?2^^^^; 
 
 ^^/^'^7^Pi^/ffi^^>fy/x>yxK'/'/yy/^
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 B. H. BLACKWELL,
 
 ERRATUAI. 
 Page 149, line i : for heart read art.
 
 B. H. BLACKWELL, 
 BOOKSELLER,
 
 I O N I C A. 
 
 GEORGE ALLEN 
 8, BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR, LONDON 
 
 AND 
 
 S U N N Y S I D E , O R P I N (". T O N 
 1891
 
 [All n'g/i/s reserved.]
 
 ?R 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Desideeato ...... 1 
 
 After Reading "Ajax" .... 3 
 
 MiMXERMUs IN Church ..... 5 
 
 Heraclitus ...... 7 
 
 lOLE .....•• 8 
 
 Stesichobus ...... 10 
 
 The Daughter of Cleomenes . . .12 
 
 Caius Gracchus ..... 15 
 
 Asterope ....... 18 
 
 A Dirge ...... 21 
 
 An Invocation . . . . . .23 
 
 academus ...... 26 
 
 Prospero ....... 29 
 
 Amaturus ...... 31 
 
 Mortem, qvje violat suavia, pellit amor . 34 
 
 Two Fragments of Childhood ... 37 
 
 War Music 39 
 
 f^f;5^Q^j
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 NUBENTI . . . . . 41 
 
 Words for a Portuguese Air . . .48 
 
 Adrienne and Maurice .... 45 
 
 The Hallowing of the Fleet . .47 
 
 The Cairn and the Church ... 49 
 
 A Queen's Visit . . . . .51 
 
 Moon-Set ...... 55 
 
 After Reading " Maud " . . . .56 
 
 A Song ....... 59 
 
 A Study of Boyhood . . . .61 
 
 Mercurialia ...... 64 
 
 Reparabo ....... 66 
 
 A Birthday ...... 68 
 
 A New Year's Day . . . .71 
 
 A Cruise ...... 73 
 
 A Separation . . . . .76 
 
 A New Michonnet ..... 80 
 
 Sapphics ....... 83 
 
 A Fable ...... 85 
 
 Amavi ....... 89 
 
 Notes of an Interview .... 92 
 
 Preparation . . . .94 
 
 Deteriora ...... 95 
 
 Parting ....... 98 
 
 All that was Possible . . . lou
 
 CONTENTS. V 
 
 PAGE 
 SCHEVENINGEN AVENUE . . . • .105 
 
 Melliken ...... 108 
 
 A Mekey Parting . . . • .111 
 
 School Fencibles . . . . .114 
 
 boconnoc ....... 117 
 
 A Sketch after Brantomk . . . 120 
 
 On Livermead Sands ..... 122 
 
 Lacordaike at Oxford .... 125 
 
 A Retrospect of School Life . . .126 
 
 Clovelly Beach ..... 129 
 
 An Epoch in a Sweet Life .... 131 
 
 PH-a:DRA's Nurse . . . . .136 
 
 Below Boulter's Lock ..... 138 
 
 From Halsdon to Cheltenham . . . 140 
 
 A Poor French Sailor's Scottish Sweetheart . 142 
 A Garden Girl ..... 144 
 
 To Two Young Ladies . . . . .146 
 
 A House and a Girl .... 150 
 
 A Fellow-Passenger Unknown . . . 153 
 
 Nuremberg Cemetery .... 155 
 
 A Sick French Poet's English Friends . . 159 
 
 L'oiseau bleu . . . .162 
 
 Home, Pup! ... .163 
 
 A Soldier's Miracle .... 167 
 
 A Ballad for a Boy . . . . .170
 
 vi CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Je Maintiendrai ..... 178 
 
 Sapphics for a Tunk . . . . .180 
 
 EUROPA ....... 182 
 
 Hypermnestea ...... 186 
 
 Barine . . . . . . .188 
 
 To Britomart musing ..... 190 
 
 Hersilia ...... 192 
 
 Sappho's Cursing . . . . . 19« 
 
 A Serving-Man's Epitaph .... 197 
 
 A Song to a Singer ..... 198 
 
 Age and Girlhood . . . . . 200 
 
 A Legend of Porto Santo .... 201 
 
 To A Linnet ...... 205 
 
 A Song for a Parting ..... 206 
 
 Mir 1ST Leide. ..... 207 
 
 Lebewohl ... . . . . . 208 
 
 Remember ...... 210
 
 Oh, lost and unforgotten friend, 
 
 Whose presence change and chance deny ; 
 
 If angels turn your soft proud eye 
 To lines your cynic playmate penned. 
 
 Look on them, as you looked on me. 
 
 When both were yoiuig ; when, as we went 
 Thi'ough crowds or forest ferns, you leant 
 
 On him who loved your staff to be ; 
 
 And slouch your lazy length again 
 On cushiows fit for aching brow 
 (Yours always ached, you know), and now 
 
 As dainty languishing as then,
 
 2 DESIDERATO. 
 
 Give theui but one fastidious look, 
 And if you see a trace of him 
 Wlio humoured you in every whim, 
 
 Seek foi' his heart within his book : 
 
 For though there be enough to mark 
 The man's divergence from the boy, 
 Yet shines my faith without alloy 
 
 For him who led me through that park ; 
 
 And though a stranger throw aside 
 Such grains of common sentiment, 
 Yet let your haughty head be bent 
 
 To take the jetsom of the tide ; 
 
 Because this brackish turbid sea 
 
 Throws toward thee things that pleased of yore. 
 And though it wash thy feet no more, 
 
 Its murmurs mean : " I yearn for thee."
 
 r0ittttn0 *^yi[M.'' 
 
 The world may like, for all I care, 
 The gentler voice, the cooler heail, 
 
 That bows a rival to despau-, 
 
 And cheaply compliments the dead. 
 
 That smiles at all that's coarse and rash, 
 Yet wins the trophies of the fight. 
 
 Unscathed, in honour's wreck and crash, 
 Heartless, but always in the right, 
 
 Thanked for good counsel by the judge 
 Who tramples on the bleechng brave, 
 
 Tlianked too l)y him who will not budge 
 From claims thrice hallowed by the grave.
 
 AFTEll PvEADlNG "AJAX." 
 
 Thanked, and self -pleased : ay, let him wear 
 What to that noble breast was due; 
 
 And I, dear passionate Teiicer, dare 
 
 Go through the homeless world with you.
 
 You promise heavens free from strife, 
 Pure truth, and perfect change of will ; 
 
 But sweet, sweet is this human life, 
 So sweet, I fain would bi'eathe it still ; 
 
 Your chilly stars I can forego, 
 
 This warm kind world is all I know. 
 
 You say there is no substance here, 
 
 One great reality above : 
 Back from that void I shrink in fear, 
 
 And child-like hide myself in love : 
 Show me what angels feel. Till then, 
 1 cling, a mere weak man, to men.
 
 MIMNEiaiUS IN CHURCH. 
 
 You bid me lift my mean desires 
 From faltering lips and fitful veins 
 
 To sexless souls, ideal quires, 
 
 Unwearied voices, wordless strains : 
 
 My mind with fonder welcome owns 
 
 One dear dead friend's remembered tones. 
 
 Forsooth the present we must give 
 To that which cannot pass away ; 
 
 All beauteous things for which we live 
 By laws of time and space decay. 
 
 But oh, the very reason why 
 
 I clasp them, is because they die.
 
 They told me, Heraclitus, they tokl me you were dead, 
 They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears 
 
 to shed. 
 I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I 
 Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the 
 
 sky. 
 
 And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, 
 A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest. 
 Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake ; 
 For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot 
 take.
 
 8 
 
 I WILL not leave the smouldering pyre : 
 Enough remains to light again : 
 
 But who am I to dare desire 
 
 A place beside the king of men 1 
 
 80 burnt my dear CEchalian town ; 
 
 And I an outcast gazed and groaned. 
 But, when my father's roof fell down, 
 
 For all that wrong sweet love atoned. 
 
 lie led me trembling to the ship, 
 He seemed at last to love me then ; 
 
 He soothed, he clasped me lip to lip : 
 How strange, to wed the king of men.
 
 lOLE. 
 
 I^lingei', orphan, widow, slave, 
 
 I lived when sire and brethren died, 
 
 Oh, had I shared my mother's grave, 
 Or clomb vinto the hero's side. 
 
 That comrade old hath made his moan ; 
 
 The centaur cowers within his den : 
 And I abide to guard alone 
 
 The ashes of the kin::j of men. 
 
 Alone, beneath the night divine — 
 Alone, another weeps elsewhere : 
 
 Her love for him is unlike mine, 
 Her wail she will not let me share.
 
 10 
 
 Queen of the Argives, thus the poet spake, 
 Great lady Helen, thou hast made me wise ; 
 
 Veiled is the world, but all the soul awake, 
 Purged by thine anger, clearer far than eyes. 
 
 Deep is the darkness ; for my bride is hidden, 
 Crown of my glory, guerdon of my song : 
 
 Dread is the vision ; thou art here unbidden, 
 Mute and reproachful, since I did thee wrong. 
 
 Sweetest of wanderers, grievest thou for friends 
 Tricked by a phantom, cheated to the grave. 
 
 Woe worth the God, the mocking God, that sends 
 Lies to the pious, furies to the brave.
 
 STESICHORUS. 11 
 
 Pardon om- falsehood : thou wei't far away, 
 Gathering the lotus down the Egypt-water, 
 
 Wifely and duteous, hearing not the fray, 
 
 Taking no stain from all those years of slaughter : 
 
 Guiltless, yet mournful. Tell the poets truths ; 
 
 Tell them real beauty leadeth not to strife ; 
 Weep for the slain, those many blooming youths : 
 
 Tears such as thine might bring them back to life. 
 
 Dear, gentle lady, if the web's unthreaded. 
 Slander and fable fairly rent in twain, 
 
 Then, by the days when thou wert loved and wedded, 
 Give me, I pray, my bride's glad smile again.
 
 12 
 
 The lord, who leads the Spartan host, 
 
 Stands with a little maid, 
 To greet a stranger from the coast 
 
 Who comes to seek his aid. 
 What brings the guest 1 a disk of brass 
 
 With curious lines engraven : 
 What mean the lines ? stream, load, and pass, 
 
 Forest and town and haven. 
 " Lo, hei'e Choaspes' lilied field : 
 
 Lo, here tlie Hermian plain : 
 What need we save the Doric shiekl 
 
 To stop the Persian's reign ?
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF CLEOMENES. 13 
 
 Or shall barbarians drink their fill 
 
 Upon the slopes of Tmolus ? 
 Or trowsered robbers spoil at will 
 
 The bounties of Pactolus 1 
 Salt lakes, burnt uplands, lie between ; 
 
 The distant king moves slow ; 
 He starts, ere Smyrna's vines are green, 
 
 Comes, when their juices flow. 
 Waves bright with morning smooth thy course. 
 
 Swift row the Samian galleys ; 
 TJnconquered Colophon sounds to hoi-se 
 
 Up the broad eastern valleys. 
 Is not Apollo's call enough, 
 
 The god of every Greek 1 
 Then take our gold, and household stuff' ; 
 
 Claim what thou wilt, but speak." 
 He falters ; for the waves he fears, 
 
 The roads he cannot measure ; 
 But rates full high the gleam of spears. 
 
 And dreams of yellow treasure.
 
 14 THE DAUGHTER OF CLEOMENES. 
 
 He listens ; he is yielding now ; 
 
 Outspoke the fearless child : 
 " Oh, father, come away, lest thou 
 Be by this man beguiled." 
 Her lowly judgment barred the plea. 
 
 So low, it could not reach her. 
 The man knows more of land and sea, 
 JJut she's the truer teacher.
 
 15 
 
 I MIND the day, when thou didst cheat 
 Those rival dames with answer meet ; 
 
 When, toiling at the loom, 
 TJnblest with bracelet, ring, or chain, 
 Tliou alone didst dare disdain 
 
 To toil in tiring-room. 
 
 Merely thou saidst : " At set of sun 
 My humble taskwork will be done ; 
 
 And through the twilight street 
 Come back to view my jewels, when 
 Pattering through the throng of men 
 
 Go merry schoolboys' feet,"
 
 IG CAIUS GRACCHUS. 
 
 They came, and sneered : for thou didst stand, 
 The web well finished iip, one hand 
 
 Laid on my yielding shoulder : 
 The sternest stripling in the land 
 Grasped the other, boldly scanned 
 
 Their faces, and grew bolder : 
 
 And said : " Fair ladies, by your leave 
 I would exhort you spin and weave 
 
 Some frugal homely cloth. 
 I warn you, when I lead the tribes, 
 
 Law shall strip you ; thieats nor bribes 
 
 Shall blunt the just man's wi-ath." 
 
 How strongly, gravely did he speak. 
 I shivered, hid my tingling cheek 
 
 Behind thy marble face ; 
 And prayed the gods to be like him, 
 Firm in temper, lithe of limb, 
 Plight worthy of our race.
 
 CAIUS GRACCHUS. 17 
 
 Ob, mother, didst thou bear me brave ? 
 Or was I weak, till from the grave 
 
 So early hollowed out, 
 Tiberius sought me yesternight, 
 Blood upon his mantle white, 
 
 A vision c4ear of doubt'? 
 
 What can I fear, oh, mother, now? 
 His dead cold hand is on my brow ; 
 
 Rest thou thereon thy lips : 
 His voice is in the night- wind's breath, 
 " Do as I did," still he saith ; 
 
 "With blood his linger drips. 
 
 C
 
 18 
 
 CniLD of the suinmer cloud, upon thy liirth, 
 And thou ai-t often born to die again, 
 
 Follow loud groans, that shake the darkening earth, 
 And break the troublous sleep of guilty men. 
 
 Thou leapest from the thinner streams of air 
 
 To crags where vapouis cling, where ocean frets ; 
 
 No cave so deep, so cold, but thou art there, 
 Wrath in thy smile, and beauty in thy threats. 
 
 The molten sands beneath thy burning feet 
 Run, as thou runnest, into tu])es of glass ; 
 
 Old towers and trees, that proudly stood to meet 
 The whirlwind, let their fair invader pass.
 
 ASTEROPE. 19 
 
 The lone ship warring on the Indian sea 
 Bursts into sj)linters at thy sudden stroke ; 
 
 Siberian mines fii-ed long ago by thee 
 
 Still waste in helpless flame and barren smoke. 
 
 Such is thy dreadful pastime, Angel-queen, 
 When swooping headlong from the firmament 
 
 Thou spreadest fear along the village green, 
 
 Fear of the day when gravestones shall be rent. 
 
 And we that fear i-emember not, that thou 
 Slewest the Theban maid, who vainly strove • 
 
 To rival Juno, when the lover's vow 
 
 Was kept in wedlock by unwilling Jove. 
 
 And we forget, that when Oileus went 
 
 From the wronged virgin and the ruined fane, 
 
 When storms were howling round, Repent, Repent, 
 Thy holy arrow pierced the spoiler's brain.
 
 20 ASTEKOPE. 
 
 So perish all the proud ! but chiefly he, 
 
 Wlio at the tramp of steeds and cymbal-beat 
 
 Proclaimed, "I thunder ! Why not worship me ? " 
 And thou didst slay him for his counterfeit.
 
 21 
 
 y Jlirg*. 
 
 Naiad, hid beneatli the bank 
 
 By the willowy river-side, 
 Where Narcissus gently sank, 
 
 Where unmarried Echo died, 
 Unto thy serene repose 
 Waft the stricken Anteros. 
 
 Where the tranquil swan is borne. 
 Imaged in a watery glass, 
 
 Where the sprays of fresh pink thorn 
 Stoop to catch the boats that pass, 
 
 Where the earliest orchis grows, 
 
 Bui'y thou fail- Anteros.
 
 22 A DIRGE. 
 
 Glide we hy, with pi'ow and oar : 
 Ripple shadows off the wave, 
 
 And reflected on the shoi'e 
 Haply play about the grave. 
 
 Folds of summer-light enclose 
 
 All that once was Anteros. 
 
