THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ON THE FACE OF A STAR BY THE SAME AUTHOR A SON OF CAIN Cr. 8vo. 3/6 net. IN THE WAKE OF THE PHCENIX F'cap. 8vo. 3/6 net. IOLAUS F'cap. 8vo. 1/6 net. ON THE FACE OF A STAR BY JAMES A. MACKERETH Author of " A Son of Cain," " In the Wake of the Phoenix,' "lolaus," etc. LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA 1913 PR M NOTE I cordially thank the Editors of the " Academy " the " Saturday Review" the " Westminster Review," the " Yorkshire Post" and the " Vor^- shire Observer ," for permission to incorporate in this volume poems which have appeared in their columns. J.A.M. Stocka House, Cottingley, via Bingley. 917981 CONTENTS Page To a Blackbird on New Year's Day . . . . 9 The Exile .. 12 Storm 17 Dandelions I., II. . . . . . . . . 28 Accused . , .. .. .. .. .. 31 A Truth Seeker 43 God Returns . . . . . . . . . . 50 Arcadians . . . . . . . . . . 53 The Death of the Bird 56 A Skylark of Spring . . . . . . . . 65 The Empyreans . . . . . . . . 70 A Hero's Last Thoughts . . . . . . 76 To a Seagull I., II 79 Dead 82 The Pariah 84 Pan 91 Garden Song 93 Once in Babylon . . . . . . . . 97 Art in Hell 101 Soul 106 Gods 108 Hymn to Life . . . . . . . . . . 109 Carpe Diem 114 TO A BLACKBIRD ON NEW YEAR'S DAY HAIL, truant with song-troubled breast, Thou welcome and bewildering guest ! Blithe troubadour, whose laughing note Brings spring into a poet's throat, Flute, feathered joy ! thy painted bill Foretells the daffodil. Enchanter, 'gainst the evening star Singing to worlds where dreamers are, That makes upon the leafless bough A solitary vernal vow, Sing, lyric soul ! within thy song The love that lures the rose along ! 9 To a Blackbird The snowdrop, hearing, in the dell Doth tremble for its virgin bell ; The crocus feels within its frame The magic of its folded flame ; And many a listening rapture lies And pushes toward its paradise. Young love again on golden gales Scents hawthorn blown down happy dales ; The phantom cuckoo calls forlorn From limits of the haunted morn ; Sing, elfin heart ! thy notes to me Are bells that ring in Faery ! Again the world is young, is young, And silence takes a silver tongue ; The echoes catch the jocund mood Of laughing children in the wood ; Blithe April trips in winter's way, And nature, wondering, dreams of May. 10 To a Blackbird Sing on, thou dusky fount of light ! God love thee for a merry sprite ! Sing on ! for though the sun be coy, I sense with thee a budding joy, And all my heart with ranging rhyme Is poet for the prime ! ii THE EXILE PEGGY Roolan, it is far that I've been roaming Since we took the twisting path among the fern, Or paddled in the water at the gloaming In our own wee burn. Ah, your tiny toes were fair as meadow daisies, And your eyes were like the winsome stars of God; It was heaven that love entangled in her mazes At the bliss of your nod. It is lonely I have lived here in the wild-land With a fancy that was feather- winged for you ; And it's often I have sought ye in the child-land 'Mong the dusk and the dew. 12 The Exile Is the moon as fair as once in the dim water At twilight on the shore of Lough Maree ? Do you mind yet of your troth, Mike Roolan's daughter, To the lover of ye ? Child, your face was like a joy that's high in heaven, And your laugh was like the precious praise of morn, And your presence oh, 'twas summer at still even When the gleam's on the corn. I have loved ye with the deathless love of wonder From the other side of time as angels do ; My soul's lived, 'yond the seas that tore asunder, In the shadow of you. It's sad in the wide wilds where no one heeds us So small that God forgets us when we pray ; 13 The Exile It's solemn sad to think that no one needs us When the home-thoughts stray. Peggy Roolan, in the loneness I am sitting : I can see your little cabin in its place ; And I peer, and spy your fingers busy knitting, But a mist's in your face. Ye count maybe the lone, long years unsating, And gaze back up the roads of No-return, And kiss with ghostly lips where we went mating By our own wee burn. Long our shanty waits ye, Peggy, in the wild-land ; And our roses glad no other eyes than mine, Spirit-lover in the old and happy child-land Where the home-lights shine. Oh ! the tears are at my heart and aching sorrow For the joys that in the years can never be ; The Exile Not in time will ever break a bridal morrow For you, love, nor me. It's dreaming that I am, Mike Roolan's daughter, Of days that dipped in shadow long ago ; And my thought's like wind that wails down dreary water Where dead leaves blow. Peggy Roolan, when the pines of summer darken, And the wind sobs over moonlit Lough Maree, Listen lone : a broken spirit ye may barken Calling to ye. When lanes are loud and rocking woods are straining, And winter wails along the reedy shore, Tis I that for your heart will wait complaining In the night at your door. 15 The Exile The little winds will whisper to your sleeping The thoughts that wish ye kindness in my breast ; And it's I that will be weeping at your weeping In the rains from the west. Oh, I'll reach a tender hand into the gloaming, And I'll touch ye o'er the breadth of all the sea, Peggy Roolan, till the living love comes homing And the memory of me. Ah, not till all the lonely years are over Shall my loneliness be parted from your face, Till I lay me 'neath the moonlight and the clover In a lorn green place. Beside the burn we pledged life's fond Forever ; And our love is all a cry of Nevermore : Ah, what the heart hath lost the years can never Return, asthore. 16 STORM I STOOD upon the pier far out : the place Had witchery for me. The long breathing roll Of the grim water, frothing in the dark, Seemed like the wrath of this unstable world Murmuring at fate. Along the shore the lights Flashed like a glittering ribbon, and the gloom Wavered above it like a rosy steam. Across the rushing water now and then Came sudden flaps of music in the wind, Or cracks of crowded laughter that the night Snatched and convulsed, and, mocking, whirled away. There in the salty loneness, 'mid the roar, Storm Two voices from the gloom came blown to me : One piped and whimpered in the wind, and one, Baffled at times, but beaten rarely, flung Its iron tones full in the tempest's jaws And challenged hearing. At stern intervals, Heard in the syncopations of the storm, A tortured spirit laboured in the dark ; His words, like waves with wrath made vehement, Rushed at the heart, and in th' expunging night Eddied a moment, and were wildly gone. Came, like a memory of delirious loss : " I loved her with a love impossible, And from her beauty and her gentleness Hoped but for faint remembrance and a smile. God, how I loved her ! and they murdered her. . ." Then harsh and keen, like sadness turned to sour : " Your calculating creature, wary- wise, Nibbles delight, and nudges Lucifer, 18 Storm And keeps on nodding terms with the hierarchy. She loved, gave all and perished was on earth A very pariah made cast upon stones Blistered with shameless pity ! (May sin wither Her traitor's mouth !) 'Ere half a year was by, Oppressed with all the burthening righteous- ness Of lives whose lusts were safely registered, She flung herself, soul-hungry, to the deep Here from this spot. They wept to bury her ! Ha-ha ! . . . I laughed, my all was gone from me." Rushed the mad chorus of a comic song. Swift buxom laughter diving down the pier Was swirled away. The night was loud alone. 19 Storm From that sick plaint the winds had gathered grief, And sadder seemed the lone sobs of the sea. Again he challenged the o'erwhelming gale ; And in a spray-swept interval I heard : " There is a grandeur in august extremes. Heaven's gleaming hosts, hell's flaming legionaries, But differ in their means. Ah, best and worst Are very near to kissing, 'tis between That souls find ease for dying. We are all Dreamers and drifters with nor loves nor hates, Faint dilettanti sniffing right and wrong With courage to choose neither. By the soul ! 'Twere better sin the sin and dare the doom With proud, sad angels move among the damned, Immortal though o'erthrown, than draw mean breath 20 Storm And, without passion, perish utterly ! Live! Life's the password, and the goal is life ! Our hearts are dying dying ! " Dolefully Night seemed to trail the wailing word ; the tide Seethed under hissing, dying ; and the wind Wept down the water, and the drear refrain, Mixed with the shingle-cries upon the shore, Seemed a lost, throeful, throbbing human heart Breaking against the barriers of the world. Haunting the tempest, battling like bruised birds, Rose words from that sad anger : " Love is life, Hate life, intensity the sum of life. Love! laugh! hate! live! no compromise then die Nobly like one with soul to save. She lived ! 