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BERKELEY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 

 "MINE OWN:' 
 
 BEING 
 
 A COLLECTION OF 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM DANlvSv 
 
 As ■well tofty BoMife tHld iftfeiden wftste her lot* 
 Upon the calm front of a marble Jove. — 
 I cannot draw regard of thy great eySftv 
 I love thee Vdckv, 
 
 I KOTTINGILAM; 
 
 t 
 
 j ^tltNTEi) AND PUBLISHED BY JOHlJf FLll^tOi'f. 
 ! 1863. 
 
 4^-^ /^% 
 

 PREFIGE. 
 
 A desire to preserve some few, though indistinct, mementoes 
 of a period which cannot possibly occur twice in one life, a period 
 out of which all the fulness of the future springs, has induced 
 me to publish the following waifs and strays of mine own 
 thought. 
 
 I do not desire or deserve praise for them, neither would 
 I tempt hostile criticism, my brood are callow ; their chief beauty 
 to me is they exist, and their faults are mine own. 
 
 I would have them simply to be hke a pleasant nook, 
 lying somewhere nigh the bye-path of one's Ufe — passed but still 
 remembered — ^to which we might oft return, and in any mood, 
 to admire or despise, there being none to say us nay. 
 
 And now courteous reader, with all due and proper respect 
 to you, I wiU close this preface in the usual manner by saying, 
 if you in reading derive a tythe of the pleasure I have experienced 
 in writing them, you are fortunate. 
 
 Sherwood Hill, 
 
 Autumn^ 1863. 
 
 895 
 
^^MINE OY/N. 
 
 ff 
 
 -(S^^F^ 
 
 TO MAEY. 
 
 All liero-thouglits, all love songs wild and tender, 
 All passionate flutterings of our spirit wings, 
 Poets have wreathed with immortal 'splendour, 
 I Since God first crowned them kings, 
 
 i Yes, kings of all things beautiful and holy 
 
 I From throned spheres above ; 
 
 Down to the white queen4ily, drooping lowly 
 In dreams of lily love. 
 
 I 
 
 1 Therefore, whene'er gushed forth the voice unbidden 
 
 I Of this immortal silver-throated song ; 
 
 i 
 
 1 Since gleamed the king of bards, half beauty hidden, 
 
 I The old Greek gods among ; 
 
 1 Some chords there have been ringing royal-true, 
 
 I And beautiful as night, 
 
 I As through dark dawnings shine wild streaks of blue, 
 
 1 And flakes of flying light. 
 
Therefore, my song, even thou art halo-ringed 
 
 With silver, from the everlasting dawn ; 
 Then go to her for whom thou hast been winged, 
 
 With pearl-light from the dawn ; 
 And when she grieve, and joy and beauty are 
 
 As strained voices o'er a twilight sea, 
 Rise thou above her sorrow like a star. 
 
 And say thou thus for me. 
 
 "As heaven crowns with starlight desert lands, 
 
 "As Sunrise crowns the. hills with purple sky, 
 "So sorrow comes with flowers in her hands, 
 
 "To crown us ere we die." 
 I would that -any song or dream of minCy 
 
 Could beauty-fringe sad hours, 
 For then should every fallen tear of thine^ 
 
 Rise up in wondrous flowers. 
 
 TO LIZZIE. 
 
 As golden dawns are silver-crowned 
 
 With wild bird-echoes of the chaunt above 
 So by soft echoes may thy life be crowned, 
 
 Soft, silver echoes of a golden love. 
 
PSYCHE. 
 
 Psyclie, Ah ! stay thy silvery flight, 
 And fold thy wandering wing ! 
 
 "Where rose-buds opening to the night 
 Wild fragrance round thee fling. 
 
 Bright Queen of radiant loveliness 
 Thy spell around me throw ! 
 
 And let each jet and breezy tress 
 Waft o'er my weary brow. 
 
 Thy spell to chase the night away, 
 From Passion's tossing strife ; 
 
 A rainbow beam from heavenly day, 
 Of beauty, love and life. 
 
 There let me gaze into those eyes, 
 Where rapture bathes in light. 
 
 And wild, deep, yearning ectasies, 
 Shall thrill me with delight. 
 
 Psyche, then fold thy pinions bright. 
 While yonder mourning queen 
 
 Weeps o'er Endymion 'mid her flight, 
 With tears of glimmering sheen ; 
 
 I Like beckoning seraphs wreathed in light, 
 I Shining thro' rolling years ! 
 
 1 They brightly, in the deep blue night, 
 t Glitter, those starry tears ! 
 
8 
 
 Ps}'clic then stay Avlien Cynthia reigns, 
 Throned on the midnight dome ; 
 
 When Vesper spreads her deAvy wing?, 
 To call the wanderer home. 
 
