial, Night engendered! Genius crowned, and Love with rosy wreath ; Madness all haggard ; bloody Hate ; pale Death ; Or Sun, and Moon, and Stars, whose semblance dim With man, and beast, and bird of shadowy limb, Follow in bewildering swift change ; All into one another find free range ; Yet, save the flower-souls, they all appear As in their embryo, phantasmal here." But Melcha very faintly may discern Those ardours, even where they brightly burn, Needing some sweet assistance of his eyes : So to another column-stalk he flies. Melcha. 1 2 1 Here he revealed the bowels of old Earth ; Fire, and slow water-growths, and many a birth Forgotten, long bereft of grief or mirth. There, in a third, intolerably royal, A soul of Sunlight bursteth, while the loyal Planets obeisant with their moons are moving ; Systems through solitary spaces roving In primal order, while young nebulae Blindly brood over worlds of grief and glee. While these are clearest glories, yet there follow All most prevailing in a sister hollow. There follow faintly other forms and colours, Herbs, and live things with many joys and dolours. For every magic column hath a class Of powers prevailing in his mystic glass : This towering droops with wealth of many a world, Like some vast palm, whose boughs are night- impearled, Or richly laden with dates' golden clusters ; So fountainous in ether float the starry lustres; Even as a Geyser, or a fountain shoots In one straight water from perennial roots ; Falls in blue air with myriad diamonds fair hurled. In yet another pillar he discovers Swarming low lives ; the animal world; with lovers ; Shadowy presentment of fair youths and maidens, Lovingly marrying in fresh flowering aidenns ; 122 Mclcha. With little babes, who laughing reach soft arms To where above them mother's eyelight warms ; All roseate dissolving ; pale wild-eyed Faces of saint, or seeker ; there harsh Pride, Horror, and Shame ; there Lust, and Cruelty Deformed arise in mists of lurid dye. Here springs the growth supreme of Good and Evil, Twin-birth indissoluble : angel, devil, Eternal hierachies infinite, Animal, human ; sorrow and delight Issue in morning-gold, or sanguine gloom, From one divine unfathomable Womb ; Neither, and both, and more than both ; the Whole, Adored in silence of the fainting soul. Hearken ! a sound of restless-hearted ocean ; Or of a city's far-off heard emotion ! But little Melcha shrinking hides in him. " I faint !" she cries, " for though mine eyes be dim, I cannot bear these awful sights and sounds, Where all immingling my poor sense confounds." " Nay, here/' he chaunted, her own demon lover, While in his arms more loosely he enwove her, " Here in solemn halls of Thought, The marvel of the World is ever wrought ! Famine, a vulture, glares on men to ruin brought ; Melcha. 123 Here loud volcanoes whelm with fiery lava ; Sin desolates a groaning earth with blood ; Here men and women loll by mango and lush guava ; Fair Bacchanals are reeling near a winy wave or wood ; Yea ! and the Man Divine dies for alien good." "Ah!" she exclaimeth, "where is then the Rood ? I lose my Lord in your sublime turmoil ! Not so I learned Him on my native soil." " Yet is He here in heavenlier raiment dressed ; More nobly than in your old forms expressed ! But now behold ! for thou must needs admire Monuments wrought, as though from living fire ! Among these columns rising into real Stand fair enchantments of Thought's own ideal : And lo ! among them, wandering pale-browed, Mighty creators, with raised eyes or bowed, Silently brooding, clothed in solemn cloud ! Here at a Plato's, or a Newton's gaze, To luminous order from a nebulous haze Gleams many a column : here Spinoza wanders Schelling, the Stagyrite, or Hegel, ponders ; Kepler, or Galileo, crowned with stars ; All Hero-shatterers of prison bars ; Columbus, and our earth-discoverers : 124 Melcha. Eagle-eyed martyrs of the quest for truth, Whose effort bloometh in immortal youth : Men dowered with the world's rank insult and hot hate, Because they dared to smite our swollen state, Whose idol-wheels a human blood must lubricate ! Tyndale, Mazzini, Regulus, or Tell ; And they who by the Malian water fell ! Cato, and Manlius ; patriots who died ; Harmodius, and all who brave a tyrant's purple pride ! Gems in the crown of Freedom set ; Washington, or Lafayette ! Here walks the wisest of Athenian teachers, And here the mightiest of Hebrew preachers ; Founders of all the commonwealths of earth ; Founders from whom world-shadowing faiths have birth. Moses, Mohammed, with the Indian : Beethoven, Angelo, or Titian Whose spirit stalks alone ? the worldworn man, Florentine Dante ! he the third grand ghost, Who seems to rise above the glorious host Of Daedal poets — third — there are two others ; Homer, with Avon's bard ; and yet some brothers Have scarce a lowlier post, from Orient And western climes; they form of sound, or stone, Melcha. 125 Or metal, colour, word, a monument, Wherein their own essential selves have grown. Perishing sea-lives leave the coral-forest Fair from their hearts ; like these on whom thou porest ; And glory of the rainbow-rippled shells Flows from a lowly life that ever wells. Luxuriant labyrinths of sound are floated From choirs of viewless harmonists full-throated ! Rearers of Temples, and Cathedrals grand, Whom earth remembers not, imperial band, Behold ! with Pheidias, and Praxiteles ; And many who left no memory with these." But when the Knight beheld some members of the throng, Impetuously he burst forth into song : " Builders of the warning tower, Whose flashing eye commands the storm, When thunderous wild waves fling foaming arms of power, To hurl below, to shatter, the tall Saviour form ! Fathers of fire-souled mechanic Demons whirlwind-limbed are ye ; Of wrought-iron tubes Titanic, Thrown 'thwart rivers, and the free Heretofore unfettered sea ! 126 Melcha. " Armoured monsters on the deep, Grim whale-like islands, formidably sleep : Your resolute fire-ships throbbing sweep ! I' the teeth of howling solid blasts, And billowy cataracts hoar ocean casts To overwhelm, ye find the Pole, Guard a world-wide empire whole ; Quell the foes of freedom with indomitable soul ! " Sensitive needle in a crystal shrine, Who dost, like Conscience, evermore incline Toward one Eternal Pole, although the cloud From storm-tossed mariner His radiance shroud ! By thee Gama dares to round Afric's awful utmost bound ! And the Genoese discovers A morning-land for Liberty's blithe lovers ! " Your magic glass reveals a realm Too far, too fine, for human eyes ! While suns, and planets, and fair moons o'erwhelm, In fairy-like societies, Under our feet, in our own frames, One organizing Reason flames ! Man shrinks abashed within his shell, Abashed by atom, world, and cell ; Yet magnifies the mighty Mind, Subtler than light, more swift than wind, That tangles in Her ordered prisms Alelcha. 