 On a flickering wave we gaze, 
 Not upon his answering eyes : 
 
 Flower and bird we scarce can praise, 
 Having lost his sweet replies : 
 
 Cold and mute the river flows 
 
 With our tears for Anteros.
 
 23 
 
 J[tt Jnuamttam 
 
 I NEVER prayed for Dryads, to haunt the woods again ; 
 More welcome were the presence of hungering, thirsting 
 
 men, 
 Whose doubts we could unravel, whose hopes we could 
 
 fulfil. 
 Our wisdom tracing backward, the river to the rill ; 
 Were such beloved forerunners one summer day 
 
 restored, 
 Then, then we might discover the Muse's mystic hoard. 
 
 Oh, dear divine Comatas, I would that thou and I 
 Beneath this broken sunlight this leisure day might lie ; 
 Where trees from distant forests, whose names were 
 
 strange to thee, 
 Should bend their amorous bi-anche,s within thy reach 
 
 to be,
 
 ^4 AN INVOCATION. 
 
 And ilovvers tliine Hellas knew not, which art hath 
 
 made more fair, 
 Should shed their shining petals upon thy fragrant 
 
 hair. 
 
 Then thou shouldst calmly listen with ever-changing 
 
 looks 
 To songs of younger minstrels and plots of modern books, 
 And wonder at the daring of poets later born, 
 Whose thoughts are unto thy thoughts as noon-tide is 
 
 to morn ; 
 And little shouldst thou grudge them their greater 
 
 strength of soul, 
 Thy partners in the torch-race, though nearer to the 
 
 goal. 
 
 As when ancestral poi'traits look gravely from the 
 
 walls 
 Upon the youthful baron who treads their echoing 
 
 halls :
 
 AX INVOCATION. 25 
 
 And whilst he builds new turrets, the thrice ennobled 
 
 heir 
 Would gladly wake his grandsire his home and feast 
 
 to share ; 
 So fi'om ^gean laurels that hide thine ancient urn 
 I fain would call thee hither, my sweeter lore to learn. 
 
 Or in thy cedarn prison thou waitest for the bee : 
 Ah, leave that simple honey, and take thy food from me. 
 My sun is stooping westward. Entranced dreamer, 
 
 haste : 
 There's fruitage in my garden, that I would have thee 
 
 taste. 
 Now lift the lid a moment : now, Dorian shepherd, 
 
 speak : 
 Two minds shall flow together, the English and the 
 
 Greek.
 
 26 
 
 Perhaps there's neither tear nor smile, 
 
 When once beyond the grave. 
 Woe's me : but let me live meanwhile 
 
 Amongst the bright and brave ; 
 
 My summers lapse away beneath 
 Their cool Athenian shade : 
 
 And I a string for myrtle-wreath, 
 A whetstone unto blade ; 
 
 I cheer the games I cannot play ; 
 
 As stands a crippled squire 
 To watch his master through the fray, 
 
 Uplifted by desire.
 
 ACADEMUS. 27 
 
 I roam, where little pleasures fall, 
 
 As morn to morn succeeds, 
 To melt, or ei-e the sweetness pall. 
 
 Like glittering manna-beads. 
 
 The wishes dawning in the eyes, 
 
 The softly murmured thanks ; 
 The zeal tf those that miss the prize 
 
 On clamorous river-banks, 
 
 The quenchless hope, the honest choice, 
 
 The self-reliant pride. 
 The music of the pleading voice 
 
 That will not be denied, 
 
 The wonder flushing in the cheek. 
 
 The questions many a score, 
 When I grow elocpient, and speak 
 
 Of England, and of war —
 
 28 ACADEMUS. 
 
 01), better than the world of dress 
 
 And pompous dining out, 
 Better than simpering and finesse 
 
 Is all this stir and rout. 
 I'll borrow life, and not grow old ; 
 
 And nightingales and trees 
 Shall keep me, though the veins be cold, 
 
 As young as Sophocles. 
 And when I may no longer live. 
 
 They'll say, who know the truth, 
 He gave whate'er he had to give 
 
 To freedom and to youth.
 
 29 
 
 Farewell, my ;iiry pursuivants, farewell. 
 
 We part to-day, and I resign 
 This lonely island, and this rocky cell. 
 
 And all that hath been mine. 
 
 " Ah, whither go we 1 Why not folli^v thee, 
 Our human king, across the wave. 
 
 The man that rescued us from rifted tree, 
 Bleak marsh, and howling cave." 
 
 Oh no. The wand I wielded then is buried. 
 Broken, and buried in the sand. 
 
 Oh no. By mortal hands I must be ferried 
 Unto the Tuscan strand.
 
 30 PKOiSrERO. 
 
 Yovi came to cheer my exile, and to lift 
 
 The weight of silence off my lips : 
 With you I ruled the clouds, and ocean-drift. 
 
 Meteors, and wandering ships. 
 
 Your fancies glinting on my central mind 
 
 Fell off in beams of many hues, 
 Soft lambent light. Yet, severed from mankind, 
 
 Not light, but heat, I lose. 
 
 I go, before my heart be chilled. Behold, 
 Tlie bark that bears me waves her flag, 
 
 To chide my loitering. Back to your mountain-hold, 
 And flee the tyrant hag. 
 
 Away ! I hear your little voices sinking 
 
 Into the wood-notes of the breeze : 
 I hear you say : Enough, enough of thinking ; 
 
 Love lies beyond the seas.
 
 31 
 
 Somewhere beneath the sun, 
 
 These quivering heart-strings prove it, 
 Somewhere there must be one 
 
 Made for this soul, to move it ; 
 Some one that hides her sweetness 
 
 From neighbours whom she slights, 
 Nor can attain completeness, 
 
 Nor give her heart its rights ; 
 Some one whom I could court 
 
 With no great change of manner. 
 Still holding reason's fort, 
 
 Though waving fancy's banner ; 
 A lady, not so queenly 
 
 As to disdain my hand. 
 Yet born to smile serenely 
 
 Like those that rule the land ;
 
 32 AMATUilUS. 
 
 Noble, l)ut not too proud ; 
 
 With soft hair simply folded, 
 And bi'ight face crescent-browed, 
 
 And throat by Muses moulded ; 
 And eyelids lightly falling 
 
 On little glistening seas, 
 Deep-calm, when gales are brawling, 
 
 Thougli stirred by every breeze : 
 Swift voice, like flight of dove 
 
 Through minster arches floating, 
 With sudden turns, when love 
 
 Clets overnear to doting ; 
 Keen lips, that shape soft sayings 
 
 Like crystals of the snow. 
 With pretty half-betrayings 
 
 Of things one may not know ; 
 Fair hand, whose touches thrill, 
 
 Like golden rod of wonder. 
 Which Hermes wields at will 
 
 Spirit and flesh to sunder ;
 
 AMATUKUS. 33 
 
 Light foot, to press the stii-i'u|) 
 
 In fearlessness and glee, 
 Or dance, till finches chirrup, 
 
 And stars sink to the sea. 
 
 Foith, Love, and find this maid, 
 
 Wherever she be hidden : 
 Speak, Love, he not afraid. 
 
 But plead as thou art bidden ; 
 And say, that he who taught thee 
 
 His yearning want and pain. 
 Too dearly, dearly bought thee 
 
 To part with thee in vain. 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 HuH^m^ t{un$ nhlni mnnhr palHt nmtxr. 
 
 The plunging rocks, whose ravenous throats 
 The sea in wrath and mockery fills, 
 
 The smoke, that up the valley floats, 
 The girlhood of the growing hills, 
 
 The thunderings from the miners' ledge, 
 
 The wild assaults on nature's hoard. 
 The -peiik, that stormward bares an edge 
 Ground sharp in days when Titans warred. 
 
 Grim heights, by wandering clouds embraced, 
 Where lightning's ministers conspire, 
 
 Grey glens, with tarn and streamlet laced. 
 Stark foi'geries of primeval fire,
 
 35 
 
 These, scenes may gladden many a, iiiiml 
 Awhile from homelier thoughts leleased, 
 
 And here my fellow-men may find 
 A Sabbath and a vision-feast. 
 
 I bless them in the good they feel ; 
 
 And yet I bless them with a sigh : 
 On me this grandeur stamps the seal 
 
 Of tyri"anous mortality. 
 
 The i^itiless mountain stands so sure, 
 The human breast so weakly heaves, 
 
 That brains decay, while rocks endure, 
 At this the insatiate spirit grieves. 
 
 But hither, oh, ideal bride ! 
 
 For whom this heai-t in silence aches. 
 Love is unwearied as the tide, 
 
 Love is perennial as the lakes.
 
 36 
 
 Come thou. Tlie spiky crags will seem 
 One harvest of one heavenly year, 
 
 And fear of death, like childish dream, 
 Will pass and flee, when thou art here.
 
 37 
 
 "When these locks were yellow as gold, 
 When past clays were easily told, 
 Well I knew the voice of the sea, 
 Once he spake as a friend to me. 
 Thunder-roarings carelessly heard, 
 Once that poor little heart they stirred. 
 
 Why, oh, why? 
 
 Memory, Memory ! 
 She that I wi.shed to be with was by. 
 
 Sick was I in those misanthrope days 
 
 Of soft caresses, womanly ways ; 
 Once that maid on the stairs T met. 
 
 Lip on brow she suddenly set.
 
 38 TWO FRAGMENTS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 Then flushed up my chivalrous blood 
 Like Swiss streams in a midsummer flood. 
 
 Then, oh, then, 
 
 Imogen, Imogen ! 
 Hadst thou a lover, whose years were ten.
 
 39 
 
 One hour of my boyhood, one glimpse of the past, 
 One beam of the dawn ere the heavens were o'ereast. 
 
 I came to a castle by royalty's grace, 
 
 Forgot I was bashful, and feeble, and base. 
 
 For stepping to music I di-eamt of n, siege, 
 
 A vow to my mistress, a fight for my liege. 
 
 The first sound of trumpets that fell on mine ear 
 
 Set warriors around me and made me their peer. 
 
 Meseemed we were arming, the bold for the fair, 
 
 In joyous devotion and haughty despair : 
 
 The warders were waiting to draw l)olt and bar, 
 
 Tlie maidens attiring to gaze from afar :
 
 40 WAR MUSIC. 
 
 I thought of the sally, but not the reti-eat, 
 The cause was so glorious, the dying so sweet. 
 
 I live, I am old, I return to the ground : 
 
 Blow trumpets, and still I can dream to the sound.
 
 41 
 
 Though the lark that upward flies 
 Recks not of the opening skies, 
 Nor discerneth grey from blue, 
 Nor the rain-drop from the dew ; 
 Yet the tune which no man taucht 
 So can quicken human thought, 
 That the startled fancies spring 
 Faster far than voice or winsf. 
 
 '&• 
 
 And the songstress as she floats 
 Rising on her buoyant notes, 
 Though she may the while i-cfuse 
 Homage to the nobler Muso,
 
 42 NUBENTI. 
 
 Though she cannot truly tell 
 How lier voice liath wrought the spell, 
 Fills the listener's eyes with tears, 
 Lifts him to the inner spheres. 
 
 Lark, thy morning song is clone ; 
 Overhead the silent sun 
 Bids thee pause. But he that heard 
 Such a strain must bless the bird. 
 Lady, thou hast hushed too soon 
 Sounds that cheered my weaiy noon ; 
 Let me, warned by marriage bell, 
 Whisper, Queen of Song, farewell.
 
 43 
 
 They're sleeping beneath the roses; 
 
 Oh, kiss them before they rise, 
 And tickle their tiny noses. 
 
 And sprinkle the dew on their eyes. 
 Make haste, make haste ; 
 The fairies are canght ; 
 Make haste. 
 
 We'll put them in silver cages. 
 
 And send them full-drest to court, 
 And maids of honour and pages 
 Shall turn the poor things to sport. 
 Be quick, be quick ; 
 
 Be quicker than thought ; 
 Be quick.
 
 44 WOKDS FOK A rOltTUGUEHE AIR. 
 
 Theii' scarfs shall be pennons for lancers, 
 
 We'll tic up our flowers with their curls, 
 Their plumes will make fans for dancers, 
 Their tears shall be set with pearls. 
 Be wise, be wise, 
 
 Make the most of the prize ; 
 Be wise. 
 
 They'll scatter sweet scents by winking. 
 
 With sparks fi'om under their feet ; 
 They'll save vis the trouble of thinking, 
 Their voices will sound so sweet. 
 Oh stay, oh stay ! 
 
 They're up and away ; 
 Oh stay !
 
 45 
 
 (words for the air commonly called " FESTAL.") 
 
 I. 
 
 Fly, poor soul, fly on, 
 No early clouds shall stop thy roaming ; 
 
 Fly, till day be gone, 
 Nor fold thy wings before the gloaming. 
 He thou lov'st will soon be far beyond thy flight, 
 
 Other lands to light, 
 
 Leaving thee in night. 
 Let no fear of loss thy heavenly pathway cross ; 
 
 Better then to lose than now. 
 
 II. 
 
 Now, faint heart, arise, 
 And proudly feel that he regards thee ; 
 
 Draw from godlike eyes 
 Some grace to last when love discards thee.
 
 46 ADRIENNE AND MAUEICE. 
 
 Once thou hast been blest by one too high foi- thee ; 
 
 Fate will have him be 
 
 Great and fancy-free, 
 When some noble maid her hand in his hath laid, 
 
 Give him up, poor heart, and break. 
 1855.
 
 47 
 
 11^$ :|aH0utm0 xif i\t %htU 
 
 Her captains for the Baltic bound 
 In silent homage stood around ; 
 
 Silent, whilst holy dew 
 Dimmed her kind eyes. She stood in tears, 
 For she had felt a mother's fears, 
 
 And wifely cares she knew. 
 
 She wept ; she could not bear to say, 
 " Sail forth, my mariners, and slay 
 
 The liegemen of my foe." 
 Meanwhile on Russian steppe and lake 
 Are women weeping for the sake 
 
 Of them that seaward go.
 
 48 THE HALLOWING OF THE FLEET. 
 
 Oh warriors, when you stain with gore, 
 If this indeed must be, the floor 
 
 Whereon that lady stept, 
 When the fierce joy of battle won 
 Hardens the heart of sire and son, 
 
 Remember that she wept.
 
 49 
 
 A Prince went down the banks of Dee 
 That widen out from bleak Braemar, 
 
 To di-ive the deer that wander free 
 Amidst the pines of Lochnagar, 
 
 And stepj)ing on beneath the birks 
 On the road-side he found a spot, 
 
 Which told of pibrochs, kilts, and dirks, 
 And wars the courtiers had forgot ; 
 
 Where with the streams, as each alone 
 
 Down to the gathering river runs, 
 
 Each on one heap to cast a stone, 
 
 Came twice three hundred Farquharsons. 
 
 £
 
 -jO the cairn and the church. 
 
 They laised that pile to keep for over 
 The memory of the loyal clan ; 
 
 Then, grudging not their vain endeavour, 
 Fell at Culloden to a man. 
 
 And she, whose grandsire's uncle slew 
 Those dwellers on the banks of Dee, 
 
 Sighed foi- those tender hearts and true, 
 And whispered : Who would die for me 1 
 
 Oh, lady, tui'U thee southward. Show 
 Thy standard on thine own Thames-side ; 
 
 Let us be called to meet thy foe, 
 
 Our faith be pledged, our honour tried. 
 
 Now, on the stone by Albert laid, 
 We'll build a pile as high as theirs, 
 
 So sworn to bring our Sovereign aid, 
 If not with war-cries, yet with prayers.
 
 51 
 
 (June iTU, 1851.) 
 
 From vale to vale, from shoi'e to shore, 
 
 The lady Gloriana passed, 
 To view lier realms : the south wind bore 
 
 Her shallop to Belleisle at last. 
 
 A quiet mead, wliere willows bend 
 Above the curving wave, which rolls 
 
 On .slowly crumbling banks, to send 
 Its hard-won spoils to lazy shoals. 
 
 Beneath an oak weird eddies play, 
 Where fate was ^v^•it for Saxon seer ; 
 
 And yonder paik is white witli may, 
 
 Where shadowy hunters chased the deer.
 
 52 A QUEEN'S VLSIT. 
 
 In rows, half up the chestnut, perch 
 
 Stiff-silvered fairies ; busy rooks 
 Caw from the elm ; and, rung to church. 
 
 Mute anglei's drop their caddised hooks. 
 
 They troop between the dark-red walls, 
 
 When the twin tow^ers give four-fold chimes ; 
 
 And lo ! the breaking groupes, where falls 
 The chequered shade of quivering lines. 
 
 They come from field and wharf and street 
 With dewy hair and veinM throat, 
 
 One floor to tread with reverent feet- 
 One hour of rest for ball and boat : 
 
 Like swallows gathering for their flight. 
 When autumn whispers, play no more, 
 
 They check the laugli, witli fancies bright 
 Still hovering round the sacred door.
 
 A QUEEN'S VISIT. 53 
 
 Lo ! childhood swelling into seed, 
 
 Lo ! manhood bursting from the bud : 
 
 Two growths, unlike ; yet all agreed 
 To trust the movement of the blood. 
 
 They toil at games, and play with books : 
 They love the winner of the race, 
 
 If only he that prospers looks 
 On prizes with a simple grace. 
 
 The many leave the few to choose ; 
 
 They scorn not him who tiu-ns aside 
 To woo alone a milder Muse, 
 
 If shielded by a tranquil pride. 
 
 When thought is claimed, when pain is borne, 
 Whate'er is done in this sweet isle, 
 
 There's none that may not lift his horn, 
 If only lifted with a smile.
 
 54 A QUEEN'S VISIT. 
 
 So here dwells freedom ; nor could she, 
 Who ruled in every clime on earth, 
 
 Find any spring more fit to he 
 The fountain of her festal mirth. 
 
 Elsewhere she sought for loi"e and art, 
 But hither came for vernal joy : 
 
 Nor was this all : she smote the heart, 
 And woke the hero in the boy.
 
 55 
 
 |0att-$^t* 
 
 Sweet moon, twice rounded in a blithe July, 
 
 Once down a wandering English stream thou leddest 
 
 My lonely boat; swans gleamed arouud ; the sky 
 
 Throbbed overhead with meteors. Now thou sheddest 
 
 Faint radiance on a cold Arvernian plain, 
 
 Where I, far severed from that youthful crew. 
 
 Far from the gay disguise thy witcheries threw 
 
 On wave and dripping oar, still own thy reign, 
 
 Travelling with thee through many a sleepless hour. 
 
 Now shrink, like my weak will : a sterner power 
 
 Empurpleth yonder hills beneath thee piled, 
 
 1 rills, where Csesarian sovereignty was won 
 
 On high basaltic levels blood-defiled, 
 
 The Diuid moonlight quenched beneath the Roman sun."
 
 5<5 
 
 September, 1855. 
 
 Twelve years ago, if lie had died, 
 
 His critic friends had surely cried : 
 
 " Death does us wrong, the fates are cross ; 
 
 Nor will this age repair the loss. 
 
 Fine was the piomise of his youth ; 
 
 Time wovild have brought him deeper truth. 
 
 Some earnest of his wealth he gave. 
 
 Then hid his treasures in the grave." 
 
 And proud that they alone on earth 
 
 Perceived what might have been his worth. 
 
 They would have kept their leader's name 
 
 Linked with a fragmentary fame. 
 
 Forsooth the beeches knotless stem, 
 
 If early felled, were dear to them.
 
 AFTER READING "MAUD." 57 
 
 But the fair tree lives on, and spreads 
 
 Its scatheless boughs above their heads, 
 
 And they are pollarded by cares, 
 
 And give themselves religious airs, 
 
 And grow not, whilst the forest-king 
 
 Strikes high and deep from spring to spring. 
 
 So they would have his branches rise 
 
 In theoretic symmetries ; 
 
 They see a twist in yonder limb, 
 
 The foliage not precisely trim ; 
 
 Some gnarled roughness they lament, 
 
 Take credit for their discontent. 
 
 And count his flaws, serenely wise 
 
 With motes of pity in their eyes ; 
 
 As if they could, the prudent fools, 
 
 Adjust such live-long growth to rules. 
 
 As if so strong a soul could tluive 
 
 Fixed in one shape at thirty-five. 
 
 Leave him to us, ye good and sage. 
 
 Who Btifien in your middle age.
 
 58 AFTER READING "MAUD." 
 
 Ye loved him once, but now forbear ; 
 Yield him to those who hope and dai-e, 
 And havo not yet to forms consigned 
 A rigid, ossifying mind. 
 
 One's feelings lose poetic flow 
 Soon after twenty-seven or so ; 
 Professionizing moral men 
 Thenceforth admire what pleased them then ; 
 The poems bought in youth they read, 
 And say them over like their creed. 
 All autumn crops of rhyme seem strange ; 
 Their intellect resents the change. 
 They cannot follow to the end 
 Their more susceptive college-friend : 
 He runs from field to field, and they 
 Stroll in their paddocks making hay : 
 He's ever young, and they get old ; 
 Poor things, they deem him over-bold : 
 What wonder, if they stare and scold 1
 
 59 
 
 Jt ?m. 
 
 On, earlier .shall the rosebuds blow, 
 In after years, those happier years, 
 
 And children weep, when we lie low, 
 Far fewer tears, far softer tears. 
 
 II. 
 
 Oh, true shall boyish laughter ring. 
 
 Like tinkling chimes, in kinder times ! 
 And merrier shall the maiden sing : 
 
 And I not there, and I not there.
 
 60 A 80NG. 
 
 III. 
 
 Like lightning in the summer night 
 
 Their mirth shall be, so quick and free ; 
 
 And oh ! the flash of their delight 
 I shall not see, I may not see. 
 
 IV. 
 
 In deeper dream, with wider range, 
 Those eyes shall shine, but not on mine 
 
 Unmoved, unblest, by worldly change, 
 The dead must rest, the dead shall rest.
 
 61 
 
 So young, and yet so worn with pain ! 
 No sign of youtli upon that stooping head, 
 Save weak half -curls, like beechen boughs that spread 
 
 With up-turned edge to catch the hurrying rain ; 
 
 Such little lint-white locks, as wound 
 About a mother's finger long ago. 
 When he was blither, not more dear, for woe 
 
 Was then far off, ;uid other sons stood round. 
 
 And she has wept since then with him 
 Watching together, where the ocean gave 
 To her child's counted breathings wave for wave. 
 
 Whilst the heart fluttered, and the eye grew dim,  
 
 62 A STUDY OF BOYHOOD. 
 
 And when the sun and day l)reeze fell, 
 She kept with him the vigil of despair ; 
 Knit hands for comfort, blended sounds of prayer, 
 
 Saw him at dawn face death, and take farewell ; 
 
 Saw him grow holier through his grief. 
 The early grief that lined his withering brow, 
 As one l)y one her stars were quenched. And now 
 
 He that so mourned can play, though life is brief ; 
 
 Not gay, but gracious ; plain of speech. 
 And freely kindling under beauty's ray, 
 He dares to speak of wliat he loves : to-day 
 
 He talked of ai-t, and led me on to teach. 
 
 And glanced, as poets glance, at pages 
 Full of bright Florence and warm Umbrian skies ; 
 Not slighting modern greatness, for the wise 
 
 Can sort the treasures of the circling ages,
 
 A STUDY OF BOYHOOD. 63 
 
 Not echoing the sickly praise, 
 Which boys repeat, who hear a father's guest 
 Prate of the London show-rooms ; what is best 
 
 He firmly lights upon, as birds on sprays ; 
 
 All honest, and all delicate : 
 No room for flattery, no smiles that ask 
 For tender pleasantries, no looks that mask 
 
 The genial impulses of love and hate. 
 
 Oh, bards, that call to bank and glen, 
 Ye bid me go to nature to be healed ! 
 And lo ! a purer fount is here revealed : 
 
 My lady-nature dwells in hearts of men.
 
 G4 
 
 Sweet eyes, that aim a level shaft 
 
 At pleasure flying from afar, 
 Sweet lips, just parted for a draught 
 
 Of Hebe's nectar, shall I mar 
 By stress of disciplinal craft 
 
 The joys that in your freedom are 1 
 
 Shall the bright Queen who rules the tide, 
 Now forward thrown, now bridled back, 
 
 Smile o'er each answering smile, then hide 
 Her grandeur in the transient rack, 
 
 And yield her power, and veil her pride, 
 And move along a ruffled track :
 
 MERCURIALIA. 65 
 
 And shall not I give jest for jest, 
 Though king of fancy all the while, 
 
 Catch up your wishes half-expressed, 
 Endure your whimsies void of guile, 
 
 Albeit with risk of such unrest 
 As may disturb, but not defile 1 
 
 Oh, twine me myrtle round the sword, 
 
 Soft wit round wisdom over-keen : 
 Let me biit lead my peers, no lord 
 
 With brows high arched and lofty mien : 
 Set comrades round my council board 
 
 For bold debates, with jousts between. 
 
 There quiver lips, there glisten eyes, 
 
 There throb young hearts with generous hope ; 
 Thence, playmates, rise for high emprize ; 
 
 For, though he fail, yet shall ye cope 
 With worldling wrapt in silken lies. 
 
 With pedant, hypocrite, and pope.
 
 ()G 
 
 The world will rob me of my friends, 
 For time with her conspires ; 
 
 But they shall both to make amends 
 Relight my slumbering fires. 
 
 For while my comrades pass away 
 To bow and smirk and gloze, 
 
 Come others, for as short a stay ; 
 And dear are these as those. 
 
 And who was this 1 they ask ; and then 
 
 The loved and lost I praise : 
 " Like you they frolicked ; they are men 
 
 " Bless ye my later days."
 
 REPAEABO. 67 
 
 Why fret ] the hawks I trained are flown : 
 
 'Twas nature bade them range ; 
 I could not keep their wings half-grown, 
 
 I could not bar the change. 
 
 With lattice opened wide I stand 
 
 To watch their eager flight ; 
 With broken jesses in my hand 
 
 I muse on their delight. 
 
 And, oh ! if one with sullied plume 
 
 Should droop in mid career. 
 My love makes signals : — " There is room, 
 
 Oh, bleeding wanderer, here."
 
 (;8 
 
 The graces marked the hour, when thou 
 Didst leave thine ante- natal rest, 
 Without a ciy to heave a breast 
 
 Which never ached from then till now. 
 
 That vivid soul then first unsealed 
 
 Would be, they knew, a torch to wave 
 Within a chill and dusky cave 
 
 Whose crystals else were unrevealed. 
 
 That fine small mouth they wreathed so well 
 In rosy cui-ves, would rouse to arms 
 A troop then bound in slumber-charms; 
 
 Such notes they gave the magic shell.
 
 A BIRTHDAY. 69 
 
 These straying fingerlets, that chitched 
 At good and bad, they so did glove, 
 That they might pick the flowers of love, 
 
 Unscathed, from every briar they touched. 
 
 The bounteous sisters did ordain, 
 
 That thou one day Avilt jest and whim 
 Should'st rain thy merriment on him 
 
 Whose life, when thou wert born, was pain. 
 
 For haply on that night they spied 
 A sickly student at his books. 
 Who having basked in loving looks 
 
 Was freezing into bai-ren pride. 
 
 His squalid discontent they saw. 
 And, for that he had worshipped them 
 With incense and with auadem. 
 
 They willed his wintry world should thaw ;
 
 70 A BIRTHDAY. 
 
 And at thy cradle did decree 
 
 That fifteen years should pass, and thou 
 Should'st breathe upon that pallid brow 
 
 Favonian airs of mirth and glee.
 
 71 
 
 Our planet runs through liquid space, 
 And sweeps us with her iu the race ; 
 And wrinkles gather on my face, 
 
 And Hebe bloom on thine : 
 Our sun with his encircling spheres 
 Around the central sun careers ; 
 And unto thee with mustering years 
 
 Come hopes which I resign. 
 
 'Twere sweet for me to keep thee still 
 Reclining halfway up the hill ; 
 But time will not obey the will, 
 
 And onward thou must climb :
 
 72 A NEW YEAR'S DAY. 
 
 'Twere sweet to pause on this descent, 
 To wait for thee and pitch my tent, 
 But march I must with shouklers bent, 
 Yet farther from my prime. 
 
 I shall not tread thy battle-field, 
 Nor see the blazon on thy shield ; 
 Take thou the sword I could not wield, 
 
 And leave me, and forget. 
 Be fairer, braver, more admired ; 
 So win what feeble hearts desired ; 
 Then leave thine arms, when thou art tired, 
 
 To some one nobler yet.
 
 73 
 
 Your princely progress is began ; 
 
 And pillowed on the bounding deck 
 You break with dark brown hair a sun 
 
 That falls transfigured on your neck. 
 Sail on, and charm sun, wind, and sea. 
 Oh ! might that lo\e-light rest on me ! 
 
 Vacantly lingering with the hours, 
 The sacred hours that still remain 
 
 From that rich month of fruits and flowers 
 Which brought you near me once again, 
 
 By thoughts of you, though roses die, 
 
 1 strive to make it still July.
 
 74 A CRUISE. 
 
 Soft waves are strown beneath your prow, 
 Like carpets for a victor's feet ; 
 
 You call slow zephyrs to your brow, 
 In listless luxury complete : 
 
 Love, the true Halcyon, guides yonr ship ; 
 
 Oh, might his pinion touch my lip ! 
 
 I by the shrunken river stroll ; 
 
 And changed, since I was left alone, 
 With tangled weed and rising shoal, 
 
 The loss I mourn he seems to own : 
 This is, how base soe'er his slotb. 
 This is the stream that bore us both. 
 
 For you shall granite peaks uprise 
 As old and scornful as your race. 
 
 And fringed with firths of lucent dyes 
 The jewelled beach your limbs embrace. 
 
 Oh, bather, may those Western gems 
 
 Remind you of my lilied Thames.
 
 A CRUISE. 75 
 
 I too have seen the castled West, 
 
 Hev Cornish creeks, her Breton ports 
 
 Her caves by knees of hermits pressed ; 
 Her fairy islets bright with quartz : 
 
 And dearer now each well-known scene. 
 
 For what shall be than what hath been. 
 
 Obeisance of kind strangers' eyes, 
 
 Triumphant cannons' measured roar, 
 
 Dofl'ed plumes, and martial courtesies, 
 Shall greet you on the Norman shore. 
 
 Oh, that I were a stranger too, 
 
 To win that first sweet glance from you. 
 
 I was a stranger once : and soon 
 
 Beyond desiie, above belief, 
 Thy soul was as a crescent moon, 
 
 A bud expanding leaf by leaf. 
 I'd piay thee now to close, to wane. 
 So that 'twere all to do again.
 
 76 
 
 I MAY not touch the hand I saw 
 So nimbly weave the violet chain ; 
 
 I may not see my artist draw 
 
 That southward-sloping lawn again. 
 
 But joy brimmed over when we met, 
 
 Nor can I mourn our parting yet. 
 
 Though he lies sick and far away, 
 I play with those that still are here, 
 
 Not honouring him the less, for they 
 To me by loving him are dear : 
 
 They share, they soothe my fond regi-et, 
 
 Since neither they noi- I foi-get.
 
 A SEPARATION. 77 
 
 His sweet strong heai't so nobly beat 
 With scorn and pity, mirth and zeal, 
 
 That vibrant hearts of ours repeat 
 
 What they with him were wont to feel ; 
 
 Still quiring iu that higher key. 
 
 Till he take up the melody. 
 
 If there be any music here, 
 
 I trust it will not fail, like notes 
 Of May-birds, when the waning year 
 
 Abates their summer-wearied throats. 
 Shame on us, if we drudge once more 
 As dull and tuneless as before. 
 
 Without him I was weak and coarse. 
 
 My sold went droning through the hours, 
 
 His goodness stirred a latent force 
 
 That drew from others kindred powers. 
 
 Nor they nor I coidd think me base, 
 
 When with their prince I liad found grace.
 
 78 A SEPAKATION. 
 
 His influence crowns me, like a cloud 
 
 Steeped in the light of a lost sun : 
 I reign, for willing knees are bowed 
 
 And light behests are gladly done : 
 So Kome obeyed the lover-king, 
 Who drank at pm-e Egeria's spring. 
 
 Such honour doth my mind perplex : 
 For, who is this, I ask, that dares 
 
 With manhood's wounds, and virtue's wrecks. 
 And tangled creeds, and subtle cares, 
 
 Affront the look, or speak the name 
 
 Of one who from Elysium came. 
 
 And yet, though withered and forlorn, 
 I had renounced what man desires, 
 
 I'd thought some poet might be born 
 To string my lute with silver wires ; 
 
 At least in brighter days to come 
 
 Such men as I would not lie dumb.
 
 A SEPARATIOX. 79 
 
 'I saw the Sibyl's finger rest 
 
 On fate's unturned, imagined page, 
 
 Believed her promise, and was blest 
 With dreams of that heroic age. 
 
 She sent me, ere my hope was cold, 
 
 One of the race that she foretold. 
 
 His fellows Time will bring, and they, 
 
 In manifold affections free, 
 Shall scatter pleasures day by day 
 
 Like blossoms rained from windy tree. 
 So let that garden bloom ; and I, 
 Content with one such flower, will die.
 
 80 
 
 J 1 0ttt ittl^UttttSt. 
 
 The foster-child forgets his nurse : 
 
 She doth but know what he hath been, 
 
 Took him for better or for worse, 
 
 Would pet him, though he be sixteen. 
 
 He helps to weave the soft quadrille ; 
 
 Ah ! leave the parlour door ajar ; 
 Those thirsting eyes shall take their fill, 
 
 And watch her darling from afnr. 
 
 It is her pride to see the hand, 
 "Which wont so wantonly to tear 
 
 Her unblanched curls, control the band. 
 And change the tune, with svich an air,
 
 A NEW MICHONNET. 81 
 
 AncLwlio so good 1 she thinks, or who 
 
 So fit for partners rich and tall 1 
 Indeed she's looked the ball-room through, 
 
 And he's the loveliest lad of all. 
 
 So to her lonesome bed : and there, 
 
 If any wandering notes she hear, 
 She'll say in pauses of her prayer, 
 
 " He's dancing still, my child ! my dear ! " 
 
 His gladness doth on her redounil, 
 
 Though hair be grey, and eyes be dim : 
 
 At every waif of broken sound 
 
 She'll wake, and smile, and think of him. 
 
 So, noblest of the noble, go 
 
 Through regions echoing thy name ; 
 
 And even on me, thy friend, shall flow 
 Some streamlet from thy river of fame. 
 
 G
 
 82 A NEW MICnONNET. 
 
 Thou to tbe gilded youth be kind ; 
 
 Shed all thy genius-rays on them ; 
 An ancient comrade stands behind 
 
 To touch, unseen, thy mantle's hem. 
 
 A stranger to thy peers am I, 
 
 And slighted, like that poor old crone, 
 
 And yet some clinging memories try 
 To rate thy conquests as mine own. 
 
 Nay, when at random drops thy praise 
 From lips of happy lookers-on, 
 
 My tearful eyes I proudly raise, 
 And bid my conscious self be gone.
 
 83 
 
 Love, like an island, lield a single heart. 
 
 Waiting for shoreward flntterings of the breeze, 
 
 So might it waft to him that sat apart 
 
 Some angel guest from out the clouded seas. 
 
 Was it mere chance that threw within his reach 
 Fragments and symbols of the bliss unknown ? 
 
 Was it vague hope that murmured down the beach 
 Tuning the billows and the cavern's moan ? 
 
 Oft through the aching void the promise thrilled : 
 " Thou shalt be loved, and Time shall pay his debt." 
 
 Silence returns upon the wish fulfilled, 
 Joy for a year, and then a sweet regret.
 
 84 KxVJTIilCtt. 
 
 Idol, mine Idol, whom this touch profanes, 
 
 Pass as thou cam'st across the glimmering seas 
 
 All, all is lost but memory's sacred pains ; 
 Leave me, oh leave me, ere I forfeit these.
 
 85 
 
 An eager girl, whose father buys 
 Some ruined thane's forsaken liall, 
 
 Explores the new domahi, and tries 
 Before the rest to view it all. 
 
 Alone she lifts the latch, and glides 
 Through many a sadly curtained room, 
 
 As daylight through the doorway slides 
 And sti'uggles with the muffled gloom. 
 
 With mimicries of dance she wakes 
 The lordly gallery's silent floor. 
 
 And climbing up on tip-toe, makes 
 
 The old-\\oj-I(l mirror sii)ilo once more.
 
 86 A FABLE. 
 
 With tanknrds dry she chills her lip, 
 With yellowing laces veils the head, 
 
 And leaps in pride of ownership 
 Upon the faded marriage bed. 
 
 A harp in some dark nook she sees, 
 Long left a prey to heat and frost, 
 
 She smites it : can such tinklings please 1 
 Is not all worth, all beauty, lost 1 
 
 Ah ! who'd have thought such sweetness clung 
 To loose neglected strings like those ? 
 
 They answered to whate'er was sung, 
 And sounded as the lady chose. 
 
 Her pitying finger hurried by 
 
 Each vacant space, each slackened chord ; 
 Nor would her wayward zeal let die 
 
 The music-spirit she restored.
 
 A FABLE. 87 
 
 The fashion quaint, the time-worn flaws, 
 The narrow range, the doubtful tone. 
 
 All was excused awhile, because 
 It seemed a creature of her own. 
 
 Perfection tu-es ; the new in old, 
 
 The mended wi'ecks that need her skill, 
 
 Amuse her. If the truth be told, 
 She loves the triumph of her will. 
 
 With this, she dares herself persuade, 
 She'll be for many a month content, 
 
 Quite sure no duchess ever played 
 Upon a sweeter instrument. 
 
 And thus in sooth she can beguile 
 Girlliood's romantic hours : but soon 
 
 She yields to taste and mode and style, 
 A siren of the gay saloon ;
 
 88 A FABLE. 
 
 And wonders how she once could like 
 
 Those drooping wires, those failing notes, 
 
 And leaves her toy for bats to strike 
 Amongst the cobwebs and the motes. 
 
 But enter in, thou freezing wnnd. 
 
 And snap the harp-strings one by one. 
 
 It was a maiden blithe and kind : 
 
 They felt her touch ; their task is done.
 
 89 
 
 yitnnuu 
 
 Ask, mournful Muse, by one alone inspired : 
 
 What change ? am I less fond, or thou less fair ? 
 
 Or is it, that thy mounting soul is tired 
 Of duteous homage and religious care 1 
 
 So many court thee that my reverent gaze 
 
 Vexes that wilful and capricious eye ; 
 Such fine rare flatteries flow to thee, that praise. 
 
 From one whose thoughts thou know'st, seems poor 
 and diy. 
 
 So must it be. Thus monarchs blandly greet 
 Strange heralds offering tribute, and forget 
 
 The vassals ranked behind the golden seat, 
 Whose annual gift is counted as a d('l)t.
 
 90 AMAvr. 
 
 Since sure of me thy liegeman once in thrall 
 
 Thou need'st not waste on me those gracious looks, 
 
 Stirred by the newborn wish to conquer all, 
 
 Leave thy first subject to his rhymes and books. 
 
 Ah ! those impetuous claims that drew me forth 
 From my cold shadows to thy dazzling day, 
 
 Those spells that lured me to the stately North, 
 Those pleas against my scruples, where ai^e they 
 
 Oh, gloi'ious bondage in a dreamful bower ! 
 
 Oh, freedom thrice abhorred, unblest release ! 
 Why, why hath cruel circumstance the ])0wer 
 
 To make such worship, such obedience cease ? 
 
 Surely I served thee, as the wrinkled elm 
 Yieldeth his nature to the jocund vine, 
 
 Strength unto beauty : may the flood o'erwhelm 
 Eoot, trunk, and branch, if they have not been thine.
 
 AM AVI. 91 
 
 If thine no more, if lightly left behind, 
 
 To guard the dancing clusters thought unmeet, 
 
 It is because with gilded trellis twined 
 
 Thy liberal growth demands untempered heat. 
 
 Yet, while they spread more freely to the sun, 
 Those tendrils ; while they wanton in the breeze 
 
 Gathering all heaven's bounties, hencefoiih one 
 
 Abides more honoured than the neighbouring trees. 
 
 Ah dear, there's something left of that great gift ; 
 
 And humbly marvelling at thy former choice 
 A head once crowned with love I dare iiplift. 
 
 And, for that once I pleased thee, still rejoice.
 
 92 
 
 f 0tf$ uf nn Jnt^rubttt. 
 
 It is but little that remaineth 
 
 Of the kindness that you gave me, 
 And that little precious remnant jo\i withhold. 
 Go free ; I know that time constraineth, 
 
 Wilful blindness could not save me : 
 Yet you say I caused the change that I foretold. 
 
 At every sweet unasked relenting, 
 
 Though you'd tried me with caprice, 
 Did my welcome, did my gladness ever fail ? 
 To-day not loud is my lamenting : 
 
 Do not chide me ; it shall cease : 
 Could I think of vanished love without a wail ?
 
 NOTES OP" AN INTERVIEW. 93 
 
 Elsewhei'e, you ligiitly say, are blooming 
 All the graces I desire : 
 Thus you goad me to the treason of content : 
 If ever, when your brow is glooming, 
 Softer faces I admire, 
 Then your lightnings make me tremble and repent. 
 
 Grant this : whatever else beguileth 
 Restless dreaming, drowsy toil, 
 As a plaything, as a windfall, let me hail it. 
 Believe : the brightest one that smileth 
 To your beaming is a foil. 
 To the splendour breaking from you, though you veil it.
 
 94 
 
 Too weak am I to pray, as some have prayed, 
 
 That love might hurry straightway out of mind, 
 
 And leave an ever-vacant waste behind. 
 
 I thank thee rather, that through every grade 
 
 Of less and less affection we decline, 
 
 As month by month thy strong importunate fate 
 
 Thrusts back my claims, and draws thee toward the 
 
 great. 
 And shares amongst a hundred what was mine. 
 Proud heroes ask to perish in high noon : 
 I'd have refractions of the fallen day, 
 And heavings when the gale hath flown away, 
 And this slow disenchantment : since too soon, 
 Too surely, comes the death of my poor heart. 
 Be it inured to pain, in mercy, ere we part.
 
 95 
 
 One year I lived in high romance, 
 
 A soul ennobled by the grace 
 Of one whose very frowns -enhance 
 
 The regal lustre of the face, 
 And in the magic of a smile 
 I dwelt as in Calypso's isle. 
 
 One year, a narrow line of blue, 
 
 With clouds both ways awhile lield back 
 And dull the vault that Une goes through, 
 
 And frequent now the crossing rack ; 
 And who shall pierce the upper sky, 
 And count the spheres ? Not I, not 1 !
 
 96 DETERIORA. 
 
 Sweet year, it was not hope you brought, 
 Nor aiter toil and stoi'in repose. 
 
 But a fresh growth of tender thought, 
 And all of love my spirit knows. 
 
 You. let my lifetime pause, and bade 
 
 The noontide dial cast no shade. 
 
 If fate and nature screen from me 
 The sovran front I bowed before, 
 
 And set the glorious creatu}-e free, 
 Whom I would clasp, detain, adore ; 
 
 If I forego that strange delight. 
 
 Must all be lost ? Not quite, not quite. 
 
 Die, little Love, without complaint, 
 Whom Honour standeth by to shrive : 
 
 Assoiled from all selfish taint. 
 
 Die, Love, whom Friendship will survive. 
 
 Nor heat nor folly gave thee birth ; 
 
 And briefness doth but raise thy woith.
 
 DETEEIOI!i\. 
 
 Let the grey hermit Friendship hoard 
 Whatever sainted Love bequeathed, 
 And in some hidden scroll record 
 
 The vows in pious moments breathed. 
 Vex not the lost with idle suit. 
 Oh, lonely heart, be mute, be mute. 
 
 H
 
 98 
 
 As when a traveller, forced to journey back, 
 
 Takes coin by coin, and gravely counts them o'er, 
 
 Grudging each payment, fearing lest he lack, 
 
 Before he can regain the friendly shore ; 
 
 So reckoned I your sojourn, day by day, 
 
 So grudged I every week that dropt away. 
 
 And as a prisoner, doomed and bound, upstarts 
 From shattered dreams of wedlock and repose. 
 
 At sudden rumblings of the market-carts. 
 
 Which bring to town thestrawberry and the rose, 
 
 And wakes to meet sui-e death ; so shuddered I, 
 
 To hear you meditate your gay Good-bye.
 
 PARTING. 99 
 
 But why not gay ? For, if there's aught you lose, 
 It is but drawing off a wrinkled glove 
 
 To turn the keys of treasuries, free to choose 
 
 Throughout the hundred-chambered house of love, 
 
 This pathos draws from you, though true and kind, 
 
 Only bland pity for the left-behind, 
 
 We part ; you comfort one bereaved, unmanned ; 
 
 You calmly chide the silence and the grief ; 
 You touch me once with light and courteous hand, 
 
 And with a sense of something like relief 
 You turn away from what may seem to be 
 Too hard a trial of your charity. 
 
 So closes in the life of life ; so ends 
 
 The soaring of the spirit. What remains ? 
 
 To take whate'er the Muse's mother lends. 
 
 One sweet sad thought in many soft refraius 
 
 And half-reveal in Coan gauze of rhyme 
 A cherished image of your joyous prime.
 
 100 
 
 yH i]^ni mns Jm^lhh. 
 
 Slope under slope the pastures dip 
 With ribboned waterfalls, and make 
 
 Scant room for jnst a village strip, 
 The setting of a sapphire lake. 
 
 And here, when summer draws the kine 
 
 To upland grasses patched with snow, 
 Our travellers rest not, only dine, 
 
 Then driven by Furies, onward go. 
 
 For pilgrims of the pointed stick, 
 
 With passport case for scallop shell. 
 Scramble for worshipped Alps too quick 
 To care for vales where moitals dwell.
 
 ALL THAT WAS POSSIBLE. 101 
 
 Twice daily swarms the hostel's pier, 
 
 Twice daily is the table laid ; 
 And, " Oh, that some would tarry here ! " 
 
 Sighs Madeline, the serving-maid. 
 
 She shows them silly carven stuff; 
 
 Some sneer, but others smile and buy ; 
 And these light smiles are quite enough 
 
 To faake the wistful maiden sigh. 
 
 She scans the face, but not the mind ; 
 
 She learns their taste in wines and toys, 
 But, seem they thoughtful and refined. 
 
 She fain would know their cares, their joys. 
 
 For man is not as horse and hound, 
 Who turn to meet their lord's caress, 
 
 Yet never miss the touch or sound, 
 When absence brings unconsciousness.
 
 102 ALL THAT WAS POSSIBLE. 
 
 Not such the souls that can reflect ; 
 
 Too mild they may be to repine ; 
 But sometimes, winged with intellect, 
 
 They strain to pass the bounding line. 
 
 And to have learnt our pleasant tongue 
 In English mansions, gave a sense 
 
 Of something bitter-sweet, that stung 
 The pensive maiden of Brientz. 
 
 1 will not say she wished for aught ; 
 
 For, failing guests, she duly spini. 
 And saved for marriage : but one thought 
 
 Would still in alien channels run. 
 
 And when at last a lady came, 
 
 Not lovely, but with twofold grace, 
 
 For courtly France had tuned her name, 
 Whilst England reigned in hair and face ;
 
 ALL THAT WAS POSSIBLE. 103 
 
 And illness bound her many a day, 
 
 A willing captive, to the mere, 
 In peace, though home was far away, 
 
 For Madeline's talking brought it near. 
 
 Then delicate words unused before 
 Rose to her lips, as amber shines 
 
 Thrown by the wave upon the shore 
 From unimagined ocean-mines ; 
 
 And then perceptions multiplied, 
 
 Foreshadowings of the heart came true, 
 
 And interlaced on every side 
 
 Old girlish fancies bloomed and grew ; 
 
 And looks of higher meaning gleamed 
 Like azure sheen of mountain ice, 
 
 And common household service seemed 
 The wageless work of Paradise.
 
 104 ALL THAT WAS TOSSIBLE. 
 
 But autumn downward di-ove the kine, 
 And clothed the wheel with flaxen thread, 
 
 And sprmkled snow upon the pine, 
 And bowed the silent spinster's head. 
 
 Then Europe's tumult scared the spring, 
 And checked the Northern travel-drift : 
 
 Yet to Brientz did summer bring 
 An English letter and a gift; 
 
 And Madeline took them with a tear : 
 " Plow gracious to remember me ! 
 
 Her words I'll keep from year to year, 
 Her face in heaven I hope to see."
 
 105 
 
 Oh, that the road were longer, 
 A mile, or two, or three ! 
 
 So might the thought grow stronger 
 That flows from touch of thee. 
 
 Oh, little slumbering maid, 
 If thou wert five years older, 
 
 Thine head would not be laid 
 So simply on my shoulder ! 
 
 Oh, would that I were younger. 
 Oh, were I more like thee, 
 
 I should not faintly hunger 
 For love that cannot l)e.
 
 106 SCHEVENINGEN AVENUE. 
 
 A girl might be caressed, 
 
 Beside me freely sitting ; 
 A child on me might rest, 
 
 And not like thee, unwitting. 
 
 Such honour is thy mother's, 
 Who smileth on thy sleep. 
 
 Or for the nurse who smothers 
 Thy cheek in kisses deep. 
 
 And but for parting day. 
 And but for forest shady, 
 
 From me they'd take away 
 The burden of their lady. 
 
 Ah thus to feel thee leaning 
 Above the nursemaid's hand, 
 
 Is like a stranger's gleaning, 
 Where rich men own the land.
 
 SCHEVENINGEN AVENUE. 107 
 
 Chance gains, and humble thrift, 
 With shyness much Kke thieving, 
 
 No notice with the gift. 
 
 No thanks with the receiving. 
 
 Oh, peasant, when thou starvest 
 
 Outside the fair domain. 
 Imagine there's a harvest 
 
 In every treasured grain ! 
 
 Make with thy thoughts high cheer, 
 
 Say grace for others dining. 
 And keep thy pittance clear 
 
 From poison of repining. 
 
 1859.
 
 108 
 
 Can you so fair and young forecast 
 
 The sure, the cruel day of doom ; 
 Must I believe that you at last 
 
 Will fall, fall, fall down to the tomb ? 
 Unclouded, fearless, gentle soul, 
 
 You greet the foe whose threats you hear ; 
 Your lifted eyes discern the goal. 
 
 Your blood declares it is not near. 
 
 Feel deeply ; toil through weal and woe. 
 
 Love England, love a friend, a bride. 
 Bid wisdom grow, let sorrow flow, 
 
 Make many weep when you have died.
 
 MELLIEEN. 109 
 
 When- you shall die — what seasons lie 
 
 'Twixt that great Then and this sweet Now ! 
 
 What blooms of courage for that eye, 
 What thorns of honour for that brow ! 
 
 Oh, mortal, too dear to me, tell me thy choice, 
 
 Say how wouldst thou die, and in dying rejoice. 
 
 Will you perish calmly sinking 
 
 To a sunless deep sea cave. 
 Folding hands, and kindly thinking 
 
 Of the friend you tried to save 1 
 Will you let your sweet breath pass 
 
 On the arms of children bending, 
 Gazing on the sea of glass. 
 
 Where the lovelight has no ending t 
 
 Or in victory stern and fateful, 
 
 Colours wrapt round shattered breast, 
 
 English maidens rescued, grateful, 
 
 Whispering near you, conqueror, rest ;
 
 110 MELTJREN. 
 
 Or an old tune played once more, 
 
 Tender cadence oft repeated, 
 Moonliglit shed through open door. 
 
 Angel wife beside you seated. 
 Whatever thy death may be, child of my heart, 
 Long, long shall they mourn thee that see thee dejiart. 
 
 ISGO.
 
 Ill 
 
 With half a moon, and clouds rose pink, 
 
 And water-lilies just in bud, 
 With iris on the river bank, 
 
 And white weed garlands on the mud, 
 And roses thin and pale as dreams, 
 
 And happy cygnets born in May, 
 No wonder if our country seems 
 
 Drest out for Freedom's natal day. 
 
 We keep the day ; but who can brood 
 On memories of unkingly John, 
 
 Or of the leek His Highness chewed, 
 Or of the stone he wrote upon 1
 
 112 A MEJtRY PARTING. 
 
 To Freedom born so long ago, 
 We do devoir in very deed, 
 
 If heedless as the clovids we row 
 
 With fruit and wine to Runnymede. 
 
 Ah ! life is short, and learning long ; 
 
 We're midway through our mirthful June, 
 And feel about for words of song 
 
 To help us through some dear old tune. 
 We firmly, fondly seize the joy, 
 
 As tight as fingers press the oar. 
 With love and laughter girl and boy 
 
 Hold the sweet days, and make them more. 
 
 And when our northern stars have set 
 For ever on the maid we lose, 
 
 Beneath our feet she'll not forget 
 
 How speed the hours with Eton crews.
 
 A MERRY PARTING. 113 
 
 Then round the world, good river, run, 
 And though with you no boat may glide. 
 
 Kind river, bear some dinft of fun 
 And friendship to the exile bride. 
 
 June 15a, 1861.
 
 114 
 
 We come in arms, we stand ten score, 
 
 Embattled on the castle green ; 
 We grasp our firelocks tight, for war 
 
 Is threatening, and we see our Queen. 
 And " will the churls last out till we 
 
 Haveduly hardened bones and thews 
 For scouring leagues of swamp and sea 
 
 Of braggart mobs and corsaii- crews ? " 
 We ask ; we fear not scoff or smile 
 
 At meek attire of blue and grey, 
 For the proud wrath that thrills our isle 
 
 Gives faith and force to this array. 
 So great a charm is England's right, 
 
 That hearts enlarged together flow,
 
 .SCHOOL FENCIBLES. 115 
 
 And each man rises up a knight 
 
 To work the evil-thinkers woe. 
 And, girt with ancient truth and grace, 
 
 We do our service and our suit, 
 And each can be, whate'er his race, 
 
 A Chandos or a Montacute. 
 Thou, Mistress, whom we serve to-day, 
 
 Bless the real swords that we shall wield. 
 Repeat the call we now obey 
 
 In sunset lands, on some fair field. 
 Thy flag shall make some Huron rock 
 
 As dear to us as Windsor's keep, 
 And arms thy Thames hath nerved shall mock 
 
 The surgings of th' Ontarian deep. 
 The stately miisic of thy Guards, 
 
 Which times our march beneath thy ken, 
 Shall sound, with spells of sacred bards, 
 
 From heart to heart, when we are men. 
 And when we bleed on alien earth. 
 
 We'll call to mind how cheers of ours
 
 IIG SCHOOL FENCIBLES. 
 
 Proclaimed a loud unconrtly mirth 
 
 Amongst thy glowing orange bowers. 
 And if for England's sake we fall, 
 
 So be it, so thy cross be won, 
 Fixed by kind hands on silvered pall, 
 
 And Avorn in death, for duty done. 
 Ah ! thus we fondle Death, the soldier's mate. 
 
 Blending his image with the hopes of youth 
 To hallow all ; meanwhile the hidden fate 
 
 Chills not our fancies with the iron truth. 
 Death from afar we call, and Death is here, 
 
 To choose out him who wears the loftiest mien ; 
 And Grief, the cruel lord who knows no peer, 
 
 Breaks through the shield of love to pierceour Queen. 
 
 1861.
 
 117 
 
 Who so distraught could ramble here, 
 From gentle beech to simple goise, 
 
 From glen to moor, nor cease to fear 
 The world's impetuous bigot force, 
 
 Which drives the young before they will, 
 
 And when they will not drives them still. 
 
 Come hither, thou that would'st forget 
 The gamester's smile, the trader's vaunt, 
 
 The statesman actor's face hard set, 
 The kennel cry that cheers his taunt. 
 
 Come where pure winds and rills combine 
 
 To murmur peace round virtue's shrine.
 
 118 BOCONNOC. 
 
 Vii'tue — men thrust her back, when these 
 Rode down for Charles and right divine, 
 
 And those with dogma Genevese 
 
 Restored in faith their wavering line. 
 
 No virtue in religious camps, 
 
 No heathen oil in Gideon's lamps. 
 
 And now, when forcing seasons bud 
 With prophet, hero, saint, and quack, 
 
 When creeds and fashions heat the blood. 
 And transcendental tonguelets clack, 
 
 Sweet Virtue's lyre we hardly know, 
 
 And think her odes quite rococo. 
 
 Well, be it Roman, be it worse, 
 
 When Pelhams reigned in George's name 
 
 Poets were safe from siieer or curse 
 Who gave a pati-iot classic fame. 
 
 And goodness, void of passion, knit 
 
 The hearts of Lyttelton and Pitt.
 
 BOCOXNOC. 119 
 
 That a^e was as a neutral vale 
 
 'Twixt uplands of tumultuous strife, 
 
 And tm^ning from the sects to hail 
 Composure and a graceful life. 
 
 Here, where the fern-clad streamlet flows, 
 
 Boconnoc's guests ensured repose. 
 
 That charm remains ; and he Avho knows 
 The root and stock of freedom's laws, 
 
 Unscared by frenzied nations' throes, 
 And hugging yet the good old cause. 
 
 Finds in the shade these beeches cast 
 
 The wit, the fragrance of the past. 
 
 Octave of St. Bartholonmc, 1862.
 
 120 
 
 The door hath closed behind the sighing priest, 
 
 The last absolving Latin duly said, 
 And night, barred slowly backward from the East, 
 
 Lets in the dawn to mock a sleepless bed; 
 
 The bed of one who yester even took 
 
 From scented aumbries store of silk and lace, 
 
 From caskets beads and rings, for one last look. 
 One look, which left the teardi'ops on her face ; 
 
 A lady, who hath loved the world, the court, 
 
 Loved yovith and splendour, loved her own sweet soul, 
 
 And meekly stoops to learn that life is short. 
 Dame Nature's pitiful gift, a beggar's dole.
 
 A SKETCH AFTER BEANTOME. 121 
 
 Sweet life, "ah ! let her live what yet remains. 
 
 Call, quickly call, the page who bears the lute ; 
 Bid him attune to descant of sad strains 
 
 The lily voice we thought for ever mute. 
 
 The sorrowing minstrel at the casement stands 
 And bends before the sun that gilds his wires. 
 
 And prays a blessing on his faltering hands, 
 That they may serve his lady's last desires. 
 
 " Play something old and soft, a song I knew ; 
 
 " Play La defaite des Suisses." Then pearly notes 
 Come dropping one by one, and with the dew 
 
 Down on the breath of morning music floats. 
 
 He played as far as tout est perdu, and wept. 
 
 " Tout est jjerdu again, once more," she sighed ; 
 And on stiU softer on the music crept, 
 
 And softly, at the pause, the listener died. 
 
 1HC>2.
 
 122 
 
 For waste of scheme and toil we grieve, 
 For snowflakes on the wave we sigh, 
 
 For writings on the sand that leave 
 Naught for to-morrow's passer-by. 
 
 Waste, waste ; each knoweth his own worth, 
 And would be something ere he sink 
 
 To silence, ere he mix with earth, 
 
 And part with love, and cease to think. 
 
 Shall I then comfort thee and me. 
 
 My neighbour, preaching thus of waste ? 
 
 Count yonder planet fragments ; see. 
 The meteors into darkness haste.
 
 ON LIVERMEAD SANDS. 123 
 
 Lo ! myriad germs at i-andom float, 
 Fall on no fostei-ing home, and die 
 
 Back to mere elements ; every mote 
 Was framed for life as thou, as I. 
 
 For ages over soulless eyes. 
 
 Ere man was born, the heavens in vain 
 Dipt clouds in dawn and sunset dyes 
 
 Unheeded, and shall we complain 1 
 
 Ay, Nature plays that wanton game. 
 And Nature's hierophants may smile. 
 
 Contented with their lore ; no blame 
 To rhymers if they groan meanwhile. 
 
 Since that which yearns towards minds of men, 
 Which flashes down from brain to lip, 
 
 Finds but cold truth in mammoth den, 
 With spores, with stars, no fellowship.
 
 124 ON LIVERMEAD SANDS. 
 
 Say we that our ungarnered thought 
 Drifts on the stream of all men's fate, 
 
 Our travail is a thing of navight, 
 Only because mankind is great. 
 
 Born to be wasted, even so. 
 
 And doomed to feel, and lift no voice ; 
 Yet not unblest, because I know 
 
 So many other souls rejoice. 
 
 1863.
 
 125 
 
 Lost to the Church and deaf to me, this town 
 Yet wears a reverend garniture of peace. 
 Set in a land of trade, like Gideon's fleece 
 Bedewed where all is dry ; the Pope may frown ; 
 But, if this city is the shrine of youth. 
 How shall the Preacher lord of virgin souls. 
 When hy glad streams and laughing lawns he strolls — • 
 How can he bless them not ? Yet in sad sooth, 
 When I would love these English gownsmen, sighs 
 Heave my fi-ail breast, and weakness dims mine eyes. 
 
 These strangers heed me not. Far oft" in France 
 Are young men not so fair, and not so cold. 
 My listeners. Were they here, therr greeting glance 
 Might charm mo to forget that I were old. 
 
 1803.
 
 126 
 
 I GO, and men who know me not, 
 When I am reckoned man, will ask, 
 
 " What is it then that thou hast got 
 
 By drudging through that five-year task 1 
 What knowledge or what art is thine ? 
 Set out thy stock, thy craft declare. 
 Then this child answer shall be mine, 
 " I only know they loved me there." 
 
 There courteous strivings with my peers. 
 And duties not bound up in books, 
 
 And courage fanned by stormy cheers, 
 And wisdom writ in pleasant looks,
 
 A EETROSPECT OF HCHOOL LIFE. 12" 
 
 And hardship bvioyed with hope, and pain 
 Encountered for the common weal, 
 
 And glories void of vulgar gain. 
 
 Were mine to take, were mine to feel. 
 
 Nor from Apollo did 1 shrink 
 
 Like Titans chained ; but sweet and low 
 Whispered the Nymphs, who seldom think 
 " Up, up for action, run and row ! " 
 He let me, though his smile was grave. 
 
 Seek an Egeria out of town 
 Beneath the chesnuts ; he forgave ; 
 
 And shovdd the jealous Muses fiown ? 
 
 Field ward some remnants of theii* lore 
 Went with me, as the rhymes of Gray 
 
 Annealed the heart of Wolfe for war 
 When drifting on his starlit way.
 
 128 A RETKOSrECT OF SCHOOL LIFE. 
 
 Much lost 1 ; something stayed behind, 
 A snatch, maybe, of ancient song ; 
 
 Some breathings of a deathless mind, 
 Some love of truth, some hate of wrong. 
 
 And to myself in games I said, 
 " What mean the books ? Can I win fame ? 
 I would be like the faithf lal dead 
 
 A fearless man, and pure of blame. 
 I may have failed, my School may fail ; 
 
 I tremble, but thus much I dare ; 
 I love her. Let the critics rail, 
 
 My brethren and my home are there." 
 
 July 28t7t, 1863.
 
 129 
 
 Oh, music ! breathe me something old to-day, 
 Some fine air gliding in from far away, 
 Through to the soul that lies bebind the clay. 
 
 This hour, if thou did'st ever speak before, 
 Speak in the wave that sobs upon the shore, 
 Speak in the rill that trickles from the moor. 
 
 Known was this sea's slow chant when I was young ; 
 To me these rivulets sing as once they sung, 
 No need this hour of human throat and tongue. 
 
 The Dead who loved me heard this selfsame tide. 
 Oh that the Dead were listening by my side, 
 
 And I could give the fondness then denied. 
 
 K
 
 130 CLOVELLV I'.EACH. 
 
 Once in the parlour of my mother's sire 
 
 One sang, "And ye shall walk in silk attire." 
 
 Then my cold childhood woke to strange desire. 
 
 That was an unconfessed and idle spell, 
 A drop of dew that on a blossom fell ; 
 And what it wrought I cannot surely tell. 
 
 Far off that thought and changed, like lines that stay 
 On withered canvas, pink and pearly grey 
 When rose and violet hues have passed away. 
 
 Oh, had I dwelt with music since that night ! 
 What life but that is life, what other flight 
 Escapes the plaguing doubts of wrong and right ! 
 
 Oh, music ! once I felt the touch of thee. 
 Once when this soul was as the chainless sea. 
 Oh, could'st thou bid me even now be free ! 
 
 April 1865.
 
 131 
 
 This sun, whose javelins strike and gild the wheat, 
 Who gives the nectarine half an orb of bloom, 
 
 Burns on my life no less, and beat by beat 
 
 Shapes that grave hour when boyhood hears her doom. 
 
 Between this glow of pious eve and me, 
 
 Lost moments, thick as clouds of summer flies. 
 
 Specks of old time, which else one could not see, 
 Made manifest in the windless calm, arise. 
 
 Streaks fairy green are ti-aced on backward ways, 
 Through vacant regions lightly overleapt, 
 
 With pauses, where in soft pathetic haze 
 Are phantoms of the joys that died unwept.
 
 132 AN ErOCH IN A SWEET TJFE. 
 
 Seven years since one, who bore with me the yoke 
 Of household schooling, missed me from her side. 
 
 When called away fi'om sorrowing woman folk 
 A prouder task with brothers twain I plied. 
 
 I came a child, and home was round me still, 
 No terror snapt the silken cord of trust ; 
 
 My accents changed not, and the low " I will " 
 
 Silenced like halcyon plumes the loud " you must." 
 
 I lisped my Latin underneath the gloom 
 Of timbers dark as frowning usher's looks. 
 
 Where thought wonld stray beyond that sordid room 
 To saucy chessmen and to feathered hooks. 
 
 And soon I sat below my grandsire's bust, 
 
 Wliich in the school he loved not deigns to stand, 
 
 That Earl, who forced his compeers to be just, 
 
 And wrought in brave old age what youth had 
 planned.
 
 AN EPOCH IN A SWEET LIFE. 133 
 
 But no ancestral majesties conld fix 
 
 The wistful eye, which fell, and fondly read, 
 
 French carven on the panel, letters six, 
 
 A brother's name, more sacred than the dead. 
 
 How far too sweet for school he seemed to me, 
 How ripe for combat with the wits of men. 
 
 How childlike in his manhood ! Can it be 1 
 Can I indeed be now what he was then ? 
 
 He past from sight ; my laughing life remained 
 Like merry waves that ripple to the bank, 
 
 Curved round the spot where longing eyes are strained, 
 Because beneath the lake a treasure sank. 
 
 Dear as the token of a loss to some, 
 
 And praised for likeness, this was well ; and yet 
 'Twas better still that younger friends should come. 
 
 Whose love might grow entwined with no regret.
 
 134 AN EPOCH IN A SWEET LIFE. 
 
 They came ; and one was of a northern race, 
 Who bore the island galley on his shield, 
 
 Grand histories on his name, and in his face 
 A bright soul's ardour fearlessly revealed. 
 
 We trifled, toiled, and feasted, far apart 
 
 From churls, who wondered what our fiiendship 
 meant ; 
 And in that coy retirement heait to heart 
 
 Drew closer, and our natures were content. 
 
 My noblest playmate lost, I still withdrew 
 
 From dull excitement which the Graces dread. 
 
 And talked in saunterings with the gentle few 
 Of tunes we practised, and of rhymes we read. 
 
 We swam through twilight waters, or we played 
 Like spellbound captives in the Naiad's grot ; 
 
 Coquetted with the oar, and wooed the shade 
 On dainty banks of shy forget-me-not.
 
 AN EPOCH IN A SWEET LIFE. 135 
 
 Oh, Thames ! my memoi-ies bloom with all thy flowers, 
 Thy kindness sighs to me from every tree : 
 
 Farewell ! I thank tliee for the frolic hours, 
 I bid thee, whilst thou flowest, speak of me. 
 
 July 28th, 1864.
 
 136 
 
 A PLAGUE on the whimsies of sickly folk ! 
 
 What am I to do ? What not ? 
 Why, here's the fair sky, and here you lie 
 
 With your couch in a sunny spot. 
 For this you were puUng whenever you spoke, 
 
 Craving to Ue outside, 
 
 And now you'll be sure not to bide. 
 
 You won't lie still for an hour ; 
 
 You'll want to be back to your bower — 
 
 Longing, and never enjoying. 
 
 Shifting from yea to nay. 
 
 For all that you taste is cloying. 
 
 And sweet is the far away. 
 
 'Tis hard to be sick, but worse 
 To have to sit by and nurse.
 
 PH^DKA'S NUESE. 137 
 
 For that is single, but this is double, 
 
 The mind in pain, and the hands in trouble. 
 
 The life men live is a weary coil. 
 
 There is no rest from woe and toil ; 
 
 And if there's aught elsewhere more dear 
 
 Than drawing breath as we do here. 
 
 That darkness holds 
 
 In black inextricable folds. 
 
 Lovesick it seems are we 
 
 Of this, whate'er it be. 
 
 That gleams upon the earth ; 
 
 Because that second bii-th, 
 
 That other life no man hath tiied. 
 
 What lies below 
 
 No god will show, 
 And we to whom the truth's denied 
 Drift upon idle fables to and fro. 
 
 186G.
 
 138 
 
 The aspen grow.s on the maiden's bank, 
 
 Down swoops the breeze on the bongh, 
 Quick rose the gust, and suddenly sank, 
 Like wrath on my sweetheart's brow. 
 
 The tree is caught, the boat dreads nought 
 
 Hiieltered and safe below ; 
 The bank is high, and the wind runs by. 
 
 Giving us leave to row. 
 
 The bank was dipping low and lower, 
 
 Showing the glowing west, 
 The oar went slower, foi- either rower 
 
 The liver was heaving her breast.
 
 BELOW BOULTER'S LOCK. 139 
 
 That sunset seemed to my dauntless steerer 
 
 The lifting and breaking of day, 
 That flush on the wave to me was dearer 
 
 Than shade on a windless day. 
 
 June 2nd, 1868.
 
 140 
 
 TO TWO LITTLE LADIES. 
 
 Across three shires I stretch and lean, 
 To gaze beyond the hills that screen 
 The trustful eyes and gi-acious mien 
 Of unforgotten Geraldine. 
 
 Up Severn sea my fancy speedeth, 
 And past the springs of Thames it speedeth, 
 On to the brilliant town, which needeth, 
 Far less than I, the laugh of Edith. 
 
 Sad gales have changed my woodland scene 
 To russet-brown from gold and green ; 
 Cold and forlorn like me hath been 
 The boat that cariied Geraldine.
 
 FKOM IIALSDON TO CHELTENHAM. 141 
 
 On silent paths the whistlei' weedeth, 
 And what his tune is no one heedeth ; 
 On hay beneath the linhay feedeth 
 The ass that felt the hand of Edith. 
 
 Oh ! cherished thought of Geraldine, 
 I'd rhyme till summer, if the Queen 
 Would blow her trumpets and proclaim 
 Fresh rhymes for that heroic name. 
 
 Oh, babbler ! gay as river stickle, 
 Next year she'll be too old to tickle ; 
 But while my Torridge flows I'll say 
 Blithe Edith liked me half a day ! 
 
 1875.
 
 142 
 
 JL poor T{rmt\ ^mW^ ^tniih\ ^m$$i\mvi 
 
 I CANNOT forget my Joe, 
 
 I bid him be mine in sleep ; 
 But battle and woe have changed him so, 
 
 There's nothing to do but weep. 
 
 My mother rebukes me yet, 
 
 And I never was meek before ; 
 His jacket is wet, his lip cold set, 
 
 He'll trouble our home no more. 
 
 Oh, breaker of reeds that bend ! 
 
 Oh, quencher of tow that smokes ! 
 I'd rather descend to my sailor friend 
 
 Than prosper with lofty folks.
 
 A POOE FRENCH SAILOR'S SWEETHEART. 143 
 
 I'm lying beside the gowaii, 
 
 My Joe in the English bay ; 
 I'm Annie Rowan, his Annie Rowan, 
 
 He called me his hien-aimee. 
 
 I'll hearken to all you quote, 
 
 Though I'd rather be deaf and free ; 
 
 The little he wrote in the sinking boat 
 Is Bible and charm for me. 
 
 1876.
 
 144 
 
 J[ §nvUn itrl 
 
 Oh, scanty white garment ! they ask why I wear yon, 
 Such thin chilly vesture for one that is frail, 
 
 And dull words of prose cannot truly declare you 
 To be what I bid you be, love's coat of mail. 
 
 You were but a symliol of cleanness and rest. 
 To don in the summer time, three years ago ; 
 
 And noAv you encompass a care-stricken breast 
 With fabric of fancy to keep it aglow. 
 
 For when it was Lammastide two before this. 
 
 When freshening my face after freshening my lilies 
 
 A door opened quickly, and down fell a kiss ; 
 
 The lips unforeseen were my passionate Willie's.
 
 A GARDEN GIRL. 145 
 
 My Willie was travel-worn, Willie was cold, 
 And I might not keep but a dear lock of hair. 
 
 I clad him in silk and I decked him with gold, 
 
 But welcome and fondness were choked in despair. 
 
 I follow the wheels, and he turns with a sob. 
 
 We fold our mute hands on the death of the hour ; 
 
 For heart-breaking virtues and destinies rob 
 
 The soul of her nursling, the thorn of her flower. 
 
 The lad's mind is rooted, his passion red-fruited. 
 The head I caressed is another's delight ; 
 
 And I, though I stray through the year, sorrow suited, 
 At Lammas, for W^illie's sake, robe me in white.
 
 146 
 
 There are, I've read, two troops of years. 
 
 One troop is called the teens ; 
 They bring sweet gifts to little dears, 
 
 Ediths and Geraldines. 
 The others have no certain name, 
 
 Though children of the sun, 
 They come to wrinkled men, and claim 
 
 Their treasures one by one. 
 
 There is a hermit faint and dry, 
 In things called rhymes he dabbles. 
 
 And seventeen months have heard him sigh 
 For Cissy and for Babbles
 
 TO TWO YOUNG LADIES. 147 
 
 Once, when he seemed to be bedridden, 
 These girls said, " Make us Hnes," 
 
 He tried to court, as he was bidden, 
 His vanished Valentines. 
 
 Now, three days late, yet ere they ask, 
 
 He's meekly undertaken 
 To do his sentimental task, 
 
 Philandering, though forsaken. 
 
 I pace my pai-achse, and long 
 
 To show it off to Peris ; 
 They come not, but it can't be wrong 
 
 To raise their ghosts by queries. 
 
 Is Geraldine in flowing robes ? 
 
 Has Edith rippling curls ? 
 And do their ears prolong the lobes 
 
 Weighed down with gold and pearls 1
 
 148 TO TWO YOUNG LADIES. 
 
 And do they know the verbs of France ? 
 
 And do they play duetts 1 
 And do they blush when led to dance 1 
 
 And are they called coquettes 1 
 
 Oh, Cissy, if the heartless year 
 
 Sets our bi'ief loves asunder ! 
 Oh, Babbles, whom I daren't call dear ! 
 
 What can I do but wonder ? 
 I wonder what you're both become, 
 
 Whether you're children still ; 
 I pause with fingers twain and thumb 
 
 Closed on my faltering quill ; 
 I pause to think how I decay, 
 
 And you win grace from Time. 
 Perhaps ill-natured folks would say 
 
 He's pausing for a rhyme. 
 The sun, who drew us far apart, 
 
 Might lessen my regrets
 
 TO TWO YOUNG LADIES. 149 
 
 Would he but deign to use his heart 
 
 111 painting your vignettes. 
 Then though I groaned for losing half 
 
 Of joys that memory traces, 
 I could forego the talk, and laugh 
 
 In welcoming the faces. 
 
 1877.
 
 150 
 
 The strawberry tree and the crimson thorn, 
 And Fanny's myrtle and William's vine, 
 And honey of bountiful jessamine, 
 
 Are gone from the homestead where I was born. 
 
 I gaze from my Grandfather's terrace wall, 
 And then I bethink me how once I stept 
 Through rooms where my Mother had blest me, and 
 wept 
 
 To yield them to strangers, and part with them all. 
 
 ]\Iy Father, like Matthew the publican, ceased 
 Full early from hoarding with stainless mind, 
 To Torrington only and home inclined. 
 
 Where brotherhood, cousinhood, graced his feast.
 
 A HOUSE AND A GIIIL 151 
 
 I meet his remembrance in market lane, 
 
 'Neath town-hall pillars and churchyard limes, 
 In streets where he tried a thousand times 
 
 To chasten anger and soften pain. 
 
 Ah ! would there were some one that I could aid, 
 Though lacking the simpleness, lacking the worth, 
 Yet wanted and trusted by right of birth, 
 
 Some townfellow stripling, some Torrington maid. 
 
 Oh, pitiful waste ! oh, stubborn neglect ! 
 
 Oh, pieties smothered for thirty years ! 
 
 Oh, gleanings of kindness in dreams and tears ! 
 Oh, drift cast up from a manhood wrecked ! 
 
 There's one merry maiden hath carelessly crossed 
 The threshold I dread, and she never discerns 
 In keepsakes she thanks me for, lessons she learns, 
 
 A sign of the grace that I squandered and lost.
 
 152 A HOUSE AND A GIRL. 
 
 My birthplace to Meg is but window and stone, 
 My knowledge a wilderness where she can stray. 
 To keep what she gathers or throw it away. 
 
 So Meg lets me laugh with her, mourning alone. 
 
 1877.
 
 153 
 
 y 1[0H0tu-)Pit$$^n]g$r "^nkitutttn. 
 
 Maiden, hastening to be wise, 
 
 Maiden, reading with a rage, 
 
 Envy flutteieth round the page 
 Whereupon thy downward eyes 
 Rove and rest, and melt maybe- 
 Virgin eyes one may not see, 
 Gathering as the bee 
 Takes from cherry tree ; 
 As the robin's bill 
 Frets the window sill, 
 Maiden bird and bee, 
 Three from me half hid. 
 Doing what we did 
 When our minds were free.
 
 154 A FELLOW-PASSENGER UNKNOWN. 
 
 Those romantic pages wist 
 What romance is in the look. 
 Oh, that I could be so bold, 
 So romantic as to hold 
 Half an hour the pensive wrist. 
 And the burden of the book ! 
 
 1877.
 
 155 
 
 Outside quaint Albert Durer's town, 
 Where Freedom set her stony crown, 
 Whereof the gables red and brown 
 Curve over peaceful forts that screen 
 Spring bloom and garden lanes between 
 The scarp and courter-scarp, her feet 
 One highday of Saint Paraclete 
 Were led along the dolorous street 
 By stepping stones towards love and heaven. 
 And pauses of the soul twice seven. 
 
 Beneath the flowerless trees, where May, 
 Proud of her orchards' fine array, 
 Abates her claim and holds no sway, 
 Past iron tomljs, the useless shields 
 Of cousins slain in Elsass fields, 
 The girl, with fair neck meekly bowed,
 
 156 NUREMBERG CEMETERY. 
 
 Moves bravely through a saunteiiiig crowd, 
 Hastening, as she was bid, to breathe 
 Above the breathless, and enwreathe, 
 With pansies earned by spinster tin ift, 
 And lilybells, a wooer's gift, 
 A stone which glimmers in the shade 
 Of yonder silent colonnade, 
 Over against the slates that hold 
 Marie in lines of slender gold, 
 A token wrought by fictive fingers, 
 A garland, last year's oflering, lingers, 
 Hung out of reach, and facing north. 
 And lo ! thereout a wren flies forth. 
 And Gertrude, straining on toetips. 
 Just touches with her prayerful lips 
 The warm home which a bird unskilled 
 In grief and hope knows how to build. 
 
 The maid can mourn, but not the wi'en. 
 
 Birds die, death's shade belongs to men. 
 1877.
 
 157 
 
 J'aurai pass6 siir la terre, 
 N'ayant rien aime que I'amour. 
 
 Mortal thing not wholly clay, 
 Mellowing only to decay, 
 Speak, for airs of spring unfold 
 Wistful sorrows long untold. 
 Under a poplar turning green, 
 Say for age that seems so bold, 
 Oh, the saddest words to say, 
 " This might have been." 
 
 Twenty, thirty years ago —   
 Woe, woe, the seasons flow ! 
 Beatings of a zephyr's plume 
 Misrht have broken down the doom.
 
 158 
 
 Gossamer scruples fell between 
 Thee and this that might have been; 
 Now the clinging cobwebs grow, 
 Ah ! the saddest loss is this, 
 A good maid's kiss. 
 
 Soon, full soon, they will be here, 
 Twisting withies for the bier ; 
 Under a heathen yew-tree's shade 
 
 Will a wasted heart be laid — 
 Heart that never dared be dear. 
 Leave it so, to lie nnblest, 
 Priest of Love, just half confessed.
 
 159 
 
 ^ fitl %^rmt}^ ymr$ JlttB^sIi Inonbs. 
 
 When apple buds began to swell, 
 And Procne called for Philomel, 
 Down there, where Seine caresseth sea, 
 Two lassies deigned, or chanced to be. 
 Playmates or votaries for me — 
 Miss Euphrasie, Miss Eulalie. 
 
 Then dates of birth dropt out of mind, 
 
 For one was brave as two were kind. 
 
 In cheerful vigils one designed 
 
 A maze of wit for two to wind ; 
 
 And that grey Muse who served the three 
 
 Broke daylight into reverie.
 
 100 A laiENCII rOET'.S ENGLISH FRIENDS. 
 
 Peace lit upon a fluttering vein, 
 And self forgetting on the brain, 
 On rifts by passion wrought, again 
 Splashed from the sky of childhood raixa ; 
 And rid of afterthought were we, 
 And from foreboding sweetly free. 
 
 Now falls the apple, bleeds the vine, 
 
 And moved by some autumnal sign, 
 
 I who in spring was glad, repine. 
 
 And ache without my anodyne. 
 
 Oh, things that were, oh, things that are. 
 
 Oh, setting of my double star ! 
 
 This day this way an Iris came 
 And brought a scroll, and showed a name. 
 Now surely they who thus reclaim 
 Acquaintance should relight a flame. 
 
 So speed, gay steed, that I may see 
 Dear Euphrasie, dear Eulalie.
 
 A FRENCH POET'S ENGLISH FRIENDS. 161 
 
 Behind this ivy screen are they 
 Whose girlhood flowered on rae last May. 
 The world is lord of all ; I pray 
 They be not coui'tly — who can say ? 
 Well, well, remembrance held in fee 
 Is good, nay, best, I turn and flee. 
 
 Jl
 
 1G2 
 
 Down with the oar, I toil no more. 
 Trust to the boat ; we rest, we float. 
 Under the loosestrife and alder we roam 
 To seek and search for the halcyon's home. 
 
 Blue bird, pause ; thou hast no cause 
 To grudge me the sight of fishbones white. 
 Thine is the only nest now to find. 
 Show it me, birdie ; be calm, be kind. 
 
 Wander all day in quest of prey, 
 Dart and gleam, and rufile the stream ; 
 Then for the truth that the old folk sing, 
 Comfort the twilight, and droop thy wing 
 
 Septemher 1877.
 
 163 
 
 l0m% J'ttp! 
 
 EuPHEMiA Seton of Urchinhope, 
 
 The wife of the farmer of Tynnerandoon, 
 
 Stands lifting her eyes to the whitening slope, 
 
 And longs for her laddies at svippertime soon. 
 
 The laddies, the dog, and the witless sheep, 
 
 Are bound to come home, for the snow will be deep. 
 
 The mother is pickling a scornful word 
 
 To throw at the head of the elder lad, Hn<di : 
 
 But talkative Jamie, as gay as a bird, 
 
 Will have nothing beaten save snow from his shoe. 
 
 He has fire in his eyes, he has curls on his head, 
 
 And a silver brooch and a kerchief red.
 
 164 11 o:\iE, puri 
 
 Poor Hugh, trudging on with liis collie pup Jess, 
 Has kept his plain mind to himself all the way, 
 Just quietly giving his dog the caress 
 Which no one gave him for a year and a day. 
 And luckily quadrupeds seldom despise 
 Our lumbering wits and our lack-lustre eyes. 
 
 Deep down in the corrie, high up on the brae, 
 Where Shinnel and Scar tumble down from the rock, 
 The wicked white ladies have been at their play, 
 The wind has been pushing the leewardly flock. 
 The white land should tell where the creatures are gone, 
 But snow hides the snow that their hooves havebeen on. 
 
 Ah ! down there in Ui chinliope nobody knows 
 
 How blinding the flakes, and the north wind how cruel. 
 
 Euphemia's gudeman will come for his brose, 
 
 But far up the hill is her darling, her jewel 
 
 She sees something crimson. " Oh, gudeman, look up ! 
 
 There's Jamie's ci-avat on the neck of the pup."
 
 HOME, run 165 
 
 " Where, where have ye been, Jess, and where did ye 
 
 leave him ? 
 Now just get a bite, pup, then show me my pet. 
 Poor Jamie '11 be tired, and the sleep will deceive him ; 
 Oh, stir him, oh, guide him, before the sun set ! " 
 f Quick, Jock, bring a lantern ! quick, Sandie, some 
 
 wraps ! 
 Before ye win till him 'twill darken, perhaps." 
 
 Jess whimpeied; the young moon was down in the 
 
 west ; 
 A shelter-stone jutted from under the hill ; 
 Stiff hands beneath Jamie's blue bonnet were pressed. 
 And over his beating heart one that was still. 
 Bareheaded and coatless, to windward lay Hugh, 
 And high on his back the snow gathered and grew. 
 
 " Now fold them in plaids, they'll be up with the sun ; 
 Their bed will be warm, and the blood is so strong. 
 Ildw wise to send Jessie ! nowcanuily vmi.
 
 ICG HOME, run 
 
 Poor pup, are ye tired 1 we'll be home before long." 
 Jess licked a cold cheek, and the bonny boy spoke : 
 "Where's Hugh? " The pup whimpered, but Hugh 
 never Avoke.
 
 167 
 
 'TwAS when we learnt we could be beat ; 
 Our star misled us, and we strayed. 
 Elsewhere the host was in retreat ; 
 We were a guideless lost brigade. 
 
 We stumbled on a town in doubt, 
 To halt and sup we were full fain, 
 The man that held the chart cried out, 
 " 'Tis Yaucouleurs in old Lorraine." 
 
 In Yaucouleurs we will not doubt. 
 
 For here, when need was sore, Saint Jane 
 
 Arose, and girt herself to rout 
 
 The foes that troubled iier Lorraine.
 
 168 A SOLDIEK'S MIEACLE. 
 
 So here we feast in faith to-night, 
 To-morrow we'll rejoin the host. 
 Drink, drink ! the wine is pure and bright. 
 And Jane our maiden is the toast. 
 
 But I, that faced the window, caught 
 A passing cloud, a foreign plume, 
 A Prussian helmet ; and the thought 
 Of peril chilled the tavern room. 
 
 We rose, we glared through twilight panes. 
 
 We muttei-ed curses bosom-deep ; 
 
 A tell-tale gallop scared the lanes. 
 
 We grudged to spoil our comrades' sleep. 
 
 Then louder than the Uhlan's hoof 
 Fell storm from sky and flood on banks, 
 September's passion smote the roof ; 
 We blest it, and to Jane gave thanks.
 
 A SOLDIER'S MIRACLE. 169 
 
 Betwixt us and that Uhlan's mates 
 A bridgeless river strongly flowed. 
 A sign was shown that checked the fates, 
 And on that storm our maiden rode. 
 
 1870.
 
 170 
 
 When George the Third was reigning a hundred years 
 
 ago, 
 
 He ordered Captain Farmer to chase the foreign foe. 
 "You're not afraid of shot," said he, "you're not 
 
 afraid of wreck, 
 So cruise about the west of France in the frigate 
 
 called Quebec. 
 
 Quebec was once a Frenchman's town, but twenty 
 
 years ago 
 King George the Second sent a man called General 
 
 Wolfe, you know, 
 To clamber up a precipice and look into Quebec, 
 As you'd look down a hatchway when standing on 
 
 the deck.
 
 A BALLAD FOR A BOY. 171 
 
 Tf Wolfe could beat the Frenclimen then so you can 
 
 beat them now. 
 Before he got inside the town he died, I must allow. 
 But since the town was won for us it is a lucky name, 
 And you'll remember Wolfe's good work, and you 
 
 shall do the same." 
 
 Then Farmer said, " I'll try, sir," and Farmer bowed 
 
 so low 
 That George could see his pigtail tied in a velvet bow. 
 George gave him his commission, and that it might be 
 
 safer. 
 Signed "King of Britain, King of France," and sealed 
 
 it with a wafer. 
 
 Then proud was Captain Farmer in a fiigate of his 
 
 own, 
 And grander on his quarter-deck than George upon 
 
 the throne.
 
 172 A BALLAD FOK A BOY. 
 
 He'd two guns in his cabin, aud on the spar-deck ten, 
 And twenty on the gun-deck, and more than ten score 
 men. 
 
 And as a huntsman scours the brakes with sixteen 
 
 brace of dogs, 
 With two-and-thirty cannon the ship explored the fogs. 
 From Cape la Hogue to Ushant, from Rochefort to 
 
 Belleisle, 
 She hunted game till reef and mud were rubbing on 
 
 her keel. 
 
 The fogs are diied, the frigate's side is bright with 
 
 melting tar, 
 Tlie lad up in the foretop sees square white sails afar ; 
 The east wind drives three square-sailed masts from 
 
 out the Breton bay, 
 And " Clear for action ! " Farmer shouts, and leefers 
 
 yell " Hooray ! "
 
 A BALLAD FOK A BOY. 173 
 
 The Frenchmen's captain had a name I wisli I conlcl 
 
 pronounce ; 
 A Breton gentleman was he, and wholly free fi-om 
 
 bounce, 
 One like those famous fellows who died by guillotine 
 For honour and the flevn-s-de-lys, and Antoinette the 
 
 Queen. 
 
 The Cathohc for Louis, the Protestant for George, 
 
 Each captain drew as bright a sword as saintly smiths 
 could forge ; 
 
 And both were simple seamen, but Ijoth could under- 
 stand 
 
 How each was bound to win or die for flag and native 
 land. 
 
 The French ship was La Surveillante, which means the 
 
 watchful maid ; 
 She folded u[)lier head-dress and began to cannonade,
 
 174 A BALLAD FOR A BOY. 
 
 Her hull was clean, and ours was foul; we had to 
 
 spread more sail. 
 On canvas, stays, and topsail yai'ds her bullets came 
 
 like hail. 
 
 Sore smitten were both captains, and many lads beside, 
 And still to cut our rigging the foreign gunners tried. 
 A sail-clad spar came flapping down athwart a blazing 
 
 gun ; 
 We could not quench the rushing flames, and so the 
 
 Frenchman won. 
 
 Our quarter-deck was crowded, the waist was all 
 
 aglow ; 
 Men hung upon the tafii-ail half scorched, but loth 
 
 to go; 
 Our captain sat where once he stood, and would not 
 
 quit his chair. 
 He bade his comrades leap for life, and leave him 
 
 bleeding there.
 
 A BALLAD FOR A BOY. 175 
 
 The guns were hushed on either side, the Frenchmen 
 
 lowered boats, 
 They flung us planks and hencoops, and everything 
 
 that floats. 
 They risked their lives, good fellows ! to bring their 
 
 rivals aid. 
 'Twas by the conflagration the peace was strangely 
 
 made. 
 
 La Surveillante was like a sieve; the victors had no rest. 
 They had to dodge the east wind to reach the port of 
 
 Brest. 
 And where the waves leapt lower and the I'iddled ship 
 
 went slower. 
 In triumph, yet in funeral guise, came fisher-boats to 
 
 tow her. 
 
 They dealt with us as brethren, they mourned for 
 
 Farmer dead ; 
 And as the wounded captives passed each Breton. 
 
 bowed the head.
 
 l''<3 A BALLAD FOll A BOY. 
 
 Then spoke the French Lieutenant, " 'Twas fire that 
 
 won, not we. 
 You never struck your flag to us ; you'll go to England 
 
 free." 
 
 'Twas the sixth day of October, seventeen hundred 
 
 seventy-nine, 
 A year when nations ventured against us to combine, 
 Quebec was burnt and Farmer slain, by us remembered 
 
 not; 
 But thanks be to the French book wherein they're not 
 
 forgot. 
 
 '&^ 
 
 Now you, if you've to fight the French, my youngster, 
 
 bear in mind 
 Those seamen of King Louis so chivalrous and kind ; 
 Think of the Breton gentlemen who took our lads to 
 
 Brest, 
 And treat some rescued Breton as a comrade and a 
 
 guest. 
 1885.
 
 A BALLAD FOR A BOY. 177 
 
 Epilogue. 
 
 Exactos, puei', esse decern tibi gratuloi- annos ; 
 Hactenus es matris cura patrisque decus. 
 Incumbis studiis, et amas et amaris, et audes 
 Pro patria raucis obvius ire fretis. 
 Non erimus comites, fili, tibi ; sed memor e.sto 
 Matris in oceano cum vigil astra leges. 
 Imbelli patre natus habe tamen arma Britannus, 
 Militiam perfer, speiuque fidemque fove. 
 
 1889. 
 
 N
 
 178 
 
 (.FOR THE TUNE CALLED SANTA LUCIA.) 
 
 Rise, rise, ye Devon folk 1 
 Toss off the traitor's yoke, 
 Peer through the rain and smoke, 
 Look, look again !" 
 Ran down to Brixliam pier — 
 Quick, quick, the Prince is near ! 
 All the rights ye reckon dear 
 He A\ill maintain. 
 
 Chorus — 
 
 Welcome, sweet English rose ! 
 Welcome, Dutch Roman nose ! 
 Scatter, scatter all the Gospel's foes, 
 William and Mary !
 
 JE SIAINTIENDRAI. 
 
 High over gulls and boats 
 Bright, free the banner floats ; 
 Hearken, hear the clarion notes 
 Lift hats and stare. 
 Courtiers who break the laws. 
 Tame cats with velvet paws. 
 Hypocrites with poisoned claws, 
 Croppres, beware ! 
 
 Trust, Sir, the western shires. 
 Trust those who baffled Spain ; 
 "We'll be hardy like our sires. 
 Down, Pope, again ! 
 
 Off, off with sneak and thief ! 
 We'll have an honest chief. 
 England is no Popish fief ; 
 Free kings shall reign. 
 
 179
 
 180 
 
 MADE BY BEQUEST OP A SONGSTRESS AND REJECTED. 
 
 Relics of battle dropt in sandy valley, 
 Bugle that screamed a warning of surprise, 
 Shreds of the colour torn before the rally, 
 Jewel of troth-plight seen by dying eyes, — 
 Welcome, dear tokens of the lad we mourn. 
 Tell how that day his faithful heart was leaping ; 
 Help me, who linger in the home forlorn. 
 Throw me a rambow on my endless weeping. 
 1885. 
 
 A SECOND ATTEMPT. 
 
 ACCEPTED. 
 
 Down the burnside hurry thee, gentle mavis ! 
 Find the bothie, and flutter about the doorway. 
 Touch the lattice tenderly, bid my mother 
 
 Fetch away Johnnie.
 
 SAPPHICS FOR A TUNF. 181 
 
 Mother, uprouse thee ! many bitter arrows 
 Out of one bosom gather, and for ever 
 Pray for one resting in a chilly forest 
 
 Under an oak tree. 
 
 Gentle mavis ! hover about the window 
 
 Where the sun shines on happy things of home life. 
 
 Bid the clansmen troop to the gory dingle. 
 
 Clansmen, avenge me ! 
 
 Mother! oh, my mother ! upon a cradle 
 
 Woven of willows, with a bow beside me, 
 
 Near the kirk of Darrisdeer, under yew boughs, 
 
 Eockthy beloved. 
 
 1885.
 
 182 
 
 May the foemen's wives, the foemen's children, 
 Feel the kid leaping when he lifts the surge, 
 Tumult of swart sea, and the reefs that shudder 
 
 Under the scourge. 
 
 On such a day to the false bull Europa 
 Trusted her snowy limbs ; and courage failed her 
 Where the whales swarmed, the terror of sea-change 
 and 
 
 Treason assailed her. 
 
 For the meadow-fays had she duly laboured, 
 Eager for flowers to bind at eventide ; 
 Shimmering night revealed the stars, the billows. 
 
 Nothing beside.
 
 EUROPA. 
 
 183 
 
 Brought to Crete, the realm of a hmulred citie-i, 
 Oh, my sire ! my duty ! she clamoured sadly. 
 Oh, the forfeit ! and oh, the girl unfathered, 
 
 Wilfully, madly ! 
 
 What shore is this, and what have I left behind me 'i 
 When a maid sins 'tis not enough to die. 
 Am I awake? or through the ivory gateway 
 
 Cometh a lie ? 
 
 Cometh a hollow fantasy to the guiltless 1 
 Am I in dreamland 1 Was it best to wander 
 TIn-ough the long waves, or better far to gather 
 
 Rosebuds out yonder ? 
 
 Now, were he driven within the reach of anger, 
 Steel would I point against the villain steer, 
 Grappling, rending the horns of the bull, tlie monster 
 
 Lately so dear.
 
 184 RUROPA. 
 
 Shameless I left the homestead and the worship, 
 Shameless, 'fore hell's mouth, wide agape, I pause. 
 Hear me, some god, and set me among the lions 
 
 Stript for their jaws. 
 
 Ere on the cheek that is so fair to look on 
 Swoop the grim fiends of hunger and decay, 
 Tigers shall spring and raven, ere the s-\\'eetness 
 
 Wither away. 
 
 Worthless Europa ! cries the severed father, 
 Why dost thou loiter, cling to life, and doubt ? 
 Hang on this rowan ; hast thou not thy girdle 
 
 Meet for thy throat? 
 
 Lo, the clift', the precipice, edged for cleaving. 
 Trust the quick wind, or take a leman's doom. 
 Live on .ind spin ; thou wast a prince's daughter ; 
 
 Toil at the loom.
 
 EUROPA. 185 
 
 Pass beneath the hand of a foreign lady ; 
 Serve a proud rivah Lo, behind her back 
 Slyly laughed Yenus, and her archer minion 
 
 Held the bow slack. 
 
 Then, the game played out, "Put away," she whispered 
 " Wrath and upbraiding, and the quarrel's heat, 
 When the loathed bull surrenders horns, for riving 
 
 Low at your feet. 
 
 Bride of high Jove's majesty, bride unwitting, 
 Cease from your sobbing ; rise, your luck is rare. 
 Your name's the name which half the woi-ld divided 
 
 Henceforth shall bear."
 
 186 
 
 Let me tell Lyd6 of wedding-law slighted, 
 Penance of maidens and bootless toil, 
 Wasting of watei- down leaky cask, 
 Clime in the prison-pit slowly requited. 
 
 Miscreant brides ! for their grooms they slew. 
 One out of many is not attainted, 
 One alone blest and foi' ever sainted. 
 False to her father, to wedlock true. 
 
 Praise her ! she gave her young husband the warning. 
 Praise her for ever ! She cried, " Arise ! 
 Flee from the slumber that deadens the eyes ; 
 Flee from the night that hath never a morning.
 
 HYrERMNESTEA. 187 
 
 Baffle your host who contrived our espousing, 
 Baffle my sisters, the forty and nine, 
 Raging like lions that mangle the kine, 
 Each on the blood of a quarry carousing. 
 
 I am more gentle, I strike not thee, 
 I will not hold thee in dungeon tower. 
 Though the king chain me, I will not cower. 
 Though my sire banish me over the sea. 
 
 Freely run, freely sail, good luck attend thee : 
 Go with the favoui- of Venus and Night. 
 On thy tomb somewhere and some day bid write 
 Record of her wlio hath dai-ed to befriend thee."
 
 188 
 
 Lady, if you ever paid 
 Foi'feit for a heart betrayed, 
 If for broken pledge you were 
 By one tooth, one nail less fair, 
 I would trust. But when a vow 
 Slips from off your faithless brow, 
 Foitli you flash with purer lustre, 
 And a fonder troop you muster. 
 You with vantage mock the shade 
 Of a mother lowly laid. 
 Silent stai'S and depths of sky. 
 And high saints that cannot die.
 
 BARINE. 
 
 Laughs the Queen of love, I say, 
 Laughs at this each silly fay, 
 Laughs the rogue who's ever A\hetting 
 Darts of fire on flint of fretting. 
 Ay, the crop of youth is yours, 
 Fresh enhstments throng your doors, 
 Veterans swear you serve them ill, 
 Threaten flight, and linger still. 
 Dames and thrifty greybeards di-ead 
 Lest you turn a stripling's head ; 
 Poor young brides are in dismay 
 Lest you sigh their lords away. 
 
 189
 
 190 
 
 Wxf. Jt[Hti«mri musing. 
 
 Classic throat and wrist and ear 
 Tempt a gallant to draw near; 
 Must romantic lip and eye 
 Make him falter, bid him fly ? 
 
 If Camilla's upright lance 
 By the contrast did enhance 
 Charms of curving neck and waist, 
 Yet she never was embraced. 
 She was girt to take the field. 
 And her aventayle concealed 
 Half the grace that might have won 
 Homage from Evander's son.
 
 TO BRITOMART MUSING. 
 
 Countess Montfoii, clad in steel, 
 Showed she could both dare and feel ; 
 Smiled to greet the champion ships, 
 Touched Sir Walter with the lips. 
 She could charm, although in dress 
 Like the sainted shepherdess, 
 Jeanne, a leader void of guUe, 
 Jeanne, a woman all the while. 
 
 Damsel with the mind of man, 
 Lay not softness under ban ; 
 For the glory of thy sex 
 Twine witli myrtle manly necks. 
 
 191
 
 192 
 
 I SEE her stand with arms a-kimbo, 
 A blue and blonde suh aureo nimho ; 
 She scans her literary limbo, 
 The reliques of her teens ; 
 Things like the chips of broken stilts. 
 Or tatters of embroidered quilts, 
 Or nosegays tossed away by jilts, 
 Notes, ballads, tales, and scenes. 
 
 Soon will she gambol like a lamb, 
 Fenced, but not tethered, near the Cam. 
 Maybe she'll swim where Byron swam, 
 And chat beneath the limes.
 
 HERSILIA. 193 
 
 Where Artliur, Alfred, Fitz, and Brooks 
 Lit thought by one another's looks, 
 Embraced their jests and kicked their books. 
 In England's happier times ; 
 
 Ere magic poets felt the gout, 
 Ere Darwin whelmed the Church in doubt, 
 Ere Apologia had found out 
 The round world must be right ; 
 When Gladstone, bluest of the blue, 
 Read all Augustine's folios through ; 
 When France was tame, and no one knew 
 We and the Czar would fight. 
 
 " Sixty years since " (said dear old Scott ; 
 We're bound, you know, to quote Sir Wat) 
 This isle had not a sweeter spot 
 Than Neville's Court by Granta ;
 
 194 IIEESILIA. 
 
 No Newiiliam then, no kirtled scribes, 
 No Clelia to harangue the tribes, 
 No race for girls, no apple bribes 
 To tempt an Atalanta. 
 
 We males talked fast, we meant to be 
 World-betterers all at twenty-three, 
 But somehow failed to level thee, 
 Oh, battered fort of Edom ! 
 Into the breach our daughters px'ess. 
 Brave patriots in vxnwarlike dress. 
 Adepts at thought-in-idleness, 
 Sweet devotees of freedom. 
 
 And now it is your tvu-n, fair soul. 
 To see the fervent car-wheels roll, 
 Your rivals clashing past the goal. 
 Some sly Milanion leading
 
 HERSILIA. 195 
 
 All ! with them may your Genius bring 
 Some Celia, some IMiss Mannering ; 
 For youthful friendship is a thing 
 More precious than succeeding.
 
 196 
 
 Woman dead, lie there ; 
 No recbi'd of thee 
 Shall there ever be, 
 Since thou dost not share 
 Roses in Pieria grown. 
 In the deathfnl cave, 
 With the feeble troop 
 Of the folk that droop. 
 Lurk and flit and crave, 
 Woman severed and far-flown.
 
 197 
 
 A SLAVE — oh yes, a slave ! 
 But in a freeman's grave. 
 By thee, when work was done, 
 Timanthes, foster-son, 
 By thee whom I obeyed, 
 My master, I was laid. 
 Live long, from trouble f lee ; 
 But if thou com'st to me, 
 Paying to age thy debt. 
 Thine am I, master, yet.
 
 198 
 
 Dura jSda rubecula, 
 Cur moraris in arbore 
 Dum cadunt folia et brevi 
 Flavet luce November. 
 
 Quid boni tibi destinat 
 Hora crastina ? quid petes 
 
 Antris ex hiemalibus ? 
 
 Quid speras oriturum ? 
 
 Est ut hospita te vocet 
 Myrtis, et reseret fores, 
 Ut te vera nitentibus 
 Emiretur ocellis.
 
 A SONG TO A SINGEK. 199 
 
 Quod si contigerit tibi, 
 Ter beata vocaberis, 
 Invidenda volucribus, 
 Invidenda poetiB.
 
 200 
 
 UoLoXoyevaa Koprj ^ypov reTTiyos aKovet, 
 
 Kat TL KpeKets, Ti^toye ; Xeyw fJio^Ow fxev eyojyc, 
 
 ^eS 0€ KXveLv TToi'os ecrriv 6 Sevrepos' dXA.' aTV0Kap.vf.iv 
 
 Aet /xe KaOe^op,€]/7]v aKpecnre pov' dyKas e'x'^ ti, 
 
 EioiSes 8e TO Spdyp.a' crv S" el Kevos aSos dreLprj's. 
 
 A dry cicale chirps to a lass making hay, 
 
 " Why creak'st thou, Tithonas 1 " quoth she. " I don't 
 
 play; 
 It doubles my toil, your importunate lay, 
 I've earned a sweet pillow, lo ! Hesper is nigh ; 
 I clasp a good wisp, and in fragrance I lie ; 
 But thou art unwearied, and empty, and dry."
 
 201 
 
 A TIME-WORN sage without a home, 
 A man of dim and tearful sight, 
 Up from the hallowed haven clomb 
 In lowly longing for the height. 
 
 He loiters on a half-way rock 
 To hear the waves that pant and seethe, 
 Which give the beats of Nature's clock 
 To mortals conscious that they breathe. 
 
 The buxom waves may nurse a boat. 
 May well nigh seem to soothe and lull 
 The crying of a tethered goat, 
 The trouble of a searching gull.
 
 202 A LEGEND OP POETO SANTO. 
 
 There might be comfort in the tide, 
 There might be Lethe in the surge, 
 Could they but hint that oceans hide, 
 That pangs absolve, bereavements purge. 
 
 The thinker, not despairing yet, 
 Upraises limbs not wholly stiff, 
 Half envying him that draws the net, 
 Half proud to combat with the cliff. 
 
 He groans, but soon around his Kps 
 TearH3hannels bend into a smile, 
 He thinks " They're saying in the ships 
 I'm looking for the hidden isle. 
 
 I climb but as my humours lead. 
 
 My thoughts are mazed, my will is faint. 
 Yon men who see me roam, they need 
 No Lethe-fount, no shriving saint."
 
 A LEGEND OF PORTO SANTO. 203 
 
 Good faith ! can we believe, or feign 
 Believing, that such lands exist 
 Through ages drenched with blotting rain, 
 For ever folded in the mist 1 
 
 Maybe some babe by sirens clothed 
 Swam thence, and brought report thereof. 
 Some hopeful virgin just betrothed 
 Braved the incredulous pilot's scoff; 
 
 An d murmuring to a friendly lute, 
 
 While greybeards snored and beldames laughed, 
 
 Some minstrel-corsair made pursuit 
 
 Along the moon's white hunting-shaft ; 
 
 Along the straight illumined track 
 The bride, the singer, and the child 
 Fled, far from sceptics, came not back, 
 Engulped? Who knows ? perhaps enisled.
 
 204 A LEGEND OF TOKTO SANTO. 
 
 Now were there such another crew, 
 Now would their bark make room for me, 
 Now were that island false or true, 
 I'd go, forgetting, with the three.
 
 205 
 
 My cheerful mate, you fret not for the wires, 
 The changeless limits of your small desires ; 
 You heed not winter rime or summer dew, 
 You feel no difference 'twixt old and new ; 
 You kindly take the lettuce or the cress 
 
 Without the cognizance of more and less, 
 Content with light and movement in a cage. 
 
 Not reckoning hours, nor mortified by age, 
 You bear no penance, you resent no wrong, 
 Your timeless soul exists in each unconscious song.
 
 206 
 
 J[ ^ttng for n ynviin^. 
 
 Flora will pass from firth to forth ; 
 Duty must draw, and vows must bind. 
 Flora will sail half round the earth, 
 Yet will she leave some grace behind. 
 
 II. 
 
 Waft her, on Faith, from friend to friend. 
 Make her a saint in some far isle ; 
 Yet will we keep, till memories end. 
 Something that once was Flora's smile.
 
 207 
 
 Woe worth old Time the lord, 
 Pointing his senseless sword 
 Down on our festal board, 
 
 Where we would dine. 
 Chilling the kindly hall, 
 Bidding the dainties pall. 
 
 Making the garlands fall, 
 Souring the wine.
 
 208 
 
 WORDS FOR A TUNE. 
 I. 
 
 With these words, Good-bye, Adieu, 
 
 Take I leave to part from you, 
 
 Leave to go beyond your view, 
 
 Through the haze of that which is to be ; 
 
 Fare thou forth, and wing thy way, 
 
 So our language makes me say. 
 
 Though it yield, the forward spirit needs must pray 
 
 In the word that is hope's old token. 
 
 II. 
 
 Though the fountain cease to play. 
 Dew must glitter near the brink, 
 Though the weary mind decay, 
 As of old it thought so must it think.
 
 LEBEWOITL. 209 
 
 Leave alone the darkling eyes 
 
 Fixed upon the moving skies, 
 
 Cross the hands upon the bosom, there to rise 
 
 To the throb of the faith not spoken.
 
 210 
 
 /*- 
 
 @l)( £j07re6s Trapa rvfxfSov b(Ti]ix€paL w? to Trapos Trep 
 w </)tA', eyo) 8' 6 0avwv ov [xefJi.(j>ofiat ottl tv TratcrSets 
 dXX' oTTOTav TraitrSTj?, fjii^xvaTO ye roS Trpij/ craipou 
 Ka' Ti KaXov TToOop-qaOa, fxovov Aeye, ttJi/os airea-Tt. 
 
 You come not, as aforetime, to the headstone every 
 
 day, 
 And I, who died, I do not cliide because, my friend, 
 
 you play ; 
 Only, in playing, think of him who once was kind 
 
 and dear, 
 
 And, if you see a beauteous thing, just say, he is not 
 
 here. 
 
 Printed by ITazcU, Watsoyi, Sr yiney, Ld , London and Aylesbury.
 
 This book is DUE on the last 
 date stamped below. 
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 • Box 951388 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library from which It was borrowed. 
 
 
 two"* 

 
 1 1 nil II mill II I II 
 158 01 
 
 30 5811 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 365 305 2