 KIGHT. 
 
 With lilies whose petals are silver, 
 
 And hlies whose petals are white, 
 
 Moonbeams have crested the billows, broad breasted, 
 
 To v/ar for the queen of the night. 
 
 Ah ! vain is their strength and their fury, 
 
 And vain shall their lily-crests be, 
 
 For isles of the far nighty are crowned with starlight, 
 
 To rule o'er the sullen-voiced sea. 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 Pearl-edged sea-swells of sapphire, 
 
 Roll eastward from cavern and steep, 
 
 For the dawn-halo tender^^is fringing with splendour, 
 
 The cities that border the deep. 
 
 Oh [ Avaves, ye shall die ere ye reach her, 
 
 As waves Avho have chased her before, 
 
 For dawn golden-ringed^ is false and swift- winged, 
 
 And gone ere ye die on the shore. 
 
AMY. 
 
 I. 
 
 The car of day is broken in the west; 
 
 Its load of splendour lies upon the lea^ 
 And coldly shines the marble o'er her breast, 
 A pallid island in a rosy sea. 
 
 Drip through the drooping bough, 
 Drip on her buried brow, 
 
 No rosy gleams; 
 Calmly she heth there. 
 Calm in her golden hair. 
 And golden dreams. 
 
 n. 
 
 The flush of faded fern is on the slope; 
 
 The flush of falling eve is on the wave; 
 And flushed with dawn-hues of immortal hope, 
 The hght of all our love is on her grave. 
 The happy dream-glow lies 
 . Upon her closed eyes, 
 
 Thro' the dark hours: 
 Break not her slumber deep, — 
 Baptise her holy sleep 
 With holy flowers. 
 
10 
 
 I III. 
 
 Dream on pure heart beneath the tender moss, 
 
 Creep, purple-fingered moss above her breast, 
 Slant softly o'er her, shadow of the Cross, 
 
 And make grand twilight round her silver rest. 
 Oh folded violet. 
 The morning is not yet; 
 Dream on, dream on, 
 Till from the eternal shore, 
 Time ebb to flow no more, 
 And night is gone. 
 
 ON A FLYLEAF. 
 
 When in our hearts grey grief-fringed clouds of time, 
 
 Star after star shall quell, 
 Old bells of love from this quaint book shall chime. 
 
 More silver-voiced than pearled rolls of rhyme. 
 That e'er from Poet fell. 
 
 • ■ 
 More silver- voiced ? Ah true ! ah starry true ! 
 
 For faint heard thro' long years. 
 As ghdes moon-splendour o'er the waveless blue, 
 
 Wild music gushes forth where love once grew ; 
 The Long of fallen tears. 
 
11 
 
 THE LAND OF BURIED YEARS. 
 
 The finger of the wind on organ-elms, 
 
 The song of reaped tears, 
 The eternal voices are of those far realms, 
 
 Where Time has buried years. 
 
 Like plaintive harp-chords old familiar tones. 
 
 Faint falling on our ears, 
 Float from beneath the shadows of the thrones, 
 
 Of vainly buried years. 
 
 Deep-browed and calm-eyed in the dim grey light, 
 
 Immortal bards and seers, 
 Who went forth crowned with song into the night 
 
 Of buried deeds and vears. 
 
 Like carven marble by no splendour lit. 
 
 Though gazing at the spheres, — 
 Bear shoulder high the dais whereon sit 
 
 The ranks of dead King-years. 
 
 Among the branched glooms of this calm land. 
 
 The Gods that man reveres — 
 The men of steel-clear head and iron hand — 
 
 Wear crowns of other years. 
 
 But ah ! for us some eyes have starry Hght, 
 
 Seen thro' our once- wept tears; 
 And Kings o'er heads that know, and arms of might. 
 
 Are loves of by-gone years. 
 
12 
 ODE TO FANCY. 
 
 Queen of Beauty's sole dominion, 
 Waves afar thy silver pinion ; 
 
 Glancing in the rainbow portal 
 Of the golden sinking sun, 
 
 Scattering floods of light immortal 
 Ere the monarch's reign be done ! 
 
 Empress of the wandering wing, 
 Far thy amber radiance fling ! 
 
 O'er our hearts in softening beauty 
 Pour that flood of Hght divine. 
 
 Drooping love and flagging duty, 
 Eouse them at the glorious sign. 
 
 Fancy hail ! from Heaven descending, 
 Seraph splendours round thee blending ; 
 
 Visions bright of golden glory 
 Eound thy jewelled car unfold. 
 
 Joyous youth and wisdom hoary, 
 Listen as thy dreams are told. 
 