127 Rays of unvoyageable abysms, Pulsing a million years through strange illimitable places, Hurled from hot hearts of stars, far homes of un- imaginable races ! " Iron-souled Inventors, you Are of earth's illustrious few ! Conquerors of reluctant Nature, Adding to man's pigmy stature ; With delver's lamp, and axe, and power-loom, Your spirit broods upon the gloom ; Ye have arisen To irradiate the serfs' dull prison ! Ye are they who forge the chain, Flashing thought from brain to brain, Not to bind, But liberate mankind ! Ye have winged the fiery dragon, Thundering to feast or drouth, Ye who pass life's foaming flagon Tumultuously from mouth to mouth, Rushing North and rushing South ! Who devastate with rumbling tumbril-wheel, Rifle, cannon, shell, or steel, Human frames, and human hearts ; While our wharves, and all our marts Glow wealthier from your arts : 128 Melcha. With hideous scurf, with lurid smoke unblest, Ye devastate earth's flowery rest, Her virginal sweet vest ! Life's a journey ; Life's a tourney ; Swift we go ! Hail ! wild wind of our strong speed, Lightning, and a clangorous thunder ! Farm or village, town or mead, Flashing past, earth trembles under ; Autumn leaves about us twirling, Tumultuous clouds around us whirling, Ringing axles eager to burst forth in flame ! Who shall tame us ? Praise or blame us ! Shrieking onward, Hurrying sunward, Swift we go, Reeling, jarring, or with crash of horrible overthrow, Darkly travelling, ever nearing yonder Orient aglow !" Some ghosts, in gazing on a crystal tower, Where man, or animal, or herb, or flower More dominates, or sea, or earth, or sun, Convert the several Powers they gaze upon Melcha. 129 To gods of aspect glorious and strange, Bewraying each his nature in the change ; Benign now; now malevolent they range. And Melcha saw somespirits wandering there, Whose bodies yet abode i' the upper air. Her lover, he who disappeared from earth By other portals than Death's mystic birth Into an alien land, so' silent seeming ; As stars seem silent, or dim forests teeming With infinite fairy-like societies, Whose rich life-dramas we may faint surmise ; Her lover, he may view the spirits moving, And she by him ; but earthly souls, in roving Through the stupendous halls that never end, Perceive not those who died, although they wend Their ways beside them, nor some beings nigh Of another order in the hierarchy. It may be few perceive them ; yet all here Assemble, each from his own natal sphere. Only a dweller in a foreign star Hath his more wonted haunts from these afar ; In other realms of Nature's laboratory. Nor of the dead may all distinguish well Their dead companions ; for souls from hell, And souls from heaven mutually repel. But all seems peopled with impalpable pale hosts, 9 no Melcha. A common crowd, and even with less than human ghosts. No word is breathed between the shapes who wander : On one another's work they reverently ponder ; Knowing the Lord all over it and under. The wisest ask no homage for their names, To One all-bounteous yielding private claims. And where some organizing thought, long gleaming Upon a column's core, hath left it beaming, For ever after, when a follower gazes, Reason's high hallowing remains, and blazes I' the core of these enchanted chrysoprases. The lovers first behold a Daedal thought, With the world's buoyant youth sublimely fraught. Here, as in purest marble white, Though with a sunrise faintly flushing, Are nobly-moulded forms who fight, Chariots and steeds to battle rushing. Here glorious Achilles mourns his friend, Embracing a young warrior's corse, While, with head bowed to earth, each generous horse Of race divine who brought him mourns Patroclus' end. There Hector flies the avenging Champion, Roused from his sullen rest upon the plain ; Melcha. 1 \ i o Thrice round Troy-ramparts, by Achilles slain, Lashed to his car, before proud Ilion, Her hero, with most cruel contumely, Is dragged, in sight of poor Andromache. Odysseus, deemed long dead, clad in rude weeds, Growling low in his lion soul, yet feeds With little insolent men beneath the dome Pertaining to him, his ancestral home : They dare his queen, and his young heir offend : But now he draws the bow none save himself can bend ; And while they cower, divining the dread end, Throws off concealment, towers in his own hall, And turns the twanging death upon them all ! A kind of mighty pedestal upholds This living imagery with green folds, As were they heavings of an emerald ocean, Ever young, resonant with stormful motion. Further, as on a mass of diamond, Some figures of colossal port arise, With tragic face and form ; fixed by a bond Of art inviolable their mournful guise Of guilt and agony ; they seem to glow Darkly as bronze late molten, or like some Whelmed in fire-floods of Herculaneum. 9—2 1 3 2 Melcha. Hangs the god-Titan, hurling scorn at Jove, Torn by Heaven's ravening bird, implacable in love. There generous-hearted CEdipus, who mocks Sinister breathings of impending doom, Staggers beneath accumulating shocks Of Destiny Divine ; then bows in gloom, As a brave man with youthful strength adorned Yields to a purple smothering Simoom, Or snowy whirlwinds, that he blithely scorned At morning on a mountain ; here Antigone Supports her father blind ; there one with lavish locks, Her brother slain, entombs, defying tyranny ; Perishing in her youth with splendid piety. "These works are wonderful/* avowed the bride, " I love to explore their glories with my love ; But I should tremble if I left your side — ■ — " " Nay, thou shalt be at home here, O my dove ! Even as one of us — once more behold What marvel yonder chasm may unfold !" A lurid haze upsteams from an Abyss, Immense, profound, down-narrowing gradual: There, as in ruby wrought, souls reft of bliss Melcha. 1 3 3 Agonize all around the furnace wall, Clean-carven in relief, as on a gem Blood red ; so one grim thought hath imaged them. And lo ! that awful Shade himself stood nigh Gazing abstracted, with dread light upon His haggard features : then he raised his face ; And those two lovers noted the full grace Of all the seer, with Beatrice by, Beheld in Heaven, where spirits who have won Their crown of glory form a snow-white rose, Ethereal jewels ; every petal glows Beamingly loving, or their ardours cluster To a mighty eagle of empyreal lustre, And to a Cross immense ; aloft they noted those. " Now let us pause," the mortal urges ; " all My brain reels with the marvels that appal, How fair soever !" the Knight folding her, A grateful shade involved them, and they sank In one another's arms, with no demur From either lover : When they woke from slumber, When loving eyes of hers the lovclight drank From his wild orbs, did any sorrow cumber Their lakelike splendour ? — but he sighed and said : " To a strange bridegroom thou in sooth art wed ! Even in my Pagan monarchy of old, 1 3 4 Melcha. No letter of a priestly creed might hold My soul, who will her ample wings unfold. Yet ere Christ's Planet in the Orient rose, Justly and wisely did I rule my land, Yonder on earth ; till my rapt words disclose, One sunny eve within my castle hall, (Lapping its portal silver waters doze) The phantom Future, whose far-off footfall Mine ears prophetic on faint-sounding sand Of present time laid listening discern. And while the chiefs around all hearkening burn With inspiration of my words, I rise, And seem to vanish from their wondering eyes Within the waters of our tranquil lake. Mightier rulers follow in my wake ; A Faith Diviner, subtler joys and woes ; Yet ever more my wistful longing grows For some dear feminine heart to dwell with me Here in Thought's own profound tranquillity. I want a fresh, a guileless Christian spirit To breathe an ampler, a diviner air, Than in her lowly cell she may inherit ; So mine imperial burden one may share, And faithful Love's unshamed simplicity Direct the challenge of keen Reason's eye. So I make more, and purify my pleasure, By halving our unfathomable treasure. Melcha. 