dERKELEYX 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA J 
 
IN LONDON, AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
IN LONDON; 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 BY 
 
 C. J. SHEARER. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.G. 
 
 1897. 
 
LOAN STACK 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 
 apologia poet^ - - - - - - i 
 
 in london - - - - - - - 5 
 
 ode to two centuries - - - - - l8 
 
 franklin's death-march - - - - - 30 
 
 napoleon at saint helena - - - "37 
 
 in the forest - - - - - - 42 
 
 the passing of the king - - - - - so 
 
 the first snowdrop - - - - - 58 
 
 SHORT* POEMS. 
 
 THE POET - - . - - - - 61 
 
 A SONG OF NEED - - - - - - 64 
 
 OUR LITTLE LIFE - - - - - -67 
 
 earth's WONDER - - - - - - 69 
 
 THE MOUNTAINS ABOVE CORKIE - - - - 72 
 
 MARCH ....... 73 
 
 BEHIND THE STARS - . - - . . 75 
 
 TO MY LADY - - - " - - - -11 
 
 LINES FOR A NATIONAL OCCASION - - - - 79 
 
 THE WAYSIDE CHRIST - - - - - 82 
 
 546 
 
VI 
 
 Contents 
 
 PARTINGS 
 
 THE DAISY 
 
 THE LOVERS - 
 
 COURAGE ! 
 
 FATE - 
 
 ENGLAND 
 
 BURNS 
 
 BUILDERS 
 
 THE BROOK - 
 
 A CHILD PRAYING 
 
 CLARENCE 
 
 THE SHIPS 
 
 THE DYING POET 
 
 VIOLETS 
 
 FORGET-ME-NOT 
 
 TO SOME PREACHERS 
 
 BEHIND THE SCREEN 
 
 THE BEE 
 
 VIRGIN SNOWS 
 
 life's MEANING 
 
 SLEEP - 
 
 BIRDS IN WINTER 
 
 PATIENCE 
 
 TO ANY WOMAN 
 
 MY KINGDOM - 
 
 THE THRUSH - 
 
 THE MIRROR - 
 
 BLINDED 
 
 TWO SONNETS 
 
 life's LESSON 
 
 
 PAGE 
 - 84 
 
 
 ■ 85 
 
 
 - 87 
 
 
 - 89 
 
 
 - 90 
 
 
 • 91 
 
 
 - 94 
 
 
 ■ 95 
 
 
 ' 97 
 
 
 - 100 
 
 
 - lOI 
 
 
 • 104 
 
 
 . 106 
 
 
 - no 
 
 
 III 
 
 
 112 
 
 
 . 116 
 
 
 118 
 
 
 120 
 
 
 • 123 
 
 
 125 
 
 
 126 
 
 
 128 
 
 
 129 
 
 - 
 
 131 
 
 . 
 
 134 
 
 . 
 
 136 
 
 - 
 
 138 
 
 - 
 
 141 
 
 . 
 
 143 
 
Contents 
 
 Vll 
 
 THE KISS 
 
 LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 HOMELESS 
 
 ON A HILL'TOP 
 
 THE SHOOTING STAR - 
 
 ASLEEP 
 
 BY THE SEA - 
 
 THE END OF THINGS - 
 
 A SONG OF god's WRATH 
 
 
 - 145 
 
 
 - 147 
 
 
 - 149 
 
 
 - ISO 
 
 
 - 151 
 
 
 - 152 
 
 
 - 15s 
 
 
 - 161 
 
 
 . 163 
 
 POEMS AND FRAGMENTS. 
 
 IN A VILLAGE CHURCHYARD - 
 
 THE wanderer's FUNERAL HYMN - 
 
 THE OLD TOWN AND THE NEW 
 
 THE PERFECT WOMAN 
 
 A SHELL . . . - 
 
 NAPOLEON FALLEN - 
 
 DEAD SORROWS 
 
 A FAREWELL - - - - 
 
 BY THE SEA ' ' ' ," 
 
 DEPART, O SUN ! 
 
 A DYING DAY - - - - 
 
 167 
 
 177 
 184 
 186 
 * 188 
 189 
 191 
 
 195 
 196 
 
APOLOGIA POET^. 
 
 To-day the Poet's quest is vain. 
 
 He sees no more the mellow fields 
 Vainglorious in pride of yellow grain, 
 
 Where every step its harvest yields. 
 
 For now the gold is gathered all ; 
 
 The barns are bursting with their store ; 
 
 High-heap'd upon the great world's threshing-floor 
 Lie prone Earth's bearded warriors tall. 
 
 Belated gleaners in the fields of Time, 
 We walk where Shakespeare's scythe hath been, 
 Or Milton's sickle, fain to glean 
 
 Some unconsider'd ear of rhyme. 
 
 I 
 
Apologia Poetce 
 
 Yet must we sing. The hidden thrush 
 That, in his leafy ambush, hears 
 A larger rapture in his startl'd ears, 
 
 Pipes not the less within his bush. 
 
 And so must we. For, as we go. 
 Shaping our thought with loving toil. 
 
 Some fragments of the living seed we sow 
 May fall upon a fruitful soil. 
 
 Voices within life's busy wilderness, 
 We cry beneath some heedless star, 
 
 Seeking, with patient eagerness, 
 To push the gates of thought ajar ; 
 
 Content to know that, in Time's hidden plan, 
 When past are careless praise or blame, 
 
 These gusts of spirit-breath may fan 
 Some dying ember into flame. 
 
 How strangely things do come about 
 
 To mock the wisdom of our plan. 
 We sleep to dream, and dreaming wake to doubt, 
 
 And all remains as it began. 
 
Apologia PoetcB 3 
 
 In vain we seek with anxious thought 
 To catch the truth the soul divined. 
 
 Still must our dearest strivings end in naught. 
 The best must still remain behind. 
 
 Tho' visions circle round our head, 
 
 And passionate longings stir the tongue, 
 
 Our deepest thoughts must still be left unsaid, 
 Our noblest songs be still unsung. 
 
 What matters all our garner'd lore ? 
 
 Our dearest joys by pain are bought ; 
 For ever fall across the path before 
 
 Death's shadow and the hope that cometh not. 
 
 What though we dwell in lowly cot, 
 Or mock at Christ from lordly hall ? 
 
 So swiftly ends our mortal lot — 
 
 A Httle dust thrown on us ends it all. 
 
 Death conquers us who, dying, conquer Death. 
 
 The mightiest of our victories 
 Is won when, with its latest breath. 
 The warrior-soul speaks God's great name, and 
 dies. 
 
 I — 2 
 
Apologia Poetce 
 
 What boots a nobly-broken heart, 
 Or flutter of a rudely-shattered wing ? 
 
 Fate, standing from our lives apart, 
 Darkens our cage to make us sing. 
 
 Groping our way thro' life we go ; 
 
 We cannot see the path for tears. 
 Yet out of gloom the truth at length we know — 
 
 A mellower wisdom comes with years. 
 
 Our lives lie on the anvil — day by day 
 
 Time's hammer shapes us to a fitting end ; 
 Fate's fingers subtly bend 
 
 To nobler forms our stubborn clay. 
 
 O hearts that droop ! this truth I bid you know : 
 Our hands in far-off climes shall reap 
 
 What here, with toil and pain, we sow. 
 Be of good cheer ! God hears us while we sleep. 
 
 Elsewhere our mortal tree outflowers, 
 
 And drops its fruit in other lands. 
 Beyond these transient hours 
 
 Our little lives shall run in golden sands. 
 
IN LONDON. 
 
 I. 
 
 'Tis the place— here England's heart 
 Beats beneath her smoky gown ; 
 
 Seated on her isle apart, 
 Weary of the triple crown. 
 
 Here the river, vast and still, 
 
 Mystery of black unrest, 
 Bearing from the breezy hill 
 
 Daisy-faces on its breast : 
 
 Telling of the baby-brooks 
 
 Prattling thro' the flowery ways. 
 
 Conning in their ancient books 
 Lessons of primeval praise. 
 
In London 
 
 Here the old sea-lion's den, 
 
 Couch'd among her thousand ships ; 
 Here the myriad throng of men, 
 
 Prayer or passion on their lips. 
 
 Here the Roman eagles screamed, 
 
 Prophets of a larger day ; 
 Here the mighty Caesar dreamed 
 
 Purple dreams of boundless sway. 
 
 Here the vulture-Norseman came, 
 Patient of his fierce sea-brood, 
 
 Wrapping all the land in flame, 
 Quenching fires in human blood. 
 
 Here the blue-eyed Saxon saw, 
 Sitting 'neath his seven-fold tree, 
 
 Slowly flow'r the primal law 
 And blossom into Liberty. 
 
 Till, with anger all aglow, 
 
 The Norman came with mailed face. 
 And, standing o'er his vanquish'd foe. 
 
 He made a footstool of his race. 
 
Jn London 
 
 At length, from wreck of old and new 
 Upon Time's anvil darkly laid, 
 
 A stronger people slowly grew 
 Out of the dust of nations made. 
 
 Sullen Siren of the South, 
 
 Growing ever grim and old, 
 Throned at the river's mouth, 
 
 Purple-cloth'd and gorged with gold : 
 
 Semele of our later days. 
 
 Sitting in thy golden shower, 
 How thy children tell thy praise ; 
 
 How thy God hath brought thee power ! 
 
 Girt and vestur'd like a queen. 
 With an aspect dull and gray ; 
 
 Haughty in imperial sheen. 
 Coldly glad and sadly gay : 
 
 Wrapping round thee, like a vest. 
 
 All the glory of the past ; 
 Drawing to thee what is best 
 
 With a purpose dim and vast. 
 
In London 
 
 All thy house is filled with gain, 
 
 Heap'd thy ships with precious store ; 
 
 In thy barns the surging grain 
 Seeks to rend the straining door. 
 
 Oh, thy lips are stained with wine, 
 Groans thy table 'neath its load, 
 
 Thou art swath'd in linen fine. 
 Clothed and housed like a god. 
 
 In thy halls the sound of mirth 
 Breaks upon the drowsy street, 
 
 When the joyous grapes of earth 
 
 Are crush'd beneath thy careless feet. 
 
 Hoary towers that, 'mid the flow. 
 Watch and wait with folded hands, 
 
 Sphinxes of the long ago. 
 
 In the waste of human sands ; 
 
 Weary preachers, old and gray. 
 Standing mutely face to face, 
 
 Sternly calling, all the day. 
 In the busy market-place. 
 
In London 
 
 Teach your lesson, aged stones, 
 Strangers to these later days, 
 
 Guardians of our sacred bones, 
 And censors of our newer ways. 
 
 Tell how England's realm was great 
 In the grander days of old — 
 
 Mighty by the hand of Fate, 
 Not alone by power of gold. 
 
 Tell how when, in this English land 
 The woman sat astride the throne, 
 
 The Spaniard came with fierce sea-hand, 
 Across the sail-less ocean blown : 
 
 And how, with faithful hearts and true. 
 Grasping her sea-steed's stormy mane, 
 
 She met him with her iron few 
 
 And broke the brooding power of Spain. 
 
 And how, when in that earlier prime 
 
 The land was strong with keep and tower. 
 
 By gateway of a sudden crime 
 
 She wrestled with her kings for power ; 
 
10 In London 
 
 How, in the days when Roundheads kept 
 Grim watch by holt and heath, when he- 
 
 The Rebel king — was lord, she leapt 
 To snatch the sceptre of the sea ; 
 
 And o'er the shuddering deep she went 
 In hurricanes of smoke and flame ; 
 
 And far across the earth was sent 
 The thundered menace of her name. 
 
 And how, in days of craven kings, , 
 When patriot-heads were bending low. 
 
 She saw her Genius spread her wings 
 To seek a refuge with her foe. 
 
 Till she, whose fame was not her own. 
 But great by those who stood beside, 
 
 Sat placid by her vacant throne. 
 And, looking o'er the guardian-tide, 
 
 Saw dimly, on the further shore. 
 
 War's lightnings play about the lance 
 
 Of him who drove in might before 
 The drooping crests of France. 
 
In London ii 
 
 Tell how the seed she cast away, 
 
 With patient labour meekly sown, 
 Grew slowly upward, day by day, 
 
 Until at last she knew her own. 
 
 How, with the slowly-creeping years, 
 The child that grew beside her knee, 
 
 Now sharer of her hopes and fears, 
 Reach'd hands across the sea ; 
 
 Till, in the day of haughty power. 
 She scorn'd her wisest and her best. 
 
 And in a dark and fateful hour, 
 
 She thrust her children from her breast : 
 
 Till, from the past grown greatly wise. 
 Forgotten all her older pain, 
 
 She saw exulting peoples rise 
 And crown her once again. 
 
 A newer Rome, a later Greece, 
 
 Their narrow vestures all outgrown. 
 
 Whose feet shall tread the ways of peace 
 And all her deeds to Truth be known. 
 
12 In London 
 
 II. 
 
 Gray land, whose head is bent with years, 
 Whose weary race is never run, 
 
 On whom the future's hopes and fears 
 Do longing hang — O island sun ! 
 
 To whom, deep sunk in Southern wastes. 
 The ocean sun-flow'rs lift their eyes 
 
 Where many a dusky monarch hastes 
 To kiss thy sceptre ere he dies : 
 
 Stern warder of the western gate. 
 Still holding fast the ancient keys, 
 
 England ! Queen inviolate ! 
 And mistress of the seven seas : 
 
 This island-meadow, daisy-pied, 
 
 Where Freedom's flag was first unfurl'd. 
 
 Whose ruler, looking o'er the tide. 
 
 Now stands the lord of half the world ! 
 
 Who led a strenuous youth of pain. 
 And grew through greatness into ease ; 
 
 Here cradl'd in the mist and rain, 
 And set within these northern seas ; 
 
In London 13 
 
 To whom, across the utmost wave, 
 No people's wrongs in vain have cried. 
 
 Who gave her freedom to the slave, 
 And hope to many a heart beside : 
 
 Arouse thee from thy silken bed. 
 
 And see, beside thy pillow, stand 
 The pale shade of thine Ethelred 
 
 To mock thee with uplifted hand. 
 
 Look o'er yon pale sea-ribbon, set 
 
 To keep thee in thy rocky home, 
 Where two encircling seas are met 
 
 To guard thee with their sheltering foam ; 
 
 Look where the nations stand apart. 
 
 And murmur with uneasy sound. 
 Grasping their arms with sudden start 
 
 At every footfall on the ground ; 
 
 That Europe, walking in her field, 
 
 Starts in amaze when, at her feet, 
 Seeking what harvest it may yield, 
 
 She sees arm'd men grow up for wheat. 
 
14 In London 
 
 Or where, within thy peaceful keep, 
 By birthright of an ancient hate, 
 
 One, breaking rudely on thy sleep, 
 Knocks long and loudly at thy gate. 
 
 Who, once thy footstool, now hath come 
 To drink the wine of Liberty, 
 
 And standing here, no longer dumb. 
 Dares to importune to be free. 
 
 Statesmen, hearken ! this is she 
 Who stood with Titan form unbent, 
 
 Colossus of the narrow sea. 
 And pillar of a continent. 
 
 Who, when the despot's iron feet 
 Were planted on her form below. 
 
 Held fainting Europe up to meet 
 The desperate onset of the foe. 
 
 Yon sun that, girt in fiery wrath, 
 In God-appointed circle comes, 
 
 Still broadens down his flaming path. 
 Led by the beat of British drums. 
 
In London 15 
 
 And as he goes, a conscious King, 
 Thro' gates of day wide-open flung, 
 
 He hears the British bugles sing. 
 And music of the Enghsh tongue. 
 
 No land hath been so bleak and bare, 
 No spot so utterly unknown, 
 
 But she hath lit her camp-fire there. 
 And set her feet thereon. 
 
 Till now, across the world's wide face, 
 
 A path of empire slowly drawn. 
 She sees the footprints of her race 
 
 Go dimly towards the dawn. 
 
 What though she crouch in tempest-tears. 
 
 Storm-scourged and drench'd with rain and snow, 
 
 While hail-fiends cast their hurtling spears 
 In slanting myriads as they go ? 
 
 What though the sowers of the air, 
 The windy gateways passing through, 
 
 As o'er the sleeping land they fare, 
 With salt the stricken fields bestrew ? 
 
1 6 In London 
 
 She sits, in stormy pride apart, 
 Contemplating the world afar, 
 
 And hearing with unmoved heart 
 The mutter'd sounds of distant war. 
 
 How far the tide of empire flows 
 Since that red flag was first unfurl'd ; 
 
 And still, in conscious pride she goes, 
 The standard-bearer of the world. 
 
 O rulers of this patriot-realm, 
 
 And guardians of your centuried trust. 
 See that no dangers overwhelm 
 
 And trail her banner in the dust ! 
 
 Bethink you of the circling haze, 
 The darkness of the moon's eclipse, 
 
 The armed foes that stand at gaze, 
 The sudden rush of midnight ships. 
 
 Sleep not, while stealthy foemen watch, 
 Sleepless, beside the open door. 
 
 Lest silent fingers lift the latch. 
 And thou be free no more. 
 
In London 17 
 
 Now kingdoms rise and states uprear, 
 
 And empires totter to their fall, 
 And ever, thro' the circling year. 
 
 Confusion hovers over all. 
 
 But though the thrones of kings go down 
 
 In midst of peril and alarm. 
 Till ancient landmarks sink and drown — 
 
 Statesmen, keep this realm from harm ! 
 
 1892. 
 
ODE TO TWO CENTURIES. 
 
 I. 
 
 I. 
 
 Century, standing on the shore of Time, 
 Whose sands are running low ; upon whose head 
 The snows of ninety winters have been shed ; 
 Whose w^eary feet will soon forget to climb 
 The hill of ages ; soon to make thy bed 
 Amid the white sands of Eternity ; 
 Lo ! with thine orbed eyes I look, and see 
 Shapes of dim years long overpast and fled, 
 Rise up, like ghosts, and in the far-off morn 
 Walk in the hollow chambers of the past : 
 The sad survivors of a day outworn, 
 Entomb'd within a silence dim and vast. 
 
 2. 
 
 Child of the ages, cradl'd in war's arms, 
 How blew the blasts of battle round thy head : 
 
Ode to Two Centuries xg 
 
 How ran thy life in storms ! 
 
 Thy baby-feet were dyed a crimson-red, 
 
 Thy baby-hands grasp'd only war's stern toys ; 
 
 Thy headlong youth amid the din and noise 
 
 Of camp and bivouac sped ; 
 
 War's banners drap'd thy bed, 
 
 Thy only books her records, stern and dread. 
 
 And trumpets blar'd, and battle-drums were rolled, 
 
 And standards flapp'd their gladness, fold on fold ; 
 
 And on the deep the great ships heel'd 
 
 When reeking cannon roar'd their grimy glee, 
 
 And nations died upon the field ; 
 
 And thro' the land, from sea to sea. 
 
 The people bled, while Europe reel'd. 
 
 Weak from the loss of blood ; till he. 
 
 Time's greatest captain, glory and shame of France, 
 
 Fell from his height, .and once again 
 
 She laid aside her gory lance. 
 
 And hush'd to sleep her pain. 
 
 And once again the nations gather 'd up 
 
 Their broken dreams, and counted up their dead. 
 