21 Storm And bravely, proudly desolate, she died. I know her spirit laughed when she was dead Though this world's laughter killed her. She loved much, And dared give all to prove it. Such sweet fools Leaven the world, their sins are generous. (Let chastity avert her frozen face And live in virtue damned !) Her faith shall judge her. Your prude had doubted more, and yielded less, She had waited well and weighed the settle- ment ! " The gale crushed back the satire in his throat ; But stinging the salty gusts came passionately : " The angels and the devils act alone ; A mean life stays at thinking. God of power ! The myriad thinkers ! and the lonely deeds ! 22 Storm O the sick days ! when words on trifling tongues Pervert pure acts and stagger honesty ; Days when mean silence with a moral smirk Approves the world's appraisement or its blame : Insidious sins may poison half the race, Fair lust may leer, and whisper to the blood, And life suck cancer from lascivious eyes In the full stare of time, yea vice lie easy And wanton, smiling, so a hush attend Conspiracy : and yet a selfless act, Wrought in a dream and in a mist of love, That lifts its guileless candour to the sun, Will horn the baying hounds of scandal up, And chase a life to hell as it did hers ! . . She was so mild, and time so merciless To her not maiden more. What of the man ? The smiling ogre with the angel lips, 23 Storm Plotting his hour, and piteous for his prey ? He sighs and coos at some loved sister's ears Where arbour roses trail across the moon ! " Faintly, like padded footsteps in loud night Haunting a quarry, weirdly audible, Came in the salty reel of wind and wave : " Oft in my dreams hath vengeance worked in me, And I have done strange deeds, and seen in gloom The deathly whiteness of a liar's face Smeared like his soul, and hands of mine all red." The stressful clamour of the cumulant storm Responded with a riotous dissonance. A bitter laugh, as from one mad with pain, 24 Storm Who bursts from brooding lest his heart should break, Stung my sad ear. Through driven spume I saw Two darksome shadows pass across the stars And down the pier beat shoreward. Vehemently Through smothering tumult came a buffeted cry : " Oh ! 'tis my faith the power that strives for light, The nameless that men name, the force that wins, Doth welcome more a dire though doomed excess Than chilly prayers and fearful temperance." Then, as though half the winds grew hushed to hear, And the sea thought and listened, faint I heard : " Judge her most gently : she was human- fair." The glimmering world closed round them, loud with war. 25 Storm I was alone upon the creaking pier. A wave roared under, and with thunder-shock Plunged 'gainst the shivering girders ; spurned afar The streaming silver of its crashing cry Sang down the writhing darkness ; and the wind Whistled along the bounding, boiling sea. I rose and pressed the angry memories by, The sad and blind confusion of the years. I touched the infinite tides that bear us forth Beyond these limned horizons that we know. I felt the thrill of throes diviner far, And deathless exultations, spurning tears. The ringing world was round me like a joy. The crowded night was wildly wonderful. Northward, a blinding imminence of flame, A searchlight flared across the weltering bay, And moved a wide arm down the mounded sea. Far southward on the coast the little towns, Flushing the wavering fringes of the gloom, 26 Storm Revealed their breathing places to the eye ; And from the outer, flecked with flying foam, Uprose with round immense the smouldering moon. 27 DANDELIONS I. A LARK was lusty in the sky, A cuckoo called its elfin name, As through the glittering noon we came To pause with wonder-dazzled eye Before the dandelion flame. It flashed a glory to the sight, An overflow of earth's delight ; And like a river seemed to run Out of the mountains of the sun, And fade in beauty far away Into the sapphire deeps of day. And, gazing on the golden gleam, Man's temporal dwelling-place did seem 28 Dandelions A figment out of faery brought, All fashioned of a sunset-thought, And subtle as a dream. II. (A WEEK LATER) From shadow-land a corncrake's cry Raked the large stillness, sweet with dew ; A bat before us fluttering flew Into the gloom ; and, hovering nigh, The ghost-moths to the dim sight grew. Then richly upward rode the moon From out a cloudy dark lagoon, And fringed each faint fantastic coast With silver radiance. Witching-fair, Where late had flamed the floral host, 29 Dandelions Translucent and ethereal there, The meads athwart the midnight air Showed like a shimmering ghost. Earth, in a web of magic caught, Seemed insubstantial as a thought. In mantling sheen and silver shoon We shone all elfin to the moon, Yea fancy's children seemed to be, Fays in the fields of Faery. Illusive came the night-birds' cry From 'yond the spectral deodars ; And eerily a breath went by, Over the ghosts of flowers went by. The lucent meads like mists did lie Adrift among the stars. 30 ACCUSED AN UNKNOWN TRAGEDY r T"'HE dingy streets, row after dismal row, A Led on to darker alleys, and inward still To courts, unwashed of cleansing breezes, where On the slow-wandering favourable days A smirched blue stares with languorous irony. Unmerry children dabbled in the mire, Or, laughless, brawled, keen-eyed, in loveless joy. The women scolded, or with strident cries Greeted each other with hard, callous mouths That laughed but never smiled ; and with dead eyes And crumpled faces under troubled brows Mute men, long sick with soilure, drowsed, or stared Accused At vacancy with dull indifference. Heard in the mind at restless intervals The city's breath was like the drone of flies. With devious steps through dense, malodorous ways I plodded with a trailing heart ; and darker Loomed the grim walls against a lowering sky Whence, poised in times of old, and ruinous, Mean garrets, beetling, grudged the streak of day. Yet narrower grew the tortuous ways like throats Into the nauseous gloom of gulfs obscene, Thick with the horror of the Thing unnamed, Till all about that piled distortion seemed To quicken with a monstrous soul, and press Upon me treacherous and sinister ; And here and there a window, stricken with light, Peered out of darkness like an eye malign. Passing, sin-like, amid unquestioning sorrows, That ne'er had known the summer of the world, With random steps and naked, boding soul, 32 Accused I sadly came to one abysmal street Stiller than others, and more dread being still, Where dungeoned hearts in destitution learn Oblivion, woe's mad mercy, where the dream That visits day with beauty dies away. Dead griefs of old that hid and harboured there, Mourned in the place grim, ghetto-like, long given To grey regret and troubles that stale tears. Oh, there fate, like a serpent folding time, Crushes the hope in every captive life, Or in lethargic slumber waits with bale To mangle all the melancholy years ! There in night-hours pass never the high stars Of heaven, the cowering gloom is pestilent, And a low moon, as if through jungles staring, Burns like a couchant tiger in the sky. The rain was falling, and a prisoned wind Mourned in the mournful alleys. Suddenly A barrel-organ trundled to the kerb, 33 Accused And jerked in air a jangling waltz-tune rang Like lewdness laughing in a deathly place ; And feigning gladness, where no gladness is, Weird echoes fluttered in a danse -macabre, And from a hundred doors, like griefs from graves, Tier above tier in misty misery, The pallid, hovering faces blankly peered. Mild women from their customed squalor turned And stood akimbo, or impassively Gazed in the mire ; from many murmuring courts The unkempt urchins, wildly whooping, came With wolfish yells and famishing hearts, and whirled Their supple limbs betattered. Suddenly, As when a demon rout down slumber flies, The echoes, like a rabble in the air, In distant areas mumbling, died away. Through the grey rain the organ rumbled on ; Back to the dark heart sank the dreary dream ; The bare feet pattered home ; instinctively 34 Accused The weary faces faded from the doors Like ghosts into their tombs. One, only one, Gazed on, and moved not, absent as the dead, Nor heard the biting rain upon the stones, Nor heard the bitter wind upon the walls ; The raindrops were her tears, by life congealed, The wind was a low wailing in a heart Torn from the mercy of forgetfulness. In those deep eyes the Eternal, glimmering still, Questioned the doom that mocked it ; in that look The bourn of all remembrance. Mute she sat, Oh, terrible that muteness ! 