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 C. K. OGDEN ' 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 
 PRAETERITA.
 
 PRAETERITA. 
 
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 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 A Renunciation . . . . . i 
 
 Kneel not and leave me .... 3 
 
 Retrospect . . ... 5 
 
 Aurora ...... 8 
 
 He may who can . . . . .n 
 
 Sigh, heart, break not .... 13 
 
 Too fair to last . . . . .14 
 
 The Prodigal . . . . . 16 
 
 The isolation of selfish prosperity . . .17 
 
 The cheerful age . . . . . 19 
 
 Echo, cloud, and breeze . . . .22 
 
 A frosty day .... 24 
 
 At last ...... 26 
 
 The power of interval . . . 27 
 
 Hyperbole ...... 28 
 
 An Invocation ..... 29 
 
 Dithyramb ...... 30 
 
 A Ballad . 
 
 An Evening by the fire
 
 vi CONTEXTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Philoctete- ..... 39 
 
 Semele . . . . . .44 
 
 Saul ...... 49 
 
 Minos .... 54 
 
 A Wisp of Epic. .... 59 
 
 A Farewell .... .72 
 
 The Answer ..... 75 
 
 SuNNl-irs : 
 
 The crocus, .snow-drop, primrose, violet . 79 
 
 Is it because the Summer is so nigh . So 
 
 Why should we loiter on this wavering sand . Si 
 
 Rosy delight that changest day by day . 82 
 
 When the day glooms my passion is at rest . 83 
 
 I look'd across the rivet for the morn 84 
 
 I questioned with the amber daffodils . . 85 
 
 If ever, in the waste of time unborn . 86 
 
 My heart is vcxt with this fantastic fear . 87 
 O tliou rich vision, thou ha.-t plunged thi> da\ 
 
 Sweet, thou art gone and I must write a won! 89 
 
 Record is nothing, and the hero great . 90 
 
 Raise thro' the tempest thine immortal eyes . 91 
 She came, the fire of heaven upon her brow 
 Lives that are patch 'd of trifles with no thread 
 Ti in the mental man, as with his growth . 
 The Wounded King ..... 
 
 A Future . . ... 
 
 lie wise in time
 
 CONTENTS. vii 
 
 Page 
 
 At Evening . 102 
 
 A Lament . . ... 103 
 
 Stanzas ...... 104 
 
 Allowance ...... 105 
 
 A Song ...... 107 
 
 A Sketch at Evening .... 108 
 
 Fragment of an Allegory . . . iio 
 The Old Warrior . . . . .114 
 
 The Arcadian Shepherd . . . . 119
 
 > ; . 
 
 A RENUNCIATION. 
 
 T IGHT of love and cold of brain, 
 
 Shall I trust thy tears, 
 Linking hand on hand again I 
 In untutor'd years 
 
 Ah, but this was sweet. 
 
 Ripe lips are not venom-free, 
 
 Gentle eyes, nor virgin zone. 
 Thy snow-tint that dazzled me, 
 Snows that cover stone. 
 
 Peace, have done, 'tis well. 
 
 r,
 
 A RENUNCIATION. 
 
 Light elsewhere thy marsh-wisp's flame, 
 There are fools will drown : 
 
 Wrong is proud : lure other game ; 
 T have sat me down. 
 
 Let the times roll round. 
 
 Wearied of thy glossy smile, 
 
 Patching faith from flaw, 
 Cancel false and warrant guile : 
 
 Bonds are lath and straw ! 
 
 I have done with thee. 
 
 Plough the rock and reap the sand, 
 Wear thy sickly smiles for gain, 
 
 Blight the lips that touch thy hand, 
 Till thy withered lips in vain 
 Lisp unheeded lies.
 
 KNEEL NOT AND LEAVE ME. 
 
 T/^ NEEL not and leave me : mirth is in its grave. 
 True friend, sweet words were ours, sweet 
 
 words decay. 
 Believe, the perfume once this violet gave 
 
 Lives lives no more though mute tears answer 
 "nay." 
 
 Break off delay ! 
 
 Dead, Love is dead ! Ay, cancelled all his due. 
 
 We say he mocks repose we cannot tell 
 Close up his eyes and crown his head with rue, 
 
 Say in his ear, Sweet Love, farewell ! farewell ! 
 A last, low knell.
 
 4 KNEEL NOT AND LEA VE ME. 
 
 Forbear to move him. Peace, why should we 
 
 stay] 
 
 Go back no more to listen for his tread. 
 Resume our old calm face of every day : 
 Not all our kneeling turns that sacred head 
 Long dear, long dead ! 
 
 And go thou forth without one thought before : 
 Loss to remain and wisdom to begone 
 
 So make this wise heart stranger and still more 
 To teach us severed ways and dull our moan. 
 Go forth alone !
 
 RETROSPECT. 
 
 T F in yonder simple time 
 
 We have pondered on a face, 
 Draining out a poison'd wine 
 From the lips of first embrace ; 
 
 If with hot cheek and low breath 
 We have coined a mint of vows, 
 
 Binding for an amaranth wreath, 
 Half-shed roses on our brows ; 
 
 Till the cunning time's recoil 
 All the sacred dream destroys, 
 
 And resuming self must soil 
 Vengeful its memorial joys.
 
 Holding light our richer hour, 
 Half in envy, half in craft ; 
 
 Sullen-weary at the flower 
 Withered on its autumn shaft. 
 
 Dribbling o'er the fleeted time, 
 Fancied rapture, fancied woes,- 
 
 Drawling like a ribald rhyme 
 In a ballad-monger's nose, 
 
 Tell the boys, and make disdain 
 
 Where the canker'd thought has trod 
 
 Crushing in with tainted feet 
 
 Veil and shrine of that still (Jod 
 
 Loved of youth, and seal'd with fear 
 In the secret-warded breast, 
 
 Haled with mock or shallow jeer 
 From the haven of its rest.
 
 RETROSPECT. 
 
 Better hoard our hearts from love 
 Narrow'd in from burning tears 
 
 At its taste a noisy drove, 
 Traitors in the after-years.
 
 AURORA. 
 
 T)Y the primrose bank and meadow, 
 Rippling curls, rare feet in shadow. 
 
 Whither, sweet, away ? 
 Listen, rise and follow lightly, 
 Wind the fluttering fingers tightly ; 
 
 Greet thee, love, to-day. 
 
 Young and lonely keep no measure. 
 Mint of youth is current treasure, 
 
 Age but dross and scorn. 
 Many sweet mouths are not tasted, 
 Sweetest kisses won and wasted, 
 
 Hour and year foresworn.
 
 A URORA. 
 
 When the ripe hour whispers ' reap,' 
 Turning towards that loveless sleep 
 
 Who would sourly say, 
 ' Fresh cheeks wear not weeping stain. 
 Love is spoil, and wedded pain 
 
 Taint their rose away.' 
 
 Answer, love, "though love's best sweet, 
 Like an angel's glorious feet, 
 
 Flash and pass no more,' 
 Answer, sweet, " love may not last, 
 But the perfume of its past 
 
 Lives in riper store." 
 
 Wavering sets the longest noon : 
 Winter crowns the fiercest June, 
 
 Summer melts the snow. 
 Eyes can answer, hands as well, 
 Rusting years unlearn their spell : 
 
 Answer, dearest, so
 
 ) AURORA. 
 
 Fortune plays not twice the giver : 
 Leave it once and lose it ever. 
 
 As we speak 'tis flown. 
 Grasp it with no palsied hand, 
 Bend the years at thy command, 
 
 Now and thrice thine own.
 
 HE MAY WHO CAN. 
 
 AX TE are wise, the world is old, 
 Antic changes shift and hold, 
 Boys will swear and maids will weep, 
 Weej) and smile again. 
 
 Songs are for an April breast, 
 Feathers for a gleaming crest, 
 
 They may wake that need no sleep, 
 Sing, that feel no pain. 
 
 In the race youth's limbs are fleetest, 
 And a boy's mouth kisses sweetest ; 
 Rusty-tooth and iron-grey, 
 
 Mope beside thy fire.
 
 HE MA Y WHO CAN. 
 
 Changes push us on our grave ; 
 
 Can we keep the orts we have 1 ? 
 
 Ours is but a waning day, 
 
 What should we desire ?
 
 SIGH, HEART, BREAK NOT. 
 
 OIGH, heart, break not. Sky-lark, wake not, 
 
 Till my love be wakened and away, 
 Till his kisses, fresh as summer, 
 
 Wake ere the roses wake at opening day. 
 
 Stay thy warm gleam, amber morn-beam, 
 
 While his warm mouth on my cheek will stay. 
 
 Calm seas, breathe not sweet clay-April : 
 Calm eyes, sleep not, till ye must away. 
 
 My fleet new love, my sweet true dove, 
 
 Art thou gone for ever or a day 1 
 111 wind blow not, ill change grow not : 
 
 Go thy gate, but be not long away.
 
 TOO FAIR TO LAST. 
 
 T OVE of love, and light of light, 
 
 Love has limit of delight, 
 Dream and dream, sweet child, again, 
 Here is no unrest. 
 
 Love hath set our moist lips fast, 
 Kiss one kiss, the longest last. 
 What tho' weeping -ripe, my girl, 
 Smile thro' rainy eyes. 
 
 Summer from the bough has past, 
 And the shreds of autumn cast : 
 What, dear heart, if love be low 
 Under foot as soon >
 
 TOO FAIR TO LAST. 15 
 
 We have had a tender suit, 
 Lovely words are breath and mute, 
 Still'd with tears in richest noon. 
 Gathered to the dead. 
 
 Kiss and touch my hand, and part : 
 Sighs are farewell of the heart. 
 Dream a moment in thy joy, 
 Wake a world of years.
 
 THE PRODIGAL. 
 
 HPHE scath of sin is on my brow like lead. 
 The draff of swine is on my lips for bread. 
 Father, I know thy glory is not dead. 
 I will arise. 
 
 The servants in thy house are cloth'd and fed 
 Full and to spare. I perish here for bread. 
 My sin hath cloth'd thy presence with such dread, 
 I may not rise. 
 
 Mine, mine the guilt, all trespass deep and red : 
 Thine, thine the mercy on this fallen head. 
 Naked I come, yet thou shall give me bread. 
 1 will arise.
 
 THE 
 
 ISOLATION OF SELFISH PROSPERITY. 
 
 r ~PO strive is something, yet to win is more. 
 
 The crowned angels from their state declined ; 
 
 And traitor pride shall make the nations blind 
 In days to come as in the days of yore. 
 
 To win is something, but content is more. 
 