 Empress of the wandering wing, 
 Far thy silvery splendour fling ; 
 
 While each beaming blissful vision 
 Bursts in light through Nature's gloom, 
 
 Heavenly hopes and dreams Elysian, 
 Gild the darkness of the tomb ! 
 
13 
 
 As stars unfold their wings amid the shades 
 
 That shroud in gloom the last rich wave of day ; 
 
 So when the glory of the present fades, 
 It passes not away. 
 
 Kind deeds and noble sympathies there are, 
 
 That weave a silver beauty o'er sad thought, 
 
 Each true and loving act an evening Star, 
 With heaven-glory fraught. 
 
 There is more deep, grand music in the past, 
 
 Around those calm, clear stars of memory's heaven. 
 
 There is more holy radiance round them cast, 
 Than the present e'er has given. 
 
 The light of Stars, but less, Ah ! far less cold 
 
 With halo wreathes the brow that Love has lost, 
 And sweeter harpings rise from hallowed mould. 
 Than Life can ever boast. 
 
 FAREWELL. 
 
 Farewell, farewell? I could not say farewell, 
 
 To all my soul's deep Love ; 
 For Love rose terrible while reason fell, 
 Tearing my heart that knew his might so well, 
 
 From all save thee I love. 
 But God the loving conquers agony. 
 
 And gives us strength to bear ; 
 So taught by grief, and self contained and free, 
 Love shall endure between my Life and me, 
 
 As pure as she is fair. 
 
14 
 A LOVE SONG 
 
 I Though irom the summer's palsied hand 
 
 I FaUeth the faded lily; 
 
 i Though fox-glove spires through all the land, 
 
 I Beneath the wizard's outstretched wand, 
 
 '? ■ ' 
 
 [ Have fallen faint and chilly; 
 
 I A laugh of flowers the sad world hath, — 
 
 f Sad world and pale and old, — 
 
 I Strange flowers that fear not winter's wrath, 
 
 I "Wild flowers that spring around our path 
 
 I In bells of blue and gold. 
 
 I The queen of all the flowers divine, 
 
 I Whose wings have waved near me, 
 
 j Droops from thotivory hand of thine — 
 
 f Then let the winged flower be mine, — 
 
 I The flower whose fruit is thee. 
 
 I 
 
 ! No Autumn gale shall scatter wide 
 
 I Those petals never-fading; 
 
 j For ever bright in summer pride, 
 
 I No power shall snatch it from my side, 
 
 j For love is never-fading. 
 
 I No envious strife with ruthless hand, 
 
 j It's radiant stem shall sever; 
 
 j Transplanted from the Spirit-land, 
 
 I By Eden's purest breezes fanned, 
 
 I Its bloom will last for ever. 
 
BISLE. 
 
 « 
 
 A hill-guarded paradise crowning long toil, is Basle to tlie sitter 
 in a railway car who has fought the sixteen white eyed hours that 
 scowl between Paris and the frontier of Switzerland. 
 
 The instinct of the English tourist, on entering a foreign village, 
 guides him, if not diverted by hunger or thirst, to the Gothic tower, 
 or Grecian dome, or ancient Swiss turret from which the Cross 
 keeps watch above the quaint cottage-roofs. Obeying this instinct 
 we threaded the narrow streets until beneath the shadow of the 
 church, leaning on a crumbling parapet, and surrounded by the 
 twilight of most delicious deeps of chesnut bough, we looked forth 
 and down upon a stately river. And here upon the breezy terrace 
 by the church of Basle first I saw the Rhine. 
 
 He was rushing swiftly by the meadow-slopes, with little wings of 
 white beneath the antique tower, and on in the joy of his strength 
 past the broken bridge. In the un wrinkled splendour of his eternal 
 youth, glided he among the cupolas and minarets of the aged city, as 
 the unsounded stream of Art, which is the love of all things beautiful 
 and therefore true, slides solemnly seaward amid the bowing walls of 
 prejudice, and the shaken towers of narrowness and wrong. 
 
16 
 
 Pale green and silvery with the tears that drip for ever froift 
 the everlasting snow, as the city turrets seem silvery with the hoar- 
 frost of the early morning we speak of as long ago ; joyous and foam 
 flaked and swift, but with the unspeakable calm of conscious might, 
 which owns no ebb nor flow ; thus radiant, thus strong, thus beautiful 
 thus flows the Rhine past Basle. Far across his broad breast, fading 
 from pine-black into purple, from purple into blue, and from blue 
 into the haze that fringes heaven ; far beyond the crystal murmur 
 of his uncertain voices, rolls in deep waves from hill to hill, the 
 legended Black Forest. 
 
