STEDMAN'S POEMS. 
 
 IN UNIFORM VOLUMES. 
 
 The Blameless Prince, and other Poems. Price, $1.50. 
 
 Alice Of Monmouth : An Idyl of the Great War. With other 
 Poems. (Third Edition.) Price, $1.50. 
 
 Poems, Lyric and Idyllic. (Third Edition.) Price, $1.50. 
 
THE 
 
 BLAMELESS PRINCE, 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO., 
 
 SUCCESSORS TO TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 
 1869. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 
 
 FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO., 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS : WELCH, BIGELOW, & Co., 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 
affectfonateli) Jhiscrffcefc 
 
 RICHARD HENRY STODDARD, 
 
 Rare knowledge of our sweetest Saxon lore ; 
 High purpose; friends, that love to seek thy door; 
 Strong wings of Song; what needs a poet more? 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE 9 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 I. SONGS AND STUDIES. 
 
 SURF 95 
 
 TOTJJOURS AMOUR ........ 97 
 
 LAURA, MY DARLING ........ 99 
 
 THE TRYST . 102 
 
 VIOLET EYES 103 
 
 THE DOORSTEP ........ 105 
 
 ILIUM FUIT 108 
 
 COUNTRY SLEIGHING . 114 
 
 PAN IN WALL STREET 118 
 
 ANONYMA 123 
 
 SPOKEN AT SEA 127 
 
 THE DUKE'S EXEQUY 131 
 
 THE HILLSIDE DOOR ........ 134 
 
 AT TWILIGHT 137 
 
 H. POEMS OF NATURE. 
 
 WOODS AND WATERS ........ 141 
 
 To B. T. 145 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN ......... 146 
 
 HOLYOKE VALLEY 153 
 
 THE FEAST OF HARVEST 156 
 
 AUTUMN SONG 160 
 
 WHAT THE WINDS BRING . . . . . . .162 
 
 BETROTHED ANEW . . . . . .'-.-. 163 
 
 III. SHADOW-LAND. 
 
 "THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY" . . . . 167 
 
 "DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW" 169 
 
 THE ASSAULT BY NIGHT 171 
 
 GEORGE ARNOLD 174 
 
 THE SAD BRIDAL . . 177 
 
 TRANSLATIONS FROM THEOCRITUS. 
 
 THE REAPERS . 181 
 
 HYLAS 186 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
PRELUDE. 
 
 , wherefore hither bring 
 Old romance, while others sing 
 
 Sweeter idyls of to-day ? 
 
 Why not picture in your lay 
 Western woods and ivaters grand, 
 Clouds and skies of this fair land? 
 
 Are there fairer far away? 
 
 I have many another song 
 Of those regions where belong, 
 
 First of all, my heart and home. 
 
 If for once my fancy roam, 
 Trust me, in the land I view 
 Falls the sunshine, falls the dew, 
 
 And the Spring and Summer come. 
 
12 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 Why from yonder stubble glean 
 
 Ancient names of King and Queen, 
 Knightly men and maidens fair f 
 Are there in our time no rare 
 
 Beauteous women, heroes brave ? 
 
 Is there naught this side the grave 
 Worth the dust you gather there? 
 
 Nay, but these were human too, 
 Strong or wayward, false or true. 
 Art will seek through every clime 
 For her picture or her rhyme; 
 Yes, nor looking far around, 
 But to-day I sought and found 
 These who lived in that old time. 
 
 Why should ice again be told 
 
 Dross will mingle with all gold? 
 That which time nor test can stain 
 Was not smelted quite in vain. 
 
 What of Albert's blameless heart, 
 
 Arthur's old heroic part, 
 
 Saxon Alfred's glorious reign? 
 
PRELUDE. 13 
 
 Yes, my Prince was such as they, 
 Part of gold, and part of clay, 
 
 Though his metal shone as bright, 
 And his dross was hid from sight. 
 He who brightest is, and best, 
 Still may fear the secret test 
 That shall try his heart aright. 
 
 Let me, then, begin my lay 
 
 In such English as I may. 
 
 Turn the leaf that lies between 
 You who listen and the scene! 
 
 Your pity for the Lady, since 
 
 She died of sorrow ; spare my Prince ; 
 Love to the last my gentle Queen! 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 T ONG since, there was a Princess of the blood, 
 Sole heiress to the crown her father wore, 
 Plucked from a dying stem, that one fair bud 
 Put forth, and withered ere it others bore ; 
 And scarce the King- her blossomed youth had seen, 
 When he, too, slept the sleep, and she was Queen. 
 
 Hers was a goodly realm, not stretched afar 
 In desert wilds by wolf and savage scoured, 
 
 But locked in generous limits, strong in war, 
 
 Serene in peace, with mountains walled and towered, 
 
 Fed by the tilth of many a fertile plain, 
 
 And veined with streams that proudly sought the main. 
 
16 THE BLAMELESS PEINCE. 
 
 The open sea bore commerce to her marts, 
 
 Tumbling half round her borders with its tide ; 
 
 Her vessels shot the surge ; all noble arts 
 Of use and beauty in her towns were plied ; 
 
 Her court was regal ; lords and ladies lit 
 
 The palace with their graces and their wit. 
 
 Wise councillors devised each apt decree 
 
 That gained the potent sanction of her hand ; 
 
 Great captains led her arms on shore and sea ; 
 She was the darling of a loyal land ; 
 
 Poets sang her praises, and in hut and hall 
 
 Her excellence was the discourse of all. 
 
 Her pride was suited to her high estate, 
 Her gentleness was equal with her youth, 
 
 Her wisdom in her goodness found its mate ; 
 Her beauty was not that which brings to ruth 
 
 Men's lives, but clear and luminous ; and fair 
 
 Her locks, and over all a sovereign air. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 17 
 
 Without, she bore herself as rulers should, 
 Queenly in walk and gesture and attire ; 
 
 Within, she nursed her flower of maidenhood, 
 Sweet girlish thoughts and virginal desire ; 
 
 No woman's head so keen to work its will 
 
 But that the woman's heart is mistress still. 
 
 Three years she ruled a nation well content 
 To have a maiden queen ; then came a day 
 
 When those on whom her councils chiefly leant 
 Began to speak of marriage, and to pray 
 
 Their sovereign not to hold herself alone, 
 
 Nor trust the tenure of an heirless throne ; 
 
 And then the people took the cry, nor lack 
 Was there of courtly suitors far or near, 
 
 Kings, dukes, crown-princes, swift upon the track 
 Like huntsmen closing round a royal deer. 
 
 These she regarded not, but still, among 
 
 Her maids arid missals to her freedom clung. 
 
18 THE BLAMELESS PKINCE. 
 
 Arid with the rest there camo a puissant king, 
 Whose country pressed against her own domain, 
 
 In strength its equal, but continuing 
 
 Its dearest foe through many a martial reign. 
 
 He sued to join his hand and realm with hers, 
 
 And end these wars ; then all her ministers 
 
 Pleaded his suit ; but, asking yet for grace, 
 And that her hand might wait upon her heart, 
 
 She halted, till the proud king turned his face 
 Homeward ; and still the people, for their part, 
 
 Waited her choice, nor grudged her sex's share 
 
 Of coyness to a queen so young and fair. 
 
 There was a little State that nestled close 
 Beside her boundaries, as wont to claim, 
 
 Though free, protection there from outer foes, 
 A Principality at least in name 
 
 Whose ruler was her father's life-long friend 
 
 And ally, skilled in statesmancraft to lend 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 19 
 
 Shrewd counsel, and who made, in days gone by, 
 A visit to this court, and with him led 
 
 His son, a gentle Prince, of years anigh 
 
 Her own, twelve summers shone from either head ; 
 
 And while their elders moved from place to place, 
 
 The field-review, the audience, the chase, 
 
 The Princess and the Prince, together thrown, 
 With their companions held a mimic court, 
 
 And with that sweet equality, the crown 
 
 Of Childhood, which discovers in its sport 
 
 No barriers of rank or wealth or power, 
 
 He named himself her consort. From that hour 
 
 The mindful Princess never quite forgot 
 
 Those joyous days, nor him, the fair-haired Prince ; 
 And though she well had learned her greater lot, 
 
 And haply from his thought had passed long since 
 Her girlish image, chance, that moves between 
 Two courts, had brought his portrait to the Queen. 
 
20 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 This from her cabinet she took one morn, 
 When they still urged the suit of that old king, 
 
 And said, half-jesting, with a pretty scorn, 
 
 " Why mate your wilful Queen with mouldering 
 
 And crabbed Age? Now were he shaped like this, 
 
 With such a face, he were not so amiss. 
 
 " Queens are but women ; 't is a sickly year 
 
 That couples frost and thaw, our minstrels sing." 
 
 "Ho!" thought the graybeards, "sets the wind so near?" 
 And thought again : " Why not ? " the scherneful king 
 
 Perchance would rule us where he should be ruled ; 
 
 A humbler consort will be sooner schooled." 
 
 Forewarned are those whom Fortune's gifts await. 
 
 Ere waned a moon the elder prince had learned 
 From half the weathercocks which gilt the state, 
 
 Spying the wind and shifting where it turned 
 That for love's simple sake his son could gain 
 The world's chief prize, which kings had sought in vain. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PEINCE. 21 
 
 How could he choose but clutch it ? Yet the son 
 Seemed worthy, for his parts were of that mould 
 
 Oft-failing Nature strives to join in one, 
 
 And shape a hero pure and wise and bold: 
 
 In arts and arms the wonder of his peers, 
 
 The flower of princes, prince of cavaliers ; 
 
 Tall, lithe of form, and of a northern mien, 
 
 Gentle in speech and thought, while thus he shone, 
 
 A rising star, though chosen of a queen, 
 
 Why seek the skies less tranquil than his own? 
 
 Why should he climb beside her perilous height, 
 
 And in that noonday blaze eclipse his light? 
 
 Ah, why ? one's own life may be bravely led, 
 But not another's. Yet, as to and fro 
 
 The buzzing private embassies were sped, 
 
 And when the Queen's own pages, bowing low, 
 
 Told in his ear a sweet and secret story, 
 
 The Prince, long trained to seek his house's glory, 
 
22 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 Let every gracious sentence seem a plume 
 Of love and beckoning beauty for his helm. 
 
 So passed a season ; then the cannon's boom 
 And belfry's peal delivered to the realm 
 
 The Queen's betrothal, and the councils met, 
 
 And for the nuptial rites a day was set. 
 
 when the time grew ripe, the favored Prince 
 Rides forth, and through the little towns that mourn 
 His loss, and past the boundaries ; and, since 
 To ape the pomp to which he was not born 
 Seemed in his soul a foolish thing and vain, 
 A few near comrades, only, made his train. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 23 
 
 Nor pressed the populace along the ways ; 
 
 But for he wished it so unheralded 
 He rode from post to post through many days, 
 
 Yet gained a greatness as the distance fled, 
 As some dim comet, drawing near its bound, 
 Takes lustre from the orb it courses round. 
 
 And league by league his fantasies outran 
 
 His progress, brooding on his mistress' power, 
 
 Until his own estate the while began 
 
 To seem of lesser worth each passing hour; 
 
 And with misdoubt this fortune weighed him down, 
 
 As though a splendid mantle had been thrown 
 
 About him, which he knew not well to wear, 
 And might not forfeit. Yet he spurred apace, 
 
 And reached a country-seat that bordered near 
 The Capital. Here, for a little space, 
 
 He was to rest from travel, and await 
 
 His day of entrance at the city's gate. 
 
24 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 Upon these grounds a gray -haired noble dwelt, 
 A ribboned courtier of the former reign ; 
 
 A tedious proper man, who glibly knelt 
 To royalty, this ancient chamberlain, 
 
 Yoked with a girlish wife, and, for the rest, 
 
 Proud of the charge that made a prince his guest. 
 
 The highway ran beside a greenwood keep 
 
 That reached, herefrom, quite to the city's edge ; 
 
 Across, the fields with golden corn were deep ; 
 The level sunset pierced the wayside hedge ; 
 
 The banks were all abloom ; a pheasant whirred 
 
 Far in the bush ; anon, some tuneful bird 
 
 Broke into song, or, from a covert dark, 
 
 A bounding deer its dappled haunches showed 
 
 As though it heard the staghound's distant bark. 
 The wistful Prince with loitering purpose bode, 
 
 And thought how good it were to spend one's life 
 
 Far off from men, nor jostled with their strife. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PEINCE. 25 
 
 Even as he mused he saw his host ahead, 
 Speeding to welcome him, in lordly wont, 
 
 And all the household in a line bestead ; 
 And lightly with that escort, at the front, 
 
 A peerless woman rode across the green ; 
 
 Then the Prince thought, " It surely is the Queen, 
 
 Who comes to meet me of her loving grace ! " 
 And his blood mounted ; but he knew how fair 
 
 The royal locks, and, when she neared his place, 
 He saw the lady's prodigal dark hair 
 
 And wondrous loveliness were wide apart 
 
 From the sweet, tranquil picture next his heart. 
 
 And when the chamberlain, with halted suit, 
 
 Made reverence, and was answered courteous-wise, 
 
 The lady to her knightly guest's salute 
 
 Turned her face full, so that he marked her eyes, 
 
 How dewy gray beneath each long, black lid, 
 
 And danger somewhere in their light lay hid. 
 2 
 
26 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 There are some natures housed so chaste within 
 Their placid dwellings that their heads control 
 
 The tumult of their hearts ; and thus they win 
 A quittance from this pleading of the soul 
 
 For Love, whose service does so wound and heal ; 
 
 How should they crave for what they cannot feel ? 
 
 From passion and from pain enfranchised quite, 
 Alike from gain and never-stanched Regret, 
 
 Calm as the blind who have not seen the light, 
 The dumb who hear no precious voice, and yet 
 
 The sun forever pours his lambent fire 
 
 And the high winds are vocal with desire. 
 
 And there are those whose fervent souls are wed 
 To glorious bodies, panoplied for love, 
 
 Born to hear sweetest words that can be said, 
 To give and gather kisses, and to move 
 
 All men with longing after them, to know 
 
 What flowers of paradise for lovers grow. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 27 
 
 The Vestal, with her silvery content, 
 
 The Lesbian, with the passion and the pain, 
 
 Which creature hath their one Creator lent 
 
 More light of heaven ? Who would dare restrain 
 
 The beams of either ? who the radiance mar 
 
 Of the white planet or the burning star ? 
 
 If in its innocence a life is bound 
 
 With cords that thrall its birthright and design, 
 Let those whose hands the evil meshes wound 
 
 Pray that it cast no look beyond their line ; 
 That no strong voice too late may enter in 
 Its prison-range, to teach what might have been. 
 
 Was there no conscious spirit thus to plead 
 For this bright lady, as the wondering guest 
 
 Closed with his welcomers, and each took heed 
 Of each, and horse to horse they rode abreast, 
 
 Nearing a fair and spacious house that stood, 
 
 Half hidden, in the edges of the wood ? 
 
28 THE BLAMELESS PEINCE. 
 
 And while, the last court-tidings running o'er, 
 Their talk on this and that at random fell, 
 
 And the trains joined behind, the lady bore 
 
 Her beauteous head askance, yet wist full well 
 
 How the Prince looked and spoke ; unwittingly, 
 
 With the strange female sense and secret eye, 
 
 Made of him there her subtle estimate, 
 
 Forecast his lot, and thought how all things flow 
 
 To those who have a surfeit. Could the great, 
 The perfect Queen, she marvelled, truly know 
 
 And love him at his value ? In his turn, 
 He read her face as 't were a marble urn 
 
 Embossed with Truth and blushful Innocence, 
 Yet with the wild Loves carven in repose ; 
 
 And as he looked he felt, and knew not whence, 
 A thought like this come as the wind that blows, 
 
 " A face to lose one's life for ; ay, and more, 
 
 To live for ! " So they reached the sculptured door 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 29 
 
 And casements gilded with the dying light. 
 
 That eve the host spread out a stately board, 
 And with his household far into the night 
 
 Feasted the Prince. The lady, next her lord, 
 Drooped like a musk-rose trained beside a tomb. 
 Loath was the guest that night to seek his room. 
 
 A IT ! wherefore tell again an oft-told tale, 
 
 That of the sleeping knight who lost his wage 
 In the enchanted land, though cased with mail, 
 And bore the sacred shrine an empty gage ? 
 How this thing went it were not worth to view 
 But for the triple coil which thence outgrew ; 
 
30 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 How, with the mom, the ancient chamberlain 
 Made off, and on the marriage business moved ; 
 
 How day by day those young hearts fed amain 
 Upon the food of lovers, till they loved. 
 
 Beneath the mists of duty and degree 
 
 A warmth of passion crept deliciously 
 
 About the twain ; and there, within the gleam 
 Of those gray languid eyes, his nearing fate 
 
 Seemed to the one a far, unquiet dream. 
 