'twas like death, But dreadful as slow dying. Lingeringly, In mournful wonder, like a, consecration, A little child gave that dumb Pain its grief, Nor understood ; the small, sad ringers played At languid wrist and throat ; the tiny cheek Pressed loving 'gainst the hand that heeded not : The piteous marvel of that upturned face Would have set the Christ in cold and cruel eyes 35 Accused And melted nature ; that lorn Shape stirred not, But in a dire aloofness followed far Some angel to the cloudy bounds of bane. The pretty nestling, mute with lonely tears, Its love disowned, its heart all desolate, Strained motherward, nor saw the gulf between Wherein the dragon and the quenchless fires, Saw but a face in all the world, and yearned ; And, with some perilous anguish in her eyes, Far off, the mother knew not her own child ; The rain beat on them, she had pledged all tears; The wind was bitter, she had plumbed all pain. About her soul some awful darkness curled, And blasting tempests in some ruined world Drave on with all things to the respite death ; And all availed not 'neath the pitiless stars. Cold as grief-tortured marble, stirring tears But tearless in its chill eternity, She gazed. Then with a sob the maiden's throat Broke silence, and the woman petrified 36 Accused Shook : like some drowner in his agony That hears the nightingale in some fair glen Mid mossy branches 'neath the quiet moon, And sinks, so looked she with the look of death, And started like a life that trips on God ; And in the doomful hour was cognizant Of love, of love that called with a far cry. Like some blanched spirit clambering, far from joy, Through desperate breaches of engulfing hell Staggers at last to twilight, so the woman, Emerging dimly with a groping mind, Shuddered, and with a dreadful indolence Felt at her bosom cling the sobbing child ; Then weirdly in the set and tragic face The soul-light glimmered, and she heard her heart Cry, cry to her a refugee surprised ; The vivid moments beat against her brain, She felt the burden and the ache of time, And love lay pleading in her infant's eyes. 37 Accused A spirit brought to bay, she roused, she stood In awful calm, the pallor of death, all mother, Strange with the mystery of maternity, Desperate with love, and dumbly dazed with doom. Then suddenly, as from some gruesome thing Feeling up darkness from a depth unknown, With look that was a pang in hell and heaven She snatched her darling to her haggard heart, Hungrily, hungrily, and, grim with helpless pain, With kisses fierce and terrible to see Crushed her, and, as if from vengeance speeding, With eyes that scorched, with eerie, wildering cry Fled inward from the world, a haunted creature, With love for bane and bliss, to hide from time Her sad, enduring soul .... Like one ashamed, Caught in the moment of his infamy, I fled 'mong shadows, fearfully arraigned, A spirit in the vortex of the years Drawn and confounded, dizzy from the glimpse 38 Accused Abysmal of life's lone mortality. The bland and comely comfort of my days Condemned me ; o'er the pleasance of my dreams The doom of Eden. Yea, a life flung forth, Beaten of Heaven, I fled : behind me speeding, The sudden lightning drave from riven skies, And God with thunder slammed the shuddering doors. There, with an echoing menace in the soul, I trod the iron way to banishment, To sterner worlds where, plunged in wide eclipse, Man dreamless strains against the stormier years. In the deep days that followed, when the heart Probed a great darkness, with sore, wandering feet I sought and sought a fierce accusing face, In awful beauty betwixt heaven and hell, Pressed in pale anguish 'gainst an infant's tears. Nor ever, fever-hearted, searching lone, An alien, that great city's pitiless maze, 39 Accused Found I that street or saw those martyrs more. . . My eyes, perceived ; the true, intuitive heart Felt ; and the spirit knew : and there is written Across my gazing conscience this : A life From everlasting unto everlasting cried, Cried from the death-clasp of the engulfing years, Soul unto soul, and there was none to hear 'Mong all the listeners of humanity Save one that like a paltroon turned afraid, That, damned with niceness, shuddered from a sight So drenched with pain . . . Knowing, I passed them by. And in this so complex and sensitive world Our acts are pregnant with eternity, Yea, and our thoughts range fateful 'mid the stars To crown us or to crush us late or soon. Man's awful moment is the world's for-ever, It widens blushing to the marge of time. 40 Accused Oh, who shall bid the ages to forget The heart's unkindness ? . . . Knowing, I passed by. I passed, and shall not pass them more for ever. When mute beside my hearth I brood alone In the late hours when the last embers die And life's long shadows darken in the mind, From all the unkind cities made of men Comes Sorrow and her child : and I have glimpse Of eyes that weep in secret evermore, Of hands 'mid desolation stretched in vain : Sad faces whiten in unwhitened ways, And souls 'mid darkness murdered make no cry. And in stark moments, peering down the world, I hear the plaint of earth's mortality Come wavering upward like a wind of sighs, See, 'neath the sunlit-citadels of time, Crouched in the sick gloom of her warren, woe With weary eyelids wait the loitering morn. And when the midnight's stillmost hour is down Accused And all the mighty orbs move hushed through heaven Four eyes look in from one proud city's core, A woman's and a child's, and burn my peace ; Four eyes they search with poignance my still soul, Yea, follow through my slumber sleeplessly, And I am haunted with a judgment, seared With a lost sorrow, and am branded driven Through silence by a look that scars like flame. A TRUTH-SEEKER art thou ' truth ? " wonder in the dust ! "Where art thou, where?" O glory in the cloud ! Lo, all our knowledge is a little rust Upon a shining sphere this star that loud Whirrs to the windy passing of the years. Unto our ears Speaks no authentic voice ; unto our eyes Leans the bland azure of the alien skies Wheretoward man pleads and dies. And we, remembering yet our haunted youth At innocent ease, The enchanted earth, life's first adoring sighs And gone felicities, 43 A Truth -Seeker Cry from our ravished Edens, "Where is truth? That lit our childhood through the silver trees, Natural as joy, that in our phantasies In blessed moments like a pure surprise Across time's straits and seas Shines still on faces pale in Paradise." We have gone far into the wilds apart, And there is none to point us to the way. The faery children of the natural heart Are like sick elves that stray Through disenchanted forests, lorn, afar from elfin day : Sad for the absence of the wizard sun, We are lost mid hours aswoon With soulless sounds and mists of darkness spun That veil the magic moon. Our joys are ev'n as songs by sadness sung In woods left dreary by the waning west ; Songs as of some sick lover tempest-swung, 44 A Truth-Seeker Half-eased 'mid all unrest. Some ghost of dead delight doth trick the tongue To mock the darkling breast. Calm happiness no more on golden gales At tranquil havens loiters quietly ; Pan pipes no more at dawn in haunted vales ; No elfin revelry Links the rich lapses of the nightingale's Antique felicity ; Sad fancy watches lorn for faery sails Toward some lost halcyon sea. Our anxious thoughts like spectres damned do roam A futile ocean over phantom foam, Nor find a during harbourage or home. Yet in night's vigils when the stars from sleep Call the blurred sense, and moiling day lies far A smouldering dream, a spirit from its deep Speaks to the hallowed stillness where we are, 45 A Truth -Seeker Speaks in the somnolent sighings of the wind To passive heart and mind, And, without striving, without any pain, Light breaks on life, and grief is grief in vain, And we are whole again, And all the winds of joy stream in amain, We feel the vastness of our being's scope, Unirked of bound and bar, High o'er this dwindled vale wherein men grope A God, a god doth sue each tip-toed hope From every intimate star ! The great companions greet us, and the night Enfolds our being like a caring thing, And sense is drenched with truth, and faith with light Till down the muted orient swims to sight Day, the white angel with the time-smirched wing. Man gains the heights his sovran nature dares, 46 A Truth -Seeker But heaven he softly enters, unawares, Dream-led, yea like a child that to his pleasure God leads and gives good measure. Our years are bankrupt with a vain expense : Doubting the Whither, we dispute the Whence : And all our records are as dead leaves driven Down moving waters where eternal heaven Broods blandly in mysterious indolence. Truth is God's secret spied by innocence. Not not in vain the flower seed in the sod Dreams toward its beauty and the winds of God ; Oh, not in vain doth soul, prophetic, press Through the death-misted doors toward perfect- ness. The darkest midnight, weary for the morn, The loneliest stream in deserts void of glee, Will touch at last its bright and burgeoning bourn, Will kiss at length its sea. Down vital silence, when our dead words go, Truth whispers and we know. 47 