 There are strange glows of rose and crimson, through thy 
 shafted oriels, thou olden church of Basle, and quiet glooms around 
 thy vaulted aisles ; but dim shine thy glories on the cold grey stone ; 
 harsh are the glooms beneath thy pillared roof; for the chesnut 
 depths of shadow are beside thee; the purple of far hill sides is 
 around thee ; the silver-green of water is beneath thee ; and unseen 
 stars, within blue deeps of heaven, for ever look upon thee. 
 
 Broken and mutilated as the story of their deeds, the hewn and 
 chiselled forms of men are still upon thy western front ; crumbling 
 into dust within tlie council-chamber, like the men who once held 
 solemn council there, are the last faint colours of " The dance of 
 death," but thou, in thine age, hast no such wealth of memory 
 as that wild Rhine, in his unfading youth. 
 
 These are my thoughts of the first Swiss city I ever visited, and 
 
 with such dreamy images passing and repassing, as it were, behind 
 
 the curtain of my brain, I was swept amid the beech-slopes of the 
 
 smaller Alpine hills to Olton, and by the lake of Sempach to 
 
 ■ Lucerne. 
 
 SB 
 
ABOUT TWO PICTURES. 
 
 There are two pictures whicli contain perhaps two perfect types of 
 woman-hood, painted by hands that never clasped each other, each 
 of a different land and of a different age. One is Titian's Magdalen 
 in the museum at Naples ; the other is Machse's "Origin of the harp," 
 now, I behave, in the collection of Mn A. Potter, of Liverpool. Let 
 us turn first to S» Mary Magdalen, as being the higher type. 
 
 Her large and spiritual eyes are lifted heaven-ward, as passionately 
 as she saw afar the face of Him she loved so well on earth. Open, 
 below, as if her head were but just raised from reading, lies the Bo jk. 
 
 One hand is pressed upon her bosom to stay the breathless beating 
 of her heart ; and tangled masses of grand auburn hair stream alonof 
 her lily shoulder, in contrast rich as branches bronzed by Autumn, 
 seen against the piled snow-cities of the sky. 
 
 The tinge of rose, that glimmers through the earnest pallor of her 
 cheek, is twihght-rich as flush of painted glass on sculptured ivory ; and 
 by the light of those divine eyes, deep-blue, and passionate, and brim- 
 ming with hot tears, we see far down among the aisles and arches of 
 her loving soul. And there, amid strange chords and echoes of unut- 
 terable music. Prayer kneels priest-Uke near the living altar, aai all 
 the crowding Thoughts have bowed themselves to worship. And 
 the storm of the world is heard without, dimly as if in a dream ; like 
 the rushing of waters to an unseen deep ; or the terrorless murmur of 
 the falHng avalanche, far off among the ice-mailed peaks and the plains 
 of dintless rock. Above in the outstretched hand of the Father of 
 Heaven, and ready to fall ere the sound of prayer has died away, is 
 that peace which the world cannot give* 
 
18 
 
 Yet is this the face of a woman even more than the face of a saint. 
 It is the face of a woman, with all her unspoken tenderness and 
 grace, with all her blended passion and purity, with all her self- de- 
 votion to the call of love and duty. We see no background to this 
 glorious painting, for wherever we look our eyes revert to the woman 
 or the saint. We see no changing sky nor waving branch nor car- 
 ven column. But let us turn to the next painting, the lower type. 
 
 Maclise's "Origin of the harp" is taken from an old Irish legend, 
 which showeth how a maiden of the sea, grieving for an inconstant 
 earthly lover, was changed by pitying Heaven into a harp, with the 
 gold hair streaming over her outstretched arm into strings. 
 
 Still as heaven rise the walls of the strong sea-cavern ; in sweeps as 
 graceful as the dome of heaven, soars the vaulted majesty of its roof. 
 
 Purple, and pale-golden, and breasted with infinite delicate rose- 
 colour is the western sky, and gleaming thro' a triple arch of mighty 
 cloud, whose curves of crimson foam have gathered strange and mag- 
 nificent radiance from the upshot lightning of the sunken sun. Far 
 above, in the deepening hollow of intense blue, pale star-faces glimmer 
 dimly and immeasurably far behind the veil of Heaven. 
 
 Tossing in crests and gulfs of nameless an 1 inconceivable splendour, 
 as though along its troubled waters were drifting in thousands the 
 severed plumes of angels when there was war in heaven, the sea springs 
 like the tide of battle from the west. 
 
 Like flakes of gorgeous sea-wave hung on high, the stalactites that 
 wreath the arching granite of the cavern's mouth, quiver beneath 
 the light of evening. 
 
 And in the midst of all this, like Venus rising from the wild sea- 
 foam; Uke the angel of the earth crowned with the flowers of the sea; 
 
19 
 
 like the starry light of woman's heroism piercing the horizon of grief, 
 stands the maiden of the sea. She is outlined against the infinite 
 glory of the waves and the infinite glory of the sky, like a gold-fringed 
 cloud against the sunset, quenching with the pearl-glow of her match- 
 less beauty the rifts of rosy light that hallow the furrows of iron rock; 
 making holy with the tenderness of her exquisite form the passionless 
 eternity of granite. 
 