 So when the heralds said, " All things await 
 
 Your princely coming," the glad summons broke 
 
 Upon him like a harsh bell's jangling stroke, 
 
 And waked him, and he knew he must be gone 
 And put that honeyed chalice quite away ; 
 
 Yet once more met the lady, and alone, 
 
 It chanced, within the grounds. The two, that day, 
 
 Lured by a falling water's sound, went deep 
 
 Beyond the sunlight, in the forest-keep. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PEINCE. 31 
 
 Here from a range of wooded uplands leapt 
 
 A mountain brook and far-off meadows sought ; 
 
 Now under firs and tasselled chestnuts crept, 
 Then on through jagged rocks a passage fought, 
 
 Until it clove this shadowy gorge and cool 
 
 In one white cataract, with a dark, broad pool 
 
 Beneath, the home of mottled trout. One side 
 Eose the cliff's hollowed height, and overhung 
 
 An open sward across that basin wide. 
 
 The liberal sun through slanting larches flung 
 
 Rich spots of gold upon the tufted ground, 
 
 And the great royal forest gloomed around. 
 
 The Prince, divided from the world so far, 
 Sat with the lady on a fallen tree ; 
 
 They looked like lovers, yet a prison-bar 
 
 Between them had not made the two less free. 
 
 Only their eyes told what they could not say, 
 
 For still their lips spoke alien words that day. 
 
32 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 She told a legend of an early king* 
 
 Who knew the fairy of this wildwood glen, 
 
 And often sought her haunt, far off .to fling 
 His grandeur, and be loved like common men, 
 
 He died long since, the lady said ; but she, 
 
 Who could not die, how weary she must be! 
 
 They talked of the strange beauty of the spot, 
 The light that glinted through the ancient trees, 
 
 Their own young lives, the Prince's future lot ; 
 Then jested with false laughs. Like tangled bees, 
 
 Each other and themselves they sweetly stung ; 
 
 They sung fond songs, and mocked the words they sung. 
 
 At last he hung his picture by a chain 
 
 About her neck, and on it graved the date. 
 
 Her merry eyes grew soft with tender pain ; 
 She heard him sigh, " Alas, by what rude fate 
 
 Our lives, like ships at sea, an instant meet, 
 
 Then part forever on their courses fleet ! " 
 

 THE BLAMELESS PKINCE. 33 
 
 And in sheer pity of herself she dropped 
 
 Her lovely head ; and, though with self she strove, 
 
 One hot tear fell. The shadow, which had stopped 
 On her life's dial, moved again, and Love 
 
 Went sobbing by, and only left his wraith ; 
 
 For both were loyal to their given faith. 
 
 Farewells they breathed and self-reproaches found, 
 Half gliding with the current to the fall, 
 
 Yet struggling for the shore. Was she not bound ? 
 Did not his plighted future, like a wall, 
 
 Jut 'cross the stream ? They feared themselves, and rose, 
 
 And through the forest gained the mansion-close 
 
 Unmissed, and parted thus, nor met anew ; 
 
 For on the morrow, when the Prince took horse, 
 The lady feigned an illness, or ; t was true, 
 
 Yet maybe from her oriel marked his course, 
 Watching his plume, that into distance past, 
 Like some dear sail which sinks from sight at last. 
 
 2* C 
 
34 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 He rode beneath their arch, where pennons flared 
 And standards with his colors blazoned in. 
 
 Then thousands shouted welcome ; trumpets blared ; 
 He felt the glories of his life begin ! 
 
 Far, far behind, that eddy in its stream 
 
 Now seemed ; its vanished shores, in turn, a dream. 
 
 Enough ; he passed the ways and reached the Queen. 
 
 With pomp and pageantry the vows were said. 
 Leave to the chroniclers the storied scene, 
 
 The church, the court, the masks and jousts that sped ; 
 Not theirs, but ours, to follow Love apart, 
 Where first the bridegroom held his bride to heart, 
 
 And saw her purity and regnant worth 
 Thus kept for him and yielded to his care. 
 
 What marvel that of all who dwelt on earth 
 He seemed most fortunate and she most fair 
 
 That self-same hour? And "By God's grace/' he thought, 
 
 " May I to some ignoble end be brought, 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 35 
 
 " Unless I so reward her for her choice, 
 And shape my future conduct in this land 
 
 By her deserving, that the world's great voice 
 Proclaim me not unworthy ! Let my hand 
 
 Henceforward make her tasks its own, my life 
 
 Be merged in this fair ruler, precious wife, 
 
 " The paragon and glory of her kind ! " 
 
 Who reads his own heart will not think it strange 
 
 He put that yester romance from his mind 
 So readily. Men's lives, like oceans, change 
 
 In shifting tides, and ebb from either shore 
 
 Till the strong planet draws them on once more. 
 
36 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 A ND as a pilgrim, shielded by the wings 
 
 Of some bright angel, crosses perilous ground, 
 Through unknown ways, and, while she leads and sings, 
 
 Forgets the past, nor sees what pits surround 
 His footsteps, so the young Prince cast away 
 That self-distrust, and with his sovereign May 
 
 The gladness joined, and with her sat in state, 
 Beneath the ancient scutcheons of her throne, 
 
 And welcome gave, and led the revels late ; 
 But when the still and midnight heavens shone 
 
 They fled the masquers, and the city's hum 
 
 Was silent, arid the palace halls grew dumb, 
 
 And Love and Sleep in that serene eclipse 
 
 Moved, making prince and clown of one degree. 
 
 Then was she all his own ; then from her lips 
 He learned with what a sweet humility 
 
 She, whose least word a spacious kingdom ruled, 
 
 In Love's free vassalage would fain be schooled. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 37 
 
 How poor, she said, her sovereignty seemed, 
 
 Unless it made her richer in his eye ! 
 And poor his life, until her sunlight beamed 
 
 Upon it, said the Prince. So months went by ; 
 They were a gracious pair ; the Queen was glad ; 
 Peace smiled, and the wide land contentment had. 
 
 And for a time the courteous welcome paid 
 The chosen consort, and the people's joy 
 
 In the Queen's joy, kept silent those who weighed 
 The Prince's make, and sought to find alloy 
 
 In his fine gold ; but, when the freshness fled 
 
 From these things told, some took new thought and said 
 
 " Look at the Queen : her heart is wholly set 
 Upon the Prince ! what if he warp her mind 
 
 To errant policies, and rule us yet 
 
 By proxy ?" "What and if he prove the kind 
 
 Of trifling gallant," others said, "to slight 
 
 Our mistress, for each new and base delight ? 
 
38 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 " Ay, we will watch him, lest he do her wrong ! " 
 And his due station, even from the first, 
 
 The peers of haughty rank and lineage long, 
 Jealous of one whose blossom at a burst 
 
 Outflamed their own, begrudged him ; till their pique 
 
 Grew plain, and sent proud, color to his cheek. 
 
 So now he fared as some new actor fares, 
 
 Who through dark arras gains the open boards, 
 
 Facing the lights, and feels a thousand stares 
 
 Come full upon him ; and the great throng hoards 
 
 Its plaudits ; and, as he begins his tale, 
 
 His rivals wait to mock him if he fail. 
 
 But here a brave simplicity of soul 
 
 And careless vigilance, by honor bred, 
 
 \ 
 Staj^ed him, and o'er his actions held control. 
 
 A host of generous virtues stood in stead 
 To help him on ; with patient manliness 
 He kept his rank, no greater and no less ; 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 39 
 
 His life was as a limpid rivulet ; 
 
 His thoughts, like golden sands, were through it seen, 
 Not on himself in poor ambition set, 
 
 But on his chosen country and the Queen ; * 
 
 And with such gentle tact he bore a sense 
 Of conduct due, nor took nor gave offence, 
 
 That, as time went, he earned their trust, who first 
 Withheld it him, and brought them, one by one, 
 
 To seek him for a comrade ; but he nursed 
 
 His friendships with such equal care that none 
 
 Could claim him as their own ; nor was his word 
 
 Of counsel dulled by being often heard ; 
 
 Nor would he sully his fresh youth among 
 The roisterers and pretty wanton dames 
 
 Who strove to win him ; nor with ribald tongue 
 Joined in the talk that round a palace flames ; 
 
 Nor came and went alone, save 'twas his -wont 
 
 In his own land, he haply left the hunt 
 
40 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 On forest days, and, plunging down the wood, 
 There in the brakes and copses half forgot 
 
 The part he bore, and caught anew the mood 
 .Of youth, and felt a heart for any lot; 
 
 Then, loitering cityward behind the train, 
 
 With fresher courage took his place again 
 
 His pure life made the wits about the court 
 
 Find in its very blamelessness a fault 
 That lacked the generous failings of their sort. 
 
 " With so much sweet," they swore, " a grain of salt 
 Were welcome ! lighter tongue and freer mood 
 Were something more of man, if less of prude ! " 
 
 And others to his praises would oppose 
 Suspicion of his prowess, and they said, 
 
 " Our rose of princes is a thornless rose, 
 
 A woman's toy ! " and, when the months were sped, 
 
 And the glad Queen was childed with a son, 
 
 Light jests upon his mission well begun 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 41 
 
 They bandied ; yet the Prince, who felt the sting, 
 Bided his time. Till on the land there brake 
 
 A sudden warfare ; for that haughty king, 
 Gathering a mighty armament to take 
 
 Revenge for his lost suit, with sword and flame 
 
 Against the borders on short pretext came. 
 
 Then with hot haste the Queen's whole forces poured 
 To meet him. With the call to horse and blade 
 
 The Prince, deep-chafed in spirit, placed his sword 
 At orders ; of the General, and prayed 
 
 A humble station, but, as due his rank, 
 
 Next in command was made, and led the flank. 
 
 And so with doubtful poise a fierce war raged, 
 Till on a day encountered face to face 
 
 The two chief hosts, and dreadful battle waged 
 To close the issue. In its opening space 
 
 Death smote the General, and in tumult sore 
 
 The line sank back ; but swiftly, at the fore 
 
42 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 Placing himself, the Prince right onward hurled 
 The strife once more, and with his battle-shout 
 
 Woke victory ; again his forces whirled 
 
 The hostile troops, and drove them on in rout. 
 
 The strength of ten battalions seemed to yield 
 
 Before his arm ; and so he won that field, 
 
 And slew with his own hand the vengeful king, 
 And with that death-stroke brought the war to end, 
 
 Conquering the common foe, and conquering 
 The hate, from which he would not else defend 
 
 His clear renown than with such manful deeds 
 
 As fall to faith and valor at their needs. 
 
 Again this time the chaplet was his own 
 The people wreathed their laurels for his brow ; 
 
 His horses trod on flowers ; the city shone 
 With flags of victory, and none but now 
 
 As with no vaunting mien he wore his bays 
 
 Confessed him brave as good, and gave their praise. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 43 
 
 T3EACE smiled anew ; the kingdom was at rest. 
 
 Ah, happy Queen ! whom every matron's tongue 
 Ran envious of, with such a consort blest 
 
 As wins the heart of women, old arid young ; 
 So gallant, yet so good, the gentlest maid 
 By this fair standard her own suitor weighed. 
 
 I hold the perfect mating of two souls, 
 
 Through wedded love, to be the sum of bliss. 
 
 When Earth, this fruit that ripens as it rolls 
 
 In sunlight, grows more prime, lives will not miss 
 
 Their counterparts, and each shall find its own ; 
 
 But now with what blind chance the lots are thrown ! 
 
44 THE BLAMELESS PEINCE. 
 
 And because Love sets with a rising tide 
 Along the drift where much has gone before 
 
 One holds of worth, we lavish first, beside, 
 Heart, honors, regal gifts, and love the more 
 
 When yielding most, for this the Queen's love knew 
 
 No slack, but still its current deeper grew. 
 
 And because Love is free, and follows not 
 On gratitude, nor comes from what is given 
 
 So much as on the giving ; and, I wot, 
 Partly because it irks one to have thriven 
 
 At hands which seem the weaker, and should thrive 
 
 While those of him they cling to lift and strive ; 
 
 And partly that his marriage seemed a height 
 Which raised him from the passions of our kind, 
 
 Nor with his own intent ; and that, despite 
 Its clear repose, he somehow longed to find 
 
 The lower world, starve, hunger, and be fed 
 
 With joy and sorrow, sweet and bitter bread, 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 45 
 
 For all these things the Prince loved not the Queen 
 With that sufficience which alone can take 
 
 A rapture in itself and rest serene ; 
 
 Yet knew not what his life lacked that should make 
 
 It worth to live, our custom has such art 
 
 To dull the craving of the famished heart, 
 
 Perchance had never known it, but a light 
 Flashed in his path and lit a fiery train 
 
 About him ; else, day following day, and night 
 By night, through years his soul had felt no pain, 
 
 No triumph, but had shared the common lull, 
 
 Been all it seemed, as blameless, true, and dull. 
 
 And yet in one fair woman beauty, youth, 
 And passion were united, and her love 
 
 Was framed about his likeness. Some, forsooth, 
 May shift their changeful worship as they rove, 
 
 Or clowns or princes ; but her fancy slept, 
 
 Dreaming upon that picture which she kept, 
 
46 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 A secret pain and pleasance. With what strife 
 Men sought her love she wist not, for the prize 
 
 Was not for them. She lived a duteous life. 
 ; T was something thus to let her constant eyes 
 
 Feed on his face, to hear his name, to know 
 
 He lived, had walked those paths, had loved her so. 
 
 There is a painting of a youthful monk 
 
 Who sits within a walled and cloistered nook, 
 
 His breviary closed, and listens, sunk 
 In day-dreams, to -a viol, with a look 
 
 Of strange regret fixed on two pairing doves, 
 
 Who find their fate and simple natural loves. 
 
 Yet bonds of gold, linked hands, and chancel vows, 
 Even spousal beds, do not a marriage make. 
 
 When such things chain the soul that never knows 
 Love's mating, little vantage shall it take, 
 
 Wandering with alien feet throughout the wide, 
 
 Hushed temple, over those who pine outside! 
 
THE BLAMELESS PKINCE. 47 
 
 So this young wife forecast her horoscope 
 And found its wedded lines of little worth, 
 
 Yet owned not to herself what hopeless hope 
 Or dumb intent made green her spot of earth. 
 
 So passed three changeless years, as such years be ; 
 
 At last the old lord died, and left her free, 
 
 The mistress of his rank and broad estate, 
 
 In honor of her constancy. Then life 
 Rushed back ; she saw her beauty grown more great, 
 
 Ripened as if a summer field were rife 
 With grain, the harvester neglectful, since 
 Hers was no mean desire that sought a prince, 
 
 Eager to make his birth and bloom her own, 
 Or reign a wanton favorite. But she thought, 
 
 " I might have loved and clung to him alone, 
 Am fairer than he knew me ; yet, if aught 
 
 Of rarity make sweet my hair and lips, 
 
 What sweetness hath the honey that none sips ? " 
 
48 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 After her time of mourning she grew bold 
 And said, " Once let me look upon his face! 
 
 The Queen will take no harm if I behold 
 
 What all the world can see." She left her place, 
 
 And with a kinsman, at a palace rout, 
 
 Followed the long line passing in and out 
 
 Before the dais. The Prince's eyes and hers 
 Met like the clouds that lighten. In a breath 
 
 Swift memory flamed between them, as, when stirs 
 No wind, and the dark sky is still as death, 
 
 One lance of living fire is hurled across ; 
 
 Then comes the whirlwind, and the forests toss ! 
 
 Yet as she bent her beauteous shoulders down, 
 And heard the kindly greeting of the Queen, 
 
 He spoke such words as one who wears a crown 
 Speaks, and no more ; and with a low, proud mien 
 
 She murmured answer, from the presence past 
 
 Lightly, nor any look behind her cast. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PKINCE. 49 
 
 In that first glimpse each read the other's heart ; 
 
 But not without a summoning of himself 
 To judgment did the Prince forever part 
 
 From truth and fealty. As he pondered, still 
 With stronger voice Love claimed a debt unpaid, 
 And youth's hot pulses would not be gainsaid. 
 
 She with a fierce, full gladness saw again 
 Their broken threads of love begin to spin 
 
 In one red strand, and let it guide her then, 
 Whether it led to danger or to sin ; 
 
 And shortly, on the morrow, took the road, 
 
 And gained her country-seat, and there abode. 
 
 The Prince, a bright near morning, mounted horse, 
 Garbed for the hunt, and left the town, and through 
 
 The deep-pathed wood rode on a wayward course, 
 With a set purpose in him, though he knew 
 
 It not, and let his steed go where it might ; 
 
 For this sole thought pursued him since that night : 
 
50 THE BLAMELESS PEINCE. 
 
 " What recompense for me who have not sown 
 The seed and reaped the harvest of my days ? 
 
