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 TEN MILES FROM TOWN:"^ ' 
 
 WITH OTHER POEMS. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM SAWYER. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 WILLIAM FEEEMAN, 102, FLEET STEEET 
 
 1867.
 
 LONDON 
 PEIKTED BT HABBEED AND BUTLAITD, 
 ST. DUNSTAN'S COUBT, B.C. .
 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In going to press again witli this volume, I 
 gladly take the opportunity of expressing my 
 sense of the cordiality with which it has been 
 received. To the critics of the Press, especially 
 I have every reason to be grateful. They have 
 dealt with the work most tenderly — recognising 
 such merit as it possesses with generous alacrity 
 and sparing neither advice nor encouragement. 
 Dealing as it does to some extent with questions 
 involving diversity of opinion, it is not surprising 
 that what some have warmly and specially 
 admired, others have seen reason to condemn. 
 
 85SS60
 
 IV. PREFACE. 
 
 But, on the whole, author and book have been 
 treated in a manner which can only be acknow- 
 ledged as more than kind. 
 
 As stated in the previous edition, the volume 
 contains some reprints. Several of the Mis- 
 cellaneous Poems have appeared in magazines : 
 in the " Cornhill," " Good Words," " Temple 
 Bar," " London Society," and others. These 
 have, however undergone careful revision, and 
 alterations and additions have been made.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 TEN MILES FROM TOWN : 
 
 Prelude 1 
 
 CiTT Longings 5 
 
 Up at the Church . . . , . 9 
 
 The Painted Window .... 17 
 
 The Squire 22 
 
 Thought-out in the Coppice . . 29 
 
 Told at the Inn 33 
 
 In the Rectory Garden ... 38 
 
 The Mariner at the Gate ... 45 
 
 Priory Park 49 
 
 Through the Fields .... 53 
 
 Epilogue . .... 55
 
 VI. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 POEMS: 
 
 Death and Love 
 
 Found Drowned 
 
 Sigurd the Saxon 
 
 First Love 
 
 The Alps of Sleep . 
 
 Be Good . 
 
 A Wedding Ring 
 
 Sonnet . 
 
 Two Loves and a Life 
 
 Shakespere's Works 
 
 Victory in Defeat . 
 
 The June Dream 
 
 The Doctor 
 
 Our Comrade 
 
 Consolation 
 
 The Sister 
 
 Fragment . 
 
 At the Opera — Faust 
 
 De Peofundis
 
 CONTENTS. VU. 
 
 Amy's Secret 112 
 
 Ntmph and Satyr 116 
 
 Sonnet 118 
 
 CHKISTMAS: 
 
 Christmas 121 
 
 Christmas Carol ..... 132 
 
 My Christmas Lovb .... 134 
 
 EARLIER POEMS: 
 
 Invitation ...... 137 
 
 The Dying Chief 139 
 
 Spectres ....... 145 
 
 The Last Sleep 147 
 
 The Haunted Room .... 148 
 
 Worship ......# 151 
 
 Thoughts . . . ♦ • ,152
 
 TEN MILES FEOM TOWN. 
 
 PRELUDE. 
 
 The city streets are full of liglit, 
 
 Through waves of flame the sun goes down, 
 I droop my eyelids, and it sinks — 
 
 Ten miles from Town. 
 
 The village street is full of light. 
 
 And black against a sky of fire, 
 The church upon the hill-top rears 
 
 Its quivering spire.
 
 2 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 Brighter and brighter grows the West, 
 Till common things its glory share, 
 
 And round about them as I gaze 
 A halo bear. 
 
 Onward with rosy flush and gleam, 
 
 Thro' sedgy rifts the mill-stream flows : 
 
 The coppice, purple to the heart. 
 Transfigured glows. 
 
 The cottage roofs are thatched with gold, 
 Blood-red each ruby casement turns, 
 
 The road-side pond beneath the elms 
 A sapphire burns. 
 
 The wasted faces of the old. 
 
 Bright with the momentary glow, 
 
 Regain the loveliness of youth 
 Lost long ago.
 
 PRELUDE. 
 
 Lost long ago ! Ah, mournful thought 
 That comes upon me as I gaze, — 
 
 Where are the eyes that never more 
 Sunsets will daze ? 
 
 Where is the face that in the glow 
 
 Of such an hour I swooned to see, — 
 As if an angel out of Heaven 
 Had looked on me ? 
 
 Gone — gone ! The glory and the grace 
 Died slowly from my life, as dies 
 
 The splendour of the sun that sinks 
 In ashen skies. 
 
 Died out and left me like the dead ; 
 
 Yet — cold to pleasure and to fame — 
 
 Rich with the memory of a joy 
 
 That has no name. 
 
 e2
 
 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 A memory that is my life, 
 
 And lights with its Auroral crown, 
 The village straggling up the hill — 
 
 Ten miles from Town.
 
 CITY LONGINGS. 
 
 CITY LONGmGS. 
 
 There is a little window in my heart 
 
 Whereat in summer days I sit and watch, 
 
 And pleasant nooks in far-off shires behold, 
 And rustic sounds in dreamy echoes catch. 
 
 And chief the shining village of my love, 
 
 Is bright with memories distance cannot 
 shroud, — 
 
 With memories sweet as violets in the night, 
 Soft as cloud-shadow falling upon cloud. 
 
 Then every smitten feeling thrills with joy. 
 And through me like a voice a tremour goes, 
 
 ^*' The ways of men," it sighs, " are weary ways 
 And only Nature yields us true repose.
 
 6 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 " What is this coil wherein with throbbing brow 
 Thou sittest ever weaving insect- wise : 
 
 What worth the woven round of living gold 
 In that cocoon wherein the weaver dies ? 
 
 " The summer gives its beauty to the rose, 
 And with its skies the hyacinth is blue, 
 
 All things that come to it, and love it, take 
 Of that wherein their being they renew. 
 
 " Come then ! The fair sky is an anodyne. 
 The air, half light, half breath, is healing balm : 
 
 Within the woods thy soul will find repose. 
 And on the hills there is eternal calm. 
 
 " Surely the bird is happy in its song, 
 Surely the drowsy kine contented graze, 
 
 But art thou happy ? is thy soul at peace ? 
 Is there repose for thee in all thy days ? "
 
 CITY LONGINGS. 7 
 
 Whereto replying, I have cried, " The child 
 Clings not more fondly to the nursing breast 
 
 Than I to thee, Nature, for relief, 
 
 But not for peace, not for enduring rest. 
 
 *' Thy beauty is a snare about our feet, 
 We say ' here is content, here is repose ! ' 
 
 But blank vacuity is his who yields 
 And inanition all his spirit knows. 
 
 " Man looks on thee till he is lost in thee, 
 Till sympathy with things inanimate, 
 
 Deadens the pulses of his heart, and leaves 
 Him simply calm, who had been haply great, 
 
 ^' This is the hidden truth that underlies 
 The poet's story of the sentient trees, 
 
 Half human, half inert, and to the worst 
 Tending by irresistible degrees.
 
 8 TEN MILES FEOM TOWN. 
 
 " Men thrive in conflict : soul refreshes sonly 
 And hearts in trial and suffering grow strongs 
 
 As he who wrestled with the Angel forc'd 
 No blessing till he strove the whole night long ! 
 
 " So must I strive. I have allotted work, 
 I have a given purpose in my life, — 
 
 Rest ! I must snatch it at the cost of toil : 
 Peace ! I must win it in the thick of strife. 
 
 " Yes ; though the gain is but a brain o'ertasked 
 A heavy heart, a weariness of breath, 
 
 My place is not with Nature, but wdth man : 
 Not death in life — life rather unto death.'"
 
 UP AT THE CHURCH. 
 
 UP AT THE CHURCH. 
 
 Up the hill, our faces red 
 With the bloom that overspread 
 All the West, while trailing back 
 Lay our shadows, lean and black. 
 
 Up to where the village spire 
 Warms its grays — its cross of fire 
 Flaming gold, till all below 
 Grows the colour of the crow. 
 
 Often in the sunset's flame 
 To the churchyard thus we came, 
 Whence, outspread, we could behold 
 Half the county, wood and wold.
 
 10 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 And no time but there we fonnd 
 Resting upon stone or mound, 
 One whose back was like a hoop, 
 Rounded with the labour-stoop. 
 
 Many years the man had known — 
 Sixty since his beard had grown — 
 Snow his locks, his visage dun, 
 Blackened under many a sun. 
 
 Yet his eyes had gleam and shoot, 
 Bright as eyes of eft or newt ; 
 Socket-deep, with brows o'erhung, 
 Like a cavern ivy-swung. 
 
 Never word to us he spoke. 
 
 We to-night the silence broke. 
 " Ever here ? " we lightly said, 
 " Ever here among the dead ? "
 
 UP AT THE CHURCH. 11 
 
 " Ever here," he muttered low; 
 
 But we were not answered so. 
 " Come you hither to behold 
 
 Half the county, wood and wold ? 
 
 " All the county that I crave 
 
 Stretches round me, grave on grave." 
 " Then you covet death," we said, 
 " You are envious of the dead ? " 
 
 " No," he answered, and still " No : 
 I have more of joy than woe : 
 God be prais'd, though man and boy, 
 I had more of woe than joy. 
 
 " Want dried up my mother's breast ; 
 Hunger was our household guest. 
 Endless work, and want, and woe — 
 God, they said, would have it so.
 
 12 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 " Every spring the plough was driven, 
 Every summer harvest given : 
 But no blessing reached us thence, — 
 That, they said, was Providence. 
 
 " All my youth I bore this lot, 
 Manhood came, I murmur'd not ; 
 Till the night my wife lay dea(i, 
 And my children moan'd for bread. 
 
 " 'Twas the Devil 'surely then 
 Came and whisper'd ' Other men 
 Eat their fill and take their ease, 
 Is there other God for these ? 
 
 " ' Separate gods do men adore, 
 God of rich and God of poor ? ' 
 ' No ! ' still ' No ! ' my answer ran, 
 * This is not of God but man ! '
 
 UP AT THE CHURCH. 13 
 
 " Clear in all my hungry youth — 
 All my days — I read the truth, 
 Though my mind was dull and dense — 
 
 ' This is man, not Providence.' 
 
 " From that moment all my life 
 Was a sense of wrong and strife : 
 Right and order overthrown, 
 Evil triumphing alone. 
 
 " Scorn of God and hate of men, 
 Filled my heart to bursting then, — 
 Fiercest scorn and bitterest hate. 
 Left my being desolate. 
 
 " Still I was the labouring hind. 
 But I mixed not with my kind ; 
 At their worth the great I prized 
 And my fellow men despised.
 
 14 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 " So, till on a day, a thought 
 Sudden help and comfort brought : 
 ' Wherefore life ? ' my soul had cried, 
 ' Wherefore death ? ' the clue supplied. 
 
 " Death ! as in a flash I saw 
 God's great compensating law. 
 Death ! defying wealth's behest. 
 Death ! consoling the oppress'd, 
 
 " None escape the common doom ; 
 All are equal in the tomb. 
 God avenges thus the poor — 
 This their solace evermore. 
 
 " Read upon this tomb — ' Here Lies : ' 
 There my lord — a hard one — dies : 
 And my lady in her pride 
 Crumbles by his crumbling side.
 
 UP AT THE CHURCH. 15 
 
 " Thus among the tombs I tread, 
 I alive, my betters dead : 
 I alive and they but dust, 
 Oh, be certain, God is just ! 
 
 " In this place that truth I found 
 Hence I deem it holy ground ; 
 Over worth a thousand-fold 
 All the county, wood and wold." 
 
 So the feeble murmurs died. 
 We in Christian words replied. 
 Speaking in our measured scope 
 Of a purer faith and hope : 
 
 Of the Gospel -f the Poor, 
 But he answered us no more : 
 Quickened by one thought alone. 
 Else his ears were ears of stone.
 