 Upon a fantastic spire of rock her arm is resting listlessly, and 
 over this, its ivory support, as dawnlight from behind a stainless bar 
 of sky-foam, streams the sunrise of her golden hair. And as the brine- 
 drops glide along its folds, and fall like tears, we almost hear them 
 tinkle on the wave below. 
 
 There are no words to tell you of her face. None sparkling enough, 
 none delicate enough, none gorgeous enough, none loving enough. 
 With the halo of sea flowers round her head, even as the halo of 
 grief around her heart, with the faded archness of that simple brow ; 
 with the exquisite pathos and lovingness of that divine mouth ; with 
 the statuesque symmetry of that perfect cheek, no words, no organ- 
 music, no old Homeric gushes of sweet sound can approach the depth 
 of her intense beauty. 
 
 Oh maiden ; yesterday the coy and laughing fairy of the sea : the 
 rocks are hard and cold, and the sun is going down ; the overlapping 
 echoes of the cavern-haunting waters among yon granite vaults is 
 chilly music for such ears as thine ; but thou returnest home no more- 
 The large calm eyes of "that great sea-snake under the sea" shall 
 look in at thy palace-gates for love of thee in vain. Morning shall 
 golden-garb himself to kiss thee, and thou shalt not know it ; Eveninof 
 shall stretch forth crimson arms to thee from out the west, and thou 
 shalt not see her turn away in grief. Farewell. 
 
 m 
 
THE IDYL 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PAINTED WIHDOW. 
 
 m 
 
 Day after day the sunshine bursts in joy upon it that solemn 
 painted window, and falls athwart the ancient aisle in ghostlike gleams 
 of purple and crimson and green. As I see the wan splendour on 
 the storied pavement, weaving fit fringe for the stone coverlid which 
 hides so many patient dead, I think that it is the departed spirit of 
 the sunlight ; that the presence of darkness and sorrow, which haunts 
 that midnight sky, and that kneeling form, has speared the young 
 beams in their mirth, and that they have fallen there to die. 
 
 I cannot say with how much awe this window is associated in 
 my mind ; but think I can tell you why. 
 
 It is a scene once enacted in the Garden of Gethsemane ; one steeped 
 in such calm as belongs only to midnight and to unutterable woe ; 
 it is a figure kneeling in grief beneath a moonlight sky. Above 
 the hollow of the deep blue heaven, and outlining its shadowy sweep 
 is a gorgeous arch of Gothic tracery, winged with hues as glowing 
 as the cloud-flakes of a northern dawn. 
 
21 
 
 Strangely has the artist's fancy written her own story in the 
 winding belts and fragile fringes of colour, which fill that upper 
 arch. There are bold sweeps of crimson, that tell of joy in the 
 working of them, and consciousness of power. There are, behind 
 these, uncertain depths of purple, little fairy nooks which I dreamily 
 people with fairy faces. Doubtless there was a rustling of branches 
 in that corner of the designer's heart wherein a magical face was 
 framed with sunlit leaves. There are other twilight nooks, solemn 
 like lines of care ; and mighty blood-tints tempered down like olden 
 memories ; and symmetry of purpose through the whole like the strong 
 will of a man. Crossing and re-crossing before the face of it all, 
 like wintry branches sharp against the sky, is the framework holding 
 each incomplete panel of the painting to its fellow. 
 
 Against me as I stand, lazily pencilling these my thoughts, is a 
 marble maiden on her couch of stone, with hands uplifted as in 
 prayer. Deep rose-tint from the spell-bound sunlight falls upon the 
 unwaning youth of her cold lips, and drowns their pallor in a 
 lake of radiance. Such breath of life it is, as that wherewith the 
 setting sun makes passionate the dead, eternal snows. Shadowy 
 blue is on her breast, and faint gold upon her hands. The blue is 
 from the heaven that bends above Judean hills, and the gold from 
 angels' wings. Here then we come to the noblest feature of my 
 wondrous window. 
 
 Through the far slanted shadows of the ages we see thee. Oh holy, 
 kneeling figure, as the disciples beheld thee, dimly, through the leaf- 
 vaults of Gethsemane. 
 
 We see as they of old who could not watch, with purblind eyes, 
 the terrible breaking of the All-loving heart ; the tears of blood 
 deep-wrung firom the Eternal brow. 
 