 Youth passes like a bird ; but love alone 
 
 Makes wealth of riches, power of rank, men's praise 
 
 A goodly sound. Of such things have I aught ? 
 
 There is a foil to make their substance naught. 
 
 "What were his gifts who made each lovely thing, 
 Yet lacked the gift of love ? or what the fame 
 
 Of some dwarfed poet, whose numbers still we sing, 
 If no fair woman trembled where he came ? 
 
 The beggar dying in ditch is not accurst 
 
 If love once crowned him ! Fate may do her worst. 
 
 " For Age that erst has drawn the wine of love 
 And filled its birth-cup to the jewelled brim, 
 
 And, while it sparkled, held it high above, 
 
 And drained it slowly, swiftly, then, though dim 
 
 Grow the blurred eyes, and comfort and desire 
 
 Are but the ashes of their ancient fire, 
 
THE BLAMELESS PEINCE. 51 
 
 "Yet will it bide its exit in content, 
 
 Remembering the past, nor grudge, with hoar 
 
 And ravenous look, the youth we have not spent. 
 No earthly sting has power to harm it more ; 
 
 It lived and loved, was young, and now is old, 
 
 And life is rounded like a ring of gold." 
 
 Thereat with sudden rein the Prince wheeled horse, 
 And sought a pathway that he long had known 
 
 Yet shunned till now. Beside a water-course 
 It led him for a winding league and lone ; 
 
 Then made a rugged circuit, where the brook 
 
 Down a steep ledge of rock its plunges took, 
 
 And ended at an open sward, the same 
 
 Against whose edge the leaping cataract fell 
 
 From those high cliffs. Five years ago he came 
 To bury youth and love within that dell, 
 
 And, as again he reached the spot he sought, 
 
 Truth, fame, his child, the Queen, were all as naught. 
 
52 THE BLAMELESS PEINCE. 
 
 Dismounting then, he pushed afoot, between 
 The alder saplings, to the outer wood, 
 
 The grounds, the garden-walks, and found, unseen, 
 A private door, nor tarried till he stood 
 
 Within the threshold of my Lady's room, 
 
 A shadowed nook, all stillness and perfume. 
 
 Jasmine and briony the lattice climbed, 
 The rose and honeysuckle trailed above ; 
 
 'T was such an hour as poets oft have rhymed, 
 And such a chamber as all lovers love. 
 
 He found her there, and at her footstool knelt. 
 
 Each in the other's fancies had so dwelt, 
 
 That, as one sees for days a sweet strange face, 
 Until at night in dreams he does caress 
 
 Its owner, and next morning in some place 
 Meets her, and wonders if she too can guess 
 
 How near and known he thinks her, in this wise 
 
 They read one story in each other's eyes. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE, 53 
 
 Her thick hair falling from its lilies hid 
 
 Their first long kiss of passion and content. 
 
 He heard her soft, glad murmur, as she slid 
 Within his hold, and 'gainst his bosom leant, 
 
 Whispering : " At last ! at last ! the years were sore." 
 
 " Their spite," he said, " shall do us wrong no more ! " 
 
 What else, when mingled longings swell full-tide, 
 And the heart's surges leap their bounds for aye, 
 
 And fell the landmarks ? What but fate defied, 
 Time clutched, and any future held at bay ? 
 
 They recked not of the thorn, but seized the flower ; 
 
 For all the sin, their joy was great that hour. 
 
 And since, for all the joy, theirs was a sin 
 
 That baned them with one bane ; since many men 
 
 Had sought her love, but one alone could win 
 That largess, with his blameless life till then 
 
 Inviolate ; they bargained for love's sake 
 
 No severance of their covert league to make. 
 
54 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 Yet, since nobility compelled them still, 
 
 They pledged themselves for honor's sake to hold 
 
 This hidden unto death ; at cither's will 
 To meet and part in secret ; to infold 
 
 In their own hearts their trespass and delight, 
 
 Nor look their love, but guard it day or night. 
 
 OO fell the blameless Prince. That day more late 
 
 Than wont he reached the presence of the Queen, 
 Deep in a palace chamber, where she sate 
 
 Fondling his child. The sunset lit her mien, 
 And made a saintly glory in her -hair ; 
 An awe came on him as he saw her there. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 55 
 
 And, because perfect love suspecteth not, 
 
 She found no blot upon his brow. 'T was good 
 
 To take a pleasure in her wedded lot, 
 
 Arid watch the infant creeping where he stood ; 
 
 And, as he bent his head, she little wist 
 
 What kisses burned upon the lips she kissed. 
 
 And he, still kind and wise in his decline, 
 Seeing her trustful calm, had little heart 
 
 To shake it. So his conduct gave no sign 
 Of broken faith ; no slurring of his part 
 
 Betrayed him to the courtiers or the wife. 
 
 Perhaps a second spring-time in his life 
 
 "Waxed green, and fresh-bloomed love renewed again 
 The joys that light our youth and leave our prime, 
 
 And women found him tenderer, and men 
 A blither, heartier comrade ; but, meantime, 
 
 What hidden gladness made his visage bright 
 
 They could not guess ; nor with what craft and sleight 
 
56 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 The paramours, in fealty to that Love 
 
 Who laughs at locks and walks in hooded guise, 
 Met here and there, yet made no careless move, 
 
 Nor bared their strategy to cunning eyes. 
 And though, a portion of the winter year, 
 The Queen's own summons brought her rival near 
 
 The Prince, among the ladies of her train, 
 
 Then, meeting face to face at morn and night, 
 
 They were as strangers. If it was a pain 
 To pass so coldly on, in love's despite, 
 
 It was a joy to hear each other's tone, 
 
 And keep the life-long secret still their own. 
 
 Once having dipped their palms they drank full draught, 
 And, like the desert-parched, alone at first 
 
 Felt the delight of drinking, while they quaffed 
 As if the waters could not slake their thirst ; 
 
 That nicer sense unreached, when down we fling, 
 
 And view the green oasis round the spring. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PKINCE. 57 
 
 And, in that first bewilderment, perchance 
 
 The Prince's lapse had caught some peering eye, 
 
 But that his long repute, and maintenance 
 Against each test, had put suspicion by. 
 
 Now no one watched or doubted him. So long 
 
 His inner strength had made his outwork strong, 
 
 So long had smoothed his face, 'twas light to take, 
 From what had been his blamelessness, a mask. 
 
 And still, for honor's and the country's sake, 
 He set his hands to every noble task ; 
 
 Held firmly yet his place among the great, 
 
 Won by the sword and saviour of the state ; 
 
 And as in war, so now in civic peace, 
 He led the people on to higher things, 
 
 And fostered Art and Song, and brought increase 
 Of Knowledge, gave to Commerce broader wings, 
 
 And with his action strengthened fourfold more 
 
 The weight his precept in their councils bore. 
 3* 
 
58 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 Then as the mellow years their fruitage brought, 
 And fair strong children made secure the throne, 
 
 He reared them wisely, needfully ; and sought 
 Their good, the Queen's desire, and these alone. 
 
 Himself so pure, that fathers bade their sons, 
 
 " Observe the Prince, who every license shuns ; 
 
 " Who, being most brave, is purest ! " Wedded wives, 
 Happy themselves, the Queen still happiest found, 
 
 And plighted maids still wished their lovers' lives 
 Conformed to his. Such manhood wrapt hirn round, 
 
 So winsome were his grace and knightly look, 
 
 The dames at court their lesser spoil forsook, 
 
 And wove a net to snare him, and their mood 
 Grew warmer for his coldness ; and the hearts 
 
 Of those most heartless beat with quicker blood, 
 Foiled of his love ; yet, heedless of their arts, 
 
 Courteous to all, he went his way content, 
 
 Nor ever from his princely station bent. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 59 
 
 "What is this charm/ 7 they asked, "that makes him 
 chaste 
 
 Beyond all men?" and wist not what they said. 
 The common folk, because the Prince had cased 
 
 His limbs in silver mail, and on his head 
 Worn snowy plumes, and, covered thus in white, 
 Shone in the fiercest turmoil of the fight ; 
 
 And mostly for the whiteness of his soul, 
 
 Which seemed so virginal and all unblurred, 
 
 They called him the White Prince, and through the whole 
 True land the name became a household word. 
 
 " God save the Queen ! " the loyal people sung, 
 
 u And the White Prince ! " came back from every tongue. 
 
 So passed the stages of a glorious reign. 
 
 The Queen in tranquil goodness reached her noon ; 
 The Prince wore year by year his double chain ; 
 
 His mistress kept her secret like the moon, 
 That hides one half its splendor and its shade ; 
 And newer times and men their entrance made. 
 
60 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 But did these two, who took their secret fill 
 Of stolen waters, find the greater bliss 
 
 They sought ? At first, to meet and part at will 
 Was, for the peril's sake, a happiness ; 
 
 Ay, even the sense of guilt made such delights 
 
 More worth, as one we call the wisest writes. 
 
 But with the later years Time brought about 
 His famed revenges. Not that love grew cold, 
 
 The lady never found a cause to doubt 
 
 That with the Prince his passion kept its hold ; 
 
 And while they: loved are loyal to them yet, 
 
 'T is not the wont of women to regret. 
 
 Yet J t was her lot to live as one whose wealth 
 Is in another's name ; to sigh at fate 
 
 That hedged her from possession, save by stealth 
 And trespass on the guileless Queen's estate ; 
 
 To see her lover farthest when most near, 
 
 Nor dare before the world to make him dear. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 61 
 
 To see her perfect beauty but a lure, 
 
 That made men list to follow where she went, 
 
 And kneel to woo the hand they deemed so pure, 
 And hunger for her pitying mouth's consent ; 
 
 Calling her hard, who was so gently made, 
 
 Nor found delight in all their homage paid. 
 
 Nor ever yet was woman's life complete 
 
 Till at her breast the child of him she loved 
 
 Made life and love one name. Though love be sweet, 
 And passing sweet, till then its growth has proved 
 
 In woman's paradise a sterile tree, 
 
 Fruitless, though fair its leaves and blossoms be. 
 
 Meanwhile the Prince put on his own disguise 
 Holding it naught for what it kept secure, 
 
 Nor wore it only in his comrades' eyes ; 
 Beneath this cloak and seeming to be pure 
 
 He felt the thing he seemed. For some brief space 
 
 His conscience took the reflex of his face. 
 
62 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 But lastly through his heart there crept a sense 
 Of falseness, like a worm about the core, 
 
 Until he grew to loathe the long pretence 
 
 Of blamelessness, and would the mask he wore 
 
 By some swift judgment from his face were torn, 
 
 So might the outer quell the inner scorn. 
 
 Such self-contempt befell him, when the feast 
 
 Rang with his praise, he blushed from nape to crown, 
 
 And ground his teeth in silence, yet had ceased 
 To bear it, crying, " Crush me not quite down, 
 
 Who ask your scorn, as viler than you deem 
 
 Your vilest, and am nothing that I seem ! " 
 
 With such a cry his conscience riotous 
 
 Had thrown, perchance, the burden on it laid, 
 
 But love and pity held his voice ; and thus 
 The paramours their constant penance made 
 
 False to themselves, before the world a lie, 
 
 Yet each for each had cast the whole world by. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 63 
 
 In those transcendent moments, when the fire 
 Leapt up between them rapturous and bright 
 
 One incompleteness bred a wild desire 
 To let the rest have token of its light ; 
 
 So natural seemed their love, so hapless, too, 
 
 They might not make it glorious to view, 
 
 And speak their joy. 'T was all as they had come, 
 They two, in some far wild wood wandering mazed, 
 
 Upon a mighty cataract, whose foam 
 
 And splendor ere that time had never dazed 
 
 Men's eyes, nor any hearing save their own 
 
 Could listen to its immemorial moan, 
 
 And felt amid their triumph bitter pain 
 
 That only for themselves was spread that sight. 
 
 Oft, when his comrades sang a tender strain, 
 And music, talk, and wine, outlasted night, 
 
 Rose in the Prince's throat this sudden tide, 
 
 "And I, I also know where Love doth hide!" 
 
64 THE BLAMELESS PEINCE. 
 
 Yet still the seals were ever on his mouth ; 
 
 No heart, save one, his joy and dole might share. 
 Passed on the winter's rain and summer's drouth ; 
 
 Friends more and more, and lovers true, the pair, 
 Though life its passion and its youth had spent, 
 Still kept their faith as seasons came and went. 
 
 E final hour, with stammering voice and halt, 
 The Prince said: "Dear, for you, whose only gain 
 Was in your love that made such long default 
 
 To self, Heaven deems you sinless! but a pain 
 Is on my soul, and shadow of guilt threefold : 
 First, in your fair life, fettered by my hold ; 
 
THE BLAMELESS PEINCE. 65 
 
 " Then in the ceaseless wrong I do the Queen, 
 Who worships me, unknowing ; worse than all, 
 
 To wear before the world this painted mien ! 
 See to it : on my head some bolt will fall ! 
 
 We have sweet memories of the good years past, 
 
 Now let this secret league no longer last." 
 
 So of her love and pure unselfishness 
 
 She yielded at his word, yet fain would pray 
 
 For one more tryst, one day of tenderness, 
 
 Where first their lives were mated. Such a day 
 
 Found them intwined together, met to part, 
 
 Lips pressed to lips, and voiceless grief at heart. 
 
 And last the Prince drew off his signet-stone, 
 And gave it to his mistress, as he rose 
 
 To shut the book of happy moments gone, 
 For so all earthly pleasures find a close, 
 
 Yet promised, at her time of utmost need 
 
 And summons by that token, to take heed 
 
66 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 And do her will. "And from this hour/ 7 he said, 
 " No woman's kiss save one my lips shall know." 
 
 So left her pale and trembling there, and fled, 
 Nor looked again, resolved it must be so ; 
 
 But somewhere gained his horse, and through the wood 
 
 Moved homeward with his thoughts, a phantom brood 
 
 That turned the long .past over in his mind, 
 Poising its .good and evil, while a haze 
 
 Gathered around him, of that sombre kind 
 Which follows from a place where many days 
 
 Have seen us go and come ; and even if sore 
 
 Has been our sojourn there, we feel the more 
 
 That parting is a sorrow, though we part 
 "With those who loved us not, or go forlorn 
 
 From pain that ate its canker in the heart ; 
 
 But when we leave the paths where Love has borne 
 
 His garlands to us, Pleasure poured her wine, 
 
 Where life was wholly precious and divine, 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 67 
 
 Then go we forth as exiles. In such wise 
 
 The loathful Prince his homeward journey made, 
 
 Brooding, and marked not with his downcast eyes 
 The shadow that within the coppice shade 
 
 Sank darker still ; but at the horse's gait 
 
 Kept slowly on, and rode to meet his fate 
 
 For from the west a silent gathering drew, 
 
 And hid the summer sky, and brought swift night 
 
 Across that shire, and went devouring through 
 The strong old forest, stronger in its might. 
 
 With the first sudden crash the Prince's steed 
 
 Took the long stride, and galloped at good need. 
 
 The wild pace tallied with the rider's mood, 
 And on he spurred, and even now had reached 
 
 The storm that charged the borders of the wood, 
 When one great whirlwind seized an oak which 
 bleached 
 
 Across his path, and felled it ; and its fall 
 
 .Bore down the Prince beneath it, horse and all. 
 
68 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 There lay he as he fell ; but the mad horse 
 
 Plunged out in fright, and reared upon his feet, 
 
 And for the city struck a headlong course, 
 With clatter of hoof along the central street, 
 
 Nor halted till, thus masterless arid late, 
 
 Bleeding and torn, he reached the palace-gate. 
 
 Then rose a clamor and the tidings spread, 
 And servitors and burghers thronged about, 
 
 Crying, "The Prince's horse! the Prince is dead! 7 ' 
 Till on the courser's track they sallied out, 
 
 And came upon the fallen oak, and found 
 
 The Prince sore maimed and senseless on the ground. 
 
 Then wattling boughs, th'ey raised him in their hold, 
 And after that rough litter, and before, 
 
 The people went in silence ; but there rolled 
 A fiery vapor from the lights they bore, 
 
 Like some red serpent huge along the road. 
 
 Even thus they brought him back to his abode. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 69 
 
 There the pale Queen fell on him at the porch, 
 Dabbling her robes in blood, and made ado, 
 
 And over all his henchman held a torch, 
 
 Until with reverent steps they took him through ; 
 
 And the doors closed, and midnight from the domes 
 
 Was sounded, and the people sought their homes. 
 
 But on the morrow, like a dreadful bird, 
 Flew swift the tidings of this sudden woe, 
 
 And reached the Prince's paramour, who heard 
 Aghast, as one who crieth loud, " The blow 
 
 Is fallen ! I am the cause ! " as one who saith, 
 
 " Now let me die, whose hands have given death 
 
 So gat her to the town remorsefully, 
 
 White with a mortal tremor and the sin 
 
 Which sealed her mouth, and waited what might be, 
 And watched the doors she dared not pass within. 
 
