■^ 1 R K e I i Y^ LIBRARY I UNiVEX".!TY OF I NARRATIVE POEMS NARRATIVE POEMS BY ALFRED AUSTIN ILontiou MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK I 891 All rights resc>~'ed lOAN STACK DEDICATION TO SIR JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS, R.A., BART. My dear Millais, In tendering you the dedication of this little volume, with Florence basking below me in the sun- shine, and within an arrowshot of the villa where Lorenzo died, this very day, close on four hundred years ago, I am vividly reminded of that Renaissance of Art with which their names are for ever associated, and which, after a brief span of dignity and splendour, lapsed into florid effeminacy and social degradation. In your brilliant boyhood there occurred in our own land an ^Esthetic Revival, and with the sensitiveness of genius you experienced its attractive and, within proper limits, its salutary influence. There are those, I am told, who reproach you, because, in the gradual develop- 543 vi DEDICATION ment of your powers, you liberated yourself from its sway. To me, it seems, it is your distinctive and abiding glory. In Art, as in life, and whether the art be painting, poetry, or music, there is the masculine element, and there is the feminine element. Both are good, but surely only on condition that the masculine element predominates. The feminine note is a lovely note, an indispensable note ; but it should be the pathetic minor, not the dominant key. Something of the masculinity of your work must be attributed to your own robust nature. But, in common with more than one of your contemporaries whose pro- ductions have added grace and lustre to the Victorian Era, you doubtless owe it, in the main, to the inde- structible manliness of our race. There is no fear lest English painting, or English literature, should decline into a languid asstheticism ; or that, subjugated by a feminine fondness for detail and lack of breadth, we should forget to allot to the various influences that underlie life, and that minister to art, their due place and proportion. It is interesting to note that, thoroughly English painter as you are, you have been instinctively drawn DEDICATION vii to the instructive companionship and loving delineation of external nature, so that your loveliest canvases seem to savour of the heather and to resound with the brawl of mountain torrents. There lies the cure and corrective of that paralysing despondency which is en- gendered by the incessant nervous activity of urban existence. There lurks the source and sustenance of that cheerful gravity which extracts from life its soundest interpretation, and which invests painting with a nobility of aspect that more than atones for the inevitable absence of moral purpose. Believe me, My dear Rlillais, With cordial greeting, Yours very sincerely, ALFRED AUSTIN. La Casa Nuova, Careggi, April 7, i8gi. CONTENTS A Dialogue at Fiesole Ave ISIaria Agatha A Woman's Apology The Death of Huss The Last Redoubt A Farmhouse Dirge Outside the Village Church At San Giovanni del Lago The Last Night Nature and the Book Grandmother's Teaching Two Visions A Fragment At Shelley's House at Lerici In the Heart of the Forest . At the Gate of the Convent Brother Benedict . In the Month when sings the Cuckoo Love's Widowhood .... 19 24 26 36 39 43 55 64 70 76 83 96 105 119 126 133 146 153 159 A DIALOGUE AT FIESOLE Halt here awhile. That mossy-cushioned seat Is for your queenhness a natural throne ; As I am fitly couched on this low sward, Here at your feet. SHE And I, in thought, at yours ; My adoration, deepest. HE Deep, so deep, I have no thought wherewith to fathom it ; Or, shall I say, no flight of song so high, To reach the Heaven whence you look down on me, My star, my far-off star ! SHE If far, yet fixed : No shifting planet leaving you to seek Where now it shines. B N A DIALOGUE AT FIESOLE HE A little light, if near, Glows livelier than the largest orb in Heaven. SHE But little lights burn quickly out, and then, Another must be kindled. Stars gleam on, Unreached, but unextinguished. . . . Now, the song. HE Yes, yes, the song : your music to my verse. SHE In this sequestered dimple of the hill. Forgotten by the furrow, none will hear : Only the nightingales, that misconceive The mid-day darkness of the cypresses For curtained night. HE And they will hush to hear A sudden singing sweeter than their own. Delay not the enchantment, but begin. SHE (singing) If you were here, if you were here, The cattle-bells would sound more clear ; A DIALOGUE AT FIESOLE The cataracts would flash and leap More silvery frovi steep to steep ; The farezvell of a rosier glow Soften the summit of the snoiv ; The valley take a tenderer green ; In deny gorge and dim ravine The loving brambleflowers embrace The rough thorn luith a gentler grace ; The gentian open bluer eyes, In bluer air, to bhter skies : The frail anemone delay, The Jonquil hasten on its way. The primrose linger past its time. The inolet prolong its prime ; A?id every floiver that seeks the light, On Alpine loivland, Alpine height. Wear ApriPs smile without its tear, If you were here ; if you were here / If you were here, the Spring 7vould zvake A fuller music in the brake. The mottled misselthrush would pipe A 7iote more ringing, rich, and ripe ; The whiteth?