 Again the wine foam'd mantling in the cup ; 
 
 And in the cottage there was bread ; 
 
 And fathers sought again their easy chair. 
 
 And maidens sat no more alone. 
 
 No more the drum peal'd thro' the village street, 
 
 2 2 
 
20 Ode to Two Centuries 
 
 And bugles 'sternly blown, 
 
 But everywhere was sound of joyous feet, 
 
 And gladness everywhere. 
 
 And lapp'd in peace the nations lay ; 
 
 The years pass'd calmly on their way, 
 
 And nevermore the jar of coming strife 
 
 Fretted the people's life. 
 
 And babes were born, and grew to man's estate 
 
 And held their children in their arms ; 
 
 And ran the round of joy and hate, 
 
 And liv'd their lives, and passed away, 
 
 Nor ever heard war's loud alarms. 
 
 Ships rotted idly in the bay, 
 
 And old men, sitting at their ease. 
 
 Told to the wondering children at their knees 
 
 Strange tales of wars in far-off days, 
 
 As things long past and gone ; 
 
 And guns stood rusting in their place. 
 
 And bugles hung unblown, 
 
 And in the earth the dragon's teeth slept on. 
 
 And over all was universal calm, 
 A silent, ceaseless, human psalm ; 
 Until at last, gall'd by the heavy yoke, 
 The toiler from his prison-sleep awoke, 
 
Ode to Two Centuries 21 
 
 And, turning as he lay, 
 
 Shook the tyrant's hand away ; 
 
 For in his blood a ferment new 
 
 Struggl'd fiercely with the old, 
 
 And ever stronger grew, 
 
 And ever wax'd more bold ; 
 
 And, blindly groping at the gate. 
 
 He rocked the pillars of the State, 
 
 Wrenching in wrath the mighty stones, 
 
 Till crouching kings clung trembling to their thrones. 
 
 Again upon Time's patient loom 
 
 Was slowly wrought the web of doom ; 
 
 And as the shuttles flew, 
 
 Once more the threads ran in the old design, 
 
 With cunning thought and fine : 
 
 Once more the purpose grew. 
 
 Again one stood in Europe's fairest field, 
 
 And strove again to wield 
 
 The sword of him who went before — 
 
 The new Patroclus, he who bore 
 
 The armour and the name alone 
 
 Of him who held a bloody creed. 
 
 Who sat Europa like a steed. 
 
 And made her neck his throne: 
 
 A later Cadmus, all untimely born, 
 
^2 ■ Ode to Two Centuries 
 
 Sower of the'dragon's teeth, 
 
 And reaper of the human corn ; 
 
 Sprung from that undying seed 
 
 Lying in the soil beneath, 
 
 Around whose feet the serried legions grew, 
 
 Like Earth's immortals, slowly born 
 
 In the shining fields at morn, 
 
 Silver-helm'd 'neath flashing dew ; 
 
 Then at last the cataract-cloud 
 
 Broke with clamour long and loud, 
 
 Until the wildly-beating rain 
 
 Laid the lines of ripen'd grain ; 
 
 And, when all had passed away, 
 
 Fallen there he lay. 
 
 And Europe breathed again. 
 
 3- 
 And growing with thee, hand in hand, I see 
 The youngest of the nations set his feet 
 Upon the stair of empire ; soon to be 
 Above the heads of kings ; a rider fleet. 
 Set firmly in his everlasting seat ; 
 A bondsman, greatly daring to be free, 
 From whose world-plunge into the unknown sea 
 The waters ran in ever-widening rings, 
 Until on Europe's startl'd shores they beat. 
 
Ode to Two Centuries 23 
 
 And shook the thrones of kings. 
 
 Who, mounting backwards to the source of things, 
 
 Sought to redress the wrongs of Time, 
 
 And lead exulting back the world's prime ; 
 
 And, broad'ning into larger aims, 
 
 Thrust back the old renowns ; 
 
 Cast down the ancient crowns, 
 
 And spurned the lower fames. 
 
 And, leaning from the watch-tower of the Past, 
 A mighty shape athwart the mists of Time, 
 I see the father of our newer prime — 
 The great lone soul, whose steadfast faith at last 
 (In purpose sure, in constancy sublime) 
 Sail'd 'neath the beck'ning stars, adown the vast 
 Sea-slope, beyond the hopes and fears of men ; 
 Who his great sea-heart far before him cast, 
 And followed it, till praise and blame were vain, 
 And drew a world from out the awful waste. 
 
 And as he went he saw the tired sun 
 Sink, hissing-red, into the sicken'd deep ; 
 And in her bed-gown white the idiot moon 
 Rise from her fever'd couch to walk in sleep. 
 Before the dawn he watched the strange stars flee, 
 That came, wild-eyed, to gaze when day was done. 
 
24 Ode to Two Centuries 
 
 Beneath his feet he felt the great waves swoon 
 That sank, in dumb amaze, into the sea. 
 But though in anguish o'er the ocean blown, 
 Yet where these were there still was night and day, 
 And where they were he could not feel alone. 
 For God was near, tho' man was far away. 
 
 And they who follow'd far athwart the blue. 
 Seeking his footprints on the restless wave ; 
 Who crossed the world to find a quiet grave, 
 Scorners of every heedless wind that flew ; 
 Pilgrims of Peace who sped on fateful wings, 
 Spurning a heedless world, a faithful few. 
 Accusers of the bloody hands of kings, 
 Who from the Temple stole the sacred fire 
 Wherewith to light the shatter'd lamps anew. 
 That leapt to lick Oppression's funeral pyre. 
 
 IL 
 
 And thou, dim shape, that standest at our door, 
 A runner swift from God to run thy race. 
 Of whom no human eye hath seen the face ; 
 Whose shadow falleth on the path before, 
 Who waitest, silent, in thy appointed place 
 To take th^ torch thy bright forerunners bore. 
 
Ode to Two Centuries 2; 
 
 O ! with uplifted hearts we turn to thee, 
 
 Dim sower in the airy fields of Time. 
 
 Our eyes may never see thy mellow prime, 
 
 Parent of days unborn, and fruitful years. 
 
 And mighty enterprises yet to be ; 
 
 Upon whose neck we hang our hopes and fears. 
 
 As thro' a mist of tears 
 
 We seek an age sublime. 
 
 Lo ! by the open gate I see thee stand. 
 
 The Banquo-mirror in thy hand, 
 
 In whose bright depths God doth unmov'd behold 
 
 In never-ending line unrolled 
 
 Thy shadowy children, every one 
 
 Wait on the threshold of the sun : 
 
 Swift arrows that the silent hand of Fate 
 
 Shoots thro' the gleaming gate. 
 
 Mother of mighty days and deeds unborn. 
 Within whose womb lie hid the slumbrous years 
 Whose measured lapse shall leave thee all forlorn. 
 Stirred by the tender tumult of Time's tears. 
 Whose lingering lips shall blow thy wreathed horn, 
 What wonders shall thy hidden heart unfold, 
 What mysteries be unrolled. 
 Ere from God's hand shall drop thy hundred days. 
 
26 Ode to Two Centimes 
 
 And thro' Time's streets shall pass, with silent tread, 
 
 New-risen from the dead, 
 
 Singing their solemn hymn of praise, 
 
 Time's gladiators from the fields of death, 
 
 Crying with stricken breath : 
 
 ' Ave, Te morituri salutant ; 
 
 Ave,' and ever ' Salutamur Te,' 
 
 The burden of Life's never-ending chant. 
 
 Sung by the lips of Time 
 
 While yet the aged moon was in her prime ! 
 
 And thou shalt hear 
 
 The tramp of dim and distant days 
 
 Sounding in thy vacant ear, 
 
 Marching thro' the hollow ways ; 
 
 And shalt catch with dumb amaze 
 
 The stealthy footsteps of each coming year. 
 
 And thou shalt sit close to the throne of God, 
 
 Washing His white feet with thy children's tears. 
 
 Seeing thy babes slip from thee one by one ; 
 
 Watching the fiery sun 
 
 Swinging the planets round his glowing head, 
 
 And comets, angry red ; 
 
 And mark night's silver-sickl'd lord 
 
 Turn to the deep his buckler broad, 
 
 And draw the waters with a smile. 
 
 And thou shalt seek to reconcile 
 
Ode to Two Centuries 27 
 
 The meaning of the hurrying years ; 
 
 And thou shalt go, veihng thy wrinkled face, 
 
 Weak with the stress of Time, and on thy head 
 
 The ashes of a furnace cold and dead ; 
 
 Whisp'ring beneath thy breath, in some lone place, 
 
 * Bid me to know no more ; mine eyes 
 
 Have seen the heritage of God, 
 
 And I have grown untimely wise 
 
 Drinking His wisdom, full and broad.' 
 
 For thou shalt pass the mystic door, 
 
 Leaving all things as before — 
 
 The patient riddle still unread, 
 
 The mystic sentence all unsaid. 
 
 Yet shalt thou read upon thy dusty way 
 
 Dim lessons in the book of Time, 
 
 And wondrous portents that for aye 
 
 Shall make thy path sublime ; 
 
 And see, as wanes thy futile hour 
 
 And slowly sinks thy primal power, 
 
 Sights that will strengthen thee to go 
 
 Across the misty void below — 
 
 Dim visions of a larger day 
 
 Slowly broad'ning to its end ; 
 
 Glimpses of a spacious plan 
 
 To a mighty purpose bend ; 
 
 And catch across the mellow years, 
 
28 Ode to Two Centimes 
 
 Thro' thy dimly-veiling tears, 
 Assurance of a meaning vast 
 In whose pool thy hand shall cast 
 Pebbles for the feet of man ; 
 And thou shalt gather in thy hand 
 The threads of many a warring strife, 
 And weave each silent, fateful strand 
 Into the larger rope of life. 
 And clear and luminous suns shall pass 
 Across the threshold of thy ken ; 
 And thou shalt see, as in a glass, 
 A vision of the deeds of men 
 Deep graven in Time's lasting brass — 
 Shalt see drop from God's fiery pen 
 The record of the time that was ; 
 And through the fret of jarring laws 
 Shalt hear Creation's deep * Amen ' ; 
 And know, as fades the waning hour, 
 And all thy future turns to gray. 
 That still thy sorrows shall outflow'r, 
 And blossom in a perfect day ; 
 As, stepping from thy sinking bark. 
 And casting off Life's fretted rope, 
 Man's foot shall seek another ark, 
 And shelter 'neath a newer hope ; 
 And, pushing from the barren sands, 
 
Ode to Two Centuries 29 
 
 His sail spread to a fresher breeze, 
 Shall dare the undiscovered seas 
 To seek the shores of other lands ; 
 And, ranging 'neath a lower star, 
 Shall swiftly cross Time's silent bar ; 
 And there, beyond his utmost quest, 
 Shall find the haven of his rest. 
 
 3- 
 
 Angel of God ! dim kinsman yet to be, 
 Stem thou the mighty flood of human tears, 
 And roll the darkness from the promis'd land. 
 Drop from the prison of thy dusky hand 
 Gleams of thy garner'd message ; let us see 
 The secret meaning of thy appointed plan. 
 And settled purpose of the patient years 
 That stretch between us and Eternity — 
 An awful staircase for the feet of man. 
 Whose slow ascent, by toiling nations trod, 
 Leads slowly up to God. 
 
FRANKLIN'S DEATH-MARCH. 
 
 Long did they drift about the frozen North, 
 High on the world's roof ; and day by day, 
 Lock'd in the ice-fiend's cruel arms they hung, 
 Held by an awful spell. A fearful load 
 Sat on their souls ! The doom'd ships idly lay. 
 Like to accursed things ; their bulwarks grew 
 White with hoar rime, and all the rigging stood 
 Stiffen'd to iron bands ; the shrinking planks 
 Groan'd with the ghastly horror of the place. 
 
 A world of ice ! Around them, league on league, 
 Huddl'd the gleaming floes ; on fields of snow 
 They saw the sunlight lie in frozen swathes. 
 Silent upon the whiten'd deck they stood 
 Watching the dreary scene ; across their cheeks 
 They felt the north wind lay his icy whip. 
 Their labour'd breath rose on the fretful air. 
 
Franklin's Death-March 31 
 
 And passed in smoke ; within the hollow night 
 They heard the sudden icequake rend the pack 
 With thunder-roar. 
 
 Slowly the waning day 
 Shrank to a fitful gleam ; the pallid sun, 
 Nipt by the fingers of the cruel cold, 
 Droop'd in the bitter air, and ever down 
 Lower it sank upon its heavy way. 
 It touch'd the Arctic rim ; then, all at once, 
 It sank, and all was gloom. Day after day 
 Prison'd they sat within the narrow ships, 
 Counting the weary hours ; at night they watch'd 
 Strange shiv'ring stars creep o'er the black abyss. 
 Far on the dim horizon's utmost bounds, 
 In noiseless pulsings of his fiery heart, 
 The sudden Borealis leapt and thrill'd. 
 Anon they saw the fire-ship of the night, 
 With flaming length immeasurably far. 
 Trail his long leagues of light across the sky. 
 At times above their heads the hollow moon, 
 Sailing above them like a white-wing'd bird. 
 Hung in their dreams ; and so, with leaden foot, 
 The dreary hours limp'd painfully away. 
 
32 Franklins Death-March 
 
 At last they saw their gloomy prison-walls 
 
 Change to dull lead, and slowly, day by day, 
 
 Brighten to silver at the feeble dawn. 
 
 The long, sad night was o'er, and pallid day. 
 
 Casting aside her grave-clothes, rose once more 
 
 Out of the wintry tomb, and once again. 
 
 Gleaming with gauzy gladness, took her way 
 
 Adown the bright'ning East, and from her wings 
 
 Shook waves of Hving glory as she went, 
 
 Until at last, in soul-entrancing awe. 
 
 They saw the dawn flow'r like a crimson rose. 
 
 And so they waited with the wolfish hours 
 That waited ever by them, wrestling through 
 The year's long night and day. In vain they hop'd 
 They could not help, but ever drifted on 
 To unknown seas that drew them evermore. 
 They knew not where they went, but night and day 
 The world seem'd drifting with them, and they saw 
 Each dreary dawn the same unchanging plain 
 Stretch coldly round them : all their futile life 
 Seem'd but the dull repeating of a task 
 That had no end or aim — a weary strife 
 That ever led to naught. 
 
Franklin'' s Death-March 33 
 
 Then some one said : 
 * Why linger here ? God holds us from our end. 
 Here is no comfort more : we are accurs'd ; 
 Our lives are but as footprints on the snow 
 That none may follow ; if we stay we die. 
 Our wives are weary list'ning for our steps, 
 Our children waken for us ; in the night 
 We hear them crying ; we would see their face. 
 We cannot bear it; we will seek or die.' 
 And, going from the doomed ships, straightway out 
 They set their eager feet upon the ice, 
 And in their hands they took their patient fate. 
 
 So from the dawning to the setting sun 
 
 They went, still pressing onward to the South, 
 
 Seeking for life and hope. Before them lay 
 
 A mighty wilderness of snow and ice. 
 
 League upon league, beyond the realms of thought ; 
 
 Behind was horror and the doom of death 
 
 Dogging their weary footsteps. As they went 
 
 Vast flocks of sea-birds pass'd them, hurrying on 
 
 To gain a warmer shore ; their rushing flight 
 
 Mock'd the dull torpor of their heavy way. 
 
 ' Onward ' was still their cry ; at dawn and eve, 
 
 Athwart the frozen floor, they took their way. 
 
 Day after day they clomb the weary floe, 
 
 3 
 
34 Franklin's Death-March 
 
 Or track'd the winding shore ; o'er endless wastes 
 
 Of gleaming ice they drew the cumbrous sledge 
 
 To meet the long'd-for night. They could not stop, 
 
 To stay was death, for Death press'd close behind. 
 
 Cold gripp'd their senses, hunger gnaw'd their frames, 
 
 Their blood grew weak and thin, their heavy hearts 
 
 Throbb'd with a hollow din against their ribs, 
 
 And as they went still ever at their head 
 
 Death strode before to point the destined way, 
 
 And still they foUow'd him, a silent band 
 
 Of ghostly shapes that walk'd as tho' asleep. 
 
 None spoke, or if by chance one op'd his lips 
 
 The sound seemed far away, as if it came 
 
 Aross a league of snow, for, day by day, 
 
 Their voice grew weaker, and their hollow eyes 
 
 Question'd their comrades with a hungry stare. 
 
 An awful presence, like God's spoken curse. 
 
 Hung round about them. Where they slept they died, 
 
 And where they died they found a resting-place. 
 
 No grave they dug, nor any could be made, 
 
 But pild their scanty stones, and still they strove 
 
 To grasp Hope's dying hand, for still they thought 
 
 Of wife, and child, and home that lay beyond. 
 
 And so they struggl'd onward, as if doom'd, 
 
 Thro' endless vistas of unfolding years. 
 
 To walk these icy wastes. And still they went. 
 
Franklin's Death-March 35 
 
 At last they came into a frozen land 
 
 Where all things seem'd attuned to their state. 
 
 Out of the bosom of the solid deep 
 
 An island rose whereon, as on a throne, 
 
 Sat Winter, couch'd on ice perpetually. 
 
 All round were hoary rocks whose pitiful arms 
 
 Thrust back the wintry winds, and stood around 
 
 To guard them from the keen and bitter cold. 
 
 And here they stay'd their feet— they could no more. 
 
 Long had they toil'd, with desperate steps and slow, 
 
 Wrestling with Death, and striving evermore 
 
 To tire their constant foe ; but now they knew 
 
 Their toil was over — Death had led them home. 
 
 The end was come, and with a weary sigh 
 
 They laid aside their toil, and sat them down 
 
 To wait his time. And here, while crumbling brain 
 
 Whisper'd of wife and child and blazing fire, -^ 
 
 Of neighbours sitting in the chimney-seat. 
 
 While laugh and jest and careless talk went round, 
 
 They slowly sank and pass'd away in dreams, 
 
 Breathing their souls in silence out to God. 
 
 O baffled searchers of the frozen North, 
 Whose feet have run beyond the steps of men, 
 How far remov'd from human ken you sleep, 
 Deep in the furthest fastness of the earth ! 
 
 3—2 
 
36 Franklins Death-March 
 
 Fallen amid the illimitable snows, 
 Conquer'd you lie on that white battle-field — 
 You with the din of combat in your ears, 
 And music peahng on your dying sense : 
 Cold sentinels on the ramparts of the world 
 You keep your silent watch. Around you gleam 
 The everlasting snows, and o'er your tomb 
 The weird winds wail with pitiful memories. 
 No flow'rs grow on your grave, nor wife nor child 
 May stand beside your icy dormitories, 
 But not the less to you a nation's heart 
 Turns with the longing of a widow'd pang 
 Whose bones, in scatter'd remnants, coldly lie 
 Far on the frozen spaces of the North. 
 
