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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE, 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS, 
 
 BY 
 
 WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS," "tHE WIND 
 
 AND THE WHIRLWIND," " IN VINCULIS," 
 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 
 y A p. Bi" p. , iT>y, A 
 
 LONDON 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH d- CO. 
 
 MDCCCLXX>:iX.
 
 Tit 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The poems contained in the present 
 volume belong in part to the Author's lite- 
 rary period of " Proteus ", in part to more 
 recent times ; nor will the reader find diffi- 
 culty in distinguishing between them. All 
 that needs explaining is that the series of 
 Sonnets giving their name to the book were 
 written in the winter of 1886- 1887 ; and the 
 Pastorals, which end it, in the past and 
 present years. 
 
 So much for the psychology of the volume. 
 With regard to its manner the author would 
 speak more at length. 
 
 " Sed nos qui vivimus" and the pieces 
 " from the Arabic " represent an attempt 

 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 made in all diffidence to deal with the diffi- 
 cult problem of assonance, a form of ending 
 which has never been seriously tried in 
 English metres, but which in the author's 
 opinion deserves better attention. Complete 
 success in assonance would doubtless be to 
 produce the illusion of rhyme, or at least to 
 leave the car satisfied with a half result, as 
 it is (but how rarely !) with the no result of 
 blank verse. For this we in England need 
 education, and the author is not sanguine 
 as to the judgment which will be passed 
 upon his skill. As a suggestion, however, 
 he believes his attempt will be one day 
 considered valuable, and he commends it 
 now to the notice of critics. 
 
 Another and more important point which 
 he raises and endeavours to meet, is with 
 regard to the construction of the English 
 sonnet. Our critics seem to have decided
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 that no form of sonnet is admissible in 
 English other than the Petrarchan, or, at 
 least, that some precedent must be shown in 
 early Italian literature for each variation 
 from it. Against this assumption of finaHty 
 on a foreign model the author ventures to 
 protest on the double ground that the genius 
 and scope of English rhyme is essentially 
 different from that of the Italian, — and that 
 for the treatment of modern subjects (the 
 only ones, perhaps, of permanent value in any 
 literature) the Italian form lacks elasticity, 
 and so is not the practically best. In the 
 matter of rhyme, its greater redundancy and 
 license in the Italian places the English 
 imitator at a clear disadvantage. The Italian 
 double endings, so effective in adding strength, 
 are more difficult with us, and, being so, can 
 only be used sparingly without offence to our 
 ears. Deprived of them the ordinaiy model
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 of the Italian sextett becomes poor and 
 monotonous, for it needs a very strong single 
 rhyme to be recognized at its full value after 
 the usual Petrarchan interval. Of course, 
 the author does not assert that these difficul- 
 ties have not been successfully met by our best 
 English poets. Milton, Wordsworth, Mrs. 
 Browning, Rossetti, are proofs to the con- 
 trary. Yet, when you have mentioned these 
 names, there are probably not a hundred 
 English sonnets in strict Petrarchan measure 
 which are not intolerably dull. This surely 
 should not be. How much stronger too 
 becomes our case when modern subjects are 
 approached. Tennyson, the greatest of our 
 living poets, and the most modem in his 
 treatment, gives us hardly a specimen on 
 contemporary subjects of his skill. Brown- 
 ing, William Morris, Longfellow, Lowell are 
 almost equally silent ; Lord Lytton and
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 Alfred Austin give us a few good ones, 
 and Matthew Arnold has left us a bare 
 half-dozen. Yet why ? The sonnet, with 
 the Italian writers of the thirteenth and four- 
 teenth centuries, was the vehicle of their 
 daily thoughts about their daily affairs, as well 
 as that of their profoundest utterances in re- 
 ligion, love and politics ; nor is there any 
 reason beyond the trammels of convention 
 why it should not be so yet with us. It 
 seems to the author that our critics, like the 
 Scribes and Pharisees of the New Testa- 
 ment, are placing on our shoulders a burden 
 heavier than we English poets can bear. 
 By insisting on the mint and cummin of 
 certain rhymes and endings, they have set at 
 nought the intellectual law on which the 
 sonnet rests, and made it of no practical 
 avail. 
 
 For this reason the author makes bold in
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 the present volume to present the reader 
 with two forms in which he conceives the 
 modern English sonnet mny be written, 
 violating no law of the Italians essential to 
 modern poetry, and yet with sufficient elbow 
 room to make it a vehicle suited to every 
 subject and every mood of feeling. The first 
 is a metre of fourteen lines — that of the 
 " New Pilgrimage," — the second a metre of 
 sixteen, for lighter themes, illustrated in the 
 " Idler's Calendar." 
 
 It will be observed that both these ex- 
 amples follow the same metrical idea. The 
 usual Petrarchan form of the octave, 
 ABBAABBA, is rejected in 
 favour of the alternative Italian form 
 ABABBABA, which to the author's 
 ear is lighter and more varied, the 
 reversing of the rhyme in the second 
 half of the octave giving it a special bril-
 
 PREFACE. xi 
 
 liancy which the other lacks. The author, 
 though he sometimes violates the rule in 
 practice, considers a caesura at the end of 
 the eighth line, or occasionally deferred to 
 the middle of the ninth, essential to a good 
 sonnet ; and he would include such a ceesura 
 as one of the most important features of his 
 metre. It will also be observed that he 
 allows the exception of a third rhyme in 
 the sixth and eighth lines. He is far from 
 saying that the octave is not more perfect 
 without it, but he has found by experience 
 that many a good sonnet cannot be written 
 except with this indulgence. Next to the 
 last, the first line of every sonnet is of the 
 most importance, and yet there are admirable 
 first lines which by no ingenuity can be 
 provided with three others in rhyme. The 
 sense, therefore, has to be sacrificed, or the 
 line is lost.
 
 xii PREFACE. 
 
 With regard to the sextett in the shorter 
 formula, and the second octave in the longer, 
 the author is very distinctly of opinion that a 
 couplet is in English the strongest and most 
 effective form of ending. He believes the 
 weakness of ninety-nine of our sonnets out 
 of a hundred (and that is about the propor- 
 tion of those annually published) comes from 
 the poverty of the Petrarchan sextett in 
 English, the formula A B C A B C, unaided 
 by double rhymes. Certainly, in lighter sub- 
 jects the couplet is of the greatest possible 
 use, pointing, and sometimes even suggesting, 
 the epigram which is the sonnet's moral. 
 The author, therefore, adheres to the couplet 
 as the English sonnet writer's most precious 
 inheritance from the greatest of all our 
 sonneteers and poets. Where Shakespeare 
 rejected the Italian sextett in its favour, we 
 modems surely may stand excused.
 
 PREFACE. xiii 
 
 After all, the sonnet's " intellectual measure " 
 is the truly important matter. On this the 
 author holds briefly that the sonnet, to be a 
 good one, should contain one conspicuous 
 thought, and only one ; that the first line 
 should foreshadow this, as a musical overture 
 does an opera ; that the octave should supply 
 variations on the suggested theme, images, 
 metaphors, developments ; that the third 
 quartett should fill in and complete the out- 
 line, and finally, that the couplet should point 
 the moral. He gives the following as a 
 metrical description of his idea of a perfect 
 English sonnet : — 
 
 A PERFECT SONNET. 
 
 Oh, for a perfect sonnet of all time ! 
 Wild music, heralding immortal hopes. 
 
 Strikes the bold prelude. To it from each clime, 
 Like tropic birds on some green island slopes, 
 Thoughts answering come, high metaphors, brave 
 tropes.
 
 xiv PREFACE. 
 
 In ordered measure and majestic rhyme. 
 
 And, presently, all hearts, of kings and popes, 
 And peoples, throb to this new theme sublime. 
 
 Anon 'tis reason speaks. A note of death 
 
 Strengthens the symphony yet fraught with pain. 
 
 And men seek meanings with abated breath, 
 Vexing their souls, — till lo, once more, the strain 
 
 Breaks through triumphant, and Love's master voice 
 
 Thrills the last phrase and bids all joy rejoice. 
 
 Crabbet P.'^kk, Sussex. 
 August 17, 1889. 
 
 W. S. B.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A New Pilgrimage i 
 
 The Idler's Calendar 43 
 
 The Old Squire 53 
 
 Sancho Sanchez 63 
 
 Across the Pampas 7^ 
 
 From the Akauic : — 
 
 I. The Camel-Rider 87 
 
 II. The Desolate City 95 
 
 III. The Grief of Love toi 
 
 IV. A Love Secret 104 
 
 Pastoral Poems :— 
 
 Worth Forest i" 
 
 Sed Nos Qui Vivimus •'J44
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 I. 
 
 Care killed a cat, and I have cares at home, 
 
 Which vex me nightly and disturb my bed. 
 The things I love have all grown wearisome ; 
 
 The things that loved me are estranged or dead. 
 
 I have a house most fair, but tenanted 
 With shadows only, gardens of tall trees, 
 
 Fenced in and made secure from every dread 
 But this one terror, my soul's lack of ease. 
 I have much wealth of pleasure, horse and hound 
 
 Woods broad for sport, and fields that are my 
 own, 
 With neighbours of good cheer to greet me round , 
 
 And servants tried by whom my will is done. 
 Here all things live at peace in this dear place, 
 All but my pride, which goes companionless.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 II. 
 
 How shall I ransom me? The world without, 
 
 Where once I lived in vain expense and noise, 
 Say, shall it welcome me in tliis last rout. 
 
 Back to its bosom of forgotten joys? 
 
 Sometimes I hear it whispering with strange 
 voice. 
 Asking, " Are we forever then cast out, 
 
 The things that helped thee once in thy annoys. 
 That thou despairest ? Nay, away with doubt ! 
 Take courage to thy heart to heal its woes. 
 
 It still shall beat as wildly as a boy's." 
 This tempts me in the night-time, and I loose 
 
 My soul to dalliance with youth's broken toys. 
 Ay, wherefore suffer ? In this question lies 
 More than my soul can answer, and be wise.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 III. 
 
 I will break through my bondage. Let me be 
 
 Homeless once more, a wanderer on the earth, 
 Marked with my soul's sole care for company, 
 
 Like Cain, lest I do murder on my hearth. 
 
 I ask not others' goods — nor wealth nor worth, 
 Nor the world's kindness, which should comfort me, 
 
 But to forget the story of my birth, 
 And go forth naked of all name, but free. 
 Where the flowers blow, there let me sit and 
 dream. 
 
 Where the rain falls, ah ! leave my tears their 
 way. 
 Where men laugh loud, I too will join the hymn, 
 
 And in God's congregation let me pray. 
 Only alone — I ask this thing — alone, 
 \Vhere none may know me, or have ever known.
 
 A NEIV PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Behold the deed is done. Here endeth all 
 
 That bound my grief to its ancestral ways. 
 I have passed out, as from a funeral, 
 
 From my dead home, and in the great world's 
 gaze 
 
 Henceforth I stand, a pilgrim of new days, 
 On the high road of life. Where I was thrall, 
 
 See, I am master, being passionless ; 
 And, having nothing now, am lord of all. 
 How glorious is the world ! Its infinite grace 
 
 Surprises me — and not as erst with fear, — 
 But as one meets a woman face to face. 
 
 Loved once and unforgotten and still dear 
 In certain moods and seasons, — so to me 
 The fair world smiles to-day, j'et leaves me free.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 V. 
 
 The physical world itself is a fair thing 
 For who has eyes to see or ears to hear. 
 
 To-day I fled on my new freedom's wing, 
 With the first swallows of the parting year. 
 Southwards from England. At the Folkestone 
 pier 
 
 I left the burden of my sins behind, 
 
 Noting how gay the noon was, and how clear 
 
 The tide's fresh laughter rising to no wind. 
 
 A hundred souls of men there with my own 
 Smiled in that sunshine. 'Tis a little measure 
 
 Makes glad the heart at sea, and not alone 
 Do wise men kindle to its pulse of pleasure. 
 
 Here all alike, peers, pedlars, squires, and dames 
 
 Foreswore their griefs fog-born of Father Thames.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Away from sorrow ! Ves, indeed, away ! 
 
 Who said that care behind the horseman sits ? 
 The train to Paris, as it flies to-day, 
 
 Whirls its bold rider clear of ague fits. 
 
 ^^'^lo stops for sorrows — who for his lost wits — 
 His vanished gold — his loves of yesterday — 
 
 His vexed ambitions ? See, the landscape flits 
 Bright in his face, and fleeter far than they. 
 Away ! away ! Our mother Earth is wide — 
 
 And our poor lives and loves of what avail ? 
 All life is here — and here we sit astride 
 
 On her broad teck, with Hope's white wings 
 for sail, 
 In search of fortune and that glorious goal, 
 Paris, the golden city of our soul.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 VII. 
 Ah, Paris, Paris ! ^\^^at an echo rings 
 
 Still in those syllables of vain delight ! 
 What voice of what dead pleasures on what wings 
 
 Of Mojnad laughters pulsing through the night ! 
 
 How bravely her streets smile on me — how 
 bright 
 Her shops, her houses, fair sepulchral things, 
 
 Stored with the sins of men forgotten quite, 
 The loves of mountebanks, the lusts of kings ! 
 ^^^lat message has she to me on this day 
 
 Of my new life? Shall I, a pilgrim wan, 
 Sit at her board and revel at her play, 
 
 As in the days of old ? Nay, this is done. 
 It cannot be ; and yet I love her well 
 With her broad roads and pleasant paths to hell.
 
 10 A NEIV PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 VIII. 
 I will sit down awhile in dalliance 
 
 With my dead life, and dream that it is young. 
 My earliest memories have their home in France, 
 
 The chestnut woods of Beam and streams among, 
 
 Where first I learned to stammer the French 
 tongue. 
 Fair ancient France. No railroad insolence 
 
 Had mixed her peoples then, and still men clung 
 Each to his ways, and viewed the world askance. 
 We, too, as exiles from our northern shore, 
 
 Surveyed things sparsely ; and my own child's 
 scorn 
 Remained, how long, a rebel to all lore 
 
 Save its lost English, nor was quite o'erborne 
 Till, as I swore I'd speak no French frog's word, 
 I swore in French, and so laid down my sword.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. ii 
 
 IX. 
 These were in truth brave days. From our high 
 perch, 
 The box-seat of our travelHng chariot, then 
 We children spied the world 'twas ours to search, 
 And mocked like birds at manners and at men. 
 What wonders we beheld, Havre, Rouen, Caen, 
 The Norman caps, the Breton crowds in church. 
 
 The loyal Loire, the valorous Vendeen, 
 And all the Revolution left in lurch 
 That very year — things old as Waterloo. — 
 
 But when we neared the mountains crowned 
 with snows, 
 And heard the torrents roar, our wonder grew 
 
 Over our wit, and a new pleasure rose 
 Wild in our hearts, and stopped our tongues with 
 
 dread, 
 The sense of death and beauty overhead.
 
 12 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 X. 
 
 Whence is our pleasure in things beautiful ? 
 
 We are not born with it, we do not know, 
 By instinct of the eye or natural rule, 
 
 That naked rocks are fairest, or flowers blow 
 
 Best in their clefts, or that the world of snow 
 Has other glory than of cold and ice. 
 
 From our mother's hand we viewed these things 
 below. 
 Senseless as goats which browse a precipice. 
 Till we were taught to know them. With what 
 tears 
 
 I con the lessons now I learned so well, 
 Of mountain shapes, from those dead lips of hers ; 
 
 And as she spoke, behold, a miracle 
 Proving her words, — for at our feet there grew, 
 Beauty's last prodigy, a gentian blue.
 
 J NEW PILGRIMAGE. 13 
 
 XI. 
 
 I have it still, a book with pages sewn 
 
 Cross-wise in silk, and brimming with these 
 flowers, 
 
 Treasures we gathered there, long sere and brown. 
 The ghosts of childhood's first undoubting hours. 
 Of childhood in the mountains e'er the powers 
 
 Of wrong and pain had turned our joys to gall. 
 That summer stands to me a tower of towers, 
 
 To which my gladness clings in spite of all. 
 
 There was one special wonder in the hills, 
 
 A place where nets were hung from tree to tree 
 
 For flights of pigeons. This beyond all else 
 Touched my boy's fancy for its mystery, 
 
 And for the men who, caged aloft on poles, 
 
 Scared down the birds, as Satan scares men's 
 souls.
 