-oat peer above its nest With brighter eye and donniier breast ; The cuckoo greet the amorous year. Chanting its Joy without its Jeer ; The lark betroth the earth and sky With peals of heavenlier minstrelsy ; Afid every tvildwood bird rejoice A DIALOGUE AT FIESOLE On fleeter wing, with sweeter voice, If yon were here ! If you were hej-e, I too should feel The moisture of the Springtide steal Along ffiy veins, and rise and roll Through every fibre of my soul. In my live breast would melt the stiow, And all its chayinels flush atid flow With tvaves of life and streams of song, Frozen and silent all too long. A so?fiething in each ivilding flower, Sotnething in every scented shower. Something iti flitting voice and zving. Would drench my heart and bid me sing . Not in this feeble halting note, But, like the merle's extdting throat. With carol full and carol clear, If you were here, if you were here. Hark ! How the hills have caught the strain, and seem Loth to surrender it, and now enclose Its cadence in the silence of their folds. Still as you sang, the verses had the wing Of that which buoyed them, and your aery voice Lifted my drooping music from the ground. Now that you cease, there is an empty nest, From which the full-fledged melody hath flown. A DIALOGUE AT FIESOLE SHE Dare I \Yith you contend in metaphor, It might not be so fanciful to show That nest, and eggs, and music, all are yours. But modesty in poets is too rare. To be reproved for error. Let me then Be crowned full queen of song, albeit in sooth I am but consort, owing my degree To the real sceptred Sovereign at my side. But now repay my music, and in kind ; Unfolding to my ear the youngest flower Of song that seems to blossom all the year ; " Delay not the enchantment, but begin." HE [reciting) Yet, you are here ; yes, you are here. There^s not a voice that wakes the year. In vale frequented, upland lone, But steals some sweetness from your 07an. When dream and darkness have withdrawn, I feel you in the freshening dawn : You fill the noondays hushed repose ; You scent the deiv of daylights close. The twilight whispers you are nigh ; The stars announce you in the sky. The moon, when most alone in space. Fills all the heavens with your face. In darkest hour of deepest night. A DIALOGUE AT FIESOLE I see you 7vith the spirit' s sight ; And slumber murmurs in fiiy ear, '■^ Hush! she is here. Sleep ! she is here'' SHE Hark how you bare your secret when you sing ! Imagination's universal scope Can swift endue this gray and shapeless world With the designs and colour of the sky. What want you with our fixed and lumpish forms, You, unconditioned arbiter of air? "Yet, you are here ; yes, you are here." The span Of nimble fancy leaps the interval. And brings the distant nearer than the near. HE Distance is nearer than proximity, When distance longs, proximity doth not. SHE The near is always distant to the mind That craves for satisfaction of its end ; Nor doth the distance ever feel so far As when the end is touched. Retard that goal. Prolonging appetite beyond the feast That feeds anticipation. A DIALOGUE AT FIESOLE HE Specious foil ! That parries every stroke before 'tis made. Yet surfeit's self doth not more surely cloy Than endless fasting. SHE Still a swifter cure Waits on too little than attends too much. While disappointment merely woundeth Hope, The deadly blow by disenchantment dealt Strikes at the heart of Faith. O happy you, The favourites of Fancy, who replace Illusion with illusion, and conceive Fresh cradles in the dark womb of the grave. While we, prosaic victims, prove that time Kills love while leaving loveless life alive. You still, divinely duped, sing deathless love. And with your wizard music, once again, Make Winter Spring. Yet surely you forgive That I have too much pity for the flowers Children and poets cull to fling away. To be an April nosegay. HE How you swell The common chorus ! Women, who are wronged So roughly by men's undiscerning word. As though one pattern served to show them all, A DIALOGUE AT FIESOLE Should be more just to poets. These, in truth, Diverge from one another nowise less Than " women," vaguely labelled : children some, With childish voice and nature, lyric bards. Weaklings that on life's threshold sweetly wail. But never from that silvery treble pass Into the note and chant of manliness. Their love is like their verse, a frail desire, A fluttering fountain falling feebly back Into its shallow origin. Next there are The poets of contention, wTestlers born. Who challenge iron Circumstance, and fail : Generous and strong, withal not strong enough. Since lacking sinewy wisdom, hard as life. The love of these is like the lightning spear, And shrivels whom it touches. They consume All things within their reach, and, last of all. Their lonely selves ; and then through time they tower, Sublime