NAPOLEON AT SAINT HELENA. 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 Thus, then, doth end the record of my days ! 
 The cup and measure of my life is full. 
 And all is now a mockery and a lie ! 
 Now must I sit and feed on my own heart, 
 Like a cag'd eagle ; I am cast away, 
 Unhing'd, disjointed, sever'd from myself, 
 And broken ere my time ! I am become 
 A nameless thing — a king without a crown ; 
 The pitiful semblance of a castaway, 
 With'ring, in parch'd retirement, day by day, 
 Who sits and gazes with his thirsty orbs. 
 As he would drink the ocean with his eyes. 
 And I, that found the spacious earth too small, 
 Am cabin'd in this niggard plot of ground. 
 Baffled and beaten, hurled from out my place, 
 My course of empire ended in a bog. 
 
38 Napoleon at Saint Helena 
 
 Here must I wait, in loneliness of soul, 
 
 Fretting my sightless chain, of hope bereft. 
 
 Till Time's shrill cock shall crow the dawn of doom. 
 
 How am I fallen ! In the days that were. 
 
 Kings held my stirrup, and earth was my steed, 
 
 And I bestrode it like high Lucifer ; 
 
 But it hath reared, and I am overthrown, 
 
 Like Satan fallen, never more to rise ; 
 
 For I encounter'd One upon the way 
 
 Who barred my onward path with unseen arm, 
 
 For God was envious and held me back. 
 
 I have writ my name red in the world's blood, 
 
 And every drop takes on a separate voice 
 
 To hiss damnation in my aching ear. 
 
 ' Look on thy work,' they cry, ' this hast thou done : 
 
 We are thy children, gaze upon our face ; 
 
 Think upon them whose parched eyes are dry, 
 
 Drain'd of their tears — an awful human drought ! 
 
 Go, thou, in haste to join the dark array 
 
 Of them whose names Time stoops to write in hell !' 
 
 I heap'd the world with dead : their whiten'd bones 
 
 Lie like Death's harvest thro' the saddened land, 
 
 A long-drawn charnel-house from sea to sea. 
 
 Millions have died for me, and all in vain. 
 
 I sent them to perdition. In my dreams 
 
Napoleon at Saint Helena 39- 
 
 Dead legions rise and dumbly curse my name, 
 And nations blast me with their silent eye. 
 The awful memory of my bloody deeds 
 Lies heavy on my being, and their thought 
 Blackens my shrinking soul ! 
 
 But that is past, 
 So let them sleep with them who went before. 
 Ambition hath misled me. My false star 
 Hath lur'd and led me on to my destruction. 
 And I am all undone ! Would 1 had liv'd 
 Far from rude camps and hurricanes of war, 
 Tilling the quiet fields, my peaceful hours 
 Spent in toil's innocent warfare, and my nights 
 Fill'd with the fragrance of a well-spent day ; 
 My only battle-field the golden meads, 
 My sword the sweeping scythe. O never thus ! 
 Never for me the unstrung belt of Peace. 
 Better an hour of soul-exulting joy 
 Than slimy centuries of stagnant days ; 
 Better the rapture of the noon of war. 
 The fiery shock of squadrons in the field. 
 The brazen trumpet blown for the headlong charge 
 O, to have died where joyful bugles sang, 
 And music drew the broken ranks of war 
 Amid the riot of Death's carnival ! 
 And I had pass'd, in ecstasy of soul. 
 
40 Napoleon at Saint Helena 
 
 Thro' those dark gates of Death, wide open thrown, 
 
 Borne by the rush of men. Lo ! here I sit, 
 
 Bereft of all, behind the world's dark door ; 
 
 My kingdom narrow'd to this sea-bird's perch, 
 
 Like Patience sitting at the gate of Time. 
 
 And now the play is ended — life is o'er, 
 
 The rest is but a pitiful mockery. 
 
 Time is no more, and Hope and Fear but words 
 
 That have no meaning. I am sick of all, 
 
 And am aweary of this living death : 
 
 Let me be number'd with the nameless dead 
 
 Who lie uncoffin'd. Let me be forgot, 
 
 And vanish from remembrance of the world. 
 
 Let this frail frame go down into the grave, 
 
 And mingle with the dust from whence it came. 
 
 Now may the high-appointed faculties. 
 The ministers of the mind, forsake their trust 
 And leave their batter'd tenement : Reason now, 
 The anointed warder of the soul, may sleep ; 
 Cast down his sceptre and the kingly crown, 
 And leave his throned seat : now Memory may, 
 With sacrilegious hand, break ope the urn, 
 Uncase the hoarded records of the mind, 
 And give them to the keeping of the winds : 
 Now Hope may darken down her silver lamp. 
 
Napoleon at Saint Helena 41 
 
 That did so lovingly foretell the dawn, 
 Standing on tiptoe looking to the East ; 
 And Patience, sitting on the shore of time, 
 Write with her finger idly on the sand. 
 Henceforth is neither Hope, nor Joy, nor Fear, 
 But only Death, that doth enclose them all — 
 Death, that doth cut the tangled cord of life 
 That cannot else be loos'd — immortal Death, 
 The great physician that defeats himself, 
 Of all God's gifts the latest and the best. 
 
IN THE FOREST. 
 
 Here in this grove, this solemn fane monastic, 
 
 This cage of singing birds, 
 Where Time forbears his work iconoclastic, 
 
 To mutter mystic words : 
 
 How well to stand, beyond the noisy world, 
 
 Within this minster green, 
 'Neath arching elms with banners all unfurl'd, 
 
 Where foot hath never been. 
 
 Here, where no cares with fretful jarrings cavil, 
 
 The air is but my slave, 
 And Time a yearning, eager to unravel 
 
 The lightest wish I crave. 
 
In the Forest 43 
 
 Here, where Earth's curtains all are drawn asunder, 
 
 The drowsy moments roll. 
 And life is one long draught of sunny wonder, 
 
 Quaff d from a golden bowl. 
 
 I breathe the air in larger, fuller measure ! 
 
 I drink great draughts of wine, 
 And steep my soul in ecstasy of pleasure. 
 
 Until I am divine. 
 
 Amid the glamour of the ringing forest 
 
 I walk, and life is new. 
 While thou, O human heart, with joy explorest 
 
 To find its hidden clue. 
 
 For now the earth unlocks its mystic spaces 
 
 Till, to its inmost core, 
 I know the wonders of its secret places, 
 
 That shall be hid no more. 
 
 Immortal rhapsodies my soul inherit. 
 
 Life's troubles fall away. 
 And subtle yearnings breathe thro' all my spirit, 
 
 Interpreting the day. 
 
44 -^^ t^^^ Forest 
 
 I feel my being swell with thoughts prophetic, 
 
 As here I ope my lungs, 
 And walk amid these avenues ecstatic, 
 
 Dower'd with the gift of tongues. 
 
 Across the shady woodland web, for ever. 
 
 The sun's bright shuttles fly. 
 Till the recesses of the forest quiver 
 
 With gift of prophecy. 
 
 My spirit is uncag'd, and, like an eagle. 
 
 Soars on the stately air 
 That over all, with presence calm and regal, 
 
 Broods like a silent prayer. 
 
 I draw the bolts that bar its eager going, 
 
 Fling wide the gates of Time, 
 And feel the fresh'ning breezes swiftly flowing 
 
 From out the Past sublime. 
 
 O woodland forms set round with bright-eyed daisies, 
 
 O leafy tents of song, 
 Where, all day long, the birds weave sunny praises. 
 
 Incredulous of wrong ; 
 
In the Forest 45 
 
 Where Earth's sweet bards, priests of your woodland 
 altars, 
 
 Green fountains of the sod, 
 Sing their last hymn, as day's bright footstep falters. 
 
 Close to the ear of God : 
 
 I hear the revels of your high encampment 
 
 In snatches lightly flung, 
 And listen to the songs of gay enchantment 
 
 No poet yet hath sung. 
 
 Students of Time, and wisest of earth's sages. 
 
 Whose inmost spirit sips 
 The secret of the knowledge of the ages, 
 
 God's finger on your lips, 
 
 From out whose heart distils a subtle essence 
 
 Whereon the years have fed. 
 Who argue not, save by your hoary presence. 
 
 But are, and all is said ; 
 
 Wonders and miracles enfold your being, 
 
 Grave teachers of the brooks, 
 Who hold a wisdom, wondrous and far-seeing. 
 
 Writ in your leafy books. 
 
.46 In the Forest 
 
 Warders ye are whose footsteps never wander, 
 
 Set in Time's patient plan, 
 Green silences that dumbly stand and ponder 
 
 Beyond the Ufe of man. 
 
 Garners of all earth's wisdom and its glory, 
 
 Gray with the dust of Time ; 
 How spacious were the chambers of its story 
 
 When ye were in your prime ! 
 
 Your heads in silence 'gainst the ages leaning, 
 
 Ye whisper soft and low 
 A mystic tongue, whose dim, unfathom'd meaning 
 
 Only a child might know. 
 
 Ye wrap yourselves in silences eternal, 
 
 Yet unto them who seek 
 Ye stretch soft hands from doorways of the vernal 
 
 In supplication meek. 
 
 Tho', through the curtain of your green existence 
 
 My soul may never reach. 
 Yet still my spirit strives, with mute insistence, 
 
 To intercept your speech : 
 
In the Forest 47 
 
 Catch from your lips the dumb unspoken message, 
 
 In utterance clear and full, 
 Whereof all knowledge seemeth but the presage 
 
 Taught in your ancient school. 
 
 Out of the silence of your acquiescence, 
 
 Out of your central calm. 
 Thro' dim communings with your inmost essence, 
 
 I know now what I am. 
 
 Life stands erect, o'ercharged with sunny wonder- 
 Not now a puny thing 
 
 That vainly strives to rend its bonds asunder. 
 And waves a fretful wing. 
 
 High overhead I bear my airy burden. 
 
 No more a heavy load ; 
 But now a soaring thing, a precious guerdon, 
 
 A banner borne for God. 
 
 Life is no wav'ring wish, no sapling leaning, 
 
 Sway'd by a fitful gust ; 
 But still the flow'ring of some patient meaning, 
 
 Inevitably just. 
 
48 In the Forest 
 
 Time lifts the fringes of her seamless curtain 
 
 From off the cow'ring age, 
 And with a new-born vision, sure and certain, 
 
 I read her sacred page. 
 
 I know earth's glories with a sudden wonder ; 
 
 The scales drop from my eyes 
 That see the veil of Nature rent asunder, 
 
 With start of glad surprise. 
 
 For thro' communings with her brooding spirit — 
 
 Thro' forms and sights uncouth, 
 My soul with eager rapture doth inherit 
 
 Her everlasting truth. 
 
 And thus I go, my being calmed and strengthened, 
 
 As from a house of prayer ; 
 Like one whose stretch of view hath leap'd and 
 lengthen'd. 
 
 And broadened unaware. 
 
 Tho' from the glories of the further vision 
 
 Dim walls our lives divide, 
 Yet still I feel the touch of hands Elysian, 
 
 And Life is justified. 
 
In the Forest 49 
 
 Tho' Time be but a pathway, blindly leaning, 
 
 And life is but a cry, 
 Yet still I smile ; I read its mystic meaning — 
 
 God is, and cannot lie. 
 
THE PASSING OF THE KING. 
 
 (^Whitehall, February 6th, 1685.) 
 
 * Draw back the curtain,' said the dying king, 
 
 * And let me see the day ' ; and, turning round 
 His wearied head, he looked his last on life. 
 
 Morning lay dreaming on the far-off hills, 
 And, near at hand, the sleeping city lay 
 Silent as death. Across its stony leagues 
 No murmur came, and from its slanting roofs 
 There hung no wav'ring pennon of blue smoke 
 Shading the morning air. The loving light 
 Fell like a benediction on the scene, 
 As if God blessed the sleepers unaware : 
 Statesman and courtier and the common poor 
 Lay waiting in the vestibule of death. 
 There were the perfumed minions of his court, 
 
The Passing of the King 51 
 
 They who so oft had feasted at his board, 
 
 And laughed and quaffed in easy revelry, 
 
 And fawn'd upon him as he were a god, 
 
 And now slept deep within their silken beds, 
 
 Heavy with wine and feasting of the night ; 
 
 And, when the day was come, would wake and yawn, 
 
 And as they smooth'd their hair and strok'd a curl, 
 
 Would stop to ask for tidings of the King, 
 
 And curse the chance that gave their joy a pause. 
 
 Not one of them would drop a passing tear 
 
 For him that was their lord, not one forego 
 
 The daily pleasures of his ordered round ; 
 
 But when the time of mourning was o'erpast 
 
 Would drain the cup, and toss their caps in air, 
 
 And cry with eager joy, ' Long live the King !' 
 
 And they, the fair, frail wantons of his mood, 
 
 Born of a moment's wish, playthings and toys 
 
 Whom he had loved and flattered, painted boats 
 
 That sailed across the sea of his desires. 
 
 Sucked by the seething whirlpool of his lust — 
 
 Which of them all, so petted of his hand, 
 
 The dainty darlings of a summer day, 
 
 Would mourn his loss ? which of them lay aside 
 
 Her carven dulcimer or flashing fan 
 
 To wring her jewell'd hands ? which of them stay 
 
 Her maiden's fingers as they sought to twine 
 
 4—2 
 
52 The Passing of the King 
 
 Flowers in her hair, or clasp her neck with gold ? 
 Not one of all his kingly bounty fed. 
 Another lord would take his vacant place, 
 And fill their fickle hearts. The giddy world 
 Would move in its accustomed ways again, 
 And he not there. 
 
 He turned him from the thought 
 For it was bitter to him, and his soul 
 Rebell'd against it. Death was standing by, 
 A kinglier king than he was at his door. 
 Deep had he drunk of life's enchanted bowl, 
 Draining the magic beaker of its wine ; 
 But now the cup was empty, and the lees 
 Were in his mouth, and bitter to the taste. 
 And he must go out from the warmth of day 
 Into the gloom of night ; must leave behind 
 Song, and the wine-cup, and the joy of friends ; 
 Put off the splendour of his earthly robes, 
 Sceptre and crown and royal panoply, 
 Don his dun gown, and, taking in his hand 
 His pilgrim staff, must face the dark alone, 
 A king no longer. Mightier now than he 
 The foot-sore beggar crouching at his gate ; 
 For Death was pushing him from off his throne, 
 And soon would strip him of his borrow'd state. 
 And thrust him forth, a shivering suppliant. 
 
The Passing of the King 53 
 
 Before another Lord. O heavy day ! 
 
 Comfort was dead, and Hope — Faith's youngest born — 
 
 Time's standard-bearer on the march of life, 
 
 Droop'd her bright pennon, and with wistful eyes, 
 
 Stood mutely by his bed ; no more her aid 
 
 Avail'd him, nor her patient constancy. 
 
 He closed his eyelids, and his tired soul 
 
 Stray'd wearily across the wav'ring past ; 
 
 And thro' the open doorway of his brain 
 
 Dim spectres entered, Banquo-like, at will. 
 
 And many shades oppressed him, and some strove 
 
 To hide themselves away ; until one came, 
 
 Stronger and stern of mien, and with his hand 
 
 He rolled before his sight weird fantasies, 
 
 And called wan prisoners from the vault of Time. 
 
 The city now was stirring, and the smoke 
 
 That rose, like incense, from a thousand homes, 
 
 Speaking of busy housewives at their toil, 
 
 Lazily gather'd in the upper air. 
 
 And, fold on fold, flowed silently away ; 
 
 Till to the vision of the dying man, 
 
 Whose crumbling brain let slowly go its hold, 
 
 It seem'd that once again, as in the past. 
 
 The fire-fiend set his torch within his fields, 
 
 And once again the flaming ocean roll'd 
 
54 1^^^ Passing of the Kivg 
 
 Its flashing waves across the sleeping town. 
 
 And from the watch-towers clang'd the loud alarm, 
 
 And men grew gray with terror at the sight, 
 
 And women wrung their hands, and cried on God, 
 
 And fathers ran about the thronged streets, 
 
 And drums were beat, and shuddering bugles blown ; 
 
 And on high carven balconies men stood 
 
 And whisper'd low, with horror on their tongue, 
 
 And at his desk the merchant grew afraid, 
 
 And in his home the miser clutch'd his gold. 
 
 And in the hall the gambler dropp'd his cards, 
 
 And in the street the children ceas'd their play. 
 
 And workshops were forsook, and looms were left, 
 
 And doors stood open, and the house was still, 
 
 And all was grief and terror. 
 
 And again 
 The scene was changed, and thro' his misty brain 
 New sights were crowding fast ; and now he saw 
 A silent city, lonesome as the grave, 
 Accursed, darkened, vast, upon whose head 
 A mighty horror lay ; and in her streets 
 Men shunn'd their kind, and crept with loathing past. 
 The looms stood silent, and the forge was still, 
 No toiler plied his craft, no stone was laid ; 
 Within the markets none would buy or sell, 
 
The Passing of the King 55 
 
 And in the granaries lay the corn untouched, 
 And trembling servants left their task and fled, 
 And none would tend the sick, but left them there, 
 To live or die alone. And in the streets 
 The grass grew up between the silent stones, 
 And horses stood forgotten in their stalls. 
 And carts grew red with rust within the yard. 
 The knocker slumber'd on the drowsy door, 
 And on the flags the fearful footstep fell 
 With sudden clang ; and under stricken roofs 
 Men sat and gazed with eyes where madness hid, 
 And husbands fled their wives, and brother pass'd 
 His brother when they met, and fathers grew 
 To hate their children ; and in every home 
 Lay blacken'd corpses, and no man would stay 
 To watch his neighbour, and the lover shunn'd 
 The nestling maiden of the day before ; 
 The bridegroom left the bride of yesterday ; 
 The mother push'd the infant from her breast. 
 And ever tumbrils stumbl'd thro' the night, 
 And ghostly lanterns flash'd athwart the gloom. 
 And ever from the dark there came a cry, 
 ' Bring out your dead !' and at the sickening sound 
 Men cross'd themselves, and shiver'd in their beds. 
 The churches stood neglected, open-door'd. 
 No bell, outflowering into sudden song. 
 
56 The Passing of the King 
 
 Swung its sweet incense on the shuddering air. 
 High in the gloomy belfry all alone, 
 The sexton doz'd ; within his furthest room 
 Sat the unshaven priest ; no wedding chime 
 Sweetened the air, no birthday peal was there. 
 The child, unwelcomed, came into the world, 
 The dying went unshrived, and over all 
 Perpetual horror brooded like a curse — 
 A city of the dead, where all the day 
 Death in his winding-sheet stalk'd grimly forth, 
 While he, the mighty, God-anointed king, 
 Sat in his halls, and watch'd his people die ; 
 And in the palace, heedless of their woe, 
 His courtiers feasted, and the mirth went on ; 
 And he had barr'd his doors against their cry. 
 And strove with song and dances to forget 
 The horror of the time. 
 
 And then it seem'd 
 Death took him by the hand, and led him thro' 
 The peopled streets that gibber'd as he went, 
 Until they pass'd the city's utmost bounds, 
 And came into a field where gleaming bones 
 Were flung in heaps, and grisly skeletons 
 That grinn'd a ghastly welcome in his face. 
 * Lo, here,' said Death, ' is thy abiding place. 
 
The Passing of the King 57 
 
 Here have I builded thee a steadfast house 
 That shall outstay the palaces of kings.' 
 And looking down he saw an open grave, 
 Wherein, with clammy hands, Death laid him down 
 And with a mountain blotted out the day. 
 
 And when the watchers look'd they found no more 
 The living monarch, but there in his room 
 The icy clay of him who was the King. 
 