 14 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Dear royal France ! I fix the happy year 
 
 At forty-six, because that Christmas-tide 
 There passed through Pau the Duke of Mont- 
 pensier, 
 
 Fresh from his nuptials with his Spanish bride ; 
 
 And because I, unwilling, shared their pride, 
 As youngest of the English children there. 
 
 By offering flowers to the fair glorified 
 Daughter of Bourbon standing on the stair — 
 A point in history. When we came at last 
 
 To this gay Paris I was doomed to love, 
 There were already rumours of the blast 
 
 That swept the Orleans songsters from their grove 
 In flight to London, after Polignac 
 And the true king, at their King Bourgeois' back.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. IS 
 
 XIII. 
 
 And what strange sights have these three windows 
 seen, 
 
 Mid bonnes and children, in the Tuileries ! 
 What flights of hero. Emperor and Queen, 
 
 Since first I looked down from them, one of 
 these ! 
 
 Here, with his Mornys and his Persignys, 
 Louis Napoleon, the Prince President, 
 
 Rode one December past us, on the breeze 
 Of his new glory, bloodstained and intent. 
 Later, I too my love's diplomacies 
 
 Playe<l at Eugenia's court, — blest Empress ! 
 Then 
 How did men curse her with their Marseillaise, 
 
 When the foe's horse was watered in her Seine, 
 And the flames, lit for her last festival, 
 Licked out her palace and its glories all.
 
 1 6 A NEIV PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 XIV. 
 To-day there is no cloud upon thy face, 
 
 Paris, fair city of romance and doom ! 
 Thy memories do not grieve thee, and no trace 
 
 Lives of tlieir tears for us who after come. 
 
 All is forgotten — thy high martyrdom, 
 Thy rage, thy vows, thy vauntings, thy disgrace. 
 
 With those who died for thee to beat of drum, 
 And those who lived to see thee kingdomless. 
 Indeed thou art a woman in thy mirths, 
 
 A woman in thy griefs which leave thee young, 
 A prudent virgin still, despite the births 
 
 Of these sad prodigies thy bards have sung. 
 What to thy whoredoms is a vanished throne ? 
 A chair where a fool sat, and he is gone !
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 17 
 
 XV. 
 
 For thus it is. You flout at kings to-day. 
 
 To-moaow in your pride you shall stoop low 
 To a new tyrant who shall come your way , 
 
 And serve him meekly with mock serious brow, 
 
 ^\^lile the world laughs. I shall not laugh at 
 you. 
 Your Bourbon, Bonaparte or Boulanger 
 
 Are foils to your own part of " ingenue " 
 Which moves me most, the moral of your play. 
 You have a mission in the world, to teach 
 
 All pride its level. Poet, prince and clown, 
 Each in your amorous arms has scaled the breach 
 
 Of his own pleasure and the world's renown. 
 Till with a yawn you turn, and from your bed 
 Kick out your hero with his ass's head.
 
 i8 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Gods, what a moral ! Yet in vain I jest. 
 
 The France which has been, and shall be again, 
 Is the most serious, and perhaps the best. 
 
 Of all the nations which have power with men. 
 
 France, only of the nations, has this plain 
 Thought in the world, to scorn hypocrisy ; 
 
 And by this token she shall purge the stain 
 Of her sins yet, though these as scarlet be. 
 Let her put off her folly ! 'Tis a cloak 
 
 Which hides her virtue. Let her foremost stand. 
 The champion of all necks which feel the yoke, 
 
 As once she stood sublime in every land. 
 Let her forego her Tonquins, and make good 
 Her boast to man of man's high brotherhood. —
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 19 
 
 XVII. 
 
 For lo ! the nations, the imperial nations 
 
 Of Europe, all imagine a vain thing, 
 Sitting thus blindly in their generations, 
 
 Serving an idol for their God and King. 
 
 Blindly they rage together, worshipping 
 Their lusts of cunning, and their lusts of gcild ; 
 
 Trampling the hearts of all too weak to bring 
 Alms to their Baal which is bought and sold. 
 And lo ! there is no refuge, none but Baal 
 
 For man's best help, and the mute recreant earth 
 Drinks in its children's blood, and hears their wail, 
 
 And deals no vengeance on its last foul birth ; 
 And there is found no hand to ward or keep 
 The weak from wrong, and Pity is asleep.
 
 20 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 XVIII. 
 Therefore do thou at least arise and warn, 
 
 Not folded in thy mantle, a blind seer. 
 But naked in thy anger, and new-born, 
 
 As in the hour when thy voice sounded clear 
 
 To the world's slaves, and tyrants quaked for fear. 
 Thou hadst a message then, a word of scorn, 
 
 First for thyself, thy own crimes' challenger. 
 And next for those who withered in thy dawn. 
 An hundred years have passed since that fair day, 
 
 And still the world cries loud, in its desire, 
 That right is wronged, and force alone has sway. 
 
 What profit are they, thy guns' tongues of fire ? 
 Nay, leave to England her sad creed of gold ; 
 Plead thou man's rights, clean-handed as of old.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 21 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Alas, that words like these should be but folly ! 
 
 Behold, the Boulevard mocks, and I mock too. 
 Let us away and purge our melancholy 
 
 With the last laughter at the Ambigu — 
 
 Here all is real. Here glory's self is true 
 Through each regime to its own mission holy, 
 
 Of plying still the world with something new 
 To cure its ache, or nobly soviled or lowly. 
 One title Paris holds above the rest 
 
 Untouched by time or fortune's change or frown. 
 One temple of high fame, where she sits dressed 
 
 In youth eternal and mirth's myrtle crown. 
 And where she writes, each night, with deathless 
 
 hands, 
 " To all the glories— of the stage— of France."
 
 22 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Enough, dear Paris ! We have laughed together, 
 
 'Tis time that we should part, lest tears should 
 come. 
 I must fare on from winter and rough weather 
 
 And the dark tempests chained within Time's 
 womb. 
 
 Southwards I go. Each footstep marks the tomb 
 Of a dead pleasure. Melun, Fontainebleau, — 
 
 How shall I name them with the ghosts that roam 
 In their deserted streets of long ago ? 
 I will not stop to weep. Before me lie 
 
 Lands larger in their purpose, and with dreams 
 Peopled more purely ; and to these I fly 
 
 For ever from life's idler stratagems. 
 France ! thy white hand I kiss in suppliant guise, 
 Too sad to love thee, and alas ! too wise.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 23 
 
 XXI. 
 
 To Switzerland, the land of lakes and snow, 
 
 And ancient freedom of ancestral type. 
 And modern innkeepers who cringe and bow. 
 
 And venal echoes, and Pans paid to pipe ! 
 
 See, I am come. And here in vineyards, ripe 
 With sweet white grapes, I will sit down and read 
 
 Once more the loves of Rousseau, till I wipe 
 My eyes in tenderness for names long dead. 
 This is the birthplace of all sentiment. 
 
 The fount of modern tears. These hills in me 
 Stir what still lives of fancy reverent 
 
 For Mother Nature. Here Time's minstrelsy 
 Awoke, some century since, one sunny morn, 
 To find earth fortunate and man forlorn.
 
 24 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 XXII. 
 Unblest discovery of an age too real ! 
 
 They needed not the beauty of the earth, 
 Who held heaven's hope for their supreme ideal, 
 
 And found in worlds unseen a better birth. 
 
 What to the eye of faith were the hills worth, 
 The voiceless forests, the unpeopled coasts. 
 
 The wildernesses void of sentient mirth ? 
 In death men praise thee not. Thou Lord of 
 
 Hosts ! 
 But when faith faltered, when the hope grew dim, 
 
 And heaven was hid with phantoms of despair. 
 And man stood trembling on destruction's brim. 
 
 Then turned he to the earth, and found her fair ; 
 His home, his refuge, which no doubt could rob, 
 A beauty throbbing to his own heart's throb.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 2$ 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Voltaire and Rousseau, these were thy twin priests, 
 
 Proud mother Nature, on thy opening day. 
 The first with bitter gibes perplexed the feasts 
 
 Of thy high rival, and prepared the way ; 
 
 The other built thy shrine. 'Twas here, men 
 say, 
 De Warens lived, whose pleasure was the text 
 
 Of the new gospel of the sons of clay. 
 The latest bom of time, by faith unvexed. 
 Here for a century with reverent feet 
 
 Pilgrims, oppressed with barrenness of soul, 
 Toiled in their tears as to a Paraclete. 
 
 On these white hills they heard earth's thunders 
 roll 
 In sneers outpreaching the lost voice of God, 
 And shouted " Ichabod, ay, Ichabod ! "
 
 26 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 And here too I, the latest fool of Time, 
 Sad child of doubt and passionate desires, 
 
 Touched with all pity, yet in league with crime, 
 Watched the red sunsets from the Alpine spires, 
 And lit my poet's lamp with kindred fires, 
 
 And dared to snatch my share of the sublime. 
 There was one with me, master of the choirs 
 
 Of eloquent thought, who listening to my rhyme, 
 
 And seeing in mc a soul set on things 
 
 Not wholly base, although my need was sore, 
 
 Bade me take courage and essay new wings. 
 And thus it was I first beheld this shore, 
 
 Mourning the loss yet half consoled of gain. 
 
 The passionate pleader of youth's creed of pain.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 27 
 
 XXV. 
 
 And what brave life it was we lived that tide. 
 
 Lived, or essayed to live — for who shall say 
 Youth garners aught but its own dreams denied, 
 
 Or handles what it hoped for yesterday ? 
 
 High prophets were we of the uncultured lay, 
 Supremely scorning all that to our pride 
 
 Seemed less than truth. l?e truth the thing it 
 may, 
 Our Goddess she, deformed but deified. 
 Prophets and poets of the earth's last birth 
 
 Revealed in ugliness, a blind despair. 
 Only that we were young and of such worth 
 
 As still can thrive upon life's leanest fare. 
 And find in the world's turmoil its full quittance 
 Of joy denied, however poor the pittance.
 
 28 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 XXVI. 
 Youth is all valiant. He and I together, 
 
 Conscious of strength, and unreproved of wrong, 
 Strained at the world's conventions as a tether 
 
 Too weak to bind us, and burst forth in song. 
 
 The backs of fools we scourged as with a thong, 
 And falsehood stripped to its last borrowed 
 feather, 
 
 And vowed to fact what things to fact belong, 
 And of the rest asked neither why nor whether. 
 Gravely we triumphed in that Gorgon time, 
 
 Unsexed for us at length thro' lack of faith, 
 Our barren mistress, from whose womb sublime 
 
 No beauty more should spring, but only death. 
 Like birds we sang by some volcanic brink. 
 Leaning on ugliness, and did not shrink.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 29 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 The poets, everyone, have sung of passion — 
 
 But which has sung of friendship, man with man ? 
 Love seeks its price, but friendship has a fashion 
 
 Larger to give, and of less selfish plan. 
 
 The world grows old. From Beersheba to Dan 
 We find all barren, ruby lips grown ashen, 
 
 Hearts hard with years — and only Jonathan 
 Weeping with David o'er a mined nation. 
 Then in the depth of days and our despair, 
 
 We count our treasures, if so be remain 
 Some loving letters, rings and locks of hair. 
 
 Nay, mourn not love. These only are not vain, 
 Your manlier wounds, when in the front you stood. 
 For a friend's sake and your sworn Brotherhood.
 
 30 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Vet it is pitiful how friendships die, 
 
 Spite of our oaths eternal and high vows. 
 Some fall through blight of tongues wagged secretly, 
 
 Some through strifes loud in empty honour's 
 house. 
 
 Some vanish with fame got too glorious, 
 And rapt to heaven in fiery chariots fly ; 
 
 And some are drowned in sloth and the carouse 
 Of wedded joys and long love's tyranny. 
 O ye, who with high-hearted valliance 
 
 Deem truth eternal and youth's dreams divine, 
 Keep ye from love and fame and the mischance 
 
 Of other worship than the Muses nine. 
 So haply shall you tread life's latest strand 
 With a true brother still, and hand in hand.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 31 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 How strangely now I come, a man of sorrow, 
 Nor yet such sorrow as youth dreamed of, blind — 
 
 But life's last indigence which dares not borrow 
 One garment more of Hope to cheat life's wind. 
 The mountains which we loved have grown un- 
 kind, 
 
 Nay, voiceless rather. Neither sound nor speech 
 
 Is heard among them, nor the thought enshrined 
 Of any deity man's tears may reach. 
 If I should speak, what echo would there come, 
 
 Of laughters lost, and dead unanswered prayers ? 
 The shadow of each valley is a tomb 
 
 Filled with the dust of manifold despairs. 
 " Here we once lived." — This motto on the door 
 Of silence stands, shut fast for evermore.
 
 32 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 'Tis time I stepped from Horcb to the plain — 
 
 Mountains, farewell. I need a heavier air. 
 Youth's memories are not good for souls in pain, 
 
 And each new age has its own meed of care. 
 
 Farewell, sad Alps, you are my barrier 
 Now to the North, and hold my passions slain 
 
 For all life's vultures, as I downward fare 
 To a new land of love which is not vain. 
 How staid is Italy ! No gardened rose 
 
 Scattering its leaves is chaster than she is. 
 No cloister stiller, no retreat more close. 
 
 There is a tameness even in her seas 
 On which white towns look down, as who should 
 
 say, 
 •'Here wise men long have lived, and live to- 
 day."
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 33 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Yes, Italy Is wise, a cultured prude, 
 
 Stored with all maxims of a statelier age ; 
 These are her lessons for our northern blood, 
 
 With its dark Saxon madness and Norse rage. 
 
 With these she tempers us and renders sage, 
 As long ago she stayed the barbarous flood 
 
 Surging against her, and her heritage 
 Snatched from the feet of that brute multitude. 
 Calmly she waits us. What to her shall be 
 
 Our fevers of to-day, who e'erwhile knew 
 Cffisar's ambitions ? WTiat our pruriency, 
 
 Who saw Rome sacked by the lewd Vandal crew ? 
 What our despair, who, while a world stood 
 
 mute, 
 Saw Henry kneel in tears at Peter's foot ? 
 
 D
 
 34 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 To-day I was at Milan, in such thought 
 
 As pilgrims bring who at faith's threshold stand, 
 Still burdened with the sorrows they have brought. 
 
 And vexed with stranger tongues in a strange 
 land. 
 
 And lo, this sign was given me. At my hand 
 Hung that mysterious supper Vinci wrought 
 
 With the sad twelve who were Christ's chosen 
 band, 
 A ty])e of vows and courage come to nought. 
 And, while I gazed, with a reproachful look 
 
 The bread was broken and the wine was poured, 
 And the disciples raised their hands and spoke. 
 
 Each asking " Is it I ? and I too ? Lord ! " 
 And there was answered them this mournful cry : 
 "All shall abandon me lo niHit." So L
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 35 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 So I, I am ashamed of my old life, 
 
 Here in this saintly presence of days gone, 
 
 Ashamed of my weak heart's unmeaning strife. 
 Its loves, its lusts, its battles lost and won. 
 And its long search of pleasure 'neath the sun. 
 
 And its scant courage to endure the knife, 
 And its vain longing for good deeds undone. 
 
 Ending in bitter words with railing rife. 
 
 I am unworthy, yet am comforted. 
 
 As one who driving o'er long trackless roads 
 
 Of brake and rock and briar with footsore steed 
 And springless chariot, searching for vain gods, 
 
 Finds the high road before him, where at ease 
 
 The old world plods the rut of centuries.
 
 36 A NEW riLGRIMAGE. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 O fool ! O false ! I have abandoned heaven, 
 
 And sold my wealth for metal of base kind. 
 O, frail disciple of a fair creed given 
 
 For human hope when all the world was blind ! 
 
 What was my profit ? Freedom of the mind, 
 A little pleasure of the years, some scars 
 
 Of lusty youth, and some few thoughts enshrined 
 In worthier record of my manhood's years. 
 All else is loss, and unredeemed distress ; 
 
 The voiceful seasons uninvited come, 
 And bring their tribute of new flowers, and pass : 
 
 Only the reason of the world is dumb ; 
 Nor does God any more by word or sign 
 Speak to our rebel hearts of things divine.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 37 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 At last I kneel in Rome, the bourne, the goal 
 
 Of what a multitude of laden hearts ! 
 No pilgrim of them all a wearier soul 
 
 Brought ever here, no master of dark arts. 
 