but charred, and wear on their high fronts The gloomy glory of the sunlit pine. But the great gods of Song, in clear white light. The radiance of their godhead, calmly dwell. And with immutable cold starlike gaze Scan both the upper and the under world, As it revolves, themselves serenely fixed. Their bias is the bias of the sphere. That turns all ways, but turns away from none. Save to return to it. They have no feud With gods or men, the living or the dead. The past or present, and their words complete A DIALOGUE AT FIESOLE Life's incompleteness with a healing note. For they are not more sensitive than strong, More wise than tender ; understanding all, At peace with all, at peace with life and death, And love that gives a meaning unto life And takes from death the meaning and the sting : At peace with hate, and every opposite. Were I but one of these — presumptuous thought !- Even you, the live fulfilment of such dreams As these secrete, would hazard well your love On my more largely loving. 'Twould be you, Yes, even you, that first would flag and fail In either of my choosing ; you, whose wing Would droop on mine and pray to be upborne. And when my pinions did no more suffice For that their double load, then softly down. Softly and smoothly as descending lark That hath fulfilled its rhapsody in Heaven, And with diminished music must decline To earthy sounds and concepts, I should curb Illimitable longings to the range Of lower aspiration. Were I such ! — But, since I am not — - SHE Am not ? 'Who shall say. Save she who tests, and haply to her loss ? 'Tis better left untested. Strange that you, Who can imagine whatso thing you will. A DIALOC;UE AT FIESOLE Should lack imagination to appraise Imagination at its topmost worth. Now wield your native sceptre and extend Your fancy forth where Florence overbrims In eddies fairer even than herself Look how the landscape smiles complacently At its own beauty, as indeed it may ; Villa and vineyard each a separate home, Containing possibilities unseen. Materials for your pleasure. Now disport ! Which homestead may it please my lord of song To chalk for his, as those rough Frenchmen did Who came with bow-legged Charles to justify Savonarola's scourgeful prophecies ? Shall it be that one gazing in our face, Not jealous of its beauty, but exposed To all the wantonness of sun and air, With roses girt, with roses garlanded. And balustraded terrace topped with jars Of clove carnations ; unambitious roof, Italian equivalent to house Love in a cottage ? Why, the very place For her you once described ! Wait ! Let me see. Can I recall the lines ? Yes, thus they ran. Do you remember them ? Or are they now A chronicle forgotten and erased From that convenient palimpsest, the heart ? In dewy covert of her eyes The secret of the violet lies ; A DIALOGUE AT FIESOLE The SU71 and wind caress and pair In the lithe wavelets of her hair ; The fragrance of the warm soft south Hovers about her honeyed mouth ; And, tvhen she moves, she floats through air Like zepyhr-wafted gossamer. Hers is no lore of dumb dead books ; Her learning liveth in her looks ; And still she shotus, iti meek replies, Wisdom enough to deem you wise. Her voice as soothing is and sweet As whispers of the ivaviyig wheat, And in the moistiire of her kiss Is April-like deliciousness. Like gloaming-hour, she doth inspire A vague, an infinite desire ; And, like the stars, though out of sight, Filleth the loneliness of night. Come how she may, or slow or fleet, She brings the morning on her feet ; Gone, leaves behind a nameless pain. Like the sadness of a silenced strain. HE A youthful dream. SHE Yet memory can surmise That young dream fruited to reaUty, 12 A DIALOGUE AT FIESOLE Then, like reality, was dream no more. All dreams are youthful ; you are dreaming still. What lovely visions denizen your sleep ! Let me recall another ; for I know All you have written, thought, and felt, and much You neither thought nor felt, but only sang. A wondrous gift, a godlike gift, that breathes Into our exiled clay unexiled lives. Manlier than Adam, comelier than Eve. That massive villa, we both know so well, With one face set toward Settignano, one Gazing at Bellosguardo, and its rear Locked from the north by clustered cypresses. That seem like fixed colossal sentinels, And tower above its tower, but look not in, Might be abode for her whom you conceived In tropes so mystical, you must forgive If recollection trips. To dwell with her is calmly to abide Through every change of time atid every fliix of tide. In her the Present, Fast, and Future meet, The Father, and the Son, and dovelike Paraclete. She holdeth silent intercourse with Night, Still journeying with the stars, and shining with their light. Her love, illumination ; her embrace, The sweep of angels' tvings across a mortaPs face. A DIALOGUE AT FIESOLE 13 Her lap is piled with mitumti fruits, her brow Crowned with the blossoming trails that smile from April's bough. Like wintry stars that shine zvith frosty fire, Her loftiness excites to elevate desire. To love her is to burn with such a flatne As lights the lamp zuhich bears the Sanctuarfs ?ia?ne. That lamp burns ofifor ever, day a?id night. Before her mystic shrine. I am its acolyte. HE The merest foam of fancy ; foam and spray. SHE Foam-drift of fancy that hath ebbed away. See how the very simile rebukes Man's all unsealike longings ! For confess, While ocean still returns, the puny waves Of mortal love are sucked into the sand, Their motion felt, their music heard, no more. Look when the vines are linking hands, and seem As pausing from the dance of Spring, or just Preparing to renew it, round and round, On the green carpet of the bladed corn, That spreads about their feet : corn, vine, and fig, Almond and mulberry, cherry, and pear, and peach. 