 Alas, poor lady ! that lone week of fears 
 
 Outlived the length of all her former years. 
 
70 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 Some days the Prince, upon the skirts of death, 
 Spake not a word nor heard the Queen's one prayer, 
 
 Nor turned his face, nor felt her loving- breath, 
 Nor saw his children when they gathered there, 
 
 But rested dumb and motionless ; and so 
 
 The Queen grew weak with watching and her woe, 
 
 Till from his bed they bore her to her own 
 A little. In the middle-tide of night, 
 
 Thereafter, he awoke with moan on moan, 
 And saw his death anigh, and said outright, 
 
 "I had all things, but love was worth them all!" 
 
 Then sped they for the Queen, yet ere the call 
 
 Reached her, he cried once more, " Too late ! too late ! " 
 And at those words, before they led her in, 
 
 Came the sure dart of him that lay in wait. 
 
 The Prince was dead : what goodness and what sin 
 
 Died with him were untold. At sunrise fell 
 
 Across the capital his solemn knell. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 71 
 
 All respite it forbade, and joyance thence, 
 To one for whom his passion till the last 
 
 Wrought in the dying Prince. Her wan suspense 
 Thus ended, a great fear upon her passed. 
 
 "I was the cause! " she moaned from day to day, 
 
 " Now let me bear the penance as I may ! " 
 
 So with her whole estate she sought and gained 
 A refuge in a nunnery close at view, 
 
 And there for months withdrew her, and remained 
 In tears and prayers. Anon a sickness grew 
 
 Upon her, and her face the ghost became 
 
 Of what it was, the same and not the same. 
 
72 THE BLAMELESS PEINCE. 
 
 OO died the blameless Prince. The spacious land 
 
 Was smitten in his death, and such a wail 
 Arose, as when the midnight angel's hand 
 
 Was laid on Egypt. Gossips ceased their tale, 
 Or whispered of his goodness, and were mute ; 
 No sound was heard of viol and of lute ; 
 
 The streets were hung with black ; the artisan 
 .Forsook his forge ; the artist dropped his brush ; 
 
 The tradesmen closed their windows. Man with man 
 Struck hands together in the first deep hush 
 
 Of grief; or, where the dead Prince lay in state, 
 
 Spoke of his life, so blameless, pure, and great. 
 
 t 
 But when, within the dark cathedral vault, 
 
 They joined his ashes to the dust of kings, 
 No royal pomp was shown ; for Death made halt 
 
 Above the palace yet, on dusky wings, 
 Waiting to gain the Queen, who still was prone 
 Along the couch where haply she had thrown, 
 
THE BLAMELESS PEINCE. 73 
 
 At knowledge of the end, her stricken frame. 
 
 With visage pale as in a mortal swound 
 She stayed, nor slept, nor wept, till, weeping, came 
 
 The crown-prince and besought her to look round 
 And speak unto her children. Then she said : 
 "Hereto no grief has fallen on our head; 
 
 " Now all our earthly portion in one mass 
 Is loosed against us with this single stroke ! 
 
 Yet we are Queen, and still must live, alas ! 
 As he would have us." Even as she spoke 
 
 She wept, and mended thence, yet bore the face 
 
 Of one whose fate delays but for a space. 
 
 Thenceforth she worked and waited till the call 
 Of Heaven should close the labor and the pause. 
 
 Months, seasons passed, yet evermore a pall 
 
 Hung round the court. The sorrow and the cause 
 
 Were always with her ; after things were tame 
 
 Beside the shadow of his deeds and fame. 
 
 4 
 
74 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 Her palaces and parks seemed desolate ; 
 
 No joy was left in sky or street or field ; 
 No age, "she thought, would see the Prince's mate : 
 
 What matchless hand his knightly sword could wield ? 
 The world had lost, this royal widow said, 
 Its one bright jewel when the Prince was dead. 
 
 So that his fame might be enduring there 
 
 For many a reign, and sacred through the land, 
 
 She gathered bronze and lazuli, and rare 
 
 Swart marbles, while her cunning artists planned 
 
 A stately cenotaph, and bade them place 
 
 Above its front the Prince's form and face, 
 
 Sculptured, as if in life. But the wan Queen, 
 Watching the work herself, would somewhat lure 
 
 Her heart from plaining ; till, behind a screen, 
 The tomb was finished, glorious and pure, 
 
 Even like the Prince : and they proclaimed a day 
 
 When the Queen's hand should draw its veil away. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PKINCE. 75 
 
 It chanced, the noon before, she bade them fetch 
 Her equipage, and with her children rode 
 
 Beyond the city walls, across a stretch 
 Of the green open country, where abode 
 
 Her subjects, happy in the field and grange, 
 
 And with their griefs, that took a meaner range, 
 
 Content. But as. her joyless vision dwelt 
 On beauty that so failed her wound to heal, 
 
 She marked the Abbey's ancient pile, and felt 
 A longing at its chapel-shrine to kneel, 
 
 To pray, and think awhile on Heaven, her one 
 
 Sole passion, now the Prince had thither gone. 
 
 She reached the gate, and through the vestibule 
 The nuns, with reverence for the royal sorrow, 
 
 Led to the shrine, and left her there to school 
 Her heart for that sad pageant of the morrow. 
 
 0, what deep sighs, what piteous tearful pra} r ers, 
 
 What golden grief-blanched hair strewn unawares ! 
 
76 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 Anon her coming through the place was sped, 
 And, when from that lone ecstasy she rose, 
 
 The saintly Abbess held her steps, and said : 
 
 " God rests those, daughter, who in others' woes 
 
 Forget their own ! In yonder corridor 
 
 A sister-sufferer lies, and will no more 
 
 " Pass through her door to catch the morning's breath : 
 A worldling once, the chamberlain's young wife ; 
 
 But now a pious novice, meet for death, 
 
 She prays to see your face once more in life." 
 
 " She, too, is widowed," thought the Queen. Aloud 
 
 She answered, " I will visit her," and bowed 
 
 Her head, and, following, reached the room where lay 
 One that had wronged her so ; and shrank to see 
 
 That beauteous pallid face, so pined away, 
 
 And the starved lips that murmured painfully, 
 
 "I have a secret none but she may hear." 
 
 At the Queen's sign, they two were left anear. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 77 
 
 With that the dying rushed upon her speech, 
 As one condemned, who gulps the poisoned wine 
 
 Nor pauses, lesi to see it stand at reach 
 
 Were crueller still. " Madam, I sought a sign/ 7 
 
 She cried, " to know if God would have me make 
 
 Confession, and to you ! now let me take 
 
 " This meeting as the sign, and speak, and die!" 
 " Child/ 7 said the Queen, "your years are yet too few. 
 
 See how I live, and yet what sorrows lie 
 
 About my heart." "I know, the world spake true ! 
 
 You too have loved him ; ay, he seems to stand 
 
 Between us ! Queen, you had the Prince's hand, 
 
 " But not his love ! " Across the good Queen's brow 
 A flame of anger reddened, as when one 
 
 Meets unprepared a swift and ruthless blow, 
 But instant paled to pity, as she thought, 
 
 " She wanders : J i is the fever at her brain ! " 
 
 And looked her thought. The other cried again : 
 
78 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 " Yes ! I am ill of body and soul indeed, 
 Yet this was as I say. 0, not for me 
 
 Pity, from you who wear the widow's weed, 
 
 Unknowing ! " " Woman, whose could that love be, 
 
 If not all mine ? ' ; The other, with a moan, 
 
 Rose in -her bed: the pillow, backward thrown, 
 
 Was darkened with the torrent of her hair. 
 
 " 'T was hers," she wailed, " 'twas hers who loved 
 
 him best.' ; 
 Then tore apart her night-robe, and laid bare 
 
 Her flesh, and lo ! against her poor white breast 
 Close round her gloomed a shift of blackest serge, 
 Fearful, concealed! "I might not sing his dirge," 
 
 She said, " nor moan aloud and bring him shame, 
 Nor haunt his tomb and cling about the grate, 
 
 But this I fashioned when the tidings came 
 That he was dead and I must expiate, 
 
 Being left, our double sin ! " In the Queen's heart 
 
 The tiger that is prisoned at life's start 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 79 
 
 In mortals, though perchance it never wakes 
 
 From its mute sleep began to rouse and crawl. 
 
 Her lips grew white, and on her nostrils flakes 
 Of wrath and loathing stood. " What, now, is all 
 
 This wicked drivel ? " she cried ; " how dare they bring 
 
 The Queen to listen to so foul a thing ? " 
 
 "Queen! I speak truth, the truth, I say! He fed 
 Upon these lips, this hair he loved to praise ! 
 
 I held within these arms his bright fair head 
 
 Pressed close, ah, close ! Our lifetimes were the days 
 
 We met, the rest a void ! " " Thou spectral Sin, 
 
 Be silent ! or, if such a thing hath been, 
 
 " If this be not thy frenzy, quick, the proof, 
 Before I score the lie thy lips amid ! " 
 
 She spoke so dread the other crouched aloof, 
 
 Panting, but with gaunt hands somewhere undid 
 
 A knot within her hair, and thence she took 
 
 The signet-ring and passed it. The Queen's look 
 
80 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 Fell on it, and that moment the strong stay, 
 Which held her from the instinct of her wrong, 
 
 Broke, and therewith the whole device gave way, 
 The grand ideal she had watched so long : 
 
 As if a tower should fall, and on the plain 
 
 Only a scathed and broken pile remain. 
 
 But in its stead she would not measure yet 
 The counter-chance, nor deem this sole attaint 
 
 Made the Prince less than one in whom 7 t was set 
 To prove him man. "I held him as a saint," 
 
 She thought, "no other: of all men alone 
 
 My blameless one ! Too high my faith had flown : 
 
 " So be it ! " With a sudden bitter scorn 
 
 She said : "You were his plaything, then ! the food 
 
 Wherewith he dulled what appetite is born, 
 Of the gross kind, in men. His nobler mood 
 
 You knew not ! How, shall I, the fountain life 
 
 Of yonder children, his embosomed wife 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 81 
 
 " Through all these years, shall I, his Queen, for this 
 Sin-smitten harlot's gage of an hour's shame, 
 
 Misdoubt him ? " " Yes, I was his harlot, yes, 
 God help me ! and had worn the loathly name 
 
 Before the world, to have him in that guise ! " 
 
 " Thou strumpet ! wilt thou have me of his prize 
 
 " Rob Satan ? " cried the Queen, and one step moved. 
 
 " Queen, if you loved him, save rne from your bane, 
 As something that was dear to him you loved ! " 
 
 Then from beneath her serge she took the chain 
 Which, long ago in that lone wood, the Prince 
 Hung round her, she had never loosed it since, 
 
 And gave therewith the face which, in its years 
 Of youthful, sunniest grace, a limner drew ; 
 
 And unsigned letters, darkened with her tears, 
 Writ in the hand that hapless sovereign knew 
 
 Too well ; then told the whole, strange, secret tale, 
 
 As if with Heaven that penance could avail, 
 
 4* P 
 
82 THE BLAMELESS PEINCE. 
 
 Or with the Queen, who heard as idols list 
 The mad priest's cry, nor changed her place nor moaned, 
 
 But, clutching those mute tokens of each tryst, 
 Hid them about her. But the other groaned : 
 
 "The picture, let me see it ere I die, 
 
 Then take them all! once, only!" At that cry 
 
 The Queen strode forward with an awful stride, 
 And seized the dying one, and bore her down, 
 
 And rose her height, arid said, " Thou shouldst have died 
 Ere telling this, nor I have worn a crown 
 
 To hear it told. I am of God accurst ! 
 
 Of all his hated, may he smite thee first ! " 
 
 With that wild speech she fled, nor looked behind, 
 Hasting to get her from that fearful room, 
 
 Past the meek nuns in wait. These did not find 
 The sick one's eyes set staring through the gloom, 
 
 While her hands fumbled at her heart, and Death 
 
 Made her limbs quake, and combated her breath 
 
THE BLAMELESS PKINCE. 83 
 
 More dreadful than the Queen's look, as she thence 
 Made through the court, and reached her own array 
 
 She knew not how, and clamored, " Bear me hence ! " 
 And, even as her chariot moved away, 
 
 High o'er the Abbey heard the minster toll 
 
 Its doleful bell, as for a passing soul. 
 
 Though midst her guardsmen, as they speeded back, 
 The wont of royalty maintained her still, 
 
 Where grief had been were ruin now and rack ! 
 The firm earth reeled about, nor could her will 
 
 Make it seem stable, while her soul went through 
 
 Her wedded years in desperate review ; 
 
 The air seemed full of lies ; the realm, unsound ; 
 
 Her courtiers, knaves ; her maidens, good and fair, 
 Most shameless bawds ; her children clung around 
 
 Like asps, to sting her ; from the kingdom's heir, 
 Shuddering, she turned her face, his features took 
 A shining horror from his father's look. 
 
84 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 Along her city streets the thrifty crowd, 
 
 As the Queen passed, their loving reverence made. 
 
 " 'T is false ! they love me not ! " she cried aloud ; 
 So flung her from her chariot, and forbade 
 
 All words, but waved her ladies back, and gained 
 
 Her inmost room, and by herself remained. 
 
 " We have been alone these years, and knew it not," 
 She said; "now let us on the knowledge thrive ! " 
 
 So closed the doors, and all things else forgot 
 Than her own misery. " I cannot live 
 
 And bear this death," she said, " nor die, the more 
 
 To meet him, and that woman gone before!" 
 
 Thus with herself she writhed, while midnight gloomed, 
 
 As lone as any outcast of us all ; 
 And once, without a purpose, as the doomed 
 
 Stare round and count the shadows on the wall, 
 Unclasped a poet's book which near her lay, 
 And turned its pages in that witless way, 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 85 
 
 And read the song some wise sad man had made 
 With bitter frost about his doubting heart. 
 
 " What is this life/ 7 it plained, " what masquerade 
 Of which ye all are witnesses and part ? 
 
 ; T is but a foolish, smiling face to wear 
 
 Above your mortal sorrow, chill despair ; 
 
 " To mock your comrades and yourselves with mirth 
 That feeds the care ye cannot drive away ; 
 
 To vaunt of health, yet hide beneath the girth 
 Impuissance, fell sickness, slow decay ; 
 
 To cloak defeat, and with the rich, the great, 
 
 Applaud their fairer fortunes as their mate ; 
 
 " To brave the sudden woe, the secret loss, 
 Though but to-morrow brings the open shame ; 
 
 To pay the tribute of your caste, and toss 
 Your last to him that 's richer save in name ; 
 
 To judge your peers, and give the doleful meed 
 
 To crime that 7 s white beside your hidden deed ; 
 
86 THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 
 
 " To whisper love, where of true love is none, 
 Desire, where lust is dead ; to live unchaste, 
 
 And wear the priestly cincture ; last, to own, 
 When the morn's dream is gone and noontide waste, 
 
 Some fate still kept ye from your purpose sweet, 
 
 Down strange, circuitous paths it drew your feet ! " 
 
 Thus far she read, and, "Let me read no "more," 
 She clamored, " since the scales have left mine eyes 
 
 And freed the dreadful gift I lacked before ! 
 We are but puppets, in whatever guise 
 
 They clothe us, to whatever tune we move ; 
 
 Albeit we prate of duty, dream of love. 
 
 " Let me, too, play the common part, and wean 
 My life from hope, and look beneath the mask 
 
 To learn the masker! I, who was a Queen, 
 And like a hireling thought to 'scape my task ! 
 
 For some few seasons left this heart is schooled : 
 
 Yet, had it been a little longer fooled, 
 
THE BLAMELESS PRINCE. 87 
 
 " God ! " And from her seat she bowed her down. 
 
 The gentle sovereign of that spacious land 
 Lay prone beneath the bawble of her crown, 
 
 Nor heard all night her whispering ladies stand 
 Outside the portal. Greatly, in the morn, 
 They marvelled at her visage wan and worn. 
 
 "T3UT when the sun was high, the populace 
 
 By every gateway filled the roads, and sought 
 The martial plain, within whose central space 
 
 That wonder of the Prince's tomb was wrought. 
 Thereto from out the nearer land there passed 
 The mingled folk, an eager throng and vast ; 
 
THE BLAMELESS PEINCE. 
 
 Knights, commons, men and women, young and old, 
 The present and the promise of the realm. 
 
 Anon the coming of the Queen was told, 
 
 And mounted guards, with sable plumes at helm, 
 
 Made through the middle, like a reaper's swath, 
 
 A straight, wide roadway for the sovereign's path. 
 
 Then rose the murmurous sound of her advance, 
 And, with the crown-prince, and her other brood 
 
 Led close behind, she came. Her countenance 
 Moved not to right nor left, until she stood 
 
 Before -the tomb; yet those, who took the breath 
 
 That clothed her progress, felt a waft of death. 
 
 noble martyr ! queenliest intent ! 
 