 16 ■ TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 So we left him. Still o'erhead 
 Glowed the spire-point flaming red 
 But the hill and all below 
 Lay the colour of the crow.
 
 THE PAINTED WINDOW. 17 
 
 THE PAINTED WINDOW. 
 
 This is our painted window, 
 Of pure white lights before, 
 
 But when my lord died, Lady Ann, 
 To prove the love she bore. 
 
 Raised this, and turned his hunters out 
 To grass for evermore. 
 
 And here she sits, beneath it, 
 
 In amethyst and rose ; 
 And if the Virgin's kirtle 
 
 Tinges her steadfast nose, 
 She heeds it not ; but lurid 
 
 Through Morning Service goes.
 
 18 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 To see our famous window 
 From all the country side, 
 
 The wondering rustics gather, 
 And noise it far and .wide ; 
 
 Till Lady Ann esteems it 
 Our village boast and pride. 
 
 For me — I loved that better 
 Which as a boy I knew, 
 
 Rearing its open arches 
 
 Against God's solemn blue ; 
 
 Five portals "which His glory 
 Was ever streaming through. 
 
 Hour after hour beneath it 
 The dreaming boy would sit, 
 
 And watch it, with the splendour 
 Of Heaven's radiance lit — 
 
 A window beautiful indeed, 
 For God had painted it !
 
 THE PAINTED WINDOW. 19 
 
 Sometimes of the Good Shepherd 
 
 Our loving pastor told, 
 And of the sheep He tended 
 
 And, lo ! I saw the fold, 
 There in the blue reposing 
 
 Cloud-white, or fleeced in gold. 
 
 Sometimes a sea of crystal 
 
 The cloud-isles' rosy tips 
 Flushed through, or golden branches 
 
 Waved over cloudy ships ; 
 And I beheld the vision 
 
 Of John's Apocalypse. 
 
 The yew-tree's ragged branches 
 Stretched black against the light ; 
 
 And when the stormy sunset 
 Burned in it redly bright, 
 
 The burning bush on Horeb 
 
 Gleamed on my wond'ring sight.
 
 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 And sometimes in tlie twilight, 
 Before the prayer was done, 
 
 Out of the cooling opal 
 
 The stars broke one by one : 
 
 To me they were the symbols 
 Of Heaven's benizon. 
 
 So in each prayer repeated, 
 Each sacred lesson taught, 
 
 'Twas Heaven itself assisted 
 To shape the heavenly thought, 
 
 And on my painted window 
 The holy picture wrought. 
 
 But now the pallid Virgin, 
 With saffron-oozing hair, 
 
 For ever weeps, and ever 
 The Four are rigid there : 
 
 And gold, and reds, and purples 
 Are all their saintly wear.
 
 THE PAINTED WINDOW. 21 
 
 The lights are mediaeval, 
 
 The figures square and quaint ; 
 
 But more I loved the splendour 
 No human hand could paint — 
 
 The heav'n now darkened under 
 Each intercepting saint. 
 
 As these were men, their presence 
 
 Can all mj manhood move, 
 Their sufferings all my pity, 
 
 Their loving all my love : 
 But thoughts of men tend do\\mward, 
 
 And thoughts of God above. 
 
 And, as I am but human. 
 
 Is this a gain to me ? 
 To bound my soul's perceptions 
 
 By their humanity ? 
 To gaze upon God's sainted, 
 
 Where God was wont to be ?
 
 22 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 4 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE SQUIRE. 
 
 They are busy at work in the Park, 
 Half the men of the village, 
 Drawn from herding and tillage, 
 Building with loppings of trees, — 
 Gnarled and mossed, and still in the bark, — 
 A Lodge for the Squire's ease. 
 Rustic and quaint in style 
 Yet the while 
 Fashioned his every whim to please, 
 Whether he plays, ; 
 
 Or sleeps, or prays, 
 Or wastes in indolent lounging glorious Sumnii 
 days.
 
 THE SQUIRE. 23 
 
 3ard is the toil for tlie day is hot, 
 And raining upon the spot 
 The sun has the heat of fire ; 
 But the Squire, 
 ?rom under the limes where the shadows lurk, 
 Smiles on the work, 
 Or flung on the shaven turf reposes, 
 Or, down where the garden's plan'd, 
 Strolls by the damask roses. 
 And idly, whip in hand, 
 Goes flicking at bloom and bud, 
 Till you see around. 
 On grass and ground 
 The red leaves spilt like blood ! - 
 
 rhey have toiled until they ache 
 Through each knot of the straining back 
 And tongues are parched, and lips are black
 
 24 TEN MILES FROxAt TOAVK. 
 
 With the thirst they cannot slake ; 
 Yet the labour is not done, 
 There are hours to the setting sun, 
 
 And the Squire — what is it to him, 
 Strolling placidly grim, 
 
 Under his limes, and among his flowers, 
 
 Cui'sing the lagging hours. 
 
 And fretting as best he may, 
 
 Their golden lengths away ? 
 
 Do they curse the indolent Squire ? 
 Curse him ? They hold him higher 
 
 Than any of mortal birth, 
 To their souls so dark and dim. 
 Never diviner God 
 Purple Olympus trod, — ■ 
 They love, they worship him, 
 As a being scarcely of earth.
 
 THE SQUIRE. 25 
 
 They are liis toiling hinds 
 
 With sealed-up minds, 
 With bodies wasted and lank, 
 Round of back and feeble of shank, 
 And to labour is their lot. 
 Find them with work and they murmur not, 
 Work from bed to bed, 
 They give the day for the daily bread, 
 A ready price for the life 
 Of self, and child, and wife ! 
 
 It is well no doubt ; it is good, 
 
 At least it is understood. 
 
 That the Sentence did not fall 
 
 An equal brand upon all. 
 
 But that some should share it in work 
 
 And some in pleasure 
 
 Should fill the measure
 
 26 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 Of the Curse, that none may shh^k. 
 And the Squire would raise his eyes, 
 
 Bloodshot in fierce surprise, 
 Did I question, — not his right 
 To the wealth that is his delight, 
 His virtue, wisdom, grace, 
 .Xor the power that makes him absolute 
 
 Over man as over brute, — 
 But that which of all his idle race, 
 
 Not one, or sire or son, 
 Has held as theme of question or dispute, 
 God's clear decree 
 Setting them free 
 From aught of service or of suit 
 
 From aught 
 In act or thought, with human profit fraught 
 Or that to any end 
 Of glory, or of good, or usefulness might tend.
 
 THE SQUIRE 27 
 
 It is well, no doubt ; it is good, 
 When once it is understood : 
 But I hold that if God require 
 At the hands of one of these 
 More of labour and less of ease, 
 It is of the idle Squire ! 
 For he, who by patent of wealth or birth, 
 
 Grinds men to earth, 
 He who darkens, and drawfs, and blinds 
 
 Immortal minds, 
 Keeps men drawers of water, hewers of wood, 
 Till each one feeds 
 Mere animal needs. 
 With never a sense of higher good, — 
 He on his individual soul 
 
 Must take the whole : 
 iMust stand for each wasted soul's ideal, 
 Crushed 'neath the real
 
 2S TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 ^ For its aspirations by him debased 
 
 Its powers laid waste, 
 For all 
 
 Lost to the ignorant Thrall, 
 That might to life a higher impulse give, 
 
 Or to God's glory live. 
 
 This is the cost 
 Of the rank, and the gold, and the land 
 
 Held in a single hand, 
 Of power to raise and bless 
 
 Used to depress, 
 For do not doubt that for each brother lost, 
 
 Each Abel slain, 
 
 There is required of Cain 
 The meted measure and perfect span 
 Of the good that brother had yielded man.
 
 THOUGHT-OUT IN THE COPPICE. 2t) 
 
 V. 
 
 THOUGHT-OUT IN THE COPPICE. 
 
 From myself, myself would hardly 
 
 Start in any fear, 
 'Tis that other self within me 
 
 Interawed I hear. 
 
 For, when with myself communing. 
 
 Can I choose but know 
 That two voices and two counsels 
 
 Still together go ? 
 
 And I, weighing and comparing, 
 
 Oft the moment lose, 
 Often with uncertain action 
 
 Fairest aim abuse.
 
 30 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 And this self*, wliich seems my being, 
 
 Is it good or evil ? 
 And tliis other self I wot of-^ 
 
 Self of God or devil ? 
 
 Have the twain in me contended, 
 
 Since this life began, 
 And if both, with both so blended. 
 
 What am I — the man ? 
 
 From the Sages answers many, 
 Guesses manifold : 
 " Haply we are double-natured, 
 Haply triple- sonled. 
 
 "' Haply they are right, whose teaching 
 Mystical and dim, 
 Holds that man is God — declaring 
 All from Him {5 Him,
 
 THOUGHT-OUT IN THE COPPICE. o 
 
 Haply, too, the man is nothing', 
 
 His surroundings all • 
 That reflected Nature only 
 
 Which the Man we call." 
 
 Idle dreams of idle dreamers, 
 
 Worthless but to show, 
 As the sum of all our knowledge 
 
 That we nothing know. 
 
 Evermore the world-old queries 
 
 Vainl}^ we repeat, 
 Whence ? and What? and Whither? ever 
 
 Keenest guess defeat. 
 
 Or if, haply, earnest pleading 
 
 Meet an answering tone, 
 Never is a truth imparted 
 
 But a duty shown.
 
 32 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 With enkindled souls, for knowledge 
 
 Piteously we plead : - 
 But the truth for man is measured 
 
 Strictly to his need. 
 
 The eternities are shrouded, 
 
 Space eludes our ken ; 
 But not earth — nor time for duty — 
 
 Nor our fellow men. 
 
 Wonder all ! — within, around us, 
 
 Maze of broken clue ! 
 Knowledge bound by obligation, — 
 
 We but know — to do.
 
 f 
 
 TOLD AT THE INN. 33 
 
 VI. 
 
 TOLD AT THE INK 
 
 The locks of age are thin and frayed, 
 
 Even the eyes of age will fade, 
 I.Will pale in luie as they fail in sight, 
 [But his were keen with an ominous light, — 
 ;That gaunt old man's, as he drew to his side 
 The blossom of beauty, his two months' bride. 
 
 •' Darling ! " he called her, " Heart's desire ! " 
 But her eyes met his with a glimmering fire,
 
 34 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 Wherein nor passion nor fervour wrought 
 But the fitful gleam of a growing thought 
 Which yet to her heart she scarce would own, 
 Which yet to his heart was all unknown. 
 
 " I will love him, this gaunt old man, 
 
 I will love him all that I can, 
 
 My soul will strengthen in trial," she mused, 
 
 But his jealous passion her thought abused. — 
 
 " It is a young and frivolous thing 
 
 Would love a bird for the hue of its wing. 
 
 " Youth is well, and beauty is well, 
 But beauty and youth may nought excel ? 
 What ! is it nothing, the love of age, 
 Is the heart of a man so poor a gage ? 
 Can nothing the love of a maid bespeak 
 But a milky skin and, a rose in the cheek ? "
 
 TOLD AT THE INN. 35 
 
 Time flowed on as time will flow, 
 
 Her cheek grew whiter than falling snow : 
 
 *' I have loved him this gaunt old man, 
 
 I have loved him all that I can 
 
 But my heart is breaking." So she spake 
 
 And the heart of the young is not hard to break. 
 
 " She is fast changing. Day by day 
 The bloom of her beauty is swept away, 
 The light has died out of those eyes of blue : 
 Her hand is so thin the sun shines through. 
 What is this love, this power of might 
 That thus can the young and the old unite ? 
 
 " How does it chance that line by line, 
 
 Her being is changed to the like of mine, 
 
 Or I grow younger as she matures ? 
 
