■^ 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.<ith her, 
 Then the whole of your secret, sweet rose, reveal, 
 
 And say I am coming thither : 
 And 7vhcn there is silence in earth and sky, 
 
 And peace from the cares that cumber. 
 She 7nust not ask if yoiir leaves or I 
 
 Be clasped in her perfumed shwiber. 
 
 SHE 
 
 Give me your hand ; and, if you will, keep mine 
 Engraffed in yours, as slowly thus we skirt 
 La Doccia's dark declivity, and make 
 Athwart Majano's pathless pines a path 
 To lead us onward haply where it may. 
 Lo ! the Carrara mountains flush to view, 
 That in the noonday were not visible. 
 Shall we not fold this comfort to our hearts. 
 Humbly rejoiced to think as there are heights 
 Seen only in the sunset, so our lives, 
 If that they lack not loftiness, may wear 
 A glow of glory on their furrowed fronts, 
 Until they faint and fade into the night ! 
 
 I 
 
AVE MARIA 
 
 In the ages of Faith, before the day 
 When men were too proud to weep or pray, 
 There stood in a red-roofed Breton town 
 Snugly nestled 'twixt sea and down, 
 A chapel for simple souls to meet, 
 Nightly, and sing with voices sweet, 
 
 Ave Maria ! 
 
 There was an idiot, palsied, bleared, 
 
 With unkempt locks and a matted beard, 
 
 Hunched from the cradle, vacant-eyed. 
 
 And whose head kept rolling from side to side ; 
 
 Yet who, when the sunset-glow grew dim, 
 
 Joined with the rest in the twilight hymn, 
 
 Ave Maria ! 
 
 Ill 
 
 But when they up-got and wended home, 
 Those up the hillside, these to the foam. 
 
AVE iMARIA 
 
 He hobbled along in the narrowing dusk, 
 Like a thing that is only hull and husk ; 
 On as he hobbled, chanting still, 
 Now to himself, now loud and shrill, 
 
 Ave Maria ! 
 
 IV 
 
 When morning smiled on the smiling deep, 
 
 And the fisherman woke from dreamless sleep. 
 
 And ran up his sail, and trimmed his craft, 
 
 While his little ones leaped on the sand and laughed, 
 
 The senseless cripple would stand and stare. 
 
 Then suddenly holloa his wonted prayer, 
 
 Ave Maria ! 
 
 Others might plough, and reap, and sow, 
 
 Delve in the sunshine, spin in snow, 
 
 Make sweet love in a shelter sweet, 
 
 Or trundle their dead in a winding-sheet ; 
 
 But he, through rapture, and pain, and wrong, 
 
 Kept singing his one monotonous song, 
 
 Ave Maria 
 
 VI 
 
 When thunder growled from the ravelled wrack. 
 And ocean to welkin bellowed back. 
 And the lightning sprang from its cloudy sheath, 
 And tore through the forest with jagged teeth, 
 
AVE MARIA 21 
 
 Then leaped and laughed o'er the havoc wreaked, 
 The idiot clapped with his hands, and shrieked, 
 
 Ave Maria ! 
 
 VII 
 
 Children mocked, and mimicked his feet, 
 Ai he slouched or sidled along the street ; 
 INIaidens shrank as he passed them by, 
 And mothers with child eschewed his eye ; 
 And half in pity, half scorn, the folk 
 Christened him, from the words he spoke, 
 
 Ave Maria. 
 
 VIII 
 
 One year when the harvest feasts were done, 
 And the mending of tattered nets begun. 
 And the kittiwake's scream took a weirder key 
 From the wailing wind and the moaning sea, 
 He was found, at morn, on the fresh-strewn snow. 
 Frozen, and faint, and crooning low, 
 
 Ave Maria ! 
 
 IX 
 
 They stirred up the ashes between the dogs. 
 And warmed his limbs by the blazing logs, 
 Chafed his puckered and bloodless skin. 
 And strove to quiet his chattering chin ; 
 But, ebbing with unreturning tide. 
 He kept on murmuring till he died, 
 
 Ave Maria ! 
 
AVE MARIA 
 
 Idiot, soulless, brute from birth, 
 He could not be buried in sacred earth ; 
 So they laid him afar, apart, alone, 
 Without or a cross, or turf, or stone, 
 Senseless clay unto senseless clay, 
 To which none ever came nigh to say, 
 
 Ave Maria ! 
 
 XI 
 
 When the meads grew saffron, the hawthorn white, 
 
 And the lark bore his music out of sight, 
 
 And the swallow outraced the racing wave, 
 
 Up from the lonely, outcast grave 
 
 Sprouted a lily, straight and high. 
 
 Such as She bears to whom men cry, 
 
 Ave Maria ! 
 
 None had planted it, no one knew 
 How it had come there, why it grew ; 
 Grew up strong, till its stately stem 
 Was crowned with a snow-white diadem, — 
 One pure lily, round which, behold ! 
 Was written by God in veins of gold, 
 
 "Ave Maria!" 
 
 Over the lily they built a shrine, 
 
 Where are mingled the mystic bread and wine ; 
 
AVE MARIA 
 
 Shrine you may see in the little town 
 That is snugly nestled 'twixt deep and down. 
 Through the Breton land it hath wondrous fame, 
 And it bears the unshriven idiot's name, 
 
 Ave Maria. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Hunchbacked, gibbering, blear-eyed, halt. 
 From forehead to footstep one foul fault. 
 Crazy, contorted, mindless-born. 
 The gentle's pity, the cruel's scorn, 
 Who shall bar you the gates of Day, 
 So you have simple faith to say. 
 
 Ave Maria? 
 
AGATHA 
 
 She wanders in the April woods, 
 
 That glisten with the fallen shower ; 
 She leans her face against the buds, 
 
 She stops, she stoops, she plucks a flower. 
 
 She feels the ferment of the hour : 
 She broodeth when the ringdove broods ; 
 
 The sun and flying clouds have power 
 Upon her cheek and changing moods. 
 
 She cannot think she is alone, 
 As o'er her senses warmly steal 
 
 Floods of unrest she fears to own, 
 And almost dreads to feel. 
 
 Among the summer woodlands wide 
 Anew she roams, no more alone ; 
 
 The joy she feared is at her side. 
 
 Spring's blushing secret now is known. 
 The primrose and its mates have flown. 
 
AGATHA 25 
 
 The thrush's ringing note hath died ; 
 But glancing eye and glowing tone 
 Fall on her from her god, her guide. 
 
 She knows not, asks not, what the goal. 
 
 She only feels she moves towards bliss, 
 And yields her pure unquestioning soul 
 To touch and fondling kiss. 
 
 Ill 
 
 And still she haunts those woodland ways. 
 
 Though all fond fancy finds there now 
 To mind of spring or summer days, 
 
 Are sodden trunk and songless bough. 
 
 The past sits widowed on her brow : 
 Homeward she wends with wijitry gaze, 
 
 To walls that house a hollow vow, 
 To hearth where love hath ceased to blaze : 
 
 Watches the clammy twilight wane. 
 With grief too fixed for woe or tear ; 
 
 And, with her forehead 'gainst the pane. 
 Envies the dying year. 
 
A WOMAN'S APOLOGY 
 
 In the green darkness of a summer wood, 
 Wherethro' ran winding ways, a lady stood, 
 Carved from the air in curving womanhood. 
 
 A maiden's form crowned by a matron's mien, 
 As, about Lammas, wheat-stems may be seen, 
 The ear all golden, but the stalk still green. 
 
 There as she stood, waiting for sight or sound, 
 Down a dim alley without break or bound. 
 Slowly he came, his gaze upon the ground. 
 
 Nor ever once he lifted up his eyes 
 
 Till he no more her presence could disguise ; 
 
 Then he her face saluted silentwise. 
 
 And silentwise no less she turned, as though 
 She was the leaf and he the current's flow. 
 And where he went, there she perforce must go. 
 
A WOMAN'S APOLOGY 27 
 
 And both kept speechless as the dumb or dead, 
 Nor did the earth so much as speak their tread, 
 So soft by last year's leaves 'twas carpeted. 
 
 And not a sound moved all the greenwood through, 
 Save when some quest with fluttering wings outflew, 
 Ruffling the leaves ; then silence was anew. 
 
 And when the track they followed forked in twain, 
 They never doubted which one should be ta'en. 
 But chose as though obeying secret rein. 
 
 Until they came where boughs no longer screened 
 The sky, and soon abruptly intervened 
 A rustic gate, and over it they leaned. 
 
 Leaned over it, and green before them lay 
 A meadow ribbed with drying swathes of hay, 
 From which the hinds had lately gone away. 
 
 Beyond it, yet more woods, these too at rest. 
 Smooth-dipping down to shore, unseen, but guessed; 
 For lo ! the Sea, with nothing on its breast. 
 
 " I was sure you would come," she said, with a voice like 
 
 a broken wing 
 That flutters, and fails, then flags, while it nurses the 
 
 failure's sting ; 
 " You could not refuse me that, 'tis but such a httle thing. 
 
28 A WOMAN'S APOLOGY 
 
 " Do I remember the words, the farewell words that you 
 
 spoke, 
 Answering soft with hard, ere we parted under the oak ? 
 Remember them ? Can I forget ? For each of them 
 
 cut like a stroke. 
 
 Ill 
 
 "True — were they true? You think so, or they had 
 
 never been said ; 
 But somehow, like lightning flashes, they flickered about 
 
 my head. 
 Flickered but touched me not. They ought to have 
 
 stricken me dead. 
 
 IV 
 
 "What do I want with you now? What I always 
 
 wanted, you know ; 
 A voice to be heard in the darkness, a flower to be seen 
 
 in the snow, 
 And a bond linking each fresh future with a lengthening 
 
 long-ago. 
 
 V 
 
 " Is it too much ? Too little ! Well, little or much, 'tis 
 
 all 
 That rescues my life from the nothing it seems to be 
 
 when I call 
 For a life to reply, and my voice comes back like a voice 
 
 from the wall. 
 
A WOMAN'S APOLOGY 29 
 
 VI 
 
 "If one played sweet on a lute, yea so soft that you 
 
 scarce could hear, 
 Would you clang all the chords with your hand that the 
 
 octaves might ring out clear ? 
 Lo ! asunder the strings are snapped, and the music 
 
 shrinks silent for fear. 
 
 VII 
 
 " See ! the earth through the infinite spaces goes silently 
 round and round, 
 
 And the moon moveth on through the heavens and 
 never maketh a sound. 
 
 And the wheels of eternity traverse their journey in still- 
 ness profound. 
 
 '"Tis only the barren breakers that bellow on barren 
 
 shore ; 
 'Tis only the braggart thunders that rumble and rage and 
 
 roar; 
 Like a wave is the love that babbles ; but silent love 
 
 loves evermore. 
 
 IX 
 
 "Feeble, shadowy, shallow? Is ocean then shallow that 
 keeps 
 
30 A WOMAN'S APOLOGY 
 
 Its harvest of shell and seaweed that none or garners or 
 
 reaps, 
 That the diver may sound a moment, but never drag 
 
 from its deeps ? 
 
 " Cowardice ? Yes, we are cowards ; cowards from 
 cradle to bier. 
 
 And the terror of life grows upon us as we grow year by 
 year ; 
 
 Our smiles are but trembling ripples urged on by a sub- 
 tide of fear. 
 
 XI 
 
 "And hence, or at substance or shadow we start, though 
 
 we scarce know why. 
 Life seems like a haunted wood, where we tremble and 
 
 crouch and cry. 
 Beast, or robber, or ghost, — our courage is still to fly. 
 
 XII 
 
 " So we look around for a guide, and to place all our 
 
 fears in his hand. 
 That his courage may keep us brave, that his grandeur 
 
 may make us grand : 
 But, remember, a guide, not an ambush. Oh, tell me 
 
 you understand ! 
 
A WOMAN'S APOLOGY 31 
 
 *' Still silent, still unpersuaded. Ah ! I know what your 
 
 thoughts repeat. 
 We are all alike, and we love to keep passion aglow at 
 
 our feet, 
 Like one that sitteth in shade and complacently smiles at 
 
 the heat. 
 
 XIV 
 
 " You think so ? Then come into shade. Rise up, 
 
 take the seat at my side ; 
 Or, see, I will kneel, not you. What is humble, if this be 
 
 pride ? 
 What seems cold now will chance feel warm when the 
 
 fierce glare of noon hath died. 
 
 XV 
 
 " Have you never, when waves were breaking, watched 
 
 children at sport on the beach, 
 With their little feet tempting the foam-fringe, till with 
 
 stronger and further reach 
 Than they dreamed of, a billow comes bursting, how 
 
 they turn and scamper and screech ! 
 
 XVI 
 
 " Are we more than timider children ? With its blending 
 of terror and glee. 
 
32 A WOMAN'S APOLOGY 
 
 To us life — call it love, if you ^Yill — is a deep mysterious 
 
 sea, 
 That we play with till it grows earnest ; then straight 
 
 we tremble and flee. 
 
 XVII 
 
 " Oh, never the pale east flushes with ripples of rising 
 
 day. 
 Never, never, the birds awakening sing loud upon gable 
 
 and spray. 
 But afresh you dawn on my life, and my soul chants its 
 
 matin lay. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 " When the scent of the elder is wafted from the hedge 
 
 in the cottage lane. 
 Up the walk, and over the terrace, and in at the open 
 
 pane, 
 You are there, and my life seems perfumed like a garden 
 
 after rain. 
 
 " The nightingale brings you nearer, the woodpecker 
 
 borrows your voice ; 
 The flower where the bees cling and cluster seems the 
 
 flower of the flowers of your choice. 
 I am sad with the cloud of your sadness, with the joy of 
 
 your joy I rejoice. 
 
A WOMAN'S APOLOGY 33 
 
 XX 
 
 "What dearer, what nearer would you? Once heart is 
 betrothed to heart, 
 
 No closeness can bring them closer, no parting can put 
 them apart. 
 
 Oh ! take all the balm, leave the bitter, give the sweet- 
 ness with none of its smart." 
 
 The blue sea now^ had saddened into gray ; 
 
 Solid and close the darkening woodlands lay. 
 
 And twilight's floating dews clung heavy with the hay. 
 
 One with all these, he neither stirred nor spake. 
 Though for a sound the silence seemed to ache, 
 Waiting and wondering when his voice the pain would 
 break. 
 
 Then since the words hope forced despair to say 
 Seemed to have vanished with the vanished day. 
 She turned her from the gate, and slowly moved away. 
 
 And he too turned ; but pacing side by side, 
 
 This mocking nearness did them more divide, 
 
 Than if betwixt them moaned the round of ocean wide. 
 
 But when o'erhead boughs once more met and spanned, 
 
 She halted, laid upon his arm her hand. 
 
 And questioned blank his face, his heart to understand. 
 
 D N 
 
34 A WOMAN'S APOLOGY 
 
 Had trust or tenderness been hovering there, 
 She would have known it in the duskiest air ; 
 But face and form aUke of every trace was bare. 
 
 Her touch he neither welcomed nor repelled ; 
 
 Pulses that once had quickened straight seemed quelled ; 
 
 He stood like one that is by courteous bondage held. 
 
 One hand thus foiled, the other rescuing came. 
 And in the darkness sheltered against shame, 
 She fawned on him with both, and trembled out his 
 name. 
 
 Then as a reaper, when the days are meet, 
 His sickle curves about the bending wheat, 
 He hollowed out his arms, and harvested his sweet. 
 
 " Now what shall I cling to ? " she murmured, " Behold ! 
 
 I am weak, you are strong. 
 Brief, brief is the bridal of summer, the mourning of 
 
 winter is long ; 
 Never leave me unloved to discover love's right was but 
 
 rapturous wrong ! " 
 
 Again was silence. Then she slowly felt 
 The clasp of cruel fondness round her melt, 
 And heard a voice that seemed the voice of one that 
 knelt. 
 
A WOMAN'S APOLOGY 35 
 
 "The long, long mourning of the winter days 
 Waits sure for them that bask in summer rays ; 
 One must depart, then life is death to one that stays. 
 
 " This fixed decree we can nor change nor cheat ; 
 
 For I must either leave or lose you, sweet. 
 
 And all love's triumphs end in death and dark defeat. 
 
 " Death is unconscious change, change conscious death. 
 Better to die outright than gasp for breath. 
 Life, dead, hath done with pain ; Love, lingering, 
 suffereth. 
 
 " The only loss — and this may you be spared ! — 
 For which who stake on love must be prepared, 
 Is still that, though life may, yet death can not be 
 shared. 
 
 " No other pain shall come to you from me. 
 What love withholds, love needs must ask. But, see ! 
 Since you embrace love's chains, love's self doth set you 
 free." 
 
 So free they wandered, drinking with delight 
 
 The scented silence of the summer night. 
 
 And in the darkness saw what ne'er is seen in light. 
 
 Hushed deep in slumber seemed all earthy jars, 
 
 And, looking up, they saw, 'twixt leafy bars. 
 
 The untrod fields of Heaven glistening with dewy stars. 
 
THE DEATH OF HUSS 
 
 In the streets of Constance was heard the shout, 
 " Masters ! bring the arch-heretic out !" 
 The stake had been planted, the faggots spread, 
 And the tongues of the torches flickered red. 
 " Huss to the flames !" they fiercely cried : 
 Then the gate of the Convent opened wide. 
 
 Into the sun from the dark he came, 
 
 His face as fixed as a face in a frame. 
 
 His arms were pinioned, but you could see, 
 
 By the smile round his mouth, that his soul was free ; 
 
 And his eye with a strange bright glow was lit. 
 
 Like a star just before the dawn quencheth it. 
 
 To the pyre the crowd a pathway made, 
 And he walked along it with no man's aid ; 
 Steadily on to the place he trod, 
 Commending aloud his soul to God. 
 
THE DEATH OF HUSS 37 
 
 Aloud he prayed, though they mocked his prayer : 
 He was the only thing tranquil there. 
 
 But, seeing the faggots, he quickened pace, 
 As we do when we see the loved one's face. 
 " Now, now, let the torch in the resin flare, 
 Till my books and body be ashes and air ! 
 But the spirit of both shall return to men. 
 As dew that rises descends again." 
 
 From the back of the crowd where the women wept, 
 And the children whispered, a peasant stepped. 
 A goodly faggot was on his back. 
 Brittle and sere, from last year's stack ; 
 And he placed it carefully where the torch 
 Was sure to lick and the flame to scorch. 
 
 " Why bring you fresh fuel, friend ? Here are sticks 
 To burn up a score of heretics." 
 Answered the peasant, " Because this year, 
 My hearth will be cold, for is firewood dear ; 
 And Heaven be witness I pay my toll. 
 And burn your body to save my soul." 
 
 Huss gazed at the peasant, he gazed at the pile, 
 Then over his features there stole a smile. 
 " O Sancta Simplicitas ! By God's troth. 
 This faggot of yours may save us both. 
 And He who judgeth perchance prefer 
 To the victim the executioner !" 
 
38 THE DEATH OF HUSS 
 
 Then unto the stake was he tightly tied, 
 
 And the torches were lowered and thrust inside. 
 
 You could hear the twigs crackle and sputter the flesh, 
 
 Then " Saficta Siniph'citas !" moaned afresh. 
 
 'Twas the last men heard of the words he spoke, 
 
 Ere to Heaven his soul went up with the smoke. 
 
THE LAST REDOUBT 
 
 Kacelyevo's slope still felt 
 
 The cannon's bolt and the rifles' pelt ; 
 
 For a last redoubt up the hill remained, 
 
 By the Russ yet held, by the Turk not gained. 
 
 Mehemet Ali stroked his beard ; 
 His lips were clinched and his look was weird ; 
 Round him were ranks of his ragged folk. 
 Their faces blackened with blood and smoke. 
 
 "Clear me the Muscovite out !" he cried, 
 
 Then the name of "Allah !" resounded wide. 
 
 And the rifles were clutched and the bayonets lowered, 
 
 And on to the last redoubt they poured. 
 
40 THE LAST REDOUBT 
 
 IV 
 
 One fell, and a second quickly stopped 
 The gap that he left when he reeled and dropped ; 
 The second, — a third straight filled his place ; 
 The third, — and a fourth kept up the race. 
 
 Many a fez in the mud was crushed, 
 Many a throat that cheered was hushed, 
 Many a heart that sought the crest 
 Found Allah's throne and a houri's breast. 
 