THE FIRST SNOWDROP. 
 
 Snowbird upspringing from the dark ; 
 
 Cleaving thy way with pallid wing ; 
 Lo ! God hath loos'd thee from His ark 
 
 To bring earth tidings of the Spring. 
 
SHORT POEMS 
 
THE POET. 
 
 Poet, standing far apart, 
 
 Sadden'd by the world's sin ; 
 
 Look into thy human heart, 
 Tell us what thou see'st within 
 
 Show us what thou findest there. 
 Thou hast sight of wondrous things 
 
 In thy ken are visions fair, . 
 In thy soul a throstle sings. 
 
 Chant no more an idle lay. 
 Thou hast tidings to impart ; 
 
 Tell us what thou cam'st to say, 
 Speak thy message, and depart. 
 
62 The Poet 
 
 Preach the life of simple needs, 
 Kindly pleasures, peaceful days ; 
 
 Mould thy songs in noble deeds, 
 Live thy poems, live thy lays. 
 
 Drink the spirit of thine age, 
 Seize thy day, and hold it fast ; 
 
 Yet within thy pictured page. 
 Mingle something of the past. 
 
 Bring us from the ancient days 
 Back the far primeval youth ; 
 
 Bring us back the ancient ways. 
 Ancient faith, and ancient truth. 
 
 Sing us songs of sober mirth, 
 Let the glad enchantment grow. 
 
 Till we feel the jocund earth 
 Broaden round us as we go. 
 
 Lay thee down in Nature's lap. 
 Lean not on an idle art ; 
 
 Nestle close, till thou may'st hap 
 To hear the beating of her heart. 
 
The Poet 63 
 
 Let her arms thy being fold, 
 
 Child of Nature at thy birth ; 
 Drawing strength, like him of old, 
 
 From contact with thy mother-earth. 
 
 Stand no more in grief alone, 
 
 Future generations may 
 Reap the harvest thou hast sown. 
 
 Head of gold, and feet of clay. 
 
A SONG OF NEED 
 
 Statesmen, rulers of the land, 
 
 Teach the nation something good ! 
 
 Something nobly, wisely plann'd, 
 Give the starving people food. 
 
 Give us, to instruct the crowd, 
 A strong voice, ringing calm and clear. 
 
 Whose trumpet-accents, stern and loud, 
 Shall make the great world pause to hear. 
 
 Acts of law, and feats of state. 
 Sessions full of noise and wind ; 
 
 Edicts of imperial weight 
 
 That thrust asunder while they bind — 
 
A Song of Need 65 
 
 For these I care not : this I prize, 
 
 This alone in Church or State — 
 Make the people truly wise, 
 
 Make the people truly great. 
 
 Right the injustice of the past, 
 
 Heal the wrongs of long ago ; 
 And remember, at the last, 
 
 Ye shall reap as ye shall sow. 
 
 2. 
 
 Preachers ! servants of the Lord, 
 Of your wisdom something give — 
 
 Something, be it but a word. 
 That may teach us how to live. 
 
 Hearken, learned doctors all ! 
 
 Grant us something for our need — 
 More of thought to stir the soul. 
 
 Less of doctrine, less of creed. 
 
 Grant us, for we would be fed. 
 
 Something we can make our own ; 
 
 When the people ask for bread 
 See you give them not a stone. 
 
 5 
 
66 A Song of Need 
 
 Science passes. Be it so, 
 
 We ask not now the how or why : 
 
 This alone we seek to know — 
 How to live, and how to die. 
 
OUR LITTLE LIFE. 
 
 What boots our little life, you say, 
 
 Whose near horizon bounds our sight ? 
 Our span is but a summer day. 
 
 And all our strivings end in night. 
 We toil for heights we shall not gain ; 
 
 We may not reap the seed we sow ; 
 And all the purpose of our pain, 
 
 Lies buried in th.e depths below. 
 
 Oh, shallow doubter ! know'st thou not 
 
 That we shall be the lords of time. 
 Who carry in our meanest thought 
 
 The purpose of an end sublime ? 
 For still our soaring spirit strives 
 
 To scale our mortal prison bars. 
 The dust of suns is in our lives, 
 
 And we are kindred with the stars. 
 
 5—2 
 
68 Our Little Life 
 
 Eternity shall be our sheet 
 
 To wrap us thro' the gather'd gloom, 
 And sun and moon shall grandly meet 
 
 To light us to our utmost doom. 
 Our feet shall spurn earth's low domain ; 
 
 And thro' the gleaming silence far 
 Our soaring footsteps shall disdain 
 
 The vantage of the furthest star. 
 
 What tho' we shed our dying days 
 
 In drifts around us as we go, 
 Till all the channel of our ways 
 
 Is choked with drifts of human snow ?- 
 Our garner is Futurity. 
 
 Time gathers up the wither'd leaves 
 That fall in clusters from our tree. 
 
 And binds them into golden sheaves. 
 
EARTH'S WONDER. 
 
 Mightiest marvel of earth ! 
 
 Mute reconciler of Fate, 
 Herald of God, at thy birth 
 
 Blowing, with baby-breath, 
 In thro' the open gate 
 
 Tidings of Life and of Death ! 
 
 Half of thee longing of man. 
 Half of thee spirit of God, 
 
 He, ere thy being began, 
 Of an inanimate clod 
 
 Formed thee, in visible plan. 
 
 Fashion'd thee out of His earth, 
 Breath'd with His lips on thy clay. 
 
 Made thee, in right of thy birth, 
 Lord of the night and the day. 
 
70 Earth's Wonder 
 
 Gave thee, in sign of His love, 
 Doubts of the way to dispel — 
 
 Clue to His kingdom above ; 
 Choice of His heaven or hell. 
 
 Gave thee the pow'r to unlock 
 
 Gateways of Space and of Time ; 
 Taught thy weak footsteps to walk 
 
 Over a staircase sublime. 
 Gave thee, in gladness, to run 
 
 On thro' the ages afar, 
 Eyes that could gaze on the sun. 
 
 Hands that might reach to a star. 
 
 Master of art and of craft. 
 
 Builder of empires to be, 
 Gardener, eager to graft 
 
 Bud of thy life on earth's tree ; 
 Forging, in adamant link. 
 
 Out of the silence before 
 Chains that a demon might sink, 
 
 Wings for an angel to soar. 
 
 Warrior never dismay'd — 
 Lord of the wonder to be ! 
 
 Legions of angels, array'd, 
 Stand to encounter for thee. 
 
Earth's Wonder 71 
 
 Lying, with passions at rest, 
 
 Far as the planets apart ; 
 Tempests asleep in thy breast, 
 
 Heaven and hell in thy heart. 
 
THE MOUNTAINS ABOVE CORRIE. 
 
 Set by the waves that wash their patient feet 
 
 They wait — encompass'd by Time's purple dream^ 
 
 Seeing within its everlasting stream 
 
 The currents of the Past and Future meet — 
 
 Waiting the coming of the Paraclete, 
 
 That hasteth not. Enigmas of the Lord ! 
 
 Misers of guarded treasuries, that hoard 
 
 Their sacred secret in a grasp supreme. 
 
 Sphinxes of earth, immovable and still, 
 
 Time's wrinkled cloak drawn close about their base> 
 
 Submissive in their fixed, primeval place. 
 
 Locked in the prison of God's awful will. 
 
 Whose cups the hands of Time for ever spill 
 
 Against the heart of man, set face to face. 
 
MARCH. 
 
 Brown month, that fill'st the throat of the year with 
 dust, 
 
 And the throats of the birds with song. 
 Warrior month, faithful and true to thy trust ; 
 Herald standing between the old and the new. 
 
 Ruddy, and strong, and true. 
 With one clear call to the doubting heart 
 
 Standing forlorn apart, 
 
 The windy slopes among. 
 
 There's a cry on the hills, and a stir in the heart of the 
 tree ; 
 
 And the earth awakes and opens its thousand eyes ; 
 
 And the dead once more arise ; 
 
 And visions of prophecy trouble the ancient woods. 
 
 And dimly-remembered moods — 
 Vague thoughts of that which is yet to be. 
 
74 March 
 
 And tiny hands reach up thro' the whiten'd grass, 
 
 And call to the winds as they pass ; 
 And baby-faces laugh in the sight of the sun j 
 
 And the streamlets leap and run ; 
 And the stars burn blue-lights over the dead one's 
 grave, 
 
 And the night-winds wake and rave. 
 
 Let the sower sing as he scatters his slumbrous seed 
 And I will sing in my heart as I pass him by ; 
 
 For I dream of a jewell'd mead, 
 
 Lying asleep in the tent of an April sky. 
 
 And I know that, deep in the south, a banner'd host — 
 Silent singers of ballads sweet — 
 Marches on, in the night, with silent feet, 
 
 And tiny pennons toss'd. 
 
 And, far in the north, the prison'd founts break free 
 And music abroad is flung. 
 
 Hope hasteth over the laughing sea. 
 
 •Glad tidings of great joy are come to m6. 
 Again the world is young. 
 
BEHIND THE STARS. 
 
 No glimmer from the trampled day ; 
 From heaven's lamps no friendly ray. 
 The stars are blown out by the wind. 
 And thro' night's cloisters, old and blind, 
 The lone moon gropes her dismal way, 
 Nor casts a thought behind. 
 
 All, all is dark. In heaven's house 
 The blinds are drawn, the writhing boughs 
 Toss their storm-stricken arms in fear. 
 The dead world lies upon her bier. 
 I walk night's gloomy vault alone, 
 Where Time and Space are all unknown. 
 
 O doubting soul, be not afraid ! 
 Walk thou life's pathway undismayed. 
 
76 Behind the Stars 
 
 Above the clouds, beyond the sun, 
 The sands of Time for ever run. 
 Forever there undaunted Fate 
 Keeps silent guard by Heaven's gate, 
 Watching the flash of scimitars 
 Light up the gloom of earthly wars. 
 There Hope sits, holding in her hand 
 Her broken dreams — life's deodand. 
 There Time, grown young — a youth divine- 
 Dips his bright love-locks deep in wine. 
 There Life and Death, by sin embroiled, 
 Meet, and are sadly reconciled. 
 
 There, in God's garden shining far. 
 Gleams the great lily-nenuphar. 
 There He hath hung his sickle bright 
 Upon the darken'd wall of night. 
 And there, unmoved, unseen, unknown. 
 Listening Life's clarion faintly blown. 
 Hearing deep, 'neath Creation's prayer. 
 Hell's silent cyclones of despair ; 
 Contemplating with sleepless eye 
 The crash of worlds or planet-jars, 
 God sits for ever thron'd on high. 
 Behind the stars. 
 
TO MY LADY. 
 
 Chide me not that I love thee, sweet ; 
 
 Bid me not walk in grief apart ; 
 Frown not that at thy maiden's feet 
 
 I lay my heart. 
 
 For as I go my soul expands 
 
 To clasp the furthest flaming sun ; 
 
 And o'er my being's thirsting sands 
 The tides of heaven run. 
 
 No puny earthly love is mine ; 
 
 No weakly, wav'ring human thought ; 
 But some strange longing, half divine, 
 
 In Heaven's garden caught. 
 
78 To My Lady 
 
 All that is innocent and fair 
 
 Doth thy perfection mutely take. 
 
 All things in heaven and earth, I swear. 
 Are dearer for thy sake. 
 
 Yea, to my heart all mortal things 
 Creep closer for my swelling love — 
 
 The toiling brute, the bird that sings. 
 And man, and God above. 
 
LINES FOR A NATIONAL OCCASION. 
 FRAGMENT 
 
 I. 
 
 Father of all, before whose throne do stand, 
 Ringed round in light to heaven's horizon dim, 
 Wave upon wave the white-rob'd cherubim, 
 Innumerable as the grains of sand ; 
 Who rockest in the cradle of Thy hand 
 The ocean as a tiny drop of dew ; 
 Before Whose sight is nothing old or new, 
 Is nothing great or small ; at Whose command 
 The mighty waves lie down to kiss Thy feet ; 
 Whose shadow is the sun, the wind Whose breath 
 Whose lightest messengers are Life and Death ; — 
 Lord, with a smile Thy longing children greet, 
 Ingather'd here from out earth's furthest ways, 
 Who stand to-day before Thine unseen seat. 
 To hail Thine awful name with thunder'd praise. 
 
So Lines for a National Occasion 
 
 2. 
 
 Lord of hosts, and King of kings, Who sittest enthron'd 
 
 afar, 
 In Whose hands are the issues of death and of crimson 
 
 war. 
 Lo ! we stand Hke an army encamp'd before Thy door. 
 The battle past, and our arms unslung and cleans'd from 
 
 gore; 
 Bringing with us the pomp and splendour of kingly strife, 
 Roar of the trumpet's rage, and wail of the impotent 
 
 fife; 
 Banners toss'd and blown by the breath of the silken 
 
 breeze. 
 Standards that struggle and strain in the depth of the 
 
 airy seas. 
 And the bugle's triumphant call, and the drum's mono- 
 tonous beat. 
 And the cannon, dreadful and slow, led captive along 
 
 the street. 
 Never again shall they stagger the hills like an earthquake 
 
 shock ; 
 Never the quivering watchfires dumbly the pale dawn 
 
 mock ; 
 Nor the tiger-sword, thirsting for blood, leap from its 
 
 clinging sheath, 
 
Lines for a National Occasion 8i 
 
 Nor the living waves of men break cold on the shores of 
 
 Death, 
 Nor the challenge, sudden and clear, ring out on the 
 
 startl'd air, 
 Nor the drowsy sentry call from the tents on the hillside 
 
 bare. 
 Nor brother wrestle with brother in the longing of deadly 
 
 hate, 
 Nor wailing children in vain for their father's footsteps 
 
 wait. 
 
 No more shall the trumpet startle a peaceful land, 
 
 Blown by a luminous fate ; 
 No more the demon of war, with uplifted hand, 
 
 Wait by the gate. 
 
 Nor the shuddering flag be unroll'd. 
 
 Nor the drum's deep dirge be toll'd. 
 Nor the eagle-fife soar, screaming, high on the wind, 
 
 Chanting its song of death. 
 When the black-mouth'd cannon are sullenly waiting 
 behind, 
 
 And the trumpets hold their breath. 
 We have buried the past and its dead in a rude, red grave. 
 
 Dug by the hand of the brave ; 
 And the silent lips that meton a bloody field 
 
 The bond of death have seal'd. 
 
 6 
 
THE WAYSIDE CHRIST. 
 
 Silent, in the empty way, 
 
 Standing mutely all alone, 
 
 Like a creature turned to stone, 
 At the waning of the day, 
 
 Waiting by its stable-door. 
 All forgotten in the cold. 
 
 Hungry, weary, and footsore. 
 Scorned and sad, as He of old, 
 A wayside Christ, bearing the world's thong, 
 And kin to Him through wrong ; 
 The sport and fool of Time ; 
 Yet, out of patient suffering, sublime, 
 To whom, as on its back He rode, 
 He dower'd His legacy of woe. 
 And left it toiling here below. 
 To tread the weary path that He hath trod. 
 
The Wayside Christ 83 
 
 Type of the forgotten poor, 
 
 The world's ass that, at the rich man's door, 
 
 Stands, meekly asking to be fed, 
 
 Sadly wishing he were dead ; 
 
 And, in the waning of life's day, 
 Waits, weary, hungry, and footsore. 
 
 In the winter evening gray, 
 At God's closed stable-door. 
 
 6—2 
 
PARTINGS. 
 
 Meetings and partings — such are of our lives. 
 Summer and winter we are wrench'd apart 
 In never-ending sorrow, heart from heart : 
 
 Children from parents, husbands from their wives, 
 And lovers with their sad, unearthly eyes. 
 Breathing their pain in slow, heart-choking sighs, 
 
 That speak their anguish sharp as gleaming knives. 
 
 And so they go lamenting. One by one 
 
 God blows their candles out with certain breath, 
 
 To light them later at the fiery sun. 
 
 Weak human hearts that bar the way to death. 
 
 Striving to hinder, with unseemly strife, 
 
 The hand that seeks to ope the door of life. 
 
THE DAISY. 
 
 Ho ! tiny page at Nature's court, 
 Train-bearer of the Spring, 
 
 Who clasp'st a sun, for thy dis-sport. 
 Within thy mystic ring. 
 
 Who hid'st away thy woodland wealth — 
 
 A miser unaware — 
 And tak'st the passer's heart by stealth, 
 
 From out thy sunny lair. 
 
 Small pilgrim tha% unseen, dost grope 
 
 Thro' life thy hidden way, 
 Who to the passing winds dost ope 
 
 The sleepy eye of day. 
 
86 The Daisy 
 
 Standing on tiptoe to uprear 
 Thy head above the grass, 
 
 In whisper'd accents quick to praise 
 The seasons as they pass. 
 
 Oh, meek unworldling of the woods, 
 I love thy pleading face ; 
 
 And I would laud thy patient moods, 
 Thine unconsidered grace. 
 
 Dear to the poet's heart art thou. 
 And dear art thou to mine, 
 
 Who lay'st against the world's hot brow 
 That small, cool face of thine. 
 
 Wide-eyed companion of the birds. 
 Who, with sight clear and full, 
 
 Dost sit and spell thy childish words 
 In Nature's open school. 
 
 Child of the Centuries that came 
 And made thee with a look, 
 
 Lo ! God hath writ His awful name 
 Within thy tiny book. 
 
THE LOVERS. 
 
 Across the drunken earth they go, 
 
 Life's goblets in their hands, 
 Walking on paths of starry snow 
 
 To undiscovered lands. 
 On by the bridge of the vaulted sky, 
 
 And over the leagues afar, 
 They have hung their hearts on the rainbow high, 
 
 And have set on their heads a star. 
 
 They stand on the sacred hills above. 
 
 Watching the lonely ships. 
 And as they gaze, with the eyes of love. 
 
 They grow to each other's lips. 
 They have eaten their fill of the sacred bread, 
 
 They have drunk of the sacred wine, 
 And the manna of God that their souls has fed 
 
 Hath made them half divine. 
 
88 The Lovers 
 
 Children of God, they are born again, 
 
 And angels know their face ; 
 Their feet of heedless haste are fain 
 
 To seek the Holy Place. 
 Unto the presence-chamber vast, 
 
 Lost in each other's eyes, 
 Twining their arms, they come at last, 
 
 Deep in a glad surprise. 
 
 And the angel-guard drops, swift and low, 
 
 The point of his flaming sword ; 
 They cannot be denied — they know 
 
 The password of the Lord. 
 But woe is me ! they are all undone 
 
 They shall suffer unending things 
 Who have sprung aloft, till the fiery sun 
 
 Hath singed their stolen wings. 
 
 For never again shall they know content, 
 
 Or tread life's simple ways, 
 Thro' the gates of the starry firmament 
 
 Whose eyes have sought to gaze. 
 They have fallen headlong who have tried to soar, 
 
 Vanquished they lie below ; 
 Nor heaven nor earth can keep them more 
 
 Who have dared such things to know. 
 
COURAGE ! 
 