 A spirit vexed with more discordant parts, 
 No beggar a scrip barer of all dole ; 
 
 No son, alas, steps sorer with the darts 
 Of that rebellious sorrow, his sin's toll. 
 I kneel and make an offering of my care 
 
 And folly, and hurt reason. WTio would not 
 In this fair city be the fool of prayer ? 
 
 Who would not kneel, if only for the lot 
 Of being born again— a soul forgiven, 
 Clothed in new childhood and the light of heaven ?
 
 38 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 The majesty of Rome to me is nought ; 
 
 The imperial story of her conquering car 
 Touches me only with compassionate thought 
 
 For the doomed nations faded by her star. 
 
 Her palaces of Csesars tombstones are 
 For a whole world of freedoms vainly caught 
 
 In her high fortune. Throned was she in war ; 
 By war she perished. So is justice wrought. 
 A nobler Rome is here, which shall not die. 
 
 She rose from the dead ashes of men's lust, 
 And robed herself anew in chastity, 
 
 And half redeemed man's heritage of dust. 
 This Rome I fain would love, though darkly hid 
 In mists of passion and desires scarce dead.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 39 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 I will release my soul of argument. 
 
 He that would love must follow with shut eyes. 
 My reason of the years was discontent, 
 
 My treasure for all hope a vain surmise. 
 
 I will have done with wisdom's sophistries, 
 Her insolence of wit. \\Tiat man shall say 
 
 He comfort takes in the short hour that dies, 
 Because he knew it mortal yesterday ? 
 The tree of knowledge bears a bitter fruit — 
 
 This is that other tree, whose branches hold 
 Fair store of faith, peace, pity absolute, 
 
 And deeds of virtue for a world grown cold. 
 If by its fruits the tree of life be known, 
 Here is a truth undreamed of Solomon.
 
 40 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 I saw one sitting on a kingly throne, 
 
 A man of age, whom time had touched with 
 white ; 
 White were his brows, and white his vestment 
 shone. 
 
 And white the childhood of his lips with light. 
 
 Only his eyes gleamed masterful and bright, 
 Holding the secrets shut of worlds unknown, 
 And in his hand the sceptre lay of might, 
 
 To bind and loose all souls beneath the sun, 
 Wliere is the manhood, where the Godhood here ? 
 
 The weak things of the world confound the wise. 
 Here is all weakness, let us cast out fear. 
 
 Here is all strength. Ah, screen me from those 
 eyes, 
 The terrible eyes of Him wlio sees unseen 
 The thing that is, and shall be, and has been.
 
 A NEW PILGRIMAGE. 41 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Ancient of days ! What word is thy command 
 
 To one befooled of wit and his own way ? 
 What counsel hast thou, and what chastening hand 
 
 For a lost soul grown old in its dismay ? 
 
 What penance shall he do, what ransom pay, 
 Of blood poured out for faith in a far land, 
 
 \Vhat mute knee-service, weeping here to-day, 
 In words of prayer no ear shall understand ? 
 Let him thy servant be, the least of all 
 
 In the Lord's Courts, but near thy mysteries, 
 To touch the crumbs which from thy table fall. 
 
 Let him . But lo, thou speakest ; " not with 
 
 these 
 Is God delighted. Get thee homeward hence, 
 Thev need thee more who wait deliverance ! "
 
 THE IDLER'S CALENDAR.
 
 THE IDLER'S CALENDAR. 
 
 JANUARY. 
 
 COVER SHOOTING. 
 
 The week at Whinwood next to Christmas week. 
 
 Six guns, no more, but all good men and true, 
 Of the clean-visaged sort, with ruddy cheek 
 
 Which knows not care. Light-hearted Montagu 
 
 At the cover's end, as down the wind they flew, 
 Has stopped his score of pheasants, every beak. 
 
 Without more thought of Juliet than of you ; 
 And still I hear his loud-mouthed Purdeys speak. 
 Tybalt and Paris, with a bet on hand, 
 
 Have fired at the same woodcock. " Truce," 
 say I, 
 " To civil jars," — for look, as by command.
 
 46 THE IDLER'S CALENDAR. 
 
 Bunch following bunch, a hundred pheasants fly. 
 Now battle, murder, death on every side ! 
 
 Right, left, left, right, we pile up agony, 
 Till night stops all. Then home in chastened 
 
 pride. 
 With aching heads, our slaughter satisfied.
 
 THE IDLER'S CALENDAR. 47 
 FEBRUARY. 
 
 UNDER THE SPEAKER'S GALLERY, 
 
 In all the comedy of human things 
 
 What is more mirthful than for those, who sit 
 Far from the great world's vain imaginings, 
 
 To mingle in its war of words and wit, 
 
 A listener here, when Greek meets Greek, Fox 
 Pitt, 
 At question time in the Queen's Parliament ? 
 
 'Tis the arena of old Rome. Here meet 
 More than mere Dacians on mere slaughter bent. 
 Yonder and close to Mr. Speaker's chair. 
 
 Enfolding all things in a net of words, 
 Stands our first gymnast. Let the rest beware. 
 
 The Tory Staftbrd, with voice sv/eet as bird's. 
 Shall answer him anon, or bolder borne 
 
 And if luck favours, from the nether herds 
 A voice of patriot wrath shall rise in scorn, 
 Or even young Cassius blow his windy horn.
 
 48 THE IDLER'S CALENDAR. 
 
 MARCH. 
 
 A WEEK AT PARIS. 
 
 When loud March from the east begins to blow. 
 
 And earth and heaven are black, then off we hie 
 By the night train to Paris, where we know 
 
 Three windows set to the meridian sky, 
 
 A third floor in the Rue de Rivoli. 
 There we will stop and see the fair world move 
 
 For our sole pleasure past us, you and I, 
 And make pretence we are once more in love. 
 We need not fret at loss of pence or time, 
 
 Though Father Bignon's smiles are paid in gold. 
 This life in idleness is more sublime 
 
 Than all our toil and all our wealth twice told. 
 W^e need not fret. To-night for us shall Faure, 
 
 Sara, Dupuis, or L'heritier unfold 
 New stores of mirth and music, and once more 
 We two shall sup, and at the Maison D'or.
 
 rilE IDLER'S CALENDAR. 49 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 TROUT-FISHING. 
 
 This morning, through my window, half awake, 
 
 I felt the south wind blow ; and presently, 
 With a tumultuous thrill and then a shake, 
 
 The nightingale broke forth in melody. 
 
 I rose in haste, and looked at the grey sky, 
 And read an omen. From its corner next 
 
 A book I drew, blest book, where fly on fly 
 Are all the letters of its well-thumbed text. 
 I chose my cast, a march-brown and a dun, 
 
 And ran down to the river, chasing hope. 
 At the first throw a mighty trout was on, 
 
 A very Samson, fit to burst a rope, 
 Yet tamed by one sad hank of yielding hair 
 
 And fate, the fisherman of king and pope. 
 Upon the grass he lies, and gasps the air, 
 Four silver pounds, sublimely fat and fair. 
 
 E
 
 so THE IDLER'S CALENDAR. 
 
 MAY. 
 
 THE LONDON SEASON. 
 
 I still love London in the month of May, 
 
 By an old habit, spite of dust and din. 
 I love the fair adulterous world, whose way 
 
 Is by the pleasant banks of Serpentine. 
 
 I love the worshippers at fashion's shrine, 
 The flowers, the incense, and the pageantry 
 
 Of generations which still ask a sign 
 Of that dear god, whose votary am I. 
 I love the "greetings in the market-place," 
 
 The jargon of the clubs. I love to view 
 The " gilded youth " who at the window pass, 
 
 Forever smiling smiles for ever new. 
 I love these men and women at their task 
 
 Of hunting pleasure. Hope, mysterious too, 
 Touches my arm and points, and seems to ask 
 " And you, have you no Juliet in the masque ? "
 
 THE IDLER'S CALENDAR. 51 
 
 JUNE. 
 
 A DAY AT HAMPTON COURT. 
 
 It is our custom, once in every year. 
 
 Mine and two others', when the chestnut trees 
 Are white at Bushey, Ascot being near. 
 
 To drive to Hampton Court, and there, at ease 
 
 In that most fair of English palaces, 
 Spend a long summer's day. What better cheer 
 
 Than the old " Greyhound's," seek it where you 
 please ? 
 And where a royal garden statelier ? 
 The morning goes in tennis, a four set, 
 
 With George the marker. 'Tis a game for gods. 
 Full of return and volley at the net. 
 
 And laughter and mirth-making episodes 
 Not wholly classic. But the afternoon 
 
 Finds us punt-fishing idly with our rods, 
 Nodding and half in dreams, till all too soon 
 Darkness and dinner drive us back to town.
 
 S2 THE IDLER'S CALENDAR. 
 
 JULY. 
 
 GOODWOOD. 
 
 To the high breezes of the Goodwood Down 
 
 London has fled, and there awhile forgets 
 Its weariness of limb on lawns new-mown 
 
 And in green shadows all its wars and frets. 
 
 Thither we too will bring our calumets 
 In sign of peace restored o'er fashion slain, 
 
 Weaning our souls from folly with small bets 
 Of gloves and crowns with laughing ringwomen. 
 The sport is fair, luck fair, and Nature's face 
 
 Fairest of all. We neither make nor mar 
 A fortune here. Yet we were rich with less 
 
 Than this week's pleasure conquered from the 
 year. 
 I would not for a million not have seen 
 
 Fred Archer finish upon Guinevere. 
 Hark ! They are off again, a half mile spin, 
 Four of the dozen backed and bound to win.
 
 THE IDLER'S CALENDAR. 53 
 
 AUGUST. 
 
 ON THE THAMES. 
 
 The river Thames has many a dear delight 
 
 In summer days for souls which know not guile, 
 Or souls too careless of the vain world's spite 
 
 To heed its frowning while the heavens smile. 
 
 In boyhood all our pleasure was in toil, 
 As with bent backs we laboured at the oar ; 
 
 We loved to spend our strength in the turmoil 
 Of speed disputed, conquered, conqueror. 
 But other years brought other joys. Alas ! 
 
 Where is fair Rosamund, our heart's first queen. 
 Whose foot so lightly trod with us the grass, 
 
 Though burdened with the hundred loves of men, 
 At Kew, at Skindle's ? But no more of this. 
 
 We still have joys, and still old Thames is green. 
 Still on his back we float awhile and press 
 His hand in hope, and call it happiness.
 
 54 THE IDLER'S CALENDAR. 
 
 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 FEAST OF ST. PARTRIDGE. 
 
 The only saint in all our calendar 
 
 Is good St. Partridge. 'Tis his feast to-day, 
 The happiest day of all a happy year, 
 
 And heralded as never yet was May. 
 
 The dawn has found us marshalled for the fray, 
 Striding the close-shorn stubbles ranked in line, 
 
 With lust of battle and with lust of play 
 Made glorious drunk as men are drunk with wine. 
 There go the coveys, forward birds and strong, 
 
 Bound for the mangold where they wheel and 
 stop. 
 Now, steady, men, and bring the left along. 
 
 A fortune waits us in each turnip-top. 
 With a wild shriek, and then a whirr of wings. 
 
 The covey rises. Brace and brace they drop, 
 Joining the dead ranks of forgotten things 
 In glorious death, the fierce delight of kings.
 
 THE IDLER'S CALENDAR. 55 
 
 OCTOBER. 
 
 GAMBLING AT MONACO. 
 
 A jewelled kingdom set impregnable 
 
 In gardens green which front the violet sea, 
 A happy fortress shut and guarded well, 
 
 And cradled ever on the mountain's knee. 
 
 Here M. Blanc, sad prince of industry, 
 Has reared the palace which men call his hell ; 
 
 And here in autumn days, when winds blow free, 
 Pleasure shall lead us to sin's citadel. 
 Alas for vice ! Yet, who dares moralize 
 
 In the hushed rooms, where fortune reigns alway ? 
 Her solemn priest, with chink of coin, replies 
 
 " Messieurs, faites votre jeu. Le jeu est fait." 
 Who dares be wise, lest wisdom's self be vexed ? 
 
 For all who come to preach remain to play. 
 Nay — leave poor vice, say I, her pleasant text. 
 Nor grudge her heaven in this world with the next.
 
 56 THE IDLER'S CALENDAR. 
 
 NOVEMBER. 
 ACROSS COUNTRY. 
 
 November's here. — Once more the pink we don, 
 
 And on old Centaur, at the coverside. 
 Sit changing pleasant greetings one by one 
 
 With friend and neighbour. Half the county's 
 pride 
 
 Is here to-day. Squire, parson, peer, bestride 
 Their stoutest nags, impatient to be gone. 
 
 Here, schoolboys on their earliest ponies ride. 
 And village lads on asses, not out-done. 
 But hark ! That sounds like music. Ay, by God ! 
 
 He's off across the fallow. " No, sirs, no; 
 " Not yet a minute, just another rod ! 
 
 " Then let him have it. Ho, there, tallyho ! " 
 Now that's worth seeing ! Look ! He's topped 
 the wall. 
 
 Leaving his whole field pounded in a row. 
 A first flight place to-day was worth a fall — 
 So forward each, and heaven for us all !
 
 THE IDLER'S CALENDAR. 57 
 
 DECEMBER. 
 
 AWAY TO EGYPT. 
 
 Enough, enough ! This winter is too rude. 
 
 Too dark of countenance, of tooth too keen. 
 Nature finds rebels now in flesh and blood, 
 
 And hearts grow sick for change and eyes for 
 green. 
 
 Let us away. What profits it that men 
 Are wise as gods, if winter holds its sway, 
 
 If blood be chilled, and numbness clasp the 
 brain ? 
 Frost is too stubborn. Let us then away ! 
 Away to Egypt ! There we may forget 
 
 All but the presence of the blessed sun. 
 There in our tents well-housed, sublimely set 
 
 Under a pyramid, with horse and gun, 
 We may make terms with Nature and, awhile, 
 
 Put as it were our souls to grass, and run 
 Barefooted and barehearted in the smile 
 Of that long summer which still girds the Nile.
 
 THE OLD SQUIRE. 
 
 I. 
 I like the hunting of the hare 
 
 Better than that of the fox ; 
 I like the joyous morning air, 
 
 And the crowing of the cocks. 
 
 II. 
 I like the calm of the early fields, 
 
 The ducks asleep by the lake, 
 The quiet hour which Nature yields, 
 
 Before mankind is awake. 
 
 III. 
 I like the pheasants and feeding things 
 
 Of the unsuspicious morn ; 
 I like the flap of the wood-pigeon's wings 
 
 As she rises from the corn.
 
 THE OLD SQUIRE. 59 
 
 I like the blackbird's shriek, and his rush 
 
 From the turnips as I pass by, 
 And the partridge hiding her head in a bush, 
 
 For her young ones cannot fly. 
 
 V. 
 
 I Uke these things, and I like to ride, 
 
 ^\^len all the world is in bed, 
 To the top of the hill where the sky grows wide, 
 
 And where the sun grows red. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The beagles at my horse heels trot. 
 
 In silence after me ; 
 There's Ruby, Roger, Diamond, Dot, 
 
 Old Slut and Margery, — 
 
 VII. 
 
 A score of names well used, and dear, 
 
 The names my childhood knew ; 
 The horn, with which I rouse their cheer, 
 
 Is the horn my father blew.
 
 6o THE OLD SQUIRE. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 I like the hunting of the hare 
 Better than that of the fox ; 
 
 The new world still is all less fair 
 Than the old world it mocks. 
 
 IX. 
 
 I covet not a wider range 
 Than these dear manors give ; 
 
 I take my pleasures without change, 
 And as I lived I live. 
 
 X. 
 
 I leave my neighbours to their thought ; 
 
 My choice it is, and pride. 
 On my own lands to find my sport, 
 
 In my own fields to ride. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The hare herself no better loves 
 The field where she was bred, 
 
 Than I the habit of these groves, 
 My own inherited.
 