 Over their corpses the living sprang. 
 And the ridge with their musket-rattle rang. 
 Till the faces that lined the last redoubt 
 Could see their faces and hear their shout. 
 
 VII 
 
 In the redoubt a fair form towered. 
 
 That cheered up the brave and chid the coward ; 
 
 Brandishing blade with a gallant air, 
 
 His head erect and his temples bare. 
 
 " Fly ! they are on us ! " his men implored ; 
 But he waved them on with his waving sword. 
 " It cannot be held ; 'tis no shame to go !" 
 But he stood with his face set hard to the foe. 
 
THE LAST REDOUBT 41 
 
 IX 
 
 Then clung they about him, and tugged, and knelt. 
 He drew a pistol out from his belt, 
 And fired it blank at the first that set 
 Foot on the edge of the parapet. 
 
 Over, that first one toppled ; but on 
 
 Clambered the rest till their bayonets shone, 
 
 As hurriedly fled his men dismayed. 
 
 Not a bayonet's length from the length of his blade. 
 
 XI 
 
 "Yield !" But aloft his steel he flashed, 
 And down on their steel it ringing clashed ; 
 Then back he reeled with a bladeless hilt. 
 His honour full, but his life-blood spilt. 
 
 XII 
 
 Mehemet Ali came and saw 
 The riddled breast and the tender jaw, 
 " Make him a bier of your arms," he said, 
 " And daintily bury this dainty dead !" 
 
 XIII 
 
 They lifted him up from the dabbled ground ; 
 His limbs were shapely, and soft, and round. 
 No down on his lip, on his cheek no shade : — 
 "Bismillah !" they cried, "'tis an Infidel maid !" 
 
42 THE LAST REDOUBT 
 
 " Dig her a grave where she stood and fell, 
 'Gainst the jackal's scratch and the vulture's smell. 
 Did the Muscovite men like their maidens fight, 
 In their lines we had scarcely su})ped to-night." 
 
 XV 
 
 So a deeper trench 'mong the trenches there 
 Was dug, for the form as brave as fair ; 
 And none, till the Judgment trump and shout, 
 Shall drive her out of the Last Redoubt. 
 
A FARMHOUSE DIRGE 
 
 Will you walk with me to the brow of the hill, to visit 
 
 the farmer's wife, 
 Whose daughter lies in the churchyard now, eased of the 
 
 ache of life ? 
 Half a mile by the winding lane, another half to the top : 
 There you may lean o'er the gate and rest ; she will want 
 
 me awhile to stop, 
 Stop and talk of her girl that is gone and no more will 
 
 wake or weep. 
 Or to listen rather, for sorrow loves to babble its pain to 
 
 sleep. 
 
 How thick with acorns the ground is strewn, rent from 
 
 their cups and brown ! 
 How the golden leaves of the windless elms come singly 
 
 fluttering down ! 
 
44 A FARMHOUSE DIRGE 
 
 The bryony hangs in the thinning hedge, as russet as 
 
 harvest corn, 
 The straggHng blackberries gHsten jet, the haws are red 
 
 on the thorn ; 
 The clematis smells no more but lifts its gossamer weight 
 
 on high ; — 
 If you only gazed on the year, you would think how 
 
 beautiful 'tis to die. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The stream scarce flows underneath the bridge ; they 
 have dropped the sluice of the mill ; 
 
 The roach bask deep in the pool above, and the water- 
 wheel is still. 
 
 The meal lies quiet on bin and floor ; and here where 
 the deep banks wind. 
 
 The water-mosses nor sway nor bend, so nothing seems 
 left behind. 
 
 If the wheels of life would but sometimes stop, and the 
 grinding awhile would cease, 
 
 'Twere so sweet to have, without dying quite, just a spell 
 of autumn peace. 
 
 IV 
 
 Cottages four, two new, two old, each with its clambering 
 
 rose : 
 Lath and plaster and weather tiles these, brick faced with 
 
 stone are those. 
 
A FARMHOUSE DIRGE 45 
 
 Two crouch low from the wind and the rain, and tell of 
 the humbler days, 
 
 Whilst the other pair stand up and stare with a self- 
 asserting gaze ; 
 
 But I warrant you'd find the old as snug as the new did 
 you lift the latch, 
 
 For the human heart keeps no whit more warm under 
 slate than beneath the thatch. 
 
 Tenants of two of them work for me, punctual, sober, 
 
 true; 
 I often wish that I did as well the work I have got 
 
 to do. 
 Think not to pity their lowly lot, nor wish that their 
 
 thoughts soared higher ; 
 The canker comes on the garden rose, and not on the 
 
 wilding brier. 
 Doubt and gloom are not theirs, and so they but work 
 
 and love, they live 
 Rich in the only valid boons that life can withhold or 
 
 give. 
 
 VI 
 
 Here is the railway bridge, and see how straight do the 
 
 bright lines keep, 
 With pheasant copses on either side, or pastures of quiet 
 
 sheep. 
 
46 A FARMHOUSE DIRGE 
 
 The big loud city lies far away, far too is the cliff-bound 
 shore, 
 
 But the trains that travel betwixt them seem as if bur- 
 dened w'ith their roar. 
 
 Yet, quickly they pass, and leave no trace, not the echo 
 e'en of their noise : 
 
 Don't you think that silence and stillness are the sweetest 
 of all our joys ? 
 
 VII 
 
 Lo ! yonder the Farm, and these the ruts that the broad- 
 wheeled wains have worn, 
 
 As they bore up the hill the faggots sere, or the mellow 
 shocks of corn. 
 
 The hops are gathered, the twisted bines now brown on 
 the brown clods lie. 
 
 And nothing of all man sowed to reap is seen betwixt 
 earth and sky. 
 
 Year after year doth the harvest come, though at summer's 
 and beauty's cost : 
 
 One can only hope, when our lives grow bare, some reap 
 what our hearts have lost. 
 
 VIII 
 
 And this is the orchard, small and rude, and uncared-for, 
 
 but oh ! in spring, 
 How white is the slope with cherry bloom, and the 
 
 nightingales sit and sing ! 
 
A FARMHOUSE DIRGE 47 
 
 You would think that the world had grown young once 
 
 more, had forgotten death and fear, 
 That the nearest thing unto woe on earth was the smile 
 
 of an April tear ; 
 That goodness and gladness were twin, were one : — The 
 
 robin is chorister now : 
 The russet fruit on the ground is piled, and the lichen 
 
 cleaves to the bough. 
 
 Will you lean o'er the gate, whilst I go on ? You can 
 
 watch the farmyard life. 
 The beeves, the farmer's hope, and the poults, that 
 
 gladden his thrifty wife ; 
 Or, turning, look on the hazy weald, — you will not be 
 
 seen from here, — 
 Till your thoughts, like it, grow blurred and vague, and 
 
 mingle the far and near. 
 Grief is a flood, and not a spring, whatever in grief we 
 
 say; 
 And perhaps her woe, should she see me alone, will run 
 
 more quickly away. 
 
 " I thought you would come this morning, ma'am. Yes, 
 
 Edith at last has gone ; 
 To-morrow's a week, ay, just as the sun right into her 
 
 window shone ; 
 
48 A FARMHOUSE DIRGE 
 
 Went with the night, the vicar says, where endeth never 
 
 the day ; 
 But she's left a darkness behind her here I wish she had 
 
 taken away. 
 She is no longer with us, but we seem to be always with 
 
 her. 
 In the lonely bed where we laid her last, and can't get 
 
 her to speak or stir. 
 
 " Yes, I'm at work ; 'tis time I was. I should have 
 
 begun before ; 
 But this is the room where she lay so still, ere they carried 
 
 her past the door. 
 I thought I never could let her go where it seems so 
 
 lonely of nights ; 
 But now I am scrubbing and dusting down, and setting 
 
 the place to rights. 
 All I have kept are the flowers there, the last that stood 
 
 by her bed. 
 I suppose I must throw them away. She looked much 
 
 fairer when she was dead 
 
 "Thank you, for thinking of her so much. Kind 
 
 thought is the truest friend. 
 I wish you had seen how pleased she was with the 
 
 peaches you used to send. 
 
A FARMHOUSE DIRGE 49 
 
 She tired of them too ere the end, so she did with all we 
 
 tried ; 
 But she liked to look at them all the same, so we set 
 
 them down by her side. 
 Their bloom and the flush upon her cheek were alike, I 
 
 used to say ; 
 Both were so smooth, and soft, and round, and both have 
 
 faded away. 
 
 '■ I never could tell you how kind too were the ladies up 
 
 at the hall ; 
 Every noon, or fair or wet, one of them used to call. 
 Worry and work seems ours, but yours pleasant and easy 
 
 days, 
 And, when all goes smooth, the rich and poor have 
 
 different lives and ways. 
 Sorrow and death bring men more close, 'tis joy that 
 
 puts us apart ; 
 'Tis a comfort to think, though we're severed so, we're 
 
 all of us one at heart. 
 
 " She never wished to be smart and rich, as so many in 
 
 these days do. 
 Nor cared to go in on market days to stare at the gay 
 
 and new. 
 
 E N 
 
so A FARMHOUSE DIRGE 
 
 She liked to remain at home and pluck the white violets 
 
 down in the wood ; 
 She said to her sisters before she died, ' 'Tis so easy to 
 
 be good.' 
 She must have found it so, I think, and that was the 
 
 reason why 
 God deemed it needless to leave her here, so took her 
 
 up to the sky. 
 
 " The vicar says that he knows she is there, and surely 
 she ought to be ; 
 
 But though I repeat the words, 'tis hard to believe what 
 one does not see. 
 
 They did not want me to go to the grave, but I could 
 not have kept away, 
 
 And whatever I do I can only see a coffin and church- 
 yard clay. 
 
 Yes, I know it's wrong to keep lingering there, and 
 wicked and weak to fret ; 
 
 And that's why I'm hard at work again, for it helps one 
 to forget. 
 
 7 
 
 " The young ones don't seem to take to work as their 
 
 mothers and fathers did. 
 We never were asked if we liked or no, but had to obey 
 
 when bid. 
 
A FARMHOUSE DIRGE 51 
 
 There's Bessie won't swill the dairy now, nor Richard 
 
 call home the cows, 
 And all of them cry, 'How cati you, mother?' when I 
 
 carry the wash to the sows. 
 Edith would help me to clean the pans, to burnish the 
 
 grate and hobs ; 
 But she was so pretty I could not bear to set her on 
 
 dirty jobs. 
 
 8 
 
 " I don't know how it'll be with them when sorrow and 
 
 loss are theirs, 
 For it isn't likely that they'll escape their pack of worrits 
 
 and cares. 
 They say it's an age of progress this, and a sight of 
 
 things improves, 
 But sickness, and age, and bereavement seem to work in 
 
 the same old grooves. 
 Fine they may grow, and that, but Death as lief takes 
 
 the moth as the grub. 
 When their dear ones die, I suspect they'll wish they'd a 
 
 floor of their own to scrub. 
 
 " Some day they'll have a home of their own, much 
 
 grander than this, no doubt, 
 But polish the porch as you will you can't keep doctors 
 
 and coffins out. 
 
52 A FARMHOUSE DIRGE 
 
 I've done very well with my fowls this year, but what are 
 
 pullets and eggs, 
 When the heart in vain at the door of the grave the 
 
 return of the lost one begs ? 
 The rich have leisure to wail and weep, the poor haven't 
 
 time to be sad : 
 If the cream hadn't been so contrairy this week, I think 
 
 grief would have driven me mad. 
 
 " How does my husband bear up, you ask ? Well, thank 
 
 you, ma'am, fairly well ; 
 For he too is busy just now, you see, with the wheat and 
 
 the hops to sell : 
 It's when the work of the day is done, and he comes 
 
 indoors at night. 
 While the twilight hangs round the window-panes before 
 
 I bring in the light. 
 And takes down his pipe, and says not a word, but 
 
 watches the faggots roar — 
 And then I know he is thinking of her who will sit on 
 
 his knee no more. 
 
 " Must you be going ? It seems so short. But thank 
 
 you for thinking to come ; 
 It does me good to talk of it all, and grief feels doubled 
 
 when dumb. 
 
A FARMHOUSE DIRGE 53 
 
 And the butter's not quite so good this week, if you please, 
 
 ma'am, you must not mind. 
 And I'll not forget to send the ducks and all the eggs we 
 
 can find ; 
 I've scarcely had time to look round me yet, work gets 
 
 into such arrears, 
 With only one pair of hands, and those fast wiping away 
 
 one's tears. 
 
 " You've got some flowers, yet, haven't you, ma'am ? 
 
 though they now must be going fast ; 
 We never have any to speak of here, and I placed on her 
 
 coffin the last. 
 Could you spare me a few for Sunday next ? I should 
 
 like to go all alone, 
 And lay them down on the little mound where there 
 
 isn't as yet a stone. 
 Thank you kindly, I'm sure they'll do, and I promise to 
 
 heed what you say ; 
 I'll only just go and lay them there, and then I will come 
 
 away." 
 
 Come, let us go. Yes, down the hill, and home by the 
 
 winding lane. 
 The low-lying fields are suffused with haze, as life is 
 
 suffused with pain. 
 
54 A FARMHOUSE DIRGE 
 
 The noon mists gain on the morning sun, so despondency 
 
 gains on youth ; 
 We grope, and wrangle, and boast, but Death is the only 
 
 certain truth. 
 O love of life ! what a foolish love ! we should weary of 
 
 life did it last. 
 While it lingers, it is but a little thing ; 'tis nothing at all 
 
 when past. 
 
 XI 
 
 The acorns thicker and thicker lie, the bryony limper 
 
 grows. 
 There are mildewing beads on the leafless brier where 
 
 once smiled the sweet dog-rose. 
 You may see the leaves of the primrose push through the 
 
 litter of sodden ground ; 
 Their pale stars dream in the wintry womb, and the 
 
 pimpernel sleepeth sound. 
 They will awake ; shall we awake ? Are we more than 
 
 imprisoned breath ? 
 When the heart grows weak, then hope grows strong, but 
 
 stronger than hope is Death. 
 
OUTSIDE THE VILLAGE CHURCH 
 
 " The old Church doors stand open wide, 
 Though neither bells nor anthems peal. 
 
 Gazing so fondly from outside, 
 
 Why do you enter not and kneel ? 
 
 " It is the sunset hour when all 
 
 Begin to feel the need to pray. 
 Upon our common Father call 
 
 To guard the night, condone the day. 
 
 Ill 
 
 " Is it proud scorn, or humble doubt, 
 
 That keeps you standing, lingering, there ; 
 
 Half in the Church, and half without, 
 Midway betwixt the world and prayer ? 
 
S6 OUTSIDE THE VILLAGE CHURCH 
 
 IV 
 
 " No meeter moment could there be 
 For man to talk alone with God. 
 
 The careless sexton has, you see, 
 
 Shouldered his spade, and homeward trod. 
 
 " The Vicar's daily round is done ; 
 
 His back just sank below the brow. 
 He passed the porches, one by one, 
 
 That line the hamlet street, and now 
 
 " He, in his garden, cons the page. 
 And muses on to-morrow's text. 
 
 The homebound rustic counts his wage, 
 The same last week, the same the next. 
 
 " Nor priest nor hind are you, but each 
 Alike is welcome here within ; 
 
 Both they who learn, and they who teach, 
 Have secret sorrow, secret sin. 
 
 VIII 
 
 " Enter, and bare your inmost sore ; 
 
 Enter, and weep your stain away ; 
 Leave doubt and darkness at the door ; 
 
 Come in and kneel, come in and pray." 
 
OUTSIDE THE VILLAGE CHURCH 57 
 
 IX 
 
 Such were the words I seemed to hear, 
 By no one uttered, but alack ! 
 
 The voice of many a bygone year. 
 
 Striking the church, and echoing back. 
 
 I entered not, but on a stone 
 
 Sate, that recorded some one's loss ; 
 
 But name and date no more were shown, 
 The deep-cut hues were smooth with moss. 
 
 XI 
 
 Below were longsome tags of rhyme, 
 But what, you could not now surmise. 
 
 Alas ! alas ! that death and time 
 Should overgrow love's eulogies. 
 
 XII 
 
 Round me was Death that plainly spoke 
 The hopes and aims that life denied ; 
 
 The curious pomp of simple folk, 
 The pedantry of rustic pride. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Some slept in square sepulchral caves. 
 
 Some were stretched flat, and some inurned ; 
 
 And there were fresh brown baby graves. 
 Resembling cradles overturned. 
 
S8 OUTSIDE THE VILLAGE CHURCH 
 
 XIV 
 
 From where I sate I still could watch 
 The old oak pews, the altar white. 
 
 Gable and oasthouse, tile and thatch, 
 Smiled softly in the sunset light. 
 
 XV 
 
 From here and there a cottage roof, 
 Spires of blue vapour 'gan to steal ; 
 
 To eyes of love a heavenly proof 
 
 The mother warmed the evening meal. 
 
 XVI 
 
 No more the mill-stream chafed and churned ; 
 
 The wheel hung still, the meal lay whole ; 
 From marsh and dyke the rooks returned. 
 
 And circled round and round the toll. 
 
 XVII 
 
 The lambs were mute, the sheep were couched, 
 The hop-poles bent 'neath leaf and bine ; 
 
 Adown the road the vagrant slouched, 
 And glanced up at the alehouse sign. 
 
 Again I heard the unseen voice : 
 
 " Why do you come not in and rest ? 
 
 Whether you grieve or you rejoice, 
 You here will be a welcome guest. 
 
OUTSIDE THE VILLAGE CHURCH 59 
 
 XIX 
 
 " To Heaven it is the half-way house, 
 Where hope can feed, and anguish may 
 
 Recline its limbs and rest its brows, 
 With simple thanks for ample pay. 
 
 XX 
 
 " Was it not here you got the name 
 
 Which is of you so close a part. 
 That, uttered, it hath magic claim 
 
 To flush love's cheek, to flood love's heart ? 
 
 XXI 
 
 " Here too it was, when youth confessed 
 The weariness of random ways, 
 
 And felt a surging in the breast 
 
 For faithful nights and fruitful days. 
 
 " You came with one who, conquering fear 
 When love surprised first thought to fly. 
 
 Acknowledged with a tender tear 
 The sweetness of captivity. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 " And here 'twill be when you have ta'en 
 Last look of love, last look of Spring, 
 
 When hearts for you will yearn in vain, 
 And vain for you the birds will sing, 
 
6o OUTSIDE THE VILLACiE CHURCH 
 
 XXIV 
 
 " That shuffling feet and slow will come, 
 With cumbrous coffin, gloomy pall, 
 
 And, while within you moulder dumb, 
 That prayers will rise and tears will fall. 
 
 XXV 
 
 " And should Death haply prove your friend, 
 And what in life was scorned should save, 
 
 Hither it is that feet will wend, 
 
 To read the name upon your grave." 
 
 XXVI 
 
 I heard the voice no more. The rooks 
 Had ceased to float, had ceased to caw ; 
 
 The sunlight lingered but in nooks. 
 And, gazing toward the west, I saw, 
 
 XXVII 
 
 Beyond the pasture's withered bents, 
 Upstanding hop, recumbent fleece, 
 
 And sheaves of wheat, like weathered tents, 
 A twilight bivouac of peace. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Into itself the voice withdrew. 
 
 A something subtle all around 
 Came floating on the rising dew, 
 
 And sweetness took the place of sound. 
 
OUTSIDE THE VILLAGE CHURCH 6i 
 
 No word of mine, although my heart 
 Rebelled, the scented stillness shook 
 
 But silence seemed to take my part. 
 Thus mildly answering mild rebuke : 
 
 " 'Tis true I have to you not brought 
 My eager or despondent mood. 
 
 But still by wood and stream have sought 
 The sanctity of solitude. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 " But as a youth who quits his home 
 To range in tracts of freer fame, 
 
 However far or wide he roam. 
 
 Dwells fondly on his mother's name ; 
 
 XXXII 
 
 " So bear me witness, dear old Church, 
 
 Although apart our ritual be, 
 I ne'er have breathed one word to smirch 
 
 The Creed that bore and suckled me. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 " Not mine presumptuous thought to cope 
 With sage's faith, with saint's belief. 
 
 Or proudly mock the humble hope 
 That solaced the Repentant Thief. 
 