 O SHRINKING heart, why standest thou dismayed ? 
 None ever lived in vain. The meanest soul 
 That dips his hand with Christ into the bowl 
 Hath power to make the serried fiends afraid, 
 And backward hurl their slanting hosts array'd ; 
 Hath power to cool hell's furnace with his tears, 
 Or with a cry to move the hurrying spheres. 
 And all Time's far abyssmal deeps invade. 
 Fear not, tho' fierce storm-trumpets seaward call. 
 But spread <;hy heart to make a mighty sail ; 
 O'er silken seas the drowsy vessels crawl, 
 But swiftly run before the bellowing gale. 
 Who greatly falls is stronger for his fall. 
 And they soar highest who ne'er feared to fail. 
 
FATE. 
 
 Dark weaver of the ceaseless loom, 
 Who standest by the Throne, 
 
 Wrapt in impenetrable gloom, 
 Eternally alone. 
 
 I know thee not, nor care to know. 
 Who veil'st so close thy face ; 
 
 Who, with insistence calm and slow. 
 Dost draw the human race. 
 
 Nor wealth nor power from thee I crave, 
 Nor Fame's loud trumpet-blast, 
 
 But only this : a quiet grave, 
 And silence at the last. 
 
ENGLAND. 
 
 February, 1896. 
 
 England, when I think of thee, 
 All thy bannered foes o'erthrown, 
 And thy trumpets all unblown, 
 
 I could weep for joy to see. 
 
 Kings have sought to do thee wrong, 
 Lying in the darkened way ; 
 Thro' the fierce and dense array 
 
 Thou hast come more fresh and strong. 
 
 Nations grow about thy knees, 
 
 Flow'ring round thy rugged form ; 
 In the day of stress and storm 
 
 Thou shalt lean thy head on these. 
 
92 England 
 
 Many hate thee for thy wealth, 
 All men envy thee thy store ; 
 Sitting by thine open door, 
 
 Many stab thy back by stealth. 
 
 Be it so. Their mood is vain ; 
 
 Love and hate are cheaply bought. 
 
 Prize thou only what is wrought 
 On the anvil of thy pain. 
 
 Not for mighty acts of fame, 
 Not for deeds by land and sea. 
 Do I chiefly honour thee, 
 
 Hold in reverence thy name'; 
 
 But for that which thou hast done 
 In the fulness of thy years, 
 Standing 'twixt thy hopes and fears 
 
 In the brightness of the sun. 
 
 Let thy deeds of truth be known, 
 Hold thou grandly by the right. 
 Turn thou ever to the light. 
 
 Better thou shouldst stand alone 
 
England 93 
 
 Than that dishonour be thy mate ; 
 
 For if thou take shame by the hand, 
 
 Loose-rooted in the shifting sand 
 Will be the fabric of the State. 
 
BURNS. 
 
 His soul sprang upwards, as a bird 
 Springs whirring from the brake, 
 
 Mounting, on pinions of the word, 
 His matin-song to make. 
 
 And on the portals of the air 
 He sang a song so sweet. 
 
 The lark, enraptured unaware, 
 Hung silent at his feet. 
 
 How doth the clamour of Time's praise 
 
 Invert his low estate 
 Who left the mire of earthly ways 
 
 To sing at Heaven's gate. 
 
BUILDERS. 
 
 Live thou thy life with loving care, 
 The while the changing seasons roll, 
 
 And thou shalt fashion, unaware, 
 A stately mansion for thy soul. 
 
 Marble or mud, we needs must raise 
 The storied palace or the cot, 
 
 With cunning art contriving ways 
 To glorify our mortal lot. 
 
 Highest or lowest, which we will, 
 The final touch 'tis ours to give. 
 
 In woe or weal remember still 
 The greatest art is yet to live. 
 
96 Builders 
 
 There lies a mighty sea of life 
 
 Betwixt the wise man and the fool ; 
 
 The warring of a little strife 
 Makes it an ocean or a pool. 
 
 The aim is all — the thing is naught, 
 Whate'er the teaching of the creeds ; 
 
 True greatness lieth in the thought : 
 A life is greater than its deeds. 
 
THE BROOK. 
 
 Wonder of sylvan woods, 
 Born of the gladness of May, 
 Gathering, day by day, 
 
 Charm of earth's daintiest moods. 
 
 Innocent walker in sleep, 
 Prattling softly and low 
 Mystical words as you go 
 
 On to the infinite deep. 
 
 Flinging your laughter abroad. 
 Gurgling with innermost jnirth, 
 Caught from the birds at your birth, 
 
 Turning the Sibylline leaves, 
 Conning the lessons of God, 
 
 Reading the riddles Fate weaves, 
 Telling the secrets of earth. 
 
 7 
 
98 The Brook 
 
 Gathering into your cup 
 
 Drippings of heavenly dew, 
 Drinking in ecstasy up 
 
 Draughts of enchantment anew. 
 Weaving aloud, as you run 
 
 On to the lowlands afar, 
 Cords to encircle the sun, 
 
 Nets to entangle a star. 
 
 Empires ancient and great — 
 Many a mighty State — 
 
 Hath fallen, and passed away, 
 Since thou in this flow'ry dell 
 First tinkled thy tiny bell. 
 
 Calling the world to pray. 
 
 We, in vain-glorious pride, 
 
 Pass like dim shadows away — 
 Silences borne by the tide. 
 
 Lingering here for a day. 
 Thou, in the centuries gone, 
 
 Saw'st the beginnings of Time, 
 Sawest life's earliest dawn, 
 
 Sawest the earth in its prime. 
 
The Brook ' 99 
 
 Child of the mountainous waste, 
 
 Born of the infinite main ; 
 Rushing, with eagermost haste, 
 
 Back to thy mother again. 
 
 Out of the mist and the rain, 
 Out of the deeps of the air, 
 
 Nurs'd in the elements' pain. 
 Swathed in the ocean's despair. 
 
 Go thro' the desolate lands. 
 
 Emblem of infinite hope; 
 Loosen, and lay on the sands, 
 
 Coils of thy crystalline rope. 
 Then, like a beautiful prayer, 
 
 Freed from your uttermost load, 
 Back to the wastes of the air 
 
 Melt, at the bidding of God. 
 
A CHILD PRAYING. 
 
 Child with the flaxen hair, 
 
 KneeUng beside thy bed, 
 
 Clasping thy hands in prayer, 
 
 Bowing thine innocent head ; 
 
 Whispering close to God's ear 
 
 Fragments of innocent speech, 
 
 Legions of cherubim reach 
 
 Out of the endless to hear. 
 
 How swiftly, and all unaware, 
 
 Thy baby hands ope Heaven's door, 
 
 Hell, as it listens in fear. 
 
 Is moved with a newer despair. 
 
 Not God, as He sitteth alone, 
 
 High on the infinite throne, 
 
 Shall listen unmoved to thy prayer. 
 
CLARENCE. 
 {^January 14, 1892.) 
 
 Funeral and wedding bells 
 
 Stirring the heavy air — 
 Hark ! how the discord knells 
 
 Its dirge of low despair. 
 
 Funeral and wedding bells, 
 Low as the whisper'd breath 
 
 That, as the tumult swells, 
 
 Bids Life clasp hands with Death. 
 
 Thro' the wide-opened gates 
 
 Surges the human tide ; 
 But still the bridegroom waits 
 
 The summons of the bride. 
 
102 Clarence 
 
 Last in the measured race, 
 Why comes the lover late 
 
 While one, with veiled face, 
 Waits by the outer gate ? 
 
 Palace, nor kingly state 
 
 Avail, nor beck'ning throne, 
 
 Nor armed men who wait 
 Beside that heart of stone. 
 
 For, in the wintry night, 
 The angel, passing by. 
 
 Paused in his eagle flight, 
 And set his spear a-nigh. 
 
 Upon that stately door 
 
 There stood no mark divine. 
 
 No splash of sudden gore, 
 Death's crimson countersign. 
 
 Forth, in the silent hour, 
 From out the guarded fold 
 
 Went, like a ravish'd flow'r, 
 The first born, as of old. 
 
Clarence 103 
 
 Funeral and wedding bells 
 Fretting the wintry air — 
 
 Hark, how the discord tells 
 A nation's dumb despair ! 
 
 Funeral and wedding bells, 
 Low as the whisper'd breath 
 
 That, thro' the ages, tells 
 
 That Life shall conquer Death. 
 
THE SHIPS. 
 
 O SHIPS that go downcast and pale, 
 With backward flags and sails unfurl'd, 
 
 Downtrodden by the hurrying gale, 
 And blown in fear about the world : 
 
 Who dare to know the dread unknown, - 
 Who tread the path that none hath trod, 
 
 Pale pilgrims of the starry zone. 
 
 And travellers by the lights of God : 
 
 Ye hold by hands ye cannot see, 
 Ye lean on help that lies afar, 
 
 And wander darkly on the sea. 
 
 Groping your way from star to star. 
 
The Ships 105 
 
 No guiding pathway lies before, 
 
 No footprints linger as you go ; 
 The wild wind rushes evermore 
 
 To smooth the foaming tracks below. 
 
 In darkest night ye journey on, 
 
 Secure as in the crystal day ; 
 And, calm in faith, await the dawn 
 
 That slowly broadens on your way. 
 
 O toilers on the restless floor, 
 
 And searchers of the shifting plain, 
 
 Your secret shall be hid no more. 
 Nor lesson that ye teach be vain : 
 
 They run a race whose end is sure, 
 They steer a course no danger bars, 
 
 They turn not after any lure, 
 
 Whose help and hope is in the stars. 
 
THE DYING POET. 
 
 He lay upon his carven bed, 
 Forgot, untended, and alone, 
 
 His dreams in fragments round his head, 
 His being turn'd to stone. 
 
 And whisp'ring spirits hov'ring near, 
 His dying sorrows seemed to know : 
 
 And mystic voices on his ear 
 Were falling soft and low. 
 
 Said one, ' He's sinking fast ; his breath 
 Is but a weak and failing thing — 
 
 A flutter from the gates of Death, 
 Borne faintly from Time's wing. 
 
The Dying Poet . 107 
 
 * No more a hurricane of life, 
 
 That, like a sweet and fresh'ning gale, 
 Push'd grandly back the bounds of strife, 
 And curv'd Thought's mighty sail ; 
 
 * That, far outsoaring earthly wars, 
 
 Its tempest-clarion boldly blew, 
 
 And, sweeping past the startl'd stars 
 
 Rock'd Heaven's doors anew.' 
 
 Another said, * He liv'd in vain. 
 
 The earth was but his prison-cage. 
 He fretted out his heart and brain 
 
 Against his iron age. 
 
 ' Out through Creation's open door 
 
 He wander'd at his birth. 
 A simple flow'r to him was more 
 
 Than all the dross of earth.' 
 
 Another said, * His brimming cup 
 Ran o'er with consecrated wine, 
 
 With fever'd thirst he drank it up, 
 Until he grew divine. 
 
io8 The Dying Poet 
 
 * But still the brute his spirit sapp'd, 
 
 And led his erring feet astray, 
 Until he sank, a soul entrapp'd, 
 A god enclos'd in clay. 
 
 * His passions, in a demon-sport, 
 
 With laughter dragg'd him slowly down, 
 And, climbing o'er his human heart, 
 Despoil'd him of his crown. 
 
 * The sweetest of earth's apples turn'd 
 
 To ashes on his eager lips ; 
 And Life's inverted raptures burn'd 
 His soul like living whips. 
 
 ' Alas ! he could not be content 
 To eat of Time's unleaven'd bread, 
 
 But ever saw the firmament 
 Through eyelids of the dead. 
 
 * He lightly trod the bridge of blue ; 
 
 But, while his soul was glad, 
 He look'd through Heaven's gates and knew 
 Such sights as drove him mad.' 
 
The Dying Poet 109 
 
 Another said, * He never found 
 
 The lifelong things his spirit sought ; 
 
 But, wand'ring in a weary round, 
 His searchings came to naught. 
 
 * That which in life he sought the most 
 Went by him like a fever'd dream ; 
 
 But what upon the earth he lost 
 He'll find by God's great stream.' 
 
VIOLETS. 
 
 O BLUE orbs of the sunny earth 
 That stare with wonder at your birth, 
 
 Lost in a glad surprise ; 
 But, new-awakened from Time's sleep, 
 'Neath your green coverlet you peep 
 
 With half-unclosed eyes. 
 Now, with my heart I look, and lo ! 
 Upon my mortal ken there grow, 
 Like leaves from out your pictur'd books 
 Visions of fragrant twilight ways, 
 And lovers shy that stand and gaze. 
 
 Half-hid in leafy nooks. 
 
FORGET-ME-NOT. 
 
 Blue, blue the sea — blue as the eye of God — 
 And blue the temple of the air, 
 Unclouded, solitary, bare ; 
 And blue the hills that linger, low and broad — 
 
 Blue, all blue. 
 O friends, a little hour ago, 
 Lost in the woodlands, drunk with dew, 
 
 I came to know 
 The meaning of a lesson learnt anew, 
 And saw, with quick surprise, 
 A flow'ret, strangely wise, 
 Unlock Creation with a tiny key. 
 And, with a look, lay bare to me 
 The wonder of this simple thought : — 
 Heaven and earth and sea to-day are God's Forget- 
 Me-not. 
 
TO SOME PREACHERS. 
 
 Worthy masters, lend an ear : 
 All your dogmas are in vain 
 
 If your teachings, unaware, 
 
 Reach not further than our brain. 
 
 Misty methods, gnarl'd gnomes 
 Nurtur'd in an ancient mould, 
 
 Learning hid in musty tomes — 
 These are useless, dead and cold ; 
 
 Stones that bar our progress these, 
 Stumbling-blocks before our feet, 
 
 Holding us by slow degrees 
 Where the thought and action meet. 
 
To some Preachers 113 
 
 Science teaches — new and old — 
 
 Marvels, that we stand and stare, 
 Till we feel its arms enfold 
 
 Life about us everywhere. 
 
 Yet of these we reckon not, 
 Deem them idle as the wind ; 
 
 Count them but as symbols wrought 
 In the workshop of the mind. 
 
 We would hear of higher things : 
 Give us of your garner'd store. 
 
 Till we feel immortal wings 
 
 Lift us upwards more and more. 
 
 Meanings deep enfold our days, 
 Wonders lie about our feet, 
 
 Till we stammer forth our praise 
 Walking in the busy street. 
 
 Let us know the Christ you preach, 
 And the things that He has said ; 
 
 Let your far example reach 
 From the living to the dead. 
 
 8 
 
114 To some Preachers 
 
 Set our footsteps in the way 
 
 That His willing feet have trod ; 
 
 Teach our stubborn tongues to pray — 
 Show us how to come to God. 
 
 Show us clear what He hath plann'd ; 
 
 Make our strivings manifest — 
 What is ready to our hand 
 
 That is fittest, that is best. 
 
 Let your teachings stir our souls, 
 Then, howe'er our spirits swerve. 
 
 Every hour Creation rolls 
 
 Nearer to the Christ we serve. 
 
 Show us in the things you do 
 Witness to the charge He gave, 
 
 Be they many, be they few, 
 From the cradle to the grave. 
 
 Take the sinner by the hand. 
 Take the villain by the throat ; 
 
 Scourge the vices of the land ; 
 Thunder benefits forgot. 
 
To some Preachers 115 
 
 Tear the wrappings from our life 
 And the covering from our heart ; 
 
 Plunge the unresisting knife 
 Deep into the ailing part. 
 
 Pluck the mask from off the age ; 
 
 Slowly count its sordid gain, 
 Reckon up the human wage 
 
 Doubly paid with heart and brain. 
 
 Look beneath the crust of life. 
 
 Grapple with its hidden wrong ; 
 Mark the fratricidal strife 
 
 Of the weak against the strong. 
 
 Faint us not, with velvet word, 
 While we smugly sit at ease, 
 
 Honeyed pictures, smoothly slurr'd — 
 We have had enough of these. 
 
 Fingers pointing to the Lord, 
 
 We would hold you more and more ; 
 Lead us by a silken cord. 
 
 But, we pray you, walk before. 
 
 8—2 
 
BEHIND THE SCREEN. 
 
 O FRIENDS who fume, and fret and rave. 
 
 And live your lives apart, 
 Encamp'd beside an open grave. 
 
 With death within your heart ; 
 
 Who shoot your arrows at the sun, 
 And threaten every star, 
 
 Ere yet the hempen rope is spun 
 To drag your fiery car ; 
 
 Who flout Creation with a sigh, 
 And spurn life with your foot, 
 
 And smite the planets, passing by 
 To kennel with the brute — 
 
Behind the Screen 117 
 
 Wise fools, forbear ! Your deeds are vain 
 Who with high Heaven wage strife, 
 
 Who, with the hatchet of your brain, 
 Would rend the Book of Life. 
 
 Forbear to strive — your Titan zeal 
 
 Is somewhat overmuch. 
 These mighty gates of triple steel 
 
 Yield to an infant's touch. 
 
 Shout out your loudest, high and clear, 
 When to the fiends ye call ; 
 
 But prithee whisper softly here — 
 God stands behind the wall. 
 
THE BEE. 
 
 Bee, swinging in your, tent of blue 
 A sailor mid your airy shrouds, 
 
 Or wading ankle-deep in dew 
 New-fallen from the clouds • 
 
 Where meads breathe out their balmy moods 
 
 In sunny ecstasy, or where 
 The silent songsters of the woods 
 
 Fold their sweet-scented hands in prayer. 
 
 Gay Sultan of the garden-bed, 
 Whose maidens, waiting in a row, 
 
 Their honey'd gifts before you spread 
 In your bright flower-seraglio — 
 
The Bee 119 
 
 Where, high on head, a milkmaid tall, 
 
 The lily bears her yellow pail ; 
 Or dragon-fly upon the wall 
 
 Dries in the sun his wetted sail. 
 
 Or where, above the daisies meek, 
 
 The deadly poppies darkly brood, 
 Or tulip, with a stifled shriek, 
 
 Holds up her chalice, stained with blood. 
 
 Thief in the cupboard of the earth, 
 
 Sly pilfrer of the garden-spoil. 
 Who mingle merchantry with mirth, 
 
 And sing for ever at your toil ; 
 
 Chanting your choral soft and low. 
 
 You labour in your flow'ry mart. 
 Teaching for ever as you go 
 
 The lesson of the cheerful heart. 
 
VIRGIN SNOWS. 
 
 High on the cold world's snowy roof, 
 Whose icy leagues the lone birds know, 
 
 Wove of the north wind's shadowy woof, 
 Stretch the great wastes of virgin snow. 
 
 There, in the blue night's solemn noon. 
 Like flowers from Heaven's casement cast, 
 
 They lie beneath the ghastly moon, 
 Held in a silence dim and vast. 
 
 Cold as the dead, forsaken heart, 
 Pure as the dreams of nuns asleep ; 
 
 Where musing angels stand apart 
 In contemplation deep. 
 
Virgin Snows I2i 
 
 There Silence, sick'ning for a sound, 
 
 Lays to the floes her aching ear ; 
 And there, by viewless fetters bound, 
 
 The hollow winds lie froze with fear. 
 
 Where in the long eternal gray. 
 
 Grasping his gleaming sword of ice, 
 
 Death sits for ever in the way 
 And shakes his loaded dice. 
 
 O pathless prairies of the North, 
 
 Swept by the snow-king's frosty breath ; 
 
 Where in the silent air walk forth 
 The everlasting feet of Death. 
 