 THE OLD SQUIRE. 6l 
 
 XII, 
 
 I know my quarries every one. 
 The meuse where she sits low ; 
 
 The road she chose to-day was run 
 A hundred years ago. 
 
 XIII. 
 The lags, the gills, the forest ways, 
 
 The hedgerows one and all, 
 These are the kingdoms of my chase. 
 
 And bounded by my wall ; 
 
 XIV. 
 Nor has the world a better thing, 
 
 Though one should search it round, 
 Than thus to live one's own sole king, 
 
 Upon one's own sole ground. 
 
 XV. 
 
 I like the hunting of the hare ; 
 
 It brings me, day by day, 
 The memory of old days as fair. 
 
 With dead men past away.
 
 62 THE OLD SQUIRE. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 To these, as homeward still I ply 
 And pass the churchyard gate, 
 
 Where all are laid as I must lie, 
 I stop and raise my hat. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 I like the hunting of the hare ; 
 
 New sports I hold in scorn. 
 I like to be as my fathers were. 
 
 In the days e'er I was born.
 
 SANCHO SANCHEZ. 
 
 I. 
 
 Sancho Sanchez lay a-dying in the house of 
 Mariquita, 
 For his life ebbed with the ebbing of the ral 
 wound in his side. 
 And he lay there as they left him when he came 
 from the Corrida 
 In his gold embroidered jacket and his red cloak 
 and his pride. 
 
 II. 
 But at cockcrow in the morning, when the con- 
 vents of Sevilla 
 Suddenly rang aloud to matins, Sanchez wakened 
 with a cry. 
 And he called to Mariquita, bade her summon his 
 cuadrilla, 
 That they all might stand around him in the 
 hour when he should die.
 
 64 SANCHO SANCHEZ. 
 
 III. 
 
 P'or he thought in his bold bosom, " I have ven- 
 tured with them often, 
 And have led the way to honour ujDon every 
 ring in Spain. 
 And now in this the hardest of the fields that I 
 have fought in 
 I would choose that every face of them were 
 witness of my pain. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " For their stern eyes would upbraid me if I went 
 down to the battle 
 Without a friend to cheer me, or at least a fool 
 to hiss. 
 And they hold it all unworthy men should die like 
 fatted cattle 
 Stricken singly in the darkness at the shambles 
 of Cadiz."
 
 SANCHO SANCHEZ. 65 
 
 V. 
 
 Then he bade the lamps be lighted, and he made 
 them bring a mirror, 
 Lest his cheeks should have grown paler in the 
 watches of the night. 
 For he feared lest his disciples should mistrust 
 his soul of terror, 
 When they came to look upon him, if they saw 
 his face was white. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Oh, long time in the mirror did he look with 
 awful smiling 
 At the eyes which gazed out at him, while the 
 women watched him mute. 
 And he marked how death's white fingers had 
 been clammily defiling 
 The redness of God's image and had wiped the 
 sunburns out. 
 
 F
 
 66 SANCHO SANCHEZ. 
 
 Then he spake, "Go fetch the carmine from the 
 side drawer of the table, 
 Where Mariquita keeps it." But, when it was 
 not found, 
 " 'Tis no matter," answered Sanchez, "we must 
 do what we are able." 
 And he painted his cheeks' paleness with the 
 red blood of his wound. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And anon there came a murmur as of voices and 
 a humming 
 On the staircase, and he knew them by their 
 footsteps at the door. 
 And he leant up on his pillow that his eyes might 
 see them coming 
 In their order of the plaza as they strode 
 across the floor.
 
 SANCHO SANCHEZ. 67 
 
 IX. 
 
 And when they stood around him, in their stately 
 mantas folded, 
 With a solemn grief outawing the brute laughter 
 of their eyes, 
 You had deemed them in the lamplight to be 
 bronzen statues moulded 
 Of the powers of Nature yielding a brave man 
 in sacrifice. 
 
 X. 
 
 But the soul of Sanchez quailed not, and he 
 laughed in their sad faces, 
 Crying loud to Mariquita for the Valdepenas 
 wine. 
 " A fair pig-skin, Caballeros, blushes here for your 
 embraces. 
 And I drink to you your fortune, and I pray 
 you drink to mine."
 
 68 SANCHO SANCHEZ. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Then they filled their leathern flagons, and they 
 held them up together 
 In a ghastly expectation till their chief should 
 give the sign. 
 And the red wine in the silence flowed like blood 
 adown the leather. 
 And the red blood from the pillow trickled 
 drop by drop like wine. 
 
 XII. 
 Spake the Master, * ' E'er I pledge you, look upon 
 me, men, and hearken, 
 For I have a thing to utter, and a dying man 
 is wise. 
 Death is weighing down my eyelids. Silently 
 your faces darken. 
 But another torch is lighted than the daylight 
 in my eyes.
 
 SANCHO SANCHEZ. 69 
 
 xiir. 
 "Life, I see it now as never I had thought to 
 comprehend it, 
 Like the lines which old Manola used to write 
 upon the sand, 
 And we looked on in wonder nor guessed till it 
 was ended 
 The birds and trees and faces which were grow- 
 ing from her hand. 
 
 XIV, 
 
 " Meaning was there from the outset, glorious 
 meaning in our calling, 
 In the voice of emulation and our boyhood's 
 pride of soul, 
 From the day when first the capa from our 
 father's shoulders falling 
 We were seized with inspiration and rushed out 
 upon the ball.
 
 70 SANCHO SANCHEZ. 
 
 XV. 
 
 " Meaning was there in our courage and the cahn 
 of our demeanour, 
 For there stood a foe before us which had need 
 of all our skill. 
 And our lives were as the programme, and the 
 world was our arena, 
 And the wicked beast was death, and the horns 
 of death were hell. 
 
 xvr. 
 "And the boast of our profession was a bulwark 
 against danger 
 With its fearless expectation of what good or ill 
 may come, 
 For the very prince of darkness shall burst forth 
 on us no stranger 
 When the doors of death fly open to the rolling 
 of the drum.
 
 SANCHO SANCHEZ. 1i 
 
 XVII. 
 
 " As I lay here in the darkness, I beheld a sign 
 from heaven, 
 Standing close a golden angel by the footpost 
 of my bed, 
 And in his hand a letter with the seal and arms 
 engraven 
 Of the glorious San Fernando which he bade 
 me read and read. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 ' ' And the message of his master, the blessed king 
 my patron, 
 Was to bid me in his honour to hold myself at 
 need 
 For this very day and morning of his feast and 
 celebration, 
 And in pledge of his high favour he had sent 
 me his own steed.
 
 72 SANCHO SANCHEZ. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 " For the lists of heaven were open, and that day 
 they had decreed it 
 There should be a special function for the glory 
 of his name. 
 And the beasts were Sevillanos, and a master's 
 hand was needed 
 Lest the swords of heaven should falter and 
 the Saint be put to shame. 
 
 XX. 
 
 "And I heard the potro stamping in the street, 
 and would have risen 
 But that Mariquita held me and the women and 
 my wound. 
 And, though the angel left me, it was truth and 
 not a vision, 
 And I know the Saint has called me, and the 
 place where I am bound.
 
 SANCHO SANCHEZ. 73 
 
 XXI, 
 " I shall fight this day in heaven, and, though all 
 hell shall assail me, 
 I have hope of a good issue, for perhaps I have 
 some skill, 
 And perhaps, if I should stumble or if my hand 
 should fail me, 
 There are others in the plaza who have vowed 
 me less than ill. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 " And my mantle of salvation is the faith which is 
 our charter, 
 And the Virgin of the Pillar my protector and 
 reward, 
 And the hosts of heaven my witness and each 
 Spanish Saint and Martyr, 
 And our Lord Don Santiago himself has lent 
 the sword. "
 
 74 SANCHO SANCHEZ. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Thus he spoke, and on his speaking fell a silence 
 and a wonder, 
 While the eyes of his companions turned in awe 
 from each to each, 
 And they waited in expectance for the gates to 
 roll asunder, 
 And the voices of the angels to command him 
 to the breach, — 
 
 XXIV, 
 
 Waited till the sun uprising sent his glory through 
 the chamber 
 And the spent lamps paled and flickered on the 
 shame of their dismay, 
 And the dying man transfigured passed in silence 
 from his slumber, 
 Like a king to coronation, in the light of his 
 new day.
 
 SANCHO SANCHEZ. 75 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Only they that stood the closest say the pale lips 
 curved and parted, 
 And the eyes flashed out in battle, and the 
 fingers sought the sword. 
 " 'Tis the President has called him," said Fernan- 
 dez the true hearted, 
 "He has thrown his hat behind him for the 
 glory of the Lord I "
 
 ACROSS THE PAMPAS. 
 I. 
 Dost thou remember, oh, dost thou remember. 
 
 Here as we sit at home and take our rest, 
 How we went out one morning on a venture 
 In the West? 
 
 II. 
 Hast thou forgotten in these English hedgerows, 
 
 How the great Pampas rolled out like the sea ? 
 Never a daisy in that mighty meadow ! 
 
 Never a tree ! 
 
 III. 
 Full were our hearts uj^on that sunny morning ; 
 
 Stout-handed and stout-hearted went we forth. 
 The warm wind in our faces breathed us fortune 
 
 From the North ;
 
 ACROSS THE PAMPAS. 77 
 
 IV. 
 
 And high in heaven the sun stood for a token. 
 
 We had no other sign by which to steer. 
 No landmark is there in the earth's great ocean, 
 
 For mariner. 
 
 V. 
 
 Dost thou remember how, when night was falling, 
 There in the middle plain, as best we might, 
 
 We set our little tent up as a fortress 
 For the night ? 
 
 VI. 
 
 Dost thou remember how, through the night 
 watches, 
 
 We listened to the voices of the plain. 
 The owls and plovers and the bold bischachas, 
 
 Talking like men ?
 
 78 ACROSS THE PAMPAS. 
 
 vir. 
 
 Drowsy we sat, and watched our horses feeding, 
 Dim through the night, while over the tent's 
 mouth 
 
 The Cross was turning like a clock and reeling 
 In the South. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 But, as the night grew out and we grew chilly, 
 Under our blankets safe we crept and warm, 
 
 Full of good heart and each with loaded pistols 
 Close to his arm ; 
 
 IX. 
 And so dreamed pleasant dreams of far off faces, 
 
 And trees and fields which we had loved in youth, 
 All in a maze of present apprehension 
 
 Mingled uncouth ;
 
 ACROSS THE PAMPAS. 79 
 
 X. 
 
 And how we travelled on and ever onwards, 
 Still in the red path of the setting sun, 
 
 Until into the heart of a great woodland 
 \Ve had come ; 
 
 XI. 
 
 And there saw, round about our strange encamp- 
 ment, 
 Flocks of bright birds which Hew and screamed 
 at us, 
 Red cardinals and woodpeckers and parrots 
 Multitudinous ; 
 
 XII. 
 
 And on the lake black -headed swans were sailing, 
 And in the morning to the water's brink 
 
 Flamingoes, like the rising sun, came wading 
 Down to drink.
 
 8o ACROSS THE PAMPAS. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Dost thou remember, oh dost thou remember 
 How, in that fatal wood, the mancaron 
 
 Found out a poisonous herb before his fellows, 
 And fed thereon ; 
 
 XIV. 
 
 And how we left him, and how Cresar sickened, 
 And how the sky grew dark and overcast. 
 
 And how two tragic days we rode on silent 
 In the blast ; 
 
 XV. 
 And how the wind grew icy and more icy, 
 
 Until we could not feel our hands or feet, 
 As sick at heart we sought in vain a hiding 
 
 From the sleet ;
 
 ACROSS THE PAMPAS. Si 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Lighting af last on a deserted post house, 
 \Yhere we found shelter from the wind, but 
 nought 
 
 Of entertainment for our souls or comfort 
 Of any sort ; 
 
 XVII. 
 And how in that wild pass brave Ccesar dying 
 Stretched out his hand towards the promised 
 land, 
 And saw as in a dream the white hills lying 
 Close at hand, — 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 For, e'er the sun set, suddenly that evening, 
 The great plain opened out beneath our feet, 
 
 And, in a valley far below, lay gleaming, 
 AYith square and street, 
 G
 
 82 ACROSS THE PAMPAS. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 And spire and dome and pinnacle, uprising 
 White on the bosom of a mountain slope, 
 
 To our amazement bodily the city 
 Of our hojie. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Dost thou remember, oh, dost thou remember 
 How the bells rang as, sick and travelworn, 
 
 A weary crew, we made our solemn entry 
 To the town ? 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Strangely, as phantoms out of the great desert. 
 
 We came into the city, and at last 
 Heard sound of Christian singing in the churches 
 
 As we passed :
 
 AC A' OSS THE PAMPAS. %l 
 
 XXII. 
 
 And laid at length our our weary limbs in rapture 
 Between the clean sheets of a Christian bed. 
 
 Oh ! there are things I think we shall remember 
 When we are dead.
 
 FROM THE ARABIC.
 
 FROM THE ARABIC. 
 I. 
 
 THE CAMEL-RIDER. 
 I. 
 
 There is no thing in all the world but love, 
 
 No jubilant thing of sun or shade worth one sad 
 
 tear. 
 Why dost thou ask my lips to fashion songs 
 Other than this, my song of love to thee ? 
 
 11. 
 See where I lie and pluck the thorns of grief, 
 Dust on my head and fire, as one who mourns his 
 
 slain. 
 Are they not slain, my treasures of dear peace ? 
 This their red burial is, sand heaped on sand.
 
 88 FROM THE ARABIC. 
 
 III. 
 Here came I in the morning of my joys. 
 Before the dawn was Ijorn, through the dark downs 
 
 I rode. 
 The low stars led me on as with a voice, 
 Stars of the scorpion's tail in the deep south. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Sighing I came, and scattering wide the sand. 
 No need had I to urge her speed with hand or heel, 
 The creature I bestrode. She knew my haste. 
 And knew the road I sought, the road to thee. 
 
 V. 
 
 Jangling her bells aloud in wantonness. 
 
 And sighing soft, she too, her sighs to my soul's 
 
 sighs ; 
 Behind us the wind followed thick with scents 
 Of incense blossoms and the dews of night.
 
 FROM THE ARABIC. 89 
 
 VI. 
 
 The thorn trees caught at us with their crook'd 
 
 hands ; 
 The hills in blackness hemmed us in and hid the 
 
 road ; 
 The spectres of the desert howled and warned ; 
 I heeded nothing of their words of woe. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Thus till the dawn I sped in my desire, 
 Breasting the ridges, slope on slope, till morning 
 
 broke ; 
 And lo ! the sun revealed to me no sign, 
 And lo ! the day was widowed of my hope. 
 
 VIII, 
 
 Where are the tents of pleasure and dear love, 
 Set in the Vale of Thyme, where winds in Spring 
 
 are fain ? 
 The highways of the valley, where they stood 
 Strongin their flocks, are there. But where are they?
 
 90 FROM THE ARABIC. 
 
 IX. 
 
 The plain was dumb, as emptied of all voice ; 
 No bleat of herds, no camels roaring far below 
 Told of their presence in the pastures void, 
 Of the waste places which had been their homes. 
 
 X. 
 
 I climbed down from my watch-tower of the rocks, 
 To where the tamarisks grow, and the dwarf palms, 
 
 alarmed. 
 I called them with my voice, as the deer calls, 
 Whose young the wolves have hunted from their 
 
 place. 
 
 XI. 
 
 I sought them in the foldings of the hill. 
 
 In the deep hollows shut with rocks, where no 
 
 winds blow : 
 I sought their footstep under the tall cliffs. 
 Shut from the storms, where the first lambs are 
 
 born.
 
 FROM THE ARABIC. 91 
 
 XII. 
 The tamarisk boughs had blossomed in the night, 
 And the white broom which bees had found, the 
 
 wild bees' brood. 
 But no dear signal told me of their life. 
 No spray was torn in all that world of flowers. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Where are the tents of pleasure and dear love. 
 
 For which my soul took ease for its delight in 
 
 Spring, 
 The black tents of her people beautiful 
 Beyond the beauty of the sons of kings ? 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The wind of war has swept them from their place. 
 Scattering them wide as quails, whom the hawk's 
 
 hate pursues ; 
 The terror of the sword importunate 
 Was at their backs, nor spared them as they flew.
 