62 OUTSIDE THE VILLAGE CHURCH 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 " I do not let the elms, that shut 
 My garden in from world without, 
 
 Exclude your sacred presence, but 
 
 I lop them when they shoot and sprout ; 
 
 XXXV 
 
 " That I at eve, that I at dawn, 
 
 That I, when noons are warm and still, 
 
 Lying or lingering on the lawn. 
 May see your tower upon the hill. 
 
 " But when Faith grows a sophist's theme, 
 And chancels ring with doubt and din, 
 
 I sometimes think that they who seem 
 The most without, are most within. 
 
 " The name you gave, that name I bear ; 
 
 The bond you sealed, I sacred keep ; 
 And, when my brain is dust and air, 
 
 Let me within your precincts sleep." 
 
 The sexton came and scanned once more 
 The neat square pit of smooth blue clay. 
 
 Then turned the key and locked the door, 
 And so, like him, I went my way. 
 
OUTSIDE THE VILLAGE CHURCH 63 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 I had the summons not obeyed ; 
 
 I had nor knelt nor uttered word : 
 But somehow felt that I had prayed, 
 
 And somehow felt I had been heard. 
 
AT SAN GIOVANNI DEL LAGO 
 
 I LEANED upon the rustic bridge, 
 And watched the streamlet make 
 
 Its chattering way past zigzag ridge 
 Down to the silent lake. 
 
 The sunlight flickered on the wave, 
 
 Lay quiet on the hill ; 
 Italian sunshine, bright and brave. 
 
 Though 'twas but April still. 
 
 Ill 
 
 I heard the distant shepherd's shout, 
 
 I heard the fisher's call ; 
 The lizards glistened in and out, 
 
 Along the crannied wall. 
 
AT SAX GIOVANNI DEL LAGO 
 
 Hard-by, in rudely frescoed niche, 
 Hung Christ upon the tree ; 
 
 Round Him the ^Maries knelt, and each 
 Was weeping bitterly. 
 
 A nightingale from out the trees 
 Rippled, and then was dumb ; 
 
 But in the golden bays the bees 
 Kept up a constant hum. 
 
 VI 
 
 Two peasant women of the land. 
 Barefoot, with tresses black. 
 
 Came slowly toward me from the strand, 
 With their burdens on their back : 
 
 Two wicker crates with linen piled, 
 Just newly washed and wrung ; 
 
 And, close behind, a little child 
 That made the morning young. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Reaching the bridge, each doffed her load. 
 
 Resting before they clomb. 
 Along the stony twisting road, 
 
 Up to their mountain home. 
 
 F N 
 
^6 AT SAN GIOVANNI DEL LAGO 
 
 IX 
 
 Shortly the child, just half its height, 
 Stooped 'neath her mother's pack, 
 
 And strove and strove with all her might 
 To lift it on her back. 
 
 Thereat my heart began to smile : 
 
 Haply I speak their tongue : 
 " Can you," I said, " not wait awhile ? 
 
 You won't be always young. 
 
 XI 
 
 " Why long to share the toil you see. 
 
 Why hurry on the years, 
 When life will one long season be 
 
 Of labour and of tears ? 
 
 XII 
 
 *' Be patient with your childhood. "Work 
 Will come full soon enough. 
 
 From year to year, from morn till murk, 
 Life will be hard and rough. 
 
 " And yours will grow, and haply I, 
 
 Revisiting this shore. 
 In years to come will see and sigh 
 
 You are a child no more. 
 
AT SAN GIOVANNI DEL LAGO 67 
 
 XIV 
 
 " Yours then will be the moil, the heat, 
 
 Yours be the strain and stress. 
 Pray Heaven Love then attend your feet 
 
 To make life's burden less." 
 
 Thus as I spoke, with steadfast stare 
 She clung between the two, 
 
 Scarce understanding, yet aware 
 That the sad words were true. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Down from the mother's face a tear 
 
 Fell to her naked feet. 
 "But now unto the Signor, dear, 
 
 Your poesy repeat." 
 
 XVII 
 
 ^^'ithout demur the little maid 
 Spread out her palms, and lo .' 
 
 From lips that lisped, yet unafraid. 
 Sweet verse began to flow. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 She told the story that we all 
 Learn at our mother's knee, 
 
 Of Eve's transgression, Adam's fall, 
 And Heaven's great clemency : 
 
68 AT SAN GIOVANNI DEL LAGO 
 
 XIX 
 
 How Jesus was by Mary's hands 
 In the rough manger laid, 
 
 And by rich Kings from far-off lands 
 ^Vas pious homage paid : 
 
 Then how, though cruel Herod slew 
 The suckling babes, and thought 
 
 To baffle God, Christ lived and grew. 
 And in the temple taught. 
 
 XXI 
 
 She raised her hands to suit the rhyme, 
 She clasped them on her heart ; 
 
 There never lived the city mime 
 So well had played the part. 
 
 XXII 
 
 When she broke off, I was too choked 
 
 With tenderness to speak. 
 And so her little form I stroked. 
 
 And kissed her on the cheek ; 
 
 XXIII 
 
 And took a sweetmeat that I had, 
 
 And put it in her mouth. 
 O then she danced like a stream that's glad 
 
 Wlien it hurries to the south. 
 
AT SAN GIOVANNI DEL LAGO 69 
 
 XXIV 
 
 She danced, she skipped, she kissed "good-bye," 
 
 She frolicked round and round : 
 The pair resumed their packs, and I 
 
 Sate rooted to the 2;round. 
 
 "^ rivederla I" Then the three 
 Went winding up the hill. 
 
 Ah ! they have long forgotten me ; 
 But I remember still. 
 
 Bellagio. 
 
THE LAST NIGHT 
 
 I 
 
 Sister, come to the chestnut toll, 
 
 And sit with me on the dear old bole, 
 
 Where we oft have sate in the sun and the rain 
 
 And perhaps I never shall sit again. 
 
 Longer and darker the shadows grow : 
 
 ' Tis my last night, dear. With the dawn I go. 
 
 II 
 O the times, and times, we two have played 
 Alone, alone, in its nursing shade. 
 When once we the breadth of the park had crossed, 
 We fancied ourselves to be hid and lost 
 In a secret world that seemed to be 
 As vast as the forests I soon shall see. 
 
 Do you remember the winter days 
 When we piled up the leaves and made them blaze, 
 While the blue smoke curled, in the frosty air. 
 Up the great wan trunks that rose gaunt and bare, 
 And we clapped our hands, and the rotten bough 
 Came crackling down to our feet, as now ? 
 
THE LAST NIGHT 71 
 
 IV 
 
 But dearer than all was the April weather, 
 When off we set to the woods together, 
 And piled up the lap of your clean white frock 
 With primrose, and bluebell, and ladysmock. 
 And notched the pith of the sycamore stem 
 Into whistles. Do you remember them ? 
 
 V 
 
 And in summer you followed me fast and far — 
 
 How cruel and selfish brothers are ! — 
 
 With tottering legs and with cheeks aflame, 
 
 Till back to the chestnut toll we came, 
 
 And rested and watched the long tassels swing. 
 
 That seemed with their scent to prolong the Spring. 
 
 VI 
 
 And in autumn 'twas still our favourite spot. 
 When school was over and tasks forgot, 
 And we scampered away and searched till dusk 
 For the smooth bright nuts in the prickly husk. 
 And carried them home, by the shepherd's star, 
 Then roasted them on the nursery bar. 
 
 VII 
 
 O, Winnie, I do not want to go 
 From the dear old home ; I love it so. 
 Why should I follow the sad sea-mew 
 To a land where everything is new. 
 Where we never bird-nested, you and I, 
 Where I was not born, but perhaps shall die ? 
 
72 THE LAST NIGHT 
 
 VIII 
 
 No, I did not mean that. Come, dry your tears. 
 You may want them all in the coming years. 
 There's nothing to cry for. Win : be brave. 
 I will work like a horse, like a dog, like a slave. 
 And will come back long ere we both are old, 
 The clods of my clearing turned to gold. 
 
 IX 
 
 But could I not stay and work at home, 
 Clear English woods, turn up English loam ? 
 I shall have to work with my hands out there, 
 Shear sheep, shoe horses, put edge on share, 
 Dress scab, drive bullocks, trim hedge, clean ditch, 
 Put in here a rivet and there a stitch. 
 
 X 
 
 It were sweeter to moil in the dear old land. 
 And sooth why not ? Have we grown so grand ? 
 So grand ! When the rear becomes the van, 
 Rich idleness makes the gentleman. 
 Gentleman ! What is a gentleman now ? 
 A swordless hand and a helmless brow. 
 
 XI 
 
 Would you blush for me. Win, if you saw me there 
 With my sleeves turned up and my sinews bare, 
 And the axe on the log come ringing down 
 Like a battering-ram on a high-walled town. 
 And my temples beaded with diamond sweat, 
 As bright as a wealth-earned coronet ? 
 
THE LAST NIGHT 73 
 
 XII 
 
 And, pray, if not there, why here ? Does crime 
 Depend upon distance, or shame on clime ? 
 Will your sleek-skinned plutocrats cease to scoff 
 At a workman's hands, if he works far off? 
 And is theirs the conscience men born to sway 
 Must accept for their own in this latter day ? 
 
 XIII 
 
 I could be Harry's woodreeve. Who should scorn 
 To work for his House, and the eldest-born ? 
 I know every trunk, and bough, and stick, 
 Much better than Glebe and as well as Dick. 
 Loving service seems banned in a monied age. 
 Or a brother's trust might be all my wage. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Or his keeper. Win ? Do you think I'd mind 
 Being out in all weathers, wet, frost, or wind ? 
 Because I have got a finer coat. 
 Do I shrink from a weasel or dread a stoat ? 
 Have I not nailed them by tens and scores 
 To the pheasant-hutch and the granary doors ? 
 
 XV 
 
 Don't I know where the partridge love to hatch, 
 And wouldn't the poachers meet their match ? 
 A hearty word has a wondrous charm. 
 And, if not — well, there's always the stalwart arm. 
 Thank Heaven ! spite pillows and counterpanes. 
 The blood of the savage still haunts my veins. 
 
74 THE LAST NIGHT 
 
 XVI 
 
 They may boast as they will of our moral days, 
 
 Our mincing manners and softer ways, 
 
 And our money value for everything. 
 
 But he who will fight should alone be King ; 
 
 And when gentlemen go, unless I'm wrong, 
 
 Men too will grow scarce before very long. 
 
 XVII 
 
 - There, enough ! let us back. I'm a fool, I know ; 
 But I must see Gladys before I go. 
 Good-bye, old toll. In my log-hut bleak, 
 I shall hear your leaves whisper, your branches creak. 
 Your woodquests brood, your woodpeckers call, 
 And the shells of your ripened chestnuts fall. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Harry never must let the dear old place 
 
 To a stranger's foot and a stranger's face. 
 
 He may live as our fathers lived before, 
 
 With a homely table and open door. 
 
 But out on the pomp the upstart hires. 
 
 And that drives a man from the roof of his sires ! 
 
 I never can understand why they 
 
 Who founded thrones in a braver day. 
 
 Should cope with the heroes of 'change and mart 
 
 Whose splendour puts rulers and ruled apart, 
 
 Insults the lowly and saps the State, 
 
 Makes the servile cringe, and the manly hate. 
 
THE LAST NIGHT 75 
 
 You will write to me often, dear, when I'm gone, 
 
 And tell me how everything goes on ; 
 
 If the trout spawn well, where the beagles meet. 
 
 Who is married or dies in the village street ; 
 
 And mind you send me the likeliest pup 
 
 Of Fan's next litter. There, Win, cheer up ! 
 
NATURE AND THE BOOK 
 
 I CLOSED the book. The summer shower 
 In smiUng dimples ebbed away, 
 
 But still on leaf, and blade, and flower, 
 The fallen raindrops glistening lay. 
 
 I placed the volume on the shelf, 
 And, issuing from the leafy shed, 
 
 Paced the moist garden by myself. 
 Musing on what I just had read : 
 
 III 
 
 That Man should live by Nature's laws, 
 And that his ways are waste and wild. 
 
 Unless he follow where she draws, 
 
 Cling to her skirts, and be her child : 
 
NATURE AND THE BOOK ^^ 
 
 IV 
 
 That love, and dread, and doubt are dreams, 
 But dwindling specks in widening space, 
 
 Nor shall we ever pierce what seems. 
 Or find a soul behind the face ; 
 
 That if man will but ask the air. 
 
 Question the earth, consult the skies, 
 
 He needs no help of awe or prayer, 
 Or further wisdom, to be wise. 
 
 VI 
 
 The sun had dried the garden seat ; 
 
 The tall lithe flax nor bent nor swayed 
 The tassels of the lime smelt sweet 
 
 Within the circle of its shade. 
 
 VII 
 
 The heavy bees from out the hive 
 Came slowly answering to the sun ; 
 
 I watched them hover, and then dive 
 Into the foxgloves, one by one. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Shortly a butcher-bird shot by, 
 
 Then doubled back, and upward flew. 
 Chasing a sulphur butterfly 
 
 To whom the earth and air were new. 
 
78 NATURE AND THE BOOK 
 
 IX 
 
 Oft it escaped — escaped again, — 
 
 But, each time, feebler swerved and rose ; 
 Till flagged the flying flower, and then 
 
 I saw not, but could guess, the close. 
 
 Anon a hawk, intent to strike, 
 
 In the blue ether hovering brown, 
 
 Flickered an instant, and, then like 
 Returning arrow, quickened down. 
 
 XI 
 
 What ! Has he missed? No, bravely done ! 
 
 A whirr of wings, a silenced shriek. 
 Ofl" skimmed the covey — all save one, 
 
 Left in tight claw and rending beak. 
 
 XII 
 
 And are these then the laws that I 
 
 Must copy with a docile will ? 
 Am I to suck each sweetness dry ? 
 
 Am I to harry and to kill ? 
 
 XIII 
 
 If Nature is to be my guide, 
 
 I doubt her fitness for the part, 
 Rebuke her ruthlessness, and chide 
 
 Her lack of soul, her want of heart. 
 
NATURE AND THE BOOK 79 
 
 XIV 
 
 I chafe within the cage of law ; 
 
 The realm of chance far sweeter is. 
 I own no love, I feel no awe, 
 
 For causes and for sequences. 
 
 Doth Nature draw me, 'tis because, 
 
 Unto my seeming, there doth lurk 
 A lawlessness about her laws, 
 
 ]More mood than purpose in her work. 
 
 XVI 
 
 The Spring-time will not come to date , 
 
 Winds, clouds, and frosts, man's reckoning mar. 
 
 For bud and bloom you have to wait. 
 Despite your ordered calendar. 
 
 XVII 
 
 If Nature built by rule and square. 
 Than man what wiser would she be ? 
 
 What wins us is her careless care. 
 And sw^eet unpunctuality. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 They misconstrue her, who translate. 
 
 They blur her mirror with their mist. 
 " Behold," one says, " the face of Fate," 
 
 Because himself a fatalist. 
 
So NATURE AND THE BOOK 
 
 Another, coming, cries " Behold 
 The aspect of a veering will ! 
 
 The Gods are weak, the Gods are old '"— 
 Fools ! you are older, weaker still. 
 
 XX 
 
 In vain would science scan and trace 
 Firmly her aspect. All the while, 
 
 There gleams upon her far-off face 
 A vague unfathomable smile. 
 
 XXI 
 
 Only the poet reads her right, 
 
 Because he reads with heart, not eyes 
 He bares his being in her sight, 
 
 And mirrors all her mysteries. 
 
 While others scan some favourite part 
 Of Nature, he reflects the whole, 
 
 Has every climate in his heart. 
 And all the seasons in his soul. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 While she upon herself revolves, 
 He only her whole sphere can see, 
 
 And in that prism, his mind, resolves 
 The fragments of her unity. 
 
NATURE AND THE BOOK 
 
 XXIV 
 
 He bids her not to him conform, 
 He does not question her intent ; 
 
 He takes the sunshine and the storm 
 As strings of some sweet instrument ; 
 
 And out of these, and every mood 
 That in her lurks, makes music flow, 
 
 And fledges Fancy's happy brood 
 E'en from the very nest of woe. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 He loves her, hence doth not demand 
 That she be better or be worse, 
 
 But links with his her helpful hand, 
 And weds her beauty to his verse. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 He loves her more, as grow the years ; 
 
 Her faults are virtues in his eyes ; 
 He drinks, with her. Spring's wayward tears, 
 
 With her, shares Winter's wasted sighs. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 She waited for him till he came ; 
 
 Though he departs, she doth survive. 
 And, fondly careful of his fame, 
 
 Through hers she keeps his name alive. 
 
 G N 
 
NATURE AND THE BOOK 
 
 XXIX 
 
 From sunny woof and cloudy weft 
 Fell rain in sheets ; so, to myself 
 
 I hummed these hazard rhymes, and left 
 The learned volume on the shelf. 
 
GRANDMOTHER'S TEACHING 
 
 " Grandmother dear, you do not know ; you have lived 
 the old-world life, 
 
 Under the twittering eave of home, sheltered from storm 
 and strife ; 
 
 Rocking cradles, and covering jams, knitting socks for 
 baby feet, 
 
 Or piecing together lavender bags for keeping the linen 
 sweet : 
 
 Daughter, wife, and mother in turn, and each with a blame- 
 less breast. 
 
 Then saying your prayers when the nightfall came, and 
 quietly dropping to rest. 
 
 " You must not think. Granny, I speak in scorn, for yours 
 
 have been well-spent days. 
 And none ever paced with more faithful feet the dutiful 
 
 ancient ways. 
 Grandfather's gone, but while he lived you clung to him 
 
 close and true, 
 
84 GRANDMOTHER'S TEACHING 
 
 And mother's heart, Hke her eyes, I know, came to her 
 
 straight from you. 
 If the good old times, at the good old pace, in the good 
 
 old grooves would run. 
 One could not do better, I'm sure of that, than do as 
 
 you all have done. 
 
 " But the world has wondrously changed, Granny, since 
 
 the days when you were young ; 
 It thinks quite different thoughts from then, and speaks 
 
 with a different tongue. 
 The fences are broken, the cords are snapped, that 
 
 tethered man's heart to home ; 
 He ranges free as the wind or the wave, and changes his 
 
 shore like the foam. 
 He drives his furrows through fallow seas, he reaps what 
 
 the breakers sow, 
 And the flash of his iron flail is seen 'mid the barns of 
 
 the barren snow. 
 
 IV 
 
 " He has lassoed the lightning and led it home, he has 
 
 yoked it unto his need, 
 And made it answer the rein and trudge as straight as 
 
 the steer or steed. 
 He has bridled the torrents and made them tame, he has 
 
 bitted the champing tide. 
 It toils as his drudge and turns the wheels that spin for 
 
 his use and pride. 
 
GRANDMOTHER'S TEACHING 85 
 
 He handles the planets and weighs their dust, he mounts 
 
 on the comet's car, 
 And he lifts the veil of the sun, and stares in the eyes of 
 
 the uttermost star. 
 
 '• 'Tis not the same world you knew, Granny ; its fetters 
 
 have fallen off; 
 The lowliest now may rise and rule where the proud used 
 
 to sit and scoff. 
 No need to boast of a scutcheoned stock, claim rights 
 
 from an ancient wrong ; 
 All are born with a silver spoon in their mouths whose 
 
 gums are sound and strong. 
 And I mean to be rich and great. Granny ; I mean it 
 
 with heart and soul : 
 At my feet is the ball, I will roll it on, till it spins through 
 
 the golden goal. 
 
 '• Out on the thought that my copious life should trickle 
 
 through trivial days. 
 Myself but a lonelier sort of beast, watching the cattle 
 
 graze, 
 Scanning the year's monotonous change, gaping at wind 
 
 and rain. 
 Or hanging with meek solicitous eyes on the whims of a 
 
 creaking vane : 
 
86 GRANDMOTHER'S TEACHING 
 
 Wretched if ewes drop single lambs, blest so is oilcake 
 
 cheap, 
 And growing old in a tedious round of worry, surfeit, and 
 
 sleep. 
 
 VII 
 
 " You dear old Granny, how sweet your smile, and how 
 soft your silvery hair ! 
 
 But all has moved on while you sate still in your cap and 
 easy-chair. 
 
 The torch of knowledge is lit for all, it flashes from hand 
 to hand ; 
 
 The alien tongues of the earth converse, and whisper 
 from strand to strand. 
 