A Truth -Seeker Vain are the wanton pryings of the mind ; And vanities, and to all grief consigned, Vexed voices crying vaguely in the wind : "Whence art thou, whence, O wonder in the dust ? Whither, O wandering glory in the cloud ? " Ah, truth abideth with the gently just, And joy with simple hearts to visions vowed. Oh, as for me I will exalt my trust, And boast no more of knowledge with the proud, Nor cry aloud On time with scornful and imperious tears ; But listen humbly with love-tranced ears Thoughts that down silence drift, And chafe no more, but to the generous years Give up myself a gift, And take the windy will of this wise world Ev'n as a flower unfurled That the light wooeth, that the punctual dew Remembers ; and with ancient stars pursue The eternal cycle of the old and new ; 48 A Truth-Seeker And, glorying in time's large imaginings, Trust simply, with all brave and fleeting things, The mighty motion of th'unwearied wings ; Searching no longer what no man shall find Save through the crimson portals of the heart Close by the founts of feeling. We are blind, But where the soul is quickened, Truth, thou art. 49 GOD RETURNS DEAR God, before Thee many weep And bow the solemn knee ; But I who have Thy joy to keep Will sing and dance for Thee. Come lilt ye, lilt ye, lightsome birds, For ye are glad as I ; Come frisk, ye sunlit flocks and herds And cherubs of the sky. Sweet elfin mischief of the hill, We'll share a laugh together, Oh half the world is hoyden still, And waits for whistling weather ! 50 God Returns The God of age is staid and old, And asks a sober tongue ; But till the heart of youth is cold The God of youth is young ! Then kiss, blithe lass and happy lad ! The rainbow passes over, And love and life, the leal and glad, Must step with time the rover. Trip, buds and bells in spangled ways ! Leap, leaves in every tree ! Ye winds and waters, nights and days, Dance, dance for Deity ! On every hand is elfin-land, And faery gifts are falling ; Across the world, a twinkling band, The elves are calling calling ! God Returns In welcome smile the witching skies, And with a jocund train, With dancing joy-light in His eyes, God, God comes home again ! ARCADIANS SHEEW ! whistles the wind. Ha-ha! laugh we. Too-whoo ! calls the owl frae the barnyard tree. The log on the hearth is blazing bright : Let the wind on the heath have his way. The leaves whisk by in the whirling night, And the pinewood moans, and the moon's in sight Blood-red on the tip o' the brae. And mocking the moon's bewildered glee The owl Too-hoos frae the ivy-tree. O'er whizzing furze and whirring broom Hallooing by hill and vale, 53 Arcadians Through speeding gleam and plunging gloom, As though he sits i' the saddle o' doom, Crashes the galloping gale. And the wantoning woodlands roar and boom 'Mong echoing fells that wail. The hags o' the moss are abroad to-night, Let the wanderer mutter a prayer, They weirdly whirl i' the wild moonlight ; The live saints pity the lonesome wight That sees them eddying there : For his soul i' the wind when his bones be white Will wail for evermair ! The witch-lamp flits in the marshland dark ; And the west holds snow for sure. Hark ! high i 1 the storm is the Hell-dog's bark Frae the peat-bog lone in the moor ! It's far to-night the Hunter will ride With his phantom hounds on the mountain-side. 54 Arcadians Let the blustering North go by, go by ! The beasts are warm in the byre. The gay old moon up the gusty sky Goes giddily higher and higher. In the world to-night there's a great to-do, And two hearts snug by the ingle coo. Hark ! hark to the hounds on their raving rounds 'Twixt the plunging earth and the sky's mad bounds ! And the Hunter wailing, Halloo ! And the fiends Tallyhoo ! Tallyhoo ! And the moor and the pinewood too ! While we by the ingle coo. Sheew ! whistles the wind. Ha-ha ! laugh we. Too-wlioo ! calls the owl frae the barnyard tree. 55 THE DEATH OF THE BIRD A PLACE of sleep and dewy glimmerings, Of moon-bathed quiet mystical and deep. A smell of dreamy sweetness took the heart, As from some haunted evening rich with flowers. Distant a streamlet lost its musing tone Among its muffling cresses ; a frail breath Moved pensively, and stirred a sleeping rose. Intently listening a keen soul might hear What to coarse sense was all inaudible Faint touches of delightsome quietude, Scarce sounds, but rather to the poring heart, Lapses of peace wherein tranced fancy heard Petals that shook and knew not, full of sleep, And vexed with dreamings of the heavy bee. Less faintly, in mooned meadows misty and far - 56 The Death of the Bird So far the mind grew drowsed with travelling there, A landrail made a lost and lonely sound. Then hush again wherein you seemed to hear The rustle of the gossamer on grass, The dreaming cloudlet skim the sleeping sky. Thrilling the silvern quiet, suddenly, From shadows over moon-fringed hollyhocks, Came eerily along the drifting night The pain-sweet rapture of a desolate bird Steeped in the tears of all delights that die ; And, in the language of the common heart, It rang in the ghostly reaches of the moon : " Passionate love, passionate joy, passionate pain. O night and moon, happy, gentle stars, Shine shine shine shine ! ye know not death not death. Life is so sweet, and earth so wonderful With all its winsome voices wandering 57 The Death of the Bird Voices of streams, of winds in happy trees That call, and call for ever and for ever. Ah woods and fields ! Ah happy happy happy Green lanes for love, entangled all with praise And the good light sweet light sweet light sweet light ! Passionate love, passionate joy, passionate pain ! Here in the dew-shine toward the dawn I die Singing singing with a wildness of farewell! Ah life, and joy, and love sweet love sweet love Gone, gone, gone, gone ! " The poignant burthen failed upon the night. Deep-tangled in moon-drenched acacia trees The echoes died in lucent pools of peace. The thrilling trouble of that sobbing heart Made yet the shadows tingle. Here and there A chorister protested peevishly, 58 The Death of the Bird And heavy eyelids 'mong the hanging dew, Weighted with sleep, blinked, thankful for the moon. Again the leaning florets, slumber-sealed, Took up their dreams. The stillness trembled home. There in the quince-tree toward the crowded stars The lorn he-bird beside his empty nest Sat, with moist eyes, in pain. Beneath him spread The antique harbours of the peach and rose, Yew-guarded calm, and fragrance from of old. Brooding aloof in boughed tranquillity He ranged the brightness of departed hours ; He saw the lyric spring the mating time, When through the woods, achime with daffodils, He foraged with his love ; they shared again The dewy raptures of the scented morn, And took the winds of promise with swift wings, And with fond hearts, in thirsty happiness, Drank of the aureate rivers of the sun. 59 The Death of the Bird Gone sunsets flamed about him ; fell the calm Of ancient evenings, when the westering gleam Stole over serious waters, solemn woods, And twilight gathered on the watching hills, When on his twig against the evening star He sang his passionate hymeneal hymn. And later, when the May-blossom was blown And snowy whiteness strewed each teasing gale, When hyacinths ranged ablow, and every wood Embraced the azure of a happy heaven, Faint little chirpings that make sweetness sweeter He heard among the softly rippled leaves. The happy cares and watchings of the prime Thronged to his heart, the younglings' earliest steps, The flutterings vain of inexperienced wings, Their triumph soon, and gaily venturous flight Into strange worlds ; hours when his mate and he, Grown closer in a loneliness of love, Counted the joys of summer gone, and sat 60 The Death of the Bird Beside their nest together touched with time. Last, like a startling horror in still night, Came that meek death-cry of his little spouse, The parting poignance, the continual pain. The streamlet tinkled its faint bell of peace ; Unheard the garden's breathing ; far away The landrail's voice was silent in the corn. Patiently dying, the bird took up his strain, And human thought, responsive, sorrowing sang ; "Ah, joy, joy, joy ! my song is sweet no more No more. I can but sing of lives that die That die that go, nor come again for ever To twitter in the leaves among the stars, To cry at waking-time, ' Dawn, dawn, dawn, dawn ! Happy, happy, happy dawn, happy dawn I ' Shine, shine, moon, on soothing silence shine ! 