 92 FROM 7'1/E ARABIC. 
 
 XV. 
 The summer wind has passed upon their fields ; 
 The rain has purged their hearth-stones, and made 
 
 smooth their floors ; 
 Low in the valley lie their broken spears, 
 And the white bones which are their tale forlorn. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Where are the sons of Saba in the South, 
 
 The men of mirth and pride to whom my songs 
 
 were sung, 
 The kinsmen of her soul who is my soul. 
 The brethren of her beauty whom I love ? 
 
 XVII. 
 
 She mounted her tall camel in the waste. 
 Loading it high for flight with her most precious 
 
 things ; 
 She went forth weeping in the wilderness, 
 Alone with fear on that far night of ill.
 
 FROM THE ARABIC. 93 
 
 XVIII. 
 She fled mistrusting, as the wild roe flees, 
 Turning her eyes behind her, while fear fled before ; 
 No other refuge knew she than her speed. 
 And the black land that lies where night is born. 
 
 XIX. 
 Under what canopy of sulphurous heaven, 
 Dark with the thunderclouds unloosing their mad 
 
 tongues, 
 Didst thou lie down aweary of thy burden, 
 In that dread place of silence thou hadst won ? 
 
 XX. 
 Close to what shelter of what naked rocks. 
 Carved with what names of terror of what kings 
 
 of old. 
 Near to what monstrous shapes unmerciful. 
 Watching thy death, didst thou give up thy soul ?
 
 94 FROM THE ARABIC. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Or dost thou live by some forgotten well, 
 Waiting thy clay of ransom to return and smile, 
 As the birds come when Spring is in the heaven, 
 And dost thou watch me near while I am blind ? 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Blind in my tears, because I only weep, 
 Kindling my soul to fire because I mourn my slain. 
 My kindred slain, and thee, and my dear peace. 
 Making their burial thus, sand heaped on sand. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 For see, there nothing is in all the world 
 But only love worth any strife or song or tear. 
 Ask me not then to sing or fashion songs 
 Other than this, my song of love tu thee.
 
 FROM THE ARABIC. 
 II. 
 
 THE DESOLATE CITY. 
 I. 
 
 Dark to me is the earth. Dark to me are the 
 heavens. 
 Where is she that I loved, the woman with eyes 
 like stars ? 
 Desolate are the streets. Desolate is the city, 
 A city taken by storm, where none are left but 
 the slain ! 
 
 II. 
 Sadly I rose at dawn, undid the latch of my shutters, 
 
 Thinking to let in light, but I only let in love. 
 Birds in the boughs were awake ; I listened to their 
 chaunting ; 
 Each one sang to his love ; only I was alone.
 
 96 FROM THE ARABIC. 
 
 HI. 
 This, I said in my heart, is the hour of life and of 
 pleasure, 
 Now each creature on earth has his joy, and lives 
 in the sun, 
 Each in another's eyes finds light, the light of 
 compassion, 
 This is the moment of pity, this is the moment of 
 love. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Speak, O desolate city ! Speak, O silence in sad- 
 ness ! 
 Where is she that I loved in my strength, that 
 spoke to my soul ? 
 Where are those passionate eyes that appealed to 
 my eyes in passion ? 
 Where is the mouth that kissed me, the breast 
 I laid to my own ?
 
 FROM THE ARABIC. 97 
 
 V. 
 
 Speak, thou soul of my soul, for rage in my heart 
 is kindled. 
 Tell me, where didst thou flee on the day of 
 destruction and fear ? 
 See, my arms still enfold thee, enfolding thus all 
 heaven. 
 See, my desire is fulfilled in thee, for it fills the 
 eartn. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Thus in my grief I lamented. Then turned I from 
 the window, 
 Turned to the stair, and the open door, and the 
 empty street, 
 Crying aloud in my grief, for there was none to 
 chide me, 
 None to mock at my weakness, none to behold 
 my tears. 
 
 H
 
 98 FROM THE ARABIC. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Groping I went, as blind. I sought her house, my 
 beloved's. 
 There I stopped at the silent door, and listened 
 and tried the latch. 
 Love, I cried, dost thou slumber? This is no hour 
 for slumber, 
 This is the hour of love, and love I bring in my 
 hand. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 I knew the house, with its windows barred, and 
 its leafless fig-tree. 
 Climbing round by the doorstep the only one in 
 the street ; 
 I knew where my hope had climbed to its goal and 
 there encircled 
 All that those desolate walls once held, my 
 beloved's heart.
 
 FROM THE ARABIC. 99 
 
 IX. 
 
 There in my grief she consoled me. She loved me 
 when I loved not. 
 She put her hand in my hand, and set her lips to 
 my lips. 
 She told me all her pain and showed me all her 
 trouble. 
 I, like a fool, scarce heard, hardly returned her 
 kiss. 
 
 X. 
 
 Love, thy eyes were like torches. They changed 
 as I beheld them. 
 Love, thy hps were like gems, the seal thou 
 set test on my life. 
 Love, if I loved not then, behold this hour thy 
 vengeance ; 
 This is the fruit of thy love and thee, the unwise 
 grown wise.
 
 loo FROM THE ARABIC. 
 
 XI. 
 
 WeeiDing strangled my voice. I called out, but 
 none answered ; 
 Blindly the windows gazed back at me, dumbly 
 the door ; 
 She whom I love, who loved nie, looked not on 
 my yearning, 
 Gave me no more her hands to kiss, showed me 
 no more her soul. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Therefore the earth is dark to me, the sunlight 
 blackness, 
 Therefore I go in tears and alone, by night and 
 day; 
 Therefore I find no love in heaven, no light, no 
 beauty, 
 A heaven taken by storm, where none are left 
 but the slain !
 
 FROM THE ARABIC. 
 III. 
 
 THE GRIEF OF LOVE. 
 I. 
 Love, I am sick for thee, sick with an absolute grief, 
 Sick with the thought of thy eyes and lips and 
 bosom. 
 All the beauty I saw, I see to my hurt revealed. 
 All that I felt I feel to-day for my pain and sorrow. 
 
 II. 
 
 Love, I would fain forget thee, hide thee in deeper 
 night, 
 Shut thee where no thought is, in the grave with 
 tears. 
 Love, I would turn my face to the wall and, if 
 needs be, die ; 
 Death less cruel were than thy eyes which have 
 blinded me.
 
 102 FROM THE ARABIC. 
 
 III. 
 
 Since thou art gone from me, glory is gone from 
 my life ; 
 Dumb arc the woods and streams, and dumb the 
 voice of my soul ; 
 Dead are the flowers we loved, blackened and sere 
 with blight, 
 Earth is frost-bound under my foot where our 
 footsteps trod. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Give me back for my sorrow the days of senseless 
 peace, 
 Days when I thought not of thee, or thought 
 in wisdom ; 
 Let me see thee once more as thou to my folly 
 wert, 
 A woman senseless as sounding brass or as 
 tinkling cymbal.
 
 FROM THE ARABIC. 103 
 
 V. 
 
 Why didst thou show me thy heart, which I thouglit 
 not of? 
 Why didst thou bare me thy soul, who to me 
 wert soulless ? 
 Why didst thou kiss my mouth, when my mouth 
 did mock ? 
 Why didst thou speak to my lips of love, e'er my 
 lips had spoken ? 
 
 VI. 
 
 Love, thou hast made me thine, thine, and in my 
 despite, 
 Laying thy hand on my heart in the soft Spring 
 weather ; 
 Love, thou hast bought my soul at a price, the price 
 of thine. 
 Never again to mock at love, ah, never, never !
 
 FROM THE ARABIC. 
 IV. 
 
 A LOVE SECRET. 
 
 I. 
 Love has its secrets, joy has its revealings : 
 
 How shall I speak of that which love has hid ? 
 If my beloved shall return to greet me, 
 
 Deeds shall be done for her none ever did. 
 
 II. 
 My beloved loved me. How shall I reveal it ? 
 
 We were alone that morning in the street. 
 She looked down at the ground, and blushed, and 
 trembled. 
 She stopped me with her eyes when these did 
 meet.
 
 FROM THE ARABIC. 105 
 
 III. 
 " What wouldst thou, sweet one ? What wouldst 
 thou with sorrow, 
 Thou, the new morning star with me, the night ? 
 What are those flowers thou holdest to thy bosom ? 
 What are the thoughts thou hidest from my 
 sight?" 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Thine are these flowers," she said, " these 
 foolish roses, 
 And thine the thoughts, if thus it be thy will. 
 I hold them close for fear that thou shouldst mock 
 me, 
 I hold them to my heart for fear of ill." 
 
 V. 
 
 ' ' Nay, what of ill ? 'Tis only age is evil, 
 Only forgetfulness and grief and pain ; 
 
 What dost thou know of grief, that thou shouldst 
 fear it ? 
 Mine is the grief who cannot love again."
 
 io6 FROM THE ARABIC. 
 
 VI. 
 
 She raised her eyes, she looked at me in 
 wonder, 
 "The ache is here," she said, "by night and 
 day ; 
 I cannot teach my heart to bear its burden, 
 I cannot turn my silence from its way." 
 
 VII. 
 
 " Speak to me, child. I am thy wise physician ; 
 
 A man acquainted with all grief can teach ; 
 There is no sorrow but has joy for sister, 
 
 No silence but finds counterpart in speech. " 
 
 VIII. 
 
 My beloved laughed. She saw through my dis- 
 sembling ; 
 
 She held to me her hand, that I might kiss, 
 The inside of her hand. 'Twas like a petal 
 
 Of her own roses, but more dear than this.
 
 FROM THE ARABIC. 107 
 
 IX. 
 
 I felt its pulses, like a bird in prison ; 
 
 "Sweet child," I said, "what wouldst thou I 
 should prove ? 
 I cannot make thee wiser than thy wisdom, 
 Who knowest all things since thou knowest 
 love." 
 
 X. 
 
 How shall I tell it ? How shall I reveal it ? 
 
 I led her by the hand, as thus I said, 
 Back from the street to where it stood, my dwelling, 
 
 And closed the door on where it stood, my bed. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Her laughter stopped. " Nay, use not thou un- 
 kindly, 
 Thine is the hand to deal or spare the blame ; 
 I dare not be to thee thus uninvited. 
 Thou dost not know me, hast not learned my 
 name. "
 
 loS FROM THE ARABIC. 
 
 XII. 
 
 How shall I tell it? How shall I reveal it? 
 
 Love in that instant found its latest birth, 
 " Soul of my soul," I cried, " thy name is Pleasure, 
 
 The sweetest thing to love on this sad earth." 
 
 XIII. 
 
 I held her in my arms, I pressed her fastly, 
 "Ah, if thou lovedst me indeed," she cried. 
 
 " I love thee, and I love thee," was my answer, 
 " My sister, my beloved one, my bride ! " 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Love has its secrets. Joy has its revealings. 
 
 I speak of this which love in vain has hid ; 
 If my beloved shall return to greet me. 
 
 Deeds shall be done for her none ever did.
 
 PASTORAL POEMS.
 
 WORTH FOREST. 
 
 A PASTORAL. 
 Come, Prudence, you have done enough to-day — 
 The worst is over, and some hours of pby 
 We both have earned, even more than rest, from 
 
 toil; 
 Our minds need laughter, as a spent lamp oil. 
 And after their long fast a recompense. 
 How sweet the evening is with its fresh scents 
 Of briar and fern distilled by the warm wind ! 
 How green a robe the rain has left behind ! 
 How the birds laugh ! — What say you to a walk 
 Over the hill, and our long promised talk 
 About the rights and wrongs of infancy ? 
 Our patients are asleep, dear angels, she 
 Holding the boy in her ecstatic arms, 
 As mothers do, and free from past alarms.
 
 112 WORTH FOREST. 
 
 The child grown cahii. If we, an hour or two, 
 Venture to leave them, 'tis but our hope's due. 
 My tongue is all agog to try its speed 
 To a new listener, like a long-stalled steed 
 Loosed in a meadow, and the Forest lies 
 At hand, the theme of its best flatteries. 
 See, Prudence, here, your hat, where it was thrown 
 The night you found me in the house alone 
 With my worst fear and these two helpless things. 
 Please God, that worst has folded its black wings, 
 And we may let our thoughts on pleasure run 
 Some moments in the light of this good sun. 
 They sleep in heaven's guard. Our watch to- 
 night 
 Will be the braver for a transient sight — 
 The only one perhaps more fair than they — 
 Of Nature dressed for her June holiday. 
 
 ****** 
 This is the watershed between the Thames 
 And the South coast. On either hand the streams 
 Run to the great Thames valley and the sea,
 
 WORTH FOREST. 113 
 
 The Downs, which should oppose them, servilely 
 Giving them passage. Who would think these 
 
 Downs, 
 Which look like mountains when the sea-mist 
 
 crowns 
 Their tops in autumn, were so poor a chain ? 
 Yet they divide no pathways for the rain, 
 Nor store up waters, in this pluvious age. 
 More than the pasteboard barriers of a stage. 
 The crest lies here. From us the I\Iedway flows 
 To drain the Weald of Kent, and hence the Ouse 
 Starts for the Channel at Nevvhaven. Both . 
 These streams run eastward, bearing North and 
 
 South. 
 But, to the West, the Adur and the Arun 
 Rising together, like twin rills of Sharon, 
 Go forth diversely, this through Shoreham gap. 
 And that by Arundel to ocean's lap. 
 All are our rivers, by our Forest bred. 
 And one besides which with more reverend heed 
 We need to speak, for her desert is great 
 
 I
 
 114 WORTH FOREST. 
 
 Beyond the actual wealth of her estate, — 
 
 For Spenser sang of her, the River Mole, 
 
 And Milton knew her name, though he, poor soul. 
 
 Had never seen her, as I think being blind, 
 
 And so miscalled her sullen. Others find 
 
 Her special merit to consist in this : 
 
 A maiden coyness, and her shy device 
 
 Of mole-like burrowing, — and in truth her way 
 
 Is hollowed out and hidden from the day, 
 
 Under deep banks and the dark overgrowth 
 
 Of knotted alder roots and stumps uncouth, 
 
 From source to mouth, and once at Mickleham, 
 
 She fairly digs her grave, in deed and name, 
 
 And disappears. — There is an early trace 
 
 Of this propensity to devious ways 
 
 Shown by the little tributary brook 
 
 Which bounds our fields, for lately it forsook 
 
 Its natural course, to burrow out a road 
 
 Under an ash tree in its neighbourhood. 
 
 But whether this a special virtue is, 
 
 Or like some virtues but a special vice.
 
 WORTH FOREST. 115 
 
 We need not argue. This at least is true, 
 That in the Mole are trout, and many too. 
 As I have often proved with rod and line 
 From boyhood up, blest days of pins and twine ! 
 How many an afternoon have our hushed feet 
 Crept through the alders where the waters meet, 
 Mary's and mine, and our eyes viewed the pools 
 Where the trout lay, poor unsuspecting fools, 
 And our hands framed their doom, — while over- 
 head 
 His orchestra of birds the blackbird led. 
 In those lost days, no angler of them all 
 Could boast our cunning with the bait let fall, 
 Close to their snouts, from some deceiving coigne, 
 Or mark more notches when v/e stopped to join 
 Our fishes head to tail and lay them out 
 Upon the grass, and count our yards of trout. 
 'Twas best in June, with the brook growing clear 
 After a shower as now. In dark weather 
 It was less certain angling, for the stream 
 Was truly "sullen " then, so deep and dim.
 
 1 1 6 IVOR Til FORES T. 
 
 'Tis thus in mountain lakes, as some relate. 
 Where the fish need the sun to sec the bait. 
 The fly takes nothing in these tangled brooks, 
 But grief to fishermen and loss of hooks ; 
 And all our angling was of godless sort, 
 With living worm, — and yet we loved the sport. 
 