 The very churches are changed and boast new hymns, 
 new rites, new truth ; 
 
 Men worship a wiser and greater God than the half- 
 known God of your youth. 
 
 VIII 
 
 " What ! marry Connie and set up house, and dwell 
 
 where my fathers dwelt. 
 Giving the homely feasts they gave and kneeling where 
 
 they knelt ? 
 She is pretty, and good, and void I am sure of vanity, 
 
 greed, or guile ; 
 But she has not travelled nor seen the worJd, and is 
 
 lacking in air and style. 
 
GRANDMOTHER'S TEACHING 87 
 
 Women now are as wise and strong as men, and vie with 
 
 men in renown ; 
 The wife that will help to build my fame was not bred 
 
 near a country town. 
 
 IX 
 
 " What a notion ! to figure at parish boards, and wrangle 
 
 o'er cess and rate, 
 I, who mean to sit for the county yet, and vote on an 
 
 Empire's fate ; 
 To take the chair at the Farmers' Feast, and tickle their 
 
 bumpkin ears, 
 Who must shake a senate before I die, and waken a 
 
 people's cheers ! 
 In the olden days was no choice, so sons to the roof of 
 
 their fathers clave : 
 But now 1 'twere to perish before one's time, and to sleep 
 
 in a living grave. 
 
 " I see that you do not understand. How should you ? 
 
 Your memory clings 
 To the simple music of silenced days and the skirts of 
 
 vanishing things. 
 Your fancy wanders round ruined haunts, and dwells 
 
 upon oft-told tales ; 
 Your eyes discern not the widening dawn, nor your ears 
 
 catch the rising gales. 
 
88 GRANDMOTHER'S TEACHING 
 
 But live on, Granny, till I come back, and then perhaps 
 
 you will own 
 The dear old Past is an empty nest, and the Present the 
 
 brood that is flown." 
 
 " i\.ND so, my dear, you've come back at last ? I always 
 
 fancied you would. 
 Well, you see the old home of your childhood's days is 
 
 standing where it stood. 
 The roses still clamber from porch to roof, the elder is 
 
 white at the gate. 
 And over the long smooth gravel path the peacock still 
 
 struts in state. 
 On the gabled lodge, as of old, in the sun, the pigeons 
 
 sit and coo. 
 And our hearts, my dear, are no whit more changed, but 
 
 have kept still warm for you. 
 
 " You'll find little altered, unless it be me, and that since 
 
 my last attack ; 
 But so that you only give me time, I can walk to the 
 
 church and back. 
 You bade me not die till you returned, and so you see 
 
 I lived on : 
 I"m glad that I did now you've really come, but it's 
 
 almost time I was gone. 
 
GRANDMOTHER'S TEACHING 89 
 
 I suppose that there isn't room for us all, and the old 
 
 should depart the first. 
 That's as it should be. What is sad, is to bury the 
 
 dead you've nursed. 
 
 Ill 
 
 "AVon't you have bit nor sup, my dear? Not even a 
 
 glass of whey ? 
 The dappled Alderney calved last week, and the baking 
 
 is fresh to-day. 
 Have you lost your appetite too in town, or is it you've 
 
 grown over-nice ? 
 If you'd rather have biscuits and cowslip wine, they'll 
 
 bring them up in a trice. 
 But what am I saying ? Your coming down has set me 
 
 all in a maze : 
 I forgot that you travelled here by train ; I was thinking 
 
 of coaching days. 
 
 " There, sit you down, and give me your hand, and tell 
 
 me about it all. 
 From the day that you left us, keen to go, to the pride 
 
 that had a fall. 
 And all went well at the first ? So it does, when we're 
 
 young and puffed with hope ; 
 But the foot of the hill is quicker reached the easier 
 
 seems the slope. 
 
90 GRANDMOTHER'S TEACHING 
 
 And men thronged round you, and women too ! Yes, 
 
 that I can understand. 
 When there's gold in the palm, the greedy world is eager 
 
 to grasp the hand. 
 
 " I heard them tell of your smart town house, but I 
 
 always shook my head. 
 One doesn't grow rich in a year and a day, in the time 
 
 of my youth 'twas said. 
 Men do not reap in the spring, my dear, nor are granaries 
 
 filled in ^lay. 
 Save it be with the harvest of former years, stored up for 
 
 a rainy day. 
 The seasons will keep their own true time, you can hurry 
 
 nor furrow nor sod : 
 It's honest labour and steadfast thrift that alone are blest 
 
 by God. 
 
 VI 
 
 " You say you were honest. I trust you were, nor do I 
 
 judge you, my dear : 
 I have old-fashioned ways, and it's quite enough to keep 
 
 one's own conscience clear. 
 But still the commandment, "Thou shalt not steal," 
 
 though a simple and ancient rule. 
 Was not made for modern cunning to baulk, nor for any 
 
 new age to befool ; 
 
GRANDMOTHER'S TEACHING 91 
 
 And if my growing rich unto others brought but penury, 
 
 chill, and grief, 
 I should feel, though I never had filched with my hands, 
 
 I was only a craftier thief. 
 
 VII 
 
 "That isn't the way they look at it there? All wor- 
 shipped the rising sun ? 
 
 Most of all the fine lady, in pride of purse you fancied 
 your heart had won. 
 
 I don't want to hear of her beauty or birth : I reckon 
 her foul and low ; 
 
 Far better a steadfast cottage wench than grand loves 
 that come and go. 
 
 To cleave to their husbands, through weal, through woe, 
 is all women have to do : 
 
 In growing as clever as men they seem to have matched 
 them in fickleness too. 
 
 " But there's one in whose heart has your image still 
 
 dwelt through many an absent day. 
 As the scent of a flower will haunt a closed room, 
 
 though the flower be taken away. 
 Connie's not quite so young as she was, no doubt, but 
 
 faithfulness never grows old ; 
 And were beauty the only fuel of love, the warmest 
 
 hearth soon would grow cold. 
 
92 GRANDMOTHER'S TEACHING 
 
 Once you thought that she had not travelled, and knew 
 
 neither the world nor life : 
 Not to roam, but to deem her own hearth the whole 
 
 world, that's what a man wants in a wife. 
 
 IX 
 
 " I'm sure you'd be happy with Connie, at least if your 
 own heart's in the right place. 
 
 She will bring you nor power, nor station, nor wealth, 
 but she never will bring you disgrace. 
 
 They say that the moon, though she moves round the 
 earth, never turns to him morning or night 
 
 But one face of her sphere, and it must be because she's 
 so true a satellite ; 
 
 And Connie, if into your orbit once drawn by the sacra- 
 ment sanctioned above, 
 
 Would revolve round you constantly, only to show the 
 one-sided aspect of love. 
 
 "You will never grow rich by the land, I own; but if 
 
 Connie and you should wed, 
 It will feed your children and household too, as it you 
 
 and your fathers fed. 
 The seasons have been unkindly of late ; there's a 
 
 wonderful cut of hay. 
 But the showers have washed all the goodness out, till 
 
 it's scarcely worth carting away. 
 
GRANDMOTHER'S TEACHING 93 
 
 There's a fairish promise of barley straw, but the ears 
 look rusty and slim : 
 
 I suppose God intends to remind us thus that some- 
 thing depends on Him. 
 
 XI 
 
 " God neither progresses nor changes, dear, as I once 
 
 heard you rashly say : 
 Man's schools and philosophies come and go, but His 
 
 word doth not pass away. 
 We worship Him here as we did of old, with simple and 
 
 reverent rite : 
 In the morning we pray Him to bless our work, to 
 
 forgive our transgressions at night. 
 To keep His commandments, to fear His name, and 
 
 what should be done, to do, — 
 That's the beginning of wisdom still ; I suspect 'tis the 
 
 end of it too. 
 
 XII 
 
 "You must see the new-fangled machines at work, that 
 
 harrow, and thresh, and reap ; 
 They're wonderful quick, there's no mistake, and they 
 
 say in the end they're cheap. 
 But they make such a clatter, and seem to bring the rule 
 
 of the town to the fields : 
 There's something more precious in country life than the 
 
 balance of wealth it yields. 
 
94 GRANDMOTHER'S TEACHING 
 
 But that seems going ; I'm sure I hope that I shall be 
 
 gone before : 
 Better poor sweet silence of rural toil than the factory's 
 
 opulent roar. 
 
 XIII 
 
 " They're a mighty saving of labour, though ; so at least 
 
 I hear them tell, 
 Making fewer hands and fewer mouths, but fewer hearts 
 
 as well : 
 They sweep up so close that there's nothing left for 
 
 widows and bairns to glean ; 
 If machines are growing like men, man seems to be 
 
 growing a half machine. 
 There's no friendliness left ; the only tie is the wage upon 
 
 Saturday nights : 
 Right used to mean duty ; you'll find that now there's no 
 
 duty, but only rights. 
 
 " Still stick to your duty, my dear, and then things cannot 
 
 go much amiss. 
 What made folks happy in bygone times, will make them 
 
 happy in this. 
 There's little that's called amusement, here ; but why 
 
 should the old joys pall ? 
 Has the blackbird ceased to sing loud in spring ? Has 
 
 the cuckoo forgotten to call i' 
 
GRANDMOTHER'S TEACHING 95 
 
 Are bleating voices no longer heard when the cherry- 
 blossoms swarm ? 
 
 And have home, and children, and fireside lost one 
 gleam of their ancient charm ? 
 
 XV 
 
 " Come, let us go round ; to the farmyard first, with its 
 
 litter of fresh-strewn straw, 
 Past the ash-tree dell, round whose branching tops the 
 
 young rooks wheel and caw ; 
 Through the ten-acre mead that was mown the first, and 
 
 looks well for aftermath, 
 Then round by the beans — I shall tire by then, — and 
 
 home up the garden-path, 
 Where the peonies hang their blushing heads, where the 
 
 larkspur laughs from its stalk — 
 With my stick and your arm I can manage. But see ! 
 
 There, Connie comes up the walk." 
 
TWO VISIONS 
 
 WRITTEN, 1S63. Revised, 1889 
 
 The curtains of the night were folded 
 Round sleep-entangled sense ; 
 
 So that the things I saw were moulded, 
 I know not how, nor whence. 
 
 But I beheld a smokeless city. 
 
 Built upon jutting slopes. 
 Up whose steep paths, as if for pity. 
 
 Stretched loosely-hanging ropes. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Withal, of many who ascended, 
 
 No one appeared to use 
 This aid, allowed in days since mended, 
 
 AMien folks had weaker thews. 
 
TWO VISIONS 97 
 
 IV 
 
 The men, still animal in vigour, 
 Strode stalwart and erect ; 
 
 But on their brows, in placid rigour, 
 Reigned sovereign Intellect. 
 
 Women round-limbed, sound-lunged, full-breasted. 
 
 Walked at a rhythmic pace ; 
 Yet not the less, for that, invested 
 
 With every female grace. 
 
 VI 
 
 Fearless, unveiled, and unattended. 
 
 Strolled maidens to and fro : 
 Youths looked respect, but never bended 
 
 Obsequiously low. 
 
 And each with other, sans condition. 
 Held parley brief or long, 
 
 Without provoking coarse suspicion 
 Of marriage, or of wrong. 
 
 All were well clad, but none were better, 
 
 And gems beheld I none, 
 Save where there hung a jewelled fetter, 
 
 Symbolic, in the sun. 
 
 H 
 
98 TWO VISIONS 
 
 IX 
 
 I saw a noble-looking maiden 
 Close Dante's solemn book, 
 
 And go, with crate of linen laden, 
 And wash it in the brook. 
 
 Anon, a broad-browed poet, dragging 
 
 A load of logs along, 
 To warm his hearth, withal not flagging 
 
 In current of his song. 
 
 Each one some handicraft attempted, 
 Or helped to till the soil : 
 
 None but the aged were exempted 
 From communistic toil : 
 
 XII 
 
 Which was nor long nor unremitting, 
 Since shared in by the whole ; 
 
 Leaving to each one, as is fitting. 
 Full leisure for the Soul. 
 
 xiir 
 
 Was many a group in allocution 
 On problems that delight. 
 
 And lift, when e'en beyond solution, 
 Man to a nobler height. 
 
TWO VISIONS 99 
 
 And oftentimes was brave contention, 
 Such as beseems the wise ; 
 
 But always courteous abstention 
 From over-swift rephes. 
 
 Age lorded not, nor rose the hectic 
 Up to the cheek of Youth ; 
 
 But reigned throughout their dialectic 
 Sobriety of truth. 
 
 XVI 
 
 And if a long-held contest tended 
 
 To ill-defined result. 
 It was by calm consent suspended 
 
 As over-difficult : 
 
 XVII 
 
 And verse or music was suggested, 
 
 Then solitude of night : 
 Whereby the senses are invested 
 
 With spiritual sight. 
 
 So far, the city. All around it, 
 
 Olive, or vine, or corn ; 
 Those having pressed, or trod, or ground it, 
 
 By these 'twas townward borne, 
 
TWO VISIONS 
 
 XIX 
 
 And placed in halls unbarred though splendid 
 
 With none to overlook, 
 And whither each at leisure wended, 
 
 And, what he wanted, took. 
 
 XX 
 
 And men saluted one the other. 
 
 Or as they passed or stood, 
 " Let us still love and labour, brother ; 
 
 For life is sweet and good." 
 
 XXI 
 
 I saw no crippled forms nor meagre, 
 
 None smitten by disease : 
 Only the old, nor loth nor eager. 
 
 Dying by kind degrees. 
 
 XXII 
 
 And when, without or pain or trouble, 
 
 They sank as sinks the sun, 
 " This is the sole Inevitable," 
 
 All said ; " His will be done !" 
 
 XXIII 
 
 And went, with music softly swelling, 
 
 Where land o'erlooks the sea, 
 Over the corse piled herbs sweet-smelling, 
 
 Consumed, and so set free. 
 
TWO VISIONS loi 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Past ocean wave and mountain daisy 
 
 As curled the perfumed smoke, 
 The notes grew faint, the vision hazy : — 
 
 Straining my sense, I woke. 
 
 XXV 
 
 Swift I arose. Soft winds were stirring 
 
 The curtains of the Morn, 
 Promise of day, by signs unerring. 
 
 Lovely as e'er was born. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 But here the pleasant likeness ended 
 
 Between the cities twain : 
 Level and straight these streets extended 
 
 Over an easy plain. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 Withal, the people who thus early 
 
 Began to troop and throng, 
 With curving back and visage surly 
 
 Toiled painfully along. 
 
 Groups of them met at yet closed portals. 
 And huddled round the gate. 
 
 Patient, as smit by the Immortals, 
 And helots as by Fate. 
 
TWO VISIONS 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Full many a cross-crowned front and steeple 
 
 Clave the cerulean air : 
 As grew the concourse of the people, 
 
 They rang to rival prayer. 
 
 On their confronting walls were posted 
 
 Placards in glaring type, 
 Whereof there was not one but boasted 
 
 Truth full-grown, round, and ripe. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 And, with this self-congratulation, 
 
 Each one the other banned. 
 With threats of durable damnation 
 
 From the Eternal Hand. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 Surmounting these, were Forms forbidding 
 
 Disputes about the Flood ; 
 Since, in such points divine unthridding. 
 
 Shed had been human blood. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 From arch and alley sodden wretches 
 
 Crept out in half attire. 
 And groped for fetid husks and vetches 
 
 In heaps of tossed-out mire ; 
 
TWO VISIONS 103 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 Until disturbed by horses' trample, 
 
 And faces fair and gay, 
 Which, sleek and warm, with ermines ample. 
 
 And glittering diamond spray 
 
 XXXV 
 
 That lightly flecked the classic ripple 
 
 Of their flower-scented hair, 
 For shivering child and leprous cripple 
 
 Had not a look to spare. 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 In garments with the morn ill mated, 
 
 Anon came youths along ; 
 From side to side they oscillated. 
 
 And trolled a shameful song. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 Thereat my heart, this longwhile throbbing, 
 
 With teardrops sought to ease 
 O'erwelling woe, and, wildly sobbing, 
 
 I fell upon my knees. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 And made irreverent by the fluster 
 
 Of sorrow's fierce extreme, 
 I cried, " O unjust Heaven ! be juster. 
 
 And realise my dream ! " 
 
I04 TWO VISIONS 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 Up streamed the sun, and straight were shining 
 
 Steeple, and sill, and roof: 
 To my hot prayer and rash repining 
 
 A visible reproof. 
 
 XL 
 
 Rebuked, I rose from genuflexion, 
 
 And, ceasing to blaspheme. 
 Curtained mine eyes for introspection 
 
 Of the departed dream, 
 
 XLI 
 
 Where men saluted one the other. 
 
 In street, or field, or wood, 
 " Let us still love and labour, brother ; 
 
 For life is sweet and good." ^ 
 
 XLII 
 
 And I resolved, by contrast smitten, 
 
 To live and strive by Law ; 
 And first to write, as here are written. 
 
 The Visions Twain I saw. 
 
A FRAGMENT 
 
 Part I 
 
 To-day, and in this England ! Wherefore not ? 
 
 Shall the sepulchral yesterdays alone 
 
 Murmur of music, and our ears still lean 
 
 Toward sleeping stone for voices from the grave ? 
 
 Back unto life, ye living ! Nothing new 
 
 Under the sun ? Say rather, nothing old. 
 
 Have the winds lost their freshness, or the Spring 
 
 One dimple of her beauty ? Looks the moon, 
 
 "WTiom lovers will with tight-locked palms to-night 
 
 Gaze on in silence, by the silence hushed, 
 
 One hour less young than when o'er Trojan plains, 
 
 To Trojan eyes, she shepherded the stars ? 
 
 Hero's true lamp is out ; Leandef s arms 
 
 No longer breast the barricading surge ; 
 
 But beckoning lights still burn in lonely breasts, 
 
 And seas of separation moan unseen 
 
 'Twixt love and locked embraces, salter far 
 
 Than e'er embittered sweet Abydos' shore. 
 
io6 A FRAGMENT 
 
 Let Delphi's fire be quenched ; fresh vapours rise 
 From smouldering hollows in the human heart, 
 Propounding riddles only verse can read. 
 Who understand not, ne'er had understood. 
 
 " Sheds all its golden gains upon the ground, 
 Leaving itself quite bare !" Thus far, aloud, 
 Murmured Sir Alured, and then broke off. 
 Completing not his own mind's parallel. 
 For he was standing 'mid the smooth domain, 
 He newly called his own, his sire just dead, 
 And the year slowly dying, when his gaze 
 Paused at an ancient sycamore bereft 
 Of all its leaves, that lay upon the ground. 
 It black, they burnished, and had felt the shock 
 Of a too timely close comparison. 
 " Leaving itself quite bare !" again he sighed, 
 " Like the old arms of that too generous tree, 
 Whose latest, poorest, barest branch am I !" 
 Then strode he on, and gazed upon the earth. 
 As do we all when sadness with the soul 
 A silent parley holds, since that we know 
 Under the earth earth's sadness will be stilled. 
 
 Upon the crest, midway, of wooded ridge, 
 Stands brick-built Avoncourt, its feudal face 
 Set firmly toward the south, whose smile it takes 
 When smile is given ; but, w-hen the skies are dim. 
 It wears on its indented front a look 
 Like battered armour. Each fresh age hath striven 
 
A FRAGMENT 107 
 
 To keep it young and drape its rugged years 
 
 With gentler graces of the newer time. 
 
 Below the stone-girt terrace that recalls 
 
 Merlon and embrasure of sterner days, 
 
 Now softened down to peaceful purposes — 
 
 Peripatetic dialogue, or 'chance 
 
 The slow faint foot of some fair sentinel. 
 
 Who, since the voice she loves to list, not now 
 
 Murmurs unmeasured music in her ear. 
 
 Tells discreet night her secret and drinks in 
 
 The indefinite passion of the nightingale — 
 
 Stretch lake-like lawns, and islands of fair flowers. 
 
 Beyond, rolls wooded chase, where startled deer 
 
 With quick short jerks 'neath clean-lopped branches 
 
 bound. 
 And in the bracken forest disappear, 
 Or upon open velvet spaces couched, 
 With antlers motionless and haunches sleek, 
 Consume the day in graceful idleness. 
 Its immemorial majesty of boughs 
 Shuts out the common world ; but, should you stray 
 Past its exclusive precincts, you are lost, 
 Lost utterly in world of sprays and stems, 
 That ever and anon divide, and show 
 Long leafy cloisters where rapt silence prays 
 When no man's desecrating foot is there. 
 