 The brooks, the fountains, and the crystal meres 
 Are things forbidden in the restless ears 
 
 Of Care ; he tastes no beauty in the shore 
 
 Hung with the morning, for his dreams are sere : 
 And, though he seat him on a throne of gold, 
 He cannot hear the birds sing as of old ; 
 
 And all his earlier self is grown a fear.
 
 THE ISOLATION OF SELFISH PROSPERITY. 
 
 His eyes are on the forward region spent : 
 The past let fools repair, and girls regret, 
 And first-love dreams leave dotards' eyelids wet ; 
 
 Such things are gone. He cares not how they 
 went. 
 
 Canker' d with self and his false Mammon -King, 
 He boasts at large, " I am not as my race, 
 With me men's petty loves, dreams, ends give 
 place 
 
 To high indifference ; hours can never ring 
 
 Love changes, matter for a neighbour's sneer, 
 On my mail'd breast : let boys and girls go whine 
 The shed rose-leaves of passion deem'd divine. 
 
 I am not of their weakness, shall I fear (
 
 THE CHEERFUL AGE. 
 
 A /TORE wrinkles score my brow than frowns, 
 
 Uncheck'd my merry vein, 
 For age, that gives us balder crowns, 
 Makes ripe the under brain. 
 
 Of something yet they rob us still 
 
 These years that make us wise, 
 For maids grow fair as then they were, 
 
 But we look with other eyes. 
 
 And what was music to our youth 
 
 Is discord to our age : 
 The songs we loved as vivid truth 
 
 Are tinsell'd verbiage.
 
 20 THE CHEERFUL AGE. 
 
 We cannot mend the race of things 
 That jostles towards solution : 
 
 'Twill see us out thro' falls and springs, 
 One stride more near conclusion. 
 
 There's sorrow if we earth it out, 
 
 But ease if we prefer it. 
 Then leave the thorn and pluck the rose, 
 
 And next thy bosom wear it. 
 
 O'er leagues of coast the rough foam flings 
 
 There still are quiet havens ; 
 If o'er our head one sky-lark sings 
 
 We heed not twenty ravens. 
 
 This world is in a slippery state, 
 And men are fools to grumble, 
 
 If, like a boy who learns to skate, 
 They marvel at a tumble.
 
 THE CHEERFUL AGE. 
 
 But wisdom this and wisdom that, 
 
 And every man her master, 
 While only hearts of season'd proof 
 
 Can weather life's disaster. 
 
 Can find youth sped and bid him speed, 
 Nor question out the reason ; 
 
 Then cheerly raise the latch to age, 
 A quest, tho' sour, in season.
 
 ECHO, CLOUD, AND BREEZE. 
 
 CHO, hast thou heard my love go by, 
 Hath her sweet breath touch'd in ecstasy 
 Thine old voice to answer silverly ? 
 Streamlets tinkle at her rosy feet, 
 Fountains dimple back her glancing sweet, 
 Daisies whisper, 'take us, dove, with thee.' 
 
 Idle cloudlet brooding near the sun, 
 
 Float and touch the hill-crowns one by one, 
 
 Tell me, is she here or is she there I 
 Bend thy melting eyes on slope and rock. 
 Seek her thro' the heaths, the climbing ilock : 
 
 Never hast thou sought a thing so fair.
 
 ECHO, CLOUD, AND BREEZE. 
 
 Breeze, that falling catchest on the mere, 
 Swallow-like to ruffle there and here 
 
 Freckling silver o'er the smooth dark creek, 
 Hast them felt the flutter of her gown, 
 Caught aside one little ringlet brown, 
 
 Tasted, passing, at the dainty cheek < 
 
 Reedy echoes from the ambling rill, 
 Sleepy cloud, come faster. Voices chill 
 
 Whisper rainless thro' the fresh-lipp'd wind. 
 Echo, cloud, and breeze, by down or dale, 
 Aid my restless eyes ; for, find or fail, 
 
 Seek the harder and the soonest find.
 
 A FROSTY DAY. 
 
 T^ROST-flowers pattern round the latch, 
 Cloud nor breeze dissolves the clime. 
 Field-grass wears a silver thatch, 
 Every paling edged with rime, 
 
 When the waves are solid floor, 
 And the clods are iron-bound, 
 
 And the boughs are crystall'd hoar, 
 And the red leaf nail'd a-ground. 
 
 When the fieldfare's flight is slow, 
 
 And a rosy vapour rim. 
 Now the sun is small and low, 
 
 Belts along the region dim.
 
 A FROSTY DAY. 25 
 
 When the ice-crack flies and flaws, 
 Shore to shore, with thunder shock, 
 
 Deeper than the evening daws, 
 Clearer than the village clock. 
 
 When the rusty blackbird strips, 
 Bunch by bunch, the coral thorn, 
 
 And the pale day-crescent dips 
 New to heaven a slender horn.
 
 AT LAST. 
 
 ~\ \ TE toss and twist upon a restless bed ; 
 
 Sleep comes at last. 
 Our Love denies, and yet denies again, 
 
 But yields at last. 
 The apple grows and ripens many days, 
 
 But falls at last. 
 And we are riped with joy, and marr'd with tears, 
 
 But end at last .'
 
 THE POWER OF INTERVAL. 
 
 A FAIR girl tripping out to meet her love 
 
 Trimm'd in her best, fresh as a clover-bud 
 An old crone leaning at an ember' d fire, 
 Short-breath'd in sighs and mumblings to herself- 
 And all the interval of stealing years 
 To make that this, and one by one detach 
 Some excellent condition, till Despair 
 Faint at the vision, sadly, fiercely blinds 
 Her burning eyes on her forgetful hands.
 
 HYPERBOLE. 
 
 "D IPE on the eyelids as a precious dream, 
 Soft on the lip as lips of coral seam, 
 Sweet on the ear as an imagined stream 
 Threading between the full woods and the moon. 
 
 Mellow as harvest song at steamy noon, 
 Lovely as cuckoo's voice that cometh soon, 
 Drowsy as music of the branch in June, 
 And tremulous linnet-pipe by broom or thorn. 
 
 Or shall I search the silver rose of morn. 
 
 The royal fisher's wing, the fleecy lawn 
 
 Of mountain lamb, all hues in nature born, 
 
 To find my Love's compare or deck her grace 1 ?
 
 DITHYRAMB. 31 
 
 Merry sets his mellow life 
 Who, where rusty shocks are rife, 
 Whistles off his weary load 
 Wearing to each year. 
 
 Sours he not with friendship's treason. 
 
 Or some sweet love strange in season, 
 
 Ripe in manhood, ripe in heart, 
 
 Whole and sound and clear.
 
 A BALLAD. 
 
 T KNOW not how I loved at all ; 
 
 Your presence in surprise 
 Came on me like a trumpet call, 
 
 And in a bright disguise ; 
 
 O o 
 
 A soldier in a burnish'd sheen 
 
 Of scale and listed blue, 
 With jangling armour and a mien 
 
 Of conquest as your due. 
 
 The rose of youth upon your face, 
 My name upon your lips, 
 
 The rippling trees, the lonely place. 
 The sails of harbour ships,
 
 A BALLAD. 
 
 The time and all so fairy-sweet, - 
 That at each word we did say, 
 
 I felt the time for love so meet 
 That love I gave away. 
 
 How fair the trailer's ruddy pride 
 Blazed out on cottage eaves, 
 
 How sweet when all the country-side 
 Shows like a wood of sheaves. 
 
 How dear in middle harvesting 
 
 The reapers roundel clear, 
 Where shakes the field-lark out its \virn 
 
 From threaded gossamere. 
 
 Sweet fickle Love, you grow for some, 
 And grip them to their grief, 
 
 As sudden as the red-wings come 
 At the full fall of the leaf.
 
 34 A BALLAD. 
 
 And sudden as the swallows go 
 That muster for the sea, 
 
 You pass away before we know, 
 And wounded hearts are we. 
 
 "Pis not that, love, in sentence trim 
 
 You reel off loving talk, 
 When pensive by the river brim 
 
 With hand on hand we walk. 
 
 It is not that you press my arm, 
 Or soften voice and eyes, 
 
 Or rivet hand, and glibly warm 
 The fervour of your sighs. 
 
 Who tells true heart from feigning deep, 
 
 How crafty-wise were he, 
 He knows the hill -side sheep from sheep 
 
 The mountain -bee from bee.
 
 A BALLAD. 35 
 
 We take on trust, forsooth we must, 
 
 And reckon as we see ; 
 But, O my love, if false thou prove, 
 
 What recks all else to me !
 
 AN EVENING BY THE FIRE. 
 
 frogs pipe out in dripping dykes, 
 And autumn wolds are sallow : 
 When pigeons leave the stubble spikes, 
 And homeward oxen bellow : 
 
 And singing under greying blue, 
 
 The ditcher and his fellow 
 Come drenched knee-deep from pasture-dew, 
 
 And foot -clogged from the fallow : 
 
 The black frost in the white frost's wake 
 May nip the marsh-buds yellow, 
 
 And kindling under branch and brake 
 The raying sunset mellow :
 
 AN EVENING BY THE FIRE. 
 
 Thro' branch and towards the trysting style 
 Where skims each mustering swallow ; 
 
 As sits the lass to rest awhile, 
 Strolls up some sheepish fellow. 
 
 Our sun-track draws tonight as this 
 That floods the level fallow : 
 
 Yon maiden's cheek is ripe to kiss, 
 But ours are lank and hollow. 
 
 Our youth is gone, like this fair day, 
 Our rusty bones shall follow, 
 
 And rest they say, for heads of gray. 
 Comes on a churchyard pillow. 
 
 So runs it well, so runs it ill, 
 What must be we must swallow. 
 
 We'll keep a merry heart up still, 
 Unsered, fresh, young, and callow.
 
 38 AN EVENING BY THE FIRE. 
 
 Draw closer to the blaze, old friend, 
 
 Our ale is stiff and mellow. 
 We have not much more light to spend, 
 
 Two guttered ends of tallow. 
 
 But I will grasp thee by the hand, 
 What tho' thy cheek be yellow, 
 
 I'll swear that thro' the whole broad land 
 Ne'er walked a better fellow.
 
 PHILOCTETES. 
 
 OILENCE on silence treads at each low mom. 
 Pain and new pain, some glimpse of painless sleep, 
 And waking to old anguish and new day : 
 Blasted of glory, sundered from my kind : 
 My hearth, my realm, the lips that love me, lost : 
 So runs it. 'Tis some courage to keep life 
 Where life is worthless, and on feeble stay 
 To dwell in hope of better till we die. 
 
 I hate this island steep, this seam of beach. 
 This ample desolation of gray rock 
 Man tills not : and man reaps not, woe is me ! 
 No voices, save stress-landed mariners 
 Leaning in ring with eyebrow -level wrists
 
 40 PHILOCTE TES. 
 
 To watch the scummy rack and buzzing waves, 
 
 Toss me a word in pity : stare and pass 
 
 Grinding a clumsy jest or surly sneer. 
 
 Yet in their talk I gather waifs and strays 
 
 Of that great Trojan battle how it goes ; 
 
 Of beardless youths who gain down heaven with 
 
 deeds, 
 
 And all the noise and turmoil of the thing, 
 Deed quenching deed, and echo's swollen boast, 
 While I am rotting here and touch no praise. 
 
 Ye have done well to leave me. 'Tis most wise, 
 
 And friendly too, expedient, generous : 
 
 Why this is bounty's crown ; I have deserved 
 
 No less than a sick hound : full thanks for all. 
 
 My kings and comrades, ye are wise and brave, 
 
 As wise as brave, and brave your chiefest voice 
 
 Of foxy Ithaca : 'twas nobly said, 
 
 " Pack out the carrion on this leeward Isle. 
 
 We need no wounded leaders, no, nor fear. 
 
 His men and ships are needed ; they sail on :
 
 PIHLOCTETES. 41 
 
 They cannot heal him, and our need is great." 
 Why, man, this is true valour and no theft : 
 I could not quit thee, and kings cannot steal. 
 But if I meet thy foxship afterdays, 
 With half an arm to raise and half a spear, 
 I'll mar that serpent face and false gray smile, 
 And leave thy surgy rock without a king. 
 
 Alas, alas, how mean a thing am I 
 To rail and threat and bluster like a God. 
 The old pain trembles thro' me marrow -deep, 
 A quivering mass of earth, than earth no more, 
 Earth gifted with a cunning power of pain, 
 Full knowledge of its fall and loathsomeness, 
 Craving for enterprize in impotence, 
 Some little sleep and all the rest a pain 
 Shall such a thing have pride or hoard revenge \ 
 
 I loathe the glancing sameness of this brine, 
 
 Its hissing suck of waves, its equal face. 
 
 [ loathe the toss of sails, the pass of clouds,
 
 42 PHIL O C TE TES. 
 
 The white wings curving on the tawny rocks, 
 The evening and the dawning and the day. 
 We thrive by action, I am chained from all, 
 And I forget the pleasure of this earth, 
 Of all but pain and slow time dispossess'd. 
 
 Yet is there hope ; slow hope yet comfort sure, 
 
 I had forgot it in my wrath and pain. 
 
 Is there no oracle 1 ? Troy cannot fall. 
 
 I guard thine arrows, Heracles divine, 
 
 And Troy falls not without them year on year. 
 
 I hoard them as the marrow of my bones, 
 
 Sweet nurses to revenge. Oh, fate is just. 
 
 Ye reap, my kings, wound-harvest and much dead, 
 
 Thinn'd troops, and kingdoms waned to wrack at 
 
 home, 
 
 And gloomy faces by a gloomy sea, 
 And firm-braced Troy before, the sponge of toil, 
 And all your warring as an idle dream. 
 
 I can abide my hour it is so sure,
 
 PHILOCTETES. 4 
 
 I lean on this unstumbling oracle, 
 And nourish hope, till worn with many woes 
 The haught Kings fall in thinking on the wreck 
 They left by Lemnos and the archer hand 
 Once fellowless in Hellas. They shall come, 
 By Zeus I swear it, they shall come in shame, 
 And stand in shame before the man they wrong'd 
 And weeded out as refuse. See, they bend, 
 Pestilent faces crusted in meek smiles, 
 And supple eyes and all the fawn of need : 
 And one mouths out on justice, gratitude, 
 The cause of Hellas. Then another smooths 
 My name with praise, and all the worthy ring 
 Lisp sympathy with dew on glassy cheeks. 
 
 Sweet oracle, thou climax of revenge, 
 I will wear out my painful coil in joy, 
 Voiceless of all complaining, firm and sure 
 The Gods are just, and compensation comes.
 
 SEMELE. 
 
 ]\/T Y sense is dull. The tremulous evening glows : 
 The weeds of night coast round her lucid edge, 
 Yoked under bulks of tributary cloud. 
 The leaves are shaken on the forest flowers, 
 And silent as the silence of a shrine 
 Lies a great power of sunset on the groves. 
 Grayly the fingered shadows dwell between 
 The reaching chestnut branches. Gray the mask 
 Of twilight, and the bleak unmellow speed 
 Of blindness on the visage of fresh hills. 
 
 My soul is melted in pale aching dreams, 
 
 I feign some nearing issue in new time, 
 
 On which I wait, for which I think and move : 
 
 A haunting drift that guides me by a glimpse 
 
 To lovely things and meteor affluence.
 
 SEMELE. 45 
 
 I wander in my silence, incomplete. 
 
 My lonely feet are dew'd in chilly flowers, 
 
 And I am full of fever and alone 
 
 The cup without its acorn, the brook bed 
 
 Dry of its stream, the chalice ebb'd of wine, 
 
 The deep night listening for its rising morn, 
 
 The droughty plain that sees the rain-cloud pause, 
 
 And hears the falling drift sing towards its breast. 
 
 The voice of dreams is sweet upon my brain, 
 Has fed me on thin comfort many a day, 
 Since all my mind was tender, and a child 
 Rich in the girlish impulse of ripe dreams 
 I threw my song upon the wind, or pored 
 On all this glorious nature and its blaze 
 Ineffable, enormous. I could guess 
 The thriving summer toward, as the globe 
 That metes the still year's process, and the edge 
 Of March-days sweetened in warm April's tread 
 Levied the wavering clouds to do him praise, 
 And all their folds were bright against his head.
 
 46 SEMELE. 
 
 I pondered out the wonder-veiling years, 
 And still I dwelt on light in all my dreams, 
 Some strange great yearning : dim on forest-waves 
 The large eye-blinding radiance sheeted out, 
 And withered up the film of hooded peaks 
 To set their dinted vales with faltering fires : 
 As cloudy hollows claspt in buoyant green 
 Took savour of wood-incense from the drench 
 Of lime-boughs limp with perfume-searching rains, 
 Methought at times the wildered spirit paused 
 In blindness on an edge of glory, faint 
 And trembling. Milky shiverings of cloud 
 Crept in meridian smoothly towards a sea 
 Where evening held in bright her western bars, 
 And all the full blue level glow'd again 
 Under a glowing sky. 
 
 I speak my soul 
 
 With words and sign and symbols of weak sound. 
 I cannot clasp the meaning as it lies, 
 I cannot blend with shallow speech my dream. 
 I, reeling from the level of my brain,
 
 SEMELE. 47 
 
 Would mix with flowery essence, or exchange 
 Life with an amaranth, so look heaven in face 
 A summer thro', and draw the zenith dews 
 Drizzled between the twilights, ere the streak 
 Of morning touch celestial thro' the halls 
 Of Nature, with the echo of a bird, 
 A startled leaflet, and an opening flower. 
 
 And thus I read the sacred loveliness 
 
 Of Heaven's clear face, unseen as stars by day, 
 
 But there no less tho' weak eyes reach them not 
 
 Till on the vagueness of thin thought there came 
 
 Substantial impress : on the dreamy mist 
 
 A presence and a deity behind 
 
 Concentred yet pervasive. Silent eyes 
 
 Gave greeting, and, in wordless promise, sign 
 
 Of imminent revealment, and great lights, 
 
 Deep harmony and thunders, as the voice 
 
 Of breakers breaking on low-margin'd seas. 
 
 Thou all-enfolding ether, thou clear God, 
 Shall I profane thy fair immensity.
 
 48 SEMELE. 
 
 Or bound thy boundless essence in a name 
 Spoken as men can speak it between lips 
 That tell but half their thought, whose thought is 
 weak ? 
 
 Thou whom I only guess thro' my desire, 
 
 A far attainment, inmost prophecy. 
 
 An instinct and a voiceless oracle, 
 
 To enter where we would be, and be one ; 
 
 There, face to face, to touch and be complete, 
 
 And shed our craving from us like old leaves 
 
 That grate beside the crowded knots of spring. 
 
 Come, thou great bliss, I have been patient long. 
 My lonely arms entreat thee from thy state. 
 Come, thro' the vaulted blue a burning sun. 
 Come, as the night comes, fielded round with stars ! 
 My soul is throbbing, as a moonless sea, 
 Flood out thy rich beams full upon her breast !
 
 SAUL. 
 
 ]\/["Y son, my son, there is no stir of hope. 
 
 These days are rough, and ere my latest fight 
 The graying twilight blinds the morning's eyes. 
 
 Deep have I tasted those accursed wells 
 
 Of disobedience : deeply wasted rule, 
 
 And made my throne a haven for the deed. 
 
 Come, come, the proudest soul that ever trod 
 
 Is pillage merely for some crushing hour, 
 
 And that is stored for all. I cannot mend, 
 
 And will not shrink. Fear mends not chance or 
 
 change. 
 
 Perchance my doom is ripe and I must fa]]. 
 I murmur not, for I have much endur'd. 
 Nor prosper'd in my sin or in my pride, 
 
 E
 
 50 SAUL. 
 
 But fever' d out my heart from shame to shame : 
 Shame is as praise where all is set to fall. 
 
 I that have dared 10 tamper with the dead. 
 
 To break the ancient prophet from his sleep, 
 
 Deliberate in election to foreknow 
 
 The drift of evil, and made firm my face 
 
 Beyond the scale of horror, to untear 
 
 Death and their secrets from the denizens 
 
 Of his oblivious city, shall I shrink 
 
 Or bate one inch off purpose till the end ? 
 
 I stand between the oracles of doom. 
 The wild wind passes on the cloudy banks 
 And raises out an interval of light. 
 This is the day, my soul. This is the day. 
 Shall I sit down and weep ? What help to wee]), 
 What harm to die ? Small profit this my rule : 
 A tiling of custom merely that outgrows 
 The will to move it from us, which removed 
 There lives bevond no comfort in the liyht :
 
 S.-l UL. 5 1 
 
 But craving, that in realmless abstinence 
 Rivets the ache of loss, where loss is gain 
 To limit old confusions, which of old 
 Raught from my helm the garland of its praise 
 And set my face to this perpetual rest. 
 
 Could I unlive my trespass, and the doom 
 
 Of this day's fight, to tread again the ways 
 
 Of earthly custom, taste smooth hope once more, 
 
 Be man with men, talk trifles, wake and sleep : 
 
 Should I be changed ? Small change till I be dead. 
 
 What years have grained and ringed into the tree 
 
 Falls not for one night's shaking. I am proud, 
 
 I cannot take meek eyes and smile upon 
 
 My shepherd rival. He or I must cease. 
 
 My realm is narrow for a second King. 
 
 He prospers as I perish, for his hands 
 
 Are strengthened and some demon works me down, 
 
 Else had I crushed this stripling at his sheep. 
 
 1 never sought this ruling curse of rule.
 
 52 SAUL. 
 
 Who shall convince me that I sought to rule? 
 I sinn'd not as T was and sought no higher. 
 How then is this my guilt to fail beneath 
 Unwilling burden ? I have done some wrong. 
 But royal trespass this, and such as Kings 
 Could only sin. The wrong is theirs that chose. 
 
 They huddled on my rule and I was King. 
 They cannot twit me with an ounce of fear 
 Whenas I led their armies. That at least 
 Is something is this waning of my name. 
 What else is left ? To arm and surely die. 
 It shall be done. 'Tis easier passage straight 
 Where there is turning none and no retreat. 
 
 Perchance the spirit mock'd me to my doom. 
 It is a lying spirit from its lord 
 Of lies and fire, who steals a holy shape : 
 My sick brain cannot sunder false and true 
 Nay, for I heard his voice and heard my doom, 
 And he that sleeps at Ramah will not lie.
 
 SAUL. 53 
 
 Give me my sword. Philistia, lo I come ! 
 
 Glut all your spears upon me. 'Tis more brave 
 
 To wrestle with a certainty of doom 
 
 Than to be still in apathy and die. 
 
 I know the issue. I am set to fall. 
 
 What need to redden eyes with slavish tears '< 
 
 I feel the end. I front it and it comes.
 
 MINOS. 
 
 T HAVE framed ray life to ruling, ruling men. 
 
 This is the next prerogative to Zeus, 
 Who wears the cope of Kingship over Gods, 
 Who metes me out a little lording nook 
 Beside his spacious glory for a time, 
 
 Until the tale of years disorb my hand, 
 And set a graveward darkness on my brain 
 Decreed to earth, and make my voice a dream. 
 So thou rule on, no wrinkle in thy crown, 
 Zeus, and thy full lips fade not thro' the years. 
 
 What is more noble in our cloudy day 
 Of shift and error than to nourish peace, 
 And hold the sacred justice of a king 
 With marble purpose firm from day to year,
 
 MSA'OS. 55 
 
 Wedding the strength of order to our realm : 
 Not less the King shall watch and wait he may 
 Unroot confusion, the blind mole that mines 
 The seat of princes from their solid stay. 
 
 This is my mark of purpose slowly won. 
 Most slowly : year on year the long years went 
 And won me something nearer. In firm eyes 
 1 held the wavering beacon. And men came, 
 My councillors, and laughed against my dreams 
 Of truth and right. They said the world was 
 
 young, 
 
 Too young to cramp her steps by shackled rule, 
 And crush out man's fierce nature by the square. 
 To portion with one justice friend and slave, 
 Amercing equal penalties between 
 The hands that tugged our battles and the hind 
 Of capture, strangled empire in its germ ; 
 This led a rlush'd sedition at its heels, 
 This rent the key-stone arch of policy, 
 This palsied friendly nerve, this moved the feet
 
 56 MINOS. 
 
 Of rival armies, numb ingratitude, 
 
 This made shrewd fighters deal with lazy strokes. 
 
 But I nor fail'd nor wander'd from my drift, 
 And king it still, unseated by the storm, 
 Calm in the wreck on neighbour thrones, secure, 
 Where others crack'd to core whose root was 
 Wrong. 
 
 Obedience, Reason, Discipline, Reserve, 
 On these I founded empire as strong hills, 
 That warp not nor are shaken thro' the years. 
 I slept and waken'd till their seed was grown. 
 I watch'd them as the Sun doth watch the Sea, 
 Stretching an arm of glory from the verge 
 To shield her all the morning of his beams. 
 
 Much have I done : that much is but a brand 
 From that remainder forest which shall fall 
 Before their sturdy pioneers lead on 
 Freedom and Justice and the Golden Age.
 
 MINOS. 57 
 
 The white sea glimmers thro' the palace shafts. 
 My galleys beat to mainland rich in store, 
 Rich in the wealth that smooths the lives of men 
 And gives them higher natures. Out at sea 
 A scarf of air-mist wavers on the moon. 
 The torrents hold their music, and I scent 
 A riping vintage from the Cretan hills, 
 And harvest on illimitable plains. 
 My people turn to rest secure of wrong, 
 And not one lip but loves me for its sleep. 
 
 I have lived to great result, have seen my wish 
 Ripen to deed, sole attribute of Gods : 
 Gods only choose the means and grasp the end. 
 For, as in dreams that on some purpose verge 
 We waken ere that purpose, so our ears 
 Shall seldom hear the wind among the boughs 
 Whose seed was ours. 
 
 I am a man with men. 
 This is unstable glory. I am old, 
 And I, that love my work, must leave my work.
 
 58 MLYOS. 
 
 The eldest moving life between the suns. 
 I, that have wrestled doom aside to glance 
 An hour upon completion, glance and die. 
 The grave has had full patience. Yet I wee]) 
 To leave my solid toil and this fair land 
 To weaker keeping. Shall this icy thought 
 Comfort my bones, that all my work is wind, 
 This Isle a cry of pirates 1 
 
 O my heart ! 
 
 I hunger not this life as fools desire 
 A selfish dream of food and sleep and lust. 
 I am content. The corner of a mound 
 Is room enough, if I could find a hand 
 Wherein to trust my sceptre, so to sleep.
 
 A WISP OF EPIC. 
 /v 
 
 \ ND the gray King strode fiercely from the 
 
 board, 
 
 And wrench'd away and trampled on his crown : 
 But she, the princess, arm'd his neck and clung 
 With quivering lips and dreamy staring eyes. 
 And down the board the level feasters, each 
 And all, one impulse, rose like that long wave 
 When tide-flood takes a river. Vassal peers 
 Enring'd their muttering knots ; but, midmost, knell 
 A knight who bled between his shattered mails. 
 
 He, reeling from his saddle, sick and blind, 
 Scared thro' the courts with missive, blank as 
 
 death- 
 Had burst their feast like Pestilence, and cried
 
 60 A WISP OF EPIC. 
 
 Their frontier army broken, back and edge, 
 In ambush : all its bravest mown away : 
 And, woe the while, their prince the rumour gave 
 Lost in the trammell'd tangle of the slain, 
 Or wounded yet unfound but likelier slain. 
 
 So all that night the gray King and his child 
 Clomb a high chamber o'er the woods, and watch'd 
 That way their army went by mountains based 
 In shelves of ilex went, but when should come? 
 And, ere heaven's stubborn bar and sable screen 
 Crumbled in purple chains of sailing shower 
 And bared the captive morning in her cell, 
 Their lean hope wasted on the watchers' eyes 
 And fleeted from the impenetrable mask 
 Dead, as the new light lingered. 
 
 That wan king 
 
 Leant to each palm a hoary cheek, and sate, 
 His owl-white hairs shed out, his reedy beard 
 Held what he wept and thro' its woof each moan 
 Trembled in vapour, and his lids were set.
 
 A WISP OF EPIC. 6 1 
 
 But she, an eloquent presence of despair, 
 Drew, regal, all her height : her lordly eyes, 
 Robed in the morning that she sought in vain 
 Beyond the casement, rested on the void 
 Gazing thro' distance : horn and hoof were dumb 
 Between the sightless woods, but darkness held 
 Blind as her soul was darkened. 
 
 Last, she turned 
 And found the old King moaning in a trance, 
 
 o o 
 
 Not wholly wakeful, drowsy in his pain, 
 Mowing and whispering ; and she said, 
 
 " My Liege, 
 
 I cannot taste thin morning from the downs. 
 A grieving wind is on the troubled cloud, 
 But here it comes not thro' the woolly mist. 
 A false red dawn hath yonder ridge bestrid 
 To cheat the midnight of her dotard hours : 
 Watch' d morning loiters from the watchers' eyes. 
 No throbbing clarion melts against the wall 
 Of this cool dark : the gray night round is dumb, 
 And ear and eyeball tingle with the strain
 
 62 A WISP OF EPIC. 
 
 Of void and silence : from the inmost heart 
 Of woodland fails all motion : calm the hills 
 As flaky tossings frozen in nebulous seas. 
 I will not cheat thy comfort that they come. 
 
 She shook her accents from her as she stood 
 With raised and lucent elbows ; here declined 
 Her rich and languid head against her palms ; 
 Tight fingers counter-knit behind the black 
 And banded hair, convulsive in their close, 
 So strained it in her passion and her pain. 
 Not less the wild expectance in her eyes 
 Refrained their tears, as mute the smooth pure lips 
 Tighten'd in restless workings on the pearl, 
 Barrier of their lost music. 
 
 So they twain 
 
 Spake nothing, yet in gloom the old King's eyes 
 Glittered with beaded anguish, for his age 
 Was as an infant's with an honest face 
 Denying not its weakness : and the nails 
 Of his lean fingers grated on his robe
 
 A WISP OF EPIC. 63 
 
 Crackling the furry velvets, fold on fold, 
 
 And his vein'd wrists were palsied as they strove 
 
 Among the foldings, till his voice came low 
 
 As a weak wind is scared and faint among 
 
 The heavy clusters of primeval woods, 
 
 And crisps but never lifts them till the rain 
 
 Utterly stamp it dead, 
 
 ' Dissolve and die, 
 
 My withered brain : the tide is set ; the dust 
 Is on my temples. Empire of dumb Sleep, 
 Thine I am owed and thine I come. The change 
 Is terrorless, my rule a crumbled dream. 
 Look in my face, () daughter, search it well, 
 I live to speak a blind and horrible word, 
 Ay so, as you to hear it : lo ! 'tis said 
 He will return no more and yet no more ! 
 Why so it is, the silent hand takes all. 
 There is no mercy that the flower is fail- 
 But speedier scythes of ambush. What revenge 
 Is there against the inevitable 1 Lift 
 Thy prophet eyes, usurp the right to see
 
 64 A WISP OF EPIC. 
 
 Harvest of curses on the harmless dead, 
 The vermin dregs of war's encrimson'd cup 
 Spilling confusions on our wholesome land 
 All in this bitter word ' my son is dead !" 
 She moved not as he ended in her calm, 
 She would not weep, she could not comfort him, 
 But at her eyes the chamber spun, and fierce, 
 Fierce as a scathe, the wrestle at her heart 
 Tightens and throbs, or subtler shudders rive 
 The disunited, desolated hands 
 Listless of use and nervelessly disspread, 
 At length she labour d tremulous reply, 
 Passionate answer, and her lips were pale. 
 
 ' Die not, great heart, unfinish'd ere thy noon 
 
 Fail not firm star of glory from thy seat 
 
 Aerial, rapt above our shallow dreams. 
 
 So many barren things grow fat and thrive 
 
 And taste no evil all their barren days, 
 
 That this, our love, can never quench so soon, 
 
 Whose course was on the shoreless seas of fame.
 
 A WISP OF EPIC. 65 
 
 His wake one tremulous glory, and full stars 
 Leapt in the rolling amber at his prow. 
 Die and we die : our breath is nothing worth ; 
 We are but shadows moving in Thy will, 
 Thine intercepted radiance makes us be. 
 The empire of thy worship is not dead, 
 But prospers glowing rich in fruit and sign.' 
 
 And now the broad and sunless vapour- clowns 
 Shook their sloped limbs from coiling haze : behind 
 From cloud to cloud the purple caught, one star 
 Crept to the void before it : ragged lights 
 Struck in the crowded peaks and cloudy zones, 
 And then the full round splendour of the day. 
 
 Till there was warning mutter d thro' the stems 
 Of storied pines, and trailing drips of yews, 
 Drench'd moistures of all fragrance, where the 
 
 sound 
 
 Clung deadened as it leapt from armed feet. 
 They heard it and they started with fierce eves
 
 66 A IVISP OF EPIC. 
 
 Father and maiden as irresolute, 
 Wearily, scared to face the thing they knew. 
 Wail was there none, and barely any moan ; 
 They on each other gazed, touch'd hands, and 
 
 went 
 
 With pause from stair to stair on shivering limbs. 
 And, issuing thro' the column'd archway, stood, 
 Pale in great light and paler from its power. 
 Then from the leaves there wended shield and 
 
 helm : 
 It seemed the flower of knights with some great 
 
 wrong 
 
 Concluded, for no pride was in their tread ; 
 But they crept on like walkers from their sleep, 
 Staring and thronging, knot by knot, they came : 
 And in the midmost core of that dumb band 
 A something propt in slumber on a bier, 
 Or, slumber's sequel, death ; where paced besides 
 Sorrowful lords in frequence with fixt gaze 
 Sward-rooted, shapes of still dismay ; not all 
 The crowded twitters of the tender year.
 
 A WISP OF EPIC. 67 
 
 The moving vapour lights, the tremulous sheaths 
 Of ardent petals, the glazed under- shades, 
 The free divine excess of such a morn, 
 Could lift one careless eyelid, or give pulse 
 And burnish to their miserable brows. 
 
 Fast by the portals of that ancient pile 
 
 They laid their burden down, and bared the face 
 
 And bared the breast-plate where the spear-head 
 
 lay 
 
 Broken, the truncheon on an inch of stave. 
 But all the face seem'd noble, for the Knight 
 Lay with the shadow of an earthly smile 
 Between his severed lips ; the high brow calm, 
 And passing calm the frozen cheek of death. 
 
 Then the old King cried out and turn'd and sank, 
 Prone reeling all his bulk across the bier. 
 And wildly fmger'd at the dead man's wound, 
 Or cherish'd, vainly pleading, the limp hands : 
 Moaning and whispering out his soul ; and fast
 
 68 // WISP OF EPIC. 
 
 His moving pupils wandered in a gloom 
 
 Of eyebrow : Then he bow'cl himself and ceased, 
 
 Stifled in silence with his wrinkled face 
 
 And craving touch yet stedfast on the dead. 
 
 But she his daughter in her glistering hair 
 Moved up and dropt no tears and made to speak, 
 Bound in the calm that shows excessive pain 
 Most awful, and her accents faltered not : 
 
 ' Come ye thus laden from the shock of spears, 
 
 Mute faces once heroic, and moist eyes 
 
 That coped with fame in the fierce sun and glare 
 
 Of danger blenching nothing. Is this all 
 
 Ye warrior hands to bring me ? Some far time 
 
 Shall chronicle upon you full dispraise 
 
 Deep, bitter, unforgotten in this word 
 
 " These came unwounded home, but brought their 
 
 Lord 
 
 Dead, and forgot due vengeance for the slain." 
 Ye are anorv now : 'tis something ; I would hurl
 
 A \VISP OF EPIC. 69 
 
 Your recreant footsteps to old fields, and tear 
 The victory from the victors, as Remorse 
 Should stand a flaming demon in your rear 
 Flame-sworded, barring off retreat, till blood 
 Be paid in kind, and this perpetual shame 
 Transfigured to a trophied sign, which bays 
 And myrtle wreath for ever. 
 
 I have said 
 
 My bitterness : forgive me. Ye are brave : 
 Your vengeance will not loiter, is most sure. 
 This is my grief that speaks, and not my heart. 
 
 And now, O brother, thou that hearest not 
 What love I murmur o'er thee, nor the lips 
 Which tell it, but, if thou couldst hear, no sense 
 Could word my inmost sorrow : chilly sleep 
 Hath bound thee as the lichen clasps the rock : 
 Desolate sleep that holds us from the lips 
 We most desire ; the long hour fades the tree, 
 But hard when cruel April plays the game 
 Of autumn in the tender starry green.
 
 70 A WISP OF EPIC. 
 
 Brother, the full deep look of love is thine, 
 Clouding, and, ere it cloud, the tranquil flower 
 Shall move above thee to the sun, and cup 
 Mirrors of dew, and roof about thy head 
 With whispering undulation. We remain 
 For lonely winters and our hearth is bare ; 
 And homeless home is strangered with a shade, 
 That moves us weeping from familiar doors. 
 
 Pale brow, pale hand, and sweet unlustrous eyes, 
 
 Farewell : hereafter, when this memory lives 
 
 How once you were, be gentle, my great grief, 
 
 Upon the retrospect, let me endure 
 
 To tell new days some dwarfish chronicle 
 
 Of thy triumphal honour, and hold bright 
 
 The burnish of thy deeds in alien times. 
 
 Now, once his comrades, raise this fallen length 
 Of all we loved, your leader, ere it fade. 
 And thou, old King, have comfort and arise. 
 ' )i feign some mock of comfort till thih grave
 
 A WISP OF EPIC. 71 
 
 Close in with rite and ritual of the dead, 
 
 Then then weep out your measure, frail old eyes.' 
 
 She said, and raised her trembling father ; they 
 Bent to their burden with no voice and feet 
 Of solemn pacing, two on two they wound 
 Thro' that domed archway, till the place \vas void 
 And very still, save when a hoarse black bell 
 Croak'd out a raven requiem on the slain.
 
 A FAREWELL. 
 
 /~\UR love is dust: the rainbow mist is torn: 
 The old pulse beats, the old eye sees the true : 
 The mirage withers and the sand remains. 
 Our love is worn, and strange thy languid lips, 
 Thy cold arm burns not on my neck, and smooth 
 Those very accents as a frozen marge 
 Whereby the dead flower blackens into dust. 
 Come, we have loved ; 'tis something : let it pass. 
 Shall this endure in man whose breath is change 
 To build itself a careless citadel 
 Safe in the teeth of years, when all things fail 
 Before them ? It is something to enjoy 
 And own the power to taste this sweet of change 
 Xor curse its fading, faded. I accept
 
 A FAREWELL. 73 
 
 The limit of the illusion with no tear, 
 And, freely gone, I close the door, nor stir 
 One beck to lure it backwards. 
 
 Strange and sweet 
 
 Its coming breathed of distant fields : its voice 
 Thro' tremulous meadows with a child's soft hand 
 Led where the crowded Iris of their floor 
 Burst out in burning spring : a mist, a touch, 
 My sense in deep blooms melted out to sleep ; 
 And there I dream 1 d thee lovely and this love 
 Eternal. Till the windy seeds of hail 
 Flapt me awake ; I shuddered : a black wind 
 Search' d bitter clouds for tempest, greenless flats 
 Whence the last herb had starved in blistering 
 
 shale, 
 
 A jumbled quarry where the very dust 
 Held frozen-caked in shelf and cups of crag. 
 
 Come, we have much to breathe for : deed and 
 
 days 
 Have music still, and life yet moves our veins :
 
 74 A FAKE WELL. 
 
 And though the garland rose hereafter hang 
 Dishonoured and dispetalled : if our touch 
 Be not to any hand, no lip to ours, 
 This world will turn although we say farewell.
 
 THE ANSWER. 
 
 T^REE, thou art free, rask changeling of the 
 
 hour : 
 
 Why then farewell, and all at once farewell : 
 Pass from the hearth of this still breast for aye. 
 What should I speak 1 ? Thou know'st thyself, 
 
 and I 
 
 Am darken'd by some fuller birth of smiles. 
 In her sweet hour I dwindle and recede : 
 There, if some thought of our once love intrude. 
 Stray dissonance, between the shrine and heart 
 Of long melodious concords, may it thrill 
 The honey'd sequel to a richer close. 
 
 If this be well that \\e should greet no more. 
 Hereafter passing with incurious eyes.
 
 76 THE ANSWER. 
 
 Who held such state of our eternal love, 
 
 And deem'd, weak fools, that these our hearts 
 
 were set 
 
 As near as bud to flower, as babe to breast ; 
 And finish as we finished, fools of change, 
 To shake asunder meanly, at one touch, 
 For always, as an angry balsam seed 
 Leaps from its parent stem on alien winds. 
 
 I have had some wrong and I shall shed some 
 
 tears. 
 
 I speak not of myself: let that go by. 
 We chide not on this melted light that rode 
 In arrogant pitch, soon overborne : new rays 
 Quench' d it like mist and all its heaven was bare. 
 
 Have I the heart to crush this dream and smile, 
 Nor let one errant thought's memorial flow 
 And shape the stream of what we might have 
 
 been ? 
 Have I the soul to shield my soul with scorn,
 
 THE ANSWER. 77 
 
 Like braggart men, the broken dupes of time, 
 Once reaching stars and lords of incident 1 
 The dark road bends before me where I tread, 
 The arm that stay'd my spring, deserts my fall, 
 And I am lonely in the leafy winds, 
 And very lonely in the wasted year, 
 Grinding November wrecks on gusty skies, 
 And strengthless save one purpose to begone. 
 
 I rail not on the veering tyrant man, 
 
 Ape of all change, whose fierce inabstinence 
 
 Gulps at illusion, as with eager jaw 
 
 The barr'd fish loves the glitter of a rag. 
 
 Who, since most changeful of all breathing things, 
 
 Would rail against the unenduring rocks 
 
 And make their weather' d constancy his own. 
 
 Say you we part henceforward, and farewell ? 
 The dumb slow days teach much and may teach 
 
 thee. 
 Thrive on thy fill and rule the flowering time,
 
 78 THE ANSWER. 
 
 In stately roses under crowded bloom, 
 Wear down the mutinous echo of this wrong ! 
 I turn, I raise towards fuller heights my eyes, 
 Farewell since thou wilt have it and farewell
 
 SOXNE TS. 79 
 
 T^HE crocus, snow-drop, primrose, violet, 
 Outrun their tardy brethren to foretell 
 The icy tyrant's limit, and the swell 
 Of buds, the green dilation sudden-set 
 
 Between the forest arch an arching net, 
 Voiced with the eloquence of secret throats, 
 Vocal by long suspense, in tremulous notes 
 Calling electric Spring. She, nebulous yet, 
 
 Steams up, a sleepy vapour, from the rills 
 Soughing their ice like broken glass aside 
 Under the warm wind's mouth. Not less her craft 
 
 Strives at the heart of frozen loams, and fills 
 The pores of nature with her plastic tide 
 From the alp blossom to the miner's shaft.
 
 So SONNETS. 
 
 II. 
 
 TS it because the summer is so nigh 
 That thou, crush'd heart, hast caught some 
 
 mystic glow ? 
 
 Why, numb in tears, dost thou disdain reply, 
 Changed from the level empire of thy woe ? 
 
 As some poor moth with languid creeping wings, 
 How faded-torn the burnish of thy prime, 
 How mean thy future yoked with meanest things, 
 An heir of desolation to all time. 
 
 All gentle things with use grow false and sour, 
 The heart is sour when years the cheek deform, 
 The wavering planet of the lovers' bower 
 Burns out the constellation of the storm, 
 
 And yet one year of kindness from those eyes 
 Would cancel all the wrong time multiplies.
 
 SOAWETS. 8 1 
 
 III. 
 
 T "X THY should we loiter on this wavering sand, 
 Training the world at last to hear our will : 
 Why should we thrust our foreheads to its brand 
 And kneel and burn our abject incense still, 
 
 Serving to rule, dissembling to fulfil ? 
 Let this world-idol grin with idiot shape : 
 Let the wise crowd, in wrestling fervour shrill, 
 Pray to the measured shadow of this ape, 
 
 And strangle Hope with each accursed prayer. 
 Then, to their wish, like birds that concourse flows, 
 One, a spring thrush, the upmost twig has bent 
 And cracks his heart with piping to the air : 
 
 Some, for worm banquet stalk as strutting crows 
 Behind the furrows of world government.
 
 SONJVE TS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 "D OSY delight that changest clay by day 
 
 From dearest growing to a dearer favour, 
 Whom Thought and Sinew bondsmen to obey, 
 Slave out thy least command and may not waver. 
 
 My recompense and zenith of reward, 
 
 Bourn of all effort, thought behind all thinking, 
 
 Regent of sleep and centre of regard 
 
 Whereon the wakeful soul will pore unshrinking. 
 
 I cannot count the phases of this love, 
 Measure its growth or vindicate its reason. 
 I cannot doubt ; the very smile that wove 
 My soul with love withholds me from love's treason. 
 
 I only know thou art my best delight, 
 
 Food of sweet thoughts and sum of all things bright.
 
 V. 
 
 A \ THEN the day glooms my passion is at rest, 
 For thou hast nothing of the gloomy hour. 
 But when the face of day is gaudy dressed, 
 I trace thee imaged in each summer flower. 
 
 I think the earth is glorious, and I know 
 We twain might pace it under glorious stars : 
 To miss this crown of joy, my chiefest woe 
 New rankles sickly thought's half-healing scars. 
 
 Is the sky soft, and does the resting sun 
 Glow from the undercloud till wood and sky 
 Are glory-mantled 1 Am I not alone ? 
 Let her be near and let the world go by, 
 
 Pass on with curious ears, and scornful eyes, 
 Or listless looks, a cankered heart's disguise.
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 T LOOK'D across the river for the morn. 
 
 The clouds came not, the air was very slow, 
 Till on the region past an underglow 
 And scorch' d the glimmering mantle of the dawn. 
 
 Then one clear star set in a branch of rose 
 Drew in before the river of bold light 
 Foiling the ragged clouds to left and right, 
 To sort a crystal lake of raying glows. 
 
 I could not rest ; a wilderness of mind 
 Was strong within me ; love and shame and thought 
 Of days behind, at that one instant caught 
 To reason from the mental store-house blind. 
 
 Last tliou, fair lily head, beyond night's fall 
 Steep'd in warm sleep, sweet central wish of all !
 
 SONNE 7.\. 85 
 
 VII. 
 
 T QUESTION'!} with the amber daffodils, 
 
 Sheeting the floors of April, how she fared ; 
 Where king-cup buds glowed out between the rills 
 And celandine in wide gold beadlets glared. 
 
 By pastured brows and swelling hedge-row bowers 
 From crumpled leaves the primrose bunches slip, 
 My hot face roll'd in their faint-scented flowers, 
 I dreamt her rich cheek rested on my lip. 
 
 All weird sensations of the fervent prime 
 Were like great harmonies, whose touch could move 
 The glow of gracious impulse : thought and time 
 Renewing love with life and life with love. 
 
 When this old world new-born puts glories on, 
 I cannot think thou never wilt be won.
 
 86 SONNE TS. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 TF ever, in the waste of time unborn, 
 An hour shall come when thou shalt curse our 
 
 meeting ; 
 
 When ruin'd Love in ashes of self-scorn 
 Smiles a hard smile his own confusion greeting ; 
 
 An hour when Faith is broken on the wheel, 
 And Hope, self-strangled in her own despair, 
 Sees Memory grinding down with iron heel 
 The small flower-faces that would spring elsewhere ; 
 
 If then, perchance, with dull and altered eyes, 
 Thou comest to me and sayest "lo thy deed, 
 The temple thou hast shaken how it lies 
 Wasted and bare and broken round with weed"- 
 
 Ah Love one fault was ours, the fault of change ; 
 The rest is pure ; this poison left us strange.
 
 SONNE 7'S. 87 
 
 IX. 
 
 1\ /TY heart is vext with this fantastic fear, 
 
 Had I been born too soon or far away. 
 Then had I never known thy beauty, dear, 
 And thou hadst spent on others all thy May. 
 
 The idle thought can freeze an idle brain 
 Faint at imagined loss of such dear prize ; 
 1 pore upon the slender chance again, 
 That taught me all the meaning of those eyes. 
 
 But creeps a whisper with a treason tongue 
 Had'st never sunn'd beneath this maiden's glance 
 Another Love thou hadst as madly sung, 
 For Love is certain but the loved one chance. 
 
 Deject and doubtful thus I forge quaint fear, 
 But question little, Love, when thou art near.
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 X. 
 
 f~\ THOU rich vision, thou hast plunged this 
 
 day 
 
 After thy dreaming upon discontent, 
 Yearnings that search a rack of dreams, or pray 
 For clouds, or track sweet music where it went. 
 
 For even if she would stoop, as in the dream 
 Whose sweetness leaves an odour round my brain, 
 Would I accept the offering, though a beam 
 Of heaven disclosed to flood my sense again 1 
 
 Nay; for the close of that tumultuous joy, 
 Slain with itself, should make me love her less, 
 Cankering the perfect bloom with mean employ, 
 Finding a sequel of unworthiness, 
 
 In that which cannot taint and cannot sin, 
 Purer than aught beside this old world in.
 
 XL 
 
 O WEET, thou art gone and I must write a word 
 To tell how I have loved thee, and how clear 
 The memory of thy presence shall record 
 Thy dearest eyes thro' many a lapsing year, 
 
 The sweetest face that ever maiden wore, 
 The kind true heart, the nameless sympathy, 
 Perfect of flaw rich youth in all its store 
 Dear little thing, I love thee fixedly. 
 
 Fair little form, how precious every fold 
 Of thy grey dress : each glancing shade how sweet 
 Of movement, from the ringlet-woof of gold 
 To those dear steps and tiny-printed feet. 
 
 Ah, love, I love thee so, yet my weak praise 
 Thinks with full heart, but speaks in old love-lays.
 
 oo SONNE TS. 
 
 XII. 
 
 ~O ECORD is nothing, and the hero great 
 
 Without it ; the vitality of fame 
 Is more than monument or fading state 
 That leaves us but the echo of a name. 
 
 Rumour, imperial mistress of the time, 
 
 Is slandered where she feigns no specious lies, 
 
 Caters no reticence of cringing rhyme, 
 
 To blow her dust-cloud full on unborn eyes 
 
 The glory of the shows of gilded shields, 
 Wild music, fluttering blazons, and 'tis all. 
 Lonely the dead men stare on battlefields, 
 Can glory reach them now tho' clarions call ? 
 
 Some shadow of their onset's broken gleam 
 May yet outlast the pageant and the dream.
 
 SONNETS. 91 
 
 XIII. 
 
 T~) AISE thro' the tempest thine immortal eyes, 
 When the sere earth is shaken like a wave ; 
 When the sick racking trees with anguish sighs 
 Tear up their spurry fastenings, as they rave, 
 
 Branches all wild for aidance. Gird the cloud, 
 Child of the equinox ! unfold thy wings ; 
 Thy brows are moist, and thy fierce hands are loud 
 Snapping the crowns of ancient forest-kings. 
 
 The pines upon the pine-ridge crash and slide, 
 The cataract has caught them, in a smoke 
 Of rain and mountain -waters : near and wide 
 The double mountain -voice in terror woke. 
 
 Crash on, frail planet, sad for aye to me ; 
 
 Sad as my faltering life Avhiri'd on with thee.
 
 92 SOAWETS. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 O HE came, the fire of heaven upon her brow, 
 
 And dared not glance upon the face of day 
 With her meek eyes, as shrinking from the glow 
 Of this rough world, a maiden pure alway. 
 
 And I who held this miracle of shadows, 
 This pearl of fancy, precious as the dreams 
 Of angels rested in their violet meadows 
 Have known her smiles for lying mirage gleams : 
 
 And I who saw no taint in this pure snow 
 Too white to harbour near the alien ground, 
 Have touched the surface veil and bared below 
 The poisoned lees of all dishonour found 
 
 And, trustless where I trusted, flaunt in scorn 
 For trustful men my broken wings forlorn.
 
 SOA T NETS. 93 
 
 XV. 
 
 T IVES that are patch'd of trifles with no thread 
 
 Of purpose, aimless as the days of birds, 
 Spending in no prevision deed and words, 
 Weaklings of chance ; as troops without a head 
 
 That pause and fear and vanish, when instead 
 These same had crush'd the phalanx in its war 
 Or torn the bastion'd rampant rock and bar 
 And forc'd the very cope of hardihead 
 
 The paltriness of lives with no beyond, 
 
 Days roll to months and months result in years, 
 
 The man no inch the nobler as he nears 
 
 His problem's end, that puts him from his bond 
 With nature, and no reverence on his wane, 
 His grave forgetful silence or disdain.
 
 94 SONA T ETS. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 TF in the mental man, as with his growth, 
 
 Time alters and repairs with silent feet, 
 And we are fools of Circumstance the cheat, 
 Or drugg'd beneath the hemlock wine of Sloth. 
 
 We give the fickle years a slavish troth, 
 Withholding not the soul's stability 
 Ring'd round and fenced from mutability. 
 One stream takes all the willing and the loth. 
 
 Go barren plea perpetual to despair; 
 Inaction numbs the freshness of the powers, 
 Leaves the disease and taints the remedy; 
 
 Better to dare and fail than not to dare ; 
 Rest is unrest that drowzes jostling hours, 
 Poison sweet sleep that lets occasion by.
 
 THE WOUNDED KING. 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 T T E rests and moves not with the moving woods. 
 The sleet-winds cannot bite him from his dream, 
 Nor region thunder tho' it grind the hills 
 Command an eyelash tremble. Rest and dream 
 More awful than the clench of maniac hands, 
 Here in the sweeping hiss that shreds the pines, 
 Here by the driven mere's wild suck and foam, 
 That soughs in shudder under pendulous lips 
 Of turfy rivage, tearing. Not the voice 
 Of the sweet year moving her buds at noon, 
 Nor that full fervour of the spring's desire, 
 Fluttering the foliaged quires, could half unsea! 
 The trancing darkness of those muffled eyes.
 
 96 THE WOUNDED KING. 
 
 Where is that army now, the pageant war, 
 Whereat the vaulted hills, in cope and crag 
 Seeming to shake, drew clamour like a fear 
 On many a chiding echo? Where are these 
 That seem'd so calm, so strong in their array 1 
 
 Wide on the downs by wrinkled tarn and edge 
 Of ghastly moon-light, each in shatter' d mail, 
 The dead men lie, clench' d hands and earnest eyes, 
 Out under night, they have forgot their fame. 
 And fall by fall the mountain crystal sheds 
 A tainted glimmer on from rill to mere. 
 The rainy winds flap past and cease again. 
 The stain'd moon rolls and ceases. Shelterless 
 The raven screaming reels upon the night. 
 It seems the sacred dawn should come no more, 
 No more should clothe the desecrated hills, 
 Serenest, on their crests with timid haze 
 Or rosy glory from the secret sun. 
 
 Dead are his heroes all, but not their King :
 
 THE lVOUi\DED KING. 97 
 
 His burning wound yet holds him from the seat 
 Of heroes and the precincts of their rest. 
 His soul on shadows of unresting thought 
 Flits to his bride in anguish where is she 1 
 
 There is a palace builded on a mere, 
 
 And mere-waves sound about it, sweet or shrill 
 
 As lends the season impulse : and old trees 
 
 Are sequel to the voices of the waves 
 
 Behind it : and beyond it heaven is clomb 
 
 Of some aerial glacier, native rest 
 
 To pausing thunders when the vale is spread 
 
 Trembling in trembling vapour fed with sun. 
 
 A nest for ancient kings to take repose 
 
 Between the mountains, musing dreams of power. 
 
 Her lattice gave across the restless floor 
 Of nightly waters paved with faintest gales 
 In shaken lines of splendour and sweet gleam. 
 The moon was very sweet between the trees. 
 
 H
 
 9>S THE WOUNDED KING. 
 
 r riie island sedges whisper' d idle dreams, 
 
 And wakeful fountains wrestled deep in flowers. 
 
 Whereon she gazed ambrosial from her rest, 
 In parted lawns and samite canopies, 
 Tangled in moonlight, Danae-like, a queen. 
 There is no guess of sorrow in her eyes, 
 As leaning radiant towards the mellow night 
 She hears a bugle throb
 
 A FUTURE. 
 
 r ~PHY lore may be the vocal memories 
 Of idols overthrown, imperial hours : 
 Thy lute may moan perpetual monodies 
 
 Of desecrated bowers. 
 
 Thy creed may be to move in solemn shade, 
 With drooping head, a dream upon an earth 
 Of careless creatures proudly disarray'd 
 
 Of any masking mirth. 
 
 Thy rest may be a rest we cannot know 
 Beyond sleek envy's scorn and cant of sneers- 
 Pervaded with the secret strength of woe, 
 
 Yet consecrate to tears.
 
 BE WISE IN TIME. 
 
 T^\ISPOSE thy loves in realms of mellow flowers : 
 Truth is not fooled to make his stay with thee. 
 Thy faith is but the burnish of the hours, 
 And freedom is a nobler thing than love. 
 
 So let me be 
 Free as the cloud or river to remove. 
 
 Rosebud, thou art to judge thee by the eyes. 
 
 Time now thy slave shall be thy master soon 
 To quench of light those oracles of lies, 
 
 Twin-curtain'd shrines, and jar to barren string 
 The tender tune 
 
 Thy lips could murmur like the gales of spring.
 
 BE WISE IN TIME. 101 
 
 Leave leave these restless hours whose spice is 
 
 dust. 
 
 So use delight and so command desire ; 
 
 Exchange thy tinsel oaths for honest trust, 
 
 Ere twilight mar the fulness of thy day, 
 
 And shades attire 
 The glowing fields of love in altered gray.
 
 AT EVENING. 
 
 r I "HE pilgrim cranes are moving to their south. 
 The clouds are herded pale and moving slow. 
 One flower is wither' d in the warm wind's mouth, 
 Whereby the gentle waters always flow. 
 
 O thou pervasive thought of glorious pain, 
 Release me yet at seasons from thy power: 
 Thou other self investing sense and brain, 
 Renew me, or I perish hour by hour.
 
 A LAMENT. 
 
 GENTLE clay and milky cloud, 
 
 () faint and flowing sea, 
 More fair than human estimate 
 I read the story of your state 
 
 If you could comfort me ! 
 
 O gloom of clouds and rocking boughs, 
 
 Thou fierce and furrow'd sea, 
 Boom round yon isles of dreamy glow, 
 And strow the rose with driven snow, 
 That cannot comfort me.
 
 STANZAS. 
 
 A 17" A IT ay the hours bring night and night 
 brings morn, 
 
 The old wheel forces on the waning day : 
 Wait, till the pale tomorrow shall be born 
 
 As little gracious, and in turn decay. 
 
 Rest is a cloud above the evening sun 
 
 That sees him set, nor fails in steadfast sphere : 
 
 Peace is a moon that when the stars are done 
 Without a twinkle sleeps upon a mere : 
 
 But still to pause, and pausing taste no rest, 
 And still to drowse and droop and know no peace, 
 
 Is this thy portion, life, thy sense unblest, 
 Tn storm to dote on calm, in pain on ease 1
 
 ALLOWANCE. 
 
 " ~\ 1 TILT thou be true, God's comfort guide thy 
 
 brain ; 
 
 If false, high grace bereave thine after-rest, 
 As sunset anchor'd in the beaming west 
 
 Is over-dulled to leaden taint again." 
 
 False is as fate shall choose, not men ordain. 
 
 True, oft untried, where false is vanquish'd 
 truth. 
 
 Cold blood is fixt, where fickle heated youth ; 
 Praise one, blame either, or blame both and twain. 
 
 Shall one assume the scales and judgment-throne, 
 Touching my outward merely with blear eyes, 
 Measure the trespass, hug himself for wise, 
 
 Tell me the world demands T should atone !
 
 io6 ALLOWANCE. 
 
 Grave world of flawless virtue, lift the stone. 
 
 Brave world of mincing honour, dole and deal, 
 And fidget shame out with thy mouth of meal, 
 
 But let the polish'd reprobate alone.
 
 A SONG. 
 
 r\ FAIREST thou, 
 
 Tearing the silk-leaved blooms in waywardness, 
 Thy pretty feet upon the smooth-faced flowers, 
 
 Can I forget 
 To crown thee with the worship of a song'? 
 
 O fair and sweet, 
 
 Thou movest in thine harmony among 
 The lavish spring and all her twinkling bowers, 
 
 Why should I set 
 Thy lyric loveliness to harsher song '
 
 A SKETCH AT EVENING. 
 
 r I ^HE whip cracks on the plough -team's flank, 
 
 The thresher's flail beats duller. 
 The round of clay has warm'd a bank 
 
 Of clouds to primrose colour. 
 And dairy-girls cry home the kine, 
 
 The kine in answer lowing, 
 And rough-haired louts with sleepy shouts 
 
 Keep crows, where seed is growing. 
 
 The creaking wain, brush'd thro' the lane, 
 
 Hangs straws on hedges narrow; 
 And smoothly cleaves the soughing plough, 
 
 And harsher grinds the harrow.
 
 A SA'E TCH A T E VENIXG. 109 
 
 Or, from the road-side inn caught up, 
 
 A brawl of crowded laughter, 
 Thro' falling brooks and cawing rooks, 
 
 And a fiddle scrambling after.
 
 FRAGMENT OF AN ALLEGORY. 
 
 1\ /TY tale is but a shadow and a sign. 
 
 Between the column'd summits broadly strown, 
 The billowy light converged to blood-red zone. 
 Lovely, and waning as a thing divine, 
 Came eve, as even never came before, 
 With red-gray rush to stagger to their core 
 Eternal steeps, mysterious ; by whose crest 
 The floated vapour shattering over-bore 
 The bleak-eyed raven in his glacier nest. 
 Not less, when all the naked summits wore 
 An echo-warmth against their iris west, 
 Failed out the silken melancholy gleam 
 Celestial, failing under spectral ways, 
 All blindness, whence the sky-prevailing rays
 
 fiRA GMENT OF AN ALLEGOR Y. in 
 
 Are lost, as some great thought that threads a dream, 
 And lost the crimson wreaths that ring'd the burn- 
 ing stream. 
 
 There sat the glittering heights immoveable, 
 Roofd with the sun and stair'd in ridgey seams, 
 Holding the folded azure's vapour streams ; 
 And from those heights a level dull and grey, 
 Dull as its sand and pale as pale decay, 
 Dispread perpetual towards a shining sea 
 That was but mirage cloud, which blent away 
 And to the skies glow'd vast and mightily. 
 
 There an old man was seated on a bulk 
 
 Of salt, that beasts had lick'd in pits and jags, 
 
 With great knees huddled towards his chin, and 
 
 shrunk 
 
 His lean ring'd throat which fell in flesh less bags. 
 Above him spread illimitable crags, 
 And gray lights trembled from them : and his arm 
 Trembled from wrist to elbow where his face
 
 ii2 FRA GHENT OF AN ALLEGOR Y. 
 
 Rested ; the other moved not from its place 
 
 Saving to screen his eyes, when over-warm 
 
 A chance gleam wounding bit their weak white 
 
 scums : 
 
 And then he mumbled groans and stirr'd his mouth 
 To show one wolf-tooth hung in rusty gums ; 
 Nodding with ague, if the whispering south 
 Breathed but to puff a thistle seed along, 
 And the woods bloom' d beneath it : yet his limbs 
 Were palsied, and a wrinkling shiver strong 
 Winning fierce way from foot to forehead climbs. 
 
 For wizard he had been of knowledge ripe, 
 But that a stronger weird had chain' d him there 
 In this perpetual solitude. The gripe 
 Of age was on him, and a lean despair 
 Of impotence that held him from his share 
 In those delights his stronger years had fed : 
 They, blasted as the scalp of his foul head 
 In seamy gaps or slimy mats of hair, 
 Had perish'd inch-meal, but the ache lived on
 
 FRA GMENT OF AN ALLEGOR Y. 1 13 
 
 In that great mesh of ruin, made its lair 
 By all corruption ; as the fire-worm's glow 
 Among the rotting leaves. There, woe-begone, 
 He sate, and on the furthest peaky snow 
 He lifted melancholy eye-balls, rolling slow. 
 
 Ay, on the limit of eternal rock, 
 Or on the upper limitless expanse, 
 Or where lake mirrors crossing clouds bemock, 
 Painting as sharp below their plumed advance, 
 As one that sees such prospect in a trance, 
 He gazed, and gazing doubted all he saw 
 For phantom mist or mirage : and he loathed 
 The stately hills past loathing, glory-clothed, 
 And found in fairest thing a falsehood and a flaw, 
 Doubting himself besides and loathing nature's law.
 
 THE OLD WARRIOR. 
 
 /^\NCE more on rock and chasm the gilded eve 
 
 Sets into flying lights of pale-rayed fire, 
 And yet again the retinue of clouds, 
 Above the sun-fall, veined with rushing gleams, 
 Drag out their chain of crumbling island crags, 
 Lovely to all but these my leaden eyes. 
 
 The blind and barren life-lamp of my brain 
 Fails out unkindled at this certain round 
 Of visible beauty, and I hunger change 
 Nor earthward find it, if not this slow orb 
 Divides his rest some hand-breadths to the north, 
 And crimsons icier summits fall by fall. 
 Thy tune is old, old elm-tree, as the wind
 
 THE OLD WARRIOR. 115 
 
 Shakes out thy leafy sails ; hast been my rest 
 These many changeless years. Perchance thy voice 
 Shall float between the bells, when I am laid 
 Beside the kirk-tower yonder in their ranks, 
 O'er whom the voices of the bells peal prayer, 
 And rolling organs, yet they will not come. 
 
 I am forgotten from the files of war. 
 
 At times I fancy that old self of mine 
 
 Has faded out and left a nerveless hull. 
 
 Ay me, that I am fallen from my praise, 
 
 This is the bitter sequel of our time ; 
 
 Thus he the human demigod to-day 
 
 Shook off, mere bruised lumber, on the next, 
 
 Pines out in dreamy memories what has been, 
 
 Blurr'd with the silence of the things to come : 
 
 An ancient watch-tower that has served its turn, 
 
 A rampart on the pathless blasts, a fire 
 
 To watch and cheat the shrill waves of their prey, 
 
 Now stain'd and patch'd with ruin and disuse, 
 
 Rots stagnant in time's shadow stone by stone.
 
 ii6 THE OLD WARRIOR. 
 
 Why should man live declined 1 the noble years 
 Perish, and quavering dotage, garrulous, 
 Unsays his own renown with witless prate, 
 Self-wounding calumny. The glowing eye 
 Is faded ; shrunken arms and trembling hands 
 Unmeet for wars. The measure of his time 
 Has numb'd his drooping manhood lock'd in calm. 
 
 rusted harness, dost thou speak reproach ? 
 
 1 shall not wear thee, for my veins are slow, 
 Until thou case my unremembered dust. 
 
 Old brand, art shamed with my unsinew'd gripe? 
 Old gauntlet spacious for the wasted hand, 
 'Tis long since maiden fingers touch'd thy palm. 
 Long, since bright ringlets pillow' d on my mail, 
 For some deliverance wrought, some dread o'er- 
 thrown. 
 
 Lo, as a dead and stranger'd thing I rust, 
 Out-lived into an age I cannot reap, 
 And sunder'd from the vigour of my time.
 
 THE OLD WARRIOR. 117 
 
 Unlink'd from current action and renown. 
 
 I see them sometimes, the new blood, fair knights, 
 
 Come plumed and spurr'd and glistering down the 
 
 vale. 
 
 I crane from this rock edge with misty eyes ; 
 Or, when the tilts are toward, down I crawl 
 As far as yonder road-bend to the town, 
 My utmost limit ; deemed in age as far 
 As my youth held the miles to Palestine. 
 
 I cheat the grave too long with bloodless days, 
 
 Ripe tribute to the pale and iron sleep. 
 
 I cheat my weary heirs of heritage, 
 
 Greying their locks and warping all their youth, 
 
 I shall not vex them long. The waste is set 
 
 Before me and the darkness. I shall pass 
 
 Upon it with a firm old heart, and turn 
 
 To nameless sleep undaunted as forgot. 
 
 The accident of record cannot change 
 
 The man to lesser, or contract the soul 
 
 That has been, shadow'd outwardly to men
 
 n8 THE OLD WARRIOR. 
 
 In functions and in purposes achieved, 
 
 Tho' crusting years have blurr'd its name away. 
 
 That flash of glory, the majestic deed 
 
 Has still its greatness in oblivion 
 
 Great then, and now, and always. Its reward 
 
 Vital within its doing, self-sustain'd, 
 
 Recks not the voices of the after-years.
 
 THE ARCADIAN SHEPHERD. 
 
 T OVE of the rosy neck, the restless hair, 
 
 The vales are breezeless, and the ring-dove's 
 
 voice 
 
 Sweetens or ebbs her patient aching pipe, 
 Delicious throes of one old monody, 
 Told and retold, immortal, to the hours. 
 The footsteps of the sunlight, steam'd in blue, 
 Melt from the veiled portals of the flowers 
 A cloudiness of dews, like trembling dust 
 Behind the wayfarer : the onward lengths 
 Fall bevill'd, seas of leaves and branching plains, 
 Whereon the high noon striking, draws beneath 
 In films of glimmering azure, zone by zone. 
 And all the broad and creeping splendour-Hakes 
 Hover or wane their ripple woofs of floor.
 
 120 THE ARCADIAN SHEPHERD. 
 
 The swan, who by the sacred courses feeds, 
 Beam-caught has made one star-point of his down. 
 
 Thy shepherd in the shadows of the hills, 
 
 I teach the forest lawns my trembling notes 
 
 And brooding modulation of my loves, 
 
 Where ripe noon sows the lazy woods with flowers, 
 
 Moss-hyacinth and wind blooms and the rings 
 
 Of purple vetches dazzling some sere pine 
 
 With intertissued bravery as it dies 
 
 With love that comes too late in narrow time : 
 
 We love a little here and fall asleep 
 
 In earth : the fresh woods mix not with our dreams. 
 
 The dead are past our grieving ; not for these 
 
 The tamarisk thickets waver, or the Hours 
 
 Teach music to the branch, nor fountain-head 
 
 Wakefully pulses out ambrosial sleep, 
 
 With wave-drift, rainbows, and far-silvered heights 
 
 Breaking along its changes towards the dawn. 
 
 Deny not, love, for love is short in prime.
 
 THE ARCADIAX SHEPHERD. 121 
 
 So short, the fruit scarce ripe, the bloom-down fades ; 
 Reap in these fluttering moments ere they change, 
 Loved or unloved the rough wind strips the tree. 
 
 Nay, rather come and rest beside me here, 
 The martens titter round the silver rock, 
 The wood-bee hoarding in a wealth of combs ; 
 Nay come, I wait thee elbow-deep in flowers. 
 The deep woods swoon with solitude divine; 
 Grape clusters, ivy, poppies, tumbled pears, 
 The gush of streams, and vistas of the Sun 
 Leaning his sacred forehead towards the waves. 
 
 Come, ere one sterile leaf of autumn sways, 
 Come, ere one crisp bough sickens to the doom 
 Of winter : ere the coronal I laid 
 Breathless beneath the lintel of thy bower 
 Has pined its crumpling petals with delay 
 Sick for thy spicy tresses. Dearest, come, 
 Where under umbrage of delicious coves 
 The dusty cygnets watch their gleaming sires,
 
 122 THE ARCADIAN SHEPHERD. 
 
 And sedge-hair brushes the rosed filbert's cheek, 
 And bunch and reed shake pictured in the wave. 
 There, halcyons crown the under-gliding calm, 
 There, the kid, blinking in the sweet-flag net, 
 Butts thro' the osier-thick narcissus fringe ; 
 His eager nostrils dwell in leaning thirst, 
 And sailing fishes watch him, golden-eyed. 
 
 Cruel ! I waste my piping and my heart ; 
 The rocks have answer'd, but thy voice is dumb. 
 The nightingales change music with the doves ; 
 The thrush remurmurs, emulous of song. 
 Thou speakest not, and, widowed of thy voice, 
 The solitudes of pine are tranced with fear. 
 Thy proud limbs move not in the tangled fern. 
 Silent art thou, as some snow-freighted cloud, 
 Robed in a frigid glory, cold and calm ; 
 With cruel lips and very noble eyes. 
 And thou hast filled my heart, as some first dove 
 Possesses with one song the early woods. 
 Scornful and fair, in time relent return !
 
 THE ARCADIAN SHEPHERD. 123 
 
 Where ripe days flout the gracious dues of love, 
 
 Sere Age in sequel deals self-hating hours 
 
 Of solitary wrinkles unbeloved. 
 
 So thou relent, and reap the barren years. 
 
 Arise, and Love shall guide thee thro' the meads, 
 
 By rooted lilies, wonders of the spring, 
 
 By vermeil-curtain' d poppies deep in grain, 
 
 And all the fair ripe summer thro' the land ; 
 
 Until his finger on my threshold rest, 
 
 My home is yonder and my home is thine. 
 
 FINIS.
 
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