 But wait. This path will lead us to the gill, 
 Wliere you shall see the Mole in her first rill. 
 E'er yet she leaves the Forest, and her bed 
 Is still of iron stone, which stains her red. 
 Yet keeps her pure and lends a pleasant taste 
 To her young waters as they bubble past. 
 You hear her lapping round the barren flanks 
 Of these old heaps we call the " Cinder-banks," 
 Wliere our forefathers forged their iron ore. 
 When Paul's was building. Now, the rabbits 
 
 bore 
 In the still nights, beneath these ancient heaps, 
 A very honeycomb. See, where she peeps, 
 The infant river. You could hardly wet
 
 WORTH FOREST. 117 
 
 Your ankles in her midmost eddy yet. 
 She has a pretty cunning in her look 
 Mixed with alarm, as in her secret nook 
 We find her out, half fugitive, half brave, 
 A look that all the Forest creatures have. 
 Let us away. Perhaps her guilelessness 
 Is troubled at a guilty human face, 
 (Mine, Prudence, — not your own). 
 
 I know a dell 
 Knee deep in fern, hard by, the very cell 
 For an elf hermit. Here stag-mosses grow, 
 Thick as a coverlet, and fox-gloves blow 
 Purple and white, and the wild columbine. 
 And here in May there springs that thing divine, 
 The lily of the valley, only here 
 Found in the Forest, blossoming year on year ; 
 A place o'ershadowed by a low-crowned oak. 
 The enchanted princess never had been woke 
 If she had gone to sleep in such a spot. 
 In spite of fortune. Why, a corpse forgot
 
 Ii8 WORTH FOREST. 
 
 Might lie, willi eyes appealing to the sky, 
 Unburicd here for half a century. 
 And this the woodcocks, as I take it, knew, 
 Who stayed to breed here all the summer through, 
 When other birds were gone. I flushed a pair 
 On the longest day last year— the nest was there — 
 And found some egg-shells chipped among the 
 
 moss ; 
 The sight is rarer now than once it was. 
 
 ^ it- ^ if. -If -Ifi 
 
 There : we have gathered breath and climbed the 
 
 hill, 
 And now can view the landscape more at will. 
 This is the Pilgrim road, a well-known track. 
 When folk did all their travelling on horseback, 
 Now long deserted, yet a right of way. 
 And marked on all our maps with due display. 
 Beneath this yew tree, which perhaps has seen 
 Our fathers riding to St. Thomas' shrine, 
 (For this was once the way of pilgrimage 
 From the south-west for all who would engage
 
 WORTH FOREST. 119 
 
 Their vows at Canterbury), we will sit. 
 
 As doubtless they too sat, and rest a bit. 
 
 I love this solitude of birch and fern, 
 
 These quags and mosses, and I love the stern 
 
 Black yew trees and the hoary pastures bare. 
 
 Or tufted with long growths of withered hair 
 
 And rank marsh grass. I love the bell-heath's 
 
 bloom, 
 And the wild wealth which passionate earth's 
 
 womb 
 Throws in the Forest's lap to clothe unseen 
 Its ancient barrenness with youth and green. 
 I love the Forest ; 'tis but this one strip 
 Along the watershed that still dares keep 
 Its title to such name. Yet once wide grown 
 A mighty woodland stretched from Down to Down, 
 The last stronghold and desperate standing-place 
 Of that indigenous Britannic race 
 \\Tiich fell before the English. It was called 
 By Rome "Anderida," in Saxon "Weald." 
 Time and decay, and man's relentless mood,
 
 I20 WORTH FOREST. 
 
 Have long made havock of the lower wood 
 
 With axe and plough ; — and now, of all the plain, 
 
 These breadths of higher ground alone remain, 
 
 In token of its presence. \Yho shall tell 
 
 How long, in these lost wilds of brake and fell. 
 
 Or in the tangled groves of oak below, 
 
 Gathering his sacred leaf, the mistletoe. 
 
 Some Druid priest, forgotten and in need. 
 
 May here have kept his rite and owned his creed 
 
 After the rest ? For hardly yet less rude, 
 
 Have later dwelt that patron of our wood, 
 
 The Christian Hermit Leonard, he who slew 
 
 The last authentic dragon England knew ; 
 
 A man of prayer and penitential vows, 
 
 ^Vhose tale survives in many a forest house. 
 
 For, having slain his monster, he was given 
 
 To choose whate'er he would in gift from heaven. 
 
 And took for his sole recompense this thing : 
 
 " Snakes should not bite, nor nightingales should 
 
 sing 
 Within the Forest precincts." Thus, thought he.
 
 WORTH FOREST. I2I 
 
 His orisons should unmolested be 
 By mundane joys and troubles. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Yonder ridge 
 Cutting the sky-line at the horizon's edge, 
 Is the Surrey Hills. Beneath the chalk pit, set 
 Like a white cloud upon the face of it, 
 Lies Dorking, famed for fowls,— and, further still, 
 Wotton and Shere ; in front you have Leith Hill, 
 Which looks upon St. Paul's and on the sea, 
 A point of note in our geography. 
 All this is Evelyn's land, who long ago 
 Left us his record of the vale below 
 And wrote the " Silva,"— now to hands as good 
 Passed, the descendant's of his name and blood. 
 That doughty squire's, who lately stood in fight 
 With the new dragons of the Primrose rite. 
 And broke a lance for Ireland and the cause 
 Of freedom, flouted by coercion laws. 
 Strange change ! For long in history these same 
 
 hills
 
 122 WORTH FOREST. 
 
 Were held as ominous of lowland ills, 
 
 A source of robber fear, in foul repute, 
 
 And natural fortress since the days of Knule, 
 
 And earlier still when Saxon Sussex stood 
 
 A home-ruled kingdom of primeval wood. 
 
 A camp, an eagle's nest, a foot set down 
 
 Into the Weald, and evil of renown 
 
 With the free dwellers of the plain, who saw 
 
 A menace brooding of imperial law, 
 
 Saxon or Dane or Norman, each in turn, 
 
 Set there his camp to pillage and to burn ; 
 
 For history, just as now, was mainly then 
 
 A tale of wars 'twixt regiments and men. 
 
 We, forest dwellers, show with honest boast 
 
 Our Slaughter Bridge, where the Norse horde 
 
 was lost, 
 Drowned in the red Mole waters, when the Dane 
 Fled from his eerie, nor returned again. 
 
 The farthest point of all, and looking west. 
 Is the line of Hindhead, on whose triple crest,
 
 WORTH FOREST. 123 
 
 With a good glass, a three inch telescope, 
 You might make out the cross upon the top : 
 It used to be a gibbet. As a child 
 What tales I treasured of that headland wild, 
 With its three murderers, who in chains there 
 
 hung, 
 Rocked by the winds and tempest-tossed and 
 
 swung ! 
 Three Portsmouth sailors were they who their 
 
 mate 
 Murdered for gold, and grog which guineas get, 
 And in the "Punch Bowl" made their brute 
 
 carouse. 
 Leaving him dead, in a lone public house. 
 Where retribution seized them as was due, — 
 For in that age of simple faiths and true, 
 Murder did always out, — and so apace 
 Brought them to justice in that self-same place ; 
 And many years they hung. At last its sway 
 Humanity, that child of yesterday, 
 Asserted in their case, and craved their bones
 
 124 WORTH FOREST. 
 
 For Christian sepulture and these trim stones. 
 I half regret the leniency thus lent : 
 Their gallows tree was their best monument ; 
 But ours is a trim age. 
 
 There, farther down, 
 Is a tower, or " folly," built of late by one 
 We call in these parts " Chevalier de Malt," 
 (The brewers love high places, and no fault). 
 Behind us the chief ridge — and, as I speak, 
 Out of its bowels, with an angry shriek, 
 And rushing down the valley at our feet. 
 The train has found us out in our retreat. 
 It came from Balcombe tunnel and is bound 
 To be in London e'er an hour is round. 
 It scarcely scares our solitude away ; 
 And yonder Royston crows, the black and grey, 
 Sit on unmoved upon their oak. This ridge 
 Is only thirty miles from London Bridge, 
 And, when the wind blows north, the London 
 smoke
 
 WORTH FOREST. 125 
 
 Comes down upon us, and the grey crows croak, 
 For the great city seems to reach about 
 With its dark arms, and grip them by the throat. 
 Time yet may prove them right. The wilderness 
 May be disforested, and Nature's face 
 Stamped out of beauty by the heel of Man, 
 Who has no room for beauty in his plan. 
 
 Such things may be, for things as strange have 
 
 been. 
 This very place, where peace and sylvan green 
 And immemorial silence and the mood 
 Of solemn Nature, virgin and unwooed, 
 Seem as a heritage, — this very place 
 Was once the workshop of a busy race 
 Which dug and toiled and sweated. Here once 
 
 stood. 
 Amid the blackened limbs of tortured wood. 
 And belching smoke and fury from its mouth, 
 A monstrous furnace, to whose jaws uncouth 
 A race as monstrous offered night and day
 
 125 WORTH FOREST. 
 
 The Forest's fairest offspring for a prey. 
 Here stood a hamlet, black and populous, 
 With human sins and sorrows in each house, 
 A mining centre. Which of us could guess 
 Each yew tree yonder marks a dwelling-place 
 Of living men and women ? — nay, a tomb ? 
 Of all the secrets hidden in Earth's womb, 
 None surely is more pitiful and strange 
 Than this of human death and human change 
 Amid the eternal greenness of the Spring. 
 All we may guess of what the years shall bring, 
 Is this : that about April every year, 
 White blossoms shall burst forth upon the pear 
 And pink upon the apple. Nothing else. 
 Earth has a silent mockery which repels 
 Our questioning. Her history is not ours, 
 And overlays it with a growth of flowers. 
 
 Ah, Prudence, you who wonder, being town bred, 
 What troubles grieve us in the lives we lead. 
 What cause we have for sorrov.- in these fields
 
 WORTH FOREST. 127 
 
 Whose beauty girds us with its thousand shields, — 
 This is our tragedy. You cannot know, 
 In your bald cities, where no cowslips blow, 
 How dear life is to us. The tramp of feet 
 Brushes all older footsteps from the street, 
 And you see nothing of the graves you tread. 
 With us they are still present, the poor dead. 
 And plead with us each day of life, and cry 
 " Did I not love my life, I too, even 1 ?" 
 You wonder ! — Wonder rather we are not 
 All touched with madness and disease of thought. 
 Being so near the places where they sleep 
 Who sowed these fields we in their absence reap. 
 It were more logical. And here in truth 
 No few of our Weald peasants in their youth 
 Lose their weak wits, or in their age go mad, 
 Brooding on sights the world had deemed most 
 
 glad. 
 I have seen many such. The Hammer Ponds, 
 So frequent in the Forest's outer bounds. 
 Have all their histories of despairing souls
 
 128 WORTH FOREST. 
 
 IJrought to their depths to find their true life s 
 
 goals. 
 You see one in the hollow, where the light 
 Touches its blackness with a gleam of white, 
 Deep down, and over-browed with sombre trees 
 Shutting its surface primly from the breeze, 
 The landscapes' innocent eye, set open wide 
 To watch the heavens, — yet with homicide 
 Steeped to the lids. 'Tis scarce a year ago 
 The latest sufferer from our rural woe 
 Found there his exit from a life too weak 
 To shield him from despairs he dared not speak. 
 A curious lad. I knew young Harden well, 
 Brought up, a farmer's son, at the plough's tail, 
 And used for all romance to mind the crows 
 At plain day-wages in his father's house. 
 A " natural " he, and weak in intellect, 
 His fellows said, nor lightly to be pricked 
 To industry at any useful trade. 
 His wits would go wool-gathering in the shade 
 At harvest time, when all had work on hand,
 
 WORTH FOREST. 129 
 
 Nor, when you spoke, would seem to understand. 
 At times his choice would be for days together 
 To leave his work and idle in the heather, 
 Making his bed where shelter could be found 
 Under the fern-stacks or on open ground, 
 Or oftenest in the charcoal burners' hives, 
 When he could win that pity from their wives. 
 Poor soul ! He needed pity for his face, 
 Scarred by a burn, and reft of human grace, 
 And for his speech which faltering in his head 
 Made a weak babble of the words he said. 
 His eyes too — what a monster's ! Did you ever 
 Watch a toad's face at evening by a river 
 And note the concentrated light which lies 
 In the twin topazes men call his eyes ? 
 Like these were Marden's. From the square of 
 
 clay 
 WTiich was his face, these windows of his day 
 Looked out in splendour, but with a fixed stare 
 Which made men start who missed the meaning 
 
 there. 
 
 K
 
 130 WORTH FOREST. 
 
 Yet he had thoughts. Not seldom he and I 
 Made in these woods discourse of forestry, 
 Walking together, T with dog and gun, 
 He as a beater, or, if game was none, 
 Marking the timber trees and underwoods. 
 He knew each teller in these solitudes, 
 And loved them with a quite unreasoned art. 
 Learned from no teacher but his own wild heart. 
 Of trees he quaintly talked in measured saws 
 Which seemed the decalogue of Nature's laws, 
 Its burden being as erst, "Thou shalt not kill " 
 Things made by God, which shall outlive thee 
 
 still. 
 For larch and fir, new comers from the North, 
 He pleaded scantly when their doom went forth. 
 Knowing they needs must die, and the birch 
 
 stems, 
 Since Spring renews them, yet with stratagems 
 Framed to delay the moment of their fate. 
 For beech he battled with more keen debate 
 Of hand and eye, in deprecating tone,
 
 WORTH FOREST. 131 
 
 Holding their rights coeval with our own. 
 But when we came to oak, good Sussex oak, 
 The flame burst forth, and all his being spoke 
 In words that jostled in his throat with tears, 
 " An oak which might outlive a thousand years." 
 He held this sacrilege. Perhaps some strains 
 Of Druid blood were mingled in his veins, 
 A\Tiich gave authority to guard the tree 
 Sacred of yore, and thus he vanquished me. 
 
 How came he to his end, poor Marden ? Well, 
 All stories have their reason, as some tell. 
 In Eves that give the fruit for which men grieve. 
 Or, what is often worse, refuse to give. 
 This last was Marden's unprotected case, 
 WTiose virtue failed him, and his ugliness, 
 To escape the common fate of all mankind. 
 He fell in love egregious and purblind. 
 Just like the wisest. She who caused his flame 
 Was not, I think, in honesty 10 blame 
 If she was less than serious at his suit.
 
 132 WORTH FOREST. 
 
 Harden, as lover, was grotesquely mute, 
 
 And his strange eyes were not the orbs to move 
 
 A maiden's fancy to a dream of love. 
 
 In truth they were scarce human. Still 'twas hard 
 
 His passion should be met, for sole reward. 
 
 With sermon phrases and such gospel talk 
 
 As preachers license for a Sunday walk, 
 
 Mixed with her laughter. This was all she gave. 
 
 An endless course of things beyond the grave, 
 
 Till he lost reckoning and, poor witless man. 
 
 Began to reason on the cosmic plan, 
 
 Which meted this scant mercy in his case. 
 
 And plaeed him in such straits for happiness. 
 
 Can you not see it ? All our rustics live 
 
 In iheir small round of thoughts as in a hive. 
 
 Each cell they build resembling each each day. 
 
 Till their wits swarm, and then they are away. 
 
 Harden went mad, misled by his queen bee, 
 
 Through a deep slough of black theology, 
 
 Which ended in destruction and this pool. 
 
 With hell beyond him for his poor dumb soul.
 
 WORTH FOREST. 133 
 
 He sought her final pity for love lost. 
 
 She talked of heaven, and sent him tracts by post. 
 
 He pleaded. She reproved. She prayed. He 
 
 swore. 
 She bade him go. He went, and came no more. 
 Such was the history, no whit uncommon. 
 I neither blame the boy nor blame the woman, 
 Only the hardness of a fate which laid 
 Its iron flail upon too weak a head. 
 She watched him go, half doubting what would 
 
 come. 
 Her last tract crushed betwixt his angry thumb 
 And his clenched fingers, and his lips grown 
 
 white, 
 And his eyes gleaming with their maniac light, 
 And so towards the hill. 
 
 That afternoon. 
 The last of a late autumn, saw the sun 
 Set in unusual splendour, (it is said 
 A disc of gold in a whole heaven of red),
 
 134 WORTH FOREST. 
 
 The herald of a frost, the earliest 
 
 Known for a lifetime. There, for summer dressed, 
 
 The trees stood stiff and frozen in their green, 
 
 Belated revellers in some changing scene 
 
 Of sudden winter, and June left behind. 
 