 But though its woods, glades, pastures, still are fair, 
 Progress, that boastful spendthrift who eats up 
 The savings of the parsimonious Past, 
 
io8 A FRAGMENT 
 
 Hath squandered all except its loveliness. 
 
 In time's fast growing legendary now, 
 
 When service was the other pole of sway, 
 
 On whose joint axis moved the duteous world, 
 
 The fief of Avoncourt was still alert 
 
 To furnish forth a knight, a horse, a shield. 
 
 And, on their feet, a modest retinue. 
 
 Then came the later and the laxer days, 
 
 When gentlehood, its armour doffing, stayed 
 
 Mildly at home, wielding a lazy rule. 
 
 And to poor mercenary starvelings left 
 
 The lists of honour. With no foe to kill 
 
 Save time, who, killed, straight comes to life again, 
 
 Its desultory lords their lives despatched 
 
 'Twixt fox and flagon ; hunted, boozed, and slept, 
 
 More fatly fed and brawnier boors among 
 
 Big raw-boned boors, their brethren, who revered 
 
 With forelocks pulled a sceptre meaningless. 
 
 But when the New Age bustled into view, 
 
 And sleek evangelists with purse and scrip, 
 
 Converts to comfortable tenets, cried, 
 
 " Be rich and fear not !" and mankind received 
 
 The golden gospel with attentive ears. 
 
 And leaving father, mother, followed it, 
 
 Dominion's shadow slipped from Avoncourt. 
 
 It bore not, like the patriarch's spouse of old. 
 
 Within its womb a wonder late-conceived, 
 
 Such as in shires to north of Trent hath shed 
 
 On ostentatious plutocrats awhile 
 
 A counterfeited primacy which men 
 
A FRAGMENT 109 
 
 Will but to valorous wisdom long concede. 
 And so its race waxed insignificant ; 
 Under the waves of opulence submerged, 
 And, since contending with the mounting tide. 
 More deeply drowned. 
 
 " A wealthy wife mends all. 
 Why not ? It is the custom of the time. 
 I loiter out of fashion." As he spoke, 
 The staghound pacing gravely at his side 
 Gave a bound forward, and was suddenly lost. 
 He, freshly in his new-found thought entranced, 
 Walked on, and, heeding not the truant hound, 
 Let the path lead him, till the cloistered woods 
 Closed all around him, and on autumn leaves 
 He trodj with autumn leaves above his head. 
 But when the dream of mercenary bed 
 Waxed unto vivid nightmare, and he woke. 
 Catching his breath and asking was it true, 
 "Lufra!" he called, whistled, and waiting stood. 
 And lo ! from out an aisle-like avenue 
 Came Lufra, slow, and on her grizzled head 
 A hand of white and tapering tenderness, 
 The index of a form he quickly scanned, 
 Fresh as a bud that just hath burst its sheath, 
 A fragrant blossom of May maidenhood. 
 " I have lost my way among these woods," she gasped 
 With a little laugh of shy perplexity. 
 And glancing round as though to run away, 
 Had she known where to run to. " Much I fear. 
 
no A FRAGMENT 
 
 I trespass too." He, taken unawares 
 
 By the sharp contrast betwixt sordid dream 
 
 And fair reahty, quickly exclaimed 
 
 Ere taking thought, " It were a churlish wood, 
 
 A churlish world, that deemed you trespasser ! 
 
 Where would you go ? " 
 
 To maiden ear and heart 
 There nothing is in all the scale of sound 
 So sweet as unpremeditated praise ; 
 And he had lauded her unwittingly. 
 "I would go home;" and therewithal she named 
 A cosy farm upon the southern verge 
 Of the land that called him lord, and told him how, 
 There 'mid the milk-sweet breath of homely kine. 
 Of cocks that crowed as though 'twere always dawn, 
 Of orchard-branches strung with coral fruit, 
 And porches cool with untrimmed honeysuckle. 
 She from the stale and stifling town had come, 
 To tend, as well as inexperience might, 
 Her mother's sister, only mother now. 
 " And may I be your guide ?" — " You must," she said, 
 " Unless you mean me to go rudderless 
 Through this big wood which is to me a sea. 
 Whereof I have not got the chart ; its paths. 
 Like to the waves, into each other fall. 
 Perplexing in their uniformity. 
 Do they not puzzle you ?" — " Me ? No," he said, 
 " I learned to thread them ere I learned that life 
 Hath any puzzles." Therewith walked they on, 
 
A FRAGMENT in 
 
 Slim form by side of stalwart, mated well. 
 
 "Perhaps these woods are yours?" she said. "They 
 
 are. 
 " Is it not sad?" For she had led him back 
 By that home question to the thought wherewith 
 His mind had started. " Sad ?" she asked. " For whom? 
 For you, or for the w^oods?" — "Alas ! for both." 
 Quick glancing up, she noticed that his garb 
 Symbolised sorrow. " Sad, you mean, because 
 They fell to you but recently, and thus 
 Possession signifieth deeper loss." 
 " Ay, sad enough is that, but sadder still 
 When they who go but burden him that stays. 
 May we not doubt if stooping Atlas finds, 
 Too busy wath his burden to look up. 
 The earth he shoulders, very beautiful ? 
 The rivers roll above him, and the woods, 
 Leafier they are, the more they cumber him. 
 But look ! a shore to your bewildering sea." 
 
 And true, the pathway ended, stopped abrupt 
 By a gate that led into a field new-reaped. 
 Whereon were pheasants gleaning. Here he leaned, 
 And she, because he was her guide, leaned too. 
 Gazing upon the scene, but he on her. 
 " How beautiful !" he murmured, — thinking of her ; 
 While she, unconscious of his theme, and rapt 
 All in the scene, " How beautiful ! " replied : 
 " How peaceful ! " And the music of her voice 
 Made music and peace in his unpeaceful heart. 
 
2 A FRAGMENT 
 
 Earth, our reputed Mother, so we lend 
 Our souls to her familiar influence 
 Wills not that any of her children be 
 To one another strangers ; and so close 
 Are we by instinct and dumb voice of blood, 
 That the harsh stepdame Custom ofttimes fails, 
 Even when girt with all its ceremony. 
 To keep us quite as alien as it would. 
 But when in lieu of jealous boundaries, 
 Of ambushed eyes, assassinating tongues. 
 And hearts expert in moral sophistry, 
 That from some lively premiss straight infer 
 Deadly conclusion, Nature's kindly troop, 
 The sky's ingenuous countenance, the frank, 
 The candid air, the unimputing woods, 
 The river flowing irresponsibly, 
 Make all our company, from them we draw 
 Contagious candour, and respond as free 
 As doth ^olian harp to hazard winds. 
 
 So, leaning there, with none to come between 
 The stirless autumn sunshine and their souls, 
 He, half to her, half to himself, resumed. 
 " Yes, they are mine, for that brief tenancy 
 Which we call life. We are but tenants all. 
 Despite pretentious parchments, and my sires. 
 Whom death hath ousted from this holding, held 
 Under a kindlier landlord, that lost time, 
 Which we are told we ne'er shall find again, 
 When days and nights were easy, and men's deeds 
 
A FRAGMENT ii3 
 
 And duties travelled along well-worn grooves, 
 
 Impalpable, yet certain as the track 
 
 On which revolve the seasons. Now, alas ! 
 
 All grows uncertain and irregular. 
 
 None serves, none sways. We chaffer for our rights, 
 
 And haggle over service. Which pays best, 
 
 We ask, where all pays badly, — till we learn 
 
 That unpaid duty is best paid of all." 
 
 She listened ; for believing youth that hears 
 Dark utterance, straight infers an oracle. 
 But he, aware he somewhat overmuch 
 Reflected autumn's abstract haziness, 
 Added, " Forgive me if I dreamed aloud, 
 And to a simple question gave you back 
 A round of riddles. Yes, the woods are mine. 
 Should I not rather say that I am theirs?" 
 
 Thereat, with little skill and no device. 
 But in that homely speech which moves us more 
 Than all the tropes of foreign rhetoric. 
 She said the very happiest lot on earth, 
 To her at least it seemed, was thus to be 
 Lord of the soil in England's lovely isle. 
 " Ay, ay," he said, sharp interrupting her, 
 " Its loveliness we kill not all at once. 
 Though many a rood, once fair and profitless, 
 To profitable foulness hath been warped. 
 And Nature every year pays heavier tax, 
 To wear her native livery. There you stand, 
 
 I N 
 
114 A FRAGMENT 
 
 Rich in your youth, rich in your comehness, 
 Their vahie undecreased by time or change ; 
 For comehness and youth, ten sons hence. 
 Will be as young and comely and as prized 
 As they are now, while these poor woods will be 
 Burnt up to make some pandemonium puff 
 The smoke of Progress into Heaven's fixed face, 
 Or measured out in yards to serve as fringe 
 On thrifty Competition's narrow skirts. 
 Still they are mine, and I am theirs, and we 
 Must face the age together : cruel age, 
 ^^' hich makes men timid to be poor, withal 
 Still poorer, squandering life in dying rich." 
 
 " I thought the age we live in was," she said, 
 Still in response to scornful images 
 Tendering the words of meek simplicity, 
 " Reputed great. I ever hear it praised, 
 Called wiser, better, more intelligent 
 Than all its sires. But I am ignorant, 
 And only echo back the sounds I hear." 
 " We play with sounding words ; men ever did : 
 It is not children only love the drum ;' 
 Again with ready gibe he answered her. 
 " Progress : — but whither ? Our contentions are 
 The wheels that carry Progress on its road. 
 But who is it that drives, and who that gains, 
 Because we still accelerate the pace ? 
 The axles of our poor revolving selves 
 Grow hot and hotter and still muddier ; 
 
A FRAGMENT 115 
 
 But never one inch nearer comes the goal. 
 How should it, when no pocket compass shows 
 Whether we go to, or away from, it?" 
 
 " God is the goal,'" she said, with reverent lips. 
 " Then being the goal, He must be stationary. 
 While we progress. Do we progress towards Him ? 
 Do railways, or with broad or narrow gauge. 
 Bring us one station nearer unto Heaven ? 
 The electric leap, annihilating time, 
 As long as ever leaves Eternity ; 
 And all its boasted currents, speed as far 
 As ere they can, bury themselves in earth. 
 And end their circuit where they started from." 
 Then, in a sadder tone, "O bootless round 1 
 I do but see a motion meaningless. 
 With its monotonous mutability. 
 The years are linked to years, a lengthening chain ; 
 But the hours wax not brighter, nor the days 
 Longer, nor yet the seasons fuller of hope." 
 
 " How sad you make the autumn afternoon ! 
 And yet I cannot gladden it," she said. 
 " But others might, and, doing it, would plead 
 That Progress truer triumphs has to show 
 Than these, material, mechanical. 
 That leave us matter still. Does thought not move ? ' 
 " It moves," he answered, " just as ocean moves, 
 Backward and forward ; but its bulk remains 
 Long while unchanged, as do its boundaries. 
 
ii6 A FRAGMENT 
 
 Like architecture, thought would seem to have ta'en 
 
 All forms already that are possible. 
 
 Nought new is said, but only newly vamped : 
 
 And these pretentious novelties wherein 
 
 The upstart age struts proudly, are but gems 
 
 Carefully carven by an olden time, 
 
 Some cunning hand hath furbished up anew 
 
 And furnished with fresh setting." — "That sounds true," 
 
 Gaining contentious courage, she replied : 
 
 "But metaphors well-chosen always do.'" 
 
 " Life is itself a metaphor," he said, 
 
 " Full of ambiguous meaning, striving still 
 
 To represent a something that is not. 
 
 We cannot get behind ourselves. Thus, he 
 
 Who stands at the meridian of life. 
 
 Will count as much enlightenment behind 
 
 As in the future he anticipates. 
 
 The eye whose sun is setting deems mankind 
 
 Hath run its course of wisdom ; while the boy. 
 
 Since just out of his cradle, never doubts 
 
 That History backward is as dark as night, 
 
 And that the sunshine of the waking world 
 
 Is all to come. All partial, and all, false. 
 
 If this be sad, then life hath little joy." 
 
 "Meanwhile we make no progress to my goal, ' 
 She said with a smile. So through the gate they passed. 
 Across the crackling stubble, onward thence 
 Over reaped aftermaths, bright emeralds set 
 In golden ring of autumn's circling woods : 
 
A FRAGMENT 117 
 
 Over rude stile, with help of stronger hand, 
 First touch of palms whereby the spirit will oft 
 Send half-obscure electric messages, 
 Deciphered later. 
 
 Part II 
 
 " Loved me ? Hath love a past then ? What is that, 
 
 Once love, now love no longer ? . . . Boastful fool ! 
 
 Who is the victor now ? These empty hands, 
 
 These empty halls, declare it, and I range 
 
 With farewell feet ancestral corridors, 
 
 With echo for my servitor. . . . Violet eyes, 
 
 And hair like sheaves of sunshine ; eyebrows broad. 
 
 Matching the tresses, arched, but outlined strong — 
 
 Not baby stencillings — 'neath which, at times, 
 
 Broadened a gaze that seemed as looking out 
 
 Of all the Past at all Futurity. 
 
 Small dainty hands, as soft as captured bird. 
 
 So soft, we fear to crush it ! — soft and white, 
 
 With feet to mate, fantastically fine. 
 
 True hint of her perfection, promised mine. 
 
 Now pawned another's for a sordid gain, 
 
 And ne'er to be redeemed ! O roof despised, 
 
 Withal so proud, that might have sheltered both, 
 
 And now must shelter neither, house thy ghosts. 
 
 My ancestors, and what I might have been. 
 
 Had woman's faith been fixed ! Now all things slip, 
 
 Past, present, future, down the gulf of time. 
 
ii8 A FRAGMENT 
 
 That whelms not me, who need must ride aloft 
 Upon its eddy, a still whirling leaf, 
 Too trivial to drown ! " 
 
 Part III 
 
 Deep thickets of green silence. For it was 
 A summer noon, and summer was asleep, 
 And lent them welcome, but beheld them not. 
 Only themselves, and stillness, and the sweet 
 Shelter of interpenetrating boughs, 
 And bracken thick and footfalls unreturned 
 From the deep soft dry sheddings of the pine. 
 
 Deep down into her lucid eyes he gazed, 
 And clear he saw his image quivering there, 
 The shadow of his gazing and his thought. 
 For she was like a snow-fed lake that draws 
 Into its bosom only high-born streams ; 
 And he was like a cloudless night whose day 
 Has been the battlefield of clashing storms, 
 Raging, retreating, and returning still. 
 But now below the horizon were they gone, 
 And on her upward soul downward he shone, 
 With the serenity of a silent star. 
 
AT SHELLEY'S HOUSE AT LERICI 
 
 Maidex, with English hair, and eyes 
 The colour of Italian skies, 
 
 ^Vhat seek you by this shore ? 
 " I seek, sir, for the latest home 
 Where Shelley dwelt, and, o'er the foam 
 
 Speeding, returned no more." 
 
 II 
 
 Come, then, with me : I seek it, too. 
 Are you his kith ? For strangely you 
 
 Resemble him in mien. 
 " No, save it be that all are kin 
 Who cherish the same thoughts within. 
 
 And gaze on things unseen." 
 
 Ill 
 
 It should be easy, sure, to find. 
 Waves close in front, woods close behind, 
 Green shutters, whitewashed walls ; 
 
AT SHELLEY'S HOUSE AT LERICI 
 
 A little space of rocky ground, 
 Where climbs the wave, and, round and round 
 The seagull curves and calls. 
 
 IV 
 
 Lo ! there it stands. A quiet spot. 
 Untenanted, it seems forgot, 
 
 Like shrine from which the God 
 Hath vanished, and but left behind 
 A something in the air, the wind, 
 
 Recalling where he trod. 
 
 Upon this balcony how oft. 
 
 When waves were smooth and winds were soft. 
 
 As now, he must have stood, 
 And dreamed of days when men should be 
 Bondless as this unfettered sea. 
 
 And peaceful as that w-ood. 
 
 VI 
 
 What would he find if came he now ? 
 A phantom crown on kingly brow. 
 
 Veiled sceptre, trembling throne ; 
 Pulpits where threat and curse have ceased, 
 And shrines whereat half-sceptic priest 
 
 Worships, too oft, alone. 
 
AT SHELLEY'S HOUSE AT LERICI 
 
 VII 
 
 \Vith muffled psalm and whispered hymn, 
 At secret dawn or twihght dim, 
 
 A pious remnant pray ; 
 For their maimed rites indulgence plead, 
 And, half uncertain of their creed, 
 
 Explain their God away. 
 
 vni 
 
 Gone the conventions Shelley cursed : 
 The first are last, the last are first ; 
 
 The lame, the halt, the bhnd, 
 Now in the seat of power, along 
 With the far-seeing and the strong, 
 
 Mould mandates for mankind. 
 
 IX 
 
 No longer doth man's will decide, 
 And woman's feebler impulse guide ; 
 
 He yields to her his might : 
 Duty hath grown an old-world tale, 
 And chaste Obedience rends her veil, 
 
 For epicene delight. 
 
 Where now do towering despots reign 
 Over lithe knee and servile brain. 
 
 The scared, the base, the bought ? 
 
AT SHELLEY'S HOUSE AT LERICI 
 
 Monarchs themselves now bend with awe 
 Before the kuigliness of Law, 
 The majesty of Thought. 
 
 XI 
 
 Yes, Kings have gone, or reign as slaves ; 
 Religion mumbles round our graves, 
 
 But shapes our lives no more : 
 Tradition, thrice-spurned Sibyl, burns 
 The leaves mob Sovereignty spurns. 
 
 Contemptuous of her lore. 
 
 Fair Maiden with the sea-blue eyes. 
 With whom, beneath these sea-blue skies, 
 
 Shelley had loved to live. 
 Forgive me if his dream, unborn 
 Then, but now adult, moves my scorn : 
 
 Would He too not forgive ? 
 
 For where both Crown and Cowl defied 
 Sue for the ruth they once denied. 
 
 What would he find instead ? 
 A fiercer despot, fouler creed. 
 The Rule of Gold, the rites of Greed, 
 
 And a bitterer cry for bread. 
 
AT SHELLEY'S HOUSE AT LERICI 
 
 XIV 
 
 ^^'ake, poet ! and retune your strings. 
 The earth now swarms with petty kings, 
 
 Seated on self-made thrones, 
 And altar-tables richly spread. 
 Where Roguery consecrates the bread. 
 
 And Opulence atones. 
 
 Here Shelley prayed that War might cease 
 From earth, and Pentecostal Peace 
 
 Descend with dovelike breath. 
 Look round this bay ! each treeless gorge. 
 Each scarred ravine, incessant forge 
 
 The instruments of death. 
 
 XVI 
 
 From Salterbrand's unfreezing peaks 
 To sunny Manfredonia's creeks, 
 
 Have alien satraps gone ; 
 But, guarding Italy the Free, 
 Her murderous mammoth-monsters, see, 
 
 Come grimly wallowing on. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Yes, here He dwelt and dreamed : and there, 
 Gleams Porto Venere the fair, 
 The mockery of a name. 
 
124 AT SHELLEY'S HOUSE AT LERICI 
 
 Where fervent Venus once was Queen, 
 Hot Mars now ravishes the scene, 
 And fans a fiercer flame. ^ 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Fair Maiden with the EngHsh brow, 
 Although from me, who shortly now 
 
 Must tread life's downward slope, 
 Illusions one by one depart. 
 Still foster in your virgin heart 
 
 The embryo of Hope. 
 
 The hills remain, the woods, the waves ; 
 And they alone are dupes or slaves 
 
 Who, spurning Nature's breast, 
 Too high would soar, too deep would sound, 
 And madden vainly round and round 
 
 The orbit of unrest. 
 
 XX 
 
 Pity, too, lingers. As 1 speak, 
 
 The teardrops tremble on your cheek. 
 
 Too silent to deceive ; 
 And with assuaging hand you show 
 How tenderness still tempers woe, 
 
 And none need singly grieve. 
 
 ^ The Bay of Spezia is now one vast arsenal, and one of the 
 chief anchorages of the Italian Ironclad Squadron. 
 