 How comes it that as our love endures, 
 
 d2
 
 36 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 We near and near, 'till when all is done 
 My age and lier youth will seem as one ? " 
 
 Sun-ripen'd roses clustering made 
 Round the window an odorous shade : 
 She beneath it wasted to naught, 
 He beside her, buried in thought, 
 " I have aged in a year," sighed she : 
 " She is older than I ! " thought he. 
 
 " I did not dream that one little year 
 Would bring her youth and my age so near ; 
 I could but hope that time might show 
 How pure was the love my heart could know,- 
 Love wherein passion played no part : 
 Born of the reason, not of the heart. 
 
 " Then I had said to her, ' Wife of mine. 
 Youth to youth will ever incline :
 
 TOLD AT THE INN. 37 
 
 For youth is foolisli and judges by 
 The credulous heart and seeking eye : 
 But age is wiser ! ' " A sigh, a moan : 
 She had dropp'd to his feet a stone ! 
 
 She a stone at his feet was laid, 
 Over her face the rose-shadows play'd, 
 In her eyes no fire, on her lips no red, 
 " God ! I have killed her ! She is dead ! " 
 Dead ? Yes : gone was her latest breath — 
 There was no end for such love but death.
 
 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 IN THE RECTORY GARDEK 
 
 We, in the garden on a July noon 
 Ripe as the peaches red upon the walls, 
 Dreamily mused. O'erhead the light clouds 
 
 trail'd 
 And wasted their frail beauty in a sky 
 Pulsing with light. The trees shone in the sun 
 Or greenly gold against it, and the flow'rs, 
 (Islands of colour in a sea of grass) 
 Dazzled and pain'd the eyes that looked on them 
 For very brightness.
 
 IN THE RECTORY GARDEN. 39 
 
 With the drowsy calm 
 And beauty of the hour, the songs of birds 
 And hum of passing bees, and the light stir 
 Of leaf on leaf blent murmurously, and then 
 Another sound came like a rising wind 
 In gust and moan, for so, in the near church, 
 Sounded the organ playing. 
 
 " Not a strain 
 Jocund and freshly jubilant," cried one, 
 " Rather a wail of penitence, and yet 
 How the soul stirs and yearns to it, as if 
 The instincts of its immortality 
 Were touch'd ! And this, indeed, is worth 
 
 thought, 
 That of all good and beautiful things of earth, 
 The faces that we love — the love itself —
 
 40 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 The flowers whose life is beauty, all that lights 
 And makes man's earth a joy to him, — no part — 
 For so we read — escapes the curse of death 
 Save music only." 
 
 " God be prais'd for this," 
 One said, " That in the Heaven we hunger for 
 Our spirits will regain so much of earth, — 
 Who knows with what enjoyment ? " 
 
 " As a lark 
 Lodg'd in a palace : giv't a meadow turf 
 And 'tis refreshed and happy." 
 
 " Even so," 
 Replied our musing brother, " Yet, perchance 
 In this is error also, for I hold 
 Music so pure and so divine a thing 
 That while of eai-th it has of earth no part. 
 
 i
 
 IN THE RECTORY GARDEN. 41 
 
 We make it do our bidding, — raise this strain 
 Into a hymn of glory : render that 
 To kingly homage : blend one with a tale 
 Of love in wantonness and woman's shame, 
 Another consecrate to mirth, or link 
 With freedom's yearnings, inarticulate 
 Else in those lands that fear no deadlier foe. 
 Yet to a child all's one : it leaps and shouts 
 Alike at song of man, and psalm of God ; 
 And so in the hereafter, — listened to 
 With keener apprehension of delight. 
 Heaven's music in its nature may be ours, 
 And yet of earth it may retain no trace." 
 
 " So viewed," another answered, " what we call 
 The other world may all our scale reverse 
 Of sacred and profane. We strike our chords 
 Full, solemn, deeply-resonant, and deem
 
 42 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 We pitcli the key of praise approved of God. 
 Who knows ? The grateful heart is light, and he 
 Who worthiest worshipp'd danced before the Ark. 
 How should the joyous laugh profane His house 
 Who gave us laughter ? Sorrow has no place 
 Prescriptive and of right inviolate 
 In God's fair world. The little ones He bade 
 Come to Him and become His kingdom, find 
 No grace in gloom, and so through Heaven per- 
 chance 
 Mirth's lightest carol rings as best approved 
 In the angelic quiring." 
 
 ' " This at least," 
 Returned our brother, gravely, " We may deal 
 Justice with hand more equable to those 
 We call the masters, — mindful still of him 
 Whose spirit's flight is heavenward, who shapes
 
 IN THE EECTORY GARDEN. 43 
 
 The strains o£ angels to tlie lips of men ; 
 
 Nor less of him whose homelier promptings 
 
 set 
 Life's droning burden in a higher key, 
 Believing God best praised of him who best 
 Uses the gift he has, or great, or mean, 
 In its full measure, seeing that as each 
 Fulfils or, — emulous of nobler gifts, — 
 Neglects his part, he helps or hinders laws 
 Whose true, harmonious working Heaven 
 
 approves 
 As its sublimest worship," 
 
 We felt a truth was touch'd and hardly cared 
 Pursue it further. Through the dreamy noon, 
 Steeped to the heart in light, flowed on the 
 
 sound. 
 As if awakening Pan had snatched again
 
 44 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 His world-compelling pipe. The trees were 
 
 stirr'd : 
 The grasses surged to music: quivering flew 
 The butterfly bewildered by the strain : 
 Only the birds were silent — over-awed. 
 
 So, till upon a sudden, all was still : 
 The natural silence of the hour returned, 
 And with it came a grateful sense of peace.
 
 THE MARINER AT THE GATE. 45 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE MARINER AT THE GATE. 
 
 White as sleet had grown his hair, 
 Apple-red his face had grown, 
 
 His who said to us " Beware ! " 
 Of voyaging in the Polar zone 
 
 These the marks he bare. 
 
 Like a fox's back the hand 
 
 Raised to help his forming thought ;- 
 
 " Once I could not understand 
 How a sin more sinning wrought 
 
 And a man unman'd ;
 
 46 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 " How he found in it his doom, 
 Sinking powerless for right — 
 
 But I learn'd it in the gloom 
 Of the month-long Polar night, 
 Wrapping Nature's tomb. 
 
 " Sailing in those far degrees 
 
 Dipping to the Pole, we found 
 
 Mouths of pleasant inland seas 
 That with icebergs girdled round 
 
 Coat, but never freeze. 
 
 Struggling with the driving floes 
 Hard the seaman longs to ride 
 In those harbours of repose, 
 Longs — but wears the ship aside 
 For the cost he knows.
 
 THE MARINER AT THE GATE. 47 
 
 Knows that whatsoe'er be cast 
 
 On those treacherous broads to float — 
 
 Oar, or spar, or splintered mast — 
 Round about it ice will clot 
 Spreading thick and fast. 
 
 So around the fated keel 
 Into those blue havens blown 
 
 Foam will crisp and wave congeal 
 Till the surge is surge of stone 
 And the water — steel. 
 
 " What the secret, what the cause 
 Never mortal man may tell, 
 
 But, believe me, sin has laws. 
 Deep, inscrutable, as well, 
 
 And believing — pause ! "
 
 48 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 Apple-cheek and sleety hair 
 
 To the past have gone their way, 
 
 But their fruit they yet may bear,- 
 His few words who on that day 
 
 Cried to us " Beware ! "
 
 PRIORY PARK. 49 
 
 IX. 
 
 PRIORY PARK. 
 
 Under these skies, as blue as skies in dreams, 
 How sweet a spot the quieken'd memory sees. 
 
 I June-deep in leaf and bloom, with sunny gleams, 
 And birds that sing about the shining trees, 
 
 Haunting the lime's green coverts as of old, 
 
 And the laburnum's dropping wells of gold ! 
 
 With thee, beloved, happy were the hours 
 
 Upon the shimmering lake, or 'neath the 
 planes,
 
 50 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 Or idling in the honeysuckle bowers, 
 
 Or, shelter'd, listening to the summer rains, 
 That make the garden greener as they fall, 
 As softly cadenced as a madrigal. 
 
 There lovers wander, gentle, happy-eyed, 
 And rosy children scamper down the grass ; 
 
 And the young mother comes in tearful pride, 
 And age that almost hears the moments pass 
 
 So quick their flight, and yet an hour will 
 spend 
 
 With Nature, face to face, before the end. 
 
 There beauty is a pleasure, not an art. 
 
 And simple hearts are glad they know not why, 
 
 And sorrow has in life no longer part 
 
 Nor floats — a cloud — between God's earth and 
 sky —
 
 PRIORY PARK. 51 
 
 That sky which crowning all so pure, so fair 
 Suggests why man has placed his heaven there. 
 
 There, as I dream, for ever evening shows 
 The pageantry of her triumphal skies. 
 
 Until the bloomy purples faint and fade 
 And slowly all the golden glory dies : 
 
 And stars from out the Orient gleaming break 
 
 Like loving eyes that brighten as they wake. 
 
 Or, all the scene the tender moonlight steeps, 
 And day returned with added beauty glows, 
 
 Softer and sweeter — though a second prime, 
 A second summer beauty rarely knows — 
 
 Till the familiar, unfamiliar seems, 
 
 Like the unreal realities of dreams. 
 
 Pleasantly thus each simple taste is fed 
 While on the quiet spirit dropping balm,
 
 52 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 Descend the memories of hours long fled, 
 
 Yielding a sense of dreamy, happy calm,- 
 Bright memories that no cold shadows cast 
 But make the present dearer for the past.
 
 THROUGH THE FIELDS. 53 
 
 X. 
 
 THROUGH THE FIELDS. 
 
 Pleasant beneath this burning sky of June 
 To tread the field-paths by these hedges, gay 
 With shining gorse and rosy blossom'd may ; 
 To linger here, where in full blaze of noon. 
 Under the quivering branches of the trees 
 The air is cool and fragrant, and the light 
 Comes greenly tempered to the aching sight ; 
 Or to pass hence, and plunging to the knees 
 In a green meadow, wade in the full sea
 
 54 TEN MILES FEOM TOWN. 
 
 0£ flowering grasses, foaming as we go 
 With clustering daisies. Nought more sweet 
 may be, 
 The while the skylark soars and sings, and, lo! 
 The cuckoo, lone Narcissus of the woods, 
 Of his own name enamoured, still that name 
 intrudes.
 
 EPILOGUE. 55 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 The fancy dies. Or well or ill 
 
 Is played the poet's part ; 
 But only half is done — the rest 
 
 Exceeds his art. 
 
 Words spoken in dead ears are dead, 
 He could but give his thought — 
 
 As thought to thought responds, it lives 
 Or comes to nought. 
 
 As in the heart some chord is struck 
 
 Some echo in the soul. 
 So only will the half -song round 
 
 Into the whole.
 
 TEN MILES FROM TOWN. 
 
 Idle to many, false to some, 
 
 It may be that the few 
 Will by another's memories stirr'd 
 
 Their own renew : 
 
 Will, in some momentary gleam 
 
 Of beauty or of truth, 
 Forget the burden of the heart — 
 
 That life is youth.
 
 POEMS,
 
 DEATH AND LOVE. 59 
 
 DEATH AND LOVE. 
 
 I CRIED to Life, — "All earthly things above, 
 Let me behold the radiant brow of Love !" 
 
 The fierce desire stirred all my passionate heart, 
 " Love ! let me look on Love ere I depart !" 
 
 The waters rounding to the rounded shore 
 One melancholy voice of warning bore : 
 
 The one cloud golden in the sunset swept 
 
 Into the gloom — a wraith that warned and wept
 
 60 DEATH AND LOVE. 
 
 Through the dumb words o£ June a shudder went 
 As the crisp leaves to lips prophetic bent. 
 
 And Life in sorrow raised the perilous fold 
 " Importunate as Psyche's self — Behold !" 
 
 Longing to horror yielded in a breath — 
 
 I who had looked on Love had looked on Death !
 
 FOUND DROWNED. 61 
 
 FOUND DROWNED. 
 