 In all the forest was no breath of wind 
 
 For a full fortnight, nor was a leaf shed 
 
 Long after Nature in her shroud lay dead, 
 
 A beautiful black frost which held the land 
 
 In unseen fetters, but with iron hand. 
 
 The pools were frozen over in the night, 
 
 Without a flaw or ripple ; and their light 
 
 Reflected every stem of every tree 
 
 In perfect mirrors of transparency. 
 
 Boys, who a week before were in the field 
 
 With bat and ball, now ventured, iron-heeled. 
 
 On the ice, skating, yet awhile in fear. 
 
 Seeing no footing on the water there. 
 
 And thus it fell about the corpse was found — 
 
 You will have guessed it — in the ice fast bound. 
 
 Two boys, the brothers of the girl he wooed.
 
 WORTH FOREST. I35 
 
 Tired of their pastime stopped awhile and stood 
 Over a shallow place where rushes grow, 
 And peering down saw a man's face below 
 Watching their own ;— his eyes were open laid, 
 Fixed in that terrible stare poor Marden's had — 
 And thought they saw a vision. Running back. 
 Loud in their fear, with spectres on their track, 
 They spread the news through all the frightened 
 
 farms, 
 Filling the cottSgers with wild alarms. 
 Till some made bold with spades, and hewed 
 
 away 
 The ice above to where the dead man lay. 
 There, sure enough, was Marden, his fool's mouth 
 Stuffed for all solace of his sad soul's drouth 
 With the girl's tracts. Thus primed, he had 
 
 plunged in 
 And ended all, with a last deed of sin, 
 Grotesque and tragic as his life. No less 
 Let us persuaded be he rests in peace, 
 Or where were heaven's justice?
 
 136 WORTH FOREST. 
 
 One last tale, 
 As we walk back, — of worthy Master Gale, 
 Our house's founder, who in a dark age 
 Won us the lands we liold in heritage, 
 Working his forge here in the civil wars, 
 And welding fortunes out of iron bars. 
 A story with a moral too, at least, 
 For money makers, of how wealth increased, 
 Antl most of all for us, to whom his toil 
 Has proved a mine of ease and endless spoil. 
 Though of a truth we are unlineal heirs, 
 Not true descendants of his toils and cares. 
 His history stands recorded in a book 
 Himself achieved, e'er Death his anvil broke, 
 A volume full of wisdom and God's praise. 
 Trust in himself, and scorn of human ways. 
 He was a blacksmith, born at Sevenoke 
 In Kent, the toilsome son of toilsome folk, 
 And honourable too, as honour then 
 Was understood among commercial men. 
 He paid his way through life. He owed to none
 
 WORTH FOREST. 137 
 
 Beyond their will to let the debt run on, 
 Nor trusted any farther than he need. 
 He held the race of man a bastard breed, 
 An evil generation, bred of dust. 
 And prone to spending, idleness and lust. 
 God was his friend. Of Him he counsel took, 
 How he should make new ventures with new luck. 
 Praying each night continuance of health. 
 Increase of wisdom and increase of wealth ; 
 Nor ever in his yearly balance sheet 
 Forgot to inscribe himself in heaven's debt. 
 A virtuous man, and holding with good cause 
 The eternal justice of the social laws 
 Which give to industry its well-earned meed, 
 And leave the weak and idle to their need. 
 From childhood up, he clutched the staff of life, 
 As if it were a cudgel for the strife, 
 And wielded it throughout relentlessly. 
 His parents, brothers, all by God's decree. 
 Died of the plague when he was scarce sixteen. 
 ~ The date, as I have reckoned, should have been
 
 138 WORTH FOREST. 
 
 The very year the patriots raised their backs 
 To the new pressure of the shipping tax. 
 His first fight was a battle for the pence 
 Left by his father, when, at dire expense 
 Of lawyer's fees and charges without end, 
 He found himself with fifty pounds to spend, 
 And a small stock-in-trade of iron sows, 
 A fireless smithy and an empty house. 
 With these and God's compassion, and a man 
 To strike and blow for him, his trade began, 
 Till in four years his industry had grown 
 To a fair substance in his native town. 
 
 When he was twenty-one, an accident 
 Brought him to Sussex ; and, as Saul was sent 
 To find his father's asses and therewith 
 Met with a kingdom, so this honest smith. 
 While chasing a bad debtor through the Weald, 
 Lit of his fortune in this very field. 
 For, failing of his money, in its stead 
 He took his debtor's forge and smelting shed ;
 
 WORTH FOREST. 139 
 
 Sold his goodwill at Sevenoke, and set 
 
 His smithy in the Forest next to it. 
 
 This brought him trade. The civil wars began 
 
 And each man's hand was set against each man, 
 
 And sword to sword. But, while his neighbours 
 
 fought, 
 Gale like a Gallio cared for these things nought, 
 And sold his iron with indifferent zeal 
 To kings and Parliaments in need of steel ; 
 Or, if a prejudice his thought divides. 
 It is for Cromwell and his Ironsides. 
 But God's be all the glory, His alone 
 Who to His serv'ant Gale such grace had shown ! 
 
 Thus in an iron age this thrifty man 
 Got gold and silver, and, while others ran 
 Out of their fortunes, he with pockets full 
 Bought up their lands and held the world a fool. 
 'Tis now two hundred years since Father Gale 
 Laid down his pick and hammer. He had won 
 By forty years of toil beneath the sun
 
 140 WORTH FOREST. 
 
 The right to work no longer, for himself 
 And for his heirs for ever. This is Wealth ! 
 He was a prudent buyer, and died possessed 
 Of some four thousand acres of the best 
 Land in the parish. His first purchases 
 Were in Worth Forest, to his vulgar eyes 
 I fear mere wood for burning. Pease pottage 
 And Frog's hole farms came next ; and in his age. 
 Wishing, as he says, to have a good estate 
 And house to live in, though the day was late 
 To think of building, and he most abhorred 
 To waste his substance upon brick and board, 
 Holding with prudent minds that such intent 
 Is but at best a " sweet impoverishment " 
 And that the wise man doth more soundly hit 
 Who turns another's folly to his wit, 
 He purchased Caxtons, manor and domain, 
 To be the home of a new race of men. 
 
 His last words, as recorded by his son, 
 A man of taste and letters and who won
 
 WORTH FOREST. 141 
 
 A seat in Parliament in William's reign, 
 
 Were uttered in the ancient Biblic strain 
 
 Dear to the age he lived in and to him. 
 
 They might be David's in their cadence grim. 
 
 " When I am dead and gone," he said, "my son. 
 
 Trust in the Lord and in none other, none. 
 
 Be wary of thy neighbours. They are \'ile, 
 
 A brood of vipers, to oppose whose guile 
 
 I have been at constant charges all my life, 
 
 Take thee an honest woman for thy wife, 
 
 And get thee sons who shall inherit all 
 
 Thy God hath given thee, spite of Adam's fall. 
 
 Guard well thy rights, and cease not to pull down 
 
 All gates that block thy highway to the town. 
 
 Such as that man of Belial, Jacob Sears, 
 
 Has set in Crawley Lane these thirty years. 
 
 Let no man venture to enclose the wastes. 
 
 Be on thy guard against such ribald priests 
 
 As Lee and Troughton. They are an ill brood, 
 
 A bastard generation, bone and blood. 
 
 Hold fast to thy religion. Go not thou
 
 142 WORTH FOREST. 
 
 After lewd women and the worldly show 
 Of rich apparel. Keep thy substance close 
 In thy own chamber for the fear of loss, 
 And thy own counsel closer, lest men find 
 Their way to rob thee of thy peace of mind. 
 But, more than all, be quit of vain pretence, 
 And see thy income equal thy expense, 
 So shall thou have thy God with thee alway." 
 
 Thus runs the story. You have seen to-day 
 
 The latest shoot of his posterity. 
 
 The boy we left there sleeping. His shall l)e 
 
 One day the guardianship of this domain, 
 
 As other Gales have held it. It were vain 
 
 In me to speak of all the goodly fruit 
 
 Begotten on the stem of this old root. 
 
 This sour crab-apple, worthy master Gale. 
 
 This child perhaps . . . But that will be a 
 
 tale 
 For new historians.
 
 WORTH FOREST, 143 
 
 Listen ! Did you hear 
 Just now, down in the valley, someone cheer 
 Or hail us ? Stop. Ay, there there comes a man, 
 Running and shouting loud as a man can. 
 He sees us too, and slowly through the fern 
 Now climbs to meet us. Something we shall 
 
 learn 
 Without a doubt. God grant it be not ill ! 
 And yet he seems to falter and stand still. 
 What is your message, Penfold ? Why this haste ? 
 A little closer. Speak, man ! Here at last 
 You have found us. Come. What is it that you 
 
 said? 
 See, we have courage. 
 
 " Sir, the child is dead ! "
 
 "SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 
 
 1. 
 
 How beautiful is life — the physical joy of sense 
 and breathing ; 
 The glory of the world which has found speech 
 and speaks to us ; 
 The robe which summer throws in June round the 
 white bones of winter ; 
 The new birth of each day, itself a life, a world, 
 a sun ! 
 
 n, 
 
 I love all things that are young and happy and 
 eternal, 
 Eternal in their change and growth as I too 
 changing grow. 
 Old am I, and how many voices that I loved are 
 heard not ! 
 Yet the world lives, and in its life I live and 
 laugh and love.
 
 ''SED NOS QUI VIVIMUSr 145 
 
 III. 
 
 I woke to-day at daybreak, thrilled with a new 
 sense of pleasure near me, 
 Because a bird sang at my window and had 
 ceased, afraid. 
 Awhile I lay and listened conscious only of my 
 being. 
 The same fool school-boy as in days gone by, 
 nerve, sinew, vein. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Who tells us we are changed, that we with our 
 wise years grow older ? 
 I am a poet, — may be patriot, soldier, statesman, 
 priest. 
 Yet none the less I lay to-day and watched in 
 childish wonder 
 The flies tie and untie their knots, a mystery 
 unrevealed. 
 
 L
 
 146 ''SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 
 
 V. 
 The flies' way in the air perplexed me ever and 
 perplexes 
 No less this hour than in old time— so Solomon 
 the wise, 
 Spite of his wit, essayed in vain the riddle of the 
 eagles ; 
 And I a child to-day lay there, a child, less than 
 a child. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And I heard tones well-known and prudent words 
 and phrases ventured 
 Gently to chide me for hours wasted thus in 
 ease, 
 Till I too spoke and vowed aloud new ways of life 
 amended. 
 And for the thousandth time in pain arraigned 
 and blamed my dreams.
 
 ''SED NOS QUI VlVIMUSr I47 
 
 VII. 
 
 Then I rose hastily, as one who hears and fears 
 reproving, 
 Although, God help me, there is living none 
 now dares to chide or blame, 
 And I broke through the curtain of the dusk, and 
 from the orient 
 The sun's face through the window smiled, the 
 lord of a new day. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 How dare I grieve in the fair presence of the lord 
 of morning ? 
 How dare I not rejoice who thus its king in 
 Eden reign ? 
 God's peace is on this place proclaimed, and named, 
 and promised, 
 A sentient joy of living things which fills and 
 thrills the earth.
 
 148 ''SED NOS QUI VI VIM US." 
 
 IX. 
 Here all things joyous are. Birds breed in sedge 
 and thicket ; 
 Hares feed in pairs, and squirrels leap from spray 
 to spray ; 
 Dead limbs of elms make nests for the wood- 
 peckers ; 
 The coots' cry from the mere comes loud and 
 tells of rain. 
 
 X. 
 
 Naught here may harm or hurt. This is a 
 sanctuary 
 For the world's weak, hedged in with love and 
 fenced and sealed — 
 Man its sole outcast, the earth's mad disturber 
 branded 
 Still with the mark of Cain and death from 
 which life flees.
 
 "SED NOS QUI VJVIMUS." 149 
 
 XI. 
 Thus musing in my pride, and shame too some- 
 what, I descended, 
 Led by invisible hands towards the trees and 
 fields below. 
 Along these self-same paths my childhood ran 
 exulting, 
 Following the poor lost dead who loved them 
 as I love. 
 
 XII. 
 
 What was their pride then in their leafy fair 
 possession, 
 Theirs in their day, who planned these glades 
 and thickets round ! 
 How has their presence vanished from the silent 
 pastures. 
 The poor lost dead who held my hand and 
 loved them as I love !
 
 ISO ''SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 
 
 XIII. 
 Yet not to mourn I came. No day of joy de- 
 stroyed deserves our anguish. 
 Pleasure's whole soul is this, to feel the living 
 stream which flows. 
 That which they did I do. In me they live un- 
 vanquished. 
 My voice is theirs to-day, my step their step, my 
 soul their soul. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 For them I live ungrieving, and ungrieved their 
 fruit I gather 
 From trees they planted bravely in their pride 
 of life and time. 
 They fashioned these old gardens. Let my soul 
 their joy inherit, 
 Their passion heaped on passion, life on life, for 
 my life's prize.
 
 "SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS:' 151 
 
 XV. 
 
 Who were they all ? Some names they bore well • 
 known, some others fameless, 
 A box of parchments yellow lies in the dull 
 dust of age ; 
 A few poor letters, written by fond hands to 
 fonder faces ; 
 Through all the passionate love of home, this 
 home of mine, once theirs. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The primceval tiller of the soil enjoyed, the soil 
 ancestral — 
 Whence came he ? What his lineage ? Nay, 'tis 
 hidden. Some have told 
 Tales of high daring done, lands won, through 
 lines remote descending 
 From old Norse sources and the potent loins of 
 kings and gods ;
 
 152 ''SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Or, with less pomp, of armoured knights, when 
 knights were held heroic, 
 Of prudent counsellors and priests and men 
 revered for law, 
 Dim-featured ghosts of vanished names set in for- 
 gotten story, 
 Pleading for memory still of their last son through 
 years of change. 
 
 XVIII, 
 
 And yet I know not. Truth and fable here are 
 strangely blended. 
 Nay, rather let me set before my face in fancy 
 one 
 Like to myself, a clod of Sussex earth more kindly 
 kneaded, 
 And mostly noble through the love of right the 
 sense of wrong.
 
 ''SED NOS QUI VIVIAWS." 153 
 
 XIX. 
 
 I see him stand beneath these pollard oaks, the 
 same, hard-handed, 
 With hook, and axe, and bill, a wrestler with 
 the forest's green, 
 A man grave-featured, dull of thought and wit, 
 slow-paced, unyielding, 
 Stern in his toil and niggard still of smile and 
 sign and speech. 
 
 XX. 
 
 The woodland round him a vast sea was then, 
 whose scattered islands 
 Were these few acres conquered hardly by men 
 whole of heart, 
 Spite of the demons and wild spectral elves that 
 held the forest 
 And deadly dragons haunting still in guile the 
 undrained morass.
 
 1 54 ''SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Who knows ? a servant he, may be, of our good 
 saint and patron. 
 The cloistered friar, who for his life-long penance 
 vowed and done, 
 And for some monsters slain, had claimed in sole 
 reward and guerdon 
 The wood birds' silence round him while he 
 made his prayer at noon. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 How have the birds grown jubilant once more in 
 song and Godless, 
 In these unchastened days when men have ceased 
 to kneel or pray ! 
 This peasant knelt in faith. The world to him 
 had nothing joyous. 
 Death, like a spectre, dogged him close with fears 
 of heaven and hell.
 
 "SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 155 
 
 XXIII. 
 And yet he loved these lands. Here haply a 
 strange breadth of freedom 
 Was from all lords and kings by reason of the 
 forest fear. 
 \Miat warrior dared to search these "antres vast and 
 desarts idle " 
 For such poor scattered few freeholders as its 
 fastness held ? 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 The Roman, Dane and Norman from the Down, 
 their distant eerie. 
 Looked forth, but only looked. The swamps 
 of trackless mire 
 Clogged all their chariot wheels who dared by 
 force of arms to venture 
 With horse and spear and rider through these 
 perilous bogs accursed.
 
 IS6 "SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 
 
 XXV. 
 
 And thus he lived and died, unknown to all, un- 
 tamed, unlorded, 
 This silent first forefather of the paternal woods 
 reclaimed. 
 Holding his place beneath the sun with sullen 
 desperate caution 
 On the square plot of up-turned acres that his 
 spade had made. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Lives there in me his son still something of his 
 hardy sinew. 
 Something of his heroic soul? Still darkly arched 
 o'erhead 
 The forest speaks to me, its child. I hoard and 
 count and reckon 
 As my birth's right and prize these lands and 
 look askance at men.
 