 For ever breaks the solemn day 
 
 Rose- flushed across your pallid face ; 
 
 For ever round your slumbers play^ 
 The lightnings of God's loving grace. 
 
 There in the silence of the night. 
 Waiting her earthly lord to greet. 
 
 The bride, array'd in garments white, 
 Chideth the bridegroom's laggard feet. 
 
122 Virgin Snows 
 
 Whom purple eve nor crimson dawn 
 Bringeth to ope her icy door, 
 
 For God hath set His seal thereon 
 And sealed it evermore. 
 
LIFE'S MEANING. 
 
 Life is the riddle, stern and cold, 
 God puts to every man, 
 
 Whose mystic meaning, aeons old, 
 Runs thro' Time's hidden plan. 
 
 And what the answer ? — ' Ye ask in vain 
 
 A low sad voice replies, 
 * Within the leaves whose meaning plain 
 
 Was writ in Paradise.* 
 
 And still to-day the book lies there, 
 
 Wide-open to the sun. 
 Whose secret never hand shall bare 
 
 The while the ages run. 
 
124 Lifes Meaning 
 
 Yet every blade of the patient grass 
 
 That cowers beneath our feet 
 Strives with mute longing, as we pass, 
 
 God's message to repeat. 
 
 The wise birds sing it, the trees among. 
 
 That in dumb witness stand ; 
 But we heed them not, for they speak a tongue 
 
 We cannot understand. 
 
 And the ocean is calling from out its deep, 
 
 And wails to our heart alway ; 
 It has roared itself hoarse, ere it sank asleep, 
 
 And will roar till the Judgment-day. 
 
 For we cannot know what they yearn to tell, 
 
 Nor fathom the dark decrees : 
 We never shall know it, in Heaven or Hell, 
 
 Until we become like these. 
 
 For only when Life and Death are one, 
 And the soul its home doth quit. 
 
 Shall we read, by the light of the dying sun. 
 What the hand of God hath writ. 
 
SLEEP. 
 
 Dim, silent stretches of unconquer'd lands, 
 Where wailing winds unendingly do moan, 
 Making great dulcimers of forests lone ; 
 Fierce furnace-floors of sun-discolour'd sands, 
 Where by each palm a deep-brow'd shadow stands ; 
 Cold rocks that sit eternally alone, 
 Where hunters watch, like creatures turn'd to stone, 
 And peaks that clutch the clouds with bony hands — 
 All these are mine. Night opes my prison cell. 
 
 And with a touch doth set my spirit free 
 To range by Heaven's porch or gates of Hell, 
 
 Making me monarch of all things that be. 
 But Day with sightless scissors clips my wing. 
 And casts me down, a poor discrowned king. 
 
BIRDS IN WINTER. 
 
 O TINY revellers of June ! 
 
 That wanton'd thro' the summer air, 
 Now, 'neath the winter's sun or moon, 
 
 God send you comfort in your care. 
 
 When earth is stone, and worms lie deep, 
 And, by the chimney's merry blaze, 
 
 Laid in his easy chair asleep, 
 The farmer dreams of summer days ; 
 
 When skaters swing upon the mere, 
 And boys run wild with ringing feet. 
 
 And all the prospect, dim and drear. 
 Is bounded by the silent street ; 
 
Birds in Winter 127 
 
 You cow'r in barns and windy sheds, 
 And twitter feebly 'neath the eaves, 
 
 And in strange places make your beds, 
 And sadly eye the rotting leaves. 
 
 The feast is o'er, the revels done. 
 
 And now, poor prodigals, you wait, 
 Like feather'd outcasts of the sun. 
 
 Or Lazarus at the rich man's gate. 
 
 The thrushes' thrill, the cuckoo's call 
 
 Are mute, and only there and here 
 A shiv'ring robin on the wall 
 
 Croons by the deathbed of the year. 
 
 And I, a saddened' mourner, stand 
 
 In lowliness of soul apart, 
 Till May shall flood the golden land. 
 
 And wake anew the world's heart. 
 
PATIENCE. 
 
 Perplex no more the drowsy ear of Time 
 With questionings vain, nor stand importunate 
 Before his door ; but teach thy soul to wait, 
 
 And with slow steps the stair of life to climb. 
 
 Pass calmly onward towards thy gradual prime, 
 Content in patient eagerness to know 
 Thy silent footsteps shoreward surely go, 
 
 And mutely strive towards an end sublime. 
 
 Grieve not that ever steeper, more and more, 
 
 The roadway grows, while o'er the gleaming path 
 With deeper gloom upon the way before 
 
 Death's shadow falls and threatens endless wrath- 
 Wait yet awhile. Life's misty madness past, 
 The blinds are drawn and daylight comes at last. 
 
TO ANY WOMAN. 
 
 I ASK not of thy woman's heart — 
 
 Where weak and strong so strangely blend 
 That thou must ever stand apart 
 
 Unfathom'd to the end — 
 
 Nor intellect, nor power of brain 
 I ask, nor learning deep and broad, 
 
 Nor any art whose baleful gain 
 Lies 'twixt thy soul and God ; 
 
 No virile force in thee we seek 
 To lift thee to an earthly goal. 
 
 But this alone — the presence meek 
 And tender woman's soul. 
 
130 To any Woman 
 
 Still, thro' coarse jest and bitter sneer, 
 Bje loyal to thy lofty birth ; 
 
 And, standing 'twixt the far and near. 
 Be half of heaven, and half of earth. 
 
MY KINGDOM. 
 
 Whose are these hills that stretch beyond the sight ? 
 
 And these brave seas that lie 
 Hemming them round with music day and night ? — 
 
 The lord of all am I. 
 
 Mine by the valour of the conquering heart, 
 And purpose of the all-embracing mind 
 
 That holds the curtains of the soul apart, 
 And year with year doth bind. 
 
 And I am lord of all the lands that are 
 Between the rising and the setting sun : , 
 
 Mine from the morning till the evening star — 
 Mine every one. 
 
 9—2 
 
132 My Kingdom 
 
 And from the prison of the breathing sea 
 
 Dim mystic voices call ; 
 And in the waning day dim shadows flee 
 
 Across the sunset wall. 
 
 Each sun-glad bird that sings beside its nest 
 
 Sings for my ear alone ; 
 And from the pale East to the golden West 
 
 Each flower for me is blown. 
 
 For me the tempests chant their deep-voiced psalms ; 
 
 The forests rave in sleep ; 
 And to my soul there come melodious calms 
 
 And contemplations deep. 
 
 For me the winds their loudest trumpets blow ; 
 
 The cataracts shout with glee ; 
 And whispered secrets of the long ago 
 
 Creep from the miser sea. 
 
 Across the leaning pastures of the heaven 
 
 Pass on my starry sheep ; 
 1 call each silent wanderer forth at even, 
 
 And count them 'ere I sleep. 
 
My Kingdom 133 
 
 And mine the glory of each fiery wonder, 
 
 Suns of the awful night, 
 That thro' the abyss roll headlong on in thunder. 
 
 Resistless in their might. 
 
 All these are mine. The earth shall be my pillow, 
 
 And when I go to sleep 
 My dirge shall be the never-ending billow, 
 
 The everlasting deep. 
 
 But who shall dare to tread these realms immortal ? 
 
 What hand unlock that door ? 
 Lo ! on the threshold of the sacred portal 
 
 God standeth evermore. 
 
THE THRUSH. 
 
 A THRUSH sang out on the high elm-tree, 
 
 And I stood awhile to hear. 
 And I said, ' May such songs be sung for me 
 
 When I lie on my bier.' 
 
 For these are the singers of God most high 
 
 That carol about His feet ; 
 No Guelph nor Ghibelline e'er could buy 
 
 A funeral-dirge more sweet. 
 
 They sing the ballads of heavenly love, 
 
 Chanted so long ago. 
 That the larks bring down from the courts above 
 
 To scatter on earth below. 
 
The Thrush 135 
 
 These are the songs that the angels chant 
 
 As they circle about the throne, 
 Weaving the web of the Covenant 
 
 That bindeth God alone. 
 
 And the earthly singers rehearse that song, 
 
 Who sing for the ear of man, 
 And their stolen music atones the wrong 
 
 In Time's mysterious plan ; 
 
 And the birds repeat, when they wake again. 
 The songs they have learnt in sleep. 
 
 Whose notes are links in the hidden chain 
 Whose folds our being keep. 
 
 Minstrels are these in the tents of earth 
 That spring from the sunny sod. 
 
 Who, with their voices of angel-mirth. 
 Sing in the cages of God. 
 
THE MIRROR. 
 
 Frate Benoni, servant of the Lord, 
 A shining light to many in the land, 
 Took one day idly in his shrivelled hand 
 
 The tiny mirror, hanging by a cord 
 Within the carven window of his cell, 
 And as his gaze upon its surface fell, 
 
 He steadfastly his countenance explored ; 
 And as he look'd there came into his mind — 
 With some weird fancy strangely intertwin'd — 
 
 A sudden longing, and he said, ' The Lord 
 Doth hold our lives reflected in His glass. 
 
 And with His eyes beholds my open soul 
 As in this mirror I survey my face, 
 
 And there, as on a dark-illumin'd scroll, 
 He reads the garner'd record of my days.' 
 
 And at the thought he breath'd a sudden prayer. 
 That to his mortal sight might be reveaFd, 
 
The Mirror 137 
 
 As to God's eyes, all suddenly laid bare, 
 
 His naked soul, with no foul blot conceal'd. 
 And as he pray'd a trembling something grew 
 
 Into the mirror, dimly incomplete. 
 Until, with soul that shrank and stood, he knew 
 
 His inmost spirit's misty counterfeit. 
 And then, at last, o'erwhelmed and overcome, 
 
 Frozen with knowledge of the thing untold, 
 A living statue, eloquently dumb, 
 
 He stood all rigid, suddenly grown old, 
 For there, with eyes where horror glared aghast, 
 
 A human leprosy, and foul with sin, 
 He saw the form of his accusing Past 
 
 Rise up and point with mocking hand within. 
 
 And at the sight he cried with anguish'd haste, 
 
 'Lord! let me see no more,' and entering in 
 Straightway, with trembling footsteps, sad and slow, 
 
 Into God's earthly presence he did pass. 
 With grief o'erwhelm'd, and sank in silent prayer. 
 
 And when they looked they saw the dusky mass 
 Of raven hair was turn'd as white as snow ; 
 
 The sudden flow'ring of his dumb despair — 
 A little foam upon a sea of woe. 
 
 Lord, let us see ourselves in that stern glass ! 
 
BLINDED. 
 
 Read me this riddle, ye whose steadfast vision 
 
 Can pierce the folds of thought, 
 And seek within the spirit's realms Elysian 
 
 Some clue divinely caught. 
 
 Lodg'd at our ease within God's habitation, 
 
 Guests at His daily board, 
 We pour before strange gods our deep libation, 
 
 And heap our earthly hoard. 
 
 We count earth's atoms, weigh the rushing planet, 
 
 Reckon the comet's speed, 
 Crush with our hands the mighty rocks of granite, 
 
 And grasp its golden seed. 
 
Blinded ^ijg 
 
 We cleave the sunbeam, plumb the sunless ocean, 
 
 And hear the creeping grass. 
 And drink Time's lengthening wisdom in a potion. 
 
 As on the centuries pass. 
 
 Our lives are sicklied o'er with feeble wonder, 
 
 And, when we hence depart. 
 We sadly tread the path of silent thunder, 
 
 Clasping our fearful heart ; 
 
 Where one waits grim and ghostly in the shadow, 
 
 Cloaking his shining face, 
 Ling'ring to guide us thro' Death's starry meadow, 
 
 And lead us to our place. 
 
 O fearful souls ! that by Time's noiseless river 
 
 Waver and hold your breath, 
 And on the steep brink dumbly stand and shiver, 
 
 Dreading the plunge of Death, 
 
 Ye fear the bandage that God's hand doth fasten 
 
 Before our shrinking eyes, 
 Lest one should faint upon the way and hasten 
 
 Back thro' the trackless skies. 
 
140 Blinded 
 
 We stagger onward, blinded by earth's glory, 
 • And, when the day is past, 
 'Neath dark'ning skies we read life's mystic story, 
 And wisdom comes at last. 
 
 Forth from the unknown, out of Time's dark prison, 
 
 We walk, unused to sight ; 
 Our eyes are dazzled by life's sudden vision — 
 
 We cannot see for light. 
 
TWO SONNETS. 
 
 Ship, that dost spread thy swelling wings to go 
 Across dim seas to lands of far away, 
 Whose path lies o'er the desert of sea-spray 
 
 That hangs between us and the world below, 
 
 Even now, while yet the favouring breezes blow, 
 I bid thee * Hail !' and in a breath • Farewell !' 
 Deep in my heart there tolls a passing bell, 
 
 The knell of parting joy, and, sinking low, 
 I see the sun of present hope descend, 
 
 And all my mortal sunshine turn to gray. 
 Now in the West unearthly glories blend 
 
 And, drunk with ecstasy, the dying day 
 Creeps all unwillingly towards its end. 
 
 O faithful heart ! and thou so far away ! 
 
142 Two Sonnets 
 
 II. 
 
 Roll on dark seas — ye cannot part us now. 
 
 Tho' ye heap up your hills until they roll 
 
 In myriad mountain-heights from pole to pole, 
 A moving world furrow'd by God's own plough ; 
 And tho' ye strike the pale ships till they bow 
 
 Their meek heads lying on the sicken'd sea, 
 
 Then, with a sudden terror, rise and flee 
 Before the bellowing north-wind's eerie sough ; 
 And tho' the lightning should with impious hand 
 
 Write on the wall of night God's fiery name ; 
 
 And tho' the thunder trumpet forth its blame :- 
 In vain ye strive to keep us heart from heart, 
 
 Locked in a silent spirit-clasp who stand. 
 Our souls have touched, and cannot be apart. 
 
LIFE'S LESSON. 
 
 Out from Life's quaint and many-windowed room 
 
 I look with curious eyes, 
 And feel, athwart the ever-gathering gloom, 
 
 My heart grow slowly wise. 
 
 For through the dimly-shifting light and shade, 
 
 And mid its wild unrest, 
 One truth I see, unmoved and undismayed, 
 
 Grow slowly manifest. 
 
 This thought is mine — a golden-winged key 
 Wherewith Life's gate I ope : — 
 
 No more in doubt along the dread to-be. 
 With helpless hands, I grope. 
 
144 Life's Lesson 
 
 ' Who doeth willingly^ he holdeth all 
 
 The wisdom of the years. 
 Fate shall not lightly toss him, like a ball, 
 
 Betwixt his hopes and fears. 
 
 Take not with sullen face and frozen heart 
 
 Thy daily Lenten dole : 
 Nor nurse, in gloomy discontent apart, 
 
 Thine unregenerate soul. 
 
 But that which cometh to thine open door 
 
 Receive with kindly eyes. 
 Life's deepest wrong, perchance, at last shall 
 soar, 
 
 An angel in disguise. 
 
THE KISS. 
 
 We kiss'd beneath the leaves, and lo ! 
 The hidden brook laugh'd sweet and low. 
 Upon the woods there fell a hush ; 
 The blackbird chuckl'd in the bush ; 
 The startl'd finch forgot to sing, 
 Amaz'd before so strange a thing ; 
 The gay thrush flew to tell his mate 
 That sat, incredulous, by the gate ; 
 The oak-tree standing by the stile 
 Relaxed into a hoary smile ; 
 The lily hung its modest head. 
 The rose by turns was white and red. 
 And, of a sudden, you and I 
 Grew strangely still, we knew not why. 
 
 And, hand in hand, as on we went, 
 Drinking deep draughts of life's content, 
 
 lO 
 
146 The Kiss 
 
 We heard the nightingale complain, 
 And make sweet music of his pain. 
 And as each bright, bewild'ring note 
 Burst in glad riot from his throat, 
 And we stood listening, you and I, 
 To hear that brave heart break and die, 
 We smil'd, in joyous unbelief. 
 Unmoved by such delicious grief. 
 And, as we slowly turned away, 
 Life's open book before us lay, 
 Wherein, with wond'ring eyes, we read 
 Scrolls of the living and the dead. 
 And, with exulting hearts, we said, 
 * If Love be such immortal pain. 
 We still will drink our fill again.' 
 
LIFE AND DEATH. 
 
 Out from the heart of the rain-cloud 
 
 Shineth the bow. 
 The snowdrop upsoars in its white shroud 
 
 Out of the snow. 
 Out of the depths of the ocean 
 
 Upriseth the rain. 
 Out of the heart the emotion 
 
 That never was vain. 
 
 Forth from the cave of thy sorrow 
 
 There cometh surcease. 
 And out of the storm of to-morrow 
 ^ The Angel of Peace. 
 Out through a wisdom far-seeing 
 
 Our destinies run. 
 And the mists that encircle our being 
 
 Are born of the sun. 
 
 10 — 2 
 
148 Life and Death 
 
 After the rush of the river 
 
 Cometh the sea. 
 After Life's fevered endeavour 
 
 Rest Cometh to thee. 
 After the darkness is deepest 
 
 Then cometh the light. 
 After Life's labour thou sleepest 
 
 Through the long night. 
 
HOMELESS. 
 
 By day across the silent hills I roam, 
 
 The wide world is my home ; 
 
 By night the green earth is my fragrant bed. 
 
 Wherein betimes my weary head 
 
 I lay upon a clod. 
 
 I know the shady forests deep and broad. 
 
 I cannot feel alone, . 
 
 For every flower and tree to me is known. 
 
 The star-encrusted firmament 
 
 Is my immeasurable tent, 
 
 Wherein, unchid, I bivouac with God. 
 
ON A HILL-TOP. 
 
 Think of it, Soul, and be afraid ! 
 
 This earthly flooring of the sky, 
 These warrior-mountains undismay'd, 
 
 These hills that hunger for a cry, 
 These rivers groping for the sea 
 
 That nightly yearns for moon and star, 
 These tossing woods that roar their glee 
 
 To greet the cloud wains from afar — 
 Are but the circle of our aims, 
 
 The bourne of hope or vain regret. 
 The boundaries of our steps, the frames 
 
 Wherein our little lives are set. 
 
THE SHOOTING STAR. 
 
 Behind yon clouds that curtain in 
 The far stars waning slow, 
 
 Above this dim abode of sin 
 I see a bended bow. 
 
 High o'er the sleeping world it stands, 
 
 Close by immortal Mars, 
 And darkly held by warrior hands 
 
 As bent for mighty wars. 
 
 All ready for the gathering fight 
 Stand ranged the hosts afar, 
 
 And see, across the dusky night 
 God shoots a fiery star. 
 
ASLEEP. 
 
 My love hath gone away 
 Far o'er the cruel sea, 
 Into a strange country, 
 
 Where, all the night and day, 
 She lieth dreamily. 
 
 A king made her his own, 
 And laid her on his bed. 
 And there, when eves are red, 
 
 She sleepeth all alone, 
 
 With flow'rs about her head, 
 
 And on her heart a stone. 
 
 In summer, all the day, 
 She hath a gown of green, 
 Gold-broidered like a queen, 
 
 And bright with flow'rs of May. 
 
Asleep 153 
 
 But in the winter night 
 She lieth all in white. 
 