 Strong human soul, that holds to pride through all 
 Ah me ! with what fierce heavings in them pent 
 
 The brave complete their work, whatever befall ! 
 Upon her front the people only read 
 Pale grief that clung forever to the dead. 
 
THE BLAMELESS PKINCE. , 89 
 
 How should they know she trod the royal stand, 
 And took within her hold the silken line, 
 
 As, while the headsman waits, one lays her hand . 
 Upon the scarf that slays her by a sign ? 
 
 With one great pang she drew the veil, and lo ! 
 
 The work was dazzling in the noonday glow. 
 
 There shone the Prince's image, golden, high, 
 Installed forever in the people's sight. 
 
 "Alas!" they cried, "too good, too fair to die!" 
 But at the foot the Queen had bid them write 
 
 Her consort's goodness, and his glory-roll, 
 
 Yet knew not they had carved upon the scroll 
 
 That last assurance of his stainless heart, 
 
 For such they deemed his words who heard them fall : 
 
 " Of all great things this Prince achieved his part, 
 Yet wedded Love to him was worth them all." 
 
 Thus read the Queen : till now, her injured soul 
 
 Of its forlonmess had not felt the whole. 
 
90 THE BLAMELESS PKINCE. 
 
 Now all her heart was broken. There she fell, 
 And to the skies her lofty spirit fled. 
 
 The wrong of those mute words had smitten well. 
 A cry went up : " The Queen ! the Queen is dead 
 
 regal heart that would not reign alone ! 
 
 fatal sorrow ! the empty throne ! " 
 
 Her people made her beauteous relics room 
 Within the chamber where her consort slept. 
 
 There rest they side by side. Around the tomb 
 A thousand matrons solemn vigil kept. 
 
 Long ages told the story of her reign, 
 
 And sang the nuptial love that had no stain. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
I. 
 
 SONGS AND STUDIES 
 
SONGS AND STUDIES. 
 
 SURF. 
 
 QPLENDORS of morning the billow-crests brighten, 
 
 Lighting and luring them on to the land, 
 Far-away waves where the wan vessels whiten, 
 
 Blue rollers breaking in surf where we stand. 
 Curved like the necks of a legion of horses, 
 
 Each with his froth-gilded mane flowing free, 
 Hither they speed in perpetual courses, 
 
 Bearing thy riches, beautiful sea! 
 
 Strong with the striving of yesterday's surges, 
 
 Lashed by the wanton winds leagues from the shore, 
 
 Each, driven fast by its follower, urges 
 Fearlessly those that are fleeting before ; 
 
96 SURF. 
 
 How they leap over the ridges we walk on, 
 
 Flinging us gifts from the depths of the sea, 
 
 Silvery fish for the foam-haunting falcon, 
 
 Palm-weed and pearls for my darling and me ! 
 
 Light falls her foot where the rift follows after, 
 
 Finer her hair than your feathery spray, 
 Sweeter her voice than your infinite laughter, 
 
 Hist! ye wild couriers, list to my lay! 
 Deep in the chambers of grottoes auroral 
 
 Morn laves her jewels and bends her red knee : 
 Thence to my dear one your amber and coral 
 
 Bring for her dowry, beautiful sea! 
 
TOU JOURS AMOUR. 97 
 
 TOUJOURS AMOUR. 
 
 ~F)RITHEE tell me, Dimple-Chin, 
 
 At what age does Love begin ? 
 Your blue eyes have scarcely seen 
 Summers three, my fairy queen, 
 But a miracle of sweets, 
 Soft approaches, sly retreats, 
 Show the little archer there, 
 Hidden in your pretty hair ; 
 When didst learn a heart to win ? 
 Prithee tell me, Dimple Chin ! 
 
 "Oh!" the rosy lips reply, 
 "I can't tell you if I try. 
 'T is so long I can't remember : 
 Ask some younger lass than I ! 
 
 Tell, tell me, Grizzled-Face, 
 
 Do your heart and head keep pace ? 
 
 5 o 
 
98 TOUJOURS AMOUR. 
 
 When does hoary Love expire, 
 When do frosts put out the fire? 
 Can its embers burn below 
 All that chill December snow ? 
 Care you still soft hands to press, 
 Bonny heads to smooth and bless? 
 When does Love give up the chase ? 
 Tell, tell me, Grizzled-Face! 
 
 "Ah!" the wise old lips reply, 
 " Youth may pass and strength may die ; 
 But of Love I can't foretoken : 
 Ask some older sage than I ! " 
 
LAURA, MY DARLING. 99 
 
 LAURA ; MY DARLING. 
 
 T AURA, my darling, the roses have blushed 
 
 At the kiss of the dew, and our chamber is hushed ; 
 Our murmuring babe to your bosom has clung, 
 And hears in his slumber the song that you sung ; 
 I watch you asleep with your arms round him thrown, 
 Your links of dark tresses wound in with his own, 
 And the wife is as dear as the gentle young bride 
 Of the hour when you first, darling, came to my side. 
 
 Laura, my darling, our sail down the stream 
 Of Youth's summers and winters has been like a dream ; 
 Years have but rounded your womanly grace, 
 And added their spell to the light of your face ; 
 Your soul is the same as though part were not given 
 To the two, like yourself, sent to bless me from heaven, 
 Dear lives, springing forth from the life of my life, 
 To make you more near, darling, mother and wife ! 
 
100 LAURA, MY DAELING. 
 
 Laura, my darling, there 's hazel-eyed Fred, 
 
 Asleep in his own tiny cot by the bed, 
 
 And little King Arthur, whose curls have the art 
 
 Of winding their tendrils so close round my heart, - 
 
 Yet fairer than either, and dearer than both, 
 
 Is the true one who gave me in girlhood her troth 
 
 For we, when we mated for evil and good, 
 
 What were we, darling, but babes in the wood ? 
 
 Laura, my darling, the years which have flown 
 Brought few of the prizes I pledged to my own. 
 I said that no sorrow should roughen her way, 
 Her life should be cloudless, a long summer's day. 
 Shadow and sunshine, thistles and flowers, 
 Which of the two, darling, most have been ours ? 
 Yet to-night, by the smile on your lips, I can see 
 You are dreaming of me, darling, dreaming of me 
 
 Laura, my darling, the stars, that we knew 
 In our youth, are still shining as tender and true : 
 The midnight is sounding its slumberous bell, 
 And I come to the one who has loved me so well. 
 
LAURA, MY DARLING. 101 
 
 Wake, darling, wake, for my vigil is done : 
 What shall dissever our lives which are one ? 
 Say, while the rose listens under her breath, 
 " Naught until death, darling, naught until death ! " 
 
102 THE TRYST. 
 
 THE TRYST. 
 
 LEEPING, I dreamed that thoti wast mine, 
 , In some ambrosial lovers' shrine. 
 
 My lips against thy lips were pressed, 
 And all our passion was confessed ; 
 So near and dear my darling seemed, 
 
 1 knew not that I only dreamed. 
 
 Waking, this mid and moonlit night, 
 I clasp thee close by lover's right. 
 Thou fearest not my warm embrace, 
 And yet, so like the dream thy face 
 Arid kisses, I but half partake 
 The joy, and know not if I wake. 
 
VIOLET EYES. 103 
 
 VIOLET EYES. 
 
 
 /^VNE can never quite forget 
 
 Eyes like yours, May Margaret, 
 Eyes of dewy violet ! 
 Nothing like them, Margaret, 
 Save the blossoms newly born 
 Of the May and of the Morn. 
 
 Oft my memory wanders back 
 
 To those burning eyes and black, 
 
 Whose heat-lightnings once could move 
 
 Me to passion, not to love ; 
 
 Longer in my heart of hearts 
 
 Linger those disguised arts, 
 
 Which, betimes, a hazel pair 
 
 Used upon me unaware ; 
 
 And the wise and tender gray, 
 
 Eyes wherewith a saint might pray, 
 
104 VIOLET EYES. 
 
 Speak of pledges that endure 
 And of faith and vigils pure ; 
 But for him who fain would know 
 All the fire the first can show, 
 
 All the art, or friendship fast, 
 
 
 
 Of the second and the last, 
 
 And would gain a subtler worth, 
 
 Part of Heaven, part of Earth, 
 
 He these mingled rays can find 
 
 In but one immortal kind : 
 
 In those eyes of violet, 
 
 In your eyes, May Margaret ! 
 
THE DOORSTEP. 105 
 
 THE DOORSTEP. 
 
 rilHE conference-meeting through at last, 
 
 We boys around the vestry waited 
 To see the girls come tripping past 
 Like snow-birds willing to be mated. 
 
 Not braver he that leaps the wall 
 
 By level musket-flashes litten, 
 Than I, who stepped before them all 
 
 Who longed to see me get the mitten. 
 
 But no, she blushed and took my arm! 
 
 We let the old folks have the highway, 
 And started toward the Maple Farm 
 
 Along a kind of lovers' by-way. 
 
 I can't remember what we said, 
 
 7 T was nothing worth a song or story ; 
 
 Yet that rude path by which we sped 
 Seemed all transformed and in a glory. 
 
 5* 
 
106 THE DOORSTEP. 
 
 The snow was crisp beneath our feet, 
 
 The moon was full, the fields were gleaming ; 
 
 By hood and tippet sheltered sweet, 
 
 Her face with youth and health was beaming. 
 
 The little hand outside her muff, 
 sculptor, if you could but mould it ! 
 
 So lightly touched my jacket-cuff, 
 To keep it warm I had to hold it. 
 
 To have her with me there alone, 
 
 7 T was love and fear and triumph blended. 
 
 At last we reached the foot-worn stone 
 Where that delicious journey ended. 
 
 The old folks, too, were almost home ; 
 
 Her dimpled hand the latches fingered, 
 We heard the voices nearer come, 
 
 Yet on the doorstep still we lingered. 
 
 She shook her ringlets from her hood 
 
 And with a " Thank you, Ned," dissembled, 
 
 But yet I knew she understood 
 
 With what a daring wish I trembled. 
 
THE DOORSTEP. 107 
 
 A cloud passed kindly overhead, 
 
 The moon was slyly peeping through it, 
 
 Yet hid its face, as if it said, 
 
 "Come, now or never! do it! do it!" 
 
 My lips till then had only known 
 
 The kiss of mother and of sister, 
 But somehow, full upon her own 
 
 Sweet, rosy, darling mouth, I kissed her ! 
 
 Perhaps ? t was boyish love, yet still, 
 
 listless woman, weary lover ! 
 
 To feel once more that fresh, wild thrill 
 
 1 'd give, but who can live youth over ? 
 
108 ILIUM FUIT. 
 
 ILIUM FUIT. 
 
 /^\NE by one they died, 
 
 Last of all their race ; 
 Nothing left but pride, 
 
 Lace, and buckled hose. 
 Their quietus made, 
 
 On their dwelling-place 
 Ruthless hands are laid : 
 
 Down the old house goes ! 
 
 See the ancient manse 
 
 Meet its fate at last ! 
 Time, in his advance, 
 
 Age nor honor knows ; 
 Axe and broadaxe fall, 
 
 Lopping off the Past : 
 Hit with bar and maul, 
 
 Down the old house goes ! 
 
ILIUM FUIT. 
 
 Sevenscore years it stood : 
 
 Yes, they built it well, 
 Though they built of wood, 
 When that house arose. 
 For its cross-beams square 
 
 Oak and walnut fell ; 
 Little worse for wear, 
 
 Down the old house goes ! 
 
 Rending board and plank, 
 
 Men with crow-bars ply, 
 Opening fissures dank, 
 
 Striking deadly blows. 
 From the gabled roof 
 
 How the shingles fly! 
 Keep you here aloof, 
 
 Down the old house goes! 
 
 Holding still its place, 
 
 There the chimney stands, 
 Stanch from top to base, 
 Frowning on its foes. 
 
 109 
 
110 ILIUM FUIT. 
 
 Heave apart the stones, 
 Burst its iron bands ! 
 How it shakes and groans ! 
 Down the old house goes ! 
 
 Round the mantel-piece 
 
 Glisten Scripture tiles ; 
 Henceforth they shall cease 
 Painting Egypt's woes, 
 Painting David's fight, 
 
 Fair Bathsheba's smiles, 
 Blinded Samson's might, 
 Down the old house goes ! 
 
 On these oaken floors 
 
 High-shoed ladies trod ; 
 Through those panelled doors 
 
 Trailed their furbelows : 
 Long their day has ceased ; 
 
 Now, beneath the sod, 
 With the worms they feast, 
 Down the old house goes I 
 
ILIUM FUIT. Ill 
 
 Many a bride has stood 
 In yon spacious room ; 
 Here her hand was wooed 
 Underneath the rose ; 
 O'er that sill the dead 
 
 Reached the family-tomb : 
 All, that were, have fled, 
 Down the old house goes ! 
 
 Once, in yonder hall, 
 
 Washington, they say, 
 Led the New-Year's ball, 
 
 Stateliest of beaux. 
 that minuet, 
 
 Maids and matrons gay! 
 Are there such sights yet ? 
 Down the old house goes! 
 
 British troopers came 
 
 Ere another year, 
 With their coats aflame, 
 
 Mincing on their toes ; 
 
112 ILIUM FUIT. 
 
 Daughters of the house 
 
 Gave them haughty cheer, 
 Laughed to scorn their vows, 
 Down the old house goes ! 
 
 Doorway high the box 
 
 In the grass-plot spreads ; 
 It has borne its locks 
 
 Through a thousand snows ; 
 In an evil day, 
 
 From those garden-beds 
 Now 't is hacked away, 
 
 Down the old house goes! 
 
 Lo ! the sycamores, 
 
 Scathed and scrawny mates, 
 At the mansion doors 
 
 Shiver, full of woes ; 
 With its life they grew, 
 
 Guarded well its gates ; 
 Now their task is through, 
 Down the old house goes I 
 
ILIUM FUIT. 113 
 
 On this honored site 
 
 Modern trade will build, 
 What unseemly fright 
 
 Heaven only knows ! 
 Something peaked and high, 
 
 Smacking of the guild : 
 Let us heave a sigh, 
 
 Down the old house goes 
 
114 COUNTRY SLEIGHING. 
 
 COUNTRY SLEIGHING. 
 
 A NEW SONG TO AN OLD TUNE. 
 
 TN January, when down the dairy 
 
 The cream and clabber freeze, 
 When snow-drifts cover the fences over, 
 
 We farmers take our ease. 
 At night we rig the team, 
 
 And bring the cutter out ; 
 Then fill it, fill it, fill it, fill it, 
 
 And heap the furs about. 
 
 Here friends and cousins dash up by dozens, 
 
 And sleighs at least a score ; 
 There John and Molly, behind, are jolly, 
 
 Nell rides with me, before. 
 All down the village street 
 
 We range us in a row : 
 Now jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle, 
 
 And over the crispy snow ! 
 
COUNTRY SLEIGHING. 115 
 
 The windows glisten, the old folks listen 
 
 To hear the sleigh-bells pass ; 
 The fields grow whiter, the stars are brighter, 
 
 The road is smooth as glass. 
 Our muffled faces burn, 
 
 The clear north-wind blows cold, 
 The girls all nestle, nestle, nestle, 
 
 Each in her lover's hold. 
 
 Through bridge and gateway we're shooting straightway, 
 
 Their tollman was too slow ! 
 He ! 11 listen after our song and laughter 
 
 As over the hill we go. 
 The girls cry, " Fie ! for shame ! " 
 
 Their cheeks and lips are red, 
 And so, with kisses, kisses, kisses, 
 
 They take the toll instead. 
 
 Still follow, follow ! across the hollow 
 
 The tavern fronts the road. 
 Whoa, now! all steady! the host is ready, 
 
 He knows the country mode ! 
 
116 COUNTRY SLEIGHING. 
 
 The irons are in the fire, 
 
 The hissing flip is got ; 
 So pour and sip it, sip it, sip it, 
 
 And sip it while 't is hot. 
 
 Push back the tables, and from the stables 
 
 Bring Tom, the fiddler, in ; 
 All take your places, and make your graces, 
 
 And let the dance begin. 
 The girls are beating time 
 
 To hear the music sound ; 
 Now foot it, foot it, foot it, foot it, 
 
 And swing your partners round. 
 
 Last couple toward the left 1 all forward ! 
 
 Cotillons through, let '& wheel : 
 First tune the fiddle, then down the middle 
 
 In old Virginia Reel. 
 Play Money Musk to close, 
 
 Then take the "long chasse," 
 While in to' supper, supper, supper, 
 
 The landlord leads the way. 
 
COUNTEY SLEIGHING. 117 
 
 The bells are ringing, the ostlers bringing 
 
 The cutters up anew ; 
 The beasts are neighing ; too long we 're staying, 
 
 The night is half-way through. 
 Wrap close the buffalo-robes, 
 
 We 're all aboard once more ; 
 Now jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle, 
 
 Away from the tavern-door. 
 