 "SED NOS QUI VIVIMUSr 157 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Deep in my soul he lies. Nor less the rest, the 
 the crew penurious 
 Of careful tillers, holding gold achieved more 
 dear than ease. 
 The covetous of farms, still grimly set through 
 generations 
 To add their store of value won to the ancestral 
 fields. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 The wealth they made that day is mine, the glades 
 reclaimed, the hamlets, 
 The treasure of the earth deep delved in reigns 
 Plantagenet, 
 The store of iron ore heaped high for needs of 
 civil battle, 
 When men in armour trod the flying heels of 
 armed men.
 
 IS8 ''SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 
 
 XXIX. 
 Some gathered fortune boldly daring. Truce then 
 to the forest. 
 Some spent their store in lordly wassail, brawl- 
 ing and lewd wine. 
 What anger was twixt neighbours there, twixt sire 
 and son what contest ! 
 What bonds usurious countersigned enriched the 
 hands of guile ! 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Still in their stubbornness of blood they stood, these 
 my own fathers, 
 Through whom the thread of life, a feeble cord 
 by fortune spnn 
 And loosed upon Time's tempest, to their latest 
 born descended. 
 And with the life the lands redeemed which thus 
 unshorn he loves.
 
 ''SED NOS QUI VI VIM us:' 159 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Justice, and squire, and clerk, and graduate of 
 humaner letters ! 
 Here history spreads her written page for certain 
 truth to record. 
 On these green lawns rose novel shapes, trim walks 
 and classic gardens. 
 Decked with Italian forms in stone of nymph 
 and faun and god. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Thus was I born. And lo, their golden leaves re- 
 newed each summer 
 The oak trees weave for me as them, sublimely, 
 
 blindly dumb, 
 Holding their secrets closely shut, nor even to my 
 
 cunning 
 
 Yielding a word but this, alas for thee ! and woe 
 
 for man !
 
 i6o " SED JVOS QUI VIVIMUS." 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Woe for his valour, woe for thine ! Time still shall 
 all things vanquish, 
 Folly and virtue, lusts of youth, mad griefs, sub- 
 lime designs. 
 The courage of high manhood feebly striving and 
 then failing. 
 Yonder behold the churchyard is, heaped high 
 with thy own kind. 
 
 XXXIV, 
 
 Here I broke off, in sudden exclamation loud dis- 
 claiming 
 
 This new insistence of my foolish soul's disease 
 of grief. 
 The day's work calls me, to my soul I said, a day 
 of labour. 
 Or only laboured idleness yet clear at least of 
 tears.
 
 ''SED NOS QUI VIVIMUSr i6i 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Therewith I turned the latch before me of the low 
 cow's-stable, 
 Where, with her udders full and lowing loud to 
 hear me near, 
 Stood my cow Myrtle, large eyed, moon faced, 
 brindle-hided, patient. 
 Waiting my footstep on the path which every 
 morn she hears. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Wliat does she meditate on all things, brute, 
 divine and human, 
 This mild-eyed mother ? She too loves the knee- 
 deep fields she knows 
 With the same reasonless desire and natural greed 
 of longing. 
 And this between us hidden deep is a strong 
 bond of love. 
 
 M
 
 i62 "SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Her pulses can beat wildly too with rage and 
 subtle passion 
 When from her herd she strays. And once each 
 Spring, with fortune cloyed, 
 For a brief month she knows all heaven's love and 
 rapturous pleasure, 
 Fondling the thing new born, which is her own, 
 her soul, her joy. 
 
 XXXVIII, 
 
 I love to touch the links of life between us, the 
 blind kindness 
 Of joy unreasoned, solace in the sun, in shade 
 delight. 
 The unhuman part of Man is still the best, his love 
 of children, 
 His love of meads and vales at home, his fond- 
 ness for his kind.
 
 "SED NOS QUI VI VIM US." 163 
 
 XXXIX. 
 Let me extenuate naught in thought, nor set down 
 aught in malice. 
 Here, Myrtle, is that thing thou lovest best, thy 
 feed of corn. 
 Give me in turn thy peace of soul, peace passing 
 understanding, 
 Thy trust each vain sweet day renewed sublime 
 in Man thy god. 
 
 XL. 
 How beautiful is life, the conscious power of 
 thought in action, 
 The brain's imperious will commanding fate 
 within its sphere ! 
 Around it the world's forces, prisoned Jinns, obey 
 the magician. 
 Tamed and constrained for his delight their 
 allotted tasks to weave.
 
 1 64 ''SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 
 
 XLI. 
 
 And what were life unlabouring, life even here in 
 
 this dear Eden, 
 
 Were there no toil ? Eternal perfectness in idle 
 
 round 
 
 Is God's sole lot to taste, not ours whom rage of 
 hope possesses 
 
 And Time disturbs with tales of change, and 
 
 dark oblivion goads. 
 
 ( 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Our actions are our monument. The prince in 
 slaughtered thousands 
 Carves his red name on fields of war that he may 
 sounder sleep. 
 The Statesman fashions high his sluggard pride to 
 patriot glories 
 That he may lie entombed with kings while 
 kings and kingdoms grieve.
 
 "SED NOS QUI VIVIMUSr 165 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 The prophet as of old speaks, " Rise, ye mourners, 
 from your bondage. 
 Get ye from hence and flee away afar lest evil 
 come ', 
 Behold, the Lord shall lead you forth through 
 deserts to new pastures, 
 Thus shall ye do, and thus," and he too sleeps 
 his sleep with God. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Nor less the poet. Chosen to sing of an Eternal 
 beauty, 
 Dares he be silent in his day and leave his tale 
 untold ? 
 How shall he wait on, idly, he a hireling without 
 wages. 
 Lest in the night untried of toil he wake and cry 
 aloud ?
 
 1 66 "SED NOS QUI VI VIM US." 
 
 XLV. 
 
 There is a record given him he must needs in 
 deeds accomplish, 
 A tale of transient things his eyes have seen, his 
 ears have heard ; 
 And he a traitor were if dying dumb they too should 
 vanish, 
 And fill the forgotten lapses lost of the unnum- 
 bered years ; 
 
 XLV I. 
 Memories of times departed, each hour filled to 
 the brim with promise ; 
 Voices how sweet of human souls whose dreams 
 are with them laid ; 
 Echoes of laughters fraught with tears since joy has 
 turned to sorrow ; 
 Footsteps of dancing feet long gone to rest where 
 grasses wave ;
 
 ''SED NOS QUI VlVIMUSr 167 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Tender, sad vows of women, how passionately 
 appealing 
 To eyes they loved, nor deeming day nor night 
 itself too long 
 For their blest service,'sieging heaven amain in vain 
 for pity, 
 And holding earth and fate too strait for their 
 wide arms of love ; 
 
 XLVIII, 
 
 Manly ambitions, vast as the high arch unspanned 
 of heaven ; 
 Schemes of impossible good for Man, made 
 naught by human fraud ; 
 Follies of valiant hearts cast forth upon the die of 
 battle ; 
 Hopes of a world destroyed, made void through 
 human greed of gold.
 
 1 68 ''SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 I too have dreamed a dream which I would fain 
 essay to interpret, 
 A dream of infinite love, which, if my hour of 
 wit were proved. 
 Should stand my message to the world, a voice of 
 power for ever, 
 Binding the generations new to the past ages 
 dumb. 
 
 L. 
 
 How should I speak it best, in what high tones of 
 full -voiced reason 
 Holding the souls of all ? No idle lapse of empty 
 sounds 
 Should cloy the hearing of the earth grown deaf to 
 alien passion. 
 No clamour of vain sobs, no throbs, no formless 
 dirge of words.
 
 "SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 169 
 
 LI. 
 
 But the true sculpture of a thought, clean cut and 
 plain of meaning, 
 Marble made life, with sinewy phrase and 
 knotted argument, 
 And that deep-throated resonant voice which in 
 the morn of Egj'pt 
 Spoke through her Memnon's lips to all, and all 
 a nation heard. 
 
 LII. 
 
 This should be prophecy — nay, judgment. But 
 
 with less, if granted, 
 Well were I winged for song, and luminous so 
 
 in thought should move 
 With the world's teachers, bards whose chosen 
 
 strings have nobly chaunted 
 
 Hymns of heroic heaven or only this of human 
 love.
 
 170 ''SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 
 
 LIII, 
 
 Only that tragedy of hope, which in its full expan- 
 sion 
 Has never yet been told, the history of a human 
 soul 
 From its first outlook with blank eyes upon a world 
 of shadows 
 To its last blank farewell in tears upon a world 
 of scorn ; 
 
 LIV, 
 
 The very truth of childhood, with its fears and 
 
 * 
 tribulations, 
 
 Hushed into sudden smiles and sleep by what 
 
 unreasoning change ; 
 The wherefore and the why of its first bursts of 
 
 causeless laughter ; 
 The meaning of its griefs untold, the sense of its 
 
 first pain ;
 
 "SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 171 
 
 LV. 
 
 And boyhood's early trust, thrust forth to the chill 
 winds of schooling, 
 Learning the bitterness of life through divers 
 ways of loss, 
 Wasting the freshness of its joys on noise, its first 
 compassion 
 On its own wounded back, till, turning, it too 
 
 r 
 
 grasps the rod ; 
 
 LVI. 
 
 And youth's high hope, with painted dreams of all 
 potential pleasure, 
 Doubting which way to spring, the paths of 
 honour leading here, 
 There of delight, each robed with morning's virginal 
 new vesture 
 And beautiful with tears of love, though who 
 should call them tears ?
 
 172 "SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 
 
 I.VII. 
 
 And manhood with its wars ; and middle life as 
 yet unvanquished, 
 When strength is tried and, having learned 
 through grief the nobler roads 
 Of the world's glory, he beholds life-settled pur- 
 pose, standing 
 Calm with his fate, and seems to touch at last 
 the ulterior goal ; 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 And then the pang which strikes, and the swift 
 end. All these, in sequence. 
 Would I set forth in words, tragic, severe, and 
 each should breathe 
 Of a new beauty, shade and light, blue skies, 
 white clouds and tempests. 
 Mountain and vale and plain and stream, and, 
 circling all. Death's sea.
 
 ''SED NOS QUI VI VIM US." 173 
 
 LIX. 
 
 How beautiful is life ! The present sense of souls 
 that love us ; 
 The enfolding spirit of love, made known in 
 divers silent ways ; 
 The wife, the child, the man and maid, whose 
 zeal and faith enthrone us 
 High in their temple niche enshrined ! Thus 
 angels serving stand. 
 
 LX. 
 
 What need we of more love, of larger fields re- 
 vealed of conquest, 
 Who all things have that heaven itself in its re- 
 ward might deal ? 
 What need we of new life, who touch the goal 
 supreme of fortune, 
 Holding to-day for prize the perfect love that 
 casts out fear ?
 
 174 ''SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 
 
 LXI. 
 
 Come with me, child, who art myself, only a self 
 grown dearer, 
 One that I dare to love and without shame, for 
 thou art mine. 
 What shall our pleasure be to-day, our daily task 
 being ended ? 
 Take thou a counsel of thy joy. Be thou my 
 pleasure's guide. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 Speak. Shall we make our visitation of the woods 
 and forests ? 
 The midsummer shoot is there ; and in their 
 nuptial robes of green 
 The oak trees murmur to the flies their tale of full- 
 blown summer, 
 And, where the stems were felled in Spring, the 
 foxgloves point their spears.
 
 "SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 175 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 Or to the paddocks, deep in green for grazing steer 
 and heifer, 
 And, what we better love, those creatures of a 
 nobler mould, 
 Which are fair Nature's masterpiece and last 
 supreme perfection, 
 Mares with their unweaned foals high-souled in 
 proud descent of blood. 
 
 LXIV. 
 Or rather — let the indulgence to our idle souls be 
 granted — 
 Lapped in the summer heat, without more toil 
 than this of dreams. 
 On the lake's bosom moored, where birch and 
 alder cast their shadows. 
 Sit we and woo, hours through, with rod and 
 line the mistrustful bream.
 
 176 "SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 
 
 LXV. 
 
 Here the boat lies, half hidden she, where three 
 weeks since we left her, 
 In her snug dog-wood nook. The rushes round 
 have bound her in 
 Already in their net. But we will free and float 
 and set her, 
 An ark for our new fortunes launched, to bear 
 us where we will. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 See, there she swims. Our noise in loosing her has 
 roused a heron. 
 And with him teals and lapwings, with a cry of 
 swift alarm. 
 Ah Man ! thy hated face disturbs once more thy 
 natural fellows. 
 What is thy kingship worth to thee if all things 
 fly thy hand ?
 
 ''SED NOS QUI VI VIM US." 177 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 The evil done is done, alas ! Let us indulge our 
 laughter, 
 Dear Hester, sing to me that song the foolish 
 fishes heard 
 When you deceived them to their liurt by your un- 
 real assurance 
 Telling of captive birds set free — the while the 
 nets we spread. 
 
 Lxvni. 
 Sing me a song, while I the happy oars in listless 
 measure 
 Ply looking at your face, and presently, when it 
 is done, 
 You shall hear stories told of far-off lands and 
 strange adventures, 
 Things that your father saw e'er you to give him 
 joy were born ; 
 
 N
 
 178 ''SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 Tales of great mountains where he set his steps in 
 early manhood, 
 Not hills like ours, but craggy pinnacles that 
 pierce the clouds. 
 Abysmal valleys and white slopes of treacherous 
 ice, whose foothold 
 Failed as in dreams men fail and fall, and urged 
 him headlong down, 
 
 LXX. 
 Falling for ever — ever — and yet saved by inter- 
 vention. 
 On the extreme curve's edge, of a miraculous 
 softer snow, 
 Wherein he bedded lay with beating heart till the 
 slow rescue 
 Gravely descending came at length, and bore him 
 scatheless home ;
 
 ''SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS." 179 
 
 LXXI. 
 Or of the unlimited fields revealed of grey Arabian 
 desert. 
 Where are no streams or shade, but only the 
 blind haze of noon, 
 And the sun strikes with might, and the skins 
 shrink which hold his blessing, 
 The dole of water spared, his forfeit life if these 
 be gone. 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 Drear and untenanted. Yet see the sudden trans- 
 formation 
 When the Spring rains have come ! In every vale 
 and hollow there 
 Cattle unnumbered pasture knee-deep down in 
 purple blossoms, 
 And the calf-camels prance, and their dams 
 roar like souls in pain.
 
 i8o '' SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS:' 
 
 Lxxin. 
 Or of days spent alone and nights in far Brazilian 
 forests, 
 Where sky and earth itself are lost in insolent 
 depths of green. 
 High overhead the laden tree-tops touch the ex- 
 tremest heaven, 
 Leading through latticed walls of flowers and 
 veils deep-dripped with dew. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 The impenetrable shadows vast of that shut place 
 of silence 
 How are they broken by the sheen and glint of 
 insect wings, 
 Bright coloured lamps slow flitting ! Lo from the 
 impervious thicket 
 A blaze of blue, a butterfly, bursts flashing 
 through the trees.
 
 "■SED NOS QUI VIVIMUSr iSi 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 Or last, of the vast hum of a tumultuous Indian 
 city, 
 Where street and bridge are thronged with men 
 who sell and buy and cry, 
 And women with bright eyes half veiled pass bear- 
 ing flowers and incense, 
 Through the tall temple gates set wide, to gods 
 in ochreous shrines. 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 Strange wonderful and vast, till you forget the im- 
 mediate beauty, 
 The home we love, our little raptures over joys 
 well known, 
 This lake, these woods, this boat, the brook which 
 tells of English summer 
 With its mad bubbles dancing and its hazel foam 
 wind -borne,
 
 i82 ''SED NOS QUI VIVIMUS:' 
 
 LXXVII. 
 And all that was and is to fill our souls with their 
 contentment 
 From dawn to dusk. And so in joy this latest 
 evening ends. 
 God grant us length of days, of days like these to 
 be remembered 
 Till life's last night has come and we too gathered 
 are in death ! —
 
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