61 The Death of the Bird O drifting night, O drifting night and stars, Now am I old, am old, and all my song Is dying in my throat, and all my young Have flown away away ; and she I loved Is in the heedless ground. Cherishing heart, Cherishing cherishing vainly ! Love ! love ! love ! Mild moon, white moon, soft bringer home of sleep, And dewy stillness, and the wanderer's voice, So lonely now thy little singing bird. . . Ah, night's delight delight. O paling stars / . . . Dawn, dawn that cometh, what of love of love ? Love love love love ! love and sweet song sweet song ? Forget not me your bird, your dying bird, O night and stars ! " He reeled he sobbed he saw 62 The Death of the Bird Far on the shadowy limits of the land The sun God's signal. Sentinel stood he, The death-pang at his heart, and in his eyes The gleam of day. Clear his reveil!6 rang : "Hail! hail! hail! hail great lord of joy ! Awake ! Singers, awake ! Dawn ! dawn ! dawn ! dawn ! He swooned. He fell. He sang in time no more. The sudden hush : then rustling wonderings. The stars were paling ; the tall cypress trees, Like dreamers watching on the edge of time, In muffling shade stood grave. A zephyr's step Grew audible ; the lily felt its dew And roused ; and soft sensation reddened the rose. The ghostly movements of the dwindling night Drew inward ; and a wistful wafture came Cool as the breathings of a homing tide. Swift down the listening ichors of the world Danced sweet anticipations whispering joy. 63 The Death of the Bird The young East quickened ; and a silver psalm Chimed in the hollow hills ; and suddenly In riotous tumult of tempestuous praise Rang voices through the garden ranging, crying : "Love love love love! sweet light sweet light sweet light ! Beautiful dawn ! beautiful ! beautiful ! Mignonne ! Mignonne ! Come and see it ! come and see it ! the dawn ! the dawn ! Joy ! joy ! joy ! joy ! Merry spirits ! merry spirits, See it ! see it ! see it I Dawn ! dawn ! dawn ! dawn ! " Far to the breathing pride of mounting day The earth flung welcome in a mist of song. 64 A SKYLARK OF SPRING HERE'S song's wanton, the lark, flings his challenge of joy to the morn, See, the sun-flames enfold him As he beats up the light like an angel elate in his scorn From the lure that would hold him ! A symbol is he of the pinioned and passionate power Of the world-soul's endeavour That is seen in the flight of a sun, in the flame of a flower Exulting for ever. 65 A Skylark of Spring God! would that we poets had souls as his splendidly brave, His delight in high plunder ! How he swings on his love-lusty lyric's own wonderful wave, All his cares trampled under ! See ! see how he soars like a seer toward the sun's lidless eye, Spills rich largess of rapture ! Lo, he mounts in the might of the mandate that bids him to fly, And spurns a mean capture. He is bent on a suii you may guess, though a star pulls him back ; His the soul of a ranger ; His song is a stuff that out-travels earth's low- riding rack, And the toils of time's danger. 66 A Skylark of Spring He hath heard a swift summons that leaps down the dream-dazzled sky That man's curbed heart can hear not ; He is thrilled with the throb of the world ; he is one with the cry Of the tempests that fear not. Climb on, O delight of my spirit ; the heights give thee " Hail ! " Regal rapture's defender : Thought-dazzled I gaze toward thee dim in this echoing vale, Soaring bird in the splendour ! O Life ! for a singer whose song is as sunlight serene, Undimmed of doubt's warning As thine, daring voyager, dancing o'er mist-realms terrene On the mounts of the morning ! 67 A Skylark of Spring Mid the bloom of the earth he should build him, contented, a nest, Set his warm love beside him ; But the waves of the world in the heights he should brave, he should breast, And great joy should betide him ; His face should be fair with the flush from the fulgence of truth, And his days should not darken ; And, wise with the music of time, with the wonder of youth He should sing and men hearken. God ! send us a poet with spirit as brave as thy bird Who can soar and not doubt thee, Winged and wise like the stars, that await on thy wonderful word, Wide wheeling about thee ! 68 A Skylark of Spring God ! make us as gay and soul-keen as thy confident lark That delights toward thee flying ; That, bold with thy praise, we may beat with our might to life's mark, And laugh with thee dying ! 69 THE EMPYREANS PIRATES! Pirates! Pirates of the sky ! Doughtily daring far we fly ! Touch we a moment the earth and then Speed through the infinite far from men. , . . Glimpsing the depths where the sea-winds blow And the circling tides pulse to and fro, Winged Empyreans, swift we flee ! The slow ships cling to the sinking sea An eagle swoops to the mountain-lawn Up the diving east sweeps the dawn The round earth, bulged in the paling noon, Falling, fades like a frosty moon. Gone like a flash is the solar day A spark in the vastness blown away ! 70 The Empyreans Peering deep from a sovran height, We catch the sparkle of day and night In the dusk of doom where suns to sight, Dancing dizzily, glint like dew In the quivering depths of the yawning blue. Pirates ! Pirates ! storming the sky, Swung in a whirlwind's lap we lie : 'Tis our faith that to sink is crime, We are the brave that have humbled time ! Sons are we of a princely pride, Lords of the forces of time and tide. Under us centuries volley past ; We are the kings that have come at last To rule the stars with a royal rod By the might that's flung from the pleasure of God ! We are the heirs of the world's desire ; Light with ether, and fierce with fire ; Taught to dare in the cosmic school The Empyreans That bows the feeble, and bans the fool. Sovran measures and soulful deeds Speed the crownings, doom the creeds : Up for ever while worlds are fair ! We are the sons of the souls of the air ! Pirates ! Pirates ! storming the sky, Strive, and triumph, and laugh, and sigh As the will of the world is ! a God knows why ! In the trough of time in their trivial hour Fleet lives snatch at the heels of power ; But we, that are born to vaster breath, Out-distance the eager wings of death. Pain we left like a trailing cloud Mid the clash of forces livid and loud In the dawn of time when the baffled years Wailed in the gulfs of the nether spheres. A story lives in the worlds behind, And haunts the dreams of the ultra-mind, 72 The Empyreans That far in the eons, faint and far, Our fathers in an entangled star Burst the prisoning belt of air, And ranged in the trackless ether rare, And built their citadels span by span In realms 'yond the dizziest dreams of man ; And grew through the ages grandly wise, And reigned like gods in the stormless skies, Till the man that was to a memory died, And the link was lost, for the world is wide : About them hovered a guardian flame : So mortals won the immortal name ; And, sued of the passionate human plea, Our sires grew gods to humanity ; Toward them, floating far and wide, Faint hymns of adoration died ; Rose incense, sweet with all desire, From many a sunset altar-fire. Yet ever at hand to wile did wait The ominous form of vulpine fate. 73 The Empyreans The eons came, and the eons sped, And the dreams were born, and the dreams were dead. Till the Pirates roving the ranging skies, Daring the quest that never dies, Hailed on horizons cloud impearled The wonder-gleam of a timeless world, And ran their keels on a roseate shore Where lives are mortal nevermore, And stood 'mid the hush and the mystery And sang the psalm of Eternity ! We are the heirs of the pioneers That sought the suns and out-sailed the years. Born in ravage, and rendered strong By the lusty deeds of the eons long, We plunder still by the right of war, The secret hoard of each shrinking star. Keen of soul we sweep along With the universal battle-song ! 74 The Empyreans Pirates ! Pirates ! storming the sky, We grasp the far, and we spurn the nigh : Winging now through the void sublime, Wafted now to a temporal clime, Ever we speed from coast to coast, With a volant will and a vandal boast, Till the world is turned to a wandering ghost ! Wheresoever the will may roam There is haven and there is home. Pirates ! Pirates ! Lords of the sky ! Strive, and triumph, and soar, and sigh As the way of the world is ! Soul knows why ! 75 A HERO'S LAST THOUGHTS IN this grim fastness of the great white death Comes the last frost, whose tense, blood- choking grip Ends all. My lungs are stiffening, and the heart Sinks cold against an icy barriered breast, Made sad by many voices. Death is lone, Lone at the best, but lonelier with the dead, Lost in these howling plateaus round the Pole Where nature like a white ghost pleads to heaven, Of time forgotten, 'neath the hungry stars . . . " No snivelling," chirped old Evans, dying hard, " Push for the base. Go ! " Far behind his shroud The blizzard weaves. And Oates, a haunting look 76 A Hero's Last Thoughts Deep in those calm unconquerable eyes, Grudging vain bread that might make travail lean, Whistled a stave, and with a hale, " So long ! " Strode forth to die the while the shrieking blast Shore through the bone. Then we with straitened wills, Aching with impotence, and weakening fast, Croaked, " Home, Sweet Home," with shuddering jowls and tongues Thick with the cold. 