 With what hushed step the silver-footed stars have crowded to 
 the edge of heaven, this awful passion-night. Down among the 
 
22 
 
 scented caverns of the olive boughs, lighting their quiet dusk as 
 with the gleam of an unearthly dawn, and laying tender hand 
 upon the drooping plumes of palm, rains the reflected pearl-light 
 from their bent and eager foreheads, as from the towers of nighty 
 they watch the battle between Love and Death. Deep in the 
 darkness of the broad-leaved thickets the wind lies marble-still, as 
 if the earth had held her breath. May we not say how echoless 
 tlie plains of heaven while the angels sorrow in the sorrow of 
 their Lord. 
 
 Shadowy, and pallid, and fearful, the faces of the angels that are fall- 
 en gather on the faint circle of the horizon, with strained brows glooming 
 through its haze of splendour, like the ghastly writing on Belshazzar's 
 palace-wall. Beauty, strange beauty is on them, as in dead flowers 
 on a lowered coffin. Wisdom, and might, and immortality are 
 written upon them, wisdom, and might, and immortality, and damn- 
 ation. Gather upon the faint-rimmed horizon, Oh ye anxious fa^es, 
 fire-furrowed with the tears ye wept of old. Gather ye thickly from 
 the shaken haunts of hell, for the clangour of the conflict is dying, 
 and Love hath conquered Agony and Death. Helmeted with 
 adamant, and crested with tlie everlasting flame, but with no bow of 
 promise arching over your despairing hosts, gather ye towards the 
 field of strife. 
 
 There is a golden stir of harpstrings in the eternal deeps, where 
 bird -song hath not sounded, nor wing of eagle fanned. Upon the 
 upraised brow of the Beloved Son, the light that knows no falling 
 eve has slanted from the outswung gates, whose beams are studded 
 with the uncounted worlds. Bank beyond rank afar, in the un. 
 measured dawn of heaven, glitter and flash the robes of many 
 companies of angels, and star-beams pale and die before the glory of 
 white brows. The distant murmur of the myriad wings sounds 
 upon earth like the music-march of wind through "immemorial elms" ; 
 thespelendour of them is as the splendour of the moon-path on the 
 
23 
 
 sapphire-hollowed, lustrous-crested main ; the scarce-heard echo of the 
 song before the Throne more silver-solemn than the cymballed 
 falling of un-numbered brooks into a sunlit sea. 
 
 The sorrow and the struggle vanish from the face of the All- 
 suffering Christ. And while the thundrous anthem rises throne-ward 
 from the angel-sons of God, — the pauses of alternate chaunting filled 
 with chords more wondrous-tender than the moss- veil over granite 
 clefts — hushed fingers weave the martyr-halo round the crown of the 
 immortal King. 
 
 And the brook of Kedron wanders on in passionate soliloquy, as 
 to wherefore this should be ; and man saw it not, and beheved it not. 
 Therefore, Oh men, believe some little that ye cannot prove, lest in 
 your march of reason ye should plant the heel on such a love as 
 this. 
 
 
LONG AGO. 
 
 m 
 
 A very great city is tlie City of Long Ago. With tlie purple 
 stain of its domes and turrets lying cloudlike on the far horizon, it 
 seems to us like the vanishing shadow of a gorgeous-tinted, many- 
 peopled dream ; and whoso enters its gate, straightway sorrow and 
 darkness fade from his soul as the twilight of dawn before the sun ; 
 ambition loses its baseness, passion its impurity, and envy and hate 
 are dead and sink into the deeps of everlasting Love. Grief is no 
 more the twin- sister of Love, and Rachel clasps again her children, 
 and is comforted. 
 
 A very glorious city is the city of the past. The columns of her 
 shadowy temples are of eternal granite, and the marble of her carven 
 palaces is startled by the clangour of no falling feet ; but dying echoes 
 of unearthly music cluster among the sculptures of immortal men, 
 and forever dying, linger forever. No sunlight is there, save that 
 round the foreheads of heroes, no moonlight, save that on the up- 
 raised brows of martyrs ; but the gleam of pallid waters in the 
 hollows of the hills, and the light of palUd crowns of flame on the city- 
 fringing peaks, and everlasting twilight, the twilight of a dead eternity, 
 the shadows of the wings of grey-haired centuries, the unstarred 
 dimness of the irrevocable grave. But if we strain our hearing in 
 a lull of sound among the roaring wheels of earth, a thousand 
 solemn measures of Eolian music waft to us across the plain of years, 
 
25 
 
 like the voice of many waving woodlands, or the song of many 
 silver-tripping, pleasant-murmuring streams. It is the sound of hero- 
 voices, and of "songs sung of old beneath the purple night." It is a 
 music of ancient weeping, gliding dreamily, mournfully over lakes 
 and valleys of time, and it is crowned, like an olden graveyard, with 
 a sobbing of funeral bells. 
 