 She hath forgotten all : 
 
 She knows and heeds us not. 
 The hours like rose-leaves fall 
 
 Within that lonesome spot, 
 And song-birds softly call. 
 
 But still she will not hear. 
 
 The murmur of our praise 
 Falls on her heedless ear, 
 
 As, thro' the unending days. 
 
 She listens to the strains 
 Of heavenly music near, 
 
 Whose lull her sense enchains. 
 
 How should she ope her eyes 
 To look upon our face, 
 
 Who, lapped in visions, lies 
 
 Enraptur'd, all alone. 
 Within her chosen place, 
 
 Gazing upon God's throne ? 
 
154 Asleep 
 
 Her senses are afraid — 
 
 She suffereth eclipse : 
 As if a spirit laid 
 
 His finger on her lips. 
 
 The silent sleep of Death 
 She sleepeth, undismayed, 
 
 While angels hold their breath. 
 
BY THE SEA. 
 
 As I lingered by the sea, 
 Lightly dreaming of the wonder 
 And the glory yet to be, 
 There awoke and came to me, 
 From its dim immensity, 
 Wafted from its gloomy grandeur, 
 Echoes of Eternity, 
 Mutterings of Futurity, 
 Speech and silence equally. 
 
 And there rose, from realms Elysian, 
 In Time's wayward undertone, 
 From the depths of the unknown. 
 Spoken by some far magician. 
 Fragments of dim language, blown 
 O'er the ocean vast and lone. 
 
156 By the Sea 
 
 And I heard, in silence leaning, 
 From the world lying under, 
 Like the sound of spirit-thunder 
 Piercing through the folds of clay, 
 Messages of mystic meaning. 
 Caught by nimble spirits gleaning 
 In the fields of far away. 
 
 Messages of solemn greeting 
 From the ocean's troubled flow, 
 Spoke by sea-bound voices meeting 
 And, with bated voice, repeating 
 Secrets of the long ago : 
 Voices from thought's far dominions, 
 Yearnings of a mute unrest ; 
 Rumours of the East and West 
 Shaken from the sea-bird's pinions. 
 
 Tidings of the dark hereafter 
 From the shadow of eclipse ; 
 Peals of wild demoniac laughter 
 Blown from sea-encompass'd lips : 
 Signals wav'd from sinking ships ; 
 Drifts of hopeless elegies 
 From forgotten argosies. 
 
By the Sea i^y 
 
 And I walked, with feet immortal, 
 By some strange enchantment led. 
 Underneath the swaying portal 
 Of the mansions of the dead, 
 Thro' the dreary dormitories, 
 And the magical recesses 
 Of the mighty ocean-bed. 
 
 And I saw, with swift emotion, 
 Lying on the gleaming floor, 
 Treasures of the miser ocean 
 Gather'd on the hopeless shore. 
 Hurled in the rude commotion 
 Of the angry billows' roar. 
 
 Saw the dim enchanted valleys. 
 And the forests of the sea. 
 Where, in softly-moving alleys, 
 Drinking of the sunless chalice, 
 Silence sat perpetually. 
 
 And I knew, with inward vision, 
 Secrets of the ages gone ; 
 Sunsets over fields Elysian, 
 And the wonders of the dawn, 
 Lighting up, in drear fruition, 
 Spaces of an emerald lawn. 
 
15 S By the Sea 
 
 And, with fearful introspection, 
 Trooping in a silent row, 
 As if fearful of detection, 
 Like a newer resurrection, 
 Walk'd the ghosts of long ago. 
 And they bore in hands ecstatic, 
 With a dreary, mirthless glee. 
 Branches, rudely emblematic. 
 From the garden of the sea : 
 And they sang, in wayward fashion, 
 To the dimly-passing ships. 
 Songs of lurid sea-born passion 
 Never sung by human lips. 
 
 And so wild and sweet their singing. 
 Thrills of sudden memories bringing 
 To my heart, like sea-bells ringing. 
 That I stood, entranced, to hear. 
 All the mystery of the ocean, 
 All its centuried emotion, 
 As by some enchanted potion 
 Seem'd ingather'd in mine ear. 
 
 Then, like an incorporate leaven, 
 From some spot as far as Heaven, 
 
By the Sea 159 
 
 Rose a sudden, moaning wind, 
 Rushing fast and ever faster, 
 Like the herald of disaster. 
 Fleeing from the wrath behind. 
 
 And it shook the ocean-sleeper, 
 Lying heavy in his bed ; 
 And it pass'd, a headlong reaper. 
 Where his foaming sheaves lay shed 
 And it gather'd, as it went. 
 Harvest of the weary meadows, 
 Fleeing onward like dim shadows 
 Sea-blown, with sad anguish bent, 
 Pale ships, 'neath their tents of snow. 
 And, with loud exultant clamour. 
 Broke them with his fierce sea-hammer, 
 Toss'd them to his barns below. 
 
 Then they drew the mariners 
 Gently from the drowned ships. 
 Stricken by the heavy curse 
 Spoken by the Sea-god's lips. 
 And they laid upon their heads 
 Wreaths of sea-flow'rs, lightly shaken. 
 And they hung about their beds, 
 Softly bidding them awaken. 
 
i6o By the Sea 
 
 And I would have longer listened 
 To that weird, unearthly cry, 
 Dimly, fatefuUy imprisoned, 
 Like a weary dreamer's sigh : 
 But it faded on my ear, 
 And I stood once more alone, 
 List'ning to the wailing drear 
 Of the ocean's monotone 
 That for ever sends to me, 
 From its dim immensity 
 Echoes of Eternity, 
 Mutterings of Futurity, 
 Speech and silence equally. 
 
THE END OF THINGS. 
 
 I STOOD with God and watched Creation die. 
 I saw great stars go out without a sigh, 
 And mighty planets falter on their track, 
 And starry clusters sicken into black. 
 * Begone,' I said, * Man needeth you no more 
 Ye did but light him to his chamber door 
 While yet in shadow he would He 
 Until the night was o'er. 
 
 And, by the red light of the dying sun, 
 I read Time's awful records, one by one. 
 Whose leaves, grown heavy with the weight of years, 
 Shook with the wind of human hopes and fears. 
 And wailing voices said, ' We are undone ; 
 Clos'd are God's eyes and ears.' 
 
 II 
 
1 62 The End of Things 
 
 And kneeling nations huddled on the floor, 
 Watching with hollow eyes the closed door ; 
 Who wept and cried, ' We cannot pass within. 
 Our feet are prison'd in the toils of sin. 
 Baffled we he, enchained for evermore ; 
 We cannot hope to win.* 
 
 And as I saw the waste of human woe 
 That lay, a sea of anguish, far below, 
 Swift from my lips the pleading question fell — 
 ' Can all these tears not drown the fires of Hell ? 
 Is God, for ever, man's untiring foe. 
 And Death Life's passing bell ?' 
 
 And lo ! a hand forth from the Judgment-Book 
 Tore out the leaves that, like a snowy brook. 
 Fled down the silken channels of the air 
 Whose waters, like a downward-flowing prayer, 
 From off the faces of the mourners took 
 Its weight of mute despair. 
 
 And setting feet of light upon my pain 
 The Cherubim cried, ' Christ hath not lived in vain. 
 And from the silence of the furthest deep 
 I heard a voice, like one that spoke in sleep — 
 ' The meaning of the riddle now is plain ; 
 Now let the Reaper reap.' 
 
A SONG OF GOD'S WRATH. 
 
 Loud laughed the Lord across the ringed waters. 
 Reel'd.back the land, affrighted stood the day. 
 Fierce rang the storm ; the sea - king's shudd'ring 
 daughters 
 Shrieking wrung their glassy hands and hid themselves 
 away. 
 
 High overhead the Angel of Destruction 
 
 Rode on the tempest, drove the waves before, 
 
 Spurr'd on the winds, chiding their inaction, 
 
 Scatter'd all the timorous ships, and cast them on the 
 shore. 
 
 Down in their berths the mariners were praying ; 
 
 Deep in their hidden beds the dead lay undismay'd ; 
 All round their heads the seas with fear were swaying, 
 
 And the mighty ocean-deeps grew sore afraid. 
 
 II — 2 
 
164 A Song of God's Wrath 
 
 High in God's hand gleam'd the Hghtning's sabre 
 
 Cleaving with swift, silent stroke the leaden heart of 
 night ; 
 All thro' the hours the darkness was in labour, 
 
 And when the dawn was come it brought forth the 
 light. 
 
 Then God arose and gather'd up His anger ; 
 
 Smooth'd the ocean-floor and put the broken ships 
 away ; 
 Rein'd in the winds that, bellowing in thunder, 
 
 Trumpeted their fury in the op'ning ear of day. 
 
 Loud sang the deep its hymn of praise rejoicing ; 
 
 Loud piped the land its leafy monody ; 
 Clear rang the wind, the joy of Nature voicing ; 
 
 But loudest sang the dead men in the depths of the 
 sea. 
 
POEMS AND FRAGMENTS. 
 
IN A VILLAGE CHURCHYARD. 
 
 L 
 
 Ay ! here they lie, laid in their dreamless sleep, 
 Each with his stone that, like a garrulous friend. 
 Doth spread abroad the record of his life. 
 They have lived their little day, and now they are 
 As hostages to Death, and signs whereon 
 We stake redemption ; witnesses of Time, 
 Whose lights are out, and here are cast aside 
 As burnt-out candles, lamps that have no oil ; 
 Unmindful tenants that have gone away, 
 Leaving us here their garments for a sign. 
 
 n. 
 
 How are they slipp'd out of our memory ! 
 And like the tearful dew have ta'en the air, 
 That did so stand in our uncounsell'd grief, 
 
1 68 In a Village Churchyard 
 
 That all the rounded future of our way 
 
 Seem'd narrow'd to their loss ; their memory's flower. 
 
 Nipt by the cold air of forgetfulness, 
 
 Hath dwindl'd in the shadow of Love's sun ; 
 
 Their place is taken like an empty chair 
 
 That hath no choice of office ; and their names, 
 
 That made such constant music in our ears, 
 
 Now fall with strange disturbance on our sense, 
 
 Like far-off sounds heard in a waking dream. 
 
 IIL 
 
 Here's one that hath no record of his name ! 
 Time with rude touch hath blotted out the scroll 
 That did inform us of him, and no hand 
 Out of its charity hath swept away 
 The envious weeds that grow about his tomb. 
 Yet doth he sleep as peacefully as they 
 About whose heads the clust'ring violets crowd ; 
 The grass doth grow as green above his bed 
 As by the vantage of their sepulchres ; 
 And in the appointed season, I doubt not, 
 God will remember him, and by his name 
 Will call him from his slumbers with the rest. 
 
In a Village Churchyard 169 
 
 IV. 
 
 This one hath look'd on Death and never flinch'd ; 
 
 Hath gone as gladly to those greedy arms 
 
 As to his mother's bosom, fearing none; 
 
 Hath ta'en farewell of life without a sigh. 
 
 Who's he that hath so strange a scorn of that 
 
 Which doth appal the valiantest ? A child ! 
 
 One that, as seemeth from his epitaph, 
 
 Had tarried scarce three summers on the earth. 
 
 Strange doth it seem to meet thy childish form 
 
 Accoutr'd with the panoply of Death, 
 
 And burden'd with the honours of the grave. 
 
 Who hath oppress'd thy sleep with this great stone, 
 
 And weigh'd thee down with pond'rous epitaph ? 
 
 Thou that should'st rest beneath the tender grass 
 
 With snowdrops for a meet remembrancer. 
 
 O ! little actor on Life's mimic scene, 
 
 How is it with thee now on Death's great stage ? 
 
 How will the weakness of those little feet 
 
 Walk straight before the majesty of God ? 
 
 How will those eyes sustain that awful blaze 
 
 That here could scarce endure a feeble gleam ? 
 
 Those never-resting hands, that little tongue 
 
 That babbl'd of its playthings ere it slept — 
 
 Peace — let it be ! 
 
170 In a Village Churchyard 
 
 This was a traveller 
 Of whom they knew not where he went nor whence. 
 Thus far he roam'd upon his lonely road, 
 And here hath fallen, never more to rise. 
 Hither with faltering steps the wanderer came 
 Wearied and sore, and further would he go, 
 But Death hath met him suddenly in the way, 
 And like a tender friend hath led him in 
 And eas'd him of his load ; now here he lies 
 Careless of Fate, unknowing and unknown 
 Of all who pass him by, and only I — 
 Who knew him not, yet, mov'd by sympathy, 
 Have mus'd awhile beside his nameless grave — 
 Do make this brief remembrance of his lot. 
 
 VI. 
 
 How doth Life's river turn to stagnant pools, 
 
 And lose the fresher current of its force 
 
 In these dull shallows ! Thus Thought's eager flight 
 
 Is burden'd by the weight of circumstance. 
 
 And all the natural pulses of our blood 
 
 Are bounded by a drowsy discontent : 
 
 Thus each day's life lives in the doom of time, 
 
In a Village Churchyard 171 
 
 And Death is but the passing of a thought. 
 
 Things do partake of such unnatural state, 
 
 That our dull'd souls do stagger in a dream 
 
 And lose discussion of the present time, 
 
 From out our nerveless grasp. What is't to live ? 
 
 It is to know and do, and in the deed 
 
 To make the thought partaker of the end. 
 
 For thought is life ; to treasure up o'ur days, 
 
 Counting the hours like pearls on a string. 
 
 Seeking to make of each a fragrant urn 
 
 Wherein to lay embalm'd some gracious deed 
 
 Or hint of noble enterprise ; it is 
 
 To walk in silence, conscious of great ends ; 
 
 To love truth, to be patient, bearing much, 
 
 And calm and full of faith — not to be great, 
 
 But to live greatly, making of our lives 
 
 Such record as may live in after days ; 
 
 And seeing in our cold and natural life, 
 
 Tho' blurr'd with tears and stained with earthly dust, 
 
 The mortal counterpart of that far state 
 
 Whose promise is the solace of our pain. 
 
 Show forth, O Life, the wonders of thy ways ! 
 Unfold the secrets of thy hidden plan ! 
 Take up the windings of this tangl'd web 
 
172 In a Village Churchyard 
 
 And, out of discordj make fair harmony ! 
 Oh ! that the days were gather'd to their end : 
 Would that this fleeting Ufe were Hfe indeed ; 
 Would we could break this pale and fever'd dream 
 That holds our being like a mighty spell ; 
 Could rend the cloud of this encircling veil, 
 And see the purpose of the long-drawn years ; 
 Look with calm eyes upon the mid-day sun, 
 Hear all the myriad hymning of the spheres, 
 The low, deep beating of Creation's heart, 
 And all the harmony of Nature's song. 
 
THE WANDERER'S FUNERAL HYMN. 
 
 Here shall she sleep ; this sunset-stricken spot 
 Shall be the ending of her mortal way. 
 Thus far in joy and sorrow hath she come, 
 Sharing the dangers of our pilgrimage, 
 Joyfully toiling on with wearied feet ; — 
 Now she hath stumbl'd suddenly in the way, 
 And fallen here for ever. 
 
 Lay her down, 
 And bury her in silence — all that is. 
 Sorrow nor Care nor any mortal ill 
 Shall harm her more, and neither days of toil 
 Nor nights of weariness shall weigh her down. 
 Her years were like. the seasons of a flower, 
 Short-liv'd but beautiful, and in their sum 
 Of such a rare perfection that she seem'd 
 
174 ^^^ Wanderer's Funeral Hymn 
 
 As one that was not of us, but a spirit 
 That tarried here a little in its flight. 
 Oh ! she did strew fair flowers about our feet 
 And pour'd rich balm upon our wounded minds, 
 And, as we toiled along Life's weary way, 
 Her presence like sweet music cheer'd us on, 
 Circling us round with beauty : where she came, 
 Sorrow forgot her wound, and sullen Care 
 Let slip the heavy burden of his load ; — 
 Now she is taken from us, and all is 
 As tho' she had not been. 
 
 Yet think of this, 
 That she hath been partaker of our lot. 
 And partner of our sorrows and our joys. 
 She too hath lived this life of suffering, 
 This restless struggling after happiness ; 
 Hath borne this troublous time of bitter-sweet 
 And all the sores that prey upon our flesh, 
 The shocks of Time, the soul's satiety, 
 The weariness of spirit, and the ills 
 That sap mortality ; still bearing here. 
 The mortal term of her imprisonment. 
 And with such loving meekness that it was 
 No burden, but a duty full of hope. 
 
The Wanderer's Funeral Hymn 175 
 
 So meekly did she bear her load of care, 
 Bringing with her the fair companionship 
 Of Patience, Silence, and Humility, 
 That lovingly did take her by the hand, 
 Leading her on with anxious tenderness. 
 Guiding her steps with dear solicitude. 
 Oh ! she was holy, kind, and pitiful ; 
 Saintly in thought, and fiU'd with innocence, 
 The crown and perfect flower of maidenhood ; 
 And of a tender pity so divine, 
 That, like the encircling air, it did enclose 
 With loving sympathy each living thing. 
 Her presence was a blessing, and her voice 
 Was as the rare enchantment of a spell. 
 Stirring the heavy pulses of the air 
 With gleams of rippling laughter. 
 
 Lay her down 
 And to your heavy duties ; yet before 
 You cover up her features look again 
 On all that was so precious ; read once more 
 The saintly record of her pallid face, 
 And bear it in your memories evermore : 
 Look on that brow whereon enthroned sat 
 The tender majesty of Innocence ; 
 
176 The Wanderers Funeral Hymn 
 
 Those sweet star-eyes in whose unfathom'd depths 
 Did dwell such loving Peace ; those parted lips 
 That breath'd but now the music of our names. 
 Look on those hands that labour'd for us all. 
 And now are folded by ; those wearied feet 
 That toiled so willingly along Life's road 
 And now shall toil no more : alas ! alas ! 
 That such concentrance of immortal grace 
 Should be committed to the darksome vault, 
 And lie in sad retirement from our eyes. 
 
 Oh ! let us take new impulse from her life 
 And courage from the lesson of its close : 
 So shall our days be witnesses of her, 
 And she shall live again in our decay. 
 Now earth to earth and dust to kindred dust ; 
 Let her cold clay be given to the ground, 
 And mingle with the soil from whence it came. 
 Thus do we lay her in her narrow bed. — 
 Now leave her to the company of the saints 
 
THE OLD TOWN AND THE NEW 
 
 I DREW my breath 
 Where two twin-towns stand by the Western sea, 
 And make diversion in the flowing land : — 
 One young and eager, looking far ahead, 
 And seeing in the promise of to-day 
 An earnest of the greater yet to come ; 
 A busy haunt of men, a teeming mart, 
 Whence white-sail'd ships do seek the furthest seas. 
 
 The other silent, melancholy, old ; 
 A widow'd mother, looking ever back, 
 And, as an emblem, holding in her hand 
 A ruin'd pile : still seeking on the sands 
 The vanish'd footprints of a bygone day ; 
 
 12 
 
178 The Old Town and the New 
 
 Gazing in sadness out upon the deep, 
 Like Patience sitting on the silent shore. 
 