AT SHELLEY'S HOUSE AT LERICI 125 
 
 XXI 
 
 Yes ! sweet it were, with you for guide, 
 To float across that dimpHng tide, 
 
 And, on its farther shore. 
 To prove if Venus still holds sway, 
 And, wandering with you round the bay. 
 
 Tempt back one's youth once more. 
 
 XXII 
 
 But, child ! it is not Shelley's world. 
 Fancy's light sails had best be furled, 
 
 Before they surge and swell. 
 What helm can steer the heart ? or who 
 Keep moored, inspired by such as You ? 
 
 Heaven prosper you ! Farewell. 
 
IN THE HEART OF THE FOREST 
 
 I HEARD the voice of my own true love 
 
 Ripple the sunny weather. 
 Then away, as a dove that follows a dove, 
 
 We flitted throua:h woods together. 
 
 There was not a bush nor branch nor spray 
 But with song was swaying and ringing. 
 
 " Let us ask of the birds what means their lay. 
 And what is it prompts their singing." 
 
 We paused where the stichwort and speedwell grew 
 
 'Mid a forest of grasses fairy : 
 From out of the covert the cushat flew, 
 
 And the squirrel perched shy and w-ary. 
 
IN THE HEART OF THE FOREST 127 
 
 On an elm-tree top shrilled a misselthrush proud, 
 
 Disdaining shelter or screening. 
 " Now what is it makes you pipe so loud, 
 
 And what is your music's meaning ? 
 
 '' Your matins begin ere the dewdrop sinks 
 To the heart of the moist musk-roses, 
 
 And your vespers last till the first star winks, 
 And the via;ilant woodreeve dozes." 
 
 Then louder, still louder he shrilled : " I sing 
 For the pleasure and pride of shrilling, 
 
 For the sheen and the sap and the showers of Spring 
 That fill me to overfilling. 
 
 VII 
 
 " Yet a something deeper than Spring-time, though 
 It is Spring-like, my throat keeps flooding : 
 
 Peep soft at my mate, — she is there below, — 
 Where the bramble trails are budding. 
 
 " She sits on the nest and she never stirs ; 
 
 She is true to the trust I gave her ; 
 And what were my love if I cheered not hers 
 
 As long as my throat can quaver?" 
 
12S IN THE HEART OF THE FOREST 
 
 So he quavered on, till asudden we heard 
 A voice that called " Cuckoo ! " and fleeted. 
 
 " Why all day is your name by yourself, vain bird. 
 Repeated and still repeated ? " 
 
 Then " Cuckoo ! Cuck ! Cuck ! Cuck-oo ! " he called, 
 And he laughed and he chuckled cheerly ; 
 
 "Your hearts they run dry and your heads grow bald, 
 But I come back with April yearly. 
 
 " I come in the month that is sweet, so sweet. 
 Though its sweetness be frail and fickle, 
 
 In the season when shower and sunshine meet, 
 And you reck not of Autumn's sickle. 
 
 " I flout at the April loves of men 
 And the kisses of shy fond maidens ; 
 
 And then I call ' Cuckoo ! ' again, again, 
 With a jeering and jocund cadence. 
 
 XIII 
 
 " When the hawthorn blows and the yafiel mates. 
 
 I sing and am silent never ; 
 Just as love of itself in the May-time prates, 
 
 As though it will last for ever ! 
 
IN THE HEART OF THE FOREST 129 
 
 XIV 
 
 " And in June, ere I go, I double the note. 
 
 As I flit from cover to cover : 
 Are not vows, at the last, repeated by rote 
 
 By fading and fleeting lover?" 
 
 XV 
 
 A tear trickled down my true love's cheek 
 
 At the words of the mocking rover ; 
 She clung to my side, but she did not speak. 
 
 And I kissed her over and over. 
 
 XVI 
 
 And while she leaned on my heart as though 
 
 Her love in its depths was rooting, 
 There rose from the thicket behind us, slow, 
 
 O such a silvery fluting ! 
 
 XVII 
 
 When the long smooth note, as it seemed, must break, 
 
 It fell in a swift sweet treble, 
 Like the sound that is made when a stream from a lake 
 
 Gurgles o'er stone and pebble. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 And I cried, " O nightingale ! tell me true, 
 
 Is your music rapture or weeping ? 
 And why do you sing the whole night through, 
 
 When the rest of the world is sleeping.?" 
 
IN THE HEART OF THE FOREST 
 
 Then it fluted : " I\Iy notes are of love's pure strain, 
 
 And could there be descant fitter ? 
 For why do you sever joy and pain, 
 
 Since love is both sweet and bitter ? 
 
 XX 
 
 " My song now wails of the sighs, the tears, 
 The long absence that makes love languish ; 
 
 Then thrills with its fluttering hopes and fears, 
 Its rapture, — again its anguish. 
 
 " And why should my notes be hushed at night ? 
 
 Why sing in the sunlight only ? 
 Love loves when 'tis dark, as when 'tis bright. 
 
 Nor ceaseth because 'tis lonely." 
 
 XXII 
 
 My love looked up with a happy smile, 
 
 (For a moment the woods were soundless) : 
 
 The smile of a heart that knows no guile. 
 And whose trust is deep and boundless. 
 
 And as I smiled that her smile betrayed 
 
 The fulness of love's surrender. 
 Came a note from the heart of the forest shade, 
 
 O so soft, and smooth, and tender ! 
 
IX THE HEART OF THE FOREST 131 
 
 XXIV 
 
 'Twas but one note, and it seemed to brood 
 
 On its own sufificing sweetness ; 
 That cooed, and cooed, and again but cooed 
 
 In a round, self-same completeness. 
 
 XXV 
 
 Then I said, " There is, ringdove, endless bliss 
 In the sound that you keep renewing : 
 
 But have you no other note than this. 
 And why are you always cooing?" 
 
 The ringdove answered : "I too descant 
 
 Of love as the woods keep closing ; 
 Not of spring-time loves that exult and pant, 
 
 But of harvest love reposing. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 " If I coo all day on the self-same bough, 
 
 While the noisy popinjay ranges, 
 'Tis that love which is mellow keeps its vow. 
 
 And callow love shifts and changes. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 " When summer shall silence the merle's loud throat 
 And the nightingale's sweet sad singing, 
 
 You still will hear my contented note, 
 
 On the branch where I now am clinging. 
 
132 IN THE HEART OF THE FOREST 
 
 " For the rapture of fancy surely wanes, 
 And anguish is lulled by reason ; 
 
 But the tender note of the heart remains 
 Through all changes of leaf and season." 
 
 Then we plunged in the forest, my love and I, 
 In the forest plunged deeper and deeper, 
 
 Till none could behold us save only the sky, 
 Through a trellis of branch and creeper. 
 
 And we paired and nested away from sight 
 
 In a bower of woodbine pearly ; 
 And she broods on our love from morn to night. 
 
 And I sing to her late and early. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 Nor till Death shall have stripped our lives as bare 
 
 As the forest in wintry weather, 
 Will the world find the nest in the covert where 
 
 We dwelt, loved, and sang together. 
 
AT THE GATE OF THE CONVENT 
 
 Beside the Convent Gate I stood, 
 Lingering to take farewell of those 
 
 To whom I owed the simple good 
 
 Of three days' peace, three nights' repose. 
 
 ]\Iy sumpter-mule did blink and blink ; 
 
 Was nothing more to munch or quaff; 
 Antonio, far too wise to think. 
 
 Leaned vacantly upon his staff. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It was the childhood of the year : 
 
 Bright was the morning, blithe the air ; 
 
 And in the choir I plain could hear 
 
 The monks still chanting matin prayer. 
 
134 AT THE GATE OF THE CONVENT 
 
 The throstle and the blackbird shrilled, 
 Loudly as in an English copse, 
 
 Fountain-like note that, still refilled, 
 Rises and falls, but never stops. 
 
 As lush as in an English chase, 
 
 The hawthorn, guessed by its perfume. 
 
 With folds on folds of snowy lace 
 
 Blindfolded all its leaves with bloom. 
 
 VI 
 
 Scarce seen, and only faintly heard, 
 A torrent, 'mid far snow-peaks born, 
 
 Sang kindred with the gurgling bird, 
 
 Flowed kindred with the foaming thorn. 
 
 VII 
 
 The chanting ceased, and soon instead 
 
 Came shuffling sound of sandalled shoon ; 
 
 Each to his cell and narrow bed 
 
 Withdrew, to pray and muse till noon. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Only the Prior — for such their Rule — 
 Into the morning sunshine came. 
 
 Antonio bared his locks ; the mule 
 
 Kept blinking, blinking, just the same. 
 
AT THE GATE OF THE CONVENT 135 
 
 IX 
 
 I thanked him with a faltering tongue ; 
 
 I thanked him with a flowing heart. 
 "This for the poor." His hand I wrung, 
 
 And gave the signal to depart. 
 
 X 
 
 But still in his he held my hand, 
 
 As though averse that I should go. 
 His brow was grave, his look was bland, 
 
 His beard was white as Alpine snow. 
 
 XI 
 
 And in his eye a light there shone, 
 
 A soft, subdued, but steadfast ray. 
 Like to those lamps that still burn on 
 
 In shrines where no one comes to pray. 
 
 XII 
 
 And in his voice I seemed to hear 
 
 The hymns that novice-sisters sing, 
 When only anguished Christ is near. 
 
 And earth and life seem vanishing. 
 
 XIII 
 
 " Why do you leave us, dear my son ? 
 
 Why from calm cloisters backward wend, 
 Where moil is much and peace is none. 
 
 And journeying hath nor bourne nor end } 
 
136 AT THE GATE OF THE CONVENT 
 
 XIV 
 
 " Read I your inmost soul aright, 
 
 Heaven hath to you been strangely kind ; 
 Gave gentle cradle, boyhood bright, 
 
 A fostered soul, a tutored mind. 
 
 " Nor wealth did lure, nor penury cramp. 
 Your ripening soul ; it lived and throve. 
 
 Nightly beside the lettered lamp. 
 
 Daily in field, and glade, and grove. 
 
 XVI 
 
 " And when the dawn of manhood brought 
 The hour to choose to be of those 
 
 Who serve for gold, or sway by thought, 
 You doubted not, and rightly chose. 
 
 " Loving your Land, you face the strife ; 
 
 Loved by the Muse, you shun the throng ; 
 And blend within your dual life 
 
 The patriot's pen, the poet's song. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 " Hence now, in gaze mature and wise. 
 
 Dwells scorn of praise, dwells scorn of blame ; 
 
 Calm consciousness of surer prize 
 Than dying noise of living fame. 
 
AT THE GATE OF THE CONVENT 137 
 
 " Have you not loved, been loved, as few 
 Love, or are loved, on loveless earth ? 
 
 How often have you felt its dew ? 
 
 Say, have you ever known its dearth ? 
 
 XX 
 
 " I speak of love divorced from pelf, 
 I speak of love unyoked and free, 
 
 Of love that deadens sense of self, 
 Of love that loveth utterly. 
 
 XXI 
 
 " And this along your life hath flowed 
 In full and never-failing stream, 
 
 Fresh from its source, unbought, unowed, 
 Beyond your boyhood's fondest dream." 
 
 He paused. The cuckoo called. I thought 
 Of English voices, English trees. 
 
 The far-off fancy instant brought 
 
 The tears ; and he, misled by these, 
 
 XXIII 
 
 With hand upon my shoulder, said, 
 
 " You own 'tis true. The richest years 
 
 Bequeath the beggared heart, when fled. 
 Only this legacy of tears. 
 
138 AT THE GATE OF THE CONVENT 
 
 "Why is it that all raptures cloy? 
 
 Though men extol, though women bless, 
 Why are we still chagrined with joy. 
 
 Dissatisfied with happiness ? 
 
 XXV 
 
 " Yes, the care-flouting cuckoo calls, 
 And yet your smile betokens grief, 
 
 Like meditative light that falls 
 
 Through branches fringed with autumn leaf. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 " Whence comes this shadow ? You are now 
 
 In the full summer of the soul. 
 The answer darkens on your brow : 
 
 'Winter the end, and death the goal.' 
 
 XXVII 
 
 " Yes, vain the fires of pride and lust 
 
 Fierce in meridian pulses burn : 
 Remember, Man, that thou art dust, 
 
 And unto dust-thou shalt return. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 " Rude are our walls, our beds are rough. 
 But use is hardship's subtle friend. 
 
 He hath got all that hath enough ; 
 And rough feels softest, in the end. 
 
AT THE GATE OF THE CONVENT 139 
 
 XXIX 
 
 " While luxury hath this disease, 
 
 It ever craves and pushes on. 
 Pleasures, repeated, cease to please, 
 
 And rapture, once 'tis reaped, is gone. 
 
 XXX 
 
 " My flesh hath long since ceased to creep, 
 
 Although the hairshirt pricketh oft. 
 A plank my couch ; withal, I sleep 
 
 Soundly as he that lieth soft. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 " And meagre though may be the meal 
 That decks the simple board you see. 
 
 At least, my son, we never feel 
 The hunger of satiety. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 " You have perhaps discreetly drunk : 
 O, then, discreetly, drink no more ! 
 
 Which is the happier, worldling, monk. 
 When youth is past, and manhood o'er ? 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 " Of life beyond I speak not yet. 
 
 'Tis solitude alone can e'er, 
 By hushing controversy, let 
 
 Man catch earth's undertone of prayer. 
 
I40 AT THE GATE OF THE CONVENT 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 "Your soul which Heaven at last must reap, 
 From too much noise hath barren grown ; 
 
 Long fallow silence must it keep, 
 
 Ere faith revive, and grace be sown. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 " Let guide and mule alone return. 
 
 For you I will prepare a cell, 
 In whose calm silence you will learn. 
 
 Living or dying, All is well ! " 
 
 Again the cuckoo called ; again 
 
 The merle and mavis shook their throats ; 
 The torrent rambled down the glen, 
 
 The ringdove cooed in sylvan cotes. 
 
 XXXV 1 1 
 
 The hawthorn moved not, but still kept 
 
 As fixedly white as far cascade ; 
 The russet squirrel frisked and leapt 
 
 From breadth of sheen to breadth of shade. 
 
 I did not know the words had ceased, 
 I thought that he was speaking still. 
 
 Nor had distinguished sacred priest 
 P'rom pagan thorn, from pagan rill. 
 
AT THE GATE OF THE CONVENT 141 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 Not that I had not harked and heard ; 
 
 But all he bade me shun or do, 
 Seemed just as sweet as warbling bird, 
 
 But not more grave and not more true. 
 
 XL 
 
 So deep yet indistinct my bliss. 
 
 That when his counsels ceased to sound, 
 
 That one sweet note I did not miss 
 From other sweet notes all around. 
 
 XLI 
 
 But he, misreading my delight, 
 
 Again with urging accents spoke. 
 Then I, like one that's touched at night. 
 
 From the deep swoon of sweetness woke. 
 
 XLII 
 
 And just as one that, waking, can 
 
 Recall the thing he dreamed, but knows 
 
 'Twas of the phantom world that man 
 Visits in languors of repose ; 
 
 So, though I straight repictured plain 
 All he had said, it seemed to me, 
 
 Recalled from slumber, to retain 
 No kinship with reality. 
 
142 AT THE GATE OF THE CONVENT 
 
 XLIV 
 
 " Father, forgive !" I said ; " and look ! 
 
 Who taught its carolling to the merle ? 
 Who wed the music to the brook ? 
 
 Who decked the thorn with flakes of pearl ? 
 
 XLV 
 
 " 'Twas He, you answer, that did make 
 Earth, sea, and sky : He maketh all ; 
 
 The gleeful notes that flood the brake, 
 The sad notes wailed in Convent stall. 
 
 " And my poor voice He also made ; 
 
 And like the brook, and like the bird, 
 And like your brethren mute and staid, 
 
 I too can but fulfil His word. 
 
 XLVII 
 
 "Were I about my loins to tie 
 
 A girdle, and to hold in scorn 
 Beauty and Love, what then were I 
 
 But songless stream, but flowerless thorn ? 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 "Why do our senses love to list 
 
 When distant cataracts murmur thus ? 
 
 Why stealeth o'er your eyes a mist 
 When belfries toll the An^elus? 
 
AT THE GATE OF THE CONVENT 143 
 
 XLIX 
 
 "It is that every tender sound 
 
 Art can evoke, or Nature yield, 
 Betokens something more profound, 
 
 Hinted, but never quite revealed. 
 
 L 
 
 " And though it be the self-same Hand 
 That doth the complex concert strike, 
 
 The notes, to those that understand, 
 Are individual, and unlike. 
 
 LI 
 
 " x\llow my nature. All things are, 
 
 If true to instinct, well and wise. 
 The dewdrop hinders not the star ; 
 
 The waves do not rebuke the skies. 
 
 LII 
 
 " So leave me free, good Father dear. 
 While you on humbler, holier chord 
 
 Chant your secluded Vespers here, 
 To fling my matin notes abroad. 
 
 " While you with sacred sandals wend 
 To trim the lamp, to deck the shrine. 
 
 Let me my country's altar tend. 
 
 Nor deem such worship less divine. 
 
144 AT THE GATE OF THE CONVENT 
 
 LIV 
 
 " Mine earthly, yours celestial love : 
 Each hath its harvest ; both are sweet. 
 
 You wait to reap your Heaven, above ; 
 I reap the Heaven about my feet. 
 
 LV 
 
 "And what if I — forgive your guest 
 
 Who feels, so frankly speaks, his qualm - 
 
 Though calm amid the world's unrest, 
 Should restless be amid your calm ? 
 
 LVI 
 
 " But though we two be severed quite, 
 Your holy words will sound between 
 
 Our lives, like stream one hears at night, 
 Louder, because it is not seen. 
 
 " Father, farewell ! Be not distressed ; 
 
 And take my vow, ere I depart, 
 To found a Convent in my breast. 
 
 And keep a cloister in my heart." 
 
 The mule from off his ribs a fly 
 
 Flicked, and then zigzagged down the road. 
 Antonio lit his pipe, and I 
 
 Behind them somewhat sadly strode. 
 
AT THE GATE OF THE CONVENT 145 
 
 Just ere the Convent dipped from view, 
 Backward I glanced : he was not there. 
 
 Within the chapel, well I knew. 
 
 His lips were now composed in prayer. 
 
 But I have kept my vow. And when 
 The cuckoo chuckleth o'er his theft, 
 
 When throstles sing, again, again, 
 And runnels gambol down the cleft. 
 
 With these I roam, I sing with those. 
 
 And should the world with smiles or jeers 
 
 Provoke or lure, my lids I close, 
 And draw a cowl about my ears. 
 
BROTHER BENEDICT 
 
 Brother Benedict rose and left his cell 
 With the last slow swing of the evening bell. 
 In his hand he carried his only book, 
 And he followed the path to the Abbey brook, 
 And, crossing the stepping-stones, paused midway, 
 For the journeying water seemed to say, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 II 
 
 But when he stood on the other bank. 
 The flags rose tall, and the grass grew rank, 
 And the sorrel red and the white meadow-sweet 
 Shook their dust on his sandalled feet. 
 And, lifting their heads where his girdle hung. 
 Would surely have said had they found a tongue, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Onward and upward he clomb and wound, 
 Bruising the thyme on the nibbled ground 
 
BROTHER BENEDICT 147 
 
 Here and there, in the untrmimed brake, 
 The dog-rose bloomed for its own sweet sake ; 
 The woodbine clambered up out of reach, 
 But the scent of them all breathed as plain as speech, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 IV 
 
 Shortly he came to a leafy nook, 
 
 Where wind never entered nor branch ever shook. 
 
 Itself was the only thing in sight. 
 
 And the rest of the world was shut out quite. 
 
 'Twas as self-contained as the holy place 
 
 Where the children quire with upturned face, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 v 
 
 A dell so curtained with trunks and boughs, 
 
 That in hours when the ringdove coos to his spouse, 
 
 The sun to its heart scarce a way could win. 
 
 But the trees now had drawn all their shadows in ; 
 
 There was nothing but scent in the dewy air. 
 
 And the silence seemed saying in mental prayer, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 VI 
 
 'Gainst the trunk of a beech, round, smooth, and gray. 
 
 Brother Benedict leaned, with intent to pray. 
 
 And opened his book : with vellum bound ; 
 
 Within, red letters on faded ground ; 
 
 Pater, and Ave, and saving Creed : — 
 
 But look where you would, you seemed to read, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
148 BROTHER BENEDICT 
 
 VII 
 
 He scarce had a verse of his ofifice said, 
 
 Ere a bird in the branches overhead 
 
 Began to warble so sweet a strain, 
 
 That, strive as he would, still he strove in vain 
 
 To close his ears ; so he closed his book. 
 
 While the unseen throat to the air outshook 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 VIII 
 
 'Twas a song that rippled, and revelled, and ran 
 
 Ever back to the note whence it began ; 
 
 Rising, and falling, and never did stay. 
 
 Like a fountain that feeds on itself all day, 
 
 Wanting no answer, answering none, 
 
 But beginning again as each verse was done, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 It brought an ecstasy into his face, 
 
 It weaned his senses from time and space, 
 
 It carried him off to worlds unseen, 
 
 And showed him what is not and ne'er has been, 
 
 Transporting his soul to those realms of calm. 
 
 More blessed and blessing than even the psalm, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 X 
 
 Then, carolling still, it drew him thence 
 Slowly back to the spheres of sense, 
 But held him awhile where self expires, 
 
BROTHER BENEDICT 149 
 
 And vague recollections and vague desires 
 Banish the burden of things that are, 
 And angels seem canticling, faint and far, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 XI 
 
 Then across him there flitted the days that are dead, 
 And those that will follow when these are fled ; 
 Generations of sorrow, w\T.ve after wave. 
 With their samesome journey from womb to grave ; 
 Men's love of the fleshly sweets that sting. 
 And the comfort that comes when we kneel and sing, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 XII 
 
 He suddenly started and gazed around, 
 
 For silence can waken as well as sound. 
 
 And the bird had ceased singing. The dewy air 
 
 Still was immersed in mental prayer. 
 
 Time seemed to have stopped. So he quickened pace. 
 
 But forgot not to say ere he left the lone place, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Downward he wended, and under his feet. 
 As on mounting, the bruised thyme answered sweet ; 
 As before, in the brake the dog-rose bloomed. 
 And the woodbine with fragrance the hedge perfumed ; 
 And the white meadow-sweet and the sorrel red, 
 Had they found a tongue, would still surely have said, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
ISO BROTHER BENEDICT 
 
 XIV 
 
 But where were the flags and the tall rank grass, 
 And the stepping-stones smooth for his feet to pass ? 
 Were they swept away ? Did he wake or dream ? 
 A bridge that he knew not spanned the stream ; 
 Though under its archway he still could hear 
 The journeying water purling clear, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 Where had he wandered ? This never could 
 Be the spot where the Abbey orchard stood ? 
 Where the filberts once mellowed, lay tumbled blocks. 
 And cherry stumps peered through tares and docks ; 
 A rough plot stretched where in times gone by 
 The plump apples dropped to the joyous cry, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 XVI 
 
 The gateway had vanished, the portal flown. 
 The walls of the Abbey were ivy-grown ; 
 The arches were shattered, the roof was gone, 
 The muUions were mouldering one by one ; 
 Wrecked was the oriel's tracery light 
 That the sun streamed through when they met to recite 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Chancel and choir and nave and aisle 
 Were but one ruinous vacant pile. 
 
BROTHER BENEDICT 151 
 
 So utter the havoc, you could not tell 
 Which was corridor, cloister, cell. 
 Cow-grass, and foxglove, and waving weed, 
 Covered the scrolls where you used to read, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 High up where of old the belfry towered. 
 An elder had rooted and whitely flowered : 
 Surviving ruin and rain and wind, 
 Below it a lichened gurgoyle grinned. 
 Though birds were chirping and flitting about. 
 They paused not to treble the anthem devout, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 XIX 
 
 Then he went where the Abbot was wont to lay 
 His children to rest till the Judgment Day, 
 And at length in the grass the name he found 
 Of a friar he fancied alive and sound. 
 The slab was hoary, the carving blurred. 
 And he rather guessed than could read the word, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 XX 
 
 He sate him down on a fretted stone, 
 
 ^\^lere rains had beaten and winds had blown, 
 
 And opened his office-book, and read 
 
 The prayers that we read for our loved ones dead, 
 
 "WTiile nightfall crept on the twilight air. 
 
 And darkened the page of the final prayer, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
152 BROTHER BENEDICT 
 
 But to murkiest gloom when the gloaming did wane, 
 
 In the air there still floated a shadowy strain. 
 
 'Twas distilled with the dew, it was showered from the 
 
 star, 
 It was murmuring near, it was tingling afar ; 
 In silence it sounded, in darkness it shone, 
 And in sleep that is deepest it wakeful dreamed on, 
 
 Benedicite. 
 
 XXII 
 
 Do you ask what had witched Brother Benedict's ears? 
 The bird had been singing a thousand years : 
 Sweetly confounding in its sweet lay 
 To-day, to-morrow, and yesterday. 
 Time ? What is Time but a fiction vain. 
 To him that o'erhears the Eternal strain, 
 
 Benedicite ? 
 
IN THE MONTH WHEN SINGS 
 THE CUCKOO 
 
 Hark ! Spring is coming. Her herald sings, 
 
 Cuckoo ! 
 The air resounds and the woodland rings, 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 Leave the milking pail and the mantling cream, 
 And down by the meadow, and up by the stream. 
 Where movement is music and life a dream. 
 
 In the month when sings the cuckoo. 
 
 Away with old Winter's frowns and fears. 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 Now May with a smile dries April's tears. 
 
 Cuckoo ! 
 When the bees are humming in bloom and bud. 
 And the kine sit chewing the moist green cud, 
 Shall the snow not melt in a maiden's blood. 
 
 In the month when sings the cuckoo ? 
 
IS4 IN THE MONTH 
 
 III 
 
 The popinjay mates and the lapwing woos ; 
 
 Cuckoo ! 
 In the lane is a footstep. I wonder whose ? 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 How sweet are low whispers ! and sweet, so sweet, 
 When the warm hands touch and the shy lips meet. 
 And sorrel and woodruff are round our feet, 
 
 In the month when sings the cuckoo. 
 
 IV 
 
 Your face is as fragrant as moist musk-rose ; 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 All the year in your cheek the windflower blows ; 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 You flit as blithely as bird on wing ; 
 And when you answer, and when they sing, 
 I know not if they, or You, be Spring, 
 
 In the month when pairs the cuckoo. 
 
 Will you love me still when the blossom droops ? 
 
 Cuckoo ! 
 When the cracked husk falls and the fieldfare troops ? 
 
 Cuckoo ! 
 Let sere leaf or snowdrift shade your brow. 
 By the soul of the Spring, sweet-heart, I vow, 
 I will love you then as I love you now, 
 
 In the month when sings the cuckoo. 
 
WHEN SINGS THE CUCKOO 155 
 
 VI 
 
 Smooth, smooth is the sward where the loosestrife grows, 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 As we He and hear in a dreamy doze, 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 And smooth is the curve of a maiden's cheek, 
 ^Vhen she loves to listen but fears to speak. 
 And we yearn but we know not what we seek. 
 In the month when sings the cuckoo. 
 
 VII 
 
 But in warm mid summer we hear no more. 
 
 Cuckoo ! 
 And August brings not, with all its store. 
 
 Cuckoo ! 
 When Autumn shivers on Winter's brink, 
 And the wet wind wails through crevice and chink, 
 We gaze at the logs, and sadly think 
 
 Of the month when called the cuckoo. 
 
 VIII 
 
 But the cuckoo comes back and shouts once more. 
 
 Cuckoo ! 
 And the world is as young as it was before ; 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 It grows not older for mortal tears, 
 For the falsehood of men or for women's fears ; 
 'Tis as young as it was in the bygone years, 
 When first was heard the cuckoo. 
 
156 IN THE MONTH 
 
 IX 
 
 I will love you then as I love you now. 
 
 Cuckoo ! 
 A\' hat cares the Spring for a broken vow ? 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 The broods of last year are pairing, this ; 
 And there never will lack, while love is bliss, 
 Fresh ears to cozen, fresh lips to kiss, 
 
 In the month when sins^s the cuckoo. 
 
 O cruel bird ! will you never have done ? 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 You sing for the cloud, as you sang for the sun ; 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 You mock me now as you mocked me then. 
 When I knew not yet that the loves of men 
 Are as brief as the glamour of glade and glen, 
 And the glee of the fleeting cuckoo. 
 
 O, to lie once more in the long fresh grass, 
 
 Cuckoo ! 
 And dream of the sounds and scents that pass ; 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 To savour the woodbine, surmise the dove, 
 With no roof save the far-off sky above, 
 And a curtain of kisses round couch of love. 
 While distantly called the cuckoo. 
 
WHEN SINGS THE CUCKOO 157 
 
 XII 
 
 But if now I slept, I should sleep to wake 
 To the sleepless pang and the dreamless ache, 
 To the wild babe blossom within my heart, 
 To the darkening terror and swelling smart, 
 To the searching look and the words apart, 
 
 And the hint of the tell-tale cuckoo. 
 
 XIII 
 
 The meadow grows thick, and the stream runs deep, 
 
 Cuckoo ! 
 Where the aspens quake and the willows weep ; 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 The dew of the night and the morning heat 
 Will close up the track of my farewell feet : — 
 So good-bye to the life that once was sweet, 
 
 A\"hen so sweetly called the cuckoo. 
 
 The kine are unmilked, and the cream unchumed, 
 
 Cuckoo ! 
 The pillow unpressed, and the quilt unturned. 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 'Twas easy to gibe at a beldame's fear 
 For the quick brief blush and the sidelong tear ; 
 But if maids will gad in the youth of the year, 
 
 They should heed what says the cuckoo. 
 
IS8 WHEN SINGS THE CUCKOO 
 
 There are marks in the meadow laid up for hay, 
 
 Cuckoo ! 
 And the tread of a foot where no foot should stray : 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 The banks of the pool are broken down, 
 Where the water is quiet and deep and brown ; — 
 The very spot, if one longed to drown. 
 
 And no more to hear the cuckoo. 
 
 'Tis a full taut net and a heavy haul. 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 Look ! her auburn hair and her trim new shawl ! 
 
 Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! 
 Draw a bit this way where 'tis not so steep ; 
 There, cover her face ! She but seems asleep ; 
 While the swallows skim and the graylings leap. 
 And joyously sings the cuckoo. 
 
LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 
 
 I 
 
 Now I who oft have carolled of the Spring, 
 Must chant of Autumn and the dirgeful days ; 
 Of windless dawns enveiled in dewy haze, 
 Of cloistered evenings when no sweet birds sing, 
 But every note of joy hath trooped and taken wing. 
 
 II 
 
 But when I saw Her first, you scarce could say 
 If it were Summer still, or Autumn yet. 
 Rather it seemed as if the twain had met, 
 And, Summer being loth to go away. 
 Autumn retained its hand, and begged of it to stay. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The second bloom had come upon the rose, 
 Not, as in June, exultingly content 
 With its own loveliness, but meekly bent, 
 Pondering how beauty saddens to the close, 
 And fair decay consumes each hectic flower that blows. 
 
i6o LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 
 
 The traveller's-joy still journeyed in the hedge, 
 Nor yet to palsied gossamer had shrunk : 
 Green still the bracken round the beech-tree's trunk ; 
 But loosestrife seeded by the river ledge, 
 And now and then a sigh came rippling through the 
 sedge. 
 
 The white-cupped bindweed garlanded the lane, 
 Trying to make-believe the year was young. 
 Withal, hard-by, where it too clomb and clung, 
 The berried bryony began to wane. 
 And the wayfaring-tree showed many a russet stain. 
 
 VI 
 
 There was a pensive patience in the air. 
 As sweet as sad, when sadness doth but flow 
 From generous grief, and not for selfish woe : 
 Such as can make the wrinkled forehead fair. 
 And sheds a halo round love's slowly-silvering hair. 
 
 VII 
 
 And such She seemed. The summer in her mien 
 Had something too of autumn's mellower tone ; 
 A something that was more surmised than shown, 
 As when, though distant woodlands still are green, 
 Embrowning shadows seem half steaHna: in between. 
 
LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD i6i 
 
 VIII 
 
 Then, in that season, She alone with me, 
 As when the world was virginal and young, 
 Went wandering slowly, pathlessly, among 
 Fair scenes it made you happy but to see, 
 And wish that as they were they ever still might be. 
 
 IX 
 
 Sometimes we lingered at a rustic seat, 
 To listen to the soothing music made 
 By uninstructed breezes as they played 
 Upon the mellow pipes of waving wheat, 
 Nor spake, but only smiled, the music was so sweet. 
 
 But when anew we thither came, we found 
 The swarthy reapers, like their sickles, bent 
 Among the stalks whose summer now was spent. 
 Soon the light swathes in heavy sheaves were bound. 
 And tawny tents of peace stood dotted o'er the ground. 
 
 XI 
 
 And when the hinds departed with their hooks. 
 And no rude voices hurt the silence there. 
 We to the spot together would repair, 
 And, carrying thither bread, and fruit, and books, 
 Make for ourselves a seat against the sheltering stooks. 
 
 M N 
 
i62 LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 
 
 XII 
 
 There would she read to me some simple tale 
 Of love and sorrow, which, being simply told, 
 And softly read, both saddened and consoled. 
 Whereat her voice would falter, cheek would pale, 
 And in her tender eyes the pity-drops prevail. 
 
 Oft would she bid me, when the light grew less. 
 Read or recite what poets weave in rhyme : 
 For verse, she said, doth not grow old with time, 
 And sheds a solemn glamour round distress. 
 Until grief almost seems akin to happiness. 
 
 XIV 
 
 When came the heavy slowly-creaking wain. 
 And, one by one the stooks being wheeled away, 
 There now seemed nothing there but yesterday, 
 Onward we wandered over stubbled plain 
 Till rows of ripened hop replaced the garnered grain. 
 
 XV 
 
 There for awhile it pleasant was to lean 
 Against some time-warped gate, and watch the folk. 
 Whose gay patched garb their lowliness bespoke, 
 Stripping the fruitage from the alleys green. 
 While children romped or slept amid the busy scene. 
 
LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 163 
 
 Then did the sickle of the harvest moon 
 Its curve complete, and round itself with light, 
 Rising at sunset to retard the night. 
 Thrice thus it came, nor later nor more soon, 
 And thrice I hailed its disc, and begged of it a boon. 
 
 XVII 
 
 " O mellow moon, moon of plump stacks, and boughs 
 Blooming with fruit more juicy than the Spring, 
 Thee will I worship, thee henceforth will sing, 
 If thou wilt only listen to my vows. 
 And grant my sobering heart a home and harvest spouse." 
 
 XVIII 
 
 For, in those wanderings ne'er to be forgot, 
 ]\Iy heart went out to her and came not back : 
 So that a something now I seemed to lack 
 Whene'er I wandered where she wandered not, 
 That wizarded away enchantment from the spot. 
 
 XIX 
 
 But I the ferment in my day-dream chid. 
 And brooded on it with a silent breast. 
 So quietly love sat upon its nest. 
 That, though she was so near to it, she did 
 Not see nor yet surmise where it lay hushed and hid. 
 
i64 LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 
 
 XX 
 
 The cottage where she dwelt was long and low, 
 With sloping red-tiled roof and gabled front, 
 And timbered eaves that broke the weather's brunt 
 Ask you its age and date ? None cared to know, 
 Save 'twas that goodly time which men call Long-ago. 
 
 XXI 
 
 And each new generation, as it chose. 
 Added a dormer there, a gable here. 
 So had it grown more human year by year. 
 It had a look of ripeness and repose, 
 And up its kindly walls there clambered many a rose. 
 
 XXII 
 
 And sooth a constant smile it well might wear. 
 
 For on a garden ever did it gaze, 
 
 That still decoyed the sunshine's shifting rays, 
 
 And bloomed with flowers which brightened so the 
 
 air. 
 That folks who passed would halt and wish their home 
 
 was there. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 Old-fashioned balsams, snapdragons red and white, 
 In which the sedulous bees all day were throng. 
 Hastening from each, too busy to stay long ; 
 Wise evening-primroses, that shun strong light, 
 But kindle with the stars and commerce with the ni2;ht 
 
LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 165 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Moon-daisies tall, and tufts of crimson phlox, 
 And dainty white anemones that bear 
 An eastern name, and eastern beauty wear ; 
 Lithe haughty lilies, homely-smelling stocks, 
 And sunflowers green and gold, and gorgeous holly- 
 hocks. 
 
 XXV 
 
 In truth there is no flower nor leaf that breathes, 
 ■ But found a hospitable shelter there. 
 Being fondly fostered, so that it was fair. 
 Near proud gladioli with formal sheaths. 
 Loose woodbine clomb and fell in long unfettered 
 wreaths. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Full many a flower there was you had not found. 
 Save for the scent its modesty exhaled. 
 When noonday heat or gloaming dews prevailed, 
 A fragrant freshness floated from the ground. 
 And smell of mignonette was everywhere around. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 Behind it was a pleasance free from weeds. 
 Where every household herb and tuber grew : 
 Kale of all kinds, bediamonded with dew. 
 Each quick green crop that quick green crop 
 succeeds, 
 And all nutritious plants that prosper for man's needs. 
 
i66 LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 But here no less did flowers abound, with fruits 
 Tliat in September arc themselves like flowers : 
 Rows of sweet-pea and honeysuckle bowers ; 
 Red rustic apples, pears in russet suits. 
 And china-asters prim, and medlar's trailing shoots. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 There too grew southernwood, for courtship's aid, 
 And faithful lavender, one happy May 
 Brought from the garden of Anne Hathaway. 
 For human wants can thus be comely made. 
 And use with beauty dwell, unshamed and unafraid. 
 
 XXX 
 
 Beyond it was an orchard thick with trees. 
 Whose branches now were bowed down to the ground 
 By clustering pippins, juicy, plump and sound, 
 Where it was sweet to saunter at one's ease. 
 Screened from too sultry rays, or sheltered from the 
 breeze. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 Beside it ran a long straight alley green, 
 Paven with turf and vaulted in with leaves ; 
 Whither, on idle mornings, restful eves, 
 You might repair, and, pacing all unseen, 
 Muse on twin life and death, and ponder what they 
 mean. 
 
LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 167 
 
 XXXII 
 
 Now that with bulging sacks the farmer clomb 
 His oast-house steps, and corn-stacks clustered round, 
 And shrivelled bine lay twisted on the ground, 
 We less than hitherto were lured to roam. 
 But in that pleasance stayed, and lingered round her 
 home : 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 Gathering the last ripe peaches on the wall, 
 Splitting the pears to see if they were fit 
 Yet to be stored ; or haply we would sit. 
 Watch the slow team returning to the stall. 
 Feel the soft shadows float, and hear the acorns fall. 
 
 It happed, one day, as we sat silent there. 
 Since silence seemed still sweeter than discourse. 
 My welling heart upbubbled from its source, 
 And I besought if she with me would share 
 The sweet sad load of life we all of us must bear. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 A something slumbering deep in her, slowly woke, 
 Then tranquilly she laid her hand on mine, 
 As though to hush, yet heal, me by that sign. 
 And, as her quiet voice the quiet broke, 
 It seemed as though it was grave Autumn's self that 
 spoke. 
 
i68 LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 
 
 " Of gifts, Love is the fairest, rarest, best, 
 And what you proudly give I cannot choose 
 But humbly take : 'twere vileness to refuse. 
 Giving, you grow no poorer, I more blest. 
 And that which I accept, by you is still possessed. 
 
 xxxvii 
 
 " For love, true love, doth give not that it may 
 In turn receive, only that it may give. 
 And on its careless lavishness doth live ; 
 Squandering itself, grows richer day by day, 
 Wealthiest in wealth when it hath given it all away. 
 
 "And my, my love I carried not to mart, 
 In the fresh bloom and April of my days. 
 Rather the bloom was April's less than May's. 
 For though the Spring still carolled in my heart, 
 Summer's more steadfast thoughts had there begun to 
 start. 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 " What then I gave I ne'er have taken back. 
 And so have not impoverished my life, 
 Nor set my present with my past at strife. 
 However long or lonely be the track, 
 Love strays not from its road nor faints beneath its pack. 
 
 
LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 169 
 
 XL 
 
 "Dead? Is he dead? how could he die, or be 
 Other than Hving unto love whose breath 
 Defends whate'er it breathes upon from death ? 
 Therefore so long as /live, so must he, 
 Warmed by my warmth and fed by it perpetually. 
 