135 " In summer, or in stormier weather, We will explore God's wondrous worlds together. How often have I failed to baffle wrong, Because thou wast not nigh to make me strong ! Wrestling with loathsome coils about me prest, How oft the mortal Hydra mocked my rest ! One withering glance of thine had scotched the Pest! Shall not a child from our two selves be born, Who shall annihilate Error with blithe scorn ? And yet, alas ! I doubt if thou canst breathe Freely in these my realms : they leave thee pale with death !" " Nay, I will strive to help thee, and to live : I chose thee : I have dared the dimlit dive ! And yet, in sooth, my spirit seems confused As one who, falling far, lies dazed and bruised. I only fear lest, from my native sphere Deserting, I may find no haven here I" Lo ! living mimes of all the human drama ! Swift shifting scenes of life's weird panorama ! Silent succeeding groups of figures gathered From forth dim air, and slowly vanishing: In various forms all these the semblance bring Of very men and women, yet are fathered Of human Art, not nature ; all are moulded, 136 Melcha. So that their inner being lies unfolded In many a moment of concentrate life, Wherewith their mutual-moving moods are rife. By night, upon the rock-built platform standing, Hamlet hath heard the sire's dread shade command- ing; Unwilling scattereth his life-love-blossom, Whose sweet shed petals flutter in his bosom : Here in her haunted room adjures the mother ; Here wrestles desolate, alone with fury- fates that smother : Till smiting down the evil with a tardy random doom, He and the innocent sink with them in the same dull tomb ! There a fiend-woman with red hand upbraids The lingering manhood, that so swiftly fades Under Hell's own exorcism, when the twain Their royal reverend guest have foully slain, Who slept the just man's sleep beneath their roof: And there Macbeth's dyed soul is put to proof, When at the banquet rises a pale ghost, To upbraid the horror-faced usurping host. With Romeo on her heart young Juliet, In Love's own garden, swears no morning yet Melcha. 137 Troubles the cool blue air of summer night, Or moon, or stars, or Philomel's delight ! That was no lark-note ! bird of envious morn ! . . . Death meets them, and all lovers, with his chilling scorn ! Further, wild laughter in stained lips and eyes, Fat Falstaff, full of merry jests and lies, Carouses with a prince of generous blood, Where in Old London a quaint tavern stood. Cordelia implores her poor mad Lear To know her for his faithful-hearted child, Nor longer do her wrong ; he cannot clear In his dark mind, all shattered and defiled By traitor cruelty, reflect her love, Once in his own blind arrogance reviled : And when she dawns within his soul, the dove Death sneering snatches from him ; he may moan, Yearning remorseful for her — she is gone. All lost to love and light, he may but die . . . So, cursing, laughing, weeping, passes Life's grim pageantry. Behold ! what seems the ruin of the Past, Sport of an earthquake, or a whirlwind-blast ! Where golden crosses, jewelled shrines and chalices Mingle with wrecks of sumptuous royal palaces. 138 Melcha. Rare alabaster, with embossed rich pyx, From dainty lady's chamber sardonyx, Enamel, and flushed porcelain immix : Silk from far looms, with proud emblazonries, Banner, and arras, glass of rainbow dyes, Drums of great column, sculptured architrave, Red dust of monarch from cathedral nave ; Ruby and sapphire, raiment sown with pearl, Worn by fair scions of emperor and earl ; King's ancient crowns, and ermines, and tiaras, Mid blocks from towers fallen on the wearers. The Samson-strength of Peoples hath arisen, Hurling to dust the palace and the prison : Goaded to madness the blind giant bowed, Till all the Commonwealth's huge pillars crashed with ruin loud ! Such chaos weltered when with furious cries Mobs held blood-orgies in the Tuilleries ! But many a wilding bryony and bramble Over the wilderness hath learned to ramble : So grass, germander, violet, may vie With malachite, or lapis lazuli, In Rome, in Caesar's palace, or grey baths Of Caracalla ; among sweet green paths, Anemones and lilies fair enshrine Red porphyries, or rich aventurine. Melcha. 139 Upon a crowning cornice crumbling grey Stand two young lovers, beautiful as day. Their lips meet, and their delicate limbs are twin- in 0- ■ Psyche and Eros so were carven inclining. There falls a sunset blush upon their whiteness, While ever and anon a pulse of over-passionate brightness Lightning-like thrills the rosy-flushing forms. Opposite gazed a visage dark with storms, All marred and riven, a crag tempest-worn ; Gazed with alternate joy, and grief, and scorn. Like a fallen angel, it hath terrible beauty ; While fain to breathe an empyrean of Duty, Its frame colossal, and sublimely moulded Strains ever and anon from sloughs that hold it Among these ruins, waving a wide pinion Of snowy plume, that pants to have dominion ; Yet fails to free the angel altogether, Who seems an eagle taunted by a tether — A mire, alive with myriad coiling things, Draining the life-blood, mocking the white wings ! Those swarthy limbs appear like lava, yet Smouldering sullen : they were a fire-jet From some volcano ; ye, white wings of snow ! Love formed you of yonder Alp, that from below Soars in high Heaven, with pure eve aglow. 140 Melcha. Tis as though ye were broken of a shaft, Aimed by some cruel jealous god, who laughed, Seeing how true it speeded : writhe, O man ! Presumptuous Titan, thou Promethean ! Not far hence a pure Alp abides in light, Gemmed with live sapphires, cloven with torrents, yonder Girdled with forests : how he soars in mi^ht. While ocean at his feet makes everlasting thunder ! Most wistfully the man contemplates Nature's glory; And now the undying idyl of a lover's story ; Now with a bitter smile beholds an altar, Betwixt him and the pair ; Fate will not falter, Offering youth, sweet sacrifice to Death ! The very twain, whose delicate arms enwreathe Before him as alive, he sees low laid Here, as on some revolt's red barricade Young men and maidens, lately bold and hot, With hoary sire and little child, lie shot ; So these have ceased from loving, and are not, Lying fair-frozen in a mortal shade. Their names are manifold; yet these may be, Who loved in isles Ionian, Juan and Haidee. While he who stands, a sunset-smitten tower, Leaning aside now, reaching hands of power, Is called Childe Harold; Manfred; Cain; the Giaour. Melcha. 