 Still thro' the windings of her narrow streets 
 As in the days of old the people go ; 
 Still in her homes is heard the busy hum 
 Of cheerful shuttles ; still her hardy sons 
 Lead forth brave argosies across the earth : 
 But from the presence of the ancient town 
 Hath passed away the glory and the spell. 
 No more she hears upon the busy quay 
 The sounds that once were sweet within her ears- 
 The Babel of strange tongues, the sudden cry, 
 The sailors' measured chant upon the poop, 
 The noise of coming or of parting ships. 
 All these have vanished. Daily by her feet, 
 White-robed and beautiful, the tall ships go 
 Upon the gleaming highway of the deep : 
 But never to the shelter of her arms 
 Comes any wanderer home ; silent and sad, 
 She sits an outcast by the Western gate 
 Where once she stood in honoured rivalry. 
 Brooding upon the memories of past days — 
 A mother bending o'er her first-born's grave. 
 About the place there hangs a Sabbath hush, 
 
The Old Town and the New 179 
 
 A stillness like a chamber of the dead ; 
 No sound is heard upon the silent quay 
 Save tread of curious stranger idly led 
 To gaze upon this shuttlecock of Time. 
 There the lone sea-bird dries its dripping wing 
 Sitting unharmed and calm upon the reef ; 
 The fisher spreads his net upon the beach ; 
 The fishwives wrangle o'er the shining freight ; 
 The boatman sighs within his tiny bark ; 
 The drowsy waves rock crooning on the shore. 
 All else is still, save children at their play. 
 Silence and Desolation sit around, 
 And ' Ichabod ' is written on her walls. 
 
 II. 
 
 By day the air is burden'd with the smoke 
 Of never-resting chimneys ; but, by night 
 The land is fring'd with fire, and far around 
 The sky is redden'd by the three-fold glow 
 Of distant conflagration, where the East, 
 Girt with the semblance of a flaming zone, 
 Glows with the promise of another dawn. 
 Far in, athwart the land, they burn low down. 
 Like smould'ring fires almost burnt out ; but near, 
 Dark hands hold flaming torches in the air. 
 
i8o The Old Town and the New 
 
 Whose bright tongues tremble like the restless heads 
 Of fiery snakes that leap to lick the clouds 
 That far above them hang, and throb, and burn, 
 With de.ep pulsations of a crimson glow. 
 
 III. 
 
 A treeless land — or if some few there be 
 That still survive the bitter winter blast, 
 A shrinking band, they stand disconsolate, 
 Wan and dishevelled, old before their time ] 
 A broken remnant whose storm-blacken'd limbs 
 Lean cowering 'neath the Ocean's briny scourge ; 
 Pathetic forms bowed down by grief and woe 
 They stand in mute resentment of their lot, 
 Bending their heads reproachfully to earth ; 
 A suffering people overlaid with care 
 Whose souls lie crushed beneath the tyrant's heel. 
 Silent they dream like brooding souls that wait 
 In drear expectancy within the tomb 
 The Resurrection and the Life to come. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Land-lock'd, isle-guarded, harbour'd 'gainst fierce storms, 
 Yet swept by every homeward-hurrying gale 
 That flies for shelter shrieking to the land. 
 
The Old Town and the New i8i 
 
 Rain-drench'd and sad, the haunt of cold sea-fogs 
 That rake the gray sea 'neath a ghastly moon. 
 The granary of the ocean, hither come. 
 Drawn by the fierce steeds of the western gales, 
 The cloud-wains from the barren fields of foam 
 Heavy with harvest of the salt sea-plains 
 Upreap'd in silence in the sunless hours. 
 In fields wherein can no man reap or sow. 
 
 V. 
 
 Westwards and towards the summer-setting sun 
 
 Drawn like a rampart 'gainst the flashing sky. 
 
 An island lies upon whose topmost peaks 
 
 Day's watchman hastes to light the fires of Dawn. 
 
 A pale sea-vision lovely as a dream, 
 
 Born of the lonely amaranthine seas, 
 
 Like Aphrodite risen from the deep. 
 
 There while the drowsy hours go hand in hand. 
 
 An eloquent silence lies upon the hills. 
 
 There golden glamours of the summer noon 
 
 Break thro' the purple passion of the dawn. 
 
 A poem writ by the Almighty's hand. 
 
 Changing in beauty with the changing year. 
 
 In winter days apparell'd like a bride, 
 
 A great white wonder gleaming marble-fair, 
 
1 82 The Old Town and the New 
 
 When winds are frozen to a silent sleep, 
 And all the world lies in a whiten'd dream : 
 But when the Summer stands upon the hills 
 And round her flock the children of the sun, 
 Then all the dryads of the leafy woods 
 Hang out their incense-banners on the wind. 
 And on the laughing slopes a-tiptoe stands 
 A gleaming host in purple and in gold, 
 In bright procession gloriously gay 
 Ringing its silent bells upon the breeze, 
 Sweet thurifers in God's cathedral church 
 That swing their silent censers on the air. 
 
 Oh, silent stretches of sun-lighted hills ! 
 What wonders have I seen upon your face — 
 Blue shadow-avalanches on the slopes : 
 Red sunset-fires in corrie and in glen : 
 The shifting glories of the moorland waste : 
 White-milky mists that melt across the strath : 
 The wailing sheep that drift upon the heights 
 And curdle in the hollows of the grass : 
 The piercing curlews crying on the moor, 
 The hermit heron pond'ring in the pool, 
 Wrapping his wings about him like a cloak : 
 The heavy bee droning his drowsy joy, 
 
The Old Town and the New 183 
 
 Drunk with the gather'd gladness of the flow'rs : 
 The lone star lingering by the dark'ning ridge 
 To light the shepherd home. The silent stag 
 List'ning the watch dog's clamour far away : — 
 Oh, nameless wonders of a sunburnt isle, 
 Ye sadden me with thoughts of all ye are — 
 So near ye seem, and yet ye are so far. 
 
THE PERFECT WOMAN. 
 
 She shall be 
 As is a flower, so born in purity, 
 And in her virtues boundless as the air ; 
 Girt up with fear, fenc'd round with chastity, 
 Rounded in wisdom, perfect as a star. 
 Reverence shall wait upon her steps, and Love 
 Shall clothe her like a garment, on her brow 
 Shall Truth sit smiling like the watchful star 
 That hangs upon the forehead of the Eve. 
 
 A great simplicity shall mark her ways 
 And bind the linked actions of her time ; 
 Tears shall lie near the surface of her life ; 
 Infinite Pity, like a living spring 
 Shall bubble in the silence of her heart ; 
 Her soul shall hunger with an awful wish, 
 And all the pulses of her being yearn 
 To mitigate the sorrows of her kind. 
 
The Perfect Woman 185 
 
 Calm-eyed and patient, never speaking ill, 
 And slow to speak wherein she cannot praise ; 
 Faith, never dim, shall guide her feet, and Hope 
 Shall brood upon her being like a dove ; 
 And over all, like benediction's calm. 
 Shall all her paths be lit by Charity ; 
 Faith, Hope, and Charity, these three, yet so 
 As Charity is greatest, so shall she 
 Be known by Charity. 
 
A SHELL. 
 
 This fragile shell, whose convoluted form 
 
 Is fashion'd with such strangely curious art, 
 
 Hath known the secrets of the treasure-house 
 
 Whose hollow was the cradle of its birth. 
 
 Its ear hath caught the tuneless harmonies 
 
 That wait upon the moving of the seas ; 
 
 And even now, in sullen ecstasy, 
 
 Like to a prison'd spirit in its dreams, 
 
 It doth repeat its mystic homily. 
 
 In language of an undiscover'd speech, 
 
 As mutter'd music, inarticulate song. 
 
 'Tis but a sea-grown flower, an ocean-weed, 
 
 A tiny revelation of the deep. 
 
 An ear pluck'd from the harvest of the sea, 
 
 A little thing we tread beneath our feet 
 
 Upon the storm-strewn shore, yet, in its way, 
 
 An echo of the Universal Heart 
 
A Shell 187 
 
 Whose breathings are the pulses of our lives ; 
 
 A feeble voice sighing in harmony 
 
 With the deep concert of the winds and waves ; 
 
 Breathing low witness to the same great mystery 
 
 Whereof we are a part, and bearing still 
 
 The stamp of an Intelligence as divine 
 
 As that whereof we are the deeper mark. 
 
NAPOLEON FALLEN. 
 
 Thou had'st it all — Emperor, and Prince, and King ! 
 
 All things that minister to our ill were thine. 
 
 As conquests, triumphs, and the sounding wars 
 
 That bark, loud-mouth'd, about the feet of kings. 
 
 How art thou shrunk that did'st so greatly soar ! 
 
 Once the vast universe did scarce suffice 
 
 To bound the rapture of thy swelling thought ; 
 
 Now art thou fain of cold-eyed Charity 
 
 To beg a little rood of alien ground : 
 
 Now, for a sceptre, doth thy feeble hand 
 
 Grasp at the lowly emblem of the cross : 
 
 For kingly robe thou hast the spotless shroud 
 
 Wherein, at last, the slave doth take his rest : 
 
 For martial sound thou hast the sighing wind ; 
 
 For crown a fillet, for a throne the grave. 
 
 All things do mock thee in thy misery. 
 
 And with inverted meaning bear thee down. 
 
 Turning to laughter all thy pitiful state : 
 
 For none hath soar'd so high — nor fall'n so low. 
 
DEAD SORROWS. 
 
 The dead are with us everywhere 
 By land, and shore, and sea ; 
 
 And all the voices of the air 
 Are full of Death's decree. 
 
 And in our lives lie countless graves 
 Of dead griefs, cold and pale, 
 
 O'er whose sad sleep the lone heart raves 
 With low and dreary wail. 
 
 There, in our inmost hearts, they lie 
 Beneath the snows of years, 
 
 In silence gather'd sadly by, 
 And water'd with our tears. 
 
I go Dead Sorrows 
 
 As they that, in the churchyard old, 
 Lie cover'd o'er with white, 
 
 Within the winter's bitter cold, 
 In an eternal night : 
 
 Each folded in his narrow bed, 
 
 For ever laid below. 
 In dreamless sleep — and overhead 
 
 The footprints in the snow. 
 
A FAREWELL. ' 
 
 Farewell ! — for the hour is arisen, 
 
 The hour that we fear'd ; 
 And the gleam that illumin'd our prison 
 
 Has all disappeared : 
 It has vanish'd from roof-tree and ceiling, 
 
 It has died on the wall, 
 And the gloom of a desolate feeling 
 
 Is over us all. 
 
 Like the star that the Dawn brings in gladness 
 
 Thou did'st rise on our day ; 
 Like the star that the Eve wears in sadness 
 
 Thou dost vanish away ; 
 We are shipwreck'd in darkness and sorrow 
 
 On a desolate shore, 
 And the dread of the darker to morrow 
 
 Is worse than before. 
 
192 A Farewell 
 
 Farewell ! thou hast sweeten'd our labour, 
 
 Thou hast lighten'd our load, 
 And the joy thou did'st bring as a neighbour 
 
 Hath shortened the road ; 
 Thou hast led to our sorrowful dwelling 
 
 Sweet sunshine and light, 
 To our day songs of happiness telling, 
 
 And stars to our night. 
 
 Still in thought we will follow thy going 
 
 Through long weary years, 
 As we now mark thy form fainter growing 
 
 Through eyes dim with tears ; 
 Like the gleam of a dying emotion 
 
 Far over the land ; — 
 Now the day-star hath sunk in the ocean, 
 
 And the Night is at hand. 
 
BY THE SEA. 
 
 Tell me, O Sea, the secret 
 Thou hidest in thy breast, 
 
 With whose o'ermastering passion 
 Thy slumbers are opprest. 
 
 Thou hast the sound of sorrow, 
 And the music of despair. 
 
 And unto thee is given 
 Communion with the air. 
 
 Thine are the priceless treasures 
 That crowd the gleaming floor, 
 
 And thine the key of wonder 
 That keeps the sacred door. 
 
194 By the Sea 
 
 Thou only know'st the sorrow 
 Of bleeding hearts that roam, 
 
 Seeking, amid thy vastness, 
 
 To bring their dead ones home. 
 
 Only a little season 
 
 And they shall be set free ; 
 
 O mourning hearts be comforted — 
 ' There shall be no more sea.' 
 
DEPART, O SUN ! 
 
 Depart, O Sun ! that with a rushing flood 
 
 Of glory dost ensanguine all the hills. 
 I see the happy waters glow like blood, 
 
 And wonder at the awful gleam that fills 
 The earth with splendour, yet, yet still I say, 
 Sink down ! far o'er the waters of the bay. 
 
 Behind the gorgeous curtains of the West, 
 For I am weary of the lagging day, 
 
 Am sad, and fain would lay me down to rest. 
 Shine out, ye stars ! tho' that the light ye lent 
 
 No more on earth shall seem as once to me — 
 A star is fallen from the firmament, 
 
 A glory faded from the land and sea. 
 
 J 3- 
 
A DYING DAY. 
 
 Blood-red as a fiery meteor sank the sun of evening 
 
 down, 
 Slowly settling to its ending, o'er the little German town. 
 
 Slowly as with ling'ring footsteps towards the distant 
 
 ridge it pass'd. 
 Ere it fell, a backward look athwart the little town it 
 
 cast. 
 
 Lo ! the village glow'd before it flushing red beneath its 
 
 rays; 
 Blushing, joyous as a maiden when she meets her lover's 
 
 gaze. 
 
A Dying Day 197 
 
 Like enchantment was the flood that hover'd like a waking 
 
 dream ; 
 Every feature chang'd and glowing in the glory of its 
 
 gleam. 
 
 Every roof a crimson banner floated on the air afar ; 
 Every vane was lambent lightning playing round about a 
 star. 
 
 Every tree was dipp'd in purple, every window flam'd 
 
 with gold ; 
 Every stream was molten fire, seething in a burning 
 
 mould. 
 
 Slowly from the silent landscape ebbed the flashing sea 
 
 of light. 
 Like a gorgeous veil of splendour slowly furled from the 
 
 sight. 
 
 Slowly, as tho' all unwilling, closed the fiery eye of 
 
 day; 
 And the scene, like Cinderella, reassumed its sober 
 
 gray. 
 
198 A Dying Day 
 
 Silent, happy, lay the town as rapt in adoration still ; 
 Slowly sinking to its slumbers 'neath the shadow of the 
 hilL 
 
 Till the light began to pale and glimmer in the crystal 
 
 West ; 
 And the village, like a toiler 'leased from labour, sank to 
 
 rest. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Elliot Stocky 62, Paternoster Row, Loudon, E.C. 
 
SY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 ON HEATHER HILLS. 
 
 A Novel. In 2 vols. 
 (ALEX. GARDNER, 26, Paternoster Square.) 
 
 ' As a story it is wearisome in the extreme, padded out with all sorts 
 of extraneous matter, without cohesion, and for the most part written in 
 atrociously inflated language. The plot is that of a third-rate melo- 
 drama.' — Glasgow Daily MaiL 
 
 ' If the anonymous novel " On Heather Hills " be, as we are inclined 
 to surmise, the work of a 'prentice hand, the ranks of capable English 
 writers are to be congratulated on the acquisition of a valuable recruit. 
 The book remains, from its spirited opening to its pathetic — we had 
 almost said tragic — close, a welcome exception to the ordinary run of 
 contemporary fiction.' — Saturday Review. 
 
 ' It must be allowed that strength — strength of feeling, of style, of 
 everything, is the note of "On Heather Hills." There is no doubt 
 whatever as to the reality of the author's powers, or as to the moral 
 certainty that he will yet do something notable in fiction.' — Academy. 
 
 'The first book, "On the Moors," is told with a skill which renders 
 it as exciting as if the scene were laid in a desert island. Another book 
 has a very amusing account of the experiences of a whimsical, innocently- 
 puckish Australian girl who, in a laughter-loving yet friendly spirit, 
 studies manners and customs in various primitive Scotch places. The 
 author is unmistakably clever enough to ensure a welcome for the next 
 work from his pen.' — Spectator. 
 
 ' The plot is wholly new, and that at a time when all plots are said by 
 experts to have been used up long ago. "On Heather Hills " is, 
 in fact, one of those rare phenomena, a thoroughly fresh and vividly- 
 interesting story, and as such deserves a cordial welcome.' — Daily "Jele- 
 graph. 
 
 ' A novel of very rare merit. The volumes extend altogether to about 
 eight hundred pages, yet the readers will be few indeed who will take 
 exception to the length of the story. The work is so striking and 
 original, the descriptive powers of the writer of so high an order, and 
 the interest so strong and so admirably sustained, that this anonymous 
 novel is bound to be a success.' — Newcastle Chronicle. 
 
 ' " On Heather Hills " is a work of art. The strong interest of the 
 very unhackneyed first book is really a situation, so far as we know, 
 new in literature. ... A man who could act as Malcolm Strong did is 
 one man in a million : he outdoes Enoch Arden in the " strong heroic " 
 part he plays. The working out of such a character is thoroughly con- 
 sistent as it is delicate and strong. An able book, of great power, and 
 of marked originality.' — Birmingham Post, 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 Some Press Notices of 
 
 A FAMILY OF QUALITY 
 
 In I vol., 6s. 
 
 ' All the unconventionality which stamped " On Heather Hills " comes 
 out again in the new novel with which its anonymous author challenges 
 criticism. The fortunes of the Egertons are told in a manner ihat is 
 breezy, invigorating, and never for a moment dull. Clarence Egerton, 
 with his uncompromising logic and simple outlook, is a delightful 
 creation.' — Daily Graphic. 
 
 ' This story has given us most excellent entertainment. The author 
 has triumphantly succeeded in drawing a type of character which has 
 baffled the best-meant efforts of many a tirst-rate novelist. The book is a 
 long way above the average.' — London Daily Chronicle. 
 
 * There is a hero in this book to make a friend of. Clarence Egerton 
 must win every reader's heart and would make the fortune of a much 
 worse novel than this one. For the sake of Clarence Egerton and his 
 serious and amusing doings we shall gratefully remember "A Family of 
 Quality," and look with some eagerness for further readings in humanity 
 from this sympathetic writer. ' — Bookman. 
 
 *The portraits of the hero and heroine are drawn in such a masterly 
 way, and with so keen an insight into the play of motive and counter- 
 motive. We venture to think that the writer has not yet produced his 
 best work. When it does come it will be good indeed. Meanwhile, so 
 full of promise is " A Family of Quality " that we will eagerly expect 
 the succeeding story from the same pen.' — Liberal. 
 
 'The author has great originality and power of description. The 
 story is throughout harmonious and consistent, and, if we mistake not, 
 will be widely read and enjoyed.' — Ahe>deen Free Press. 
 
 ' Seems to be the production of a very young and inexperienced writer. 
 There are some signs of intelligence and readable passages, but these 
 are outweighted by the crudity of its characterization and ideas of life.' 
 — Glasgow Daily Mail. 
 
 'We heartily hope that a goodly number of readers will plead its 
 cause in every possible direction, for it deserves this friendly service. A 
 piece of advice to every reader of this notice : If you can, buy this book 
 for yourself, taking care to lend with discretion. \\ you cannot afford 
 to purchase a copy, ask for (and see that you get it) "A Family of 
 Quality " at the circulating libraries.' — Literary World. 
 
 HUTCHINSON & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW.