H' 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
 o 
 

 
 ^^V>^ 
 
» M 
 

 ^ 
 
 POEMS 
 
; g // 
 
 LONDON : rnlNTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO.. NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT, 
 
 BALLADS, STUDIES FROM NATURE, SONNETS, ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY SEVENTEEN ETCHINGS 
 BY THE AUTHOR and L. ALMA TADEMA 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 1875 
 
 All rights, reserved 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Excepting some of the Ballads at the beginning of 
 the volume, and a number of the Sonnets, particularly 
 those called 'The Old Scotch House,' the poems now 
 published have been written many years. This being 
 the case, the author thinks he may indulge in the old- 
 fashioned luxury of a Preface ; only a short one, how- 
 ever, and merely to state certain circumstances re- 
 lating to some of the pieces. 
 
 In the present volume the writer has collected 
 together the productions he wishes most to preserve, 
 or at least the majority of these ; he has carefully 
 revised them, and lovingly decorated them, with the 
 assistance of a friend, as a duty to himself, and to 
 place before the public in a permanent form his 
 credentials to be considered a poet. For a number 
 of years he has been urged to do something of this 
 kind by friends whose judgment in matters poetic is 
 not mere opinion : sweet is praise from the receivers 
 
 102454 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 of praise; and he has been contented without any 
 appeal to the public. But there is a day for all 
 things, and after a period of active work of very 
 various kinds, obeying the maxim, 'What thy hand 
 findeth to do, do it with all thy might,' he thinks the 
 time has come for the pleasant task of putting his 
 poetical house in order. 
 
 A number of the following poems have indeed been 
 various tinies printed before, although never very ac- 
 cessibly to the public. Many of these he has freely 
 revised, believing that the best word is not found 
 even within the Horatian period sometimes, or at 
 least that it depends on the nature of the man whether 
 his first or last thought is the best. He has also 
 restored one or two to their original MS. form. The 
 rhapsody 'To the Memory of P. B. Shelley' first 
 appeared in ' Tait's Edinburgh Magazine ' forty-two 
 years ago, and the point of view taken by a student 
 of that day adds some historical interest to the poem, 
 warranting its reproduction here. Shelley's too-easily- 
 uttered metaphysics, and jejune theories, political and 
 moral, derived from and representative of the great 
 French revolution with its three watchwords continually 
 outraged, will never again be lauded in exactly the 
 same manner. Two other pieces towards the end 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 of this volume, ' The Incantation of Hervor,' and 
 ' The Dance of Death,' were produced a year or 
 two later in a little brochure called ' The Edinburgh 
 University Souvenir.' The latter poem has been re- 
 vised. Others not given under the heading * Juvenile 
 Poems' are equally ancient. One of these, 'An- 
 thony,' although first published in the ' Fortnightly ' 
 only a few years ago, is old enough to have been 
 read in a somewhat longer form in MS. by John 
 Wilson. The author remembers the amusement ex- 
 pressed on the lion-like face of that genial literary 
 partizan at the lines near the close of the poem, de- 
 scribing the beggar who tried to strike the charitable 
 with his crutch, finding in them a vivid picture of 
 Christopher North ! 
 
 Many others have appeared before in a small 
 volume called 'Poems by a Painter,' printed at a 
 provincial press in a careless manner. This title 
 was afterwards appropriated by Sir J. Noel Paton, a 
 painter of sufficient power and invention to exonerate 
 him from intentional transfer. That now called ' The 
 Music of the Spheres,' first saw the light in a very 
 small volume in 1838 under the name of 'Hades,' so 
 that the resemblance that has been supposed to exist 
 between it and the Roman Catholic production of 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 Dr. Newman called ^ The Dream of Gerontius ' is 
 accidental as far as the author knows. Other cases 
 wherein a resemblance, either in motive or form, may 
 be fancied to exist to any more modern work, it is 
 not necessary to mention. Originality the writer 
 takes some credit for; he has, moreover, left out 
 some poems whose subjects or motives have been 
 adopted by later poets, and reaHsed in a more poeti- 
 cal or completer manner, considering that the best, 
 not the first, should stand alone. 
 
 This concerns rather the author himself than his 
 readers. No external or adventitious merits, nor 
 even purely intellectual qualities, can altogether de- 
 termine the value of poetry. It must affect us like 
 music or wine, but it must certainly have Wisdom, like 
 an instinct, directing it from within. Every excellent 
 poetic work has a physiognomy of its own, an organic 
 character of its own, the possession or non-possession 
 of which the world will sooner or later sympathetically 
 determine. So fully aware is he of this, and so care- 
 less of immediate recognition has he been, that his 
 earlier publications were issued in a way rather fitted 
 to his convenience than to invite attention, and he 
 never once asked their publishers or quasi-publishers 
 for any account of results. The chances of sale for 
 
PREFACE, ix 
 
 new poetical aspirants out of London were then very- 
 small indeed. His former little volumes are, how- 
 ever, entirely unprocurable, he believes. 
 
 With regard to the illustrations, the author-and- 
 artist-in-one has given rather pictorial analogues to 
 the sentiment and meaning of the poems than direct 
 representations. He has also to acknowledge the 
 kind aid of one of the most able painters of the age. 
 The artist by natural endowment finds little difficulty, 
 whatever instrument may be placed in his hand ; and 
 the writer's friend, L. Alma Tadema, expressed him- 
 self at once with the etching-point as if he had used 
 it all his life. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lady Janet, May Jean i 
 
 Kriemhild's Tryst 7 
 
 Woodstock Maze 23 
 
 The Witches' Ballad . . . . . . 29 
 
 Saint Margaret 35 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Rendezvous 37 
 
 ' i go to be cured at avilion ' .... 42 
 
 Anthony 44 
 
 Love's Calendar . . . . . . .60 
 
 A Bridal Race 62 
 
 Parting and Meeting Again (a Song) . . .64 
 
 Love 65 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 Outside the Temple 73 
 
 Parted Love ' . . . 90 
 
 THE OLD SCOTCH HOUSE. 
 
 Part I. -97 
 
 Part II 105 
 
 STUDIES FROM NA TURE. 
 
 Sunday Morning Alone 113 
 
 Green Cherries 118 
 
 v/ Youth and Age 122 
 
 An Artist's Birthplace 123 
 
 Morning Sleep ........ 127 
 
 Monody 
 
 31 
 
 The Duke's Funeral 134 
 
 Midnight (written 1 831) . .■ . . . .138 
 
 The Seashore. I. Mist 142 
 
 ,, ,, II. Sunshine .... 143 
 
 Requiem 145 
 
 The Venerable Bede in the Nineteenth Century 147 
 
CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Sphinx 159 
 
 A Dedication i66 
 
 Rhyme of the Sun-dial .169 
 
 In the Valley 171 
 
 May 173 
 
 SONNETS ON LITERARY SUBJECTS. 
 
 On the Inscription, Keats's Gravestone, Rome . 179 
 
 Wordsworth. 1 180 
 
 II 181 
 
 III 182 
 
 To THE Artists called P.R.B. (1851) . . . 183 
 
 On Certain Critics, &c 184 
 
 Epitaph of Hubert van Eyck , . . .185 
 
 Fragment of a Sonnet by Raphael . . . 186 
 
 The Musician 187 
 
 To MY Brother, on Publishing his 'Memoir' . 188 
 
 Inscription on Albert Durer's Grave . . 189 
 
 OCCASIONAL SONNETS. 
 
 Pygmalion . . . 193 
 
 The Swan 194 
 
 Spring Love ........ 195 
 
 An Anniversary 196 
 
 The Midnight City 197 
 
 Kisses. 1 198 
 
 ,, II 199 
 
 The Traveller Lost 200 
 
 The Nightingale Unheard 201 
 
 In Rome, a.d. 150 (for a Picture) .... 202 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Coming and Going 203 
 
 My Mother. I. 204 
 
 „ 11. . . 205 
 
 Assistance Delayed . . . . . . 206 
 
 Unworthy Ambition 207 
 
 . , The Music of the Spheres ..... 208 
 
 JUVENILE POEMS. 
 
 To the Memory of P. B. Shelley . . . .221 
 To the Memory of John Keats .... 226 
 
 The Incantation of Hervor 231 
 
 our Acts of St. Cuthbert .... 237 
 
 The Dance of Death 253 
 
 A Fable . . . 263 
 
 Dedicatio Postica . 271 
 
 /t 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Love Originating Art . , W. B. Scott. Title-page 
 
 An Old Chest .... ,, /, xi 
 
 Lady Janet . , . . Z. Alma Tadema , i 
 
 Eric and the Water-witch. . ,, 7 
 
 Fair Rosamund .... ,, 23 
 
 Pax Vobiscum: A Satire (designed 
 
 by D. Scott) . . . . W. B. Scott . 44 
 
 The Way of Life. Whither? . ,, 71 
 
 Penkill, Ayrshire ... „ 95 
 
 The Garden, Penkill . . . ,, 105 
 
 A Stuly from Nature . . ,, iii 
 
 Design remembered from a Dream 
 (from a sketch done on waking 
 October 28, 1846) . 
 
 The Great Sphinx 
 
 Keats' Grave, Rome . 
 
 Pygmalion . 
 
 Recreating Genii . . 
 
 The Author ^^t. 20 (painted by 
 
 D. Scott) .... ,, 219 
 
 Hervor (painted by Alice Boyd, 
 
 Penkill) .... „ 231 
 
 J> 
 
 131 
 
 . Z. Alma Tadema. 
 
 159 
 
 W. B. Scott 
 
 177 
 
 j> 
 
 191 
 
 jj 
 
 208 
 

 LADY JANET, MAY JEAN. 
 
 'TwEEN sleeping and waking, 'tween fever and fear, 
 
 The lady Janet, May Jean, 
 Felt her mothering hour draw near ; 
 So wearily dreaming 'tween fever and fear ; 
 T/ie shards have cut the shoeless feet. 
 
2 LADY JANET, MAY JEAN. 
 
 May Jean she was with the snood on her head, 
 Lady Janet she would be were she wed, 
 But she locked herself in on her lonely bed. 
 The house! is borne alo?ig the street. 
 
 Was it the wise-woman on the bower-stair 
 
 From lady Janet, May Jean? 
 Wrapt in her thin arms what doth she bear 
 Against her hard bosom ; why speeds she and where 
 
 The wind is about in the crow's nest. 
 It was the wise-woman no one knew 
 Came down as the dark night mottled grew, 
 And, groping her way, to the postern flew. 
 
 The stream doth every craftny quest. 
 
 To shoot back the bar and make no sound, 
 
 O lady Janet, May Jean ! 
 She laid down the fardel on the ground. 
 And the in-rushing cold wind swept all round ;— 
 
 Long willow leaves are white below. 
 But the house dog 's near, his scent is keen, 
 The fardel and wise-wife he ran between, 
 He snatched and ran and was no more seen. 
 
 Black are the berries of nightshade and sloe. 
 
 On the carven bed in the lighted bower 
 
 Turned lady Janet, May Jean, 
 Waiting it seemed to her, hour on hour. 
 Hearing the wind creak the vane on the tower ; — 
 The tide-wave breathes by sink and swell. 
 
LADY JANET, MAY JEAN. 3 
 
 Why is she watching with eye and ear, 
 Shadowed and restless in fever and fear, 
 When the bolt is drawn and no one near? 
 Sees she or hears she anything 
 Except the lamp's flame and the moth's wing ? 
 Sea- foam seethes the empty shell. 
 
 Yes, yes, she hears now a small faint cry, 
 
 Hears lady Janet, May Jean ; 
 She sees on the hearth the fardel lie, 
 And the shaggy-limbed house dog standing by ; — 
 
 The brain swims when the hot winds blow. 
 Her fair-tressed weak head she lifted then. 
 And she cried, '■ I am lost, oh, never again 
 Shall I know peace or be honoured of men ! ' 
 
 The bare breast shrinks beneath the snow. 
 
 Her fair hair swept the bolster white, 
 
 The lady Janet's, May Jean's \ 
 And faintly she called, ' Old witch of the night. 
 You have played me false, youVe deceived me quite I * 
 
 The way to hell ^s by stepping-stones. 
 At once that wise-woman no one knew 
 Out of the carven bedstead grew ; 
 Like a real thing came she clear to view. 
 
 The raven is over the dead lamb's bones. 
 
 * The dog he followed me as I ran. 
 
 My lady Janet, May Jean, 
 And snatched it and stole it when I began 
 
4 LADY JANET, MAY JEAN. 
 
 To gather the dry leaves and finish our plan ; ' — 
 The eyes of the dying shine I know. 
 * But hide it again, thou leman of Night, 
 Wise- woman, witch-woman, make me right ; 
 Hide it in safety before daylight !' 
 
 The warning cock three times ivill crow. 
 
 They are gone, that wise-woman has the power ; 
 
 And lady Janet, May Jean, 
 Again is alone in that lone bower, 
 Her whole soul listening beyond the tower ; — 
 
 The dead are safe i' their graves we say. 
 Why is her life in her eye and ear, 
 Writhing and striving in fever and fear, 
 When the bolt is drawn and no one near ? 
 Sees she or hears she anything 
 Saving the lamp and the moth's quick wing ? 
 
 They cannot leave till the judgment day. 
 
 Yes, she hears again that cry ! 
 
 Hears lady Janet, May Jean ; 
 She sees by the bedside the fardel lie. 
 With a gentle-faced grey ghost standing by ; — 
 
 Are they not 7'eally gone who die ? 
 She shakes back her tresses, she lifts her hand. 
 For holy water she had at command, 
 To scald the wicked like hot sand. 
 
 There ^s no lamp-light ivhcre spirits lie. 
 
 * Receive it back,' the grey ghost cried, 
 ' Sweet lady Janet, May Jean ! 
 
LADY JANET, MAY JEAN. 
 
 I too, long ago, before I died, 
 Threw the loud-tongued new h'fe from my side ; ' — 
 
 Once the dock strikes, na>er more. 
 ' Begone ! ' sore troubled, she tried to say, 
 ' Sweet-tongued ghost- woman, hide it away, 
 Hide it for ever before it is day ! ' 
 
 Voices pass from shore to shore. 
 
 Again she 's alone, and within that bower. 
 
 The lady Janet, May Jean, 
 Lays down her head for another hour. 
 Listens and looks through the walls of the tower ;— 
 
 The bell-ringer mounts the spire-stair. 
 Why is her heart in her eye and ear. 
 Whence is the fever, and whence the fear, 
 When the bolt is drawn and no one near ? 
 Hears she or sees she anything ? 
 The moth at last hath burned its wing : 
 
 Clang o' the matin is heard i^ the air. 
 
 She hears still nearer that new-born cry. 
 
 Hears lady Janet, May Jean ; 
 She sees close to her the fardel lie, 
 With Mary the Blessed May standing by, 
 
 In an arbour of white lilies great and high ; — 
 The light should burn bright on the altar. 
 Then Mary the Blest bent down and undid 
 The swathes of linen that were its bed, 
 And took in her hand the small child's head 
 Now the quire-leader opens the psalter. 
 
 B 2 
 
6 LADY JANET, MAY JEAN. 
 
 ' Welcome ! ' said she, • my son's young brother ; 
 
 Dear lady Janet, May Jean, 
 Here is the God's-gift, His and no other, 
 To be thine for ever, thou May and yet mother !' 
 The new dafs dawjihig spreadeth wide. 
 
 Is it but now that her eyes unclose, 
 That she first sees the small face Hke a rose 
 Upon her own white breast repose ? 
 'Sunrise clouds have gold inside. 
 
KRIEMHILUS TRYSTE. 
 
 Chtlde Eric from the Middle-sea 
 Rides on his homeward way, 
 
 To keep his tryste with fair Kriemhild, 
 His tryste of an early day. 
 
KRIEMHILUS TRYSTE. 
 
 Childe Eric rides by the swift running beck, 
 
 Its sound fills all the air \ 
 It is warm in the midsummer weather ; 
 
 It is noon, he will rest him there. 
 
 He throws the rein of his good roan steed 
 
 On the bough of a sycamore, 
 And, dropping from brae to bank, he gains 
 
 The linn-pool's pebbly shore. 
 
 He had travelled far from morn till noon. 
 The fresh stream danced and sang, 
 
 So to cast his surcoat and hose of mail 
 He did not question lang. 
 
 Then caroU'd he loud as the water. 
 
 So bright, so fresh, so full ; 
 His shapely waist and fair broad chest 
 
 Flashed in the quivering pool. 
 
 But scarcely had he stept three steps, 
 
 He heard a low shrill call. 
 And when he stept again there came 
 
 A laugh from the waterfall. 
 
 And he saw within the rainbow mist. 
 
 Within the shimmering vail, 
 A naked woman watching him, 
 
 Breathless and rosy-pale. 
 
KRIEMHILD'S TRYSTE. 
 
 Two heavy sheaves of golden hair 
 
 About her round loins met. 
 Yet, for all the waters falling, 
 
 These thick locks were not wet 
 
 Her great kind eyes, her wild sweet eyes, 
 They smiled and loved him so, 
 
 He shrank back in bewilderment. 
 Yet had no wish to go. 
 
 But he felt sure that bonnie brown quean 
 
 Was none of Eve's true kin : 
 Naked and unabashed, straight and frank, 
 
 Harboured within the linn. 
 
 Silenced, with wandering wits he stood. 
 
 His fair limbs but half hid, 
 Then stretched his hand from rock to rock, 
 
 And backward sloped and slid. 
 
 But suddenly to the waist he sank. 
 
 And forward sprang the maid, 
 Round either side his tingling waist 
 
 Her arms a girdle made. 
 
 Then breast to breast in the cool water 
 
 Was warmly, blindly pressed, 
 And heart to heart, as love is bom, — 
 
 Her great clear eyes confessed 
 
lo KRIEMHILUS TRYSTE. 
 
 An innocence and a childish joy, 
 And hope's most flattering song, 
 
 That he, as was his wont with maids, 
 Was reassured and strong. 
 
 At once he kissed her eager mouth — 
 It was a quivering, wildering kiss — 
 
 Tighter she strained him in her arms, 
 And fixed devouring lips on his. 
 
 And owned that she had waited long 
 For him, Childe Eric, him alone ; 
 
 But he must swear her troth, and be. 
 As Holy Writ says, bone of bone. 
 
 As she had heard the priest declare. 
 When she hid by the chapel door, 
 
 And he told them all of Adam and Eve — 
 The old priest of Felsenore. 
 
 * I'll bring you luck, you'll bring me grace. 
 
 And well be marrows, you and me ; 
 A wife and a mother, my long hair coifFed. 
 Clad in long-lawn and cramoisie.' 
 
 Yes, yes, his troth — as he had done 
 In eastern lands before, 
 
 To dark eyes and brown jewelled ears- 
 He pledged it o'er and o'er. 
 
KRIEMHILUS TRYSTE. 
 
 * Oh, then baptise me, Childe Delight ! 
 
 Madonna Mary, christen me ! ' — 
 The water now wet her sheaves of hair. 
 
 And he laughed at her pietie. 
 
 For he trusted in magic, and had come 
 
 Through Rome, that evil vale, 
 Where with the false pope Archimed 
 
 He had quaffed from the Holy Graal. 
 
 He laughed — but is not that his hound's 
 
 Long howl above the brae ? 
 And is not that his good roan steed — 
 
 What maketh it stamp and neigh ? 
 
 Oh, she was lissom and fond and strong, 
 
 Guileless and wild and free ; 
 Nor had she even a thought uncouth 
 
 Lying under the rowan tree. 
 
 He was Eric the tall, from Mickle-garth, 
 
 Her husband and paramour \ 
 And she was a wife now, body and soul, 
 
 So thoughtful and demure- 
 
 The manyfold kisses, and new sweet speech, 
 
 That four lips feel like fire ; 
 The thirsting heart and the hungry eyes,. 
 
 Why must they ever tire ? 
 
12 KRIEMHILUS JRYSTE. 
 
 But all things else, all fair things else, 
 
 The sun and his fruits also, 
 The birds and leaves, the flowers and sheaves, 
 
 They change, and they may go. 
 
 Into that warm nest, filled with song 
 By the lark and the murmuring linn. 
 
 Nought living came ; but the pensive eye 
 Of a white doe once looked in. 
 
 They slept, I think, till all at once 
 
 He rose with a start and stare, 
 Like a man who knew not where he was, 
 
 Nor how he had come there. 
 And climbed the bank and found his steed 
 
 Had cropped all round it bare. 
 
 Sadly it turned its proud arched neck, 
 
 And tried to lick his hand. 
 So he mounted in haste, and gallop'd away 
 
 To the lady Kriemhild's land. 
 
 But he had sworn he would return, 
 
 Return to the May, had he, 
 With a ring, and a necklace, and girdle^gold, 
 
 And long-lawn and cramoisie. 
 
KRIEMHILUS TRYSTE. 13 
 
 II 
 
 Beyond the sound of the widening beck 
 
 He rode to the river strand, 
 And at her bower-door on the island 
 
 He saw the good Kriemhild stand. 
 
 Behind her too, on either side. 
 
 Her bower-maids, a sister pair, 
 Clad both the same in sea-green serge, 
 
 Trimmed with the minnevair. 
 
 But her long waist was in white say, 
 Looped up with knops of gold ; 
 
 For she was the heiress of the land. 
 And towns with garth and wold. 
 
 Along yon further shore you see 
 
 Her castle walls and tower ; 
 But she had planned the tryste to be 
 
 Within her island-bower. 
 
 So these green-kirtled serving-maids. 
 They ferried him o'er the tide \ — 
 
 As he leaned and looked in the tangled deep, 
 What was it he descried ? 
 
14 KRIEMHILUS TRYSTE. 
 
 What was it ? for he backward shrank, 
 And made the light bark sway, 
 
 Till it grated against the landing steps, — 
 He seemed to have lost his way. 
 
 The lady then came stepping down 
 
 Towards him in surprise ; 
 Sudden he seized her two white hands, 
 
 And bowed to hide his eyes. 
 
 With that the distant warder blew 
 A note from the highest tower ; 
 
 Startled, he kissed her two white hands, 
 And they passed within the bower, 
 
 * I wonder much,' quoth fair Joanne 
 
 To her sister Claribee, 
 
 * What made him wince when that great fish 
 
 Swam up so bonnily ? ' 
 
 Each side the door then sat they down, 
 
 With lutes of cedar wood ; 
 Joan sang this song, and Claribee, 
 
 She made the refrain good. 
 
 Quoth the wanderer, I have journeyed far, 
 Oh, give me wine and bread ! 
 
 Is the popinjay merry ? 
 
KRIEMHILUS TRY ST E. 
 
 I have broken the bread and drank the wine, 
 I prithee now make my bed ; 
 
 The heart is as cold as stone. 
 For, alas ! I am wounded deep and sore. 
 And you must salve my wound : 
 
 Is the popinjay merry ? 
 With her balsam sweet that lady-leech 
 She made him whole and sound. 
 
 The heart is as cold as stone. 
 Anon, when again he was whole and well, 
 He said she must marry him ; 
 
 Is the popinjay merry ? 
 And so it fell out that she called the priest, 
 All in the twilight dim. 
 
 The heart is as cold as stone. 
 But when the wedding-ring touched her hand, 
 I must leave you, love, quoth he ; 
 
 Is the popinjay merry ? 
 For I have a wife in a far-off town, 
 Across the weary sea. 
 
 The heart is as cold as stone. 
 But she would not now by wind or wave 
 That he should go away ; 
 
 Is the popi7tjay merry ? 
 So she made Sir Merlin weave a spell. 
 He could not choose but stay. 
 
 The heart is as cold as stone. 
 
i6 KRIEMHILUS TRYSTE. 
 
 Nor could he remember ever more, 
 Though he strove with might and main ; 
 
 Is the popinjay merry ? 
 The wife he had left in the far-off land 
 He never would see again. 
 
 The heai't is as cold as stone. 
 
 Scarce ended they, a quivering flame 
 
 Winnowed the sultry air, 
 And a surf running up as from sea- wind 
 
 Lapped the green margin there. 
 
 The damsels laughed at the silvery foam 
 That ran back again as fast ; 
 
 Then tightened the cords of their gitterns, 
 And sang against the blast : 
 
 But as they sang a darkness fell, 
 And hail-stones rattled past. 
 
 Rest ye now from all your pain, 
 My heart's delight, my found-again. 
 
 ILLE. 
 
 Found again, but full of pyne 
 Thou art also, mistress mine. 
 
 Yea, but now we'll make amend ; 
 
 The years of tears have reached their end. 
 
KRIEMHILUS TRYSTE. 17 
 
 ILLE. 
 
 Tears and years — oh, many a one 
 Since my wand'rings were begun ! 
 
 HiEC. 
 
 Wanderings here and there away, 
 Never done at close of day. 
 
 ILLE. 
 
 Never done, but hankering still 
 For the old days of wild freewill. 
 
 H^C. 
 
 Childish days when, ages gone, 
 We foster-children lived alone. 
 
 ILLE. 
 
 Lived and loved, for then we knew 
 Where the sweetest apple grew. 
 
 But once, alas ! you plucked it down, 
 And wrapt it in my guiltless gown. 
 
 ILLE. 
 
 Plucked and shared it, rind and core ; 
 Yet the sun set as before. 
 
KRIEMHILUS TRYSTE. 
 
 HyEC. » 
 
 The sun set, but it rose no more ; 
 It went down, and life shut the door. 
 
 ILLE. 
 
 Shut, but we shall entrance gain ; — 
 Behold ! the sun wakes up again. 
 
 HiEC. 
 
 Another sweet apple upon the tree — 
 Lovers in dead years, can they see ? 
 
 ILLE. 
 
 See and pluck, rind, core, and pips, 
 Part and share with hungry lips. 
 
 HiEC. 
 
 Part and share, but alas ! it drips — 
 Drips with blood, — My heart's delight ! 
 Our hearts are torn in mirk midnight. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Therewith a cry shot over them, 
 As it came from out the sea — 
 
 The cry of a woman in sharp despite, 
 Crying, ' Ai, woe is me ! ' 
 
KRIEMHILUS TRYSTE. 19 
 
 The hail it flashed on bench and board, 
 
 By a loud wind borne along ; 
 The singers fled within the bower, 
 
 And thrust the bolt so strong. 
 
 And there the lady Kriemhild sat, 
 
 Childe Eric by her side, — 
 Together sat they hand in hand, 
 
 But their eyes were turned aside. 
 
 And the damsels knew as she sat so still. 
 
 With never a welcome word. 
 Their ditty had shorn between them 
 
 As it had been a sword. 
 
 They too were foster-children once, 
 Their love too had been strong, — 
 
 Can what hath passed return again 
 Like the burden of a song? 
 
 For Love descends with a great surprise, 
 An angel on our cold floor ; v 
 
 And he never should leave us, never again. 
 For we're colder than before. 
 
 Was this the boy she played with once 
 
 Come from the great war's game, 
 More learned too than a priest, 'twas said, — 
 
 While she remained the same ? 
 
20 KRIEMHILUS TRYSTE. 
 
 It seemed as she sat, long miles away- 
 Some wedding-bells rang out ; 
 
 But whether for her or for some other bride, 
 She mazed herself in doubt. 
 
 Whose were they if they were not hers ? 
 
 Some dream she would recall ; 
 But the gathering thunder swept them out, 
 
 And shook the wainscot wall. 
 
 Then again that wild lamenting cry, 
 
 * Ai, oh, woe is me ! ' 
 Severed the air like a fiery lance ; — 
 
 Nor could she choose but see 
 It went right through him like his doom, — 
 
 ' Ai, oh, woe is me ! ' 
 
 And with it rolled a surge of waves 
 
 All round the bower outside ; 
 A knocking smote the bolted door, 
 
 The voice behind it cried : — 
 
 ' Come back to me, Eric ! I am now 
 A woman with love in store ; — 
 
 Why went you while I slept ? — my hair 
 Is not now as heretofore. 
 
 ' It clings so heavy and cold and wet. 
 Oh, hasten, and bring with thee 
 
 The ring and the necklace and girdle-gold, 
 The long-lawn and cramoisie ! 
 
KRIEMHILUS TRYSTE. 21 
 
 ' My guardian and my husband swom, 
 
 Return again to me, 
 And these sea-waters will go back, 
 
 Back safe into the sea. 
 
 ' The rain it runs down breast and thigh, — 
 
 For thee I am so brave : 
 I would not that mine ancient kin 
 
 Shall make the floods thy grave ! ' 
 
 The gentle Kriemhild and her maids 
 
 Together stood quite still, 
 Stood altogether listening 
 
 To the voice so wild and shrill. 
 
 * Childe Eric, oh my long-betrothed, 
 
 Who is this calling so ? ' 
 
 * Alas ! I know not nor can tell, 
 
 And you must never know.' 
 
 * My sweet bower-maidens, tell me true, 
 
 Who is it calleth him ? ' 
 ' I see,' quoth Joan, ' by the window-pane 
 A brown sea-serpent swim ' 
 
 ' But we must mount the topmost steps. 
 
 The flood-waves lise so high,' — 
 ' I cannot move,' Childe Eric cries ; 
 
 ' I must remain to die.' 
 
KRIEMHILUS TRYSTE. 
 
 With that she fell upon his neck, 
 She would not leave him there ; 
 
 But her damsels raised her in their arms, 
 And clomb the higher stair. 
 
 And as they climbed they heard below 
 
 The door wide open fly ; 
 Then all at once the darkness broke 
 
 Across the rending sky. 
 
 And struggling strongly out, they saw, 
 
 Amidst the coiling spray, 
 A long-haired woman's shining arms, 
 
 Wherein Childe Eric lay ! 
 
 And faintly came again that cry, 
 
 ' Ai, oh, woe is me ! 
 Where is the ring and the girdle-gold, 
 
 The long-lawn and cramoisie ? ^ 
 
WOODSTOCK MAZE. 
 
 * O NEVER shall anyone find you then ! ' 
 
 Said he, merrily pinching her cheek ; 
 
 * But why?' she asked, — he only laughed, — 
 
 ' Why shall it be thus, now speak ! ' 
 
24 WOODSTOCK MAZE, 
 
 * Because so like a bird art thou, 
 
 Thou must live within green trees, 
 With nightingales and thrushes and wrens, 
 And the humming of wild bees.' 
 
 Ohy the shower and the sunshine every day 
 Pass and pass, be ye sad, be ye gay. 
 
 * Nay, nay, you jest, no wren am I, 
 
 Nor thrush nor nightingale. 
 And rather would keep this arras and wall 
 
 'Tween me and the wind's assail. 
 I like to hear little Minnie's gay laugh. 
 
 And the whistle of Japes the page, 
 Or to watch old Madge when her spindle twirls. 
 And she tends it like a sage.' 
 
 Oh, the leaves, brown, yellow, and red, still fall, 
 Fall and fall over churchyard or hall. 
 
 * Yea, yea, but thou art the world's best Rose, 
 
 And about thee flowers I'll twine. 
 And wall thee round with holly and beech, 
 Sweet-briar and jessamine.' 
 
 * Nay, nay, sweet master, I'm no Rose, 
 
 But a woman indeed, indeed. 
 And love many things both great and small, 
 And of many things more take heed.' 
 
 Oh, the shower and the sunshine every day 
 Pass and pass, be ye sad, be ye gay. 
 
WOODSTOCK MAZE. 25 
 
 ' Aye, sweetheart, sure thou sayest sooth, 
 
 I think thou art even so ! 
 But yet needs must I dibble the hedge. 
 
 Close serried as hedge can grow. 
 Then Minnie and Japes and Madge shall be 
 
 Thy merry-mates all day long, 
 And thou shalt hear my bugle-call 
 
 For matin or even-song.' 
 
 Oh, the leaves, brown, yellow, and red, still fall, 
 Fall and fall over churchyard or hall. 
 
 Look yonder now, my blue-eyed bird, 
 
 See'st thou aught by yon far stream ? 
 There shalt thou find a more curious nest 
 
 Than ever thou sawest in dream.' 
 She followed his finger, she looked in vain, 
 
 She saw neither cottage nor hall, 
 But at his beck came a litter on wheels. 
 
 Screened by a red silk caul ; 
 He lifted her in by her lily-white hand, 
 
 So left they the blythe sunny wall. 
 
 Oh, the shower and the sunshine every day 
 Pass and pass, be ye sad, be ye gay. 
 
 The gorse and Hng are netted and strong, 
 
 The conies leap everywhere, 
 The wild briar- roses by runnels grow thick ; 
 
 Seems never a pathway there. 
 c 
 
26 WOODSTOCK MAZE. 
 
 Then come the dwarf oaks knotted and wrung 
 
 Breeding apples and mistletoe, 
 And now tall elms from the wet mossed ground 
 Straight up to the white clouds go. 
 
 Oh^ the leaves^ brown, yellow, and red, still fall. 
 Fall and fall over churchyard or hall. 
 
 ' O weary hedge, O thorny hedge ! ' 
 
 Quoth she in her lonesome bower, 
 ' Round and round it is all the same ; 
 
 Days, weeks, have all one hour ; 
 I hear the cushat far overhead, 
 
 From the dark heart of that plane; 
 Sudden rushes of wings I hear, 
 
 And silence as sudden again. 
 
 Oh, the shower and the sunshine euery day 
 Fass and pass, be ye sad, be ye gay. 
 
 * Maiden Minnie she mopes by the fire, 
 
 Even now in the warmth of June ; 
 I like not Madge to look in my face, 
 
 Japes now hath never a tune. 
 But, oh, he is so kingly strong. 
 
 And, oh, he is kind and true ; 
 Shall not my babe, if God cares for me, 
 
 Be his pride and his joy too ? 
 
 Oh, the leaves, brown, yellow, afid red, still fall, 
 Fall and fall over churchyard or hall. 
 
WOODSTOCK MAZE, 27 
 
 I lean my faint heart against this tree 
 Whereon he hath carved my name, 
 I hold me up by this fair bent bough, 
 
 For he held once by the same ; 
 But everything here is dank and cold, 
 
 The daisies have sickly eyes, 
 The clouds like ghosts down into my prison 
 Look from the barred-out skies. 
 
 Oh, the shower and the sunshine every day 
 Fass and pass, be ye sad, be ye gay. 
 
 * I tune my lute and I straight forget 
 
 What I minded to play, woe's me ! 
 Till it feebly moans to the sharp short gusts 
 
 Aye rushing from tree to tree. 
 Often that single redbreast comes 
 
 To the sill where my Jesu stands ; 
 I speak to him as to a child ; he flies. 
 Afraid of these poor thin hands ! 
 
 Oh, the leaves, brown, yellow, and red, still fall. 
 Fall and fall over churchyard or hall. 
 
 * The golden evening burns right through 
 
 My dark chamber windows twain : 
 I listen, all round me is only a grave, 
 
 Yet listen I ever again. 
 
 Will he come ? I pluck the flower-leaves off, 
 
 And at each, cry, yes, no, yes ! 
 c 2 
 
28 WOODSTOCK MAZE. 
 
 I blow the down from the dry hawkweed, 
 Once, twice, ah ! it flyeth amiss ! 
 
 Oh^ the shower and the sunshine every day 
 Pass and pass ^ be ye sad^ be ye gay. 
 
 ' Hark ! he comes ! yet his footstep sounds 
 
 As it sounded never before ! 
 Perhaps he thinks to steal on me, 
 
 But ril hide behind the door.' 
 She ran, she stopped, stood still as stone — 
 
 It was Queen Eleanore ; 
 And at once she felt that it was death 
 
 The hungering she-wolf bore ! 
 * Oh^ the leaves^ brown, yellow, and red, still fall. 
 
 Fall and fall over churchyard or hall. 
 
29 
 
 THE WITCH'S BALLAD. 
 
 O, I HAE come from far away, 
 
 From a warm land far away, 
 A southern land across the sea. 
 With sailor-lads about the mast, 
 Merry and canny, and kind to me. 
 
 And I hae been to yon town. 
 
 To try my luck in yon town j 
 Nort, and Mysie, Elspie too. 
 Right braw we were to pass the gate, 
 Wi' gowden clasps on girdles blue. 
 
 Mysie smiled wi' miminy mouth, 
 
 Innocent mouth, miminy mouth ; 
 Elspie wore her scarlet gown, 
 Nort's grey eyes were unco' gleg. 
 My Castile comb was like a crown. 
 
 We walked abreast all up the street, 
 Into the market up the street ; 
 Our hair with marygolds was wound. 
 Our bodices with love-knots laced. 
 Our merchandise with tansy bound. 
 
30 THE WITCH'S BALLAD. 
 
 Nort had chickens, T had cocks, 
 
 Gamesome cocks, loud-crowing cocks ; 
 Mysie ducks, and Elspie drakes, — 
 For a wee groat or a pound : 
 We lost nae time wi' gives and takes. 
 
 Lost nae time, for well we knew, 
 
 In our sleeves full well we knew, 
 When the gloaming came that night. 
 Duck nor drake nor hen nor cock 
 Would be found by candle-light. 
 
 And when our chaffering all was done, 
 
 All was paid for, sold and done, 
 We drew a glove on ilka hand. 
 We sweetly curtsied each to each, 
 And deftly danced a saraband. 
 
 The market lasses looked and laughed. 
 
 Left their gear and looked and laughed ; 
 They made as they would join the game, 
 But soon their mithers, wild and wud, 
 With whack and screech they stopped the same. 
 
 Sae loud the tongues o' randies grew, 
 The flitin' and the skirlin' grew. 
 At all the windows in the place, 
 Wi' spoons or knives, wi' needle or awl. 
 Was thrust out every hand and face. 
 
THE WITCH'S BALLAD, 31 
 
 And down each stair they thronged anon, 
 
 Gentle, semple, thronged anon \ 
 Souter and tailor, frowsy Nan, 
 The ancient widow young again. 
 Simpering behind her fan. 
 
 Without a choice, against their will, 
 
 Doited, dazed, against their will, 
 The market lassie and her mither, 
 The farmer and his husbandman. 
 Hand in hand dance a' thegether. 
 
 Slow at first, but faster soon, 
 
 Still increasing wild and fast, 
 Hoods and mantles, hats and hose. 
 Blindly doffed and cast away. 
 Left them naked, heads and toes. 
 
 They would have torn us limb from limb, 
 
 Dainty Hmb from dainty limb ; 
 But never one of them could win 
 Across the line that 1 had drawn 
 With bleeding thumb a-widdershin. 
 
 But there was Jeff the provost's son, 
 
 Jeff the provost's only son ; 
 There was Father Auld himsel', 
 The Lombard frae the hostelry, 
 And the lawyer Peter Fell. 
 
32 THE WITCH'S BALLAD. 
 
 All goodly men we singled out, 
 
 Waled them well, and singled out, 
 And drew them by the left hand in ; 
 Mysie the priest, and Elspie won 
 The Lombard, Nort the lawyer carle, 
 I myseF the provost's son. 
 
 Then, with cantrip kisses seven, 
 
 Three times round with kisses seven, 
 Warped and woven there spun we, 
 Arms and legs and flaming hair. 
 Like a whirlwind on the sea. 
 
 Like the wind that sucks the sea, 
 Over and in and on the sea, 
 Good sooth it was a mad delight ; 
 And every man of all the four 
 Shut his eyes and laughed outright. 
 
 Laughed as long as they had breath, 
 
 Laughed while they had sense or breath ; 
 And close about us coiled a mist 
 Of gnats and midges, wasps and flies. 
 Like the whirlwind shaft it rist. 
 
 Drawn up I was right ofl" my feet. 
 
 Into the mist and off my feet ; 
 And, dancing on each chimney-top, 
 I saw a thousand darling imps 
 Keeping time with skip and hop. 
 
THE WITCH'S BALLAD. 33 
 
 And on the provost's brave ridge-tile, 
 On the provost's grand ridge-tile, 
 The Blackamoor first to master me 
 I saw, — I saw that winsome smile, 
 The mouth that did my heart beguile, 
 And spoke the great Word over me. 
 In the land beyond the sea. 
 
 I called his name, I called aloud, 
 Alas ! I called on him aloud ; 
 And then he filled his hand with stour. 
 And threw it towards me in the air ; 
 My mouse flew out, I lost my pow'r ! 
 
 My lusty strength, my power, were gone ; 
 
 Power was gone, and all was gone. 
 He will not let me love him more ! 
 Of bell and whip and horse's tail 
 He cares not if I find a store. 
 
 But I am proud if he is fierce ! 
 
 I am as proud as he is fierce ; 
 I'll turn about and backward go, 
 If I meet again that Blackamoor, 
 And he'll help us then, for he shall know 
 I seek another paramour. 
 
34 THE WITCH'S BALLAD. 
 
 And we'll gang once more to yon town, 
 
 Wi' better luck to yon town ; 
 We'll walk in silk and cramoisie, 
 And I shall wed the provost's son; 
 My-lady of the town I'll be ! 
 
 For I was born a crowned king's child, 
 
 Born and nursed a king's child. 
 King o' a land ayont the sea, 
 Where the Blackamoor kissed me first, 
 And taught me art and glamourie. 
 
 Each one in her wame shall hide 
 
 Her hairy mouse, her wary mouse, 
 Fed on madwort and agramie, — 
 Wear amber beads between her breasts. 
 And blind-worm's skin about her knee. 
 
 The Lombard shall be Elspie's man, 
 Elspie's gowden husband-man ; 
 Nort shall take the lawyer's hand ; 
 The priest shall swear another vow : 
 We'll dance again the saraband ! 
 
35 
 
 SAINT MARGARET. 
 
 The wan lights freeze on the dark cold floor, 
 Witch lights and green the high windows adorn ; 
 The cresset is gone out the altar before, 
 She knows her long hour of life's nigh worn, 
 And she kneels here waiting to be re-born, 
 On the stones of the chancel. 
 
 * That door darkly golden, that noiseless door, 
 Through which I can see sometimes,' said she, 
 
 * Will it ever be opened to close no more ; 
 Will those wet clouds cease pressing on me; 
 Shall I cease to hear the sound of the sea?' 
 
 Her handmaids miss her and rise. 
 
 * I've served in life's prison-house long,' she said, 
 ' Where silver and gold are heavy and bright. 
 Where children wail and where maidens wed. 
 Where the day is wearier than the night, 
 
 And each would be master if he might.' 
 Margaret ! they seek thee. 
 
36 SAINT MARGARET. 
 
 The night waxed darker than before ; 
 Scarce could the windows be traced at all, 
 Only the sharp rain was heard rushing o'er; 
 A sick sleeper moaned through the cloister wall, 
 And a horse neighed shrill from a distant stall, 
 And the sea sounded on. 
 
 ' Are all the dear holy ones shut within, 
 That none descend in my strait ? ' said she ; 
 * Their songs are afar off, far off and thin, 
 The terrible sounds of the prison-house flee 
 About me, and the sound of the sea.' 
 
 Lights gleam from room to room. 
 
 Slowly a moonshine breaks over the glass. 
 The black and green witchcraft is there no more ; 
 It spreads and it brightens, and out of it pass 
 Four angels with glorified hair, — all four 
 With lutes ; and our Lord is in heaven's door. 
 Margaret ! they hail thee. 
 
 Her eyes are a- wide to the hallo wbd light. 
 Her head is cast backward, her bosom is clad 
 With the flickering moonlight pale purple and 
 
 white ; 
 Away to the angels her spirit hath fled, 
 While her body still kneels, — ^but is it not dead ? 
 She is safe, she is well ! 
 
37 
 
 THE RENDEZVOUS. 
 
 * Lay my head upon thy neck, 
 
 My sister, ever so dear to me ; 
 Thy cool cheek on my burning brow, 
 And if I weep, you may not see. 
 The wind it lies i' the sedges. 
 
 * In this low shieling down so far. 
 
 Below the bower where we were born, 
 He knows I'll wait to hear again 
 The sound o' his blythe bugle-horn. 
 The wind it sighs V the sedges. 
 
 ' I hold him blameless now as then. 
 For love must bide with confidence, 
 
 And truth with trust I surely think, 
 Withouten question or defence. 
 The wind it sings /' the sedges. 
 
 ' Here, sheltered in the thick green shaw, 
 The day is long, the night is drear ; 
 
 But days and nights wear on until 
 The joy of his return is near. 
 
 The wind it clings to the sedges. 
 
38 THE RENDEZVOUS, 
 
 ' As I stood on the wrinkled shore 
 The waves they sang of him to me, 
 
 Here-away, there-away, wandering 
 On the far side of the sea. 
 
 Butterflies light on the sedges. 
 
 * They said his dark days all were done, 
 
 And that his ship was in full sail, 
 With men on the deck and wealth below. 
 And braws for me, the pick and wale. 
 The lily is bright in the sedges. 
 
 ' So here I've come to this dear place, 
 And yestere'en the high window, 
 
 Where we in one bed children slept, 
 I saw it shining in the glow. 
 
 The small fish darts V the sedges. 
 
 ' It seemed in fancy I discerned 
 The place where once our two heads lay, 
 
 And I thought how oft you combed my hair. 
 And dressed me many a day. 
 
 The bittern starts /' the sedges. 
 
 * For thou wert ever a mother to me ; 
 
 I, weak and wayward, scarce can tell 
 How good thou wert, — and yet I went 
 That dreadful night without farewell. 
 The badger rattles the sedges. 
 
THE RENDEZVOUS. 39 
 
 ' But 1 so feared our father, Maud ; 
 
 Love-wildered, I had lost my head : 
 I feared still more that false Delue 
 
 My father meant that I should wed.' 
 The bind-weed wattles the sedges. 
 
 * Ah, well-a-day ! my sister May, 
 
 I shrink from him as then you did ; 
 For now he is to husband me, 
 If I conform, as I am bid.' 
 
 The adder it hides /' the sedges. 
 
 * But that must never, never be ; 
 
 Wise sister Maud, it shall not be : 
 For, hark ! my true love's bugle-note — 
 I know it brings good cheer to me ! ' 
 Sunlight glides through the sedges. 
 
 * Nay, 'tis but father's hunting-horn, 
 
 With horses, dogs, and false Delue ! ' 
 
 * They also ! but by yon cross road 
 
 There comes my love, and his men too ! 
 The wind again breaks i* the sedges. 
 
 ' And now I know the hour shall strike, 
 Cast out my child and I shall be ; 
 
 Or false Delue's last game is played ; — 
 
 We'll part no more, my love and me ! 
 
 The sj>ring it aivakes i' the sedges. 
 
40 . THE RENDEZVOUS. 
 
 ' Now they parley, man to man, — 
 
 Short speech, alas ! for they must fight : 
 
 My Lionel and Delue, — at once 
 They draw their swords, so long and bright. 
 The fisherman watches the sedges, 
 
 ' My father and that stranger lord 
 
 Draw back the men each side the way, 
 
 Some here, some there, they stand in line. 
 Stand to look, as it were play ! 
 
 The hurricane catches the sedges. 
 
 ' My sister Maud, now hold me up; 
 
 I must stand here, I must look on, — 
 Holy Mary, soothe my child 
 
 Until this mortal strife be done ! 
 
 The storm wind weighs on the sedges. 
 
 * I must look on, — fear not for me ; 
 
 Full well I know his arm is strong : 
 I must look on, — full well I know 
 
 The struggle will not hold them long. 
 The wild wind lays down the sedges. 
 
 ' My child, my child ! so loud it cries, 
 I pressed it all too close to me ; 
 
 He hears it, and he turns this way. 
 His hand drops down beside his knee. 
 The lightning shatters the sedges. 
 
THE RENDEZVOUS. 41 
 
 * Delue is closing on him now ; — 
 
 My true, true love, it never can be ! 
 Take me, sister, in your arms ; 
 I cannot hear, I cannot see.' 
 
 The flood-tide scatters the sedges. 
 
 * Lie down, lie dowTi ! and let me watch : 
 
 Delue goes back with deadly wound ; 
 He tries in vain to lift his arm, — 
 He falls — falls flat upon the ground. 
 The rain it sj>urfis the sedges. 
 
 * Hear you, sister, what I say ? 
 
 Shouts and steps approach the door : 
 'Tis Lionel himself who lifts you, 
 Gently lifts you from the floor ! ' 
 Sunshine returns to the sedges. 
 
42 
 
 / GO TO BE CURED AT AVILIONJ 
 (To a Picture painted 1847.) 
 
 Silently, swiftly the funeral barge 
 
 Homeward bears the brave and good, 
 
 His wide pall sweeping the murmuring marge, 
 
 ^Flowing to the end of the world. 
 Kings' daughters watching round his head, 
 His brazen breastplate wet with blood 
 And tears by these kings' daughters shed, 
 Watching to the end of the world. 
 
 A cresset of spices and sandal- wood 
 Fills the wake with an odour rare ; 
 Two swans lead dimly athwart the flood, 
 
 Lead on to the end of the world. 
 From the distant wold what brings the blast ? 
 The trump's recall, the watch-fire's glare, — 
 Oh ! let these fade into the past. 
 
 As he fares to the end of the world. 
 
'I GO TO BE CURED AT AVILION: 43 
 
 From the misty woods a holier sound — 
 For the monks are singing their evensong — 
 Swoons faintly o'er the harvest-ground, 
 
 As they pass to the end of the world. 
 From the minster where the steep roofs are, 
 The passing bell, that voice supreme, 
 Sends a farewell faintly far, 
 
 As they fade to the end of the world. 
 
 It is gone, it is closed, the last red gleam, 
 Darkness 'shuts the fiery day ; 
 Over the windless, boatless stream 
 The odours and embers have died away : 
 They are gone to the end of the world. 
 
ANTHONY. 
 
 A.D. lOOO. 
 
 And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thy hand,' 
 
 Job ii. 6. 
 
 'Father, my quiet life hath lain 
 
 In the hollows where the dews and rain 
 
 From one day into another remain, 
 
 Cold and green. One sin alone 
 
 Up through my peace like a thorn hath grown : 
 
ANTHONY. 45 
 
 I have tried to be humble in vain ; I've thought 
 More of my gifts than a poor child ought ; 
 I have believed to me was given 
 The powers of the Saints — of miracles even ; 
 And I fear me Jesu hath sent his leven 
 To bum away the crown of pride 
 That, try as I might, I never could hide. 
 And to bear the great God's chastening, 
 With the bodily sense, is a fearful thing ! 
 
 ' Father dear, last night I woke 
 
 As a hand was gently laid on me, 
 
 And a soft voice close beside me spoke : 
 
 *' Good brother, brother Anthony, 
 
 A king is dying here close by, 
 
 Aud wants thy ghostly aid." I rose 
 
 Upon mine elbow 'mazedly ; 
 
 This beggar-voice, whose could it be ? 
 
 Who could have come where no path goes, 
 
 Among the shingle and birks that close 
 
 My cell about ? A faint light made 
 
 By the moon there was, and across it a shade 
 
 Moved ; from behind me a face right fair 
 
 Suddenly stooped, half hid by its hair. 
 
 Yet round the white brow might be seen 
 
 A fretted gold thread. " Come, brother," quoth he, 
 
 " Or death before us may have been " 
 
 " Nay, I ween it must not be : 
 
 U 2 
 
46 ANTHONY. 
 
 To deal out God's body to the dying, 
 
 To sain the soul through the dark night flying, 
 
 I'm powerless. I'm no priest : go round 
 
 To the Clerk of Isenford." " That ground 
 
 I travelled now ; but it is said 
 
 That yesternight the clerk is dead." 
 
 "Then mount ye the hill to the cenoby." 
 
 " Time is too short/' he made reply ; 
 
 And got the better of me then, 
 
 I thought myself- singled out among men. 
 
 Appointed by the Saints to do 
 
 This holy thing : I rise and go ; 
 
 The pax ye left last yule with me 
 
 I put in my bosom hastily ; 
 
 I follow him along by the river. Anon 
 
 He opened a door in a garden wall, 
 
 And muttered some words I can't recall, 
 
 Then stept we down long steps of stone. 
 
 Still down and evermore downwards— dark 
 
 It was, and yet I heard, by chance. 
 
 As we spoke together, the early lark ; 
 
 Anon it seemed as if I must dance. 
 
 Not walk, so giddy and light was I ; 
 
 And then there seemed to be houses round, 
 
 Unsteadily resting on the ground, 
 
 As if they but seemed, and might change or fly ; 
 
 With pictures were they painted o'er, 
 
 And settles stood by every door. 
 
ANTHONY. 47 
 
 Past these we went, I following him, 
 
 The heavy heat making my head to swim 
 
 As if I were drunken. Then came a sound, 
 
 The regular chaunt of a litany — 
 
 Doubtless to Hecat or Venus — and they 
 
 Who chanted it were seen nowhere, 
 
 Neither on ground nor in the air : 
 
 Nor was there green field or blue sky, 
 
 Or tree or stream, but all was brown, 
 
 And flames like lamps leapt up and down : 
 
 Nor saw I aught living in doublet or gown. 
 
 Till we came to the market-place, where stood, 
 
 Instead of a cross, an image of wood, 
 
 A huge-faced image, with ass's ears. 
 
 And horns and a tongue and eyes full of leers, 
 
 Bodyless, only a block, whence grew 
 
 Lopped arms and shameless parts — before 
 
 The image flickered a flame dark blue. 
 
 And round it, hand in hand, a score 
 
 Of dark brown men and women ran, 
 
 Naked as devils : I tried to ban j 
 
 I had no book or cross, but the pax. 
 
 With the blessed body sealed in silver and wax ! 
 
 The pax was gone, and that was how 
 
 They gained such power upon me now. 
 
 My winsome guide laid hold on me. 
 
 Capering as if his bare feet were on thorns ; 
 
 But the beauty, I trow, was quite gone now — 
 
48 ANTHONY 
 
 I saw he too had horns ! 
 
 Oh, had I at the first but seen 
 
 The fire in his eyen — oh, well had it been ! 
 
 Alas ! how they did pierce and play 
 
 About me and into me, into my heart ! 
 
 And the place wherever he made them dart 
 
 Was lit up by a quivering gleam, 
 
 Like that firom sunlit glass or stream. 
 
 I turned and ran ; but round and round 
 
 Still danced the fiends till I fell in a swound, 
 
 And I woke anon where about me, I trow, 
 
 Was kingly ornament enow : 
 
 On a couch of gold, on a tiger's hide, 
 
 I lay, and a creature meek and mild, 
 
 Wimpled like a sister of Transatide, 
 
 Smoothed my hair down like a child, 
 
 And ]aid my face against her side. 
 
 Oh, but it was strange and new, 
 
 The unrest that within me grew : 
 
 I believed her a sister — some glamour. 
 
 Some smoke of the pit, some nameless power. 
 
 Was there ) but I prevailed at last ! 
 
 Her arms about my head she cast ; 
 
 " I am a princess," the serpent said. 
 
 Ere you arrived was my father dead ; 
 
 And you must now rule here, for I 
 
 Can give you knowledge and sovereignty, 
 
 With a crown to cover your tonsured head." 
 
ANTHONY. 49 
 
 Woe's me ! I listened, sorry and sad 
 
 That she was a devil or I was mad : 
 
 I lay still and listened, and then she drew 
 
 From a small red distaff that stood by itself, 
 
 And moved to her hand like a living elf, 
 
 A fine green thread she cunningly threw 
 
 Around me and round. Then a can of green flame 
 
 Or of wine — I knew not whence it came — 
 
 She called it wine — to my mouth she pressed, 
 
 And whispered so softly, " Drink now, and rest." 
 
 I was wearing to sleep, and my lips were dry ; 
 
 A want, not of will, but of energy, 
 
 Was saving me, till at last she sung — 
 
 Thank thee, O thou foolish red tongue ! 
 
 Is there a better place over the sky ? 
 
 Is there a fairer race living on high ? 
 
 Is there a hell, can any man tell ? 
 
 For he knoweth nought when the shroud is wrought ; 
 
 But I've heard it said by the midday breeze, 
 
 In the churchyard trees, and by the grey seas. 
 
 Upon midsummer night, when the moon is in flight, 
 
 That Paradise is but a shade 
 
 Made by the evening clouds in the air, 
 
 A delusion and a snare. 
 
 So brother dear, oh, harbour here, 
 
 And live with me 3 for a mortal year 
 
 Will be nothing to thee, if thou wilt not tine 
 
 The offer of my bright green wine. 
 
so 
 
 ANTHONY. 
 
 I tried right sore, but no word could say, 
 
 While she touched me, that accursed May, 
 
 With her thread and her wine, — I feared them now, 
 
 And she knew the fear upon my brow ; 
 
 I saw her trembling through her hair. 
 
 And then at once I was aware 
 
 That she was changed or gone ; for there, 
 
 Instead of her, another stood. 
 
 Also clad in a wimple and hood ; 
 
 My book and my beads, with the little black rood. 
 
 She held towards me, and she sung 
 
 With a sharp clear voice, and a bright red tongue : 
 Nay, look not so, for it grieves us mo' 
 Than I can tell, and of heaven and hell, 
 What they are made of, and where they lie, 
 And how to find them by-and-by, 
 Thou shalt teach, and we shall hear — 
 
 I broke upon her silly song 
 
 By grasping at the hallowed gear ; — 
 
 Ah, when I found it in my grasp. 
 
 The rood was changed into an asp. 
 
 But the thread was broken, and I was strong, 
 
 For I struggled up and out of her reach \ 
 
 I found my voice, — that vile asp tried 
 
 To get into my mouth, — but three times I cried 
 
 Upon the name of Christ — the wall 
 
 About me splits, and the devils fall 
 
 And break like images of board, — 
 
 Such is the power of the name of the Lord ! 
 
ANTHONY, 51 
 
 * Long I threaded the streets about, 
 
 That I might find some pathway out ; 
 
 Nor could I tell the west firom east : 
 
 So I was lost. By many a door 
 
 Fallen, and many a settle before, 
 
 The naked creatures broken lay, 
 
 Like sculptor's fragments cast away. 
 
 And yet their eyes could follow me. 
 
 Although they could not move or turn ; 
 
 I stumbled over them ; I could spurn 
 
 Their breasts and limbs, — but those wide-open eyes ! 
 
 Ah, me ! at last I saw on high 
 
 This hill against the morning sky; — 
 
 Was it not hard from thence to see 
 
 This chapel at hand, and between it and me — 
 
 Enchantment — like a wall of glass. 
 
 It seemed I never, never could pass ? 
 
 Then I remembered the spell whereby 
 
 The possessed wherever they list can fly ; 
 
 That spell brother Lupus, cursed be he ! 
 
 Brought from the pagans of Sicily : 
 
 And I was lifted from the ground, 
 
 Bats and ribbed things clipping me round, 
 
 And thrown down; then, oh ! such a race 
 
 1 ran, — for everything gave me chase. 
 
 Wolves, moles, birds, stones, hosts of flies \ 
 
 And the faces of women and men I know 
 
 Died many and many a year ago, 
 
52 ANTHONY. 
 
 Kept up with me, their white, light eyes 
 
 Close to my face ; all vampires, so 
 
 They bit my neck, they sucked my blood, 
 
 They caught my ankles, they twisted my hood, 
 
 And at last — at last they stole 
 
 My senses \ without sense I ran. 
 
 Like a jointed frame without a soul ; 
 
 Yet I knew the joints, alas ! began 
 
 To double and crack ; — but oh ! God's bliss ! 
 
 About my feet a stream doth hiss. 
 
 The cold, running stream, and I am free, 
 
 With daylight, father, and with thee ! ' 
 
 II 
 When the stricken child had thus confessed 
 
 Humbly he crossed his hands on his breast, 
 Waiting. The abbot raised his eyen, 
 That closed this half-hour had been, 
 And answered : ' Thy name, Anthony, 
 Was once borne by a Saint ; if so 
 It be with thee as with him, and mo'. 
 Whom Jesu put in Satan's power 
 To bait them for a day and hour. 
 It doth behove thee back to go 
 Into thy hermitage again ; 
 And if from grace thou art astray, 
 Anthony, gird thyself amain 
 
ANTHONY. 53 
 
 With prayer and fast ; this penance do, 
 And when thou vanquishest the foe, 
 Thou shalt rule, and I obey ! * 
 
 He turned about, but the kneeling man 
 
 Caught the skirt of his camlet and began 
 
 To wail like the stork in the fowler's hand : 
 
 ' Father ! aught but this demand 
 
 Let me but live in the cenoby. 
 
 And penance day and night I'll dree ; 
 
 Send me not to Hve alone ' 
 
 ' The will of God, my will be done ! ' 
 Querulously the old man cried. 
 And thrust the penitent aside. 
 
 Til 
 
 The sound of their parting steps is gone, 
 
 His heart sinks like his knees on the stone, 
 
 The asperging drops still shine on his head. 
 
 The smoke of the censer scarce is shed ; 
 
 For they brought him hither with chant and bell, 
 
 Relics and incense-pot as well. 
 
 His long thin hands together are prest, 
 
 Finger to finger before his breast 
 
 Through their closed lids you may see 
 
 His eyeballs moving restlessly, 
 
54 ANTHONY, 
 
 As if he listened with shut eyes, 
 For thus the senses sympathise ! 
 And now he sings, but far to find 
 Is every rhyme he would unwind : 
 
 Thou wood of the cross of the agony. 
 Ye nails that fixed Him to the tree, 
 Sponge that held the last bitter draught, 
 Lift, support, and strengthen me ! 
 
 Drops of His sweating that eased His pain, 
 Drops of blood, the parched world's rain, 
 Tears that brought us man's second spring. 
 Cleanse, absolve, absolve, and sain ! 
 
 Mary's most holy eyes then lifted up. 
 Angels most holy hands holding the cup. 
 And Spirit most holy that then came down, 
 Make my soul with ye to sup ! 
 
 He stops, forgetting the rest ; the lamp 
 Through its misty nimbus crackles ; a tramp 
 Is heard without, a laugh and a call ; — 
 He answers not : against the wall 
 All round the bigging the knocking goes, 
 From west to east as a witch-dance flows : 
 Then up on the thatch it begins to scratch ; 
 There's a long thin line seen crossing the shrine, 
 Mistier still in the thickening damp ; 
 
ANTHONY, 55 
 
 By its dainty thread right over his head, 
 A spider spins, for a moment it stops, 
 Then right upon his bald head drops. 
 Ah ! he comes as he came before, — 
 Only since they sprinkled the latch, 
 And set that cross upon the door, 
 He must enter by the thatch \ 
 Anthony fell like a murdered man, 
 And that long-legged imp-spiderling ran 
 Over his face : now raised on his hands 
 He stares about, the hour-glass stands 
 Right upon end with its drizzling sands, 
 And the friendly mort-head, round and round 
 Rolls about with a crazy sound, 
 A gasping creak, it tries to speak, 
 Eyeballs from its caves gleam out ! 
 The horns — the horns begin to sprout ! 
 
 Next mom betimes they came to see 
 How fared their young brother Anthony, 
 But he was gone, nor could they trace 
 His footsteps nor his resting-place. 
 
 IV 
 
 'Tis well to spend the wintry day 
 Of age from tumults quite away : 
 "WTien love is past, and we leave off strife. 
 Having long borne our lots in life. 
 
56 ANTHONY. 
 
 Answering the daily need, 
 
 With brand and buckler to conquer or bleed ; 
 
 Or for the burgher's watch so drear, 
 
 Filling the wallet with good cheer, 
 
 Or in the booth or market-stand 
 
 Where moil befits both tongue and hand : 
 
 But work is heavy from morn to eve, 
 
 With sorrow still watching behind like a reeve, 
 
 And the only shelter sure and fair 
 
 Is the cloister and cowl to the man of care, 
 
 To the man upon whom the great black hand 
 
 Of chastening waxeth tight, whose head 
 
 Is bowed, so he no more can stand 
 
 In the guild-hall he aforetime led. 
 
 Nor less to him who wickedly 
 
 Seeketh temptations, the lusts of the eye 
 
 And the pride of life ; for surely God 
 
 Lends the heart a worm, the back a rod. 
 
 To punish those forgetting Him ; 
 
 And His punishments are grim ! 
 
 Abasing the haughty in velvet and fur, 
 
 Who hold their foreheads against the thunder. 
 
 And laugh to see the patched poor wonkier. 
 
 Who travel with riders before and behind, 
 
 Riding over the halt and blind. 
 
 Who empty the stoup with the wassailer, 
 
 Over the chamber of the dying, — 
 
 Who wear the night with dice and lying, 
 
ANTHONY. S7 
 
 Lying and cursing over the dice, 
 And to the chirp of the violette, 
 With a headless amorette 
 Dance until the cock crows thrice. 
 
 There was a time when Saints were rife, 
 Whose cross was ever their staff of life ; 
 From Camelot to Egypt's river, 
 Blessings fell from Gabriel's quiver ; 
 Nor was it wonderful to see 
 The holy rood stoop down to greet 
 The worshipper whose heart was sweet. 
 Whose deeds and thoughts did well agree, — 
 Who never dropt his beads to scratch. 
 Though his cassock was as coarse as thatch : 
 This age was likened to the sun 
 Upholding life since time begun. 
 
 Then glorious still, though glorious less, 
 The second age of holiness, 
 Was likened to the harvest-moon, 
 Whose sweet white face doth wane so soon. 
 
 Then came the third last age of light ; 
 Darker it was, yet grand and bright, 
 Like the company of stars by night. 
 
 But sun, and moon, and stars are gone. 
 And we the watchers left alone 
 
58 ANTHONY. 
 
 With no more cheer than candlewick 
 Through a horn lantern, yellow and thick. 
 So now in the race, for one who wins, 
 Six shall stumble with wounded shins ; 
 For the rood is stiff whoever kneels, 
 And God never stops His chariot wheels, 
 Nor looks out of His narrow window. 
 Over the drifts and steeps of snow ; 
 But Satan for a thousand years 
 Has gotten a lease of our hopes and fears — 
 To catch men's souls by their eyes and ears. 
 Let us everyone beware 
 Little faith or overcaring. 
 Pride of heart or overdaring, 
 Lest we come within his snare. 
 
 In after years on that spot grew 
 
 Cloisters of stone all fair and new : 
 
 And Camaldules at least five-score 
 
 Lived where these few had housed before ; 
 
 Then in the guest-hall oft was told 
 
 This story of the times of old. 
 
 And of a beggar-man, who lay 
 
 With crutch and cup by night and day. 
 
 Begging and muttering before 
 
 Samt Peter's great west door. 
 
 This beggar, when aught was flung in his cup, 
 
 If 'twas not silver would grumble and grutch, 
 
ANTHONY. 59 
 
 And strive to raise his body up, 
 
 To reach the almoner with his crutch ! 
 
 Then as the midnight struck, they said, 
 
 He lay stretched out as if he were dead, 
 
 When a horned stranger, strong and grim, 
 
 Through the locked city-gate came toward him. 
 
 And took his daily spoils away. 
 
 Some thought him a Saint, and gave him food 
 
 Day by day, as Christians should ; 
 
 But others averred that Satan had 
 
 Sworn him his slave and driven him mad, 
 
 And that his name was Anthony. 
 
 But whether he was the same who fled 
 
 From his cell that night can never be said. 
 
6o 
 
 LOVES CALENDAR. 
 
 That giisty spring, each afternoon 
 
 By the ivied cot I passed, 
 And noted at that lattice soon 
 
 Her fair face downward cast ; 
 Still in the same place seated there, 
 So diligent, so very fair. 
 
 Oft-times I said I knew her not, 
 Yet that way round would go. 
 
 Until, when evenings lengthened out, 
 And bloomed the may-hedge row, 
 
 I met her by the wayside well, 
 
 Whose waters, maybe, broke the spell. 
 
 For, leaning on her pail she prayed 
 
 I'd lift it to her head. 
 So did I ; but I'm much afraid 
 
 Some wasteful drops were shed, 
 And that we blushed, as face to face 
 Needs must we stand the shortest space. 
 
LOVE'S CALENDAR. 6i 
 
 Then when the sunset mellowed through 
 
 The ears of rustling grain, 
 When lattices wide open flew, 
 
 When ash-leaves fell like rain, 
 As well as I she knew the hour 
 At morn or eve I neared her bower. 
 
 And now that snow o'erlays the thatch, 
 
 Each starlit eve within 
 The door she waits, I raise the latch, 
 
 And kiss her lifted chin ; 
 Nor do I think we've blushed again. 
 For Love hath made but one of twain. 
 
62 
 
 A BRIDAL RACE. 
 
 Sir Hubert mounted his little brown barb, 
 Her jennette of Spain his bride ; 
 
 ' My winsome Isabelle, my wife,' 
 Quoth he, ' let's a w^ager ride ! * 
 
 Quoth he, ' Sweet wife, let us ride a race. 
 
 And this shall be the play, 
 Whoever wins first to yon haw-tree, 
 
 Shall do even as they may. 
 
 * And whether we live in the country, 
 
 Or in town as I would still. 
 Whoever wins first to yon haw-tree 
 Shall have it as they will.' 
 
 * Done ! ' said she with a light high laugh, 
 
 ' I'm pleased with such as this ; 
 Let us sign the 'pact ! ' She leant across, 
 As if she meant to kiss. 
 
A BRIDAL RACE. 6z 
 
 He thought to catch her limber waist, 
 
 And really a kiss repay, 
 But she gave her jennette the rein at once ; 
 
 She was off, she was away. 
 
 The little brown barb he shied aside, 
 
 On galloped she merrilie, 
 The race was short and she was the first, 
 
 First by the red haw-tree. 
 
 ' Now fie upon you, winsome wife ! ' 
 
 Cried he, ' you ride unfair, 
 For with that feint, that start too soon. 
 
 You took me unaware.' 
 
 * What's fair,' quoth she with her light high laugh, 
 
 * I do not care three straws ! 
 Oh, I shall rule, yes, I shall rule. 
 
 But you, love, shall make the laws ! ' 
 
 E 2 
 
64 
 
 PARTING AND MEETING AGAIN. 
 
 Last time I parted from my dear 
 The linnet sang from the briar-bush, 
 
 The throstle from the dell ; 
 The stream too carolled full and clear, 
 It was the spring-time of the year, 
 And both the linnet and the thrush 
 
 I love them well, 
 Since last I parted from my dear. 
 
 But when he came again to me 
 The barley rusded high and low, 
 
 Linnet and thrush were still ; 
 Yellowed the apple on the tree, 
 'Twas autumn merry as it could be. 
 What time the white ships come and go 
 
 Under the hill ; 
 They brought him back again to me, 
 Brought him safely o'er the sea. 
 
LOVE. 
 
 I LEFT the city gates. Through paths of sward, 
 Where never cloud of dust had fallen, I reached 
 An opening in a wall of sapling boughs ; 
 I entered, and within more still and cool 
 It was, and freshness through the air exhaled 
 From the green ground. Half dusk it was, for round 
 And round the branches wove a screen from heaven 
 Of darkest green and varied leaf, 'neath which 
 Flies thickly humming danced. Sometimes a bird 
 Flew straightway through, and as its wing might brush 
 The leaves about your head, it seemed to fear 
 That it had missed its way. Flowers too were there, 
 Sprinkled about amidst the grass which grows 
 Hair-like and thin beneath the shade ; bluebells 
 Tinkling to the small breeze a bee might cause. 
 And violets, and poppies red and rough 
 In stem. I passed still deeper through the wood 
 By this cool path : a wood more kindly cool, 
 Or harmless of dank poisons or vile beasts 
 That creep, there cannot be, and yet so wild 
 And uncouth. Bushes of dusk fruit beside 
 
66 LOVE. 
 
 The pathway from the ground piled up two walls 
 
 Of leaves and berries, from which flocked the birds 
 
 As I passed on, or lingered with dyed hands 
 
 Plucking them listless, and with profuse waste 
 
 Pressing their juice out. Other trees were there 
 
 Blossoming for a later month. And now, 
 
 As from the populous harvest field came sounds 
 
 Of hearty laughter, till by distance lost. 
 
 And then again heard, as the reapers turned, 
 
 A snatch of song, a very pleasant sound, 
 
 Beneath a clear sky and thick boughs, a sound 
 
 Right happy. So I also sang. The sun 
 
 Then found an opening through the stems, to fall 
 
 Upon my path ; and as I walked across 
 
 The flowers upon my right my shadow passed. 
 
 A butterfly with purple-velvet wings. 
 
 Invested with two lines of dusky gold 
 
 And spotted with red spots, upon these flowers 
 
 Was feeding, and anon as my shade fell 
 
 Upon it, it flew up and went before. 
 
 Lighting again until I passed : and so 
 
 Continued it. The space more closed and closed 
 
 Became, and all between the trees were warped, 
 
 Hop-twigs and bindweed running far. Beneath, 
 
 A slow stream likewise glent, and secretly 
 
 Fed spreading water-liHes, and long reeds 
 
 Heavy with seed, which might have made fair pipes, 
 
LOVE. 67 
 
 Cut nicely by the joints, from whence a leaf 
 
 Depended. But I thought not of the task, 
 
 Watching my guide's dark wings, until the path 
 
 Seemed stayed by dense convolvulus and may, 
 
 (Largely o'ergrown without the pruner's hands) 
 
 And wild white rose. But the dark sphynx-fly lowered 
 
 Its flight till nigh the ground, and passed into 
 
 The mass of greenery by an interspace 
 
 Unseen before ; with both my hands I raised, 
 
 And parted with my head, full lazily. 
 
 The luscious screen at this same interspace. 
 
 Behold ! beneath a peristyle I stand 
 
 Of short columnar palms, before me steps 
 
 Of fine-shorn grass descend unto a space 
 
 Carpeted, curtained, looped with garlands too, 
 
 And set all round with woven seats of boughs 
 
 Cut roughly from the forest, over which 
 
 Uptangling richly to the highest trees, 
 
 And waving then even into the air. 
 
 Were rare and unknown flowers, and round a fount 
 
 (Of which a marble girl, with green feet through 
 
 The water and white head, seemed Nymph) bright 
 
 heaps 
 Of lily blooms were strewn. But all these things 
 After the first delight were nought to me ; 
 I was aware of some one near, whose life 
 The whole seemed imitative of, whose smile 
 
68 LOVE. 
 
 The light seemed intimating to the flowers, 
 
 Whose graciousness all round seemed fashioned. by. 
 
 Quite passively I stretchjed upon the sward, 
 
 Mazed by this unknown beauty, and the swar.:\s 
 
 Of moths like that which here had guided me, 
 
 And then the influence became more clear, 
 
 More fixed, and I beheld a Lady. Round 
 
 Her hand, which held some sweet, the insects thronged, 
 
 And lighted on her hair. I did not start 
 
 With rapture nor surprise, nor did I deem 
 
 Myself unworthy of this gardened love, 
 
 This goddess-girl, nor said she aught to me ; 
 
 But by her eyes, which never looked on me, 
 
 / said she was the spirit of my life, 
 
 And tho' I had not seen her until now, 
 
 I still had known her. 
 
 She bent down beside 
 The sward I pressed ; she leant on the rude seat 
 Over me ; but I knew not from that hour, 
 Whether it was myseT I gazed upon, 
 Or whether I beheld with love intense 
 And sympathy some higher beings, both 
 Worthy of each. And she began to sing ; 
 A language which was song was hers, — she saog^ ; 
 A fragile lute upon her knees she placed. 
 And, balanced from her neck by cord of silk. 
 Her fingers gave it speech, yet touched it not, 
 
LOVE. 69 
 
 But her hands hovered o'er it like two birds 
 
 With wings still fluttering to descend, — she played. 
 
 Soft as the fine tints of a rainbow bound 
 
 About a shower that fell not : first her voice 
 
 Came on my sense, but scarce articulate ; 
 
 Then, waxing louder, it ascended heaven 
 
 With all its colours brightening. My heart 
 
 Is stilled to sleep as a maid stills a child 
 
 That murmurs not, but looks still upward on 
 
 The watching smile, till its eyes close at last 
 
 Unconsciously. But suddenly the notes 
 
 Began to whirl together as a flight 
 
 Of swallows, and then louder still became, 
 
 Happy beyond all words ; fair spirits seemed 
 
 Clamorous and clapping of their hands for joy ! 
 
 Too happy beyond words, I would have wept 
 
 Had I been in the actual world, where tears 
 
 Are bred by stranger sympathy; but here. 
 
 Where sympathy was life, I did not weep. 
 
 Lady and child at once ! I could weep now ! 
 
 But then the dark hair of thy song fell down. 
 
 The eyelid of thy music dropt : it plained 
 
 Faintly, and saturated with sweet pain, 
 
 Carried my soul into a void grey realm 
 
 Of everlasting melancholy. Maid ! 
 
 WTio mournest for thy lover, hear the lay 
 
 And be not comforted, but mourn no more 
 
 As you have mourned. Youth ! whose thirsting love 
 
70 LOVE. 
 
 Has conjured an ideal from the land 
 Of Vision, listen with a joyous hope 
 And mourn not with the bitterness that thou 
 Hast mourned. 
 
 A louder chord is struck ! let grief at once 
 
 Be wept out like a thunder-rain, and pride 
 
 Go up triumphant with a purple flush, 
 
 And warn of trump— the golden crown doth press 
 
 The spirit's forehead who hath conquered all ! — 
 
 — O Lady, thou art wondrous fair and good ! 
 
 The earth is filled, oh ! filled with gracious things. 
 
 Slowly again to life descends thy strain, 
 
 An odour as of rose-leaves seems to fall 
 
 Upon me, and a pearly light : behold ! 
 
 Art thou not as a goddess over me ? 
 
 Oh, intermit thy strong- linked power — oh, cease! 
 
 And let me drink a silence short and deep, 
 
 Then die into the Life that thou dost five. 
 
"^^^f 3 - y/h}<^ 
 
 OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
73 
 
 OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 BIRTH. 
 
 I STOOD before the vail of the Unknown, 
 And round me in this life's dim theatre 
 Was gathered a whole townsfolk, all astir 
 
 With various interludes : I watched alone, 
 
 And saw a great hand lift the vail, then shone, 
 Descending from the innermost expanse, 
 A goddess to whose eyes my heart at once 
 
 Flew up with awe and love, a love full-blown. 
 
 Naked and white she was, her fire-girt hair 
 Eddied on either side her straight high head, 
 Swaddled within her arms in lambent flame. 
 An unborn life, a child- soul, did she bear, 
 And laid it on a young wife's breast and fled. 
 Yet no one wondered whence the strange gift 
 came ! 
 
74 
 
 OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 DEATH, 
 
 Again that stage was vacant, that dusk crowd 
 Was murmuring as before : again that hand 
 Gathered the curtain ; I saw rise and stand 
 
 Against the inmost blackness like a cloud, 
 
 No feature seen, but o'er his brows a proud 
 
 Spiked crown that held the thick mist clothing him, 
 A strong imperious creature, tall and slim, 
 
 And hateful too, thus hid within that shroud. 
 
 Stooping he raised within his long thin arms 
 
 A scared old man and rolled him up, and fled : 
 And all the crowd shrieked out, and muttering charms, 
 Threw down their fiddle-bows and merchandise, — 
 Around the stark corpse knelt with suppliant cries, 
 Nor ceased still wondering where was gone — the 
 dead ! 
 
75 
 
 OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 in 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 Young men and maidens, darkling, pair by pair, 
 Travelled a road cut through an ancient wood : 
 It was a twilight in a warm land, good 
 
 To dwell in ; the path rose up like a stair, 
 
 And yet they never ceased, nor sat down there ; 
 Above them shone brief glimpses of blue sky, 
 Between the black boughs plumed funereally, 
 
 Before them was a faint light, faint but fair. 
 
 Onward they walked, onward I with them went, 
 Expecting some thrice-welcome home would show 
 A hospitable board, and baths and rest ; 
 But still we looked in vain all hopes were spent, 
 No home appeared ; and still they onward go, 
 I too, footweary traveller, toward the West. 
 
76 
 
 OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 IV 
 
 GAIN AND LOSS. 
 
 Oft-times we consummate our fond desires, 
 Nor seldom does the strong man seize his prize, 
 But ere that day comes expectation dies ; 
 
 Fruition is not Uke what Hope inspires, 
 
 No more than are the ashes like the fires 
 
 That shed them : when we start upon the road, 
 Arcadia blooms somewhere, the blest abode 
 
 Of nymphs and perfect men, till, by surprise. 
 
 Noon strikes the bell, and all around remains 
 
 The same sad commonplace ; nor are we grieved, 
 
 Our J taff unworn, our scrip with numerous gains 
 Refilled, — with Patience, cleansed eyes undeceived. 
 
 Silence of heart, meekness to match our fate ; 
 
 Experience guides us on, but shuts the golden gate. 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 77r 
 
 OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 LOOKING FORWARD. 
 
 How very strangely are these travellers made ! 
 Happily with no choice but still to live, 
 
 Weaving and shaping, so to be arrayed, 
 Crying to nature, Stay ! to fate. Give, give ! 
 
 Still hastening towards to-morrow, when to-day 
 Fails to bring forth, from its too numerous toils 
 And manifold emotions, those great spoils 
 
 Wherewith to build a tower of strength and stay 
 
 Reaching to heaven. Alas ! we only find 
 To-morrow Hke to-day, with the same sky. 
 Silent and blue, silent and dark and high ; 
 
 The only changes, thunder, storm, and wind : 
 And round us rise still, darkening all the air, 
 Groves we have reared, that only blossoms bear. 
 
78 
 
 OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 HOPE DEFERRED, 
 
 Courage of heart and hand, Faith first of all : 
 
 Such is the prayer of the perplexed man, 
 As the storm -scattered blossoms round him fall. 
 
 And shrinking from the rod and from the ban 
 Of starless chance. Prayer prompted by desires 
 
 For mastery and godhead sense denies, 
 And by sky-pointing mediaeval spires. 
 
 Symbols of creeds the beaten hound still tries 
 To shelter under in this pilgrimage, 
 
 Passing from birth to death. But let us hear 
 What Nature, cruel mother ! says so sage, — 
 
 Still listening if perchance gods interfere—- 
 * Gain faith and courage through self-harmony, 
 And live your lives, nor only live to die.' 
 
79 
 
 OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 VII 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 * Follow Me,' Jesus said ; and diey uprose, 
 Peter and Andrew rose and followed Him, 
 Followed Him even to heaven through death most 
 grim, 
 
 And through a long hard life without repose. 
 
 Save in the grand ideal of its close. 
 
 ' Take up your cross and come with Me,' He said ; 
 And the world listens yet through all her dead, 
 
 And still would answer had we faith like those. 
 
 But who can light again such beacon-fire ! 
 
 With gladsome haste and with rejoicing souls — 
 How would men gird themselves for the emprise ? 
 Leaving their black boats by the dead lake's mire, 
 Leaving their slimy nets by the cold shoals, 
 
 Leaving their old oars, nor once turn their eyes. 
 
So 
 
 OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 VIII 
 
 AT PRESENT. 
 
 But what have we instead ? Shelves, miles on miles 
 Of books, in all the tongues, from all the years 
 Since fabulous Babel's topless tower appears 
 
 Through the heroic mist : Museums, piles 
 
 Of fragments, dead faiths' and dead learnings' spoils : 
 And in the study, victory crowns the hair 
 Of our new Hercules, the young, the fair. 
 
 Analysis, untired for all his toils. 
 
 And what besides ? the church bells ring at one 
 With custom as respect requires at home ; 
 
 Abroad, in cap-and-bells their long ears pent, 
 Fools go on pilgrimage with knaves ; at Rome 
 A blind, self-styled Infallible, old man. 
 
 Coaxes ' God's mother ' with a monument ! 
 
8i 
 
 OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 IX 
 
 SELF-DECEPTION. 
 
 There's a Seer's peak on Ararat, they say, 
 From which we can descry the better world ; 
 Not that supernal kingdom whence were hurled 
 
 The rebel-angels ere Creation's day, 
 
 But Eden-garden, Adam's first array, 
 
 Round which the Flood-waves stood back like a wall. 
 And whither still are sent the souls of all 
 
 The good dead, where the cherubim sing and play. 
 
 Dear lovely land we wait for and desire, 
 Whence fondly-loved lost faces look back still, 
 Waiting for us, so distant and apart ; 
 But from the depth between what mists aspire — 
 What wrinkled sea rolls severing hill from hill — 
 Vision ! 'tis but a reflex of the heart ! 
 
82 
 
 OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 X 
 
 CONTENTMENT IN THE DARK, 
 
 We asked not to be born : 'tis not by will 
 
 That we are here beneath the battle- smoke, 
 Without escape ; by good things as by ill, 
 
 By facts and mysteries enchained : no cloak 
 Of an Elijah, no stairs whereupon 
 
 Angels ascending and descending shine 
 Over the head here pillowed on a stone, 
 
 Anywhere found ; — so say they who repine. 
 But each year hath its harvest, every hour 
 
 Some melody, child-laughter, strengthening strife, 
 For mother Earth still gives her child his dower, 
 
 And loves like doves sit on the boughs of Hfe. 
 
 Ought we to have whate'er we want, in sooth ? 
 
 To build heaven-reaching towers, find Jacob's stair 
 Alchemists' treasures, everlasting youth. 
 
 Or aught that may not stand our piercing air ? 
 
CONTENTMENT IN THE DARK. '6^ 
 
 Nay, even these are ours, but only found 
 
 By Poet in those fabulous vales, due east, 
 Where grows the amaranth in charmed ground ; 
 
 And he it was thenceforth became the Priest, 
 And raised Jove's altar when the world was young : 
 
 He too it was, in Prophet's vesture stoled. 
 Spake not but sang until life's roof-tree rung, 
 
 And we who hear him still are crowned with gold. 
 
 F 2 
 
84 
 
 OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 XI 
 
 THE UNIVERSE VOID. 
 
 Revolving worlds, revolving systems, yea, 
 Revolving firmaments, nor there we end : 
 Systems of firmaments revolving, send 
 
 Our thought across the Infinite astray, 
 
 Gasping and lost and terrified, the day 
 Of life, the goodly interests of home. 
 Shrivelled to nothing ; that unbounded dome 
 
 Pealing still on, in blind fatuity. 
 
 No rest is there for our soul's winged feet, 
 She must return for shelter to her ark — 
 
 The body, fair, frail, death-bom, incomplete, 
 And let her bring this truth back from the dark 
 
 Life is self-centred, man is nature's god ; 
 
 Space, time, are but the walls of his abode. 
 
OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 XII 
 
 SPIRITUAL LONGINGS UNANSWERED, 
 
 Self-gentred, self-illumined, from our eyes 
 Life shines out on the spheres of other lives ; 
 Giving, exchanging, filling sweet-celled hives 
 
 Of memory ; sense transformed in heavenly wise 
 
 And made divine \ do we not formalise 
 The Beautiful, the Good, the Just ? and so 
 The flower-crowned loves and friendships round us 
 grow, 
 
 A\^hose choral voices echo to the skies. 
 
 But still the questing beast goes forth, we cry 
 
 Whence came we at the first ? from what soil grew 
 
 This endless Reason that aspires so high ? 
 
 Where go we ? useless questions these appear. 
 For we know nought of that dark sun, the True, 
 
 Whose latent heats create our spiritual year. 
 
86 
 
 OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 xiit 
 
 DEVELOPMENT IN NATURE. 
 
 Walled up in sense, -.-.- - - ^-Tinndifiihssiim^ : 
 
 ^ons long past creative power went on, 
 Evolving lights and forces round the throne, 
 
 And in the ordered nucleus of the plan 
 
 Blossomed and brightened the umbrageous span 
 Of this our world, beneath the Fates' fell care, 
 The Tree of Life outspreading everywhere, 
 
 And seedling fruits from short-lived blooms began. 
 
 Have these old mysteries ceased ? from fiery steeps, 
 From deepening swamps the mute snake writhed 
 along ; 
 
 Anon the bird screamed — then the furred beast creeps 
 Growling ; then Adam speaks erect and strong. 
 
 Shall there not rise again from Nature's deeps 
 
 One more, whose voice shall be the perfect song ? 
 
87 
 
 OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 XIV 
 
 SCIENCE ABORTIVE. 
 
 With what vain speculations do we slake 
 
 The mental thirst ! What matter, cycles hence, 
 If higher creatures at mankind's expense 
 
 Start into life with senses broad awake 
 
 To truths we only dream of; hands to shake 
 The pillars of the temple we but grope 
 Feebly about, who will gain entrance, cope 
 
 With the daemon, and all prison-fetters break ? 
 
 The churchyard dust a thousand times blown wide 
 Would see them, hear them not ; the question men 
 Ten hundred various creeds and gods have raised 
 To ansv/er, by Death's door we must abide ; 
 Blinded by life itself, by fears half-crazed, 
 We raise another god and ask again ! 
 
88 
 
 OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 XV 
 
 ONENESS OF ALL. 
 
 (PEBBLES IN THE STREAM.) 
 
 Upon this rustic bridge on this warm day 
 
 We rest from our too-thoughtful devious walk ; 
 Over our shadows its melodious talk 
 
 The stream continues, while oft-times a stray 
 
 Dry leaf drops down where these bright waters play 
 In endless eddies, through whose clear brown deep 
 The gorgeous pebbles quiver in their sleep ; 
 
 The stream still flows, but cannot flow away. 
 
 Could I but find the words that would reveal 
 
 The unity in multiplicity, 
 And the profound strange harmony I feel 
 
 With these dead things, God's garments of to-day ; 
 The listener's soul with mine they would anneal, 
 And make us one within eternity. 
 
89 
 
 OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE. 
 
 XVI 
 A SYMBOL. 
 
 At early morn I watched, scarce consciously, 
 
 Through the half-opened casement the high screen 
 Of our trees touched now by the bright'ning sheen 
 
 Of the ascending sun : the room was grey 
 
 And dim, with old things filled this many a day, 
 Closing me in, but those thick folds of trees 
 Shone in the fresh light, trembled in the breeze : 
 
 A shadow crossed them on its arrowy way 
 Cast by a flying bird I could not see ; 
 
 Then called a voice far off that seemed to say, 
 Come, we are here ! Such might or might not be 
 What the voice called, but then methought I knew 
 
 I was a soul new-born in death's dark clay, 
 Awakening to another life more true. 
 
 END. 
 
90 
 
 PARTED LOVE. 
 
 I 
 
 THE PAST, 
 
 Methinks I have passed through some dreadful door, 
 Shutting off summer and its sunniest glades 
 From a dank waste of marsh and ruinous shades : 
 
 And in that sunlit past, one day before 
 
 All other days is crimson to the core ; 
 
 That day of days when hand in hand became 
 Encircling arms, and with an effluent flame 
 
 Of terrible surprise, we knew love's lore. 
 
 The rose-red ear that then my hand caressed. 
 Those smiles bewildered, that low voice so sweet, 
 The truant threads of silk about the brow 
 Dishevelled, when our burning lips were pressed 
 Together, and the temple-pulses beat ! 
 All gone now— where am I, and where art thou ? 
 
91 
 
 PARTED LOVE. 
 
 II 
 
 THE PRESENT. 
 
 No cypress-wreath nor outward signs of grief ; 
 But I may cry unto the mom, and flee 
 After the god whose back is turned to me, 
 
 And touch his wings and plead for some relief ; 
 
 Draw, it may be, a black shaft from his sheaf :— 
 For now I know his quiver harbours those 
 Death mixed with his, as the old fable shows, 
 
 When he slept heedless on the red rose leaf. 
 
 And I may open Memory's chamber-door 
 
 To grope my way around its noiseless floor, 
 Now that, alas ! its windows give no light. 
 
 Nor gentle voice invites me any more ; 
 For she is but a picture faintly bright 
 Hung dimly high against the walls of night. 
 
92 
 
 PARTED LOVE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 Last night, — it must have been a ghost at best, — 
 I did believe the lost one's slumbering head 
 Filled the white hollows of the curtained bed. 
 
 And happily sank again to sound sweet rest, 
 
 As in times past with sleep my nightly guest, 
 A guest that left me only when the day 
 Showed me a fairer than Euphrosyne, — 
 
 Day that now shows me but the unfilled nest. 
 
 O night ! thou wert our mother at the first, 
 
 Thy silent chambers are our homes at last ; 
 
 And even now thou art our bath of life. 
 Come back ! the hot sun makes our lips athirst ; 
 
 Come back ! thy dreams may recreate the past ; 
 
 Come back ! and smooth again this heart's long strife. 
 
93 
 
 PARTED LOVE. 
 
 IV 
 
 BY THE SEA-SIDE. 
 
 Rest here, my heart, nor let us further creep ; 
 Rest for an hour, I shaU again be strong, 
 And make for thee another Httle song : 
 
 Rest here, and look down on the tremulous deep 
 
 Where sea-weeds Hke dead maenad's long locks sweep 
 Over that dreadful floor of stagnant green. 
 Stewed with the bones of lovers that have been, 
 
 Nor even yet can scarce be said to sleep. 
 
 Beyond that sea, far o'er that wasteful sea, 
 The sunset she so oft hath seen with me 
 
 Flames up with all the arrogances of gold, 
 Scarlet and purple, while the west-wind falls 
 
 Upon us with its deadliest winter-cold ; — 
 Shall we slide down ? I think the dear one calls ! 
 
94 
 
 PARTED LOVE. 
 
 V 
 
 EVENING, 
 
 As in a glass at evening, dusky-grey, 
 
 The faces of those passing through the room 
 Seem like ghost-transits thwart reflected gloom, 
 
 Thus, darling image ! thou, so long away, 
 
 Visitest sometimes my darkening day : 
 
 Other friends come ; the toy of life turns round, 
 The glittering beads change with their tinkling 
 sound. 
 
 Whilst thou in endless youth sit'st silently. 
 
 How vain to call time back, to think these arms 
 Again may touch, may shield, those shoulders soft 
 And solid, never more my eyes can see : 
 
 But yet, perchance — {speak low) — beyond all harms, 
 I may walk with thee in God's other croft, 
 When this world shall the darkling mirror be. 
 
THE OLD SCOTCH HOUSE 
 
 (PENKILL, AYRSHIRE). 
 
97 
 
 THE OLD SCOTCH HOUSE. 
 
 THE BOWER. 
 
 In the old house there is a chamber high, 
 
 Diapered with wind-scattered plane-tree leaves ; . 
 And o'er one corbelled window that receives 
 
 The sunrise we've inscribed right daintily, 
 
 * Come, O fair Mom, fulfilling prophecy ! ' 
 Over another, western watch doth keep. 
 Is writ, * O Eve, bring thou the nursling Sleep ! ' 
 
 Adorning the old walls as best we may. 
 
 For up this bower-stair, in long- vanished years. 
 
 The bridegroom brought his bride and shut the door ; 
 
 Here, too, closed weary eyes with kindred tears, 
 While mourners' feet were hushed upon the floor : 
 
 And still it seems these old trees and brown hills 
 
 Remember also our past joys and ills. 
 
THE OLD SCOTCH HOUSE. 
 
 A SPRING MORNING. 
 
 Vaguely at dawn within the temperate clime 
 Of glimmering half-sleep, in this chamber high, 
 I heard the jackdaws in their loopholes nigh, 
 
 Fitfully stir : as yet it scarce was time 
 
 Of dawning, but the nestlings' hungry chime 
 Awoke me, and the old birds soon had flown ; 
 Then was a perfect lull, and I went down 
 
 Into deep slumber beneath dreams or rhyme. 
 
 But, suddenly renewed, the clamouring grows, 
 The callow beaklings clamouring every one. 
 
 The grey-heads had returned with worm and fly ; 
 I looked up and the room was like a rose. 
 Above the hill-top was the brave young sun. 
 The world was still as in an ecstasy. 
 
99 
 
 THE OLD SCOTCH HOUSE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 MOTTOES. 
 
 There is a motto painted on each beam 
 
 That holds the roof-tree up from wall to wall, 
 'Neath which we pass the pleasantest hours of all 
 And round the cornice is a frieze where teem 
 Numberless naked children, who, 'twould seem, 
 Can do all kinds of work, and, strange to say. 
 Can do it all as if it were but play : 
 These are among the mottoes. Love the theme : — 
 ' Dan Cupid's wisdom keeps pace with his wealth ; ' 
 Because his wealth is wisdom, says the dear : 
 
 * Dan Cupid like all gods can disappear ; ' 
 But this was quite effaced one night by stealth : 
 
 * Dan Cupid flies while Hercules can but run ; ' 
 And this my lady's damsels call great fun. 
 
lOO 
 
 THE OLD SCOTCH HOUSE. 
 
 IV 
 
 BELOW THE OLD HOUSE, 
 
 Beneath those buttressed walls with lichens grey, 
 Beneath the slopes of trees whose flickering shade 
 Darkens the pools by dun green velvetted, 
 
 The stream leaps like a living thing at play, — 
 
 In haste it seems ; it cannot, cannot stay ! 
 
 The great boughs changing there from year to year, 
 And the high jackdaw-haunted eves, still hear 
 
 The burden of the rivulet — Passing away ! 
 
 And some time certainly that oak no more 
 
 Will keep the winds in check ; his breadth of beam 
 
 Will go to rib some ship for some far shore ; 
 
 Those quoins and eves will crumble, while that stream 
 
 Will still run whispering, whispering night and day, 
 
 That over-song of father Time — Passing away ! 
 
lOI 
 
 THE OLD SCOTCH HOUSE. 
 
 THE MOON. 
 
 How often and how vainly do we try 
 To paint in words the dying of the day ! 
 Coming repose ennobling us, the play 
 
 Of fretted fire and gold afar and nigh. 
 
 This night seen from that western casement high, 
 It was so terribly fair with cloudlet-sheaves, 
 Amber and ruby burning through the leaves, 
 
 I said once more, It must not pass me by ! 
 
 But when another hour the clock had told, 
 I went to look again, and saw framed there. 
 By fringing ivy like carved jet, the sky, 
 The void sky, silver-bright, so vast, so cold, 
 The faint moon round as is Eternity, — 
 I quite forgot the sunset's splendid glare. 
 
I02 
 
 THE OLD SCOTCH HOUSE. 
 
 VI 
 
 THE GARDEN. 
 
 The old house garden grows old-fashioned flowers, 
 Sheltered by hedges of the close yew- tree, 
 Through which, as Chaucer says, no wight may see ; 
 The sunflowers rise aloft like beacon towers, 
 Their large discs fringed with flames; and corner 
 bowers 
 There are of mountain-ash, and the wild rose 
 Short-lived, blue star-flowers that at evening close 
 Spring there ; sweet herbs and marigolds in showers ; 
 
 Gilly-flowers too, dark crimson and nigh white ; 
 Pied poppies, and the striped grass, differing still 
 In each long leaf, though children ever will 
 Believe in finding two shall match aright. 
 The paths are edged with box grown broad and high, 
 At evening sheltering moths of various dye. 
 
I03 
 
 THE OLD SCOTCH HOUSE. 
 
 VII 
 
 IN THE GARDEN, 
 
 This afterglow of summer wears away : 
 
 Russet and yellowing boughs bend everywhere, 
 Languid in noontide, and the rose-trees bear 
 
 Buds that will never open ; this long day 
 
 Hath been so still, so warm, so lucidly 
 
 White, like shadowless days in heaven I ween, 
 A moment by God lengthened it hath been, — 
 
 As Time shall be no more at last, they say. 
 
 Let us sit here ! there is no bird to sing ; 
 
 Not even the aspen quivers ; faintly brown. 
 The great trees hang around us in a ring ; 
 
 Never shall snow or storm again come down, 
 And never shall we be again footsore, 
 But live in this enchantment ever more. 
 
I04 
 
 THE OLD SCOTCH HOUSE. 
 
 VIII 
 
 IN THE GARDEN. 
 
 Happiness sometimes hath a tinge of dread, 
 Perfection unconditioned, strange indeed, 
 As if at once the green leaf, flower, and seed. 
 
 Let the sun shine thus on thy nut-brown head, 
 
 So lovely flecked with little shadows, shed 
 Through the close trellis as I see it now, 
 And on thy neck and on thy thoughtful brow : 
 
 Look up, so thought by thought be answered. 
 
 And let the dead leaves fall whene'er they may, 
 Dropping like Uanae's gold-shower from on high, 
 Rare jewels gathered in thy lap they'll lie : 
 
 This day hath been a sacred festa-day. 
 We'll lock it fast within our treasure-store, 
 And live in its enchantment ever more. 
 
THE OLD SCOTCH HOUSE, PART H. 
 
 IX 
 
 AUTUMN SUNSHINE. 
 
 Now week by week the scattering leaves 
 Drift down the sheltered lane, 
 
 And week by week the sharp wind grieves 
 The tree -tops with the rain. 
 
io6 AUTUMN SUNSHINE. 
 
 But clouds to-day have cleared away, 
 The sun shines warm and strong 
 
 On cot and farm, on hedge and way, — 
 'Tis a holiday worth a song. 
 
 The air is bland on face and hand, 
 Returned the mid-year hath ; 
 
 The saddened flowers their hearts expand, 
 Simmers the garden-path. 
 
 The spotted emperor, seldom seen, 
 Is the sunflower's bosom friend ; 
 
 The dragon-flies flicker across the sheen, 
 Where the yellow flag-leaves bend. 
 
 But the shooter is heard upon the hill, 
 
 The robin is by the door, 
 The curlew cries o'erhead so shrill. 
 
 The swallows are seen no more. 
 
 And this is the last last crimson day 
 The exhausted sun can send ; 
 
 The evening falls, our foot-path way 
 Turns homeward towards the end. 
 
[07 
 
 THE OLD SCOTCH HOUSE. 
 
 THE ROBIN'S OCTOBER SONG. 
 
 That carol to the cold and misty mom, 
 
 That ending autumn-song, that short-lived song, 
 O robin ! I know well, so sharp and strong, 
 
 As do those trembling groves already shorn 
 
 And yellowing. O brief sweet song ! so lorn 
 Of gladness ; all these leaves, from twig to stem, 
 Tremble as if dead fingers counted them : 
 
 To sing such song men too were surely born. 
 
 And this it is : the most desired of Gods 
 Is waxen weak, and all his children too, 
 
 Even the sun ; that wide-winged spectre flew 
 Faster, and now hath caught him by the hair. 
 
 Let us contend no more against the rods, 
 But sing our last song, and descend the stair. 
 
io8 
 
 THE OLD SCOTCH HOUSE. 
 
 XI 
 
 WINTER COMING. 
 
 The strong wind blows from o'er the sea, 
 
 Foam-freckled far and near; 
 Within the casement closed we say, 
 
 Winter at last is here. 
 
 The long boughs of the old trees creak, 
 
 And strike against the rain; 
 The dead leaves and the little birds 
 
 Are thrown on the window pane. 
 
 From room to room the careful dame 
 Each bolt and latch doth try ; 
 
 The storm-sprite on the winding stair 
 Sings to her mournfully. 
 
 The sound of fast-running waters fills 
 
 The air both night and day, 
 And mists like ghosts from all the glens 
 
 Rise and are driven away. 
 
WINTER COMING. 109 
 
 Sad is the rushing of railing rain, 
 
 And swollen streams wailing low ; 
 And the fitful wind, like a slave pursued 
 
 By the fast gathering snow. 
 
 From the flower-beds the rank heaps fall 
 
 Across the bordered walk ; 
 The sunflower props like beggars slant 
 
 In rags of leaves and stalk. 
 
 The farmer drives his horses home. 
 
 The cows are in the byre j 
 The frost is come, and the ploughman sits 
 
 Idle beside the fire. 
 
 Away to the South like the swallows 
 
 We turn our eyes again, 
 To be lost once more in the labyrinths 
 
 And multitudes of men. 
 
' * 1 
 
STUDIES FROM NATURE. 
 
 6—2 
 
113 
 
 SUNDA V MORNING ALONE. 
 
 Morning and noon and evening, week by week 
 And month by month and year by year, return, 
 The never-ending harmonies of this world, 
 Without an end or pause. The mill-stream flows 
 Continuous j the industrious wheel turns round ; 
 The heavy stones grind on, yet all that flows 
 Into the watchful hopper-sack 's no more 
 Than needful for each day's void kneading-trough. 
 The garments cast last night next mom we don, 
 And still, for gains to spend, our lives burn down, 
 Until the vintage-time of Hfe's year comes ; 
 For still some guest, unanswered and unbid, 
 In our soul's prison waits with lidless eyes 
 Turned we know not wherefore towards the Future. 
 
 Here sit I now this bright noonday with hands 
 And thoughts all free and unclaimed, like some fool 
 On whom hath fallen good fortune \ and behold ! 
 The Conscience questions and almost disowns 
 Right to this freedom and this idleness. 
 Why is the wheel still now? it asks, — the stream, 
 
lU SUNDAY MORNING ALONE. 
 
 Why sleeps it locked and limpid in the sun ? 
 For custom's yoke so marks the neck it clothes, 
 Its absence becomes irksome, and the Law, 
 Blessed or accursed we say not, seems for man 
 A thunder-call to Action ; — seems indeed, 
 As much else seems, but is not. Let us rest. 
 Now and then rest, and make Time wait on us — 
 Holily rest, the flowers o' the field and we. 
 Being again twin-brothers as of old 
 'Neath Eden's cedar shades. 
 
 This sabbath morn 
 The wan sun coldly shines, yet fields and roads, 
 The young math springing through the hard black soil, 
 The market-cart half shedded, and the stack 
 Of hay now cut short like the poor man's bread, 
 Cheerily glisten. In this small dull room 
 Steadily beats the red fire, while the dog 
 Winks listlessly before it \ winks and dreams, 
 And suddenly looks round him like churched boys 
 Ashamed to nod. Upon this window-sill 
 The sparrows light for crumbs laid duly there ; 
 Upgn the topmost withy of that hedge, 
 Leafless and sharp as wire-work, whistling clear, 
 A half-hour since a blackbird perched : I turned, 
 Startled by song, too sudden turned ! Within 
 The village church the household every one 
 Have shut themselves, and I alone remain 
 Idle and free. 
 
SUNDAY MORNING ALONE. 115 
 
 The house clock throbs, still throbs, 
 Heard or unheard it throbs. 'Tween soul and sense, 
 Peace like Death's angel comes : fresh powers awake, 
 Freed from the straining tendons of the world. 
 As one whose master sleeps, may dare to think 
 Of liberty and thereof sing, this new 
 Interior life Itself sees without wonder. 
 And hears its own thoughts whispering thus, ' Behold ! 
 Eternity's sonorous shores, and I 
 Am here.' The present is withdrawn, the Real 
 Is round us inexpressibly : it seems 
 That the breath ceases and the heart stands still. 
 Or as in trance we were removed from them, 
 And thereupon the Soul's white eyes unclose 
 Upon the sunless ether. 
 
 Such a glimpse 
 Of immaterial things men oft-times feel 
 In silence, mental stillness, nerve-repose, 
 And conscience undisturbed. It flows and ebbs, 
 Ebbs utterly away. Could we but press 
 Right through these crypts unlit of Consciousness, 
 Seek out the sanctum whose ineffable flame 
 Cannot by mortal eyes be borne, and rend 
 The sensuous veils that shelter us from God ! 
 Could we but press 
 
 The adventure through soul instincts such as these, 
 Both eye and ear, it might be, would wake up 
 
ii6 SUNDAY MORNING ALONE. 
 
 To an unspeakable energy, and heaven 
 Open as to the dying ! 
 
 But yet why, 
 Thus hastening sunwards, drop the priceless threads 
 Our dear earth-born Arachne weaves for us ? 
 One great tent-curtain all enfolds ; this world 
 All other worlds, this hfe all other lives, 
 Like echoes answer each to each. The stars 
 Are seen but in the dark, Force hides herself 
 In the inert on all sides ; nor can we 
 Breathe but while death conspires ; and only here. 
 Here where black earth bears heartsease, human eyes 
 Converse, and passions cHng with burning lips. 
 Dying together ; here where autumn suns 
 Bronze the bread-yielding sheaves and leaves of trees 
 Drop to the evening breezes, while the brows 
 Of the strong reapers melt, or their hands chill. 
 Bearing the moonlit scythe or sickle home. 
 
 All things are types and symbols : earth and heaven 
 
 Each other interpenetrate : all creeds 
 
 And churches crowning the hill-tops of time, — 
 
 Pillars of fire by night, of cloud by day. 
 
 Are but attempts to touch the symbolized. 
 
 But now mc village tongue hath been let loose, 
 The village church resigns its worshippers : 
 Staid ancient couples maunder past ; they skirt 
 
SUNDAY MORNING ALONE. i 
 
 The well-known fields by pathways ; now and then 
 Men call and latches clink, and childhood's din 
 Rings here and there. The winking dog starts up, 
 And by the door stands with fixed eyes and ears ; 
 Approaching steps are heard ; the tingling rain 
 Of female voices o'er the threshold falls ! 
 - -Ah, there you sit ; just as, three hours ago, 
 We left you. The old vicar preached, good soul ! 
 Corinthians, fifteenth, fifty-first, that grand 
 Wonderful verse — ' Behold, a mystery ! 
 We shall not all sleep, we shall all be changed.' 
 A sparrow had got in ; from roof to roof 
 It flew — oh, fifty times. The quire to-day 
 Really did well, it did one good to hear, 
 And like the text the singers sang, ' Behold, 
 We shall not all sleep, we shall all be changed,' 
 
ii8 
 
 GREEN CHERRIES. 
 
 The season had been late : Spring, lagging long, — 
 
 Not like the rosy-cheeked lithe Columbine 
 
 We see her pictured, but with frost-filled hair, 
 
 And sad scared eyes, had cowered beneath the eaves 
 
 From the sharp-biting blasts and drifting rains. 
 
 Yet in the heart of nature the great change 
 
 Had been effected, and one mom in June 
 
 Suddenly all the clouds were carol filled. 
 
 Every road dried and freckled with sunshine, 
 
 Every flower full-blown, both by hedge and garth, 
 
 Every tree heavy. So I said. This day 
 
 Is the true May-day, and I straight went forth 
 
 The nighest way unto the loneliest fields. 
 
 Two hours or so it might be from the town, 
 
 Before a thriving friend's well-built gateway, 
 
 I found myself, and entered, though I knew 
 
 That he would not be there ; unfortunate 
 
 Son of dame Fortune he, who sits all day 
 
 With wits repressed and sharp pen, gain and loss 
 
 His nether Hp developing. 
 
GREEN CHERRIES, 119 
 
 I swung 
 The gate and entered. All along the edge 
 Of the bright gravel fallen lilac blooms 
 Or young leaf-sheaths were scattered, and small groups 
 Of coming toadstools showed where showers had lain. 
 Under the wavering shades of trees I turned, 
 Skirting the garden's boxwood bordered ways, 
 Its rhododendrons bursting into flower, 
 Flaming beneath the sunshine, and at length 
 Rested upon an orchard arbour seat. 
 
 All over bench and table, ground and sward, 
 The young green cherries lay, yet overhead, 
 Glittering like beads, they still seemed thick as leaves 
 Upon the boughs. And young green apples too. 
 Scattered by prodigal winds, peeped here and there, 
 Among the clover. Through the black boughs shone 
 Clouds of a white heat, in the cold blue depths 
 Poised steadily, and all about them rang 
 Those songs of skylarks. Other sounds were there : 
 The click mistimed of hedge-shears ; the brave bee 
 Passing with trumpet gladness ; and the leaves 
 Waving against each other. Soon this way 
 Along the further hedge-tops came the shears ; 
 Two wielding arms assiduous and a face 
 The prickly screen disclosed. Far down the line 
 By slow degrees went shears and arms, while I 
 
I20 GREEN CHERRIES. 
 
 Marked the still toppling twigs, until at length 
 They passed beyond the fruit-trees, and I turned 
 To other themes. Above the flowering beds 
 Of jonquil and chill iris rose the house, — 
 There is the window of my host's small room. 
 There Harriet's, vacant now, with casements thrown 
 Wide open, their white curtains driven about ; — 
 And see, within that other tightly closed, 
 The old dame sits intent on stocking wires. 
 I sat there ; on the seat beside me lay 
 A cluster of three cherries on one stalk. 
 
 A casual passing picture ! strange it bides 
 Perennial with me yet ! This little sprig 
 Of three green cherries, what may it concern 
 The universal heart ? Why all along 
 The road of life do I remember still 
 The three green cherries there ? 
 
 And yet the eye 
 Sees only what the mind perceives. The heart 
 Hath its supreme perceptions. We retain 
 Deepest impressions from most trivial things ; 
 They are the daily food by which we grow ; 
 Some future poet shall find fit airs for them 
 And touch the nerve of life. For yet shall come 
 The Poet, such an one as hath not yet 
 Entered his sickle in those great corn-fields 
 
GREEN CHERRIES. 121 
 
 Whence comes the spiritual bread. Not battle deaths, 
 Nor mere adventures, nor rank passions moved 
 By vulgar things shall he sing ; nor shall prate 
 With vague loose phrase of Nature : he shall see 
 The inexorable step-dame as she is, — 
 A teacher blind, whose task-work and closed door, 
 Body and soul, we strive against ! O world ! 
 The Poet of the future, welcome him ! 
 When he appears. 
 
 I left my reverie 
 Within the arbour, threw the green fruit back. 
 Crossed the scythed lawn and threshold, for the door 
 Stood hospitably open ; none I met, 
 Nor had I any errand maid or man 
 Could answer : on the well-known table stood 
 Bread cut in shives and wine. Then I put off 
 My hat before this sacrament and ate, 
 And called aloud that I might even perforce 
 Be courteous and give thanks ; but no one came. 
 So thence departing, said I, ' Every home 
 Is thus enchanted justly understood,' 
 And fared right on for many miles that day, 
 Picking up thoughts like wild-flowers by the path ; 
 Some of them coarse and prickly, some sweet-breathed, 
 But none of them were homeward borne save those, 
 Now half expressed, I have writ here for thee ! 
 
1 22 
 
 YOUTH AND AGE. 
 
 Our night repast was ended : quietness 
 
 Returned again : the boys were in their books ; 
 
 The old man slept, and by him slept his dog : 
 
 My thoughts were in the dream-land of to-morrow : 
 
 A knock is heard, anon the maid brings in 
 
 A black-sealed letter that some over-worked 
 
 Late messenger leaves. Each one looks round and 
 
 scans, 
 But lifts it not, and I at last am told 
 To read it. ' Died here at his house this day ' — 
 Some well-known name not needful here to print. 
 Follows at length. Soon all return again 
 To their first stillness, but the old man coughs, 
 And cries, ' Ah, he was always like the grave, 
 And still he was but young ! ' while those who stand 
 On Hfe's green threshold smile within themselves, 
 Thinking how very old he was to them. 
 And what long years, what memorable deeds, 
 Are theirs in prospect ! Little care have they 
 What old man dies, what child is born, indeed ; . 
 Their day is coming, and their sun shall shine ! 
 
123 
 
 AN ARTIST'S BIRTHPLACE. 
 
 (A CUMBERLAND SKETCH : THE ARTIST WAS BLACKLOCK THE 
 LANDSCAPE-PAINTER, WHO DIED SHORTLY AFTER.) 
 
 This is the stafeman^s country : every man 
 
 Hath his own steading, his own field, his garth. 
 
 And share of common and of moss, wherefrom 
 
 He cuts his winter's fuel, building up 
 
 The russet stack above his gable thatch. 
 
 Look through that straggling unpruned hedge, you'll 
 
 see 
 One of those sinewy Saxons, such an one, 
 From sire to son, perhaps, hath till'd that mould. 
 For these five hundred years ; that rough-hewn block 
 Of timber plays the part of harrow here. 
 
 And now we reach the turn I told you of, 
 Close to our journey's end. The violets 
 Are just as thick as ever, and beneath 
 The rooty sand-bank those white embers show 
 A gipsy's bivouac has but late been here. 
 And there is this old village, with its wide 
 Irregular path, its rattling streamlet bridged 
 
124 ^N ARTIST'S BIRTHPLACE. 
 
 Before each cottage with loose planks or stones, 
 
 And all the geese and ducks that have no fear 
 
 Of strangers, the wide smith's shop, and the church 
 
 Whose grey stone roof is within reach of hand. 
 
 A fit place for an artist to be reared ; 
 
 Not a great Master whose vast unshared toils. 
 
 Add to the riches of the world, rebuild 
 
 God's house, and clothe with Prophets walls and roof, 
 
 Defending cities as a pastime — such 
 
 We have not ! but the homelier heartier hand 
 
 That gives us English landscapes year by year. 
 
 There is his small ancestral home, so gay, 
 With rosery and green wicket. We last met 
 In London : I've heard since he had returned 
 Homeward less sound in health than when he reached 
 That athlete's theatre, well termed the grave 
 Of little reputations. Fresh again 
 Let's hope to find him. 
 
 Thus conversing stept 
 Two travellers downward. The descending road 
 Rough with loose pebbles left by floods of late : 
 Straight through the wicket passed they, and in front 
 The pent-roofed door stood knocking : all was still : 
 Through the low parlour window books were seen 
 Upon the litde settle, and some pots 
 With flowers, a birdcage hung too without song 
 Close to the window; round them noontide glowed 
 So gladsomely, the leaves were every one 
 
AN ARTISTS BIRTHPLACE. 125 
 
 Glistening and quivering, and the hosts of gnats 
 Spun in the shadows j but within seemed dark 
 And dead. A quick light foot is heard, and there, 
 Before them stood a maiden in the sun 
 That fell upon her chestnut hair like fire. 
 
 How winsome fair she was 'tis hard to tell ! 
 For she was strong and straight, like a young elm, 
 And without fear, although she halted there 
 Answering with coy eyes scarce turned to us, 
 Yet not embarrassed, while she told the tale 
 Of the sick man. Then felt the strangers free 
 To look upon her : her tall neck was tinged 
 With brown and bore her small head easily 
 Like that of a giraffe ; her saffron jupe, 
 Girt loosely round her long waist, fell in folds 
 From her high bosom, — but, as hath been said, 
 How winsome fair she was 'twas hard to tell — 
 Untaught and strong, and conscious of no charm ; 
 I might describe her from the head succinct, 
 Even to the high-arched instep of her foot, 
 And all in vain : the soul sincere, the full 
 Yet homely harmony she bore with her, 
 Moved me like the first sight of the sea, 
 And made me think of old queens, Guenevere, 
 Or maid Rowena with her ' waes-hail,' or 
 Aslauga whom the Sea-king chanced upon, 
 
 H 
 
126 AN ARTIST'S BIRTHPLACE. 
 
 Keeping her sheep beside Norse waves, the while 
 She combed her hair out mirror'd in the stream. 
 
 The artist was not there to welcome them, 
 That much was plain ; and, more, the life of home 
 Was not for him ; Elspeth, the crazed beldame 
 O' the village, shouted and sang by sometimes, 
 And that he could not bear. This and much else, 
 At the hedge ale-house, while the friends regaled 
 By the wide chimney where the brown turf burned, 
 And daylight glinted down, they heard. But still 
 As of the damsel thought they most, one cried — 
 ' I could have ta'en her head between my hands 
 And kissed her, — she's so wise and frank and kind, 
 I'm sure she never would have thought it strange.' 
 
127 
 
 MORNING SLEEP. 
 
 Another day hath dawned 
 
 Since, hastily and tired, I threw myself 
 
 Into the dark lap of advancing sleep. 
 
 Meanwhile, through the oblivion of the night 
 
 The ponderous world its old course hath fulfilled j 
 
 And now the gradual sun begins to throw 
 
 Its slanting glory on the heads of trees, 
 
 And every bird stirs in its nest revealed, 
 
 And shakes its dewy wings. 
 
 A blessed gift 
 Unto the weary hath been mine to-night — 
 Slumber unbroken : now it floats away ; 
 But whether 'twere not best to woo it still, 
 The head thus comfortably posed, the eyes 
 In a continual dawning, mingling lights 
 And darks with vagrant fantasies, one hour, 
 Yet for another hour ? I will not break 
 The shining woof; I will not rudely leap 
 Out of this golden atmosphere, through which 
 I see the forms of immortalities. 
 Verily, soon enough the labouring day, 
 
128 MORNING SLEEP. 
 
 With its necessitous unmusical calls, 
 
 Will force the indolent conscience into life. 
 
 The tiresome moth upon the window-panes 
 Hath ceased to flap, or traverse with blind whirr 
 The room's dusk corners ; and the leaves without 
 Vibrate upon their thin stems with the breeze 
 Toward the light blowing. To an Eastern vale 
 That light may now be waning, and across 
 The tall reeds by the Ganges lotus-paved. 
 Lengthening the shadows of the banyan- tree. 
 The rice-fields are all silent in the glow. 
 All silent the deep heaven without a cloud, 
 Burning like molten gold. A red canoe 
 Crosses with fan-like paddles and the sound 
 Of feminine song, freighted with great-eyed maids 
 Whose zoneless bosoms swell on the rich air ; 
 A lamp is in each hand, each lamp a boat 
 To take the chance, or sink or swim, such rite 
 Of love-portent they try, and such may see 
 Ibis or emu from their cocoa nooks. 
 What time the granite sentinels that watch 
 The mouths of cavern-temples hail the first 
 Faint star, and feel the gradual darkness blend 
 Their august lineaments ; what time Haroun - 
 Perambulated Bagdat, and none knew 
 He was the Caliph who knocked soberly 
 By Glafar's hand at their gates, sliut betimes; 
 
MORNING SLEEP. 129 
 
 What time Prince Assad sat on the high hill 
 
 'Neath the pomegranate-tree, long wearying 
 
 For his lost brother's step ; — what time, as now. 
 
 Along our English sky, flame-furrows cleave 
 
 And break the quiet of the cold blue clouds, 
 
 And the first rays look in upon our roofs. 
 
 Let the day come or go ; there is no let 
 
 Or hindrance to the indolent wilfulness 
 
 Of fantasy and dream-land. Place and time 
 
 And bodily weight are for the wakeful only, 
 
 Now they exist not : life is like that cloud. 
 
 Floating, poised happily in mid-air, bathed 
 
 In a sustaining halo, soft and warm. 
 
 Voyaging on, though to no bourne ; all heaven 
 
 Its own wide home alike ; earth far below 
 
 Fading still further, further ; towers and towns 
 
 Smoking with life, its roads with traffic thronged. 
 
 And tedious travellers within iron cars ; 
 
 Its rivers, and its fields with labouring hinds, 
 
 To whose raised eyes, as, stretched upon the sward, 
 
 They may enjoy some inter«/als of rest, 
 
 That little cloud appears scarce worth a thought. 
 
 There is an old and memorable tale 
 
 Of some sound sleeper being borne away 
 
 By banded faeries in the mottled hour. 
 
 Before the cock-crow, through unknown weird woods 
 
 And nameless forests, where the boughs and roots 
 
 Opened before him, closed behind ; thenceforth 
 
MORNING SLEEP. 
 
 A wise man lived he all unchanged by years. 
 Perchance again these fairies may return, 
 And evermore shall I remain as now — 
 A dreamer half awake, a wandering cloud ! — 
 Wandering no more, there are no faeries now; 
 I hear domestic voices on the stair ! 
 
MONODY. 
 
 Eternity is silent and serene, 
 
 As the illimitable depth of heaven 
 
 That presses round the earth on winter nights. 
 
 Man comes and goes like the successive clouds 
 
132 MONODY. 
 
 Over the moon, that come from the obscure, 
 And are found only in the white queen's path, — 
 One instant seen, then gone for evermore. 
 
 He died — but while he lived, some laurelled muse 
 
 Was ever his close friend : to me he came 
 
 As a disciple, what I could I gave, 
 
 But he was richer : honey of the heart 
 
 Was ever in his gift, and curious spells 
 
 Of richest fantasy were his, and life 
 
 Was all before him luminous in its hopes. 
 
 How have they vanished ! but few weeks are gone 
 Since here, at this same hour, his pleasant eyes 
 Were raised to mine, the while he rhymed again 
 The verses made that mom : alas ! the web 
 Of gossamer hath drifted with the dew 
 And disappeared before the fervid noon. 
 
 With sad resolve I looked upon his face 
 When the white sheet was round him. At his head 
 His mother placed a light. My tears might well 
 Excuse hers — heart-sick mother ! How those lips 
 Were shrunk, the nostrils closed, the candid eyes 
 Shut up within their caves ! I knew him not. 
 It was no more the wild inspired young soul ; — 
 Draw the sheet gently over him again — 
 Alas ! he is more dreadful than before. 
 
 He is gone truly : some few rhythmic staves, 
 A broken pen, is all remains of him. 
 
MONODY. 133 
 
 Strange thought comes o'er us when we trace the lines 
 Writ by a hand that now is dust : we scarce 
 Believe but that some monstrous trick were played, 
 And it was not so, — only seemed to be ! 
 
 Had he but lived, — oh, had a kind star smiled 
 Upon his couch and made him well ! But, no ; 
 'Tis childish to cry thus : the grasshopper 
 Chirps in the turf, the dew is on the blades, 
 The worm beneath, the butterfly above. 
 And the great sun shines brightly all the same, — 
 We are so little in the sum of things ! 
 
 Yes, it is better ! penury's pinching hand 
 Had claimed, even as it was, his transient span. 
 'Tis well, for he was born to fight strong foes : 
 Tis well, the smoking flax is gone to dust, 
 The sacrifice is made, the pains are past, — 
 The white sheet covers him for evermore. 
 
134 
 
 THE DUKE'S FUNERAL. 
 November i8, 1852. 
 
 So, SO, now let the great dead quietly 
 Go to his mighty tomb, — go join the dust 
 Of better and worse men : give not the dead 
 What the dead valued not : those cannon-tongues 
 Speak out more fitly, poets, than do thine. 
 Leave ye this statesman-soldier unto Time, 
 Who passes on the night-winds of God's law, 
 Leaving the heroes stript for history's page, 
 Cleansing the grave. Your polished lays, 'twould 
 
 seem, 
 Refreshen no man's throat, and he who lies 
 Upon that cumbrous wain of bronze, unblessed 
 By Christian symbol or cartouche of death. 
 Would but have asked you what you meant, have given 
 Short audience, and hoped you then would go ! 
 There is false inspiration in the theme, 
 It puts the lamp out : for myself, I fain 
 Would have constrained a sonnet ; but not one 
 Of all the fourteen twigs would bear green leaves, 
 Much less fair flowers, ripe fruit. Still was he one 
 
THE DUKE'S FUNERAL. 135. 
 
 Of England's truest sons, and what he ought 
 
 That did he worthily, and with strong will. 
 
 By trade a warrior he ; and, like a lord 
 
 Of cotton and consols, by wariest games, 
 
 Venturing boldly when the market turns, 
 
 Never despairing through stark bankruptcy, 
 
 Increases on all sides until his name 
 
 Is in kings' mouths, and by his bonds are held 
 
 The necks of nations, so succeeded he. 
 
 Genius beside him seemed a madman ; Truth 
 
 Was but contingent, relative to him ; 
 
 And heroism but a boyish phrase. 
 
 This thing he had to do, and this did he, 
 
 Depending both on sword- and protocol. 
 
 On blood and red-tape. Earth to him was but 
 
 Leagues for a march, towns cannon'd walls, and men 
 
 So many items to be match'd by others. 
 
 Harder, steadier ; both to serve, to die, 
 
 For those ordained to rule. To him the priest 
 
 And constable were equals ; and our isle — 
 
 For he was patriotic — furnished him 
 
 Motive at once and commissariat, ruled 
 
 His thought and action. Duty was his god, 
 
 The Statesman's duty, duty to confirm 
 
 The anointed cincture round the brow of kings, 
 
 The people in their level, and the plough 
 
 Straight in the furrow. Wherefore then should flowers 
 
 Be strewn upon his bier, or chant be sung 
 
136 THE DUKE'S FUNERAL. 
 
 By poet, requiem or organ-prayer 
 
 Be uttered ? Let the drums beat and the boom 
 
 Of sulphurous cannon o'er the house tops roll : 
 
 Let him be lapt in costliest panoply, 
 
 Painted all over with new heraldries. 
 
 Give him for mourners all those youths who lived 
 
 Rejoicing in the smiles of Regent George ; 
 
 All honourable men, without faith, hope, 
 
 Or charity, who generously strewed 
 
 The ring and cockpit with unpaid champagne ; 
 
 All handsome cavaliers, with well -hid sores ; — 
 
 Give him for mourners all the timorous souls 
 
 Who see no providence in coming years j 
 
 And give him all the enemies of France ; 
 
 And those who reverence power; and, more than all, 
 
 Erect and foremost in this world-array, 
 
 Men of firm hearts and regulated powers, 
 
 Who call not unto Hercules, but set 
 
 Their sinewy shoulders to the staggering wheels. 
 
 And say, '■ Thus as we will it shall it be.' 
 
 The day was won ! proud, jubilant, redeemed. 
 Their thrones again set firm, as one may hope, 
 All coached or centaur-wise like men of war, 
 The princes reappeared : and France, perforce. 
 Worn out with dear-bought glory, welcomed them, 
 Lighting her topmost windows. Sluggish Seine 
 Hissed with the falling stai-s, night burst a-flame 
 
THE DUKEIS FUNERAL. 137 
 
 With sputtering splendour over bridge and quay ; 
 And in the new-gilt Tuileries once again, 
 Propped on her swollen feet, stood Right Divine. 
 The sharp thin nostril of the high-bom swelled, 
 The diplomat rewoke all clothed in smiles, 
 Tuftless attaches Hke stunned oxen stared 
 At Hapsburgh, Bourbon, Guelph, and Romanoff; 
 Europe was saved ! Once more, as in old times, 
 The privileged worthies of the world could follow 
 Each his vocation, — Metternich trepan 
 Unwary guests as customers for wine ; 
 Talleyrand titillate his black brain with talk 
 Of omelets, — good innocent old man. 
 
 But these are gone like last year's pantomime, 
 
 And Europe is again saved, — France again ; 
 
 A new Napoleon, its last saviour, sweeps 
 
 These old things out like cobwebs, sabreing both 
 
 Legitimist and red-republican. 
 
 So wags the world, so history fills her stage. 
 
 And he who with this mighty pomp beneath 
 
 A nation's eyes goes tombward, leaves no mark 1 
 
138 
 
 MIDNIGHT. 
 
 1832 (revised). 
 
 The lamp within winks yellow and old, 
 The moon without stares blank and cold, 
 Chequering all the boarded floor 
 With frosted squares so chill and hoar, 
 And dark lines from the casement sent, — 
 The lamp-light, over the table spent, 
 Makes every corner of the room 
 Hide itself in hollow gloom ; 
 Here and there shapes looming out, 
 Bench or armour, clothes or mask, 
 Mannikin in feathered casque. 
 Like dwarfs and goblins all about, — 
 Heads and elbows, eyes and wings. 
 Mere misshapen hints of things. 
 Close we now our book and lay 
 Reluctant still the pen away. 
 Lifting it sometimes again 
 If any laggard thought constrain ; 
 Laggard or roving, home too late, 
 Knocking at the bolted gate. 
 
MIDNIGHT. 139 
 
 Turn the chair and fold the fingers, 
 
 Coax the Httle fire that lingers, 
 
 Coax it to a tingling glow, 
 
 While the snell wind's northern game 
 
 Is played out with the window frame, 
 
 And through the key-hole sad and low. 
 
 Let's have a cheerier parting word, 
 
 Set the flask upon the board, 
 
 Get the old kanaster out, 
 
 x\nd make the blue whiffs curl about. 
 
 Let's try, the day's work ended now. 
 
 To see Atlantes from the prow 
 
 Of fancy's fearless barque shot far 
 
 Beyond the breaker's plash and roar, 
 
 Drifting without toil of oar. 
 
 Sail or ballast, helm or star. 
 
 Watching, lonely, half asleep. 
 
 All round us becomes faint and rare. 
 
 Like lighted ships in a misty air. 
 
 Is that the bleating of far-off sheep ? 
 
 — Is that a child at the window-pane, 
 
 Or merely sighing gusts of rain ? 
 
 By nature still we fear the dark. 
 
 One's own shadow is strange and stark, 
 
 And seems to move, though we keep still — 
 
 And though we laugh each morning duly, 
 
 We know so very little truly, 
 
 That we fear against our will ! 
 
I40 MIDNIGHT. 
 
 I remember long ago 
 Waking at midnight, when the snow- 
 Was on the ground, and hearing far 
 Away the sound of a guitar, 
 And creeping darkly out of bed, 
 I saw pass in the street below, 
 Singing a sad song lovely and low, 
 A lady in red with yard-long hair, 
 A crown of leaves only on her head. 
 Splendidly clothed, but her feet were bare. 
 So passed she singing ; I heard her far 
 Into the night with her small guitar ; 
 And when I crept again to bed 
 It seemed as if some one had said, — 
 ' That is your Life from street to street, 
 Passing unheard with shoeless feet, 
 Over the well-trod snow.' 
 They tell me, with a smile or stare, 
 That twenty years can have no care. 
 Nor can it have a * long ago.' 
 But well I know the past alone 
 Is safely done with, sealed and gone. 
 And at threescore most certainly 
 We shall be lighter and more free ! 
 
 Alack a day ! I'm wandering still 
 
 By the wells o' Weary, the woods of Will, 
 
MIDNIGHT. 141 
 
 Hand in hand with cheerless themes 
 
 Worse than dreams. 
 
 So then to bed. The wind sings loud, 
 
 The sharp moon presses against the cloud, 
 
 And cuts its through : anon she seems 
 
 Set in a ruff, and her great white face 
 
 Looks silly and sad from the void blue space ; 
 
 Vanward again the cloud-ridge streams, 
 
 And we find her out only at intervals, 
 
 As a drowning man looks up and calls, 
 
 While here and there a star outpeeps, 
 
 Cheerily a moment seen. 
 
 Anon the wrack drives in between, 
 
 And like Time's beard all oversweeps. 
 
 To my dying lamp I turn. 
 
 Turn I to my chamber door : 
 
 The embers now no longer burn. 
 
 The casement-chequers have left the floor, 
 
 Only my shadow so black and tall, 
 
 Steps with me from wall to wall ! 
 
142 
 
 THE SEA-SHORE. 
 
 Two Pictures. 
 
 I. MIST. 
 
 J^luFFLED and rime-laden, sombre and sad, 
 In a limbo 'tween night and day, 
 
 As if on an island we stand whose bounds 
 Are shadowed and charmed away. 
 
 We wander as in some other old world, 
 Foot-printing the smooth brown sands, 
 
 The snaky weeds shrieking beneath the heel 
 That slides from their cellular bands. 
 
 Flakes of foam are blown from the ebb, 
 
 White runners along the beach, 
 Wher^ yesterday's margin of crab's green claws 
 
 And stubble and starfish bleach. 
 
 A filmy ship looms now and then 
 
 From the point where the keen winds blow, 
 Ghostlike it hangs in the air, then fades 
 
 Where the unknown keen winds go. 
 
THE SEA SHORE. 143 
 
 Wave after wave for ten thousand years 
 
 Has furrowed the brown sand here, 
 Wave after wave under clouds and stars 
 
 Has cried in the dead shore's ear. 
 
 When Jesus was Ufted on Calvary, 
 
 And saints long buried arose, 
 Through the black three hours the waves broke here, 
 
 Continuous as do those ! 
 
 Overhead shoots a querulous cry, — 
 
 A sea-mew with long white breast 
 Down on the water sweeps out and away, 
 
 Pursuing its hungry quest. 
 
 Old man, what find ye among the black pools ? 
 
 Among the sea-hair what gain ? 
 The fisherman lifts up his basket of bait, 
 
 The wind and waves only remain. 
 
 II. SUNSHINE. 
 
 Through the wide- opened window shines this morn 
 
 The sun with a steady breeze, 
 The cottage smoke slants and hurries about, 
 
 Golden against the blue seas. 
 
144 THE SEA SHORE, 
 
 Imperiously the breakers shout, 
 
 Imperiously they call, 
 With dazzling crests and curved prows, 
 
 Over each other they fall. 
 
 The yellow flat gHtters beneath the shine 
 Like a flooring of priceless ware, 
 
 Dimpled and dotted by showers and ridged 
 Like a never-ascending stair. 
 
 Our shadows outstepping before us go. 
 
 Drawn out by the level disc, 
 Each wet pebble, opal or ruby or green, 
 
 Casts a shade like an obelisk. 
 
 Merrily dancing and leaping alway, 
 
 Hither, and everywhere ; 
 The white young shrimps are merry as bees 
 
 In a clover-field's warm air. 
 
 Dogs bark and children's voices ring ; 
 
 From the shelving rocks they see, 
 The sunlit sail of the fisherman's boat 
 
 Bearing home from the generous sea. 
 
 From the high house-door peers the dame, 
 With her broad hand shading her eyes. 
 
 Grimly she smiles as she Ghoulders her creel, 
 And down the rough pathway hies ! 
 
H5 
 
 REQUIEM. 
 
 (Four o'clock morning, 3rd of the month. David Scott died 
 5th March, 1849.) 
 
 The winds are wandering through the long night, 
 Hushing and moaning round chimney and roof; 
 The ashes fall \yhite from the dull fire-light, 
 Tlie great shadows dance on the walls aloof, 
 While the soul of my brother recedes. 
 
 Fitfully crumble the embers away ; 
 Abroad over all flies the roaring wind ; 
 And the rain-clouds, through the obscurity, 
 Hurry along the moon, silently kind. 
 
 Like an opened window in heaven. 
 
 The pitiless Norns are visible now 
 Between the dim gateways of gold and horn ; 
 For the nimbus of death is over his brow, 
 And his cunning right hand lies feeble and worn, 
 Never again to be strong. 
 I 
 
146 REQUIEM. 
 
 Go back, go back ! would the spirit fain say, 
 To the in-pressing darkness and walls of stone ; 
 For the eye of hope is as wide as day 
 Through the impending infinity ; 
 His short day's work is but half done, 
 
 And still young the manifold heart. 
 
 Come back, come back ! doth the world demand ; 
 Come to the harvest, thou sower of seed ! 
 And the kindred labourers on the strand 
 Of this dear human region plead, 
 'Go not ! of thee we have wondrous need,' 
 And hail him with lifted arms. 
 
 The black angel hears not ; the ages dead 
 And the ages to come are one family, 
 Under the All-Father's mantle hid ; 
 Gains, even of art and of poetry. 
 
 Are but chaff from the garner of time. 
 
 The blast is wandering through the long night ; 
 Within the dark curtains the straight limbs lie ; 
 Faintly flickers the last fire-light ; 
 But hark, the cock crows ! for morning is nigh. 
 Silently lifting the cold wet sky. 
 
 While the coul of my brother recedes. 
 
147 
 
 BEDE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 BEING A MONOLOGUE OF THAT INDUSTRIOUS SCHOLAR, 
 RESUSCITATED AT THE CALL OF CARDINAL WISEMAN, 
 IN HIS DISCOURSE ON THE OPENING OF HARTLEPOOL 
 R. C. CHURCH, AUGUST 185I. 
 
 Ah, holy Christ ! who calls me now, 
 Straining the skin back over this brow — 
 Drawing and cording together the bones 
 With strings of nerve among sand and stones ? 
 Rehears Ah, lioly Christ ! the cups of joints 
 Some piercing ichor now anoints ; 
 And, conjured from far parts, I feel, 
 Working hither like screws of steel, 
 Fragments of hands and toes. Again 
 The body of death, with its care and pain, 
 Receives me, and I strive to rise. 
 To open ears and open eyes. 
 I'm no more passive in God's hand, 
 Lying straight in heaven-land. 
 
 the loud 
 
 voice of 
 
 the 
 
 Cardinal, 
 
himself 
 
 ^hen he 
 
 148 BEDE IN THE 
 
 Ah, holy Christ ! if it be thy law 
 That I the blind life-senses draw 
 Again upon me, — the lusts of the flesh. 
 The lusts of the eye, and the weary mesh 
 Of cogitating, learning, preaching, — 
 
 and thinks Shed morc unction on my teaching, 
 Make me diligent ; not slow. 
 Like Alfin, who could hear no crow 
 
 as he was Of moming cock, but started up 
 
 At the first clang of the cook's tin cup. 
 
 Oh, this wretched body of death ! 
 
 I clutch about me scant of breath ; — 
 
 That foot still swollen too ; — there's no lamp 
 
 To find the balsam : — foul and damp 
 
 Is all about me ; certainly 
 
 Shrivelled will all the parchment be. 
 
 But from that last dear task I'm free : 
 
 Finished the Gospel was, clear writ 
 
 In linguam vulgi ere the fit 
 
 Came over me, and on the floor 
 
 I swooned away — unlatch the door, 
 
 Or I shall die outright ! Oh, God— 
 
 I stand sun-smitten on the sod ! 
 
 Kyrie eleison ! 
 
 died 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY. 149 
 
 Where then is Jarrow, where the brave 
 Stone church with its belfry o'er the nave? 
 Or the cloister all of smooth wrought stone 
 
 He looks Outside ? Some weird hath overthrown 
 The land ; I'm not myself, — that stream 
 Is not the Tyne ! the wild Dane's gleam 
 
 for old Of sword and fire must have shone here 
 If this be Jarrow, this the dear 
 
 Jarrow (Candida casa, with broad roof-fall, 
 
 Church "^^^ ^^° glass wiudows painted small 
 And beautiful. Alas, for all 
 The brethren ! for old Ulph who fought 
 Hard with the psalter, yet could not 
 Learn to read ; and Wulf who made 
 My bed, good man ! and for long years laid 
 My needfuls ready for me, so 
 That I might all my cares bestow 
 On making books. Alas and woe. 
 For all the books ! the penitential 
 Reading book, missal so essential, 
 Singing book, numeral ; all gone — 
 Bare as a pagan I stand alone ! 
 This very day may be Easter tide 
 And I not know it : let me hide 
 
ISO BEDE IN THE 
 
 He thinks I' the gravc again, for I have lost 
 
 Count of days, yule, pentecost, — 
 
 And fear I am no Christian ghost, 
 himself till Not Bede, not Bede. 
 
 But now I wake : behold the sky 
 he sees -gj^g ^g -^ ^^^^ ^^^^ , j^j^g^ a,nd as high : 
 
 And great clouds lying all along the land 
 Far back, and waves upon the strand 
 and the Coming and going still. Everywhere 
 
 Are life-sounds filling the milk-warm air ; 
 
 sea. 
 
 The spider's warps are hung out on each bough. 
 Clear dew-pools light the hollows of large blades ; 
 Surely the year is ripe to Autumn now, — 
 An autumn seared o'er with the self-same shades 
 Once knew I in the body ; and the sod 
 Feels to the foot the same, each clod 
 Troubling these poor toes torn by flints 
 And thorns, that oft-times left their prints 
 Sea-filled on sands or in the marsh frozen black. 
 Between Wearmouth and Jarrow, hastening back 
 From Benedict to Ceolfred through the slack. 
 
 Ill 
 
 A thousand years, oh Father, in Thy sight 
 Are as one day, one day without a night : 
 The outward stream of things for ever flows ; 
 Whatever lived or grew still lives and grows ; 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY. 15] 
 
 The sensuous world still shines as erst it shone, 
 
 And I am here to sing the antiphone. 
 
 But what is man before Thee and his ways ; 
 
 Yea, even the sanctuar)^ and the shrine 
 
 By which he clings and where-before he prays, 
 
 Thereby to find some pass to the divine ! 
 
 For here I fall back through a yeast of years. 
 
 The expected day of Doom through all my tears 
 
 I've seen not : Father Peter in the porch 
 
 Of God's house nor the penitential scorch 
 
 Have blessed me ; but I shiver as of old. 
 
 Weak and half blind and cold. 
 
 The great salt sea doth answer me alone. 
 Like Tophet against heaven, its undertone 
 Maintaining evermore against the song 
 Of earth : the white foam blows along 
 
 and the Thcsc Unchanged sands. Ah, now I see 
 
 The Tyne-mouth rock, and memory turns to me 
 Now shall I find out J arrow, and again 
 
 of Tyne- Take up the inkhom and that history 
 Begun long since : how shall I gain 
 Tidings of all the change gone by 
 While I have slept ? — but patience wears 
 The hardest stone through, toils and cares 
 For learning's sake are treasury stairs. 
 On I fare, — 
 Utterly new things everywhere. 
 
 mouth. 
 
52 
 
 BEDE IN THE 
 
 He sees 
 
 Newcastle- 
 
 on-Tyne 
 
 and enters 
 
 the same. 
 
 He hears 
 
 barrel- 
 
 organ on 
 
 the street 
 
 Lo ! this must be Jerusalem, 
 Or Rome whose sacred bulwarks stem 
 The Tiber's waves ; among the cities this 
 Must be the queen o' the world, to kiss 
 Whose dust kings come, and I am thought 
 Worthy to be miraculously brought 
 Across the world to witness it. 
 And to record the same. Here, as I sit, 
 Long ships come sailing past on wheels. 
 Burning internally, with towers that smoke 
 Furl out behind them \ hundreds of great keels 
 Masted and banner'd broad moles choke 
 With merchandise untold ; among 
 Those tall glass-windowed houses throng 
 Fair women, each more costly in her gear 
 Than Benedict himself, whose mass-cloths dear 
 To us from Rome came : on both hands 
 Booths with raiments from all strands, 
 Perfumes and spices, fruits and luxuries 
 Unknown to me, splendours that blind the eyes, 
 And make the heart ache with too much. Anon 
 Ravishing music from the pavement-stone 
 Springs up, but no musician I discern — 
 Only a shrine-like hutch dragged by three hounds 
 And a man grinding : — wonderous quern. 
 From whence such wealth of goodliest sounds 
 Are brought so fast ! Oh, would our quair 
 Had known such help ! or is't the snare 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY, 153 
 
 Of Satan, — ear-delusion, vain 
 As goblin-gold whose only gain 
 Is a dry leaf? Now I wander o'er 
 A wilderness of smiths, with store 
 and now Qf reeking furnaces, and cells made bright 
 By magic flames from brazen bars as white 
 
 he sees 
 
 As sunshine : faces mild, horned hands, 
 smiths' shops Have thesc men ! Lo, through smoke-clouds black 
 Behemoth comes, — alack, alack ! 
 . With red eyes glaring in the gloom, 
 railway ^^^ many nostrils snorting spume ; 
 
 Behind it chariots numberless, 
 train. Windowed and gilt and bound with brass ; 
 
 Swift as a storm, they pant and blow 
 Along their iron way ; now slow, — 
 And docile they turn round ; they pause, 
 And from each chariot's ample jaws 
 Wells out a stream of folk. Can these 
 Be children of the 'Cursed one. 
 And this the land of Babylon 
 Apocalyptic, mirth and ease, 
 Gold and fine linen, mead and wine. 
 The only goods ? I see no sign 
 Of faithful souls, of holy shrine, 
 Of learning, the priest's divining rod, 
 And yet the folk seem blessed by God. 
 
 But I am wrong ! right fortunate 
 Hath been my sleep so long and late, 
 
54 
 
 BEDE IN THE 
 
 And now my waking when the land 
 
 Seems filled with power, when soul and hand 
 
 Work equally, when God's ferule 
 
 Seems placed within man's grasp, to school 
 
 All nature, and with chains anneal'd 
 
 By knowledge bind the world. Around, 
 
 He enters From pillared vault unto the ground, 
 Treasuries of fair books arise 
 Before these greedy grave-cleansed eyes. 
 Books great and small, an ampler host 
 Than pope or patriarch could boast 
 In the old time when Jarrow wall 
 Rose as we thought so fair and tall, 
 And I, while daylight lasted, wore 
 
 Society's Thcsc fingers, adding to our store 
 Some five or six. Sure now I see 
 Learning, the priest's divining rod, 
 Hath done the work, and, under God, 
 Brought angels down to help and guide, 
 Wrought miracles on wind and tide. 
 Or else by necromantic lore 
 Man hath multipUed his store, 
 And, now forsaken and alone, 
 Neither God nor saint doth own. 
 Learning, the priest's rod no more, 
 Is the common staff in every hand, — 
 Evil, the tree of knowledge bore, 
 
 the North 
 
 of 
 
 England 
 
 Literary 
 
 library. 
 
 and 
 
 thousand 
 
 books. 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 55 
 
 And now bears good, by which men stand 
 Kings over nature. 
 
 He finds 
 
 among 
 
 them 
 
 his own 
 
 books 
 
 printed. 
 
 Also 
 
 others 
 
 about the 
 
 modern 
 
 ages, 
 
 and about 
 
 history, 
 
 controversy 
 
 and 
 
 polemics. 
 
 History 
 Is here too, sending present day 
 Back on the past : each ancient scribe 
 Glozed and sifted by the tribe 
 Of schoHasts ; for the flow of years, . 
 With all their dusty blank arrears, 
 Have changed not humanity, 
 Nor any law man liveth by. 
 Ah, now I see my own poor name, 
 My own books, saved from out the flame 
 That tower and town wreck'd, graven fair, 
 Fairly and excellently there ; 
 Now no transcriber's fingers soil 
 The sheepskin or the Latin spoil ! 
 And here I learn what time hath done 
 Since my life ceased before the sun : 
 How the Pagan's steel-scaled arm 
 Strikes the land with deadly harm ; 
 And Cuthbert's corse with weary hand 
 Translate they to the Irish strand ; 
 How soon again the Cross prevails, 
 And the ship of the Church puts out her sails, 
 Gladdening the prosperous centuries : — 
 But read I right ? the people cries 
 
156 BEDE IN THE 
 
 Against her ; she no more gives alms 
 Of spiritual love-milk, but with shalms 
 And pipings drinks the secular wine : — 
 Read I right ? now clerk and lay 
 Each other in God's name burn and slay, 
 While o'er those foul fires rises still 
 A light as of the judgment-day, — 
 As of God's face behind a hill, 
 Before which all else wanes away ; 
 
 * Freedom of faith for every man, 
 For God alone can bless or ban ; 
 Right of private judgment' Nay, 
 Were these not always just ? again — 
 
 * Reason, this life's law, we'll maintain 
 To be the law likewise between 
 Man and his Maker : by the seen 
 Measure we the unseen ' — These 
 
 Are terrible words j may Christ appease 
 Such questions : yet all round I see 
 The latest still is wisest in all gifts 
 Experience brings amidst our strife. 
 Surely the perilous hill of Science lifts 
 Us up above the ills of life : 
 Surely by Excellence in my old dim day, 
 And by its light the Church held sway. 
 And certes if the clerk fall off 
 Behind the laic, he becomes a scoff. 
 Surely God's word is not as ours to hold 
 One meaning only, soon effete and cold ; 
 
NINETEENTH CENTURY. 157 
 
 But, shining with a heaven-lit flame, 
 It must illuminate all times the same. 
 
 He hears Sweet sounds of bells ! oh, dearly loved, — 
 Reproaching me that I have roved 
 
 church TIT 
 
 Into the dangers of strange Liberty, 
 bells and With duties self-sustained so dread and high. 
 
 Let me be guided, goodly sounds of bells ! 
 tries to -g^^j^ j.j^^ ^ ^j^y^ ^^ ^j^^g^ green wells 
 
 enter St Whereat its mother, its young heart yet calm. 
 Taught it to drink from hollowed palm. 
 
 Nicholas' Saintly sound ! I cheerfully, 
 
 With all these princely people follow thee 
 Up those wide stretching steps. Beneath 
 
 Church. This carvcu porch I hold my breath 
 In wonder less than thankfulness 
 That I once more my God confess. 
 The gathered thousands, each and all 
 Hold our Lord's Book graven small 
 In their right hands ; and all can read ! 
 Let me rejoice that thus the seed 
 I tried to sow hath borne so well. 
 Despite the powers of earth and hell. 
 Each man a clerk, perhaps a priest, — 
 I enter to the sacred feast — 
 I strive to enter, strive in vain : 
 Some hidden girths my limbs restrain ! 
 
Cardinal 
 
 calls 
 
 back 
 
 158 BEDE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 But the Ah ! Holy Christ, I faint and quail, 
 As if under the wind of an iron flail. 
 Holy Jesu, he calls again. 
 Renewing that resurrection pain, 
 Dispersing my so late-found gain, 
 
 him Yoking me round with a strangling chain, 
 
 Dragging me to him when I would fain 
 Rise and press onward : against my will, 
 As a staff in an old man's hand am I 
 Thrust about ingloriously, 
 Perinde cadaver ! — recross I the hill. 
 Back to the sea-shore forced to fly j — 
 Cardinal, master ! there he stands, 
 With rosy face and large red hands, 
 Clad all in scarlet ! — Woe's me ! how 
 Can I go back to my old cell now ! 
 Man clad in scarlet, who art thou ? 
 The whiff of death comes out of thee. 
 And the poor ancient childish past 
 Returns around me like the sea, 
 Drowning my new brave Life : I'm cast 
 Mistily sinking — oh, my God ! 
 Lay me again beneath the sod. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 ,.^^ '^B 
 
 SSSrf'.:. 
 
 TO THE SPHINX 
 (considered as the symbol of religious 
 
 WYSTtKV 
 
 The silence and the darkness of the night 
 The busiest day doth follow : moonless nights 
 
i6o TO THE SPHINX. 
 
 And starless track Time's footsteps ; strongest things 
 
 Still crumbling back into the caverned past. 
 
 But thou, the earliest legend wrought in stone, 
 
 The rock-bound riddle of an infant world, 
 
 Within that terrible darkness standest still, 
 
 Questioning now as then. 
 
 I shut my ears to this day's cares, and hear, 
 
 Vaguely across the centuries, the clang 
 
 Of Coptic hammers round thy half freed limbs : 
 
 Slaves with their whip-armed masters see I there ; 
 
 Thousands like ants \ and priests, with noiseless feet, 
 
 Passing around them with a serpent-coil ; 
 
 And kings in crowned hoods, with great sceptres 
 
 borne 
 Before them ; — red men, and brown-skinned, and 
 
 swart. 
 From Nubia or the Isles : what sad resolve. 
 What fear or inspiration or despair. 
 Drive on those hordes that know not what they do ? 
 
 Oracular, i;upassive, open-eyed, — 
 Open-eyed without vision ; answerless. 
 Yet questioning for life or death, as hath 
 In later days been fabled, — round thy rest 
 The scarabee, the snake, the circle-winged. 
 And other symbols dark were as thy food, 
 
TO THE SPHINX. i6i 
 
 Prepared for thee with crudest rites and oaths 
 
 Of secresy ; innumerable gods 
 
 Made life about thee slave to death, seared up 
 
 Unchangeably, and in the grave wound in 
 
 With undivulged negations of all hopes : 
 
 So that the dead could only render back 
 
 The sense of these dim-shadowed myths and creeds. 
 
 That thou wert set to guard. Perhaps the bones 
 
 Of Cheops in his firmest of all tombs 
 
 Shook to disclose thy password from the dust 
 
 And free man's heart by knowing he cannot know, — 
 
 Shook when the priests' slow steps passed evermore 
 
 Bearing another Pharaoh home, 
 
 With baseless rites and fantasies of faiths. 
 
 Devised like clashing symbols and loud drums 
 
 To drown the victim's shrieks. 
 
 And did not Cleopatra's eager blood 
 
 Throb at the thought of thee, 
 
 While her wide purple flaunted in the sun, 
 
 And the white smoke of her fine perfumes spread 
 
 From Cidnus to the unknown waste where now 
 
 Ships pass uniting hemispheres by trade ? 
 
 And yet, may be, she knew, because a queen, 
 
 The riddle of thy birth and of thy watch 
 
 Before the temple door. Her feverish brain 
 
 Left her no heart except for Anthony. 
 
 And then, as now. 
 
 The winged seeds of autumn died amidst 
 
1 62 TO THE SPHINX. 
 
 The whirling sand-waste. Not beneath thy shade 
 The sower walked. Joy fled thee, and desire 
 Passed thee and knelt upon the marble floor : 
 And still the passionate heart believes, and thou,— 
 Thou sittest voiceless, without priest or prayer, 
 As if thou wert self- born. 
 
 Ill 
 
 And yet to whom, O Sphinx ! 
 
 Hast thou not ministered, and dost thou not, 
 
 If we interpret rightly those blank eyes ? 
 
 Beside the Isis-gates, the gates of stone, 
 
 Have blood-red heroes and the sons of gods 
 
 Uncrowned to thee. Around thy great smooth feet 
 
 The hands of wandering Homer may have groped 
 
 In his old blindness, while his eloquent lips 
 
 Smiled gravely saturnine, as sad high thoughts 
 
 Lightened across the hill-tops of his soul. 
 
 The lyre of Hermes may have rung to thee. 
 
 Before Dodona's leaves shook prophecies 
 
 On slumbering votaries ; ere the white shafts rose 
 
 Fluted on Delphi, or Athenian streets 
 
 Had heard the voice of Socrates, nor yet 
 
 Was there a Calvary in all the world. 
 
TO THE SPHINX, 163 
 
 IV 
 
 The beacon-fire from Pharos shines to guide 
 
 The beaked triremes with Sidon's wares 
 
 And wine from Chios, and the Samian earth 
 
 Transformed to gold by potters' artful hands : 
 
 A while it shines and then the ships and wares 
 
 Are changed ; anon the stars are left again 
 
 The only watchers. Temples and their shrines 
 
 Before the Faith that brooks no rivals fall, 
 
 And from the strife the conquering Christian shouts 
 
 Against the demons, and the cenobite 
 
 Hurries half naked by, 
 
 Smiting thee with his crutch and palsied hand. 
 
 In the far Thebaid's hermit-warren, weave 
 
 Thy straws, blest cenobite ! for thou hast seen 
 
 Bread brought to thee by ravens from heaven's 
 
 board, — 
 Souls carried upwards upon angels' wings ; 
 And, like the red edge of averted thunder, 
 Thou hast seen all the demons fall sheer down. 
 Heaven waits for thee; thy life throbs up in prayer, 
 Shedding joy-tears into the passion-cup ; 
 For these old wickednesses passed away — 
 Alas ! and he too has now passed the same — 
 And through the deepening sand about thy flanks 
 Even thou, before the face of heaven, 
 Appealeth for like burial with thy kin. 
 
1^4 TO THE SPHINX, 
 
 Crossing the dusky stream ^ • / 
 
 On the chance stepping-stones of time, 
 
 Descending the uneven stairs of myths 
 
 Into our nature's cavern-gloom, 
 
 Nigh breathless we become, 
 
 As if the blood fled backward in the veins ; 
 
 And when we turn again 
 
 Into the even sunHght of to-day, 
 
 The interests of the present seem no more 
 
 Than fool's-play, wind in trees, an even-song ; 
 
 And all our dear wise generation shrinks 
 
 Into small grasshoppers, or clamouring storks 
 
 That build frail nests on roofs of kingless towns, 
 
 Uncertain as storm- scattered clouds, or leaves 
 
 Heaped up as day shrinks coldly in. 
 
 Yet art thou not, O Sphinx ! 
 
 The mere child's bauble that the man disowns 
 
 With loftier knowledge, weightier cares ? 
 
 Ah, no ; for evermore 
 
 The question comes again 
 
 Which nature cannot answer, but which thou. 
 
 Watcher by temple-doors, 
 
 Thou mightest have solved to entering worshippers. 
 
 Making them turn away, 
 
 Earthward, not starward, searching for their home. 
 
TO THE SPHINX. 165 
 
 Inward and not down beyond the tomb, 
 Nor over Styx for fairer days than ours ; 
 For night is certain on the further shore. 
 Watch then, O Sphinx ! watch on, 
 Before the temple doors o^ all the gods. 
 
1 66 
 
 A DEDICATION. 
 (On publishing a Poem called ' The Year of the World.') 
 
 Those sober morns of spring are gone whose light 
 
 Made the leaves golden round the window-sill, 
 
 While pleasantly my task advanced from hour 
 
 To hour, until the last short page was full. 
 
 The kindling influence of the year just then 
 
 Had freed the butterfly, and the lightest breeze 
 
 Twirled its vacant winter-shell, to me 
 
 A sign and symbol, as I fondly deemed. 
 
 'Tis pleasant now in fair book-shape to see 
 
 What these sweet morns accomplished ; be it small, 
 
 Yet still a landmark in Hfe's paths, an alms 
 
 Saved from oblivion and an indolent past. 
 
 Perhaps within its fabric not one thread 
 
 Of gold is woven, and those thoughts that weighed 
 
 Upon me as a duty weighs, till speech 
 
 And action free the conscience from its claim, 
 
 Will be to others uninformed and null : 
 
 Perhaps the sheep may bleat, the small dogs bark, 
 
 And not one man's voice answer me at all. 
 
A DEDICATION. 167 
 
 So be it : on the waters cast I still 
 My bread, remembering it hath been to me 
 The bread of life according to my light, 
 For one full concord, one just harmony 
 Between the chords of lyre and heart rebuilds 
 The temple of the soul. 
 
 A labour still 
 Of love it hath been. With the name of love 
 It shall be sanctified, and unto thee, 
 Hopefullest friend ! do I now send it : thou 
 Being the Mneme of past wandering years, 
 And I the hero of mine own romance. 
 Nor other reasons lack I, it may be. 
 Although they might not sound so grand and grave. 
 As this, a gentle critic wilt thou prove : 
 Or this, if flowers but seldom deck the field, 
 Thy love shall sow them broadcast. 
 
 But, no more ; 
 Eros is the great master, and his law 
 It is we follow. Eros, child and God, 
 With unshorn tresses that no crown confines, 
 Teaches us much. This first ; that the great lamp 
 Of Truth, whose naphtha needs no vestal's care, 
 Shines not with holier splendours in the crypts 
 Of book-philosophy and art-arcades, 
 Wherein th' ambitious arm themselves for fame, 
 
i68 A DEDICATION. 
 
 As the Athenian youths girt up their hair 
 
 For the gymnasium, then in those dear bowers 
 
 Of our humanity where amaranth grows 
 
 With darnels, worts, and thistles. I have paused 
 
 Oft-times midway in some laborious scheme, 
 
 Asking myself the question, — What avails 
 
 This strife, acquiring, losing, when to gain 
 
 Or lose is non-essential, and but hangs 
 
 Upon the outer husks of life ? Reply 
 
 Hath reached me from beyond our continent ; 
 
 It was not I who toiled^ cast off to-day 
 
 Yesterday's motives, stands unchanged the soul 
 
 The same as heretofore. Thus have I learned 
 
 To throw no dice with fortune ; to remain 
 
 Spectator more than actor. Truth descends 
 
 Without our prayers and labour. Knowledge stands 
 
 Apart from throned wisdom. Trivial things 
 
 Minister oft Hke miracles, and reveal 
 
 The narrow path for which we've searched in- vain 
 
 Through sleepless nights and over sloughs and seas. 
 
169 
 
 A RHYME OF THE SUN-DIAL. 
 
 The dial is dark, 'tis but half past-one : 
 But the crow is abroad, and the day's begun. 
 
 The dial is dim, 'tis but half-past two : 
 Fit the small foot with its neat first shoe. 
 
 The light gains fast, it is half-past three : 
 Now the blossom appears all over the tree. 
 
 The gnomon tells it is but half-past four : 
 Shut upon him the old school-door. 
 
 The sun is strong, it is half-past five : 
 Through this and through that let him hustle 
 and strive. 
 
 Ha, thunder and rain ! it is half-past six : 
 Hither and thither, go, wander and fix. 
 
 The shadows are sharp, it is half past- seven : 
 The Titan dares to scale even heaven ! 
 
lyo A RHYME OF THE SUN-DIAL. 
 
 The rain soon dries, it is half-past eight : 
 Time faster flies, but it is not late ! 
 
 The sky now is clear, it is half- past nine : 
 Draw all the threads and make them entwine. 
 
 Clearer and calmer, 'tis half-past ten : 
 Count we the gains ? not yet : try again. 
 
 The shadows lengthen, half-past eleven : 
 
 He looks back, alas ! let the man be shriven ! 
 
 The mist falls cold, it is half-past twelve : 
 Hark, the bell tolls ! up, sexton, and delve ! 
 
171 
 
 IN THE VALLEY. 
 
 Trusting lambs about the door, 
 Entering sometimes on the floor ; 
 Timid ewes with simple eyes, 
 Looking for them in surprise. 
 
 With sunny days and busy feet, 
 Milkmaids' ditties sound so sweet, — 
 Ditties of contented life. 
 And love and hopes to be a wife. 
 
 Through our valley goes the road 
 To some prince's grand abode ; 
 A slope of cattle-pasturing green 
 Rises round, well hedged between. 
 
 With fallow fields in spring-time gray, 
 Past which winds the long highway ; 
 Travellers' heads a mile or more 
 Are seen descending to our door. 
 
 Sometimes the goddess Poverty 
 Greets us as she wanders by. 
 And calls the little birds to come 
 To pick from her thin hand the crumb. 
 
172 IN THE VALLEY. 
 
 Sometimes Hope, the youngest Grace 
 Our lord set up in his high place, 
 Going to seek for work somewhere, 
 Or get apprenticed to old Care. 
 
 Sometimes Faith, with smile secure, 
 Makes us feel we are not poor, 
 To entertain such guests as these 
 Upon our bench beneath the trees. 
 
 Sometimes 'tis Charity herself, 
 Little children all her pelf, 
 An d our loved little ones run out 
 To welcome hers with play and shout. 
 
 Jesus then the white bread bears, 
 And naked John the water shares 
 In a white cup to every one 
 Resting from the mid-day sun. 
 
73 
 
 MAY. 
 
 (IN A LONDON LODGING.) 
 
 Doubtless now in Wetherel woods 
 The white lady-garlic spreads, 
 
 And young ferns hold their wise conclaves, 
 All nodding their crozier-heads. 
 
 There too the last year's bramble sweeps 
 
 The Plden's arrowy swell, 
 And the cuckoo over the larches dark 
 
 You'll hear if you listen well. 
 
 May is with us, and I am pent 
 
 In the city's huge recess, 
 But prison-bars nor walls of stone 
 
 Can shut out spring's caress. 
 
 Over the roofs from the fields far off 
 
 Fresh influences hie, 
 Shading the hair from the cool forehead, 
 
 Touching it tenderly. 
 
174 MAY. 
 
 Open the window, let the breeze 
 About these brown books play, 
 
 And, hark ! the caged bird opposite 
 Knows well that it is May. 
 
 Sing louder yet ! perhaps both thou 
 
 And I enjoy it more 
 Within this populous wilderness 
 
 Than roaming wild woods o'er. 
 
 Oh, welcome now to come and go, 
 You early weak-winged bee ! 
 
 My primrose pots and crocuses 
 Are splendid, as you see. 
 
 I fear your sturdy hopefulness 
 
 Already hath gone astray; 
 Or came you here to teach me sing 
 
 A song to suit the day ? 
 
 Yes, the summer's feast is spread, 
 Her wine is poured out free ; — 
 
 Mignon ! I could desire no more 
 If I but shared with thee ! 
 
 Where art thou now,— in hawthorn lane ? 
 
 Or housed with some dull guest ? 
 I'll think of thee_, and some have said 
 
 Our fancied joys are best. 
 
MAY. 175 
 
 But while the mavis sings above, 
 And the cowsHp dots the mead, 
 
 If we together heard his song, 
 'Twere a pleasanter May indeed ! 
 
SONNETS 
 
 ON LITERARY SUBJECTS. 
 
179 
 
 ON THE INSCRIPTION, KEATS' 
 TOMBSTONE. 
 
 (ENGLISH CEMETERY, ROME.) 
 
 Could we but see the Future ere it comes, 
 As gods must see effects in causes hid, — 
 How calmly could we wait till we were bid ! 
 
 Heroes would hear their triumph's far-off drums, 
 
 Would see Fame's splendours ere the threads and 
 thrums 
 Had fonned them in to-morrow's living loom ; 
 Would feel the honours round the future tomb, 
 
 Across the sunless fosse where life succumbs. 
 
 If it were so ! But wiser fates conspire 
 
 That each shall bear his own lamp through the night. 
 Showing but short way round its blood-red light, 
 And find, by it alone, the herb that springs 
 Fast by the wells of fathomless desire ; 
 
 And of this healing herb the poet sings. 
 
i8o 
 
 WORDSWORTH, 
 
 (ON READING THE MEMOIRS BY DR. C. WORDSWORTH.) 
 I. 
 
 Too much of ' Tours/ productive more or less ; 
 Too much of * Nature,' meaning thereby hills, 
 Trees, hedges, landscapes rich with woods and rills ; 
 
 Too little of the dark divine recess 
 
 Beneath the white shirt, — nothing of the press 
 Of our own age so full of glorious cares. 
 And men that call, new lamps for old ! good wares 
 
 For potsherds given ! in this book I confess. 
 
 Yet through it evermore appears in sight 
 A poet travelling homeward who was still 
 A poet every day, with common tread 
 Who walked on common shoes up Life's high hill 
 
 Self-center'd, God-directed, till the light 
 Of this world and the next met round his head. 
 
lai. 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 II. 
 
 Cumberland was the world to him and art 
 Was landscape-gardening. Most sententiously 
 A truism or a common-place could he 
 
 Announce, and by his grave large voice impart 
 
 Value thereto. Steered by the simplest heart 
 Tis said he never doubted, but held on 
 Bible o'erpowered : in these our days alone 
 
 Of all sane men perhaps in learning's mart ! 
 
 But he of all men planned his life with care : 
 Fast by the wells of sadness walked he on 
 
 O'er fortunate meads with chilly flowers made fair, 
 Till on his right hand and his left were won 
 
 The waving wheatears of a just success ; 
 
 A man whose praise rejoice we to express I 
 
l82 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 III. 
 
 Each medal hath its reverse ; every day 
 
 Its cloud ; each house its skeleton ; so here, 
 Sum up this philosophic poet's year, 
 And we shall find within his mental way, 
 Few threads of vital poet- wisdom stray. 
 Instead ; philanthropy with hand withheld, 
 A caution selfward turned, the muse compell'd 
 To chew the cud, to sift the sand and clay 
 Left by chance hill-winds, lest some grains of gold 
 
 Without assiduous sieve might there be lost. 
 A bald soul awkward with his lyre, both cold 
 
 And over-anxious, find we to our cost : 
 And this the moral of the whole ; that man 
 Is great who simply doth the best he can. 
 
83 
 
 TO THE ARTISTS CALLED P. R. B. 
 
 {1851.) 
 
 I THANK you, brethren in Sincerity, — 
 
 One who, within the temperate climes of Art, 
 From the charmed circle humbly stands apart, 
 
 Scornfully also, with a listless eye 
 
 Watching old marionettes' vitality ; 
 
 For you have shown, with youth's brave confidence, 
 The honesty of true speech and the sense 
 
 Uniting life with ' nature,' earth with sky. 
 
 In faithful hearts Art strikes its roots far down, 
 And bears both flower and fruit with seeded core ; 
 When Truth dies out, the fruit appears no more, 
 
 But the flower hides a worm within its crown. 
 God-speed you onward ! once again our way 
 Shall be made odorous with fresh flowers of May. 
 
1 84 
 
 ON CERTAIN CRITICS AT THE BEGINNING 
 OF THE CENTURY. 
 
 The poet lives indeed. Within the schools 
 He may or may not have tried on his arms, 
 Or learnt their dext'rous use : but free of harms 
 
 He must have dived and braved the whirling pools 
 
 Of his own heart, and o'er the heads of fools 
 And unbelievers, teachers, priests, tipstaves. 
 Or censors, held his own, breasting the waves 
 
 Of martyrdom, smiling like one who rules. 
 
 And here's the poet's judge ! whose learned speech 
 Of tropes and classics, fixed authorities, 
 
 Smells stale, whose outside confidences teach 
 His fellow-philistines to dogmatise. 
 Till vulgar scoffers even invade the skies — 
 
 Turn, poet ! lift thy foot against his breech. 
 
l8: 
 
 THE EPITAPH OF HUBERT VAN EYCK. 
 
 (CARVED ON THE SHIELD HELD BY A MARBLE SKELETON, 
 CATHEDRAL OF ST. BAVON, GHENT.) 
 
 Whoe'er thou art who walkest overhead, 
 Behold thyself in stone : for I yestreen 
 Was seemly and alert like thee : now dead, 
 Nailed up and earthed, and for the last time green, 
 The first spring greenness and the last decay, 
 Am hidden here for ever from the day. 
 I, Hubert Van Eyck, whom all Bruges hailed 
 Worthy of lauds, am now with worms engrailed. 
 My soul with many pangs by God constrained 
 Fled in September when the corn is wained, 
 Just fourteen hundred years and twenty-six 
 Since Christ Himself was our first crucifix. 
 Lovers of Art, pray for me that I gain 
 God's grace, nor find I've worked and lived in vain. 
 
1 86 
 
 FRAGMENT OF A SONNET BY RAPHAEL. 
 
 (FOUND WRITTEN ON THE BACK OF A SKETCH.) 
 
 ' As Paul when he descended from his trance 
 Could utter nought of the divine arcane, — 
 So hidden in my heart my joys remain 
 Lovingly veiled from all unhallowbd chance. 
 How much I see, how much I do and bear. 
 Clothing with placid smile the secret pain, 
 Which I could just as easy change the hair 
 Upon this brow as render up profane 
 
 Thus far the master, the divine Raphael, 
 
 Who died before his brown locks had uncurled, 
 
 And left so much, — yet from whose hand we hail 
 
 This fragment now across a changing world. 
 
 Finish it, reader ! — genius, fortune, fame ! 
 
 Thrice crowned, love's tangled skein remains the same. 
 
1 87 
 
 THE MUSICIAN. 
 
 His sense transcends this world : the Muses' heaven 
 Is where his soul was born, a wondrous child ; 
 
 Instinct above the intellect is given 
 
 To the Musician ; wordless, unlearned, wild, 
 
 Fancies of heart are his realities, 
 
 And over us as o'er base things he flies 
 
 Towards absorption in the harmonies 
 
 Of spheres unknown. Alas, within the maze 
 
 Of the actual world, hills, cattle, ships, and town, 
 
 Knowledge accumulative, mace and gown. 
 
 Wealth, science, law, he like a blind man strays ! 
 
 Yet, wondrous child, be nevermore cast down, 
 Men hear thy fiddle-bow, and lose their pains, — 
 Compared to thee they are but serfs in chains. 
 
 L 2 
 
i88 
 
 ON PUBLISHING HIS 'MEMOIR, ETC.' 
 
 My brother, latest of so many, passed 
 
 Across the unknown dark sea, where we all 
 Must follow, as our days and hours are cast : 
 
 I speak to thee, I touch the dreadful pall, 
 To lay thine own bay-leaves upon thy bier. 
 
 It may be in the arcane truths of God, 
 Thou still dost feel this touch, dost feel and hear, 
 
 And recognizest still the cold green sod. 
 Immensely far yet infinitely near ! 
 
 Thou who hast shown how much the steadfast soul 
 
 Bears abnegation, how an ideal goal 
 Robs life, how singleness of heart hopes long, 
 And how, by suffering sanctified, the song 
 From the inner shrme becomes more just and strong. 
 
1 89 
 
 SANDRARrS INSCRIPTION, 
 
 ON ALBERT DURER's GRAVE, NURNBERG. 
 
 Rest here, thou Prince of Painters, thou who wast 
 
 better than great. 
 In many arts unequalled in the old time or the late. 
 Earth thou didst paint and garnish, and now, in thy 
 
 new abode, 
 Thou paintest the holy things overhead in the city of 
 
 God. 
 And we, as our patron saint, look up to thee ever 
 
 will, 
 And crown, with a laurel crown, the dust left here 
 
 with us still. 
 
OCCASIONAL SONNETS. 
 
THE 
 
 OF 
 
 'UNIVERSITY 
 
 ■JfQRH\ 
 
193 
 
 PYGMALION. 
 
 ' Mistress of gods and men ! I have been thine ,. 
 From boy to man, and many a myrtle rod 
 Have I made grow upon thy sacred sod, 
 
 Nor ever have I passed thy white shafts nine 
 
 Without some votive offering for the shrine, 
 
 Carved beryl or chased bloodstone ; — aid me now, 
 And I will live to fashion for thy brow 
 
 Heart-breaking priceless things : oh, make her mine.' 
 
 Venus inclined her ear, and through the Stone 
 
 Forthwith slid warmth like spring through sapling- 
 stems, 
 
 And lo, the eyelid stirred, beneath had grown 
 The tremulous light of life, and all the hems 
 
 Of her zoned peplos shook — upon his breast, 
 
 She sank by two dread gifts at once oppressed. 
 
194 
 
 THE SWAN. 
 
 With broad soft breast, with pliant neck and long 
 To reach the small fish down among the reeds, 
 Hitherward scattering the fresh water-beads 
 
 The snowy beauty comes. O fair and strong, 
 
 Thou Lais, queen of pleasure, with my song 
 I would enrich thee were it worthier, 
 And if it could be but the minister 
 
 Of love, that to such goddess should belong. 
 
 So I held out to her this page where lay 
 
 Some dainty fruits, and flowers, a rare bouquet ; — 
 
 Whereat she smote her ample wings abroad. 
 Raised her black mouth from whence a bruised worm 
 
 fell, 
 And hissed, as good deeds may be hissed in hell : 
 
 The spray fell over me upon the sod. 
 
195 
 
 SPRING LOVE. 
 
 From mom to evening, this day, yesterday, 
 
 We've walked within the garden'd paths of love, 
 Till the moon rose the darkening woods above : 
 We've seen the blossoming apple's crimson spray. 
 And watched the hiving bees work lustily, 
 As if their time was short as it was sweet : 
 Along love's meadow-lands too, with glad feet, 
 We've welcomed all the wild flowers come with May- 
 Bend thy sweet head ; I've strung this long woodbine 
 With primroses and cowslips — golden prize 
 For golden hair, and flowers that best express 
 The opening of the year, the mild sunshine. 
 And the frank clearness of those trusting eyes. 
 Through which there gleams scarce-trusted 
 blessedness. 
 
196 
 
 AN ANNIVERSARY. 
 
 Madonna ! all the year's sweet flowers are dead ; 
 
 Christmas is come, and now thou art mine own. 
 
 When first I saw thee in thy girlhood's gown, 
 Within the myrtle hedge of maidenhood, 
 Waiting, your fi"ank brow with its auburn snood, 
 
 Like an enchanted tower girt round with fire, 
 
 I thought, ah me ! how can I so aspire ; — 
 And now for years our lives as one have sped. 
 
 Since then what wild adventures we've essayed ; 
 What jesting comedies our fates have played ! 
 
 'Tis now long since I ceased to look on thee 
 With wonder : that head lies by mine all night ; 
 
 Thou art a book read three times o'er to me, 
 And yet thy last words are quite infinite. 
 
197 
 
 THE MIDNIGHT CITY. 
 
 Past these tall houses and closed doors we wind, 
 Nor ever any living thing we meet, 
 Along each dimly lamp-lit, clean-swept street : 
 
 Bolted and barred within, the human kind, 
 
 Like Egypt's mummied dead, lie still and blind. 
 Stretched out beneath the hands of sleep and night; — 
 Will they indeed re-wake with morning's light ? 
 
 An awful thing this lifeless town I find. 
 
 'Tis strange to think too, eons long ago, 
 
 Ere any eyes or any hearts were here, 
 
 These stars shone out the same — unnumbered, clear ; 
 And at this moment where warm breezes blow, 
 
 Filling the sails that left our quays last year. 
 
 The sun lights up another hemisphere ! 
 
198 
 
 KISSES. 
 
 Within her lips my mistress, then a child, 
 Held up a cnimb to her caged bird ; and I, 
 A stripling, very awkwardly stood by, 
 
 Lost in presentiment ; — was't but a mild 
 
 Girl's coquetry, and was my heart beguiled ? 
 Or was it earnest of the days to be. 
 When I too, like that linnet, no more free. 
 
 By those dear lips am fed and reconciled ? 
 
 A crumb of bread sometimes — the bread of life, 
 And sometimes but a worthless sugarplum, 
 To her new slave those rounded lips present, 
 Now very gently, then in well-feigned strife ; 
 Beforehand I can't tell what next may come, 
 So I look forward, very well content. 
 
[99 
 
 KJSSES. 
 
 II. 
 
 Who can tell why Queen Venus raised the dove 
 To be her bird? Why not the statelier swan, 
 Seamew or albatross ? Our Queen began 
 
 In sea sun-smitten, and the wave-foam wove 
 
 Her only veil; — What charioteer for Love 
 Were better, and what lovelier thing is there 
 Than swan full winged, and for the wilder pair, 
 
 Do they not triumph tides and storms above ? 
 
 I think it must have been the turtle's claim 
 To the arcane invention of the kiss. 
 
 That taught the Golden Age how first to woo ! 
 But now-a-days we would be much to blame, 
 Needing such lessons in love's lore as this ; 
 So let us hope we are her love-birds too. 
 
200 
 
 THE TRAVELLER LOST. 
 
 That winding pathway on this windless day, 
 
 With flowering turfs and pebbles here and there ; 
 That hawthorn-hedge irregularly bare 
 
 And blossoming ; the sky-lark far away ; — 
 
 That very twig and leaf and clambering spray : 
 And now behind me, from the unseen shore, 
 A curlew !— Yes, I have been here before. 
 
 And God hath brought me back another way. 
 
 One instant ! the memorial sense has flown, 
 Leaving all blank as the Atlantic tides 
 Fronting Columbus : it was like the moon 
 To the half awake, — as if I had gone down 
 
 That fabulous well where Truth from mortals hides, 
 And, looking up, beheld the stars at noon ! 
 
20I 
 
 THE NIGHTINGALE UNHEARD. 
 
 Is that the much-desired, the wondrous wail 
 Of the brown bird by poets loved so long ? 
 Nay, it is but the thrush's rich clear song 
 
 Through the red sunset rung ; but down the vale, 
 
 Beneath the starlight, never do we fail 
 
 To hear the love-lorn singer : still and dark 
 Above our heads the black boughs arch ; and, hark ! 
 
 A wild short note — another — then a trail 
 
 Of loud clear song is drawn athwart the glow, 
 Filling the formless night with cheerfulness. 
 But sure we know that melody full well, — 
 
 The dear old blackbird ! Let's no further go ; 
 There's no brown bird ; — Ye poets all, confess 
 That Fancy only is your Philomel. 
 
IN ROME, A.D. 150. 
 
 (FOR A PICTURE.) 
 
 Face against face the New Faith meets the Old : 
 The New with its inspiring hopes of Hfe 
 Beyond the Agape and all earth-strife, 
 
 God-guided through an alien world, with cold 
 
 Postponement of the triumph-crown of gold ; 
 The Old irresolute and faint of heart. 
 But loving all sweet things, and flowers, and art. 
 
 That deifies nature's fashions manifold. 
 
 Sceptre and wreath, they ask for : ' Now, this hour 
 Be kind to us, O Gods ; let us not dare 
 And lose the prize ; let the sun shine to-day, 
 The song be heard ! ' but gone is all their power ; 
 Their eyes are dark ; a cry is in the air : 
 * Awake ! arise, arise, and come away ! ' 
 
203 
 
 COMING AND GOING, 
 
 In the bright margin of the salt sea tide, 
 Flooding the sands, his tiny shallop tries 
 A boy, with new delights in his clear eyes ; 
 
 Wading far in and watching it with pride 
 
 Tacking, returning, as the wavelets guide ; 
 Until the ebb set in unknown to him, 
 And then across the seas into the dim 
 
 Green waste he saw his little frigate ride ! 
 
 Will it sail on for ever and a day. 
 
 Or will they hail it from some new strange land ? 
 Why went it from me at the last away ? 
 He asked, and empty-handed turned to go. 
 
 And often wandering on life's wave-worn strand. 
 Perplexed, he questions still that ebb and flow. 
 
204 
 
 MY MOTHER. 
 
 (ST. LEONARDS, EDINBURGH, 1 826.) 
 
 A PEBBLED pathway led up to the door 
 
 Where I was born, with holly hedge confined, 
 Whose leaves the winter snows oft interlined ; 
 
 Oft now it seems, because the year before 
 
 My sister died, we were together more, 
 And from the parlour window every morn 
 Looked on that hedge, while mother's face, so worn 
 
 With fear of coming ill, bent sweetly o'er. 
 
 And when she saw me watching, smile would she, 
 And turn away with many things distraught ; 
 Thus was it manhood took me by surprise, 
 The sadness of her heart came into me, 
 And everything I ever yet have thought 
 
 I learned then from her anxious loving eyes. 
 
205 
 
 MV MOTHER. 
 
 (PORTOBELLO, NEAR EDINBURGH, 185I.) 
 
 There was a gathered stillness in the room, 
 Only the breathing of the great sea rose 
 From far off, aiding that profound repose, 
 
 With regular pulse and pause within the gloom 
 
 Of twilight, as if some impending doom 
 Was now approaching ; — I sat moveless there, 
 Watching with tears and thoughts that were like 
 prayer, 
 
 Till the hour struck, — the thread dropped from the 
 loom; 
 And the Bark passed in which freed souls are borne. 
 The dear stilled face lay there ; that sound forlorn 
 Continued ; I rose not, but long sat by : — 
 And now my heart oft hears that sad seashore. 
 
 When she is in the far-off land, and I 
 
 Wait the dark sail returning yet once more. 
 
 1^571. 
 
2o6 
 
 ASSISTANCE DELAYED. 
 
 Had that hand hailed me and that cheerful song, 
 
 Had that good chance befallen me, while the blood 
 Was juvenescent, and the vista long, 
 
 And life's mid-year unbridged : while yet all-good 
 Appeared the triumphs to be won, the men 
 
 Who had attained, all gods, amidst the mist 
 Blood-red o'er youth's long sunrise. Doubtless then 
 
 Proudly had I leapt forth and dared the best, 
 Either with tricks fantastic, or high faith 
 
 And art, — the best that in this right arm lay ! 
 But now the game seems boy's play : keep your breath 
 
 To cool your pottage, wise old proverbs say. 
 The world still gmdgingly unties her store : 
 Fame and reward are ours when they are prized no 
 more. 
 
207 
 
 UNWORTHY AMBITION. 
 
 (on the portraits of lords brougham and 
 lyndhurst.) 
 
 To rise up step by step from hall to dais ; 
 To take the best seat at the best repast, 
 While adulating eyes are toward him cast 
 
 By the upstanding hungry j to have praise 
 
 From those he scorns : to see the base hand raise 
 The limp hat to him as he hastens by, 
 Not deigning to return the courtesy ; 
 
 To ride while others tramp the miry ways. 
 
 These are the honours of a hot-breathed world, 
 These the civilian honours, these the prize 
 
 In church or bar. Behold that wig deep-curled, 
 The symbol of a long life's toil, those eyes 
 
 Below it like a tipstaffs ! — shut thine own. 
 
 And think of Christ or of the sky star-sown ! 
 
 M2 
 
2o8 
 
 MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. 
 
 (1837 ; REVISED 1872.) 
 
 All things were created by numbers, and again it must be so. 
 
 Plaio. 
 
 The Angel of Death through the dry earth slid, 
 
 Like a mole to the Dervish Yan, 
 
 Lying beneath the turf six feet, 
 
 Till he reached the coffin and smote its lid 
 
MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. 209 
 
 With his hammer that wakes the Mosleman ; 
 And whispered thus through board and sheet, 
 ' Arise, that thy closed eye and ear 
 The things that Are may see and hear ! ' 
 The Dervish turned him round, and rose 
 On his knees at the sound of the three dread blows : 
 He was alive and a man again, 
 Yet he felt no earth, nor of it thought. 
 But rose without a strain. 
 
 Friends wept aloud for the Dervish Yan, . 
 And a wife she wept for a Christian man, - • 
 A long train of mutes had but lately laid 
 Under the sward in the cool green shade 
 Of a sanctified wall whose stones divide 
 The earth where heretic corses hide. 
 From that set apart for the faithful alone, 
 i^id over him carved his name on a stone ; 
 But the dead man laughed as he woke below, 
 For he rejoiced at wakening so, — ■ 
 ' I am awake, awake and well; 
 
 Am I myself indeed, and where ? — 
 
 Here is no light, here is no air. 
 
 Here is neither heaven nor hell.' 
 The Angel of Death stooping clasped his hand. 
 And silenced him, whispering, * I command 
 The power whose song shall answer thee, — 
 As it hath been, so shall it be.* 
 
 M 
 
o MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. 
 
 Beneath the head 
 
 When the Jew is dead 
 
 Is a clod of quick clay kneaden : 
 
 And as the mourners backward go, 
 
 Three turfs, green turfs, to the grave they throw. 
 
 Saying, ' Thou shalt like these green turfs grow, 
 
 May thy soul be buried in Eden.' 
 
 Thus in the Levites' vault was laid 
 
 A Rabbi, thus were the last rites paid. 
 
 At the same time that the Summoner 
 
 Made the two Gentile corses stir, 
 
 And with a writhe like theirs, his eyes 
 
 The Rabbi opening, tried to rise. 
 
 ' Have the demons power o^er me ? ' he cries, 
 
 Dragging himself with painful toil 
 
 From the mould which is the earth-worm's spoil, 
 
 And trembled to hear the words ' Follow thou too, 
 
 Within the sphere of the melody 
 
 That re-createth those who die ! ' 
 
 And thus have these three mortals passed. 
 Being dead, into the formless vast, 
 Which we in life, expectant, still 
 By creeds and myths and fancies, fill 
 With hopes and fears like life on earth, — 
 Things for the days 'tween death and birth. 
 For which we care not any more 
 Down upon the further shore. 
 
MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. 211 
 
 * By what uncertain sense we're led, 
 Born thus again — the body dead 
 
 Our mother — the grave our nursing bed ! 
 
 * Haunted still with hearth and home. 
 Hammer in hand, sword, pen, and tome, 
 Sun and moon and starry dome. 
 
 ' Mom till evening toil-in- vain, 
 Market loss and market gain, 
 Restless sea and wheaten p^.ain. 
 
 '■ Down the darkness go ^ve still, 
 Go we without choice of will ; 
 From Gentile's scoff and scorner's rail, 
 From worm and asp, from kiss and wail ; 
 From master's whip, Muezzim's cry. 
 Camel and rice, and blank white sky. 
 
 * Carried or driven, through sea, through air, 
 Carried sheer down by cloud or stair, 
 Are we or are we not — whither away ? 
 Phantom's of life's fever-day. 
 Can we not return again. 
 As leav^es come after spring-time's rain ? 
 The trumpet cannot call the dead, 
 Yet I hear it overhead ; 
 A madman's sleep is thick and bnef ; 
 The dawn would give us all relief ! — 
 
MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. 
 
 Ah, 'tis gone, and thou, the dearest ! 
 Thou with moonhke light appearest ; 
 Thou, mine own, beside the hearth, 
 Assiduous with childish mirth — 
 Dreams, only dreams ! the past doth ciy, 
 In the throes of dissolving memory. 
 
 brother spectres who have come 
 Out of yourselves, — oh, can ye tell, 
 Rise we or sink — to heaven or hell? 
 But even now with my own old eyes 
 
 1 saw the ghost of myself arise .; 
 And then forthwith I was beguiled 
 To think myself again a child. 
 But what, alas ! are those below 
 That to and fro 
 
 Pass like men walking fast, and then 
 
 Pass the ver}' same again? 
 
 Alike they are, even every one, 
 
 Not as men beneath the sun ; — 
 
 Now they stalk our heads above, 
 
 Now beneath our feet they move. 
 
 Now they pass through us quite, as though 
 
 Shadows with like shadows blent, 
 
 Shadows from some real things sent, 
 
 We their shadows cannot know ! 
 
 Gone, gone, gone ! a fiery wind 
 
 Severs the vision, and mountain or flood. 
 
 City or temple, or cedar-wood, 
 
MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. 
 
 Or rock-walls with their multitude 
 
 Of caverns void and blind, 
 
 Fragments of this baseless world, 
 
 About us are flashed out and furled ; 
 
 And phantoms without number vast, 
 
 Interlace the insane dream, 
 
 Hurtle together, and never get past : 
 
 And a leprous light, a light and breath, 
 
 Like the phosphor in the eyes of Death, 
 
 Follows each phantom ; down they stream, 
 
 Wingless, from above descending, 
 
 Straight and stiff" ; nor is the hair 
 
 On their rigid shoulders pending 
 
 Stirred by any fitful air. 
 
 Together they rush now, from near and far, 
 
 As if around a central war. 
 
 And now in circles whirl, while we — 
 
 We cleave the whirlpool steadily. 
 
 If any god still hears our wail. 
 
 For an hour again 
 
 Let us be men. 
 
 Or now cease utterly and fail 
 
 To know ourselves, to think and be ! 
 
 ' Hath our prayer been heard ? Ah, no ; 
 Spectres that have never trod 
 Earth with man or heaven wdth God 
 Rise stark and slow ; 
 
 213, 
 
214 MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. 
 
 Rings of gold 
 
 About their corded locks are rolled, 
 
 Dreadful symbols of dead creeds, 
 
 And dripping brands 
 
 Are in their hands ; — 
 
 Naked giants ! how they hold 
 
 By the nostrils monstrous steeds ! 
 
 They meet, they rush together : now 
 
 The furies of battle are over all, 
 
 And some struggle upwards in pain, some fall 
 
 Sheer through the seething gulf below ; — 
 
 Allah el Allah, how are we 
 
 In this collapsing death-strife free ? 
 
 Oh, that we could dissolve at once 
 
 To nothingness ; — advance. 
 
 Ye barbed giants ! smoke and fire 
 
 Lap us round till we expire, — 
 
 Expire, cease utterly and fail 
 
 To retract ourselves, to think and be! 
 
 Thus the dead men from the grave 
 Wailed as they went ; but who can say 
 How to paint the unknown way 
 Within the wondrous door of death ? 
 Or what the mysteries are that pave 
 The path to New Life, when the breath 
 And senses cease to be, as now. 
 The guardians of our souls ? The plough 
 
MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. 
 
 Casts up bones where warriors trod, 
 Belted, plumed, and iron-shod \ 
 Those shreds the plough exhumes, I deem, 
 Little like the warriors seem. 
 
 Two lights, two haloed lights appear, 
 
 Round like the moon at the fall of the year, 
 
 When the sky is mantled o'er 
 
 With a fleece of mist, and of all the store 
 
 Of stars, not one can penetrate 
 
 To the traveller's eye till the night be late. 
 
 Two haloes slowly and steadily 
 
 Advancing like a double day. 
 
 Increasing in beauty more and more ; — 
 
 Behold ! they are the tires of light 
 
 On the heads of gods, and a golden sound, 
 
 Swooning and recreating, wound 
 
 From those two haloes, passed right round 
 
 The dead men's hearts with a painful might. 
 
 Would I could say 
 
 Whose voices or whose harps were they, 
 
 That had such vital force divine, 
 
 Holy Spirit, like to thine ! 
 
 But what was the song 
 
 That bore along 
 
 These weary ghosts with a power so strong ? 
 
 If we could repeat that lay 
 
 In the light of upper day, 
 
2i6 MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. 
 
 It might unravel warp and woof 
 
 Of this prisoned conscious Life 
 
 Tear all sensuous ties aloof; 
 
 Of good and ill unwind the strife : 
 
 Interweave it with amaranth again, 
 
 Die it with nepenthe bloom, 
 
 That we no more knew sin or pain, 
 
 Nor feared the darks beyond the tomb ! 
 
 But what was the song 
 That bore along 
 
 Those dead hearts with a power so strong ? 
 Would I could repeat the lay- 
 In the dull light of this cold day ; 
 Wean the soul from the thirst to know, 
 By wisdom be as gods, that so 
 The slave unmanacle his hand, 
 The ploughshare rest upon the land. 
 
 When the sound of the wires 
 
 Of those holy lyres 
 
 Had the dead men's lives remade, 
 
 Did their shadows remain in the world of shade, 
 
 Their flesh in the earth 
 
 That gave it birth ? 
 
 Then in what were tliey arrayed ? 
 
 But the child just born forgetteth quite 
 
 Its ante-natal garments ; night 
 
MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. 217 
 
 And utter change doth interpose, 
 
 And when this hfe over the body doth close, 
 
 And the freed Soul hears without ears the hymn, 
 
 Sphere-music of God's cherubim, 
 
 And sees the haloed powers below, — 
 
 Utterly changeth it also ; 
 
 And after the new birth again 
 
 Forget the ante-natal gain ? 
 
 We cannot know. 
 
 M- 2 
 
,'rrf/i'jO' 
 
 JUVENILE POEMS. 
 
221 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF PERCY BYSSHE 
 SHELLEY. 
 
 (1831.) 
 
 Where is Alastor gone, — 
 The fairy queen's own latest bom, 
 
 Where is he gone ? 
 Has the far-scenting roe-buck at the time 
 Appointed, shed his antlers ? does the pride 
 Of the wide solitary forests lie 
 Moss-overgrown in slimy lizard's nook ? 
 Has the swift ostrich of the desert lost 
 The long limb of her strength, and laid her down 
 On the hard earth, which erewhile her feet spurned, 
 
 Where mole and burrowing owl, 
 
 And red-eyed weazel, prowl ? 
 
 Must he too die like other men, 
 Who lived not like them ? He who knew no world 
 
 Outside the heart ; — 
 The spirit whose home was the adytum lit 
 By phantasies as by the stars in their 
 Blueness of wondrous height j each thought a world 
 
222 TO THE MEMORY OF SHELLEY. 
 
 As are the stars, pursuant of its end 
 Of being ; speculating, working, strong, 
 
 Having its rayings wrought 
 
 Around its brother thought. 
 
 An earthless garden grew 
 Around him, aromatic laurel boughs 
 
 Waved twining there : 
 Flowers of Arcadian nature strengthened there, 
 Transplanted from the wizard's world of dream, 
 Yea, the old wizard's wand itself did shoot 
 Like the high priest's, and gave strange blossoming, 
 And fruit intoxicating mightily. 
 And a bright rainbow'd shower fell glitteringly 
 From the most holy font of his clear soul, 
 
 Upon this gardened plain 
 
 Where Fancy held her reign. 
 
 A shrine was in the midst 
 Luxuriously bedecked in its own fire, 
 
 As is the sun. 
 And his heart beat, and his brain whirled, when he 
 Turned to it ; and words leaped forth from his tongue 
 As its light glorified him, Memnon-like ; 
 And the words were, as pundit, sanscrit-leamed, 
 Revivifies from times of demi-gods. 
 Drawn from the deepest wells of consciousness, 
 The world received not ; but he proudly passed 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF SHELLEY. 223 
 
 The world, and carol'd to 
 Himself as prophets only do. 
 
 The goddess of that shrine 
 No man hath e'er held commune with, nor seen 
 
 With mortal eye. 
 But thou, wild wingless angel, didst not pause, 
 But entered to the blaze where spirits alone 
 Can worship ; and didst make libations till 
 Thou wast so purified, men knew thee not. 
 Would I could trace thy footsteps up the porch 
 And to the altar there, so that I too 
 
 Would sacrifice in ruth 
 
 To thee who worshipped truth. 
 
 Few mourners have appeared : 
 And meet it is \ for he was ever grieved 
 
 By others' grief : 
 Few staves are lifted for the pilgrimage 
 To follow him ; few of the busy world 
 Can go up to the realms where he did go ; 
 Or breathe the atmosphere he breathed ; or cast 
 The old shell off, and come forth cbansed as he \ 
 
 Few, few have striven 
 
 To make earth heaven. 
 
 Men say that he fell blind 
 By daring to approach this source of Light j 
 That he fell lame 
 
224 TO THE MEMORY OF SHELLEY. 
 
 By travelling far in desperate paths : even so — 
 Yet reverence we not the martyr ? None 
 Are left us like him ; none are left to tune 
 The cythera, as he did tune it o'er 
 The white spring flowers on Adonais' grave : 
 Lone Adonais and Alastor lone ! 
 Their spirits went together ; and their earths 
 Resolved each to the elements they loved, — 
 One to sunshine and storm, 
 One flowers and fruits to form. 
 
 Sage follows sage afar ; 
 Dark lapse of time between, now marked alone 
 
 By their advent. 
 As star by star arises on the night, 
 Up through the shades of time past they appear 
 In lambent haloes burning steadily. 
 Revolving onward, the eternal wheel 
 Circles \ and still a shine from these wan flames, 
 God-kindled, follows on. Another flame, 
 
 Subtle as lightning, 
 
 Is added to the brightening. 
 
 Still poets reappear. 
 And still the glow doth thicken to the dawn. 
 
 Redness of mom 
 Gilds our horizon soon ! Alastor, thou 
 Shalt be our guide into the unknown time ; 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF SHELLEY. 225 
 
 And we will bind about thy cenotaph 
 
 The laurel and the olive, and the rose, 
 
 The poppy and perennial ivy too ; 
 
 Glow-worms shall ghmmer through the dark green 
 leaves, 
 
 And great sphynx-moths fly round it evermore. 
 And when our many chains are burst, 
 We'll say, ' Alastor, thou wast first.* 
 
226 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN KEATS. 
 (1832 ; revised.) 
 
 Thou dark-haired love-child, passed 
 Beyond the censer's odour and its dust, 
 
 Enamoured life, 
 So weak and yet so beautiful thou wert, 
 A reverential wish doth draw me thus 
 To rise to thee with measured words, when now 
 No one regards the poet's quivering string. 
 Since thine was hushed, who brought the myrtle here 
 From perfect Arcadie, whose verse 
 Young earth's freshness could rehearse. 
 
 Would that my tears were such 
 As in the wakening morning, from its leaves 
 
 That myrtle drops ; 
 They might be worthy of thy sodded grave, 
 And sympathetic strengthening afford 
 To me, the mourner, bending over it, 
 Until the modern world is rolled away, 
 And all the splendours of the earlier time 
 Come down upon this leaden life of ours, 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN KEATS. 227 
 
 Through an unfolding sky, 
 Trembling in melody. 
 
 A bier for earth's beloved ! 
 Trees of Dodona's murmuring prophesies, 
 
 Scatter your leaves, 
 Strewn on the wintry bareness of the clay ! 
 Let the sharp blanching eddies of the storm 
 Whirl them around the fossed wall where the dead, 
 The heretic dead, repose beside the tombs 
 Of ancient Romans, whose songs knew no blight 
 Of horrors mediaeval, but were filled 
 With blooms and odours from the golden age : 
 
 Leaves of the cold last year 
 
 Cover his wintry bier. 
 
 Through the stripped pergola 
 The wind wails low, the hard soil blackens round 
 
 The dead flower-stem ; 
 Sunk in wet weeds foul rottenness consumes 
 The pleasant things that were, as it must be 
 When the wheat falls, to be the bread for us ; 
 And what the thresher leaves the night-wind sweeps : 
 After the curfew comes the silent hour: 
 
 Night reigns most dark before 
 
 Mom's breezes evermore. 
 
 No eventide was thine, 
 But like the young athlete from the bath, 
 
228 TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN KEATS, 
 
 For one brief hour, 
 You stood in the arena yet uncrowned, 
 Doubtful, although beyond all venturers strong ; 
 Yes, strong to guide Hyperion's coursers round 
 The love-inscribed zodiac of all time : 
 Thou youth, who in the gardens Athenine, 
 The noblest sage had leant upon with pride, 
 And called thee Musagsetes, and thy lyre 
 
 Wreathed with the bay 
 
 Of the god of day. 
 
 Not thus, not thus, indeed, 
 The over- crowded noisy stage received 
 
 Thy artful song ; 
 But now the numerous voices have stilled down. 
 The stage is filled with actors hailing thee, 
 Hailing thee all too late : the winter's gone, 
 The dreadful tears are dried that wet the couch 
 Of thy farewell ; the flowers, the fruits, have come ; 
 
 The firmament of fame 
 
 Surrounds thee as with flame. 
 
 And why should we lament 
 The bitterness that marred not — nay, made pure 
 
 And free of fear ? 
 We do not think the Beautiful was soiled, 
 The melody made less joyful to his ear ; 
 And all else is gone past for everaiore. 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN KEATS. 229 
 
 Or hangs about him Hke a thin dark veil, 
 Round the great lustrous limbs now deiiied : 
 
 Suffering is a hymn, 
 
 Sung by the seraphim. 
 
 But not for songs like his, — 
 A mortal bound to earth by all the ties 
 
 Of subtlest sense, 
 And art unsatisfied, untamed, and force 
 Beyond that known by fettered schoolmen's brains : 
 Stronger than nimblest faun, behold him dance 
 Before the wine-fed leopards ; hear him shout, 
 lo lacche ! the meridian sun 
 Browns his bare breast, — dead is he, or but gone 
 Into the shade to rest his cymballed hands ? 
 
 Bacchus hath but shed 
 
 Slumber on his dark eyelid. 
 
 He sleeps, and dreams perchance, — 
 Still dreams, of kisses from the crescented 
 
 Queen of the stars ; 
 Or of the dolphin-like round waves that froth 
 About the feet of Aphrodite, still 
 In wonder at herself bom thus so fair ; 
 Or of the dark heart of the forest shade, 
 Where Pan, retired from gods' or mortals' ken, 
 
 Utters his regular snore 
 
 Day and night evermore. 
 
230 TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN KEATS. 
 
 Fragrant, and cool, and calm : 
 Numberless gnats upon the mellowing air 
 
 Of sunset spin. 
 The old boughs reach up to the darkening heaven, 
 The nightingale makes paradise of pain. 
 And fills obscurity with loveliness : 
 Or, yet again — a green hill whence is seen 
 The far strand strewn with shells, and barred with 
 
 waves ; 
 Unearthly brightness breaks the clouds — the- moon ! 
 
 Endymion, sleepest thou? 
 
 Sleep no more now. 
 
 I would some words inum 
 Worthy the poet's name to whom I bow, 
 
 Yet none he needs j 
 Thou, vestal of the night's mid- watch, and thou, 
 The heralded of Hesperus, ye speak 
 Of that sweet name, and shall speak on for aye : 
 For such as love him with the love he gave, 
 
 His cenotaph is raised in Rome, 
 
 But the poet hath no tomb. 
 
Trow hr Put art Ij ^oycO . fi^nijl. 
 
 THE INCANTATION OF HERVOR. 
 (1833.) 
 
 At moonrise, Hervor left her couch 
 Clad and tired and armed, the while 
 She ceased not muttering magic runes. 
 The sail was spread, the strenuous oar 
 Whitened the dark blue waters. 
 
232 THE INCANTATION OF HERVOR. 
 
 Still she muttered the magic runes ; 
 In one night more they gained the strand, 
 And she ran forth to the battle-ground 
 Muttering still the magic nmes. 
 
 * Father Angantyr, wake, awake ! 
 Thine only daughter, Suafa's child, 
 Doth charge thee to wake up again, 
 And give her the gold-hilted sword 
 Forged by the Dwarves for Suafarla ! ' 
 
 Her right fore-finger pointed like a spear 
 
 To the corse-kernel'd mound ; no voice repHed. 
 
 * Ye of the iron shrouds, and shirts of brass. 
 Ye of the mast-like lance and glaive, 
 From beneath the stones I stir ye, 
 
 From beneath the roots of trees ; 
 
 Hervordur, Hiorvardur ! 
 
 Hrani, Angantyr ! hear ! ' 
 She darkened her eyes with her long fair hands. 
 She listened and listened, no answer came. 
 
 ' Are the sons of Angrim wholly dust ? 
 
 Are they who gloried in blood now ashes ? 
 
 Ha, ha ! can none of the strong dead speak ? 
 
 Hervordur, Hiorvardur ! 
 
 Hrani, Angantyr 1 hear ! ' 
 She thrust her arms abroad, with quivering tongue 
 She cursed, she cursed them in their rottenness. 
 
THE INCANTATION OF HERVOR. 23: 
 
 ' Dust, ashes, worms ! so may ye ever be, 
 Dust, ashes, worms ! within your ribs 
 May the vermin lodge for ever ! 
 It shall be so, unless ye hear me. 
 And yield up the charmed sword ! ' 
 Here paused she again, and her eyes were seen 
 Burning out through the dark brown night 
 Slowly a dreadful wailing rose ; 
 A white light oozed from out the mould, 
 She seemed to stand i' the salt sea foam : 
 The turf was rent, and the black earth yawned. 
 
 ANGANTYR. 
 
 O, daughter Hervor, raker among dead bones, 
 
 Speaker unto the sealed-up ears of Death, 
 
 Why call' St thou ? wilt thou rush to hell ? 
 
 Is sense departed and Odin's gift lost, 
 
 That thou art here thus desperately tongued ? 
 
 Nor father, nor brother, nor friend. 
 
 Did cut the turf for me — 
 
 Two men escaped - and one still holds 
 
 Tirsing, the sword thou seekest, 
 
 Tirsing, the incurable wounder. 
 
 HERVOR. 
 
 Tell'st thou a lie ! oh father, so may'st thou 
 For evermore within flame-chains be bound, 
 
 N 
 
234 THE INCANTATION OF HERVOR. 
 
 If thou deniest me inheritance, 
 If Tirsing be not given me ! 
 
 ANGANTYR. 
 
 And if so, Hervor, hear ! 
 
 The dead can prophesy, thy race 
 
 One by one by this sword shall bleed ! 
 
 At one of thy sons, O Hervor ! 
 
 Men shall point and cry, ' Lo there ! 
 
 The mother-murderer ! ' if this sword shakes 
 
 Against his thigh, O Hervor ! 
 
 HERVOR. 
 
 Angantyr ! never may'st thou frighten me, 
 I care not what the dead man's voice can tell. 
 Angantyr, spells are mine, thou shalt not rest 
 Until that sword be mine also : 
 I thought thee brave, but I have found thy hall. 
 And thou dost quail : it is not good to rust 
 The sword of heroes ; — give it forth ! 
 
 ANGANTYR. 
 
 Stalwart in courage, youngling maid. 
 Who speakest the runes at midnight, 
 Powerful in herbs ; who boldest the spear 
 Rune-graven, and standest in helmet and shoe, 
 Before the blackness and brightness of graves. 
 The brand thou seekest beneath me lies, 
 Wrapt in fire thou darest not touch. 
 
THE INCANTATION OF HERVOR. 235 
 
 HERVOR. 
 
 Lo ! how I shall wrench it from thee ! 
 I shall hold its edge unhurt \ 
 The white fire of tombs cannot bum me, 
 I dread not the white light of death. 
 
 ANGANTYR. 
 
 Horrible suffering ! 
 
 Hold thine arm 
 
 Away from me : 
 
 Perish not yet, 
 
 Cover thine eyes 
 
 If thou canst not endure it 
 
 HERVOR. 
 
 Nothing I see 
 
 But what I before knew. 
 
 ANGANTYR. 
 
 What seest thou now ? 
 
 HERVOR. 
 
 Father ! strange things ! 
 
 ANGANTYR. 
 
 Now I ask thee again. 
 
 HERVOR. 
 
 I see a hand, but it is not that 
 
 Of mortal living or dead, and a sword 
 
236 THE INCANTATION OF HERVOR. 
 
 Long and heavy and gold-chased, b urning— 
 Tirsing is mine ! thou hast done well ! 
 Greater triumph now is mine 
 Than if all Norway bowed to me. 
 
 ANGANTYR. 
 
 Woman, thou dost not understand, 
 
 Rash speech is thine, that sword's thy bane, 
 
 Even as 'twas king Hialmar's bane 
 
 When in my hand it clove him down : 
 
 Hold it thou and hoard it well. 
 
 But touch not its two charmed edges. 
 
 Farewell, daughter, all my lands, 
 
 Men and ships, arms, gold, and gods. 
 
 With this devouring sword are thine. 
 
 HERVOR. 
 
 Well I shall hold it, I shall lift it. 
 Till all eyes have seen and feared it. 
 And my unborn sons shall wield it ! 
 I return now to my bold men, 
 Where the waves vex the rocking helm : 
 No wish is mine to lie beside ye 
 In the hall that burns with death ; 
 No joy is mine to wait morn here 
 Where the adder is I'at and strong. 
 Or keep thy tomb from closing now. 
 Sleep then, sires of warriors, sleep ! 
 
237 
 
 FOUR ACTS OF SAINT CUTHBERT. 
 
 FIRST. 
 
 SAINT CUTHBERTS TRIAL OF FAITH. 
 
 A FAIR-FACED man our Cuthbert was, 
 
 The fairest ever seen, 
 His hair was fair and his eyebrow dark. 
 
 And bonny blue his eyen. 
 
 His kin were lewd and he was meek, 
 
 So he left them in God's fear, 
 And at mom he sat at his shealing's yett ; 
 
 The sun shone warm and clear. 
 
 The sun was high, it was so still 
 
 On hill and stream and wood, 
 That forthwith he broke into songs 
 
 Of praise to God so good. 
 
 The Saints above the firmament 
 
 Said one to another then : 
 * Hear ye that song from a land so dark 
 
 Of wicked and violent men ? ' 
 
238 FOUR ACTS OF SAINT CUTHBERT, 
 
 But Christ Himself above the Saints 
 Heard what was said and sung ; 
 
 * The heart of man is dark/ quoth He, 
 * This Cuthbert is but young.' 
 
 Therewith a cloud passed o'er the sun 
 And a shadow o'er Cuthbert's face ; 
 
 At once his limbs waxed lax and shrank, 
 And blisters rose apace. 
 
 The gold hair of his head grew gray, 
 
 His beard grew gray also, 
 He laid his breviary aside, 
 
 For his hand shook to and fro. 
 
 The husbond crossed the stubble-field 
 
 Bringing his daily bread. 
 But when that leprous face he saw. 
 
 The evil man was glad. 
 
 * Ha, Cuthbert, but yestreen a boy. 
 So old how canst thou be — 
 
 Now know I that thou art no Saint, 
 But God doth punish thee.' 
 
 The husbond throws his cakes of rye 
 
 Upon the bench and goes, 
 But as he turned the meekest words 
 
 Of thanks from Cuthbert rose. 
 
FOUR ACTS OF SAINT CUTHBERT. 239 
 
 The maiden from the hill came next 
 With a bunch of flowers so kind ; 
 
 Her bowl of milk each second night 
 Well knew he where to find. 
 
 A mountain maid, she was abashed 
 
 A clerk to look upon, 
 And she would wait at eve till he 
 
 Into his cell was gone, 
 Then steal within the yett, and lay 
 
 The can upon a stone. 
 
 That day she sat upon the knoll, 
 And saw him kneeling there ; 
 
 She deemed it could not Cuthbert be, 
 So gray was his browTi hair. 
 
 Then down with silent feet she came 
 
 And hid behind the trees. 
 That by his shealing's end grew straight, 
 
 The howf of summer bees. 
 
 She looked from out this covert good. 
 She saw the change so grim ; 
 
 But more than ever beautiful 
 She thought his evening hymn. 
 
240 FOUR ACTS OF SAINT CUTHBERT 
 
 The tears then from her sweet eyes fell, 
 
 To think of his beautie, 
 More swiftly gone than sorrel flowers, 
 
 More changed than autumn tree. 
 
 Now Cuthbert as he rose from prayer, 
 
 He saw the shaking leaves, 
 And heard the sobs, then asked he, 
 
 ' Who is it thus that grieves — 
 Is it the maiden from the hill 
 
 The alms of milk that leaves ? ' 
 
 AVith that he passed the shealing's end, 
 
 Among the trees and bent, 
 But the maiden rose right hastily. 
 
 And away in fear she went. 
 
 The good man smiled to see her run, 
 
 Nor murmured he at all, 
 But read within the holy book 
 
 Until the night 'gan fall ; 
 Then cheerfully for sleep turned round, 
 
 And shut his wicket small. 
 
 Thereafter hunger in him rose, 
 But none brought cakes of rye, 
 
 And sore thirst made him very faint, 
 But no herd-maid came nigh : 
 
FOUR ACTS OF SAINT CUTHBERT. 241 
 
 Upon his knees he stumbled down 
 That praying he might die. 
 
 ' As is his prayer shall be his meed,' 
 
 Said Christ upon his throne ; 
 When lo, he asked not for strength 
 
 And beauty once his own. 
 
 He ask^d not the bread and milk 
 
 The neighbours wont to give, 
 But he gave thanks to God who had 
 
 Measured his time to live. 
 
 The brown cloud passed from off the sun 
 Now hidden five days and more. 
 
 And from his face — he rose therefrom 
 More beautiful than before ! 
 
242 
 
 FOUR ACTS OF SAINT CUTHBERT. 
 
 SECOND. 
 
 SAINT CUTHBERTS PENANCE. 
 
 This bield of Melrose wide and tall, 
 
 Whereof we four are freres, 
 Was at the time established first 
 
 When Cuthbert grew in years. 
 
 And so he joined the banded few 
 Who left their cares and strife, 
 
 With vows eschewing shows and gear, 
 To live a cloistered life. 
 
 I ween he was more humble than 
 
 The lowliest brother there, 
 Scarce would he dare to look up to 
 
 The great gilt rood at prayer 
 
 Scarce would he take his turn to read 
 
 Aloud at the midday meal, 
 Although he was so learned, — 
 
 He would the same conceal. 
 
FOUR ACTS OF SAINT CUTHBERT. 243 
 
 Scarce would he speak with fewest words 
 
 Of Jesu's love and dole, 
 But ever and anon the tears 
 
 Over his eyelids stole. 
 
 The man whom Jesu died to bless 
 He sometimes looked like too, 
 
 But then his gladness suddenly 
 To woful sadness grew. 
 
 Oft would he scan from day to day 
 Saint Chrysostom's great book, 
 
 And all this watching-time no food 
 Within his lips he took. 
 
 Oft by the night, the winter night. 
 When all are fain to cower. 
 
 And other monks their rosaries laid 
 Aside till matin hour. 
 
 He went forth on the crispbd frost 
 Right through the snow or shower. 
 
 Then gathered some with whisperings 
 And twinklings of the eye. 
 
 Who went about from cell to cell 
 Saint Cuthbert to decry. 
 
244 FOUR ACTS OF SAINT CUTHBERT. 
 
 But still their spite he noted not, 
 
 So byeward and so meek, 
 And when that night was deepest dark 
 
 The door was heard to creak. 
 
 Then from his pallet suddenly 
 
 A cunning frere arose ; 
 * I'll see,' quoth he, ' where in the mirk 
 
 Our stalwart Cuthbert goes.' 
 
 So saying from his couch he slid 
 
 And softly followed him, 
 Across the wood into the haugh, 
 
 Led by the snow-marks dim. 
 
 Late at sunset the sleet had blown 
 
 Into the eye of day ; 
 Their slow steps verily were cold, 
 
 Imprinted in the clay. 
 
 He followed to the river's edge ; 
 
 But soon repented he 
 That ever he did on such a chace 
 
 With the other freres agree. 
 
 For fear came like an icicle 
 
 Into his curdled brain, 
 And sure he felt the cold more keen 
 
 Than earthly frost or rain. 
 
FOUR ACTS OF SAINT CUTHBERT. 245 
 
 But from the stars shot arrowy sparks 
 
 As if alone to him ; 
 Till he waxed more wrothful than afraid, 
 
 All woebegone but grim. 
 
 Quoth he, ' The youth must have some nook 
 
 Wherein to bait him soon ; 
 ril find him out although I die 
 
 I' the sedges in a swoon.' 
 
 Upon the sand he set his foot, 
 
 He sank up to his thigh, 
 And further in, hands raised in prayer, 
 
 He saw sweet Cuthbert lie. 
 
 And a voice in his ear 
 
 Said clear and low, 
 ' Until my servant press his bier 
 What thou hast seen let no man hear ; 
 
 Thy steps are loosened, go ! ' 
 
246 
 
 FOUR ACTS OF SAINT CUTHBERT. 
 
 THIRD. 
 
 SAINT CUTHBERTS HERMITAGE. 
 
 The Saint had grown in years, as I 
 Have now by our Father's grace — 
 
 When he left the cloister for the cell, 
 Alone for a lonelier place. 
 
 He travelled without sack or scrip 
 
 As the sun doth day by day, 
 Till the patient staff he leant upon 
 
 Was chafed half away. 
 
 Nor when he came into a town 
 
 Did he go near the lord, 
 But with the humblest did he house. 
 
 And sat at the scantest board. 
 
 At length upon Norhumber-land, 
 
 Beside the hungering sea, 
 He stood as the landward breezes brought 
 
 The fisherman home with glee. 
 
FOUR ACTS OF SAINT CUTHBERT. 247 
 
 ' Why stand ye here/ the fisher said, 
 
 ' Your eye on the waters gray ? ' 
 'I see,' quoth he, 'an island small. 
 
 Afar, like peace, away.' 
 
 ' An isle of rocks and sand it Ir, 
 
 And no fresh spring is there. 
 And in its blackened clefts and holes 
 
 Devils and changelings fare.' 
 
 ' A hermit's benison be thine, — 
 
 Its name I now would learn ; ' 
 ' Father, a poor man's thanks are mine. 
 
 The island's name is Feme.' 
 
 Next day upon Feme's beach he stept 
 
 From the good fisher's bark ; 
 His welcome such as Noah's was 
 
 When he issued from the ark. 
 
 The boards of a tangled wreck and boughs 
 
 There stranded by the tide, 
 Took he for balks to bigg a bower 
 
 Wherein he might abide. 
 
 Next, that the waters might not swell 
 
 Upon him in the night, 
 He made a wall with stones, four men 
 
 Can't shift with all their might. 
 
248 FOUR ACTS OF SAINT CUTHBERT. 
 
 That done, amidst his earthen floor, 
 
 Beside his pan and wood, 
 He caused a crystal spring to rise 
 
 By signing of the rood. 
 
 . With that he worken in the earth 
 And sowed his onions there ; 
 And when the crows and sea-mews came, 
 They miderstood his care ; 
 
 And lifting up their beaks unfed, 
 
 Flew silently away ; 
 Also the mermaids, devils and wraiths, 
 
 They came no more that way. 
 
 So Christ doth aid his faithful Saints 
 
 To do such wondrous things. 
 Their humbleness surpassing far 
 
 The power and force of kings. 
 
 Also it is more beautiful 
 
 Than Arthur's painted arms. 
 Or belle Isonde's long locks of love. 
 
 Or Queen Guenever's charms. 
 
 And happy it is beyond the song 
 
 Of minstrelle's gemmed keys ; 
 Whom knights with guerdons in their hands 
 
 Can purchase as they please. 
 
FOUR ACTS OF SAINT CUTHBERT. 249 
 
 Roundel and flourish and gleeman's chime ! 
 Hark ! in the ha' we hear them now, 
 The wine is flowing rife I trow, 
 This is an Easter gay ! 
 Saint Cuthbert ! pray ye for us all 
 Before we pass away. 
 
 King Egfrid from Norhumber-land, 
 
 And Saint Theodore also, 
 With a silver crosier o'er the waves 
 
 To Cuthbert's island go. 
 
 True tears then from his old eyes came, 
 
 (Blest ground whereon they fell !) 
 For a gyve of love did hold his heart 
 
 To his God-fashioned cell. 
 
 ' I go,' said he, ' at God's good heste 
 
 Unto high places now, 
 Would that I might be spared, but all 
 
 At God's good heste should bow.' 
 With that he humbly bended down. 
 And so received the mitre-crown. 
 
250 
 
 FOUR ACTS OF SAINT CUTHBERT. 
 
 FOURTH. 
 
 SAINT CUTHBERT S DEATH. 
 
 My words are few and like the days 
 
 That o'er this brow may flit 
 Ere you my brethren well-beloved 
 
 See my mass-tapers lit. 
 
 Saint Cuthbert knew before they came, 
 When death-pains he should dree, 
 
 And for the last time took the cup 
 Kneeling on naked knee. 
 
 Then turned he on the altar-steps 
 
 Amidst the altar's light, 
 And laid aside his ring and staff. 
 
 And cope so richly dight. 
 
 Lastly he doffed his mitre there, 
 
 And every one 'gan weep : 
 Quickly he blessed them : then went forth 
 
 As a child that goes to sleep. 
 
FOUR ACTS OF SAINT CUTHBERT. 251 
 
 * Now follow me not,' said he, ' no one 
 
 Must follow me I trow, 
 Save a brother who can hold the oar, 
 
 I need none other now.' 
 
 They kissed his garments' hem and feet, 
 They kissed them o'er and o'er, 
 
 And many times they stayed him quite 
 That they might kiss them more. 
 
 But he had caused them all to go 
 Before he reached the shore. 
 
 And now he seats him in the boat 
 With a rower by his side, — 
 
 Along the greenery of the sea 
 And foam-blossom they glide. 
 
 Soon they come to the long black swell 
 That heaves their bark about : 
 
 Hark, on the naked craigs of Feme, 
 The breakers, how they shout ! 
 
 Nearer they come, the boatman now 
 Holds on to the landing-stone, 
 
 Saint Cuthbert riseth from his seat 
 And totters out alone, 
 o 2 
 
252 FOUR ACTS OF SAINT CUTHBERT. 
 
 * Father,' said the boatman, ' now 
 
 The sun dips in the sea, — 
 Must I return alone, and when 
 
 Shall I come back for thee ? ' 
 
 The west was red, the cold wind blew, 
 The clouds were gathering grim, 
 
 Twilight was settling into night. 
 When Cuthbert answered him : 
 
 ' Come when it seemeth good to thee, 
 
 Or come no more at all, 
 But if thou com'st uncowl thy head. 
 
 And bring with thee a pall' 
 
 No more the rower asked, but watched 
 
 The feeble feet go on, 
 When lo, the door of his ancient hut 
 
 Was opened gently from within. 
 And an odorous light 
 Streamed out on the night ; 
 
 He entered, and it closed him in ; 
 
 The Saint to heaven was gone. 
 
253 
 
 THE DANCE OF DEATH. 
 
 Clerk Hubert lay asleep : 
 Not in deep sleep, but in the feverish sense 
 
 Midway between 
 The active living daylight and the world 
 Of dusk-eyed dreamland, when the memory 
 Goes dancing with the fancy light of heel, 
 Singing the while a fitful chant, of things 
 That may have happened and been long forgot, 
 Or those whose interest is of yesterday, 
 
 With other things that we 
 
 Mortals can never see. 
 
 Clerk Hubert lay asleep : 
 Not in deep sleep, but in the uncouth life 
 
 Wherein whate'er. 
 Waking, we have dwelt most upon, comes back 
 In a new garb and startles us awake. 
 Or keeps us bound upon the night-mare's back 
 Until its tale is told and all its train 
 Of maskers have performed their antic feats. 
 Presto ! they change ; behold 
 The maskers turned to gold. 
 
254 THE DANCE OF DEATH. 
 
 Gold, gold, the much desired, — 
 And then, God wot, if any one did mark 
 
 The sleepers face, 
 They would descry a broad smile flickering there ; 
 For truly pleased, yea, blessed he is to gain 
 What he had sought so long ; he calls his bonds 
 All in, but when he seeks the heaps to pay. 
 The gnomes have buried them ! Those sinewy gnomes, 
 Beardless and yellow, and his usurers, 
 
 Threadbare and lank and grim, 
 Treble and bass, strike up their hymn. 
 
 At other times right sad 
 And full of lamentations are these dreams : 
 
 When the lone heart 
 Is mourner, and before we rest ourselves 
 As cold night comes, we cast the black weeds off, 
 And they whose brow was veiled, who have gone hence, 
 Hold us in talk amidst the loneliness 
 And darkness : lighting up our lives again 
 With some familiar action, as of old. 
 
 And the tear doth dry 
 
 In the slumberer's eye. 
 
 By other beds, moth winged 
 And very gentle, are those sylphs that flit 
 
 'Tween night and morn ; 
 A subtle love-drink do they bring with them ; 
 
THE DANCE OF DEATH. 255 
 
 And the deluded sleeper throws his arms 
 Into the vacant air and turns again, 
 Dreaming a hundred love joys in one dream. 
 'Tis said these baseless fancies can assume 
 The forms of all things but the sun and moon, 
 And stars that give us light 
 From other spheres more bright. 
 
 Clerk Hubert lay quite still ; 
 And I would now relate the dream he had, 
 
 If dream it was. 
 A set of Emblems old he had that day 
 Been conning, and Hans Holbein's Dance of Death ; 
 And as the eyeHd closed upon the sense, 
 These pictures came again, waxed into life. 
 And fleetly through the windings of his brain 
 The morthead apparition junketted, 
 
 And now and then he showed 
 
 His scythe so long and broad. 
 
 And made a staff of it 
 For leaping to and fro ; then would he stop 
 
 A-Hstening like ; 
 When, if he heard the sound of winsome mirth. 
 Or children's untired laugh at evensong 
 Or age's groan, — which mattered not, — he sprang 
 Alert, and silenced it for ever. Swart 
 And ugly and albeit wise seemed he. 
 
?56 THE DANCE OF DEATH. 
 
 He neither gibber'd nor did make a moan, 
 No sound at all he made whate'er he did, 
 
 Hither and there. 
 
 And everywhere. 
 
 And now in the dark night 
 The minster bell began to jowl eleven, — 
 
 The Christian bell, 
 With its deep sound o'er slumbering roofs ; then up 
 Death mounted, in the mid-air o'er the spire 
 The new day was just kissing with the old. 
 But scarcely had the clock told half its tale, 
 In at the carven window of the spire 
 He went, where was the bellman pulling stout, 
 
 By the rope that twisted 
 
 The bell as he listed. 
 
 Then Death put forth his hand, 
 And at the same time that the man did pull 
 
 He smote the bell, 
 That split like earthen cup from rim to ring ; — 
 A labourer heard it as he counting lay, 
 And counting only six, he thought 'twas morn, 
 And groped about to find the tinder-flint. 
 Another heard it, a young student, still 
 Sitting as he had sat since yesterday, 
 
 Scanning and poring. 
 
 Scribing and scoring. 
 
THE DANCE OF DEATH, 257 
 
 So with a wearied sigh 
 He laid his cheek upon his hand a while, 
 
 Some strength to gain, 
 To recommence his task and finish it \ 
 But Death sucked up the oil that stored his lamp, 
 And, with a moment's dance, the barbed flame 
 Went up, and he was in the dark. Away- 
 Sped Death above the city in a swirl 
 Of wind, and every chimney rocked, and some 
 
 Fell down and battered 
 
 The street, ruin-scattered. 
 
 Out of sight speeds he on high. 
 And the clouds burst open, the rain comes down 
 
 As the winds arise 
 Rattling the hinges of windows and doors ; 
 He is here, is there, is everywhere : 
 And as he passes the frog turns up 
 Its white belly, and the strong-limbed trees 
 Bend to the shivering earth, and pour 
 Their yellowing leaves like the dust of years, 
 
 And the wavering bat 
 
 On the earth falls flat. 
 
 The everlasting hills 
 Throw down their rocks at his approach ; 
 
 The eagle old 
 Soars till the lightning sears her wing, 
 
258 THE DANCE OF DEATH. 
 
 And falls where the blind bat fell before ; 
 He touches the bridge as he onward speeds, 
 The keystone drops and the great arch falls, 
 Damming the black triumphant stream, 
 
 As the foam boils up 
 
 Like a poison cup. 
 
 In the cottager's thatch 
 He boreth a hole for the wolfish wind 
 
 To enter by. 
 From her storm-strewn nest the small bird flies, 
 The cottager doth the same, you'll hear 
 His cry, and you'll hear the thunder growl, 
 And the rush of the stream, and the forest's roar, 
 The wheezing catarrh from the chimney-nook 
 Of the palsy- shaken, and childhood's whine, — 
 
 And each one's breath 
 
 Is sucked by Death. 
 
 Clerk Hubert sweated cold. 
 As the tempest still more revelled and shook 
 
 His casement loose ; 
 And now it seemed it was the ending hour 
 Of the old year, and that men kept awake, — 
 He heard their songs at intervals he thought, — 
 Waiting upon the bell to toll the twelve, 
 That they might with their hot drink wish good luck 
 Of the New Year, as is the custom old ; 
 
THE DANCE OF DEATH. 259 
 
 Again his casement shook, it shattered, and 
 Death stretched in 
 His hand and his chin. 
 
 Clerk Hubert started up, — 
 Opening his eyes in wonder he beheld 
 
 The Ancient One. 
 Men see in sleep, — but whether he still slept, 
 Or whether 'twas a trance, a charm, that wrought 
 At that strange instant of eternal time, 
 When earth and sun combine to start afresh. 
 And we must add a cypher to our date — 
 The blood and brain this epoch shares perchance- 
 Or whether 'twas a restlessness of heart, 
 I know not, but he started and stood up \ 
 
 For who can answer * Nay,' 
 
 When Death sayeth * Yea.' 
 
 * Come out, come out with me. 
 And I will show thee one night's government 
 
 Of my vast realm : 
 Sceptre and sword and throne I have none, these 
 I give unto my helpmates : but come thou, 
 And heaven and hell will be revealed to thee 
 And all the opening pageants of the grave. 
 
 Come thou with me ; 
 
 I touch thine eyes, they see. 
 
26o THE DANCE OF DEATH, 
 
 ' I am the one whose thought 
 Is as the deed ; no power before me went, 
 
 And none shall come 
 Behind me ; I am strengthened with the years 
 A nether Omega am I : a chain 
 I bound round all things lasts for evermore : 
 Under my touch, Man vanishes as doth 
 The worm he germinates, the moth that comes 
 From the maggot, the invisible living thing 
 That stirs upon the moth, — I am inborn 
 
 With all lives, and 
 
 With all lives I expand. 
 
 * But fear me not, I am 
 The hoary dust, the shut ear, the profound, 
 
 The heart at rest, 
 The tongueless negative of nature's lies, — 
 
 \Fear me not, for I am the blood that flows 
 Within thee ; I am change ; it is even I 
 Creates a joy and triumph when thou feel'st 
 New powers within thee ; I. alone can make 
 The old give place 
 To thy onward race. 
 
 ' All men are born to me ; 
 I am the father, mother, — yet ye hate 
 
 Me foolishly : 
 An easy spirit and a free lives on, 
 
THE DANCE OF DEATH. 261 
 
 But he who fears the ice doth stumble ; walk 
 
 Peacefully, confidently ; I'm thy friend, 
 
 To walk with thee in peace : but grudge and weep 
 
 And carp, I'll be a cold chain round thy neck 
 
 Into the grave, each day a link drawn in, 
 
 Until thy face shall be upon the turf, 
 
 And the hair from thy crown 
 
 Be blown like thistle-down.' 
 
 The speaker without breath 
 Here ceased, and Clerk Hubert winced and groaned, 
 
 Withouten power 
 To speak the horrors that within him stirred, — 
 A desperate case was his indeed, till Death 
 Grew tired of waiting, and took hold of him, 
 Or nearly did — in vain again he tried 
 To shout, now mouth to mouth with that dread lord, 
 
 Who stood by the bed, 
 
 Close to his head. 
 
 Such trembling seized his limbs 
 As shook the stented couch ; whereat the dame 
 
 Who by him lay. 
 The wedded mistress of this learned Clerk, 
 Woke up in genile fear for her good lord, 
 And roused him up and made him tell his dream. 
 Signing the cross on her brow and his own. 
 
262 THE DANCE OF DEATH. 
 
 For he averr'd Death next would come to her, 
 And that her Hfe 
 Would end the strife. 
 
 But this she would not hear, 
 But rather deemed his love alone had brought 
 
 The phantom there. 
 He answered, ' Nay, that Death was by them still, 
 And that her passing-bell was in his ear, 
 Nor would a few months pass till every man 
 Would hear it.' Then she soothed him with sweet 
 words, 
 
 Again in a short while 
 Once more sleep held them in its coil. 
 
 But the morning arose 
 
 On a long sheeted corse. 
 And the stable-boy combing 
 
 A coal-black horse : 
 The corse was Clerk Hubert's ; 
 
 The black horse ere long 
 Drew the bier to the church-vault 
 
 With prayer and song. 
 
263 
 
 A FABLE. 
 (1832.) 
 
 Two striplings in the ancient time 
 Between themselves agreed to climb 
 The Holy Mount; perchance they'd see 
 Something of life's great mystery, 
 Through the smoke or through the fires 
 That hill's Tartarean throat respires. 
 Forthwith they fixed with leathern thong 
 Their brazen sandals high and strong, 
 And bent their knees to the ascent 
 A league or two, when overspent 
 And breathless, one of them cried out, 
 ' Comrade, hold ! I'm not so stout 
 As thus to urge for long ; I'll call 
 The sun to stay awhile his fall, 
 And give us time to rest us here ! ' 
 So with a self-complacent peer 
 Adown the slope, he stretched himself 
 Like one who would give all his pelf 
 For a snug retreat and a full wine-cup, 
 
264 ^ FABLE. 
 
 And would say to himself, I shall drink it up, 
 
 I deserve it all, I have done enough, 
 
 Labour without a fee's all stuff! 
 
 The other adventurer looked up still. 
 
 Scanning and measuring all the hill ; 
 
 Lost he seem'd in expectation. 
 
 Living on hope's immaterial ration ; 
 
 But now, while nursing his left foot 
 
 As if it were sick, cried the first, ' Let's put 
 
 A great stone here to mark the spot 
 
 Before we start again ; why not ? ' 
 
 His comrade half indignant rose 
 
 And dipt a snail by its shrinking nose 
 
 Between his finger and his thumb. 
 
 And with a grand flourish derisive and dumb. 
 
 Placed it for the monument. 
 
 Then set himself to the ascent. 
 
 So now again for an hour or so 
 
 Abreast like loving friends they go ; 
 
 Wading scoria, vaulting creeks 
 
 Where the sluggish lava reeks, 
 
 When suddenly he who before had stopt, 
 
 In a fainting fit of laughter dropt. 
 
 * Ha ! my comrade bold,' quoth he, 
 
 ' I have been thinking, ha, ha, he ! 
 
 I have been thinking, that a cat, 
 
 Or a squirrel, a weasel, or even a rat, 
 
 Could climb this hill much better than we ! 
 
A FABLE. 265 
 
 What fools we are one drop of sweat 
 To lose in such a monstrous fret, 
 Making a toil of a pleasure. No ! 
 Let's lie down here an hour or so, 
 Until the sun gets round the hill.' 
 ' Nay ! ' cries his companion, ' if you will 
 Rest here, you shall rest alone, not I, 
 And long enough before you spy 
 The top, I'm there.' With that he left 
 The weak one seeking a shady cleft. 
 
 Onward sped he through the glare, 
 With naked breast and loosened hair ; 
 Onward still he won his way 
 And touched the sky ere close of day. 
 
 Next morn a rabble with horn-books, beads 
 Bells, drums, masks, and other small needs 
 For mumming and make-believe, descried 
 The laggard slumbering on his side. 
 He was not half-way up the hill. 
 And yet a great way above them still ; 
 Something they wanted to gabble about. 
 And there was he ! so they raised a shout, 
 Wonderful ! — a mere boy ! oh, 
 Such love of science and such a flow 
 Of perseverance, courage, all 
 Supposable virtues great and small ! 
 p 
 
266 A FABLE. 
 
 Doubtless he hath toiled all night 
 
 Without either supper or lantern-light, 
 
 And now reUirns in time to greet 
 
 Our wise-heads with the hill's last feat. 
 
 IMighty traveller ! They shout, 
 
 Till he starts and wakes and looks about, 
 
 Rubbing his eyes and wondering why 
 
 They stare at him so, stare and cry, 
 
 Mighty traveller ! But soon 
 
 He saw it was indeed full moon, 
 
 Full tide I rather ought to say 
 
 For him and his affairs that day. 
 
 — 'Tis true he had been outstripped far, 
 
 Rit why should that b€ the smallest bar ; 
 
 His comrade, the true conqueror, he 
 
 Is just too high for them to see, — 
 
 Down steps Sir Magnanimity 
 
 With air coquettish, pleased and shy. 
 
 The mummers raise him shoulder high, 
 
 And with their awkward backs round bent, 
 
 The youth of genius srjiiles content. 
 
 On to the temple where all stuff 
 
 Useless elsewhere shares the puff 
 
 Of incense now they carry him. 
 
 With damnable clatter and chant of hymn ; 
 
 Cobbler, patcher, quidnunc, drone, 
 
 ' Idea-less girl,' and long-tongued crone, 
 
 Running together, a quack never lacks 
 
A FABLE. 267 
 
 Bolstering from bolstered quacks, 
 
 ' Claw me — claw thee,' suits both the backs! 
 
 But it is, good sooth, a stint of labour 
 
 To dance and leap, with pipe and tabor 
 
 Stunning the wide-mouthed beholders, 
 
 With a false god on one's shoulders ; 
 
 So they seat him on the shrine 
 
 And aver he looks divine, 
 
 Although at first he feels but queer, 
 
 And now and then begins to fear 
 
 His honours may be overdone, 
 
 Even if he be Apollo's son; 
 
 When lo, like Moses from Sinai, 
 
 The other traveller stands close by \ 
 
 He had seen the moon's eclipse 
 
 Through the fire from Etna's lips. 
 
 With Orion had he spoken. 
 
 His fast with honey-dew had broken. 
 
 Seen the nether world unveiled, 
 
 Nor had fainted nor had quailed : 
 
 And here he stands amidst the throng, 
 
 On his tongue a wise sweet song. 
 
 In his hand a laurel fair. 
 
 An opal rainbow round his hair. 
 
 Truth reigning from his great mild eye. 
 
 And in his heart humility. 
 
 Cease their din the rabble-rout, 
 
 And mutter and whisper all about. 
 
268 A FABLE. 
 
 ' What's his name, and whence comes he ? 
 
 What may here his business be ? 
 
 Do you understand his speech ? 
 
 He seems at once to sing and preach ! ' 
 
 The cobblers, patchers, quidnuncs, drones, 
 
 ' Idea-less girls ' and long-tongued crones, 
 
 Nod and wink and say, ' So, so, 
 
 We've chosen our Genius, and want no mo', 
 
 One like ourselves we've chosen, one 
 
 Who has not with such haste begun. 
 
 One who can sing and who can preach, 
 
 Who can whistle as well as teach. 
 
 But one who is not such a dunce 
 
 As to addle our heads by them all at once i ' 
 
 With that they drive him from the place, 
 
 They raise their hands against his face. 
 
 They will not suffer his eyes' sharp light, 
 
 They mock him and drive him into night. 
 
 O saddest sight of all, they steal 
 
 The laurel when his senses reel, 
 
 And give it to their favourite ! 
 
 But whether the history endeth here. 
 Doth not certainly appear : 
 Time bears a wallet at his back, 
 And very willingly 'gives the sack' 
 
A FABLE. 
 
 269 
 
 To much that glitters proud and fine ; 
 While the shoots that nature loves ne'er tine, 
 But grow and grow, and the birds of the air 
 Find nourishment and harbour there. 
 
271 
 
 DEDICATIO POSTICA. 
 
 Now many years ago in life's midday, 
 I laid the pen aside and rested still, 
 Like one barefooted on a shingly hill : 
 
 Three poets then came past, each young as May, 
 
 Year after year, upon their upward way, 
 
 And each one reached his hand out as he passed, 
 And over me his friendship's mantle cast, 
 
 And went on singing, everyone his lay. 
 
 Which was the earliest? methinks 'twas he 
 
 Who from the Southern laurels fresh leaves brought, 
 Then he who from the North learned Scaldic 
 power. 
 And last the youngest, with the rainbow wTought 
 About his head ; a symbol and a dower. — 
 
 But I can't choose between these brethren three. 
 
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