141 The limed, morass-entangled, floundering angel, A devil, as some deem, hath his evangel ! He sinks, he rises, he hath freed one foot — Reaching a hand to lift some Manlike Brute — Which is it ? maimed and stunted in its growth ; From sheer disuse its eyeballs blinded both ! Like some weird reptile's from Carinthian caves, A human thrall in subterranean graves. Rags flutter from a shagged and leathern frame : Its food was blows, its daily wage was shame : Famine mid mortal wrongs long kept it tame. Shut from free light and air 'neath church and palace, This human thing lay cramped of human malice, Through dull, slow centuries, till it retrograded, Toward brute brows and jowls, the manhood faded. See ! how it crawls from forth a rift amid the ruin, Gnawing and burrowing ! alas ! this wrought the terrible undoing! Now from the fingers of his other hand The form colossal filters a fine sand, Which seems a dust of all in the wide world, Immingled with red dust that hath been human : And while in smoke all vanishes, lips curled Appear to scoff: Behold ! O man, and woman, Your hopes, your longings into ruin hurled ! 142 Melcha. But some illustrious spirits may be seen, Where that disaster of the creeds hath been. Bouddha, Rousseau, bold Luther, with rude Knox, Iena, with Konisberg unwandering eyes Bend where huge moveless adamantine blocks Rest undisturbed, though the fair fabric flies, That hath been reared thereover, like a mist, Before a blast from God's old Anarchist. Even as on the Lebanonian plain A man beholds foundations vast remain, Whose every stone Cyclopean hath length Of sixty feet, being measured ; ruin-fraught Temples were raised upon them ; all the strength Of Genii, by Solomon compelled,, Hath poised the ponderous platform that re- belled, Thwarting man's power to found, One with very ground ! So Tadmor's mighty stones were brought ; So Duty, and Love abide, with Postulates of Thought. Beside these souls illustrious are more, Kneeling, or standing proud ; but all adore. Divine Love, very Christ, they worship all, Whether or no upon His Name they call. Melcha. 143 Upon a cloud-car, vaporous alabaster, Swift, though the rider longs to travel faster, Stood one, ethereal-limbed like Ariel, Whose spear, the sunbeam of Ithuriel, Touched many a bulk of pompous purple pride, That lay imposing, overswollen beside His chariot-course ; when lo ! an infant's bubble, Each bursting freed the burdened air from trouble. His car was winged with plumes of sunny snow, Edgeless and downy ; but the front below, Isled in deep azure, wore a soft dove-grey, Heaved and recessed, with many a tender play Of hyacinth or harebell ; visionary changes, As subtle-fancy'd amorous wind arranges ; While white rims of the rear, resolved to spray, Evanish all in oceans of deep day. One-half sun's rondure the cloud-chariot stole From vision ; half burned wheel-like ; aureole, Relieved on opaline, of slant slim ray, Streamed up aloft behind the angel form, Whose wild eyes ever yearned to where a storm Of ominous thunder hath a rainbow arch, Shining from falling showers before his march : Surely he held them rain of human tears, Falling from founts of human woes and fears. In this fair Form, like Hopes, or Memories, Cythna, Alastor, Laon, meet the lovers' eyes. 1 44 Melcha. During long weary, dreary intervals The spirit was compelled in his vast halls To leave his bride alone, while he explored Realms of a world wherein he was a lord. Realms of lone terrors, of bewildering awe, That fascinate adventuring souls, and draw, As with lodestones, or glittering weird eyes Of anaconda, one to snatch the prize, The jewel Truth from clefts of the crag Danger, Up sheer and giddy cliffs a solitary ranger : On steep snow-walls, where a mere whispered breath May rouse the slumbering avalanche of death ; In dark grim chasms where daylight never cheers, Only the lammergeyer, or corven peers ; In wintry caverns roofed with frozen tears, Where mystic murmuring chill waters flow, Rivers that are the souls of realms unrolled below. He plucks the glory of the edelweiss, Planting his feet in perpendicular ice ; Upward he clambers with stern axe and pole : What shall daunt the indomitable soul ? Clouds may beleaguer with bewildering error, Torrents may thunder, cataracts of terror, But he will mount, till on the proudest crest Melcha. 145 Sun-crowned he stands, a conqueror confessed, Or hurled to atoms in the abyss unbaffled he will rest. Behold ! he flounders in a forest foul, Where balefire eyes from stealthy things that prowl Glare on him, as he girds him unto war ; And though his love must yet abide afar From him contending, yet her soul, a star, Beams on him holy influence from yonder, Nerving his own to quell the lion-thunder. Yet there too in strange frondage, or lush blossom Hide youths and maidens with soft limbs and bosom, Who with Circean spells would lure among them Pilgrims for revelry ; sweet songs they sung them ; Yet if one rested there, a mad desire Possessed him, a fierce marrow-feeding fire. Or he must toil upon a salt-scurf plain, Whose barren light beats on the burning brain : A sullen sea sleeps bitter to the taste ; Gaunt skeletons are strewn upon a bitter hcrbless waste : So forth must fare sweet Mclcha's errant knight ; Nor free from stain shines out that armour white. 10 146 Melcha. And she would travel with him to the strife ; But wars and wanderings would wither her young life. Yet she may pray for him, yea, send her love Hovering o'er him like a holy dove, And he behold faint glimmers from her ark. The while he welters, lost in waters dark. She strove to assimilate when he was gone The food that he would have her feed upon ; Pondered his words, or would retrace some scene, Where with him her companioned feet have been. Alas ! the more she strove, the more she knew Abysms impassable betwixt them two ! Not even those shades relieved the loneliness, That did upon her fainting spirit press. She could discern no shadowy moving throng Those vast interminable aisles among. Shadowy twilight ! a cold prison crypt ! Eternal silence ! awful glooms that slept ! Death weighed upon her, as she cowered, and wept. Ah ! very faintly she beheld the splendours ; And hardly her bewildered memory renders Account to her of what dim ways impart Views of the grand creative forms of art. So, unfamiliar with some ancient pile, A wandering guest may lose himself, the while He seeks his chamber in a twilit tangle Melcha. 