'Neath breaking weariness We would have wept, but, lacking ease for tears, We grimly laughed at life's incertitude. And these too stiffly frozen, heroes both That dealt the cards while death played "dummy" . . . Gone . . . Gone all. And I, a flouted starveling, fail Like a meek mouse in this majestic world ; Yet am unhumbled as a man that wins The crown of manhood . . . We have kept the faith ; 77 A Hero's Last Thoughts And have brought through the records : these shall speak. Though our's no " Hail ! " from loyal lives that wait, Though love's proud blush shall gladden no return, We have love's honour, and a far farewell. We pitted our true might against a star, And set our faces toward most bitter powers Unflinchingly ; and if at last we fail, Though near the goal, to bring her honour through, We know, who leave her service for the grave, Old England will remember that we tried, Our England, and those dear ones. . . . Let it pass. . . . " No snivelling "... Luck's against me ... It is cold. . . . TO A SEAGULL SIXTY MILES INLAND I. PROUD creature from the deep's resilient floors, What call compulsive of the inland spring Hath summoned thee to woodlands burgeoning Where brooding peace on nuptial passion pores ? Here coos the dove, and its lone lot adores In immemorial branches murmuring: Bride of the sea-wind with the foam-white wing, What quest is thine far from thy natal shores ? 79 To a Seagull Art thou a being venturous 'yond control, And like to man, thy brother, restless born ? Man, heir to vehemence, and scourged with scorn Of old contents who 'mid the years that roll Hears, with a perilous urgency of soul, The mandates of the multitudinous morn ? II. Bird of the hurtling wave and hovering sky, Wide voyaging o'er leafy lands and lone, What fury on what thunderous coast unknown Rings in thy sentience with a crowded cry ? Whence beetling headlands boom their weird reply To a wild ocean's mournful monotone Dost flee the clinging memory of the moan Of time in travail with the strifes that die ? 80 To a Seagull Like some high soul that rides the straining years On confident wing to dare the deathless quest Turns thence at last with weather-beaten breast To roam the still, dim sancturies of tears, Com'st thou, the echoing tempest in thy ears, Bird of the ruthless regions, without rest ? 81 DEAD (TO ONE IN GRIEF). LL good is dead." Yet you with nothing left" Have still such warming memories as draw tears. To-day I saw a life of soul bereft, Stone-dead these many years. The cruel coldness of her steely eyes Hurt as an oath hurts one for love athirst. She laughed, a wonder faded from the skies, And candid day, accursed, Clung like a nightmare to the shivering mind ; Before the blighting winter of her breath The sweet flowers saddened, and the innocent wind Shrank like a child from death. 82 Dead She once was young and beautiful. The rest Who knows ? the lithe Salome with the bowl ! She lived a creature with a woman's breast That mocked her murdered soul. To gaze with fondness on another's grave, To write vain valediction on a stone Is sad : but ah ! to rasp a ribald stave And stare into one's own ! To live, and watch life's meanly martyred ones With heart that moves, and moves, and never cries, A horror in untorturable bronze With human lips and eyes ! She breathed remorseless in a bitter void ; She had where all may weep no tears to shed . . . But_y0w ah, you, so rich from love enjoyed, Lone with your kindly dead . . . 83 THE PARIAH OR LIFE AND DEATH UPON the edge of dream I, wandering far, Came to that forest deep Where sad hearts loiter 'neath a baneful star And dead men sleep. And one moved slowly through that wildering wood, Eerie with eld was he And immemorial pain ; he weirdly stood Wearily, wearily. 84 The Pariah Drear shadow haunted like thin smoke his face And misted his shrunk frame : 'Neath drooping boughs in that deep, bodeful place I craved his name. His eyes were full of dreams and dusk, his breath Sighed as for glory sped ; At gaze down storied time, " Death," 'plained he, " Death." " Poor Death," I said. He spoke like one who hurts yet yearns to spare The wound, and waits the blame. I bowed for love of his sad face ; and there My slow words came : " I saw young Life, thy brother, this good morn, With alien heart stood he ; His aspect told of grief in silence borne And secrecy. 85 The Pariah " The earth was flowery with the laugh of May ; In many a wreathed ring The dance went merry up the golden way Lyric with spring. " Blithe echoes through the wakeful mountains rang, And a melodious strife Sourged from the throats of countless lives that sang The praise of Life. " Bright jubilant clouds coursed over ; the lithe grass Flung the fleet shadows by And rode a living gleam, and seemed to glass The riding sky ; " Emotions shook each poising heart, and through Wide earth elations ran ; 86 The Pariah Bird unto bird a vernal influence drew, And maid to man. " Wide seen, O Death, this buoyant world on wings, In some divine employ, Sailed soul-like, sentient of immortal things, On winds of joy ! " But Life stood lonesome mid the blowing flowers With dim mind set on grief, And, joyless, smiled upon the smiling hours So brave, so brief. " I sighed toward him : Beneath thy favouring grace W ; hat grief abides ? What dread ? Whose pain, O Life, in thee hath hiding place ? ' ' Dear Death's,' he said; 87 The Pariah " ' Lonely he bides 'neath boughs that droop with dole In forests steeped in gloom, Aloof from love and light, a banished soul, His house a tomb ; " c He sooths to sleep the griefs of all the years, Mutes all the homeless cries ; Ah, Death, my brother ! sad with all men's tears, Who never dies ! ' ' I ceased ... I saw Death's face was fondly fair As age that dreams of youth. He spoke, benign in sorrow, " Mortal, bear To men the truth. " Ah, who am I, the veiled and silent one, That love should visit me ? Vowed to the hush and dreams of all things gone My days shall be." 88 The Pariah He seemed like one who spake in spheres afar, Wide wandering with the dead : Touched as with dawn-light from some happier star, He turned and said : " Yet I, ev'n I, in some large purpose move ; And though my Lord compel A dolorous service darkling, may it prove Acceptable. " Go live with joy : or peace be thine or strife Laud God with lusty breath. Love good and ill, love height and depth, love Life, Love, ah ! love Death." Peace sealed those lips. A splendour fused that face And aureoled that lorn head. I felt like one all blessed filled with grace Risen from the dead ! 89 The Pariah There at his feet I flung me to the ground, Embraced the sensate sod, And knew not for great gladness had I found Or death or God. Then through those pendulous shadows wide and deep He waned like light away . . . A far voice in the windless groves of sleep Seemed still to say : " Go, live with joy : or peace be thine or strife Laud God with lusty breath. Love good and ill, love height and depth, love Life, Love also Death." Still on the gloom-boughed margent of deep night When no quick stars intrude I hear that step, and see that lonesome wight Wandering the wood. 90 PAN UP and up the silent hill, And on and on athwart the glory. Dreams at her heart, the earth lies still ; And time wears thin as an oft-told story. A far-off rill makes faint replies To the wind's last whisper ere it dies. Sweet is labour and wise is rest Where the air is cool and the world is wide. Gone is the rose from the mountain-crest ; And deep in the valley an owl hath cried. The moon sits pale o'er the dusky scaurs ; And the mute heart waits for the quiet stars. Pan The stuff of dreams is the life of man ; The stuff of clouds is the melting clod. The lord of the earth is the shy god Pan, And the spirit knows him a mighty god : He steals from the deeps in the evening dim, And man stands 'mazed in the face of him. . . Down and down the haunted hill, And on through the moon-web's witching glory. The ghostly woods lay weird and still ; In a starry hush hung the pine-tops hoary. Through the eerie gloom the awe-thrill ran, And the heart in the hush cried, " Pan ! Pan ! " 92 GARDEN SONG I HAVE a garden rich in peace, A place of shy umbrageous hours, Where thought from futile strife may cease And rove a lover among flowers. Bees boom about the quiet lawn In fragrant depths of floral dusk ; And like shy fancies half-withrawn Creep scents of marjoram and musk. And calmly there the blossom blows All virgin to the quiet skies ; And calmly there the wilding rose Woos summer with a thousand eyes. 93 Garden Song And there my spirit, like a bird Embowered with branches, sits and sings To stillness by the cuckoo stirred Or rippled by the linnet's wings. At whiles 1 hear with pleasing plaint Some lapwing down the moorland hie, Some skylark like an aureoled saint Sing in his chantry in the sky. Few troubles of the world can sail Across the leagues of drowsy grass ; But, silver-feathered on the gale, The gipsy cloudlets, idling, pass. There quiet hath a deeper birth, And solitude a vaster thought ; There all the wonder of the earth Is lyric in the throstle's throat. 