14 A DIALOGUE AT I-^IESOLE Not taught to know their place, but left to range Up to the villa's walls, windows, and doors, And peep into its life and smile good-day, A portion of its homeliness and joy : A poet's villa once, a poet's again. If you but dream it such ; a roof for her, To whom you wrote — I wonder who she was — This saucy sonnet ; saucy, withal sweet, And O, how true of the reflected love You poets render to your worshippers. TRUE AS THE DIAL TO THE SUN You are the S7in, ami I the dial, siueet, So you can mark on me what time you ivill. If yoji move sloivly, how can I move fleet ? And, when you halt, I too must fain be still. Chide not the cloudy humours of my brow, If you behold no settled sunshine there : Rather upbraid your oivn, sweet, and alloiv, My looks can not befoul if yours be fair. Then from the heaven of your high witchery shifie, And I with stniles shall watch the hours glide by ; You have no mood that is not straightway mine ; My cheek bid takes complexion from your eye. All that I am dependeth so on you. What clouds the sun must cloud the dial too. A DIALOGUE AT FIESOLE 15 HE No man should quarrel with his Past, and I Maintain no feud with mine. Do we not ripen, Ripen and mellow in love, unto the close. Thanks no more to the present than the past ? First love is fresh but fugitive as Spring, A wilding flower no sooner plucked than faded ; And summer's sultry fervour ends in storm. Recriminating thunder, wasteful tears. And angry gleam of lightning menaces. Give me October's meditative haze, Its gossamer mornings, dewy-wimpled eves, Dewy and fragrant, fragrant and secure,' The long slow sound of farmward-wending wains. When homely Love sups quiet 'mong its sheaves. Sups 'mong its sheaves, its sickle at its side. And all is peace, peace and plump fruitfulness. SHE Picture of all we dream and we desire : Autumn's grave cheerfulness and sober bliss. Rich resignation, humble constancy. For, prone to bear the load piled up by life, We, once youth's pasture season at an end, Submit to crawl. Unbroken to the last. You spurn the goad of stern taskmaster Time. Even 'mid autumn harvest you demand Returning hope and blossom of the Spring, All seasons and sensations, and at once, i6 A DIALOGUE AT FIESOLE Or in too quick succession. Do we blame ? We envy rather the eternal youth We cannot share. But youth is pitiless, And, marching onward, neither asks nor seeks Who falls behind. Thus women who are wise, Beside their thresholds knitting homely gear, Wave wistful salutation as you pass, And think of you regretfully, when gone : A soft regret, a sweet regret, that is Only the mellow fruit of unplucked joy. Now improvise some other simple strain. That with harmonious cadence may attune The vain and hazard discords of discourse. JV/ien Love was young, it asked for 7Vi?igs, That it might still be 7-oaming ; And away it sped, by fancy led. Through daiun, and noon, and gloaming. .Each daintiness that blooms and blows It tvooed in honeyed metre, And, 7(.'he?i it wofi the siveetest stveet. It flctv off to a sweeter : When Love was young. When Love raas old, it craved for rest. For home, and hearth, and haven ; For quiet talks round sheltered walks. And long hnons smoothly shaven. A DIALOGUE AT FIESOLE 17 And what Love sought, at last it found, A roof, a porch, a gardeti. And, from a fond unquestioning heart, Peace, sympathy, and pardon, Wheti Loiie was old. SHE Simple, in sooth, and haply true : withal. Too, too autumnal even for my heart. I never weary of your vernal note. Carol again, and sing me back my youth With the redundant melodies of Spring. HE / breathe my heart in the heart of the rose, The rose that I pluck and send you, With a prayer that the pejfume its leai'es enclose May kiss, and caress, and tend you : Caress and tend you till I can come, To the garden where first I found you. And the thought that as yet in the rose is dumb Can ripple in music round you. O rose, that luill shortly be her guest. You may well look happy, at leaving : Will you lie in the cradle her snoivy breast Doth rock with its gentle heaving 1 Will you juount the thro7ie of her hazel hair. That waves like a summer billow, C N A DIALOGUE AT FIESOLE Or be hidden a fid hushed, at nightfall prayer, In the folds of her dimpled pilloio ? And 7idien she a^vakes at daivn to feel If you have been dreaming 7i.