147 Of corridor, and banquet-hall, dim cloister, and quadrangle. She heard some murmuring of cold blind springs Under huge crags, haunted by condor wings, Where pine, or cedar to the sheer steep clings, Nor ever ray of sunlight falls Between stupendous granite walls. Then she recalled what her confessor spake, Warning her of weird lords below the lake. For eerie things, whose semblances she saw Lately within the columns, thrust a claw, Or a dead hand to seize her ; so it seemed, When for a moment a tall column gleamed ; Muffled friar from shadowy cowl Glaring with unearthly scowl. Yea, once she met with one who seemed her Knight, Victorious returning from the fight ; She throws her in his arms, all happiness ; And lo ! she peers in horrible eyes deadwhite ; The caverned bosom crumbles in her caress! " Yet ah !" she sighed, " if he would only stay H umbly with me in mine own earthly day ! 10 — 2 1 48 Melcha. Can I not lure him to abide in peace In my forefather's land ? win him release From this eternal proud disquietude ? Lead him to rest beneath our holy rood ? I fear, for all the glories that so gleam, It is the unholy glamour of a dream ! . . . Though some profound black possibility Opens before me when my Knight is nigh — I dare not sound it ! Madness yawns thereby ! . . . How may I breathe here underneath the wave ? Or I must fly, or lure him from the cave !" So now she strove with eloquent sobs to win Her fairy lover from the halls of sin ; For so she deemed them, weeping o'er the loss Of her own homely sanctuary-cross — " I cannot mock my glorious destiny," He answered, a fierce lightning in his eye ; " No, not for love, nor comfort, nor a bride ! Wilt thou not share with me my throne, my pride ?" Then he spake bitter words of foolish gall Anent her faith ; the faith of a mere thrall, He dared aver, till she herself felt anger, And there arose a hybrid-born vain clangour Betwixt their loves ; dull mist enveloped all. A chilling feud arose from good and evil; Melcha. 149 Love's limpid springs were poisoned by the devil. u I deem that what thine incantation vaunts May be but water, and long waterplants ! I fear thee ! there be stains upon thine armour ! What realms hast haunted ? art thou mine own charmer ? Hast thou not sinned ? art thou the paragon I lately set my faith upon ? . . . Nay, if vague rumour muttered of some sin, Vile men malign us, and I hoped to win Thee from the peril : thou wilt not be ruled ! Courting the wily foe, thou wilt be fooled ! Why leave me here in darkness over long, In chase of some conundrum, or a song ? Why wage in ghostly realms a shadowy war, Scorning the warm world for a phantom far? I fear to lose my footing, and my goal ! Yea, thou hast robbed me of my rest, my soul ! While thy proud thoughts through all the world would roll ! . . . Thy gloomy pavements heave beneath my feet, And all thy pillars rocking seem to meet ! . . . Why did I leave my native sphere above ? Thou wilt be lost too ! fly with me, my love ! And thou shalt be no more a wandering wraith, But our own stalwart champion of the faith I" 1 50 Mclcha. " Unworthy of this royal realm of mine ! I snatched you from the dust to make you mine. I deemed the sacred fire within your spirit Smouldered ; mine eager, breathing love may stir it — No queen ! mere common clay, for all fair seeming ! Of toys, and dress, and dross for ever dreaming ; In highest Heaven longing for the sound Of beasts of burden on the common ground, At their monotonous unsoulful toil ; Drawing mere water, ploughing stubborn soil ; That hinds, or royal, or rich, or clothed in rags, May gnaw roots, if their plodding never flags ! May only masks and mummeries delight you, Though to full feasts of Reason I invite you ? Will you not let me couch your filmed eyes ? For all your Atys' priests' insensate lies, Trust me ! God's day, when one is used thereto, Strikes grander than mere spangles red and blue ; Or ghostly spawn of humours in sick blood ! Though all your sacred books pronounce them good, And God's veracious ambient air profane Come forth, and all your juggling ghosts will wane ! — Come from your blinded dungeons ! — or remain !" Melcha. 1 5 1 " Shall I resign my soul, my life, my hope, Among mere shadowy fancies here to grope For ever ? why calumniate my creed ? You wise ones know not all our bitter need ! See yon dim millions of human lives, Swarming in labour's dun defiled hives, Stunned with base sounds, immersed in dingy crafts ! Dare not disdain the star, the flower that wafts Our unimprisoned souls ! a moment lifts From reeking pestilent squalors, through what rifts So-ever, to blue skies, and woodlands fair, Fresh flowing water, and sweet liberal air ! Hail ! soiled flower, dim star among the smoke O'er ruinous roofs ! faint heaven-dawn that broke, Luminous pearl above man's misery, Mute for a moment, now, where lewd huts lie, Surprised to shame of their own shamelessness, Deep degradation, and Hells' hopelessness, By the young Angel, Morning ! Lo ! one wonders, Wakes unaware, and sees God, while she ponders ; Ere yet long, thin, black throats of factories Soil with brown breath yon virginal pure skies ; While, by the pearly river flowing fast, She muses on a mole, with many a mast Of wealth-gorged hulls from foreign lands around her : 1 5 2 Mclcha. Diseased, debauched, God's youthful Morning found her ! Wilt block these from the ray above their roof, Or hold them from the Saviour flower aloof, Till they have fathomed your astronomy, Or learn to babble jargonous botany ? Jesus, and Mary, human wants have met ! Why will ye rob poor souls of their one amulet ? For me, my lot is low ! I will fall prone, With those dull worshippers thou dost disown !" He held her in his arms : he groaned : he fled. But on the floors of Night she reeled, she stumbled, and fell dead. Arousing, Melcha slowly gazed around : Grey forms gigantic stand, with ne'er a sound ; Every ghost, relieved against a column, Hath one vast-moulded hand enclasping solemn The other arm, whose hand the visage muffled. Their heads are bowed, their rocky robes unruffled Fall, like a mountain flank, with gorge profound Grey riven : columns congregated here Have thunderous amplitude : aloft they rear To heights unknown, roofed over with dim fear, Forming one vasty chamber of sphered gloom, On whose faint heart there weighs a huge dark Tomb : Mclcha. 153 Hewn out of solid Night it seemed, in form Resembling some sarcophagus enorm Of Bull Osirian, disinterred by Nile From dull oblivion of Time's ponderous pile. As Melcha gazed, she felt One had been there, To whom the world clings with sublime despair. "If He be there still, all is doubt and doom ; I deemed that He was risen from the tomb" . . . Stay ! did she hear within the sepulchre A sound ? . . . " Wilt thou arise, Deliverer ?" . . . She hears her own loud heart; nought else astir. 'But I will ask these guardians," she said, "If He indeed be risen from the dead !" Then, in a whisper, daring scarce to frame The syllables of that beloved Name, " Tell me !" she murmured : " Is the Saviour risen ?" . . . From yonder Forms, from hollows of the prison, In weird unearthly tones, the sound "Arisen !" Rolled in upon her soul . . . Ah ! how to gauge The dark significance of such reply ? Despair's own long-drawn wail of inarticulate agony ! Shall this the soul's deep yearning doubt assuage ? Behold ! reverberations infinite All the vast vaults and labyrinths affright To conscious desolation, fatherless, profound, Whom dull Oblivion's anodyne consoled with slumber sound ! 154 Melcha. Lulled on its dungeon floor, the world's Despair Wakes with a wail ! "Arisen ! would He were !" And then it seemed as though, from all the goolm Of never-ending hollows round the tomb, A never-ending multitude of souls, Inwardly weeping, cloaked in mournful stoles, Moved from one point toward the silent grave Of Him who came our ruined race to save. Passing, each turned ; all haggard ; some in tears : Everyone, moving silent, disappears, A hopeless mourner, in the Darkness facing That Night, whence he emerged with melancholy pacing. But one who laughed in that dim hall Ghastlier seemed to her than all ! At length she moaned, with voice of one that dies : " Innumerable throng Of human generations manifold ! how long ? For ever shall I see your hopeless eyes ? Ah ! let me perish ! Ah ! for mine own skies 1" . . Dreamfully she hears the swells Of water-muffled peals of bells. Melcha. in. DO And with this utterance of all her being, The appearance-world thereunto swift agreeing Melcha flies ! . . . Lo ! now she lies In sunny grass : Her own dear lake-land ! in a water-glass Shadows of green herbage flowing, Whose leaning blades quench one another glowing ! On snowy petal of a frail windflower Golden anthers hint the hour By tremulously shadowing; Blue shadows to air-ruffled verges cling. Here she buries her pale face, Rendering ecstasy for grace, Sensible of only this, That spring woodlands are a bliss. Now the birch from bronzy stems Buds alternate emerald gems, Whose leaflets glossy glistening Fairy-fanned are listening Unto mellow-throated elves, Merrily sunning their small selves, Where a flutter of a rain Of slim branches moves a stain is 6 Melcha. o On the delicate lady- skin, Pinky silver shadowed thin. How she hears the turtle coo, And a soft call of cuckoo, The lake-ripple lisping, Bluely, blithely crisping ; Views yon delicate larch-clouds Heaving like the masted shrouds, Vivid green in azure sky, Murmuring how tranquilly ! Cherry, and pink apple blossom Hanging foam in air's blue bosom ; How she scents the woodland smell, She remembereth so well ; Lying silent in a trance, As in hours of old romance ! While already croziered fern In the sun begins to burn, Though dim morning rime impearl Wings of mavis and of merle. . . . But at length upon her mind The hell she hath left behind Glareth dimly from afar, Like eclipse, or baleful star, While she gradually remembers How her soul hath been hell's embers ! "I will humbly seek confession ! Mclcha. 1 5 7 So relieve this dire oppression !" Thinking thus, she took her way To where above the placid bay- Stands her well-beloved chapel, Near her home among the apple. The lake lay yonder as before ; Yet she knew the land no more ! What hath come to wood and field ? No answer may her musing yield. There the sanctuary appears : . . . Doth it totter as with years ? Lo ! the crucifix of wood Shrined where it hath ever stood : She is on her knees before it . . . But what awful change comes o'er it ? The bleeding head bowed on the breast Turns away from her request ; Turns from her who would be blest ! And she feels she cannot pray ; Cannot find what she shall say ! Then she enters grief-amazed The rude chapel ruin-crazed ; Weathered beams and walls inclined To and fro, as in a wind. All her wild tale she reveals To the priest, nor aught conceals. 158 Melcka. He, much moved, and sore astonished, His weird penitent admonished She was wound in mortal sin ; And, would she salvation win, Hardest penance must endure ; Make herself a holy nun ; Banish all which might allure Memory of that evil one, Who in guise of a white angel Drew her from the pure evangel ! " For evermore thou shalt forsake Those enchantments of the lake!" This was not the aged priest, Wont to serve her holy feast, Before she fled away from earth ; And Melcha felt a very dearth In her heart, when he so stern Bade her love for ever turn From all memory of him, Yonder in the waters dim. Yet she feared the fatal spell — Christ and Heaven ! Love and Hell ! " We may scorn not common ground : God hath wisely fenced us round : Within I bleed from a deep wound !" . When she hath arrived at home, A stranger maiden sees her come, Melcha. 159 (How the aged house did lean ! Other was the garden scene :) Who on Melcha's face and dress Looks wide-eyed ; while with no less Marvel Melcha looks on hers. She with the strange maid confers ; And, naming her own family, Asks if sister, or her sire, Be in the house, or near the byre ? The maid, with terror in her eye, Replies : '"Tis near a century, Since, as they tell me, one so named Lived here — there is a portrait framed In the old mansion, dim with age, That often doth my mind engage, Hanging in the parlour old ; A lady, of whom strange things are told — How she eloped with our lake-fairy . . . Like you the picture looks ! ah ! Holy Mary !" Then Melcha in a mournful dream Turned away from where the gleam Of her old home promised rest To the weary and distressed ; While the maiden scared and pale Fled within to tc)l her tale. And Melcha went with drooping face To her mother's resting-place. 1 60 Melcha. But she found not the old stone ; In its place a whiter one, Commemorative of some other, Not her well-beloved mother ! And confusion o'er her grew, When the dates thereon she knew. While on a headstone sunk among Grass and darnel growing long, Where weather-stains and lichen gather, She spells the name of her old father . . . And now the dear name of her sister. Alas ! how often in fond hope she kissed her Melcha lies in the warm sun, Murmuring, " I must be a nun !" So she made herself a nun ; And a high repute she won Among pale devotees who fast, Afflict their souls, and bodies cast Scourged upon the midnight stone, Supplicating, making moan, Lacerated with remorse For sin's dark tyrannic force. Yet, alas, ! the demon doubt Was not utterly cast out. Still her exorcised devil Would return to hold his revel ; Melcha. 1 6 1 And where slept Love's own warm grace Alas ! now was a desolate place ; In that lone hollow of her heart Fiery fangs of serpent dart ; Nor Heaven's mild and holy balm Fills her wounded soul with calm. Yet fellow-feeling with the poor, Enslaved and sorrowful, half wrought a cure : The world-wide mystery of Fate Fell upon her with all its weight ; But gleams of Love, and Righteousness Over the welter of distress From unimaginable quarters Looked here and there upon the waters, Deep, wan waters of our sorrow, Murmuring of dark to-morrow. Yea, and kindly thought for all Lifts from sorrow's lonely pall. But they who reft of consolation live Feel the sad impotence of penury, When, longing some sweet cordial to give, Helpless, and dumb, and void they hear the cry: "A drop to cool our tongues in this flame's misery !" As one awaking after night, Blind with blaze of sudden light, II 1 62 Jllelcha. To chaos was her nature hurled, Paralysed for either world, Since her wild audacious flight. Now once more a gleam Elysian Dawns upon her, a new vision, Other than the sight of old, Wondrous, wide, more manifold. Then she cried, "How bitter, love ! Aching hollows where should be Love, and His tranquillity ! Alas ! my soul would climb above ! Yet if thou sink for need of me ? Did I well to fly away, Leaving thee alone to stray Ever further from sweet day ? In those awful wilds art lost ? to clasp thee, tempest-tost ! Ah ! my Lord ! Ah ! not for ever From mine own thou wilt me sever : Nay ! my husband, thou shalt prove A mightier arm, though mine remove ! . . . Two hearts tangled in Love's girdle golden ! Who dreams they shall not be holden ? 1 am faint : I seem to feel Some new change, for woe or weal." Then she wandered through the brake, Melcha. 163 Till she came upon the lake : How wistfully she gazed, and gazed Where the auroral billow blazed ! Ah ! what is the wild thrilling trouble In the sun's blithe water-double ? . . . Behold, from forth the waters blue Burst the spirit O'Donoghue ! He openeth wide longing arms — Though where are now the earlier charms ? How she wavereth on the brink ! In mortal faint she seems to sink ; Yet looking on him, whispereth : " He is risen !" Then, all transfigured, yields her to the prison Of his embrace ! but this her lover now Shines radiant, as never he hath shone. " Yea, He is risen — though I know not how !" Answers the other . . . and the twain are gone Under the sun-reverberant tide : The fairy Knight hath won his bride ! 11— 2 THE AGNOSTIC. A GIRL, who dared not say the Christian creed, Tho' rich in kindly heart and valorous deed, Sang me a simple hymn with reverent tone. Later, before Beethoven's cloudy throne Symphonic, I stood, rapt and marvelling; And there a vision loomed on shadowy wing. The Maiden fair in spirit I beheld, Her eyes pure shrines of loftiest intent, Indomitable endeavour, never quelled By violent misfortune, nor repelled By dull resistance of indifferent Vicissitude, but ever buoyant ; her On a frail arch of slow dissolving ice, I saw mid mountains robed in snowy fur, All inaccessible, a precipice At either end inexorably steep, Banning approach ; around her slender form Unfathomable abysses of the deep, The Agnostic. 165 O'er her involved embroilment of the storm, Thundering cloud ; methought she stooped anon With cordial of her glance to yield support Unto some faltering or fallen one Upon life's painful perilous pass, full fraught With fear, convoying from nowhere to nowhither ; So teach the later sages, and her mind, Swayed by the mastering Magia breathing thither From the Time-Spirit, so believes ; or blind, Or eagle-orbed, He rules the answering helm Of man's opinion; but the mellow tones Of her sweet anthem fill the frozen realm With human longing ; the unhearing stones Prolong the strains within their hollow hearts Unknowing ; 'tis a hymn of piteous prayer For help from Him Who of His Life imparts, Some hold, to mortals ; but the maiden there So deems not; wherefore I feel wonderment. Whether she sang, because the melody Held soothing for her soul, or if she bent Her loftier flight, sustaining some who fly On lowlier pinion faint and falteringly With infant cradlesong they love to hear, I know not, but her mellow-toned appeal Wanders an orphan through a world of fear, Where none regards, nor can regard, nor feel With mortal man, emitting a faint ray 1 66 The Agnostic. Of conscious hope within the soulless gloom, That feebly quavers but a little way, For a brief while in the eternal tomb, That is the fathomless and infinite Mother of all. And still serene the smiles ! But how sustains her the eternal Night ? With what poor toys, with what illusive wiles ? There were some flowers in the ice-crevices Some tiny flowers of dear seraphic blue, And rifts in tempest ; but are those, or these, Sisters to them in deep cerulean hue, Evanishing when born, howe'er they please, Sustainers of her very light of life? Or is she strong for her unequal strife Through yonder gleams of gold upon the rock ? Nay, they are elf-gleams glimmering to mock ! But she adores twin visionary Stars, That in the abysmal hollows wax and wane, Strange progeny of elemental wars, Ravening in chasms of the unsouled Inane ! Duty, and Love, fair sister, and bold brother, To spring in very deed from such a Mother ! Yea, spiritual tides of boundless being Are billowing in the soul, a moment fleeing From naught to naught unfathomably still : Ghost from the gloom the miracle of Will ! The Agnostic. 167 A lovely child played on the crystal bridge, And she played with him, they loved one another ; Alas ! he faded from the icy ridge, Like some soft flower, his delicate fleeting brother ; He swooned into the unholy void, he perished ! While she with anguish wept the flower she cherished. And yet methought that in the shrouding storm I could distinguish some ethereal form, As of a fair child often hovering nigh, Albeit no vision met the maiden's eye. Yet on the appealing waves of her sweet hymn Toward her some breathing cohort seemed to swim. Till unaware an ominous sharp sound Foreboded wreck and ruin of the arc ; Startled she gazed into the dusk profound, Then calmly-grave appeared to mark Annihilation's face confronting her, While in a moment with still overthrow Vanished the fair arch, and his eager stir Of life for ever — Nay ! behold the glow Of some divine celestial surprise Dawns in the dewy darkness of her eyes, While unsustaincd she falls ; for lo! the cold Unfathomable hollow-hearted gloom Grew warm hearts throbbing with a love untold ; 1 68 The Agnostic ur space will not permit us to linger longer over the many beauties of this epic poem." - /.'■ cord. " His qualities as a poet appear to be a passionate and catholic sympathy with human life, a power of seeing the romance of contemporary history, a faculty for describing grandiose effects of tropical scenery, and a peculiar skill in the employment of strange and sonorous local names. . . . Pew poets have used scientific guesses or discoveries more felicitously than Mr. Noel in this pas.-. . . . This is surely stately and admirable verse, and it would be easy to find man es to match it in the long soliloquy in which Livingstone reviews his Mm. his hopes, his love of humanity, of mystery, and adventure. . . . Pic- tures of the greatest originality. The account of a savage execution lias the vervt and colour of Henri Eegnault's best known work. — Andrew I. am;, in [| ml, hi il. " There is a loftv spring in the style, and an elaboration in the music of these Cantos, which ought to give the poem a M b place in modern poetry."— Briti ft Q '< rly I'.i vu "■ iv noble passages will be found in the pages of 'Livingstone in Africa.'" —Morning Po it. SAMPSON LOW, MAE8T0N, l.ow ,v ska RLE, Crown Buildings, 1--, ill- i Si BEET, E.C. THE HOUSE OF RAVENSBURG: A DEAMA. "This story is much more powerful than appears in the foregoing narrative, and in its presentation of vague terror recalls the famous verse of Dobell — ' Keith of Ravelston, the sorrows of thy line.' Portions of the treatment are fine, we might almost say splendid, from the poetical standpoint."