 A very beautiful city is this City of Long Ago; for the blackened 
 rifts that are in its walls are woven over with a veil of pathos ; it is 
 arched over from gate to gate with a rainbow of fallen tears ; it is 
 haunted by great deeds, which are prayers for mankind ; and it is 
 painted on roof and porch with the loves and the triumphs of a bygone 
 world. Is it not easy to understand why the days long dead are so 
 beautiful to us ? There is a strange quality in our composition, 
 which leads us to forget all the evil that blotted the past, when it 
 it was not past; so that when we look backward from the Citadel of 
 the present, our annals seem the records of what man might have 
 been. And this strange city keeps growing larger, and larger. Ere 
 long our present stronghold, wherein we fight against the thronging 
 hosts of Wrong and Sin, shall be a part of it. Sometime the towers 
 of the future, so distant on the other horizon, of which we catch 
 such feeble glimpses here, with the gold light glancing from the 
 prostrate crowns, and the rich thunder jf the Eternal voice, and the 
 all-present poetry of the Father's love, — the towers whose portals are 
 called judgment, — they too shall mingle with the city of the past. 
 On that day it will be, when the great splendour shall burst upon us ; 
 when we shall see once more the crown of thorns, as it Avere a diadem 
 of woven starlight ; and the only cloud in the sky of heaven shall be 
 one crimsoned by the dawn of the everlasting Sun, the scarred cloud 
 of human aspirations, with lines of sorrow crossing its radiant folds, 
 and bars of blood faint-seen amid its depths, but dying slowly, 
 lustrously, into the shadowless calm of that time, when there shall be 
 no more grief. 
 
26 
 
 THE PALACE OF THE GREAT KING. 
 
 I. 
 
 Where fairy mosses at their granite looms 
 
 Weave wondrous woof of gold and almondine ; 
 
 Where beeches wave no more their greenlit glooms 
 In yonder night of pine ; 
 
 II. 
 
 Where down the mighty slope, with cymbal din, 
 The streamlets bear their foam on tinkhng feet. 
 
 The King a palace built, and reared therein 
 A golden mercy-seat. 
 
 HI. 
 
 All day from dawning east to rosy west, 
 
 Falling within thro' many an open door, 
 
 Like golden tresses on an ivory breast. 
 Slept sunbeams on the floor. 
 
 IV. 
 
 All day strange gleams on porphyry pillars basked ; 
 
 And thro' the vast, quaint-carven oriel. 
 The shafts of sunlight, gorgeous-robed, and masked. 
 
 On sculptured marble fell. 
 
 V. 
 
 And silent forms with awful brows, that leant 
 
 From column-thrones, flushed by that solemn glow 
 
 Shone dim thro' wreathed smoke that upward went 
 From censers swinging slow, 
 
27 
 
 VI. 
 
 For all the mighty oriel splendour-dyed, 
 
 And all the deep-set windows burning near, 
 
 With forms of those who in the building died 
 
 Were blazoned deep and clear. [ 
 
 VII. I 
 
 Here stood Saint Stephen in the judgment place, 1 
 
 Amid a crowd of gazers, rapt, alone ; | 
 
 Immortal beauty fallen on his face | 
 
 From the Eternal Throne. I 
 
 vm. 
 
 And here in Patmos, angel-guarded, he 
 
 Whom Jesus loved, in his awful trance 
 
 Heard mighty music from the throne-lit sea, 
 And gave it utterance. 
 
 IX. 
 
 And central, towered from trampled Calvary 
 
 The nailed form of Him who all things bore ; 
 
 The King of Love, thorn-crowned with agony 
 To reign for evermore. 
 
 X 
 
 And underneath that Cross were offered up 
 Upon a golden altar, spread with white. 
 
 The Living Bread, and the Eternal Cup, 
 Daily at dawning light. 
 
 XL 
 
 As mailed Night trod thro' the gate of gold. 
 
 From unseen harpstrings, clang'd by angel-hands 
 
 In pillared glooms, rich thunder-chords were rolled. 
 Breeze-borne to far-off lands. 
 
28 
 XII. 
 
 And when the golden gate again outswung, 
 
 Before the Dawn-spears in their burning march, 
 
 Alternate voices, silver-chaunting, rung 
 Rich change from arch to arch. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 And when deep stillness fell on harp and voice. 
 From western windows came a dreamy chaunt 
 
 Of waters, falling with faint-echoed noise 
 From the baptismal Font. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Then spake the King. "This palace have I built, 
 
 This altar reared for awful sacrifice. 
 That whoso kneeleth here, tho' black with guilt, 
 
 The King's own son may rise." 
 
 XV. 
 
 Ah! deaf, deaf children of the mighty King, 
 
 Who kneel in houses your own hands have made, 
 
 Who have no church, no awful Offering, 
 Hear what the King hath said. 
 