94 Garden Song And there at loitering evening bright To nestle in that pensive bound Comes shadow like the ghost of light, And silence like the soul of sound. And thither drifts the landrail's cry Of loneness from the moonlit leas When midnight's muted worlds go by Above my solemn garden trees. Oh, mine a garden shy as love : A spirit gleams in every place ; It beckons me where'er I move With beauty like a lover's face ; And there my heart in wise employ, Beyond the temporal world's control, Doth foster in a feeling joy A sentience of the general soul. 95 Garden Song Oh like some happy bird am I That's nested far from proud distress, Whose sheltering roof the starry sky, Whose shield the leafy wilderness. 96 ONCE IN BABYLON THE dawn on old Euphrates shone, And gleamed on roofs in Babylon, On royal towers in Babylon. To a mounting pomp of quickening skies The sultry splendours of her eyes A woman turned and grandly came Down from her palace, and a name From court to terrace went like flame. Stern warrior-kings of haughtiest birth Bowed to the hand they dared not kiss ; They were the conquerors of the earth But she the Queen Semiramis. Before her pride all faces fell ; Down gloomed to meet her gracious nod In imaged power the great god, Bel, That grim almighty god. 97 Once in Babylon Throned lions fawned on her in stone, And monster-shapes with wings wide thrown, Mounting the morning, poised at gaze Like fates in leash, irate and fell, And, fixing on unimagined days Their dawnlit eyes inscrutable, Glowed. In the splendid hush of praise Full in the rich light's sanguine rays, August, imperious, alone, Temptress of hopeless passion's moan, Semiramis, the wonder - queen, Mystical, magical, grand of mien, Paced in her pride in Babylon, In rosy-pillared Babylon. Her gorgeous peacocks, argus-eyed, Woke in the citron grove and cried ; Before her glance, with heads inclined, Her pampered leopards fawned and whined. About her was the air made sweet With nard and cassia ; at desire 98 Once in Babylon Petals of lilies for her feet Pale pages strewed ; and lute and lyre Made joy for her as morn's first fire Burned on the brows of Babylon, On balconies in Babylon. Like serpents with a silvery hiss The shimmering fountains leapt and broke To blushing spray that, falling, woke 'Neath soft and iridescent smoke The basined lakes that, startled, spoke The mighty name S emir ami s ; Wind unto wind the whisper threw, From tower to tower the tidings flew, And citadel made sign to prison, From wall to wall the trumpets blew, And Babylon the splendid knew The Queen Semiramis was risen ! . . . Her bones are dust and dew her tears Thousands of years, thousands of years . . . 99 Once in Babylon On ruined thrones she set her feet ; Proud time was but a trampled flower Beneath her hatred's thunderous heat ; There breathed no queen like her for power Nor scorching beauty, nay not one Through all the earth. Her envied kiss Was death. She reigned in Babylon . . . In Babylon . . . Semiramis. 100 ART IN HELL Recently, at the opening of an exhibition of pictures in Manchester, it was said in reference to art : " We depreciate our opportunities Nothing can take from us the beauty of our smoky sunrises and sunsets. . . . We do not appreciate the advantages we enjoy in industrial Lancashire." The speaker was oblivious of the fact that the art of living is the highest of all the arts. It is opportune to affirm the truth that a civilization which no longer fosters and helps toward fulfil- ment the aspirations of the souls of myriads of our population stands condemned, and is waiting to die. HO ! ye that feast on misery, That wax in wealth and boast all well, Rejoice ! keep lusty jubilee ! There is no shame in hell. 101 Art in Hell Writhen like war-sacked cities breathing bale, Spreads a large region 'neath a shrunken noon. Slow darkness crawls to the withering tops of heaven, And trails a fetid vapour from afar, Blighting the blue ; see with swart horror how It smears the sun, that o'er a pestilent earth Shows fixed and filmy like a drowned man's eye. Unhappy country ! Mile on doomful mile, Sad, ebon townships smoulder, festering sores That dwell in thought like sorrows, banned of dreams, The Sodoms and Gomorrahs of the soul. Yet here men rise with unction in their mouths And laud this hell-breath that the damned do breathe, Babble of beauty, life's unthankfulness For themes august and lovely suffering God ! Here where this hideous insolence of men Fouls the fine nostril, creeps across the brain 102 Art in Hell Like some obsession through a mind insane Men rise, and praise, and smile, and are not shamed ! Shall art be folly's nurse, and fortune's knave ? For insults offer soothings, and for hate The palette of peace ? . . . Let panders flourish, paint The palsying pomp of dolorous Erebus In lying glory in the bounds of bale Where pale sad lives toil, moil, and hope no more, And take their meed as this world measures. Art Hath, too, her martyrs as fair faith hath her's, And saints have prayed in pigments; seers have cursed Sins in undying colours. Art is truth. Hale art hath never lied in all the years, No broken allegiance with the seraphim, Nor in th' embattled pilgrimage of time Swerved from the marching militant hosts of heaven. 103 Art in Hell High God, send forth thy painter-priests ! Send forth Thy prophets with the flaming tongues, with eyes That scorch the helots on their gilded stairs ! Confront ambition with the skeleton, And power with the everlasting worm ! You that in hues of flame affirm the soul, Or steep in shadows the slow tears of time, Paint the mad orgy in its horror ! Set Against doom-pregnant and calamitous skies Lives that are matched 'gainst perils without end, And valorous hearts 'mid chaos strong in vain ! Bid thought drink gall drawn from the bitter days Of them that die with patience. Paint and scorn ! Oh, dip in passionate and bleeding hearts, The brush that shall brand time, and in men's breasts 104 Art in Hell Wake maledictions, mutinies, and shame To purge the world ! 105 SOUL SOUL soars where science falters: she shall fare From creed to creed. The wisest of the wise, Her goal is far. Serene her fate to rise A phrenix from the flames of low despair. Time's swift mutations in their passing wear Life's murky reflex and the dust's disguise ; But she hath seen the vision, and her eyes Are dazzled with the beam no man can bear. 1 06 Soul Beyond the wavering boundaries of the known She breathes, and life's high arbitress shall be Mid all the poignant flux of transiency, Gleam through the flesh, and glimmer in the bone, Haunting the world, till truth's white light be grown, A prescience pledged to immortality. 107 GODS OUR Gods are the selves we attain not, that sit throned, while we grope, Mid a sunset of dreams on delectable mountains of hope. 1 08 HYMN TO LIFE LIFE, marvellous Life ! Fronting thy face everlasting, How shall I sing thee ? How praise thee ? I, the star-son of earth, Plucked from the dust and, immortal, Blown down the splendour of time ? Over me under me wonder. Wide in majestical motion Circle the stars and the ages, Surge to their seasons in beauty, And the mists of their glory Drift down the time-wind. 109 Hymn to Life And man on a star-gleam alighting, Summoned, a soul from the vastness, Breathes for a moment and marvels, And passes like song into silence, Changes, goes hence, and is found not Into thy dust, O Undying, Returneth thy creature. Giver of song and of sorrow, Of love and the fulness of laughter, Giver of calm and of anger, Of rest and of high exultation, Giver of youth and of ardour, And last, when the heart is aweary, O beneficent giver of death ! Joy I bring and acceptance, Faith I bring and aspiring, Pain, and travail, and anger, Zest, and a hunger of yearning, These, of thy opulence gathered, no Hymn to Life These I return to thy glory. Swept on the wings of the ages I through the vastness passing Chant valediction ! Speeding, farward speeding, Sing salulation ! I, to thy purpose attuned, Gather the times to my heart, Gather the world to my dreams, With faith and with high jubilation Renouncing, with fervour affirming, Fluctuant, fluctuant, Trusting the soul's bent, Fleeting, fleeting, Fling thee my bird-song! Hailing thee, Life the Abiding, Hailing thee, Love the Abundant, Lord of the grandeur of nature, Light of the greatness of man ! in Hymn to Life Parent of good and of evil, Parent of ages, Quester eternal, I, on the height of a moment, Dazzled from far, and gazing, Welcome the starry adventure, On