 At the ebbing tide tbey found, 
 A noble woman, drowned, — 
 Sand in her hair, sun-bright, 
 
 Sand in her mouth and throat, 
 In her gown too wet to float, 
 Sand in a bosom that was round and white. 
 
 Perfume still in the hair, 
 The nails trimm'd round with care ; 
 Scarce from the rounded cheek 
 The damask bloom had died : 
 Full in her beauty's pride, 
 Death the Consoler she had dared to seek.
 
 62 FOUND DROWNED. 
 
 Still in her shell-pink ears 
 There glittered diamond spheres, — 
 And they, — the seam'd and tann'd, 
 The boatmen gathering round, 
 Rings on her fingers found, 
 Rings, — but no ring upon the small left hand ! 
 
 Rough men, of honest lives, 
 Proud of their wedded wives, 
 They read her tale, her shame. 
 
 And curs'd the unknown slayer. 
 
 God ! Is it not a prayer, 
 The curse that swells in outrao-ed Virtue's name
 
 SIGURD THE SAXON. 63 
 
 I 
 
 SIGURD THE SAXON. 
 
 They live not in the songs of bards, who bind, 
 And teach, and strengthen — him you shall not 
 
 find, 
 The gentle Sigurd, healer of his kind. 
 
 Yet greatly loving men ; for men he nerved 
 His soul for work, nor therein shrank or swerved 
 But seven years a stedfast purpose served. 
 
 One year to arts that build the man he gave, 
 " For what, " said he, " is knowledge, if its slave 
 I fall, o'ertasked and crushed into the grave ? "
 
 64 SIGURD THE SAXON. 
 
 One year above the bones of men lie bent, 
 Seeking their given purpose and intent, 
 Their functions, order, and development. 
 
 And in the next, among brute forms he sought 
 The germs of passion, appetite and thought. 
 That complex in the human type are wrought. 
 
 Nor failed the chemic forces to explore, 
 Nor the mechanic powers, nor all the lore 
 Of science that upon the mortal bore. 
 
 And for one year he gave his life to song, 
 And to the skill of bards attained ere long ; 
 And in the strength of heroes made him strong. 
 
 And when in strength and cunning he had grown 
 And had of all things taken for his own ; 
 The seventh year he gave to thought alone.
 
 SIGURD THE SAXON. G5 
 
 And in that year of solitary tliought 
 
 All knowledge, seed and germ, within him 
 
 wrought, 
 And out of knowledge, wisdom came unsought. 
 
 Then faring forth, as one divinely sent. 
 
 He taught, and healed, and greatly underwent, 
 
 And suffered all things for his high intent. 
 
 And was of some mistaken and decried. 
 And was of some beloved and deified. 
 And nobly lived — and yet in sorrow died. 
 
 For rearward seen the road of life is clear, 
 
 " And I am sad," he cried, " and sore with fear, 
 
 Since serving many, served I not one year. 
 
 " For upon man, years many I bestow'd. 
 
 And for my kind the ways of knowledge trod : 
 
 But one year gave I never — one to God ! " 
 
 F
 
 66 SIGURD THE SAXON. 
 
 So died lie : yet as one not wholly lorn, 
 But with a hope even in darkness bom — • 
 As out of night the promise of the mom. 
 
 A hope that clouding sight, and failing limb 
 Crushed not — albeit ever faint and dim — 
 That whoso serveth His best serveth Him !
 
 FIRST LOVE. 67 
 
 FIRST LOVE. 
 
 Turning over papers, 
 Dead-leaf drift of years, 
 
 In the midst a letter 
 
 Blurr'd and dim with tears. 
 
 Face of any dead one 
 
 Scarce had moved me so ; 
 
 There my First Love lying 
 Buried long ago ! 
 
 Darling love of boyhood, 
 What glad hom-s we knew ! 
 
 Tears so sweet in shedding 
 Vows that were so true
 
 68 FIRST LOVE. 
 
 Dear face, round and dimpled, 
 Voice of chirping bird, 
 
 Scarcely then, for heart-throb^ 
 Any word I heard. 
 
 But to know she loved me, 
 Know her kind as fair, 
 
 Was in joy to revel, 
 Was to walk on air ! 
 
 Happy, happy love time, 
 Over-budded Spring, 
 
 Never came the Summer 
 With its blossoming.
 
 THE ALPS OF SLEEP. 69 
 
 THE ALPS OF SLEEP„ 
 
 I HAVE beheld in dreams the Alps of Sleep, 
 Which shoot their red peaks up into the glow 
 Of ruddiest sunsets — ^blood-spar into blood. 
 These are the haunts of Demons, red and foul, 
 Bat-wing'd, with tusk of boar and vulture claw. 
 In all else, human. 
 
 Grim and strange of heart, 
 These do not wed with Demons of their kind, 
 They have their bond-slaves — tender, innocent — 
 Fair children, of the fairest of the earth, 
 Stolen in sleep. These, cherished to the dawn 
 Of womanhood, become to them as wives ;
 
 70 THE ALPS OF SLEEP. 
 
 And as about tlie lurid peaks they sweep, 
 Wing set to wing till every gorge is black 
 As with cloud-shadows, from among them peep 
 Child-faces, pure and fair, but ever sad — 
 More sad than any beautiful thing of earth. 
 For all their lives are memories. They know 
 Of love, of joy, of hope, but as a sense 
 Of what has been and is not. As a dream 
 Their past blends with the present, which it 
 
 feeds 
 With fancies and with echoes, shaping thus 
 What else had no existence. 
 
 One of these 
 Loved not her Demon lord : loved not the world 
 Of shadows. So, although her heart was cold 
 To aught of passion save its memory, 
 She longed to see men-faces, and to hear 
 Voices that were not echoes. In her soul
 
 THE ALPS OF SLEEP. 71 
 
 She nursed this longing till it grew a power, 
 Brooded upon it till her scatter'd force 
 Of being took one current, and so set, 
 Accomplished what it will'd. 
 
 Within the breast 
 Of a heart-stricken Poet burn'd a hope 
 That was a memory yet linked itself 
 More to the future than the past, — a hope, 
 A passionate longing to behold the face 
 Of a lost love. And since life could but give 
 Its present and its actual, he fell 
 To fasting, to long vigils and so lapsed 
 Into deep trances, whence the path was clear 
 Into the Demon-land. And then it chanced 
 That as he wandered dreaming where all 
 
 dream'd. 
 This bond-wife saw his face, and heard his voice, 
 And loved him with the memory of love !
 
 72 THE ALPS OF SLEEP. 
 
 Then he, beholding her so fair, so sad, — 
 An angel wing to wing with hideous forms 
 Yielded to pity. Thence revived in him 
 Dead love, and the desire to rescue her 
 Who was so grimly mated, and so sad, 
 And give her back to earth. 
 
 So, on a night 
 When red through the red air the Demons sailed 
 And in their midst this angel, — with a snatch 
 He clutch'd at her white robe, and clasping her. 
 Shot as a star shoots through the night. But she 
 With terror smitten or inspired by love 
 That being but of memory, lacked the strength 
 Of human passion, leapt his arms, and fled, 
 A ruffled dove, back to her lord. Then he 
 With a great cry swept to the fore, and all 
 The Demons gather'd round, and as he led 
 Obey'd his will, — ^his will that was revenge.
 
 THE ALPS OF SLEEP. 73 
 
 Througli all that night across the Alps of Sleep 
 The Poet fled : through all that night he saw- 
 Red shadows tracking where all else was blood, 
 Mist-blood, ice-blood, aye, even the pure Heaven 
 That should have spanned them star'd and blue 
 
 — red blood ! 
 The very breeze that blew across the ice 
 Had an ensanguined taint and turned to blood 
 On his parch'd tongue. Across these hideous Alps 
 He fled the Demons. With out-streaming hair, 
 With starting eyes and heaving chest, he fled, — 
 Slid with red glaciers down the gory peaks, 
 Plung'd chin-deep in the crimson snow that hid 
 Bottomless valleys, swam the rushing blood 
 Of roaring torrents, climb'd the oozing walls 
 Of precipices, or by rotting boughs 
 Leapt, swinging, gorges black and fathomless. 
 Still the fierce flight kept on and on, and still
 
 74 THE ALPS OF SLEEP. 
 
 Pursuers and pursued like distance kept : 
 Only a span divided them, — the span 
 Of Demon fingers. This the Poet knew : 
 His panting toil he knew secured but this, 
 Nor dared he cast a look behind, nor turn 
 To right or left, lest turning he might give 
 His sun-bright locks, out-streaming, to the claws 
 That crook'd to clutch at them. Upon his neck 
 He felt hot breath : he heard the play of wings. 
 Remembered cries of pain were in his ears, 
 A nd though he saw not, dared not see, he knew 
 That red through the red air they swept, as 
 
 sweeps 
 A cloud, wind-driven. 
 
 Sudden, as he leapt 
 A bladed ice-peak, rising clear, his feet 
 Slid on the treacherous ice, or the red ooze 
 From its rent side, and with a shriek — he fell :
 
 THE ALPS OF SLEEP. 75 
 
 With feet upspringing backward fell, and felt 
 The thrust of the sharp peak that like a sword 
 Clave through and left him on the ice impaled ! 
 A deadly coldness knit up all his limbs, 
 He had no further power of flight ; but lay 
 With starting eyeballs upward turned, and so 
 Beheld his Demon foes as onward urged 
 By force of their own flight they swept o'erhead, 
 Fierce, lurid, hideous, striking as they went, 
 Yelling and striking, fiercely impotent : 
 Borne onward by the impulse of pursuit, 
 Onward and downward, till they wholly died 
 Into the lessening distance, and he lay 
 Struggling beneath the lurid sky — alone : 
 Amid the ice-glare, and the gathering mists 
 And all the horrors of the night — alone !
 
 76 BE GOOD. 
 
 BE GOOD. 
 
 God does not say, " Be beautiful," " Be wise," 
 Be aught that man in man will overprize ; 
 Only, " Be Good," the tender Father cries. 
 
 We seek to mount the still ascending stair 
 
 To greatness, glory, and the crowns they bear : 
 
 We mount to fall heart-sickened in despair. 
 
 « 
 The purposes of life misunderstood 
 
 Baffle and wound us, but God only would 
 
 That we should heed his simple words, "Be Good.'
 
 A WEDDINO RING. 77 
 
 A WEDDING RING. 
 
 So, let me tear it from the hand to which 
 
 Through years of silent anguish it has grown, 
 
 Eating into it, as a ring of fire 
 Eats to the bone ! 
 
 It was my doom. Through it, in love's dear name, 
 
 My very liberty to love was sold ; 
 I not the less a captive, that my chain 
 
 Was wrought of gold. 
 
 I did not love him. No ! I was a child 
 
 Pleas'd at soft words ; by tender sighs subdued ; 
 
 Vain of the abject homage of a man 
 Who knelt and sued.
 
 78 A WEDDING RING. 
 
 As at my feet he poured his passion out 
 Against a cold indifference I strove, 
 
 Till, self -deceived, I seemed to like, and half 
 Believed it love. 
 
 Too soon, too soon, I came to know the truth — 
 A captive left to pace my narrow cage : 
 
 Aye, left against the gilded bars to beat 
 With fruitless rage 1 
 
 And now a passion, rising like a storm. 
 Sudden as in the still night tempests come, 
 
 Rages within my breast ; yet I, oh ! God, 
 I must be dumb. 
 
 I must lie calmy nestled on his arm. 
 
 Feigning a smile, yet loathing as I feign. 
 
 While in my eyes he seeks to read my soul, 
 But reads in vain. 
 
 i
 
 A WEDDING RING. 79 
 
 I must be fondled too, and told how still 
 A husband's life is knitted up with mine. 
 
 Poor worshipper ! He does but kneel before 
 An empty shrine. 
 