 So follow, follow, by hill and hollow, 
 
 And swiftly homeward glide. 
 What midnight splendor! how warm and tender 
 
 The maiden by your side ! 
 The sleighs drop far apart, 
 
 Her words are soft and low ; 
 Now, if you love her, love her, love her, 
 
 ; Tis safe to tell her so. 
 
118 PAN IN WALL STREET. 
 
 PAN IN WALL STREET. 
 
 A. D. 1867. 
 
 TUST where the Treasury's marble front 
 
 Looks over Wall Street's mingled nations, 
 Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont 
 
 To throng for trade and last quotations, 
 Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold 
 
 Outrival, in the ears of people, 
 The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled 
 
 From Trinity's undaunted steeple ; 
 
 Even there I heard a strange, wild strain 
 
 Sound high above the modern clamor, 
 Above the cries of greed and gain, 
 
 The curbstone war, the auction's hammer, 
 And swift, on Music's misty ways, 
 
 It led, from all this strife for millions, 
 To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days 
 
 Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians. 
 
PAN IN WALL STREET. 119 
 
 And as it stilled the multitude, 
 
 And yet more joyous rose, and shriller, 
 I saw the minstrel, where he stood 
 
 At ease against a Doric pillar : 
 One hand a droning organ played, 
 
 The other held a Pan's-pipe (fashioned 
 Like those of old) to lips that made 
 
 The reeds give out that strain impassioned. 
 
 'T was Pan himself had wandered here 
 
 A-strolling through this sordid city, 
 And piping to the civic ear 
 
 The prelude of some pastoral ditty ! 
 The demigod had crossed the seas, 
 
 From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr 
 And Syracusan times, to these 
 
 Far shores and twenty centuries later. 
 
 A ragged cap was on his head : 
 
 But hidden thus there was no doubting 
 That, all with crispy locks o'erspread, 
 
 His gnarled horns were somewhere sprouting; 
 
120 PAN IN WALL STEEET. 
 
 His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes, 
 
 Were crossed, as on some frieze you see them, 
 And trousers, patched of divers hues, 
 
 Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them. 
 
 He filled the quivering reeds with sound, 
 
 And o'er his mouth their changes shifted, 
 And with his goafs-eyes looked around 
 
 Where'er the passing current drifted ; 
 And soon, as on Trinacrian hills 
 
 The nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him, 
 Even now the tradesmen from their tills, 
 
 With clerks and porters, crowded near him. 
 
 The bulls and bears together drew 
 
 From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley, 
 As erst, if pastorals be true, 
 
 Came beasts from every wooded valley ; 
 The random passers stayed to list, 
 
 A boxer Mgou, rough and merry, 
 A Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst 
 
 With Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry. 
 
PAN IN WALL STEEET. 121 
 
 A one-eyed Cyclops halted long 
 
 In tattered cloak of army pattern, 
 And Galatea joined the throng, 
 
 A blowsy, apple-vending slattern ; 
 While old Silenus staggered out 
 
 From some new-fangled lunch-house handy, 
 And bade the piper, with a shout, 
 
 To strike up Yankee Doodle Dandy! 
 
 A newsboy and a peanut-girl 
 
 Like little Fauns began to caper : 
 His hair was all in tangled curl, 
 
 Her tawny legs were bare and taper ; 
 And still the gathering larger grew, 
 
 And gave its pence and crowded nigher, 
 While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew 
 
 His pipe, and struck the gamut higher. 
 
 heart of Nature, beating still 
 
 With throbs her vernal passion taught her, 
 Even here, as on the vine-clad hill, 
 
 Or by the Arethusan water I , 
 6 
 
122 PAN IN WALL STREET. 
 
 New forms may fold the speech, new lands 
 Arise within these ocean-portals, 
 
 But Music waves eternal wands, 
 Enchantress of the souls of mortals ! 
 
 So thought I, but among us trod 
 
 A man in blue, with legal baton, 
 And scoffed the vagrant demigod, 
 
 And pushed him from the step I sat on. 
 Doubting I mused upon the cry, 
 
 " Great Pan is dead ! " and all the people 
 Went on their ways : and clear and high 
 
 The quarter sounded from the steeple. 
 
ANONYMA. 123 
 
 ANONYMA. 
 
 HER CONFESSION. 
 
 TF I had been a rich man's girl, 
 
 With my tawny hair, and this wanton art 
 Of lifting my eyes in the evening whirl 
 
 And looking into another's heart ; 
 Had love b'een mine at birth, and friends 
 
 Caressing and guarding me night and day, 
 With doctors to watch my finger-ends, 
 
 And a parson to teach me how to pray ; 
 
 If I had been reared as others have, 
 
 With but a tithe of these looks, which came 
 From my reckless mother, now in her grave, 
 
 And the father who grudged me even his name, 
 Why, I should have station and tender care, 
 
 Should ruin men in the high-bred way, 
 Passionless, smiling at their despair, 
 
 And marrying where my vantage lay. 
 
124 ANONYM A. 
 
 As it is, I must have love and dress, 
 
 Jewelled trinkets, and costly food, 
 For I was born for plenteousness, 
 
 Music and flowers, and all things good ; 
 To that same father I owe some thanks, 
 
 Seeing, at least, that blood will tell, 
 And keep me ever above the ranks 
 
 Of those who wallow where they fell 
 
 True, there are weary, weary days 
 
 In the great hotel where I make my lair, 
 Where I meet the men with their brutal praise, 
 
 Or answer the women, stare for stare. 
 ; T is an even fight, and I '11 carry it through, 
 
 Pit them against me, great and small : 
 I grant no quarter, nor would I sue 
 
 For grace to the softest of them all 
 
 I cannot remember half the men 
 
 Whose sin has tangled them in my toils, 
 All are alike before me then, 
 
 Part of my easily conquered spoils : 
 
ANONYM A. 125 
 
 Tall or short, and dark or fair, 
 
 Rich or famous, haughty or fond, 
 There are few, I find, who will not forswear 
 
 The lover's oath and the wedding bond. 
 
 Fools ! what is it that drives them on 
 
 With their perjured lips on poison fed ; 
 Vain of themselves, and cruel as stone, 
 
 How should they be so cheaply led ? 
 Surely they know me as I am, 
 
 Only a cuckoo, at the best, 
 Watching, careless of hate and shame, 
 
 To crouch myself in another's nest. 
 
 But the women, how they flutter and flout, 
 
 The stupid, terribly virtuous wives, 
 If I but chance to move about 
 
 Or enter within their bustling hives ! 
 Buz ! buz ! in the scandalous gatherings, 
 
 When a strange queen lights amid their throng, 
 And their tongues have a thousand angry stings 
 
 To send her travelling, right or wrong. 
 
126 ANONYM A. 
 
 Well, the earth is wide and open to all, 
 
 And money and men are everywhere, 
 And, as I roam, 't will ill befall 
 
 If I do not gain rny lawful share : 
 One drops off, but' another will come 
 
 With as light a head and heavy a purse ; 
 So long as I have the world for a home, 
 
 I '11 take my fortune, better or worse ! 
 
SPOKEN AT SEA. 127 
 
 SPOKEN AT SEA. 
 
 THE LOG-BOOK OF THE STEAMSHIP VIRGINIA. 
 
 rpWELVE hundred miles and more 
 From the stormy English shore, 
 All aright, the seventh night, 
 On her course our vessel bore. 
 Her lantern shone ahead, 
 And the green lamp and the red 
 To starboard and to larboard 
 Shot their light. 
 
 Close on the midnight call 
 What a mist began to fall, 
 
 And to hide the ocean wide, 
 And to wrap us in a pall ! 
 Beneath its folds we past : 
 Hidden were shroud and mast, 
 
 And faces, in near places 
 Side by side. 
 
128 SPOKEN AT SEA. 
 
 Sudden there also fell 
 A summons like a knell : 
 
 Every ear the words could hear, 
 Whence spoken, who could tell ? 
 " What ship is this ? where bound ? " 
 Gods, what a dismal sound ! 
 
 A stranger, and in danger, 
 Sailing near. 
 
 " The Virginia, on her route 
 From the Mersey, seven days out ; 
 
 Fore and aft, our trusty craft 
 Carries a thousand souls, about. " 
 " All these souls may travel still, 
 Westward bound, if so they will ; 
 
 Bodies rather, I would gather ! " 
 Loud he laughed. 
 
 " Who is 't that hails so rude, 
 And for what this idle mood ? 
 
 Words like these, on midnight seas, 
 Bode no friend nor fortune good ! " 
 
SPOKEN AT SEA. 129 
 
 " Care not to know my name, 
 But whence I lastly came, 
 At leisure, for my pleasure, 
 Ask the breeze. 
 
 " To the people of your port 
 Bear a message of this sort : 
 
 Say, I haste unto the West, 
 A sharer of their sport. 
 Let them sweep the houses clean : 
 Their fathers did, I ween, 
 
 When hearing of my nearing 
 Asa guest ! 
 
 "As by Halifax ye sail 
 
 Arid the steamship England hail, 
 
 Of me, then, bespeak her men ; 
 She took my latest mail, 
 7 T was somewhere near this spot : 
 Doubtless they 've not forgot. 
 
 Remind them (if you find them !) 
 
 Once again. 
 6* 
 
130 SPOKEN AT SEA. 
 
 " Yet that you all may know 
 Who is 't that hailed you so, 
 
 (Slow he saith, and under breath,) 
 I leave my sign below ! " 
 Then from our crowded hold 
 A dreadful cry uprolled, 
 
 Unbroken, and the token, 
 It was Death. 
 
THE DUKE'S EXEQUY. 131 
 
 THE DUKE'S EXEQUY. 
 
 ARRAS, A. D. 1404. 
 
 CLOTHED in sable, crowned with gold, 
 
 All his wars and councils ended, 
 Philip lay, surnamed The Bold : 
 Passing-hell his quittance tolled. 
 And the chant of priests ascended. 
 
 Mailed knights and archers stand, 
 Thronging in the church of Arras ; 
 Nevermore at his command 
 Shall they scour the Netherland, 
 Nevermore the outlaws harass ; 
 
 Naught is left of his array 
 
 Save a barren territory ; 
 
 Forty years of generous sway 
 Sped his princely hoards away, 
 
 Bartered all his gold for glory. 
 
132 THE DUKE'S EXEQUY. 
 
 Forth steps Flemish Margaret then, 
 Striding toward the silent ashes ; 
 And the eyes of armed men 
 Fill with startled wonder, when 
 On the bier her girdle clashes ! 
 
 Swift she drew it from her waist, 
 And the purse arid keys it carried 
 
 On the ducal coffin placed ; 
 
 Then with proud demeanor faced 
 Sword and shield of him she married. 
 
 " No encumbrance of the dead 
 Must the living clog forever ; 
 
 From thy debts and dues," she said, 
 " From the liens of thy bed, 
 We this day our line dissever. 
 
 "From thy hand we gain release, 
 Know all present by this token ! 
 Let the dead repose in peace, 
 Let the claims upon us cease 
 When the ties that bound are broken. 
 
THE DUKE'S EXEQUY. 133 
 
 " Philip, we have loved thee long, 
 But, in years of future splendor, 
 
 Burgundy shall count among 
 
 Bravest deeds of tale and song 
 This, our widowhood's surrender." 
 
 Back the stately Duchess turned, 
 While the priests and friars chanted, 
 
 And the swinging incense burned : 
 
 Thus by feudal rite was earned 
 Greatness for a race undaunted. 
 
134 THE HILLSIDE DOOB. 
 
 THE HILLSIDE DOOR. 
 
 OOMETIMES within my hand 
 A Spirit puts the silver key 
 
 Of Fairyland : 
 
 From the dark, barren heath he beckons me, 
 Till by that hidden hillside door, 
 
 Where bards have passed before, 
 I seem to stand. 
 
 The portal opens wide : 
 In, through the wondrous, lighted halls, 
 
 Voiceless I glide 
 Where tinkling music magically falls, 
 
 And fair in fountained gardens move 
 The heroes, blest with love 
 And glorified. 
 
THE HILLSIDE DOOR. 135 
 
 Then by the meadows green, 
 Down winding walks of elf and fay, 
 
 I pass unseen : 
 
 There rest the valiant chieftains wreathed with bay; 
 Here maidens to their lovers cling, 
 And happy minstrels sing, 
 Praising their queen. 
 
 For where yon pillars are, 
 And birds with tuneful voices call, 
 
 There shines a star, 
 
 The crown she wears, the Fairy Queen of all ! 
 Led to that inmost, wooded haunt 
 By maidens ministrant, 
 I halt afar. 
 
 joy ! she sees me stand 
 Doubting, and calls me near her throne, 
 
 And waves her wand, 
 
 As in my dreams, and smiles on me alone. 
 royal beauty, proud and sweet ! 
 
 1 bow me at her feet 
 
 To kiss that hand : 
 
136 THE HILLSIDE DOOR. 
 
 Ah woe ! ah, fate malign ! 
 By what a rude, revengeful gust, 
 
 From that fair shrine 
 
 Which holds my sovran mistress I am thrust ! 
 Then comes a mocking voice's taunt, 
 Crying, Thou fool, avaunt! 
 She is not thine ! 
 
 And I am backward borne 
 By unseen awful hands, and cast, 
 
 In utter scorn, 
 
 Forth from that brightness to the midnight blast 
 Not mine the minstrel-lover's wreath, 
 But the dark, barren heath, 
 And heart forlorn. 
 
AT TWILIGHT. 137 
 
 AT TWILIGHT. 
 
 rriHE sunset darkens in the west, 
 
 The sea-gulls haunt the bay, 
 And far and high the swallows fly 
 
 To watch the dying day. 
 Now where is she that once with me 
 
 The rippling waves would list ? 
 And for the song I loved so long, 
 
 And the darling lips I kist ! 
 
 Yon twinkling sail may whiter gleam 
 
 Than falcon's snowy wing, 
 Her lances far the evening-star 
 
 Beyond the waves may fling ; 
 Float on, ah float, enchanted boat, 
 
 Bear true hearts o'er the main, 
 But I shall guide thy helrn no more, 
 
 Nor whisper love again ! 
 
II. 
 
 POEMS OF NATURE. 
 
POEMS OF NATURE. 
 
 WOODS AND WATERS. 
 
 " ye valleys ! ye mountains ! ' 
 ye groves and crystal fountains ! 
 How I love at liberty, 
 By turns, to come and visit ye ! " 
 
 /"10ME, let us burst the cerements and the shroud, 
 
 And with the livelong year renew our breath, 
 Far from the darkness of the city's cloud 
 
 Which hangs above us like the pall of Death : 
 Haste, let us leave the shadow of his wings ! 
 Off from our cares, a stolen, happy time ! 
 
 Come where the skies are blue, the uplands green ; 
 
 For hark ! the robin sings 
 Even here, blithe herald, his auroral rhyme, 
 Foretelling joy, and June his sovereign queen. 
 
142 WOODS AND WATERS. 
 
 See, in our paved courts her missal scroll 
 
 Is dropped astealth, and every verdant line, 
 Emblazoned round with Summer's aureole,' 
 
 Pictures to eager eyes, like thine and mine, 
 Her trees new-leaved and hillsides far away. 
 Ransom has come : out from this vaulted town, 
 Poor prisoners of a giant old and blind, 
 
 Into the breezy day, 
 
 Fleeing- the sights and sounds that wear us down, 
 And in the fields our ancient solace find ! 
 
 Again I hunger for the living wood, 
 
 The laurelled crags, the hemlocks hanging wide, 
 The rushing stream that will not be withstood, 
 
 Bound forward to wed him with the river's tide : 
 what wild leaps through many a fettered pass, 
 Through knotted ambuscade of root and rock, 
 How white the plunge, how dark the cloven pool ! 
 
 Then to rich meadow-grass, 
 And pastures fed by tinkling herd and flock, 
 Till the wide stream receives its waters cool. 
 
WOODS AND WATERS.- 143 
 
 Again I long for lakes that lie between 
 
 High mountains, fringed about with virgin firs, 
 Where hand of man has never rudely been, 
 
 Nor plashing wheel the limpid water stirs ; 
 There let us twain begin the world again 
 
 Like those of old, while tree, and trout, and deer, 
 Unto their kindred beings draw our own, 
 
 Till more than haunts of men, 
 
 Than place and pelf, more welcome these appear, 
 And better worth sheer life than we had known. 
 
 Thither, ay, thither flee, dearest friend, 
 
 From walls wherein we grow so wan and old ! 
 The liberal Earth will still her lovers lend 
 Water of life and stoned sands of gold ; 
 Though of her perfect form thou hast secured 
 Thy will, some charm shall aye thine hold defy, 
 And day by day thy passion yet shall grow, 
 
 Even as a bridegroom, lured 
 By the unravished secret of her eye, 
 
 Heads the bride's soul, yet never all can know. 
 