the infinite billows of being Riding, riding ! One with the world and the ages Voyaging perilous, jubilant, Bound for a bourn that I know not, Knowing not Whence neither Wherefore, Careless with deity, serving Failing confounded believing Baffled an instant attaining Hurled to the depths yet aspiring, I, like a thought of thy mind, Struck from thy soul, and eternal, Reach, and regret not, Fearless take, and disdaining, 112 Hymn to Life Reach and desist not, Militant, aspirant, Trampling the dead down, Knowing the end will be well, Catching the gleam from afar Of a dawn that shall break not on mortal. Thou of the infinite name, Godhead victorious, Beating time's bane out, Spurn not the spurner ! O Soul of the world, Passionate, bountiful Life, Give me the flame of thy spirit ! Give me the power of thy joy ! CARPE DIEM SING, love, to-day ; to-morrow we are sped : Swift time whirls all our little joys away ; And sweetest throats so soon are stuffed with clay; So soon sweet song forgets her singers dead. Use now thy lips, with lilting life so red ; Lips prone to laughter, pipe a happy lay Ere the blithe glow of love's warm summer day Dips to the winter where no word is said. 114 Carpe Diem Sing of the sun, of winds flower-fragrant ; praise Streams that make mimic lightnings to the moon : All fluting flies ; 'tis only memory stays To tell to love the story of her noon In the mute dusk at the lone parting ways. Sing, sing to-day ! we shall be silent soon. OTHER VOLUMES BY THE SAME AUTHOR Published by MESSRS. LONGMANS, GREEN, AND Co. A SON OF CAIN Crown 8vo, 3\6 net. Westminster Review. We write under the conviction that Mr. Mackereth is destined to compel the admiration not only of a few critics but also of the general public. Times Literary Supplement. He has a note of his own ; one can always enjoy the rich exuberance of his fancy and of his diction. Daily Telegraph. A true singer whom no reader with a taste for contemporary poetry should overlook. Yorkshirt Daily Observer. . . . We cannot afford to neglect such poetry it is vital . . . Alive with the spirit of the new century. Aberdeen Free Press. The "Ode on the Passing of Autumn " . a really splendid poem . . . undoubtedly a poet of considerable power and originality. The Literary World. There is a strength about his work which is very rare in English verse . . . Mr. Mackereth's name deserves to stand very high among the poets of to-day. The Star. " A Son of Cain " . . . is a good goad for the withered imagination . . . Why does Mr. Mackereth's poem " The Lion" flash the light on our sickly glazed eyeballs ? Its symbolism makes the soul wince and tremble and ache. . . . The virtue in the poem sounds a spiritual tocsin. 7mA Times. ... A note of his own, a passionate, vibrant note, but true and strong. Glasgow Evening Times. ... A volume of singular insight and power. Dundee Advertiser. . . . The title poem has the same haunting effect upon the reader as " The Ancient Mariner." The " Ode on the Passing of Autumn " is a fine achieve- ment. . . . We congratulate Mr. Mackereth on his undoubted powers of sustainment. The Daily Chronicle. His work is virile. His verse goes with a ring and a tang. The Scotsman. The title poem is a grim and powerful ballad . . . The book will be read with interest and admira- tion by all who value the classic traditions of English poetry. The Yorkshire Post. . . . He has the right to a place among those who are creating the distinctive poetry of our time. In the two pieces, the splendid " Ode on the Passing of Autumn," and " The Gods that Pass and Die Not," Mr. Mackereth attains a height where splendid promise enlarges into great performance. The Bookman. ... It proves him to be the possessor of a quick eye for beauty, of imagination and sensitiveness. It repeatedly echoes great work, yet still remains undeniably his own. The Nation. What he has to say is vigorous and virile. He is not for dealing in the vagueness of dissatisfaction, but endeavours to make his writings an affirmation of joy. The Glasgow Herald. To pass to his poem is to pass into mountain air where sane thought dwells. . . . His heart is in poetry, and his own pleasure in it merely as a word movement is manifest in every line of such poems as " Mad Moll" and " Pan Alive." The New York Times. A virile and hopeful singer . . . resonant as a trumpet-call to those who build the palace of life. The Dial (Chicago). Clearly the work of a poet. . . The volume will well reward him who ventures into its pages. Literary Digest. . . . The longer poems have a deep Atlantic roll. ... In all his thought one can feel the lift of a tide. IN THE WAKE OF THE PHOENIX F'cap 8vo, 3J6 net. Glasgow Herald. Always poetry poetry vital with energy and clothed with beauty and a.t times with splendour. Literary World. Deserves attention from those who can enjoy one of the finest pleasures of the mind namely, that process by which the spirit of an age becomes articulate. . . Full of power, of ecstasy, of a fury of joy. Pall Mall Gazette. A signature which has come to be watched with the greatest attention, and welcome wherever it appears. The AthencEttm. We quail before his thunderous broad- sides of language. . . as we read him he suggests stupendous phenomena. The Times. Vigour of thought and imagination and remarkable wealth of poetic diction. The Scotsman. Will be read with especial interest and sympathy by readers who like modern poetry that keeps alive the traditions of a spiritualised nature-worship. The Academy. We have nothing but admiration for the work. Westminster Review. A poet of exceptionally fine calibre, Aberdeen Free Press. Possesses great poetic merit. . . . The magnificent "Hymn to the Midnight." The Morning Post. Power, originality, insight. . . . His work is above all things virile . . . real passion and true imagination. The Yorkshire Post. His imaginative insight into life's realities is powerfully displayed in such pieces as "Dreams," and " The Splendid Mistake." In " The Seer in the Doomed City " he has achieved a vision starkly impressive in its symbolism, haunting in its imaginative conception, and noble in its moral. T.P.'s Weekly. . . . breathing virility and strong kind- ness in every line. The Yorkshire Observer. Places the writer among the true poets of his time. The Irish Times. Here is verse which really sings, ideas which are fresh and strong, language which is in the highest sense poetical. The Baltimore News. Two unforgettable poems, "A Hymn to Midnight," and " At Moonrise." Boston Transcript. Sincerity and vivid imagination. . . . Verse of uncommon distinction. IOLAUS F'cap 8vo, 7/5 net. Tht Academy. It is vital, exuberant work, born of the true impulse and fashioned with deliberate skill. The Literary World. He has never done anything more powerful than " lolaus." . . Where all is remarkable for the brave hammer-stroke of thought, the sea scenes are especially vivid. The Globe. Real poetry. . . Undoubtedly a writer with a very considerable share of the true poet's gifts. . . He once more reveals an originality and power that may gain for him a high place among our poets. The Westminster Gazette. His sonnets alone would prove his many fine qualities. The Morning Post. The magnificence of his verse, the munificence of his symbolism . . . the phantasy reminds us in turns of Coleridge, Rosetti, Mallarme. The Daily Telegraph. He seems to be one of the virile authentic voices of the new century. The Dundee Advertiser. Full of weird power and haunting melody. . . In " Nations Estranged " the poet gives im- passioned expression to thoughts and feelings that lie heavy on the hearts of millions of mankind. The Westminster Review. There is nothing in our litera- ture with which this poem can be compared. In exuberance of imagery and boldness of metaphors, we are reminded of jEschylus. . . . Since Coleridge no English poet has succeeded so well in creating an atmosphere of weirdness. The Yorkshire Post. The poem is most remarkable. Poetry Review. Enough perhaps has been said and quoted to show that in " lolaus " the seeker for genuine music wedded to a clear vision will not seek in vain. The Irish Times. Should go far towards establishing his position as a poet. Power and imagination like his cannot fail in the end to win due recognition. T.P.'s Weekly. The joyous sense of life which is charac- teristic of all his work here finds distinguished expression. No other poet of our generation achieves so fine a favour with such apparent ease. Western Daily Mercury. A poet who counts. The Bookman. He has written all through the dark days for poetry when the poet was unwanted ; and he brings to " lolaus " the same high heart and courage, the old fire. PRINTED BY GEORGE MIDDLETON THE ST. OSWALD PRESS AMBLESIDE This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 10m-ll, '50(2555)470 ANGBLES A 000549774 / PR 6025 >$9