 Empty ! Nay, more, unhallowed, since a thought 
 Which is pollution has been breathed therein 
 
 For love which sanctifies all other hearts 
 In mine is — Sin.
 
 80 SONNET. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 We are weak swimmers in onr morn of youth, 
 
 Daring the fretted surge and surf of creeds 
 With feebly sprawling limbs. The Sea of Truth 
 
 Lies blue and calm beyond, and who succeeds 
 In breasting the chafed breakers of the shore — 
 
 Seething with rifted weed and clouding sand — 
 Floats, radiant, onward, strengthened evermore 
 
 The under-drif ts of error to withstand. 
 For do not doubt it, ye who beat in strife 
 
 The shallow waters but to blind and choke, 
 There is a true philosophy of life 
 
 For those who win their way with manly stroke, 
 Deep waters, where the rippling splendour glows, 
 And the calmed soul has solace and repose.
 
 TWO LOVES AND A LIFE. 81 
 
 TWO LOVES AND A LIFE. 
 
 To the scaffold's foot she came : 
 Leaped her black eyes into flame, 
 Rose and fell her panting breast, — 
 There a pardon closely press'd. 
 
 She had heard her lover's doom. 
 Traitor death and shameful tomb — 
 Heard the price upon his head, 
 " I will save him !" she had said. 
 
 " Blue-eyed Annie loves him too, 
 
 She will weep, but Ruth will do ; 
 
 Who should save him, sore distress'd 
 
 Who but she who loves him best ?" 
 
 G .
 
 82 TWO LOVES AND A LIFE. 
 
 To the scaffold now she came, 
 On her lips there rose his name, 
 Rose, and yet in silence died, — 
 Annie nestled by his side ! 
 
 Over Annie's face he bent, 
 
 Round her waist his fingers went ; 
 
 " Wife" he called her — called her " wife !' 
 
 Simple word to cost a life ! 
 
 In Ruth's breast the pardon lay ; 
 But she coldly turned away : — 
 " He has sealed his traitor fate, 
 I can love, and I can hate !" 
 
 " Annie is his wife," they said ; 
 " Be it wife, then to the dead ; 
 Since the dying she will mate : 
 I can love, and I can hate !"
 
 TWO LOVES AND A LIFE. 83 
 
 *' What their sin ? They do but love ; 
 Let this thought thy bosom move." 
 Came the jealous answer straight, — 
 *' I can love, and I can hate I" 
 
 *' Mercy !" still they cried. But she : 
 " Who has mercy upon me ? 
 Who ? My life is desolate — 
 I can love, and I can hate !" 
 
 From the scaffold stair she went, 
 Shouts the noonday silence rent, 
 All the air was quick with cries, — 
 " See the traitor ! — see, he dies !" 
 
 Back she looked, with stifled scream, 
 
 Saw the axe upswinging gleam : 
 
 All her woman's anger died, — 
 
 *' From the king !" she faintly cried — 
 
 (> 2
 
 84 TWO LOVES AND A LIFE. 
 
 " From the king. His name — behold !" 
 Quick the parchment she unroll'd : 
 Paused the axe in upward swing, — 
 " He is pardoned ! Live the king !" 
 
 Glad the cry, and loud and long : 
 All about the scaffold throng, 
 There entwining, fold in fold, 
 Raven tresses, locks of gold. 
 
 There against Ruth's tortured breast 
 Annie's tearful face is press'd, 
 While the white lips murmuring move — 
 " I can hate — but I can love !"
 
 shakespere's works. 85 
 
 SHAKESPERE'S WORKS. 
 
 Who enters this enchanted land, has part 
 
 In all wherein its sovran Prince has wrought ; 
 But to the Presence, never hungering heart 
 
 By force of love or wit its way has fought. 
 Immortal bloom for us his genius keeps, 
 
 'Tis woven into pictured tapestries, 
 Flushes in lustrous purples : trails and sweeps 
 
 In rustling music about beauty's knees : 
 Upon the magic web we float in air, 
 
 Or, as on phoenix down, put forth to sea : 
 Its filament's the unseen spirits snare, 
 
 Or net the broad-wing'd fays — but where is he 
 Who wrought all this ? Say that, its labour done, 
 The worm has dropt out of the web it spun.
 
 86 VICTORY IN DEFEAT. 
 
 VICTORY IN DEFEAT. 
 
 Wreaths to him who from the glorious 
 Strife of forces comes victorious, 
 Psean and triumphal greeting — 
 This the measure of man's meteing. 
 
 All for triumph : nothing heeding. 
 Valour fallen, trampled, bleedings 
 Battle's ho'ttest brunt sus-taining, 
 Only short of victory gaining. 
 
 But, Brother ! crushed, defeated. 
 Thus God's measure is not meted ; 
 Strictly just, the Father ever 
 Sees the end in the endeavour.
 
 VICTORY IN DEFEAT. 87 
 
 And between earth's pure and sainted, 
 And her outcast, foul and tainted, 
 All the gulf in mortal seeming, 
 May be bridged in His esteeming.
 
 88 THE JUNE DREAM. 
 
 THE JUNE DREAM. 
 
 A GARDEN in the burning noon, 
 Green with the tender green of June, 
 Save where the trees their leaves unfold 
 Against the sky, less green than gold, — 
 A garden full of flowers, as bright 
 As if their blooms were blooms of light ! 
 
 There, while the restless shadows play 
 Upon the grass, one comes to-day 
 Musing and slow, but fair of face, 
 Gentle and winning as a Grace, 
 Rosy and beautiful to see, 
 And in the June of life is she.
 
 THE JUNE DREAM. 89 
 
 Among the flowers and by the trees 
 She comes, yet tree nor flower sees, — 
 In vain the golden pansy blows, 
 Vainly the passion-hearted rose. 
 And — trembling in the gusty swells — 
 The campanula's purple bells. 
 
 These in her fancies have no part : 
 She wanders dreaming in her heart, 
 And ever, while around her flows 
 A silken ripple as she goes, ^ 
 
 The sound of winds and waves it takes 
 And helps the pictures that she makes. 
 
 Wide underneath the June-blue sky 
 She sees the breadths of ocean lie, 
 And with the opal's changeful range 
 From blue to green alternate change.
 
 90 THE JUNE DREAM. 
 
 W]]ile still the sunshine on its breast 
 Trembles and ripples in unrest. 
 
 And on the far horizon — white 
 
 A sail is shining in the light, 
 
 And what she hears is not the breeze 
 
 That trembles in the shimmering trees, 
 
 Jt is the wind that fierce and strong 
 
 Hurries that yielding ship along. 
 
 It cuts its way with creak and strain, 
 The sail is wet with spraying rain ! 
 But o'er the side he scans the foam, 
 And dreams and ever dreams of home, 
 And of the heart that, madly press'd, 
 Still seems to throb against his breast. 
 
 Oh, brave young sailor ! Eyes of blue 
 Like thine were never aught but true ;
 
 I 
 
 THE JUNE DREAM. 91 
 
 And truth dwells on those lips that yet 
 Scarce with the salt sea-brine are wet, 
 And in that peach-like cheek the flame 
 That burns can never burn with shame ! 
 
 In all the fears that wring her heart 
 Doubt of thy truth can have no part, — 
 She fears the flush of angry skies, 
 The winds that roar, the waves that rise, 
 "Wreck, death, whatever ill nia}^ be. 
 But, no, she has no fear of thee. 
 
 A tender melancholy lies, 
 
 A shadow in her downcast eyes, 
 
 While by the trees and through the flow'rs 
 
 She thinks of the departed hours, — 
 
 Regret her loving heart must bear 
 
 But anguish has no portion there.
 
 92 THE DOCTOR. 
 
 THE DOCTOR. 
 
 I SAW a poet honoured in my youth, 
 
 Robed in the scarlet, greeted with the names 
 (Amber'd in precious Latin) that secure 
 
 Wreaths to bald* temples, trumpets for small 
 fames. 
 Yet in the crowd he sat apart, nor awe. 
 
 Nor pride, full-handed thunders could inspire : 
 Genius had set its burning seal on him. 
 
 Had touch'd his fervent lips with coal of fire, 
 With Truth and Beauty he had dwelt apart, 
 
 And from their heights as from a towei 
 looked down,
 
 THE DOCTOR. 93 
 
 Calm, dignified, immortal — putting on 
 
 No lustre with the honorary gown, 
 For so great souls, false greatness oversweep, 
 And God's true nobles hold your Herald cheap.
 
 94 OUR COMRADE. 
 
 OUR COMRADE. 
 
 It was our compact — marching side by side — - 
 In the good cause to yield our latest breath. 
 
 But men, we felt as men, to see the first 
 Struck down in death. 
 
 A chasm in our ranks, a comrade lost, 
 
 A young heart's bravery passing into naught 
 
 It was not ours to sorrow, but each cheek 
 Paled at the thought. 
 
 A natural sadness filled each comrade's heart. 
 And as we stood about the silent grave, 
 
 The sight of every living thing around 
 Fresh sadness gave.
 
 OUR COMRADE. 95 
 
 Life in the tumbling dogs upon the grass, 
 Life in the bird that carolled overhead, 
 
 Life — oh, so much of life, in all, and he 
 There lying dead ! 
 
 A little while and he had snatch'd the wreath, 
 A little life and he had won a name — 
 
 And now the volley firing o'er his grave 
 Was all his fame ! 
 
 Yet Heaven was good. It gave him Love, for 
 Fame : 
 
 And happy he who passes to the bourne 
 Conscious of duty done, of comrades left 
 
 His loss to mourn.
 
 96 CONSOLATION. 
 
 CONSOLATION. 
 
 From the dark earth, flowers, 
 From the black cloud showers, — 
 But the zephyr turns to the wintry blast 
 Stealthily stealing past. 
 
 No joy new joy awakes, 
 Dawn out of darkness breaks. 
 While the sunset's gorgeous gathering light 
 Only yields us — night ! 
 
 The storms that fiercely rage 
 
 Halcyon calms presage ; 
 
 But in the heart of heaven's deepest blue 
 
 Tempests their strength renew.
 
 CONSOLATION. 97 
 
 Be this then thy relief, 
 Think — though an Alp of grief 
 Across thy life its forward shadow throws, — 
 Beyond the halo glows ! 
 
 Think — how through all thy days 
 God in mysterious ways 
 
 From out life's lees the wine of joy has press'd, 
 And trust Him for the rest.
 
 98 THE SISTER. 
 
 THE SISTER. 
 
 Sister, not Nun. Unlike in sound^ 
 As words in sound unlike may be, 
 
 They differ less than do the things 
 They represent to me. 
 
 What had I done that cloistered gloom, 
 And forc'd inaction could repair ? 
 
 From isolation from my kind 
 Had risen my despair. 
 
 Thence sprang my sin. I knew it not, 
 I had no glimmer of the truth 
 
 In all the frivolous life that grew 
 Out of my idle youth.
 
 THE SISTER. OT^ 
 
 I served the purpose of ray class 
 
 Not better than the rest, nor worse, — ~ 
 
 No widow's groan disturbed my rest 
 I feared no orphan's curse. 
 
 Life ran its round. The sunny tide 
 Bore me with others on its breast, 
 
 I had my pleasures, I fulfilled 
 My duties like the rest. 
 
 When the poor asked I gave : the sick 
 I pitied from my woman's heart, 
 
 I fed the hungry, soothed the pained. 
 And played the usual part. 
 
 None blam'd : some prais'd : all thought me 
 good, 
 Of generous heart and liberal hand, — 
 Alas ! how slow they were to see 
 
 And I to understand ! 
 
 h2
 
 100 THE SISTBR. 
 
 How slowly dawned the solemn truth ! — 
 But in a flash it came at last, 
 
 And I beheld myself and saw 
 My present and my past. 
 
 What was my goodness ? Only part 
 0£ all that tended to my ease — 
 
 Only a cushion for my back, 
 A wrapper for my knees. 
 