144 WOODS AND WATERS. 
 
 And when from her embrace again thou ? rt torn, 
 
 (Though well for her the world were thrown away ! ) 
 At thine old tasks thou 'It not be quite forlorn, 
 
 Remembering where is peace ; and thou shalt say, 
 " I know where beauty has not felt the curse, 
 Where, though I age, all round me is so young 
 That in its youth my soul's youth mirrored seems : 
 
 Yes, in their rippling verse, 
 For all our toil, they have not falsely sung 
 
 Who said there still was rest beyond our dreams." 
 
TO B. T. 145 
 
 TO B. T. 
 
 WITH A COPY OF THE ILIAD. 
 
 T> AYARD, awaken not this music strong, 
 
 While round thy home the indolent sweet breeze 
 Floats lightly as the summer breath of seas 
 O'er which Ulysses heard the Sirens 7 song. 
 Dreams of low-lying isles to June belong, 
 And Circe holds us in her haunts of ease : 
 But later, when these high ancestral trees 
 Are sere, and such melodious languors wrong 
 The reddening strength of the autumnal year, 
 Yield to heroic words tliy ear and eye ; 
 Intent on these broad pages thou shalt hear 
 The trumpets' blare, the Argive battle-cry, 
 And see Achilles hurl his hurtling spear, 
 And mark the Trojan arrows make reply ! 
 
146 THE MOUNTAIN. 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN. 
 
 rTWO thousand feet in air it stands 
 
 Betwixt the bright and shaded lands, 
 Above the regions it divides 
 And borders with its furrowed sides. 
 The seaward valley laughs with light 
 Till the round sun o'erhangs this height ; 
 But then the shadow of the crest 
 No more the plains that lengthen west 
 Enshrouds, yet slowly, surely creeps 
 Eastward, until the coolness steeps 
 A darkling league of tilth and wold, 
 And chills the flocks that seek their fold. 
 
 Not like those ancient summits lone, 
 Mont Blanc, on his eternal throne, 
 The city-gemmed Peruvian peak, 
 The sunset portals landsmen seek, 
 
THE MOUNTAIN. 147 
 
 Whose train, to reach the Golden Land, 
 
 Crawls slow and pathless through the sand, 
 
 Or that, whose ice-lit beacon guides 
 
 The mariner on tropic tides, 
 
 And flames across the Gulf afar, 
 
 A torch by day, by night a star, 
 
 Not thus, to cleave the outer skies, 
 
 Does my serener mountain rise, 
 
 Nor aye forget its gentle birth 
 
 Upon the dewy, pastoral earth. 
 
 But ever, in the noonday light, 
 
 Are scenes whereof I love the sight, 
 
 Broad pictures of the lower world 
 
 Beneath my gladdened eyes unfurled. 
 
 Irradiate distances reveal 
 
 Fair nature wed to human weal ; 
 
 The rolling valley made a plain ; 
 
 Its checkered squares of grass and grain ; 
 
 The silvery rye, the golden wheat, 
 
 The flowery elders where they meet, 
 
 Ay, even the springing corn I see, 
 
148 THE MOUNTAIN. 
 
 And garden haunts of bird and bee ; 
 And where, in daisied meadows, shines 
 The wandering- river through its vines, 
 Move specks at random, which I know 
 Are herds a-grazing to and fro. 
 
 Yet still a goodly height it seems 
 
 From which the mountain pours his streams, 
 
 Or hinders, with caressing hands, 
 
 The sunlight seeking other lands. 
 
 Like some great giant, strong and proud, 
 
 He fronts the lowering thunder-cloud, 
 
 And wrests its treasures, to bestow 
 
 A guerdon on the realm below ; 
 
 Or, by the deluge roused from sleep 
 
 Within his bristling forest-keep, 
 
 Shakes all his pines, and far and wide 
 
 Sends down a rich, imperious tide. 
 
 At night the whistling tempests meet 
 
 In tryst upon his topmost seat, 
 
 And all the phantoms of the sky 
 
 Frolic and gibber, storming by. 
 
THE MOUNTAIN. 149 
 
 By day I see the ocean-mists 
 
 Float with the current where it lists, 
 
 And from my summit I can hail 
 
 Cloud-vessels passing on the gale, 
 
 The stately argosies of air, 
 
 And parley with the helmsmen there ; 
 
 Can probe their dim, mysterious source, 
 
 Ask of their cargo and their course, 
 
 Whence come f where bound ? arid wait reply, 
 
 As, all sails spread, they hasten by. 
 
 If, foiled in what I fain would know, 
 Again I turn my eyes below 
 And eastward, past the hither mead 
 Where all day long the cattle feed, 
 A crescent gleam my sight allures 
 And clings about the hazy moors, 
 The great, encircling, radiant sea, 
 Alone in its immensity. 
 
 Even there, a queen upon its shore, 
 I know the city evermore 
 
150 THE MOUNTAIN. 
 
 Her palaces and temples rears, 
 And wooes the nations to her piers ; 
 Yet the proud city seems a mole 
 To this horizon-bounded whole ; 
 And, from my station on the mount, 
 The whole is little worth account 
 Beneath the overhanging sky, 
 That seems so far and yet so nigh. 
 Here breathe I inspiration rare, 
 Unburdened by the grosser air 
 That hugs the lower land, and feel 
 Through all my finer senses steal 
 The life of what that life may be, 
 Freed from this dull earth's density, 
 When we, with many a soul-felt thrill, 
 Shall thrid the ether at our will, 
 Through widening corridors of morn 
 And starry archways swiftly borne. 
 
 Here, in the process of the night, 
 The stars themselves a purer light 
 Give out, than reaches those who gaze 
 
THE MOUNTAIN. 151 
 
 Enshrouded with the valley's haze. 
 
 October, entering Heaven's fane, 
 
 Assumes her lucent, annual reign : 
 
 Then what a dark and dismal clod, 
 
 Forsaken by the Sons of God, 
 
 Seems this sad world, to those which march 
 
 Across the high, illumined arch, 
 
 And with their brightness draw me forth 
 
 To scan the splendors of the North 1 
 
 I see the Dragon, as he toils 
 
 With Ursa in his shining coils, 
 
 And mark the Huntsman lift his shield, 
 
 Confronting on the ancient field 
 
 The Bull, while in a mystic row 
 
 The jewels of his girdle glow ; 
 
 Or, haply, I may ponder long 
 
 On that remoter, sparkling throng, 
 
 The orient sisterhood, around 
 
 "Whose chief our Galaxy is wound ; 
 
 Thus, half enwrapt in classic dreams, 
 
 And brooding over" Learning's gleams, 
 
 I leave to gloom the under-land, 
 
152 THE MOUNTAIN. 
 
 And from my watch-tower, close at hand, 
 Like him who led the favored race, 
 I look on glory face to face ! 
 
 So, on the mountain-top, alone, 
 I dwell, as one who holds a throne ; 
 Or prince, or peasant, him I count 
 My peer, who stands upon a mount, 
 Sees farther than the tribes below, 
 And knows the joys they cannot know ; 
 And, though beyond the sound of speech 
 They reign, rny soul goes out to reach, 
 Far on their noble heights elsewhere, 
 My brother-monarchs of the air. 
 
HOLYOKE VALLEY. 153 
 
 HOLYOKE VALLEY. 
 
 "Something sweet 
 Followed youth, with flying feet, 
 And will never come again." 
 
 TTOW many years have made their flights, 
 
 Northampton, over thee and me, 
 Since last I scaled those purple heights 
 That guard the pathway to the sea; 
 
 Or climbed, as now, the topmost crown 
 Of western ridges, whence again 
 
 I see, for miles beyond the town, 
 That sunlit stream divide the plain? 
 
 There still the- giant warders stand 
 
 And watch the current's downward flow, 
 
 And northward still, with threatening hand, 
 The river bends his ancient bow. 
 
154 HOLYOKE VALLEY. 
 
 I see the hazy lowlands meet 
 
 The sky, and count each shining spire, 
 
 From those which sparkle at my feet 
 To distant steeples tipt with fire. 
 
 For still, old town, thou art the same : 
 The redbreasts sing their choral tune, 
 
 Within thy mantling elms aflame, 
 As in that other, dearer June, 
 
 When here my footsteps entered first, 
 And summer perfect beauty wore, 
 
 And all thy charms upon me burst, 
 While Life's whole journey lay before. 
 
 Here every fragrant walk remains, 
 Where happy maidens come and go, 
 
 And students saunter in the lanes, 
 And hum the songs I used to know. 
 
 I gaze, yet find myself alone, 
 
 And walk with solitary feet: 
 How strange these wonted ways have grown I 
 
 Where are the friends I used to meet ? 
 
HOLYOKE VALLEY. 155 
 
 In yonder shaded Academe 
 
 The rippling metres flow to-day, 
 But other boys at sunset dream 
 
 Of love, and laurels far away ; 
 
 And ah ! from yonder trellised home, 
 
 Less sweet the faces are that peer 
 Than those of old, and voices come 
 
 Less musically to my ear. 
 
 Sigh not, ye breezy elms, but give 
 The murmur of my sweetheart's vows, 
 
 When Life was something worth to live, 
 And Love was young bene-ath your boughs ! 
 
 Fade beauty, smiling everywhere, 
 That can from j r ear to year outlast 
 
 Those charms a thousand times more fair, 
 And, 0, our joys so quickly past ! 
 
 Or smile to gladden fresher hearts 
 Henceforth : but they shall yet be led, 
 
 Revisiting these ancient parts, 
 
 Like me to mourn their glory fled. 
 
156 THE FEAST OF HAKVEST. 
 
 THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 
 
 E fair Earth smiled and turned herself and woke, 
 And to the Sun with nuptial greeting said : 
 " I had a dream, wherein it seemed men broke 
 
 A sovran league, and long years fought and bled, 
 Till down my sweet sides ran my children's gore, 
 And all my beautiful garments were made red, 
 And all my fertile fields were thicket-grown, 
 Nor could thy dear light reach me through the air ; 
 At last a voice cried, 'Let them strive no more ! } 
 Then music breathed, and lo ! from my despair 
 I wake to joy, yet would not joy alone ! 
 
 "For, hark! I hear a murmur on the meads, 
 Where as of old my children seek my face, 
 
 The low of kine, the peaceful tramp of steeds, 
 Blithe shouts of then in many a pastoral place, 
 
 The noise of tilth through all my goodliest land ; 
 And happy laughter of a dusky race 
 
THE FEAST OF HAEVEST. 157 
 
 Whose brethren lift them from their ancient toil, 
 Saying: "The year of jubilee has come; 
 Gather the gifts of Earth with equal hand ; 
 
 Henceforth ye too may share the birthright soil, 
 The corn, the wine, and all the harvest-home. " 
 
 " my dear lord, my radiant bridegroom, look ! 
 
 Behold their joy who sorrowed in my dreams, 
 The sword a share, the spear a pruning-hook ; 
 
 Lo, I awake, and turn me toward thy beams 
 Even as a bride again ! 0, shed thy light 
 
 Upon my fruitful places in full streams ! 
 Let there be yield for every living thing ; 
 
 The land is fallow, let there be increase 
 After the darkness of the sterile night ; 
 
 Ay, let us twain a festival of Peace 
 
 Prepare, and hither all my nations bring ! " 
 
 The fair Earth spake : the glad Sun speeded forth, 
 Hearing her matron words, and backward drave 
 
 To frozen caves the icy Wind of the North, 
 And bade the South Wind from the tropic wave 
 
158 THE FEAST OF HARVEST. 
 
 Bring watery vapors over river and plain, 
 
 And bade the East Wind cross her path, and lave 
 The lowlands, emptying there her laden mist, 
 And bade the Wind of the West, the best wind, blow 
 After the early and the latter rain, 
 
 And beamed himself, and oft the sweet Earth kissed, 
 While her swift servitors sped to and fro. 
 
 Forthwith the troop that, at the beck of Earth, 
 
 Foster her children, brought a glorious store 
 Of viands, food of immemorial worth, 
 
 Her earliest gifts, her tenderest evermore. 
 First came the Silvery Spirit, whose marshalled files 
 
 Climb up the glades in billowy breakers hoar, 
 Nodding their crests, and at his side there sped 
 
 The Golden Spirit, whose yellow harvests trail 
 Across the continents and fringe the isles, 
 
 And freight men's argosies where'er they sail : 
 0, what a wealth of sheaves he there outspread ! 
 
 Came the dear Spirit whom Earth doth love the best, 
 Fragrant of clover-bloom and new-mown hay, 
 
THE FEAST OF HAEVEST. 159 
 
 Beneath whose mantle weary ones find rest, 
 
 On whose green skirts the little children play : 
 She bore the food our patient cattle crave. 
 
 Next, robed in silk, with tassels scattering spray, 
 
 Followed the generous Spirit of the Maize, 
 And many a kindred shape of high renown 
 Bore in the clustering grape, the fruits that wave 
 
 On orchard branches or in gardens blaze, 
 And those the wind-shook forest hurtles down. 
 
 Even thus they laid a great and marvellous feast, 
 
 And Earth her children summoned joyously, 
 Throughout that goodliest land wherein had ceased 
 
 The vision of battle, and with glad hands fre.e 
 These took their fill, and plenteous measures poured, 
 
 Beside, for those who dwelt beyond the sea ; 
 Praise, like an incense, upward rose to Heaven 
 
 For that full harvest, and the autumnal Sun 
 Stayed long above, and ever at the board, 
 
 Peace, white-robed angel, held the high seat given, 
 
 And War far off withdrew his visage dun. 
 
160 AUTUMN SONG. 
 
 AUTUMN SONG. 
 
 "VTO clouds are in the morning 1 sky, 
 
 The vapors hug the stream, 
 Who says that life and love can die 
 
 In all this northern gleam ? 
 At every turn the maples burn, 
 
 The quail is whistling free, 
 The partridge whirs, and the frosted burs 
 Are dropping for you and me. 
 Ho! hilly ho! heigh 0! 
 
 Hilly ho ! 
 In the clear October morning. 
 
 Along our path the woods are bold, 
 
 And glow with ripe desire ; 
 The yellow chestnut showers its gold, 
 
 The sumachs spread their fire ; 
 The breezes feel as crisp as steel, 
 
 The buckwheat tops are red : 
 
AUTUMN SONG. 161 
 
 Then down the lane, love, scurry again, 
 And over the stubble tread! 
 Ho ! hilly ho I heigh ! 
 
 Hilly Jw! 
 In the clear October morning. 
 
162 WHAT THE WINDS BEING. 
 
 WHAT THE WINDS BEING. 
 
 VTTHICH is the Wind that brings the cold? 
 
 The North Wind, Freddy, and all the snow ; 
 And the sheep will scamper into the fold 
 When the North begins to blow. 
 
 Which is the Wind that brings the heat? 
 
 The South Wind, Katy ; and corn will grow, 
 And peaches redden for you to eat, 
 
 When the South begins to blow. 
 
 Which is the Wind that brings the rain ? 
 
 The East Wind, Arty ; and farmers know 
 That cows come shivering up the lane 
 
 When the East begins to blow. 
 
 Which is the Wind that brings the flowers ? 
 
 The West Wind, Bessy ; and soft and low 
 The birdies sing in the summer hours 
 
 When the West begins to blow. 
 
BETKOTHED ANEW. 163 
 
 BETROTHED ANEW. 
 
 fTlHE sunlight fills the trembling air, 
 
 And balmy days their guerdons bring ; 
 The Earth again is young and fair, 
 And amorous with musky Spring. 
 
 The golden nurslings of the May 
 
 In splendor strew the spangled green, 
 
 And hues of tender beauty play, 
 Entangled where the willows lean. 
 
 Mark how the rippled currents flow : 
 What lustres on the meadows lie ! 
 
 And hark, the songsters come and go, 
 And trill between the earth and sky. 
 
 Who told us that the years had fled, 
 Or borne afar our blissful youth ? 
 
 Such joys are all about us spread, 
 We know the whisper was not truth. 
 
164 BETROTHED ANEW. 
 
 The birds, that break from grass and grove, 
 Sing every carol that they sung 
 
 When first our veins were rich with love, 
 And May her mantle round us flung. 
 
 fresh-lit dawn ! immortal life ! 
 
 Earth's betrothal, sweet and true, 
 With whose delights our souls are rife 
 
 And aye their vernal vows renew ! 
 
 Then, darling, walk with me this morn : 
 Let your brown tresses drink its sheen ; 
 
 These violets, within them worn, 
 Of floral fays shall make you queen. 
 
 What though there comes a time of pain 
 When autumn winds forebode decay ; 
 
 The days of love are born again, 
 That fabled time is far away ! 
 