 THE DREAMER. 
 
 The butterfly dreams on the blossom ; 
 
 The gold-lily dreams on the wave ; 
 Thus dreaming for ever, we'll float down the river, 
 
 To the dreamland whose gate is the grave. 
 
29 
 
 A SUNRISE SONG. 
 
 There is a dawn to Love, as unto day, 
 
 A tremulous twilight throbbing with great stars, 
 
 And fringed with faint far beams, that break the grey 
 With shifting silver bars. 
 
 My soul is standing in this charmed dawn, 
 Watching the hlies waken one by one ; 
 
 Watching the pale-haired Light Jfrom lawn to lawn 
 Steal from the unseen Sun. 
 
 My soul is roselit by this charmed dawn, 
 
 The charmed dawn of this my love to thee, 
 
 As on grey hills, across wild waters drawn. 
 Falls roselight o'er the sea. 
 
 SKATING SONG. 
 
 The rose is dead, the daisy dead. 
 
 The lily in the hollow; 
 The wave beneath our iron tread 
 
 Has lost its lover-swallow. 
 Rose-splendours dye the western sky, 
 Rose-splendours in our pathway lie. 
 
 Fall rose and gold on hill and wold, 
 And rampart quaint and olden. 
 
 For Heaven is roUed in rose and gold, 
 And earth is rosy-golden ; 
 
 Then ere night creep up the eastern steep, 
 
 Fly we along the frozen deep. 
 
30 
 
 S. VALENTINE'S EVE. 
 
 I. 
 
 IVIiglity sunset bars are lying 
 
 Gold-wrought on the purple moors ; 
 Mighty voices, solemn-sighing 
 Echoes of old song, are dying 
 
 In the slumbrous sycamores. 
 
 n. 
 
 Golden sunsets, sadly, slowly 
 
 Fade into the deepened blue ; 
 
 Wild wind-voices chaunting lowly 
 
 Echoes of old anthems holy, 
 Sadly are they dying too. 
 
 III. 
 
 Stir of wind in branches olden, 
 Sunshafts fallen from above, 
 
 Are but types of that more golden 
 
 Light eternal, unbeholden, 
 
 That strange heart-song nam^d Love. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Earnest heart, by beauty never 
 Can thy path forsaken be ; 
 Lives like thine, of pure endeavour. 
 By that love which lives for ever 
 Must for ever crowned be. 
 
31 
 THE SEA. 
 
 As one of old, in hallowed Galilee, 
 
 With human foot the ridged waters trod, 
 S^o we must cross on foot a troubled sea, 
 ^$0 touch the hand of God. 
 
 II. 
 
 By angels guided tread we from the shore. 
 
 On one hand Beauty, on the other Truth ; 
 
 In front the passion-sea that rolls before 
 The palace-gates of youth. 
 
 m. 
 
 And though at times, like Peter wild with doubt, 
 "We sink full deep beneath the hollowed wave, 
 
 The Lord Christ's hand, for ever stretched out. 
 Is ever stpng to save. 
 
 THE POET. 
 
 Dawn-light on breast of the swallow, 
 
 Love-light in eye of the girl, 
 Sparkle and glimmer, grow fainter and dimmer. 
 
 Melt like the Nubian pearl. 
 
 Love-hght in eye of the poet 
 
 Deepens in splendour for aye ; 
 Poets in seeming, are angels that dreaming, 
 
 Wander from gates of the day. 
 
32 
 THE TALISMAN. 
 
 The Knight of old who rode forth iron-veiled 
 Amid the sword-clang of the sounding field, 
 
 Wore yet within his breast, blade-fenc'd and mailed, 
 Some holy- relic as a spirit-shield. 
 
 So when we join the battle of the Real 
 
 Leaving the dawn-hills of our golden vouth, 
 
 Within our hearts some wild and loved ideal 
 Points us forever to the land of Truth. 
 
 The student sees on on pages dim and olden 
 
 The laurell'd brows of those who toil'd of yore ; 
 
 The earthly poet, through his visions golden, 
 Hath starry glimpses of the eternal shore. 
 
 And on some hearts a far and holy splendour 
 Lingers at eve, like sunset on the fight ; — 
 
 Dim faces, circled by the love-glow tender. 
 
 Look on them as the love-star on the night. 
 
 From heaven, once ours, our stained souls inherit 
 These beauty-dreams to gaze at as we climb ; 
 
 And he whose gaze is constant, gives his spirit 
 Angel- wings to scale the ridge of time. — 
 
 For strongly struck he on a chord immortal. 
 
 Who sang that Truth and Beauty are the same; 
 
 And truly sing I, 'Beauty is the portal 
 
 Thro' which we reach the Truth-land of our aim.' 
 

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