— Athenaeum. " Taken as a whole, the picture of Sigismund, both before and after death- Mr. Noel assumes Shakespeare's license, and brings Sigismund back to us from the other world, and, even bolder than Shakespeare, undertakes to show us his character still undergoing change in that world— seems to us one of very con- siderable power. The following passage, for instance, spoken by Sigismund the disembodied, and presenting the central idea of the play with great fire, seems to us a noble one. . . . Again, there are one or two beautiful songs, and at least one very fine picture of a mountain sunset. . . . That is very fine verse, and the readers of this imperfect but powerfully conceived drama will find much in it which is equally fine,- and much, too, of far higher meaning."— Spectator. " 'The House of Ravensburg' is the first production of its kind we have had from Mr. Noel. It is more complete than any other of his larger poems, and may be taken to indicate a new range in his versatile genius. In point of dramatic power it will compare with any contemporary efforts. . . . The cha- racters of the play are massed very strongly in light and shade, and the piece abounds in rapid transitions, recalling those of Wagner, to whom Mr. Noel has various points of resemblance. Mr. Noel has the faculty, most remarkable in a metaphysical poet, of appealing impressively to the senses, and, as in such situations as the dungeon scene, of putting in the touches with all a painter's instinct for scenical effect."— Scotsman, "From the pen of one of the first lyrists of our time."— Edinburgh Daily Review. " The scheme of his poems, his line of thought, the rhythm of his verse, are all his own, the direct working out of his own bent."— Examiner. " Mr. Noel has here chosen a trying theme, but his genius has not been un- equal to it. . . . Altogether, we are inclined to think Mr. Noel's genius has here reached a considerably higher point than in any of his former works."— British Quarterly Review. C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON. A LITTLE CHILD'S MONUMENT. Third Edition, small crown Svo., cloth, Ss. Cd. Un Poete Philosophe ex Angleterre.— "Cette sincerite, cette absence de toute pose dans l'expression de la plus intense douleur on la trouve a un degre peu commun dans 'A Little Child's Monument.' . . . Lament qui dans sa simplicite presque sacree, mais dechirante, est d'une incomparable beaute de forme. ... La melodie, la musique du vers est presque toujours d'une grande beaute chez M Roden Noel. ... A cote du pere et du poete, toutefois, il y a le philosophe. Le chercheur, le savant, a sans doute 6te conduit par la souffrance a essayer du moins de penetrer a nouveau le mystere des choses. ... II faut lire ' Southern Spring Carol' pour comprendre comment il sait penetrer jusqu'a lame meme des choses."— From Le Parh <>>• ,tt, Paris, June 10, 1882. " We do not know where, in all the range of English Poetry, to look for so forcible an expression of utter grief as is presented in some of the poems."— Scotsman. "Mr. Noel's poetry is always well worth reading. He is not nearly as well known as he ought to be."— Westminster Revievi. " One of the few remarkably gifted poets of our time. . . . As a poem of the affections, the 'Child's Monument' has hardly ever been surpassed."— Da ily ]:■ view. " The wonderful variety of melodies which form this remarkable ' In Memo- riam." . . . Since Edward Irving embalmed in strange, portentous, wondrous words the memory of his little boy, we have not seen such a pathetic monody." —British Quarterly Review. " Few poets have reared so pathetic a monument to a little child as Mr. Eoden Noel has done in this fine volume of verse."— Glasgoiu Herald. "Very lovely in form are many of the poems . . . while all are exquisite in feeling, much profound philosophy, and a great deal of happy descriptive power."— Cuateiiiimrary Revieiv. " It is rare to meet with poetry so spontaneous and genuine as that which Mr. Roden Noel has just published. ... In form and melody these poems are per- haps the most perfect Mr. Noel has yet produced."— Acai> " It may fairly tike its place beside ' In Memoriam ' as a book of consolation for the bereaved."— Leeds Mereury. "Sweetness and pathos, a keen sense of the beauty of nature, made more intense by the moving contrast between it and human Borrow."— Spectator. C. KEG AN PAUL & Co., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON. THE BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW ON RODEN NOEL'S POEMS. "Our survey of Mr. Noel's work has necessarily been desultory and incomplete, and therefore ^inadequate ; but we have probably said enough to indicate that there is in it that which may well com- mand the attention of all lovers of poetry. Recognition may come slowly, but when it comes it will be enduring, because his work has the qualities of endurance. Whatever may be said of his large utterance — which, in its breadth of sympathy, its force of satire, its affluence of music, reminds us of the utterance of Victor Hugo — this, at least, cannot be said of it, that it is a voice and nothing more. For Mr. Noel the cant of 'art for Art's sake' has never had a charm ; his cry would rather be ' art for man's sake ' — for the sake of purity, nobleness, heroism, devotion, faith, all the things which make life worth living — which enable us to prize it as a good, not an evil, thing. To him, as to Carlyle, the true poet is the seer, the sayer, and therefore it is beyond all things indis- pensable that he should have seen something, that he should have something to say. He gives the reader of his best ; what he has toiled and waited for while we slept — teaching what we scarcely desired to know, but what once known we cannot do without. He is not a mere singer of sense, but is alive to the mystic and invisible world. His subjects are worthy and commanding ; he loves better to paint the snowy, cloud-visited Alp than the low-lying pestilent morass ; and last, though hardly least in importance, he possesses the gift of poetic form on its artistic and tuneful sides — his poems have structure and his verses melody. Many are the spells of the singers of the day which are not Mr. Noel's, but he has his own enchantments ; and we have endeavoured to draw within his circle those who, with us, are prepared to welcome any poetry that by virtue of its imaginative force, directness, and breadth, stimulates thought, deepens sympathy, and uplifts and upholds aspiration." — October, 1883. ^ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Form L9-50m-7, '54(5990)444 Noel - 5111 Songs of the S6 heights and deep s ^^M^^^ ^^^^ 5§§«§N$S««S§! <§«8s8S«s ssSSsSssnkSs iPH^ Isilllllsill «s$ssssss WXSSN>S*NSfiNSS SsSsss^ssS^Sssss: ^^S«Kj; SJ^SWwwmMi l^^^^^s $^^^3^^^N^^^$c«^Sc® »«$W$S$X§N$§Sw ^■tt «jx§w>s§w£ ■111 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^p ^^^^^^^^^M^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^B ^^^^^^^^^^^^^H n ■■■■■i » SiHHl^HiHii lllllili W$^ ^^» «