 And never seemed the land so fair 
 
 As now, nor birds such notes to sing, 
 Since first within your shining hair 
 
 1 wove the blossoms of the Spring. 
 
III. 
 
 SHADOW-LAND. 
 
SHADOW-LAND. 
 
 THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY/ 7 
 
 /^OULD we but know 
 
 The land that ends our dark, uncertain travel, 
 Where lie those happier hills and meadows low, 
 Ah, if beyond the spirit's inmost cavil, 
 
 Aught of that country could we surely know, 
 Who would not go ? 
 
 Might we but hear 
 The hovering angels 7 high imagined chorus, 
 
 Or catch, betimes, with wakeful eyes and clear, 
 One radiant vista of the realm before us, 
 
 With one rapt moment given to see and hear, 
 Ah, who would fear? 
 
168 " THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY." 
 
 Were we quite sure 
 
 To find the peerless friend who left us lonely, 
 
 Or there, by some celestial stream as pure, 
 
 To gaze in eyes that here were lovelit only, 
 
 This weary mortal coil, were we quite sure, 
 
 Who would endure ? 
 
DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW." 169 
 
 "DAKKNESS AND THE SHADOW." 
 
 TTTAKING, I have been nigh to Death, - 
 Have felt the chilluess of his breath 
 Whiten my cheek and numb my heart, 
 And wondered why he stayed his dart, 
 Yet quailed not, but could meet him so, 
 As any lesser friend or foe. 
 
 But sleeping, in the dreams of night, 
 His phantom stifles me with fright ! 
 God ! what frozen horrors fall 
 Upon me with his visioned pall : 
 The movelessness, the unknown dread, 
 Fair life to pulseless silence wed ! 
 
 And is the grave so darkly deep, 
 So hopeless, as it seems in sleep ? 
 Can our sweet selves the coffin hold 
 So dumb within its crumbling mould ? 
 8 
 
170 "DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW." 
 
 And is the shroud so dank and drear 
 A garb, the noisome worm so near ? 
 
 Where then is Heaven's mercy fled, 
 To quite forget the voiceless dead ? 
 
THE ASSAULT BY NIGHT. 171 
 
 THE ASSAULT BY NIGHT. 
 
 A LL night we hear the rattling flaw, 
 
 The casements shiver with each breath ; 
 And still more near the foemen draw, 
 The pioneers of Death. 
 Their grisly chieftain comes : 
 He steals upon us in the night ; 
 Call up the guards ! light every light ! 
 Beat the alarum dru-ms ! 
 
 His tramp is at the outer door ; 
 
 He bears against the shuddering walls ; 
 Lo ! what a dismal frost and hoar 
 Upon the window falls ! 
 Outbar him while ye may ! 
 Feed, feed the watch-fires everywhere, 
 Even yet their cheery warmth will scare 
 This thing of night away. 
 
172 THE ASSAULT BY NIGHT. 
 
 Ye cannot ! something chokes the grate 
 
 And clogs the air within its flues, 
 And runners from the entrance-gate 
 Come chill with evil news : 
 The bars are broken ope ! 
 Ha ! he has scaled the inner wall ! 
 But fight him still, from hall to hall ; 
 While life remains, there 7 s hope. 
 
 Too late ! the very frame is dust, 
 
 The locks and trammels fall apart; 
 He reaches, scornful of their trust, 
 The portals of the heart. 
 Ay, take the citadel ! 
 
 But where, grim Conqueror, is thy prey? 
 In vain thou 'It search each secret way, 
 Its flight is hidden well. 
 
 We yield thee, for thy paltry spoils, 
 
 This shell, this ruin thou hast made ; 
 Its tenant has escaped thy toils, 
 
 Though they were darkly laid. 
 
THE ASSAULT BY NIGHT. 173 
 
 Even now, immortal, pure, 
 It gains a house not made with hands, 
 A refuge in serener lands, 
 
 A heritage secure. 
 
174 GEOEGE AENOLD. 
 
 GEORGE ARNOLD. 
 
 GREENWOOD, NOVEMBER 13, 1865. 
 
 TTTE stood around the dreamless form 
 
 Whose strength was so untimely shaken, 
 Whose sleep not all our love could warm, 
 Nor any dearest voice awaken ; 
 
 And while the Autumn breathed her sighs, 
 And dropped a thousand leafy glories, 
 
 And all the pathways, and the skies, 
 Were mindful of his songs and stories, 
 
 Nor failed to wear the mingled hues 
 He loved, and knew so well to render, 
 
 But wooed, alas, in vain ! their Muse 
 For one more tuneful lay and tender, 
 
 We paused awhile, the gathered few 
 Who came, in longing, not in duty, 
 
GEORGE ARNOLD. 175 
 
 With eyes that full of weeping grew, 
 To look their last upon his beauty. 
 
 Death would riot rudely rob that face, 
 Nor dim its fine Arcadian brightness, 
 
 But gave the lines a clearer grace, 
 
 And sleep's repose, and marble's whiteness. 
 
 And, gazing there on him so young, 
 We thought of all his ended mission, 
 
 The broken links, the songs unsung, 
 The love that found no ripe fruition ; 
 
 Till last the old, old question came 
 
 To hearts that beat with life around him, 
 
 Why Death, with downward torch aflame, 
 Had searched our number till he found him? 
 
 Why passed the one who poorly knows 
 That blithesome spell for either fortune 
 
 Or mocked with lingering menace those 
 Whose pains the final thrust importune ; 
 
176 GEORGE ARNOLD. 
 
 Or left the toiling ones who bear 
 
 The crowd's neglect, the want that presses, 
 
 The woes no human soul can share, 
 Nor look, nor spoken word, confesses 
 
 And from the earth no answer came, 
 The forest wore a stillness deeper, 
 
 The sky and lake smiled on the same, 
 And voiceless as the silent sleeper. 
 
 And so we turned ourselves away, 
 By earth and air and water chidden, 
 
 And left him with them, where he lay, 
 A sharer of their secret hidden. 
 
 And each the staff and shell again 
 
 Took up, and marched with memories haunted ; 
 But henceforth, in our pilgrim-strain, 
 
 We '11 miss a voice that sweetly chaunted ! 
 
THE SAD BRIDAL. 177 
 
 THE SAD BRIDAL. 
 
 TTTHAT would you do, my dear one said, 
 What would you do, if I were dead? 
 If Death should mumble, as he list, 
 These red lips which now you kist? 
 What would my love do, were I wed 
 To that ghastly groom instead ; 
 If o'er me, in the chancel, Death 
 Should cast his amaranthine wreath, 
 Before my eyes, with fingers pale, 
 Draw down the mouldy bridal veil ? 
 Ah no ! no ! it cannot be ! 
 Death would spare their light, and flee, 
 And leave my love to Life and me ! 
 
 8* 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM THEOCRITUS. 
 
[*** A portion of the Tenth and the whole of the Thirteenth 
 Idyls of Theocritus are given in the following translations. The 
 text of "Hylas" is somewhat in dispute, and, as the translator 
 has examined various editions, his version will be found to diil'cr, 
 in one or two places, from the common reading. He has, also, 
 with good authority, divided the alternate songs of " The Reap- 
 ers " into the couplets, which so exactly balance each other, and 
 which are approved by critical and poetical instinct. The Eng- 
 lish hexameter has been selected as the only measure adapted to 
 a literal and lineal rendering of the peculiar idyllic verse. These 
 specimens of the Sicilian-Doric poetry, including a pastoral and 
 a semi-epic theme, are from a version of the works of Theocritus, 
 Bion, and Moschus, which the translator hopes to complete at 
 some future day.] 
 
TRANSLATIONS FROM THEOCRITUS. 
 
 THE REAPERS. 
 
 MILO AND BATTUS. 
 
 MlLO. 
 
 BUT come now, down with the harvest ! 
 Strike up also, I pray, a sweetheart song of the 
 
 maiden ; 
 Thus will you work more lightly: I think you used 
 
 to be tuneful. 
 
 BATTUS (sings). 
 
 " Sing with me, Pierian Muses, the lass that is lis- 
 some ; 
 
 For ye make all things fair, whatever ye touch, ye 
 Divine Ones ! 25 
 
182 THE KEAPERS. 
 
 " Graceful Bombyce, they call you a Syrian, scrawny 
 
 and sunburnt, 
 All but me, who alone pronounce you the color of 
 
 honey. 
 
 " Ay, and the violet's dark, and the hyacinth wearing 
 
 its letters : 
 None the less, for all that, are they sorted first in the 
 
 garlands. 
 
 " She-goats hunt for the clover, the wolf goes after 
 the she-goat, 30 
 
 After the plough the crane, but I 've gone raving 
 for you, love ! 
 
 " Would that mine were as much as Croesus, they say, 
 
 was possessed of; 
 Then should we twain, in gold, be set up before 
 
 Aphrodite" ; 
 
 "You with a yes, with a flute, and a rose, or, 
 
 maybe, an apple ; 
 I, with new Amyclasan shoes, and a robe in the 
 
 fashion. :J5 
 
THE REAPERS. 183 
 
 " Graceful Bombyce, your feet are pretty as dice that 
 
 twinkle ; 
 Soft is your voice ; but your manner, I have no 
 
 words to express it ! " 
 
 MILO. 
 
 Look you, the lad has been sly, composing us ele- 
 gant ditties : 
 
 See how well he has measured the form of his even 
 rhythm ! 
 
 this beard of mine, which I seem to have grown to 
 no purpose ! 40 
 
 But. to go on, now hear these words of the sage 
 Lytierses : 
 
 (Sings.) 
 
 " Demeter, abounding in fruit and ears of the harvest, 
 
 Well may this field be worked and yield a crop be- 
 yond measure ! 
 
 "Hard, bind hard, ye binders, the sheaves, lest ever 
 
 a passer 
 Say, ' These men are poor sticks, and their pay is 
 
 cash out of pocket/ 45 
 
184 THE REAPERS. 
 
 " Toward the north-wind let your swath of grain in 
 
 the cutting 
 
 Look, or else to the west, for thus the ear will grow 
 fuller. 
 
 " Threshers, threshing the corn, should shun the slum- 
 bers of noonday ; 
 
 That is the very hour when the chaff flies off from 
 the wheat-stalk. 
 
 " Reapers, begin your toil when the tuft-lark soars 
 from the meadow : 50 
 
 Cease when he sleeps : besides, in the heat of the 
 day take your leisure. 
 
 " Give me a frog's life, boys ! he needs, to pour out 
 
 his tipple, 
 No cup-bearer, not -he, for 't is up to his mouth all 
 
 around him. 
 
 " Better to boil the lentil, you '11 find it, niggardly 
 
 steward : 
 'Ware lest you cut your hand in making two halves 
 
 of a cummin." 55 
 
THE REAPERS. 185 
 
 (Speaks.) 
 
 Staves like these 'tis tit that men at work in the 
 sunshine 
 
 Troll ; but, lad, 't were better to prate of your starve- 
 ling passion 
 
 Unto your mother awake in her bed at break of the 
 morning. 
 
186 HYLAS. 
 
 HYLAS. 
 
 for ourselves alone the God, who fathered that 
 
 stripling 
 Eros, begat him, Nicias, as we have flattered us : 
 
 neither 
 Unto ourselves the first have beauties seemed to be 
 
 beauties, 
 Not unto us, who are mortal and do not foresee the 
 
 morrow ; 
 But that heart of brass, Amphitryon's son, who 
 
 awaited 5 
 
 .Stoutly the ruthless lion, he too was fond of a youth 
 
 once, 
 Graceful HYLAS, the lad with the curling locks, and 
 
 he taught him 
 All fair things, as a father would teach the child of 
 
 his bosom, 
 All which himself had learned, and great and renowned 
 
 in song grown ; 
 
HYLAS. 187 
 
 Nor was he ever at all apart from him, neither at . 
 
 midday, 10 
 
 Nor when the white-horsed car of Eos ran up to Zeus- 
 ward, 
 Nor when the twittering chickens looked to their nest, 
 
 and the mother 
 Over her smoky perch at eve had fluttered her 
 
 pinions, 
 So might the lad be featly trained to his heart's own 
 
 liking, 
 And, with himself for guide, grow up a genuine 
 
 hero. 15 
 
 Now when it chanced that Jason, the son of ^Eson, 
 
 went sailing 
 After the Golden Fleece, and with him followed the 
 
 nobles, 
 Picked from all the towns and ripe for that service, 
 
 among them 
 
 Also to rich lolchos came the laboring hero, 
 He that was son of Alcmene, the heroine of Mideia ; 20 
 By his side went Hylas down to the bulwarked 
 
 Argo, 
 
188 HYLAS. 
 
 Which good ship the clashing Cyanean rocks in no 
 
 wise 
 Touched, but clove as an eagle, and so ran into 
 
 deep Phasis, 
 Clove through a mighty surge, whence low reef's 
 
 jutted in those days. 
 So at the time when the Pleiads rise, and out-of- 
 
 way places 25 
 
 Pasture the youngling lamb, and Spring has turned, 
 
 the immortal 
 Flower of heroes began of their voyage then to be 
 
 mindful, 
 And, having sat them do-wn again in the hollow 
 
 Argo, 
 Came to the Hellespont, a south wind blowing, the 
 
 third day, 
 And within the Propontis their anchorage made, 
 
 where oxen 30 
 
 Broaden Cianian furrows afield, and brighten the 
 
 ploughshare. 
 There stepping out on the beach they got the meal 
 
 of the evening, 
 
HYLAS. 189 
 
 Two by two ; and many were strewing a couch for 
 
 them all, since 
 Close at hand lay a meadow, to furnish sedge for 
 
 the bedding : 
 Thence sharp flowering-rush and low galingale they 
 
 cut them. 35 
 
 And with a brazen ewer the fair-haired Hylas was 
 
 seeking 
 Water, for Ilerakles' supper, and sturdy Telamon's 
 
 also, 
 Comrades twain, that ever were used to eat at one 
 
 table. 
 Erelong, too, he spied a spring in a low-lying 
 
 hollow : 
 
 Round its brim there grew a host of rushes, and dark- 
 blue 40 
 Celandine rose, and pale-green maiden-hair : and parsley 
 Throve, and the witch-grass tangling wild through 
 
 watery places. 
 Now the Nymphs were starting a dance in the midst 
 
 of the fountain, 
 Sleepless Nymphs, divine, to country people a terror, 
 
190 HYLAS. 
 
 Malis, Eunica, and one with her look of the Spring, 
 Nychea. 45 
 
 Soothly, the lad was holding the huge jar over the 
 water, 
 
 Dipping in haste, when one and all grew fast to his 
 hand there. 
 
 Love wound close around the gentle hearts of the 
 bevy, 
 
 Love for the Argive boy : and headlong into the dark 
 pool 
 
 Fell he, as when a fiery star has fallen from heaven 50 
 
 Headlong into the sea, and a sailor cries to his ship- 
 mates : 
 
 "loosen the tackle, lads ! 0, here comes a wind for 
 sailing ! " 
 
 As for the Nymphs, they held on their knees the tear- 
 ful stripling, 
 
 And with their kindly words were fain to comfort his 
 spirit. 
 
 But Amphitryon's son, alarmed for the youth, be- 
 stirred him, 55 
 
 Taking Scythian-wise his bended bow and its arrows, 
 
HYLAS. 191 
 
 Also the club, which his right hand ever to hold was 
 
 accustomed. 
 Thrice, ay, thrice he shouted HYLAS ! loud as his deep 
 
 throat 
 Could, while thrice the lad heard underneath, and a 
 
 thin voice 
 Came from the wave, and 0, so near he was, yet so 
 
 distant ! GO 
 
 And as a thick-maned lion, that hears a whimpering 
 
 fawn cry 
 Far away, some lion that munches flesh on the 
 
 mountains, 
 Speeds from his lair to a meal which surely waits for 
 
 his coming, 
 So, through untrodden brambles, Herakles, craving the 
 
 dear youth, 
 Sped in tremor and scoured great reaches this way 
 
 and that way. 65 
 
 Reckless are they who love ! what ills he suffered 
 
 while ranging 
 Cliffs and thickets ! and light, beside this, seemed the 
 
 quest of Jason. 
 
192 HYLAS. 
 
 Meanwhile the ship lay still, with her tackle hoisted 
 above her, 
 
 And, of those present, the youth were clearing 
 the sails at midnight, 
 
 Waiting for Herakles : he, wherever his feet might 
 lead him, 70 
 
 Wild went on, for a cruel god was tearing his heart- 
 strings. 
 
 Fairest Hylas is numbered thus with the Happy Im- 
 mortals : 
 
 Nathless the heroes were scoffing at Herakles as a 
 deserter, 
 
 Since he had fled from the ship of the thirty benches, 
 from Argo. 
 
 Onward he trudged afoot to Colchis and welcomeless 
 Phasis. 75 
 
 THE END. 
 
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