 Why did I give the hungry bread, 
 And why to clothe the naked choose ? 
 
 Because it gave my heart more ease 
 To give than to refuse. 
 
 The sick had cried — I felt their pain : 
 Fever had raged — I feared the taint 
 
 I had relieved and soothed — myself, 
 And was esteem'd a Saint !
 
 THE SISTER. 101 
 
 My goodness had no vital root — 
 Selfish I had been pain'd to live — 
 
 And as to giving, it was but 
 One pleasure more, to give. 
 
 I saw it then. " Blind ! blind ! " I cried, 
 " Only the truly good are those 
 Who suffer with the suffering ones 
 And share, to ease, their woes. 
 
 Who help at cost of toil and pain 
 
 And give of what they hardly earn, — 
 
 Whose goodness halts at no repulse 
 And looks for no return." 
 
 This was my lesson. In my heart 
 Deep, deep from day to day it sank, 
 
 Till, wholly changed, I courted all 
 From which my heart had shrank.
 
 1U2 THE SISTER. 
 
 I took this habit. ISTot in pride 
 But humbly, meekly is it worn, — 
 
 It marks me Sister of the poor. 
 The outcast, the forlorn. 
 
 Sister in all their wretchedness, 
 
 Sharer in all their pain and grief, — 
 
 Their sorrows mine, and mine the joy 
 That follows their relief. 
 
 Sister, not Nun, then. From my toils 
 I may not pray or hope release, — 
 
 My solace sacrifice must yield 
 And service bring me peaoe.
 
 FRAGMENT. lOS 
 
 FRAGMENT. 
 
 And let your love hang with a careless grace 
 About its object, like a falling lace 
 Over a statue : draping, not concealing ; 
 Rather, in veiling grace new grace revealing : 
 Let it repose — a wreath upon the hair 
 Worn with delight, not wearisome to wear : 
 Let it, like odours, give delight unseen. 
 Let it like heaven's blue, or the cool green 
 Of woods, awaken an unconscious joy : 
 But, oh, beware the sweetness that may cloy — 
 Love free, in freedom happy will not fly. 
 Love caged, will droop, and pine away, and die.
 
 104 AT THE OPERA — FAUST. 
 
 AT THE OPERA— FAUST. 
 
 'Tis the Gretchen's piteous story 
 
 That I hear yet do not hear, 
 And its wailing, warning accents 
 
 That awake nor awe nor fear, 
 For I move in a dream Elysian, 
 
 I have only ear and sight 
 For a voice that sweetens music, 
 
 And a face that brightens light. 
 
 It came with the curtain's rising, 
 That face of a faultless mould, 
 
 And the amber drapery glistened 
 With the lustre of woven gold.
 
 AT THE OPERA — FAUST. 105 
 
 I could hear a silken rustle, 
 
 And the air had fragrant grown, 
 
 But the scene from my sight had faded, 
 And I looked on that face alone. 
 
 In the midst of the grand exotics 
 
 That blossom the Season through, 
 It is there, a rose of the garden 
 
 Fresh from the winds and the dew ; — 
 Fresh as a face that follows 
 
 The hounds up a rimy hill, 
 With hair blown back by the breezes 
 
 That seem to live in it still. 
 
 So fresh and rosy and dimpled — 
 But, oh ! what a soul there lies. 
 
 Melting to liquid agate 
 
 Those womanly tender eyes !
 
 106 AT THE OPERA — FAUST. 
 
 How it quickens under the music 
 As if at a breath divine, 
 
 And the ripening lips disparted 
 Drink in the sound like wine ! 
 
 Passionate sense of enjoyment, 
 
 Absolute lull of delight — 
 They are hers as the sorrowful story 
 
 Awakens her heart to-night ; 
 And those strains deliciously tender 
 
 Hold her in mute suspense, 
 Delighting each quick perception, 
 
 Regaling each subtle sense. 
 
 And she in her virginal beauty, — 
 As pure as a pictured saint — 
 
 How should this sinning and sorrow 
 Have for her dangler or taint ?
 
 AT THE OPERA — FAUST. 107 
 
 What guesses tlie rosebud, glowing 
 
 In light and odour and dew, 
 Of the rose of the wind's despoiling, 
 
 Lamenting the summer through ? 
 
 So, if she shudder, as round her 
 
 The music dreamily flows, 
 'Tis but the maidenly instinct 
 
 That neither reasons or knows : 
 And still she listens and listens, 
 
 Entranced by some heavenly thought, 
 Some phrase of silvery sweetness, 
 
 Some cadence airily wrought. 
 
 Till the music surges and ceases 
 As the sea when the wind is spent, 
 
 And the blue of heaven brightens 
 Through cloudy fissure and rent.
 
 108 AT THE OPERA — FAUST. 
 
 It ceases and all is over, 
 
 The box is empty and cold, — 
 
 And the amber drapery deadens 
 To satin that has been gold.
 
 DE PROFUNDIS. 109 
 
 DE PROFUNDIS. 
 
 1 SAID, " The primal curse is gorged, 
 The rolling planet swerves with wrong. 
 Why its polluted course prolong ? 
 
 Is not, oh, God ! already forged 
 
 The bolt that shatters it to nought ?' 
 
 I said, " The w&js of .life are foul 
 Virtue is hardly worth the strife, 
 Vice o'er the w^arp and weft of life 
 
 Broods ever like a ravening Ghoul 
 
 Shaping to evil act and thought.
 
 110 DE PROFUNDIS. 
 
 " Our souls are wearj for the end : 
 Better at once the sum of all, 
 Better that instant doom should fall 
 
 Upon a race time cannot mend, — 
 
 That yet from worse to worse will go ! " 
 
 Thus in despair of life I swept 
 
 Over the jarring chords of thought 
 
 That to no wholesome sound were wrought : 
 
 Into the place of God I leapt, 
 
 Seizing the right to judge and know. 
 
 Till, on a sudden, burst the cloud, 
 • The bitterness of soul had pass'd, 
 
 And I awakening stood aghast 
 Lest on my spirit, fierce and proud, 
 Lay the inexpiable sin.
 
 DE PROFUNDIS. 1 1 I 
 
 For not idolators alone, 
 
 They who to Baal bow the knee, 
 Gods of the spirit there may be : 
 
 Passions and senses we enthrone 
 
 And to self -worship enter in.
 
 112 amy's secret. 
 
 AMY'S SECRET. 
 
 The window looked on a sky of flame, 
 On the rosy bloom of a rippling bay, 
 
 Within we moved in an amber glow. 
 And purple even our shadows lay, 
 
 I lean'd by the curtain's folds and read 
 
 Wine- coloured w^ords in a page of light ; — 
 
 Did the sunset only dazzle my eyes ? 
 
 Did its brightness only confuse my sight ? 
 
 I had been home from the East a month, 
 
 And you know what passes for beauty there, 
 
 And I read to listening English girls, 
 English beauties, and few so fair.
 
 amy's secret. 113 
 
 Tliey were two cousins, Amy and Maud, 
 (Seen in my dreams, oh ! many a night,) 
 
 Maud with her dark eyes dreamy and full, 
 And fairy Amy rosy and bright. ' 
 
 I 
 
 Both so sweet and tender and true. 
 
 Both from a boy had been lov'd hj me. 
 
 And I often had thought, " Does either love ? 
 Am I more to either than friend may be ? " 
 
 I read my Journal. That was their will : 
 Page after page of my Indian life, 
 
 Dull enough, slow enough. Heaven knows, / 
 
 With little of peril and less of strife. 
 
 Page after page of the daily round, 
 Monotony stamp'd on every leaf, — 
 
 Hunting a tiger, meeting a Thug, 
 Having^ a raid with a robber chief :
 
 114 amy's secret. 
 
 So ran the record, until at last 
 
 News of the Mutiny broke the spell, 
 
 And our regiment marched on the rebel foes, 
 And my Journal told what there befel. 
 
 And here, as I read, my wandering eyes 
 At the listening faces stole a glance, — 
 
 At Amy, pale and with parted lips, 
 
 At Maud as she dream'd on this new romance. 
 
 Then on I sped to the closing scene. 
 
 Where a Sepoy dagger was at my heart, 
 And I saw it glisten, and plunge, and then — 
 
 But Amy rose with a sudden start. 
 
 " No more ! no more ! Thank Heaven you live ! " 
 It was her voice the silence broke, 
 
 And Maud looked up with a face surprised. 
 As if from a pleasant dream awoke.
 
 amy's secret. 115 
 
 1 read no more. What need of the rest ? 
 
 Enough in the sunset I had read. 
 She loved me, Amy ! her gentle heart 
 I Spoke in the cry that had told her dread. 
 
 She loved me ! Faded the rosy West, 
 Faded the bloom of the rippling bay ; 
 
 But night could not chill, nor the dark depress, 
 While the thought of her love in my bosom 
 lay. 
 
 I
 
 116 NYMPH AND SATTK. 
 
 JSTYMPH AND SATYR. 
 
 Here, in the river lilies, 
 
 I saw the Njmpli repose : 
 She stooped, and from the water 
 
 A magic face uprose : 
 I saw the ripples blooming, 
 
 The blue eyes met my sight, 
 And, hazy gold the tresses 
 
 Lay shimmering in light. 
 
 Bright Nymph ! She fled, but ever 
 That face I seemed to see 
 
 Blessing the river-water 
 
 That flowed and flowed for me.
 
 I 
 
 NYMPH AND SATYR. 117 
 
 I nursed the pleasant fancy 
 
 Till coming on a day, 
 Here, where the ISTymph had rested, 
 
 A Satyr drinking lay. 
 And through the water flowing, 
 
 I saw his image rise ; 
 I saw the horse-lips dripping, 
 
 I saw the blood-shot eyes. 
 
 Ah, fatal moment ! JSTever 
 
 Again the Nymph I see, 
 Or drink the river- water, 
 
 Cursed evermore to me.
 
 118 SONNET. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 The sky is God's gi'eat Pictnre-book, wherein 
 He, for His little ones, with loving hand 
 Has set the ideals of all that, fair or grand, 
 
 Their hearts to Him unconsciously might win. 
 
 See, how the blue is set with snowy peaks, 
 Their bases purple and their summits gold, 
 Rising sublime, wiih splendours manifold. 
 
 The like whereof on earth man vainly seeks. 
 
 Or mark, how in the flaming sunset glows 
 The pictured tempest : golden argosies 
 Split on the roeks and sink in perilous seas 
 
 Through which a hurricane infuriate blows : 
 
 So, both in calm and storm, are traced above 
 
 Types of the Father's power and of his love.
 
 CHEISTMAS,
 
 CHEISTMAS. 121 
 
 CHRISTMAS. 
 
 This night about our cheerful hearth we gather 
 once again, 
 
 A circle of true hearts, tried links in friend- 
 ship's firmest chain ; 
 
 The blaze leaps up, the wine is bright, the 
 laugh is quick and free. 
 
 And even home seems something more than 
 home was wont to be. 
 
 The generous glow, the swelling heart, the eye 
 to tears surprised — 
 
 The sudden pause that stills our joy, yet is but 
 joy disguised —
 
 122 CHRISTMAS. 
 
 These speak a presence at our hearth, unseen, 
 
 but known and dear ; 
 Yes, Christmas — blessed Christmas — has surely 
 
 entered here ! 
 
 Warm welcome 'neath this roof-tree to that 
 
 Presence of Delight ! 
 All peaceful w^as his coming with the stars of 
 
 yesternight ; 
 Not in grandeur, not with splendour, did he seek 
 
 us as of yore, 
 But, pilgrim-wise, in silence passing slow from 
 
 door to door ; 
 Passing slow, and at each threshold pausing 
 
 fondly as a friend, 
 While his eyes would flash with kindness, and 
 
 with smiles his wrinkles blend ;
 
 CHEISTMAS. 123 
 
 And cheerily 'bove the howling of the night- 
 wind rang his voice — 
 
 " I am Christmas ! I am Christmas ! Heed my 
 greeting, and rejoice ! " 
 
 Not for rank or station cared he, not a whit for 
 I high degree, 
 
 But rather on the meek and low his lingering 
 
 glance would be. 
 From many homes, from many hearts, no voice 
 
 responsive came, 
 On cheerless walls no holly hung, on cold 
 
 hearths gleamed no flame : 
 But he turned not thence in anger ; for the 
 
 sad, the poor, the lone. 
 He had truths of Christian wisdom, and words 
 
 of kindly tone.
 