 XLI 
 
 " Change ? Did he change ? How could he change, 
 
 or lose 
 The glory love once rayed around his hair ? 
 The years have gone, the halo still is there. 
 There is no art like Love's, for it imbues 
 Its form with lasting light and never-fading hues. 
 
 XLII 
 
 " Why doth he come not ? Wherefore should he come, 
 Who never from my side can go away ? 
 His is the first face seen when dawns the day. 
 His the voice heard when birds sing or bees hum, 
 And his the presence felt when night is dark and dumb. 
 
 XLIII 
 
 "As I have loved, so surely you will love, 
 Drawn hither oft, and never here denied ; 
 Constant as, when all springtime hopes have died, 
 The low unanswered coo of woodland dove. 
 Though no thrush pipes below and no lark trills above. 
 
I70 LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 
 
 XLIV 
 
 "And should you come, and should you care to hear, 
 I in some timely hour will tell you more 
 Of my Love's Widowhood, never told before. 
 The tale will fall upon a kindred ear, 
 And with its sadness suit the autumn of the year." 
 
 XLV 
 
 So nowise less I thitherward was drawn, 
 Crossing at will her threshold late and soon, 
 But oftenest in the slanting afternoon, 
 When lay the long grave shadows on the lawn. 
 Lingering till gleamed the star that hails both dark and 
 dawn. 
 
 But since there something was to say, unsaid, 
 And time for saying it had come not yet, 
 We mostly now, as when we first had met. 
 Would saunter forth with desultory tread. 
 And roam where winding lane or alleyed coppice led. 
 
 Sometimes we brought our simple childhood back 
 By gathering blackberries, now purpling fast ; 
 Playing at which of us should show at last 
 The largest store, and ripest, and most black ; 
 Then, serious grown once more, we took our homeward 
 track. 
 
LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 171 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 Anon it pleased our fancy to explore 
 The hedgerow banks for some belated flower 
 That comes in flocks in April's magic hour ; 
 Primrose, or vetch, or violet, that wore 
 The smile of bygone days, or omened those before. 
 
 XLIX 
 
 These having found, and with them one wild rose 
 That wafted back the scent of summer days, 
 And shamed the bramble with its lovelier gaze, 
 I made a posy fresh and young as those 
 That children carry home when ladysmocks unclose. 
 
 Protesting love and beauty grow not old. 
 And in November twilight throstles sing. 
 " 'Tis only Autumn dreaming of the Spring, 
 That soon must wake to Winter's clammy cold," 
 She answered me, as one whom sadness best consoled. 
 
 LI 
 
 " Gather me seasonable blooms," she said, 
 " For autumn flowers befit an autumn heart. 
 They do not mean to linger, but depart. 
 See ! the bur-marigold now droops its head, 
 And scabious withered stoops, slow tottering towards its 
 bed. 
 
172 LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 
 
 LII 
 
 " Gather me these : I love each waning bloom ; 
 The berried bryony's discoloured bine, 
 The scarlet hips of scentless eglantine ; 
 The intrepid bramble, conscious of its doom, 
 That blends with fruit late flowers, to decorate its tomb. 
 
 " These to the tender heart are not less dear, 
 Because they mind of life's maturing debt. 
 Look where the honeysuckle lingers yet. 
 Curving an arm about the aged year, 
 That gazes back its thanks through an autumnal tear." 
 
 When, on the morrow of that day, I went 
 Again to listen to her voice, she drew 
 Slowly my footsteps where no rude wind blew, 
 And, in the shelter of a leafy tent. 
 Her promised tale began, nor paused till it was spent. 
 
 LV 
 
 " It was the season when the bluebell takes 
 The place the waning primrose vacant leaves, 
 When whistling starlings build behind the eaves. 
 When in the drowsy hive the bee awakes. 
 When daisies fleck the meads and blackbirds throng the 
 brakes : 
 
LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 173 
 
 LVI 
 
 " When wails the nightingale lest we be made, 
 Hearing the cuckoo's jocund note, too glad, 
 But even sadness is not wholly sad ; 
 When Hope shoots fresh to cover hopes decayed, 
 And young Love walks abroad, alone and unafraid : 
 
 LVIl 
 
 ""WTien dykes are silvery runnels that skip and sing 
 To flowers that lean and listen the whole day long, 
 And life is nourished but on scent and song. 
 Then was it that He came, and seemed to fling 
 A superadded spell and splendour round the Spring. 
 
 LVIII 
 
 " I loved him as one loves the music brought 
 By sylvan streams where other sound is none ; 
 I loved him as one loves the lavish sun, 
 That scatters itself unbidden and unbought. 
 Or as one loves some great unmercenary thought. 
 
 " I was too buoyed on bliss that was, to deem 
 Of bane that might be ; for the present gave 
 More than the past had ever dared to crave. 
 Onward I floated in a trustful dream, 
 Like one that sails adown some music-murmuring stream. 
 
174 LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 
 
 " But it was in no noonday dream I saw 
 A woman stand before me, calm and cold, 
 Like to those statues that men carved of old. 
 Majestic, abstract, without fleck or flaw, 
 That turn away from love, and dominate by awe. 
 
 LXl 
 
 " Her marble womb conceived him, and she claimed 
 His breath, and pulse, and will, as still her own ; 
 A being for her purpose got and grown, 
 As she wished wishing, aiming as she aimed. 
 And whom none else must touch, that wished to live 
 unblamed. 
 
 " And when I pleaded vow, and faith, and trust. 
 She girded I had filched his troth by stealth. 
 And that I prized him, not for worth, but wealth : 
 With every cruel stroke and cynic thrust 
 Maiming Love's heavenward wing, to trail it in the dust. 
 
 "Thereat I did not lower but raised my head. 
 And high my scorn towered up above her scorn. 
 ' O woman surely not of w^oman born, 
 A woman shall redress this wrong,' I said : 
 ' Keep what you claim as yours ; your son I will not wed.' 
 
LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 175 
 
 LXIV 
 
 " And I have kept my pledge alike to both ; 
 Gave what he asked, and what she banned withheld, 
 Love unrecanted, but my pride unquelled. 
 I scorned all bond save love's unwritten troth. 
 Trusting the living link engrafted on its growth. 
 
 LXV 
 
 " Nay, do not pity, or with pity blend 
 The frown that like a shadow still follows wrong. 
 Brief was the rapture, the repentance long. 
 When pride that soars hath towered but to descend, 
 Then humble duty proves life's only lasting friend. 
 
 LXV I 
 
 "But, while you blame, yet blame not overmuch, 
 Since 'twas not baseness which begot that fault. 
 Where prudence hesitates, I did not halt : 
 What marriage deems its own, I scorned to clutch, 
 And virgin kept my heart from every venal touch. 
 
 " At least I loved : not loved as women do, 
 Who weigh their hearts in nicely-balanced scale. 
 Careful lest gift should over gain prevail ; 
 But no more dreaming those should bribe who woo. 
 Than ringdove in the copse that answers coo with coo. 
 
176 LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 
 
 LXVIII 
 
 " Nor did I mete out love as though it be 
 A thing to bear division, and to dole 
 In labelled fragments, body, heart, and soul ; 
 Withholding any of that triune three, 
 Yielding this one in full, and that but grudgingly. 
 
 " Soul, heart, and body, we thus singly name. 
 Are not, in love, divisible and distinct. 
 But each with each inseparably linked. 
 One is not honour, and the other shame. 
 But burn as closely fused as fuel, heat, and flame. 
 
 LXX 
 
 "They do not love who give the body and keep 
 The heart ungiven ; nor they who yield the soul, 
 And guard the body. Love doth give the whole ; 
 Its range being high as heaven, as ocean deep, 
 Wide as the realms of air or planet's curving sweep. 
 
 LXXI 
 
 " And thus it was I loved ; reserving not 
 One element of all Self has to give. 
 And in another's happiness did live ; 
 Like to a flower that, rooted to one spot. 
 Yields sun and dew the scent that dew and sun begot. 
 
LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 177 
 
 " Mourn not that love is blind. If love could see, 
 Love then would scarce be love. Its bandaged eyes 
 Gaze inward, and behold in clearest guise 
 The object of its thought, which, since they be 
 Seen thus, appear more real than blurred reality. 
 
 " And Love surrenders not its dream even when 
 Life draws the curtain of its sleep, and cries, 
 ' Awake ! behold the day with dreamless eyes ! ' 
 But wanders mournful 'mid the ways of men, 
 Missing the thing it seeks, nor hopes to find again. 
 
 LXXIV 
 
 " Thus can I never make a pact with life. 
 That strove to break my pact with love and death. 
 Nor shall I blame him ever with my breath. 
 And thus with blame set self with self at strife. 
 Enough, that he is wed, and I am not his wife. 
 
 LXXV 
 
 " There is an island off the Breton shore. 
 Small, and as simple as the lowly folk 
 From whose rude roofs up-curls the turf-fed smoke. 
 Sometimes the waves against it rage and roar, 
 Sometimes they kiss its feet, and woo it, and adore. 
 
 N X 
 
178 LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 
 
 LXXVI 
 
 " Upon it is a little church-like shed, 
 Girt with a cluster of green nameless graves, 
 Green, but withal as billowy as the waves, 
 Yet just as motionless as those whose bed 
 Lies deep within, secure from trouble overhead. 
 
 LXXVII 
 
 " But one grave is there, shaped and smoothed with 
 
 care. 
 That bears a name, engraven deep and plain, 
 On a small granite slab without a stain ; 
 A name — no more — if fanciful, yet fair, 
 That looks up to the stars, and claimeth kindred there. 
 
 LXXVIII 
 
 "And in it do I often creep, and lie 
 Warm by my blossom that is cold within, 
 And faded ere it sorrow knew or sin. 
 Six summers did it gladden earth and sky 
 With carol and with song, — a bird, a butterfly. 
 
 LXXIX 
 
 " Then ceased both song and flight their brief sweet 
 
 span. 
 And all my prayers, and tears, and kisses, then, 
 Could coax it not to kiss me back again, 
 Nor call life's hues to temples white and wan : 
 And from that hour it was Love's Widowhood began. 
 
LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 179 
 
 "For while it frolicked in and out the door, 
 Or nestled in my lap, outworn with play, 
 I somehow felt He was not far away, 
 But might at any moment come once more. 
 And love and all things be as they had been before. 
 
 " Fondling its curls, I used to close mine eyes, 
 And dimly fancy I was fondling his ; 
 And when its little lips my lips did kiss. 
 My heart would swell, and then subside, with sighs, 
 And soul and senses float on murmured lullabies. 
 
 LXXXII 
 
 " But when its fairy form no more was blown 
 Along the wind, nor gleamed athwart the grass. 
 Nor longer in its little crib, alas ! 
 Glowed like a moist musk-rosebud newly blown, 
 Then knew I, night and day would find me still alone. 
 
 LXXXIII 
 
 " There was a gentle venerable priest. 
 Who had loved it with a yearning ofttimes shown 
 By those that have no kindred of their own ; 
 A love that is by sense of want increased. 
 And felt the most by hearts that taste of it the least. 
 
i8o LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 
 
 LXXXIV 
 
 " And piously he wept, and soothed my hand, 
 And oft besought, and aided, me to pray. 
 But since his sole joy now was ta'en away, 
 Shortly he followed it to death's dim land, 
 And he too sleeps in peace beside the Breton strand. 
 
 " None then were left who loved my blossom save 
 Two snowy-wnmpled nuns, that, tender-eyed, 
 Smiled while it lived and sorrowed when it died. 
 But they were bidden elsewhere, and one lone grave 
 My sole companion now, with wailings of the wave. 
 
 LXXXVI 
 
 " Then with tears bitter as the salt sea-brine, 
 And which, like sea-mist, blotted out my gaze, 
 I came back to these quiet woodland ways. 
 Where, in my youth, I dreamed my dream divine, 
 And which must still remain for ever his and mine." 
 
 LXXXVII 
 
 She ceased : and I could hear a chestnut fall 
 From branch to branch, then drop upon the ground. 
 And in the slowly purpling air the sound 
 Of the first rooks returning to the Hall 
 From seaward marshy lands, and answering call with call. 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 
 
 LXXXVIII 
 
 Thuswise we listened ; neither having speech 
 To mate the silence. But she knew my heart 
 ^\'as nearer to her now, not more apart, 
 Since that sad story of the Breton beach. 
 And yearned still more toward hers, which still it could 
 not reach. 
 
 LXXXIX 
 
 AVhen next I thither bent my steps, I found 
 A something, heretofore I had not seen, 
 Almost akin to sunshine in her mien ; 
 A cheerful gravity that hovered round 
 The face of things, and drank content from sight and 
 sound. 
 
 xc 
 
 "Welcome !" she said, "and welcome more to-day 
 Than ever yet, though welcome always here. 
 For we must do the service of the Year, 
 That kind taskmaster whom we both obey, 
 And whom we serve for love, whom others serve for pay. 
 
 xci 
 
 " His need is very pressing, for behold ! 
 The ruddy apples bend the branches down, 
 Like children tugging at their mother's gown. 
 There are all colours, russet, red, and gold. 
 Pippins of every sort, and codlins manifold. 
 
i82 LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 
 
 XCII 
 
 " On their sweet pulp the thievish jackdaws browse, 
 And leave the half-pecked fruit upon the ground, 
 To nibble at the others plump and sound. 
 The wasps fall drowsy-drunk from off the boughs, 
 Or zigzag to their nests, to sleep off their carouse. 
 
 XCIII 
 
 " Look ! I have donned my apron wnth the hem 
 Of primrose tint to please your April taste, 
 And primrose-purfled basket. Now, make haste, 
 And let us to the orchard, — branch and stem 
 Will soon be thick with thieves,- — and be before with 
 them. 
 
 XCIV 
 
 " Bring you the ladder from the lodge ; the crates 
 Are ranged already round the oldest trees. 
 Shall we not be as busy as the bees, 
 And gather yet more honey ? Harvest waits, 
 And we, since hired, must stand not idle at the gates." 
 
 xcv 
 
 Thereon I did her errand, and we went 
 With faces eager as our feet, to where 
 The juicy apples flavoured all the air ; 
 And, on a trunk the ladder having leant, 
 I swarmed into the boughs, contenting and content. 
 
LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 183 
 
 xcvi 
 
 And all the afternoon there did I pluck 
 The ripe and rounded fruit, and when mayhap 
 I found one lustrous fair, into her lap 
 I flung it down, exclaiming, " Bite and suck 
 Its sweetness with your own, and leave me half for luck." 
 
 XCVII 
 
 And so she did, not making kind unkind. 
 Or natural strange, by being grossly coy. 
 In all my life I never had such joy. 
 Like water wimpled by a sunlit wind, 
 I plain could see her face smile-dimpled by her mind. 
 
 XCVI 1 1 
 
 Nor till the crimson-flushing sky o'erhead 
 Seemed to have caught the colour of the fruit 
 That lay in circles round each gnarled root, 
 Stayed we our task ; and then we turned our tread 
 Back to the porch, since there her homeward fancy led. 
 
 XCIX 
 
 She passed within, but I remained without ; 
 And slowly felt, as there I sat apart. 
 The pain that sometimes comes about the heart 
 When we have been too happy, and the doubt 
 If joy like that can last puts timid hope to rout. 
 
1 84 LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 
 
 Shortly I heard her voice, "Are you there?" she said, 
 And came and sat beside me. From her face, 
 As from the sky the sunset hght, all trace 
 Of late reflected happiness had fled, 
 And with a muffled voice she murmured, " He is dead." 
 
 CI 
 
 A letter lay upon her lap, but I 
 Looked not at it, nor her, but fixed my gaze. 
 As hers I knew was fixed, on far-off days, 
 When she was in her girlhood ; and the sky 
 Darkened, and one bright star beheld us from on high. 
 
 I took her hand : she took it not away : 
 And in the twilight, which, when day is done, 
 Can make the past and present feel like one, 
 I found a free unfaltering voice to say 
 All that had filled my heart, full many an autumn day. 
 
 cm 
 
 " He is not dead ; he lives ; he never died, 
 And never did desert you. For you clung 
 Fast to his image, listened for his tongue, 
 Never a moment drifted from his side, 
 But shrined him in your heart, haloed and glorified. 
 
LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 185 
 
 CIV 
 
 " Thus he you loved was loyal, trustful, true. 
 As man tenacious, tender as a maid, 
 And of no fate save infamy afraid. 
 Nay, he was leal and loving even as you. 
 And what in you were base, that baseness could not do. 
 
 cv 
 
 " Loving him, yet you thought of him as one 
 Who still would love you though you loved him not, 
 And would remember even if you forgot ; 
 To be your shadow, needed not the sun. 
 But straight would hold his course, though hope of 
 bourne was none. 
 
 cvi 
 
 " And such a one there is who loves you now, 
 And who will always love you, come what may. 
 Was it not therefore he you loved alway ? 
 No new love this, only an ancient vow, 
 Mellowed to fruit which then was blossom on the bough. 
 
 cvii 
 
 " Sweet, dear ! is youth, and sweet the days that bring 
 The wildwood's smile and cuckoo's wandering voice, 
 And all that bids us revel and rejoice. 
 But Autumn fosters, 'neath its folded wing, 
 A deeper love and joy than glimmer round the Spring." 
 
i86 LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 
 
 CVIII 
 
 The silence moved not. In the dewy air 
 The twihght deepened, and the stars came down, 
 And clustered round and round us like a crown. 
 I knew not if they circled here or there, 
 For Earth and Heaven were one, revolving everywhere. 
 
 cix 
 
 I could not tell the sweetness from the smart. 
 Nor if the warm mist on my cheek were tears 
 From her loved lids or dewdrops from the Spheres. 
 There was no space for thought of things apart. 
 As her surrendered heart lay havened on my heart. 
 
 ex 
 
 And never again did gloom or cloud appear 
 While Autumn lingered in that happy land. 
 Where we still wandered, but now hand in hand ; 
 Watching the woodmen in the copses clear 
 Broad rings of space and close the cycle of the year. 
 
 CXI 
 
 But long before the ringing of the axe 
 Was hushed by silences of silvery frost, 
 The threshold of the village church -we crossed. 
 And stood, with downcast eyes and bending backs, 
 Before a scroll that bore the twin words, Lux et Fax. 
 
LOVE'S WIDOWHOOD 187 
 
 CXII 
 
 And children's hands had tenderly arrayed 
 Harvest Thanksgiving, that auspicious morn, 
 Round rail, and arch, and column ; blades of corn. 
 Garlands of rustic fruit, with leaves decayed. 
 And here and there a flower found in some sheltered 
 glade. 
 
 CXIII 
 
 And children's voices shepherded the rite 
 That sanctified love's birth, and children strewed 
 Sweet-smelling herbs, thyme, box, and southernwood, 
 Under our feet, to augur us delight ; 
 And children's eyes they were that watched us fade from 
 sight. 
 
 ex IV 
 
 And we are going to the Breton shore. 
 Together by a little grave to weep, 
 And place fresh flowers around an angel's sleep. 
 For I am living in her life before, 
 And She, she lives in mine, both now and evermore. 
 
 cxv 
 
 So I who oft have carolled of the Spring, 
 Now chant of Autumn and the fruitful days ; 
 Of windless dawns enveiled in dewy haze. 
 Of cloistered evenings when no loud birds sing, 
 But Love in silence broods, with fondly-folded wing. 
 
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh 
 
MESSRS. MACMILLAN AND CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Noiu Publishing in Monthly Volumes. 
 Croiini Zvo, Cloth, ^s. each. 
 
 A COLLECTED EDITION 
 
 OF 
 
 THE POETICAL WORKS OF 
 MR. ALFRED AUSTIN 
 
 Vol. I. THE TOWER OF BABEL: A CELESTIAL 
 LOVE STORY. 
 
 Vol. IL SAVONAROLA: A TRAGEDY. 
 
 Vol. in. PRINCE LUCIFER. 
 
 Vol. IV. THE HUMAN TRAGEDY. 
 
 Vol. V. NARRATIVE POEMS 
 
 Vol. VI. LYRICAL POEMS. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. 
 
LOAN DEPT. 
 
 RENEWAIS ONlY-rei. NO. 642^,0. 
 
 (J6057810)476-1a-32 
 
 .General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Joerkeley 
 
GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY 
 
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