 124 CHRISTMAS. 
 
 And his glance could kindle gladness, and 
 where'er he entered — straight 
 
 The wretched looked up brightly, and the hope- 
 less grew elate. 
 
 " I am Christmas ! " On the mansion just 
 
 darkened fell the sound, 
 Where in silence very sadly were the great ones 
 
 gathered round. 
 The stately mother heard it; but as mute was 
 
 her despair 
 As if she feared to wake the thing so coldly 
 
 cradled there. 
 The Spirit whispered tenderly, " The Christian's 
 
 faith is this : 
 That they, the loved, who leave us, are but 
 
 gone before to bliss ;
 
 CHRISTMAS. 125 
 
 Though sad the parting, in this faith he bears 
 
 him like a man, 
 And he welcomes Christmas bravely, as a 
 
 Christian only can." 
 
 " I am Christmas ! " Quoth the widow, by the 
 
 embers crouching low, 
 " What have I to do with Christmas ? Hark 
 
 how the rough winds blow ; 
 Hark ! how the waves are roaring ; see the 
 1 ' petrel wild with glee ; 
 I have a son, one only son, and he is on the 
 jk sea, 
 And my heart is sick with fear for him." " Good 
 
 heart," the Spirit said, 
 " Bid it take strength, poor mother, from the 
 
 fountain of its dread ;
 
 126 CHRISTMAS. 
 
 The mighty winds that make the wreck — the 
 
 waves that round it foam, 
 Are the same winds and waves that bring the 
 
 good ship swiftly home." 
 
 " I am Christmas ! " From his reverie the ruined 
 merchant sprang. 
 
 " Christmas ! Ah ! then my board was spread, 
 my hall with langhter rang ; 
 
 And I had friends about me, blithe friends — 
 where, where are they ? 
 
 I am alone — alone in want — and this is Christ- 
 mas Day ! 
 
 Of all I loved and pampered, not one is with me 
 now." 
 
 " Oh, wherefore," cried the Spirit, " should this 
 o'ercloud thy brow ?
 
 CHRISTMAS. 127 
 
 The rough wind tries the branches, and the wise, 
 
 without dismay, 
 Mark the foul and cankered blossoms that so 
 
 quickly fall away." 
 
 i 
 
 " I am Christmas ! " It was echoed in a noble 
 
 soul's unrest. 
 In the laughter, cold and hollow, that thrilled 
 
 an aching breast ; 
 In his, who (from his dream of fame awakened 
 I long ago) 
 Now wrote for bread. "I must rejoice, since 
 
 thou wilt have it so," 
 He said, " but what can life present whence I a 
 
 joy may claim ? " 
 Quoth Christmas, " This — although to thee has 
 
 come nor wealth nor fame,
 
 128 CHRISTMAS. 
 
 Is't nought that for thy thoughts, thy truths — 
 
 small seeds in darkness sown — 
 Thy fellow-man, made wiser, better, blesses 
 
 thee unknown ? " 
 
 " I am Christmas ! " At his labour the toiler 
 heard the sound ; 
 
 It seemed a very mockery when his moist eye 
 glanced around, 
 
 When it met that wife so patient — those child- 
 ren wan and pale — 
 
 And that one loaf — why, Christmas was a thing 
 of fairy tale ! 
 
 An instant paused the Spirit, and then tenderly 
 it said, 
 
 " Hard is this fare — oh ! gentle ones — this 
 Christmas feast of bread !
 
 CHRISTMAS. 129 
 
 But happiness is less with those whom hixuries 
 
 surround, 
 Than with the few whose daily wants their 
 
 daily wishes bound." 
 
 *' Rejoice ! " To age, half-deafened with the roar 
 of life, " rejoice ! " 
 
 Brought sudden joy; but mournfully replied 
 the faltering voice — 
 
 " Let youth obey the summons, let youth enjoy- 
 ment crave. 
 
 The world is cast behind us, our face is to the 
 grave, 
 
 All soberly, all sadly, it is meet henceforth we 
 
 go." 
 " No ! " shouted Christmas gaily, " Age should 
 not fare it so ;
 
 130 CHRISTMAS. 
 
 Life's cup is sweet unto the dregs, so those who 
 
 drain it see 
 The joy of this world but preludes the bliss of 
 
 that to be." 
 
 ** I am Christmas ! I am Christmas ! Heed my 
 
 greeting, and rejoice ! " 
 Thus above the boisterous winter rang out the 
 
 cheering voice, 
 Thus on his lonely minist'ring the pilgrim 
 
 Spirit went, 
 Love in its Christian semblance to a cold world 
 
 eloquent ; 
 Thus every gentle spirit and every noble 
 
 breast 
 Found soothing word, and kindly glance, and 
 
 balm for hope depressed ;
 
 CHRISTMAS. 131 
 
 And thus this hour at every hearth, in every 
 
 heart sincere, 
 Is Christmas gladly welcomed, ae he is 
 
 welcomed here. 
 
 » 
 
 I
 
 132 CHRISTMAS CAROL. 
 
 CHRISTMAS CAROL. 
 
 Snow on the wold it driftetli fast, 
 
 And down the ways it is ankle-deep, 
 And the night is dark and the wind is sore, 
 
 And under hedgerows there huddle sheep 
 But ye who wake and wassail hold 
 
 And season yule with gossip's tale, 
 Unbar, for Jesu's sake, unbar, 
 
 We come to drinh of your Christmas ale. 
 
 Now Goodman Hodge he snoreth bass. 
 Her wheezy treble snoreth Joan : 
 
 And sleepy Hugh laid up in loft, 
 
 For love of milking-maid doth groan :
 
 CHRISTMAS CAROL. 133 
 
 But door unbar, and cliimney pile, 
 And roasted crab shall hiss in pail, 
 
 It lacketh yet an hour to prime, 
 
 And lue come to taste of your Gliristmas ale. 
 
 'Twas " Glory to God ! " the angels sang, 
 
 Nathless " good will to man on earth : " 
 And good is the psalm of praise to Him, 
 
 And good, God wot, is Christmas mirth : 
 So door unbar, and have no stint. 
 
 Good cheer this night it shall prevail. 
 And roof-tree ring with song amain, 
 
 An^ ye hid us drinJc of your Christmas ale.
 
 134 MY CHRISTMAS LOVE. 
 
 MY CHRISTMAS LOVE. 
 
 The holly was not redder than her lips, 
 Her skin the pearled mistletoe outvied, 
 
 The laurel lost its glow upon her hair, 
 
 And, ah, the snow best symbolised her pride ! 
 
 The holly, mistletoe, and laurel lent, — 
 
 Even the snow to Christmas lent a charm ; 
 
 So for a season she entranced my heart : 
 That season past — I do not wish her harm.
 
 EARLIER POEMS,
 
 INVITATION. 137 
 
 INVITATION. 
 
 When the air is white with the thistle down, 
 And the leaves in reddening showers are strown , 
 When low on the earth the swallows fly, 
 And the Heavens are dull as a dead man's eye, 
 
 Friend of my bosom, come, 
 
 Sunned in the light of home, 
 Dream we of Summer though Winter is nigh ! 
 
 When the fields are bare as the open wold, 
 And the shepherd makes for the shelter'd fold. 
 When the thatch is sodden with ceaseless wet,
 
 1 38 INVITATION 
 
 That reddens the peach-wall darker yet, 
 
 Heed not the rain or wind, 
 
 Come and a welcome find, — 
 Come and life's sorrows and sadness forget. 
 
 When the grey mist veiling the hills from sight 
 Seems a rain of sunshine bereft of light, 
 When the flowers are dead and the stricken wind 
 Moans for the rest that it cannot find, 
 Then, friend of many years. 
 Come, while our starting tears 
 Gush forth in welcome your own to requite.
 
 / 
 THE DYING CHIEF. 139 
 
 THE DYING CHIEF. 
 
 The struggle over, we, yet in the grime 
 
 And reek of fight, sought out where lay our 
 
 Chief, 
 Prone on a leopard skin, beneath an oak 
 Wide-spreading. With a mortal wound he lay, 
 His stern face bloodless, and upon his breast 
 Gash interlacing gash, and in the midst 
 A spear-thrust gaping. By his side his Page, 
 His bright hair blood-bedabbl'd, knelt : his scarf, 
 One rent in crimson strips for bands : the rest 
 Fetch'd cooling leaves, or in their caps of steel ; 
 Came bearing water. Rueful all, and sad : 
 Rueful and wan, and pitying each face,
 
 140 THE DYING CHIEF. 
 
 Till from tlie camp, heaped with, the dying, now 
 
 A Priest came, stealing softly as a ghost, 
 
 And reach'd his side, and knelt, and whisper'd 
 
 hope. 
 But as he whisper'd, he who heard was still 
 For death was in his heart : his part in hope 
 And life was done — he knew it and was still. 
 But when the secret Priest whisper'd of pain — 
 The scornful wrinkles pucker'd round his mouth : 
 And when of victory won — he heeded not : 
 And when of rest — but then his furrow'd brow 
 Flush'd scarlet. 
 
 " Best ! " form'd on the thin blue lip, 
 And died in gasping. " Best ! " he cried, and then 
 The fire of scorn flash'd thro' him. " Best ! 
 
 Tome 
 Action is rest, and what men call repose 
 Is but the torturous fretting-out of life.
 
 THE DYING CHIEF. 141 
 
 The eagle is not hooded into rest : 
 
 The lion chafes to madness in his cage : 
 
 And mine is not the slavish soul to lie, 
 
 Counting the spots upon this leopard-hide, 
 
 Dreaming the hours out like the boy who weaves 
 
 Verses in love-time. Peace and rest for me ! 
 
 Not so is cooled the fire that in these veins 
 
 Burns into action. I am as a brand 
 
 Snatch'd from the watch-fire in the night, that 
 
 toss'd 
 From hand to hand, or swiftly borne along, • 
 
 Against the darkness, blazes redly out. 
 
 But thrown to earth smoulders its life to dust. 
 
 What part have I in aught of rest or peace ? 
 
 Peace is to me disease — inaction, death. 
 
 For me there is no life, but in the fierce 
 
 Encounter of the field : no music like 
 
 The sharp exultant blast that breaks the truce,
 
 142 THE DYING CHIEF. 
 
 That slips the leash, and lets the bloodhounds go, 
 And in its signal frees a league of swords 
 Outringing with a flash ! Dearer to me 
 Than years of silken ease, one little hour 
 Snatch'd in the battle's fore-front, when the foes. 
 Meeting in silence, eye to eye, brows knit. 
 Teeth clench'd, knees set, and hand and weapon 
 
 one. 
 Forget death, danger, glory, only feel 
 Strength — sinewy strength — and with it the 
 
 fierce thirst 
 That prompts to carnage ! With the sense of 
 
 blood 
 Men madden into demons. Tiger-fierce 
 Their eyes: their cries the cries of beasts : their 
 
 hearts 
 As cruel and as pitiless. I know 
 The spur of violence, and the ihirst for life,
 
 THE DYING CHIEF. 143 
 
 I know the moment — life's supremest — when 
 The fight is fought, the stricken curse, the 
 
 weak 
 Go down, the craven fly, and yet the tide 
 Of human life and passion, spraying blood, 
 Rages and eddies round the soldier's arm, 
 As still he breasts the waves, still carves a 
 
 path 
 Through dead and dying on — and at the last. 
 Or falls a hero among heroes slain, 
 Of fights, till on a sudden yields the foe, 
 And breaking ranks commingling, onward pour 
 A torrent thundering in its gathering force — 
 And from the mystic sacrament of blood 
 Valour emerges — glory ! " 
 
 On the lips 
 Died the faint accents : died from brow and 
 cheek
 
 144 THE DYING CHIEF. 
 
 The crimson flush, and with a groan, the Chief 
 Fell on his face. The Priest bent over him : 
 The little Page wept glistening tears — the rest 
 Looked on bareheaded. Silence fell on all.
 
 SPECTRES. 145 
 
 SPECTRES. 
 
 Who fears a sheeted spectre 
 Up the hall stairs gliding slow ? 
 
 Or a warrior lone, half steel, half bone. 
 In the tower that rocketh so ? 
 
 The purblind nurse, the infant heir, 
 But not a man, I trow. 
 
 Not from without, but from within, 
 
 Come spectres to appal, 
 The heart alone is the haunted tower. 
 
 And goblin-trodden hall. 
 Where shadows of the long-ago 
 
 Upon the present fall.
 
 146 SPECTRES. 
 
 There youtllful feelings, from the death 
 
 Of youth itself revived, 
 And buried hopes and wasted thoughts 
 
 In memory's charnel hived, 
 Starting unsummoned into life, 
 
 AVander like souls unshrived. 
 
 And stalwart men of dauntless mien, 
 . Of iron nerve and limb, 
 Knowing of fear but as a name 
 
 For something vague and dim. 
 Pause at its portal as 'twere watched 
 
 By flaming cherubim.
 
 THE LAST SLEEP. 147 
 
 THE LAST SLEER 
 
 Sleeping we dream, and in a world of thought 
 Act o'er again each action of the day, 
 
 Are pleased or sad, rejoicing or forlorn, 
 As bright or bitter memories hold sway. 
 
 And so, perchance, when Death bends darkly o'er, 
 
 - And hushes man into eternal sleep. 
 The scenes of life's brief day may re-appear. 
 And still the soul in joy or sorrow steep. 
 
 The good their virtuous acts repeating, may 
 In a bright Heaven of satisfaction dwell ; 
 
 The evil, ever evil re-enact. 
 
 And find in that, alas ! enough of hell.
 
 148 THE HAUNTED ROOM. 
 
 THE HAUNTED ROOM. 
 
 Shadow on Shadow, and Shade on Shade, 
 Till the room grew dark in the gloom they made, 
 And the red moon burned as it burns in a cloud : 
 Softly they came and silent they stood 
 Each colourless face 'neath its dusty hood, 
 Each shadowy form in its mist-clinging shroud ; 
 With never a foot-fall, never a sound. 
 In the silence of night they stood around, 
 Each with its outstretch'd arm and hand, 
 A solemn, silent, terrible band. 
 
 Rosily couch'd in the silence and gloom, 
 An infant slept in the Haunted -room,
 
 THE HAUNTED ROOM. 149 
 
 Slept with its dimpled shoulders hid 
 
 'Neath the folds of the silken coverlid. 
 
 Its fresh face bloomed amid a tide 
 
 Of tresses in the sunshine dyed ; 
 
 That made with all their wealth of light 
 
 A softened glory in the night. 
 
 The large, full eyes of tenderest blue, 
 
 Their sensitive lids seem'd bursting through. 
 
 Bright, though o'erclouded, as if they 
 
 Hued like the eye of Heaven by day, 
 
 By night grew dark and starred with it : 
 
 Scarce seem'd the red mouth to emit 
 
 The softest breath, till like a flower 
 
 Closed through the drench of a Summer shower, 
 
 It parted in smiles and shed around 
 
 The fragrance of one long-drawn breath, 
 
 That, passing, left the lips ice-bound 
 Frozen beneath the touch of death.
 
 150 THE HAUNTED ROOM. 
 
 Shadow with Shadow, and Shade by Shade 
 Silently out of the room they fade : 
 Silently into the breathless night, 
 Leaving no record, no trace of their flight, 
 Save that the young mother entering soon. 
 Gazes and starts and bends her low 
 Over the first-born she treasures so. 
 Then, with a sickening cry of woe. 
 Sinks to the earth in a sudden swoon.
 
 WORSHIP. 151 
 
 WORSHIP. 
 
 What need of words in Prayer or Praise, 
 Of pairing rhyme, or rounded phrase, — 
 Why lift the hat, or bend the knee. 
 Since God the inner heart can see : 
 The thought can as the language read. 
 And in the purpose sees the deed ? 
 
 A seeming truth and yet, beware, 
 The half-truth only may be there ; 
 Man is not of his soul alone. 
 But soul and body knit in one. 
 And will the Maker look for less, 
 Than the whole man's devotedness ?
 
 152 THOUGHTS. 
 
 THOUGHTS. 
 
 By the calm waters of the inner-soul. 
 Like timid deer reposing, lie the thoughts 
 That hallow human life. Shrinking, they fly 
 Scared at the echo of the voice that dares 
 Their presence summon. But in quiet hours 
 When peace descends on us, and in the heart 
 The passions slumber, oft the poet's art 
 May woo them from their haunts, and hap'ly link 
 With amaranthine wreaths, their gentle forms 
 To never dying words. 
 
 THE END.
 
 NOTES.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Page 25— The Scj 
 
 uire. 
 
 Find them with work and they murmur not, 
 
 Work from bed to bed, 
 They give the day for the daily bread, 
 
 A ready price for the life 
 Of self, and child, and wife ! 
 
 As stating the opposite side of the question, I find the 
 following by one of those pretended Friends of Labour, 
 who are, in reality, merely apologists for privileged 
 indolence : — 
 
 " With work to do, and store of wealth. 
 The man's unworthy to be free. 
 
 Who will not give 
 
 That he may live 
 His daily toil for daily fee." 
 
 According to this idea, man is not only " a little lower 
 than the angels," but inferior in position to " the beasts 
 that perish," but who, while they live, have an existence 
 which is at laast on3 of enjoyment.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Page 29 — TJiought-Out in the Coppice. 
 
 I may quote in reference to this section, a passage 
 which miglit have formed the motto to the volume: — 
 
 " What if one use of the poet be to give some notes and frag- 
 ments of truths which he himself as little as any other can yet 
 harmonize into a complete system?" 
 
 Page 45 — The 3fariner at the Gate. 
 
 Arctic voyagers describe inland lakes or seas, which, 
 though surrounded with ice, retain their semi-fluid 
 state ; but if a spar, a cask, or a log of wood is thrown 
 into the water, it begins to freeze, and if a ship is un- 
 fortunate enough to venture into one of those havens of 
 destruction it is soon firmly embedded in thick ice, from 
 which escape is impossible. 
 
 Page 49 — Priory Park. 
 The concluding line of the first verse should read— 
 
 "And the laburnam's honey-dropping gold." 
 The epithet " dropping wells " is the Laureate's, un- 
 consciously adopted. It was not noticed till this page 
 had gone through the press, 
 
 Page 6d—T/ie Alps of Sleep. 
 It should be exi)lained that this is merely the re'jord
 
 NOTES. 
 
 of a dream, ilie vividness of which, it imperfectly 
 conveys. 
 
 Page 81— jPwo Loves and a Life. 
 
 This ballad is founded on the Drama of tlie same 
 name by Messrs. Torn Taylor and Charles Reade. 
 
 Page 94 — Our Comrade. 
 
 Written on the first death in a corps of attached 
 friends and townsmen. For comrades now living — and 
 how many have since passed away! — these lines may 
 possess a mournful interest. 
 
 Page 109— D^j Proftmdls. 
 
 A friend to whom this poem was shown iu manuscript 
 kindly added the following verse : 
 
 The riven clouds of doubt and sin. 
 Let in the light I longed to see. 
 Which ever shone, but not on me. 
 Screen'd by the mists from self within. 
 " Life is a mystery," I sighed. 
 " Yet woalds't thou solve it, learn of Me, 
 
 For light, and truth, and life are mine. 
 And I and they can all be thine." 
 " Strong Son of God I I look to Thee, 
 
 The Living tho' the Crucified."
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Page 132 — Christmas Carol. 
 
 This is an attempt to restore a carol of the fifteenth 
 or sixteenth century, perhaps older. The refrain only — 
 
 " We come to drink of your Christmas ale," 
 
 has been preserved, and that is found in an old comedy, 
 The Longer Thou Livest The More Fool Thou Art, by W. 
 Wager, entered at Stationer's Hall, in 1568. It forms 
 one of a number of lines of songs, evidently popular, 
 quoted by Moros, the Fool. I have aimed simply nt 
 catching the style of the early period from which the 
 Carol dates.
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 "A genial, picturesque, thoughtful book."— Athen^tjm. 
 
 " Pure poetry of a very tender and sweet order."— Illxisteated 
 LoKDON News. 
 
 " Full of tenderness and thoughtful grace."— Bookselleb. 
 
 " Contains more thought and beauty than volumes of far 
 greater pretensions." — Londok Review. 
 
 " Mr. Sawyer possesses so much of freshness and power that 
 we read every line of his poems."— Readeb. 
 
 " Full of merit of a high order and promise of yet higher." 
 
 — FUK. 
 
 " For colour, artistic flow, and sprightly elegance, these 
 
 poemt* are very remarkable A poet so thoughtful, so 
 
 musical, and so picturesque, ought at once to gain the public 
 ear." — Public Opinion. 
 
 " Sweet and gentle poetry,"- Chbistian Woeld. 
 
 *' There is reason as well as rhyme in them, and the true 
 genius of the poet declares itself in the changing metres." — 
 
 NONCONFOBillST. 
 
 " They have the real ring by which we tell that poetic coin 
 is not spurious."— Standaed 
 
 " Genuine and striking pathos, and a vein of melancholy 
 thought, which is strangely moving and impressive."— Sunday 
 Times. 
 
 " It sparkles with the true inspiration of poetic genius." — 
 Civil Sebvice Gazette. 
 
 " These poems have been so favourably noticed elsewhere 
 that we need only give them a passing word of commendation." 
 — MoENiMG Stab."
 
 OPI^^IONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 "Mr. Sawyer's little book is, just in one word, charming." — 
 Sun. 
 
 " C'est done avec le plus grand plaisir que nous saluons 
 I'apparition du livre de M. Sawyer, un de ces ouviages bien 
 penses et bien ecrite, on la poesie est simple et naturelle sans 
 ^tre terre a terre." — L'iNTEBNATioifAL. 
 
 " There is a charming lyrical softness and sweetness about 
 many of the poems."— Chbistiau Times. 
 
 "Mr. Sawyer is, in every sense of the word, a true poet." — 
 Glowwobm. 
 
 " There is thought in these poems, and the thought is some- 
 times admirable for its severity."— Sunday Gazette. 
 
 " Noticeable for its very great variety, the purity of its 
 epirit, and the elegance of its diction."— Beitish Standabd. 
 
 "It is very charmingly got up and has some real poetry in 
 it. " Nymph and Satyr" might have been written by Heine. 
 We do not doubt of meeting with Mr. Sawj'er again with 
 pleasure as real as we have now felt, and much gi-eater." — 
 Illustbated Times. 
 
 "The author of this little book has strung together a neck- 
 lace of poetic pearls among which it is difficult to choose the 
 most valuable. The more the book is read the more it will be 
 appreciated by all lovers of true poetry."— Weekly Times. 
 
 " It is only by a second reading one becomes thoroughly 
 aware how rich the bock is in beauty, how deep are the 
 currents of its thought, and how pure and sweet are the 
 fountains of its inspiration. There are a prevailing sweetness, 
 an exhaustless vivacity, an entrancing freshness, a trans- 
 parent sincerity, and a softened, genial solemnity about the 
 whole with which we are well pleased."— Bibbow's Joubnal.
 
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